AN: I got bitten by one of my muses awhile back, and this was the result. I let it sit for a long time before I decided I might as well post it as not. Review if you want. The last six or so are completely non-canon. Deal.
Though I do not belong to the 20Truths community on livejournal, I love their format and had to write one of my own. Kudos to them.
Disclaimer: Naruto and all things affiliated with it belong to Masashi Kishimoto and a bunch of people that are not me.
20 Truths about Naruto's Sensei
1. Iruka considered Naruto one of his best students. The boy was eager to learn, determined, and easy to love.
2. Iruka didn't think this until the day after Naruto graduated.
3. During introductions, Kakashi thought Naruto was a hopeless brat who only thought about ramen. Then the kitsune mentioned his goal to be hokage, and Kakashi realized that there was much more to the boy than met the eye.
4. Some days, Kakashi still thought Naruto was hopeless. Other days, he was certain Naruto was going to surpass all their expectations.
5. Despite the fact that he called Naruto Konoha's most surprising ninja, he never got used to the surprises. After that first chuunin exam, he admitted that he wasn't going to be able to get used to it, and that was fine.
6. Kakashi felt just a little bit guilty about how he ditched Naruto to focus on Sasuke. Really, though, Naruto would benefit much more from somebody else's teaching style.
7. Ebisu only agreed to train Naruto because the Hokage demanded it. He despaired of teaching the boy anything during his short time with the boy, and was very glad to hand the kitsune off to someone else.
8. Later, he was a little bit jealous that the sennin had produced such remarkable results.
9. Jiraiya did not want to teach Naruto, but not for the reasons he admitted to. Naruto looked far too much like another student of his, one who had died on the day this one was born. He thought it would be too painful to see Naruto all the time, and compare them mentally. He did not see how this brat could possibly live up to his memory of the Fourth.
10. Jiraiya did not expect Naruto to be able to summon. He only did it because he had promised to teach the boy something. When Naruto managed to summon Gamabunta himself, Jiraiya decided maybe the kid had some promise.
11. Jiraiya expected Rasengan to take Naruto years to learn. The fact that it only took a month was incredible. After that, he decided never to be surprised by Naruto's learning rate.
12. At the beginning of their training journey, Jiraiya stopped thinking of Naruto as the Fourth's legacy and started thinking of him as worthy in his own right. The similarities between Naruto and the Fourth, though more obvious during their daily interactions, also became less important. Naruto was Naruto, plain and simple.
13. Because Jiraiya was technically an information specialist, that was what Naruto was officially being trained as. Never-mind that the brat rarely showed the inclination or even ability to observe anything for more than a minute, Jiraiya at least had to try.
14. Surprisingly, Naruto turned out to be very good at it. Jiraiya would test him by giving him a few seemingly-unrelated details and seeing how much of the picture he could put together. The answer was often "almost all of it."
15. So he started taking Naruto with him on the jaunts into genuine research. He taught Naruto his code—because it was just stupid to leave all that information lying around in a form that others could read. Naruto was dubious at first, finding it hard to believe that porn could be a code and accusing Jiraiya of trying to trick him into becoming a pervert. Said pervert insisted, though, and Naruto finally gave in and learned it. It took him four months to be able to decipher it without blushing.
16. Jiraiya also sat Naruto down and taught him to play shougi. Because, as he said, what was the point of having all this information if you can't do anything with it? A good strategy could spell the difference between victory and death. As usual, once Naruto grasped the basics he learned the rest quickly. After three months, he was able to beat Jiraiya nine times out of ten.
17. Jiraiya also trained him to think on his feet. Naruto was already very good at thinking up plans when he was already neck-deep in trouble. It would be better, however, if Naruto could think up those plans before getting into trouble. He started gently, setting up a scenario and giving Naruto a decent amount of time to plan before throwing him into it. Each time, the duration for planning got shorter, until he wasn't even explaining beforehand. This also tested Naruto's ability to gather information about the situation while defending himself.
18. Breaking Naruto of his constant use of kage bunshin was actually one of the hardest tasks for Jiraiya. He claimed the "signature move" was a dead giveaway to who was fighting, and that if he kept using it his opponents would find the weaknesses. As incentive, every time Naruto formed and successfully carried out a strategy without the use of shadow clones, Jiraiya treated him to ramen.
19. Naruto bemoans the fact that all of his teachers are perverts. However, he's so grateful to them that he doesn't mind as much as he says. Besides, being able to manipulate them into getting what he wants is useful.
20. Naruto just doesn't know where he'd be without his sensei.