Lost Cause

Children are a bit strange. They can be brutally honest to others without reproach, yet when it comes to themselves and their feelings they are left floundering.

Uchiha Itachi mused on this as he watched his own little brother bickering with Yondaime-sama's daughter about who was to push whom on the swing-set. The argument slowly degenerated until the two children were calling each other various feces-based names. It seemed that whoever came up with the most distasteful name would win. That's how these days usually went, anyway.

And then a minor scuffle would follow... which was starting right now.

Itachi picked himself up off of his bench with a sigh, taking a moment to dust off his clothes.

"My hair isn't a duck butt! Take it back!"

Naruko blew a raspberry at Sasuke.

Sasuke promptly threw sand in her face.

The girl screamed bloody murder and barreled blindly into her assailant, viciously kicking and clawing at anything she could her her hands on. Sasuke wasn't nearly as terrified as he probably should have been, instead doing his fair share of kicking and punching (Naruko's face was a particularly enticing target).

Itachi merely observed from his new perch atop the jungle gym. His usual policy was to let them fight it out until they collapsed. It happened every single time.

The other children didn't even look in their direction, having long-since grown bored of a fight that they knew would never end.

After almost an hour with bloody noses, pulled hair, a black eye or two, and scratched and thoroughly battered limbs, the two hellions collapsed, utterly spent. Itachi chose that moment to swoop in and sling both of them over his shoulders, making a beeline straight for his house so he could dump them in a bed of some sort.

Babysitting for these two was a lot easier than he thought it'd be.

Author's Note: So, this is the first of a series of short drabbles. Read and review?

In any case, credit for the idea itself goes to a friend of mine, Ekusukallybaa (whose stuff you all should be reading instead). He wrote 'Genius and Insanity', a chapter of which is the undeniable source of inspiration that I had for this story. These drabbles, however, are intended to go a bit further than that.