Prologue

"Wow… I had no idea there were other hidden places like my village…" It sure was a nice and new place, for Negi. After all, it was like the complete opposite of his birthplace. He had always lived in an English town where lots of people used magic. That town instead had a clear oriental style to it mixed with modern technology here and there. It was like a transition from England to his assignment in Japan: to be a teacher in the Mahora Academy, but on the way he had to stop in that village because he needed to recharge his magic power for the other half of the trip, or better, the other jump.

To make the travel easier, they had given Negi a special artefact that, powered by his magic power, would let him cover the distance in a few minutes. Of course, Negi still hadn't enough magic power for that. He had to stop three times to rest. Fortunately, that was the last stop and once he recharged his magical power again, he would be able to reach Japan, finally. Just a few hours left…

But we've seen many times that a couple hours can make the difference. Especially if a certain other person was following Negi's movements, planning to meet with him when it was safe. After all, a talking ermine is pretty strange even in the elemental countries, outside of a ninja village.

- BreakLine -

"Hmmm… Now, what to do…" A bored Naruto is a troublesome Naruto as Shikamaru would put it. It was always the same whenever he and his teacher they stopped in a new town for the night. Since for at least another year it would be safe for him to wander around at least in the same neighbourhood as the self-declared super-pervert, it also meant that he could be left alone while Jiraiya entertained the ladies of some places where he wasn't allowed yet… Well, in theory. Some of the women seemed very eager to have him come inside with his teacher. One pouted when he refused.

During his training trip with the Sannin he had honed, along with his ninja ones, his pranking skills, and he had found out that there were many other targets to be exploited other than adults. Well, he was nearly an adult too, so, with age came knowledge of further matters that he could use as pranks. One thing that he had learned to love was the naivety of children. Especially around older women, who seemed to never get tired of going 'kawaaaaaiiiiiii' on them. They get all agitated and flustered… Yep, definitely in the mood for pranking a 'youngster'. He began to look around, looking for a victim… And he found it.

There he was, a cute little boy, could not be older than ten years old. Glasses, a big trenchcoat, a backpack. He was looking around taking every new sight in, awed by the place. Perfect. A foreigner traveller. He snickered evilly and then walked inside an alley, doing a single handseal. "Henge!"

- BreakLine -

Chamo was an ermine. A descendant of the supreme Caith Sith with no bonds, free like the air, except for the debt of gratitude he held towards one child. The child was named Negi Springfield. He had heard of his important mission, and he couldn't help but be worried. After all, a nine years old going to a school in Japan to be a teacher… That was going to be a pretty difficult task even for his aniki. That's why he had decided to follow him, and he finally had managed to catch up to him, even if he had been forced to use a lot of his ermine dollars to buy spells to tail him. In the end, he was about to wait for him to walk somewhere where a talking ermine could come out and greet a human… So, a dark alley was ideal, but, he clearly hadn't expected Negi to be approached by a hot blonde girl.

Maybe… There was time for a pactio, before meeting aniki. He could use some more ermine dollars. And he just knew the method. He had seen that movie, after all… 101 Dalmatians or something…

- BreakLine -

"Wow! What strange patterns!" Negi was in a state of trance observing the mask he was currently holding in his hands, property of a stall from which he had picked it up. "It looks like… A dog? How interesting…" He thought about buying it… Before realizing that in that village there was a different currency. He sighed and put it back where he had taken it from.

"Hey, kid. What are you looking at?" Negi turned around… And immediately began to panic. He found himself face to face with a very beautiful woman, that was wearing some revealing clothes. Her breasts were almost coming out of the he didn't know how many sizes too little tank top she was wearing.

"Eh… Ah… bu… But…" He tried to form a coherent sentence, but any hope of doing that disappeared when the woman put a hand over his head and ruffled his hair. He started to panic even more, waving his arms up and downs to his side.

"My, my. Aren't you the cutest little thing? Did oneechan scare you? Hn?" Inside Naruto was snickering loudly. This was a bit of vengeance for how often this happened to him too… Well, he didn't panic, but still, it seemed that once he got on that training trip with Jiraiya, the older ladies just couldn't seem to leave him alone.

"Ah, no! It's just that… I… I mean, my sister always said to…" Negi seemed to have got some semblance of control over his tongue, but not enough to make sense, it seemed. But unknown to the two of them… Disaster decided to strike, in ermine form.

Chance. The white animal had tied one end of a long pink ribbon around a light-pole, and had the other end safely between his teeth. He focused all his energies and then sprinted forward. In the arc of two seconds he had run four full circles around the two's legs and had then started to pull.

"Eh?!" Negi was the first to lose balance.

"What the hell?!" Followed quickly by the transformed Naruto. It was impressive how the damn animal had calculated the trajectory and everything else so that the much taller woman would fall exactly at the right time to land her lips on Negi's ones. Of course, the two froze. This gave the ermine the chance to turn around and use the 'Pactio' spell.

"Alright! Now… …" The shock had had the double effect to froze both of the boys and release Naruto's transformation, exposing the boy for what he was. Not a busty, beautiful woman, but a tall, manly teen. Kamo had one reaction. The very opposite of a nosebleed. He spiral vomited high in the air and landed unconscious on the ground while the magic circle appeared under the two victims and flashed with light.

The two boys stayed like that for like… Ten seconds, before breaking up, still staring at each other's eyes like they had just seen their undead parents come back to life to eat their brains, while the circle and the light disappeared and something appeared with a smaller flash of light in one of Negi's pockets.

The two kept on staring at each other before reality kicked in. Then, they let out two enormous, synchronized screams that frightened everyone in a ten kilometres radius, and thankfully made the ones immediately nearby forget what they had witnessed. In the meanwhile, a few countries away, Sasuke Uchiha shivered.

"What… This… This feeling…" It's like… A million of Yaoi fangirls suddenly awakened from their slumber… But why do I feel safer? … Ah. It involves a shota. That's why.

Pactio! Quindecim
First hour: The kiss of doom

Now, what's the first thing you would do if by accident you would kiss a preteenish year old kid? Naruto, still screaming along with the kid, ran to the inn where he was staying with his teacher, making a very awkward sight for the street-walkers and the inn's caretakers as he zoomed up the stairs and kicked a cat out of his way to his room. He took out his keys, opened the door, got inside, slammed the door behind him and then made a touchdown dive for the bathroom.

Not giving the boy he had grabbed even a second to regain his bearings, he took out two toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste. He poured half of it in his mouth and half of it in the child's mouth, and then stuck his spare toothbrush in as well. "WASH! WASH LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!" And not much surprisingly, the child complied, still too frightened and weirded out by everything that had happened in so little time.

- BreakLine -

"Gah…" A good half hour of rubbing had reduced Naruto's and the kid's oral cavity to a scraped, bloody mess and Naruto was pretty sure that he would taste fresh mint toothpaste for days. He took a few breaths while the kid just kept on staring at him… Before he began to panic. "Aaaaaaah! I hope no one saw that! I already have few chances with Sakura-chan as it is. NOW THEY WILL THINK I GO FOR JAILBAIT! MALE JAILBAIT! NOOOOO! Ah, wait. No one knows me here… BUT STILL, AAARGH!"

If Munch would have ever had the need for a model when drawing 'The scream', Naruto in that situation would have made the perfect subject. It was all there. Desperation, anger, the feeling of doom. All in one person. Negi remembered that his sister had told him that he was supposed to help people in distress. Comfort them a little. "Ehm… I'm sure no one saw it… And, it's not like it's the end of the world…"

"IT WOULD BE THE END OF MY SOCIAL LIFE, THOUGH, IF WORD GOT OUT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! I REALLY HOPE NO ONE SAW US AND I HOPE GOSSIPS DOESN'T TRAVEL THROUGH THE FIRE COUNTRY! AND WHERE THE HELL DID THAT STRANGE CAT AND THE RIBBON COME FROM, ANYWAY?!" Naruto shifted his mood like a woman subject to her monthly things from sad to angry to desperate all in the arc of a few seconds, shaking his head from side to side with his hands as if to purposely inflict pain upon himself. Then he suddenly stopped and blinked when he realized something. He had no idea who he had just had the 'incident' with. He only knew that he was a kid with brown-reddish hair carrying around a staff wearing a long trenchcoat. "And by the way… Who the hell are you?"

"Ehm…" Negi rubbed the back of his head. He didn't expect that question, at least not so soon. He was half expecting the blonde older boy to panic a little more.

"I mean, you're not using any technique, but that staff, that cloak… And the shoes and pants too. You clearly aren't from Konoha… Nor any place in the fire country, I think." Naruto scratched his head in thought, then he just let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, whatever. If you disappear as soon as possible I can deny everything, in case someone asks…"

"Ehm… Probably… Uh?" Suddenly, Negi noticed something sticking out of his pocket. He picked it out. It was a card. A really strange card, which most evident detail was the image of the older boy standing in front of him.

He was standing in a somehow flashy pose, standing while facing front, his legs slightly apart, the width of his shoulders. His arms crossed in front of his chest. He wasn't wearing the same outfit that he had at the moment. He could make out a white shirt open on his chest revealing some kind of necklace, a pair of black trousers with a cloth belt, white sneakers, and a long black coat with rolled up sleeves. Around his head, instead of a forehead protector, he saw some kind of long piece of cloth tied in a headband around his head, the ends falling long behind his head in a wavy pattern, and there was an orange pattern in the middle of his forehead.

Then, he began to observe the rest of the card. Behind the image of the boy, there was the clear shape of a magic circle. In the right upper corner, there was the word 'Croceus' above the word 'Tonus' and over a light circle of said colour. In the upper left corner of the card was a 'I', the Latin way of writing the number 1. Above the picture, in the middle, were the words 'Charta Minister'.

In the lower half of the card… The most evident thing was what he guessed was the name of the boy. It was written 'Uzumaci Naruto', the surname above the name. Under it, written in smaller characters, there was a strange writing… 'Heros Inrequietus'. In the lower left corner of the card was the world 'Astralitas' and lower, almost on the edge of the card, the world 'Sol', and between them, the symbol of said planet, a large circle with a single dot in the middle. And in the lower right corner of the card, again the number 'I'.

Finally, between the last two things, there were four more words, one above the other. The first word, from up to down, was the word 'Virtus'. Under it, in bigger characters, the word 'Pertinacia'. Under it, in the same characters as 'Virtus', the word 'Directio'. Under it, in the same characters as 'Pertinacia', the word 'Oriens'.

Now that I think about it… I was caught by surprise at the moment, but rethinking about it… I clearly felt magic power being summoned. Right after these thoughts went through Negi's head… He tensed and swallowed.

"Hmm? What is that?" Naruto had leaned in to observe what Negi was holding and observing so intensly. Not able to observe it completely, he walked behind the younger boy, and he managed to take in the card in all his might from over the small boy's shoulders. "Woooooow! Damn, I look cool in this thing… But what is it?"

"Ehm… I don't really know… And that's what troubles me…" Negi said, starting to worry a little. Naruto blinked, and the small boy almost wanted to cry… Scratch almost. He had already got in trouble. He didn't know what had happened, before, but he knew that a spell had been cast, and the card had something to do with it. The only thing that gave him some tips were the words 'Charta Minister'. They meant 'Contract' and 'Follower/Attendant'. Whatever happened had probably someway bounded the older boy to Negi. He had been discovered even before starting his assignment. "… Ehm… Uzumaki Naruto-san… That's your name, right?"

"Eh? Wow. How do you know? Are you a magician or what?" Asked Naruto, grinning like only he knew how to, mocking the boy. Negi just turned around completely to him and said…

"Yes, I am."

Naruto stopped grinning, and then blinked. Once more. Two more times. "Say what?"

"My name is Negi Springfield. I'm a mage in training. I was heading to a foreign country called Japan to begin my first assignment, but I had to stop here to refresh my energy reserves for the trip." He then put the card he was holding on the ground, between the two of them. "Earlier, I don't know why, a spell has been cast that somewhat tied yourself to me, but I don't know what it is or what it does do."

"…" Naruto's brain processed what the child, Negi, had said to him, and he automatically set him to answer with a smart-ass remark and a dead serious face. "A mage? I mean, huh? Magic doesn't exist… Does it?"

While somewhere far away a certain missing nin sneezed, Negi looked at the ground, and sniffled a bit. Then, he took out his training wand and said, pointing it towards a flower in a pot near Naruto's bed. "Ardescat." The poor thing immediately caught fire.

"HEY!" Naruto got a bit startled by the sudden combustion, and after a good ten seconds on looking alternatively at Negi and the burning flower, he settled to stare at Negi wide eyed. "What the… I mean, you're really not a ninja?" Naruto rubbed his chin in thought, squinting his eyes. "I mean, I didn't see you making anything with your hands… Also, what the hell does Ardescat mean? It doesn't sound like a jutsu name…"

"It's latin…" While Naruto squinted his eyes further, trying to remember if he had ever head of 'Latin' before, Negi was glad that it took so little to persuade him… But suddenly little tears started to form in the young child's eyes. "I'm sorry! I don't… I don't know what happened, and what this card is! The only thing I know is that you're tied to me some way, now!"

Naruto was starting to get really worried. Tears were never a good sign. But adding to that the notions about mages, and an unknown magic and 'tie'… "Ehm… So, there's something like… A curse on me, now?"

"I… I don't know… Maybe…" Negi sniffled a bit, finally acting a bit like his actual age. Naruto was sweating a lot and he swallowed loudly, since he didn't like what he was hearing at all. "… I think… I think it would be better if you came with me…"

"E-Eh?!" Naruto began to freak out with those few words. Follow him?! Follow him where?! "W-What… Why should I do that?!"

"I… I don't know what could happen to you if we got too far away from each other. Right now you're well, but there are some spells who are triggered by distance…" Now Negi was openly crying. "P-Please! I… If you come with me, I'll manage to discover something about what happened! If something happened to you… Not only you would get hurt or worse, but I would probably get turned into an ermine!"

"…" Now, Naruto's mind was elaborating various pieces of information, all of them at the same time. The child was a mage. The child had, by mistake, cast a spell on him. And he had said that something bad could happen to Naruto and that he would get turned into an ermine? Whatever, that was not the point. What mattered was that he was asking him to follow somewhere he didn't know for kami knew how long…

But, there was the matter that his life could be at risk. No life, no ninja, and not Hokage… But, the stab at his heart were Negi's tears. So, in the end, Naruto asked himself, 'What would the Yondaime do?', already knowing the answer. He sighed deeply. Oh, well. Sasuke still has one year of time, after all. "… When were you planning on departing?"

"Eh? Then, you…" Negi tried to say, feeling a bit relieved.

"What do you think? I don't think I'd like being dead. And I don't know about being an ermine, but it doesn't sound so great…" Naruto replied sarcastically, a single drop of sweat on the front of his forehead, instead of the back.

"Ehm… Right… Well, I was planning on departing tomorrow morning, so that I would arrive immediately in Japan on my way to the school…" Negi rubbed the back of his head, a lot of embarrassment still there, even if he had stopped crying, somewhat. And suddenly, he felt a hand on his head.

"And by the way, stop crying! After all, you're the only one who I can depend on for solving this matter! You can't get all depressed, right? Just promise that you'll solve everything before one year from today passes! I need to come back home by that date!" Naruto gave Negi a big grin and a thumb up. Negi stared at the blonde for a few seconds and then smiled.

"R-Right!" While Negi's mood turned a bit for the better, much to Naruto's smile. Then, he began to think that he should at least leave a message or a Kage Bunshin behind to inform the pervert, even if he couldn't spare the details… Well, maybe his future whereabouts.

"Hey, you said we're going to… Japan, right?" Negi nodded in acknowledgment. "Why, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well… I'm going to be a teacher, actually… In a girls-only school." Naruto froze, thinking at what the boy had just said.

"… There's no way in hell I'm telling him that." No way in hell was he letting Jiraiya know about his whereabouts. He had to protect the female part of the world from him. Especially underage girls. To be on the safe side… "Before going, though, I need to tell my teacher I'm going somewhere. Then, we high-tail out of here, because I doubt he would let me go that easily."

"E-Eh?" Negi thought about it. If he needed to just tell him that he was going away, he guessed that it would be fine. "A-Alright…"

The following morning, after a good, needed night of sleep… "Ahhhahahah! Been months since I had this much fun!" Well, not really. Jiraiya that night did anything but sleep, it seemed. He nonetheless managed to slam the door open.

"Damn! Not so loudly, ero-sennin!" He was welcomed with the visage of his apprentice sitting cross legged on the floor, like he was waiting for him. "Alright. Listen to me and listen to me well. I…"

"Ahahah! Yeah, yeah… You'll tell me later, I'm going to sleep now. Wake me up… No, scratch that. I'll wake up on my own. Later." That said, Jiraiya threw himself into his futon and fell asleep with a loud snore. Naruto sighed while Negi got out of the room's closet.

"Ehm… Not to be a bother, but… We should go." The young boy said, and Naruto frowned.

"… Sounds like it's a written message, after all."

- BreakLine -

"Hnn… Darn." Naruto stretched as he and Negi waited at the station for the train to take them to the school. "I didn't get much sleep because I had to wait for the old idiot…"

"I'm sorry… But it's the first day of my assignment…" Negi said, only for Naruto to shake his head.

"Don't worry… Maybe it's better this way…" Naruto still shuddered at what could have been Jiraiya's reaction at knowing that he was going to accompany a kid at an all-girls school. Stop him? As if. He would have tagged along. The horror… Oh, the horror…

"Alright… But, ehm, another thing. Your clothes aren't…"

"Uh?" That was when Naruto noticed that a lot of people around were staring at him, thinking of him as a cosplayer, probably. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Whoops… Ahahahah… Oh, well. Be right back."

Naruto grinned and walked inside a bathroom. A few seconds later he came out and Negi sweatdropped. He was wearing a bigger version of his clothes, now, and no headband. "Ehm… Naruto-san, I think it would be a bit strange for us to have the same identical clothes…"

"Eheheheh, sorry, just wanted to mess with you…" Not really, but he needed to cover up. Seriously, though, he had copied even the staff. This time when he got out of the bathroom he was wearing more mundane clothes, a copy of a boy his age he had seen around before he boarded his own train, as in: a traditional Japanese male school uniform, winter version, black colours, open jacket to reveal a white shirt. "So? Better?"

"… Well, the handbag is…" He had morphed his rucksack in a handbag.

"Ah, right." He dropped the transformation on that part and it transformed back into a backpack. "Peeeeeeerfect, am I right?"

"… Yes. Only, it's February. It's quite cold, you know…" Negi sweatdropped even more. He decided to leave alone that it was a student uniform as Naruto morphed into a closed jacket version of the suit with an orange scarf over it. It was Japanese and it wasn't ninja. They would have to get him some real clothes, though. He remembered that the transformation could be dispelled, and it wouldn't do to have him suddenly puff out smoke and reappear dressed in different clothes. That was when the train arrived. "Ah! It's here! L-Let's go in!"

"Hmm… Looks pretty different than the one I saw in the snow country…" It wasn't completely made out of iron, for instance, but mostly, it didn't have loads of artillery hidden. Naruto walked inside with Negi only to find that the train car was almost completely full. Mostly with girls, all around Naruto's age.

"It's crowded…" Negi looked around while Naruto's attention was more on the fact that here people still went to school at this age. Where he came from only ninjas went to the academy. Civilians were taught from their own families. "And it sure has a lot of women…"

"Well, duh. This train stops in a all girls school… Whoof!" The sudden curve of the train, plus Naruto having a big backpack on his shoulders and not holding onto anything caused him to fall on top of Negi when a girl slammed into his back. "Darn! Are you okay, Negi?!"

"My head feels liiiiiiight…" Naruto cursed. Swirls in his eyes. He pulled him back on his feet while his ears caught giggles coming from the surrounding audience. Negi recovered and the two turned towards the girls to Naruto's left… Only to be met with feral grins. Naruto cursed inwardly. Damn, not again! They're not THAT much older than me!

"What are you doing here, kid? You got lost?"

"The next stops are only middle and high schools…"

"Ah, you're walking your big brother to school? Kawaaaai!"

"B-Big brother?" Naruto said with a bit of disbelief. Where did they look anything alike, he didn't know. Negi in the meanwhile, was just embarrassed by the situation, but he managed to think that maybe it could be a good cover up story. His big brother… Well, in japan they didn't mean that literally most of the times. Then, his nose itched.

"Ah… AT-CHOOOM!" He sneezed, and Naruto found himself with an eyeful of panties of various shapes and colours as an incredibly strong gust of wind lifted skirt after skirt. When it settled down, while the girls questioned each other about what had just happened, the blonde slowly turned his head towards the younger kid. "D-Damn, I hope I didn't catch a cold… ACK!"

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, YOU ERO-BRAT?!" The physical abuse in the form of shaking Negi like a rag doll was forgotten when the train stopped and a speaker 'spoke'.

[U]Next Stop: Mahora Academy Central[/U] The metallic voice said, and that stopped Naruto too, much to Negi's relief. "Uhm… That's our stop too." Then the doors opened and the girls hurried out, the ones who were talking to them saying goodbye on the way out. The two followed suit… "… Wow." And Naruto saw his first stampede.

"Whah?! What's going on?! There are so many people!" Indeed. It was pretty chaotic with all the people running forward out of the station and down the lane with every possible way of locomotion known to men. Feet, trams, motorcycles, skateboards. Most of them, Naruto didn't know, but he could tell they were all in a hurry.

"Hey! What time is it?! Maybe they're running because it's late!"

"Eh?!" Negi pulled out his watch and indeed, he realized they were going to be late if he didn't run. "Ahhh! I can't be late my first day as a teacher!" That said, Negi gathered magic at his feet and sprinted forward, much to Naruto's surprise.

"Wow… He's fast…" He grinned. He always liked a challenge, even if he was the only one who considered it such. "Heh! You're not going to lose me that easily, Negi-kuuuuuuuuuuuun!" He crouched down, gathered chakra at his feet and jumped forward, landing by Negi's side and starting to run again. Other than having to keep a fast pace, they had to dodge the people falling behind them. "Damn, this is fun!"

"Fun?!" Negi replied while not letting down on his speed.

"Yeah! I mean, look around! The others are having fun too… Well, except for the ones who trip on their feet… Wah!" Naruto got startled and Negi blinked when a loud bark interrupted him. A bark, not coming from a dog, though. "… What the hell?"

"Hahaha… It looks like you really would do anything for Takahata-sensei. I didn't think you would actually do it…"

"I will kill you. Seriously." The bark had come from one of the two girls who were now walking in front of them, the one on the left with copper hair tied in two pigtails, much like his Oiroke no jutsu. The one menaced of death had long black hair and incredibly, she had to use rollerblades to keep up with the barking one.

"Aaaaand next, it says: 'Do a handstand with your legs spread and run as fast as you can for 50 meters while shouting 'Nya'!"

"I'M NOT DOING THAT!" It seemed like the black haired one was teasing her friend, Negi deduced, with some made up fortunes.

"Nya!" Just as they caught up with the girls, the trio turned to Naruto who had suddenly decided to follow the fortune and was indeed running with his hands with legs spread and shouting 'Nya' all over again. "Aaaaaaand fifty meters… I think." When done he flipped and landed on his feet again and began to run again normally. He was met with the bewildered stares of Negi and the two girls. "… What? It sounded fun!"

"… Hmph… Ahahahahah!" The black haired girl produced a beautiful round of laughter, much to Naruto's grinning, while the other two members of the audience kept on staring. "You're funny!"

"Thanks! So, what was that fortune for?" He asked, and the girl was happy to answer.

"Ah, it was a love fortune!" The copper haired girl just sweatdropped, muttering something about 'weirdoes' under her breath. "It was for Asuna, here. You know, she's got…"

"KONOKA, SHUT UP!" Finally a reaction from the girl now named Asuna, much to her friend's laughter. Negi found himself smiling. They seemed to be having fun. He wanted to join in.

"Excuse me…" They stopped running as they found themselves in front of a big set of stairs and Negi caught their attention. "'Your love will be unrequited.'"

"… Eh?" Asuna just stared for a few seconds because she didn't understand that she was talking to him. When she realized it, she exploded. "WHAT DID YOU SAY, YOU BRAT?!"

"Uwah?! W-Well, you were talking about fortunes, so…" Naruto groaned as Negi had gotten himself into another set of trouble.

"What are you doing here, by the way?" Naruto blinked and turned to the calmer of the two girls, missing Asuna lifting Negi by his head. "This is an all girls academy, and you don't seem to be wearing the uniform of any school around here."

"Ah… That." Naruto scratched the back of his head. He wasn't supposed to do the talking. "To tell the truth, Negi here…"

"That will be enough, Asuna-kun!" The violence on underage kids stopped thanks to a new voice. Naruto turned his head to the source, and found it in the person of an adult man with short hair, a little beard, and glasses. "Hey, Negi-kun! Long time no see!"

"T-Takahata-sensei?! G-Good morning!" Naruto suddenly paled. The girl had a crush on a man that much older than her. It was like Sakura crushing on Kakashi... Or worse, on Jiraiya.

"… I think I'm gonna be sick…" Naruto commented while Negi saluted Takamichi.

- BreakLine -

"Hnn… Hn?" Meanwhile, back in the fire country, Jiraiya woke up with a massive hangover. "Gh… Bathroom… Must… Take… Medicine… Oi, Naruto!" He looked around only to find no one in the room. "… Uh?" His attention was caught by the only element out of place. A letter to him, or better to 'The damn ero-drunkard-sennin'.

- BreakLine -

"I will be teaching English at this school. My name is Negi Springfield."

"EH?! W-WAIT JUST A MINUTE! YOU'RE A TEACHER?! A BRAT LIKE YOU?!"

"Hey, come on, Asuna…" Naruto was brought out of his sickness induced trance as Asuna physically assaulted Negi again.

"Ah, don't worry about it. He's actually quite smart." The beard man had gotten down from his office and was now by their side. "It seems that from today onwards, he'll be taking class A instead of me." Naruto cringed as the red-haired girl started shouting yet again.

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! I DON'T WANT THIS KID! JUST A WHILE BACK HE WAS SAYING 'YOUR LOV…' Ehm, SOMETHING VERY RUDE TO ME!"

"But it's true…"

"IT'S NOT TRUE!" With tears in her eyes, she grabbed Negi by the scarf again. "I HATE KIDS! ESPECIALLY ANNOYING LITTLE FLEAS LIKE YOU!" Naruto sighed, and he could tell that Negi was starting to get ticked off as well.

"Hey, will you please…" Just as he was about to intervene, Negi sneezed. Unfortunately, Asuna was at point blank range when that happened. He blushed but then he raised an eyebrow. "… Woollen bear panties?"

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

- BreakLine -

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Of course, Jiraiya was quite sobered up by reading Naruto's letter, where after the berating for being a bad drunk and staying out the whole night, had told him that something had came up and that he would be away from the elemental countries for an year or so at most. "Shitshitshit…" As he summoned lots of frogs to help him to search, Jiraiya had but one thought in mind. "TSUNADE IS GOING TO KILL ME!"

- BreakLine -

"Negi-kun… This job will probably be very difficult…" After getting the violent girl dressed, they had been accompanied to the principal's office. To Naruto, the old man almost looked familiar, he gave a vibe similar to the Sandaime's one, the wise old man one, specifically. Of course, Konohamaru had never managed to lay a hand on him, while this one had been punted in the head by a hammer by his granddaughter, alias Konoka. He had had a chance to remove his scarf and backpack as the other people in the room talked. He had also opened up again the buttons of the jacket and rolled up his sleeves. "If it's too hard for you, you will have to return home. There are no second chances. Are you prepared to accept that?"

"Y-Yes! I'll do it!" If nothing, Negi had drive, Naruto acknowledged. "Please let me try!"

"Hmmm… Then, it's settled. Before that, though…" Naruto flinched when he noticed the man's only visible eye settling on him. "Who might your friend be? I though you were to come alone…"

"A-Ah… Well…" With everything that had happened, Negi hadn't prepared a suitable excuse. "Naruto-san, is a friend of my nee-chan. She asked him to look out for me as I stay in Japan and he accepted, since he hadn't been in Japan yet."

"Y-Yeah! I'm a traveller! I love to travel!" Naruto decided to go along with Negi's plan, but felt really uneasy as the principal's eye was on him, observing for everything he was worth, it seemed.

"Hmmm… Ohohoh. Understandable. You are just ten years old, after all." The two comrades in lie sighed in relief. "Then, it's settled. Let's begin today. Let me introduce you to our staff guidance officer, Shizuna-sensei."

While Negi got a faceful of cleavage, Naruto thought that maybe it wouldn't be so hard for Negi to do his work, find out what had happened to them and not be discovered and turned into an ermine at the same time.

"Konoka, Asuna-chan, can Negi-kun stay in your room for a while? We haven't decided where he's going to stay yet."

… Damn. As hell broke loose again, he plunged his ears… And then realized that he hadn't mentioned him. "H-Hey, jii-san! What about me?!"

"Ohohoh. Don't worry, I already thought about that as well. You'll get a notice after the end of the lessons. Now, you should hurry. Classes are about to start." The principal said, and that seemed to satisfy Naruto and to call for a momentary truce between Asuna and Negi…

- BreakLine -

"Seriously, what the hell is her problem?" Or so he thought. Naruto whispered in a harsh voice as the two girls walked away, after Asuna's suggestion of going and camp outside for the night. While Naruto had done so a lot of times, he doubted that Negi had done the same.

"Uhuhuh… That girl is always rowdy, but she's really a nice person." Shizuna intervened on Asuna's behalf, but Naruto just answered with a really sceptical look.

"Ah. So she has a split personality?" That earned a chuckle from the grown woman, which resulted in Naruto getting his hair ruffled, much to his embarrassment.

"Here, take the class roll. I'm sure you will be okay, Negi-kun… With Naruto-san's help, of course." The woman handed the younger boy a leather-clad thing and then pointed at a classroom through a set of glass windows. "Here we are. This is your class."

"Uh? Let me see…" Naruto turned in the pointed direction almost immediately as he began to observe. All girls, of course, and quite an assortment too. Tall, short, tanned, pale, blue, red, blonde hair, glasses, long ears… The last one sounded off. He shrugged it off and then turned to Negi with a big grin. It was time to tease him a little. "Oh, well… I guess it's time to make your entrance, Negi. You're a real teacher, now! No harassing your students though, alright?"

"N-Naruto-san!" Negi squeaked in outrage, much to Naruto's enjoyment. Then, he focused, trying to find his resolve. He had come that far from home, with such an important assignment… He wouldn't let down his sister nor his friends. He swallowed and gripped one of his hands. I… I can do this.

"Hmm…" Naruto noticed the younger boy's uneasiness, and he smiled. It reminded him of himself when he took the Chunin exams. A little scared, but really excited… Well, maybe more like when he discovered that Zabuza was still alive. "Hey, I'll introduce you. How does that sound?!"

"Eh?! N-Naruto-san!" Too late. Naruto was already opening to the classroom, cue all the girls falling in religious silence as the blonde stepped in… And the blackboard duster fell on his head. "N-Naruto-san!"

"Ara…" Shizuna immediately became uneasy because of that. Naruto just slowly removed the duster from his head and dropped it to the ground, his face frozen in a frown, not that he was visible because of the chalk and the hair.

"… A duster? Seriously?" He said, taking a step forward… And carelessly stepping into a tense piece of rope. "WAH!" All hell broke loose as he fell forward and a bucket full of water fell on top of his head. His momentum had not ended, though, and because of that he turned on himself just so that three suction caps arrows stuck themselves to his butt, and he finally slammed upside down, back first, into the teacher's desk.

"Ara ara…" Shizuna winced and murmured.

"N-NARUTO-SAN!" Negi was more vocal and a lot more shocked as almost the whole classroom laughed at the blonde's expenses while he laid down, head first on the ground, immobile.

"… Who was it?" The laughter died like a certain flower in a fire at the sound of Naruto's low voice. No one dared to utter a word as he slowly got back in a normal standing position and he turned to stare at the classroom, who seemed to shudder as one man… Well, girl, except for a few people. "I said. Who. Was. It."

Like Naruto had suddenly gotten Kenobi as a surname, lots of people immediately pointed at two small girls sitting side by side. Even if his head was still covered by the bucket… Ah, maybe Skywalker, instead of Kenobi. The voice sounded a bit metallic because of the particular headwear.

"H-HEY!"

"Y-YOU TRAITORS!"

"It was you…?" The two girls 'Iiik'ed together as Naruto brought his hands to the side of the bucket and slowly lifted it to reveal… "Damn, that was a great prank! Good job!" A grinning Naruto with soaked hair, much to the class' surprise. Asakura was certain she would have to write her first necrology. Negi and Shizuna were confused as well, but the older woman smiled fondly right after. "Seriously! Good job! One nitpick, though…"

Naruto crouched down near the tense rope, and lifted it a few centimetres. "It should be at this height! That way, I would have somersaulted over the desk and into the wall on the other end of the room!"

"R-Really?!" Fuuka's eyes began to sparkle, much to her twin sister's nervous laughing, and then began to take notes.

"Ehm… I'm sorry to interrupt…" Naruto let go of the rope and finally rubbed his hair to get the water out of them as a girl with long blonde hair got up from her seat. "But… Who might you be? We were told we would meet our new teacher, today…"

"Ah, that's not me! I don't even know what English is!" Naruto admitted, causing a few girls to chuckle, even if he didn't mean it as a joke.

"He is your new teacher." Shizuna finally cut in, pushing Negi inside the classroom, and shifting the attention on him. "Come on, introduce yourself, Negi-kun."

"Y-Yes." Negi swallowed again as he slowly walked up behind the teacher's desk and faced the classroom. "I… I… My name is Negi Springfield. From today onwards I'll be teaching mag-Uh… English at this school. I'll only be here for three terms, but it's nice to meet you all." Silence reigned in the room for a few seconds before part of it exploded.

"KYAAAAA! HE'S SO CUTE!" Naruto moved out of the way of the stampede, feeling sorry for Negi. While when he was young it had never happened to him for obvious reasons, it had seen it happen to Sasuke with his fangirls. He didn't laugh, that time, and he wasn't laughing now that they hugged, pulled and pinched and asked him lots of questions.

"Negi-kun has all the credentials, of course, but as you can see he's younger than you girls. Treat him nicely, ok?" Shizuna said, and the class replied with a collective 'OK'.

"Ehm, not that I want to be a bother, but shouldn't he like… Start his lesson or something?" Naruto said with a sweatdrop as the girls kept on pampering him and embarrassing him like hell.

"He's right." Naruto turned around as the blonde girl from before talked again, and surprisingly the whole classroom stopped and listened to her. "Everyone return to your seats. You're making trouble for sensei. Also…" The tall girl turned to Naruto again as he crossed his arms over his chest. "We still don't know who you are."

"Ah! Right!" Naruto instinctively snapped his fingers and then decided to show off a little. He picked up a piece of chalk and began to write his name in Kanji, in huge letters, on the blackboard, filling it completely, before turning to the class again with a huge grin on his face. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto! And my ambition is to be… The souban of all Japan!"

"… Heh?" The whole class stared at Naruto, including the ones who actually knew what a souban was. Naruto blinked.

"Uh… I don't know where that came from. What's a souban, by the way?" Naruto said, scratching the back of his head. "Uh, whatever. I'm Negi's friend and his guardian, we could say. So… No harassment, or I will show you why I was known as the King of Pranks back in my village!"

"F-Fuuka, will you stop it with the sparkling eyes? It's getting creepy…"

- BreakLine -

"Ohohoh… It's exactly as I thought. My, what were the chances?" Konoe Konoemon could see like a silly old man at first sight, but like many have said, there's more than meets the eye. If one could see the possessions he kept hidden from the world, they would be shocked. One of those was a big collection of photographs. Some taken by he himself, others sent by friends. The photograph he was holding in his hands was among the second group, and confirmed a suspicion. "It really seems destiny, isn't it, my old friend?"

- BreakLine -

"I guess my first lesson was a failure…"

"Things that happen… Especially when you have disturbed personalities in your class roll. No, seriously. She does at least have some self-control issues." Naruto commented as the two sat under the steps of a pretty big monument. The lesson had been a disaster indeed, since Asuna hadn't stopped antagonizing Negi for a single second. It had ended up in a big brawl between her and the class rep, which Naruto now knew was called Yukihiro Ayaka. "And the principal said that you have to sleep at her home?"

"Ahahahah… Naruto-san, do you have a spare bedroll?" Naruto rolled his eyes at Negi's poor attempt at humour, and then began to observe his surroundings.

"… You know, this school is enormous. It looks more like a small city…" Naruto said as he looked around. He couldn't finish counting the buildings and he could swear he had seen some kind of forest. "I wonder just how big is it… Heh. Maybe it has secret dungeons too… Hey, are you listening?"

"… Looks like she's got a whole stack of books. Isn't that dangerous?" The blonde blinked, not understanding what Negi was talking about till he saw what he was staring at. A girl carrying a pile of books high from her waist to her nose and a bit more walking down a set of stairs without a railing. And as on cue, she suddenly tripped and fell to the side. "I knew it!"

"Oh, damn it! Do you bring ill luck or something?!" Naruto was immediately on his feet, but he wasn't so fast that he could reach the girl before she fell to the ground, unless he used… He couldn't even finish of thinking before Negi acted on his own. The young boy sprinted forward and in an instant he was in Naruto's field of vision and under the girl, shielding her from the hard, hard ground. "… That…"

"Oow… A… Are you okay, Miyazaki-san?" Negi said to the momentarily stunned girl, who still hadn't recovered from the fall.

"That was awesome! How…" Then, Naruto noticed that they weren't alone. Another person was around. The worst person ever. "Oh, shit." Naruto didn't want Negi to become an ermine before he had managed to understand what the deal was with that card. Before he could reach them, though, the girl had disappeared with staff and kid. "Damn, she can run fast!"

"S-Sensei? A-Asuna-san?" That's when Naruto remembered that Nodoka had most probably still hurt herself. "Ah. Senpai…"

"Senpai?" Naruto stopped as he kneeled down near the girl. "Ah, for the school uniform, I bet. I'm not a student anywhere, you know…"

"S-Still…" Naruto shushed her by waving his hand.

"Later. Negi got you just in time, but… Does it hurt anywhere?" Naruto asked, observing the girl's legs, who had a few scrapes here and there.

"I-I don't think so… Ah!" The girl let out a yelp of pain as she tried to put her foot on the ground by bending her leg.

"Hmm… The ankle. Probably when you fell…" Naruto scratched the top of his nose in thought, then sighed. I'm worried about Negi, but I doubt the girl can hurt him, if what I've seen is what he can do with magic… "Well, heave-ho!"

"Ah! Aaaaah!" Nodoka flushed and squeaked out of embarrassment as Naruto lifted her up from the ground bridal style. "S-Senpai!"

"Can't have you walk on a twisted ankle, can I?" Naruto deadpanned with an admonishing stare, to which Nodoka promptly surrendered.

"B-But the books…" The girl's head turned towards the scattered tomes, and Naruto sighed.

"Alright, alright…"

"E-Eh?! K-KYAAA!" Naruto suddenly lifted her over his head and made her sit over his shoulder. "S-SENPAI! T-THIS…!"

"It's either this or leave all your pretty books here in the dirt." That stopped Nodoka's speech of outrage, but not her face to be filled with dangerous levels of blood. "Grab on tight on my head while I use my arms to carry these things." Damn, can't use my Kage Bunshin… Now I understand how annoying being an undercover civilian feels like. "You'll have to guide me to the infirmary, though. It's my first day here."

"B-B-B-B-But…" Nodoka blushed even more at the thought of someone seeing her in that situation, but Naruto's stare was a 'no' to any complaints. She just blushed even more and weakly nodded while crossing her hands under Naruto's chin. "T-The main building…"

"The big one over there? Alright."

- BreakLine -

"Nodoka… Next time you have to carry all these books, ask for help."

"I-I'm sorry to be such a bother…" Nodoka shyly replied as one of her classmates, Izumi Ako, bandaged her swollen leg. Meanwhile Naruto was sitting in another chair, going through a few pages of the book he was helping carry.

"Nonsense. I'm a nurse, right? Just try to be more careful." Ako smiled as she finished applying the bandage, before putting the roll back in the first aid kit and turning to Naruto. "But I must say, Uzumaki-san, carrying both her and the books all the way here by your own… Are you sure you're not sore or strained?"

"Pretty sure! I've carried lots of heavy things in my life with my shoulders and arms! There's no way something as light as Nodoka-chan could strain me!" Naruto answered with a grin, making the nurse giggle and the librarian flush again.

"Well, I have to go. Please rest a bit more and try to not put much weight on that leg, Nodoka." Ako smiled and left the two alone in the infirmary, much to Nodoka's even further embarrassment.

"Uhm… S-Senpai…" Nodoka gently grasped the sheets of the bed. "Thank you for your help…"

"Think nothing of it." Naruto grinned and then turned a page of the book he was reading. "So… You like books, Nodoka-chan?"

"Y-Yes. A lot…" Nodoka was grateful for the change of subject, even more glad that it was something she could talk about. "What about you, senpai?"

"Well… Not really. I mean… I've never found any appeal, in reading, you know?" Naruto answered truthfully, turning yet another page. Nodoka flinched and stopped talking. "Hmmm… I've always found it useless, to tell the truth…"

"Take that back!" It was Naruto's turn to be startled, this time, so much that he dropped the book he was holding. He raised his head back up and threw it back just to find himself staring at a pretty angry Nodoka. One of her eyes was even visible, and narrowed. Then, it downed on her what she had just done. "Ahhh! I-I'm sorry! I…"

"N-No! Not at all! I'm the one who should be sorry!" Naruto immediately stopped her from apologizing, having realized that he had just offended her. He lowered his head, his turn to be embarrassed. "It's just… I should have explained it better… I mean, I've always lived on a… Very limited budget, we can say. I didn't have that much to spend on books… So, I never given it a try, since it was 'useless'… As in, not a necessity."

"… Oh." Nodoka this time didn't feel embarrassed but a bit sad for her newest acquaintance. "But… Didn't they have a library, back at your home?"

"Ehm… Yes, but… Let's just say that they didn't want me there…" Naruto confessed. He wasn't welcome in much of Konoha when he was young, sadly.

"H-How… How horrible…" The librarian herself was almost outraged. That someone could deny entry to a library to anyone, to her, was one of the biggest crimes ever.

"I guess…" Naruto said and he recovered the book he had dropped and dusted it off before returning it to the pile on the nearby desk. "Well, but if you like it that much, I guess it isn't that bad, Nodoka-chan."

"I-It is not." Nodoka shook her head from side to side. "Reading is… I love reading. Books can give you so many emotions… And satisfactions." The girl was instinctively holding her hands on her chest, her fingers crossed together, like she was praying. "Whenever I read a good book, it's like I see a new world… Many other worlds that I can discover and explore along with the characters… Be it a scary world, a happy world, a sad world, it's always… Beautiful."

Naruto had stopped talking and had found himself staring at Nodoka as she talked, and he noticed how with each word she let out, her hair seemed to part till they revealed the eyes hidden underneath and her smile grew little by little. "… Nodoka-chan, you do realize that I'm not going to be able to say anything bad about books ever again, now?"

"R-Really? That's good." She said with a big smile, and Naruto found himself grinning back.

"Alright! Then, let's do this! Once the lessons are over, I'm going to help you bring these books to the library –that's where you were going, right- and you're going to help me choose a book to read! Deal?" Naruto extended his hand to her and Nodoka nodded, extending her own one and shaking it.

"Deal." Naruto liked the school already. If all the girls of Negi's class were like Nodoka, it would be really interesting to stay there for a while.

- BreakLine -

"So… You became friends?" That was probably the most surprising notice of the day. They had started the morning like cat and dog but they had ended up friendly. He was talking about Negi and Asuna, of course.

"Yes… She's not bad once you get to know her." Negi replied with a chuckle.

"Heh… Good for you…" Naruto then narrowed his eyes and grabbed the baby teacher's head, rubbing his right hand's knuckles on his scalp for good measure. "Especially because she discovered that you're a mage. If we go by the media of one a day, by the end of the year there will be 365 people aware of your secret, Negi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun…"

"Ahhhhh! Alright! Alright! I'll be more careful!" Hearing Negi's pleas for help, Konoka and Asuna turned around and laughed at the English boy's expenses. Then Konoka punched her own open right hand.

"Ah! Right!" Konoka's hands went for her handbag, out of which she produced a bundle of cloth wrapped in plastic that she then promptly offered to Naruto. "Naruto-san, this is from grandpa."

"Uh?" The ninja picked the bundle of plastic and observed it, only to find out, with surprise, that they were an exact copy of the clothes he was wearing, down to the shoes and the scarf, and he could see some kind of long coat along with them. "Heh?! Clothes?! But…"

"Grandpa said something like… 'It won't do for you to not have real clothes'. I didn't really get what he was talking about, though…" Konoka said, smiling as ever, oblivious to the expression of shock that the two partners in 'crime' shared, but Asuna wasn't.

"What's wrong with you two?" She asked, and Naruto recovered enough.

"N-Nothing! It's nothing!" He then turned around with Negi and brought the young teacher's head down along with his own, to whisper undisturbed. "W-W-What the hell?! He noticed?! That old man?!"

"I-I-I-I don't understand how… But, if he knew about my assignment, I bet that he's a mage too…" Negi tried to explain.

"But I'm a ninja, not a mage! How did he understand that I was transformed?! How does he know about ninjutsu?!" Naruto shouted while whispering, and that's actually quite hard, you know, mostly because it can hurt your throat.

"H-How should I know?!" Negi whispered-shouted back, a little miserable. "Well, even if he does know… Is it bad? What does it change?"

"What does…" Naruto blinked, thinking about Negi's words. "Uh… Nothing, actually."

"Naruto-saaaaan… You scared me for nothing!" Negi whined and the blonde laughed nervously, embarrassed.

"Ahahahah… Sorry, sorry. It's just… Unexpected. I'm still curious, actually." Naruto laughed a bit more before returning back to whisper mode. "By the way, today we've got separated, but nothing happened. So we can write off something happen with distance, right? Well, at least a few hundred meters… Ah!" Asuna had grabbed him by one of his ears, earning a yelp of pain from him.

"Alright, enough whispering. We've got to get back home and Negi has to come with us. It's getting late." She admonished them, and Naruto struggled to get free.

"Alright! Alright! Just let me go!" She complied and Naruto's hands immediately went to his now bit red ear. "That's some crazy strength you got there… I wonder who would win between you and Sakura-chan… Uh…" Then, Naruto remembered something. "Hey! Wait a minute! Where am I supposed to stay?! The old man didn't say anything about me! Do I really have to camp outside?! Damn, I even left my luggage in his office…"

"Oh, right! I almost forgot!" Konoka suddenly exclaimed, bringing a hand with the index finger stretched up, looking at the sky like what she had almost forgot was suddenly up in the sky above her. "Grandpa said that your luggage has already been brought to your apartment. You will be sharing it with some people who had spare space, he said."

"Ah… Good." Naruto calmed down and crossed his arms over his chest. "And where exactly is the place and who I will be sleeping with?"

- BreakLine -

"You'll be taking the bed above mine. Is that alright with you, Naruto-san?"

"… Yes." He couldn't say anything more, still a bit shocked with the sudden development of the last few minutes. After getting the address, he walked to the apartment he would be sharing, only to find out with dread that it was in the dormitory, since he, Negi, Asuna and Konoka hadn't gone different ways every time he had asked for directions. The dormitory of a girls only school.

Thinking about a joke, he nonetheless walked to the room and knocked, and yet he found out that it wasn't a joke. As the girls confirmed to him, each in her own way, that he was supposed to live with them for the 'time being', it finally downed on him that he was going to share the room with not one, not two but three girls, all from Negi's class.

"Yeeah! It's gonna be so much fun!" Naruto stopped himself from shrieking in terror as Shiina Sakurako launched herself at him, latching around his neck from behind.

"H-Hey! You're bothering Naruto-san, Shiina!" Kugimiya Madoka, the most level-headed of the three, admonished her friend for her behaviour, a blush on her face.

"Ah, come. It's not like she's cutting off his hair supply." Only to be negated any effect by the third occupant of the apartment, Kakizaki Misa, who just grinned and walked to Naruto as well, putting a head over his hair, much to his further embarrassment. "Wow, your hair is so soft Naruto-senpai! Heh, I like that! Naruto-senpai!"

"… Really?" Naruto shivered as Madoka seemed to have fallen in the trap as well and she gently grabbed a handful of hair as well. "Wah! It's softer than mine! It's amazing!"

"Hey! Me too!" Sakurako seized her own handful a bit harsher than what she intended to do, much to Naruto's chagrin. "Waaaaah! Naruto-san, what shampoo do you use?! Please, you've got to tell meeeeeee!"

"G-G-G-G-G-GOTTA GO TAKE A BATH!" With an incredible feat of speed, Naruto had gotten out of the three girls' grasp, grabbed what he needed from his backpack and flew out of the door before the three girls even realized they were grabbing air.

"Ah! I grasped too hard!" Or in Sakurako's case, a few strands of hair.

- BreakLine -

"Owowowow… What a grip!" Naruto whined as he rubbed his sore scalp, heading for the common bath that he had seen while walking up the stairs, since there was no way he was taking a shower in the apartment with the girls still inside. "Geez, this keeps getting more and more troublesome… Well, I bet that ero-sennin would be proud of me, actually… And he would 'encourage me' in peeking and things like that…"

Naruto gently leaned a hand on his face and shook his head. Thankfully it seemed that he hadn't gotten that part of Jiraiya's teaching yet. There was no way in hell he was becoming a pervert. Sakura would kill him. "… I wonder how's everyone doing in the village."

He opened the bath's door and leaned the basket on the ground as he started stripping. "I mean, it's been two years since I've last seen Konoha… Did they rebuild the village? I wonder if they've been training too… Well, as much as myself, actually." So focused was on thinking out loud and reminiscing about his hellish training sessions, that Naruto didn't notice that there were already spaces occupied with clothes in the dressing room.

"Growth spurt apart, the main reason I had to change my clothes was because they had gotten so ruined that repair was impossible. Not even Haku ripped them up like that, and he stabbed me with needles again and again. Jeez…" He wrapped the towel around his waist and emptied the content of the basked in a bucket, then he walked to the sliding door that separated the dressing room from the actual bath, opening it with a sharp tug. "I swear, sometimes I think he's exacting revenge because I don't like that stuff he writes…"

"What kind of stuff?"

"Smut. He calls it 'art', but it's just ecchi novels." Naruto sneered and slowly sat himself on a stool after grabbing a pot full of hot water and then emptying it on his head. "And incredibly, there's a lot of people buying those things! He's famous! I can't believe so many people in the world are perverts!"

"Hoihoihoi, you'd be surprised, Naruto-san!"

"Geez, I don't want to grow up, then." Naruto poured some shampoo on his head and started rubbing till his whole scalp was covered in foam. "Ah, damn. I forgot to fill the bucket again."

"Don't worry, sensei! I got it!"

"Ah." Naruto closed his eyes instinctively as more water washed over his body and cleaned him of the shampoo. "Hey, thanks… Wait." Naruto suddenly froze as he realized that he wasn't alone in the bathroom, and that he had heard at least three different voices answering to him. All the indications and clues he had gotten ever since arriving there should have make him understand what was going on, but still, he turned around.

More students from Negi's class, and while just three people had started talking to him, there were at least seven of them in the bath. His eyes fell on the ones nearest to him, the ones who had talked to him and helped him with the water. The one who had helped him with the water was the girl whose prank he had undergone that morning. The second girl who he had talked to… There was no way she was a middle school student. She was too high and too… Big. The first girl who had talked to him when he had entered the bathroom was wearing glasses while in the bath, and had long black hair. "… I…" He didn't observe the rest of the bath. He chose oblivion. He fainted and landed hard on his back.

"Ahhhhh! Sensei!" Narutaki Fuuka was immediately by the side of her 'sensei', as she had chose to address him.

"Ahhh… He is such a pure soul, de gozaru… He just saw a bit of flesh and he fainted…" Nagase Kaede chuckled while observing the situation.

"W-WILL YOU GET HIM OUT OF HERE, ALREADY?! OR AT LEAST HELP HIM!" Ayaka-Iincho was more vocal in her 'suggestions'.

"… I think one should perform BLS, in this case." Many heads turned to the form of Ayase Yue hearing those words. The blue haired girl sweatdropped at the sudden attention and display of ignorance.

"C-CPR! It's CPR…" Nodoka said, still hiding behind her towel and a rock from the moment Naruto had walked in, along with the class representative

"C-CPR?!" The blond class representative blushed at the thought and her eyes wandered to Naruto's form. Then she swallowed and voiced the question that was hanging in the air. "T-Then… W-Who… Who…"

"Who's going to administer it?" Evangeline Mc Dowell finished for her, and everyone's eyes but her own one turned to Naruto again.

[I

]To be continued…

In the next chapter…

After the bath's dis-adventure, Naruto suddenly realizes that Negi is probably a magnet for trouble, but he then discovers that he himself doesn't joke either. From love potions to bears to dodgeball matches. How will everything evolve? Stay tuned!