Foreword:
There are some outside anime references. But no knowledge is required of them. Umm... Bewarned Itachi worshippers! I'm afraid you might find him more mortal than yourself...
Grains of... Half-truths.
Oneshot Series x Spam
Ficlet Two: Weaseling Out Of Responsibility
Character: Itachi
Itachi was a genius.
No doubt about it.
Everyone agreed he was heading for high places.
But like normal people, he had a pet peeve that was probably least expected from him.
He loved watching Anime.
And it sometimes interfered with his responsibilities.
---
"Dammit Itachi! Get over to your Auntie's! She's been asking for your help the whole summer and you'd promised her!""What summer? The weather never changes in the Hidden Leaf."
"You know what I mean!"
"Hold on dad. Just let me finish."
A brief pause.
"Okay, but you better get over there quick smart right afterwards!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Unknownst to his parents, Itachi was again settling down in his room to watch a good run of anime. Not that it would matter much to anyone, but in the Uchiha household, most of TV was censored and any form of cable or japanese cartoons (and even internet!) was banned.
But that hadn't stop Itachi. He was a thieving genius after all and techniques wasn't the only things he stole (though how anyone could overlook the long, thick cable running from the Uchiha's main home to a civilian's home was beyond him).
Unknownst to Itachi, his parents didn't know he was settling down to watch anime and thus were in the dark at what their son was doing for this portion of the morning. So they let him get away with the assumption that their teenage son was doing, what every other teenage son would be doing, behind a lock door and a body full of rampaging hormones.
Let's not get into that.
So back to Itachi. He had his popcorn that he had oh-so heated to perfection with the abuse of one of his Fire techniques and was just getting comfy. There were still the standard annoying commercial breaks that were paraded before any show begins, so he had let his mind drift away, instead of getting mesmerised into having to buy the spiffier kind of toilet paper.
His mind lulled over to the subject of anime and why it was banned. No one had bothered explaining it to him and it was just a given rule on the other Uchihas: they never questioned it.
Well okay, maybe he learned a little that particular day with Shisui had been a mistake. He'd invited the guy out for a Dragonball Z marathon and when it was over, like all testosterone hyped-up guys, went off to mimic their favourite characters. Itachi's just happened to be Vegeta and though Shisui's had been Goku, the way he went out whining about the pain was more likened to Krillin.
Oops. He'd killed Shisui.
Itachi panicked. He was a good guy! He's never had a criminal record before! He was virginal enough to never even watched the other 'anime' channel! Maybe once. Twice (it was anime after all). Okay, sometimes, but he'd be watching it from the corner of his eyes and not directly facing the tv so no one could pin him on watching it -or at least that's what he told himself. And he sure as hell wasn't taping all of it. No siree. Highschool stuff was usually pretty decent to him (he was in the similar age bracket after all), but when it came down to tentacles, he'd have to draw the line somewhere. So he'd only tape an episode or two of those.
Errr.. Getting back on track, he was the son of the head of police! He couldn't disgrace his family! So he did what any sensible family-devoted son would do: he dumped his best-friend's body in the river and walked away whistling innocently. (Albeit too innocently; no idiot walks through the Uchiha neighbourhood whistling innocently. He'd quickly become prime suspect for his best friend's homicide but they never had anything on him since he acted like he was all Joe Cool.)
But that was all in the past! Itachi decided to forget about that and was now enjoying his first episode of Fist of the North Star.
You know, that anime where some guy waves his fingers (and there's like some really tripped out graphics that belongs in a rave) and then people just seem to explode?
That's the one.
And the fact that he was watching with his Sharingan on completely slipped him by.
The show finished all too soon, so Itachi reluctantly went on to help his dear old Auntie with whatever it is that older relatives usually guilt trip their sturdier back nephews and nieces into doing whatever menial labour there is.
"Hey Auntie. You needed my help?"
"Yes. Please come over here."
"Here, I'll take that."
"No wait, I have it."
"Hey, you're falling. I'll catch you."
"Now, I'm fine. I'm fiiiIIIEEEEEEEEEEE-"
And then there was alot of blood.
"Uh oh."
Itachi stared at his hands, which were now covered in blood that wasn't his. And much like the way the universe works, when a domino falls, there will always be another to be fallen into; so it shouldn't be surprising that the second domino just peered in.
"MOTHER!"
"Err..."
"You... YOU KILLED MOTHER!"
"It's not what it looks like! Seriously!"
No amount of apologies, explanation and negotiation could really save the moment as the whole thing just spiralled crazily.
"YOU KILLED MY WIFE AND SON!"
"YOU KILLED MY BROTHER'S FAMILY!"
"OH MY GOD! ITACHI'S KILLING OFF THE WHOLE CLAN!"
"EVERYBODY! GET HIM!"
Oh, this really, really sucked.
After what seemed like an eternity of defending himself against frivolous claims and accidently picking off all the people who tried to kill him (and the people who weren't trying to kill him just also happened to die, through a series of completely unbelievable and coincidental accidents ala Final Destination), Itachi made his way to his own home, completely intent on getting his father to bail him out of this sticky situation.
Getting inside his home was fine, but Itachi found himself locked out of his main lounge. Probably because the other side was barricaded by his mother and father.
"Dad! I accidently watched some anime and everything's all screwed up! I'm not going to no jail!" He called out to them.
"That rule was there for a reason! I put it there for a reason!" His father's voice shouted back.
"For something like this?-!" Itachi screamed.
"The Sharingan is far too powerful for the clan! You knew the full implications of what you've done ever since you started!"
"I had no idea anything like this could happen!"
"Do you have any idea what it feels like to have a 30 second long transformation sequence?-!"
...Weird moment.
"Ummm... Can't say I have..."
"They were all scared of my potential! The star-field backgrounds, the make-up, the knee high boots, the short skirts. Magically, skin-tight uniforms are far superior choices of ninja wear!"
"Ermm..." This was the first of his dad's golden years Itachi had heard of. And the older son was willing to stop hearing it.
"Then there was the posing and long-winded battle cries! In the name of the Moon! It was all perfect then! But THEY feared it... So I had no choice..."
Itachi was feeling as he met his'awkward quota' now and took that end as a sign to further his quest to stop the madness right NOW.
"Dad, I'm coming in so you can fix this before I get into even more trouble!"
So Itachi began on his Grand Fireball technique to bust down the door. And the Fireball worked well as it tore through the door marring his way. But it worked a little too well...
And so a bad situation turned worse.
With his father and mother now out cold (or rather smoldering), Itachi started on his Sharingan, trying to recall all the ER and Medical Investigation shows he'd watched and grabbed the nearest weapon.
And just because he knows the way to cut people open, doesn't mean he knows that's not what you're supposed to do to people who have burns. That and he wasn't entirely recalling ER. He was more like recalling... Rorouni Kenshin and other (personally unrealistic) samurai anime he'd seen.
And so a worse situation just got crapped on.
"MOTHER! FATHER!"
Ah shit.
Sasuke stood at the entrance of the room, his emotions strewn between shock, confusion, panic and betrayal. Then his emotions agreed on one and his face switched to rage (which could be mistakened for constipation in a different setting altogether).
Sasuke charged Itachi blindly. All he could think of was.. No scratch that. He was beyond thinking at this point.
Itachi saw his brother coming and caught the attack. However, the older brother's reflex had him pull his younger sibling into a well-placed knee. The counter-attack connected all too uncomfortably into the smaller boy's stomach, effectively stunning his would-be attacker. Itachi, favouring to ignore that last mistake, held his brother's face at eye-length to start explaining his side of the story...
...and was at a loss of words.
What could he say? He did just kill off the entire clan except for Sasuke...
Wait..!
He was currently touching his brother! And Sasuke's not exploding!
That's great news!
Now just to get this all cleared up with him. Surely he'd understand.
No.
No, he wouldn't.
Geeze, Itachi had nearly forgotten that his brother was such the dumbass and would likely take it personally. Then the older boy decided that if maybe he expressed it in a way that seemed dramatical and satirical, his brother would understand. Being a master of suspense was an inherited family thing.
Itachi would have to wing this and wing it right.
"Foolish little brother."
Probably a poor choice of words. But he had to continue now.
"Hate me. Live in hate. You will need that to grow stronger than me."
He knew THAT was definitely a really poor choice of words too. But he didn't want his brother to grow up all woosy-like. Unlike that Street Fighter character 'Dan Hibiki', he'd want his little brother to grow up all bad-ass and manly. Tragedy was manly right?
Gotta keep the Uchiha clan looking good.
Itachi was about to release his poor brother when he had a sudden inspiration. How many people out there would love to be at the bedside at the moment their loved ones passed on?
And he just happened to have a technique that allowed that! (Though years from now, when he'd be asked how he came across this technique, he'd admitted to not knowing and thought he just pulled it out of his ass one day.)
"And now, you shall see our clan's last moments."
Sasuke watched.
And watched.
And watched.
All the while, Itachi was trying to figuratively work the playdeck of his mind. Somehow, he'd had selective memory lapses in replaying these for Sasuke and unexplainably the boy was only watching the people screaming and exploding. When it finally got to their parents, Itachi was thankful that there weren't any gender bending issues being played back (as he really didn't want to scar his brother like he himself had been), so he focused on repeating the death of his parents while trying to figure out how to stop this technique.
And finally.
"Whoo! Yeah! I stopped it!"
Itachi looked over to his white-as-a-sheet brother.
"Sure as hell felt like 3 days in there, huh?" He jibed, giving his little brother a good poke in the forehead.
And it elicited no response.
"Uhhh... Hello?"
Itachi went as far as waving his hand infront of Sasuke's face which still did not provide any sort of reaction.
"Oh shit..." Itachi winced hard. "Look, I'm gonna get going now. I'll just come back when all of this blows over."
Sasuke still didn't respond so Itachi took the opportunity to back up towards the door. Just as he reached the exit, he paused as he just remembered an after thought.
"Oh yeah. Don't watch anime. If you do, I'll kick your ass."
Then he was out the door.
But for only a second. He stuck his head in again, as he was struck by another after thought.
"So when you know better, I'll come back with beer and we'll get stinking wasted and probably look back on this and laugh."
And then he was gone. Like really gone.
---
Itachi loved watching anime.
Which was probably the reason he rationalised, that now that he was a bad guy, who did something horrendous and was probably qualified for the biggest bad-ass group there is.
Everyone agreed that he was heading to high places.
Which was probably why he was heading for Akatsuki; the biggest bad-ass group of missing ninjas there ever was.
No doubt about it.
And there really was not doubt about it. Possibly regret on his reckless actions but now he was bound to meet someone who had some sort of tentacle-jutsu. Not that he'd want to learn it mind you, just to see if there is one... He only needed to see it once anyway...
Itachi was a genius.
But he was still human.
End
Author's Notes:
And that's the second one. Originally, the scene with the parent's was gonna be a chapter right out of Ranma, but it wasn't hard-core enough and getting too long-winded. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.
Next one's gonna be a Rock Lee chapter and that's gonna come out whenever I feel like it (after a Fox Identity chapter or whenever I have the need to get this out of my system).
light revision: January 13, 2006