Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any, way, shape, or form. I also do not own the cover picture for this story. Picture belongs to username Rai_Shadow on GaiaOnline.

Thanks to Serena24 for beta-ing!

SUMMARY: At the young age of 3, our lovable protagonist, Naruto began his ninja career. With a natural genius mind that comes from his father, the Yondaime Hokage, and a seemingly unlimited amount of chakra from his mother, the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero, and Kurama, the Kyuubi, he flies through the ranks and was a Jonin at the age of 5. Personally recruited into the ANBU by his adopted grandfather, the Sandaime Hokage, he gains the mask of the he turns 6, he gets promoted to ANBU Captain due to his excellent record and the age of 8, he is promoted to the Commander of the ANBU, answering only to the Hokage himself. Despites having such an outstanding record, Naruto is still a young child with a perchance for mischief. When he takes a prank on the Hokage too far (at least according to the Sandaime), he gets punished and sent to the Academy as a student while retaining his position as the ANBU Commander. However, when his punishment ends, Kakashi, who was listed as a Jonin-sensei, pushed the ever patient Hokage a little too far with his tardiness and is demoted all the way back to being a Genin. Being the only person in which Kakashi will listen and won't be able to intimidate, Naruto is roped into being the Jonin-sensei of Team 7.

Team 7's registry is now:

Sensei:

Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto a.k.a Bloody Kitsune (ANBU Commandeer)

Subordinate (Minions):

Uchiha Sasuke (Genin)

Haruno Sakura (Genin)

Hatake Kakashi (Written Rank: Genin / Real Rank: Elite Jonin)

CHAPTER 7 – WHACK-A-MOLE

ANBU Headquarter - Commander's Office

I sat at my desk trying to think of a way to actually train my Chicklets. Inu doesn't really need to be trained as he i unin, even though he now has the rank of Genin. Even so, he is now MY Genin, which means I will do my duty of training him. But what should I do ?

From what I can tell, his skills are still there, just rusty…. REALLY rusty, if the Kittens are able to subdue him, though I think he was just putting up a fight half heartily since he pretty much knew I would be summoning him. But STILL! The fight I saw when they went to subdue him was pathetic compared to what he used to be. And from what I sense, his reserves are down to about HALF of what it used to be. I guess I'll work on that first.

Sakura would need to work on her reserves but Sasuke already has a larger than normal reserve for a Genin. There would need to be chakra control too. Now, to do it the normal way or the hard way…... Eh, I'll decide that after I give my Puppies, Kitties, and Foals a wakeup call. Even though this exercise is mostly for the Puppies and Kitties, the Foals also need to get some training done. Plus it's almost 5 a.m., I need to pick up my Genins.

Hallway Outside of the Genin's Room

I arrived about 15 minutes before they needed to be ready, still thinking about what I should do about training. I figure I'll let them decide. About 10 minutes before they needed to come out, I heard a shriek, and I smirked. That sounded like Sakura getting shocked. It seems that my warning wasn't taken seriously.

Now, what should my punishment to Sakura be. What she hates the most would be being away from Sasuke, but there's no way I'm separating them in the first month. The second thing she puts such emphasis on would be her looks. Oh, that just gave me a great idea. She get the tracksuit treatment without the Gai/Lee dose. Now, let's see…. what color do I have left. I used green for the Puppies, pink for the Kitties, and yellow for the Foals. Alright, my Chicklet's get to be Orange.

The only problem with that is that I just might need to bring sunglasses every time I see my Chicklets…..and a mask like Kakashi so they don't see me laughing.

With that problem out of the way, the tracksuit punishment actually gave me a great idea to what I should use to 'desensitize' them. From the looks I'm getting from the Hokage, I know that I'm going to get punished soon if I don't.

Well, nobody said that I can't do two things at once. I should train my Genins AND desensitize my ANBU. So without further ado, I sent out a message through my tattoo to every ANBU within Konoha informing them that, if they are not on duty, to report to the indoor Training Ground S in a hour and those on duty to report afterwards until midnight. With that done, I turned my attention back to the door.

Five minutes till 5 a.m, my Genin trooped out of their room. Good. I rather them be earlier, than late.

"Good morning everyone! How are you this wonderful day?" I said cheerfully. Grumbles met my greetings and question. "What was that? Please let us run 50 laps so we may wake up?"

"I mean, good morning, sensei." Sasuke immediately answered and then muttered to his teammates, "What's so good about the morning anyways? Why the hell is he so cheerful?" Which I ignored.

"Good morning, sensei." Sakura answered and then whispered back to Sasuke, "There's nothing good about the morning and he probably had 5 cups of coffee already, which would explain why he's so awake." Again, I ignored that.

"Good morning, Commander-sensei." smirked Kakashi. Ooooh, he's going to regret mocking me. He then turned to the rest of his teammates and told them, "No, he hasn't had any coffee. He's banned from them." He continued their little discussion as though I can't hear him. I felt a twitch in my eye.

First thing first though, I turned to Sakura and said, "Guess what my seal told me this morning? Somebody was in the shower too long." I turned to the boys and said, "I guess you learned that you should always try to shower first, eh?"

"Anyways, since you DID take longer than the allotted 10 minutes….. Here's your punishment!" I said as I slapped on the seal that I had modified to a different color, onto her arms.

With a flash of color and poof of smoke, Sakura was standing in the hallway with an orange jumpsuit exactly like Gai's except for the color.

I can see the horror in Kakashi's eyes, as he no doubt is having flashback to the little training I gave them right before I had to go the the Academy.

Sakura was confused for a second, thinking that punishment was just a slap on the wrist, that was until the orange caught her attention. With a shriek, she rushed back into the bedroom and stood in front of the mirror.

I casually said, "Oh before I forget to mention, even if you do change, these clothes will appear back on after an hour, so don't bother. Plus, it is now 5 so we need to head to my office to figure out your training."

I saw her go pale and then red with anger. She rushed back out and made a move to attack me. Surprisingly, it was not Kakashi who restrained her, but Sasuke. Hmmmm…. Maybe I'll actually use his actual name when they aren't in the mask. I'll think about it. I mean, you have to reward them if they do something good right? At least that's what I read in the 'training your pet's' manual.

Shifting my attention back out, I told them to keep up as I took off in a very slow jog. Well, very slow for me at least.

When we got to my office, Inu was fine, but the other two were a little worse for wear. Sasuke was actually still with us but panting hard, while we had to wait for about 3 minutes before Sakura showed up, panting even harder.

When the final member of our team arrived, I opened my door and let them in.

ANBU Headquarter - Commander's Office

When we all were inside the office, I closed the door and took them to an antechamber attached to my office. Usually this room is used so that the Hokage can listen to the report without letting people know of his presence, but for what I had in mind it was simply perfect.

When they all entered the chamber they looked around and noticed that there were dart boards all around wall. Each of the dart boards had different map pinned to the board. There was a table with dice on it and what looked to be a roulette table besides it. In the center of everything was a little pedestal with a coin on it. All in all, the room looked like a little gambling den.

I looked around to make sure everything was in place and then turned to my Genin. "You are to choose one person for each game and have one game only."

"Tweedle Dum, as people would say, ladies first. So, which game would you choose?" I asked Sakura.

She looked at the different games I have set out and chose the roulette table. I gesture for her to spin the wheel. She gave me a confused look but decided to go with it and spun the wheel.

It landed on blue. I took the card from under where the ball landed and it read, "Chakra Control". Okay, I was just thinking about that this morning so that works out.

I turned to Sasuke and raised an eyebrow at him. Giving him an impatient wave to tell him to go ahead, he walked towards the games.

He looked at the remaining two and the darts. Probably thinking how to show more of his skills. If only he knew what the darts are for. He took aim and hit the middle of the board, even though the map was on it. Oh, goodie, I can work with that.

I turn to Kakashi and without even my prompting, he walked over to the coin and flipped it. Heads. I can see him paling as a big grin spread across my face. As I turned towards the door, I saw him shot the coin a dirty look.

I walked back to my office and headed towards my table. As they came out of the room, I gesture to the chairs that rose of the seat. When they were all seated I turned my attention to them from the files I was going through on the table.

"Okay! I'm guessing you're a little confused of why I had you play some games. The game of roulette is to let me know what we're going to be working on until you master it to my satisfaction and then we spin it again. The dart game is where we're going to be heading to for our training trip. During the trip, we'll be performing all the missions I currently have from here to there." I absently told them as I flip through the mission files I have that isn't time sensitive, looking for all the ones that would be along the way.

I pointed to Kakashi and said, "What 'won' with the coin was whether or not we're going to do this the easy boring way or the fun way. By the way, he landed on the 'fun' way." I told the rest of the Genin with a grin. They turned to look at Kakashi and glared at him.

With a grin I herded them out my office and towards the Indoor Training Ground S where I had to start to set up their training ground and the training that I had in mind for the rest of the ANBU.

Indoor Training Ground S

The Indoor Training Ground S was a large room about the 100m x 100m. Ignoring the couple of ANBU loitering around, I made a couple of clones and set them out to reinforce the ground, ceiling, and walls, the standard SOP for whenever I spar or train indoors.

I walked over to the corner and punched the ground lightly, making an indent in the ground about 7 feet deep. With that done, I went over to the corner and marked off an area that was taken by the small crater I made which was about 15m x 15m and made some trees come out.

I turned to my team and said, "So, since Tweedle Dum has chosen, we're going to be working on chakra control and chakra reserves or in other words, the efficiency you have with your chakra and your capacity. Now, you might be wondering why you would need to do such a thing if your reserve is large enough for you go do your ninjutsu."

I turned to Kakashi and ordered him to go over to the tree and climb it without his hands. Turning back to the Genin I saw that they were surprised as they watched Kakashi walk up the tree and stopped at around 10 feet above ground. I continued my lecture, "As you can see, with enough chakra control you can do that and much more. The more refined your control the more you can do. Think of your chakra as a weapon. Right now your chakra is like a club, it's not very efficient but it'll do the job of killing, even if you need to hit the person a few times. If you can refine your chakra control it'll be killing someone with a kunai. Refine it some more and it will be like a senbon, very precise and without the mess, so on and so forth. Are you following?" I asked the Genins.

When I got two nods, I continued, "Now, for chakra reserves, we're working on the amount of times you can do a jutsu without falling into chakra exhaustion. The reserve you have in your body is like a muscle, you have to work it out for it to grow. At the moment, Sasuke has an above normal reserve for a Genin and Sakura a below normal. This is normal since males usually have more. The downside in having more is that it'll be harder to control so don't be disappointed if Tweedle Dum gets the chakra control faster. It just means her reserves are lower making it easier to control."

Giving them a stern look or at least as stern as I can make my face, I told them "Don't get disheartened at how long it might take you to get this down or how long it might take for you to run up and down the tree 20 times before you get tired. Even now, I have to work on chakra control every day, so don't go on and think that as soon as you get this down, you can forget about it."

With the seriousness down, I gave them a large grin that had them suddenly on guard. "Since we're going to be training the fun way today, I'm going to do a something a little extra." With that said, I turned around and did a Suiton jutsu to fill up the crater I made. I gesture for Kakashi to come back down from the tree and stand next to me.

"Now usually, you would just run up the tree and mark your place and then fall down. I don't quite agree with that since if you fall down you can always land and you'll be fine. So…. since the fun way was chosen, I'll be adding some addition to this training. There will be a very low powered lighting jutsu running through the water so every time you fall, you'll get shocked. I promise you, you won't die from it." I said, very satisfied with myself in this new training method.

"Here's a hint in your exercise: Too much you get blown off, too little you slip off. Now get to it!" I told my Tweedles.

I threw three kunai at them, one by each feet and sent them off to their respective tree. "Start off with a run. It'll be easier to build up the momentum. When you're about to fall off the tree, mark it with the kunai. This way you can see your progress and figure out what you were doing wrong or right.

With that last piece of instruction, both my Tweedles grab the kunais and rush through the water and started to run towards the tree.

I turned Kakashi and asked, "So, Inu, any reason why you're not doing the exercise?" I asked Kakashi with a raised eyebrow.

"W-Wh-What?! Me too!? You're joking! But I KNOW how to climb tree without hands!" he yelled at me indignantly.

"That's nice," I began to say, "You know that but I don't know that. Plus, if you don't do the exercise that tree" I gesture towards the remaining tree and we saw the tree wave back at us, "is going to be lonely. Now, you wouldn't want that, would you?"

Grumbling, he grabbed the kunai and walked on top of the water, towards the 'lonely' tree. He took a step up onto the tree and started to walk up the tree expecting it to be easy, since he had done it a million times before. On his fifth step, Kakashi lunched from the tree and landed in a heap by my feet.

"Oh, I forgot to mention, the tree that I made for you is… um, how do I say this, temperamental. Yes, yes….. it's a very temperamental tree. You'll have to vary your chakra to stick to it." I said cheerfully. "So…. Hop on to it!"

"Oh, yes. Before I forget another thing, the water below you Genin is going to be slightly charged with electricity. So, my advice is, not to fall in." With that said, I made a lightening clone and had it sit in the water.

Now that that's set I turned towards the rest of my ANBU only to see them looking at me with puppy dog looks. Yeah, this training was long overdue. Let's see how much they would want me to be there ALL the time when this training was over.

"Now, for the rest of you. In the spirit of not wanting Konoha run over and me getting yelled at from the Hokage when I go take my Genins on a training trip," I began to tell my cute little subordinates, "I'm going to spend some quality time with you." I said with an evil grin.

"Not to mention, I never want to have to deal with the T&I department being packed." I muttered under my breath.

Flashback

I have just gotten back yesterday from 3 weeks on the road where I was checking on my spy network and spending time with my godfather. I was looking forward to a nice evening reading a book to unwind. Even the glares from the civilian's part of the village can't dampen my mood. The whispers that followed me was a little bit disheartening but I was just so happy to be home.

I quickly ducked into an alley and flashed over to my office. Settling down in my chair, I opened the book and was looking forward to an uneventful night.

Suddenly, I was summoned to the Hokage's office. With a sad glance towards my book, I put it down with a sigh and flashed over to the Hokage's office.

Hokage's Office

"Hey, Jiji. You called?" I asked. "What's the matter? I've just gotten back from my trip so anything that happened couldn't have been me. You got the wrong person." I said with confidence.

"So, the fact that the T&I department is so full that they have to put the 'prisoners' in the auditorium with number tickets so that the interrogators knows who to interrogate next has nothing to do with you, huh?" He said in a very, very sarcastic.

"Huh? What are you talking about? I didn't even bring anyone back from my trip, much less a prisoner." I said baffled. "I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Currently, at least a quarter of the civilian's population is being held in the T&I department. I just got a complaint from the council saying that some of their wives are being held for 'looking at you wrong'." He said with an exasperated sigh.

"Oh. Hehehe….. Oops?" I answered with a nervous laugh.

"NO, 'Hehehe….Oops?'! STOP LAUGHING AND GO FIX IT!" he ordered, yelling at me. Oh, shit. He's mad as hell.

Not wanting to be in the same room with an overly tired and frustrated Hokage that has a twisted sense of humor, I quickly exited the office and flashed directly to the T&I Department.

T&I Department

I flashed into the head interrogator's office, who, at that time, was Inoichi Yamanaka and what awaited me was Inochi and a mountain of paper. I watched quietly as he seemed to be stressed out as to what to do. Sigh. I've been sighing a lot since I've got back.

"Yo!" I said with false cheer, "I heard there's a problem here due to the other ANBUs, Owl."

Without any warning from him, I was glomped. "Commander! You're here! Save me from this evil that has overcome my office!" He said with a tearful, pleading eyes. "As soon as I finish one, five more appear!"

I looked around for anything suspicious and when I couldn't find any, I looked back at him and asked, "Um… what evil do you speak of?", as I absentmindedly petted his head to calm him down just as that book I found told me to.

With a vicious look behind him, he jabbed harshly at the mountain of paperwork piling up on his desk he said, "Those evil!"

With a sweat drop I created 20 clones and ordered them to work. Still petting Owl's head I said, "There, there. See! With this they will be gone soon. Come, let's get you out of this horrid room to somewhere else." I said, as I guided a sobbing Owl out to the break room.

After he calmed down, I said, "Not that I wasn't going to see you, but I was ordered by the Hokage to do something about the T&I department overflowing . So…. Show me where you hid a quarter of the civilian population, seeing as I KNOW there's not enough cells here."

With a growl, he said, "Those BASTARD are damn lucky there's not enough room in the cells. I put the worst in the cells and the smallest offenders in the auditorium."

"Right then, to the auditorium we go!" I said with a cheer.

As I skipped down the hallway, I automatically pressed my seal and I could feel myself changing into my 'Commander' gear and my permanent Henge changed my physical appearance.

Reaching our destination, I opened the door. Oh….the Hokage wasn't joking about a quarter of the civilian population being there. In fact, I think he underestimated my zealous ANBU.

When I walked through the door, everyone being detained turned and blanched when they saw me walk through. I guess my reputation as the Commander was reaching ears. I summoned Parrot over and told him to walk me through what each person was being charged with and was surprised that each one involves in some way some disrespect of my counterpart.

With a sigh, I walked up to the stage and asked in the silence of the room, "This applies only to those who don't have multiple charges", here I looked down at the scroll that had all the charges written on it, "let's see, 'Looking at another civilian with threat in mind'?" I looked down at the floor and saw that three quarter (¾) of them raised their bound hands up.

"Right, those that raise their hands, go with Tabby Cat, I mean, Tiger there. Oh, and if you go and that's not the right charge or only charge, be warned that 'Attempting to resist' will be added to your charge and escorted back." I waved them over to Tiger who was standing by the door looking ready to pounce on them as soon as they got into range.

Activating the seal to speak with Tiger, I told him to just charge them 125 ryo. (About $10 USD) and to make sure that they leave the same way they were escorted here, blindfolded.

"Next, which of you that are left that has the charge 'Speaking of threatening another civilian' with or without the before mentioned charge." I said with a bored monotone voice. One sixth (1/6) of the remaining of the 'prisoners' raised their hands. With a bored wave I summon the closest ANBU and said, "Leave with," with a glance I saw that it was Jackal that answered my wave, "Jackal here. The before mentioned warning applies."

Turning to Jackal, "You know the drill, blindfold and all. Fee of 500 ryo (About $40) for just that infraction and if they also have the before mentioned infraction add the 125 ryo." With a nod he jumped down to the floor and walked over to a different door.

I looked down at the remaining twelfth and said, "The remaining of you guys are being charged with 'Attacking another civilian'. You will be given to the trainees for 5 minutes each along with a 1250 ryo fee as bail and a 500 ryo fee given to the civilian attacked, which is to be paid within the week. You will be going with Panther here." I motioned to my shadow as Panther walked out.

"No weapons, killing blows, permanent disabilities, or basically anything that requires surgery. Charge them and blindfold them out" I said to him. With a nod, he dissolves into bugs and reappears by the doorway that leads to the training room and motions for the trainees to pick a victim.

The auditorium looks really large, now that the 'criminals' are gone. With a sigh I turned to the large group of ANBU's that still remains.

"Is this going to be a frequent occurrence? Because, with the way you guys are acting now, I'm starting to think that the whole ANBU is PMSing. Anyone wants to explain to me what happened ?" I started say and I saw that the remaining ANBU started to shrink away from me in fear of my anger, "because I just found a great way to fund the ANBU!" They all fell down and sweat dropped with my last sentence.

"Okay, pups! Back to work!"

End Flashback

Rubbing my hands together in anticipation, I said, "It's been a long time since we actually spent any quality time, so for this special occasion, we're going to play this game I saw some kids playing during my month out of the village. The name of the game is 'Whack-a-Mole'." I said eagerly.

And then without any warning, I used the Doton: Headhunter Jutsu on a quarter of them.

"The goal of the game for the ones underground is to escape the Headhunter Jutsu before I whack you on the head with this." I unsealed a large balloon hammer that was twice my size. "On the hammer I have a seal that will put you into a costume that will be chosen randomly." I said with a grin.

"I will also continue to use the Headhunter Jutsu so I have more 'Moles" to whack. If more than 20% of you guys are without costume by the end of this game, which ends at the stroke of midnight, I'll give everyone a paid day off. " I said with a big smile.

"Oh, and before I forget to mention, the costume won't come off for two days so….." I said with an evil smile, "Let's begin!"

And with that, I took off towards the nearest 'Mole' and took a swing. My first poor victim was Lizard. When my hammer touched his head, his ANBU uniform turned into a mime's costume, complete with the face make-up and a seal to seal off any sound he might make. The transformation took less than a second and everyone stopped their movement to stare at poor Lizard with a look of horror, after a second there was a furry of movement as the rest of the ANBU split without a second glance at poor Lizard. Awww….. they don't like the costume I made for them.

I took off after the 'Moles' in the ground, as my clones underground worked overtime, with a manic laugh escaping my mouth, I chased my little 'Moles". I had several clones stationed around any exit with some of my summons to make sure that there's no escape. MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

A/N: Sorry guys for taking so long to update. I got sick with Guillian Bares. It's where my immune system gets confused and decided to attack my nerves so I was sick in bed for a long time.