Haku thought training with Zabuza when he was hungover was a hellish experience.
He was sadly mistaken. Training with a mischievous Sirius Black who had the idea of a great prank and blackmail material was worse.
It came down to this.
Sirius learned of Haku's bloodline. Team 7 had a week off to recover from the trauma of dealing with a very bored Gai who had won a bet against Kakashi resulting in the teams being switched for a week with Sirius' blessing and Itachi's pity for his family.
In order to help them recover, Sirius decided to teach them how to ice skate, which he was surprisingly very good at, even without the Sharingan to copy the movements he saw on TV. Because of Konoha's warm climate, it was near impossible to teach them how without some weird jutsu that allowed them to skate using water chakra.
So he blackmails Haku in the name of training, to see how long he could keep the lake frozen. Zabuza agreed to it, mostly because he was just as curious to the answer.
Sirius at least let the boy bring a few scrolls to read until his chakra gave out.
And so here they were, next to one of Konoha's smaller lakes (next to a training ground, of course) with a pair of sandals that had been outfitted by a bewildered Tenten (who only agreed to it out of curiosity and the promise he would show her team next) with blades. Not the standard long blade, but a pair of them on each shoe.
Naturally the boys were against learning something they considered girly (well, except Naruto who is gender-bent in the head...What? We all know it's true!) right up until Sirius showed them exactly what he had planned.
Even Itachi was impressed when he saw the flip and perfectly executed recovery. Even if Sirius had cheated by using the eyes to pull it off.
James never did understand why Sirius liked to skate on the Black Lake so much. Remus had found it funny as hell to watch, especially when Peter attempted and fell flat on his face every time he tried to copy Black's moves.
Which of course lead to right now.
Haku, when he learned what Black was really after, had grinned and agreed to hold the cameras the man had so thoughtfully brought with him.
Blackmail material on a noble clan was worth it's weight in gold, particularly when it came to fan girls. Draining his chakra dry to keep a lake frozen was well worth it if he caught a few face plants from the boys.
Especially if that person was Itachi.
Five hours and countless face plants, blackmail pictures and cackling from Haku and Sirius later...
Harry and Naruto cautiously skated on the still frozen ice. At least they didn't have to worry about crashing anymore. Sirius laughing his ass off had not been fun for them, considering even Itachi crashed a few times.
Sirius telling them with glee that it would only get harder once he switched them to a single blade had them cursing him...and considering they knew Anko Mitarashi, the variety was fairly impressive.
For once Itachi didn't whack them for the profanity...he actually joined them with even more eloquent swears that they would stock up for later.
What Sirius neglected to tell them was that several ANBU had showed up to watch the entire thing, and quite a few of them were laughing their asses off at seeing Naruto and the Terrible Two embarrass themselves so easily.
Really, they were just enjoying the boys humiliation after all the pranks they played on the poor ANBU.
All of that good nature ended the second a phoenix of all things appeared out of nowhere and dropped a colorblind old man with a stick on the middle of the lake.
Harry had taken one look at him, and promptly skated to the lake's edge where Haku was, as did the rest of the group.
Haku, when he saw them off the ice, immediately cut all chakra from it and waited. He had early on kept the ice as thin as he could to conserve chakra and to avoid killing the fish in the lake. It was so thin that the only reason the five hadn't gone through the ice was because his chakra had reinforced it to hold a little over Sirius' weight.
Without chakra, the old man fell through in an instant. The ice melted rather quickly with the warmer waters, and the ANBU went on high alert.
The old man was less than pleased to have his 'ground' abruptly disappear for no reason.
Then he realized Sirius Black not only recognized him, but was on guard against any attack, whether physical, magical or otherwise. He was also backed up by ten competent warriors he could spot, and many he couldn't.
And there was the fact Sirius was glaring at him like he had done something unspeakable and the man was pissed for reasons he had yet to fathom. Once he was on the shore, he quickly found out what.
"How in the nine hells could you put Harry, my godson, with that bitch Petunia?!" he snarled.
"At the time, I had placed him there because of the blood wards Lily had erected..." started Dumbledore.
"Blood wards?! Are you fucking serious? Lily wouldn't do something that idiotic! She knew her sister hated magic! If anyone were to try something like that it would have been James, because he was well aware we shared blood through his grandmother!"
Dumbledore knew that the pure blood families were close, but he had been unaware of the relationship between the Potter and the Black.
"Still, she was the only living relative and you were unavailable..."
"ONLY BECAUSE YOU NEVER GAVE ME A FUCKING TRIAL, YOU ASS! You were the head of the Wizengamot for Spirit's sake! You of all people should know I prized loyalty as dearly as a Puff, yet you believed that just because I had a nervous breakdown I had betrayed someone I loved more than my own brother!" snapped Sirius.
Dumbledore admitted that he had made a mistake when the goblins supplied memories that were proven genuine. Sirius had been cleared of all charges, but according to the message that came from a branch office in Japan, he had no intentions of ever returning to England, war be damned.
In the words of the new Lord Black, he had lost enough.
Considering he had lost his brother in all but blood, his sister, and nearly lost the only friend he could even trust in a single night along with his hard won reputation as not being as Dark as his family, it was understandable he didn't want to deal with it all again.
Plus there was always the nagging feeling that staying in England would lead to his death.
When Dumbledore argued to bring the boys to Hogwarts (to introduce Harry to his parent's heritage) Sirius had laughed at him outright with a cold tone saying he was welcome to try and poach the Magical Schooling of Japan if he could convince them that the transfer was worth their time.
A cultural experience into a backward society of inbreed morons, possibly, but never for a proper magical education.
Sirius had no reservations about his education. When offered by the Headmaster of the school the boys went to, he buckled down and joined them in the shared misery that was homework. He could proudly say that he had learned more about magic in Japan than all seven years of Hogwarts combined.
About the only thing they considered acceptable were his potions, and he had only gotten that good because he constantly brewed the one to fix his eyes.
Itachi had done the same, since he had noted a rather unhappy trait that the Sharingan had, which was the fact that prolonged use damaged the sensory organs when inactive.
It had been quite painful the first time he took the potion, but he would always back that up with the fact that it was well worth it to see shapes and figures clearly again without his doujutsu active.
Even though said potion was now a mandatory requirement that Sirius put forth after every mission that the Sharingan was active for more than an hour. Itachi had agreed to it, remembering quite a few Uchiha who had to wear reading glasses just to see mission reports.
Dumbledore was not happy about how this was going. He was supposed to come here, make the boy's family see reason now that Remus had informed him where Harry was, and return with the Boy-Who-Lived and get the Ministry off his ass.
Instead he finds a very guarded Black, an entire clearing full of well trained and merciless killers, and a boy who had no interest in a backwater school that didn't even teach magic like he wanted.
It was a disaster.
Eventually he was lead to the mission office to meet with the Hokage, and while he left without Harry he did make a contact for when Voldemort finally succeeded in getting a new body together.
Someone outside the house knocked politely a few times. Itachi opened it to reveal...a Hyuuga?
"Ah! Tsubaki! You're early!" said Sirius cheerfully.
"Sirius...who is she?" asked Itachi slowly, hoping he was wrong.
"My date of course! One night stands are fun and all, but nothing beats taking a real lady out for a proper night on the town!"
"For the love of kami, why a Hyuuga?!"
"Branch house, not main. And she doesn't live with the rest of them, despite what the Elders demand," said Sirius with a twinkle in his eye.
He had gotten this date with Tsubaki, who was one of the less uptight Hyuuga, by demonstrating that seals had trouble getting through magic wards. In exchange for a date, Sirius gave her a set of wards to keep the Hyuuga Elders out, unless she let them in. Even then it would give her a twenty-second delay if they tried to activate her Caged Bird Seal.
More than enough time for a seasoned kunoichi such as herself to kill them and stop the pain from happening.
Itachi relaxed slightly.
"Just don't do anything that would bring Hiashi down on us, okay? Fugaku was bad enough in a snit," said Itachi.
"...I make no promises."
Tsubaki shot him a look and Sirius held up his hands in surrender.
Once he got on his kimono, they left on their date. Itachi could only hope Sirius behaved himself, because he really, really didn't want to deal with Hiashi.
To the horror of Itachi, Tsubaki apparently liked the date she had with Sirius, Uchiha-blood or not, because she kept returning. It took little doing for her to get used to the lively atmosphere of the Uchiha complex, which was completely at odds with how it was when most of the clan as alive.
At least she was able to reign in most of their antic, so Zabuza could quit lobbing minor explosive tags in the direction of the house across the street.
(It had only taken the ANBU a week to figure out it was Zabuza's way of telling them to pipe down, as he swore on his sword he wouldn't lob anything lower than the weakest of tags unless it was an emergency. The only reason the Hokage allowed it was because it seemed to be the only effective method he had to alert the boys they were getting too rowdy for the neighbors.)
The only reason Hiashi and the other Hyuuga elders had yet to harass her for associating with an Uchiha was because Sirius' only claim to the name was the doujutsu and his great-great grandmother's blood in him.
Harry had some Uchiha blood as well, but Sirius didn't know if he would inherit it or his mother's bloodline, seeing as how Lily had mentioned her grandmother was from the Elemental Countries. He didn't know which one, but according to Lily it was where she got her red hair from.
Still, he was more of a Potter than a Black, so it was possible he would get Lily's blood instead of the mixed heritage Sirius had.
At least now Itachi could catch up on his reading thanks to Tsubaki. Apparently all he needed to do was get Sirius a girlfriend who could reign him in.
Itachi would have sent Anko his way, if not for the almost certain fact that she would be joining them, not stopping them.
It was bad enough that Sirius had accidentally run into her a month ago and had hit it off with her.
Apparently the landlord had enough of her and had kicked her out, snakes and torture be damned. Something about being tired of hearing the screams and having to clean out the blood in the shower drain.
So Sirius, being the gentleman he was and rather liking the snarky snake bitch, had offered to let her rent one of the houses in the compound for a little less than the house was actually worth.
Anko, once she realized he wasn't kidding, had taken him up on the offer. Considering all she had to put up with was the odd noises across the street, The fan girl hordes outside the walls, and the occasional explosive tag when the boys got too rowdy, she considered herself lucky.
Especially when she learned the boys didn't mind defending her honor against some of her more vocal annoyances. Seeing some of the more cruel idiots who taunted her because of her bastard teacher end up on the wrong side of the Uzumaki-Uchiha-Black trio was actually rather touching.
Didn't stop her from laughing her ass off when she saw what they did though. Or from cackling at the look on Kakashi's face when he realized they had befriended the most sadistic bitch of Konoha.
Itachi opened up the door to reveal...an Aburame.
The Uchiha heir sweatdropped, wondering which one she was here for, because this was quickly becoming a habit.
"Which one are you here for?"
"Harry," she replied calmly.
"Hold on a moment. Green-eyes, your date is here!" Itachi yelled into the house.
Harry swore as Sirius laughed at him, only for Tsubaki to smack him with a frying pan.
As Moony had informed her, Sirius' head wasn't as soft as he claimed, but rather as hard as a rock...and therefor could take some serious damage, like a hard leather book being introduced to his skull.
Harry quickly got ready with a grin.
"Hey Himeko, you're early."
"My parents were rather...eager...to meet you personally Harry-kun."
"Shall we?" he said, holding out his arm. She grinned behind her collar and took it without a word.
Itachi watched this with a resigned air. At the rate this was going, Sasuke and Naruto would be next. If he didn't find someone first.
As that thought hit him, he immediately remembered the loose board under his bed that he hide most of his reading material. Sirius knew it was there, but didn't intrude out of respect for his privacy...though occasionally Itachi found new material he knew hadn't been there before. Thankfully no Icha Icha though...
With a grin, he realized there was one person he could ask, if only so he would have a date before his baby brother. Plus the look of horror on his face when he realized there was every possibility of being related to the only other loudmouth genin from this current batch.
This time it was Sasuke who answered the door, as his brother was getting ready to go out.
Hana Inuzuka was waiting at the door.
"He ready yet?"
Sasuke, who figured out where this was going, realized that the only bachelor was him. If any girl tried to make a move on Naruto, Hinata would likely strangle her barehanded and the body would never be found.
Which meant he either found a girlfriend or boyfriend soon or be the last man out.
"For the love of kami, please don't make me related to Kiba."
Hana looked at him, before her eyes light up in realization.
"If it makes you feel any better, I can give you permission to prank the living hell out of him if this works out. Or at least make him learn to bathe more than once a month."
"...Complaint retracted. Have a fun night with my brother," said Sasuke flatly.
"Ready to go Hana?" said Itachi.
Hana giggled, and the two walked outside the wall. You could hear the fangirls cry out in horror.