Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Perhaps the first indication that something is amiss is that his day so far has been remarkably average. Or as average as it can be when he spends the majority of his time surrounded by those who kill for pleasure, either because they’ve deluded themselves into believing that it’s for the greater good, or because their morals are severely lacking. Or they’re… Hidan.

Itachi can admit he’s hypocritical in several facets of life, but he’s fairly certain that most of these people have never once stopped to consider that what they’re doing isn’t entirely normal. 

Though he also doubts they had the ‘pleasure’ of being an oddly introspective toddler, or had concepts ingrained into their brains on the regular by a mother who still manages to be the most terrifying woman he’s ever come across. And that is counting the one who, when he was fourteen, would’ve scratched his eyes out if it weren’t for Kisame.

But he digresses.

The Akatsuki don't technically gather regularly, but it’s not particularly odd for several of them to be in one place, especially when it’s a slow day. Which is why everyone - save for the leaders and Zetsu - is around for the Spectacle (patent pending, or so he’s told). 

Itachi is the first to notice the stranger that enters the common room, and perhaps the only one who recognizes him for who he is. Although he lacks the mask, the facial scarring isn’t too far off from deeply-engraved swirls, and his ancestry is unquestionable.

This man is Tobi. It’s Madara.

And he’s just… walking around without a care in the world. For some reason.

(Though that miniscule possibility is seeming less likely by the day. This man certainly does not look like a shriveled fruit, nor does he have a single gray hair.

Oddly enough, though, he seems familiar, in a distant sort of sense…)

Itachi is barely able to keep himself from outright gaping when he makes the connection, though he fails to entirely keep his realization to himself, judging by the glint in Madara’s eye.

“Who the hell are you?” Deidara demands. Itachi can’t help but frown when he notices Madara tense under the sudden attention.

The man pauses, then sticks his chin up. “Your mom,” he answers, expression briefly spasming before smoothing out into something more neutral.

What, Itachi thinks flatly. 

“What the fuck?” Hidan unknowingly agrees. Kisame steps up behind Madara a moment later and places a hand on his shoulder.

The man tenses, then turns slowly towards Itachi’s partner. “Yes?”

Itachi presses his lips together, silently praying that Kisame doesn’t decide to be reckless. For all he’s scolded about his own health, Kisame often appears to be oblivious - even if Itachi knows that he most certainly is not - to the consequences of his actions.

“Who are you, really?” he asks.

Madara’s lips thin in displeasure, almost looking like a sour child. Itachi watches silently as something sparks within his eye before dimming.

“Tobi,” he eventually replies.

Itachi is not surprised by the sputtering sound that comes from Hidan, or the other reactions of those around the room. If he hadn’t seen it firsthand, he’d never have believed it either.

“No goddamn way!” Deidara shouts, dramatically throwing himself forwards as he points towards Madara’s back. Itachi swears he sees the word, ‘OBJECTION!’ appear in large, red letters, but it disappears the moment he blinks.

Slowly, Madara turns around with a widened eye. “Are you saying you don’t recognize Tobi, senpais?~” he asks, looking far too pleased with himself when everyone chokes.

Despite himself, even Itachi finds himself vaguely disturbed. What would father think of this? he wonders. The elders?

He nearly shudders at the thought. In the back of his mind, he can hear Shisui’s distant cackles.

“Anyways,” Madara says casually, “I’ve decided to blow this joint. Maybe I’ll become a baker or something. I think I could make a pretty mean snickerdoodle.”

There’s a long pause as Madara’s lips curl into an almost pained-looking smile, like he regrets all of his life decisions up until this point. 

Itachi wonders, absently, if Sasori had managed to sneak something into his food. It’s unlikely, but this situation seems like it could come straight out of one of those novels Kakashi-senpai tends to flaunt in public.

He pauses at that thought.

Kakashi is the only Sharingan-user left in the village, which certainly means that Sasuke will end up being placed under his command. Which, in turn, means that he’ll likely be exposed to Kakashi’s taste in… literature.

Itachi barely suppresses a scowl at the thought, and a shiver. If mother were to learn of this possibility…

Well, he’d pray that Kakashi would receive a swift death, right before burning all of those ridiculous books before his eyes in retribution.

“—see you never, senpais!”

Itachi blinks, watching as the air ripples, inviting Madara into some sort of liminal space.

“Huh,” Kisame says, right before the room erupts into chaos. Even so, he glances at Itachi with an amused grin. “Who’s gonna tell Pein about this?”

Itachi’s expression falls blank. “It will not be me,” he says plainly, causing his partner to snort. 

Swiftly, he turns to make his exit, wordlessly inviting Kisame to come along. He knows that they’ll all be told to search for their AWOL member if he’s as important to the cause as Itachi thinks, but until then… 

Well, he thinks he deserves some dango.

Chapter Text

Shin watches, not for the first time, as Danzou jams his finger into his desk, filled with an odd sense of bubbling awe.

Danzou purses his lips, like he’s just sucked on a lemon. Shin can almost see a vulgar stream of curses flitter through his mind.

A moment passes, and he exhales through his nose. It’s almost comical. Rather, it is, and Shin is absolutely elated about the recent turn of events.

He’s never seen Danzou quite so rattled before. He’s seen him irritated, usually muttering about incompetent council members or mocking the Hokage’s cryptic messages under his breath in a whiny voice that somehow manages to suit him, but there’s something different about this.

He’s being pranked. Danzou, that is.

Even other members of ROOT have noticed, and Shin has caught more than one of them wearing overexaggerated poker faces in an effort to keep quiet. Not that Danzou really notices, since he’s too preoccupied trying to figure out who’s causing his hair to go grayer than Shin’s.

After being dismissed, he finds that he’s unable to completely hide his amusement. He wards off his brother’s questioning with claims that he’ll tell him when he’s older, and smirks when the boy eyes him petulantly.

(And it’s… nice.

Moments like this have been scarce as of late, especially with his illness acting up. He’s missed this.)

It’s not long after that he manages to find the culprit. Unsurprisingly, it’s not a member from ROOT. But it’s also no Konoha nin he knows.

Which means that he’s either a missing nin or from another village, and his main purpose here is not to steal information or pave the way for Konoha’s downfall, but to prank Danzou out of (what seems like) sheer pettiness.

It’s incredible. Shin finds himself almost inspired by the whole thing.

He will admit, though, that he does not see his impromptu kidnapping coming. Not that he minds much, since his brother - dazed, but otherwise healthy - is dropped off along with him.

He peers at the door before him, then blinks when he meets a honey-colored gaze.

What the fuck, Shin thinks.

“What the fuck,” Tsunade of the Sannin echoes unintentionally. She frowns, eyes flicking between the brothers and a half-empty bottle. “I must be more shitfaced than I thought.”

That makes two of us, Shin concurs, completely sober.

“Lady Tsunade?” a voice calls from inside the hotel. “Is something wrong?”

“I think,” the blonde says, “I’m hallucinating.”

The second voice makes a sound of alarm. “What?” she lets out, then joins Tsunade at the door. “Oh,” she lets out. The pig in her arms oinks agreeably.

“So you can see them too,” Tsunade says a little more mournfully.

“Ah…” Shizune lets out hesitantly. “...Yes?”

Tsunade presses her lips together, then exhales. “No solicitors,” she tells Shin and his brother, then promptly slams the door into their face.

Before Shin can do much more than blink, he hears the second woman scolding the first, and the door reopens to a concerned expression.

“Are you alright?” the black-haired woman asks, silencing Tsunade’s protests with a well-placed glare. “Do you need help?”

Shin should probably say no. He can practically hear Danzou now, telling him to return and report to him immediately.

He lowers his gaze towards his open-mouthed brother, then promptly pummels the tiny Danzou in his mind without mercy.

“That would be lovely,” he says with a soft smile, ignoring Tsunade’s grumbling with as much ease as her assistant. The man who dropped them here was undoubtedly eccentric if not cracked, but at least he was helpful, and Shin’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Please, and thank you.”

(When he meets the man again months later, he learns that he wasn’t too far off with that initial assessment. He is, without a doubt, absolutely insane.

Though if Shin were in the wandering Uchiha’s shoes, he’d do far worse than inconvenience Danzou with a few well-placed pranks.)

Chapter Text

Gaara presses his lips together in clear concentration. Baki watches, torn between wariness and genuine bewilderment, as he twirls the stem of a reddish leaf between sand-coated fingertips.

He must’ve been staring at the thing for upwards of an hour, now. 

“Photosynthesis,” Kankuro had murmured upon arrival, near-incredulous. 

When Baki attempted to subtly press Temari for answers, she’d answered vaguely, mentioning that they’d come across a Konoha nin on their way over. Nothing to be concerned about, she’d claimed, but she’d muttered something about questionable sanity as she headed to her room.

He sees a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Gaara appears to have halted in his spinning of the leaf, and is instead peering at it with disturbing intensity.

Slowly, Gaara pushes his tongue outwards, then licks the leaf. Baki stares blankly as he retracts the muscle back into his mouth, lips curled into a frown.

What the actual fuck.

“Perhaps…” he trails off in a coarse voice, eyeing the leaf consideringly. If Baki hadn’t seen men be reduced to fleshy splatters for less, he’d have tried to stop him.

Instead, he can only watch in bemusement - and mild horror - as Gaara shoves the crumpled leaf into his mouth and begins to chew. His expression grows increasingly perplexed, and it has the unique effect of making him look particularly constipated. 

Several, long minutes later, he finally swallows.

“Leaves,” he decides quietly, “Do not taste delicious.”

The words don’t register at first. But when they do, Baki raises a pleading gaze towards the ceiling as if to ask, How did I get here? Just where did everything go wrong?

Gaara narrows his eyes. “Or maybe,” he considers, causing Baki’s sanity to crumble with just a few words, “It wasn’t the correct kind?”

Just then, he winces and rubs his temples with a frown. A reaction he’d seen more than once, but never in this type of setting - not for a long while, now. With sudden clarity, Baki realizes that Gaara is being yelled at. Scolded, like a misbehaving child, by a centuries-old demon.

Baki knows that this isn’t something he should encourage, but he remains silent nonetheless. He may not be able to ask what the fuck Gaara was thinking when he decided that leaves might make for a decent snack, but the Ichibi certainly could. Rasa didn’t have to know.

Baki pauses at that line of thought, then closes his eyes for a long, pained second. Apparently, he does have a limit to his loyalty, and that line is drawn somewhere between ‘teaching a demon child how to murder better’ and ‘watching said demon child eat leaves like some sort of demented rabbit.’ 

Kamis above, he needs a nap.

Chapter Text

“I already told you— oh, what the fuck, is that a cat?”

Naomasa’s eyes flick between Sansa and the station’s newest mystery. The former shakes his head once before exiting, and the latter meets his gaze with a wince.

“That was rude, wasn't it? Can you tell him that I'm sorry later?” 

He resists the urge to sigh; sure, this isn’t the worst case he’s handled—though it certainly would’ve been, had the villains gotten what they wanted—but he’s not been left with much to work with. 

When a group of villains suddenly appear within one of the most well-guarded areas of Japan with the world’s most disturbing science experiment in tow, one would assume that the other mysteriously-appearing man would have something to do with that.

Judging by available testimonies and the man’s actions, however, that does not seem to be the case. 

“...Sure,” Naomasa replies after an extended pause, careful not to change his expression when the man beams back at him. “My name is Tsukauchi Naomasa,” he says, sliding into the seat across from the man, “My quirk is called ‘Lie Detector. It’s as it sounds; if you tell me a lie, I’ll be able to tell. Knowing this, will you submit to questioning?”

The man shrugs easily. “Alright. But only if I can have Doug.”

“Doug,” Naomasa echoes, then remembers Aizawa’s unnervingly flat tone upon reaching the man’s role in the main scuffle. “The stuffed dog?”

“He’s more than that,” the man says, almost emphatically. “Emotional support, mostly.”

Naomasa chooses not to pry, for the sake of his own (remaining) sanity. “Is ‘Doug’ a weapon, or can he cause any harm?”

“Only to that Nomu I sucker-punched.” The man leans in, whispering unsubtly. “And that was all me, between you and us.”

Truth. ‘Us,’ it seems, refers to both the man and the stuffed dog.

Naomasa resists the urge to rub his temples; absently, and while offering a mental apology to All Might, he wonders if eccentricity and stronger quirks are a package deal.

“...Good enough,” he decides, then signals for Sansa to step back in. He slips into the room, holding out the stuffed dog—which is undoubtedly the ugliest toy he’s ever seen—towards the man.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Sansa, oddly genuine.

Sansa snorts in response before leaving. The man seems partially satisfied, if nothing else.

“So, what’s up?”

“As I said before, we need to ask you a few questions, mostly pertaining to the incident at the USJ. But before that, I need to know a few things about you,” Naomasa says, readying his pen. “First, what’s your name?”

“Obito Uchiha,” the man replies.

Truth, his quirk pings back at the same time he receives, Lie.

An odd response, though not unheard of— particularly among those who’ve recently changed their names.

“You’re sure?”

Uchiha, apparently, fails to completely hide a grimace. “That's what I go by. And have been for a while now.”

Naomasa frowns at his reaction, but writes the name down nonetheless. He does note, though, that it could be an alias.

“Where are you from?” he asks next. Uchiha makes an odd face.

“...A village. You wouldn’t know it. It’s surrounded by a really big forest.”

Truth, Lie— as a collective of the three. 

“What’s its name?”

“Konohagakure.”

Truth.

Naomasa has certainly never heard of such a place. “And you live there?”

“...Not for a while, no,” Uchiha replies after a moment of hesitation. “I’ve been traveling lately. Haven’t really found a place to settle.”

Truth. 

His previous living situation, however, is a contradiction. And while he could attribute it to his last response, they don’t exactly correlate with one another unless the man associates where he’s from with his current situation.

“Alright. That’s enough of that for now.” Bluntly, he asks, “Why were you at the USJ?”

“I have no idea.”

Truth.

Naomasa takes pause. “What?”

“I don’t know,” the man replies truthfully, stroking his stuffed dog’s fur, “I was just doing my own thing before I got eaten up by a portal. Next thing I know, I’m in the dirt and watching some ninja guy kick ass.”

Naomasa’s lip quirks upwards at his description of Aizawa before he smooths out his expression. He’ll be sure to tell the man what Uchiha thinks of him, though, seeing as it’s not exactly confidential.

“So you are unassociated with the ‘League of Villains’?”

“I am not associated with them, no,” Uchiha confirms.

“And you have no ill intentions in relation to U.A.’s students or any of its teachers?” Naomasa presses.

“Nope. Just a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ type of deal,” Uchiha replies flippantly. “But hey, speaking of: do you think you could figure out how to get me home?”

“We can, as soon as you’re cleared,” Naomasa says. Seeing as the man hadn’t actually thrown up any red flags, despite his oddness, he doubts that he’s actually a threat to anyone that doesn’t attack him. “But you’d have to point out where you live.”

“I cannot do that,” Uchiha says, and Naomasa frowns when it comes back as a truth. “Literally. I mean, I’m fairly certain that I’m from a different dimension.”

Truth, again. Naomasa feels an aneurysm coming on.

“...Right,” he replies a touch absently, then forces out a breath. “Great.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Uchiha says, “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me.”

Suddenly, Naomasa considers the merits of drowning in a pot of coffee. “It does not.”

“...Fair enough.”

“What,” Naomasa says.

“The guy apparently has an interdimensional quirk,” Sansa elaborates, looking amused. “It freaked him out too, apparently. It doesn’t usually bring over anything living.”

Naomasa stares at Sansa for several moments before closing his eyes. “So it has something to do with Uchiha’s quirk?”

“If that’s even what it’s called, there,” Sansa agrees, chipper as can be. Naomasa kind of wants to throttle him.

“Wonderful,” he says, then takes a long breath. “So what then?”

Sansa shrugs. “Apparently it’s a time-based thing. He should be back in an hour or two, if everything goes well.”

Which means that someone needs to keep him company, Naomasa realizes.

And that… is fine, he supposes. The man, in all truth, hadn’t actually been that bad— just odd.

“Okay,” he replies, eyes flicking towards the interrogation room’s door. “I’ll go check on him, then.”

Sansa laughs. “Good luck.”

Naomasa rolls his eyes, then steps into the room.

“Hey, detective!” Uchiha greets, cheerful as can be. Suddenly, Naomasa remembers that this is not, in fact, the last thing he has to deal with today.

“Hello,” he says, offering a small smile, pushing thoughts of overtime to the further corners of his mind. “Sorry for the wait, but it’ll take a little longer still. Can I get you anything, or are you fine for now?”

Uchiha begins shaking his head, then goes eerily still.

“Yeah,” he whispers, meeting Naomasa’s gaze with eyes that practically sparkle. “Do you have pizza rolls?”

Nevermind, Naomasa decides, revoking his previously-positive statement about the man. I don’t get paid enough for this.