-Ninja Academy-

-Morning-

As Naruto arrived at the academy and began looking around for the man he was supposed to meet with, he was approached by a rather old figure sporting a large pan on his back. Before Naruto could open his mouth, the old man spoke, "Hello young man, I am Maruboshi Kosuke, also known as the Eternal Genin. If I'm not wrong, you must be Naruto, correct?"

Nodding his head, Naruto remembered Iruka's warning from the day before, although the man before him was referred to as the Eternal Genin, he was not to look down on him. Despite his looks and title, the man was widely considered to be one of the strongest ninja in the village.

His age also showed his experience, having had served as a genin for 50 some years. Iruka had forcibly ingrained respect for the man into Naruto and made sure to emphasize the volume of information he could learn from him.

And so, Naruto remained calm and collected. Contrary to popular belief, Naruto excelled at keeping calm, after all, it was an invaluable asset when pranking others, and when needing to tolerate the villager's abuse towards him. It was especially easy when it was in front of someone, he actually had respect for.

"Hmm…"

Kosuke was surprised, the Naruto before him looked nothing like the rumors portrayed him. Sure, the orange jumpsuit was present, but not the over-energetic and childish attitude that was expected. That was part of the reason why he had asked whether he was talking to Naruto, not stated.

"You're…not quite what I was expecting."

"Sir?"

"Well, we can treat this as a first lesson of sorts, I suppose. I'm sure you are aware that part of a shinobi's duties is information gathering, including rumors and the like?"

Naruto was aware that shinobi needed to gather information, however, he wasn't aware that rumors were involved. Rumors weren't really reliable information, after all, so why would a shinobi waste their time with them?

"Yeah, I get that we are supposed to gather info, but aren't rumors like, super unreliable? Why bother with them?"

It was a good question, once again surprising Kosuke, Naruto was supposed to be a poor student. One wouldn't think that a poor student would be particularly adept at asking questions. It could be a fluke, but Kosuke noted it down in his mind, hoping to ascertain with time whether or not the boy was actually stupid, like the rumors had also suggested.

"Good question. Let's think about it for a moment and use you as an example."

"Me?"

Naruto couldn't really see how he would serve as a good example of rumors, but he let the man continue, certain he must have some sort of point. Why else would he bring it up?

"Yes, you. Before our meeting today, I conducted some information gathering about you. If I was to be ready to teach you, I had to know more about you. That information gathering naturally included rumors about you."

Naruto had already been paying attention to the man, but that really grabbed his attention. What were the rumors about him saying?

"And? What were those rumors?"

Sensing the young boy's interest and growing excitement, Kosuke continued, "That you were a young brat who liked to wear an obnoxious, orange jumpsuit. That you loved to pull pranks and were the bottom of your class. That you were loud and childish."

Naruto looked almost hurt, he thought the man was going to discuss the rumors about him, not outright insult him and his sense of fashion.

"Such rumors are why I decided to use you as an example. As looking deeper into them, we can learn how to pick apart rumors for valuable information, and then cross-reference that information with another source."

Unable to contain himself, Naruto burst out, "Valuable information?! What valuable information?! Those were just insults!"

Chuckling at having gotten a rise out of the boy, Kosuke waved his handed, quieting Naruto down so he could continue the lesson.

"Yes, yes. I understand. At first glance, it just seems like insults, but that's only if we don't dig deeper into them. For example, I believe we can both confirm that your jumpsuit is, in fact, orange."

"Well yeah, that's kind of obvious, isn't it?"

"That may be so, but did you ever consider that people considering your jumpsuit to be obnoxious is a sign that it is not considered fashionable?"

That statement also got a rise out of Naruto, Kosuke had directly insulted his sense of fashion by saying that.

"Hey! What's wrong with my jumpsuit?!"

"We'll get back to that later, for now, rumors. Onto the next one, you like to pull pranks, having seen some of the outcomes I can confirm that to be true, thus, no need to cross-reference. But let me ask you this, what sort of valuable information does that rumor contain?"

That got Naruto thinking, he didn't really see any valuable information in that rumor. Maybe that he was fun guy? But that wasn't the most vital of information to a shinobi. Unless maybe to befriend the guy to gather more information?

Having nothing else to go off of, Naruto just directly told Kosuke those thoughts.

"Haha! While that may be true, and a viable possibility, as fun-loving as a ninja may be, they will still usually keep a tight lip on any information they hold. Why don't you try thinking about it from the point of view of planning an attack on yourself?"

'What does pranks have to do with fighting someone? Or attacking someone? He has to be saying this all for a reason, right? He wouldn't mislead me or anything.'

Kosuke and Naruto stood there, with Naruto thinking about the answer, and Kosuke patiently waiting.

'Maybe I need to think about it in the reverse? How could I use my pranks to protect myself from an attacker? That's it. Some of my pranks could easily be swapped out for traps or the like. And along with that train of thought, if things got hairy, I've got plenty of experience in running away!'

"I got it! I understand!"

Surprised by the boy's sudden outburst, Kosuke re-focused his attention on him.

"Its like this, doesn't pulling pranks use similar skills as trapping? In your example, if I heard this rumor, and I was gonna attack myself, I should be worried about what sorts of traps I could employ!"

Kosuke was impressed, honestly speaking, it hadn't taken the boy too long to arrive at the conclusion he was hoping to hear. Ready to continue with the lesson, he was surprised even further by what Naruto said next.

"Following along that train of thought, we can go even further. I'm always getting chased down after my pranks, and occasionally I even manage to escape from members of the Anbu. Thus, if I were to attack myself, I should watch out for attempts to escape, perhaps employing some anti-escape methods? Regardless of how I do it, the point is, is that it would be something to watch out for!"

It was above and beyond what Kosuke had expected, sure, some of the information was not a part of the rumors he had mentioned, but could he really blame the boy for using information he had already known? No, cross-referencing info was part of the lesson, the boy just naturally did it without realizing.

"Good, good. That was a great answer."

Naruto couldn't contain his grin; it wasn't often that he got praised for his answers to questions. In fact, he couldn't remember a single time when he was in the academy that he received praise for his answer to a question, usually he was lucky if he didn't get yelled at.

"What about the next rumor? The one about you being the bottom of your class."

Regardless of truth, that one still stung for Naruto to hear, and Kosuke had expected that Naruto might have another eruption of anger at hearing it. But Naruto had been full of curveballs for Kosuke that day, instead of the outburst he was expecting, Naruto just calmly stood there, lost in thought.

At that, Kosuke finally wrote the rumor that Naruto was a hothead off in his mind, sure the boy had his moments, but overall, he could actually be considered somewhat calm considering his upbringing.

While Kosuke thought all of this, Naruto's mind was spinning, 'Bottom of the class. Bottom of the class. What cold, hard facts are contained there? If I were gonna attack myself, what weaknesses could I exploit?'

Once again, Naruto thought for a couple minutes, before explaining to Kosuke his answer in a much calmer manner than the first time.

"Well, the academy grades are composed of four main subjects, right? You got the Theory classes, Taijutsu, Shurikenjutsu, and the Basic Three. Since each subject is weighted roughly equally, and you need at least a passing grade of 50% in each to graduate, you can assume that the bottom of the class is weak in at least two or three of the subjects."

Kosuke nodded along, it was a start, and not a lot of information to go off of, so the answer was good enough.

However, Naruto wasn't finished, as he continued, "If we consider that there are actually only three types of subjects, with Theory being one, Jutsu another, and then with Taijutsu and Shurikenjutsu paired up, it lowers the number of variables. Most people are at least good at one subject, with another subject being average and the third being barely passable, the bottom of the class could reasonably be assumed to be average in one subject and bad at the other two."

The analysis was impressive to Kosuke, and he was sure that now Naruto was done speaking. Opening his mouth to talk, Kosuke was once more, cut off by the young boy's enthusiastic talking.

"If we take into account the other rumor, that I'm childish, one might be able to assume that whoever said that was trying to be nice, and what they really meant was foolish or stupid. One wouldn't really consider being bad at Taijutsu or Jutsu to make someone stupid, so that must point towards bad grades in the Theory classes. Of course, I'm kind of skipping some steps, and have an unfair advantage, because I'm me after all, I know my grades. But so far, I think everything is a reasonable conclusion…"

Already crossing the rumors about the boy's foolishness out of his brain, Kosuke waited for the boy to tell him he was finished answering, no longer having any doubts about the boy's intellect.

"Moving on, its not actually important to know exactly whether or not my Taijutsu or Jutsu is better, because while the Jutsu taught at the academy can have their uses, they aren't really the best techniques in an actual fight. Thus, that means our target, me, is only left with Taijutsu and Shurikenjutsu, which if we assume I'm best at, that leaves us with a pretty accurate representation of the target's strength and what to expect."

Whoever spread the rumor that the boy was childish deserved a death sentence. If that answer and analysis was considered childish in Konoha, every other nation should be paralyzed in fear at the mere mention of the Konoha Information Corps.

'The boy shows a lot of talent in the field of information analysis, how was this not noticed in the academy? In fact, with his brain, how could he do poorly in theory classes? It should practically be his specialty!'

Curiosity engaged, Kosuke decided to directly ask the boy himself, he had to know. Maybe he just didn't put in the effort?

"Naruto…First off, I'm thoroughly impressed. Although, like you said, you have some unfair advantages, that was still an extremely good analysis based on very little information. In fact, it was so good that now I'm curious. Whether you realize it or not, you are very clearly quite intelligent. So how does a smart lad like yourself find himself flunking Theory classes in the academy?"

Upon hearing the word intelligent in relation to himself, Naruto got a sheepish grin, as he unconsciously looked away, embarrassed. He had never even dreamed that someone would think he was smart, much less did he expect to hear it so directly.

Scratching the back of his head, Naruto responded, grin still on his face, "Well, as it turns out, I learned recently from Iruka-sensei that I have something called… Dyslexia? I still don't fully get what it entails, but Iruka-sensei told me its why sometimes when I'm reading words can look like they are in code."

Not fully knowing what Dyslexia was, having never heard of it, Kosuke lamented. From the way Naruto described his condition, it sounded to Kosuke like a genius, loyal to Konoha, had almost been lost.

"A couple follow-up questions if you don't mind answering them? Is this condition…permanent? Also, how many words appear as-if in code as you are reading?"

"Ehh, its not really a secret, Iruka-sensei himself found most of the information in books. He told me that it was permanent, and that I would have to learn to live with it. And I'd say, probably somewhere between a third and half the words I see look like code? Its kind of hard to say for certain, as I never really counted, ya know? And sometimes its only certain characters that look off, not the whole word."

This information shook Kosuke to his core, this was a condition he had never heard about that could possibly be affecting who knows how many people, and the extra information made him even more impressed with the boy. How had he earned a passing grade without being able to read up to half the material? It was a small wonder the boy was a natural at information analysis, he had to do it every time he tried to read something just to understand it!

Going against his own advice to gather information using rumors, Kosuke swore to never use rumors to judge Naruto again in the future, not only were most of them false or inaccurate, but they also didn't look at the full story of the boy.

In any case, Kosuke noted down all the information he had gotten from the boy in the back of his mind, resolved to spend some more time later on to do his own research. It was time for him to get back to his task at hand, teaching the young boy.

"Just to be certain, you don't need help with reading and writing, right?"

"No worries, Iruka-sensei's got me covered! We're meeting up next week for some practice!"

Relieved, Kosuke had been preparing to help teach the boy to read himself if he had to, if only to ensure that his intellect was not wasted.

Entering into lecture mode, Kosuke took a deep breath, before beginning, "In that case, I'd say we can move on from information gathering and rumors for now, we can always do more training for that at a later time. More importantly is lesson two, picking and choosing missions to take. Now unfortunately, you are a wandering genin, so you don't have a jonin sensei to do this for you. You also can't take rank C missions by yourself yet due to your inexperience, so that of course leaves rank D's as your only option. Contrary to popular belief, rank D's…"