Naruto was eating a bowl of grape nuts in the dark when he had his best idea yet. He spat out whatever remained in his mouth, hurled his bowl through his window and triple-backflipped to the notepad he kept on his dresser, clipping his shin on his table and shouting obscenities in the process. He drew up the pen he kept suspended over his bed with magic. His hand neared the paper. "Already forgot." Naruto shrugged and leaped into bed. He slept better than he had in years.

Now Naruto was speaking into his walkie-talkie. "So I was thinking, the reason I keep forgetting things is because I can't get to my squigglejig fast enough, so I was like why not just graft that shit-"

"Naruto maintain radio silence." Kakashi's voice said back. "Preferably forever. We'd be done if not for you." Admittedly that was true. Naruto and Kiba kept closing on the target in the bushes, but Naruto kept farting and giving away their position. "Pssht, uh fuck you," Naruto returned, "I'm pretty much the smartest person ever pssht, over."

"You're not, I can't let that slide." Kiba said with his real, human voice, next to Naruto in the bushes. "You're maybe the stupidest person I've ever met."

"Pshht uh Kiba's a douche, over." Naruto said into the mike. "Over and out ksssht - uh P.S. I'm hungry let's get food, over."

Kakashi returned, "Ksssht uh no, go die ksssht would rather eat my own asshole, over."

Naruto was about to say things into the walkie-talkie that he hadn't quite articulated when Kiba elbowed him in the ribs.

"Dude," Kiba hissed, "target, twelve-oh-clock."

"I – wait who are we after again? That bush? Fuck that bush."

"The cat." Kiba pointed to the cat.

"Fuck that cat." Naruto said. "That cat can go climb up its own asshole."

"Kssht," came Kakashi's voice over the speaker, "uh, shut up Naruto. Kibotron - do things."

"Kssht roger-joger, over." Kiba said, growing more fond of Kakashi by the moment. "engaging target."

"Wait - it's dangerous to go alone. Take this." Naruto held out a large furiously hissing spider.

Kiba looked at it. "I don't want that."

"But take it though."

"Where do you keep findi-"

"Ah - I dropped it." They both saw the form of the spider fall and immediately lost it in the thick underbrush. They looked at each other. Hissing came from all around them. "Uh… Kiba… Is it on my head?"

Kiba nodded.

Naruto cautiously reached up. As his fingers neared the spider it hissed and waved its forelegs threateningly. "Okay." Naruto said, backing off. "Okay, just. Be cool. Everyone be cool." The spider slowly stopped hissing.

Kiba shrugged it off. He turned and immediately sighed. "Naruto the cat's gone."

"Kssht." Naruto said into the walkie-talkie, "Uh target lost. Return to base for snacks and maybe a nap, over."

Now they were back at the training grounds, and Naruto was leaning against a post laughing around a sandwich. "So I – so. So – guys I –" He couldn't even get a word out. He doubled over, his sandwich flopping into its constituent parts across his legs. "I… I…"

"I swear to god, Naruto." Sasuke began, leaning against his own post. "If I don't laugh, I'll kill you."

"I!" Naruto started smacking his leg with his hand, the spider on his head hissing angrily as each windup drew close to it. "I can't! I – ulk" He started gagging.

"What are you laughing at." Kiba said, annoyed.

"You know how – fucking!"

"I don't."

"Fucking!" Naruto's laughter turned into squeaks and gasps. "He – the ch-"

"I swear to god-"

Now the sun was higher, and the forest floor was all green grass and flickering beams beam of light. And ants. Millions of ants. Naruto was on his stomach, arm craned painfully behind his back, legs flayed out unnaturally. Occasionally one of his snores or grunts woke him and he glared around, bleary and angry, and then finally gave up his search for whatever woke him and ground his face back into the grass. Kiba was on his back a few feet away, occasionally popping-and-locking as his dancing-competition dream progressed further down the ladder. Sasuke had brought a folding chair, as he always did, and he used it now; head lolled back, half empty beer in one hand, melted-ice-cream-coated radio in the other.

Kakashi had left an hour prior without a word. He returned now with another genin team in tow. They were walking through the training grounds, heading for the bit of forest where Kakashi had left his sleeping team.

"They can't be that bad." Kurenai continued to say. "Sasuke was genin of the year-"

"He only did that because it pissed Naruto off." Kakashi said. Sakura, Shino and Hinata, trailing behind the pair, continued to unapologetically eavesdrop. "I think that's why he does most things."

Kurenai pursed her lips. "Kiba was runner up-"

"I actually sort of like Kibotron." Kakashi continued to interrupt her whenever possible. "I don't know why, though."

"So it's just N-"

"Naruto is doing something to them." Kakashi said. "Everything around him goes to shit. It'd be amazing to just watch him live if I didn't have to… stand near him and tell him not to eat things."

"Oh he can't b-"

"He is that bad." Kurenai glanced at him coldly and Kakashi felt nothing. "Believe me he is that bad. Yesterday he ate a battery to gain its powers. And you know what? He did. He has battery powers now. Could have been useful if he didn't immediately forget. Ah…" Kakashi looked before him and saw a Naruto shaped indent in the grass, and a ring of shriveled grass where Sasuke had sat, and also something about Kiba. Like his hair or something. "Of course they'd be gone." He said.

"I can work with this." Kurenai turned to her team. "Hinata, Shino, Sa… kura time for your first trial as genin."

"Yes, just follow the smell of incompetence." Kakashi said. "and - don't listen to them if you find them. There's some really horrible chemistry when they're together."

"You seem to be implying that you aren't coming along." Kurenai said, eyes narrowing minutely.

"I prefer to think of it as 'hands-off teaching.'"

Kurenai's mouth quirked down a little and she crossed her arms. "You ever consider that they're so bad because you don't work with them?"

Kakashi eyed her. "You'll see." He said. "You'll see…"

They were deep in the woods, the light throttled by thick canopies, the brush sharp with thorns and pointed leaves. There was a wood cabin in the clearing before them. "Guys, cabin in the woods." Naruto said unnecessarily.

"If the cat's in there it's probably been raped to death." Kiba said.

"Not funny."

"Not joking."

"It's in there." Sasuke reiterated, having led them to that point with his keen observational skills. "And it's alive."

Naruto's expression soured. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with shenanigans."

"It's fine and you're stupid." Sasuke said, looking at him crossly. "Not all people who live in the woods are psychos."

"Yeah but they are, though."

"He's right they are." Kiba added.

"Am I going to have to do this by myself?" Sasuke said, pressing just about every button Naruto had. "Because I can. Hell, I'll just go in and get the cat right now."

"Fuck that and fuck you I'm doing it!" Naruto started for the door, less and less confident in his decision the closer he grew but unwilling to admit it. "I'll just open this… scary ass door and grab the cat." He said to himself and also maybe Kiba if he was listening. "In and out… Wink." Naruto stopped moving at this point, a few feet from the door. "I seem to have stopped moving." He said.

"Indeed." Kiba said. "Shit man, I don't wanna go in there 'neither."

Naruto would never be able to express how relieved he felt. "Yeah me too." Ah nevermind.

"You guys are the worst." Sasuke said as he passed them. He knocked on the door. "How bad could it be?"

Now they were tied to chairs, and there were empty bowls on the table in front of them. A big bear of a man paced around in the gloom of the dimly lit cabin, mumbling and clanking metal things together. "This bad." Naruto said, a jarring non-sequitur at this point. "It could be this bad."

"I trained with bears." The man said. "So who sent you?"

None of the three genin had an answer for that question. Kiba silently kicked Sasuke in the shin beneath the table.

"Hm? Who sent you?" He tore away from his business to peruse them each in turn. " Your superior? Hm? My mom? Hmm? Wipe that look off your face, boy- I trained with bears."

"So I've heard." Sasuke said.

"Shut up Sasuke." Naruto hissed. "Don't let this crazy asshole know we know he's crazy."

"HMM!" The man leaned far into Naruto's personal space. Naruto's head-spider hissed and lurched threateningly and the man backed off a bit. "Got something to say, boy!"

"No sir!" Naruto said. "I would never call you crazy! Fuck!"

"Crazy?" The man said. "I trained with bears. Day and night, fighting for my life. They taught me so much, pushed me so far… Does that sound crazy? – hold on." Real quick he pulled down his pants and took a shit on the floor. "So? Does that make me crazy?"

"Yes!" Naruto said appealingly, "It does!"

"Does that make me crazy?" the man roared, louder.

"No!" Naruto said, "It doesn't!"

"Exactly!" The man said. "I'm not crazy. I trained with bears! They taught me how to fight, how to live!"

"Hey, real quick though." Sasuke interjected, "Uh. You trained with bears? How does that… Was there an interview?"

The man turned to Sasuke, his eyes burning like coals beneath frazzled eyebrows. "You ask that? That. Of course! Yes, I was in the forest, foraging, you see. I live in the woods. And a bear, the bear – two men tall, three men wide, scars across his back from the spears of a thousand men - he appeared. He attacked me. Until near death, he did. Then he left, and I returned here. And the next day, again. And again. And I learned, and I learned – the bears taught me, you see? Do you see?"

"Uh, hate to tell you this, man, but it sounds like you just… get mauled by bears." Sasuke said. "Frequently."

"They taught me!"

"I think they didn't though? I think they just maul you and get bored and leave."

"I learned their style, you see?" The man said, and took a swipe at the air to demonstrate his technique. "I fight as a bear! Bear-style!"

"Yeah." Sasuke said. "Uh. You… swipe at things-"

"Like a bear!" The man said.

"Yes. Yeah. And you poop. Places. Like a bear. I think that's all you got going for you."

"You also make good soup." Naruto added. "Can I have more?"

"Yes!" The man said, and poured Naruto more soup. Naruto eased one hand out of his bindings and began eating the soup with his cupped hand, spilling most of it down his collar.

"But you're not though." Sasuke said. "I-"

"There, are they?" Kakashi looked at the cabin, read the atmosphere, and heaved a sigh. "They would be there, wouldn't they…"

"Kurenai?" Hinata said, her byakugan active. "We should… They're – bad-"

Kakashi patted Hinata's shoulder and she squeaked in surprise. "…You're cute."

"-I'm familiar with this kind of denial." Sasuke said. "The first step is realizing how delusional you are - and hey, where's the cat, by the way?"

"The cat?" The man said. "You're eating him."

"Well that explains what that piece of cat was doing in there." Naruto said.

"Yeah I was wondering what that was about." Kiba added. "Well now we know, huh?" He and Naruto took their other hands out of their bindings to high-five real quick, then they stuck them back.

"The more you know." Kiba said.

"Fuck yeAULGH-" Naruto coughed out a cat's foot. "'cause knowledge is power."

"This is fantastic." Sasuke said. "I'm loving it. Every second."

"We…" Hinata was at a bit of a loss and Kakashi was only putting her more off balance. "They're… Trouble?"

"You wanna trade?" Said Kakashi to Kurenai. "Please? You can have all of mine. S'fair, yeah?" His tone was jocular but the glint in his eye said but seriously though.

Kurenai sighed at his secretively hopeful expression. "Let's just go get them."

Kakashi looked off into the depths of the forest wistfully. "… Alright."

"You have the spirit of a bear, boy!" The man roared, watching Naruto go through a few swipes.

"Fuck yeah sensei!" Naruto returned, and hopped up onto the table. Kiba and Sasuke remained tied to their chairs, having not impressed the man the same way Naruto had. "I mean, not to brag but I'm pretty much the smartest person ever."

"Now THIS!" The man gave another great swipe of his hand, and Naruto parroted it without much incident. "Now I have taught you all I know, boy! You are ready for the world!"

"Don't I fuckin' know it!" Naruto cried, feeling on top of the world. "I'm one tough son of a – wait hold on." Real quick Naruto pulled down his pants and took a shit on the table.

Kakashi chose this moment to open the door. He saw Kiba and Sasuke tied up at the table. Then he saw the strange hairy man. Last he saw Naruto, and unfortunately the boy was facing away so Kakashi had the best seat in the house. Naruto looked at Kakashi over his shoulder, expression pinched. Their eyes met. Neither spoke.

They were in the Mission's office, and the client was there.

"Did you find my darling Flopsy?" Said a large bowl of pudding disguised as a woman. "Did you?" She saw Naruto's arms behind his back and assumed the best. "Oh thank you boy, please give him here - he must miss his mommy so."

Kakashi nudged Naruto, and Naruto handed her the large cooking pot he'd been holding behind his back. "Uh - here you go, ma'am." She took the pot, clearly baffled, and turned away to inspect it. Kakashi turned to his genin and hissed through his teeth "Lets go let's go." They hurriedly walked out of the office. The hoarse shriek that chased them was cut of by the door shutting behind them.

Naruto beamed at his team, swollen with pride and cat soup. "I think that went well."

an: Very stupid chapter, but it has some moments that I really like. Wanted to say; I only really write this story to make people laugh, so if you have found it funny or just entertaining at some point, that's awesome. Also seek help. And if you dropped a line, even just a 'haha lol' it really means a lot to me. Don't feel obligated to - really, what's there to even say. So yeah. Thanks. You guys are awesome. Including you. You're cute. (Next chapter up eventually about something.)