Flip, Flop and Fly
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the obvious, the rest belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
Author's Note: I'm sorry that this took so much time to get out. This time I had real trouble getting the chapter to turn out how I wanted it to, and in the end it didn't even get there. But I do think it turned out better.
Will be beta-read and corrected as soon as I get a beta.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Cold shoulder was the name of the game between Mikoto and Fugaku. During dinner, during the evening, during Fugaku carrying a few blankets and pillows to the couch and during the lights being turned off. And then it all started again as soon as people woke up in the morning, during breakfast, during Fugaku leaving for whatever work it was that he did at the – in Itachi's professional opinion – rather useless Konoha Police Force headquarters. During everything.
"Good morning, Itachi-kun!" Mikoto smiled at him and nearly froze Fugaku into a statue of ice with her eyes alone when he appeared.
"Would you like seconds, Itachi-kun?" Mikoto asked and completely ignored Fugaku eying the food as well.
"Have a nice day, Itachi-kun." Mikoto sent him off and shut the door in Fugaku's face, nearly breaking his nose.
Itachi looked from Fugaku to the door and then back to Fugaku again. "Something tells me that she isn't happy about something or other that you've done or not done."
Fugaku frowned. "She's just overly emotional."
Itachi watched him leave with a raised eyebrow before shaking his head and heading out as well. It really did seem that the man was either monumentally stupid or just pure blind to what was going on. Not that the latter was such a big shock really Itachi mused as he spotted a couple of the Uchiha Clan elders sitting on a bench in a small green patch of the Uchiha Compound – and also very perfectly placed to see exactly what had just happened in front of the Clan Head's home. The two elders weren't talking with each other, but Itachi could see it in their postures, in a twitch of muscle, in their eyes.
They found the scene disgraceful.
Mikoto wasn't acting like a proper supportive Uchiha housewife.
Fugaku wasn't acting like a proper Clan Head and putting her in her place.
It was shameful that the great Uchiha Clan couldn't control their own members, let alone a member that was a mere housewife.
Itachi passed them without paying much attention to the two old frowning gossipmongers. When he was a good deal past them did he cast a look at them and at the front door of the main house. The two gossipers were now sharing looks and low conversation, their mouths barely moving. They were also sending the occasional look at Fugaku who was standing and staring at his own front door. One moment later Fugaku finally started shaking his head and stepped away and walked off down the street – most likely towards the Konoha Police Force headquarters if one could judge by his direction.
Itachi raised an eyebrow before he turned around properly and continued on his own way.
That was interesting.
XXV
He was on a self-appointed mission of his own and it would probably take all day long knowing these shinobi and their secretive ways.
The first stop was at the hospital to visit Sasuke, but the boy wasn't there.
"He is with his therapist." The nurse at the front desk said. "It's his first time so we aren't certain how long it will last. People react differently during this and Yamanaka-san will be the one to judge when to stop or to simply take a break. I'm sorry, Uchiha-san, you'll have to wait or come back later on."
"Yamanaka?" Itachi cocked his head. Mikoto had mentioned a Yamanaka Inoichi before Itachi had left for his mission. And he Hokage had mentioned an Inoichi-san just yesterday. "Yamanaka Inoichi?"
"Yes." The nurse smiled.
"Is he any good?"
"The best."
The nurse seemed to believe her words whole-heartedly, but Itachi wasn't quite as trusting. Not when it was Sasuke's sanity at stake. "Then, if you don't mind, could you give Yamanaka Inoichi-san a message from me? Could you ask him to look me up when he's done with Sasuke? I'd like to talk with him if he wouldn't mind."
"Of course." She smiled again.
"Thanks."
Since his plans for the day had been derailed Itachi wasn't certain what to do next. He could of course start asking people about Yamanaka Inoichi, but that was a sure-fire way that Inoichi would find out about the inquiries and hunt him down for it. Or Itachi would be taken as a possible traitor and that path only led to pain and torture. Literally. No, right now it was best to simply wait for Inoichi to come to him and hope that nothing happened to Sasuke in the meantime. The Hokage himself had vouched for the guy so it had to count for something. Just a little bit.
Itachi exited the hospital and headed off down the street. He briefly stopped by the sweets shop and wondered if he should acquire something to munch on. The display in the window of the shop was rich and colourful and really, really tempting. Pocky had been given a generous place of honour in the middle of the display, but Mikoto had promised a treat after dinner today and her cooking was worth sacrificing pocky for.
He almost made up his mind not when he spotted a small movement in the window.
No, it wasn't in the window itself. It was in the metal tin of one of the displayed sweets. It was in the corner of the display and almost buried beneath a yummy-looking cascade of chocolate cookies, but there was enough of the box revealed for Itachi to see two faces that he knew very well. Blinking in surprise he turned around to have a better view.
There was an Uchiha elder further down the street, but the important thing was that Mikoto was at a grocer's stand and picking out potatoes and tomatoes and carrots and leeks, while Fugaku stood a behind her and hovered and didn't look very happy at all.
Mikoto was ignoring him expertly and was chattering happily with the owner of the stand, discussing the produce and asking about his pregnant wife.
Fugaku tried to say something. Mikoto asked the grocer about the carrots.
Fugaku attempted to take the heavy basket that was being slowly filled by vegetables. Mikoto stepped on his foot. With a pointy moderately high heel that she had chosen to wear just today.
Itachi winced at the look on Fugaku's face. Ouch.
Fugaku stepped in front of her, right in her way. Mikoto bypassed him smoothly and stopped at a cheese stand and started talking with the merchant there.
Fugaku looked ready to murder someone.
Mikoto actually looked a bit smug.
The Uchiha elder's lips were pressed together so hard that they disappeared completely.
It was a disturbing sight.
XXV
"You know, you've gotta stop your ANBU from bringing me here like this whenever you wanna meet. Either that or tell your floor to stop being so damn deceptively flat." Itachi said and rubbed his rump. "I don't think my gluteus maximus can take any more of this. It's gonna be a big ol' bruise before long, and purple and yellow really aren't my colours."
Three days of watching Mikoto giving Fugaku the cold shoulder, watching Fugaku trying to figure it out and watching the Uchiha Clan elders being not-so-subtle idiots would make anyone a bit cranky really.
Itachi huffed and got to his feet.
The Hokage chuckled and pulled out a new pocky-pack to placate Itachi even as he waved off an ANBU who – in Itachi's rather considerable opinion – took great deal of delight in disappearing in a puff of smoke and making Itachi twitch.
"I apologise, but it's the easiest and quickest way to get you here." The Hokage said. "You have become quite good friends with Kakashi lately, my ANBU just want to make sure that you don't pick up certain habits that he has."
"Which one of them? Reading porn or being late?"
"Let us say both."
Itachi snorted, grabbed the box of pocky. "Your ANBU just like lording their mad, epic ninja-ness over a poor civilian like me."
The Hokage hummed. "Well, there was that thing with the 'nobody expects the Konoha ANBU' stunt. I think they might be a bit miffed."
Chomping down on several pocky sticks, Itachi sniffed. "They should be grateful; I could have done so much worse."
"Coming from you, I believe it." The Hokage shifted through some of the papers on his desk before he turned back to Itachi. "I know you just barely came back from your last mission, but we have a new one we would like to send you out on."
"The second one for this pesky little test thing that they want me to do?" Itachi snorted and grumbled when the old Hokage nodded. Bloody politics. Bloody villages and village councils. And bloody everything else. "Alright, shmuck, lay it on me."
"…. Shmuck?"
"Shmuck."
"You know, Itachi-kun, any other kage would consider this insubordination and lack of respect and grounds for reprimand."
Waving the Hokage off, Itachi rolled his eyes. "But you won't because you're the best damn Hokage that ever Hokage-d."
"You just made a verb out of a title."
"I'm multitalented."
The Hokage sighed and gave up. "This new mission or case was found in the very many disorganised reports gathered from the Uchiha Police Force headquarters. Inozuka Tsume and Aburame Shibi have continued to go through them and they have come across several that require our attention and they will be seen to accordingly, however this one seems much more in line with your particular set of skills. All the particulars aren't gathered yet since Tsume and Shibi aren't through the files yet, but as of now we know of five occurrences and four victims."
Itachi had stopped munching on the pocky and had leaned forwards in his seat, his full attention on the Hokage and what the old man was telling him. Quite frankly he couldn't quite understand why the village council wanted him to give yet another demonstration of his skills and knowledge before calling him in to testify against the Uchiha Police Force, when all they needed to do was to look at the downright repulsive lack of any sort of real police work done by the force.
There was something else going on here, and he suspected that it had something to do with keeping him tied to the village somehow.
Or just keeping him out of the village so that he couldn't testify against anyone.
'Bloody politics.' He grumbled.
"It is in a small town at the edge between the Land of Fire and the Land of Hot Water. Nothing much happens there, it isn't even on the caravan trade routes." The Hokage looked down at a piece of paper. "The victims are all older women between forty and sixty and apart from living in the same town there is nothing that connects them as far as this tells us. We have their names and the causes of death but that is all."
Itachi frowned unhappily. "Seriously?"
"Very much so."
"No one went to check it out?"
"No one."
"No one bothered to ask the person who reported the happenings about more details?"
"Unless the papers are still lost amongst the pile that Shibi and Tsume are working through, then no."
He sighed and rubbed his face hard. "Someone needs to kick some sense and procedure into the damn police force. I'm not fond of paperwork myself by any means, but this is just ridiculous. Seriously. I don't think even anime have this sort of thing going on. It's ridiculous to the extreme and certain people who shall stay unnamed should be kicked into the next ice age. And then back again so that I can ram some procedure down their throats and into their thick skulls until they actually get it."
The Hokage cleared his throat and shifted and Itachi was willing to bed that the man would like to at least watch such a show if not directly participate in it. However the Hokage didn't say anything and instead looked back down onto the paper he held and continued. "It will take you longer to get there than it did to get to Shirohanadani but not by much. You should be there in about four days if you travel at chuunin speed, and since you professed a dislike towards your previous-"
"Stalker? Voyeur? Spy? Observer? Freaky watcher? Ogler? Viewer? Useless, lazy piece of eyewitness trash that couldn't be bothered to help me when I was about to be swallowed by a twenty foot snake and who caused the death of a person?"
"-onlooker, I have decided to give you some other sort of help instead. One of our genin teams was on a mission in one of the towns halfway between here and there, and have now been sent a message to go on to the town of Chisanamachi and start the investigative process while waiting for your arrival."
"Right. I'll leave tomorrow morning then." Itachi got to his feet and headed towards the door. He stopped and turned to look at the Hokage. "The only genin I've ever worked with is Hyuuga Neji. You're giving me his team to play with?"
"I'm lending you his team in the hopes that everyone involved will return home with their mental faculties in perfect shape." Sarutobi corrected him.
"I know Rock Lee is on the team, but I'd think that it would be easy to deal with him. Wait. That Tenten-girl mentioned something about their teacher. This is about their teacher, isn't it?"
The Hokage pointedly picked up a piece of paper and looked very interested in it. "I'm rather interested in seeing how you fare against Maito Gai."
Itachi's eyes narrowed. "This is one of these situations where I should be signing off on a consent form of some sort to keep you from being sued, isn't it?
The Hokage hummed and picked up another paper.
"You're a right old bastard and I recant my previous statement about you being the best Hokage that ever Hokage-d."
"Consider it revenge for making my ANBU the laughingstock of the ninja world."
Itachi huffed and left.
XXV
"Mikoto, this is getting ridiculous."
Itachi perked up at the hushed voice right outside his bedroom door. He blinked the last grogginess and sleep out of his eyes and forced his mind to kick-start again, but he didn't dare move or change his breathing. Having gone to bed earlier in order to be ready for his new mission the next day, Itachi hadn't expected to be woken up a few hours later by Fugaku's voice and a spike from Mikoto's chakra.
"Stop this nonsense." Fugaku's hiss penetrated the darkness of the room.
"What nonsense would that be?" Mikoto's quiet voice was the epitome of the iron hand in the velvet glove.
A snort. "This nonsense between us, this useless argument."
"And what about it?"
"The elders of the clan are talking, Mikokto."
"And what are the honoured elders saying?"
"Don't mock them." Fugaku's voice was sharper and louder before he controlled himself again and started whispering once more. "They aren't happy with your actions, Mikoto. The people outside the Uchiha Compound are starting to notice that there is dissent in the ranks. The Inuzuka have started making pointed barbs at us. The Hyuuga Clan Head is looking far too smug for comfort, and the Akimichi have started sending me pitying looks. The elders don't like it."
"Oh, they don't?" Mikoto's voice was cold as ice.
Itachi shivered in fear and clutched the covers. She was scary.
Fugaku didn't seem to pick up on it. "Indeed. So whatever imagined tiff you think there is between us please stop it."
"Imagined tiff? Imagined tiff? Why, I wonder what this 'imagined tiff' could be about, husband. Could it be that you kept news of my youngest son's capture at the hands of a madman from me for two weeks?"
"The elders deemed it unnecessary."
Itachi really wished that Fugaku would stop digging his own grave.
"Unnecessary." Mikoto hissed. "I am his mother! It's my right to know what's happening to my son!"
"They deemed it too distracting and that it would sow dissent in the ranks of the Uchiha, that it would create a wedge between us. Just as it has."
"I don't care about the elders! The elders don't know him! He is my son! He is your son! He isn't some mannequin of plastic to be thrown away, he's a living breathing being, Fugaku, and he better damn well be more important to you than a group of elders with one foot in the grave."
"The Uchiha Clan-"
"The Uchiha Clan can go jump off a cliff for all that I care!" Mikoto suddenly sighed and sounded so very tired. "Fugaku, I love you. I love you and Sasuke and Itachi, and that is the only reason that I have stayed with you for so long."
Fugaku chocked. "What?!"
"You didn't think that I stayed with the Uchiha because I liked being forced to quit being a kunoichi? Or liked being under constant sneering scrutiny from your aunts? I couldn't care less about the status of being the wife of the Uchiha Clan Head, that's not the man that I fell in love with and married. I married Fukagu the man who was so warm and so awkward when he asked me to the festival and who cried when his first son was born. But in the past decade that man has almost disappeared as the elders gained more and more control over the Clan."
"They haven't-"
"Yes, they have! They have, Fugaku, and you better realise that before it's too late and you are forced to choose between Clan and family."
Fugaku snorted. "They are one and the same, Mikoto."
She sighed again and Itachi heard her open the door to the master bedroom. "Once maybe they were, but no more. Good night, Fugaku."
Itachi stayed silent and stiff and controlled his breathing until he heard Fugaku sigh and the shuffle of feet going downstairs and dimly heard Mikoto getting into bed. Only then did he allow himself and relax and let out a big breath. Damn. That had been scary. He had been more afraid of Mikoto in that moment than he had been when facing down a ginormous snake!
XXV
The next morning was particularly early because of Itachi leaving, but Mikoto didn't seem to mind getting breakfast and a good lunch ready for him. It was still dark outside but Fugaku had already been long gone when they had come down, his blanket and pillow nicely folded on the couch. When he spotted them and saw the hurt that Mikoto was trying to hide, Itachi just felt tired. He had had enough. He had had enough for the Uchiha Clan being all high and mighty and utterly stupid, withholding information and not doing their job properly while looking down on the people around them. He had also had more than enough of Uchiha Fugaku being right up there with them when his son – his own son! – was in trouble and now with Mikoto.
Itachi hadn't wanted to actually get truly involved in this family drama, but right now he simply didn't care.
"It's alright," he said to Mikoto. "You go to the hospital and I'll stay here and wait for Fukagu to come back before I leave. Go and get some alone-time with Sasuke."
"Thank you, Itachi-kun. Be careful on you mission." Mikoto smiled slightly, gratefully before she left.
Itachi waved her off and closed the door after her, and then his smile dropped as quickly as his hand. He went up to his room and pulled out the stuff that he thought that he would need, went back down again and set everything up the way he wanted it to be. Then he settled in to wait for Fugaku to come back.
Fugaku came home one hour later when it was just starting to get lighter outside. He left his shoes at the door like every other day, and walked into his home in search for his wife and a ready meal.
What he got was a tiny trip-wire that snapped to ankle height when Itachi pulled at it.
Fugaku stumbled and cursed.
Itachi reached out, positioned his stun-gun and pulled the trigger.
The mighty Head of the Uchiha Clan went down with a squeak, clutching his family jewels.
Itachi was on him before Fugaku could blink, rolling him over and sitting on his chest. He pinned Fugaku's arms with his feet, using chakra to glue his feet to the floor for extra strength.
"What the he-?!" Fugaku cut himself off as he saw the stun gun just an inch from his face and, more importantly, an inch from his eyes. The two small metal prongs crackled with blue energy, and beyond that Itachi was watching him dispassionately.
"Welcome home, Fugaku. I'm afraid Mikoto's off to visit Sasuke, so it'll just be the two of us for now." Itachi used more chakra when he felt Fugaku's muscles twitching under his feet. "None of that now."
"What is the meaning of this?!" the man glared up at him.
"Nothing much. Just a little talk between father and son. This-" Itachi twitched the stun-gun and Fugaku's gaze focused on it at once, "-is just insurance that you'll at least pay attention to what I'm about to say. I figured that I had to take drastic measures with someone who wouldn't even listen to his own wife, so what's more drastic than threatening to fry your Sharingan pride and joy out of your skull? Certainly got your attention now."
"I can throw you off in an instant." Fugaku growled, hands turning into fists and legs tensing.
Itachi nodded. "You could. But I could also have prepared a pressure plate of exploding tags that you've landed on. Our combined weight could be the only things keeping this entire compound from blowing up to sky write the Hallelujah chorus."
Fugaku gave nothing away. "You're bluffing."
"Do you really want to take the chance that I am? I'm a desperate man forced to take desperate measures."
Fugaku's lips thinned and his black eyes narrowed.
The stun-gun crackled briefly with electricity.
Fugaku didn't say anything.
Itachi smiled almost serenely. "Now, how about that little chat of ours, hmm?"
XXV
There, done. Please tell me what you think!
Reading a few good time-travel stories in the Naruto-verse can give a struggling writer inspiration, but I've started wondering about something. Whenever there's time-travel involved it's usually Naruto going back, a few where Sasuke goes back and a rare one with Kakashi. But why couldn't Itachi ever go back in time? I think that would be really interesting to explore!
Thanks to:
Matron, Beloved Daughter, Barranca, Unknown Variable, Catannie, Celestial Dance, Addict to Fanfics, Slayer End, Furionknight, WrenWeir, FatesShadow83, killerkougar1, Rayar, D3athrav3n92, Codydog, spider'smistress, xatsume, Dimensional Roamer, Moriko no Hikari, Ladyrouge214, Sailor GaOn Donut, not the usual baka, collegegirl, Skitlez1, hardcore, minniemousemom, BiblioMatsuri, sesshyluhvr, Serendipital, Dreamers0rule0the0earth, xrosepetalx, Akemi, Eternal Cat Moon, MagicTrix17, zangoules, GalanthaDreams, Inkwell of Stars, , shellyz, Monki-Neko, silverscribbles, Guest, Guest, Guest, TookSisters, Another Anonymous Annoyance, TripOverFlatSurfaces, Slytherson, Morange, 1sunfun, MysteriousEyez, Lady Shadowfire, dhh, Ka, Shuri Kuran, White Ivy, BakaFireKitsuneSama, Hallow, Eternal-DreamWriter and Tawariell.