[Konohagakure — Hokage Tower Plaza, November 3rd, 5:52 PM]
The plaza was the fullest it had been for any ranking. Every off-duty shinobi in the village had appeared without coordination and stood together with the particular ease of people sharing a joke they all already know the punchline to but are here for the telling anyway.
The scroll opened with what could only be described as enthusiasm.
"Most Likely to Cause a Scene. Ranked by the documented pattern of creating significant public moments that were not officially sanctioned, approved, expected, or in some cases physically possible. The scroll has thoroughly enjoyed compiling this category."
Naruto: IT SAID IT ENJOYED IT.
Tobirama: That is concerning.
Hashirama: That is WONDERFUL.
Madara: The scroll is developing opinions. I want to be on the record as having found this suspicious from the beginning.
TENTH PLACE.
The portrait formed. Wild curly hair. A grin so wide it was almost a problem. Two perfectly intact eyes catching the torchlight.
UCHIHA SHISUI.
The plaza looked at the portrait. The plaza looked at Shisui, who was standing near the eastern wall. The plaza looked back at the portrait. The resemblance was perfect, which was expected, because it was a portrait.
"Uchiha Shisui. Ranked tenth for the scene caused at the Konoha Jonin Entrance Exam of his year, during which he body-flickered forty-three times in a twelve-second span to avoid being assigned a three-month administrative posting, accidentally appeared in seven different rooms simultaneously, and created a paper trail so confusing that the records division has never fully resolved which Shisui filed which report."
Shisui: In my defense —
Itachi: There is no defense.
Shisui: ITACHI.
Itachi: There is genuinely no defense. I was there.
Shisui: I was NINETEEN.
Itachi: You were nineteen and fully capable of better decisions.
Shisui: The administrative posting was THREE MONTHS.
Itachi: Which you then received anyway, plus a written reprimand.
Shisui: ...Details.
NINTH PLACE. EIGHTH. SEVENTH.
The ranking moved with the scroll's characteristic efficiency, each placement landing with the specific combination of accuracy and delight that the scene-causing category seemed to produce in excess. An Iwa chunin who had once caused an international incident by being too loud in a library. A Kumo jonin who had settled a territorial dispute through competitive eating. A Mist ambassador who had arrived at a summit in the wrong village and been too proud to admit it for four hours.
Each one made the crowd react differently. Each reaction fed into the next, the way good comedy fed itself — every laugh making the next one easier.
SIXTH PLACE.
MIGHT GUY.
The plaza broke.
Not metaphorically. People physically moved — stepping back from the force of the crowd's reaction, which was not quite a laugh and not quite a roar but was the specific sound of a crowd of shinobi who had been through a very hard month finding the exact pressure valve they needed.
"Might Guy. Ranked sixth for the documented pattern of creating emotionally significant scenes in formally inappropriate contexts, including: two funeral processions, one Kage Summit, four A-rank mission debriefs, and the Konoha Market Festival of three years ago, during which he performed a motivational speech for a small child who had dropped his rice ball that lasted eleven minutes and caused traffic to stop in four directions."
Guy: YOSH!! SIXTH PLACE!! THE FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHTLY EVEN IN RANKING!!
Lee: GUY-SENSEI!! I VOTED FOR YOU MENTALLY!!
Guy: LEE!! YOUR MENTAL VOTE IS WORTH MORE THAN ANY PHYSICAL BALLOT!!
Kakashi: Why are you two shouting in the chat when you're standing six feet from each other.
Guy: RIVAL!! THE SCENE DEMANDS IT!!
Kakashi: I —
Kakashi: ...Yes. Fine. The scene demands it.
Tenten: I cannot believe I trained under this man for three years and I am only ranking one position above him on the Most Likely to Cause a Scene list.
Neji: You ranked one position above him?
Tenten: FIFTH PLACE NEJI.
Neji: ...I'm going to need a moment.
FIFTH PLACE had been Tenten, for an incident at the Konoha Weapons Exhibition involving a display of rare antique projectiles, a malfunctioning storage scroll, and what the citation described as "an outcome that required three separate repair crews and one diplomatic letter of apology to the Land of Iron."
Tenten had received the ranking with the expression of someone who was genuinely proud but had decided they would not be admitting this publicly.
FOURTH PLACE.
KILLER BEE.
The Cloud delegation erupted. A himself put his hands over his eyes in the specific posture of a man revisiting several years of personal suffering.
"Killer Bee. Ranked fourth for the consistent, documented, decades-long pattern of causing scenes specifically by being sincere in contexts where sincerity was not expected, including: two peace summits, one Biju extraction attempt, seventeen mission debriefs, and every single interaction he has ever had with the administrative wing of the Hidden Cloud."
Bee: YO. FOURTH IS WHERE IT'S AT. BEE'S THE SCENE, UNDERSTAND THAT.
A: BEE.
Bee: LORD RAIKAGE.
A: You once caused a diplomatic scene by rapping at a funeral.
Bee: It was a MEMORIAL.
A: SAME THING.
Bee: The man LOVED rap, A, I found out AFTER, I can't take it BACK —
A: BEE.
Bee: I paid my respects.
A: IN VERSE.
Bee: RHYMING VERSE. RESPECTFUL VERSE.
Naruto was laughing — the open, unguarded laugh that was his best and most honest feature. Beside him, Sakura was holding her side. Sasuke was looking at a point slightly above the scroll with the expression he had developed specifically for moments when he was amused and had decided not to be seen being amused.
His mouth was doing the thing though.
"Sasuke," Naruto said.
"What."
"You're smiling."
"I'm looking at the scroll."
"You're smiling while looking at the scroll."
"The scroll is in a fixed position. My face is also in a fixed position."
"Your fixed-position face is smiling."
Sasuke looked directly at the scroll. "Third place," he said. "Pay attention."
THIRD PLACE.
TSUNADE.
The crowd's reaction was immediate. Several jonin near the front produced the expressions of people who had been waiting for this specific thing for several weeks.
Tsunade, reading the placement from the Hokage tower balcony where she had retreated from the plaza forty minutes ago on the grounds of "administrative necessity" that everyone understood to mean "plausible deniability," said a word that was not appropriate for the scroll to repeat.
"Tsunade Senju. Ranked third for a career of scenes too numerous to enumerate, highlighted by: the destruction of two gambling establishments in self-defense, one peace summit incident involving sake and a projection technique that the scroll will not describe in detail, and the scene caused on the day she accepted the Hokage position, during which she argued with the scroll announcing her appointment for eleven minutes and lost."
Shizune: Tsunade-sama.
Tsunade: Don't.
Shizune: The scroll says you argued with a scroll.
Tsunade: It was a DIFFERENT scroll.
Shizune: That's somehow worse.
Tsunade: I need a drink.
Shizune: You have a drink.
Tsunade: I need a different drink. A stronger drink. A drink that was not present for this conversation.
Jiraiya: HIME. THIRD PLACE.
Tsunade: JIRAIYA I SWEAR —
Jiraiya: TOP THREE ON THE SCENE-CAUSING RANKING —
Tsunade: THE NEXT WORD YOU TYPE IS THE LAST WORD YOU TYPE —
Jiraiya: CONGRATULATIONS —
The plaza heard Tsunade's response from three buildings away. Several windows closed in the surrounding streets.
Hashirama: HAHAHA!! LITTLE TSUNADE!! I TAUGHT HER WELL!!
Mito: Hashirama. You did not teach her that.
Hashirama: The spirit of that! The general energy!
Mito: ...Sit down, dear.
SECOND PLACE.
UZUMAKI NARUTO.
Naruto made a sound.
It was not a word. It was not a celebration. It was the specific sound of someone who had been entirely confident about first place receiving information that required rapid recalibration.
"Uzumaki Naruto. Ranked second for the comprehensive and ongoing pattern of causing scenes across every category — emotional, political, physical, meteorological, and at least two that required new administrative classifications. The scroll notes that the subject does not cause scenes intentionally. He causes them by being himself in proximity to situations, which is, the scroll argues, the purest form of scene-causing."
Naruto: SECOND.
Naruto: WHO'S FIRST.
Naruto: WHO ON EARTH IS FIRST.
Naruto: IS IT MADARA.
Madara: It is not me.
Naruto: HOW DO YOU KNOW.
Madara: Because I cause events. Not scenes. There is a difference.
Naruto: THAT'S THE SAME THING.
Madara: It is categorically not.
FIRST PLACE.
The portrait formed.
White hair. A man's face, lined from decades of outdoors living and indoor late nights and every emotion in between. A red robe. A scroll strapped to a back that had carried a great deal in its time.
JIRAIYA.
Jiraiya did not type in the chat for four seconds.
Four seconds was, for Jiraiya, the equivalent of a fainting spell.
"Jiraiya. Ranked first for a career that is, the scroll argues, one continuous scene with brief administrative interruptions. Highlights include, but are not limited to: fourteen villages with outstanding requests for comment on specific incidents, one island nation that has named a holiday after a technique he performed there by accident, a research institution that has three of his visits indexed in its safety protocols, and the ongoing situation with the Icha Icha series, which the scroll notes has caused more scenes in more contexts than any single literary work in the past forty years."
Jiraiya: ...
Jiraiya: I would like to formally dispute —
Naruto: FIRST PLACE!! JIRAIYA-SAMA IS FIRST PLACE!!
Sakura: He absolutely is.
Sasuke: Unambiguously.
Jiraiya: I am a serious shinobi and a serious author and —
Tsunade: JIRAIYA.
Jiraiya: What.
Tsunade: First place. Own it.
A pause.
Jiraiya: ...
Jiraiya: First place.
Jiraiya: Fine.
Jiraiya: FINE. FIRST PLACE. TOP OF THE SCENE-CAUSING RANKING. I ACCEPT THIS HONOR.
Naruto: THERE HE IS.
Jiraiya: I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE SCROLL, MY EDITOR, AND EVERY VILLAGE THAT HAS ASKED ME NOT TO RETURN.
The plaza erupted. Full, clean, unambiguous eruption — the kind that happened when everyone had been holding laughter in reserve for two weeks and found the correct place to put it all.
Naruto was laughing so hard he sat down on the stone tile. Sakura crouched beside him and was also laughing. Sasuke was looking at the sky with both corners of his mouth doing the thing.
"Reward, by ranking protocol," the scroll said, with what was absolutely amusement, "one opportunity to cause one officially sanctioned scene of the recipient's choosing, at a time and location of the recipient's discretion, with full village administrative support. The scroll notes that this is, technically, giving Jiraiya permission to do what he was going to do anyway. But now it's official."
Jiraiya: ...
Jiraiya: I know exactly what I'm going to use this for.
Tsunade: That is terrifying.
Jiraiya: It's perfectly reasonable.
Tsunade: Those words from you are more terrifying than the first set.
Jiraiya: Hime. Trust me.
Tsunade: I actively choose not to.
Jiraiya: Too late. Already planned.
Naruto, still on the plaza tile, looked up at the scroll as the category closed and the gold dimmed toward resting state. He thought about the past three days — Kabuto's protocol finishing, Jiraiya's decision, the two hard weeks before that.
The scroll had known. It had given them the heavy categories and then, when the village needed to breathe, it had given them this.
He thought: it really is sentient. Tobirama's right to be suspicious. I'm right to be grateful.
"Hey," Sakura said, looking down at him. "You're second. Not first."
"I know."
"That's got to sting."
"It does not sting," Naruto said. "I am at peace with being second on the scene-causing ranking."
Sasuke: "You're typing about it right now."
"I TYPE QUICKLY IS ALL—"
"You've been typing continuously since second place was announced."
"I PROCESS THROUGH COMMUNICATION—"
Sakura helped him up. The plaza was loud around them, the good loud, the loud that meant something had released. The chestnut vendor had run out again and was gesturing at the empty cart with both hands in what had become his signature expression.
The scroll floated above it all, warm and gold, resting.
Not done. The story was not done. But tonight the village had laughed, properly, together, and that was its own kind of necessary.
Jiraiya walked out of the plaza with the specific stride of a man who had received official permission for something and was already planning it down to the last detail.
Nobody asked what he was planning.
Everyone was going to find out.
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