Captain Planet [Active]

[redeyesatnight.livejournal.com]

Character(s): Uchiha Itachi, Zetsu, Marluxia, and Sai
Content: Itachi and Zetsu go wandering. Marluxia shows up. Sai joins them. Good times were had by all.
Setting: Vanaheim, somewhere.
Time: Afternoon
Warnings: Don't let Paiger fill these out at one in the morning None yet. =3

It had been raining and Itachi had refused to go outside. It was raining, raining! An Uchiha in the rain? Ridiculous! The prodigy of the clan? Impossible! That, and Itachi didn't fancy getting wet. He hated the drowned rat look. It didn't become him. But now the sun was shining and the ground was drying, and Itachi and Zetsu were wandering around Vanaheim.

Itachi was cheerful, though he was hiding it behind a mask of indifference. They hadn't had any luck in finding Sasuke, but Itachi had come to terms with the idea that they might not find him here. Not everyone got transported to this place, right? He had also come to terms with the whole time difference thing, and realised that there were more chances by far that Sasuke would come from some time after him. It still concerned him that his welcome would be far from that, should Sasuke be older than the little brother he left behind, but he supposed that he would deal with that when the time came.

The young Uchiha watched the people around them as they walked, wondering how they could seem so carefree in the presence of strangers such as them. It was kind of strange, to say the least.

"Zetsu?" Itachi looked up at the older shinobi. "What's the plan?"

Comments

[weeatbodies.livejournal.com]

Zetsu had hardly cared about the refusal to go out in the rain; it wasn't like they were in a rush to do anything, or had a timetable of any sort to work with. He would have been fine with it, personally--what plant minded getting watered?--but even after working solo for so long, didn't find it much of a problem to humor his new companion. Besides, Itachi definitely wouldn't have pulled the drowned rat look, and being wet probably interfered with producing fire jutsus, though he wouldn't guess exactly how. The weather would suit Itachi much better now, though; the sun was out and shining, drenching everyone with sunlight and heat equally as intense as the squall of rain had been earlier, the very heat causing the occasional puff of steam to curl up from the puddles that still littered the streets.

Zetsu wasn't particularly cheerful, himself--he was passively content, though, strolling with his hands buried in his sleeves, leaves outstretched and glistening in the harsh light as he drew in the sunshine and moisture in the air. He glanced down at Itachi's question, looking thoughtful for a moment, and in the end just shrugged his bare shoulders. "At the moment, we have no mission, my effort to locate the other Akatsuki--or your brother, or any other shinobi--has been unsuccessful, and our intelligence on this town is incomplete. So until we come across anything that changes our situation somehow, we have no plan. Unless you have suggestions." He raised an eyebrow questioningly toward Itachi; the plant-nin was making an effort to retrain himself to think of being part of a team, rather than traveling alone, and including Itachi in decisions.

[redeyesatnight.livejournal.com]

Itachi listened and nodded. Zetsu was right. With their search attempt having fallen through, they were left without much of anything to do. Itachi didn't like it. Having an over-abundance of free time was likely to make him lax, slow to react. He was going to have to be sure that didn't happen. In the mean time...

"Maybe we should work on remedying part of that," he suggested. He had an idea in mind, though it really did go against a lot of his nature. "We could talk to some of the local folk, build up an information network within these... domes. It might be that the other Akatsuki, and my brother, are hesitant about coming forward in such... public means. There is still a chance that they could be here, and we wouldn't know."

[weeatbodies.livejournal.com]

Zetsu nodded thoughtfully, considering the idea. "We doubt the actual locals will prove of any use to us.... But it wouldn't hurt to establish contacts. More useful ones would probably come from those others torn from their rightful when and where, but they likely won't be so cooperative."

He could only think of one thing, concerning the last comment. "If they are here and didn't respond, they're smarter than we sometimes give them credit for.... Still, it seems almost useless to hide our identities from most of these people." The locals probably wouldn't care one way or the other who they were. And just who could be from their when and where, really? The odds were against them being an ally, but he was willing to hope against those odds. After all, the two of them were here, weren't they? They'd found each other quickly, too.

[natural-cause.livejournal.com]

Marluxia was back to patrolling the streets in the Vanaheim area. After the warm, fond acceptance he’d received in Joutenheim, he was going to avoid that area for a long time. He wasn’t a babysitter. He wasn’t going to chase children unless he was punishing them. And he couldn’t punish anyone just yet. There was so much more left to do still. The plans were still in the early stages.

He was already in a foul mood after the Joutenheim scene, and the scorching weather was only making him grumpier. It was enough to make him feel as though he were wilting. And with all the water in the area from the recent rains, the humidity was enough to make his breath catch in his throat. But he was Number Eleven. He wouldn’t let a little disagreeable weather get in his way.

Things were already looking up when he turned down a new road and saw outsiders a few lengths away. Outsiders were always so easy to pick out. And these two were no exception. One of them immediately captured his interest. He looked like a giant flytrap plant from where Marluxia was. He began walking faster towards them, eagerness hurrying his steps. Finally, a plant in a city devoid of them! It was like coming home, in a strange way.

When Marluxia got close enough, he stopped in the way of the two outsiders, about five feet from them. He put on his best town councilman smile, hands open in front of him to show he wasn’t armed. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation. Some outsiders were quick to get hostile, and he hoped these two weren’t in that category. One of them was a plant, by Kingdom Hearts! He didn’t want to fight one of his own type.

“Ah, good afternoon, gentlemen,” Marluxia said in a light, conversational tone. “Are you enjoying yourselves today in Paixao?”

[redeyesatnight.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps," Itachi said. "But you never know where enemies lurk. Isn't it better to not be known for who you are than to be recognized in unknowingly hostile territory because you were, ah, reckless?"

The young shinobi noted that someone was approaching them and watched him wearily, making sure that he was aware of at least two ways out of the area, just in case. The black coat he wore reminded Itachi of Zetsu's Akatsuki coat, though without the stylized red clouds. It made him wonder...

The stranger greeted them with a smile and pleasant words and Itachi knew it to be just as well to respond in kind. Perhaps this could be one of their potential sources of information? Either way, it was unwise to make enemies, and if this stranger happened to be one, well, Itachi knew he could get out, and he was almost certain that, with his Sharingan, he was faster.

"Thought I can't speak for my companion, I'm finding the weather to be more agreeable now that it's not raining."

[weeatbodies.livejournal.com]

"It is." Zetsu agreed concisely enough, smiling wryly at his younger companion. Thank goodness there's a good head on his shoulders.

We could have told him that. The other side sounded distinctly unimpressed. We both know the risks we're taking here--the difference is that he actually cares about the consequences. What do we have to lose, on the other hand?

Honestly, very little, in his opinion. Zetsu had survived and fled mainly to spite those who would have crushed him, who hated him for what he was. And then? The Akatsuki had become his life, and had been for nearly half the time he'd been alive, now. Where else would he go? What else would he do? A criminal like him wouldn't have found peace anywhere else, save living deep in some isolated forest somewhere.

It was sad, the plant-nin reflected, that one of the Akatsuki's most loyal members was loyal primarily because he had nothing else that was actually worthwhile to do with his life, and nobody that he cared to do it with. Why not take over the world? He had to make himself useful for something. Besides, they always did say the best revenge was living well....

He noticed Marluxia with his leaves before his eyes, and made a perfunctory check of the area. Yes, they could run. Yes, there was space to fight. No, there were no readily available weapons or sources of plant life. No, there were no nearby animals to coax into helping him. Sigh. If worse came to worse, he could always earthmeld, one of his standard means of escaping detection or battles, not to mention speedily retreating. He wasn't interested in fighting now, not yet. Marluxia spoke nicely enough, and showed empty hands--but still, he found himself distracted from assessment of hostility, to wondering just why his leaves were acting so strangely.

His nectar was starting to flow more than it had been--a day and a half with neither plants nor insects in sight had nearly dried it up, but with its reappearance came with it a fresh haze of light, flowery fragrance. Besides that, though, they were acting almost as if they were seeking the sun, despite the fact that it was blazing away above them--they had twitched very distinctly in this newcomer's direction. Zetsu regarded Marluxia curiously, offering the man a distracted half-smile. "Good afternoon." He nodded, not bothering to counter Itachi's opinion of the rain. "The weather has been pleasant this afternoon, so far. We don't suppose you know why it's been so fickle?"

[smilinglines.livejournal.com]

So Sai had been here in this strange utopia for a grand total of twenty minutes and thirty-six seconds. With each step he took, the number mounted, and he grew more and more perplexed about his current dilemma. This place didn't look anything like what he'd been brought up knowing; nearly all of his wildest imaginations--as few there were and mostly from when he was a lot younger, still a kid--could hardly even compare. Sai wasn't sure if he should be confused, bothered, or afraid, not that he supposed it mattered, seeing as none of those would help him get any closer to figuring this place out. Heaven? Had he died? No, that couldn't be possible. Could it?

He took a couple of steps forward, one hand tightening around his dagger, his leather sketchbook tucked carefully underneath his arm, and the other hand fisted around a crumpled 'brochure' by his side. He hadn't thought it necessary of looking at the booklet yet, preferring to at least get within the unfamiliar city's limits first. But if the predicament turned out to be a bad one, or even possibly a well-devised genjutsu, he figured he would be able to handle it.

However, going on twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds, Sai realized that the likelihood of it being the latter of the above possibilities was rather slim. He knew it was possible for extended genjutsus, ones that even lasted for hours and days on end while in reality only lapsing over a period of minutes, but he wasn't deceived. As far as he could tell, nothing had jumped out to attack him yet. On some level, he would even call this place...tranquil. No one bothered him, few even turned to look at him as he continued on, and for a potential assaulter to go out of their way to create such a complicated jutsu seemed entirely too unlikely.

So Sai kept onward, a slight frown marring his usually blank features.

The sight of three figures conversing amongst themselves caused Sai to pause, curiously looking at the two that were attired in such a way that was eerily familiar to him (the more noticeable out of the both being the elaborately embellished black-and-red cloak, and Sai's thoughts immediately began to race). He tilted his head slightly in contemplation. One of the strangers seemed a bit younger than him, at least by a few years, while the other by the first's side stood towering, an odd outcropping of what appeared to be green leaves masking their profile from view. Sai felt a sudden nagging of recognition while inspecting them, but it wasn't until he spotted the gleam of a hitai-ate did comprehension dawn on him.

"Oh," Sai voiced to himself impassively, halting in his step to a complete stand-still. Well this was certainly an unusual twist of fortune, if even fortune at that. He approached the three figures then, but cautiously so. Shinobi or not, he wasn't exactly allies with everyone back at home.