MAGICAL MAYHEM prologue

Tobi raced into the house through the garage door and threw his book bag into the living room, eager to be rid of the heavy burden he'd been lugging around since he'd left school earlier that afternoon.  Quickly the boy raced into the kitchen and retrieved a juice pouch from the fridge, setting his signature orange swirly mask on the countertop and slurping down the delicious beverage with pure delight.  

Tobi began wandering around the kitchen at this point, checking the room to see if it needed a bit of tidying up.  He'd originally planned to spend his Friday night out and about, but his plans had changed for the worse.

Originally he, Deidara, and Sasori were going to hang out together, but at the last minute Deidara had had a fight with Sasori, and now the two weren't speaking.  At that point, Tobi tried to see if Hidan was free, but it turned out the masochist didn't want to speak to anyone because Kakuzu had gone on a weekend camping trip without him, never mind that Hidan hated Mother Nature and everything that had to do with the great outdoors.  It was the same for everyone else, except Konan; she'd offered to take him out to the mall, since they so rarely hung out without the others, but Tobi politely declined.  He just wasn't in the mood for a shopping spree and pedicure afterwards.

The Uchiha shook his head and sighed.  Honestly, his friends could be so difficult at times.  He wished more than anything that he could get them to play nice for a while; maybe then they'd realize that most of their problems came from sexual tension, a fact that Tobi had been aware of for years.  Oh well.

By this point Tobi had wandered into the living room, and realized he hadn't checked the mail for today.  Quickly the teen unlocked the door and stepped outside to check the mailbox, when his foot collided with something.

He looked down and saw a large box at his feet, stamped with a return address from a foreign country.  His heart leapt at the sight; this could only mean one thing.  "Mom and dad sent Tobi a present!" he squealed, scooping up the package and running back inside without even bothering to check the mail box for anything else.

The poor package was soon set on the kitchen counter and torn wide open by an all too eager Tobi, who nearly knocked his mask off in his frenzy.  Inside were hundreds of packing peanuts and a small letter, addressed to Tobi in his mother's familiar hand-writing.  Being slightly more careful, the masked teen opened the letter and began to read the message within.

"Dear Tobi,

How are you doing?  Your father and I are still working to map the desert.  It's great fun; soon we should have a complete enough map to know where to build the new school.

Anyway, Abdul suddenly passed just before we left-" And here was a name Tobi couldn't pronounce and didn't even attempt to. "It was very upsetting for both us and his family." Tobi knew the words were true; Abdul had been a good friend of the family before Tobi had even been born.  Tobi had only met him once or twice, but he always received a birthday present from the man and tried to give one in return.  "His son approached us the next day and gave us one of the family's heirlooms as a going away gift.  We tried to refuse, of course, but he insisted that had it not been for your father, Abdul probably would've gotten himself killed years ago.  Would you be so kind as to polish this up and set it in the living room on the mantle?  I'd like to give them a picture to prove their gift is being well cared for."

Tobi began digging around through the packing peanuts once again, being very careful in case the mysterious heirloom was fragile.  His fingers finally wrapped around something cold and metal, and he extracted the item with great care.

It was a lamp, made of bronze and at least a millennium old, if the patterns carved around the base were anything to go by.  He let out a low whistle at the sight; there were more than a few museums that would give their eyeteeth for something so old and well preserved.  No wonder his family had been reluctant to separate their friends from such a treasure.

Still, Tobi had to admit, this thing was long overdue for a good polish.  No problem; the Uchiha side of his family was fond of handing down brass and silver dishware, and there was always polish lying around the house to make sure the items were properly maintained.  In only a matter of minutes Tobi had acquired a bottle of polish and began vigorously rubbing the side of the lamp.

However, Tobi had to stop a moment later and turn the lamp over in his hands.  Something about it felt…odd.  Almost like it was too heavy.  Curious, Tobi held the lamp against the light of the window and tilted the spout so he could peer down it.  A-ha!  Something, possibly an old cork or some dirt, was clogging the lamp.  Well that explained it.  Once again Tobi was forced to leave the room for cleaning supplies and came back with a pair of tweezers, intent on jiggling as much of the blockage loose as he could before resorting to dish soap and more advanced tools.

He prodded and poked, grabbed and pulled, twisting the clog this way and that. "C'mon, be a good lamp," Tobi plead.  At last he felt the blockage give, and he yanked the tar-covered cork (for that's what it was) loose.

BANG

The lamp seemed to explode out of Tobi's hands as the room filled with a bright green smoke.  Briefly, Tobi wondered if the lamp had been booby-trapped many centuries ago, and he was the first person dumb enough to set it off.  However, there didn't appear to be any sort of injuries on his body, and the smoke was rapidly clearing away to reveal…to…

Tobi gaped at the sight in front of him.

There, in the middle of his kitchen, where surely there had been no one before, stood a tall man, half snowy white, half black as night, and sporting a scruffy crop of hair as green as the smoke that had just filled his room.  He was wearing a red vest and fez with black clouds embroidered around the edges, khaki colored pants, and golden shoes with curled points.  All in all, he looked like something that had just stepped out of Tobi's copy of Arabian Nights.

Suddenly the mysterious stranger groaned and stretched, popping several joints in the process. "How long were we out?" he inquired in a language Tobi couldn't recognize.  "I lost track after the first hundred years.,</b>"  He finally seemed to notice Tobi, and righted himself to stand properly, albeit in a somewhat casual stance.  "You; what year is it?"

Tobi gaped at the man and shook his head, not understand the stranger.

"Language barrier?  Probably."  In an instant the stranger had moved to stand directly in front of Tobi and pressed his palm to the boy's forehead.  Tobi, completely at a loss, could do nothing but stand there and wait to see what the stranger would do next.

Finally the newcomer moved back, frowning at the boy.  "I don't think I like this new language," he remarked in perfect English.

"Oh!" Tobi exclaimed, finally understand the man.

"Whoa," the stranger murmured, glancing around the kitchen in muted awe. "Things got fancy while I was asleep."

"Um, sir?" Tobi nervously inquired. "Who are you?  And why are you in Tobi's house?"

The man turned back to Tobi and looked at the teen as though Tobi had suddenly sprouted a second head.  "I'm Zetsu.  And I'm obviously here because you summoned me."

"No Tobi didn't," Tobi quickly countered. "Tobi was just cleaning out this lamp-"

"Exactly," Zetsu cut in.  "You rub the lamp, you summon the genie.  Simple as that."

"Zetsu is a genie?!" Tobi gaped.  There was no way he could have possibly heard that right.  Genies were just fantasy creatures, like talking fish and sorcerers who cursed greedy princes.  Sure he'd been raised around the stories his whole life because of his parents' profession, but that didn't mean he believed any of them.

"You catch on quick.  I'm a thirsty genie, actually."  Tobi watched in shock as the man snapped his fingers, causing a goblet of wine to appear out of thin air.  He quickly downed the beverage, and with another snap of the fingers it was gone.

"So, um, does Tobi get a wish?" the boy inquired, wondering if that part of the stories were true, of if Zetsu was one of those spiteful, thankless genies whom he'd have to trick back into the lamp.

"Three wishes," Zetsu corrected.  "And no wishing for more wishes," he added hastily.

Tobi turned this bit of information over in his head; three wishes?  All for himself? "Can Tobi wish for anything?"

"Mostly," Zetsu answered. "For one thing, I don't touch dead people.  It's messy, it's traumatic, and most of them don't like being brought back from the dead.  Messing with love is out too; I can't tell you how many masters I've lost because they went after a princess and got hacked to pieces in the middle of the night for it."

Tobi winced but nodded in agreement.  So, no bringing back the dead, and no making people fall in love-

Wait a minute.  "Zetsu, could Tobi wish for something that might help people fall in love?"

"You mean a fortune or an army?  Sure.  But you still only get three wishes."

Tobi bit his lip at the reminder.  He had four couples in mind that he needed to get together, but only three wishes.  There had to be a way around that rule!  The future happiness of his friends depended on it! "So, Tobi can't wish for more wishes?"

"I just said that," Zetsu replied.

"Well, what if Tobi wants to reset his wishes?"

"…Huh?"

"Let's say Tobi asks for some money and a dog," the teen began, "but then for the third wish, Tobi asks to reset the wishes.  That way Tobi would lose the money and dog, but still have all three wishes.  See?"

Zetsu frowned, pondering these words for a short period of time.  Unable to find a flaw in Tobi's logic, he nodded. "I suppose you could." Now the frowned shifted ever so slightly to become a smirk. "Never thought about that before. Pretty clever, kid."

"Good, because Tobi will need all the wishes he can get."

"For what?"

"Tobi has lots of friends who are always sad, but they wouldn't be if they would just start dating."

"There are fruits involved?"

"Tobi means courting," Tobi corrected.  He had to be careful about his wording; the genie was a few centuries behind in slang terms, after all.

"So you want me to help these people get together?" Zetsu asked, surprised at the boy's selflessness.  Most of his other masters had been greedy monsters once they realized they had an all powerful genie at their disposal, which often had catastrophic results.

"Yup," Tobi replied. "It might take a while, though."

"Fine by me," Zetsu absently replied as he began walking around the kitchen.  "I have no idea what century this is, but I think I like it.  Where's the food?"

"In the fridge," Tobi replied, a bit put off by the genie's straightforwardness.  Most people at least had the decency to ask if it was all right to eat the host's food.

"The what?"

"That big silver box there," Tobi explained, pointing to the fridge.

Zetsu approached the box and opened it, frowning at the cold temperature.  "It's broken," he remarked, snapping his fingers once again.  Instantly the fridge stopped cooling as intense waves of heat were given off, cooking the food and its packaging within.

"Zetsu, no!" Tobi screamed, rushing over to extract the food before it could catch fire. "Fridges keep food cold!"

"Interesting," Zetsu muttered, watching passively as Tobi attempted to rescue his food.  At last the boy was able to convince Zetsu to put the fridge back in working order without wasting a wish, since technically it was Zetsu who had broken the thing in the first place.

Tobi sighed to himself as he began replacing the food.  His plans would have to wait.  For now, he'd need to explain to Zetsu how things worked in the twenty-first century.