Chapter 2 - I Am Illiterate
The second episode started up.
"Naruto, what the hell?" Ino pointed at the swirls painted on his face on the screen.
"That is so cool! I wanna have my license picture taken like that!" he exclaimed, eyes wide.
"It's impractical."
Naruto pointed to Kakashi's face mask. "That distinguishes him just as much. Paint hides your identity better."
Kakashi blinked. Wow...Did his mask really make him stand out that much?
Gai nodded at him.
"...Damnit..." he whispered.
Tenten shushed them. "Let's see how the Hokage reacts to this!"
Lee pulled on her sleeve, pointing at the Hokage, standing about three feet away. "That is how, Tenten-chan."
Hiruzen was busy slamming his head against a wall.
Sasuke groaned. "This is the Uchiha Compound. Please don't damage the infrastructure."
"I apologise, Sasuke-kun...Let us continue."
He pressed 'play'.
As the scene played out, with the Hokage ordering Naruto to retake his photo, Kisame mumbled "Finally, some common sense..."
Naruto, on the screen, used the Sexy Technique.
"...Never mind." Kisame declared, rummaging through his cloak for some booze.
"...You've got some potential, gaki...A jutsu like that is probably going right in the forbidden scroll, and you aren't even a Genin!" Anko gushed, a feral grin on her face.
Naruto felt like hiding, at that moment, somewhere dark, secluded, and safe. Like the room just down the hall.
Where they probably hid bodies.
"Sorry, Anko-san, but I intend to take him on as a part of my Genin cell, at the end of this school term...And, given that he will need to learn to control the demonic chakra, I believe Hokage-sama would make much the same decision." Kurenai puffed out her chest, proud to link Genjutsu with something as dangerous as the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki.
Asuma laughed. "Sounds tempting, honestly, but I think he'll end up a bit too much of a handful for me. I'm aiming for the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, so I can focus on on teamwork."
"Wait..." Naruto held up his hands, pointing at Anko. "Back up. What do you mean, 'A Jutsu like that'?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen answered. "An illusion dealing with such a...'Specific'...Field, is usually classified higher, just to dissuade lower ranked Shinobi from taking such missions lightly...That jutsu makes the art of seduction absolute child's play, Naruto, and easy to abuse."
Naruto laughed, outrightly. "Hah, Oji-chan! Shows what you know! That's not even a Genjutsu! It's a -"
"Slow down – Time!
That a crime!
Tradin' a man's chime
For a 'Fuck Me' sign?"
Kirabi pointed to the screen, still frozen on a very much female, and not at all clothed, Naruto.
The room was suddenly very.
Very.
Quiet.
...
"Mother doesn't want your blood. She says idiocy tastes like birch." Gaara deadpanned, his eye twitching.
What the hell was 'birch'?
"You should be grateful." Temari chirped, suddenly beside Kirabi.
"Shukaku thinks you're too stupid to kill." Kankuro tagged on, standing on his other side.
"And hopefully," they chorused "Idiocy is contagious."
As the noise died down, yet again, the episode continued where it left off, with Naruto trying to convince the Hokage to let him keep his absurd picture.
And, as Konohamaru, the Sandaime's would-be assassin, accused Naruto of tripping him, Sakura politely paused it, examining the last ten seconds.
"...What's she doing, Shika?" Chouji had acquired a bag of popcorn, and was heating it with a Fire Jutsu.
"...I think she's looking for proof that Naruto tripped that brat."
"That 'brat' is my Nephew...He's the Hokage's Grandson." Asuma pointed out nonchalantly, smoking inside.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "I don't really see the resemblance..."
"Yeah," Chouji agreed "No cigarette."
The Hokage, trying to light his pipe on the other side of the room, twitched slightly. Damn kids.
Sasuke slowly walked towards the controls, and gently hit 'play', stopping Sakura's absurd search. "He just tripped on his scarf, and blamed it on someone else."
As the scene said – through the medium of a yelling blond.
"...The hell? Twenty ambushes in a day?" Kankuro was incredulous.
"Yes...He's quite a handful..."
"Sir, with all due respect..." the Suna Genin began "...Gaara gets that before breakfast. He's more popular than you."
And thus did the next scene begin, with Hiruzen faceplanting firmly, in greeting his grandson calling Naruto 'Oyabun'.
"...But I'm the boss around here..." he whimpered, to nobody in particular.
Within the next thirty seconds, Kiba slammed down on 'pause' viciously.
"Chaotora? Fucking Brown Tiger? Really, man?" Kiba laughed. "Fucking Chaotora?"
Naruto angrily unpaused it, glaring kunai.
Literally.
"No throwing weapons in my house!" Sasuke barked.
As Naruto led the grandson of the Hokage into a porn store, Kiba lost the will to stay quiet.
"...Seriously, man...Where did you learn Kanji?"
Naruto pointed at the screen. "That guy."
"...You learned to read, from the owner of a store that only sells Erotica?" Tenten asked, blushing.
Apparently, she had been to that store before.
"Yeah. He said something like 'Old enough to kill my wife, old enough to browse my wares. And buy something before you leave'...When I didn't know what the titles were, he read them out for me."
Sasuke, noting that this man believed Naruto to be the Kyuubi, was torn. Thank him, for teaching Naruto?
Harm him, for idiocy?
"Wait...He just read out the titles?" Ino prodded.
Naruto simply nodded.
"...How the fuck does that work? There's no way to grasp the full grammatical sense of our language with a few phrases, since most of them have multiple meanings!"
He looked down, embarrassed. "I don't really 'read'...I just kinda pick out the bits I recognize, and guess..."
Ino just blinked. Why did he still want to be a Shinobi, if he couldn't read, and everyone disliked him?
Wait... "You...Can't read...Illiteracy...K'so! Naruto, don't you dare become a Chuunin before I make Jounin!"
Confused glances abounded, and Neji sighed. "...More Clan politics."
Naruto sighed. His life was never simple...Stretching out, he put the episode back on.
Konohamaru and his new tutor were thrown out of the Hot Springs, in short order.
"...Do you seriously do that, dude?" Kiba asked.
"...Research for my Jutsu." he defended himself, drawing into a ball.
Hinata blushed, partly in outrage, and partly at the thought that, perhaps, he already knew about about -
Ino was distracted from her death-walk towards Naruto, as she had to move a comatose Hinata to a more comfortable position.
"...Is she okay?" Naruto asked.
Everyone turned back to the screen, refusing to answer him.
By the time Naruto's secret technique, the Harem no Jutsu, was unveiled, Hinata had awakened, and been filled in quickly.
"...Okay, Naruto, that is absolutely perverted..." Ino began, sitting beside him "...But it's so awesome, I can't bring myself to feel offended."
She moved to Sasuke's side, leaving a smoldering kiss on the Jinchuuriki's cheek.
'She...She acknowledged me, too...'
"To be able to recieve the title of Hokage, which everyone will look up to. And the fact that there is no shortcut to become one."
The room was unusually silent.
Few could fathom how Naruto, of all people, could say something that sounded so...
"...Cool..." Ino whispered, smiling.
She still felt that Sasuke needed emotional support, to get through the trauma of losing his family, but...Naruto would be a loyal comrade. She was sure of it.
But Kami help him if he tried to peep on her.
