Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me
Author's notes: This story takes place at the end of Chapter 383 (the events in Chapter 384 and 385 does not figure in here) where our favorite Uchiha brothers (yes, I know there are only two of them) once again meet, and thus starts the I'm gonna kill you and you're gonna kill me thing again.
Warning: Mild crack involved. Everyone's quite OOC.
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Sasuke stared at his brother who was sitting casually in front of him. He couldn't believe he could have found Itachi just waiting there for him like that.
"Sasuke," Itachi said politely, a sign of all those lessons on "How An Uchiha Should Behave In Public" which was taught by some old relative who was the cousin of their father's uncle's brother (or something like that. All Sasuke knew was he never liked that old hag) had not gone to waste even after defecting from his own village and joining a so-called terrorist group. "You see me dead?"
"Itachi," Sasuke scowled, a bit less politely. He was going to kill the guy after all. Who cared about manners and what not at times like these?
"Well, Sasuke,' Itachi paused. "Let's see how good your eyesight is".
"That's it, I've had enough of you," Sasuke said as he prepared to Chidori his (so called) brother once and for all.
"You know what?" Itachi said as he stood up and looked at Sasuke's fingertips where bleu light had begun crackling and the sound of chirping birds began filling the air. "It just occurred to me that I haven't told you about the birds yet".
"The what?" Sasuke said, distracted as he glanced at Itachi out of the corner of his eyes.
"The birds and the bees," Itachi said blandly as if he was telling his brother what a fine cloudless day it was. He even stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"If you're referring to sex, I already know all about it," Sasuke gritted out. "Do you mind not changing the subject?"
"I'm not changing the subject. I just realized that with our parents out of your live at such a young age, no one probably would have given you the… talk yet".
"And whose fault is that?"
"Yes, so now I'm going to be the responsible big brother for once and tell you all the finer details".
"What?" Sasuke said. He had got totally disconcerted with his brother's behavior that he had forgotten to gather chakra in his hand and the previous blue light vanished. He got ready to stuff his fingers into his ears and throw a kunai at Itachi in case he started with the infamous 'When a man and woman love each other very much…'
"Oh no," Itachi said as he raised a fine aristocratic eyebrow. "Don't tell me the rumors are true?"
"Rumors?" Sasuke said. He was being so eloquent with his one word replies, no?
"They say you're gay," Itachi explained patiently. "Maybe asexual".
"That… what… I…" Sasuke choked. He really didn't want to know how those rumors reached his brother's ears.
"So it's true?"
"I didn't know the Akatsuki enjoyed listening to gossips so much," Sasuke said, finally finding his voice and his proper speech pattern again.
"You see, when you go to the market; there are a lot of these middle aged women who enjoy talking. You get very interesting information out of listening to them. Besides, killing people everyday gets boring you know," Itachi nodded. "We still need some form of entertainment. I'm not into drugs or prostitution. I get my pleasures from other sources. And what do you think we do whenever we're in our headquarters? We can't talk about blood, revenge and battle tactics all the time".
"I'm not gay," Sasuke stated. He tried to get the images of the members of the Akatsuki in their black and red cloaks standing in the market and asking for the price of a pound of tomatoes or how fresh the fish was that day out of his head.
"But you don't show any interest in any girls. Although you are not even half as good looking at me, I'm sure you have quite a few fan girls in Konoha".
"But they're all totally crazy," Sasuke protested. The word fan girls disturbed him enough to forget about defending his (in his own opinion, utterly sexy) looks.
"I see. So you're into girls like the redhead that you drag around in your new…team?" Itachi said, emphasizing his distaste on the last word.
"You mean Karin? No way. She's just useful at tracking missions. And my team happens to have a name," Sasuke huffed.
"Yeah. Hebi. Snake. If you imply to hate Orochimaru that much, why the hell did you call yourselves that? No sense of originality at all".
"And Akatsuki is original? Hah. Speak for yourself".
Itachi ignored the slight on the name of his organization. "Thank god you don't like that Karin bitch. She doesn't have the looks to match the Uchiha name".
"That's true," Sasuke agreed amiably. "I mean that hair and those clothes. Gosh. She obviously needs a makeover".
"Therefore I think that you should pick a girl from Konoha to settle down with," Itachi said, sitting down cross legged on the floor and pulling out a thin book from his cloak.
"Itachi. Did someone attack you and hit your head lately? Or maybe that blue team mate of yours, what was his name again… Kisame accidentally hit you a bit too hard in the middle of training?" Sasuke said. He was beginning to get concerned considering his cold hearted brother was acting totally out of character.
"You think a person can get close enough to me to hit me?" Itachi said, obviously offended.
"Considering you hardly move when you fight, maybe someone sneaked up on you".
"In case you have forgotten, I have this thing called the Mangekyo Sharingan. Which you do not have," Itachi pointed out.
Speaking of the Mangekyo, Sasuke stared at his surroundings a bit more carefully with his Sharingan activated eyes. Did Itachi trap him in a genjutsu without him realizing it? But if that's the case, Itachi should be torturing him to death by now (probably with their famous Katon jutsus).
Sasuke blanched. Or maybe this was how Itachi was planning to torture him. Death by embarrassment. He would never live this down. So far, Itachi had wanted to explain the finer points of sex to him, then he was questioned on his sexuality (Sasuke fumed internally at whoever had dared to say he was gay. He swore he was going to murder whoever it was) and now, he Itachi wanted to talk about his future wife.
Something was definitely wrong.
Sasuke focused his eyes on his brother, who had not moved from his spot on the ground and was flipping through the book that he had pulled out just now. He blinked. If his eyes weren't betraying him, the title of the book was…
"Konoha Babes?" Sasuke choked.
Itachi looked up at that sound. "Sasuke, compose yourself. We're trying to discuss a serious issue here".
"Where did you get that book? Don't tell me it's part of the Icha Icha series," Sasuke said, imagining his perverted ex-sensei giggling at one of the pages while perched on a tree branch.
"I respect him enough as a Sannin, but that toad man wouldn't have the skills to create this book," Itachi sounded slightly affronted at Sasuke's wild guess. "This book was written by Deidara. If you're interested, the other books in this series include Suna Babes, Lightning…"
"Deidara? I thought he's your bomb expert," Sasuke said, thinking of that blonde who resembled Ino so much.
"He blew himself up trying to kill you, didn't he? What a waste. He did have a lot of talent," Itachi said thoughtfully.
"He deserved it," Sasuke said coldly.
"Yes, going back to the topic at hand," Itachi said. "I'm sure Mother would be pleased if you married a local girl instead of some random person, like the redhead bitch we were talking about just now".
"What would you know about what Mother would think? You killed her. And I really hate Karin, OK? Stop talking about her. She keeps trying to imply that we have a secret relationship. She's so annoying".
"Ah, Mother had always liked you best, didn't she? Her little Sasu-chan. You even had extra icing on your birthday cakes, Itachi said contemplatively.
"I did?" Sasuke said, pleased that he could one up his brother on something.
Itachi suddenly appeared in front of Sasuke.
Sasuke cursed and reached belatedly for a kunai. Instead of the sharp end of a sword, he found himself confronted with a page from the book, which was held only a few inches in front of him.
"How about this one?" Itachi suggested. "She's a Hyuuga, a member of the main house and potential heir to the clan, shy, and the most important thing- possesses the Byakugan," Itachi said, reading from the book.
Sasuke found himself looking at a picture of Hinata Hyuuga as she looked like currently with longer hair and better self confidence.
"She has a crush on Naruto," Sasuke said. "She also has an inferiority complex".
"Naruto? Good choice, if only because of the Kyuubi's power," Itachi said. "An inferiority complex would counter your superiority complex nicely, though. And just imagine the children you would have. With the combination of the Sharingan (which of course, is much more superior) and the Byakugan, you would create the… Shakugan"
"You've got to be kidding me. And what kind of name is Shakugan?" Sasuke said bemusedly. He knew the Sharingan had bad side effects on the sight but did it effect their hearing as well? He had to check on that.
"But Byaringan doesn't have a nice ring to it," Itachi scowled. "All right, how about this one then?"
Sasuke looked at the page held in front of him. An older Ino Yamanaka looked back alluringly at him from the pages of the book.
"The Shintenshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Switch Technique) is definitely risky but the results are worth the trouble. And she is quite pretty too. Tall, blonde, sexy…," Itachi started.
"Shut up. I don't need more blondes in my life. I had enough of Naruto, who for your information actually personifies the saying 'dumb blonde' sometimes," Sasuke said. He finally realized that he was probably stuck in a nightmare and the next morning he'll wake up and forget all this ever happened. That's what happens when you fall asleep after a hearty meal. He sighed. He'll just go on with this crazy scenario for a while.
"I'd do her, though," Itachi said.
Itachi looked contemplative again as he flipped through the pages while Sasuke stared at him in horror. "There are not many kunoichis around, brother. And I would rather you marry a kunoichi and not a civilian".
"Why don't you marry one yourself first? Then we'll talk about me," Sasuke countered.
"Being in the Akatsuki means we have to travel a lot. I don't have time for superfluous things like marriage," Itachi sighed.
"I get it. You want me to get married, settle down somewhere with my family and then forget about hunting and killing you. I'm sorry but that won't work," Sasuke said, folding his arms across his chest.
"I'm trying to get someone to continue the Uchiha family name. Since I can't and won't do it, the duty and responsibility falls onto you," Itachi explained patiently.
"I think you're the one who is gay," Sasuke stated dully. "The Akatsuki is full of men, right?"
"Apart from me, Deidara and possibly Pein, the rest of them do not have good enough looks," Itachi stated monotonously. He pointed at another page.
"Konoha's weapons mistress. She isn't exactly pretty and those buns are a bit weird. But her knowledge in weapons is good. And her team mates are the other Hyuuga and that taijutsu expert. However I don't think she might not be a very subservient wife," Itachi said.
"No," Sasuke said. Enough said.
"I knew it," Itachi said and turned the page again.
"Right, this one's good. She's even your ex-team mate. Now the apprentice to the Hokage and medic-nin. Excellent chakra control and can create lots of damage in combat," Itachi read.
Sasuke stared at familiar pink hair and innocent green eyes. He sighed again.
"Isn't she the one you knocked out and left on a bench?" Itachi observed.
"Where did you hear that from?" Sasuke snapped.
"Such un-gentlemanly behavior," Itachi said. "You're lucky she's fine. Do you even know what might happen to a girl on a bench on a cold night? She wouldn't be able to defend herself from rape, murder or…"
"I get the idea," Sasuke gritted out. Fine, so he didn't put much thought into where to leave Sakura after knocking her out. He admitted that.
"Yup, I'd do her too," Itachi smirked.
"Don't you dare touch her," Sasuke growled as he grabbed the book from Itachi's fingers. He had half the mind to Katon Itachi right there and then. "And give me that".
"Gladly. We have other copies at the headquarters. Think about what I said. Till next time," Itachi smirked again and disappeared form the spot.
Sasuke stared at the spot where his 'brother' had stood just a second earlier. He stuffed the book into his pocket, made a few hand seals and disappeared as well.
It wasn't until he was sitting in his tent alone later and paging through the thin book he had confiscated from Itachi that he realized that Itachi had gotten away again and he had lost several good chances of running him through with Kusanagi while Itachi had talked about his future prospects.
He sighed and hid the book in his pocket again before walking out of his tent.
The next morning, the other three members would walk out of their tents and realize that the dense forest life around them had been diminished into smoldering ash in the course of one night and their leader was sulking over breakfast.
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Author's note: Instead of updating one of my other stories, I found myself writing this after reading Chapter 383. Have a good day.