Okay…I've made up my mind. I have decided that I'm not going to deliberately torture Sasuke in this chapter. I'll just briefly allude to it… (sigh) I don't like this chapter already.
The Shinobi's Guide to Television
By Kaori
Once again they were at the television studio only this time, things were a little different…
"There are some more of you missing today. Did something happen?" asked Shun in that irritatingly light-hearted tone he always uses.
Sasuke was too traumatized from yesterday's fiasco to be of any use to anyone, so they sent him to the rest home for the day (with pills and electroshock therapy). Ino and Sakura, distraught over their precious Uchiha, had opted to try and break into the rest home and personally nurse Sasuke back to health (and ended up joining him in electroshock therapy and the journey through happy, drug-induced coma land). The jounins weren't back from their mission yet and their students were beginning to wonder if they were deliberately taking their time so they wouldn't have to come back to the studio.
"Oh well, I don't need that many of you anyway." Smiled Shun. "Today you'll be replacing the news staff as they all somehow managed to get into an accident near Hachiko-san's office."
"I knew we should have cleaned that up…" muttered Kiba.
"No you didn't you were the one who said we should leave it to the janitor." Chouji muttered back. Shun either didn't hear what they said or care as he didn't comment but sent the group down to Studio Four where the producer and his assistant were waiting.
"Eh, they sent me a bunch of brats?" the producer, a big man with an interesting hand-shaped scar on his face, said. "Next thing you know we'll have dogs workin' here." Kiba twitched which didn't go unnoticed by Watanabe. "Bah. Whatever…" he walked off grumbling to himself.
"Don't mind Watanabe-san, he's always like that." The younger man sighed, adjusting his glasses. "I'm Morino Rai by the way."
"Morino…" Naruto wrinkled his nose. "Why does that name sound so familiar?"
"Hey, wasn't one of the examiners from the Chuunin Exam a Morino?" asked Chouji.
"Yeah…" drawled Shikamaru, and then he blanched when he remembered exactly who they were talking about. "Don't tell me you're related to that psychopath, Ibiki!"
The others blinked at the nice, normal young man standing before them and tried to mesh it with the sadistic, evil-looking Ibiki and couldn't consolidate the image.
"Oh, you know my cousin then?" Blinked Rai. "Ibiki's really not as bad as his victims make him out to be."
"Riiighht…" drawled Kiba, not believing that for a moment.
"What's up with that guy's face?" Naruto asked.
"Eh? You mean the handprint?" Rai asked, the temps nodded. "Well, don't tell him I told you this but when Watanabe-san was in the Academy he was something of a pervert. One day his team was sent to a mission in Cloud and, long story short, pissed off the wrong kunoichi. She used some sort of electric slap attack on him and that mark has been on his face ever since."
"Wow, remind me not to piss off any girls from Cloud." Kiba said.
"Don't piss off girls, period." Naruto nodded his head in a wise sort of way. "Take it from someone who knows."
"And yet you do it anyway." Shikamaru quipped, dryly.
"Hey!"
Ten minutes later…
"You're on in five…four…three…two…" Rai said from behind the camera.
The red light that signalled that the cameras were rolling came on, music played, and Shino stared unemotionally at the camera.
"Good afternoon," Shino said quietly. "My name is Aburame Shino. The regular anchorman, Nagashima Hakkai, is…sick. Our top story today: perverted author of the Icha Icha series, the Ero-Sannin…"
Off-camera, Watanabe spit out the soda he had been drinking. "'ERO-SANNIN!' WHAT THE HELL! THAT'S NOT WHAT HE'S SUPPOSED TO SAY! WHO PUT THAT IN THE TELEPROMPTER!"
"Watanabe-san, please calm down. Remember your blood pressure." Soothed Rai.
"…and all women should be wary of the bathouses." Shino said completely unfazed. He was told to read the teleprompter and that's what he was going to do no matter how stupid it was. "This just in, Ebisu is a closet pervert."
"THAT'S NOT NEWS!" screamed Watanabe.
"It's news to me, I didn't know that…" Rai said quietly.
Meanwhile, Chouji, Naruto, and Hinata were in the computer room desperately trying to find the weather map that would show up on the green screen.
"Naruto-kun, w…why did you add that extra s..stuff to the teleprompter?" Hinata asked, as she clicked through several files on the machine.
"Because it was the truth." Naruto replied, absently. "People have a right to know the truth. Chouji have you found anything?"
"No…(munch munch munch)…"
"Chouji! Stop eating and look seriously! Argh! Whatever just throw something up on the screen and hope nobody notices."
"And now over to Shikamaru for the weather." Intoned Shino.
When Kiba panned the camera around, Shikamaru was sleeping standing up in front of the green screen. "What the hell! Akamaru, go wake up Shika." The little dog gave a short bark, launched himself at Shikamaru and bit him on the leg.
"OW!" yelped Shikamaru as he looked down to glare at the dog attached to his leg. "What the hell was that for?"
"Shut up and do the weather!"
"How troublesome." Shikamaru gave one last glare at Kiba and Akamaru before getting on with it. "The weather in our village today will be sunny with lots of nice, fluffly clouds." Shikamaru looked up and noticed that Kiba was trying very hard not to laugh; he could also hear Watanabe ranting. What the heck did he do wrong? He shrugged and continued giving the weather report. "Sunagakure is hot and troublesome as usual with a few clouds, Kiragakure will be rainy and cloudy, Iwagakure and Kusagakure have clear skies, and Kumogakure is cloudy as usual." Kiba was now on the floor clutching his sides and howling; tears streamed down his face, Watanbe was being forcibly restrained by Rai (but just barely). Shikamaru finally turned around to see what the hell causing such a commotion and wished he hadn't. Where the weather map was supposed to be was a nice collage of pictures of Shikamaru in his underwear from the Voodoo Debacle. "AAAAGHH! WHAT THE HELL! NARUTOOOOO!"
Trying very hard to contain himself, Kiba switched the camera back to Shino who was regarding Shikamaru with a raised eyebrow. He coughed when Shikamaru glared at him and went back to reading the news.
Naruto, Chouji, and Hinata had been banished to the feed room. Watanabe decided to put the three of them in the there completely unaware that none of them had any technical aptitude whatsoever.
"Hokage-sama has announced that all chuunins and juunins must have an updated copy of the bingo book in case they run into nukenins. Also, spouses are no longer permitted to report their husbands as nukenins until they have been missing for at least a week while not on a mission." Shino said. "And now here's Tomai with a special report from Kirigakure…"
In the feed room, they gennins were trying to figure out how to switch from the feed in the Konoha studio to the feed in Kiri.
"Well, at least that went okay." Muttered Watanabe.
"Umm…Watanabe-san." Rai ventured. "Why is the 'On-Air' sign blinking like that?"
Naruto suddenly came tearing out of the feed room followed by Chouji and Hinata, all three looked frantic.
"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" screamed Naruto.
The occupants of the room blinked stupidly before a gigantic fireball erupted from the room they had just exited.
"AAAARRRGHHH!" raged Watanabe and started cursing the gennins and Shikamaru.
All across Konoha people watched as the news set went up in flames and the crew rushed around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to put out the fire. Strangely enough, ratings were the highest they'd ever been for the news portion of the broadcast day.
"Gah, look out! The flame's climbing the curtains!" yelled Rai.
"Where's the fire extinguisher!" wailed Hinata.
"We used them all yesterday trying to put out the fire in the kitchen, remember?" Kiba answered. "Call the fire department!"
"YOU KIDS ARE DEAD! YOU HEAR ME! DEAD!" screamed Watanabe.
"Open the window and let some of the smoke out!" suggested Naruto.
"The window's fake you idiot!" Shikamaru scowled, after ripping down the curtains and stomping on them to put them out.
"Ack! The desk's burning!"
"Suiton Daibakufu no Jutsu!"
The wall closest to the door exploded as the water pipes erupted and drenched the room and everyone in it. On the upside, the fire was out and nobody died.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto sputtered. Said jounin walked nonchalantly into the room followed by the agitated Kurenai and Asuma.
"We can't leave you guys alone for one minute, can we?" sighed Kakashi in a disappointed tone.
"Shut up Kakashi!" growled the wet rookies.
Can the shinobi get through one day without something burning and/or somebody being traumatized? Are the jounins back for good? Will the Hokage take the damage to the studio out of their pay or will they chalk it up to…accidents? Is a lawsuit pending due to Ebisu's perversion being exposed on live television? And what of Team Gai? Have they got any role in this story at all? Stay tuned and see.