New art. It's very silly fanart for a drabble by one of the lj people I stalk. It is shameless, and I do not care. :)

*pokes Blindsided* I want more reviews, dammit. *is whore*

...whoa. Okay. That's an interesting idea, right there.
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The maze of coridors seemed to go on forever, lit by harsh, flickering flouresence. The buzz of the lightbulbs filled the air with a constant static, broken only by the sound of water dripping from the exposed pipes.

It was disgusting to think people actually lived down here. "I don't see why we couldn't have just made the deal on the 'net. We don't actually need to get involved with this guy." Sasuke stepped around a scummy looking puddle, and glared at a mouse that scuttled across his shoe. He'd just gotten them polished, damnit.

"He's one of those whadya-callems, eccentric geniuses. Or somethin', I don't know. Grandma said he used to be the best in the business, still is, even, an' we need his help on this case. You're just mad that Sakura beat you at rock, paper, scissors, and now you're down here, gettin' your shoes dirty." His partner adjusted the red goggles over his eyes and grinned at him. The smile made the whisker-marks on his face scrunch up.

It was that grin that usually made Sasuke want to hit things- like his partner's face. "Don't use her name, moron. We're on assignment."

"Ch'. Don't be an asshole, nobody's around here but the rats. An' I always feel like an idiot callin' her "Flower Girl," you know?"

"You are an idiot, Foxface. It's the Rats I'm worried about."

"That's Foxfire, jackass- sorry, I meant Pink Eye. And there ain't none of those Rats here."

"Red Eye, not that I expect you to remember it. And you're here. All those wires in your head must've short circuited on you." Personally, Sasuke thought their code names were idiotic; the leader of their organization had been drunk when she came up with most of them. But rules were rules; you didn't use real names on assignment, no matter how much you hated your alias.

Naruto made a noise in the back of his throat halfway between a laugh and a snarl. "Christ, what crawled up your ass and died? Here, shut up- this's his door." He knocked on the rusting metal monolith; his fist made a metallic screeching nose when it scraped against the door.

A panel slid open with a groan, and a single bloodshot eye stared out at them. "Since when are the Rats and the Tax Collectors working together? I've paid all my dues. On time, too."

Naruto opened his mouth to speak, but Sasuke stepped forward to cut him off smoothly. "We're looking for a man named-" he stopped when Naruto elbowed him sharply with a glare and interrupted.

"This cat, he real cool, total haxed out, right? You know we catcha looksee? This real cool cat, we wanna cop a jive widdim, no mousetraps, de nada." The blond slipped into his native dialect easily, accompanying the words with a series of hand gestures that could have been meaningless, but probably weren't.

Rat jive still made no sense to Sasuke, no matter how long he'd spent on Naruto's team. It made sense to the man on the other side of the doorway though, because the single eye crinkled at the edges in amusement, and the door opened with a rusty complaint.

Sasuke stared at the aparition in the doorway; beside him, he heard Naruto swallow audibly. The man's right eye was still crinkled in a smile; instead of a left eye, he had a blinking red sensor light, set in a sheet of matte black metal that covered his entire face. A shock of tarnished-looking silver hair sprouted out of the top of his skull, which hovered six feet off the ground above a pile of rags. His clothes hid nearly all of his body, and trailed on the floor to cover his feet. Grandma hadn't told them they were dealing with a clockwork monstrosity.

"Ooh, you're cute! Old Frog didn't tell me he was sending children. Come on, don't just stand there, come in." He gestured to the darkened space behind him with an arm that ended in a three pronged mechanical claw.

Sasuke eyed the dark space warily. "You're-"

"Copycat Kakashi. That's all you really need to know. I don't need to know anything about you, you don't need to know anything about me, we work out the details of the job, I get paid, you disappear and never see or speak to me again." He was still smiling, which only made it creepier, given that they couldn't see his mouth. "You have a third team member, I hope?"

"Yeah. She's our ground support, we didn't-"

"Good enough. Come on. The sooner we get to work, the sooner you're out of my hair." Copycat turned and disappeared into his home, leaving Sasuke and Naruto standing on his doorstep.

"Crazy fucker," Naruto muttered.

Sasuke couldn't have agreed more.
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...For the record, that wasn't actually the interesting idea I got. >_< And I'm not actually going to write a cyberpunk Naruto AU, just like I'm not writing the West Side Story AU. I'm definitely not going to write this cyberpunk AU, because the universe they're in is my Dreamscape universe, and that place doesn't need anymore plots. (What it needs are viable ideas that actually know where they're going- something beyond "Quinn and Leo get attacked by things; wacky hijinx ensue." Not that I don't love their wacky hijinx, it's just that there's no plot, and I love the world. ...that's a lie, I love the Rats, but whatever.)

I am however, eventually going to finish the amputee!Obito AU, because he's a spaz and has great banter with Sasuke.

Mm. I love the term "clockwork monstrosity."