Warnings: Implied spoilers for Chapter 402 in the manga.

PICKUP NO JUTSU

Part Five: Itachi

The world was just beginning to blur in and out of focus just enough for Naruto to relax. He was, as he had been nearly every night since Sasuke came back to Konoha, as drunk as a skunk. It seemed that every male – save, thank God, for Iruka – he'd ever met had chosen that week to confess their undying, homosexual love for him.

Now, Naruto had been deprived of love for most of his life, and with his optimism, he could sort of look at the situation as a kind of karma – a very, very gay karma. His mail box was filled with rainbow and sparkly love notes, and he was chased around town by his rabid fan club, who had all taken to wearing orange and lurking at Ichiraku. He'd seen some horrifying things lately that could never be erased from his mind, such as Kiba and a human-shifted Akamaru attempting to dynamically mark him as theirs, Gai and Lee tying him down with bandages and offering him the youthful opportunity to tame their burning beasts, or Yamato-taichou revealing his "other" wood technique. The worst, if possible, was that closet-pervert Ebisu masturbating right in front of him and bellowing, "Imagine that, inside of you! I do, every day! WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME?!" while the Konohamaru Corps looked on.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg! Sasuke was continuously spouting bullshit like, "If you don't let me take off your pants, I might run away, become evil and try to destroy Konoha … AGAIN!!" with his stupid mwahahahaha-ing face and trendy clothing, and Naruto couldn't just let Sakura, not to mention his beloved village, down!

Neji, miraculously, was still alive, though he confessed that Naruto's Kyuubi-enhanced semen was the antidote to his cancer, and it had to be administered with increasing frequency, which made no sense, but then, many things made no sense to Naruto.

Jiraiya, on the other hand, was dead.

"I just … I wish he were here. Even though he was a stupid – hiccup – pervert and kept doing stuff to me when I was sleeping and making me wear – hiccup – transform into a naked girl, he was the best sensei I've ever had, and the one with the biggest – hiccup – kunai. I never even told him that he was one of my precious people … I miss him so much!"

"He's kicked the bucket, get over it. You're a shinobi, aren't you?" the (thankfully) female barmaid deadpanned. She hadn't gotten lucky in over a month, and this brat was complaining about too much penis? If he hadn't been a paying customer, she'd be shoving a high-heeled shoe into the vicinity of his apparently much sought-after ass. "If you can't, you should just join him in death."

Naruto's big, cerulean eyes filled with tears. "Wh-what?"

"She's right, you know," a cool voice murmured, inches away from Naruto's ear.

Naruto nearly fell out of his barstool as he looked upon the visage of the man who had interrupted: a decaying Uchiha Itachi, donning a tattered Akatsuki cloak, was standing before him.

"But you're dead!" Naruto screamed, jumping to his feet.

"Yes." Itachi's nod was graceful, except for the part where one of his eyes fell out and rolled on the floor, coming to a stop against Naruto's sandals.

Naruto bent down and picked it up, offering it back to the undead nin. "I think you dropped this."

Itachi plopped the eye back into his skull with a horrible squelching noise. "Thank you, Naruto-kun."

"You're welcome," Naruto replied good-naturedly. "Wait a minute – WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!"

"I've had my eye on you," Itachi began, but then he paused, looking dissatisfied with himself. "Hold on, I practiced what I was going to say to you, so pretend this is the first thing you heard me say." He coughed lightly, darkened blood spattering rotting hand. "So, now that rigor mortis has set in, I can go all night long."

Naruto looked around at the bar to see if anyone else was freaking the fuck out, but business carried on as though a zombie Uchiha wasn't lounging around in Konoha's midst. Naruto sighed. He didn't care anymore. "Okay, dead aside, aren't you … weren't you … whatever … like evil and trying to kill me?"

"Firstly, didn't Sasuke explain to you how noble and saintly I really was?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, I think he said something like that, but I didn't understand it too well. It just didn't seem to make sense! Something like you were torturing and killing and doing really evil things, but for Sasuke and maybe even Konoha, right?"

A smiling (Naruto was this close to wetting himself) Itachi shuffled even closer, looking hopeful. "Yes, killing and torture is the way Uchiha say, 'I love you,' which answers your second question."

Some part of Naruto (possibly the part with the giant, mass-murdering fox) was actually swooning at the Uchiha's declaration. The rest of him wanted to be holding something lethal, like a flame-thrower. "Uh …" he stammered.

Only one thing was certain: this was a Thriller, Thriller Night.

A/N: The end, I don't care if it was dumb! It took over four months to write three thousand words, which I think is a testament to how out of the writing loop I am. Luckily, I am going to work hard this summer at writing more, so if it's not too much trouble, could any readers say which of the following they'd like to see most in a review?

(1) Multi-chaptered AU/Cross-over with One Piece. Basically Naruto set in the One Piece world several generations after the Strawhat Pirates, following Naruto and his pirate crew's journey towards becoming the Pirate King and fulfilling their dreams. Though more friendship-centric, it will have m/f, m/m and f/f. Ninja pirates, yeah!

(2) One-shot. Naruto – in Sexy no Jutsu form – and Ino are assigned to an infiltration mission to the hottest party on the planet: the Lightning Country Daimyo daughter's Super Sweet 16 Birthday Extravaganza. Things get complicated when sexual tension rises between the two blondes, who are supposed to be posing as sisters. Ino/Naruto.

(3) Possible multi-chaptered. After defeating Madara/Sasuke coming back to Konoha, Naruto travels the world for fifteen years as Toad Sennin in tribute to Jiraiya. When he returns home at last, he gains the interest of a certain Uchiha … Sasuke and Sakura's pink-haired, Sharingan-wielding son, Ikuto.

(4) One-shot. Takes place during Naruto's training trip with Jiraiya, in which Naruto makes friends with prostitutes, impresses a woman who can start and end wars on a whim, and realizes some things about his feelings towards Sasuke and Sakura (mostly Sasuke, in the gay way).

(5) One-shot. Gai and Kakashi get drunk and decide to match-make their teams. Naruto/Tenten, Lee/Sakura and Neji/Sai.