Sarutobi Asuma sighed as he slowly removed all of his clothes and put them in a small locker. He was exhausted from a long A rank mission he had been on with his team, who were also undressing behind him. He'd been hoping for a quiet and relaxing soak in the hot spring to soothe his tired muscles, but from the number of lockers in use the spring must be quite crowded today. He sighed again, before putting his cigarette out and securing his locker.

With a glance at Chouji and Shikamaru to make sure they were ready, Asuma proceeded out the locker room exit and into the hot spring itself. Along the way he took a small towel from the basket by the doorway. That's odd, he thought to himself, Did the towels always used to be in a basket like that? But a moment later he shrugged and fastened it around his waist.

Entering the steamy outdoor area, Asuma saw his suspicions had been correct. The spring was full of men and boys, all relaxing together and enjoying the hot, therapeutic water. Most were civilians, but he also saw a number of ninja, including some jounin like himself. They were all wearing only small towels like his.

He tried to find an empty area for him and his team, but soon gave up and instead slipped into the water by his fellow jounin. He let out a tremendous sigh as he completely submerged his large and muscular body, before rising up so only his powerful hairy chest showed above the water. The heat was delicious, and he could already feel his tensed body begin to relax. His students followed him in.

"Hey, did you hear about what happened to Inuzuka Kiba?" he heard someone ask, and looked up at the name, recognizing it as one of Kurenai's students. He also noticed Shikamaru and Chouji glance up curiously.

From above, Naruto grinned. He was situated on the roof, far above where anyone bathing might look, but from which he had a perfect view of the men's side of the hot spring. "So did you pull off . . . the switch?" he asked Konohamaru, referring to the towels which he could see everyone wearing down below.

"Sure did, Sensei!" Konohamaru told him with a toothy grin. "Each and every towel down there is marked with your special seal. You can activate it whenever you want, and then it's just a matter of waiting a few minutes to laugh at their reactions when it starts."

"Good work! Now for the hard part of this mission. Are you sure you're up to it, Konohamaru?" Naruto asked.

"Are you kidding me? I was born for this mission!" Due to his successes of late, Konohamaru was growing more and more confident in his abilities as an up-and-coming prankster.

"Good, then begin Operation: Locker Theft!" Naruto said, and Konohamaru scurried away. The 'sensei' smiled as he watched his eager student first slip a mask over his face, then sneakily slip into the locker room. While all the men were enjoying the hot spring, they were unaware that their clothes were being stolen right out from under their noses. And while Konohamaru was doing that, Naruto could stay and listen to their conversation. After all, they were on his favorite subject: his exploits!

"Hmm? No, what about Kiba?" asked Asuma.

"Oh, that's right. You were on a mission this week Asuma-san, so you haven't heard," said the man, an ANBU by the name of Yamato.

"Heard what?" Asuma asked again. He leaned back, letting his arms rest on the warm rocks as the rest of him soaked. "His dog didn't take a piss in the Hokage's office again, did he?"

"Hahah! Nothing so messy. Though actually, Akamaru wasn't present at all during the incident." Yamato smirked slightly, letting the anticipation build until he felt comfortable going on. "A few days ago Kiba was sighted being walked down the village's main street on a leash . . . wearing next to nothing and performing dog tricks."

Asuma blinked for a moment, before suddenly exploding in surprised laughter. "Are you serious? What could've made a guy as boastful as Inuzuka Kiba do something so embarrassing?"

"No one knows. Though they say his ass was glowing bright red, so it might've been part of some punishment."

"I heard it was a dare," another man in the hot spring interjected.

"I heard he lost a bet," said another.

"Whatever it was, he's been too embarrassed to show his face in public ever since so no one's been able to ask him," Yamato shrugged.

"But who was the one leading him around on the leash?" Asuma wanted to know, since that seemed the obvious source for answers. At his question, the other men looked at each other in uncertainty.

"The villagers who were there say it was . . . Naruto Uzumaki. But there's no way that could be true. Naruto was ranked last out of his whole Academy class. The villagers must've made a mistake."

Asuma glanced at his own students, Shikamaru and Chouji, who looked less sure than the confident men at Naruto's capabilities. They knew that Naruto had been growing surprisingly strong of late despite his humble beginnings. However, even they looked unsure that Naruto was capable of humiliating Kiba so completely.

"Grrr!" Naruto growled in frustration as his abilities were dismissed so matter-of-factly. How dare they underestimate his skills as a prankster!

Unfortunately for Naruto, his and Kiba's "walk" had been interrupted by ANBU not long after they began, so he hadn't had time to properly show off his blushing jockstrap-clad pet to everyone. Kiba had been able to get loose in the confusion, and was last seen running off towards home with laughing villagers slapping him along on his bright red and bouncing buns. It was annoying that Kiba had escaped. Naruto would have to finish his humiliation properly some other time.

Naruto had been forced to flee the scene as well, and it'd only been because he'd carefully laid down a score of hidden wedgie traps beforehand that he'd been able to evade capture, leaving his pursuit squad groaning and dangling from their underwear instead.

Now he was observing the consequences of that aborted mission. Kiba had received some good humiliation, sure, but no one believed that Naruto had been the one to give it! It was like doing all of the work and getting none of the glory. Naruto seethed, before his look changed to a smirk. Before he was done here, these men would think twice before dismissing his talents.

He activated the hand seal.

"Naruto . . . isn't he one of yours, Hatake-san?" Asuma asked Kakashi, who'd been sitting off by himself reading his Icha Icha book. Although he was bathing in a hot spring clad in only a towel like all the rest of the males, Kakashi still retained a mask which covered most of his face. "Do you think your student could have done it?"

"Hmmm . . . " Kakashi didn't look up from his book, but he seemed to mull the question. "I think perhaps . . . you might be surprised at what Naruto is capable of," he said at last with a small smile.

"AAAAH!" a loud and boisterous shout suddenly overtook the spring as Maito Gai leapt to his feet, steaming water running down his energetic muscles. He pointed at his masked rival. "If that is true, Kakashi-san, then he must be brought to justice! Pranks such as these should not be allowed to continue! They besmirch the honor of Konoha!"

"My my," Kakashi said placidly, and flipped a page. "I hardly think it's as serious as all that. This is, after all, just boys being boys."

"This is no time for your modern and irresponsible hands-off attitude!" Gai insisted. "Public spectacles such as these are no laughing matter!"

While as a professional, Asuma knew he should agree with Gai, personally he leaned more on Kakashi's side. After all, in his own teenage years Asuma had pulled his share of pranks. No one had ever really been harmed.

"Ah, that reminds me . . . wasn't your own prize student, Rock Lee, involved in such a 'public spectacle' himself . . . ?" Kakashi put forward.

Gai blushed bright red, his bond with Lee so strong that he felt his student's embarrassment as if it were his own, and sank back into the water. "Th-that was different! Lee is a good boy! That was just a bad accident, though we still don't know how all of his clothes ended up hoisted up the village flag pole."

"Come to think of it, Aburame Shino was also involved in a rather embarrassing incident, and he hasn't shown his face for some time either," Yamato put in. "The reports said it occurred around the same time as Kiba's. The same person couldn't be behind both."

All of a sudden, it seemed that every man bathing had an opinion to express, or a tale to relate, on the string of embarrassing events that'd begun over the last few weeks since Naruto and Konohamaru had gotten busy. Many of the older men put forth that the pranks' effectiveness was due completely to the softness of the new generation of ninja, and that back in their day no one would have been caught by such tricks. As the busy conversation went on, no one noticed the towels wrapped firmly around their waists begin to unravel, or even to dissolve, in the hot water.

Konohamaru slipped back in to the unoccupied locker-room. He'd already been in there once that day-earlier before the hot spring had been open for business, when he'd switched out all of the towels-but this time his mission was different. First taking a careful glance around to make sure he was unobserved, the boy opened up the first locker.

Inside was a typical Chuunin vest and a pair of pants, along with a pair of boxers. There was also assorted pouches full of ninja tools and scrolls. Konohamaru opened up a sack and smirked. In an instant he'd taken every item of clothing he could find and stuffed them all in the sack.

He moved on to the next and did the same, and then again, and again. The hot spring was busy tonight, and nearly ever locker seemed to have been used. Konohamaru snickered as he opened up one locker to find a green spandex jumpsuit, and arm and leg warmers. They could only belong to that funny sensei, Gai. They weren't spared though, and joined the other clothes in the bulging sack.

Konohamaru definitely had to admire the operation thought up by his sensei. It was utterly simple, yet no one else would have the guts to go through with it. Yep, Konohamaru was learning something new every day from Naruto.

They wouldn't keep the clothes, of course. They'd all be returned one way or the other the following day. For today though . . . This, along with the towels already in place, would ensure every man bathing would have his vulnerability to the Prank Sensei utterly exposed before his village.

Konohamaru was about half-way down the line of lockers when he suddenly felt the door open. He wheeled around with a curse. If he was caught here, the operation would be ruined!

Iruka stood before him, blinking in confusion. It appeared as if the man was a late arrival to the onsen. Unbeknownst to Konohamaru, he'd been up late at the Academy grading papers, and had decided to stop off to bathe and relax as a whim. The sight of a masked boy removing personal affects from different lockers, however, made his eyebrows shoot up.

"What's going on here?" he demanded sternly. "Youg man, are you going through lockers that don't belong to you? Wait a second . . . is that you, Konohamaru?"

"Crap!" Konohamaru hissed as Iruka started towards him. He hadn't accounted for anyone interrupting his mission and was unsure what to do. And it wasn't as if he could overpower Iruka either. And yet . . . Konohamaru did recall a certain weakness of the man's from back during his Academy days.

"Sexy no jutsu!" he cried, and unleashed the first pranking technique Naruto had ever taught him.

He chose the illusion of Hokage Tsunade, her big hooters jiggling, naked save for strategically placed rings of smoke and clearly extending an invitation to know her more intimately. Iruka was so aroused by the surprising sight, he shot across the room from the force of the blood shooting out his nose.

Konohamaru changed back with a grin, and quickly scampered over to the man who lay stunned. Taking out some rope, he quickly tied up his former teacher. Then he looked down at his struggling form and wondered what to do next. He couldn't just leave him like this, or he would warn the others. An idea struck, and Konohamaru's grin turned to a leer. He took out a kunai and began to cut off all of Iruka's clothes.

The academy teacher blushed bright red at what was being done to him. "Hey, stop that! What do you think you're-MMPH!" Konohamaru stopped his protests by removing a pair of random underwear from his sack and stuffing it in Iruka's mouth, then tying it in with another piece of rope around the back of the man's head. Iruka kept grunting into the gag, but it was a lot quieter now, and Konohamaru quickly finished up leaving him totally naked as well as bound up helplessly. He smiled as he got quite a different look at his old teacher than he'd ever had before.

"Sorry, sensei! It'll only be for a little while," Konohamaru apologized to him with a snicker, then shoved him into one of the lockers and slammed the door. Whoever opened that later would get quite the treat!

Interruption dealt with, Konohamaru quickly went through all the other lockers and took out what he needed. He left the locker room without a single article of clothing left in it, and was out the window just as the first startled shouts and oaths were coming from the hot spring area. Perfect timing!