The Hokage looked back and forth between the drenched boy, held aloft by the angry figure of the reborn Second Hokage, and his teacher. He felt the sudden urge to hand in his notice. "Naruto. What did you do now?"

Naruto crossed his arms. "Hey, why do you always think it was me who did anything? It could have been anyone else! Like Sable!" He nodded to emphasize his point.

The ANBU in question twitched.

"This brat botched up Edo Tensei," Tobirama snapped at the Third, "and now I am stuck like this."

Oy, that was totally unfair. After all, he was the aggrieved party here!

"You were supposed to be a fishing rod!" Naruto complained. "It said I would get fly-fishing equipment!" He glared. "I demand a refund! That's clearly false advertising!"

He was so going to sue whoever wrote that jutsu description, and demand at least two full equipments as compensation. No, three.

In multiple colours. With plenty of hooks and cords. In every colour. Yellow, red, blue…

It was silent inside the room now, and Naruto realized that the men were staring at him. He blinked. Huh, did he just tune them out again?

"Naruto," the Third sounded strained, "were you even paying attention to anything that was just said?"

"No," Naruto answered cheerfully, "I was too busy thinking about rubber ducks, you know. Do you know some of them squeak if you squeeze them?"

The Third clenched his pipe, and the grip around his collar tightened. "How about," the Second commented coldly, "we try out if you squeak when I squeeze you?"

Naruto blinked in confusion. "I'm not a rubber duck, though," he pointed out before his eyes widened in realization. "Ah. AH! You are asking me if I want to have a bath with you! Well, I am flattered, really, but I hardly know you, so how about we have dinner first? I know this nice bakery – oomph!"

He was rudely stopped from announcing their dating location as a rag was shoved into his mouth.

Naruto threw a betrayed look at Sable, who had just offered the cloth to the Nidaime.

"A word of advice, sir," the ANBU remarked, "always have a cloth and ropes ready when dealing with him."

Naruto glared. He would definitely cross this guy off his Christmas card list! Not that he had ever intended to send him one in the first place.

"I will keep that in mind," Tobirama agreed darkly. The grip around Naruto's collar became painfully tight.

Suddenly, there was a light popping sound and three pairs of eyes stared at Tobirama's empty hand.

Hiruzen snapped his pipe. "That was…"

"A shadow clone," the Nidaime growled. "I am going to throttle this brat!"

On top of the academy's roof, the real Naruto snacked on a pocky as he watched his former classmates' throwing practice.

He paused briefly as his clone's memories reached him, and huffed as he realized he had been deceived.

Furious, he grabbed the empty pocky box and hurled it without looking. The box hit the target dead centre just as Uchiha Sasuke was about to throw his kunai at it.

The boy stumbled back as a commotion broke out.

Umino Iruka's head whipped around, and he stared in the direction the projectile had come from. "Who is there?" he demanded sharply.

Naruto jumped from the roof and landed easily before the startled teacher. "Yo."

"Naruto!" Iruka rounded on him, "what the hell do you think you are doing?! You could have hurt – is that a headband?"

Naruto peered at the cloth sticking dangerously far out his pocket and scowled. "Geez. It's still here? I thought I'd lost it by now. I guess I have to try harder then."

Iruka's eye twitched.

"No way!" someone shouted. "He was the dead last! How the hell would he have a headband?"

Hey, was that not vampire-mini? What was his name? Sakura? Meh, who cared.

He glanced around. "Hey, you didn't see an empty pocky box around here, did you? I tossed it away without looking and forgot to take off the coupon for the handicraft store. They got a new delivery of pigeon feathers today, and I want – Ah. Found it!"

Naruto hurried towards the target and picked up a very deformed bamboo box. He grimaced. "Dang, it's ripped. What a bummer." He rose from his crouch and noticed the dent inside the target. "Geez, sensei, the equipment is getting worse."

Iruka glared. "It was perfectly alright before you threw that box at it!"

"Meh, if it can't hold out against a bamboo box, it's definitely shoddy," Naruto answered offhandedly. "Honestly, instead of wasting money getting me a new headband every day, they should be buying you a decent target instead."

Suddenly, a heavy chakra fell over them. Dark, dangerous, and suffocating. "Brat!"

Naruto turned around and waved cheerfully. "Hello, Madara!"

Senju Tobirama descended on him with icy fury, and grabbed him harshly by his shirt. "My patience with you has reached its end, brat. If you call me by that name again, I will punish you severely and very painfully."

They vanished in a flash.

Silence fell over the class.

"Um, sensei?" Hyuuga Hinata finally asked quietly, "did…did the Nidaime just take Naruto?"

"Yes," Iruka replied slowly, still staring at the spot from which the two had just disappeared, "Yes, I believe he did."

"Did you have to do that?" Naruto glared in displeasure at the self-satisfied Nidaime.

The man smirked at him. "Since you are so keen on losing it, it seemed like an appropriate punishment." His eyes glinted in amusement as he watched Naruto's futile attempts to take the headband off his neck. "I enforced it," he told him casually. "You will not be able to cut it off, either. Only I can take it off."

Naruto huffed and flopped on the floor. "You are mean!" he declared. "Very mean!" He threw a suspicious look at Tobirama. "You didn't do anything else with it, did you? Like putting a tracker on it or something like that?"

Tobirama's smirk widened. "Who knows?"

Naruto scowled. "Oy, Death," he yelled, "I am really quitting now!"

There was a moment of silence before Naruto's handcrafted cherry wood chair broke with a loud splintering crash.

"Hey," he complained, "I liked that chair!"

For some weird reason, the splitters formed into something that looked suspiciously like a "Me, too."

Tch. That blasted deity was really petty.

Tobirama shot him a look that was drier than a desert on a particularly hot day. "Once more, I am amazed at your utter lack of sense. You're stuck here, brat." His face changed into a scowl. "And I am stuck here with you."

Naruto eyed him curiously. "Did you break a chair, too?"

Tobirama snorted. "No, but apparently my creation of Edo Tensei gave it, I quote, 'ten lifetimes worth of paperwork.'"

"…so it's really not supposed to conjure a fishing rod?" Naruto tilted his head.

"Of course not," Tobirama snapped, "Who would even want to invent a jutsu like that?"

Naruto pointed at himself. "Me."

"Let me rephrase that: Who with any kind of common sense would want to invent something like that?"

Hey, that was mean. Naruto had common sense. He just chose to ignore it! "Are you calling me an idiot?"

"Oh, so you were noticing that? Maybe you do have at least the brain capacity of a tadpole."

"I can eat with chopsticks without spilling." Naruto crossed his arms.

"Quite an impressive achievement for your age," Tobirama drawled, "An ant, then."

Naruto perked up. "Can I be an ant queen at the least? Then, I can laze around all day."

Tobirama remained unimpressed. "And how would that be any different from what you are doing now?"

Naruto grinned. "I would have more men to serve me."

Tobirama paused and regarded the collared boy sitting on the floor in front of him, apparently entirely at ease with his position. "I wonder," he answered slowly, "who would be serving whom."

Inside Konoha's onsen, ANBU Sable exhaled in relief as he immersed himself in the warm water. Finally, a few moments without that aggravating brat. He would have to gift the Nidaime a nice thank-you bouquet for this free afternoon.

He leaned back and closed his eyes when he suddenly heard a very familiar, and very annoying: "Anbu-chan! You are here, too? Oh, dang. I knew you were muscled, but that's really hot. How often do you work out? Are you having a day off? Then, why are you still wearing your mask? Hey, is your ANBU tattoo on your left or your right upper am? Can I see it?"

Sable twitched. Without a second thought, he stood up and grabbed the menace.

Seconds later, Naruto found himself neatly tied up in a bathrobe and dumped into the basket with the used towels.

Sable eased himself back into the water, relishing in the calming silence.

Inside the basket, the clone huffed around his gag and dispelled.

So, after updating "The Transmigrator wants to quit", I finally finished this one, too.
As I said before, I kind of lost inspiration...well, I hope this is a sign it's coming back. ^^"