Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

"Hokage-sama!"

Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen tore his attention away from Jonin Commander Nara Shikaku as the doors to his office slammed open under the force of a couple of ANBU, his protesting assistant trailing behind them and sputtering apologies for her inability to stop the masked shinobi from barging in.

Raising his eyebrow at this sudden and most inappropriate interruption, Hiruzen fixed a stern glare upon the ANBU, causing them to pause as they seemed to suddenly realise they had completely breached protocol by barging in as they had. A second later, both of the Hokage's eyebrows shot up as he took in their appearance.

"We apologise for the interruption Hokage-sama" said the ANBU on the left, a man wearing a mask in the likeness of an otter and covered, head to toe, in gliterring pink dust. "But he has gone too far this time!"

The ANBU did not need to explain who he was.

Sighing inwardly to himself, Hiruzen knew there was only one possible person who could possibly have done this.

"And what, do tell, has he done this time?" the Hokage asked, waving his hand to dismiss his still protesting assistant.

The question seemed to arouse unease from the two ANBU as they fidgeted nervously for a second before the heretofore silent ANBU, bearing a mask in the likeness of a Jackal answered, the ANBU's nervousness explained.

"He... Set off a localized powder bomb in ANBU headquarters, covering the general ops room in pink glitter dust during a general assembly of most of Konoha's ANBU," Jackal replied, her voice sounding unsure. "Teams Six and Nine are in pursuit right now."

It was then that the other inhabitant chose to speak up.

"You mean to say there are currently eight ANBU in pursuit of one child? While they are covered in pink glitter dust?" Shikaku asked, disbelief coloring his voice. "And how did he even find the location of ANBU headquarters? Even I don't know its location!"

Before anyone in the room could reply, an orange and yellow streak seemed to rocket into the room from the window between the Hokage and Jonin Commander, instantly causing all ANBU in the room, both pink and previously hidden to jump into ready stances, weapons half-drawn. The blur slowed down into a tumbled roll before springing to his feet at the peak of the roll with his arms raised high and a large toothy grin covering his face. He was followed a few heartbeats later by five pink blurs as the ANBU in pursuit zoomed in on his location.

"Stand down!" Hiruzen commanded, not just of the ANBU but the hyper-ball of energy that was Naruto.

The ANBU in the room immediately snapped to attention while Naruto just seemed to slouch in place, bringing his arms up to lace his fangers behind his head as he continued to grin.

Before Hiruzen could say anything else, however, he noticed Shikaku gesturing with his fingers, communicating in the special hand-sign language that was unique to the Hokage and senior commanders of the village. Intrigued, Hiruzen nodded his head in acquiescence and commanded the ANBU to give their report of the situation.

A tall ANBU wearing the mask of a bear stepped forward, trying to look as dignified as one could covered in pink glitter and spoke firmly.

"Reproting; at 1303 hours today, ANBU headquarters was infiltrated by Uzumaki Naruto who proceeded to general assembly hall number four to plant a localized glitter dust bomb located in the rafters. At 1310 hours, the monthly ANBU general assembly began, topics of discussion are classified. At 1317 hours, a loud bang echoed through the hall and, before anyone could respond, half the hall was covered in the pink dust whereupon ANBU located within the hall spied Uzumaki laughing from the ceiling before making his escape through a ventilation shaft. Teams Six and Nine proceeded to capture Uzumaki for interrogation…"

The ANBU's report was interrupted when Shikaku again spoke up.

"An ANBU cell consists of four members each and yet, I only see five of the eight people dispatched, where are the rest?"

Bear shifted nervously, causing both the Hokage and Shikaku to wonder exactly what had happened that was causing so much discomfort to the village's elite assassination and tactical unit.

"We lost one pursuer near the Akimichi Clan Compound as he was involved in an unfortunate tussle with several Akimichi clan members as they were attempting to enter a local barbecue restaurant."

The Hokage and Shikaku both winced at that. Everyone knew to never get between an Akimichi and food and, most especially, not between several and food.

"The other two were…" Bear's voice dropped to a barely audible mumble.

"What was that?" The Hokage asked, frowning at the actions of his ANBU. Perhaps retraining was necessary.

"The other two were…" Bear trailed off before sighing. "Were caught in a melee with the inhabitants of the hotspring when we were tricked into cutting across it to head off Uzumaki."

Hiruzen rubbed his temples as he could feel a headache coming on. Bad enough that an ANBU was caught in a tussle with members of one of Konoha's clan but that two were removed from the equation because of perceived perverseness at the hotspring did not bode well for his sanity.

The paperwork involved was going to be immense.

Drawing his pipe from a drawer, Hiruzen lit it and took a long draw before releasing a puff of smoke to calm himself down. The day had started with such promise and now, he was left to once again clean up the ensuing mess of Naruto and his pranks. He was still intrigued by what Shikaku had communicated as well. Casting his glance at the aforementioned man, Shikaku nodded his head once before turning his attention back to the blonde prankster.

"ANBU, you are dismissed and any actions taken against Uzumaki Naruto in retaliation is strictly prohibited," Hiruzen stated, his tone of voice brooking no argument.

"Hai Hokage-sama!" The involved ANBU replied, some sounding downright sullen, before they shunshin'd out of the room.

"Now, Shikaku, you said you wished to bring something up in private between the boy and myself," Hiruzen stated, looking between the bearded man who was staring intently at Naruto and the boy himself, who was still grinning as if he did not have care in the world. Hiruzen recognized the look on Shikaku's face as the look of a genius trying to solve a puzzle.

After a scant few seconds of silence, Shikaku turned his attention back to the Hokage and gestured once more with his fingers indicating that he wanted to ask Naruto a few questions uninterrupted. The Hokage narrowed his eyes for a second before nodding fractionally to indicate he understood.

"Naruto," Shikaku began, drawing the boy's attention away from whatever was running through his mind as Naruto cracked an eye open to look at the man. "I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind me asking, about your most marvelous prank."

Naruto, unused to being praised for his troublemaking, dropped both his hands from behind his head as he crossed his arms and regarded Shikaku with wary caution lighting his eyes. Hiruzen, so unused at this seemingly cautious side of Naruto, widened his eyes at the uncharacteristic display. Without saying a word, Naruto nodded his head once to show he understood.

"My first question is how did you find ANBU headquarters?" Shikaku asked.

"Ano sa, ano sa, it wasn't that difficult to tell you the truth," Naruto replied, causing both adults to raise inquiring brows. Naruto proceeded to walk over to a map pinned to one of the walls of the Hokage's office and proceeded to point out various locations while speaking. "The headquarters of the super-duper secret mask wearing people can't be in this section because both the white eyed and red eyed people are here. I don't know much about them but I do know their eyes gives them creepy powers that allows them to see things others can't so it's probably safe to think that a super secret organization wouldn't be hiding around there.

"Konoha stadium is in this section and even if it makes sense since not many people go there, it would also not make sense because not many people go there.

"They can't be past the stadium because they're supposed to protect Jiji over there so they can't be too far away and even for their super-fast legs, running all the way here would take too long and they can't be in this area because there are too many training grounds which would make them easy to spot. Know all these things, all I had to do was look around the other places."

Both the Hiruzen and Shikaku frowned at his answer. While circular in logic in some parts, they couldn't fault the logic which, considering the provider, was shocking. Naruto wasn't known as the dead last without reason.

"Continuing on," Shikaku said as he cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Did you pick today in particular or was it just a random day you chose."

Looking at Shikaku in what could only be described as pitying, Naruto replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Every month, there is an influx of shinobis who return from missions after an ad in the local newspaper says there is a sale at Hirugash Weapons Store. I thought was a simple spelling mistake at first since there is a Higurashi Weapons Store but no Hirugashi Weapons Store. If I was a store owner, I would want to make sure my store name is written correctly so, after the third time, I started to think it was on purpose.

After that, it's easy enough to check the mission board and see that there is a pattern to the names attached. All I had to do was check the board to see when shinobis came back and when there was a sale. Not many people know who these returning shinobis are or what they do so it wasn't hard to guess that they were involved in some secret thing or another."

Once again inwardly shocked in the simplistic way in which Naruto had decoded one of the most kept secret of Konoha, Hiruzen made a mental note to immediately review all ANBU procedures in the very near future.

Seated across from him, Shikaku was mentally rearranging facts inside his head as he analyzed what Naruto had said. Things that this boy had done seemingly because he was bored that had unraveled several well established secret keeping procedures indicated something that he was finding increasingly likely.

Asking several more questions, Shikaku found them to be less enlightening until he reached his last question of the day.

"How did you plan your escape?"

"Aha, that was the funny part, I didn't!" Naruto said as he grinned and swiped at his nose mischievously.

"So, the part where you took three ANBU out of the chase was luck?"

"Mmm, kind of. I mean I already knew that the shaft I took lead to the base of the Hokage Monument, near those old ruined buildings that everyone avoids so I was way ahead of the ANBU, from there, I figured out the time based on the sun then led them to the Akimichi place since I know there were bound to be Akimichi heading for lunch and everyone knows not to get between an Akimichi and food and I figured the secret people would be too busy trying to get me to notice who the people there were.

"I also knew I had to get here because Jiji would stop those mean secret people from doing anything too bad to me so I cut across towards to white eyed people's house then circled around once I got past the hotsprings. They rotate the genders every third week and since these people had not been back since before the last rotation, I guessed they would mix up the sides and cause a commotion!"

Shikaku sat back in his seat as he contemplated Naruto's answers. It was becoming harder and harder to deny the one thing that he could gleam from all this. Naruto possessed superior information gathering and analysis skills, top-notch improvisational awareness and out of the box thinking and a keen intellect under all that to keep it tied together. The one word that kept popping up in Shikaku's brain was a term his clan had often been branded with.

Genius.

"Well, this is troublesome."

AN: Not sure if this is something I will continue or not but just an idea that popped into my head.