Fountain

A Naruto drabble

By

EvilFuzzy9

"Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of will, and the fort of reason."

- Francis Bacon

A/N: Here's another chapter of Bugzapper.

Also, I've got another multi-chapter fic out, though it's one with much shorter chapters than I've written for my multi-chap fics in a while. It's a Harry Potter x Naruto crossover by the title of Remember the Name starring Killer Bee and Team Samui. It's only three (short) chapters thus far, but I've got a fourth one written and am working on a fifth one, because it had a surprisingly good reception, all things considered.

It was hot. The sun was bright; the sky over the Land of Earth was free of clouds.

The ground was rocky and hard, the endless expanse of barren wasteland broken up only by crags and crevices in the stony earth. The scorching badlands which bordered the cliffs and crevasses of Hidden Stone were virtually devoid of life. No creature not specifically adapted to the inhospitable environment would last more than a few weeks out there, and most far less than that.

This was generally just as true for humans as it was it was for beasts and birds. Only the most foolish or desperate souls would willingly travel through the southern wastes. Most anybody with any amount of sense in their heads would rather go around to the west, where the barrens gave way to the prairies and rolling hills of Earth Country's breadbasket and, to far the north, the population centers and even the capital of the Land of Earth. Or else, if they were headed to Iwa on official business, they might go around to the east, where the roads were wider and straighter, and a high concentration of Hidden Stone forts and outposts both along the roads and deep in the wilderness meant that bandits would practically have to be suicidal to set up camp there.

But nobody, not even a hypothetical invading army from like, oh, say, the Hidden Sand, would go through the badlands. There might have been only a handful of outposts south of Iwa, but that was because the shinobi of Stone knew that the southern wastes, with maybe just a few misdirection genjutsu added here and there, were perhaps their most secure front. Nature did most of the work for them.

Unfortunately, Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki, as members of Akatsuki, could not afford to let themselves be seen by the shinobi of Iwa, even if technically they were there at the request of the Tsuchikage. The rank and file were largely ignorant of their high command's dealings with Akatsuki, and even of Akatsuki's very existence, in many cases. Of course, that would most likely change rather quickly once they began abducting jinchūriki, but until then, he and Kisame would not be recognized by the chūnin rangers as Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki of Akatsuki, but as Itachi Uchiha, rogue Leaf ANBU captain, and Kisame Hoshigaki, rogue Mist jōnin.

So the two of them were forced to go through the southern wastes. Now, ordinarily this would be no big deal for the two Akatsuki agents. After all, with Itachi's sharingan they could effortlessly penetrate the series of area of effect genjutsu maintained over the badlands, and with Kisame's knack for making storage seals (which often came as a surprise to the more superficial members of Akatsuki who only saw a big, violent brute when they looked at the shark-like man, but a certain level of proficiency with the sealing arts was practically a requirement for those who regularly worked with sensitive information, such as Kisame had back in the Hidden Mist) meant they could carry more than enough supplies.

Ordinarily.

Unfortunately, the previous morning they had been ambushed by a cell of high-level Kusa jōnin when they had been about to cross the northern border of Grass into the Land of Earth.

It had not been too hard a fight, all things considered, but one of them had managed to blindside Kisame with a fireball of impressive strength. Aside from badly singing the Monster of the Hidden Mist's Akatsuki robes (which, it should be noted, were designed to be fire retardant), this had also incinerated most of the storage scrolls on Kisame's person. And even after dispatching their ambushers, they had been forced to immediately flee across the Earth-Grass border in case the fight had betrayed their position to people more dangerous than their ambushers.

With no time to restock, they had crossed into Tsuchi no Kuni. As a result, the duo of S-Rank missing-nin were frighteningly low on supplies.

Itachi, walking alongside his partner with his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes to protect the from the glare of the sun, frowned as he rummaged through one of the few storage scrolls that had managed to escape the Grass-nin's surprise katon jutsu.

"I think we might be out of water," he muttered just loud enough for his partner to hear.

Kisame hummed thoughtfully. "That was fast," he commented pleasantly, as though Itachi hadn't just told him that they probably had nothing left to drink.

Itachi frowned almost imperceptibly. He had only been partnered with the older man for a short time so far, so the two of them weren't all that familiar with each other, but this comment made the Uchiha prodigy curious. Why did Hoshigaki sound so unconcerned? He was a mist ninja, and a water release user as well, if Itachi's intelligence was accurate, but the man seemed to be entirely unfazed by this news.

Interest piqued, Itachi turned to the man who several members of the organization were convinced was at least part fish. "Why do you say that?" he inquire cautiously.

Kisame grinned at the younger ninja. It showed rather more teeth than Itachi was entirely comfortable with.

Gesturing to the scroll, the Kiri missing-nin said, "Oh, nothing much. It's just that I thought a genius ANBU would be better at rationing water, is all."

Itachi kept his face neutral. It helped that he was only slightly perturbed by the barb, having heard far worse just from his former squad mates, who had greatly enjoyed ribbing the child captain whenever they'd been off-duty. A part of him even missed the irreverence they used to treat him with, which had continued even long after he'd proven himself every bit the consummate ANBU and Uchiha elite.

Itachi had always hated being put on a pedestal, but he also disliked being dismissed as insignificant or unimportant. The fact that his fellow ANBU had been the first people to treat him as neither a superior or a subordinate, but as an equal, was more than anything else what had cemented his loyalty to the Black Ops, and, by extension, to the Village they would give up everything to protect.

Unfortunately, ever since the massacre, Itachi had yet to meet anyone else who treated him like that. Sure, several of his fellow Akatsuki were more than happy to tease him, but it was mean-spirited belittling and taunting. There was very little general camaraderie between the members of the Red Dawn.

But there was something about Kisame's jabs that was different from the others... If only a little, it seemed like the former Mist-nin actually respected him as an equal, and Itachi appreciated this greatly. Kisame was obviously different from most of the other Akatsuki in one very big way.

He was genuinely loyal.

Shaking his head, Itachi frowned inwardly. Giving the swordsman a look of mild curiosity, the sharingan wielder meaningfully remarked, "I would have thought you would be more concerned by this information..."

Kisame chortled. "I don't see why. It's not like we'll run out of water any time soon."

Seeing Itachi's delicately cocked eyebrow, and seeing the unspoken question in his swirling red eyes, Kisame shrugged and pulled out an empty canteen. Lifting it up his mouth he formed a short series of one-handed seals.

Itachi paled as he heard the telltale sound of water pouring into the canteen.

After a few seconds, Kisame removed the canteen from his mouth, a bit of water trickling down his cheeks. He popped the lid back on and swished it side to side, audibly sloshing the water inside it.

Itachi then excused himself to go empty his stomach.

A/N: No one can accuse Itachi of having a weak stomach, but there are still some things that even he can't help but be squicked out by.

Previous chapter uploaded 4-16-12

This chapter uploaded 4-23-12

TTFN and R&R!