sunshineverse | And then Itachi realizes he's doomed

Entry tags:

And then Itachi realizes he's doomed

Where: Between Konoha and Iwa
When: the 10th to the 17th
Notes: This is going to be closed to Itachi, and is the sagas of traveling with one's Hokage.

Obito had found quickly that Itachi would make a better travel companion if he wasn't hidden under ANBU attire so he'd given him the mission a bit more publicaly. Also, it should settle Fugaku down about the cluster of horrible that had been the month before, because obviously Obito going somewhere meant it was political... and thus everyone was happy.

He'd ended up having to pick a team of far from high profile people otherwise, which meant none of his students, but it was okay! That lot could be lookouts, and Itachi would be his... his obvious guard. Yes.

At least the travel would be cut down drastically given the seals, and the others were sent ahead to wait on the other end for him and Itachi to go together. Unfortunately, given Iwa's nature... going straight tot he seal outside their village was asking for an uproar, so instead they were going to go to the one just inside of the country's borders... and go on foot for the next four days. Once the politics was done, then they could take the seal back! Easy.

If aggravatingly time consuming. Thus, talking buddies. It was perfect.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Itachi hadn't thought much about being assigned the mission. Hic clan seemed generally pleased he was being given such a public position as the Hokage's bodyguard on a political mission. There would be small chance of Itachi getting injured again, though he didn't know why they worried so much about that. His hands were nominally recovered.

It was only as he arrived for the mission he realized he was going to be in close quarters with Obito. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but Itachi had no doubt Obito would be watching Itachi's health closely while they were away. It was one thing to get a report of someone's health and another to see what it looked like in close quarters. Itachi had a small hope he'd remain healthy. His luck could never be that good.

Hopefully he didn't look like someone going to his execution.

It was the look on Itachi's face that really told him the younger man's thoughts, and it was all he could do not to pout. In fact, he probably did a fair sight better than he had intended to in hiding his notice of it, waiting until they were on their way to the seal point before directly looking at him...

And then waiting until they were on the other side before speaking.

"If I didn't know better I'd think you didn't like me anymore Itachi."

Itachi didn't like travelling by seal. He always got the distinct feeling that he might leave an important body part behind one day. Itachi thinned his lips a little at the slightly dizzy feeling and blinked at his cousin.

"Why would you think that?" Had Itachi done something particularly insensitive lately. Ah. The face. Itachi decided he would continue to play ignorant.

"A few subtle indicators... like you acting more stoic than usual." He shook his head slightly, then gave him a sidelong look. "Which means you either don't like me anymore, or you're thinking really hard about something you don't see a reason to share with me."

"I was thinking that one day travelling like this is going to leave something important behind," Itachi admitted. That was true, at least. Itachi considered elaborating on a lie that he was worried about heading into a politically tense situation as Obito's bodyguard, but he wasn't. Between the two of them and the others, Itachi felt fairly confident that they could handle whatever happened.

Obito might act like an idiot, but he was good with people.

"Be grateful you've never been dragged along on Hairashin then. Sensei's jutsu makes you feel vaguely like you're about to be electrocuted on top of what these do. I have no idea how he can stand it." He grimaced, then looked sideways at the younger man. "But if you left anything behind, I have no doubt you'd notice quickly."

Well, than explained Minato's hair...

"By then it would be too late to go back and get it," Itachi reasoned. "I really think I would rather walk." But, while travelling with the Hokage, that wasn't an option. Obito couldn't waste so much time travelling by foot when there was a much faster method of travel.

"...how long has it been since you spent an entire day travelling?" Itachi was used to talking here to there, but Obito's job now meant he spent a good deal of time behind a desk or sitting in meetings.

"...A little while. And since we aren't permitted to go straight to Iwa, it's going to be several days of travel from their border seal. Though, you were already warned of the time frame, I think I'm looking forward to the break."

"So we'll have to slow out pace down for you. It wouldn't be very dignified for the Hokage to arrive in Iwa sore and exhausted, after all." Itachi's lips quirked a little, obviously teasing his cousin to make up for his earlier sulk.

He huffed, then gave Itachi a definite pout in return for his efforts. "Oh come on Itachi, we both know I'm not slow." Even if he and Itachi never really sparred, he was sure the younger man had seen him do so with other people.

He never did really go anywhere without an audience after all.

"Slow has nothing to do with it. Travelling all day for several days when you're not used to it will make you sore, Hokage-sama, unless we slow down to your pace." Itachi dropped the formal lecturing tone to give his cousin a small smile.

"And we're all about ten years younger than you." The smile might have been a little cheeky. Itachi's body might make him feel old most mornings, but Obito was getting old for a ninja.

"I'm thirty, not three hundred." He pouted then, a definite, rather overdone perhaps, pout, but a pout all the same. "Don't make me sound so old."

Though, to be fair, Itachi really was almost ten years younger than him so...

"Thirty is ancient for a ninja," Itachi replied with the sincerity of someone barely out of his teens who had hit all mile makers early and been born old.

"Are you ready to keep going?"

"No 70 is ancient for a ninja. There are lots of people in my age bracket. Not so much that one." He leaned over and prodded him lightly in the upper arm with a finger before starting out. "Come on then, our group should have fanned out to wait as they arrived."

"Obito, you're ancient." Itachi patted his cousin on the should in a conciliatory manner. He shouldered his pack a little high and then smiled.

"And if you want to prove me, wrong, you're going to have to keep up."

"I'm ancient and you're just old huh? Don't you worry Itachi I can keep up just fine. Maybe I should ask you the same."

"Don't worry, someone ordered me to see a medic, and now I'm all better," Itachi added a healthy bit of sarcasm to his words and decided he would push the group to go as quickly as they safely could. After all, they wouldn't want the Hokage to be late...

He narrowed his eyes at him, then suddenly gave an absolutely devilish grin... and pounced, clearly intent on giving him a hug, though he didn't intend to hold it for more than a breath. "Still my favorite baby cousin."

Itachi almost side stepped the hug or jabbed Obito in the ribs, but he remembered he was trying to be nice to Obito. He allowed himself to be hugged with all the good grace of a wet cat before stepping away.

"I'm telling Sasuke and Shisui you said that," Itachi reported dryly. "Please try to remember I'm your bodyguard right now."

He smirked, then shrugged and spun to set out. "Point being? We do have two scouts too, they're just, you know, out there and not talking to us."

"The point being we are both serving in an official capacity right now, so maybe you should act like it." Itachi breathed out and glanced at his cousin. "Are we going to walk the entire way?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll run too, in a hurry to get to Iwa Itachi? I can't say I am." He did jump up into a nearby tree though. "Might as well take advantage of the trees before they think out though."

Itachi followed Obito into the tree, touching down lightly beside his cousin. "Not at all. I look forward to spending time with my favorite cousin and hearing your reminisce about the 'good old day'." Itachi gave Obito his cheekiest smile, reserved for Obito and Shisui, and launched himself to the next branch before Obito could reply.

"Hey!!! I promise you were part of any good old day I had brat!" He followed after him without hesitation, but he was laughing. "Don't think you're that far behind my age buddy."

Itachi answered that by going higher into the branches, where getting whipped by thin limbs was far more likely and the limbs were closer together.

Well, if he was going to be Obito's bodyguard, he should figure out just how agile the "old man" still was, shouldn't he?

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing!" He huffed, then darted after him, keeping on his tail as this was clearly turning into an obstacle course version of tag for some reason. "And I'm going to laugh if you get tired before I do."

If Itachi got tired before Obito, he was going to tender his resignation to ANBU. This served the dual purpose of making sure their scouting squad was up to par and could keep up, and Itachi was nothing if not brutal with his tests.

he would have smiled, but he didn't want to get leaves in his face.

"And don't think I can't tell you're laughing on the inside! You perfected that when you were too tiny to know better than to show it off." It was accompanied by a fist shake, and Obito yelped as he had to dodge around a branch he didn't see until the last moment. Okay maybe he should talk a biiiit less until Itachi stopped pretending he was made of lightning.

Itachi spared a dangerous moment to turned around, give his cousin and smile, and then avoid the branch that almost took his head off. This was actually a good way to test his endurance, and he was supposedly more "healthy" now, and if he did have a sudden collapse, he wouldn't really be endangering anyone.

He was annoying Obito, testing the team he was working with, and testing himself all at once. What could be better?

"Oh, it's on now." Catching sight of that grin he did what any reasonable Hokage would do. He sped up with clear intent to catch up and tackle, because come on now, that was totally asking for it

Though it probably said something for the village that this was typical leadership behavior to some degree...

After he heard Obito's comment, Itachi knew what was coming. He dropped down, almost straight down as he jumped from branch to branch, then dove through a thick tangle feet first and his arms under his shin to protect his face from the worst of the scratches. Itachi then went careening to the right and into thicker foliage, which he had no issues plunging through. He'd grown up getting slapped in the face by branches.

He was also still smaller than Obito, and could slither through branches where his cousin couldn't, which was exactly what he intended to do. Of course, he couldn't do that all of the time, but an erratic movement pattern and thicker foliage would hopefully keep Obito from catching him.

It wasn't the time or place for it, so obviously using his best cheat wasn't going to happen here, so that meant he had to play more fair. That didn't, however, mean that he slowed down, instantly on the other Uchiha's tail and wising up to the game plan. It meant that Obito had to take another path, but he didn't kind at all, looking for something with a curve instead of his cousin's wild zig-zag.

Never let it be said that he wasn't good at tag. Even the kind that would probably leave their lookouts struggling to keep up. Catching glimpses of the younger man helped too, of course.

Itachi grinned to himself. So, Obito hadn't gotten as rusty as Itachi had feared sitting in his office doing paper work, had he? Well, that just made Itachi's job easier and made testing his cousin's reflexes a little more challenging.

Itachi vanished behind a tree and stopped, intending to let Obito speed by and then turn the tables on his cousin. All was fair, right?

Who did Itachi think he was? He was Obito! Of course he didn't let himself just fail like that. Nope, he fully intended to show that just because he didn't practice as often didn't mean he didn't practice at all.

Still, he caught onto the trick a bit too late and immediately took off sideways. If Itachi intended to chase instead, he didn't intend to make it easy.

Itachi put on a burst of speed, translocating to make up distance. He'd learned to be fast chasing Shisui, and Itachi personally thought there was no one faster than his cousin.

Without thinking, Itachi committed to a dive to slap a hand on Obito's back, or whatever he managed to touch.

Someday, Shisui and Minato had to play tag then because Obito had picked up his speed dealing with both of those two over the years. Thus, neither him nor Itachi could afford to be slow. He meant to twist out of the way, and might have put off Itachi's aim a bit, which caused a yelp.

"Aim, Itachi, AIM."

It was his own fault for trying to get to a higher branch but really, he hadn't expected to have Itachi go for hand slaps. Now he had to adjust back to chasing. Or at the very least getting the younger man back in his sights.

Edited 2014-04-19 01:29 (UTC)

"Dodge better next time!" Itachi shouted back. This was probably not a good start to the trip, definitely proved Obito's reflexes needed some work. Itachi veered off to the left and went straight up a tree--

--and then went crashing through the branches in an ungainly and entirely ungraceful tumble that quickly turned into what would have been a free fall if the branches weren't so thick. As they were, Itachi went tumbling until he managed to wrench himself around and land roughly on the first branch that would hold his weight.

Itachi gingerly started picking himself up from the crouch he'd landed in, hoping he hadn't strained anything. Even if he started running again, he's lost momentum and Obito would probably be here in seconds.

Had he almost fallen out of the trees trying to avoid the birds nest he'd seen just before he's almost crushed it? Just maybe.

"That was the least graceful cacophony I think I've ever heard out of you Itachi!" He had only caught a glimpse of it, but that hadn't looked like much of a controlled fall to him, and he was almost on him already, slowing to make sure Itachi stopped before coming level with him. "What was that about?"

"There," Itachi said with as much dignity as he could muster. "Was a bird's nest." Because Itachi was the kind of ninja who would almost kill himself trying to avoid birds, bird's nests, and other woodland creatures while tree hopping. It has been the cause of his worse wreck as a genin--that and the time they'd been traveling at night and he'd taken a flying squirrel to the face.

Itachi brushed off a few leaves and wondered if everyone else had seen his spectacular evasive maneuver. His knee was burning, so he'd probably smacked it somewhere.

Obito stared at him for a long moment, then fished in his pocket. A moment later Itachi was getting a butterscotch pelted at his face. "You would. Have that mm? Won't help a damn thing feel better but hey, it's not like I don't have more."

Itachi caught the projectile and stared at his cousin. "Please tell me you did not stock your pockets with butterscotch because you knew you were going on a mission with me." He wasn't five anymore, but he popped the candy into his mouth and, at a more leisurely pace, jumped to the next large branch.

He moved to hop to the next branch, scoffing at the younger man with a small smile. "Hardly. I have some butterscotch, but it's mostly apple hard candies. You know. Because I happen to have a sweet tooth."

Itachi decided he would have to, over the course of this trip, relieve Obito of any and all candies he'd brought. It would give him something to do other than look imposing. "As your bodyguard, I'm going to tell you that we need to keep moving or we'll be late to your very important diplomatic meeting, Hokage-sama."

Itachi grimaced as he leapt up beside Obito. "And as your cousin, I'm going to say if we don't keep moving, my knee's going to stiffen up and you'll have to carry me." Itachi made his leap to the next tree.

He wrinkled up his nose, then immediately moved back into a run, easily keeping pace with Itachi. "Well, if you're going to go and put it that way, I guess I have no choice but to keep moving mmmm?"

Obito will be very sad if he can't hold onto any candy Itachi, but that doesn't mean he might not allow some to be stolen anyway.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And then Itachi realizes he's doomed

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject