It wasn't very long ago that Kashizudoto had graduated the Academy at the top of his class. He had lots of respect there, from teachers and students alike, so he decided that if he was going to take a lousy D-rank mission, he might as well do it in a place where he's comfortable.

He was assigned to the class of Sensei Iwata Akimichi, a rather lazy, overweight chuunin. Kashizudoto was always perplexed at how the guy even became a teacher at the Academy, but he suspected that it was because Iwata would have been even lousier were he to be an active duty ninja. As such, the teacher gave full reign to Kashizudoto for the day.

"Being a shinobi, specifically a genin, is really awesome," said Kashizudoto, raising the lazy teacher's eyebrows upon hearing the word 'awesome' in the classroom, "But it comes with responsibilities." The teacher breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing Kashizudoto saying 'responsibilities', usually used in a dreary sense within the classroom.

"You are the military strength of the village: its defenders. Without you, Ichiraku's Ramen would have probably been robbed by now. And much worse," explained Kashizudoto, "To defeat this village's enemies, however, is easier said than done. The first step to defeating an enemy is to identify them. One of the shinobi's most powerful tools is deception, which can be countered with perception. Therefore, I'll be teaching you this first step: first hand. Everyone, take out three shuriken." The command alarmed the teacher as he realized that students could get seriously injured in the lesson, but Kashizudoto knew very well that the teacher was too lazy to do anything about it.

As they headed to the training grounds to begin the lesson, Kashizudoto started explaining, "Your class's mission is to lodge one shuriken into my body. I will never attack you during this lesson. You, however, must do everything in your capability to fulfill this goal. Don't hesitate; you must be willing to do anything to achieve this, even if it means killing me."

"Now, close your eyes and count to 120 as a group. Peekers will be tied up to that tree over there," said Kashizudoto to the class. As they faithfully started counting, expecting Kashizudoto simply to hide, he quickly grabbed a lone academy student who was astray from the group - cupping his palm over the student's mouth so he couldn't scream - and ran off into the trees with him, tying him up to a tree with a piece of cloth wrapped around the student's face so the he couldn't alert anyone.

"Transformation Technique," Kashizudoto whispered to himself as he used the jutsu to make him look exactly like the student, even mimicking the disgusting booger in his nose. He ran over to join the students in counting to 120 (from the tiny squeals the captured student let out while being grabbed, Kashizudoto could now mimic his voice).

"120!" they cried as they started their hunt for Kashizudoto, unaware that he was searching alongside them. A group of three students decided to go to the place that happened to be where the captured student was tied up, so Kashizudoto, still in the form of the captured student, joined up with them in their hunt. The four veered off into the trees, far enough so that they were out of the sight of the other students, eventually stumbling upon the captured student.

As the three real students looked in disbelief at a second copy of the same student, trying to make sense of the situation, Kashizudoto, still in the form of the captured student, tackled all three of them at the same time and tied them all together in a bundle. They all screamed, alerting the other students before Kashizudoto could suppress them, so Kashizudoto decided to use all four of them as bait after successfully tying a piece of cloth around each one's face to prevent them from telling the other students where he was hiding. He jumped up to a tree and hid, waiting for stray students so that he could capture them.

A lone academy student ran into the bait and was easily captured by Kashizudoto. Next, a two-man squad fell prey to the same. In a few minutes, a three-man squad fell into his trap as well. Kashizudoto had captured 10 out of 21 students so far.

He spotted a group of seven students from a mile away, as they were making a lot of noise. With various audio cues such as claps and fake screams from different directions, he disoriented the group. Once they were completely distracted, one by one, he individually grabbed each student and tied them up. Now he had 17 out of 21 of the students.

He waited in a tree for at least another hour. Then he started to get worried about the other four academy students; they could have gotten lost in the woods. As soon as he jumped out of his tree, he was surrounded on all four cardinal directions by incoming shuriken. This was the goal of the lesson: to allow them to outsmart him at his own game. He promptly jumped; however, his shoe was hit by a shuriken.

"Congratulations," said Kashizudoto to the four students as they came out from hiding as well as the seventeen that he'd caught, "Your class has succeeded in the mission." The same applied to Kashizudoto, who had succeeded in teaching the students valuable lessons about being a shinobi.

"That was UNFAIR," the student who was the first to be captured exclaimed, "You told us you WEREN'T going to attack!"

"As I said, deception is one of the most powerful skills in the shinobi's toolbox," said Kashizudoto, "You should be prepared for anything."

"My group had the most manpower by far," declared the student who was the de-facto leader of the group of seven, "How did we lose?"

"That's a good question," said Kashizudoto, "When you had squads of one, two, and three, you were undermanned and lost as a result, but when you had a squad of seven, you were easily spotted due to your group's size. But when there was a squad of four, they had the perfect balance of manpower and deceptive capability. This is why we use the four-man squad model in Konoha"

And with that, the students returned to the Academy with a new understanding of deception, perception, and squad sizes while Kashizudoto earned a little ryo and a new interpretation of the Will of Fire. He realized that the "King" is not the daimyo or the Hokage; it is the next generation of leaf shinobi, who Kashizudoto just gave valuable experience to.

WC: 1119
[Exit]

Mission Requirement: 600/600
Perception: E -> E-3: 450/450
Leftover WC: 69