Status report.

I am delighted to inform you dear partner, that our manuscript has been cleared by the censors and that we are ready to roll.

Whoohoo!

Let me start at the beginning. As I'm sure you must realize, anything that a Konoha shinobi says or does or puts into print outside the village has to be carefully screened. Our jutsus and our techniques are our living and our lifeline, we just can't afford the risk that our enemies and competitors might get hold of advance information. Obviously that meant that 'the book' had to be approved by the Hokage before I could do anything with it.

My plan was to drop off the manuscript at Tsunade's office right after school so that I could get it approved in the least time and with the least embarrassment possible. So… I wrapped it up in three layers of brown paper, and mindful of the fact that I have a Hyuuga in my class, put it in a very uninteresting looking bag, one that certainly wouldn't seem to be worth the effort of cranking up a bayakugan for, and took it with me in the morning. Fortunately I was able to leave it locked in my desk all day. And, even more fortunately, it was still there after school

Anyways, Tsunade wasn't in her office, which isn't particularly surprising. She has a lot to do at the hospital and all kinds of meetings and stuff. But Shizune was there and she promised that she had the authority and clearance to do anything I needed done. And would you believe I hesitated, just for a moment, but it was there. You see I'd been mentally prepared to let Tsunade read through this piece of dross, but Shizune? She seems so sweet and innocent. But then I thought of Kakashi, trapped who knows where, and I bowed deeply to hide my blushes and offered it to her with both hands.

She asked if it was a book, so I said it was, and she started to unwrap it and asked if I'd written it all myself. Naturally I couldn't say yes, because it wasn't true. And I couldn't possibly admit that Kakashi had written it either. So I muttered that I was going to get it published anonymously and left it at that. Fortunately TonTon wandered in at that moment. More to give myself something to do than for any other reason, I picked him up as if he was one of Kakashi's smaller dogs and started to pet him.

Now I have never noticed before, but TonTon really is a very fine little pig. He has good development of the flesh along his flanks, well muscled shoulders, and should have some very nice hams by the time he's fully grown. I was just opening up his mouth to check out his teeth when Shizune peeled the last layer of wrapping paper off my manuscript and looked over at me. I must admit I felt a bit caught out, like a nosy kid, with the way I was acting. But I'd never looked at a pig really closely before.

So I said, "You know TonTon has some very fine points for his breed. He has perfectly formed little trotters, an exceptionally pert and curly tail, and his little piggy eyes are exactly the right distance apart. You might want to check his left ear though, it looks red. He might be getting a bit of a mite infestation in there."

Well she snatched him up and agreed at once that his ear seemed sore, so she got some drops and treated it while I held him still for her. And then we just chatted about pigs for a while. I said that TonTon seemed a bit small for his age, and asked what proportion of crude protein she was putting in his swill. She agreed but said that he'd always been the runt of the litter and would probably never quite catch up with the bigger pigs.

Suddenly I realized that I'd been there over an hour, that I should be in the mission room already, and that Shizune hadn't even looked at my manuscript. She must have seen the panic in my eyes because she said. "Iruka-sensei, if you think this book is safe to publish and doesn't give away any of Konoha's secrets then that's quite good enough for me." Then she took a big stamp out of Tsunade's desk and stamped 'Approved by the Office of the Hokage' on the front cover in bright red ink.

Naturally I dashed off a note to Shinzo-san at once telling him that I'm all ready on this end and now I'm writing this to you. Everyone in the mission room has been giving me funny looks all evening. Hardly surprising, they haven't seen me so much as crack a smile in months. And now, with my mission and the book to pay for it all set to go, I'm just a hair short of hysterical.

Yours, ready to give Hugh Hefner a run for his money as a porn mogul,

Iruka.