AN: Chapter Five here, sorry for the delay, but revision is taking over my life in a major way.

Chapter Five

It took about ten minutes on an airplane for Itachi to decide that he hated that particular mode of transport. Unfortunately, from the tense, excited look on his lover's face, Itachi guessed that Hideaki was particularly enjoying this highly claustrophobic mode of transport.

Until they had boarded the plane, Itachi hadn't minded the journey from the Hidden Countries to England all that much – they had taken one of the rare boats that travelled between the islands and Japan, not far to the West. They had then spent a week in a city called Tokyo, staying in a hotel and spending ridiculous sums of money that Hideaki justified by saying it was in order not to stand out as shinobi.

Although such camouflage was of course a very important factor, Itachi wondered if quite all their purchases had been necessary – Hideaki had turned out to be totally addicted to all the tech he could get his hands on, spending the equivalent of the last three S-rank missions' wages on gadgets that Itachi didn't even begin to try understanding. Naruto and Sasuke had also been entranced by the numerous gadgets that caught their eyes, but Naruto had mostly appeared to be concerned with the amount of ramen he could consume while in Tokyo – the quantities he had consumed had surprised no one except some of the waiters, who had been unable to comprehend the sheer mass of ramen Naruto could consume (his ambition, other than becoming Hokage of course, was to consume three times his own body weight in ramen at one sitting – something he was disturbingly close to accomplishing).

Itachi himself had found himself surprisingly intrigued by their stay in Tokyo – he had never been outside of the Hidden Countries before, though he knew some shinobi had, including, he suspected, Hideaki, given the otherwise incomprehensible fascination with the technology for sale, as well as a remarkable understanding of the appropriate values and prices for said items. The reasons behind the split from the Outside was the most closely guarded secret in all the Hidden Villages, but that didn't stop some Outsiders from coming in to hire shinobi to do their dirty work in the most untraceable way – equally so there was limited movement of shinobi and civilians in and out of the Outside, though it was all carried out with heavy subterfuge.

The Uchiha prodigy had been subject to countless lectures from his father on the inferiority of Outsiders and the Outside in general, although Itachi had noticed this sense of superiority had never stopped Fugaku or anyone else in the Clan from taking advantage of the trade in luxuries with the Outside world. Nonetheless, Itachi had found himself enjoying his stay in Tokyo far more than he had thought that he would. The hotel, though smaller than he was used to, had certainly embraced the meaning of luxury and there were many commodities there that he knew he would miss upon his return to the Hidden Countries during the summer months, and after this mission was complete.

The actual status of the mission that they were embarking upon was somewhat dubious. It was not easy for Sandaime-sama to contrive a reason to send two of the village's most prodigious ANBU out of the village for extended periods of time, without a client or even a set mission objective. The problem was compounded by the fact that the two shinobi were respectively the de facto heir of the Uchiha clan and the adopted heir of Yondaime Hokage. Fortunately, the reputation of the Dark Wizard Voldemort had enabled Sarutobi to order both Hideaki and Itachi to ensure his destruction and gain as much intelligence about the fighting style of these 'wizards' as they possibly could. That second directive in particular came from the Daimyo of Fire Country, whose interest in and suspicion of the Wizarding world was a justifiable case of paranoia under a very thin disguise. But paranoia or not, it was the Daimyo's support for their mission that allowed them to leave the village for such long lengths of time, not to mention have it classed as an S-rank mission and paid accordingly.

Despite this undeniable benefit, both for their wages and their records, Itachi still despised their current location…if he had wanted to be packed into a metal sardine can with hundreds of civilians, he would have checked himself into the nearest mental asylum until the inclination passed sufficiently. Nonetheless, he found himself trapped in this flimsy, claustrophobic contraption for the entire duration of the fourteen hour flight, listening to the mindless chatter of the stewardesses and the civilians in the other cabins.

He supposed that flying 'First Class' was an advantage – at least he wasn't literally packed in like a sardine in the main cabin, listening to screaming babies and having the back of his seated kicked by a frustrated toddler. But he really would have preferred not to have had to share the First Class Cabin, which was exclusively full of balding, paunchy businessmen and their perm-bearing, dieting trophy wives, apart from the four of them.

He wouldn't have minded the businessmen so much (they were at least quieter than either the babies or the toddlers) if it weren't for the scornful attitude they extended towards them. Although Itachi accepted that by the standards of the outsiders, they were a peculiar group – two teenagers and two eleven-year olds with no adult in sight, who nonetheless had the money to afford four First Class, long-haul air tickets, this was no excuse for the behaviour of the others in the cabin, who had stared at them askance as they came in.

Perhaps it was the way Itachi found his fingers wound with Hideaki's, but the businessmen's wives in particular kept continually attempting to glance over inconspicuously (although their attempts were obvious, even to an untrained eye) and were every-so-often tutting in a disapproving manner, before descending into malicious titters. Even more obvious were their occasional attempts to draw them into conversation, starting at first with overly-sweet gestures towards Naruto and Sasuke, commenting on how 'cute' the two of them were, and how well behaved, etc. Those particular comments had stopped after Naruto had hissed menacingly at one of them and Sasuke had nearly broken another's wrist for attempting to pinch his cheeks.

After this, the ladies had descended into more disapproving gossip, before returning in a sickly cloud of perfume to speak sanctimoniously to Hideaki and Itachi, asking where there parents were, and commenting on their devotion to raising two such 'troubled' children – comments made in overly-loud voices that caused Sasuke to frown and Naruto to bare his teeth, flashing his extended canines in the women's direction. This, combined with Hideaki's affected apathy and Itachi's poorly concealed hostility, managed to scare off most of the women, and their pasty pudgy husbands, but a few would still approach, attempting to succeed where their rivals had not, in initiating these outsiders into their bigoted, privileged world.

The atmosphere, Itachi thought, was worse than the clan events he and Sasuke were forced to attend by their father – their at least the people had been too obsessed with maintaining their status and formality, and conversation was often non-existent. Furthermore, many Uchiha were shinobi or kunoichi, and everybody there knew at least not to initiate un-sought physical contact. Hideaki had seemed less perturbed by the attention, but he at least had been fussed over since his first arrival in Konoha, first as the son and de facto heir of the Hokage, and then as de facto clan head, at least until Naruto came of age. Because of that status, Hideaki had been attending council meetings since he became a genin, and before that had been hauled off to countless functions, where the Daimyo's wife was frequently in attendance – an enormous, gaudily-dressed woman who carried a haze of perfume with her and was more than happy to pinch any cheeks that came with the reach of her sausage-like fingers.

She was a terrifying woman in her own way – a fact that her veritable menagerie of pets would willingly attest to – their frequent attempts to escape were motivated by the primal desire not to be suffocated in the heaving, sagging bosom, and provided frequent frustrating employment for newly-graduated genin, who invariably believed they would immediately begin by carrying out S-rank missions to eliminate dangerous missing-nin. A few hours spent being scratched to shreds by that woman's feral cats, or buying groceries for old ladies, who seemed certain that their money entitled them to have shinobi as their veritable slaves, or any other one of the endless supply of drudgery on which new shinobi were weaned until they became good enough to teach, and willing enough to do any mission, simply because it was their mission. Besides, their jounin teachers needed some entertainment every now and again – looking after a team of arrogant brats and only getting paid the low wages of the missions they did was no shinobi's idea of a picnic, particularly not when they could be out doing well-paid missions where at least they could kill the object of their mission.

As Itachi saw another woman approach, looking like she had lived on a diet of celery-sticks and water since she was three, he groaned quietly, leaning over slightly to speak sotto voce to Hideaki, who seemed to be engrossed in a newspaper,

"How much longer until we land?"

Hideaki checked his watch and frowned slightly,

"We've only been in the air three hours, 'Tachi-koi. It's at least another ten hours."

Itachi was torn between smiling foolishly at the infrequently employed endearment and groaning at the thought of another ten hours spent in this purgatory. They hadn't even eaten yet, and the horror stories Itachi had heard in the terminal regarding airplane food had been enough to put him off that particular endeavour forever. In the end, he settled for the most preferable option, rising out of his seat to capture Hideaki's lips in a kiss, feeling them to be slightly dry with the high altitude, and parted slightly in amusement. He took the opportunity then to slide his tongue into his lover's mouth, causing the younger man to practically melt into his 'ergonomically adjusted' seat and moan lowly into the kiss, dropping his magazine and reaching up his arms to twine around Itachi's neck.

Eventually, judging Hideaki's lips to be suitably moistened and kiss-swollen, Itachi reluctantly pulled back, allowing himself to share a tender smile with Hideaki, who seemed dazed, and somewhat placid. Then, as Itachi settled himself back down, he realised the utter silence that had overtaken the cabin, and Hideaki blushed as he guessed at the show they had just put on, his cheeks flushing an attractive shade of pink that did nothing to detract from his thoroughly lascivious appearance.

The others in the cabin seemed stunned and shell-shocked, the women obviously torn between blushing and giggling uncertainly, while their portly husbands looked thoroughly disgruntled at the display of passion that exceeded what they had been party to in the last ten years of their life. In contrast, Naruto and Sasuke bore their usual expressions of embarrassment mixed with happiness at the sight, although Itachi did notice the tell-tale sign of a camera slipping away under Naruto's blaring jacket.

The two boys had discovered that there was quite a market for pictures of the two of them among their fangirls, and found it an excellent way to enhance their allowances by selling the contraband images. Itachi calculated that the two of them had made enough money to pay for several S-Rank missions, and he had to wonder just who was willing to pay that amount of money. Rumours that the pictures were blown up to full size on the walls of the Special ANBU seduction corps' office had yet to be confirmed or denied. The pictures were at least an effective way to take revenge on Jiraiya-sama when he visited the village, supposedly to check up on Naruto and Hideaki, but actually to peddle more of his trashy smut.

That particular kiss had also had the positive side-affect of thoroughly alienating the others in the cabin, and though the men kept on sending them looks equivalent to the ones a shinobi might aim at a treacherous ally, or lying client, at least one objective had been achieved – none of the women were going to try their luck again any time soon. With that thought in mind, Itachi settled back into his chair, at least partly content. However, he had only just settled himself down into the chair when the unwieldy aircraft jerked again in the air, and the captain's voice came in again over the static-filled intercom, saying that he was sorry, but they had come to another patch of turbulence, and would they please return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts.

Groaning, Itachi did so and settled himself in for a long, boring flight.

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When they finally arrived in Heathrow airport, Itachi thought that that would be the end of their torturous travel experience. But he was disgusted to discover that he now had to embark upon totally tedious immigration procedures, followed by the even more tedious claiming of their luggage, all within the chaotic airport that was a poorly concealed version of bedlam.

Naruto and Sasuke, although they would fiercely deny it, were obviously growing tired – they had had no sleep on the plane, equally uncomfortable about being in such an enclosed space, and the novelty of the travel experience was beginning to wear heavily, particularly after the stewardess had offered them both crayons and colouring books to keep them occupied during the flight. Naruto had refused his, but Sasuke had accepted and had spent the following hour drawing a precisely anatomically correct image of someone with a startling similarity in appearance to the stewardess being disembowelled by a three-year-old wielding a sharpened crayon. Itachi had to credit the boy's ingenuity, but he hoped that Sasuke would not attempt to repeat such methods – crayons were very unwieldy weapons and so difficult to get clean afterwards.

They eventually emerged from the stifling airport, all their bags in place and with terribly boring and official stamps in their excellently forged passports. Hideaki, whose English was best, hailed a taxi and gave the driver the location that Dumbledore-sensei had directed them to. The driver, a pot-bellied man with a practically non-existent hairline and an accent that made it possible to decipher every fifth word he said (which was usually a crude one), raised his pierced eyebrows and pulled his taxi out into the solid line of traffic, turning on the radio to some appalling music sung by people who not only could not hold a tune, but made no attempt to do so, instead attempting to make 'music' by speaking in time to the discordant music and then endeavouring to make it sound interesting by making up for their tedious lyrics by interspersing them with the swear-words that seemed to make up the most of their vocabulary.

It was actually hours before they reached what Itachi supposed to be the centre of London, where they had been directed to a 'pub' upon the recommendation of Dumbledore-sensei. Instead of helping them with their bags, even for Naruto or Sasuke, who were by now visibly flagging, the driver proceeded to demand his fare, citing such factors as congestion charges and luggage fees for his exorbitant price. Even Hideaki, who usually maintained an equal temperament in the face of all crudity, scowled as he handed over the fifty pound note, before turning to help Naruto and Sasuke with their bags as the driver careened away in a cloud of noxious exhaust fumes, travelling at a far greater speed than he had been when his meter was charging.

Itachi looked up and down the street to which Dumbledore-sensei had directed them – it was a busy shopping street and crowded with English shoppers talking in strident tones and showing no inclination to help the obviously tired and lost foreigners. Hideaki pulled out the piece of parchment that Dumbledore-sensei had given them, looking up and down the street for the address which was indicated. Eventually he seemed to spot something, though Itachi could not tell what, and he led the little group of them up the street, coming to stop between a bookstore and a music shop. Itachi blinked once or twice and then he saw what he had previously missed, hidden by a glaringly obvious genjutsu. Indeed, he was ashamed not to have seen it earlier – what good was he as a shinobi, let alone a sharingan wielder if he could not spot such an obvious genjutsu, even when he tired and badly adjusted to his strange location.

Yet, as he stared more at the dilapidated 'pub' Itachi realised that there was something indefinably different about the genjutsu here, something about the way the layers of the illusion worked in relation to each other, even something about the very texture of the illusion, that made it alien to him. Feeling Sasuke sagging against him, Itachi wrapped a supportive arm around his brother's back and, seeing Naruto doing the same with Naruto, herded his brother and their bags in through the doorway of 'The Leaky Cauldron'.

TBC.

Once again, sorry about the shortness of this, but this is the only way I can get this uploaded.

As for my presentation of London, I'm English myself, so this is not an overtly malicious satire, but rather more self-deprecating.