AN: Sorry about the delay. I took my sweet time writing this, but I actually had it ready the day before yesterday. My internet has been being evil, though. I'm actually posting this from my parents computer, which I hate using. I really really want MY computer to work again!
The Prankster
Chapter 2: Not What I Planned
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Tsunade loved her village. She loved her huge office with a view, she loved the little children who hero-worshipped her and sent her crayon drawings to hang up on her walls. She loved the atmosphere of Konoha, its spirit of fire.
What she decisively didn't like about Konoha, on days like this when all she wanted was a bottle of sake and fresh air, was the people. Why did she have to listen to them bitch, and solve all their problems?
"What's your complaint?" She asked with a sigh, hating whoever it was that had set up the damned system of 'official complaints'. Why couldn't they just solve things like decent ninja- with kunai?
One of the village elders, Susumu, took a deep breath. Damn it! That meant he was really going to ramble on. Tsunade gazed longingly at the door. Shizune was guarding it shrewdly, or else the Fifth Hokage would have left a clone in her place and escaped. Shizune knew her too well.
"We are here to lodge a formal complaint against the deviant known as the prankster. He has been disrupting the dignity of our village, and we have yet to see anything being done to cease his heinous actions. If we allow this to continue, more of our loyal citizens will be corrupted by this delinquent. He has all ready targeted our impressionable young children. We demand the Prankster be found and brought to justice!" Susumu declared with a thump of his fist on the table in front of him. Luckily, the sound woke Tsunade up (she'd drifted off to sleep during his monotonous speech, and would have embarrassed herself if she hadn't responded to his request).
"Does anyone have anything else to add?" She asked, managing not to yawn.
The head of the Konoha Academy stepped up. "I don't think this Prankster is trying to corrupt our youth, per say, but we have noticed a downward trend in grades since the pranks started two weeks ago. The students can't concentrate."
"The entire village has been affected!" Susumu interrupted. "Two weeks ago, fifteen jounin ninja skipped out on their missions because of that miscreant!"
"Excuse me, Sususmu-sama, but I don't really think that should be blamed on the Prankster." Iruka interjected. "The Jounin have always been an unpredictable bunch, and it's not unprecedented for them to decline a mission."
"But fifteen at once?" Susumu countered.
"Well, no, Susumu-sama. But they made the choice not to do the missions of their own accord. The Prankster didn't force them to do so."
"But they turned down missions they'd all ready accepted in order to act out that…what was it again?"
"A murder mystery, Susumu-sama." Iruka supplied.
"Yes, that murder mystery script the Prankster put in their mission reports. And they said they were doing it 'In honor of the Prankster.' This Prankster is obviously the source."
"Anyone else?" Tsunade asked.
The paranoid veteran ninja were the only complaining group not to have spoken up. One rose from his seat.
"Hokage-sama, we don't like it that there's a rogue shinobi running around the village that can slip in and out of our houses without being detected. It's not safe to just let this guy do whatever he wants."
"Have any of your houses been entered?" Tsunade asked. They shook their heads.
"Has anything been taken or destroyed? Has anyone been hurt?" She asked. Once again, they shook their heads.
"Has this Prankster done anything to cause any lasting damage?" Some of the more irate teachers made as if to speak up, but then thought better of it. The Prankster really couldn't be blamed for the short attention of their students (or the jounin, who were just big children with killing skills). The students were distracted by bad weather and news about foreign countries, too, and nobody was complaining about that.
"I will have someone look into this matter, but I really don't think that it's a top priority right now. Morale has risen back up to the levels it was before the attack by Sound, thanks to this Prankster. If he starts to pose a threat, we'll deal with him, but until then, he's harmless enough to be left alone." Tsunade waved her hand, signaling to them that discussion was over, get out now. The teachers, veterans, and most of the elders left. Only Susumu stayed behind.
"I want that man dealt with!" He hissed at her. She glanced at her nails, examining them for hangnails.
"I said I'd have someone look into it. Are you questioning my judgment?"
"No, Hokage-sama." He said, acid in his voice. Susumu walked out stiffly (probably the stick up his ass, Tsunade giggled to herself). The next group filed in. Tsunade sighed.
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The next day, there was another change in the village. The children, who had been spreading chaos and raising hell trying to catch a glimpse of and then imitate the Prankster, were acting polite and well behaved. The teachers of Konoha Academy tried to dispel the genjutsu that had to have ensnared them, but it refused to be lifted.
The answer to this unfathomable behavior was later found, tacked to the wall outside of the Academy Building where the students gathered in the morning. A little notice, typed up to avoid hand-writing recognition, contrasted with the dark wooden wall it hung on. It read:
To all of the students of Konoha Academy;
It has come to my attention that attendance and grade averages have both dropped significantly since I began visiting you regularly. I regret to inform you that unless this trend changes, I will no longer be gracing you with my presence. I hope that this will not be the case. Please try your hardest in your school-work, everyone, so that I can continue to come and watch as you progress into full fledged shinobi and kunoichi.
Most sincerely yours,
The Prankster.
It was signed with a flowing script. The children were enthralled. The Prankster wanted to see them! He believed that they had what it takes to become a Konoha ninja. If the Prankster wanted them to do there best, the best they would do. The children were almost frantic to prove to the Prankster that they were doing well at the academy. Any extra credit that was offered was completed promptly, and entire classes stayed after hours to get help when they didn't understand something. Children were offering to help their senseis left and right.
And the teachers ate it up. The hellions they'd been struggling with for the past two weeks were suddenly transformed into angels, who offered to clean the chalkboard, sharpen practice weapons, take quizzes without complaint. By the end of the first day, the teachers of Konoha were blessing the name of the Prankster. They took the little tricks he played on them with good natured acceptance. They were willing to pretend not to notice the signs he taped on their backs if it meant that everyone in the class turned in all their homework.
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Kakashi had been privately investigating the Academy when he saw the Hokage's falcon calling him to report to her. He quickly noted the latest prank (each child had woken up with a temporary tattoo on his or her forehead, in the shape on the Konoha leaf symbol; they believed it was a sign that the Prankster saw their potential to be powerful ninja) on the growing list in his Icha Icha novel and hurried to the Hokage's Office.
Outside the door, there was a basket full of clothes pin, and a sign that told Kakashi "Try Your Luck" hanging on it. Kakashi took one, not knowing what he was supposed to do with it, because under the sign was a scribbled drawing of the Prankster's now infamous Mardi Gras mask. 'He's no artist,' Kakashi added to his notes. 'Unless he drew that sloppily on purpose, to throw me off his trail.' The jounin decided not to cross the known artists of his list of suspects just yet.
When Kakashi lazily sauntered in to see the Hokage, he discovered what he was supposed to do with the clothes pin. There were twenty-three already clipped to Tsunade's back, on her pigtails and her green jacket, expertly spaced so that none of them would clank together as she paced around the room. She was too restless to sit down, so frustrated with her confinement to her office by the ever-diligent Shizune, so she hadn't yet noticed the clothes pins were there. As she walked passed him, Kakashi stealthily clipped on number twenty-four.
"Kakashi, I've heard you've been investigating the Prankster in your free time." She told him, walking by again. Kakashi had never been gladder for his mask; had the Hokage been able to see his face, she would have known in an instant that something was amiss. Kakashi's smile was making his face sore, and it was all he could do not to crack up laughing.
"Yes, Tsunade-sama. As I was walking down the path of life, I leant him five dollars to pay for his grandmother's knee surgery, and I've been trying to find him and make him pay me back."
"I don't want to hear your lame excuses, Kakashi! I'm giving you a mission, to be completed at your convenience. You're to keep investigating the Prankster, and report your findings back to me." Kakashi accepted the mission papers she held out for him, nodded, and left.
Kakashi looked over the mission. It wasn't asking him to do any more than he'd already been doing, except to report to the Hokage, but then again, it wasn't a real mission, either. Every shinobi in Konoha knew that missions that were completed 'at one's convenience' were a joke. It meant that they didn't really need doing, but the village wanted to be able to say, when asked, that it was 'in progress'. Tsunade didn't care about finding the Prankster and putting a stop to him, she was telling him. She just wanted to be able to tell the elders that the matter was being handled.
The good news was, this mission paper would give Kakashi access to more information that he'd been privy to before. He left the Hokage's office, rushing off to do more investigating.
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"Tsunade-sama, would you like some tea?" Shizune asked as she entered her superior's office with a tray of snacks and drinks. Tsunade nodded, and finally sat down in her chair, only to jump back up as the wooden clothes pins dug unto her back. Shizune let out the laughter she'd been holding in all morning.
"What are these?" the Hokage roared, pulling them out of her hair. Shizune brought on the basket and sign from outside the door, and showed Tsunade.
"How long have I had them on me?"
"Well over an hour, Hokage-sama!" Shizune said, between fits of laughter. Tsunade tried to look stern for a moment, but eventual surrendered to laughter as well.
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Placated by the stellar performance of the students and the promise that the matter was being investigated, the complaints about the Prankster ceased. The Prankster himself grew bolder as the weeks passed. His range now extended past the Academy and the Mission Room; he had begun to prank entire clans.
The Aburame clan had woken up one day to find their dark glasses replaced with colorful, lightly-tinted glasses that looked like something a hippy would wear. For reasons unknown to the rest of the village, the enigmatic clan had all worn the new glasses around for the day, although anyone that tried to steal a glance at their eyes through them (there was a rumor in the village that they didn't have eyes, so everyone was curious) found themselves enveloped in a could of chakra-eating insects. The next day, their normal glasses were returned and not one Aburame would mention a word about the subject.
While he was on the Flower-child theme, the Prankster did the Hyuuga clan as well. On the day that the Aburame's reclaimed their normal glasses, Hyuuga Hiashi and Hyuuga Neji awoke to find their long hair braided on both sides of their heads, with the rest left flowing. Hanging in their closets were two sets of bell-bottom pants, two fringed vests, and two long-sleeved hippy shirts, with notes pinned to them kindly requesting they don this attire for the day, signed the Prankster. Young Hyuuga Hinata and Hanabi found similar clothes in their closets, although theirs were more feminine in make and were accompanied by two flower crowns, to adorn their heads. The village had been shocked to see the dignified Hyuuga clan in Flower-child garb, but knew better than to ask questions. Hiashi glared at anyone who got too close. He wasn't angry about the clothes so much as he was at himself for being so easily swayed by his daughters' begging that he dress up with them. He told everyone else that the rest of his wardrobe had gone temporarily missing, and none of his household, who knew the truth, corrected him.
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Kakashi had observed all of these pranks with growing admiration for the Prankster. The man was past being just a fascination in his life; Kakashi had a full fledged obsession. That might help explain why it was that he was crouched down on a very uncomfortable branch of a tree at two forty-three in the morning when he didn't even have a real mission.
The Prankster did the majority of his work under the cover of night, he'd observed. Sure, he visited the Academy during its teaching hours, and pulled a few minor pranks throughout the day, but the major pranks happened at night. Thus Kakashi was staked out in the middle of the village, waiting for the Prankster to come.
Kakashi let his mind wander as he waited and watched. Should he have invited Iruka to this stake out? No, he didn't want to drag Iruka around all night and wear the chuunin out. Besides, the Prankster had been haunting his thoughts since the tee-shirt incident; Kakashi wanted to be alone when he confronted him.
He did feel guilty, though. He hadn't been spending as much time with his friend as he normally did. He'd just been too busy with his search. 'Tomorrow,' he promised himself. 'Tomorrow I'll take some time off and treat Iruka to dinner.'
Kakashi was drawn out of his thoughts by movement on the ground below.
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Iruka shivered as he stepped out into the night air. This pranking thing had really gotten out of hand. He made hand seals and produced some kage bunshin to help him with his next task. Each shadow clone hopped off in a different direction and began tying little colored paper streamers to any available surface. Tomorrow was supposed to be windy, and if the prediction proved to be true, the slips of paper would dance around.
'It wasn't supposed to be this big of a deal.' Iruka thought to himself, as he tied streamers as well. It was hard to see through the eye holes of his mask. 'I just wanted to cheer up the kids a little.'
The way Iruka had planned it, the hair-dying was the first and last of his pranks. He just wanted to do something to make the children smile again. But, it had made them so happy. One prank had turned into two. He decided then it would just be one day of pranking, and then it would end.
He admitted now that he must have been a little drunk on his success. He really had planned on ending it that day. But as he'd walked home that evening, he saw a group of second year students talking with one of their classmates who'd been out sick. She'd seemed so disappointed to have missed out on the fun. It didn't seem fair to Iruka for her to be felt out. That night, Iruka mass-cloned a wind chime and hung them everywhere. And thus, the pranks continued.
Now, the people expected pranks, and Iruka hated disappointing anyone. If the pranks stopped now, the students would loose their enthusiasm and the happiness that he'd spread would be forgotten. Iruka didn't want the village to go back to the way it had been since the Sound Attack. So he was stuck trudging around in the middle of the night, wracking his mind for new ways to make the shinobi of Konoha laugh.
All of the streamers he'd cloned were tied up now. He could go home, finally!
There was only one way out of the tolling pranking cycle Iruka had gotten himself caught up in. He needed to convince the citizens of Konoha to take over for him. The children had all ready started their hands at pranks. If enough people followed his example, they'd never notice if he stopped and went back to his normal chuunin life.
Iruka walked toward his apartment. The night was silent. The hairs on Iruka's arms stood up. He was being watched.
Instead of going into his apartment building, Iruka kept walking as if he hadn't yet reached his destination. Someone was following him, he was certain now. He turned a corner, used a replication jutsu, and disappeared.
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The Prankster was thorough, Kakashi would give him that. The shadow clone he'd sent to tie streamers under Kakashi's tree had been formed without the Prankster's face under its mask. It took more energy to form a clone that didn't look just like you. Kakashi hadn't given any indication that he was going to be here. For the Prankster to have formed mass shadow clones and wiped them of faces must have taken an enormous toll on him. Well, good. It would have been too easy if he'd found out his identity just like that. Kakashi was even more intrigued now.
He hopped trees and then roofs silently, using his sharingan eye to check each Prankster he saw. He finally found the real one, tying his last streamer and heading back home. Kakashi followed, unnoticed.
Or, at least he thought he'd been unnoticed, until the Prankster pulled a replication jutsu. Kakashi stopped worrying about stealth and chased after the Prankster's chakra trail. There was nothing he loved more than the thrill of the chase.
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"Damn it!" Iruka whispered to himself as he began to run all out. It was Kakashi who was following him! He didn't have a chance.
Iruka couldn't let Kakashi know it was him who'd been pranking everyone. Kakashi had come to him for help, and Iruka had deliberately misled him. Kakashi would be angry at him. It was bad enough that the silver-haired nin had been ignoring him in favor of his pursuit of the Prankster; if Kakashi found out, he might end their friendship.
No. Iruka wouldn't let that happen. Kakashi had come to mean too much to the chuunin. He would just have to outmaneuver him, loose him somehow, and escape. Iruka headed toward one of the few places the ninja would be hesitant to follow- the Hyuuga mansion. Iruka had been there a few nights ago, and was certain he'd be able to sneak in again. Kakashi, however, would be less inclined to follow him into the Hyuuga's sacred domain, for fear of retaliation by Hyuuga Hiashi.
Iruka ran faster than he knew he could. He wasn't going to loose Kakashi, not until he figured out a way to tell then older man how much he cared about him. Kakashi didn't realize how his casual flirting affected Iruka. He didn't realize that the tee-shirt that had started Kakashi's obsession with the Prankster was meant to have been a humorous gift from a secret admirer, to ease him into the idea of a relationship. He didn't realize that Iruka was in love with him. And Iruka refused to loose his friendship until Kakashi realized all these things that his famous sharingan eye couldn't help him see.
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Kakashi chased the Prankster all the way to the boundaries of the Hyuuga compound. His heart was pounding with exhilaration. Never mind that he was about to sneak into the house of one of the most deadly, mean-tempered clans in the village, in the dead of night. Never mind he had no idea where the Prankster had gone. This was the most fun he'd had in weeks!
"Ahem." Kakashi heard someone deliberately cough behind him as he was about to place his foot into Hyuuga territory. He turned around.
"You are aware that you're trespassing, aren't you, Kakashi-san?" Neji stated in a dead tone. He crossed his arms and stared Kakashi down with his eerie white eyes.
"I'm still on public Konoha ground" Kakashi replied, although one sandaled foot was hovering precariously over private Hyuuga land.
"Well, it had better stay that way. We Hyuuga have ways of finding out who's been sneaking into our house." With that, Neji disappeared into the Hyuuga Mansion, leaving the silver-haired jounin to stare after him.
"Damn." He said, and begrudgingly headed back home.
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Iruka lurked in the shadows of the Hyuuga Mansion. He reached out his senses and felt for Kakashi's chakra signature. The Copy ninja was retreating. Good. He'd only have to wait here another minute or two and then sneak out. The Hyuugas would never know he was here.
The brunet sensei leaned his back to the wall and sank down to his knees. He might as well rest for a minute before he went; creating hundreds of shadow clones and modifying them to not have faces had taken a toll on his chakra levels, and even now he was maintaining the mass cloning of the paper strips (he only had one of each cover; he'd replicated them with the clones so he'd have enough to go around the village), a slight but steady drain on his already reduced energy.
"Umm…Prankster-san?" A quiet voice stuttered. Iruka jumped up, startled. He gasped. Right in front of him, shy little Hyuuga Hinata stood dressed in a bath robe. She held her hands in front of her face. "You should c-come this way. My father might find you here."
Iruka followed Hinata into her bedroom. She gestured to a chair in the corner, where he gladly sat down. A moment later, Neji opened the window and entered the room.
"We need to talk to you." He told Iruka. Iruka would have laughed at the thought of either Hyuuga child wanting to talk, had the situation not been so grave. If Hyuuga Hiashi caught him here, he wouldn't be out of his bounds to have Iruka arrested.
"We…we'd like to help you, if that would be a-alright, Prankster-san." Hinata told him. Iruka stared.
"We know what you're doing, Iruka-sensei, and we can see you aren't going to be able to keep it up. Kakashi followed you here tonight. You don't have the chakra or the expertise to implement your plans and avoid jounin pursuit." Neji explained.
Iruka felt indignation rise. "I've been handling it perfectly fine up until know, Neji-kun, and I think I know a little nit more about my capabilities than you do!" He huffed. There was a moment of silence. "Wait…how do you know who I am?" Iruka grabbed at his mask. It was still covering his face. Had he let something slip? Did Kakashi know?
The Hyuuga cousins didn't respond, other than to blink their blank white eyes. Oh. The eyes, right. Kakashi's sharingan might not have been able to spot Iruka's identity, but the Byakugan could see through the mask as if it weren't there.
"I've spoken to Hanabi-chan, Iruka-sensei. She hasn't been able to use her Byakugan reliably yet, but she's agreed that she won't tell anyone who you are if she manages to use them." Iruka wondered if he could really trust that the second biggest loudmouth in her year (second only to Konohamaru; she was a complete opposite of her older sister) to keep anything even resembling a secret, but Hinata seemed confident, so Iruka let it slide.
"All right. Thank you. If you really want to help, I do have a few ideas you could play a part in…" Iruka gathered the two Hyuuga close to him and began scheming. This was perfect! With any luck, they would be able to recruit more villagers to participate in the pranking. Iruka would be off the hook in no time.
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The next morning, Iruka looked like hell. The paper streamers, which had been a big success with the citizens of Konoha, were still draining his chakra. He'd slept restlessly, and woken up feeling just as tired as when he'd laid down.
He'd planned originally on releasing the replication jutsu on the paper streamers around noon, after everyone had gotten a chance to see and enjoy them. One child, however, had gotten the idea to right wishes on the little colored strips. The idea had caught on and now everyone was running around looking for a blank one to write their hopes down on. Iruka couldn't just dispel the jutsu and disappoint all the hopeful little children. So the paper remained, and Iruka's chakra drained.
Kakashi also looked like he hadn't slept (although his slouch and his fly-away hair often gave that impression to those who didn't know him well), although Iruka still thought he looked as sexy as always. He met Iruka in the Mission Room and handed in a crumpled report.
"You look awful." Kakashi told him, ever-so-helpfully. Iruka glared.
"Thank you Kakashi. You're looking wonderful as ever." He growled. Kakashi winced.
"Not much of a morning person today, are we? Couldn't sleep last night?"
"Not a wink. You?"
"No. I was chasing the Prankster, and I was too excited to sleep afterwards."
Iruka signed off on the mission report and filed it. He and Kakashi didn't sleep for a minute, but Iruka felt his bad mood lifting just from the other man's presence.
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Iruka seemed to wake up a little more after he finished with Kakashi's mission report. Kakashi was glad; he'd seen Iruka angry, and it was one of the things that could still scare him, a jounin. Now that the danger of getting his head bitten off had passed, Kakashi figured a little bit of flirting would be safe.
"So, Iruka-sensei, did it hurt?" He asked. Iruka's eyebrows furrowed.
"Did what hurt?"
"When you fell down from heaven." Kakashi grinned beneath his mask. Yay, cheesy pick-up line saves the day! Iruka smiled.
"Would you like to have dinner with me this evening, Kakashi?" Iruka asked. Kakashi frowned, remembering the promise he'd made to himself the night before.
"I'm sorry, Iruka-kun. I heard a rumor that the Prankster's going to do something big this evening, and I want to be there to investigate. Is that okay?"
"Oh, of course. Maybe some other time." Iruka said, smiling at Kakashi. The copy nin didn't need his sharingan to tell that the other man was disappointed, though. That fake smile didn't reach his eyes. 'I have to find the Prankster quickly' he told himself, 'so I can get him out of my head and spend time with Iruka.'
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That's all for now. Next chapter will have a prank for the perverts of Konoha, Gai sensei out of spandex, and, if things go according to the tentative timeline I have in my head, some Kaka/Iru smut interaction! Yee-haw!
