Itachi, Is That A Baby? (by SpoonandJohn)

"Hey dad, guess what I—oh gods!" Hari threw himself down as his father's eyes went from sleep to Kaleidoscopic Sharingan and a blob of dark fire shot in his general direction.

"Dad! It's me!" Hari pulled the invisibility cloak from his head.

"What."

"I'm home!"

"How did you sneak up on me?"

"This magic cloak I got at school. It makes me invisible."

"That shouldn't be enough to keep me from sensing you in my sleep."

Hari shrugged. "Why didn't you tell me you owned something this awesome?"

"What."

"The note not from the Headmaster said he got it from my father."

"Hari . . ." Itachi sighed. "You do recall that you're adopted, right?"

"Yes?"

"So you have a biological father out there somewhere."

"Yes?"

"And people might be talking about him when they reference your father. Especially if they knew him."

"Oh. OH! Oh wow, that makes more sense!" Hari grinned. "I wondered how Professor Snape could hate you so much when you'd never been to England."

"I'm not asking."

Hari trotted out of his father's room. "HEY EVERYONE! I HAVE GIFTS!"

Itachi sighed again and rubbed his eyes. They hurt and his eyesight was getting worse, but he'd reacted badly to the shock of someone suddenly talking next to him. He still had a few years left before he'd need to face Sasuke.

X

X

"Hi, Uncle Kisame!"

"Hey brat." Kisame reached out and cuffed the kid upside the head. Someone else would have been decapitated instead of merely stumbling a bit. "How was . . ." he snickered. "School?"

"Actually, it was pretty fun." Hari grinned as he casually dodged a swing from Samehada. As he expected, his kick to his uncle's face didn't even annoy the giant man. "I met someone bigger than you, for one thing." He made a 'wheee' sound as Kisame flicked him off his sword. "And there were lots and lots of secret passages to learn. If I ever need to kill someone important there, no one will find me."

"Already planning for graduation, then?"

"Yep. But I don't think they graduate like that."

"Shame."

"Yeah. But I made friends. Or found people who kind of like me and spend time with me."

"Close enough." Samehada took a chunk out of the floor as Hair landed on the sword again. "What 'magic' did you learn?"

"Not a lot, I admit. I think they wanted to make sure we understood what we're doing first."

"Pussies."

"But I did a bit of self-study. It's sad just how little they taught, considering the number of wa—eeeees!" Hair landed feet-first on the wall. "They have to kill people. Really unenlightened, that bunch. I can't do most of it yet, but I'm working on that."

"Good. Now what was it you said about gifts?"

"Oh! Right!" Hari abruptly turned and exited the room, dodging Kisame's swing as he did.

X

X

"Hey, Uncle Pein!"

"Hari." Pein turned from his giant map. Over time, it had gotten significantly more detailed as Sasori's web of informants spread ever-wider. There were currently more than a dozen figurines in various places.

Sitting in the middle of Fire Country was a white robe with a red hat. In case anyone missed what the figure was for, it said "fire" on the hat. Similar figures were in the other four of the largest lands. A cat and an octopus-bull in Lightning, a monkey and a . . . thing . . . in Stone, a slug and a turtle in Mist, a fox in Leaf, and a beetle in Waterfall. There was another slug and a pig on a town in Fire. Leaf was crowded. There was a raccoon sitting inside its drawn walls, as were a pale snake and a figure with warts standing on an inky pool. Crowded into there were also an iron hand formed into a fist, a sleeping dog with one red eye open, a slouching monkey with a fan clutched in one hand and a loincloth that said "fire", and a bed made of obsidian. There was also an upside-down tree with little figures with white faces balanced on it. There was a decrepit female vomiting a red tide with bits of black-dyed cotton dribbling from her mouth nestled deep in Water with a white sphere alongside her. In Cloud was a female figure made of pumice. In Sand was a little white marionette, weathered with age and a woman with a pile of dust at her feet and a ball of fire in her hand.

"I got everyone gifts!"

"You what?"

"I was traveling and got people things. Could you call them?"

Pein sighed and turned away from his map. "I have a feeling I will regret this." His hand rose and a gong on the far side of the room slammed itself against the knocker behind it.

X

X

Ten minutes later, the Akatsuki had gathered.

Hari beamed at everyone. Then he was slammed to the ground as an orange-masked figure tackled him. "Tobi missed Hari!" shouted the man. "Without Hari, Tobi got blamed for everything!"

"If it makes you feel better," replied Hari from under his most exuberant Uncle. "I got blamed for everything that happened at my school." He paused. "To be fair, they were pretty much right, but still . . ."

Itachi picked up Tobi by the collar and set him at the large meeting table where the others had already sat. "Please refrain from that until after the rest of us are free to return to our own tasks."

Tobi pouted as best he could behind his mask. "Tobi was just happy . . ." he muttered.

Hari slit his thumb on his teeth and popped one of the storage seals on his forearm. Ten boxes wrapped in gaudy paper sprang into existence and he picked one up. "Here, Uncle Tobi," he held out a small, flat package. "For you."

Tobi tore open the gift and examined the pink circle within. "Tobi doesn't understand . . ."

"It's got instructions on the back."

Tobi turned it over. After a few moments, Tobi fell out of his chair, laughing.

"I don't want to know," said Pein. "I really, really don't want to know."

"Uncle Hidan." Hari held out his offering.

Hidan opened it and grinned at the book, One Thousand Obscure Curses or How to Make Everything Dirty.

"Uncle Kakuzu."

The oldest member of the Akatsuki opened his heavy, lumpy package and found it was a leather sack filled with gold coins. "I still owe you a beating for messing up one of my hearts."

"Uncle Zetsu."

The black half of the duo looked on in disdain as his white side gleefully opened his gift. From inside, a green vine lashed out and began to try to strangle him. The plant-man cheerily worked at keeping it from finishing the job. "Devil's Snare," added Hari. "They have great stuff lying around my school." The gathered ninja nodded—that made sense.

"Uncle Sasori."

The gift was opened with the caution of the un-terminally paranoid. Inside was a jar. "It's magical wood varnish," explained Hari. "It keeps away bugs, strengthens the material, and so on." He got a nod from the hulking figure.

"Uncle Deidara."

Deidara's caution was more born of having tongues and not wanting papercuts. Inside was a cube of gray material.

"Clay?"

"Nope!" Hari's grin was predatory. "It's called Composition Four. Remind me to show you how it works after this."

"Uncle Kisame."

Kisame eyed the package with concern. It had holes in it. When it was opened, from inside came a faint mew.

"Hari?"

"Yes?"

"Is that a cat?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

Kisame gently lifted out what looked rather like a ball of auburn fluff with big, green eyes and a pink ribbon around its neck. Tied into a bow. It mewed again.

"Because it sure looks like a cat."

"It's not."

Kisame sighed. "I see you're learning from your father. If it's not a cat, what is it?"

"A Kneazle."

"A what?"

"It's a magical creature. They often form attachments with people and live with them. They purr when content and mostly treat humanity with a dismissive attitude."

"So a cat."

"No."

"It's a cat."

"It's not a cat."

"It is."

"Isn't."

"Is."

"Isn't."

"Is—you know something? We're not doing this." The kitten mewed again and batted at his sleeve. "Would you quit that?" Kisame poked it. It licked his finger. "I hate you, Hari."

"I love you too, Uncle Kisame." He turned to Pein. "Uncle Pein."

One of the other Paths stepped forward and poked the box a few times. When nothing happened, the Path used a Chakra Rod to open it. "What?" The Naraka Path lifted out seven identical pendants, each on a string of bright pink beads.

"Well, they have these things called friendship lockets or something," said Hari. "They split in two and each person wears one so they can put them together and show they're still friends or something. But I figured you needed more pieces, so I had them make the set."

"Pink beads?"

"Only kind they had," Hari lied virtuously.

"Right."

"Glad you agree." Hari jumped in time to avoid the laser blast from the Asura Path, landing in front of his father. "Dad."

Itachi formed a clone, which drew a kunai and carefully teased the wrapping open. "Hn." He lifted out a white T-shirt with the legend, "My Son Went to Another World and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt".

Hari snickered as he went to his lone aunt. "Did you know that I didn't meet a single person with your hair color in England?"

"Come again?"

"I was just thinking about it and a realized that no one had anything like your hair color." Hari shrugged and held out a present. "Aunt Konan."

She produced a paper blade from a finger and delicately opened the box. She glanced inside and her eyes grew huge. Then her face turned bright red and Hari's Byakugan picked up actual heatwaves. "I got you books for your collection!"

"The-they're moving." Konan's voice sounded very faint.

"Yeah. Wizard pictures do that."

Her eyes bugged out still more as she watched something in one of the books. "What is—"

"Hippogriff." Hari's response did not seem to help.

"What did Hari get you?" asked Pein, leaning over. Then the Deva path was flying out the now-"open" window.

"O . . . kay then," said Kisame, ignoring the kitten licking his hand. "I'm going to file that under the list of things not to ask about then."

Konan's expression was icy (aside from being bright red still). "You do that."

Hari suddenly grinned. "Uncle Hidan?"

"What, brat?"

"I want to show you something."

"And?"

"So I need you to go about a klick that way." Hari pointed out the broken window.

"What?"

"No." Hari's voice was firm. "I'm not dealing with that shit. Now leave."

"Wha—" Hidan's cry was suddenly cut off as Hari grabbed his face and threw him out the window.

"When you pick yourself up, go where I told you to," Hari called down. He turned back to the others. "Let me show you what I got for myself."

"Why did Hidan just land next to me?" asked Pein as he walked into the room.

"He was being difficult."

"Ah." The orange-haired punk-rocker-lookalike gathered with the other Akatsuki. "What are we watching?"

"My new toy." Hari swiped a bloodied thumb over his right wrist and caught the Barret M95 that appeared from the cloud of smoke. "Watch this." He casually swung the weapon up at his hip.

"What are you going to do with that?" asked Kisame. "There's no way that has the range to—" the sudden bang cut him off.

"Holy . . ." Pein's eyes were wide. "Kakuzu?"

"Yes?"

"I need you to go put Hidan back together."

"Come again?"

"He's missing most of his torso. And he's . . . concerned about the separation of his shoulders from the mass of him that has knees."

Kakuzu shrugged and walked down the side of the tower in the ever-present drizzle.

"That is such bullshit!" growled Kisame as the kitten nibbled his palm. "Would you stop that?"

"He has a point, Hari," murmured Konan as she walked over to the broken window, letting the cool air help reduce her scorching blush. "It's rather unfair."

"I don't plan to use it unless I can't do things the normal way," replied Hari. "It's really unsporting." He paused. "Besides, if I used it all the time, people would be ready for it. And I can't give these out. I mean, if everyone had one, how would anyone be able to go aboveground? As it is, if I manage to work out how to electroplate them with chakra-reactive metal, I'll use lightning to punch through defenses."

The Akatsuki (sans Zetsu) blanched when they considered the concept of such a weapon in the hands of a boy with the Byakugan. Hari had been lucky enough that his eyes were able to see a little shy of two kilometers. If he could reliably hit targets with this monster at those ranges . . .

"Unsporting," agreed Pein shakily. "Yes." It struck him just how bad it would be if, say, Leaf had access to this. He would be unable to stop Hyūga from just blowing his head off.

Itachi nodded silently. He was glad his son had demonstrated his awareness of reality to the point that he'd worked out how bad it would be to hand that thing out to everyone.

"Yeah. They have better ones that I'll grab next time, but I wanted to practice with this a bit first." Hari missed the fleeting terror on his family's faces as he trotted from the room.

X

X

"Hari," Pein said.

"Yes?" Hari had been sitting on the ceiling of Pein's map room, fiddling with his new gun. He didn't have much working knowledge of runes yet, but he was able to manage passable seals and had been working on the idea of adding a storage seal to the Barret's magazine. It was a bolt-action, so he was fairly limited on his rate of fire already and he didn't want to slow it further by having to reload after every engagement.

"Can I have a word with you?"

"Yes." Hari didn't look up (down? He was never sure about that) from what he was doing.

"I meant that you should come down here." Pein sighed. Ten months had apparently been enough for him to forget his nephew's tendency to take things literally.

"Oh."

"Yes. And when I asked, it was an order."

"Oh." Hari released the chakra from his thighs and landed right-side up in front of his uncle. "What's up?"

"Your gift for Deidara," prompted Pein.

"What about it?"

"How do I put this nicely? You can't get him any more of it."

"Why?"

"You're really asking me that?"

"Yes."

"Well, if you really must know . . ." Pein closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and glared at the boy. "It's because he destroyed half of the shopping district in Rain, wrecked the drainage for most of the village, caused a flood in the lowland farms, razed a small town in which his target was a single bandit—not, in fact, a school—blasted apart an orphanage in Earth (although I grant he has his reasons for that. I really want someone to work with him on his issues there), and, just a small incident here, blew up several floors of my tower."

"He does that without C-4," replied Hari.

"Not in one day!" snapped Pein. "I'm trying to run a respectable organization for missing-nin. It's hard enough to do that given Hidan unable to handle capture-missions and Kisame's lax attitude towards civilian casualties without my explosives expert having little 'accidents' because he's not used to the magnitude of the explosives he's working with!"

"You seem a little upset, Uncle Pein."

"Just. A. Bit. As it is, I'm just glad Deidara didn't make any bigger mistakes. Do you know how hard it is to find someone with his potential? What would I have done if he'd blown his hand off when nibbling on your gift?"

"Asked me to find you a magic specialist who can regenerate it?"

"I'd have been out of—what?"

"There are medics, expensive medics of course, who can regenerate whole limbs off of a person's own genetic template."

"Oh." Pein frowned. "It would have still been annoying. And he might have managed to kill himself. Can they fix that?"

"No idea. If they can, they don't talk about it much. There are a lot of books at school and I can only read so many at once."

"You have the Byakugan."

"And?"

"Can't you read them all?"

"Setting aside the difficulty in processing thousands of books at a time, there are plenty of them I simply can't read with these." Hari tapped the side of his face. "And that's not to mention the fact that I'm pretty careful to avoid doing that, in case there are books with nasty effects on the reader."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Did you know that there are books that can melt the reader's eyes? And while most of them are labeled—most, mind you—if I read the warning at the same time as the book, I'm out of luck, aren't I?"

"Well . . ."

"So it's completely possible there's a way to bring them back. I have no idea, though."

"I see. Nevertheless, you are not allowed to get Deidara more explosives. I don't need those kinds of complaints again."

"Alright, fine. Can I get him ANFO then?"

"I guess."

"Cool."

(A/N John)

I titled this chapter the way I did with good reason. Most of the gifts were Spoon's ideas. Especially the HippoGryffindor. That was completely her idea.

(A/N 2 John)

If you people are wondering how Hari knew what to get, he didn't. He went to a store that sold some things that looked like some of the things in his Aunt's collection and stole a bit of everything they had.

(A/N 3 John)

Spoon is curious to see if anyone can work out all the figurines. Most of them should be pretty easy. A couple are more vaguely designed. And one of them will likely be hard to follow without seeing inside my head.