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The spring season always had been the period of time he most enjoyed. Perhaps it was the growth of new roots and resurrection of life that took place after the harrowing of winter. Perhaps it was because each spring a fresh crop of Genin would enter the world of ninja, and always there was at least one child whom he could associate with – possibly even train.
'It should be an especially remarkable batch this year, what with the last Uchiha finally graduating.' He mused. 'I might even dare say the Abarame and Nara could prove valid components, especially considering their clans' loyalties.'
Danzou was a man of many thoughts, few words, and cunning, ruthless action.
He was also an indomitable ninja, who in his prime had been rightly feared as the Sandaime Hokage's closest rival. He had at one time been AnBu Commander, and the prestige and influence he had enjoyed during his commission had continued well into his retirement.
Danzou was also always on the lookout for new recruits for his paramilitary organisation, AnBu ROOT.
Though officially considered a division of the AnBu corps, Danzou's AnBu ROOT held its own jurisdiction over its internal affairs. As such, only Danzou himself ever had full knowledge of what ROOT meant, what it did, and what its plans were.
However, today was a Wednesday, and on Wednesdays Danzou went shopping.
As Danzou walked through the hustle and bustle of Konohagakure's busy streets, he breathed in the sights and sounds of the village he had fought for and come to love. From the striking bazaars to the bloodied training grounds to the evocative Hokage Monument, Danzou felt proud to have served as a ninja in Konohagakure's interests.
Nevertheless, the crippled man still felt stings of contempt at the civilians he encountered and protected day in day out. For all of his failings, it was this ironic desire to protect that which he loathed most that irked Danzou to no end. If ninja were Konoha's strength and pride, sword and shield, Danzou greatly detested the fact that the non-militaristic inhabitants had contributed the most to Konohagakure's and Hi no Kuni's economic and political strength.
Though Danzou preferred the company of his subordinates and their 'conversations', each time he went out he forced himself to tolerate the inane gaggle the civilians insisted on spouting. So it was no surprise that when he walked among the populace, his invisible bodyguards ran reconnaissance in order to provide the man with 'traffic updates.'
Fortunately for him, today his scouting team had made one infinitesimal mistake: they failed to take into consideration one Uzumaki Naruto.
xXx
Naruto loved pranks.
Pranks humiliated people. Pranks ridiculed people. Pranks forced people to pay attention to him.
Pranks defined Naruto. He, in turn, defined his pranks with his whole spirit – each as unexpected as the other. Most of the adults in Konohagakure used this as proof for their hatred and wariness of Naruto because of this one fact.
Well, that and Kitsune were notorious tricksters.
Since he first began at the Ninja Academy, Naruto spent six days a week skipping the academy classes to design pranks, to con the appropriate authority figures, and to prank.
Usually it was light-hearted. Sometimes the occasional arrogant sop deserved it. Occasionally there were ninja who needed a bit more training. But only once had he intended to take his pranks to a level more commonly seen in inter-village relations.
It just had to be the Uchiha Clan, and Uchiha Itachi just had to massacre his family before Naruto had finished designing the prank. Still, the blonde had put too much effort to let all that hard work go to waste. Suffice to say, he spread his explosive genius out over the entire village.
It was from this point onwards that lest Naruto play a prank on someone, a full contingent of Chuunin, Jounin, and AnBu were held on standby in order to contain the following pandemonium.
Well, that and try and catch him.
Naruto loved the initial extra attention. People followed him constantly, so it meant he was some sort of leader, right?
Initially the Council's proposal had worked wonders. Pranks were down to a minimum, Naruto attended his classes on a daily basis, and the Sandaime Hokage could allow himself the luxury of sleeping in.
Then things changed: Naruto got bored.
No one was quite sure how or precisely when it happened, but for all of Naruto's increased bravado and noise, it suddenly became that much more difficult to track the blonde.
Perhaps it was the result of acquiring that orange jumpsuit. Though Naruto had failed his stealth and detection courses on account of his outfit's garishness, looking any longer than several minutes at the boy had caused several migraines throughout the overworked instructor-nin.
Perhaps the Kyuubi had affected him, though the Sandaime had personally inspected Naruto's seal and debunked that rumour.
However, the most likely explanation anyone could come up with corresponded with Naruto's invention of the Oroike no Jutsu.
The Oroike no Jutsu was initially a technique purely invented to evade his minders. The deployment possibilities – Naruto soon found out – proved successful beyond his wildest dreams in other areas as well.
Regardless, Naruto resumed his pranks with a vengeance, and life in Konohagakure carried on.
xXx
Danzou enjoyed his afternoon walks. He really did. He could reflect and that was something he could do in no other time or place.
Today he sat on the ledge of one of Konoha's taller administration buildings, enjoying a lightly packed lunch. Even though he was crippled, he could still easily get by using the stairs and elevators instead of jumping around. Granted, Danzou didn't need handseals to climb a wall horizontally, or to jump from rooftop to rooftop, but he preferred downplaying his abilities for security's sake.
The view from where he sat was astounding; below was the bustling Ninja Boulevard, where the bulk of ninja administration was situated; to his left was the gleaming white of the civilian and ninja medical compounds; and to his right were the clanlands, the noble estates of the Hyuuga, Inuzuka, and Akimichi, beyond which lay the multitude of training grounds he had personally architected.
In front of him… well, on most days he enjoyed watching and studying the four faces on the Hokage Monument, but today, well, someone had decided a little redecoration was in order, and what a redecoration it was!
Strange though, he didn't think Sarutobi-dono had it in him to be so spontaneous – that was for the youngsters – and he hadn't received any notification from the council about a potential restoration project.
Danzou genuinely laughed. It didn't matter; he hadn't seen such impulsive art in a very long time.
He shrugged, calming down from his earlier exuberance. Later, he thought, he would go and congratulate the artists on a job well done and find out who was responsible for staging the unconventional work.
He sat content with watching them from afar while they worked in silence.
Shades of yellow were carefully brushed alongside deep greens and steel blue. Mascara purple lined the eyes of all four men, though their hair had been surreptitiously coloured with improper shades of white and pink.
All in all, it was a new, refreshing view for an old warhorse like him, though Danzou knew the artists would have to chip the paint off soon enough – the village had a reputation to uphold after all.
Better a stoic reputation than a misinformed one.
He had almost drifted off to sleep, when a shrill cry startled him and rang out through the air.
"Uzumaki Naruto! Stop defiling the Hokage Monument and get down here this instant!!"
xXx
The chase was on.
Naruto scrambled up the 4th Hokage's face, up to where his paint supplies and escape gear lay waiting. Below him stood a crowd of 50 or so Chuunin and Jounin – hey, Iruka-sensei's skipping class – their faces ranging from a slightly amused to a spectacular raging puce. Iruka-sensei was currently shouting at him to come down and apologize for vandalizing a testament of Konoha's greatness.
Naruto ignored him. He looked back down and smiled at his work; the mountain looked much better with all the colours painted in.
Shame there wasn't a ramen colour though…
Slipping his goggles over his eyes, Naruto hid his paints behind several bushes lining the dotted tree line that fringed the Hokage Monument. He then high-tailed it before his audience realised he wasn't coming down and had escaped.
Cutting through the Monument's forest, the blonde gathered his chakra and dove off of the ledge, down toward Konoha proper itself.
A sharp turn down the first alley left him heading in the direction he had just come from – albeit on a parallel street.
Louder sounds of crumpled trash and knocked over bins signified his pursuers were gaining on him. Naruto smirked; he still had plenty of time to get to his first ambush.
Heading up along Gantsu Ave, he spotted several single sex bathhouses up ahead at the crossing with Rigyu Lane.
Quickly shifting into his female form – though still retaining his clothes – Naruto leapt over the bamboo boundary and dove into the steaming waters.
As he held his breathe, he mentally thanked his exceptional fortune over and over again; the pools were full of women and they hadn't seen him.
As the first of his pursuers entered the 'forbidden' compound, the muted shrieks of embarrassment followed by dull thuds of beatings were music to the blonde's ears.
He peeked over the top of the water, saw the coast was clear, and snuck over the opposite side of the enclosure. Once over the bamboo wall, he dashed along the adjacent road towards the Hokage Tower.
Speeding over a busy crossroad near the Ninja Boulevard, he was spotted by his secondary 'minders' consisting of the more experienced AnBu, Jounin, and Chuunin.
The chase was now on for real.
xXx
Danzou sat perturbed.
From where he sat he was afforded a splendid view of Konoha Proper, all the way from the bathhouses on Gantsu Rd. and Meihua Junction, to the civil park where the cherry blossoms bloomed in spectacular fashion.
But it was not that particular view that entertained him today.
Danzou twitched his one arm and realigned his chakra flows. Not genjutsu… then what? If he could trust his eye, and if what he saw was not genjutsu, then somebody had a lot of explaining to do.
It was nigh on impossible for a short kid in bright orange to outrun and outwit Jounin, Chuunin…
"Kami-sama." Danzou shook in horror. "Ar- are those my/ AnBu?"
His grip on the ledge was that strong, the stone was crumbling from the pressure the normally stoic man was exerting. He could only sit and watch, numb with disbelief, as the blonde brat – was that an orange jumpsuit? – made his way steadily down Ninja Boulevard.
His trackers were sporting various effects and marks from their mishaps at trying to catch the blonde.
The two groups passed on below him without stopping, the young child completely carefree in his actions, the group following him glowering glares and enough killing intent at the blonde to send a Genin into cardiac arrest.
He sagged heavily, completely flummoxed by such an event.
Kami-sama, he thought, what just happened?
Gleeful chuckling brought the man out of his scrambled musing. Danzou looked down, and there, standing on the pavement behind a piece of paper, was the young man in question.
The child was small, probably no more than 7 or 8 in age. He wore an orange jumpsuit that was beginning to give Danzou a migraine, and just screamed 'kill me' in any language a ninja could ever learn. He was just finished setting his blue goggles on his forehead when a Chuunin straggler jumped behind the kid, and clasped him by the shoulder.
"Uzumaki Naruto, what the hell have you been doing?! You've got class to go to and a graduation exam coming up – do you really want to fail and stay behind at the Academy another year?"
The apparent instructor-nin tied the blonde up in rope before he could escape, and left – presumably to return to his class.
Danzou sat on the ledge well into dusk, thinking and wondering what he was going to do.
xXx
When he returned to his headquarters much later that evening, he was glad to see his aide-de-camp, Junko Sanketsu, waiting for him. It was quite late and though normally only Danzou would stay here this late, the crippled man used the opportunity to issue Sanketsu an order.
"Find out everything – and I mean everything – you can about Uzumaki Naruto, academy student. Pillage the Ninja Academy, ransack the Hokage Tower; I don't care what you do, but I want that information. You have until three days…. What are you standing there for? Move!"
Hey, it's been a looong while since I last posted something here, but this time I'm sure to continue it. Questions? Thoughts? Comments?