Terribly sorry for the delay - life happened - and I also lost my mojo a bit. But never fear, for the time being anyway, it's back ;)

THE CLUB

Kakashi's eye was twitching. He hated conflict at the best of times, and this was certainly no exception. And the noise. He despised yelling. The only way he got through all those years of training Naruto - with his headache inducing timbre - was because of the pure unadulterated pleasure he got from dishing out ridiculous and gruelling punishments for his near constant failure.

The verbal war that was currently being fought in the Hokage's office had set his teeth clenching and his eyes watering. But the Hokage's latest announcement had cut at something much deeper. His pride.

"Sakura is technically still in Team Kakashi. So as her team leader, I should be the one to mentor her."

"Piss on that, Kakashi. I'm her employer and her current teacher. It makes much more sense that it be me. Besides, I'M the Hokage, so my decision is final." She finished off with a very childish, "Hah."

Kakashi pouted behind his mask.

"Besides, you should be happy for Sakura. I'm in a position to pull the most strings for her. With my help, she's almost guaranteed to win."

Kakashi conceded; this was very true. Sakura couldn't get much better a mentor than the Hokage herself after all. His headache even seemed to be receding. That was, until Gai started up right next to his ear.

"That doesn't seem very fair, Hokage-sama! Why should my own blossom of youth be disadvantaged by my lack of connections?"

The Hokage rubbed furiously at her temples. This was all starting to seem like too much trouble. "I would have thought you would be happy to be mentoring Tenten yourself, Gai. Unless you think there is someone who could assist her better? By all means, feel free to suggest an alternative."

The green-clad horror thrust his chin in the air. "Normally I would be repelled by the mere suggestion that I may not be the best man for the job!" His head drooped dejectedly. "But in this case, I believe my dear student would be better mentored by Ibiki-san."

"Too bad, dipshit, I'm already mentoring my own recruit. And I ain't changing for no'one. Ino will win this race come hell or high water. The rest of you pansies can argue amongst yourselves, I'm done here." The scarred shinobi strode from the room without a backwards glance.

Gai started to cry. "Why? Why must my inferior skills be a burden forced upon my dear blossom of youth!" Bubbles of mucus escaped from his nose. "Oh Tenten, I have failed you before you have even begun!"

Kakashi watched the man with a mixture of barely restrained contempt and revulsion.

The Godaime looked equally disgusted. She hurled a tissue box at the taijutsu expert's bowl-cut head and was mildly disappointed when he caught it just before it smacked into his dripping face. "Pull yourself together, man!"

Gai pulled a tissue from the box, blew his nose loudly, and gained a little composure. "You're right, your Hokageness. I will just have to make do without connections." He placed the tissue box on the Hokage's desk as he considered further. "Tenten is beautiful...she's brave, and... and her weapons skills should impress any shinobi worth his salt." He perked up more with each realisation. "With her kunai skills there's no way Itachi could overlook her!" He bolted for the door. "I'm going to get started on her training right away!"

As the door closed behind them, Kakashi and Tsunade let out a mutual sigh of relief.

"So." The Hokage turned to face him. "Kurenai doesn't care much for betting, but in the interest of the science of what-the-hell-turns-Itachi-on she's agreed to try a few things with Hinata. We all know the girl has no inclinations towards anyone other than Naruto, but she'll do anything in the interests of her village and she has some great espionage tactics that they might be able to put to use."

Kakashi considered that. So far nobody seemed to realise it but him, but Hinata may actually be the kunoichi with the best real chance of winning this race. She had a lot in common with Itachi, being the heir to one of the two greatest clans in Konoha, and neither of them seemed to want the title. Hinata had an incredible bloodline limit, but would never use it out of spite or to harm, unless she absolutely had to, to defend herself or a teammate. Itachi had always shown the same inclinations. On top of that, she had absolutely no interest in Itachi. From what Kakashi knew of Itachi, unlike his younger brother, he abhorred women throwing themselves at him. He had seen Itachi brush off absolute goddesses like they were nothing more than a bit of lint on his sweater. Luckily, Kakashi had been there to pick up the pieces, and was not ashamed to offer the girls the next best thing. One time, he had even said to a girl left pouting in Itachi's wake, "So, you didn't get the full Uchiha. How about half an Uchiha?", whilst raising his eye-patch to reveal his sharingan. Even Kakashi couldn't believe that one had worked.

The Godaime was still going, reading off of her notes in front of her. "...Jiraiya wanted that other girl- oh, I forget her name- the pretty, quiet chuunin one... let's just call her what's-her-face." Kakashi watched, amused, as she actually wrote 'what's-her-face' next to Jiraiya's name. "Genma jumped on the twins," The Hokage raised her eyebrow and looked up at him briefly, "Pun intended," she returned to her notes, "So that leaves you and Asuma with a choice between Moegi and Shizune." The Godaime gave him her best warning glare. "If I were you, I know who I would be choosing."

Kakashi sighed. Tsunade was right; there was no choice about it. "Moegi it is."

The Hokage set fit to boot him all the way across Konoha, and he quickly held up his hands in surrender. "I'm kidding- just kidding. Shizune will be perfect." Geez, some people could not take a joke.

Tsunade settled, but for some reason he still feared for his life every minute he remained in that room. Luckily, the Hokage had similar ideas. "Well, get going then, you've got a lot of work to do." She reached one hand to her drawer for her afternoon 'pick-me-up' - even though it was barely eleven-thirty - and then remembered something. "-Oh, and don't forget to place your bet with Kotetsu before you leave."

Kakashi sighed as he left the austere room.

There went his afternoon.

Ibiki Morino wasn't an idiot. He knew people. The real people. Not the people that people showed other people, oh no, those were just projections of what people thought they should be like. In those projections, people put on happy faces and sympathetic voices, and sneezed puppies and shat rainbows. And when something bad happened to someone else, they all hugged each other and cried for each other and sent 'get better soon', or 'in sympathy' cards.

Ibiki knew better. He knew that deep down, deep inside that secret room in everyone's mind that they tried to keep locked away from the rest of the world, there was a locked cupboard, full of the things that people wanted to keep secret from their friends. And inside that locked cupboard, there was a safe, full of the things that people wanted to keep secret from their very soul mates. And inside that safe was a lockbox. Inside that lockbox? Well, those were the things that people wanted to keep secret from themselves. That was where, in the wake of a tragedy – even a particularly close and heartbreaking one – people thought, even if it only slipped out for just a fraction of a second before being locked tightly away again, better him than me.

There were a handful of top-level interrogators who could lay claim to being able to gain access to the 'safes' in people's minds. Very few people in the world could claim to have been inside someone else's lockbox. Ibiki had been in 389 and counting.

He knew that those lockboxes contained some terrible things. That was why Ibiki didn't bother to put in the effort to 'play nice'. Knowing the things that he knew about the true nature of people, he didn't feel the need to put on any sort of charade to hide the way he really was. It was also why he was such a shit-hot interrogator. He could spot a lie from a mile away. When you knew the very lies that people told themselves, spotting a lie told to other people was a piece of cake.

Which was why Ibiki didn't take one scrap of notice when Tsunade told them that the rules were that they couldn't mentor their recruit until the set time. The plan Tsunade had told them, was that she would schedule a short mission for each girl alone with Itachi, the night prior to which the mentors were allowed to coach their recruits using any information they had managed to glean in the interim. She had even graciously agreed to make Sakura's mission last, so that she couldn't be accused of trying to give her girl an advantage over the others.

Ibiki knew beyond a shred of doubt that although Tsunade may have said that to them, she herself had no intention of waiting, and that putting Sakura's mission last was likely not altruistic in the slightest. He had been inside her mind at least twice in their lives – once when he was a fresh-faced Jounin and had been just beginning to learn his 'art', and again when she first returned to the village to become Hokage. The elders had insisted that she be screened for any possible ill-intentions towards the village first, as was the custom with all intended Hokage, before officially bestowing her with the title. He had remembered then what a twisted little mind she had, and it had not changed much over the years. People had varying degrees of where their lying began, and hers started right at the surface.

Which was why he was headed to find Ino Yamanaka right now. Tsunade would waste little time before telling Sakura every little scheme inside her conniving head, and so he would do the same.

That brought him to what exactly he was going to tell her. That was also simple. Having been deep down inside so many people's minds, most of those people being men, he knew a great deal about the nature of men's desires. He had probably to some extent or other entered the minds of over a thousand men, and he knew that when it came to women they were all the same. Although he knew most women would have a fit if he told them this – most men's attraction went in this order: tits, ass, face, personality.

Luckily, his recruit had all four of these things nailed. In fact, he would go so far as to say that she was yards ahead of the rest of those girls in these respects. That was why he had been so unwilling to give her up to anyone else.

This, of course, all hinged upon whether Itachi was like all other men. Ibiki had never had the pleasure of crawling around inside the Uchiha prodigy's mind, but as far as he was concerned that made little difference.

He had the pertinent appendages to be male, didn't he? His medical records didn't suggest otherwise, so there was no question of any particular uniqueness in that respect. It was just as likely that deep down, his mind was exactly the same as any other testosterone-filled humanoid.

He tracked Ino's chakra to inside an averagely priced clothing store on the main street, standing in the isles, her vision wavering between two items of clothing in what looked like the choice between certain doom and certain rapture.

"At attention, recruit!" He barked in his best authoritative tone, and Ino's back snapped dead straight at the sound of her superior's voice.

She whirled around and stood to full attention, still grasping the two items of clothing between her hands. She didn't move a muscle as her sensei of the past three years stalked up to her, then looked her up and down in one sweeping evaluation.

He paced around her slowly as she stayed at perfect attention, her gaze fixed at a particular spot on one of the bricks on the back wall. "It has come to my attention that you have been assigned with a very important task," A brief shift of her eyes was all that showed her surprise at his knowledge of the mission, "One in that, as I understand it, you will face not only great personal disappointment, but also great shame if you were to lose to a certain friend-slash-rival. I am here to make sure that you do not fail."

He stopped when he had completed the circle and was back directly in front of her.

"Recruit!" She stood up even straighter as he barked louder than before. "Your skin is too dry on your cheeks. Except on your nose where you have several little black things clogging up your large pores which I understand are called blackheads. Your forehead and chin are also slightly oily. I believe this is called the T-zone." She gaped up at him unrestrained now, as he near shouted the critique to her complexion for the whole store to hear, and several people looked over in shock, a few even snickering quietly behind their hands. She tried to shrink down beneath the tops of the clothes to hide but it was no use. And it appeared he had only just begun.

"Your hair changes colour abruptly about two inches away from your roots, leading me to concur that you are in fact a fraudulent blonde, and are in desperate need of a re-bleach. However, please ensure that when you book yourself in that you do not forget to have the good one-and-a-half inches of split ends removed at the same time."

Ino's mouth fell open even further, and even – unsuccessfully – tried to sputter something intelligible, as her face began to turn a rapidly darkening shade of pink.

He continued to look her up and down appraisingly. "Your knees and elbows are dry. It would appear that you have done an excellent job of moisturising your arms and legs, but I am embarrassed to see that a recruit of mine would overlook such a vital area. Jojoba, would be an excellent choice in the future, I think." Ino had completely given up all pretences of obedience, and was now gaping at him as if he had sprouted an extra head. He ignored her and continued. "You have been biting your nails – a disgusting habit, recruit. No matter, acrylics will cover those nicely. I suggest a softly feminine shade, to draw the attention away from your sometimes abrasive voice." Ino's eye began to twitch.

He sighed loudly as he looked down. "That toenail is cracked-" He suddenly stopped and cringed at her feet. "Recruit. THREE of those toenails have toe jam. THREE. That's thirty percent of your toenails. Do you know what the acceptable level of toe jam is to retain absolute femininity? ZERO percent, recruit. ZERO."

Ino was beetroot red now. A veritable crowd had gathered to watch her humiliating dressing-down, albeit one that lingered on the fringes of their isle, still half pretending to be shopping for something, but nonetheless, a wave of chuckles managed to reach her ears at every insult. That last one had verged on an all out cackle. She had to get out of here. Why, oh why, wouldn't the floor open and swallow her up? This was undoubtedly the single most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to her.

Luckily, it looked like Ibiki had finally finished his rant. He whirled around and began to walk away towards the entrance to the store, marching, as he did, as if to the beat of a drum that only he could hear. Ino's shoulders slumped in relief. Until-

"Oh, and if you are going to actually purchase either of those cheap-ass dresses," He called back behind him as he walked, shouting the statement across the whole store. "Get the black cocktail dress. As long as you invest in a better bra than that shit you're currently wearing your tits will really pop in it." He pushed his way out the front entrance with only the cheerful jingle of the bell above the door in his wake.

Every woman in the store turned to look at Ino.

She quickly stuffed both dresses onto the nearest shelf and began backing to the door. She gave a nervous, half-laugh, as all of the eyes upon her seemed to demand an explanation. "Just a friend. He's not well, poor thing. He's on ward four. Has delusions that he's my gay stylist." She almost laughed out loud at that, despite herself. "He must have escaped his minder again, they're probably terribly worried about him, I'd better chase him down." She reached the short stairs to the front door just as everyone's look turned pitying, and she turned around and bolted for the escape/exit.

As she burst out onto the street she felt incredible freedom, but it took only moments before her sensei's blunt critique came back to the surface of her mind. Never one to wallow in self pity, she determined to do exactly what her sensei would expect her to do.

She would correct the problems immediately.

Sakura shook her head with disgust as she sat on a bench in the main street watching her number one rival tear from overpriced clothing store to ridiculously priced clothing store, to downright daylight robbery clothing store. Ino was more of an idiot than Sakura thought (and that was really saying something), if she thought that Itachi could be swayed with some tight-fitting, expensive clothes. He was the clan heir for kami's sake, they were always schmoozing at some event or another, rubbing elbows with the other ludicrously wealthy clans, with their gorgeous wives and daughters all practically dipped in gold with a diamond on top. If that hadn't swayed him, nothing that Ino could buy with her somewhat limited funds could either.

Come to think of it, looking at the evidence of the damage she was doing clutched tightly in her hands and growing more bountiful by the minute, Ino had probably eaten into a fair portion of her life savings for this.

Sakura smirked and turned away. No, that was not the way to the elusive Uchiha's heart. But what was?

Sakura slumped down on the bench and chewed her nails thoughtfully. It was best to go about this like she did anything else, logically and patiently. She would take her time, gathering intel on her target before making a carefully thought out plan.

The best place to start was obvious. She had all of the fan club's newsletters in a chronologically ordered binder at home. She would re-read them, making notes regarding his routine, any obvious personality traits, what he liked to eat, etc. If there was anything else at all that he showed an inclination to, she would find out about it there.

She knew her advantage lay in her intelligence, and it was that which she would have to use to fight this battle.

She may not be able to win the Uchiha's heart herself, but she would never lose to that Ino-pig.

"Hey, Ino!" Chouji waved his arm frantically at her from a yakitori stand.

Ino barely paused as she marched past him and Shikamaru, struggling not to drop any of the bulging branded clothing store bags which nearly consumed her. "Can't stop!" She screeched out from somewhere between the couture. "I'll be late for my appointment!"

Ino had many appointments that afternoon. Hair at one. Facial, lashes and brows at two. Bikini and leg wax at three-thirty. And the most important; nails and a pedicure at four-thirty.

There was no way Ino was going to lose to Sakura. She would not let Ibiki-sama down. The Hokage was an idiot. Beauty could beat brains any day, and everyone knew she was the most beautiful kunoichi in Konoha. Itachi just hadn't seen her at her best yet.

But that would soon be remedied.

Hinata's heart was in her throat.

She had left the Hokage's office intent on doing her very best to avoid the Uchiha at all costs, so she had certainly not expected to run into him in the Jounin tea-room for the fourth day in a row.

As soon as she had seen his familiar dark ponytail she had darted back behind the door and masked her chakra, peeking ever so quietly around the doorjamb to observe him. He had his back to her and was pouring hot water into a small, elegant tea pot.

She watched him carefully, as she did every week, noting what he was wearing, the length of his hair, any visible injuries (there were never any, but she still liked to look), all in the name of her dutiful role as 'The Observer', and writer of their weekly newsletter. She had been the most logical to take on the role, as she found it very easy to go unnoticed, and her Byakugan had come in handy on several occasions in locating the mysterious shinobi. She had to be cautious when using it however, as his own field of chakra recognition was quite broad, and she had had to fall back on several occasions when he had seemed, in his barely distinguishable way, to become suspicious. Of course, she would never know if he truly had been suspicious of course, as the second he changed direction, or paused, or twitched a finger, or the wind simply blew his hair, she took off in panic, certain she had been exposed.

And so now she stood frozen to the spot, using all of her powers of camouflage to disguise her presence.

"Hey, Hinata-san, Itachi-san." A fellow Jounin walked past her and through the door, but before the word, "Hey," was even out of his mouth, she had vanished into thin air.

Itachi slowly leaned back from the bench, peering through the doorway.

The other Jounin stared at the empty space the Hyuuga heiress had been as well. "Well that was...weird."

Itachi went back to preparing his tea. He had felt her presence, watching him again, as he often did. But even he had been surprised at her speed.

Interesting.

Sakura gripped the twelfth weekly report she had read in a row between her fingers and chewed on the end of the whiteboard marker as she analysed the patterns that made up Itachi's day. As it turned out, he was quite erratic with his schedule, which surprised her, as he seemed like such a fastidious person in other aspects. It really was a wonder Hinata could ever find him at all. Many of the reports were, of course, just times that Hinata or any of the other girls had seen him in their own daily activities – they had taken a note of the time and what he was doing and it all went into that week's print.

Sakura slumped back onto her couch. She was an excellent code-breaker, and she could usually find patterns with relative ease, but this – other than his time spent within the Uchiha compound from dusk till dawn on the days that he wasn't on a mission, there seemed to be no pattern to Itachi's schedule whatsoever.

No two days were alike. Even his lunchtime habits were erratic. Most people had a favourite eatery or two which they cycled between, but Itachi seemed to get bored with a place after a few days and move on. For example, from the week before last he had lunch at Soba's Noodle House for three days, then he moved on to Uncle Yoshi Bento for two days. Then he switched again to Ichiraku Ramen for one day (Sakura giggled at the thought of who might have frightened him away so quickly from there), and then Katsubi for five days. The latest newsletter hadn't come out yet, but Hinata had told her for the past few days he had been seen eating home packed meals in the Jounin tea-room.

Some days he would train on the public training grounds, some days within the Uchiha complex, some days he trained at night, others at midday, or early morning, or afternoon, or late morning. Some days he trained with Shisui, sometimes with Genma, some days with Anko or Asuma or Shino, a couple of times with Sasuke and at least once with Kakashi, but more often than not with nobody at all.

Sakura threw the newsletters down in front of her with a huff of frustration, and stalked into the kitchen in search of some food. Even her stomach was grumbling with annoyance. It was ridiculous. Even with the disruptive life they led due to their missions, every single shinobi she knew led a pretty predictable, routine-filled life while they were here at the village. What the hell was wrong with this guy? She picked up a suspiciously light box on the bench and shook out the few remaining crumbs into the sink. And where the hell did all her crackers keep disappearing to?

She threw the empty box into the bin and found an apple in her fridge instead. She wandered back to stand in front of her whiteboard while she munched on her apple thoughtfully. So, training sessions and eateries were not viable sources of information. Missions were out too, for obvious reasons. This 'mission' of theirs may be given 'top priority' by the Hokage but Sakura was still a professional.

But other than eating and training in random places and at random times and with random people, there was no fixed activity that he did every single day. The only recurrent thing on his schedule was that he walked through the Tenmei Gardens at least once a day at varying times (as reported by Kiyoko, whose office overlooked them), but that in itself was strange, because they only led to-

From deep amongst the flowerbeds that lined the short path to the road, two emerald green eyes watched the pink-haired female run from her apartment. For the third time this week, Debu the cat noticed that the door didn't quite shut behind her. Debu didn't mind. For the third time this week, Debu pushed his portly body against the door, and when it gave he waddled in, and with a mighty effort threw his body weight up onto the Formica benchtop in the kitchen.

Debu sat and stared at the cleared bench in disgust for quite some time. The lovely yellow box of treats was gone.