September 21, 2006
7:42 PM
Malibu, California
"This is really what you're going with?" Tony asked, crossing his arms and leaning back on the stool he was using as a seat.
"Is there something wrong with it?" Sasuke chanced a glance at the reflective glass of the doors. The henge didn't seem like it was wonky at all.
"I think what Tony is trying to say is that he isn't sure if it's a good idea to use your dead cousin as an inspiration for your disguise." Pepper said, translating Tony's sentiment as delicately as she could.
Sasuke looked back at the doors. Shisui's face stared back.
"Why not? I know the face better than most, and I can change my mannerisms much more easily if I have something to base them off of." Sasuke glanced down. "And he didn't die when everyone else did, so I won't have flashbacks, if that's what you're worried about. I've even used him for henge before, with Ms. Douglas, remember?"
"There's also the fact that your cousin looks about fifteen." Pepper offered. "Not quite old enough to follow us around pretending to be a bodyguard."
Sasuke frowned at a criticism he couldn't quite think of a counterpoint to, and then shrugged and reapplied the henge. An older version of Shisui, maybe twenty-five years old, now stood in his place. "Is this better?"
Pepper and Tony glanced at each other. Tony shrugged, still a little uneasy, but incapable of really arguing why using Shisui as a basis for disguise might be a bad idea.
"I suppose this will work for now." Pepper finally said, when it became clear that no one else was going to say anything. "Now, let me walk you through how you should act when you're with us, because there's a good chance that the rules and standard operating procedures will be different from what you've been taught as a shinobi."
"I can learn it." Sasuke promised.
o.o.o.o.o
October 10, 2006
5:31 PM
Konohagakure no Sato
The Kyuubi festival was one of the largest events of the year, and certainly the largest of the ones that Konoha alone hosted. Every country and village had a handful of festivals that no one else celebrated, even if other festivals were more common. The Kyuubi festival, for instance, was Konoha's way of honoring the victims of the Kyuubi's rampage and the Yondaime's sacrifice to defeat it.
This was Sasuke's first year going alone.
He was eleven years old, which was considered more than old enough to wander about unaccompanied by parents. Most children, however, had friends to run about with, if they took the opportunity to ditch their families. With Tony back in the States and Ms. Darkholme finally reunited with her family, Sasuke had no one to go with.
He couldn't skip, of course. That was just disrespecting the dead.
(There was nothing to commemorate the Uchiha massacre, of course. There was no victory that day, not even a bittersweet one.)
Sasuke stared at himself in the mirror, noted the bags under his eyes that only seemed deeper for the dark blue of his festival kimono, and took a deep breath. He squeezed his eyes shut as he breathed out, and when he opened them again, his face had smoothed over into the blank, contemptuous mask that he wore out in public whenever he was in Konoha.
"Into the breach," He muttered to himself as he left the house, taking the packed dirt road out of the Uchiha district and towards the festival grounds. The lights and music reached him before he reached the crowds, but it was a close thing.
"Hello, Uchiha-kun." One of the vendors waved, smiling. He was standing behind a tank of fish, countless paper nets arranged behind him. "Care to play?"
"No," he said. Pepper and Raven's voices mixed in his head, memories of reprimands floating past. He grudgingly added, "Thank you. Maybe later."
"Alright. Goodbye, Uchiha-kun." The vendor turned to the next set of potential patrons, and once again tried to entice some festival-goers to play.
"Sasuke-kun!"
Sasuke fought the urge to stiffen as the high pitched squeal reached him with a pair of skinny arms around his shoulders. They were stronger than they looked, as only befit the girl they belonged to.
"Ino." He struggled a little. "Get off."
With one last squeeze, Ino released him, and Sasuke turned around to face her, holding back a sigh.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here!" She gushed. Had she been less annoying, Sasuke might have gone so far as to compliment her on her kimono, or the flower in her hair, because Ino (and her father, and her mother, and her cousins) had a good eye for color and fashion, and even Sasuke could admit that she looked good.
"It's the Kyuubi festival. Everyone goes." He wondered how quickly he could get out of this conversation.
"Well, yeah, but that makes it really hard to find anyone if you don't plan things out beforehand." Ino pouted. It was cute. Sasuke wanted to leave.
"How about we leave Uchiha-kun alone now, Ino?" Ino's dad put his hand on his daughter's back, gently pushing her away from Sasuke. "I'm sure he has plans of his own."
Sasuke knows the man is trying to help, considering the sympathetic look on his face. On the other hand, he didn't have any plans of his own, or anyone to find and hang out with. And honestly… Ino was better than nothing. "Not particularly."
"So Sasuke can come with us!" Ino insisted, grabbing her father's hand and tugging until he looked down at her puppy eyes
Ino's dad tore his eyes away from his daughter and looked at Sasuke, raising an eyebrow. "You sure about that, kid?"
"So long as nobody hugs me." Wow, that had been almost Tony-like. He promised himself not to tell Pepper that he was taking after his uncle, ever.
Ino squealed and grabbed his sleeve, dragging him off through the crowd, her parents following sedately behind.
As the night progressed, Sasuke found that Ino wasn't terrible company, once she'd mellowed out a little and come down from the high of getting to be with Sasuke for a little. She dragged him into a few games, and he agreed to about half. Towards the end of the night, she pulled him over to a stand at the edges of the festival grounds, the areas that bordered the cemetery, filled with vendors that sold flowers and incense and other offerings for the dead.
"Hey, Fu-nii-chan!" Ino bounced up to the table and smiled to the frazzled-looking older teen that was manning it. "Fu-nii-chan, this is Uchiha Sasuke! Sasuke-kun, this is my cousin Fu!"
"Hey there, kid." Fu waved at Sasuke, who dipped his head back in acknowledgement. "Ino-chan, have you seen your parents anywhere? The fridge I was keeping the spare stock in broke down."
Ino's face grew uncharacteristically serious, and she nodded. "I left them a few stalls back, 'cuz they were talking to Shika's parents. I'll go get my dad."
"Thanks, Ino-chan." Fu watched her go with a tired smile, and then caught sight of Sasuke's expression. "Something wrong?"
"I, ah…" Sasuke bit his lip as he tried to figure out how to phrase his offer. "My uncle's an engineer. I… He's been teaching me. I'm nowhere near his level, but I'm pretty good with appliances, so I could take a look if you want? If it's a simple problem, then I should probably be able to fix it, or at least tell you how to fix it, if something needs to be replaced."
Fu puffed out his cheeks and blew out a sigh. "Well, if you say so. Break anything, though, and you're the one paying for the professional repairs."
"Understood." Sasuke nodded and, after a second's consideration, vaulted over the counter. "Where's the fridge?"
"Around back." Fu lead him behind the showcase to the glass-front refrigerator, filled with flowers of various colors. "I have a toolkit in the back, if you want to get one of the panels off."
"That would probably be a good idea." Sasuke nodded distractedly, checking over the cord to make sure it wasn't simply a matter of the energy not making it from the socket to the machine. After a second's thought, he unplugged the machine and plugged his phone in, to see if the plug itself was working. It was, so that was good news, but it didn't tell him much about what the problem actually was.
"JARVIS?" He asked, pulling the fridge away from the wall as he waited for a connection to the AI to spring to life. "Can you tell me anything about common problems that show up in this model?"
"What model, Sasuke?"
Sasuke leaned over to look at the front, just as Fu came back with the toolkit. "Uh… Shibashi, FN-2300. It's a Konoha-based company, I think."
Sasuke got to work on removing the panels, ignoring Fu almost entirely, as JARVIS rattled off a short list of the most common technical difficulties that cropped up with the appliance in question.
Sasuke peered at the mess of wires and piping that made up the back of the fridge, and then snorted. "Fu, I think I found your problem."
"Yeah?"
"You've got rodents." Sasuke pointed at a small cluster of wires and cables towards the bottom of the machine, and almost laughed as Fu caught sight of the evidence that they'd been chewed clean through. "I can replace the wires, if I get some replacements and maybe a soldering iron."
"I'll, uh, I'll tell Inoichi." Fu pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's… kind of embarrassing."
"Less common than you'd think, but small animals have been causing trouble with technology since the beginning." Sasuke was partially quoting Tony on the latter half, but considering he'd only offered in the first place so he could show off…
Ugh, he really was spending too much time with his uncle. Pepper was going to be so disappointed.
"Fu?" Ino's dad called from the front of the kiosk, and the teenager hurried off as Sasuke kept looking around to see if there were any other problems. There was nothing readily apparent, at least, so he leaned down again and started checking out where everything connected to, so he could figure out what, exactly, the right way to fix this was.
"Kyaa!" And that was Ino. "Sasuke-kun is so smart!"
Sasuke did his best to ignore her. "Ah, did Fu tell you what the problem was?"
"Yes, he did." Inoichi's arms were crossed. "I wasn't aware you knew anything about engineering, Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke shrugged awkwardly. "My uncle's been teaching me. The fridge is pretty basic, so even if the problem was less obvious it shouldn't have been too hard."
"Aa." Inoichi nodded, letting the silence afterward stretch to the point where even Sasuke and Ino could tell it was getting uncomfortable.
"Would you like me to fix it, or would you rather get a professional?" Sasuke finally said, when the silence got to the point of ridiculousness.
"Let's see what you can do." Inoichi said, folding his hands behind his back in a way that implied he'd be putting them in his pockets if he wasn't wearing festival clothing. "I'll walk you to the hardware store. There should still be someone manning it."
"Is it usually staffed during things like this?" Sasuke stood up, brushing himself off, and mentally ran through the list of what he'd need to fix the appliance.
"With this much electricity running outdoors all at once, and little children and drunk people stumbling into anything and everything? They make more money than you'd think just providing for emergencies. No one wants something to go down in the middle of a festival." Inoichi informed him. "Ino, stay here with your mother. Help Fu with the arrangements."
Ino pouted for a second, probably because she couldn't go with Sasuke, but nodded. "Okay, daddy."
Sasuke missed the look that passed between Inoichi and his wife as they walked away.
"So, you said your uncle taught you… that?" Inoichi said after they were about a block further back into the festival grounds.
"Yeah. He's kind of…" Sasuke made a vague motion with arms, meant to somehow indicate 'a big deal,' or maybe 'really, really good,' "with electronics."
"Oh?" Inoichi smiled. "Have I heard of him?"
Sasuke paused, running through what little he knew of Ino's dad in his head, and coming to a conclusion that he really should have gotten to at least a few minutes ago. "…if you're as high-ranked as I think you are, then you probably know everything from his blood type to his shoe size."
Inoichi threw back his head and laughed, loud and sudden enough that Sasuke almost entered a combat stance in reflex. He barely managed to stifle a jump as it was.
"Aa, we're not quite that interested in the minutiae, but yes, I do know of Stark Tony." Inoichi chuckled, and Sasuke hoped the man hadn't noticed his instinctive flinch at hearing his uncle's name said the right way. He'd spent far too much time in the west for anything other than 'Tony Stark' to sound natural.
"So you know who taught me how to work with technology." Sasuke grumbled. "Why ask?"
"I wanted to see if you'd name-drop or not," Inoichi said, just as they reached the hardware store. He pushed the door open and gestured for Sasuke to go in first. "And I wanted to see if you'd try to exaggerate your abilities."
"It's just some chewed-through wires," Sasuke's voice was a mumble as he browsed through the wiring section. "And they're not all that hard to replace. It's a fridge that uses standard-model equipment, so the wires are sold in those weird bundles with pre-made ends. And if we can't find that, I could technically splice the wires back together and hold it together with electrical tape long enough for you to hire someone that has access to the right parts."
"That's very kind of you." Inoichi said, and Sasuke tried to ignore the niggling, highly accurate voice that was telling him that Inoichi was humoring him and not taking him entirely seriously.
Whatever.
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: I can't pull anything more out of that scene. There was nothing of worth left and I'm tired of trying to figure out how to end it.
