Chapter 4: Some Hairy Problems

"I got a mission from the WHAT?!" Sasuke screamed. Tsunade sighed.

"I know, I know. But you are fully aware that we have to take on any mission, no matter the client."

Sasuke simply stared at her, gaping. "You can't SERIOUSLY mean the Akatsuki would ask Konoha for a mission, and definitely not that they're actually paying for it."

Tsunade just waved it off. "That won't be a problem. Kakuzu, who seems to be in charge of the money, is apparently willing to pay heaps to get this problem over with."

"Don't you think I'm a BIT old for this mission?"

"In fact, I'd say you could be a bit young. We're dealing with the Akatsuki, you know. And as I'm sure you're aware of, the Akatsuki would have serious trouble trying not to kill someone who was doing something they shouldn't, and after all, I would actually prefer to send Sakura."

Sasuke blinked. "Sakura? Why?"

"Because she's a girl, and has more experience, not to mention that if I sent Naruto, they'd try to kill him, and you'll probably try getting rid of them. Am I right?"

Sasuke sighed, and looked away. "...Maybe."

"Unfortunately, she's on another mission, just like everyone else. Sheesh, I'd like to get her back here for this mission instead of babysitting kids in Sunagakure..." Tsunade mumbled. Sasuke had a strange feeling that those so-called "kids" could be a bit older than she said, yet about as mature as kids. And perhaps be known as The Sand Siblings. But he didn't say that out loud.

"Okay, fine. I'll take the mission."

"And you won't kill any of our clients while this mission lasts?" Tsunade asked sternly.

Sasuke pouted. "Fine."

"And you will treat them as if they were any other clients?"

"Of course I won't!" Sasuke protested. "They are, like, the most dangerous enemies this village has, aren't they? At least you can't expect me to pretend I won't be on my toes every single minute."

"Sasuke Uchiha!" Tsunade fumed, standing up. "The mission is just to brush those guys' goddamn hair! How hard can it be?!" And with that, she sent the Uchiha out.

---

Meanwhile, in the Akatsuki lair, they were discussing Itachi's suggestion for a new Akatsuki outfit.

"No. No way am I wearing THAT," Hidan screamed. Kakuzu hid behind his partner so he wouldn't have to look at the hideous suit Itachi was demonstrating.

"Why not? It's warm, comfortable, feels like you're not wearing anything, and it scares the hell out of anyone. You have to admit that this is scarier than that old outfit."

Pein stared at the green... thing. "Itachi..."

"Yes, Leader-sama?"

"If you dare suggest something like that one more time, I'll have you dead before you can turn on your Mangekyou."

Every member of the Akatsuki shivered. Kakuzu lazily raised a hand.

"I hate the hair, but at the moment, you'll have to admit that a haircut like that would get this hair trouble out of the way."

Konan glared at the picture of the haircut Itachi had had some time ago, before (to everyone's happiness) he grew it out again. "There will never be a day when I walk anywhere with THAT hairdo." And Pein was very happy about that.

Itachi looked at them, still keeping his face serious. "What about just the eyebrows, then?"

"Mention those eyebrows again, and you'll find yourself without any mascara tomorrow."

"But why?! You can't take THAT away from me! If you do that, I'll make sure you get fuzzy eyebrows all alone!"

Zetsu stood up, and both sides of him spoke at once. "Leader-sama? Can I eat him now?" he asked, licking his mouth.

"As tempting as it sounds… No."

At that moment, the door bell rang. "When did we get a door bell?" Kakuzu growled. Hidan shrugged. "And WHAT did it cost?" To this, Hidan looked up, not bothering to answer.

Then, a series of things happened. Konan stood up to open the door, but so did Itachi, who was currently Zetsu's main interest seeing as said plant-man was hungry, resulting in Zetsu throwing himself over Itachi, who fell over Konan, who bumped into Kakuzu, who was trying to strangle Hidan (without any luck, of course, seeing as trying to kill Hidan was a waste of precious time, and time is money!), who tried hiding from his partner behind Kisame, who was being sat on by Tobi for no particular reason, and Pein finally gave up trying to keep silent. "SHUT UP, EVERYONE!!" he shouted, resulting in every Akatsuki members' eyes gazing at him for about two seconds, before turning away and continue fighting.

"I'll just open the door, then," Pein said with a sigh, but when he got as far as that, Sasuke was already too impatient and had just walked in to see the whole hideout in a mess.

"Nobody told me that babysitting kids in Sunagakure would be socializing with more mature people than this," Sasuke drawled, trying his hardest not to jump in and sit on Itachi's head before slicing it off with a grin on his face as the blood started dripping- Wait, no. He was daydreaming again.

Pein coughed. "Excuse the immature manners of the team," he said, trying his best not to glare backwards at the heap of S-ranked criminals on the floor.

Sasuke grinned at the sight of his older brother being squished and almost eaten, wishing he could help Zetsu parting Itachi one arm after another. "No problem. It reminds me of my own team, actually."

Pein was about to draw his fingers through his hair impatiently, but suddenly remembered he couldn't. "Oh, right, you're here for the mission. We should probably give you a few details, although each member has a different story..."

And so the tales of the hairbrushes started for Sasuke.

---

"Here's my hairbrush, un."

Sasuke looked at the hairbrush with surprise and slight disgust. "Orange?"

Deidara sulked. "It's not like I chose it, Uchiha. Do you think I'm colour-blind, un?"

Sasuke grinned. "Nah, it's just that I associate that colour with someone completely different. Well, he might be colour-blind, actually, seeing as he wears it every day."

Deidara shuddered a bit. "Are you going to get my hair straight or what, un?" The blonde pouted.

"If you tell me how the hell that long hair of yours got in a mess like that, I will."

The bomber looked at the young boy in the mirror. "Fine. I'll tell you, if you go through my hair while I'm talking. That way we get less time in each others' presence, un."

"Like I would want to brush Itachi's hair sooner," Sasuke mumbled.

"I can understand that, un. If there's one thing we have in common, it's probably the fact that we both hate him. But sure, I'll tell you, yeah."

***FLASHBACK***

"Tobi, get OUT of there, un," Deidara demanded.

"No! Tobi is a good boy! Tobi is a good boy!" It was absolutely needless to bother to guess who was speaking.

"Could you at least tell me WHY you're in my closet, un?"

Deidara could practically see Tobi's grin behind the mask and through the closet door. "Because Tobi is playing Hide-and-Seek with Hidan-san!"

Deidara slapped his own face at Tobi's stupidity. "You weren't playing Hide-and-Seek, Tobi. Hidan was just getting you away from himself, yeah."

"No!" Tobi shouted. "Hidan-san would never be that mean to Tobi!"

"..How long have you been in my closet, yeah?" the blonde asked quietly.

Tobi looked at his rainbow coloured wristwatch. "The biggest pony has run from the upwards line to the number E backwards, so..."

"Never mind, yeah," Deidara sighed to himself. "If I know you right, you got into my closet around 1 o'clock, yeah. That would be about two seconds after Hidan started his daily ritual. No wonder he sent you away, un..."

"But Tobi doesn't mind at all, Deidara-senpai. Tobi actually finds this closet very comfortable. Can Tobi sleep here tonight?"

That did it for Deidara's patience. He started tugging at his hair, making it look like he had lost a bomb in it. "That's IT, yeah! Tobi, GET THE HELL OUT OF THE CLOSET, UN!"

For once, all members of the Akatsuki had enough brains to not comment at the shout-out.

***END FLASHBACK***

"That's basically it," Deidara concluded. Sasuke was staring at the blonde feminine-looking male.

"..Is this story the worst I'll hear or should I be prepared for anything?"

"The latter, I'd say, yeah."

"Well, doesn't that sound promising. Well, I'd say your hair is mostly done now," Sasuke said and tied up Deidara's ponytail rather nicely. He had grown accustomed to the blonde's hair after fiddling around with it for so long. "Who's next up?"

Deidara groaned. "Be prepared, un."

---

Sasuke stared at Tobi's hairbrush. The guy actually did have anything he came over as rainbow coloured. He shuddered.

"Does Sasuke-san like Tobi's hairbrush? Tobi got to choose it himself!" the masked ninja said happily.

"I though you guys didn't get to choose what colour?" Sasuke asked suspiciously.

Tobi was probably grinning, but Sasuke couldn't see it. "Tobi was assigned to buy them! So Tobi got everyone a nice colour! Sasuke-san will be happy to see what colour the other ones have. Tobi chose every member's brush carefully. Like Deidara-senpai's, which is orange to always remind him of Tobi, healthy carrots and nice, sweet oranges."

Sasuke eyed him weirdly before deciding that Tobi was probably very, very wrong. And very, very weird. Then, he simply turned to the mirror. "You'll have to take the mask off if I'm going to get your hair… well, less messy than it is now, at least."

Tobi turned to face the young(er) Uchiha. "You can't possibly believe Tobi will take his mask off, Sasuke-san?"

Sasuke smirked. "Sounds like I'll be the first to do so, then. You take it off, or I'll take it off."

"Tobi will not take the mask off unless he can hide his face behind something else."

To this, Sasuke just sighed. "Why don't you just hide your face in your hands, then?"

Apparently, that hadn't occurred to Tobi before. "Oh… Okay!" he exclaimed, taking his mask off with one hand and hiding his face with the other. "After all," he continued brightly, "Leader-sama and Zetsu-san and Itachi-san said to Tobi that Tobi should not show his face to anyone outside the Akatsuki, especially since Tobi hasn't even shown the other Akatsuki members yet."

"Really?" Sasuke asked, trying to comb through Tobi's hair. "So... uh... How did your hair get that messy?"

"Easy!" Tobi said lightly. "It started at breakfast two days ago. It was really tasty, too."

***FLASHBACK***

It was getting late, and Hidan was trying to open a jar of peanut butter.

"You sure have some weird preferences in food," Kakuzu growled as he entered the room. "And expensive, too. I hope you paid for that yourself."

Hidan stared at him. "Uh... Yeah. Sure."

"I have a feeling that a certain Jashinist's eating habits might be the reason I'm missing the exact amount of money that jar would cost, you see," Kakuzu said with a silky voice. Hidan swallowed.

"Uh... I can explain?" Hidan said, taking one step backwards as Kakuzu glared at him. "Jashin-sama wants me to eat my peanut butter at least twice a day. You know I have to obey."

Kakuzu decided to throw himself over Hidan and the jar. "YOU SPENT MY MONEY ON PEANUT BUTTER?!"

They fought over the peanut butter, which Kakuzu would not let Hidan have, and Hidan would not let go of. How convenient.

After not many seconds, their hands became sweat and slippy, and the jar finally opened as it flew across the kitchen… and landed in Tobi's hair.

The poor boy had entered the kitchen at the very moment it had flown off, and... Well, Hidan had to use his pocket money to buy a new jar of peanut butter the next day, and Tobi occupied the shower for six hours that day.

***END FLASHBACK***

"Whoa," Sasuke finally said. "That's just scary… Though, it does explain the stickiness of your hair."

He reached for the conditioner and after a few hours with adding conditioner and showering constantly, with Tobi mysteriously being able to hide his face through the whole time, and finally managed to get the boy's hair combable.

"I hope this is worth it," Sasuke grumbled as he handed Tobi the orange, swirly mask.

As Tobi put his mask on, Sasuke spotted a smug grin. "Just wait until you see who's up next."

For some reason, this gave the young Uchiha the shivers.

---

As Sasuke took the third hairbrush, he could practically hear the swearing even after the silver-haired man had shut up. The hairbrush actually fit the Jashinist perfectly, as it was shining in silver and violet, like his hair and eyes.

"By now, you seem to have been the luckiest with the hairbrush colour," Sasuke said calmly, not bothering to even look at the man before him.

Hidan snarled. "At least the fucker fucking got me fucking something that wasn't fucking yellow or brown or something fucking sparkly."

"What a huge vocabulary of curse words," Sasuke yawned. "You should write an encyclopaedia." To this, Hidan smirked smugly.

"You'd rather not hear me when I'm in a fucking really bad mood, seriously."

Sasuke took the hairbrush and calmly stated "I'm sure I wouldn't. Not that I think you have too many obscenities I haven't heard before."

Hidan then said something that would get this fanfic up to M-rated, so we'll skip that part. Sorry, kids.

Sasuke's hair was standing up even more now than usual. "And you're in a good mood now?"

"I'll be if you fix my hair," he grumbled.

"And I'll fix it if you tell me what the hell happened to it," Sasuke said once again, lifting up one of Hidan's rather large hair knots. It looked as if it could jump him any minute. Luckily, it did not jump him after all.

Hidan waved a hand lazily at Sasuke. "Sure, sure, just start getting those fucking shitty knots out and I'll fucking tell you. I'm getting fucking tired of 'em, seriously. Oh, and don't bother being careful, the worse it hurts, the better."

Sasuke gave him a weird look before shrugging, and deciding that this way he could get some aggression out anyway.

And so, Hidan started telling his story to a Sasuke who kept brushing and brushing through the whole story.

***FLASHBACK***

"Oof!" Hidan stated as Kakuzu smacked him across the face with a pillow.

"That's what you get for groping me," Kakuzu growled, but Hidan could easily hear the smugness behind the words as he proceeded to smack him again.

Hidan looked absolutely horrified at the very thought of it. "WHAT?! Like I'd ever want to fucking grope YOU! The only one in the whole fucking organisation who could possibly be fucking less attractive would be fucking Sushi Man! And even HE is probably more fucking attractive, seriously! Not that I'd fucking want to look at either of you, that is," Hidan finished with a smirk, and hit Kakuzu back with his own pillow.

"No, absolutely not," Kakuzu half laughed. "Like I haven't seen the way you look at everyone here. Except for the only female."

Hidan smacked him again, making him fall off the bed. "I'm fucking assuming that almost all of the fucking dudes here are virgins, except for Pein, seriously," he laughed. He refused to call Pein "Leader-sama" as he only had one God, Jashin-sama. "But that's because I'm assuming that Konan isn't a fucking virgin either. And guess who I fucking blame for that."

"Ewww! I really didn't need to hear that," Kakuzu said in absolute disgust. And then, he smacked him again.

They continued smashing each other with their pillows until they both realised they were going to have to sleep on them afterwards. With each other's DNA on. The very thought mortified both so much that they instantly changed weapons from pillows to jutsus.

Unfortunately, Hidan's favourite jutsu included his scythe, which, again unfortunately, he had decided not to bring to the bed (for once).

Even more unfortunately, Kakuzu's favourite jutsu happened to be something he was born with.

Hidan's screams could be heard all over the lair as he shouted "GET THOSE FUCKING THREAD TENTACLES AWAY FROM MY PURE BODY!" at the top of his lungs.

Kakuzu's black thread tentacles had only messed up his hair (rather badly, that is, and left Hidan with some minor bruises at the rest of his body, but Hidan didn't mind the painful bruises for some reason), though, but every single member had asked them afterwards if there had been anything fun going on that night, and each and every one of them had seemed to believe there was tentacle rape involved.

They did not make the mistake of accusing them of that again.

***END FLASHBACK***

Sasuke had long ago stopped brushing Hidan's hair of partly shock and partly rolling around laughing his head off. Had it been Hidan doing the latter, it would probably have been a bit more literally.

"It wasn't as fucking funny as it sounds, seriously," Hidan said, with a faint blush.

Sasuke sat up, brushing out the last twirl in Hidan's shiny hair. "Heh… Sorry, but I think I'd have assumed the same as them," he grinned.

Hidan looked in the mirror, admiring his beauty, then picked up a pillow from nowhere and smacked him before leaving.

---

Sasuke poked his head out the door expectantly. "Okay, who's next?"

"Me," a somewhat muffled voice drawled. Kakuzu stood up and went to the room, and nobody dared comment on his hair. Well, Hidan made a funny sound he tried to hide. He failed.

Kakuzu's hair was the worst yet. It was pretty much indefinable, actually. It was messy, and seemed to have strays of blond, black, brown, blue, red and orange hair. It almost seemed like he had…

"Yes, I used the old hairbrush we used to share," Kakuzu growled. "So what?"

Sasuke didn't say a word. Instead, he picked up Kakuzu's apparently unused green hairbrush with a dollar sign on, and proceeded to made a sound that resembled Hidan's earlier sound a bit too much.

He started to brush, and meanwhile, he didn't even need to ask Kakuzu to tell. It was obvious that he wanted less talk, more efficient use of his time and much less of it wasted on small talk.

***FLASHBACK***

It was a Sunday morning, and Kakuzu was the only one awake. He desperately needed to fix himself quickly in the mornings, because otherwise he would waste time, and time is money.

Besides, he really, really didn't want to show the rest of the Akatsuki his true face. At that, he and Sasori had something in common. Well, that, and the complete lack of interest in most of what happened in the Akatsuki lair. His exception was anything that meant he had to pay for something, or that he'd get money. Or anything about money in particular.

"Hmm... I need to brush my hair… But I don't want to waste my new hairbrush," Kakuzu mumbled to himself. "It will waste my money. Instead, I should use something that is not worth much money anymore."

Kakuzu peeked around with his bright emerald green eyes. First, he saw the mirror. "Yipes!" he squealed, before realising who he saw in the mirror. He breathed out. "No, I definitely can't use that."

Then, he saw the toothbrush he had had for half a year now. "Well… There's a possibility it might work… But even I'm not that cheap," he mumbled with a slight look of disgust, remembering all the things he had earlier used it to for the same reason.

He peeked around until he found something acceptable. The hairbrush the whole Akatsuki had shared. Or lately, they had finally refused to share it anymore. At last, they had decided that nobody of them were willing to clean out the hairbrush anymore.

It seemed like a good idea until he remembered that it was still full of hair from everyone else. And that his hair had gotten ten times worse during the last three minutes.

"Oh… Fuck."

***END FLASHBACK***

Sasuke was trying not to laugh. He failed miserably at it, and ended up reminding Kakuzu entirely of Hidan as he tried to keep in his laughter, but was definitely not succeeding.

"Come ON! That is the stupidest story yet… Are you really so cheap you can't even afford to use your own hairbrush?!" Sasuke grinned. He rarely showed THAT much emotion, but the silliness of Kakuzu's explanation had been too much.

Kakuzu glared at him before putting on his headwear again, as Sasuke had finished his hair pretty quickly, perhaps because he had been using a hairbrush that wasn't half Kakuzu's age. "Maybe I am."

Sasuke's smirk did not fade. Oh, how he resembled Hidan with that attitude towards Kakuzu.

"I'm starting to see what Itachi's doing with you guys. You're nuts, all of you."

Kakuzu glared daggers at him before leaving. He stopped in the door, remembering that Hidan was waiting outside of that very door. "…Do I have to go out to him?" he asked, rather quietly.

"Yeah, you do. Go have some fun," he laughed, making Kakuzu realise what Hidan had told the Uchiha and therefore causing him to point an accusing finger out the door.

"HIDAN! You complete bastard of a grey shithead of a rotten banana drowning in expensive chocolate sauce dipped in ketchup with hairy armpits and needles through your fucking hellish brain of a dead snail dying more on itself and melting in salt and sucking a horse arse while being spit in the eye of a llama with a deadly disease giving you AIDS!" Kakuzu shouted while running out to strangle Hidan, which obviously still didn't work.

Sasuke stood dumbfounded, wondering if Kakuzu was usually like that or if Hidan had influenced him. Either way, he shrugged, and called out. "NEXT!"

---

As Sasuke picked up the deep blue hairbrush, he suddenly felt very uncomfortable. "Konan-san? Aren't you girls supposed to be able to do this kind of thing on your own?"

Calm, but with ice in her voice, Konan gave a small yet evil smirk to the mirror, making sure the one holding her hairbrush saw it. "I've spent the last two nights trying to get Pein's hair right. You have NO idea how tired I am of brushing."

Even though Sasuke found it amusing, he suppressed a small laugh. "I understand. Must really be tiring to brush the hair of one man," he stated, obviously reminding her about what kind of mission his sorry ass was on - brushing the hair of all Akatsuki members.

"Just wait until it's his turn," she mumbled.

"So, are you going to tell me why you have orange hair mixed with yours?" Sasuke asked with a sly smile. "You two are… roommates, aren't you?"

Konan had a faint, but very obvious blush. "Yes, we are. And I am not going to comment on how I got his hair with mine, as I personally have no idea myself, but as far as I know, it does not have anything to do with what you are assuming," she said with a restrained voice.

"Oh? I was just thinking you guys had swapped pillows or something for a night, but if it's something more interesting…" Sasuke laughed.

Konan stood up, turned around, and slapped the little Konoha shinobi. "What kind of girl do you take me for?!" she roared.

Sasuke shielded himself with his elbows, but grinned as he continued. "A friend with benefits?"

Konan lost her mind. "I'LL GIVE YOU 'FRIEND WITH BENEFITS'!" she said, running around the room trying to catch the young Uchiha.

This, of course, was heard by all other Akatsuki members, everyone turning their eyes on Pein. At least, where Pein had been four seconds ago.

Apparently, he had decided to check what happened when he heard the suspicious outburst. "WHAT is going on here? And who's a friend with benefits?"

Sasuke and Konan stopped dead in their tracks, stopping with clawing at each others hair. Which, obviously, meant more work later for Sasuke.

"…Nothing?" they chimed, trying to look innocent. Of course, they too failed at it.

Pein glared at them, and gave a small pout towards Konan. "I thought you were my friend with benefits," he laughed. Konan threw a pillow at him from nowhere.

"Get out, Pein-chan," she said, glaring daggers at him. He obeyed instantly, but a smirk could faintly be traced where he had just been.

Sasuke laughed more. "Pein-chan?" he asked, looking rather amused.

Konan yawned. "The only things that scare him are the cute things." To this, Sasuke gave a pout.

"How come I didn't scare him, then?"

Konan finally laughed with him. "The same reason as I didn't, of course. Well, he'd probably run off if you appeared in a bunny suit or something."

They ended up forgetting everything about brushing her hair, and she left the room with her hairbrush. Well, she would have to do it herself then.

---

Sasuke fell backwards when he saw who was next. "Don't eat me!" he squealed.

"Nah, I'm not hungry right now. But hurry up, or that might change."

Sasuke instantly grabbed the hairbrush the plant man had brought, which was, strangely enough, red and yellow striped. Sasuke didn't bother asking for an explanation.

He felt very small compared to the rather large split man. "So… How come your hair is all greasy?" he asked, feeling more uncomfortable than ever.

Zetsu sighed. "Do you really want to know?"

Sasuke slowly nodded. "How else can I find out how to fix your hair? I need to know what's in there before choosing how to fight… whatever it is."

"If you put it that way," Zetsu smiled. Then, his expression became hard. "Like it's anything interesting. It's not something you want to tell people about, really. It makes us a bit ashamed."

Sasuke looked at Zetsu, as if waiting for him to explain. Zetsu obeyed. "Don't mind him; he's a bit sensitive about our honour. You could say we have a split personality, to put it one way."

"I can see that," Sasuke said, tracing the line in Zetsu's face. He could spot a faint blush on the white cheek, and an expression that told him to take his hands away from the black side.

"How far down does the line go?" Sasuke asked, grinning a little. Zetsu's eyes widened.

"I'd rather not answer-" he quickly said, but was interrupted. "All the way down."

Sasuke laughed. "It must be tough living with you guys." Zetsu simply nodded in agreement.

"Yes. It must."

Now that Sasuke wasn't afraid of being eaten, he decided to get through Zetsu's hair. "So, are you going to tell me?"

Zetsu sighed again, but a small smile was visible. "Sure, but a story can seem a bit weird when the two of us are telling. Get used to the world of intern interruption."

"Story? Not flashbacks?" Sasuke asked, rather impressed that someone had found out that there were other ways of telling.

"Yes. We never agree on how the flashbacks happened. Not that we normally agree, of course," he added.

Sasuke nodded, as if to say "Go ahead". Or "Make me a sandwich". That depended on the situation.

"We – I – had gone to the nearest grocery store with Tobi. He might already have told you about him being told to buy hairbrushes."

Sasuke nodded again, eyeing the rather distasteful hairbrush he was holding. "But wouldn't you and Tobi have been recognised? I mean, it's not like you guys blend in a crowd easily."

"We merged into the wall, it's no problem. Idiot! He doesn't know how we do that, he probably doesn't know about it at all. That's true… I'm sorry, Sasuke-san, we should have explained that first, eh?" he stated. Sasuke stared in amusement at the internal discussion, but nodded. Again.

"You see, one of our abilities is being able to merge with anything. We can easily become a part of something and being able to, say, hide inside a wall or watch you from the roof. It's a rather amusing ability, they say. Though, we do scare people when we tell them we're able to become a part of their bedroom or bathroom too if we want."

Sasuke grinned. "So I should be afraid?"

"Yes. Be afraid. Be very afraid," Zetsu replied lightly. "Shall we continue?"

For the umpteenth time, Sasuke gave Zetsu a nod. "Yeah, do that. Or we'll end up staying here all day."

"So we merged into the wall, and followed him. Though, after a while we decided there was no point in that when he started going towards the hairbrushes. He'd choose some colourful things and go, and it wouldn't become a problem. What did become a problem, however, was that he did not go straight to the hairbrushes, but suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere and looked at some shiny stuff. So we had to get out of the wall, and there were lots of panic, poor people. Pfft, they deserved that. No, they didn't. But as I was about to say, the panic became too much and people crashed into things. Then, the sanity stuff fell down over us, and here we are. So if you know anything that gets baby oil and soap out of our hair, go ahead," Zetsu finished.

Sasuke stared at him. "…Wow." Then, he shaked his head a bit, as if to make his little brain jump. "Wouldn't it be easier to just say you needed something against baby oil and soap?"

"Yes," Zetsu nodded. "But you wanted the story. So you got it. We can also tell you that afterwards, Tobi ended up having to help us up, which was rather strange. You wouldn't think the guy was that strong, really. Now, would you please clean our hair? It's rather messy, and Kakuzu-san doesn't like having to spend time and money on washing our pillow clothing after every night, I'm afraid."

Sasuke couldn't help but laugh. "It's fun to listen to you. You have so different ways of speaking."

Zetsu cocked his head to the side, and looked amused at him. "What would you expect? After all, we have different personalities even though we share this really awesome body." Zetsu's white side started blushing. "Oh, be quiet," he mumbled to himself.

Sasuke laughed more. "What was that, Zetsu-san?"

Zetsu looked away. "Nothing, nothing. It's just that my other side seems to enjoy this situation a lot. Now could we please get to our hair instead of discussing awesomeness of our body?" To this, Sasuke just grinned, and went ahead with washing his hair.

After two bottles of shampoo and probably many, MANY litres of water (Kakuzu wouldn't like it if he found out about that), Zetsu's hair was as green and shiny as ever.

Sasuke beamed as he looked at the sparkling man in the chair. "You happy now?" he asked, grinning. Zetsu smiled, and looked at him.

"It's wonderful. Thanks. Can we go now?"

Sasuke waved nonchalantly at him. "Go ahead; I don't have anything more to do with you now that you look like that. Though, your new sparkles might not scare many people, you know. "

Zetsu gasped. "They won't?!" Sasuke shaked his head a bit, somewhat sadly.

To this, Zetsu sighed sadly, and left the room. Though, Sasuke saw a small smile on the plant-man's face before the door closed.

---

As the next person entered the room, Sasuke didn't even want to comment.

Neither did Kisame, it seemed.

As he walked into the room and took his seat, he was completely silent, as if just waiting for Sasuke to get it done so he could leave.

No, Kisame was no happy shark today. He was actually feeling quite blue, and not only literally.

"Wow… What have YOU done to your hair?" Sasuke asked surprised. It reminded him of last summer when Sakura and Ino had been out bathing way too long in the salty water.

The fishy-smelling man closed his eyes. "If you really want to know, I decided in a moment of insanity to find out how it would be living in water. So I've been in the local lake for some days."

"Some days?!" Sasuke laughed. "That's not a moment of insanity, that's just insanity. Well, at least that explains why you smell like salty water, seeing as you apparently have been playing mermaid."

"It's called merman," Kisame murmured.

Nevertheless, he let Sasuke take his fish-shaped hairbrush and finish quickly. Neither wanted the company of the other anyway.

As Kisame took a final shower to get out the rest of the salty water, Sasuke tried not focusing on the blue man who had now started singing.

Please, be DONE soon... I don't want to hear more of this torture!

Luckily for poor Sasuke, Kisame didn't use more than half an hour before finishing. Yay.

---

The next one to follow was Pein himself. Sasuke prepared for the worst, after what Konan had said. He somewhat unwillingly handed over a hairbrush with spikes all the way around, matching him with all his piercings.

"Itachi didn't want to go see you yet, so I went instead," Pein stated, sighing. Obviously, he wasn't happy about his hair either, and having it treated by someone with hair as smooth and soft as Sasuke's didn't seem to truly appeal to him. Especially since Sasuke was a natural.

"My story isn't the most interesting. In fact, I solely blame the rest of the Akatsuki for this."

"Really. Tell me more," Sasuke asked bored. But the carrot coloured hair really did seem awful.

"Oh, I will. But I tell you, you should never underestimate bored Akatsuki members when you are asleep. The one who told me the whole story afterwards was Konan-chan."

Already now, Sasuke prepared himself for serious weirdness coming up.

***FLASHBACK***

"So, you fuckers want to have some fun with the Leader? He's fucking asleep."

Deidara grinned at the platinum blonde, along with a bluer Akatsuki member. "You know, Hidan, you have the greatest ideas sometimes, even if you're an idiot."

"Shut up and let's go," Kisame said gleefully. Konan overheard this, and decided to follow them. Just in case.

You know, in case they were planning to do something else than making art with the glue, scissors, clay and ribbons.

And they were. They really were.

"Sshh! We have to make sure we don't wake him up!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just fucking finish up that fucking clay thing, and when you've glued it to his hair from hell, I'll put on the fucking ribbon. He'll look so fucking nasty when he's done."

"Yeah, he will. I don't think all the water in Kirigakure can wash away all this."

And Deidara chewed up clay, and Kisame glued it to Pein's hair, and Hidan put little ribbons on it. And they all sneaked out of his room, waiting for him to wake up.

Oh, did he wake up.

A small clay bomb went off outside his door, prone to Deidara wanting the poor leader to get a nasty wake. He obviously did, and when he looked into the mirror over his bed, he let out a tirade of ranting that even Hidan was proud off. And with every word that would go censored in proper TV channels, a low "Katsu!" could faintly be heard from Deidara by Konan, who didn't know whether to cry, laugh or what else. Mostly, she stood dumbfounded listening to the impressive scene.

"YOU -BOOM- -BOOM- HOW COULD YOU -BOOM- I WILL -BOOM- AND -BOOM- AND WHEN I GET YOU I'LL –BOOM- AND IT WILL –BOOM- HURT SO BAD YOU WON'T –BOOM- BE ABLE TO –BOOM- -BOOM- UP IN THE –BOOM- AND PERHAPS THEN YOU'LL REGRET IT!!"

By now, Pein's face was a darker shade of red than his hair… Mind you, this would tell a lot, since eleven bombs had just gone off in his aforementioned hair.

Pein was not a happy panda that day, and the fact that they had glued the clay to his hair making it still be stuck afterwards, did not help. Nor did the fact that they had left a pair of scissors in front of his mirror, with a note that said "Good luck getting it out!" help out much.

Three Akatsuki members were severely punished after this, but the damage done to the hair was not something that would get back to normal in no time, that much was for sure.

***END FLASHBACK***

"… Wow. I hadn't seen that coming." Sasuke was gaping by now.

Pein glared at the door. "Neither did I, I'll have you know."

Sasuke helped staring at the door. "Meh, after you I'll have to go through Itachi-nii-san, won't I?"

"Yeah. But as the Akatsuki's leader, I would prefer if you ignored that and got my hair fixed as good as you can, as fast as you can. Who knows what those guys are planning already…" Pein shuddered. "But had it been up to me, I'd have been the one who had messed up those three's hair for good."

"Yeah, I get what you mean. Either way, I guess I should just try to get your hair look as close to normal as I can. Looks like most of it has grown out properly, though, which is good for you," Sasuke sighed. Good thing he was almost finished with the mission- oh, no. Itachi would be next. Right.

What a joyful day.

With that thought, he set to return Pein's hair to a state in which he could show himself in public without being embarrassed. Not that Pein showed himself much in public either way, but still.

---

"Okay, you next, I guess," Sasuke snarled. He did not want to do this.

At all.

Itachi entered the room, and Sasuke glared for a second, then realised that his brother's hair seemed perfectly normal to him.

Then, Itachi sat down, and Sasuke was shocked to find that the other Uchiha had put a jutsu on his hair. With a "poof", the seemingly normal hair was released of the genjutsu put on it, and the bowl cut from earlier returned, though in a somewhat longer state.

Sasuke shrieked as a little girl.

Itachi waited patiently for the younger male to shut up, and stared at himself in the mirror while thoroughly ignoring the girly noise behind him. At last, his little brother ran out of breath.

"There's NO WAY IN HELL I can possibly make this look normal, you know that?" Sasuke finally asked after regaining his breath properly.

Itachi kept looking forward, and calmly replied: "My hair has grown quite longer by now. I use the genjutsu you saw now when I show myself at usual."

"You're a ninja; you're not exactly supposed to show yourself at all."

"Well, you don't hide much either, little brother. However, I would like if we changed the topic back to making my hair look somewhat normal." With that, he handed the little Uchiha a hairbrush with a small weasel painted on.

Sasuke stared at him. And the hairbrush. "First of all, you're the one who's responsible for you looking like this at all. Secondly, I just said I won't ever be able to make a bowl cut look normal."

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "Well, do you really think I wanted to look like this? On my way to Konoha a while ago, I ran into this spandex fellow, what was his name again? Gai-san? And he instantly threw himself over me. I had thought he'd attacked me because I'm an Akatsuki, but it seemed he was more concerned about how I did not look like him. Personally I would have preferred to kill him-"

"Next time, do it," Sasuke interrupted.

Itachi continued. "-but unfortunately, I was attacked from behind as well, by something that looked like a clone of the spandex man."

Sasuke winced. "You were attacked by Lee as well? Ouch."

"Apparently. And they dressed me up, put an eyebrow-growing ninjutsu on me of the likes I have never encountered before, and cut my hair. From there, I ran to the woods, only to find you and Naruto-kun," Itachi said, and finally looked at Sasuke.

Remembering the unappealing scene, Sasuke winced once more. "No need to continue. But still, what do you expect me to do with it?"

"You could start with finding a counter-jutsu so I won't need these eyebrows anymore. They scare people, but they take all the attention away from my beauty."

"I will not comment on that, but fine. Anything to get away from you guys faster."

And so, Sasuke tried out various improvised techniques to change his brother's eyebrows. These had various results, of course, and after going through a lot of horrendous sights, they ended up with his normal look. Still, the hair did not look much better than before.

"There. Now what do you want me to do with your hair? It looks gross, and cutting it won't change it much."

"Yes, I am aware," Itachi sighed. "However, I won't mind wearing this jutsu on my hair. After all, I've gotten used to it lately, and that way my hair can grow out properly in no time."

"I hope so, because I won't acknowledge someone wearing spandex and having bowl cuts as any family of mine," Sasuke stated with a shudder. "Way to go putting shame on the name of Uchiha."

"You wouldn't know. Either way," the older male said while putting the jutsu back onto his silky smooth hair, "I believe you will not need to continue staying here longer that you need unless you wish. I have no further need for assistance with my hair."

And Inner Sasuke made his first appearance. "YES!!"

---

"Thank you so much for helping us out, Sasuke-kun," Konan said solemnly. "You have been of great help."

"But remember, at once you're out of here, we're on enemy teams again," Kisame growled.

Sasuke looked at the bunch one final time before turning and leaving. "Hn."

With Sasuke gone, they all turned to look at Itachi again. "Can we eat him now?"

---

A/N: YES!! Finally done with this chapter! Took me ages, I know, I'm sorry. But this should keep you all satisfied for a while. I can also reveal that I have several more chapters planned, and the next one will be coming soon enough. Though, I will not make any promises, with school having started and all. Review about what you like, what you don't like, what I can improve, and/or what you would like to see in future chapters! I will also take the hint if you tell me how awesome your favourite character is; I might just make a chapter for you. I'm already working on chapters for some of my reviewers. I will especially thank Schermionie and AyakaShimizu for fantastic reviewing and support! You've been of great help and inspiration, and I'm already working on a chapter dedicated to you. Look forward to it, you succeeded in sparking my muse, maybe you will get more chapters written especially to you guys. As a reply to Lady Ivvy: Well, here's the answer to what was up with Itachi's hair in the last chapter – Itachi's jutsu. I mean, imagine Itachi with that kind of dress up. Not even the most rabid Uchiha fan would jump that. Not even I would. (Long A/N, I know.)