Disclaimer: I'm bloody insane and borrowing Naruto from Kishimoto for a few hundred chapters, 'kay?

a/n: I like eggs.

Naruto stumbled through the lush forest I the direction Inari's mother had indicated. His strides were getting a bit more steady, but two miles without his usual energy level… it wasn't fun, to say the least. As much as he should have been planning for the events ahead, the short boy could not tear his focus away from the task at hand. Every reed, rock, and twig that stood in his way was a potential threat.

The journey took him forty-five minutes instead of his usual ten, and when he approached a semi-familiar clearing, he heard the sound of a butt hitting the ground.

"You're putting too much chakra into it, Sasuke." he heard Kakashi remark dryly, followed by the turning from a page of the smut book he loved so much. Naruto found himself smiling through the heaving he had entertained. His teacher would not be paying strict attention to his surroundings, leaving him at the wannabe-hokage's mercy.

The cogs in the back of Naruto's head had a war on the perfect prank that presented itself. Half of his brain's electric currents wanted to be rational and just announce his presence like a normal person. The other half accused the first of being traitors to the brain of Naruto Uzumaki and ostracized them like the rejects they were. A manic gleam developed in those bright blue eyes, accompanied by a quiet smile.

With a sudden burst of energy, he shot up a nearby tree like an orange streak. His teammates remained unaware, too preoccupied with their training(and erotic novels) to scan the trees for movement. It would have been a waste of energy, too. The forest was filled with squirrels and their ilk, scampering from one place to the next with instinct and finesse. Perhaps that was where Naruto got his idea, for a few seconds later,Kakashi was dragged out of his guilty pleasure by a slight impact to his head. Thinking it something from nature, the Hatake's hands ran through his hair to search for the gravity-affected object.

The jonin looked at it and groaned. It wasn't even a crap, I was just a small nut. He had let his guard down for a sole nut? He remembered from books he had read as a child that squirrels sometimes pelted intruders on their territory. He didn't care, though. One squirrel wasn't going to keep him from his book a moment longer. Without so much as a word, Kakashi returned to his book.

Thirty seconds of peace elapsed before a larger impact greeted Kakashi's cranium. With a one-eyed glare shot up into the forest's canopy, Kakashi pulled another nut from his gray mane. Had the elite not been exhausted, he probably would have sensed his student's presence behind a particularly thick tuft of leaves. Blue eyes watched the teacher in interest when the man dragged himself over to another tree to take out the book again.

If Naruto had more chakra, there would have been hundreds of nuts thrown. However, since the boy knew his own weakened state, he had to make due. The Uzumaki grabbed the handful of leaves he had gathered and began to henge them into more nuts. Larger than the two he had thrown, in fact. It nearly made him lose his balance, but the deed was done. The leaves that looked and felt like two-pound nuts fell down on Kakashi like a very short rainstorm. Kakashi, who had thought himself in the clear, managed to avoid the seemingly protein-rich volley by a few inches. By this time, the copy ninja was aware that it was no mere squirrel they were dealing with.

Not knowing what to expect, Kakashi readied himself for a fight.

"Sasuke! Sakura!" he called. Sasuke peeled his eyes off of the tree he was scaling, and Sakura peled her eyes off of Sasuke. Seeing the look of apprehension of her teacher's face, Sakura began to pale.

"Who… What is it?" she whispered, eyes straining into the canopy.

"I don't know, but they are very proficient with their giant nuts." the older shinobi stated seriously, unprepared for what happened next.

Sasuke, of all people, was never one to laugh. When something happened that was simple minded or entertaining, he would usually just turn away and be annoyed with it. I this case, however, a very unfamiliar sound came from his airway at the Hatake's warning. Sasuke snorted with incredulity, gagging down a chuckle.

Sakura did a double-take. There were no nuts on the ground, wounding her teacher, or in the trees, so what the hell was going on? Was Kakashi's exhaustion catching up with him?

"…Nuts, sensei?" came Sasuke's skeptic inquiry.

"Yeah," the adult replied, suddenly aware of how stupid he was sounding.

"Where? I don't see any nuts." Sakura eyed her teacher with observation. Kakashi immediately pointed to the ground next to where he left his book, only to twitch when he saw leaves and realized there was a slight breeze. There was a short silence wherein the team's leader thought about how he was supposed to phrase the potentially dangerous situation without sounding insane or perverted when a series of sounds caught the attention of all three present

First, there was the laughter. The childish, uproarious laughter of a boy who should have been either comatose or dead.

"Wha-?" Sakura stammered, hardly believing her ears. "No WAY!"

Sasuke looked like he had seen a ghost, and without realizing it had mirrored his sensei's expression. Before anyone had a chance to react, there was the sound of a branch breaking followed by an obnoxious yelp of surprise.

Naruto was not exactly overjoyed with the sudden 'break' in his plans. Nor was he entirely comfortable with the forty-three foot drop to the ground that he was approaching at break-neck speed.

"GWAAAAAAAAHHHH!" he had continued screaming and flailing in fear after his fall had been halted by a grip that was a bit tighter then it should have been around his ankle. Kakashi eyed his catch with every emotion he could think of, but his appearance settled on apathy.

"Well, well," he drawled, "it seems you're feeling better, Naruto."

Coming to the conclusion he wasn't dead, Naruto opened his eyes to observe the people around him and give his most charming 'please don't stab me' face.

Sakura's brain almost reeled visibly when the teacher dropped Naruto on the ground face-first. Sasuke eyed the orange contours dubiously while they twitched.

"Naruto?" Sakura asked, her voice half-venomous, half-sweet. The blonde twitched and emitted some muffled sounds into the soil.

"R shrdv shn thr lrk n yr grrph fshes." came Naruto's voice, chipper and hoarse. His three comrades stared, Sasuke's eye twitching on occasion. The whole situation seemed pretty unreal.

"I said," Naruto corrected a second later, giggling feebly and rolling over, "-you should have seen the look on your guys' faces."