I figured I'd post this when I had at least five finished chapters. That way I can torture you with the release times and still have enough fanfic left to play with.

Cliff Notes for Ninjas
A series of "Coulda Been" Shinobi's Guides
By Kaori

A/N: This story is based on an episode of Excel Saga and the way I remember high school. I also got some inspiration while reading Gaijin Smash (which is an awesome blog about a black guy teaching English in Japan; go for the dodgedick stay for the kancho assassins).

Part One: The Shinobi's Guide to Substitute Teaching

They had ranked this as a C-Ranked mission but in truth, it should have been at least a B-Rank. Why? Because any high school class has at least three terrorists in it (1) any more are merely echoes of the main three.

"Are you sure these kids aren't ninjas?" Shikamaru raised his eyebrows as he got to the part in the mission briefing where it stated that the math class broke open a pepper bomb they'd acquired and locked the new math teacher in the room with it (2).

"Positive." Said Tsunade.

"But if what is written here is true then I am going to need backup."

"I'm afraid I can't spare any chuunin and the jounin are out of the question."

"That's all right, I wasn't going to ask for that anyway…"

Fast-forward one week…

Principal Ayataka massaged his temples and sighed. The new substitute teachers were arriving today and this time he hoped they'd last more than a few hours.

"Ayataka-san," his secretary said over the intercom. "the substitutes are here."

"Send them in please, Fujisawa-san." He took a deep breath as the door opened.

"Wow this is a nice office." Whistled Naruto as he walked in. "No holes in the wall and broken windows like Baa-chan's office."

"Baka, half the holes and broken windows are your fault." Said Sakura. Shikamaru shot them both a "shut up already" look. Hinata poked her fingers nervously as she walked in and stood between Naruto and Shikamaru.

"Nara Shimamaru, Hyuuga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto, and Haruno Sakura reporting for substitute teacher duty." Said Shikamaru dryly.

"Thank you for coming." Nodded Ayataka, who looked for all the world like someone in desperate need of a vacation. "You have no idea how much this means to me. The regular teachers will be back on Monday but I needed someone to replace them today and the last set of substitutes ran off screaming during third period yesterday. Are you sure you can handle this?"

"Sir, we're ninjas. If we can't handle it then who can?"

We shall now pray for the souls of the poor, doomed students…

FIRST PERIOD MATHEMATICS – Substitute Teacher Nara Shikamaru was written on the blackboard in large letters. None of the students seemed to notice this as they continued to cause a ruckus. There were nineteen in all and only five of them were somewhat quiet because four of them were playing poker in the back and fifth was somehow managing to sleep through the racket.

Shikamaru watched the scene in front of him and found it all too troublesome. He couldn't help but wonder if maybe he should have asked Sakura to take this class instead of asking her to teach Food & Nutrition. Resigning himself to his fate for the next forty-five minutes (3) Shikamaru made a handseal and snared the shadow of the nearest student; the sleeping one. Taking a breath he started headbanging consequently causing the aforementioned student's head to slam violently onto the desk. The noise and the spectacle got the classes immediate attention. Shikamaru released the jutsu.

"And if you don't want that to happen to you, you will stop acting like troublesome idiots and open your books to page 183. According to this note from your regular teacher, you are supposed to be reviewing hailstone numbers today (4)."

Naught but the sound of pages turning. The chuunin smirked.

Down the hall, Hinata was teaching literature. You would think this would be a problem knowing that most children hate to read (5) but the whole class was enthralled.

No, I take that back. The boys were enthralled and would glare and threaten the girls when they were about to do something disruptive. Why is this? Simple: they were all enraptured with the shy porcelain doll that is Hinata.

What the boys are thinking: "She's so cute.", "Such a delicate flower. No one must be allowed to tarnish such beauty with harsh words and actions.", "Speak again bright angel.", "I would do anything for Hinata-sensei…"

What the girls are thinking: "This is so boring…", "Who does she think she is.", "I didn't even want to be in this class and now I have to listen to some bitch?", "What's up with her eyes. Can you say freaky?"

Hinata, on the other hand, was just happy that the students seemed to be behaving themselves. "O…okay. Who wants to read…the n..next one?" All the boys' hands shot up. "Oh my…well then…why don't you all read it for me."

"Hai! Hinata-sensei!" the boys said in unison, blushing and fumbling with their books. "There is a Lady Sweet and Kind, Was never a face so pleased to mind; I did but see her passing by, And yet I'll love her til I die (6)."

"A..anou… That's very good, but you're supposed to be reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

Sakura surveyed her class. "Thirteen girls and two boys, one of which has on more makeup than Kankuro." She thought. Out loud she said, "Welcome to Food and Nutrition, my name is Haruno Sakura and I'll be your substitute teacher today."

"Aww man, this one's not even hot." Grumbled the boy without the make-up. Sakura twitched. "And she's flat too!" Sakura twitched again. "I bet she'll use her chest as a cutting board." That did it…

"SHANNARO!" The boy suddenly found himself pinned to the back wall by knives. Sakura approached him, killing intent wafting off her in sinuous waves. "Anything else you'd like to say?" she ran the flat side of the cleaver she was holding across his neck.

"no." he squeaked.

"Good." Purred Sakura, then turned around and smiled brightly at the class; the students were suitably terrified. "I trust we won't be having any more problems?"

"No ma'am." The class chorused. Some of the girls looked at Sakura in awe. The kunoichi thought it looked kind of familiar but she couldn't quite place it (7).

"Excellent. Take out your cooking utensils, today we're making consommé surprise."

Naruto was substituting for the gym teacher and was having significantly more trouble controlling his students than the others, mostly because he didn't want to kill them. Oh but the temptation (and Kyuubi) were starting to get to him.

"Aren't you kinda scrawny for a gym teacher?" one of the bastards asked. "Hell, even Kanta could bench press you and he's a pansy." To Kanta's credit, he was slightly more muscular than Naruto but not much taller.

"And what's with the orange track suit man? You on the prison bitch track team or something?" piped up somebody's soon to be dead son. More disparaging attacks on his person came until…

"And what's up with your face. You look like a retarded fox." That did it.

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!" cried Naruto. Twenty clones appeared, one behind each student "Konohagakure hidden: Taijutsu no Ougi: Sennin goroshi!"

The Chorus of Teenage Boys Screaming in Agony will be conducted by Uzumaki Naruto.

"All right class, today's activity is called Run Like a Little Bitch."

The day ended rather quickly and the regular faculty couldn't help but notice that some of the boys were walking funny and were covered in bruises and welts, a large group of boys were looking around frantically and muttering "Hinata-sensei", a group of girls was also muttering "Hinata-sensei" but had murderous looks in their eyes, and a second group of girls had been given detention when they were caught throwing knives at trees. The substitute teachers had disappeared the second the clock hit ten minutes after three (8)

Principal Ayataka was very pleased. He would make it a point to hire ninjas as substitute teachers in future. He would rethink that on Monday when the lawsuits from some of the parents came in.

1) In my class there were seven and by twelfth grade only one of them was left: me. I didn't get caught because I only went after the people who messed with me and I didn't do it during class (before and after school and during both break periods was more than enough time to get revenge; if not there was always the next day). Once they were gone I had no reason to misbehave. Plus, all my evil activities took place before and after school and during lunch.

2) Actually happened. Except in my case it was pepper spray and the Christian Ethics teacher (irony anyone?). All I know is that somebody turned on the fan and from the back row forward everyone (about 24 students including myself) started running. Most of us didn't know why we were running but we decided it was in our best interest to run since everyone else was running (like the black people that we are). The next thing I know, one of the guys shuts the door behind him with the teacher still in there coughing her lungs out. To this day I still don't know who actually did it but the whole class served detention for it since no one confessed and no one snitched on the perpetrator. Oh yeah, none of you guys do this. I don't care how much you hate your teacher pepper-spraying people who aren't out to kill/rob you is wrong.

3) Most of the classes at my school were forty-five minutes long unless you had the same class for two periods or that class was P.E.

4) Choose a positive integer. If it's even, divide by two. If your number is odd, multiply it by three and add 1. Take the number you get as the new positive number and repeat until you can't go any further. Try it and see what happens. This was one of the few things I learned in algebra that was the slightest bit interesting to me. Boolean algebra makes more sense to me than regular algebra.

5)Actually children hate being forced to read. Luckily for me, no one ever had to force me to read. I've been reading books since I was five years old and by seven I had quite a few pieces of classical literature and comprehend. I still love to read. In fact, once I'm done with this fic I'm going to go read Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett.

6) "There is a Lady Sweet and Kind" by Thomas Ford.

7) This is basically the "Sasuke is soooo cool!" look with a non-amorous tone.

8) My school started at 8:20 and let out at 3:10. Most of the other schools had the regular 8:00 – 3:00 schedule.