Kitsune no Akuryō - Under Maintenance

Paint Speaks Louder than Words!!

Kon'nichiwa minna! Kitsune has been officially initiated into the official ANBU. His first mission is to watch the Uchiha, Sasuke. He will pose as the dead-last, Uzumaki Naruto, but how much of it will actually prove to be a rouse?

Naruto Uzumaki's P.O.V.

   I was running through the streets of Konoha at the moment with two shinobi running behind me. I smiled and laughed at them as best I could. It sounded like I was trying to breath and laugh at the same time. I was laughing at how silly this was; how relaxing it was. The people of Konoha needed a little paint in their lives so that they could see how silly they really were. This was also, of course, part of my new mission as an ANBU of Konohagakure which strangely was not the same thing as being a ROOT ANBU. Kinoe was very clear that that was NOT the case.

    Kakashi and Kinoe explained the mission to me. My objective was to watch Uchiha Sasuke for whichever reason. I guess he had a habit of killing people or something. I couldn't think of another reason for me watching a twelve-year old. This would be a long term mission which would last beyond the Academy (that's a place were kids like me learned in a danger free environment about Konoha and how to be shinobi; explanation, courtesy of Kinoe) and became a team, which Kinoe explain was very much like the teams in the ROOT, but there were normally three students and one teacher which seemed like too many to me, but I was the tool. Besides, I couldn't very well argue effectively. The teams were put together apparently based on balance, so that the teammates complimented each other's strengths and made up for each other's weaknesses. Sasuke was further apparently at the top of my year (whatever that's supposed to mean), I had to be the worst student possible, without well getting expelled.

      What could go wrong?

      Paint. Paint could definitely go wrong, and classes. Classes were exasperating. I couldn't participate because I couldn't talk, and apparently by my year, everyone is expected to know how to read and write. I had never learned; it was never a requirement for any mission. That didn't mean I was stupid, it just meant that even if I knew about what the teacher was talking, I couldn't communicate that I understood through any means whatsoever. So, it was no surprise that I was the dead-last of the year. It was no surprise that everyone else thought that I could never achieve anything. It was no surprise that I was forced to sit at the front of the room because the teacher either felt the need to keep an eye on me or the teacher felt that I couldn't comprehend the materials otherwise. I hated being at the center of attention, an ANBU's worst nightmare.

     The only way I could focus and not allow my frustration get the best of me was to practice my chakra waves. Only then did I feel like I was sort of paying attention to extraneous material. I could keep in mind pertinent things, things that would be valuable for missions, but other than that I wasn't really listening, which made tests a continuous vexation, and, yes, there were tests. Being a student is way harder than being an ANBU. Being an ANBU, I just have to swing a kunai, throw senbon, form the seals and kill somebody.

     In the Academy, I had to stand outside the classroom generally with the assistant teacher, Mizuki-sensei, while every other normal student wrote down his answers. I could hear the snickers on the far side and became quite familiar with Mizuki-sensei's disdain for me. He would ask me the questions since I couldn't read them myself, while I filled out the test paper. He often misread them or read them out of order just to spite me. That further added to the humiliation of feeling like a dimwit who had to be at the mercy of another while everyone else could easily determine how and what to answer correctly with nothing but a trivial piece of paper. Needless to say, I did try my best to answer with a variety of seals or renditions of seals to somewhat answer the questions, and, to make things worse, only the Yondaime could read the answers, so he either had to translate it or grade it himself so that the system would be satisfied. It was a tedious and aggravating process.