I am special, I am happy, I am gonna heave.
Welcome to my happy world, now get your shit and leave.

The Shinobi's Guide to Drama
By Kaori

Backstage…

"Brr…" Neji shivered.

"What's the matter?" TenTen asked.

"I think a cockroach walked over my grave."

"You're not dead." Naruto pointed out. As an afterthought he added, "yet".

"It's a figure of speech."

"Which one?"

"Euphemism I believe." Shikamaru shrugged.

"Oh, kind of like when girls say they have to powder their nose when what they really mean is that they have to…" Kiba started but was interrupted by Sakura.

"All right, enough." Sakura interrupted. "Sheesh, I'm getting flashbacks of Iruka-sensei's lectures."

"Damn, I was hoping we could stall a bit longer, I'm not ready to die." Moaned Naruto.

"Well, at least we'll leave good-looking corpses." Ino shrugged.

Tsunade, having calmed down significantly (three bottles of sake will do that to you) was silently plotting her revenge on Shikamaru and the genins (hmm…sounds like the name of a band). So far she had come with shoving kunai into places best left alone, watching Ibiki's vacation slides, six months of D-Rank missions and toilet cleaning duty, and making them stay in Training Area 44 with Anko. Itachi and Orochimaru were thinking more along the lines of burning the stage (and the village while they were at it) to the ground, exhuming the charred remains, grinding the bones into powder, and flushing it down the nastiest toilet they could find. Jiraiya just wanted to wring Naruto's neck; there were no doubts in his mind that the blonde jinchuriki was the one responsible for all of this.

That said, I think it's safe to say that none of you will be surprised when I tell you that, save for Tsunade, none of these people were in their seats when the curtain opened for the fifth act.

"You know, I can't help but wonder," Asuma said. "How did they find out all that stuff about us?"

"Well…Naruto was present at the fight between the Sannin so he would know about that…" Kakashi said slowly. "Asuma's great-aunt is more than happy to tell embarrassing stories about him…"

"And just how do you know that?"

"I make it my business to know." Kakashi snickered. "Anyway, Sasuke would know about Itachi's television viewing habits, but I don't know who told them all of that other stuff."

"They probably got that story about how you and Gai met from TenTen and Neji; no doubt Gai had told it to them a hundred times." Kurenai pointed out. "I'm guessing they made up that stuff about the Sannin."

"We got into one sissy fight. ONE! Those brats made it look like we do it all the time!" thought Orochimaru, who was two rows down from them. "The name-calling was pretty dead-on though… Damn Jiraiya, I am not a pedophile." (I was going to put in a crack about a certain river in Egypt, but I decided it was far too obvious.)

The stage was set up to look like the inside of the Hokage's office. Sakura/Tsunade was sleeping at the desk, drooling and using a stack of paperwork as a pillow. Enter Kiba/Genma and Shino/Raido.

"Do you want to do it, or should I?" stage-whispered Shino/Raido.

"I did it last time." Hissed Kiba/Genma. Shino/Raido shot him a look. "Fine, but you owe me…" Steeling his nerves, he slowly approached the desk. Hesitantly, her reached out to tap Sakura/Tsunade on the shoulder. The next thing he knew, she had her hand around his neck. "Gack…urrgllll…"

"Hokage-sama." Shino/Raido said.

"Oh, Raido, what do you need?" Sakura/Tsunade asked, hastily whipping away the drool with her free hand.

"Can't breathe…" gasped Kiba/Genma.

"It's about the delegation coming from Grass Country." Shino/Raido continued.

"Go on." Nodded Sakura/Tsunade, completely ignoring the poor young man she was strangling.

"It's getting dark…so dark…" moaned Kiba/Genma.

"Apparently they're stopping here on the way to negotiations with the Raikage. "

"Wait, I see a light…"

"Hokage-sama!" Neji/Ebisu suddenly rushed in. "Jiraiya-sama is peeping in the baths again!"

"Grandma? Is that you?"

"WHAT!" Sakura/Tsunade roared, slamming Kiba/Genma into the desk, which broke in half from the impact.

"…the pain…"

"I'LL KILL THAT SUKEBE!" she jumped up and ran offstage cursing. There was a five second pause before she poked her head back in. "Genma, get me a new desk." And she ran off again.

"Hey, Genma. Are you okay?" Shino/Raido started poking him with a piece of broken desk. Kiba/Genma raised his hand weakly.

"Medic-nin…"

"Eh, you'll be alright."

"…you bastard."

Backstage, Shikamaru and the genins were preparing to make their getaway; said genius and the Uchiha prodigy were keeping watch for those seeking retribution. Naruto was already planning his escape route, Sakura was changing clothes as fast as humanly possible, Hinata had long since left for the relative safety of the Hyuuga estates, Chouji and Ino were putting away some of the costumes before they made a run for it. Shino, Kiba, and Neji were still onstage and would be the last ones to leave. If they were lucky, the jounins wouldn't decide to take their revenge until tomorrow.

Suddenly the area around the stage went completely dark.

"Is this part of the show?" questioned the daimyo. Tsunade didn't answer, already scanning the area for hostile chakra that wasn't coming from the audience. "Backstage…" she murmured. Silently signalling for the ANBU to protect the Daimyo and his wife.

Naruto wasn't sure what to think at this moment. One second he was getting ready to run, then everything went dark and now…now he was in a weird Mexican standoff with Itachi, Kisame, some woman he'd never seen before, a kid, Jiraiya, and his friends.

"How troublesome…" sighed Shikamaru.

"Orochimaru, you cross dresser!" yelled Jiriaya, pointing accusingly at the "woman".

"Stay out of my business, sukebe." Orochimaru poofed out of the henge, Kabuto did the same.

"Itachi…" growled Sasuke.

"Foolish little brother, you have gone too far." Itachi said placidly.

"Feh, I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

"This is not good." Neji said quietly.

"Damn, this is bad." Kiba muttered. "We need a miracle to get out of this alive…"

"DOUBLE DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

All eyes were on the green blurs that crashed through the backdrop and into the backstage area.

"Impossible…they're not due back for two days!" gasped TenTen.

"Fear not! Konoha's Beautiful Green Beasts have arrived!" Only two people have the nerve to say something that corny and mean it.

"Woah! Fuzzy Brows and Super Fuzzy Brows!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Damn it! It's that weirdo again!" raged Kisame.

"Eh?" blinked Gai. "Have we met? You seem awfully familiar…"

"Why you…"

They all stood there glaring (or in Gai and Lee's case, staring in a clueless manner) at each other for ten minutes and probably would have stayed like that all night if Hinata hadn't sneezed. All Hell broke loose then.

Naruto busted out with fifteen clones and went after Kabuto but it turned into a four-way fight once Jiraiya (trying to kill Naruto) and Orochimaru (intent on killing Naruto and Jiraiya) got involved; Itachi and Sasuke, intent on killing each other, simultaneously fired their best katon jutsus; Sakura, Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru decided to take cover under the stage; Kiba, Akamru, and Shino were trying not to get hit; Neji, Lee, Gai, and TenTen were doing their best to fend off Kisame.

Kabuto and Orochimaru, somehow managed to summon a large cobra, which escalated the fight to the point where it could no longer be contained within the stage area; consequently, this caused the barrier genjutsu to be dispelled, giving the audience a full view of the battle.

Tsunade watched with increasing irritation as the group fought their way up and down the audience. Quite a few people were crushed. Kakashi, Kurenai, Raido, Genma, and Asuma unable to sit by and watch, jumped into the fight as well. In normal circumstances, this would seem unfair, but given that this fight was started by a sannin and four S-class criminals, we can safely assume that fighting fair is out of the question.

ANBU evacuated the civilians and Shizune was charged with the task of getting the Daimyo to safety. Leaving the Hokage to deal with the mess. She took a deep breath and cracked her knuckles.

What happened next is far too ugly to be put into a fic with this kind of rating so I'll just tell you that most of the males will be walking funny for the next month (except for Jiraiya who was in a coma for six weeks). TenTen, Shino, and Kurenai, who had been far more observant and ran for their lives the minute they saw Tsunade's twitching form approaching, were only slightly battered and bruised. The stage had collapsed on the InoShikaChou and Sakura and the four of them were sharing a hospital ward. The missing-nins… went missing once the debris had cleared, and Orochimaru and Kabuto were also nowhere to be found after the fact. Hinata, the only one to come out of this completely unharmed, locked herself in her room and only came out to eat.

Two months later, Tsunade called the Twelve Disciples into her office. Despite the fiasco at the end, the Daimyo actually enjoyed himself. He had written to request that they perform it for his guests in two weeks.

All's well that ends well, eh? That does it for this Guide. Can anybody guess what the next one will be about? I'll give you a hint: it involves Chapter 8 of this story.