AN: Chapter title: Teacher's Intuition?

A sad truth of the present was that many who were currently trying to discover the reasoning behind many of Naruto Uzumaki's actions had no idea what he had once been like.

The Naruto Uzumaki before he had started calling himself Caesar.

The Naruto Uzumaki that had existed before he had created an army.

The Naruto Uzumaki that had created a Kinjutsu deemed impossible for anyone but he himself to use.

The Naruto Uzumaki who had been more interested in pranks than anything else.

The Naruto Uzumaki who had called out to all who would hear that he would be Hokage.

Of those currently desperate for answers, none of them knew what he had really been like before the danger he posed had drawn their attention to him.

Only a handful could say such a thing and that number shrunk even further when one began to look at those in the Shinobi Corps who knew him before he had become a Genin, before he had graduated from the Academy. Even then, that number swiftly shrank even further when it came to people who truly knew the Uzumaki, who could truly say to have spent countless hours with him because they wanted to, not out of obligation.

Besides Hiruzen Sarutobi, there was only one man who could possibly tell them what had been going through Naruto Uzumaki's mind, why he had the Uchiha pass out those scrolls to Hinata Hyuga, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, Kiba Inuzuka, and Shino Aburame, and, just maybe, explain more than a few of his past actions.

In his classroom, a number of the Hidden Leaf's elite had gathered for him to give them something, anything, to go off of. There was only one man in the village they could rely on for anything approaching an answer.

Naruto's former teacher, the only Shinobi to truly interact with the Jinchuriki prior to the creation of his army.

Iruka Umino set down the last of the scrolls he had been given, this an account of Naruto's actions during the attempted invasion by the Hidden Sand and the Hidden Sound. The others piled up on his desk had been little more than a complete and thorough overview of what he had been up to since the creation of his army, what he had been doing in the Land of Whirlpools for months by now. The fact that someone in the Hidden Leaf had decided to suppress the information that he was in the process of rebuilding the long since destroyed home of the Uzumaki Clan in the Hidden Whirlpool Village, that he had been using the bulk of the funds he had taken from Gato's corporate empire to fund such efforts and more.

The fact that he was using those same funds to build a flotilla in the Land of Waves had also been restricted, rumors beaten down into nothing as only those experienced in misinformation could accomplish. Not an insignificant number of the scrolls on his desk had been about his continued actions in the Land of Waves, the fact that the Daimyo had been gathering a force of samurai, that Missing-nin were being hired to exterminate the army.

And that Zabuza Momoichi had personally been in charge of exterminating the enemy, appointed publicly to such a task by the Vicarius, that the last reports from the Land of Waves had him kidnapping the Daimyo. Either that or killing him, the sheer amount of blood and viscera left in his wake made it difficult to judge who was dead and who was alive without a body.

As a response from the mess of the situation in the Land of Waves, a growing ire was being directed more and more towards the Hidden leaf for "stepping out of bounds", Naruto's territorial claim viewed as coming from the Hokage himself, that the lack of punishment against him had created the logic that his actions had been authorized. That even the other four of the Five Great Shinobi Countries were looking to involve themselves if things didn't change, if a solution wasn't offered.

From the additional reports, the Hokage's earlier attempts to assuage the worries of the rest of the Kage had been met with failure. As long as Gato's company, a near majority slice of shipping, was controlled by a Shinobi from Konohagakure, tensions would merely keep rising.

"So, what do you think his plan is?" Kakashi asked the question on all of their minds, the masked Jonin leaving a Shadow Clone to guard the Daimyo to deal with something far more important. A man surrounded by top class samurai, shadowed by a handful of the Hokage's personal ANBU Black Ops, did not need him present.

Iruka had nothing to say.

For the moment, he simply stared down at the scrolls on the desk in front of him, stared at nothing but glimpses from the past.

In his mind, he was trying to reconcile the Naruto Uzumaki of the past with the present, try to bridge the gap between the boy who had wanted to be Hokage, who had wanted people to acknowledge him above all else, with what the boy had become in mere months.

Sitting next to each other at Ramen Ichiraku, Iruka and Naruto waited for their bowls together. It was not a celebration as Naruto had originally intended just a few days before when he had proposed they visit the restaurant today. The blonde was rubbing at his eyes, making a stubborn, if futile, effort to stop any of his tears from falling.

"Hey, don't be upset about what happened today Naruto."

"I-I'm not upset! There's just some stuff in my eyes Iruka-sensei!"

He could tell the boy to let his tears fall but he knew how stubborn he was, how unwilling he was to admit just how much his failure had gotten to him. If he wanted to say dirt had gotten into his eyes, Iruka wouldn't fault him. He had been much the same way when he was younger.

'Oh Naruto…'

In the present, Iruka looked away from the scrolls, found himself unable to remain seated any longer. He needed to move, to try and distract himself while he thought.

"Where do you want me to start?" He cast aside what he was feeling, the cascade of emotions that had all but suffocated him since the failed invasion, since he had failed to speak with Naruto. He focused on his duty, on informing his fellow Shinobi on why exactly this was happening.

If he could claim to still know Naruto as well as he once had, he should be able to provide an answer.

"Why did he move up his recruitment for the others? Why didn't he ask them when he spoke with Shikamaru yesterday?" Asuma asked from by the door, the bearded Jonin more concerned about Naruto's reasoning behind whatever this was about.

"He didn't know this was happening for most of yesterday." Iruka gestured to the scrolls on his desk. "My best guess is that none of these existed until after he left that dinner you had yesterday. If they had, he would've handed them out then and there."

"And how are you so sure of that?" Asuma didn't doubt Iruka but he wanted to hear exactly what led him to that conclusion.

"If anything's remained the same about him, it's the same: Naruto has a flair for the dramatics." Despite himself, a smile came to Iruka's face at the myriad of memories he had of the blonde.

"NARUTO! Get down here!"

"But I'm not done yet!"

"You can't paint your face on the Academy you brat!"

In reply, a large smile covered the blonde's paint splattered face. "But I totally just did!"

From covering the Academy entrance in an over-the-top self-portrait to vandalizing the Hokage Monument more than once, Naruto had never aimed to not bring attention to himself with his antics, draw the ire and the awe of the villagers in equal measure at just how daring he could get on some days.

From his major pranks to the minor ones he pulled in between them, he rarely ever let them see how much their disregard of him, their refusal to acknowledge the Jinchuriki of the Kyubi, weighed him down.

They brought up many memories of his own, threatened to drag him into the past if he didn't shake his head, focus on answering the Shinobi around him.

"The same reason he started pulling pranks after being ignored by the villagers all those years, he wants the eyes of everyone on him. That's my best guess as to why he keeps giving those speeches, why he waited to summon his army during the invasion: He likes the attention. It's just that now, he doesn't care if people look at him out of admiration or hate or even fear. All that matters is that people look at him. If he had the chance, he would've used that dinner you had to hand these out to your students. The fact that he didn't tells me he didn't have them on him when you were there, that this wasn't something he had planned out until afterwards."

"That's a leap but…it fits." Asuma couldn't deny that. "So what happened between him leaving and our teams getting them this morning?"

"That I'm not too sure about. He may have thought of it just before he left the village, wanted to see what happened while he was gone." Iruka looked down at the scrolls once more, the names on them. "Maybe this is all just a prank, a sadistic one but a prank nonetheless."

"Why? What can he gain from any of this?" Asuma pressed for more answers, for any of this to make sense.

"Like I said, it could just be a sadistic prank he planned out, had something like a burst of inspiration last night that made him do all of this. At the end of the day, a prank is something for the prankster to laugh at. As long as he finds it funny, he'll do it. The same applies here. Naruto, for whatever reason, could just find this all funny. From what you've told me about his surveillance across the village, he could be having this all recorded for him to watch when he gets back from his mission with Jiraiya-sama."

Kakashi's single visible eye narrowed.

'A prank? All of this just for a prank?' He disregarded it almost instantly, knew the idea had little to no merit. He didn't voice such a thing out loud because he wasn't here for an argument, didn't want to waste his limited time on one either. He would need to replace his Shadow Clone guarding the Daimyo sooner rather than later, needed answers or at least something to start him down the path to one while he wasted his time on this assignment. 'If this was all just a prank, Sasuke would've been less defensive, wouldn't have taken all of this so seriously. Compared with how he was acting before the invasion, these two aren't in control of whatever's happening right now. Besides, even if this was just a joke, he wouldn't waste his time on it. There's a deeper reason to this.'

"And you're sure of this?" Asuma gave voice to Kakashi's thoughts, seemed to have come to the same conclusion from the disbelief in his voice. "He's doing all of this for a joke?"

"Like I already told you, I can give my best guess. Naruto and I haven't talked in months." As he spoke, Iruka felt a fresh wave of shame at such a thing. Even if he was busy with the Academy, busy working at the Mission Assignment Desk, swept up in the chaos of preparing for the Chunin Exams, had been caught nearly unaware before helping to repel the invasion, there was no excuse for him to have gone this long without speaking with the blonde.

Even with all his changes, even with everything the blonde had done and what others said about him, he shouldn't have let the chaos of the Shinobi life sweep him up and distract him for so long.

"My information is more dated than most of you. I taught him before…all of this. Before he stole the Scroll, before he created that army." He swept a hand out, tried to encompass the past months, the past weeks, everything that had happened since the night Naruto had stolen the Scroll of Seals as part of Mizuki's plot. "I can give my best guesses as to why Naruto is doing this or that but I don't know him as well as I used to. With all these changes he's gone through, when he started calling himself Caesar, started saying he was the head of an Empire."

"Maybe you could explain that at least?" Kurenai shared a look with Asuma, the red eyed Jonin moving off topic but pushing on. "Where exactly did he get the idea to make an empire? Why has he had part of his army in Uzushiogakure for months now?"

"That one may be my fault." Iruka sighed as he opened a drawer of his desk, drew out a stack of papers. "I gave a few history lessons on the Uzumaki Clan, on the Land of Whirlpools, on Uzushiogakure, as part of the curriculum requirement from Lord Hokage. The idea of honoring our alliance even if the village had been destroyed, explain why we wear the symbol of the clan as Shinobi. At the end, I asked for a research paper instead of giving a test." He presented the papers to the nearest Shinobi in a curious Gai, Kakashi taking the papers before they could reach his hand. Iruka waited for the papers to be passed around, one of the copies he had included in the stack taken up by each of the Shinobi in the room. "That's pretty much the only paper I ever got from Naruto that he didn't half-ass."

It was nearly nine pages, all of it covering the history of the relationship between the Uzumaki Clan and Konohagakure from the founding of the village to the present.

"I asked for three pages and that's the one and only time he ever exceeded the requirement. He even turned it in early, was one of the first to do it." Again, Iruka found himself smiling at the memory.

"N-Naruto…You did this?" He could only stare at the stack of papers in front of him, the paper all in Naruto's handwriting.

"Yeah!" The blonde student had a smile on his face and his hands behind his head. "This was really cool!" His smile dropped a little, curiosity dominating his expression. "How come we can't learn more stuff like this? It was awesome!"

"I…I honestly can't believe it." A smile came to his face. "This is the first time I've ever seen you really throw yourself into an assignment." He couldn't help himself, the laugh escaping him as he leaned back in his seat. "How about we go and get some Ichiraku tonight, my treat?"

"Awesome!"

"He covered more in that essay than most of the rest of the class did in all of their own combined. It was…astounding seeing him so motivated for once. I asked him about it later and he couldn't tell me why he had gone so above and beyond, just that he kept working and working on the paper. He even stopped pulling pranks the week he was working on it." Iruka shook his head. "I only wish I could've gotten him that motivated more often. He went right back to slacking off once he was done with it."

The red eyed Jonin couldn't help her scoff, drew eyes to her as she set the papers down.

"Don't sound so proud of him Umino." Kurenai ignored the looks sent her way at her outburst.

From his place by the door, Genma Shiranui shared a look with Aoba Yamashiro. Once the Third Hokage had caught wind of this unexpected meeting, he had tasked the two of them to join it. Well, he had tasked Genma, recently returned from a mission, from the Hokage Guard Platoon to observe it and Genma had elected to enlist additional help in Aoba.

"This is going to get messy." Genma was speaking to himself, was content not to involve himself in what was about to happen. He wasn't exactly in top condition even if he wanted to stop what was brewing right in front of him, a mission dealing with a pair of Missing-nin looking to make easy money hitting supply lines had left him dealing with the blonde's Orange Legion when he had turned the two corpses over. One of the two had managed a lucky blow, left him with what he was sure were broken ribs.

Iruka and Kurenai were currently close to erupting into a full-blown argument between the two, Yuhi's growing disdain for the Uzumaki no secret just like Umino's past relationship with the blonde was well known. In hindsight, it was likely a bad idea to bring these two together. The two were all but set to oppose the viewpoint of the other.

Kurenai's dislike.

Iruka's care.

This clash was inevitable.

"While his behavior is less than ideal, there's no reason to treat him like an enemy."

"No reason? He's occupying two foreign lands and a mercenary he hired just killed a Daimyo."

"We don't know that for sure."

"Because the madman he hired left too many corpses to ID. It's only a matter of time until he steps out of line and the village is blamed, before we have another war on our hands."

"That's insane! Even if he's changed, Naruto's not going to be the one who causes another war! He's still loyal to the village, to the Hokage!"

Aoba turned to the door and away from the shouting match, Genma immediately doing the same.

He didn't sense anything but something was out there.

He resisted the urge to draw a kunai, to attack.

'I'm a little bit too stressed to think clearly.' Post mission anxiety, nerves, the fact that he had come back from assignment and immediately roped into another had him on edge. He hadn't come down from everything yet, was still worked up even if he tried to play it cool, tried to keep himself together.

His fingers still twitched.

Before he knew it, Kakashi was stepping across the room, had laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll handle it." His voice was quiet. "Stay here and keep things from getting any worse."

Without much thought to it, Genma nodded at the clear order from the Jonin.

Kakashi stepped through the door without another word.

He recognized the masked figure in front of him, who had immediately begun to retreat when she felt someone approach the door. She had stopped when he had begun to move instead. There was still a dangerous glint to her yellow eyes, a tension to her body even now. It took a moment for light brown eyes to return, for yellow eyes to fade away.

"Anko, it's good to see you." He kept an ear on the conversation as it turned away from pointless arguments.

"That's enough. We're here to ask questions, not argue. My apologies Iruka. Now, this paper, how long ago did you assign it?" Gai was the one to get things back on track, didn't surprise Kakashi. He was better at conflict resolution than most of them.

Once he had some free time, he would speak with Gai about how this turned out. For now, he walked with Anko out of the Academy.

"Any news on you being put back on the active roster yet?"

"No."

There was enough hesitation that something was wrong.

He didn't push it.

"Let me know if anything changes. If you need someone to convince the Hokage about it, I'm willing to try my best."

He offered her his help and left it at that.

If she needed it, he would give it.

For now, he needed to head back to the Daimyo.

'It amazes me a man can drink one cup of tea for hours.'

AN: And this marks Iruka Umino's second appearance. Cool. Also, going to try something new.

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Peace.