Me: Okay, this is very late…

Jun: You can shoot to kill if you please.

Itachi: No, you cannot, because she is going to write the bloody story…Now.

Edo: She owns nothing, except apologies.

"No. That is a horrible idea." Edo maintained after a half an hour of argument. "Under no circumstances are either of you permitted to even think about trying that."

Jun and Itachi shared an exasperated sigh. "Edo." Jun attempted again "It would be so much easier if we-"

"No"

"But-" Itachi chimed in.

"No"

"But how-!"

"No"

"What's all this?" Tsunade questioned, finally entering Itachi's hospital room out of curiosity in the argument.

"These idiots" Edo gestured sharply with his head at the two Uchiha by the hospital bed "Want to let themselves get injured, and then try and lead the spirits out of the compound with their blood."

"Why in the hell would you try that!?" Tsunade gasped

Jun buried his head in his hands, all the while mumbling something about them being 'too damned alike.'

Itachi took a deep breath, which went unnoticed by Tsunade, not so much Edo. Who appeared to be ramping his ire up to explosive levels. "Well, Jun, Edo and I were talking, and they remembered something about dark spirits being attracted to misery and pain, so, why not try it? We don't have many options."

"No." The one syllable was intoned so flatly by both the Hokage and Edo that Itachi flinched. Let it be known that Itachi Uchiha doesn't flinch easily.

Jun raised his head from his hands and mentally prepared himself to begin the argument anew. This was going to be a very long day.

Sasuke groaned slightly as he awoke. His arms burned and pinched, his back felt like somebody had replaced his spine with a steel rod, and he had the strangest feeling that somebody had been throwing kunai at his head from point blank range. The second thing he noticed after the pain, was the fact that the room smelled of sanitizer, and the air was dry. Once he was fully aware, he realized the room was white. Not the soft darkness of his room, or the ramen smelling oddness of Naruto's home, it was bright, eye piercing white, and it forced him to clench his eyes shut.

"You awake?" A voice intoned

Sasuke risked a quick glance to the left, in the general vicinity of the sound, eyes still burning, from the damaging whiteness. "Hy-!" Sasuke cut himself off from questioning why Neji Hyuuga was here, when he felt the burning in his throat, and heard the hoarseness of his voice.

"Tsunade says you can have water." Neji said not unkindly "Do you want a glass?"

"Yeah." Sasuke croaked with a wince "sounds great."

With a concerned glance over his shoulder, Neji was gone.

"Mmph!"

Sasuke glanced over to the right side of the room, Kakashi was rousing himself from the uncomfortable looking couch. Sasuke merely blinked.

"Awake?"

"Sleeping."

Kakashi chuckled "Fine then, how're you feeling?"

Sasuke thought to himself, what was he feeling other than pain, for that matter, why was he in pain? Ah, evil ghosts. And….Oh, oh my.

Worried that his teacher would have him shipped to the mental ward of the hospital, Sasuke proceeded tentatively "Is, uh, Itachi…here?"

"He is." Seethed a new voice entering the room "And he's a freaking idiot like his dolt of a cousin. Glad to see you're up by the way." Bright blue eyes narrowed conspiratorially at the last statement.

"Please don't make my cousin think I'm mentally handicapped because you're paranoid."

"Paranoid? I think you might die."

"What? You think I'm going to die if I do this?" Jun said, mildly shocked

"Yes, I do think that, because there are too many variables for what you are considering to even be a plan. I do however know that for even considering it, you should be sleeping on the couch for a month."

Jun looked shocked, "Look, if you're this worried we will change the plan, okay?"

"To avoid the dreaded couch?" Edo asked wryly

"To stop your worrying. You are going to go grey if you keep…Oh, too late!"

Jun dodged back to avoid the playful slap aimed at his head. Edo cleared his throat "So, uh, the reason I came in here was to check on Sasuke, but he's awake, so I'm going to go get dinner."

Jun whirled to see his cousin wide awake staring at him slack jawed "Jun?"

"I…That is…uh…Edo?"

"Shabu-Shabu* for you, got it, see-ya!" And Edo fled the room. Leaving Jun to stare down a person he had been most anxious to meet.

"What was that about?" Itachi questioned as Edo fled the room leaning, winded, against the wall.

Edo looked up from his hunched position to meet Itachi's eyes "Your dear cousin Jun can be a bit flighty, figured I'd force him into talking with Sasuke sooner rather than later."

"Oh?" Itachi looked more than amused "So you staged an argument you knew he would agree to when you felt Sasuke wake, and kept him interested until he was too far in the room to leave unnoticed?"

"Sounds about right." Edo intoned with a charming yet mischievous smile.

"Are you a Hyuuga or an Uchiha? Because that sounded way to subversive for a Hyuuga." Itachi said, mildly impressed

"We never did get around to any last name changes." Edo murmured thoughtfully, just to watch Itachi squirm at the thought of his cousin taking the Hyuuga surname. "But my surname is Phoenix, so that might be why as well." He finished cheerfully.

"You are something else."

"Yeah, the doctors are confused too."

Itachi rolled his eyes, at least his cousin found somebody fun. "Mental or physical doctors?"

"Both" Edo shrugged playfully "eat dinner with me, so your cousin has no excuse to leave when he gets uncomfortable?"

Itachi smirked "Sounds good. Where too?"

"You make it sound like I've been here before."

"Fine" Itachi said with a sigh "Follow me."

This chapters main purpose was to expand on Itachi's more expressive character, and skip right to Jun actually meeting Sasuke after many years apart. Next one should be better!

R&R!

*Shabu Shabu is a Japanese meat dish with very thin sliced beef that you grip in chopsticks and swipe through boiling broth to cook, it takes about two seconds to cook the beef, the noise it makes as you swipe it through the broth makes a 'shabu shabu' noise. You then dip it in various sauces if you choose. It is supposed to be delicious.