Author's note: Reviwers asked for the Elder council trying their hand, so here it comes. I hope it's up to your standards. Also: Thanks for almost 200 reviews.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Koharu

Uzumaki Naruto knew he wasn't going to like his new caretaker the moment Old Man Hokage introduced her to him. She was old and wrinkled and her face looked so sour that Naruto wondered whether she ate only lemons. Unfortunately before he could point any of these facts out and demand the Old Man finds him another caretaker, Sarutobi said that he was sure they'll go along splendidly and disappeared from the room in a shunshin. He did it a lot lately. In fact, he did it every time he left the ten year old boy with a new caretaker. So the two remained in the room alone, studying each other intently. The old councilwoman was the first to break the silence.

"Come, Naruto," she said in a cold, unfriendly voice.

"Do you ever smile?" Naruto asked instead of obeying her command.

"I said come with me," Koharu repeated sternly.

"You really can't smile, can you?" the boy asked, still not moving from his spot.

"I can," Koharu repeated and smiled. As she was horribly out of practice, it wasn't much of a smile. "And now come with me." This time the child obeyed. Koharu considered it her victory. Little did she know that Naruto did it only because he decided he'd teach her to smile.

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Utatane Koharu had been glad initially when she became the guardian of Uzumaki Naruto. She thought that her old teammate Hiruzen was too soft and stupid (and becoming even older, softer and stupider lately) because he didn't train the jinchuuriki as a weapon of Konoha. But now she had the golden opportunity to remedy the situation. She knew that she had to tread carefully, she remembered what had happened to Danzo when he tried to reeducate the child too fast and too harshly. So she used all the patience she possessed to make the boy trust her in order to convert him to her worldview. She had thought that her patience was great, honed by decades of ninja life and dealing with her too naive teammate, but she had quickly learned that it wasn't enough to withstand the antics of one Uzumaki Naruto. The brat was insufferable.

It had started simply, when her sugar had been exchanged for salt the day after she had brought the blond menace home. She almost drunk a really horrible cup of coffee, but as a veteran kunoichi she spotted the trap in time. She scolded her ward for it and thought that it was over. The next day there was a bucket of water above her door. It was really obvious and she saw it from a mile away. She berated Naruto for the sloppy job. That was a mistake. Naruto took her advice to heart and the next day the tripwire that would spill a bucket of mud on her head was concealed almost decently. It still wasn't enough to fool her. The snails in her sandals that followed were really obvious, but she had to throw out the pair of shoes afterwards. She just knew she would never get the slime out of them.

Naruto tried to prank her every day, sometimes even several times a day. It annoyed her to no end, but she had to admit that he was getting better. After two weeks his tripwires were so well hidden that her aging eyes had trouble spotting them. Soon he'd actually be able to catch her in one of his traps, which would be an impressive feat. Koharu recognized it as such and was glad for the boy's progress, no matter that she was the target of his attacks. She was pragmatic. But she still scolded him for his pranks.

Three days later Naruto actually got her. He added red dye into her shampoo without her noticing. It wasn't until she looked at herself in the mirror that she realized that her hair was now pink. How was she supposed to look dignified and respectable with pink hair? It made her look girly, despite all the wrinkles in her face. Now she was really angry.

"Naruto!" she called. No answer. Of course there wouldn't be any. The boy wasn't fond of her scolding and avoided it as much as he could. He was improving in that skill too. But he still wasn't good enough to hide from her when she really wanted to find him. So half an hour later she was holding him by his collar, glaring at him as hard as she could, and that was a lot. And the brat didn't even have the decency to squirm. Instead he grinned. That infuriated the old councilwoman even more.

"What's so funny?" she growled.

"You! You look like Sakura-chan!" Koharu knew who he was referring to and didn't like the comparison one bit. She was a real kunoichi, not some useless fangirl!

"How many times did I tell you to stop pranking me?"

"A lot," the boy answered sincerely.

"So why do you still do it?"

"To make you smile," he answered. "You don't smile so I want to give you something to laugh at." She couldn't detect any falsehood in his speech.

"Naruto, pranks aren't funny for the one on the receiving end," she explained.

"Huh?" the child looked puzzled. "It looks funny from here."

"But it doesn't look funny from here," she informed him and them proceeded to dish out his punishment.

She thought that now Naruto knew that what he was doing was wrong, he'd stop, but it wasn't to be. Either he couldn't understand that pranks weren't funny for the person on the receiving end or he didn't care. Koharu suspected that it was the latter. The next day a whole shaker of pepper ended up in her soup. Good thing she liked spicy food, otherwise she would have cried after the first spoon. It was followed by several more tripwires she managed to avoid. Then there was some powder in her new shoes, she suspected it was of the itching variety. She didn't try them on. This one proved to be a distraction because the real danger came in the form of another tripwire, this time concealed so well she had missed it completely until her foot caught on it. After that she could just cover her head and scream as a bucket of caterpillars was emptied on her head. She yelled at Naruto so hard his ears nearly fell off after that, but the boy still refused to cease his annoying activity. The next day there were some very suggestive ornaments drawn on her best dress. The day after the obscene decorations appeared on her walls too. And then there was another tripwire, this time releasing a stinkbomb. She couldn't get the stench out of her house for three days.

The last straw was when Naruto somehow managed to tie a live bat to her hair needle when she dozed off for a moment. Now Utatane Koharu was an old kunoichi, veteran of many battles and missions that would have given seasoned Anbu nightmares, and she wasn't squeamish or easily scared, as proven by the fact that she could take being doused in caterpillars with only one scream. But there were some things she couldn't stand and bats were one of them, especially if they were in her hair, scratching and clawing as they were trying to get away from the big screeching thing they were tied to. And Koharu shrieked like a little girl when she woke up to find a bat in her hair. It took her ten minutes to disentangle the panicking animal, wipe the blood off her scratched face and calm her nerves enough to be able to speak coherently again. And Naruto spent the whole time in the room, rolling on the floor with laughter.

That was when she decided she had enough. Any more of this and her old heart might not hold under the strain. Just like Danzo six years earlier, Utatane Koharu decided that some things just weren't worth it. Even if it was for the benefit of Konoha.