The people of Konoha, civilian and shinobi alike, were grudgingly resigned to the fact that they would wake up to find some new prank set off. The pranks weren't very creative, but they were daring, annoying, and if you asked the right people, downright insulting. Of course, the last one came after said prankster managed to make his way into the ANBU headquarters and throw paint around. Of course, everyone knew who the prankster was. Naruto Uzumaki usually was found not long after the prank had been committed and then proceeded to lead ANBU, Jonin, and Chunin alike in a merry chase around the village. Sometimes they managed to catch him.

Most times, they didn't.

That honour went to his Academy instructor, Iruka Umino. He had developed an almost uncanny ability to find Naruto after he had managed to escape from the grasp of the more advanced shinobi. Most times after Naruto had committed a prank, the other shinobi gave half-hearted to full-hearted chase (depending on who Naruto had managed to piss off that day) before giving up and leaving the actual capturing to Iruka.

Iruka would never tell that it was because he had been a prankster and knew all the short-cuts and hiding spots just as well, perhaps more than, Naruto.

So when Iruka woke one morning with his 'Naruto-prank' feeling going haywire, he was understandably wary. As he walked towards the Academy that morning, he could see that others were feeling the tension too, although more on a subconscious level than anything. In the instructors' room at the Academy, they all exchanged tense glances.

"He hasn't done anything yet?" one of the instructors for the younger kids asked. The others in the room shook their heads, and their wariness rose a fraction before they headed off to their respective classrooms.

It seemed that the kids could sense it too, because they kept casting wary eyes at the orange menace. Iruka stopped in the doorway though, blinking, because yes, Naruto was actually here on time. That alone was a warning against him; it usually meant the prank for the day was going to be on the Academy which would only cause a headache for all the instructors.

But for once, Naruto seemed to actually be paying attention, and so Iruka forced himself to ignore Naruto's behavior. Perhaps he would actually be able to teach today without having to deal with the menaces in the back. Naruto was bad on his own, but adding Kiba to the mix was like adding a flame to methane gas: explosive. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if Naruto managed to convince Shikamaru to join in.

Naruto went the entire day at the Academy, without one sign of a prank. As he was leaving, Iruka was hit not with the feeling of wariness, but worry. Naruto had never skipped a day of pranking, even if in a little way. The blond didn't seem to have anything wrong with him, and the festival wasn't for a while, so theoretically, the civilians had no reason to go after the blond. He wasn't acting as though he had any injuries, and even if he did, Iruka was sure that Naruto would simply hide it until he had healed. Perhaps Naruto was simply starting to grow up. The weekend had been quiet; perhaps Naruto truly had gained some maturity. His last prank had been one of his biggest ones; Naruto had put a lot of heart into it, trying to give a makeover to the Hokage's office. If Iruka hadn't known any better, he would have thought that Naruto was trying to impress someone. Perhaps this mysterious person was the one who might have possibly given him some maturity.

'Then again,' Iruka thought as he saw Naruto bound up to Sakura to ask her out on a date only to be hit in the head, causing him to fall on the ground and then spring up to challenge Sasuke to a match, resulting in a quick takedown, 'Perhaps not.'

Iruka grimaced at the scene, but the students had already broken the circle up themselves and the two fighters parted with last insults at each other's backs.

So, theoretically, Iruka could hope that Naruto had gained some maturity and would stop pranking, but with his 'Naruto-prank' feeling still going strong, Iruka resolved to watch the blond over the next few days. He was probably going to end up blowing something up with how his pranks ended up going.

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"Alright, I will admit, you are a fine prankster." Harri started, her voice going into 'teacher mode' as she liked to call it, "You have some solid ideas, and you are effective at avoiding capture immediately afterword's."

"But Iruka-sensei always catches me!" Naruto interrupted.

"Oi! No interrupting!" Harri scolded lightly, waving her finger in front of his face to distract his thoughts for a moment, "I said immediately. I didn't say you were effective at avoiding capture forever." She gave Naruto a stare as he flashed a bright red and mumbled an apology. Harri continued on, "As I was saying, you have some solid ideas and you can avoid capture, for the most part. However, you repeat ideas. From what you have shown me, you typically stick with paint and painting areas that would either be a) impossible for others to get into, or b) defacing public property. The people who become pranksters are usually the ones who want to stand out, to be noticed. By repeating pranks, people get used to them and they start to lose interest. Now frankly, I think you could do with less attention, but at the same time, it does provide you with some coverage from them.

"What we are going to be working on, as you've probably guessed by now, is variation to your pranks and longer time between when the prank is set off to when you are caught. First rule, don't run, walk. If you run, you are attracting attention to yourself and everyone will wonder why you are running. By walking, you are setting yourself up as one of the crowd, simply a bystander. Of course, with you, I'll have to revise it seeing as how you seem to be the only one who does any sort of pranks."

Naruto shrugged, "Sometimes Kiba helps. Sometimes, I can get Shikamaru to help and then my pranks are awesome!" he shouted, conveying with his noise level at how much better that prank had been compared to his normal ones.

Harri's mouth twitched upwards, "I'm sure it was."

"And when I say awesome, I mean, awesome. No one even realized for a couple hours, and then they couldn't even blame me because I was in class, and it was the best!" Naruto continued, fists pumping as he did a victory dance in remembrance of his prank with the other kids' assistance, "People were cleaning their homes for weeks after that."

Harri just watched him with amusement; he was such a funny kid.

"To continue, first, we have to plan. Every good plan involves planning and contingency plans."

"Contingency plans?"

"Back-up plans." Harri amended, "Just in case something happens, it's better to be over-prepared than underprepared. Easier to explain away as well. This may be a bit difficult here because I don't know this world's preparations, and what I would use to hold stuff, most likely doesn't exist here."

Naruto's eyes furrowed as he looked at Harri, his head tilting to one side, "What do you mean 'your world'? I thought you came from here."

Harri shook her head, "No, I come from a place far, far away. I don't think anyone here will ever be able to reach it." It was something Harri had researched, in all the different places she had landed in, but none had been able to offer up a way to travel between worlds. Some had had their own separate worlds within each other, typically being called realms rather than worlds, but ultimately none had any useful information for her.

"What about your home?" Naruto asked hesitantly.

Harri gave a sad smile, internally wondering how on earth they had started the evening on such a high note only to end up on this depressing note. Again. Then she gave a half-shrug, her smile turning more real, "I've been gone a long time. Besides, I've seen enough new places to be satisfied."

Naruto shot her a look that clearly said he didn't believe her, but he didn't call her out on it, "Okay. I won't push for now. What about the second key thing to pranking?"

Grateful for being back on the original topic, Harri jumped on it, "Evasion. You're pretty decent from what I've seen. I'm impressed you managed to last that long against people who clearly should have caught you. I'm surprised that they didn't catch you earlier what with all that orange." Harri made a vague gesture in his direction and Naruto's grin grew.

"The old man said that I'd be the best stealth ninja when he saw it, and I'm going to be, believe it!" Naruto exclaimed, "I've been almost escaping them for years! But ever since Iruka-sensei's become my teacher, it's become a lot easier to evade the ANBU and a lot harder to escape him." He explained.

"At least you have grown in your skills, "Harri observed, "That's important. But you are hot-headed. You are deliberately bringing their attention to you, even if you do have a good getaway. A lot of times if you had simply waited a few minutes, even just a few seconds, most of your pursuers would have passed by wherever you are hiding."

Harri spent the rest of the evening dividing her time between teaching Naruto all she had learned from the Weasley twins over the years and helping him with his school-work the best she could. And even though Harri had only the basics of this world down, she could easily tell that Naruto was not on the route to a high standing in class.

By the time Naruto's bedtime came around, or at least, what Harri said was his bedtime, Naruto and Harri had hashed out an entire plan for a prank tomorrow.

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The next day dawned bright and clear. With no pranks having been set off yesterday, most civilians allowed themselves to relax minutely. It meant that they weren't the targets this time. Some of the civilians felt a small stab of pity for the shinobi go through their hearts, but quickly dismissed it for the feeling of relief instead.

The ANBU however, were in a silent uproar.

The captain of all the ANBU, under only the Hokage stood in silent fury as he watched his members walk around stiffly, the only sign of their displeasure. ANBU were mean to be the silent guardians over the village, the ones who did the dirty work so the villagers could live their lives thinking they were safe. All ANBU wore black to signify the night and how they worked in it. Their masks were meant to help detach the shinobi from the work, to allow them to return to their lives in a somewhat normal manner. Every villages' ANBU were meant to be feared and respected. Konoha's ANBU were the most feared, most members had a flee-on-sight order in the ANBU bingo books.

However, the Orange Menace had struck again. The only problem was, the ANBU commander had absolutely nothing to pin on the little brat. If the commander hadn't known the brat, hadn't watched over him when the brat was a baby, he would have suggested that someone else had committed the prank.

As it was, only one person in the entire village had the audacity to pull off a prank like this. And not get caught at the same time.

Each ANBU outfit had changes to them. Some looked perfectly normal, but the commander caught a very distinctive smell coming from one ANBU, and another looked deceptively normal until he turned around, causing the commander to choke behind his mask as he stared wide-eyed at the very obvious tribute to the Icha Icha series. The commander himself didn't read it, but Kakashi Hatake wandered around the village often enough with his nose buried in those idiotic books, so the commander had a pretty good idea what the main characters looked like. Granted, the character had strategically placed smoke, but it was still pretty clear. And judging by the ANBU's stiff shoulders as they tried to make it through the crowd quickly without attracting too much attention they knew it too. Of course, they were failing massively.

"Commander-sama" an ANBU appeared in front of him, the Cat mask masking her face, but doing nothing for her purple hair. She seemed to be one of the luckier ones; the commander could see no obvious faults with her uniform.

"Cat." He acknowledged.

"Naruto Uzumaki was spotted a few blocks from here; however, he seemed to simply be on his way to the Academy. He was devoid of any paint, and didn't seem to be holding any. A few of the more, cleaner, ANBU followed him and then retraced his steps but could find no sign of anything that would indicate our current state. Tiger did report that Uzumaki seemed more cheerful than normal, but otherwise there are no indications that he is behind this." She reported.

"Nothing? Nothing at all?" he pressed.

Cat hesitated for a moment before carefully replying, "There were several times where he would look next to him as though someone was there. However, there was no other chakra signature besides Uzumaki and the other ANBU guards."

The commander tilted his head back almost imperceptibly as he thought over this information, "Is there anything else to report? What about back at the brats' apartment?"

Again Cat hesitated, "From the last rotations visit, it seemed, well, cleaner. But it was a subtly clean. Less dirt spots." It was clear that Cat was struggling in how to describe the state of Uzumaki's apartment, "If anything, it looks the same. It's the small things that are different." She finished.

The commander was silent. It wasn't often that the Uzumaki managed to make his way into the ANBU headquarters; he hadn't done it for several years actually. And after last time, they had revamped security because a little kid had managed to make his way inside. It seemed they would have to check over the security again.

"Get some of the more, inconspicuous ones on the brat. See if you can pin anything on him." The commander ordered, "What about the Hokage's detail? Will we need to switch the rotations?"

Cat shook her head, "The Hokage guards are the only ones who are unaffected. No one is sure how, but they left for their rotation a bit ago. However, the ones who were on guard duty, as soon as they returned and entered the door; they were affected in varying ways. No one can figure out what is going on."

Behind his mask, the commander frowned deeply. This was unlike the brat. He was never this clever. Or considerate.

"Dismissed."

Cat nodded once before standing up, revealing what had been done to her uniform. It had been redone into a field of flowers, clearly standing out from the rest of her uniform. The commander barely held back a snort at the sight. Cat hated flowers. With a passion.

Said ANBU seemed to sense his mirth because she shot him a look that, even though blocked by his mask, conveyed her displeasure at being made fun off before disappearing with a small pile of leaves falling to the ground as the only sign that she had left.

The commander turned around, his arms coming behind him to clasp each other as he stared out the window he had been standing in front of. He could see the Uzumaki brat from here, his blond hair and bright orange jumpsuit a beacon to everyone. How strange. He did have guts. The commander had to give him that at least.

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Yeah! Another chapter! You know, it makes me all happy looking at how the numbers of followers/favorites has increased, you guys are awesome!

So I have to put a bit of a disclaimer in here, the prank on the ANBU is, unfortunately, not originally my idea. Since I was lacking in prank ideas (hint, hint, wink, wink) I dragged up a vague memory from another Naruto story that involved said blond putting the prank on the ANBU. I believe it was a time travel story, but I don't remember.

Anyways, I think I've decided that Harri won't be with Iruka, but I'm still not entirely sure. Who knows…

Also, I am not a pranker, I don't do pranks. If Harri's logic concerning pranks is wrong, do let me know, I like to be correct in my writing.

You all should also be glad, because I actually planned stuff out. Not like I have the whole story decided, but I 'kinda 'sorta know in which direction I am going. Sort of. Just know, I do have some semblance of a plan going!

Anyways, enough ramblings! Enjoy the story!

AN/2: Thanks to Hawkmoon888 for pointing out my mistake with the whole fire/nitrogen/methane gas thing. I trusted my younger brother and obviously I should have done my own research.