Disclaimer: All mentioned fandoms don't belong to me. (Also, as this progresses, you might want to prepare your sanity for fandomstuck or fandombound or whatever you call it. Basically, lots of fandoms meeting. And their personifications.)

"Fox!" The voice of the Hokage rang throughout the village, causing a poor genin team to lose Tora. Again. The shout resounded through Konoha, making it's way down to the underground ANBU headquarters. "Oh, crap…" A rather short ANBU in with a snarling fox painted onto her mask flinched slightly, suddenly appearing to have Henged into the form of a red fox kit. She dived under a couch just as the door was thrown open, bouncing off the wall and leaving a sizable dent.

"Please, Tsunade-sama, I'm sure she didn't mean whatever she did this time…" The deep voice of a Weasel-masked ANBU sounded after the large breasted blonde that had entered the room. "I don't care, Weasel, I want to know why the Hokage Monument has been covered in paint and why I have a mustache and a goatee, the Third has a clown face, the First has purple eyes and a scarf, the Second has a pony tail on him now, the word 'Rochu' stretching between the two, and then the Fourth has some wacky coloring to make him look like Kakashi."

Tsunade reached under the light brown couch and felt her hand connect with something soft that quickly pulled away. Unfortunately, not fast enough, as Tsunade's fingers clenched around what was revealed to be Fox's hind leg as the transformed ANBU tried desperately to remain under the couch where she was, presumably, safe from the fifth Hokage's wrath. Well, she wasn't, but it was nice to pretend there was at least one place you were safe from the anger of someone you pissed off.

"Fox, get back in your normal form, I promise I won't do much to you for painting all over the monument." The little fox nodded before wiggling around. Tsunade dropped the creature that transformed back into the masked teenager on the descent. Crimson hair tied off in twin ponytails off the side of her head reached down to her waist. A navy blue t-shirt with the ANBU chest and arm guards along with durable black pants were her clothing choices. Black ninja shoes completed the look, and cerulean eyes looked out from behind the mask.

"Who said it was me?" The voice was incredibly young, around 13 at the youngest. "Well let's think," said a tall man in the corner with a wolf mask as he closed the book he had been reading. "We're pretty sure normal pre-teens don't have enough ninja skills to one, not be seen on a national monument that at least fifty people are looking at at all times, and two, paint all over it in broad daylight without being noticed, again, with at least fifty people as witnesses." Fox shrugged. "And if it wasn't me?" The one with the Weasel mask finally entered the conversation. "We'd make you clean it up anyways." Fox glared at Weasel, who she could tell, under the mask, had a face-splitting grin. She just knew the jerk was enjoying himself.

"Fine, I painted the monument. I was bored! I'll go clean it up now..." As she walked towards the door, Tsunade grabbed Fox's arm. "Clean it all up quickly, then come to my office. I have a mission for you three." The fifth Hokage released the young ANBU's arm, nodding to Weasel and Wolf as she too made her exit. "If she's not done by six tonight, go check on her. Help her finish if it's not at least half done by then." Tsunade shunshined out of the room in a puff of smoke. Weasel and Wolf looked at each other. "Want to go watch?" Weasel asked. "Sure." And they were gone to watch the youngest member of their team scrub paint off of the Hokage Monument for the next hour, shouting occasional 'encouragement' such as, "you missed a patch of red there!" or, "don't forget to wash behind the ears!" Yeah, they enjoyed it a bit too much. However, they stopped their teasing and decided to help after they both had to dodge the volley of five kunai each that was launched at them from around the Fourth Hokage's jawline.

With three ANBU working with steel wool brushes of a design that were more commonly seen for horse brushes, the job was finished much faster than it would have been normally. Two and a half hours after she had assigned the ANBU triplet the task, said trio was standing in Tsunade's office saluting their leader. "What's the mission, Tsunade-sama?" Wolf asked as the unofficial leader of the group. Tsunade laced her fingers together and rested her chin on the platform they made. "Remove your masks first." The three did so in close to synchronisation. Naruto Uzumaki, Itachi Uchiha, and Kakashi Hatake stood at attention in front of Tsunade, who allowed herself a small smile. These three had come so far, and she was happy to have watched them grow while giving them small pushes in the right direction at times. Even if that 'small push' sometimes meant punching one of them halfway to Suna, but oh well.

"Mission details, Tsunade-baa-chan?" Naruto asked with a small smirk. Tsunade reached across the desk and gave the girl a flick between the eyes, not hard enough to have to get the wall fixed (again) but enough to make her stumble back a few feet. "Don't call me that, brat. The mission is guard detail for a Harry Potter." She pulled a folder out of one of the many drawers on the desk, and placed a photo on the table. Unruly black hair, emerald green eyes, square glasses, a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. He looked like a nerd.

"Recently, from where this boy is from, there's been an escape from the most guarded prison in the boy's country, called 'England.' It has been described by some who were released because of false imprisonment as hell on earth. The escapee was put in the prison, called 'Azkaban' for killing thirteen people with a single technique, also handing over three people to a supposed 'dark lord.' He was labeled as extremely dangerous by the government of England, and that if you see him, you should call for law enforcement immediately and flee. Supposedly, he's gone absolutely insane, as the guards reported him muttering 'he's at Hogwarts, he's at Hogwarts,' over and over in the weeks leading up to his escape. He is assumed to be after Harry Potter, as the three people he turned over to the Dark Lord were Lily Potter nee Evans, James Potter, and Harry is their son. The Dark Lord killed the elder Potters, but couldn't kill the son, who at the time was simply a year old. Instead, the technique backfired, killing the Dark Lord. The escapee's name is Sirius Black." Another picture was laid down on the table, this one of a black haired man that looked to be laughing insanely on the still picture. Grey eyes were lit with the light of beginning insanity, someone who was starting to crack under pressure. Unfortunately, the ninja in the room knew that look well.

"Kakashi and Itachi will be acting as guards and formally introduced as such. Naruto, you will be going in as a student, a third year. Professor Mcgonagall said she will help you get up to the level of the rest of the third years. You will be an exchange student from 'Japan.' Be careful how you answer any questions, as there could be someone there who looks into everything. Curiosity killed the cat, but in this case, it's someone else's curiosity and we're the cats. Potter has two main friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Weasley has three older brothers attending the school by the names of Percy, George, and Fred, and a younger sister in second year, Ginny. Granger is at the top of the class and an only child. She seems to regard Weasley and Potter as her older siblings. In return, the two seem to see her as a younger sibling, though not by much, all having been born within the same six months."

Tsunade dropped a few more pictures onto the desk on top of Black's photo. The first one was of three children, maybe twelve years old. One was Potter, the other two were a tall, red headed boy and a girl with bushy brown hair. All three were smiling, even if Potter did look a little pale.

The second picture was of a large group of redheads, all of them smiling widely in front of some pyramids. They could see the red head from the previous picture, presumably Weasley, standing in the middle with a grin covering his entire face. A small white rat was perched on his shoulder, and a smaller girl stood to his left, possibly Ginny. On his right were identical redheads, and in between the two identicals stood a tall boy with a strange pin on his hat. Two males stood on the far edges of the family, one was fairly muscled with scars and the other was rather lanky like the rest of the family with glasses perched on the edge of his nose. In the middle, behind Ron, stood a short, round woman and a tall redheaded man.

The third picture was of Granger, though she appeared younger than she should be now. Ten, if the ninja had to guess. She wore a happy smile, slightly larger than average front teeth showing proudly. On her right was a woman that looked similar to her, but with lighter hair and green eyes, probably Mrs. Granger. On the girl's left was a middle-aged man of average height, with chocolate brown eyes not unlike those of Iruka Umino and round glasses.

The fourth picture wasn't in very good quality, but they could make out a fair amount of the stuff. A bright red train was on a platform, steam billowing out of the spout on the engine. Children in a mixed array of sweaters, t shirts, jeans, shorts, khakis, and long black robes were moving around, obviously trying to get on the train. A sign in the background proclaimed this station proclaimed this to be 'Platform 9 3/4.' The strangest thing about this picture was that the students moving around and trying to get onto the train, were actually moving and trying to get onto the train.

The ninja stared at the fourth photo. Tsunade cleared her throat and the trio looked up. Four black eyes and two blue stared at her. "This is the kind of world you will be entering. Moving and talking pictures, strange animals, magic, the stuff of our fairy tales. I don't know much, therefore I can't explain it very easily. The client will be here tomorrow to give us some more in-depth details. You have one week to explore the school before term starts and your mission officially begins. You will be there for ten months. Dismissed."

The trio bowed before using a shunshin to leave the room. Kakashi went to his apartment and grabbed a backpack and three sealing scrolls. Using a brush, he quickly labeled one scroll for weapons, another for clothes, and the last he carefully and neatly painted the word 'Miscellaneous' on. Thus, he stored five changes of clothes, one hundred fifty kunai, fifty five shuriken, and enough senbon to last Konoha Hospital a year and a half. A few books, a small amount of extra money Kakashi had lying on the kitchen table, and spare/replacement pieces for his ANBU armor and arm guards went in the third scroll. All the scrolls went into the backpack, and Kakashi pulled out 'Assassination Tactics; Then and Now' by an author in Kiri to read until somebody came calling for him.

Itachi went to the small cabin he held ownership of in the woods just outside Konoha. He had lived here ever since he had to decimate the rest of his clan. He pulled a black gym bag out of the closet and placed it on the bed. In it, he put in seven pairs of clothes and grabbed a scroll with the word 'Materials' on it in his fine, smooth writing. In the scroll were kunai, shuriken, and senbon about the same number as Kakashi. Itachi also had in the scroll, a few loops of ninja wire five meters each, five fuma shuriken, and care materials for his katana. That went into the bag as well. The katana in question was wrapped in a purple cloth, tied on both ends with a length of string, and placed along the side of the gym bag. Deeming himself set for a year, Itachi opened a drawer on the bedside table and withdrew a sketch book. After pondering for a second, he set to drawing the scene from the top of the Hokage Monument from memory. As the sun outside began to brush the top of the wall surrounding Konoha, Itachi placed the book back in the drawer and settled in for a good night's rest.

Meanwhile, Naruto went to her Apartment on the far East side of the village. On her way past the table, she grabbed the discarded black and blue messenger bag that lay there. In it, she placed a scroll containing six outfits and extra socks, a second that was nearly identical to Itachi's in content but with a few more loops of ninja wire. Her's was conductive though, made to be used in conjunction with her teammates. Two finely crafted, seventeen centimeter, chakra conducting blades were wrapped in a powder blue cloth and placed delicately in a zipper pocket on the inside of the bag. A notebook joined them, with three black notebook was a gift from Tsunade on her birthday last year. In it so far were a few random doodles, a few phrases, but not much more.

Tomorrow would be good.

Tomorrow will bring a new client.

Tomorrow will bring a new mission.

Tomorrow will bring a new day.

(Republished on 04-28-2016)