A Day In The Life of Uchiha Itachi

Sleepy red eyes blinked open, adjusting to the sunlight filtering through thin fabric, and a soft yawn could be heard through the small tent. Uchiha Itachi stretched a little bit before scratching his groin, then sat up in his sleeping bag, clad in nothing but a pair of tight-y whiteys and a wife beater. He scratched his head, noticing his hair was all tangled. Where the hell was his hair band? Oh, that's right, he had used it to tie up a small woodchuck that had been bothering him the day before. The stupid thing kept following him around like he was Snow White or something. His mind quickly supplied him with an image of himself in a puffy blue and yellow dress, singing to all the woodland creatures. He clamped down on the thought, shuddering in distaste and just a little bit of fear, before bringing his mind back to the task at hand. He made a note to himself: buy more hair bands.

Itachi crawled to the side of the tent, finding his standard black ninja jumpsuit there and slipping it on, then made his way outside. Something smelled awfully wonderful, and he could hear the sounds of a fire roasting. Maybe his idiot of a partner Kisame had cooked up that woodchuck from before. So the boy wasn't a total waste of carbon and oxygen atoms after all. When he got outside, though, all he saw roasting on the fire was a tarantula on a stick. Kisame was sitting next to the fire, sweet, delicious blood dripping off his chin, chewing on what looked to be a woodchuck leg.

"Hey, Itachi." The shark-like boy smiled, chunks of meat in between his pointed teeth, gills flashing in the sunlight. "I got hungry so I finished off the woodchuck, but don't worry, I caught you breakfast too!"

Here Kisame gestured at the spider, looking very proud of himself. One of Itachi's eyes started twitching. This happened every single morning...

"Kisame." He decided to just forget about the incident and focus on the mission instead. "Did you remember to pack something inconspicuous for our mission?"

They would be returning to Leaf Village to get that kyubi boy, and the last thing they needed was to draw attention to themselves. Itachi could well imagine the villager's reactions to seeing him back in town again... they probably still held grudges from when he killed his whole family and all. So the only order he had given Kisame on this mission so far was to pack a set of clothing that wouldn't get them noticed.

"Of course! Geez, you act like I'm a little kid or something." Kisame ran off to the side of their camp site, which admittedly was only a few feet away, and came back holding a small bag. He was beaming at Itachi, looking for all the world like a little kid... or something.

Itachi reached into the bag, to pull out... a large, ominous black cloak and a huge cone straw hat. His eye twitched again. "You don't think this is suspicious?"

Kisame blinked at the items in Itachi's hands. He thought the cloak and hat looked very fashionable. It was what all the Akatsuki members were wearing these days. "No?"

"Kisame. How many people do you see walking around covered in large black cloaks and wearing huge cone hats?"

"Umm... none?"

Itachi glared.

Kisame blinked. "So what's the problem?"

Itachi clenched his teeth together in frustration, turning to put on the damn cloak. After all, it was better than nothing. "Kisame. We're going into town to gather information."

But first they would go to the supermarket. Itachi still needed to buy hair bands, after all, and he might as well get some decent food there as well. He was sick of eating spiders.

The people in the supermarket looked up as two obviously suspicious people, covered entirely by black cloaks and straw hats, walked into the store. Despite the fact that they were so obviously suspicious, no one said or did anything, because, well... this was a shinobi village. Suspicious people came around all the time.

Itachi, meanwhile, didn't notice all the people staring, because frankly he just didn't care. He just wanted to do his shopping. He grabbed a cart and started pushing it, not noticing when Kisame wondered off. He pushed the cart up and down the aisles, looking at the selection of food. This was much better than living on spiders. He picked up some bread and cold cuts, then made his way to the cosmetics aisles, not embarrassed at all over the fact that he was looking at hair products with prepubescent girls.

He picked up two containers of hair bands. One of them offered "unbreakable elasticity", while the other advertised "stretchy resilience". He looked at one package, then the other, not knowing which one to get.

"You should get the red ones," said an overly helpful voice. "They'll match your eyes."

Itachi squinted at the pink haired girl next to him. He did not need to take hair advice from a little girl. He tossed the red elastics in his cart and went off. He picked up some deodorant, toilet paper, and fruit roll-ups. He also picked up the daily newspaper, whose headline read "Mary Sues Run Amuck in Kohona". Itachi wasn't sure what that meant, but it was bound to be interesting. Then he walked into the ice cream aisle, and decided that he had to have some Ben and Jerry's. He reached into the freezer, taking out a container of Pistachio Pistachio and a container of Chubby Hubby, holding one in each hand. Hmm... he was having to make a lot of hard decisions today. He was reading the nutritional labels when a familiar voice called out.

"Itachi! I will kill you!"

Itachi sighed as he turned to glance at his little brother before turning his attention back to the ice cream. So the little tyke had recognized him... he wasn't in the mood to fight though. He hadn't even had his morning coffee yet. "Pistachio Pistachio has less fat... but Chubby Hubby has caramel... hmmm..."

Sasuke fumed. He had first seen Itachi when the older boy had entered the supermarket, had gone into battle stance as soon as he saw him, and then Itachi had just walked by him! And then, every time Sasuke would catch up with Itachi, the older boy would just ignore him again, as if he didn't even realize he was there! And now this! It was an insult! He drew out a kunai.

Itachi blinked in mild surprise as one of his ice cream containers exploded, ice cream oozing down his hand. He looked closely at the pint and noticed a kunai and an explosive note in the middle. He looked over at Sasuke, who had obviously thrown the thing.

"That was the last pint of Chubby Hubby." And he had just decided he had wanted Chubby Hubby over Pistachio Pistachio, too. He frowned and threw the leftover ice cream with almost deadly force at Sasuke, covering the younger ninja's face with ice cream and knocking him out cold. Chubby Hubby no Jutsu. He picked up the Pistachio Pistachio and put it in his cart, making his way through the grocery market.

"Excuse me," said a voice from behind him, and he turned around to see a portly middle aged man dragging Kisame by the ear. "Is this your child?"

Itachi looked up at the over six-foot-tall, blue-skinned, shark-like ninja, who was obviously at least the same age as he was. "Yes. Yes it is."

"He just ate all the fish in our tank."

"I couldn't help it, Dad, they looked so yummy."

Itachi sighed. This was just one of those days. He contemplated whether he should pay or just kill every one in the supermarket... after a few pensive moments he decided to just pay. He didn't want to draw attention with any killing sprees, not yet any way, and he could just charge it to his business credit card. He took out his card and handed it to the man.

A few moments later Itachi and Kisame were about to walk out of the store, paper bags in hand, when Sasuke appeared before them, ice cream dripping off his face. "You surprised me before, but I will-"

Whatever he said was interrupted, though, when Itachi gave him a swift chop to the neck, sending him unconscious for the second time that day.

"Coffee?"

Kisame nodded eagerly. He loved coffee. Especially when Itachi let him eat the coffee shop clerks afterward. They found the store soon enough, identified by the large sign outside that said "coffee shop".

"I'd like two coffees please."

"I'm sorry, we don't have coffee."

Itachi looked from the girl at the counter to the sign outside, which was still clearly visible through the glass. It clearly said coffee. Itachi glared at the girl. "This is a coffee shop, is it not?"

"We've got lattes, moccha, frappes, and espressos, but no coffees."

Kisame stepped away from Itachi at that moment, as it looked as though the boy might explode.

"Fine, I'll take two lattes."

"You can't just order a latte. You can get a chocolate hazelnut latte, a caramel latte, a tazo latte..." the girl went on, describing about two dozen different drinks.

"I'll take two of anything, as long as it has caffeine it in!" Itachi grounded the statement out through clenched teeth, silencing the girl in the middle of her tirade.

The girl blinked at him. "Venti or grande?"

Itachi didn't even know what those words meant. "I don't care."

Five minutes later Itachi and Kisame were pleasantly sitting at a small table outside, enjoying the fresh aroma of their grande raspberry mocha chip lattes. Kisame was humming a cheerful tune, no doubt excited because Itachi told him that he was allowed to kill every one associated with the store after they finished their morning coffee, unnecessary attention from killing sprees be damned. The truth be told, Itachi was feeling much better now that he had some caffeine in him. It was his first caffeine fix in months. His sharingan gleamed with contentment, the only outward sign of his inner peace. He sat there, appeased, as Kisame walked back into the store, a huge grin on his face. There was a scuffle, a quickly muffled scream, and a few moments of chewing noises, than Kisame came back out.

"Wipe your mouth, Kisame," Itachi instructed.

"Yes, Itachi-san." Kisame smiled.

The rest of the day would be devoted to information gathering. Surprisingly, or not, no one was really eager to give information to two such suspicious figures, and Itachi and Kisame often found their casual inquiries misdirected with simple "Oh, I'm not sure"s or "I don't know"s. They soon took to just gathering around strategic areas where vast amounts of information were exchanged, hoping to hear facts on their current prey.

"Did you hear about that awful Naruto boy?" Said a woman.

A set of ears perked up. Itachi knew he would get the information hat he needed here at the beauty salon. Honestly, though, he had gone through hell to get it.

At first when he had entered the beauty salon, he'd figure he'd just sit around as if he was waiting for a girlfriend or something, but quickly realized that the shop was too empty for this ploy to work. Every one just... kept staring at him. So, it was with great reluctance that he stepped up to the front desk and requested a pedicure. Then, when that was done and he still didn't have his information, he requested a manicure. Sure, now his fingernails were just lovely, but at what cost? Then, he still hadn't heard anything,  He stood around for a little bit, very much intimidating the small girls at the shop, when one aspiring beautician suggested he put his exquisite long hair through a hair relaxing treatment. So here he was, sitting beneath one of those industrial strength hair dryers, hair covered in patches of foil, swearing that his scalp was about to burn off.

Oddly enough, these gossipy woman didn't seem to know who he was, despite the fact that there weren't many boys running around with sharingan eyes.

"I heard that pervert is training him. Figures, two low lives like them."

"Pervert or not, he's one of the legendary sennin, Do you think it's wise to let Naruto train with some one so powerful? God knows what trouble the boy will end up causing us."

So Jiraiya was training Naruto now. After a few moments Itachi decided he wasn't going to get any more information out of the women, and he got up to leave, tearing off the foil squares that jutted out of his hair as he walked out the door.

"Well," breathed an indignant beautician, "if he didn't like the hair treatment, he could have just said so."

Itachi quickly found Kisame to inform him of what was going on.

"Ohh," said Kisame, "Your hair looks so shiny."

"That's besides the point." Itachi fumed. "We have to go find Jiraiya."

"Do we really have to?"

Itachi wondered if Kisame was completely crazy. "Yes!"

"Can't we go to the bath house instead?" Kisame jumped up and down like a little boy, his face set in a puppy dog expression. Of course, on his shark-like features, the puppy dog expression turned out looking like a scary, contorted grimace instead.

Itachi sighed. He could never resist that face.. And, he thought, sniffing the air between them, it really was a long time since either of them had taken a bath. "Fine."

Meanwhile, Kakashi and Asuma were bathing in the public baths, winding down after a long day of baby-sitting... er... teaching. Kakashi was, of course, wearing his mask, even though he had taken off the rest of his clothing.

"So..." Kakashi tried to make conversation, but he really didn't know Asuma terribly well. The only thing they ever talked about was their students. "How are your students?"

"Umm... the same. Yours?"

"The same as well."

The two jounin teachers were very surprised, to say the least, when suddenly the S-ranked criminals Itachi and Kisame sunk down into the water next to them, looking for all the world like this was a casual occurrence.

"Ah," said Itachi, feeling his troubles just melting away, a slight smile even gracing his lips, At this point he really didn't care how discreet he was being. "Kakashi, could you pass the soap?"

Kakashi blinked. And blinked again. But no matter how many times he blinked, Itachi was still sitting in front of him, one of his hands outstretched and waiting for soap. "Umm... sure."

Kakashi reached for the soap and handed it to the boy before realizing that something was very wrong with this picture. He shouldn't be giving Itachi soap, he should be questioning him about his motives here in Leaf Village. He suddenly stood up, striking a battle pose, but the effect of it was mitigated by the fact that the only thing he was wearing was a mask. "Uchiha Itachi, how dare you show your face in this village again."

Itachi frowned. He just wanted to take a bath... why did people insist on interrupting him when he was just doing every day things? "Kisame, do you have my shampoo?"

Kisame grinned and nodded. He was very careful to remember to pack Itachi's favorite shampoo and conditioner... the last time he had forgotten, and had ended up in the hospital for weeks. He passed a small pink bottle to the other boy.

"Uchiha Itachi, prepare to fight."

Itachi sighed, putting down his favorite shampoo. He would like to have a nice, normal day for once. He stood up and went into battle stance. In fifteen minutes the public baths were decimated, and Kakashi and Asuma were unconscious on the ground, along with the array of women who had been bathing right next door. Itachi and Kisame, on the other hand, were already back at their campsite, tucking in from the long day's activity. Itachi made a note to himself: never go back to Leaf Village, when he realized something... he had dropped his pack of elastic bands somewhere though out their misadventures of the day. He sighed and crawled into his sleeping bag, just wanting to go to sleep.

"Good night, Kisame."

"Night night, Itachi-san." Soon Itachi heard snoring coming from the shark.

Itachi closed his eyes, getting ready for another fun filled day tomorrow. It would start, no doubt, with a delicious breakfast of spiders.

~owari~