The sun rises on a new day for Konoha, casting light onto the surrounding forestry and the great monument that hangs ever-present in the background of the village. This monument details the Hokage, leaders of the great tree that is this village, their faces forever sternly gazing down upon their sacred land. They are visible for miles around, showcasing the villages pride in their leaders.

They are also currently covered in grafiti.

The main suspect of this crime is none other than Naruto Uzumaki, Konoha's resident prankster and all around knucklehead. At the age of fourteen, he has managed to fail his ninja training three times, yet is still capable of hiding from the village's elite ninja long enough to paint funny pictures on the previous Hokage's faces. Makes sense, right?

Regardless, Naruto is now on the run thanks to the sun giving away his, thus far, most ambitious prank yet! An upside to this is that he gets the recognition he sorely needs. The downside is that he didn't have enough time to remove the whisker marks from the face of the Fourth Hokage, which altogether gave away who did it in the first place.

"Get back here, brat!"

"C'mere so I can beat the snot out of ya!"

The village's ANBU were currently on Naruto's trail, partially because of the image of monkey feces on the Third Hokage's forehead, but mostly because of the backup prank, which mainly consisted of a large dose of itching powder in their gear.

Naruto laughed as he ran, spilling paint as the bucket jostled wildly when he turned corners, painting a large arrow towards him. As much as he loved to get away with a prank, being chased was much more fun! It meant more opportunities for pranks! It also meant he was going to be caught and made to clean up regardless of how amazing the prank was, but turnabout was fair play in his book.

"Hurry up, you're making the old man look bad!"

This seemed to further entice the ANBU to finish the chase, as they soon picked up speed, one disappearing only to reappear right in front of our orange decorated hero. As the ANBU appeared, Naruto noticed something rather odd. The ANBU was moving incredibly slowly, even compared to Naruto. Not realising he had stopped moving, Naruto looked around to see if anyone else had noticed this. It was then he realised that it wasn't just the ANBU. The whole village had seemingly stopped moving!

"Okay... This is weird, even by my standards, and I saw the old man start bleeding just by reading something!" Naruto declared as he looked around, trying to spot anyone who could move. As he brought his hand up to his forehead, he noticed that everything started to pick up speed again, most notably the ANBU, whose hand slammed into the crown of Naruto's head, dropping him to the ground like a particularly heavy pigeon.

"Gotcha now, brat!" Spoke the female ANBU, grabbing Naruto by the scruff of his neck. "We're taking you straight to Hokage-sama. You're not getting out of trouble this time!"

And with that, the ANBU activated her Shunshin and appeared in the Hokage's waiting room. There Naruto wondered.

'What the hell is going on?'