Something random with the market. I hope it's at least mildly interesting, because...to be honest, I don't think I have a good sense of humor or good plot (after all, I can't do plot-no-jutsu like Kishi does...)

Well. Here you go. (includes messed up Naruto timeline...-ish)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, because why would Fugaku go to a market way outside of town?

Chapter 2: Swirly Things, Bread, and the Market

Open marketplaces — great places to find deals on fine fruits and vegetables, among many other things. One end was the farmer's market, and the other end was an assortment of things, including a pastry shop and several restaurants. If there one was to name something that kids running amok could ruin, then one was to list every single thing in that market.

"Guys. I want cake," Tobi suddenly burst out, on their way to town.

"How would you eat it?" asked Obito, rubbing his hands. It was rather chilly outside, and he wished he'd brought along a better jacket. He'd grabbed the one he'd snatched from a clothesline in the countryside; a black jumper on which he'd sown a small Uchiha crest on the left breast pocket. It wasn't quite sufficient to block out the biting chill that was beginning to grace the beginnings of winter.

"Through his eyehole," Zetsu answered, poking Tobi in the side. The swirl-face put his hands on his hips indignantly, though the other two could only assume his facial expressions.

"I thought you didn't need to eat," Obito commented.

"I don't!" Tobi answered cheerfully. He received a funny look.

Shizune was getting rather worried about her new teacher. Seriously, she was gambling all of her money away. Her teacher didn't even have that much money, seeing as a war had ended rather recently. Nonetheless, the busty blonde tried her hand at every casino and of course, lost everything. Shizune sighed.

"Tsunade-sama, please keep some money for lunch," she begged.

"It's no problem, Shizune," the infamous blonde consoled, petting the young girl's head fondly, "We've got more than enough."

Shizune highly doubted that.

Tsunade continued down the street, her heels clicking on the pavement. The street had opened up its market, and was full of activity. There were a few kids around Shizune's age playing around, while the baker looked on with irritation.

"Shizune, want to go buy us something? Since you're so worried about me losing all of it?" Tsunade suggested, handing a few bills to the dark-haired girl. Her student nodded, and promptly hopped to a stand which sold dishes that she knew Tsunade-sama favored.

Meanwhile, at the bread stands, the kids were cajoling the baker. One of them was so pale, Shizune wondered if he was healthy. The other one wore a heavy hood and long pants, with a hat obscuring his face. The third one, standing at the center, had black hair that was between short and long, as if he needed to get a haircut soon, but wanted to postpone it. When this boy turned, Shizune did a double-take. He looked rather familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Besides that, he was heavily scarred on one side, so she decided that it was no one she knew. Still, it bugged her.

"Shizune, hurry here!" Tsunade said, ushering the girl over to another casino. "This one's great!"

"Tsunade-sama!" wailed Shizune, nearly dropping the food she'd bought. Tsunade glanced at the girl, feeling sorry that she was so forceful. At that moment, she saw the group of boys that Shizune had spotted.

Minato's boy. The Uchiha on his team. She swore she saw him, but blinked a few times. She had only met Jiraiya's student's students a few times, but those three had very distinctive faces: the stoic son of their dear friend Sakumo, a pretty young girl with medical potential and bright eyes, and a loud Uchiha who reminded her painfully of Nawaki.

"It couldn't be," she murmured to herself. She saw the awful scars, and the split lip, and thinking no more, decided that it couldn't possibly be so.

Tsunade turned away.

If there was one thing Madara didn't want them to do, it was throw pies. So that's just what they did. Obito sped down the street, an angry vendor on his heels, yelling a string of curse words not to be repeated in front of young children. Tobi and Zetsu whooped as they stole long loaves of French bread and proceeded to whack random strangers with them. Tobi paused, pushing his hood aside when it obscured his eyehole, to ogle at an adorable little baby. Why, it must've been barely a month old!

The baby gurgled, and Tobi giggled. Its mother smiled at Tobi, not seeing his bizarre face, and pushed the baby along. Just then, Obito nearly crashed into the little baby carriage as he dodged the angry street vendor. Actually, his leg should have taken out the stroller's wheels, but he instantly used Kamui out of habit, and slipped through. It was such a small slip-through that no one really noticed, though.

Nonetheless, there were several yelps and squeals and giggly children in this incident. The baby's mother and another wide-eyed child both stared in shock at the devious trio, which was now tumbling across the street in a mock fight, forgetting to apologize. Obito, remembering his manners, shouted out a brief "Sorry, ma'am!" before getting tackled by the vicious bread vendor.

"Mom, why are those people fighting with bread?" the young boy asked his mother, while his baby brother gurgled nonsensically.

"Just keep walking, Itachi," Mikoto murmured, rather worried about today's society, especially the children. She would make sure that her two boys, especially her newborn, were safely protected from such uncouth youths. Itachi, understanding very little—as much as a four-year-old could— and still rather unstable from witnessing a war, just held his mother's hand and moved on. Sasuke giggled in his crib.

Mikoto wondered where Fugaku had gone, because she didn't think she could deal with more vendors attacking the same trio of children.

"The baby was so cute!" was all Tobi would say after they'd shaken off the dang baker. Meanwhile, Obito was tearing off chunks of stolen bread and popping them into his mouth, rather delighted by the taste of food after months and months without it. However, before Tobi could ask something along the lines of "now will you tell me what poop is like?", Zetsu cut in first.

"That lady had an Uchiha crest, you know?" he said through mouthfuls of bread. First off, Obito had no idea why Zetsu was eating bread as well, but at least he had a mouth and not an eyehole. Secondly, his right eye widened in surprise, eyebrows arched.

"Really?" Obito asked, munching faster with anticipation. Tobi slyly reached over to grab some bread and quickly stuff it in his eyehole, but Obito Kamui-ed the bread so that it was impossible to grab, to the swirl-face's dismay

"Yeah," the green-haired one continued, despite Tobi's fruitless grabs at the poor bread. "The lady with the two kids, you know, the baby that Tobi was talking about?"

"Babies poop," Tobi suddenly announced.

"Yeah, because that's all they do," Obito deadpanned.

"I don't have to—"

"We get it, we get it." Obito held up his hands and warded away any more talk regarding human waste. They walked down a less crowded market aisle, vendors eyeing the trio suspiciously and guarding their precious stacks of fruits.

"Fugaku, where have you been?" called a voice.

"Hey, that's her," Zetsu said, as the person of their conversation appeared. The woman pushed the stroller along, looking rather tired, speaking urgently to her husband as he settled a few grocery bags in the back of the carriage. The toddler, walking alongside his mother, glanced curiously their way. Then, he turned to his little brother in the baby carriage and murmured something, before sneaking a peak at them again. It was as if they were conspiring some devious plan involving bread, their mother, their groceries, and the troublesome trio. Not that the baby could do much more than cry and poop, though.

"Do you know them?" Zetsu continued, before pausing to watch Obito hastily turn his jacket inside-out. "Why'd you do that?"

"They can't see the Uchiha crest," Obito muttered, glancing at the clan symbol he'd sewn onto the jumper. He recognized them, all right. That family was none other than… "That's the clan head, Fugaku-sama. Can't let him see me."

Obito was now loyal to the ancient clan head connected to a wacky monster statue.

"That's intense," Tobi commented. "Can I go say hi?"

Fugaku glanced at the trio, then, and Obito looked down quickly. He whipped the bread out from his pocket and began to duel Zetsu with it, never showing his face. He turned so that his left side, the side that his lengthening hair had begun to cover, was facing the crowd. This way, no one could see his face. Even with scars, he was probably still easily recognizable—Obito just had those distinctively handsome Uchiha traits.

The day ended rather uneventfully, with Obito receiving a few more hits to the head with French bread, thanks to more angry bakers. Well, more like the first baker notifying the entire market, and after that everyone was on their heels for the dangerous trio. It also included a great assortment of splats as pies were chucked to and fro. If one was to draw a WANTED sign for them, it would have a kid with scribbles on the right side of his face, another with grass for hair, and a third one wearing a hood, because Tobi's "face" was never to be seen.

Well, there was someone that saw Tobi's swirl-face.

And that was Sasuke, because he had been staring right into Tobi's eyehole, mesmerized.

On the way home, it began to rain again. As the thing people call fate sighed with exasperation, ticking off the days till the Nine Tails was summoned in Konoha and the Juubi was revived, it watched the three boys with a mild interest regarding what sort of destiny they should be assigned.

For now, the trio just began to play in the dirt again. They happened upon an Iwa shinobi, who was so shocked to see people in this area of the forest that he ran into a tree. Tobi giggled ferociously, poking at the man with a stick, while Obito rummaged through the ninja's pack to see if he had anything interesting in there.

"Do shinobi always wear one funny sleeve?" Zetsu asked, pointing the Iwagakure style jacket—one side sleeveless, the other side a long, draping length of fabric.

"I think it's a Stone thing," Obito answered, finding nothing interesting besides a bag of chips. He wondered what sort of shinobi brought a single bag of chips with them on a mission, but shrugged it off. He was just glad the guy wasn't awake to throw some insane Doton on them, because to be honest, he still harbored a traumatic fear of falling rocks, despite being able to pass through them with his Mangekyo Sharingan.

"Do Stone ninja p—"

"Everyone does, okay?!" snapped Obito, throwing a kunai from the shinobi's pack at Tobi. The swirl-face ducked and giggled.

"You know, I think he's waking up," Zetsu said, pointing out that the man was indeed moaning and starting to shift. Instantly, the trio all got to their feet, leaving the man on the ground, and sped away hastily. Obito had dropped the bag of chips back into the Iwa nin's pack, but unbeknownst to the young Uchiha, Tobi had snatched it up and mysteriously slipped it into his eyehole to save for later…

"Did you have fun?" one of the Zetsus hanging from the Gedo Mazou's branches—the ones that sprouted from something that looked horrifying similar to the First Hokage—asked, a devilish smile on its face.

"Yeah," Obito replied. "I ate some bread."

"So now you have to go—"

"You didn't cause trouble, did you?" Madara broke in. (He didn't want to hear anymore of Tobi's insistent comments either.)

"Uh. I don't think so," Obito mentioned.

"That means you made a mess," Madara confirmed. "I supposed it wasn't as bad as I expected, though."

"What were you expecting?" Tobi asked. If he had a face, he would've been grinning. He suddenly whipped out the bag of chips and offered them to the mysterious, ancient Uchiha. The other two stared at him incredulously.

Madara didn't answer the question.

Several years later, when Sasuke bumped into a loud, blonde bomb-throwing Iwa nin from Akatsuki, with his masked partner, he felt a twinge in the back of his head. It was almost…nostalgic. No, it held more of a dreamlike quality, those fluffy snowflakes of memory that drift just beyond your reach; they are so faint, they barely touch the recesses of your mind before disappearing again.

The masked man was oddly familiar. Had he been without a mask, he would've been grinning, or something of the like. He felt like he had seen that swirly face once upon a time, and with it, he associated bread and a picture of Itachi.

Why, he had no idea. Sasuke didn't have time to contemplate then, because the boisterous blonde one had thrown a flying bomb in the shape of a bird at his head.

Welll. What did you think? OTL.

I'm going to assume Sasuke's older than Naruto by a few months...-checks- Yepp. July baby, while Naruto's in October...

(Does that mean I just made it about 2 months before Obito sets out to destroy Konoha? Wow, intense. And very fail timeline. IGNORE THAT. Because it is possible in the Naruto fandom. This should take place a whileeee before that.)

(I warned you of malfunctioning timeline)

Shizune's...about their age, right? (slightly older? About a year, I'd think...)

Itachi was 4 during the war, so he's 4-5 here... (yay, something that works!)

I hope it's funny? Anyway, Tobi's great, and poor old Momdara...

Questions, comments, concerns, more burning desires?! (not involving Tobirama? Or maybe they DO involve him, because that'd be great :D)