AN: I'm glad everybody liked the clothes-pins-on-Tsunade's-back prank (that came from something I saw on TV one time on a documentary on the HP movies; apparently the child staff, led by the girl who plays Hermione of all people, played a bunch of pranks on people and one of the things they did was stick clothes pins on people when they walked by. It sounded fun.). I hope I can think of more funny things for Iruka-sensei to do (SHAMELESS PLEA FOR SUGGESTIONS HERE!)

Prankster

Chapter 3: Hot on the Trail

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Iruka was ready to drop all of his pranking plans for that evening, just to spite Kakashi. Why did that masked bastard have to prefer chasing unknown troublemakers to spending time with him? But he couldn't bail out-the village needed him to cheer everyone up, and Neji and Hinata had doubtlessly done the parts that he'd assigned them already.

Iruka had more planned than his Hyuuga helpers knew about, of course. It wouldn't do for them to be left out of the fun. Iruka let some of his anger at Kakashi's obsession with the Prankster dissipate as he grinned mischievously. He'd hit Gai-san tonight and take the Blue Beast's team by storm.

But first, he had some perverts to deal with…

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Ebisu was walking past the public bathing house, not trying to spy on the women inside at the least, because he was chaste and honorable, thank you very much. To his surprise (yes, that gasp was surprise, not excitement!) he found a telescope set up on one of the hills overlooking the baths. It was aimed right in the direction of the baths!

Ebisu wasn't going to look through it, of course. He was chaste and honorable. And it probably didn't look at the baths, anyways. It probably just belonged to some bird watcher, who'd seen a rare avian specimen in that tree right beside the women's bath, and hadn't even realized what was just out of view. In fact, Ebisu was sure that the telescope was pointing at the tree, not the bath.

Well, as a chaste and honorable shinobi of Konoha, and indeed as an elite special jounin, it was his solemn duty to look through that telescope and make sure it was indeed looking at that tree. He had to protect the innocence of the beautiful, shapely girls bathing beneath, by making sure they weren't being spied upon by the less chaste and honorable of the shinobi of Konoha.

He removed his sunglasses and lowered his eye to the telescope's lens. He looked through and most certainly did not see a bird watcher's tree. He saw a cloud of steam. And if he stared hard enough (which he didn't, being a chaste and honorable ninja), he could just make out the silhouettes of young female bodies. He pulled his head back and blushed. He looked a second time, just to confirm his information like a good shinobi always should. Yes, that was definitely the female public bath.

Ebisu would have taken steps to dismantle the telescope and preserve the innocence of the bathing women, had he not heard the call of his young charge, the honorable grandson, Konohamaru. He left the telescope to find the child, but promised himself that he would be returning as soon as he was finished… to remove that telescope, of course.

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"Yo, Ebisu-sensei? What happened to your eye?" Konohamaru asked when his mentor came into sight.

Ebisu blinked in confusion. Did the honorable grandson mean his sunglasses? He rarely took them off, but hadn't yet put them back on after peering through that lens.

"What do you mean, Konohamaru-kun?" He asked.

"Did you loose a fight or something?" Konohamaru asked with a cheeky grin. Konohamaru's little friend Moegi pulled out a mirror from her weapons pouch and handed it to him. He looked at his face. Encircling his eye, the one he'd used to look through the telescope, was a round black mark.

Ebisu ran back to the hill by the baths, leaving his young charges without a thought. He had to get to that telescope and get rid of it before anyone else found it. If other people realized where that circle around his eye had come from, he'd be marked (wrongly!) as a pervert!

By the time Ebisu reached the telescope, there was a line of pervert waiting to look through. Maybe they hadn't yet realized that the lens left a mark, or else decided the show they-d see through that lens would be worth it. Ebisu replaced his sunglasses and dashed home to scrub at the mark of the pervert, although he had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't be washing off for a while.

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Kakashi had always known that Konoha was filled with perverts. He was even a proud part of the ranks. What he hadn't realized, though, was the sheer number of pervy ninjas. Every other person he saw carried the now-infamous mark. Some, like Raido, wore it like a badge, with no shame whatsoever. Some took the Ebisu route and tried to cover it up. Genma paraded around the village with both eyes shaded in, looking like a very satisfied raccoon.

Kakashi's visible eye also bore the signs of having spied on the baths. As the official investigator of the Prankster, he felt it was his duty to observe every prank as fully as he could (with that thought, he'd made the sacrifice of looking through the scope; his devotion to his village knew no bounds!).

Kakashi had noticed some of the more subtle aspects of the prank that the average ninja had missed. One look at the steamy bath scene had revealed that the Prankster had protected the modesty of the bathing women. Even if the steam had cleared away, the perverts would never have seen more than blurry shadows and vague shapes, because the thoughtful Prankster had stretched a thin curtain between the bath and the telescope.

There was also a second, lesser known telescope set up, that left a slightly different tinted mark on the eye. This one was overlooking the men's bath (the male occupants were similarly protected with a curtain). Only the ninja that had looked through the male bath seemed to notice the difference in color; the ones who only knew about the first overlooked the slight variance. The second group seemed quite grateful to the Prankster, when Kakashi interviewed them; they could now locate other ninja who shared their preferences without broadcasting them to the entire village. Kakashi added 'thoughtful and sensitive' to his list of Prankster qualities.

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When Iruka had wished that the other citizens of Konoha would take over the job of pranking, he hadn't meant Konohamaru! And while he did admit that the classics were sometimes the best, he thought putting five "Kick Me" signs on his sensei's back was just a little bit excessive. Especially since they were in a ninja village and the people's kicks there could be very painful. Iruka decided it was time for some retribution.

His pupils didn't notice when he pulled a replication technique and left a clone in his place ('really, at their age, they should be picking up these things', he thought to himself). He snuck into the hall and slipped into his Prankster mask. His chuunin vest and weapon pouch were shed. He henged into a student and snuck back into the room while his clone lectured. Sure enough, Konohamaru was bragging to the class how he was going to become the next Prankster. Iruka felt vaguely flattered and worried at the same time that the child who hoped to aspire to Hokage wanted to emulate a prankster instead.

Iruka waited. Konohamaru eventually steered the conversation to the jutsu he'd copied from Naruto, as Iruka knew he would.

"I bet you I could make Iruka-sensei faint if I wanted to!" He boasted. The other children watched him in disbelief.

"Nuh-uh! You could not!"

"Could too!"

"Could not!"

"I could too!"

"Then prove it!" They goaded. Then they said the magic words. "Unless you're chicken!"

Konohamaru formed the hand seals and summoned his chakra. He transformed into a shapely young woman in a bikini (the boy at least knew better than to transform naked in Iruka's classroom, after his sensei had beaten the lesson into his head the last time he'd tried). Iruka pulled out a chakra-sealing tag and secretly placed it on Konohamaru's back.

Clone-Iruka turned around from the blackboard and yelled at Konohamaru. "I've told you, Konohamaru-kun, no jutsus during class time. Transform back before I'm forced to give you a detention."

Konohamaru frowned at his defeat and tried to dispel the jutsu. He tried again a second later. He was stuck. The other students laughed as Konohamaru desperately tried to resume his normal shape as he shivered in the cold.

Clone-Iruka frowned sternly at his troublesome student. "Konohamaru!" He growled in warning. Finally, after moments on antagonizing struggle, Konohamaru changed back as Hyuuga Hanabi pulled the tag off of his back.

Iruka let his own henge dispel as well. The classroom startled and gasped as one of the students in their midst suddenly transformed into the Prankster himself. Hanabi slipped out of her seat. Her bloodline limit, the Byakugan, flared up in as a protective instinct, just for the instant that she fell. It was enough, though. She had been looking straight at Iruka, and her white eyes had penetrated his mask. She stared in awe.

Iruka pretended to transport away, when he really just dispelled the clone and took its place at the front of his classroom.

"Enough! Everyone, I want your full attention on this lesson or you'll be completing all of this for homework, and I doubt the Prankster would be very pleased with that!" With the use of that magical name, Iruka had the complete attention of his students. Hanabi watched him, enraptured, and sighed every once in a while.

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Kakashi entered the Academy through the window during the time he knew the little ninjalets would be having recess. He crept silently to Iruka's desk, and waited at eye level to Iruka until the sensei looked up from the papers he was grading. Iruka jumped up and blushed. Kakashi heard a faint popping sound in the distance.

"Kakashi, I've told you not to do that! When did you get here?" The brunet asked, flustered.

"Just now. I heard there was another prank here, and I was wondering if I could interrogate the ninja spawn." He gestured to the children playing happily outside.

"Go right ahead." Iruka told him, rubbing his temples. Iruka was still looking tired and miserable. As soon as Kakashi found out who the Prankster was, he'd make sure to cheer Iruka up.

Kakashi walked up to the small children at play, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a grown, armed man to be wandering around a playground. The children crowded around him.

"What can you tell me about the Prankster?" He asked mysteriously. All the children raised their grubby little hands. A few bobbed up and down, like they needed to use the bathroom.

"He pranked me this afternoon!" Konohamaru shouted.

"He's the coolest ever!" someone interjected at the same time.

"He ate our homework!" Another student added.

"Who said the Prankster is a boy? I think she's a girl!" Moegi proclaimed. The mini-kunoichi nodded their agreement.

"He's so handsome." Hanabi whispered dreamily. Kakashi tuned out all of the other children who were talking simultaneously. This little tidbit sounded interesting. The Hyuuga knew what the Prankster looked like? Had she seen him? He leaned his masked face closer in towards her.

"Tell me about him." He urged.

"He's tall, and strong, and dreamy." Hanabi sighed. She was obviously taken with the Prankster, but that wasn't going to help Kakashi's investigation.

"And…?" Kakashi prompted.

Hanabi seemed to realize who she was talking to, and immediately her mouth clamped shut and set itself firmly in a determined line.

"I'm not telling you." She said. Kakashi stuck his tongue out at her from behind his mask.

"Hey, the wishing streamers are gone!" A student whined suddenly. Kakashi looked up. It was true. He hadn't even noticed that there were no longer any brightly colored paper strips fluttering in the wind. He tried to think back to when he'd last heard them. They couldn't have disappeared during his interrogation; he would have heard them pop. It must have happened between his journey over to the academy and his entry into the playground. Damn it! While he'd been talking to Iruka, the Prankster had slipped though his grip once again!

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Iruka wanted to just curl up in a corner and sleep. He felt miserable. His chakra was drained, he'd been up half the night pranking, and he was tired. Kakashi had come and startled him out of the jutsu that had kept the streamers replicated, which was going to give the jounin a valuable clue to his identity. Even worse than that though was the fact that Kakashi had left without having spouted a cheesy pick-up line. In their months of friendship, Kakashi had never not used at least one on him! Kakashi was being stolen away from him, and the most ironic thing was, Iruka was his own rival. Damn it! And Kakashi's eye (which he knew would bear the sign of his prank) had been marked by the color from the women's bath. Did he only like women, or had the lighter male-bath color only been covered up by the darker female-bath one?

"Iruka-sensei, you look like Hell." Shikamaru leaned into his classroom and told him. "I'm supposed to take over for you for the rest of class, Hokage's orders. You're supposed to go home and sleep until you feel better." The Hokage had noticed how bad he felt? Iruka must be worse off than he thought. He packed up his papers and left before he could feel guilty about leaving Shikamaru to deal with his riled-up students. He'd need the extra sleep if he wanted his prank to go smoothly tonight. There was only an hour left before the students got out of their classes, anyways.

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Iruka, dressed from head to toe in black, save for his bright, feathered mask, crept into Maito Gai's apartment in the dead of night. Neji had completed his assignment; Gai slept peacefully, thanks to the potion that had been slipped into his drink. Iruka had gotten lucky with his encounters with high level ninja so far; he wasn't about to risk getting caught by a jounin now that his luck was looking very bad indeed.

Although he knew the drug would last for another couple of hours, Iruka worked quickly and quietly. Slinking around the cramped apartment, Iruka scooped up every article of green spandex he could find and stuffed it into a bag.

No drawer was left unpilfered. Every possible storage space was checked for clothing. Even the dirty clothes hamper was emptied (Iruka had to hold his nose for that little job, and he was used to stink-he cleaned Naruto's apartment every month! Must be the sweat from all that rigorous training.)

Once every bit of spandex resided in Iruka's bag, Iruka opened the satchel he had on his back. He carefully removed a pair of jeans, a solid green tee-shirt (he wasn't totally heartless, to deprive Gai totally from green), a pair of boxers (he hadn't been sure what Gai normally wore under his spandex, and it had hurt his mind to think about it), a pair of tennis shoes, and a pair of socks. He laid each article of clothing out carefully on the chair beside Gai's bed. For the finishing touch, Iruka plucked one of the feathers from his stylized mask and tucked it into the fold of the shirt as a signature. He tossed the full laundry bag over his shoulder and left the apartment.

He left Gai's entire spandex with his bleary-eyed next-door neighbor. The neighbor, once he woke himself up enough to see who it was at his door, agreed to help out the Prankster by guarding the bag for the day and returning it to Gai the next night.

As Iruka exited the apartment building, Iruka thought he saw a flash of silver. He ducked into an alley to hide himself. He heard whispers in the shadows.

Iruka could just barely make out two figures further down the alley. He couldn't hear what was being said, but it wasn't his business anyways. His trained eyes caught the motion of one shadowy figure passing a scroll to the second. The figures turned to leave. Iruka ducked back further into the shadows, instincts telling him not to be seen. As they passed, Iruka caught their faces in the light. One looked familiar, although Iruka wasn't sure where he'd seen him before.

Once the coast was clear, Iruka put the mysterious men out of his head and focused on the road to his home. He was too busy to be worrying about enigmas in alleys.

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Kakashi wandered the silent village in the indecent hours of the night once again, intent on finding the Prankster who was inhabiting his thoughts. Once again, he spotted his prey walking along the empty streets.

Kakashi didn't bother with stealth this time. He used a move taught to him by his old sensei and appeared behind the Prankster in a flash.

'Kami-sama bless you, Yandaime.' Kakashi thought, as he wrapped his arms around the Prankster's chest firmly to hold him in place. The other man struggled with all his might, but couldn't break the hold. Kakashi giggled in his ear, giddy at having caught his prey.

One gloved hand slid up the Prankster's chest, making a path toward the gaudy mask that concealed his face. Kakashi didn't even notice what his other hand was doing unconsciously until the man in his arms gasped. Kakashi froze. The jounin's vagrant hand had ended up on the Prankster's groin, and was massaging slowly.

Now that the jounin's arms weren't pinning the Prankster's to his sides, the trickster started to form the seals for a transportation jutsu. Kakashi only had a split second to stop him, and made a decision before he realized there was one to make. The hand that had been traveling to the Prankster's mask wrapped around one of the Prankster's hands. Their fingers were entwined.

Kakashi's other hand continued squeezing and rubbing until the jounin felt the other man's cock stir. The Prankster gasped and groaned with every motion Kakashi made. The copy nin buried his masked face in the shorter man's neck and began nibbling through the thin layer on cloth that separated their heated flesh.

The Prankster was moving against him again, but this time he wasn't struggling. Kakashi grinned a devilish grin, pressed the Prankster's captured hand flat against his stomach and slid it down. Kakashi replaced the hand that had been stimulating his prey with The Prankster's own. His other hand was still pressed against the Prankster's, and he gave it a quick squeeze so that the man was pleasuring himself. Kakashi's free hand snuck under the other man's shirt and toyed with a nipple. The Prankster grabbed Kakashi's head with the hand that wasn't…occupied, and pulled him far enough forward to catch his clothed lips in a kiss.

Neither Kakashi nor the Prankster cared that they were committing indecent acts in the middle of a public street only a few hours before sunset. As long as the Prankster kept moaning so deliciously, Kakashi wasn't going to have any complaints about anything.

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Iruka's brain was being overloaded with Kakashi. He was sure that if the other man hadn't been holding him up, he would have just melted into the street from the jounin's touch. He'd been waiting so long for Kakashi to touch him like this! He could finally kiss him, and he didn't have to be afraid that it would ruin their friendship. Iruka could act as wantonly as he wanted, and Kakashi would have no idea it was him. With that in mind, Iruka slowly turned and backed Kakashi up toward the nearest wall.

A sudden crash tore them apart from each other. They both looked around frantically, and saw a light flicker on in one of the buildings nearby. Kakashi and Iruka fled in opposite directions, running to avoid detection.

Iruka arrived home, flustered and still very hard. He wasn't sure what that crash had been (in a village of shinobi, there were always strange noises that people accepted without question), but if he ever found out who was responsible, he would prank them. And their children. And their grandchildren. They would pay.

Somebody else was also going to pay for leaving him with a raging hard-on, someone with silver hair and one eye. Should Iruka give him pink hair, or green skin? Itching powder?

But first, Iruka had a problem to take care of. He stepped into his shower and finished what Kakashi had started.

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Yes, it's pretty short, but it did have some M-rated action. Are you guys satisfied? I'll write more soon. And next chapter will have more KakaIru action, as well as the results of the Gai prank (I had planned to put the rest of that prank in this chapter, but it was already 10 pages and I'm tired. I had the AP LIT test today, in my defense, and my brain is all melty-like.