Find the MegaTokyo reference in this story and win absolutely nothing. Now put away the fruitcake! It's time for more of…
The Shinobi's Guide to Camping
By Kaori
"ITACHI! DIE!" howled Sasuke, losing all rational sense and launching himself at the cloaked figure near his tent. Kurenai looked horrified.
"Sasuke, wait a minute that's a…"
"ROAR!" went 'Itachi'.
"AAAAGHHH!" screamed Sasuke.
"…Genjutsu. Never mind." Kurenai sighed as the poor boy got mauled by what is now revealed to be a fine specimen of ursus thibetanus japonica, or for those of you who didn't take zoology, a Japanese black bear.
Predictably, Sakura and Ino were cheering on Sasuke as he defended himself from his ursine opponent. Everyone else was far more concerned with why someone would bother putting a genjutsu on a bear and why would they let it loose in their camp.
Elsewhere, Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame were making their way through the forest.
"Itachi, why the hell did you use that genjutsu? Now whoever was at that camp will come looking for us." Said Kisame. Itachi smirked.
"My foolish little brother is camping there. I thought I'd leave him a gift. Sasuke used to like teddy bears…" the Uchiha gave a wistful sigh.
"Sometimes you worry me, Itachi…"
Meanwhile, Sasuke was having more trouble with the bear than he should have and this was confusing the heck out of everybody else.
"Is it just me, or is that bear kicking Sasuke's ass?" said Kiba.
"No way! Sasuke-kun would never lose to some mangy bear!" Ino huffed. Apparently the bear heard her. "Oh shit…" Sasuke could only watch in an odd mix of relief, horror, and amusement as the bear made its way towards Ino.
"But seriously Itachi," Kisame continued. "siccing a bear on your brother is one thing. Hypnotising a Rain-nin into thinking he's a bear, putting him in a costume, using a genjutsu to make him look like you, and then siccing him on your brother is just…wong."
"For who? The missing-nin or my brother?" asked Itachi.
"Itachi… you are a very scary person if you even have to ask that question."
Back at the camp the shinobi, after watching Ino get chased around for twenty minutes, managed to successfully tree the bear.
"We can't kill it." Asuma said matter-of-factly. "It's an offence to hunt bears out of season and the last thing I want is to be fined."
"Who's going to know?" shrugged Kiba.
"Trust me, there are Hunter-nin specially trained to track down and collect fines for people who hunt out of season, especially if you have no intention of eating what you killed. It doesn't matter if you think no one is around, somehow they always know."
"Speaking from experience?" Kurenai teased.
"Hush you, or do you want me to recount your adventures with the Ninja IRS?"
"There's a Ninja IRS?" Neji looked horrified.
"Of course, youth does not exempt one from taxes." Gai said. "Well, up to a certain point anyway." He coughed.
"Whatever, I still say we should kill the bear." Sasuke said. Shino looked at him askance.
"You only want to kill the bear because you made a fool out of yourself."
"Shut up Shino."
"So how long is that guy going to keep thinking he's a bear?" Kisame asked. Itach didn't say anything for a while and then…
"You know," he said slowly. "I'm not entirely sure. Anywhere between five minutes and five days I think."
"Itachi…" groaned Kisame.
Now there are a few things you should know about hypnotism. The first thing is in order for it to work the person has to be susceptible to it and that they don't fight you while you're doing it. A hypnotized person is usually fully aware of what they are doing but are either unable or unwilling to stop themselves. You can't make a hypnotized person do anything they wouldn't do normally (hypnotised drunks on the other hand are another can of soup entirely. A person that is both drunk and hypnotised will do anything). Lastly, never hypnotise anyone who has mental problems unless you are a trained psychiatrist.
Itachi had no way of knowing that the Rain-nin he had hypnotized was suffering from a very strange case of clinical lycanthropy; basically he believed that every once and a while he'd turn into a forest animal. Last week he was a squirrel and his family had to stop him from burying kunai in the forest and climbing trees. However, just because he thinks he's an animal doesn't mean his body doesn't know he isn't; after all, what else is shinobi training good for if not for honing reflexes?
Several shuriken rained down on the shinobi on the ground.
"The hell! The bear's a ninja?" cried Naruto.
"Now can we kill it?" Sasuke hissed.
"No. Now we have to capture it." Said Kakashi. "If it's a summon it will disappear on its own but if it's been trained we have to capture it and bring it back to Konoha for examination."
"Capture the Bear..." Snorted Neji.
"At least it's not Capture the Beer." Sighed TenTen. "You remember when Anko-san dragged us along on that mission?"
"Ugh, don't remind me. It took hours to get Lee even half sober."
"Less talking more bear wrangling!" yelled Ino.
Twenty minutes later they still had not caught the ninja bear.
"Damn, that bear is fast." Panted Kiba.
"We need a plan." Huffed Sakura. "Shikamaru…"
"What?" snapped the chuunin.
"You're the idea man, think of something!"
"Hey, leave Shika alone! Why don't you use that big forehead of yours to think of something!" barked Ino.
"Shut up Ino-pig!"
"How troublesome…" sighed Shikamaru. "Lee and Kiba, distract the bear. Naruto use your kage bunshins to box it in, the rest of you help him out. I'll use kagemane and hold it still and Ino use your shintenshin to control the bear. Everybody got it?"
There was a chorus of "Hai's".
"Let's go!"
Back with Itachi and Kisame.
"Is there anything else you did back there that I should know about?" glared Kisame. Itachi just gave him a slow smirk.
Ino managed to successfully infiltrate the mind of their captive. "Umm…guys…" she ventured.
"Woah, that bear can talk, too?" gaped Chouji.
"Err…funny thing about that. It's not really a bear, just some guy from Rain that thinks he's a bear."
"Well, can you snap him out of it?" Asuma asked.
"I'll try…" there was a pause. "Okay now that's really weird."
"What is?"
"Umm…Sasuke, there's a mental note for you in here."
"A mental note?" blinked Sasuke.
"Yeah, it says 'Did you have fun playing with teddy?'"
Itachi smirked wickedly as he heard his brother's enraged screaming.
I had to include bears in here somehow, but I also needed a really demented and roundabout way of doing it. Did I succeed?