Naruto: Enlightenment

Being a full geisha took some getting used to, but Naruto absolutely adored being Mitsusha no Benihime. People openly admired her, gave her presents for no particular reason and she got to dress up in gorgeous clothes every evening! Of course, the sex was fun, too. Naruto had previously wondered what the fuss was about -most adults he'd observed seemed obsessed with it at some level- but he understood now. At least he understood why girls liked it and assumed that men had a similar deal. He had promised his bunshin-nee-san that he wouldn't investigate sex as a boy until his body was ready, which she said was a few years away.

Before leaving Hibana-nee had given him some books to read, as well as half-a-dozen jutsu scrolls and two different bokken. She said they were his heritage, which made him suspicious. Hibana-nee had told him stories about her dead blond ninja friend -who he had eventually worked out was the Yondaime- but wasn't sure how his hero connected to him, looks aside. If he were the son of Konoha's greatest hero surely people would be nicer to him?

As it turned out, none of the books were about his possible-father; the first three were all about Uzumakis. They were titled 'The rise and fall of Uzushiogakure', ''Madness and Mayhem: a History of the Uzumaki Clan' and 'Fuuinjutsu for Uzumakis: Volume one (of sixteen). The last book was handwritten and by a guy called Uzumaki Retsuken, titled 'Practical Pranking: How to transfer your skills into a professional context' and was all about traps, misdirection and how to fool enemy shinobi using pranking skills as a foundation for more complex field strategies. It was an inspiration, and Naruto had a great deal of respect for his deceased relatives if they were anything like Retsuken.

The history book was actually interesting, but that was mainly because the Uzumakis had all been interesting people. From the clan's foundation by a middle child of the Riduko Sennin, creator of ninjutsu, through the foundation of Uzushiogakure -which was covered mainly in the other book- to the destruction of the village and scattering of the scant handful of survivors across the elemental nations.

Naruto learned that Uzumakis had been greatly feared, mainly by Kumo and Kiri, and were notorious for their straight, blood red hair, volcanic tempers and rather peculiar sense of humour. Naruto lacked the hair, but Benihime, who Hibana-nee had said was an expression of his hidden genetic traits, had it, which was encouraging. He liked pranks -especially Uzumaki pranks, he thought with an evil laugh as he read about his ancestor Retsuken's past exploits- and he certainly had the temper. It had taken him a while to be comfortable enough with Hibana-nee to lose his temper, but she had encouraged him to express himself honestly and insisted that bottling up his temper was unhealthy. He did always feel better after a good rant in a sealed room and a few hours of intensive taijutsu practice, so that was just one more thing Hibana-nee was right about.

The scrolls contained katas for Uzumaki kenjutsu; male and female styles, which showed just how many female Uzumakis used swords that they had created their own special style that took advantage of their different body type.

Naruto practised the kata in his apartment with the bokken provided, grateful for once for his social isolation; he had no neighbours to disturb.

As the weeks passed Naruto got used to his new routine, using the various innocuous prank jutsu in Retsuken-oji's book to lose his Hyuuga stalker so he could keep up with his schedule.

He attended the academy or pranked various ninja in the mornings and early afternoon, read his books and scrolls in the early afternoon, practised kata and worked on the beginners seals in the fuuinjutsu book until early evening when he would sneak out, travel to the okiya Once arrived, he henged, washed and dressed for the evening as Benihime. He ended up staying the night at the Mitsusha more often than not, which frequently meant he arrived late at the academy the next morning. Fortunately, being dead-last meant that nobody commented on his tardiness.

Reading about the exploits of past Uzumakis was interesting. Uzumaki Mito had married the Shodaime and helped him defeat Uchiha Madara at the Valley of the End. She'd been a fuuinjutsu expert, which was a field most Uzumakis excelled in since it was a clan speciality. Other than that, there had been Uzumaki ninjutsu specialists, taijutsu masters, kenjutsu masters -a lot of those- and the occasional genjutsu expert. One of the more advanced kenjutsu scrolls had a massive section on one-handed seals, so a ninja could use blade and jutsu at the same time. Naruto had practised forming the handseals but hadn't even tried to channel chakra into them yet; the scroll stressed the importance of good chakra control to make them work and Naruto had no illusions as to how inadequate his control was.

Other than his advances in training, Naruto also had new responsibilities. Being Hibana-nee's imouto and successor meant inheriting her client list. That had been an experience. Benihime was familiar with them all, having served sake, played shamisen or danced for each of them at one time or another. Meeting them and offering her services now that Hibana had 'moved on' went fairly smoothly; the worrying part was that a good half of her onee-san's regular clientèle were ninja. Experienced ninja, elite chunnin to journin level, and despite six years of intensive training Benihime was still a twelve year old academy student in henge on the inside.

The training did help her ignore that, at least; she was nonetheless grateful that Naruto's academy instructors were not among Benihime's clients.

Shiho-san was her easiest client; the woman came every other Wednesday to drink sake and thrash Benihime at shogi. The henged redhead got better at the game fairly quickly, but never upped her game when Shiho started to lose her concentration due to the sake. Not that it was a swift process; Shiho was surprisingly sharp even after a dozen dishes of sake, though she did ramble about her job when drunk. She was a codebreaker for the Hokage -not a ninja, but a civilian specially recruited for her analytical ability.

Hijiri Shimon was another fairly easy client. A chunnin, he came in almost every week for easy conversation, the occasional card game and to let off steam after missions or dealing with difficult colleagues. He never named names, but Benihime recognised many of them from the descriptions; Naruto at been regularly chased by almost the entire chunnin population of the village since he was eight. Where other ninja spent their mission money on fancy food, alcohol, gambling or expensive weapons, Shimon spent his on geisha. She suspected that had made him better adjusted than his peers in the long run.

Benihime had had sex with him just once, when he had come to the Mitsusha after losing a close friend on a routine mission gone sour. Shimon had been slightly drunk, extremely miserable and blaming himself; she had distracted him from his downward spiral and channelled his energy into something more enjoyable. Shimon neither mentioned that evening in later sessions nor made advances on her, but he was a little more relaxed and open around her. Benihime even received a brief visit from Shimon's Chunnin commander from that ill-fated mission, Kamizuki Izumo, who had bowed low and sincerely thanked her for her understanding.

Sarugaku Tsuzumi was another fairly easy client. Another chunnin, he liked to gamble, so they played various card games for trivial stakes like sweets or flowers. He came to the Mitsusha to gamble because it was less expensive than going to a casino and losing his entire salary at poker. He also liked to flirt, which he couldn't really do at the casino. Benihme rather enjoyed his open flattery and silly complements, and could flirt back without him taking her seriously.

Benihime's other ninja clients required more work on her part, each for different reasons. Morino Ibiki was a challenge, not because he had high or exacting standards, but because he was the village's top interrogation specialist. Hibana-nee's advice had been very clear: never, ever lie and do not show weakness.

Ibiki-san had a weekly slot on Saturday mornings -as a tokubetsu journin he could afford it- and spent it relaxing while Benihime either played shamisen or danced while a minarai played from behind a screen. She had initiated sex with him three times in four months; on each occasion he had been preoccupied by something that prevented her less intimate efforts from distracting and relaxing him.

The scarred ninja seemed amused by Benihime's total fearlessness when facing him -which considering he was nearly two metres tall, solid as a brick wall and specialised in psychological torture, really was something- and occasionally asked her questions, presumably trying to fit her into a mental box. In the interests of maintaining her mystique, Benihime sometimes told the truth, sometimes changed the subject and sometimes just smiled. He didn't seem to mind, though.

Mitarashi Anko was only difficult because she demanded intelligent and varied conversation. Other than that she enjoyed tea ceremonies and was both enthusiastic and scatty, reminding Benihime of Naruto's academy persona. The purple haired kunoichi also requested massages from time to time; during the first of these Benihime had noticed a brand-like seal on her neck. Sensing that Anko was daring her to comment, Benihime ignored the ugly thing completely. Her job was to aid and promote relaxation, not prod at sore spots.

Shiranui Genma, another tokubetsu journin, was difficult because he was laid back to the point of passive aggression, although Benihime had to concede that damn senbon of his got irritating as well. His visits were also the most irregular; once he'd come in twice in one week, another time he went a whole month between visits. What he liked was nevertheless consistent: a minarai would play while Benihime danced with her tessen and Genma would drink sake and watch. He had initiated sex on two occasions and both times Benihime found bandages over fresh, still-healing scars under his clothes. The smell on him each time indicated he had come to the okiya straight from the hospital.

He also talked in his sleep when he was off-duty -how he'd trained himself not to while on-duty was a mystery- which had told her more about how Konoha used its ninja than she'd ever wanted to know.

Naruto may still have wanted to be a ninja with all his heart, but he no longer carried the illusions his peers did about what his chosen profession would entail. It was other people's dirty work in the shadows that ate at the soul, with brief moments of vindication and long periods of boredom interspersed with abject terror, terrible loss and profound relief.

Ironically, Benihime's most high maintenance client was a blind chunnin called Tobitake Tonbo. Having lost his eyesight -and a good portion of his upper face- in a misclassified mission, Tonbo had retrained to use his already above average chakra-sensing abilities to 'see'. This also prevented him from being promoted, as his specialised skills were unlikely to be needed in a solo journin-level mission.

These specialised abilities were also why he had become Hibana-nee's client in the first place: She had been the only geisha in the hanamachi with sufficient chakra for him to follow her every movement with ease. Benihime had first met him over a year ago and he had commented even then on her unusually high chakra levels for a civilian. She hoped he would never become aware of the unusual similarity of Benihime's and Naruto's chakras; while her kotai-henge somehow managed to modify her chakra as well as her body, the resemblance was still very close.

Fortunately, Tonbo had not yet encountered Naruto; his being blind meant he'd never participated in the post-prank chases at all. Benihime had decided not to worry about the odds of his discovering her darkest secret, but had to remind herself of that before almost every session.

Since the chunnin was blind she never bothered to put on facial makeup when entertaining him, since he would be unable to appreciate it. Tonbo was also the most persistent conversationalist of all her clients, expecting her to talk just as much if not more than he did, ans their discussions were both wide-ranging and in depth. He also really liked touching her: her hair, her hands, her face and even -when he'd had some sake and loosened up enough- her body through her kimono. The gentle feel of his fingers ghosting across her lips always gave Benihime and incredible thrill.

The red haired geisha could tell that Tonbo liked the fact she never flinched when faced with his horrific facial scars. She liked the fact that -on those few occasions when the flirting and petting got seriously physical- he was slow, tender and unbelievably thorough. Sex with Tobitake Tonbo was sheer bliss.

At the academy the four months since Hibana-nee left were just more of the same. He still played pranks -although both his skill level and the ranking of his targets were rising rapidly- did badly in class and sometimes had ramen with Iruka-sensei, who was okay for a teacher. He still hadn't mastered the bunshin jutsu either. Sasuke was opening up to him inch by inch, although they still fought like cats and dogs and the Uchiha kept calling him 'dobe'. Naruto retaliated by calling the blue-blooded clan heir 'teme', which Sasuke seemed to find weirdly satisfying. Sakura was still her violent banshee self, but Naruto found that asking her out had become strangely compulsive; it was probably the vicious refusals. At least he had worked out how to reinforce his head and neck with chakra to protect his brain from impact-induced trauma.

There were not quite four weeks left before graduation when Naruto finally determined what he wanted to do for his greatest and last prank while in the academy. It would take a lot of setting up and a certain amount of risk, but he was sure the Uchiha chunnin and their friend in the afterlife would get a kick out of it, as would the previous generations of Uzumakis.

Omake

Naruto never once considered what being a part-time female geisha at twelve would do to his psyche and sexual identity. Even if he had, he would probably have just shrugged it off; he loved his work and wasn't about to stop just because other people thought he was strange.

All of the elemental countries' most powerful ninja had some kind of quirk that, had the ninja been a civilian, would probably have got them locked up in a secure ward. Kira Bii, jinchuuriki of the Hachibi, rapped all the time and his rhymes were pitiful. Uchiha Madara pretended to be hyperactive and infantile, referring to himself in the third person as 'Tobi' and insisting that 'Tobi is a good boy!' and Taki no Kakuzu was completely obsessed with money.

Konoha had more powerful ninja than most villages: Maito Gai had a sparkly-toothed smile, wore tight green spandex and shouted obsessively about 'The Power of YOUTH!'; Hatake Kakashi was consistently, chronically tardy and carried a copy of one of the Icha Icha books with him at all times; Senju Tsunade lost huge quantities of money gambling and drunk sake like water and Jiraya was a pervert without equal.

Uzumaki Naruto, aspiring hokage, was a sexual chameleon before he even entered his teens. By the time anyone who could have influenced him to suppress this behaviour actually became aware of it, it was too late; he was already cheerfully infamous for his equal opportunity attraction to people of any preference and either gender. That his henge was undetectable to ninja and completely unbreakable only made it worse.

A/N: And now we are all caught up to canon. I am mainly working from the manga version of events as I have never seen the anime.