Mizuki scowled as he watched the children in his classroom frantically running about in a blind panic getting nothing done. It was clear that he'd never live that incident that really wasn't an incident, but nobody believed him since he'd constantly fought with the person killed in the incident down. Even shinobi who had absolutely no idea what his name was - such as Hatake Kakashi - called him "team killer". About the only shinobi willing to work with him since he'd been accused of killing one of his own men on a mission was Iruka, which meant that he was stuck working at a dead-end job with little to no chance of promotion alongside Iruka who was strangely content to remain a Chunin forever. Not a fate that Mizuki who'd dreamed of rising in the ranks until his name was spoken on par with the likes of those of the Sannin had wanted for himself.

Mizuki was half tempted to gain control of his classroom and start the long-delayed lessons for the day, but he knew that engaging in that sort of power struggle with the Legendary Copy-Nin himself would not be worth the beatdown he'd receive in the end. Deciding that he may as well get things over with, and then take another, more serious look at the offer he'd received from Otogakure which had included an offer of being made a Jounin of said village later, Mizuki settled on a plan of action that would be the perfect revenge on the brats who participated in the ruination of his life and could potentially get the Jounin who'd ordered the party that the kids were freaking out over into trouble if he played his cards right. Course set, he whistled sharply, catching the attention of the students who had remained in the room.

"Alright kids!" Mizuki said to the children whose fear had abated greatly when they realized that he wasn't Kakashi returned to make them pay for not having a party ready for the Demon Brat. "Since I'm sure that, barring a few exceptions, none of you has the sort of money needed to pay for a birthday party for the Uzumaki, I'm going to introduce you to a concept that you don't usually get taught until after you've made Genin."

This caught every student's attention, and the whispers of what was sure to be Mizuki's new nickname of "puddles" considering the cruelty of children who delighted in kicking you while you were down and then kicking you some more just to be sure abruptly silenced.

"This lesson is called 'Creative Sourcing' and is an age old tactic for gathering supplies needed for a mission when you find yourself running short in the field." Mizuki said, before outlining a lesson that was supposed to be taught well away from the village, since "Creative Sourcing" within Konoha's walls was generally considered illegal and usually ran under the moniker of "theft" when it was done in-village.

Mizuki was reasonably certain that he'd be able to get away with teaching this lesson because it wasn't like the current village police force were all that competent, and most villagers had a soft spot for pint-sized ninjas in training whose names weren't Uzumaki Naruto. Those who had a soft spot for mini-ninjas included the idiots who ran the village's much reduced KMPF who'd likely let the brats off with a warning so as not to destroy their future careers over such a piddling matter as a bit of shoplifting. He never would've tried this particular lesson in a million years had the Uchiha still been in charge. The Uchiha may have been utter bastards, and responsible for the Kyuubi attack that had landed Mizuki with the Demon Brat as a student because Iruka had agreed to teach the boy, but they had been incredibly competent bastards whose sense of pride wouldn't have allowed them to let anybody get away from stealing in their village. Not even a bunch of Academy brats who were doing it as part of a "lesson".

After going over the basics of "Creative Sourcing", Mizuki led the children into the village proper and remained at the edge of the shopping district, loosely "supervising" in order to give the exercise something of an air of legitimacy, so he wouldn't be the one getting in trouble for the fact that his students were running loose during what should've been class time and stealing things. Everyone in the village seemed to be more on edge than usual today, quite possibly because the Demon Brat had finally revealed his true nature this morning and quit hiding behind that mask of cheerful innocence he presented to the world.

As Mizuki watched. One of his moronic students made a move that was too obvious and was grabbed by the retired shinobi shopkeeper who ran the stand that the brat had tried stealing from. The kid tried explaining that he was doing it for a lesson, and frantically pointed towards where Mizuki was standing and watching. Rather than coming up to Mizuki and giving him a piece of his mind about what he was teaching the future shinobi of Konoha like Mizuki half expected he would, the shopkeeper started dragging the kid away, saying "Here's the other half of the lesson, called 'What happens when you don't get away with it'."

Mizuki contemplated going after his clumsy student who was clearly a future washout considering he couldn't get away with stealing a single bottle of soda from a one-legged shopkeeper and hadn't thought to kick the man's remaining leg out from under him while the man hopped down the street with him in tow, but decided that he couldn't be arsed to do so. Iruka would probably have some choice words for him and his decision to abandon his student to whatever fate awaited him later, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Hey, the kid was learning, and wasn't that kinda the point of being a teacher in the first place?

"Oh, hey Ino's dad!" said a short-haired blond man with three whisker marks on each cheek and bright blue eyes who was wearing a white cloak with flames on it near the bottom hem over a black and orange shirt and orange trousers and black sandals the instant Inoichi turned up in the sewer-like place that served as Uzumaki Naruto's mindscaped.

"Naruto?" Inoichi asked, wondering at the mental image the boy held of himself which didn't look very much like he did on the outside. Which was strange considering that most people's mental projections of themselves resembled what they looked like in the mirror, which tended to be rather interesting when dealing with a colorblind individual.

Before the man who stood before him looking like a combination of the Yondaime and someone whose name he couldn't quite place at the moment with a touch of Senju Hashirama thrown in could reply, a giant fox that looked like it was half the size of the village walked up out of the depths of the Uzumaki boy's mind and said "You want me to eat this one like I did the others?". Had Inoichi had a body at that moment, he would've pissed and shit himself in that moment.

"You...What?!" The man who might've been Naruto said, looking first confused then angry and disappointed like a parent who had caught their child seriously misbehaving.

"Kurama! Turn them loose right now!" The man yelled an instant later, looking as if he hadn't once considered the possibility that the "others", most likely several other Yamanaka who had gotten the same idea he had, might be dead.

"Fine. Fine." The Kyuubi said, trying to sound as if he hadn't cared either way whether the Yamanaka he'd eaten had lived or died, and that he hadn't cared the least bit about the chastisement he'd received from the possible Uzumaki Naruto. There was a hint of something of the expression a dog had when he was caught misbehaving about the Kyuubi's eyes though.

A second later, the Kyuubi popped a squat and a bunch of screaming Yamanaka, including one Inoichi hadn't seen in years since the young boy who was three years older than his daughter had been recruited by Danzo, came out of the opposite end of the Kyuubi from whence they'd entered.

"Kurama!" The blond man who was now facing the Kyuubi, allowing Inoichi to see that the Kanji for Nanadaime Hokage had been stitched onto the back of his cloak the way that the Yondaime'd had Yondaime Hokage stitched onto his growled at the Nine-Tailed Fox, not in the least bit intimidated by the creature.

"What?" the Kyuubi asked a little too innocently.

"Did you just take a shit in my mind?!" The man yelled at the fox, sounding angry, slightly incredulous, and utterly disgusted at the same time.

"Wouldn't be the first time." the Kyuubi said a little too breezily, as if he was trying to slip something past the man that he knew would upset him. "Thanks to that bastard Obito making me eat a building, I was literally shitting bricks for over a month."

The man that Inoichi was starting to suspect was an amalgam of Naruto and everyone else who'd been involved in sealing the Kyuubi away at some point, including Senju Hashirama himself who'd helped make the Kyuubi disappear at the Valley of the End, turned and stormed over to where a pair of massive gates stood wide open, barring nothing from entering or exiting the massive chamber beyond. After stepping into the massive chamber that was undoubtedly meant to keep the Kyuubi contained, the man made his way across into the darkness beyond the shadowy entryway.

"Holy...!" the man yelled before exclaiming. "Hey! There's a person in here!...How the hell is he even still alive?!"

"You don't want to know." the Kyuubi rumbled.

Based on the way the Kyuubi had said it, Inoichi had the strongest feeling that he didn't. He really didn't.

The shinobi who had gathered around the demon possessed boy who had attacked one of his Academy Instructors hadn't known what to expect when they'd heard the first cries about the Kyuubi being loose which had sent them running and then cautiously following a one-sided running battle between the "Demon Brat" and one Umino Iruka. What had actually happened rather than what the shinobi had feared would happen turned out to be rather anticlimactic in the end.

After Umino Iruka had been beaten up a bit before being treed in the woods surrounding the village, the Kyuubi Chakra that had surrounded the Uzumaki boy had dissipated, and the boy who looked like he'd been burned from head to toe had collapsed, falling to the forest floor where his unnatural healing had set in, making burns that would've scarred anyone else for life vanish as if they'd never been.

With the screaming of a number of Yamanaka who'd bravely gone in to see if the Kyuubi had taken over and the appearance of a somewhat emaciated naked man who looked suspiciously like a Uchiha who had hobbled off into the woods screaming "Freedom!", the show was over.

As the crowd who'd been led to expect a Kyuubi attack and a massive battle to go with it began to grow restless, the Sandaime appeared, picked up an unresisting Uzumaki Naruto who was grumbling about someone named Kurama leaving massive piles of shit everywhere, and left, signaling that even the end-credits aftershow had ended.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed at what was obviously a false alarm considering the village wasn't half destroyed and there wasn't blood and bodies everywhere, the crowd, barring those who were helping Umino Iruka out of the tree and carrying off the traumatized Yamanaka who'd soiled themselves at some point, turned and went back to what they'd been doing before the cry had gone up.

Uchiha Sasuke ghosted through the private back area of the restaurant, headed to where a party was oddly enough being set up despite the fact that this wasn't a day for parties. At least three of his fellow classmates had been caught "appropriating" supplies, and the boy who stood at the top of his class was determined not to be. After all, if he could be caught by some measly civilians, there was no way he'd be able to equal and then best That Man who'd never be caught by a shopkeeper.

It was as the catering staff disappeared that he spotted it. The absolute perfect cake. Sure, it said "Happy Retirement", but he wasn't one to quibble over such minor points when the frosting was the same color of orange as the outfit that useless classmate who seemed to think he was his rival for some strange reason wore. Next to the cake was one of those cake and pie servers and more than enough forks for the entire class.

Taking out a storage scroll which he'd purchased at the start of the practical part of the lesson so he wouldn't be overladen with party supplies when a quick getaway was needed, Sasuke used what he'd learned in the brief lesson on sealing the class had the month before and through his own research to quickly stash the supplies he needed for the party the crazy man who had scared him worse than anyone in recent memory had done and brought up flashbacks of That Man had demanded.

A minute later, he was out the window and gone.

"How's that for irony." a man who looked to be entering late middle-age said as he watched the Uchiha boy casually walk up the street so as to not draw too much attention to himself. "I finally decide to go straight and get out of the burglary business for good, and on the day of my retirement, the son of the man who arrested me and got me put away for five years drops by and steals the cake and half the silverware."