Chapter 018

The four Konoha shinobi were left scratching their heads and looking around peculiarly for the next few seconds trying to figure out who could have done this… until they heard a very familiar giggle from above.

When they looked up the group saw a very happy and amused Naruto hanging upside-down from a branch, swinging back and forth along with a bachelor of male gibbons who had also come around to investigate. The blonde laughed when he saw the back-up turn their attention to him and waved. "Hey guys! Pretty cool, huh?"

"Hey, isn't that?" Kotetsu began to ask while elbowing his partner in the arm.

"Yeah. No question," Izumo replied, a small smile appearing on his face.

Kakashi blinked when he saw Naruto swing back into an upright position, before dropping down from the canopy to land directly on a branch above the three unconscious kunoichi. The boy grinned at the familiar faces, and then towards the rather unfamiliar face of Kakashi Hatake.

"So you're the 'reinforcements'?" the jinchuriki murmured, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish smile. "Well, sorry for hogging all of the fun but these three are already beaten."

"Did you do this all by yourself, Naruto?" Iruka asked in shock, pointing down at the prisoners all parceled up and ready for processing.

"Of course," Naruto nodded affirmatively, hopping down to land in front of his former opponents. "Who else would be out here other than me? It was a piece of cake anyway. These kunoichi have obviously never faced the machinations of Uzumaki Naruto before." He said that with a great deal of delight. As the four shinobi in front of him started to smile and look towards each other over the matter of this astonishing victory, Naruto suddenly pulled out of his pocket three sets of women's underwear which he then had hanging in front of him innocently for all to see. "By the way, can I keep these as souvenirs? I bet they'll look great on my wall next to my kunai collection."

The three Chunin and the one Jonin stared at the articles of clothing curiously, wondering for the next few seconds where the boy could have possibly gotten women's underwear from in these woods. But then they remembered… there were three tied-up and thoroughly defeated Chunin kunoichi sitting behind him, which immediately had heads turning as to what exactly had been going on here while they were absent from the scene.

Kakashi pointed lazily at Naruto's 'trophies'.

"Those are…"

"Ah, I'm not gonna keep em," Naruto replied while tossing them over his shoulder so that they landed over the three dazed bodies. "I wouldn't even know what to do with them. Anyway, here they are." He stepped aside and gestured grandly towards the threesome. "One team of enemy spies; beaten, burned and ready for postage. That will be a two ryo service charge." To the Chunin's humor he held out his hand rather expectantly.

With the matter of the underwear set aside for the time being, Kakashi and Kotetsu waddled over to the tree and collected the enemies. Slinging them over their shoulders along with their valuables, the Jonin then turned toward Naruto with his usual unreadable expression, after which he then nodded to the youngster in acknowledgement.

"Great work, Naruto," the silver haired man exclaimed while giving him his trademark eye smile. "I'm looking forward to the day you graduate from the academy." With that said, Kakashi then shot up into the trees, quickly followed by both Izumo and Kotetsu, who also nodded a pleasant farewell to the blonde. This pretty much left Iruka and his troublesome student standing in the woods to wrap things up.

When they turned to face each other, Naruto quickly remembered the whole reason why he was out here in the first place and turned away with an upset frown. The instructor knew he wasn't going to get off from his previous actions so easily and, smiling pleasantly, approached the youngster and patted him on the head. He was obviously still sore from the lesson today and was expressing it the most suitable way he knew how.

Through use of the cold shoulder.

Iruka sighed. "Naruto… I'm sorry." The jinchuriki glanced up at him, which allowed the older man to beam at him proudly. "It was stupid of me to misjudge your tactics during your spar with Sasuke. It didn't occur to me that you were probably trying to avoid a direct confrontation with your opponent in order to tire him out first and… well… I shouldn't have snapped the way I did. I guess I'd fallen into the habit of scolding you whenever you do something reckless or irresponsible, even during a proper evaluation. But what I said and how I said it was thoughtless and uncalled for, and I realized I must have upset you. Can you forgive me?"

Giving a moment of pause, Naruto mulled the question over in his head for a bit. After a tense few seconds the blonde smiled a small one and turned towards his homeroom instructor.

"Teachers are supposed to be strict with their students, right, sensei?" Naruto asked, remembering the time Iruka said he was going to be more firm with him after one of his more troublesome pranks on the school months ago. Ah, that was a great day… for him anyway.

Iruka smirked, "Yeah, but not insensitive. I know I'm supposed to be tough on you whenever you misbehave, and disciplined as well as thorough when it comes to your education. Though you didn't fight how I taught you in class or how the scrolls instructed you to, you came up with your own way of fighting your opponents and it worked beautifully." He chuckled when he looked around the scorched battlefield. "I can see your strange tactics served you well out here. You managed to fend off three enemy kunoichi, all Chunin in rank, and you were able to beat them swiftly and decisively with no damage done to you whatsoever. Only a really strong-minded Genin or a shinobi with a higher skill set could have possibly pulled something like this off. I guess you could say your mischief saved both your life and your village today."

"Yeah, I guess it did." Even though he was supposed to be feeling happy, Naruto couldn't help but still feel a little bit disappointed as he kicked at the ground, earning a puzzled look from his teacher. "Still, it sucks that all I know how to do is fight, use the henge and kawarimi. I wanted to use the bunshin no jutsu to mess with them as well, but I couldn't because I can't." He looked away glumly. "I don't think I'll be able to graduate without it. You said it was pretty important."

Hearing him say that had Iruka smile a bit. Of course his worries were within reason. Though he didn't look it Naruto did try hard to learn and perform everything he was taught. Even if it didn't show on paper, the boy definitely possessed skills that made him exceptional in the field of a shinobi. Today was a perfect example of this. He wasn't just able to run rings around the genius Sasuke back in the academy, who had never lost in taijutsu to anyone before, but he was also able to outwit three Chunin at once.

This was common in Konoha. Whenever he pulled pranks with the intention of being seen, Chunin, hell, not even Jonin were able to catch him.

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