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Sarutobi Hiruzen was tired. He was an old man and he’d never intended to do this job for so long. The fact that Gatou, the rising tension in Wave, and an A-ranked missing nin had slipped his notice had only confirmed it. He was getting too old for this.
He took up the hat after Minato’s death in the hopes of stabilizing Konoha in the tumultuous time after the Kyuubi Attack. He’d intended to pass it along to a worthy successor, maybe even Kakashi, after a few years. But Kakashi had refused the position point blank. He’d even threatened to defect to Suna.
Shikaku had refused. Inoichi had refused. Chouza had refused. Hyuuga Hiashi had refused. The only people willing to be in a mile of the position were Uchiha Fugaku and Danzo and both were pretty much traitors.
Sarutobi had briefly considered Itachi, as young as he was, but all his dreams came crashing down in the aftermath of one bloody night.
It had come to the point where his entire jounin corps disappeared the moment they heard the word ‘Godaime’. But Sarutobi was tired. He was an old man and he wanted to enjoy the rest of his life quietly, at home with his family and his adorable grandson.
And since he wasn’t getting that, he could at least take a vacation.
“I’m leaving,” he informed his secretary, a chuunin by the name Arakiwa Yui, “I’m utterly fed up with Konoha shinobi.”
Yui was a slightly nervous young woman who couldn’t really contemplate her Hokage leaving for an entire week to the outskirts of Fire Country. “But who will be interim Hokage when you’re gone?” she asked timidly, eyeing the rather large pile of paperwork on the Hokage’s desk.
“I don’t care,” was the Sandaime’s rather brusque response, “I’ll throw the hat at the next person who walks through that door.”
This caused Yui to scurry out of said door and Sarutobi sighed as it closed behind her. Most of the jounin had gotten wind, one way or another, that Sarutobi was planning to take a week-long vacation. They had all successfully avoided the Hokage Tower all morning by asking friends, relatives, and – in the case of certain lazy teachers – students to get their missions for them.
Well, Sarutobi was not having it. He was leaving this tower one way or another and he didn’t care who he left Konoha with. He was fed up. Hell, he didn’t even mind Danzo.
It would probably be Danzo, given that his network of spies had probably already informed him of Sarutobi’s ultimatum. Any minute now, the old geezer would come shuffling through the door, hungry eyes on the Hokage’s hat.
But when the door swung open, a minute later, it was to an energetic grin and a cheerful greeting. “Hey, Jiji!” Naruto said brightly as he and his teammates entered the office, “It’s a nice morning, isn’t it?”
Sarutobi blinked. He had vowed to give the hat to the first person who walked through the door, but he’d been thinking of a chuunin. Like Iruka or someone. Not a trio of genin barely out of the Academy.
“Hey, Jiji!” Naruto said again, frowning, “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Naruto,” Sarutobi smiled, “And how are you on this fine day!”
“Great!” Naruto flashed him a thumbs up, “Team Seven reporting for duty!”
What. What. Surely Naruto couldn’t possibly have heard about his ultimatum before Danzo?
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“You know, the mission?” Naruto asked, before turning to his female teammate, “What was it again?”
The pink-haired girl rolled her eyes, scowled, and dutifully recited, “D-rank mission to run personal errands for Hokage-sama.”
“Yeah, that was it!” Naruto beamed, before his face fell into a contemplative expression, “I wonder why Iruka-sensei was laughing so hard when he gave it to us, though.”
Sarutobi thought about his sweet, nervous secretary, whom he distinctly recalled sharing dango with said Academy teacher every once in a while. “Ah well…” Sarutobi was not going to lose a battle of wills against a chuunin. He was the God of Shinobi, he’d taught the Legendary Sannin and he was nicknamed ‘The Professor’. If Umino Iruka wanted to play a prank on him, he’d have to do better than that.
He was the Hokage. He didn’t go back on his word.
But the thought of Naruto running the show was still a bit terrifying. Sarutobi tried to salvage the situation, “Naruto, where’s your sensei?”
“Don’t know,” three pre-teens shrugged in unison. “He said we can get missions on our own,” Naruto pouted, “But Iruka-sensei wouldn’t give us another C-rank.”
Damn Hatake Kakashi.
Sarutobi thought of Konohamaru’s mischievous grin and how pleased he was that his grandfather was finally going on a trip with him, and he gave up. Naruto couldn’t do too much trouble, right? Surely Yui would stop him? Or perhaps another jounin would finally get off their ass and decide to take responsibility for a week?
Sarutobi decided to be relieved that he was taking his nice, pleasurable vacation on the far side of Fire Country.
“Well, Naruto-kun, the errand I have in mind for you is a special one,” Sarutobi said gravely, “I need to know that you can do what it takes.”
“Hai, Jiji!” Naruto pumped his fist into the air, his eyes shining with stars.
“Hai, Hokage-sama,” the other two replied with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
“Good,” Sarutobi said, getting up and coming around his desk. He took off the hat and held it in his hands as he solemnly regarded the hyperactive blond, “I am leaving on a vacation today and I’ll be gone for at least a week. However, the village needs a Hokage during this time, even though it’ll be a temporary one. Naruto, what I’m about to ask of you is a huge responsibility. Are you up for it?”
To his surprise, the three genin – who’d been listening to him with growing interest – rapidly deflated. “You want us to go find Kakashi-sensei, don’t you?” Naruto asked gloomily.
“No, no,” Sarutobi smiled. If his ANBU couldn’t find Kakashi, then three genin couldn’t possibly do so. “I want you,” he placed the hat on Naruto’s head, “To be interim Hokage.”
There was a sudden silence. Yui, listening in from the hallway, nearly fainted. Naruto’s eyes had gone as round as saucers and Sakura was staring at him in abject shock. It was Sasuke, however, who broke the silence.
“You’re joking.”
“I am not,” Sarutobi said, pleased when the words came out more or less steady. He was trying very hard not to laugh at the adorably stupefied expression on Naruto’s face.
“You’re serious, Jiji?” Naruto said, taking off the hat and staring at it like he was expecting it to explode in his arms, “You’re…you’re serious?”
“You’re handing over the Hokage hat to a genin?” Sakura’s voice was a squeak.
“Please tell me this is a genjutsu,” Sasuke said. He’d activated his Sharingan and was peering around the Hokage office like he expected enemy shinobi.
“I am serious, Naruto-kun,” Sarutobi smiled, “And I have faith you will keep Naruto on the right path, Sakura and Sasuke. Don’t worry – my secretary, Yui, will help you with anything you need.”
With that, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage, swept out of his office, leaving behind three shocked genin and a very pale chuunin. He was trying very hard not to cackle.
Best prank ever.
If Naruto had been left to his own devices, it was possible that he would have stood silently for hours, staring at the hat in his hands. If Sasuke had been the only person with him, things would’ve dissolved into a fight. But Sakura was there and Sakura hadn’t gotten Top Kunoichi in the Academy for being a slacker who couldn’t deal with the unexpected.
So Team Seven were to be acting Hokage for a week. Sakura could deal with this. She hadn’t been expecting this, but life was full of surprises. Besides, she needed to learn how to deal with management – being Sasuke’s wife meant being the matriarch of the Uchiha clan and Sakura was determined to work toward her dreams.
“Alright,” she said loudly, startling the two boys, “Naruto, put on the hat and sit in the chair. Sasuke-kun, you’re playing bodyguard.”
Naruto listened to her – an automatic reflex she’d inculcated in him, and she gave herself a mental pat on the back that it’d worked – but Sasuke, her glorious future husband, was scowling at her. “Why am I playing bodyguard?”
Sakura, not for the first time, sighed at Sasuke’s inability to follow social cues but consoled herself that when she was married to him, she’d do a much better job of corralling him. “You’re more intimidating, Sasuke-kun,” she said, skipping over to the table and its small mountain of paperwork, “Besides, someone has to make sure all these are looked over.”
She rifled through the paperwork and let out a mental groan. Most of it was tedious and long, but Sakura wasn’t going to give up! If this was left to Naruto, he’d have doodled on half the sheets and made the other half into paper airplanes and then Konoha would’ve ground to halt and Sakura was not going to let that happen.
“Alright, Naruto,” she said determinedly, cracking her knuckles, “Find a pen, the Hokage seal, and a pad of ink. We’re going to get to work!”
She drew up another chair while Naruto rummaged in the drawers, and looked at the first piece of paper. It seemed like it was a typical requisition form for a new chuunin vest. The credentials were filled in properly and a photograph of the old vest was attached. Sakura winced at the badly burned fabric.
“So I’m just supposed to stand here and watch you sign papers?” Sasuke grumbled, leaning against the wall behind the Hokage desk and peering irritably over Naruto’s shoulder.
“Hey, teme!” Naruto emerged from the drawers with five pens, the Hokage seal, three pads of ink, two novels that definitely looked like Icha Icha, and a huge book that was titled ‘The Nidaime’s Guide to the Hokage Office’. “You can take this!” he dropped the heavy book into Sasuke’s arms, “And, like, trap the office or something! It’s got a bunch of cool stuff in it!”
Sakura narrowed her eyes at the book. It looked far more like a book of regulations than a book of traps, but as long as it kept Sasuke busy, she was fine. Kami knows she didn’t trust him with the paperwork. After what happened with the Wave report…she shuddered and turned back to the papers. “Okay, Naruto,” she passed the requisition form, “Sign it and seal it here and make a new pile to be sent to the Uniforms Office.”
Naruto did as she asked and she started reading the next form. This was going to be a long day.
Yui peered through the door from behind a potted plant. The three children was being mostly quiet – the pink-haired one was reading forms at an incredible rate, the blond one was cheerfully stamping papers and the dark-haired one was pacing around the office, a heavy book in his hands, muttering to himself.
“Is this really okay?” she asked in a whisper. Umino Iruka, who she’d called the moment the Hokage left, was crouching down next to her, observing the scene.
“It seems fine,” Iruka said optimistically, “I mean, nothing’s on fire yet.”
Yui paled. She’d been the Hokage’s secretary for only six months and it looked like that term was going to come to an explosive end. “Has that happened before?” she whispered hurriedly.
“I don’t know for sure,” Iruka shrugged, “But there are stories about what happened when the Shodai Hokage took a one-day vacation and left the Hokage hat with his granddaughter.”
“What stories?” Yui whispered frantically.
“Well,” Iruka stretched the word out, “Have you ever wondered about that broken wall down on the second floor that everyone keeps covered up with potted plants and giant banners?”
Yui knew that wall. Every time someone tried to fix it, it inevitably ended up crumbling to pieces. People said it was cursed. “Oh, god, she didn’t –”
“Apparently they wouldn’t let her go out for ice cream,” Iruka shrugged, before focusing his gaze on the office, “Wait, something’s happening!”
Yui snapped her head back to the children to see Naruto stretch his arms above his head, yawn, and scratch his head underneath the hat before turning back to the paper. Within a few seconds, everything was silent again.
“False alarm,” Iruka said sheepishly. Yui glared at him.
“Well, I’ll have to be going,” Iruka got up and began walking back to the stairs, “Still have to finish my shift at the Mission Assignment Desk.”
“Wait, Iruka, you can’t leave after telling me that story!” Yui hissed. What if the boy wanted ramen? What if he got bored? What if the Sandaime returned to a Hokage Tower on the verge of structural collapse? “Iruka! This is all your fault!”
Yui glared at her friend’s entirely unrepentant back and hurried back to her desk. She shouldn’t panic. She shouldn’t panic. This would be easy. After all, she’d taken care of children before, right? Never mind that those had been civilian six-year-olds and not twelve-year-old genin.
She just had to think of this as another babysitting mission, and she would be fine.
The Sandaime Hokage had left a sheet of paper with written instructions that Naruto was to cede the Hokage hat only to either himself, Sarutobi Hiruzen, or to Hatake Kakashi, whichever one came first.
Kakashi, of course, got wind of Sandaime’s instructions and decided that it was a good time to disappear.
His three cute little genin would be fine.
Konoha would be fine.
Kakashi remembered that Minato had a propensity to forget basic things like taking a shower and eating when he was busy doing work. Kakashi remembered Kushina’s spitfire temper and her tendency to overreact.
Konoha would be fine, and it was slightly on fire by the end of the week, well. It was called Fire Country, after all.
Danzo had never actually gotten a report from his spies about the Hokage’s ultimatum. Firstly, his spies had fainted when the Sandaime named a genin as Hokage. Secondly, when they regained consciousness, they were struck by the fear that they would now have to go tell their leader that he was passed up for Hokage in favor of a twelve-year-old. A twelve-year-old widely regarded as an idiot.
Root was supposed to function as emotionless robots, but fear was difficult to eradicate and this was straight up terror. All of Danzo’s spies independently decided to defect to Iwa.
Lastly, Danzo knew that his old rival was angry with him about keeping the true situation in Wave a secret. Contrary to popular belief, Danzo didn’t enjoy being on the outs with the Hokage and as various fruit baskets and cakes had failed to elicit Sarutobi’s forgiveness, Danzo gave up and decided to take a small vacation from Konoha.
It was only after he arrived in the beautiful hot spring resort off the coast that he saw Sarutobi Hiruzen sitting on the beach, surrounded by his family.
Both of them blinked at each other.
“What are you doing here?” they both asked.
Sakura was extraordinarily efficient when she wanted to be. Kakashi had once remarked that it was a shame she didn’t use that efficiency in taijutsu and Sasuke had shuddered at the mental image that brought up. Sakura had an eidetic memory and she was a very fast worker. She’d manage to snag and keep the Top Kunoichi position amongst the rest of her backstabbing fellow classmates and when half her time was devoted to ensuring she was the next Mrs. Uchiha, the fact that she’d stayed on top was astounding.
Thus, by the time it came for lunch, Sakura had neatly sorted through half the pile in front of her into various piles that Naruto had to either sign, seal or reject. Every once in a while, Naruto took a form out of her column and since he looked like he was genuinely reading it over, asking her questions and everything, Sakura seemed to permit it.
She’d still slapped Sasuke’s hand away every time he came near the pile. Sasuke couldn’t figure out why she trusted Naruto more than him. Sure, there had been that whole incident with his report of the Wave mission, but she didn’t seriously decide to judge him on the basis of one written report! Right?
Either way, Sasuke was not in a good mood, and he was hungry to boot. He wasn’t, however, going to say anything about it. Not to Naruto, who was cheerfully chattering away about someone named Mr. Ikki. Not to Sakura, who was apparently such a great multitasker that she could follow Naruto’s conversation and read over the pile of paperwork at the same time. Not even to Yui-san, who nervously entered the Hokage office every five minutes to remove the papers they’d signed and ask if they wanted anything.
No, Sasuke wasn’t going to say a word. Let his teammates speak up if they wanted to eat. Sasuke was aware he was being ridiculous, but the stupid book Naruto had dropped on him was long and boring and Sasuke didn’t want to know about all the Nidaime’s stupid safeguards.
When their first visitor burst through the door with an angry, purplish face, Sasuke’s mood only worsened. The red-faced twenty-something man was probably a chuunin, because he’d heard Yui-san discussing something with Iruka-sensei about how all the jounins were avoiding the Hokage Tower in the fear that they’d get saddled with the job. Stupid jounins. If only one of them had taken the job, then Sasuke wouldn’t be stuck here, leaning on the wall behind the dobe and trying to read the paperwork the idiot was signing.
The red-faced chuunin had clearly not obtained permission to come inside as a tearful Yui-san burst through a moment later, wringing her hands.
“Oi, you brat!” the man yelled and both Naruto and Sakura looked up. Sakura looked distinctly irritated at being interrupted.
Yui-san was trying to restrain him, “Haruka-san, you don’t have an appointment, you can’t be here.”
“What was the Sandaime thinking, making that stupid little boy Hokage?” the man screamed, pushing Yui-san to the side, “Get out of that chair right now, you brat, and hand over the hat! You don’t deserve to wear it!”
Naruto had frozen in place, mouth agape and eyes wide, so Sakura spoke up in his place, her voice annoyingly sweet, like she was explaining something to a six-year-old. “Naruto is only allowed to give the hat to the Sandaime Hokage or Jounin Hatake Kakashi. Until either of them show up to relieve Naruto of his duty, he is acting Hokage.”
The man gaped at her for a long moment as Naruto’s face slowly defrosted into a grin. In the end, he decided to ignore her and turned back to Naruto, blustering, “Give me that hat, boy, or I’ll take it off of you!”
Sasuke may not have read most of the Nidaime’s book, but he had read the part which explained what behavior was not allowed in the Hokage office and what precisely constituted a threat. Sure, that section had been for the Hokage’s ANBU guards, but Sasuke was Naruto’s bodyguard and when the angry chuunin took another threatening step towards Naruto, he acted.
Sasuke wasn’t stupid. He knew that he’d lose in a straight-out taijutsu fight with a chuunin. But shinobi were much more than taijutsu and Sasuke stepped to stand firmly behind Naruto, Sharingan swirling. He’d read a little about genjutsu and he half-remembered Sakura saying something about the fear center of the brain so he pushed chakra at the man, aiming to target his worst fears.
Sasuke was still a novice at genjutsu so instead of resulting in the Hell-Viewing Genjutsu – which was pretty much what he was aiming for – he’d managed to trip the chuunin’s fear centers into an alternate world. It wasn’t the chuunin’s greatest fears, but a memory triggered by Sasuke’s intent, the fear receptors, and his surroundings.
What the chuunin saw was the Yondaime Hokage sitting at his desk, frowning, with Uzumaki Kushina standing next to him and turning towards the unfortunate chuunin with an irritated expression.
Of course, irritated on Kushina was furious on anyone else and the chuunin could do nothing more than gape unintelligibly at the scene before him. The further similarity between Naruto and Sakura to the Yondaime and Kushina caused the genjutsu to sink in deeper until the chuunin wet his pants and ran out of the Hokage office screaming about ghosts.
Sasuke blinked as the Sharingan faded away, staring bemusedly at the fleeing chuunin and the rather pungent odor he’d left behind. Yui-san had a dazed expression on her face, like her thought processes had just short circuited.
Naruto, however, was wrinkling his nose. “Man, that stinks,” he said through a plugged nose, before turning pleading eyes towards Sakura, “Sakura-chan, lunch?”
Sakura eyed the pile of paperwork and Naruto’s puppy dog eyes, sighed, and gave up. “Alright,” she conceded as Naruto let out a whoop. “But no ramen!” she scolded.
Sasuke had no preference about lunch and just followed the two of them, trying to hide the exceedingly smug smile on his face. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see it – he had a reputation to maintain.
Sasuke decided that he enjoyed his new job after all.
There was a certain seal engraved on the doorframe of the Hokage office. It had been put there by the Shodai Hokage with the help of his in-laws and it sent out a pulse of genjutsu to anyone entering the office angry, upset, or just plain irritated. Mainly, he’d done it to get rid of Tobirama, who showed up hourly to nag him into accounting and administration and all that boring stuff.
The genjutsu in question was one the Shodai Hokage had selected personally – an image of a furious Uzumaki Mito advancing angrily on the shinobi in question. Needless to say, his office was blissfully annoyance-free for a week as his little brother, clan heads and other various members of the growing shinobi corps ran out of his office like the hounds of hell were after them.
The Hokage had managed to relax that week in his peaceful, quiet office, until Senju Tobirama decided to go complain to his sister-in-law. Hashirama quickly realized that the real Mito was about ten times more terrifying than the genjutsu one and deactivated the seal in the five seconds it took his wife to punt him out of the office.
That was also part of the reason why there was a dent in the nose of the statue of the Shodai Hokage.
Needless to say, Hashirama never used that seal again and Tobirama had far more effective methods of getting rid of irritants. Namely, by kicking them towards the dent pointed out previously, until it looked like the statue of Shodai Hokage had gotten into a fight and had his stone nose broken.
Sarutobi Hiruzen had likewise never employed the seal and Namikaze Minato had found out about it quite by chance. Unlike Mito, Uzumaki Kushina had been thrilled that most of the shinobi corps found her terrifying, and gleefully gave her boyfriend permission to use her image for the genjutsu.
When Minato died, Sarutobi deactivated the seal, but never wiped it. Thus, when Sasuke went to reactivate it, it still recognized Uzumaki Kushina as the blueprint for the genjutsu. Sasuke didn’t quite know how to work it, but when the next irritating chuunin ran out of the office screaming, he concluded that it had worked and left it at that.
Uzumaki Kushina had been terrifying, even to those who hadn’t known she was the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. Her long red hair and hair-trigger temper had earned her the nickname the ‘Red Hot Habanero’ and the Flee-On-Sight order in the bingo book had been followed by foreign and Konoha shinobi alike. And then she’d died, and the legend of Uzumaki Kushina faded away to the collective subconscious.
But people still remembered. People had put the pieces together and knew that Naruto was Kushina’s son. And when the shinobi that stormed the Hokage office to demand Naruto resign were confronted by the terrifying visage of an angry Uzumaki Kushina, red hair flying, face shrouded in shadow with glowing red eyes and orange-red claws – well. The collective shinobi corps shit their pants.
An Emergency was nearly declared in the village as shinobi ran around screaming about vengeful ghosts, and only avoided because no shinobi could coherently answer Naruto’s innocent questions on why an Emergency had to be declared. Most of them were stuttering, unable to tear their eyes away from Kushina’s deathly calm figure hovering protectively behind her son. The few who couldn’t see Kushina were laughing so hard they were crying.
Sakura had no patience for stuttering or hysterical laughter and ordered them all to get out and not disturb the Hokage when he was in his efficient mode.
The Sandaime assumed that Team Seven could manage to stay out of trouble for a week. Yui had plenty of easy, non-confidential reports she could give them and he was under the impression that they’d stamp a few pages before getting bored and playing cards or whatever it was little genin did when they were bored. If something serious happened, one of his jounin would take charge and if there was a real crisis, then Kakashi would do his duty and take up the hat. Unfortunately, he’d underestimated quite a few things.
1) Sakura’s efficiency. All of the easy, non-confidential paperwork was finished and filed by the end of the second day. Yui almost started crying when Sakura dove into the ANBU related forms.
2) Hatake Kakashi’s fierce desire to never, ever, I’ll-set-it-on-fire, ever wear the hat.
3) His jounin’s utter and unparalleled amusement at the scenario. Most of them were perfectly willing to leave Naruto as Hokage, especially after Sasuke turned the office into a death trap.
4) Naruto’s determination to be the best Hokage in the world, dattebayo, even if it meant his fingers hurt.
5) Danzo having a laugh when Sarutobi finally explained the situation and, instead of running back to Konoha, lying back and having a nice drink. Danzo remembered Uzumaki Kushina and was not going to get between any offspring of hers and the Hokage seat. The fact that Minato had survived was, in and of itself, a miracle.
6) Gai’s strange unwillingness to hunt down his Eternal Rival, deaf to the pleas of several terrified chuunin. “It is a GLORIOUS and YOUTHFUL challenge of SPRINGTIME, my faithful comrades!” The chuunin decided to save their eyes from blinding rainbows and sparkles and try to find Kakashi using other methods.
7) Team Seven, in general. Sasuke’s ambition was to kill a man who’d casually slaughtered an entire clan in the space of an afternoon. Sakura’s ambition was to become the matriarch of one of the founding clans of Konoha. Naruto’s ambition was to become Hokage for real. None of them got bored and started playing cards.
Yui peered through a tiny crack in the door as Iruka contorted on the floor to get a good view. Like this, they looked cute and harmless. They looked nothing like the demons of hell that all shinobi children were.
Naruto had the Hokage hat perched jauntily on his head and was cheerfully practicing his signature in increasingly elaborate and flourishing ways on the paperwork in front of him, pausing occasionally to tip the hat back when it fell back into his face. Sasuke had somehow managed to bypass Sakura’s beady-eyed gaze on the paperwork and was warily and quietly stamping the ones Naruto finished, one hand on a kunai and half his attention on Sakura.
Sakura herself was sitting on the floor, a pile of paperwork around her, and three pages of shorthand notes in front of her. She picked up another piece of paper, looked at her notes, and made an inarticulate sound of frustration.
It would have been comical, how fast both Naruto and Sasuke froze – mid-signature and mid-stamp – if it wasn’t also terrifying.
Yui and Iruka withdrew, carefully closing the door behind them.
Unbeknownst to the Sandaime – and perhaps to Danzo, but the man kept his cards close to his chest – while he was enjoying his vacation, one of his students was busy plotting. A decade-old revenge plan was simmering and soon, it would be about to boil.
Orochimaru had almost finished convincing Suna to help invade Konoha during the Chuunin exams, but one and a half countries (Sound might be his, but in the privacy of his own mind, Orochimaru could admit that it didn’t compare with the Big Five) against the mighty Leaf might have been pushing his arrogance. Good thing that there was always a backup, a country that hated Konoha and was always spoiling for a fight.
So it came as quite the surprise when the Tsuchikage refused to respond to Orochimaru’s letter. Wondering if it was perhaps his former status as a Konoha nin, Orochimaru tried again through Suna.
Still no response.
Bewildered, Orochimaru let it be, though the question nagged at him often over the years. Unfortunately, he died before he could ever ask the Tsuchikage why Iwa refused the call.
If he had known it was because of Team Seven’s actions in just one short week, he might have taken a closer look at all of them.
But Orochimaru didn’t know this and the Sandaime never learnt how vital his impromptu vacation had been to the welfare of Konoha.
And Danzo? Danzo was buried with most of his secrets and if there was a smile on his face while he relaxed on the beach far away from Konoha, who was to say it wasn’t from the sun and the sand?
Though perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that most of his spies defected to Iwa.
The whole sequence of events that led to the ‘disappearance’ of several foreign spies in Konoha, a sharp increase in security, Iwa’s uncharacteristic silence, the Kazekage’s sudden cold feet (corrected, of course, by some makeup, some clean robes, and some necessary murder), and all in all, warning signs that Orochimaru’s invasion was going to fail, was quite complicated and convoluted.
Though, if it had to start anywhere, it would have to be Sakura.
Sakura wasn’t as old as the Sandaime, whose long and tiring years had inured him to the paperwork of being Hokage. She also had far more (temporary) security clearance than Yui, who never had enough of the paperwork to make a connection. She had (arguably) purer motives than Danzo, who was most likely still waffling on either stopping the invasion or using the opportunity to eliminate several enemies at once.
And unlike all those mentioned above, she had a very good memory.
Sakura was idly rifling through the day’s paperwork – even smaller than yesterday’s pile, she noted, they’d finally finished that backlog – when a requisition form for cleaning caught her eye. It looked like an ordinary request for civilians to be debriefed to clean a room in a shinobi building. It was only classified so high because the office in question belonged to the ANBU.
But it was strange, because she was sure she’d seen a report detailing that the building was becoming too expensive to maintain because no one was using it and it was a waste of resources. Curiosity piqued (most of the ANBU reports were boring, especially since the higher level ones had some sort of seal she couldn’t decipher, leaving the reports with annoying blank patches) Sakura stood up – startling Sasuke, who was reading over Naruto’s shoulder – and headed for the stack of complete files.
(She had firmly told Yui-san on the first day that removing all paperwork within five minutes simply created more work for everyone else and as long as it wasn’t urgent, it could be all dealt with at the end of the day.)
Finding the stack of economic paperwork, Sakura began flipping through them until she found the report she was looking for. It was exactly as she remembered – the building had been lying vacant for months and there were several warnings about the unsavory things ANBU did in empty buildings.
Why, then, would someone ask for the building to be cleaned? If the Hokage had approved the request to lease the building for civilian or standard shinobi use, then the use of a cleaning facility would probably be required, but it was widely known that most shinobi were extremely lazy and Sakura couldn’t imagine anyone who would want to keep up maintenance in an empty building that would just get filthy again.
(Far away, in the middle of teaching his young pupil a lesson, Ebisu sneezed.)
And moreover, the names on both forms were different. Surely an organization as strict and efficient as ANBU didn’t have multiple chains of command. Besides, there wasn’t nearly enough paperwork for that sort of organizational structure.
No, this was a puzzle and one that Sakura was intending to solve.
Placing a large stack of already read paperwork next to Naruto, she left him to his signing and stamping as she rummaged through all the paperwork in the room, signed, filed and otherwise, for anything about ANBU Warehouse No. 4.
Naruto happily signed papers, practicing his official Hokage signature for when Jiji gave him the hat to keep. He then passed each one to Sasuke, who was handling the stamp like it was a bomb.
Naruto had had one of his moments of genius after Sakura-chan took a bunch of papers and spread them out on the floor like she was trying to make a collage or something. He had shared a commiserating look with Sasuke and an unspoken agreement not to talk lest they catch the attention of their clearly deranged teammate. It was sad that Sakura-chan had become totally crazy, but that’s what a lot of reading did to you.
Now he even had proof to show Iruka-sensei!
So he’d been looking at Sasuke (who was still pouty because Sakura-chan wouldn’t let him touch the paperwork, even though that had been half a week ago) and had a brilliant idea. If Sakura-chan was too busy trying to make a collage, then Sasuke could help him with the paperwork!
He had communicated this to Sasuke via a series of hand gestures, smiles, and waving the stamp around. Sasuke had made a terrifying face, pointed to Sakura-chan, and put both his hands around his neck. Naruto had tried to communicate that she wouldn’t notice, but he had a feeling he failed, so he’d reached out, grabbed Sasuke, and dragged him closer.
Sasuke had sat down, pale, and reached for the stamp like it was a poisonous snake. Naruto watched him encouragingly as he swallowed, screwed up his courage, and gingerly pressed the stamp to the paper.
Sakura hadn’t looked up.
Naruto had privately thought that the stamp was a little light but he’d smiled at Sasuke and continued his work.
Naruto tipped the hat up – for some reason, it kept sliding into his eyes – and reached for another piece of paperwork to sign. He pondered a moment on the style of his signature before putting pen to paper.
It was then that he heard it, that most dreaded of sounds. An inarticulate growl. A frustrated snarl. An audible grumble. He had just enough time to exchange a startled look with Sasuke before the other boy substituted himself with a plant, ending up on the other side of the office, the traitor.
Naruto didn’t hear the door softly click shut as Sakura-chan turned her gaze to him, he was too busy trying not to quail. That was the sound she usually made right before she punched him.
“Naruto?” she asked, slowly standing up.
Naruto gulped, and tried to make himself smaller than he was, pressing back into the chair. “Yes, Sakura-chan?” he asked nervously.
“What is the one thing that should always work?” she asked in a deceptively soft tone as she began walking to the desk.
“I – I don’t know…” Naruto said, beginning to sweat.
“Math,” Sakura-chan replied, her voice gaining an edge as she walked closer. “Math should always work. Things should always add up. One plus one is two, two plus two is four. So how, Naruto, does two plus two equal five!?!?” She slammed her hands on the table to punctuate her statement and Naruto stared up at her, stunned.
Her entire face had gone an angry red and Naruto had never been more afraid.
“How, Naruto?” she snarled, “How?!”
Naruto looked around, but could find nothing aside from Sasuke’s sandals sticking out of one of the pockets of invisibility the Nidaime had created for ANBU to hide in. But Naruto, while a bit of an idiot, was still the son of the Yondaime and (even though he didn’t know this) his father’s great self-preservation instincts when it came to furious redheads had been passed down to him.
Naruto saw Sasuke’s sandals and had a flash of inspiration, helped along by his father’s Kushina instincts.
(Of course, nothing would match Minato’s greatest feat of self-preservation at the sight of a furious Kushina, namely, getting down on one knee and holding out a ring – with varied opinions that it was sheer genius or unbelievable stupidity – but, then again, Naruto was only twelve.)
“What if it’s hidden?” Naruto said, looking earnestly up at Sakura-chan. Sakura-chan blinked, looking rather taken aback. “It’s like this room. There’s me, and there’s you. And there’s Sasuke, but he’s hiding,” Naruto explained, pointing at the sandals. Sakura-chan followed his finger and there was a squeak from the invisibility pocket. “So one plus one makes three!”
Naruto beamed at her, rather overwhelmed by his own genius. Sakura-chan blinked at him and looked at Sasuke’s sandals again. A slow smile began to spread across her face. “Hidden, hmm?” she muttered, her smile getting larger, “Thank you, Naruto. That is a very good theory.” She looked through the stack of paperwork again, took out a few more sheets, and spread them on the floor before sitting down.
Naruto’s smile grew even larger – Sakura-chan said he had a good idea! That basically meant he was smart!
Naruto began his work of signing and stamping again, whistling a merry tune – until Sakura-chan told him to stop, after which he did his work in silence.
Of course, once Naruto had put the idea of something being hidden in Sakura’s mind, it refused to die. It made perfect sense. All the other forms of supplies and money going awry into the black hole that was ANBU Warehouse No. 4. Something was hidden there and that made Sakura’s curiosity flare up.
When she explained this to Naruto and Sasuke, both were all for storming in and busting the perpetrators. Their plan did have some appeal, and it would allow her to redeem herself from her failures at Wave and hopefully improve her standing in Sasuke-kun’s eyes. After all, she had to be a strong kunoichi to join the Uchiha clan.
Which was, of course, when an alarmed Yui-san and Iruka-sensei burst in, eyes wide at the thought that three genin were going to investigate suspicious activity at an ANBU warehouse.
No amount of half-logical arguments (Sakura), murderous glares (Sasuke), or whining (Naruto) could budge the two chuunin. Iruka sternly ordered Team Seven to stay, in his best disappointed-teacher voice, the one even Naruto listened to, and left to coordinate a team.
Unfortunately for Iruka, Kakashi had turned his disappointed-teacher voice on them so often that they’d practically become immune, and Team Seven returned to plotting as soon as the chuunin left.
Iruka, not a stranger to the ways of children, checked in on them twice during the planning, and was met by thunderous sulks both times. But Sakura seemed to have plunged back into paperwork and Naruto was stamping and Sasuke was setting more traps, so he asked one of the ANBU to keep an eye on the office and went back to coordinating a team to investigate the warehouse.
Kakashi, all the way across the village – up in a tree in the middle of Team Nine’s training ground – paused reading. His Team Seven senses were tingling – someone had just made a disastrous mistake.
Kakashi smiled, and stowed away his book. This had the potential to be highly entertaining, and reading Icha Icha and hiding from murderous shinobi had gotten boring on the third day.
He triple checked it wasn’t a trap – no sign of the Hokage hat in sight – before appearing behind his cute little genin. “Maa, what are we doing suspiciously lurking on a suspicious rooftop at a suspicious time of day?”
All three genin turned in unison and hissed, “You’re late!” And then they blinked.
“Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura frowned. Naruto slowly reached out a hand and poked him as Kakashi watched, nonplussed. Sasuke immediately moved to dispel a genjutsu.
“I can sense when my students are getting up to no good, Sakura,” Kakashi leveled his best I’m-your-teacher-and-I-know-best look at her. She just narrowed her eyes.
“There’s something hidden at ANBU Warehouse No.4,” Naruto whispered excitedly. Kakashi peered over his genin’s heads to stare at the building. It looked perfectly normal to him. Just like any other building. No sign – no whiff of anything that could possibly be suspicious.
(Definitely odd, when ANBU was suspicion itself.)
“I see,” Kakashi said, turning back to his cute little genin, “And do you have a plan, my little soldiers?”
They did have a plan. It was carefully calculated to include new variables they’d discovered in their short tenure as Hokage (Sakura), incredibly humiliating (Naruto), and involved lots and lots of fire (Sasuke).
Perhaps too much fire.
Kakashi stared again at the building that was deceptively harmless and rubbed the back of his head. If his students’ reign as Hokage hadn’t had at least one fire-related mishap by the end of their tenure, he might’ve been honestly concerned.
“Well then, let’s see what mystery you’ve all uncovered.”
Spies. The answer was spies. Of course it was. Not Root, not spies that could claim on any technicality to be working for Konoha. Just good old-fashioned spies.
Kakashi strolled in like he belonged, slouching, hands in pockets. “Evening,” he drawled, Sharingan eye open, “Can I join the meeting too?”
Everyone had leapt up at the first sign of Sharingan Kakashi, weapons in hand, but stared, dumbfounded at his lackadaisical approach.
(That was their mistake.)
Three genin burst him beside him with a yell – no, those weren’t three genin, no.
“The Yondaime!” someone shouted. The Yondaime grinned, wild as a fox, and cracked his knuckles.
“The Uzumaki!” another screamed, already running. Uzumaki Kushina had her hands curled around kunai and an almost-level expression on her face.
“Uchiha!” someone whimpered. Uchiha Mikoto’s Sharingan were spinning, a snarl on her face.
Fear was a powerful thing. Fear made people forget that the Yondaime had never resorted to the intimidation tactic of cracking his knuckles, that Kushina had never once in her life looked calm when in the middle of a fight, and that Mikoto had had far more tomoe in her Sharingan. Fear made people forget that the dead didn’t come back to life.
(Of course some of those people worked for Orochimaru, so perhaps that isn’t quite fair.)
In short order, there was a lot of screaming, several bangs, even more screaming, some feverish praying, and a whole lot of fire.
Kyori of the Village Hidden in the Sound was perusing the vegetable selection at the market, keeping her eyes and ears sharp for any new information about the village. She’d been in Konoha for almost a month, helping Orochimaru-sama set up the invasion by passing along information about their defenses, about the discontent in the village, about gossip that he could twist to suit his purpose.
She picked up a gourd and eyed it, carefully listening to the conversation next to her about one of the women’s son in the Academy and a new policy that was going out.
Boom.
The gourd slipped from her fingers and conversations all across the market broke off suddenly as everyone turned to stare at the distance where the sound had come from. Muttering broke out at the sight of fire licking at the sky, smoke curling up from an explosion. Shinobi headed towards it rapidly and Kyori cursed silently as the information she’d been gleaning was replaced with excited chattering about the explosion.
Some idiot had probably misjudged the size of their fire jutsu. No wonder Orochimaru-sama was planning to invade.
Kakashi retreated back to his tree. He had pondered, just for a second, whether he should stay and help with the clean-up and ensure that all the spies found their way into Ibiki’s gleeful hands. And then he remembered the terms of the Sandaime’s vacation and promptly hightailed it out of there.
Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke had bolted as soon as the fuse had been lit. They watched the carnage from the Hokage’s office, clustered around the window with wide eyes and gremlin grins.
(Their success did not bode well for the structural integrity of any future building foolish enough to stand in their path.)
They were there when Iruka burst into the room in a panic, sure that he’d find three kids missing and three charred corpses in the shell of a building – to be met with three very much still alive faces.
“Iruka-sensei, what happened!” Sakura asked, worried.
“Did someone blow something up?” Naruto looked one part concerned and two parts gleeful.
“Hn.” Sasuke scowled and turned away.
Iruka was a bit too busy gasping in relief to answer their questions.
No one owned up to exploding ANBU Warehouse No.4. The ANBU inspected the damage, and felt a chill down their spines at the familiar execution (some of them immediately turned to the Hokage monument to check that it was still there and not covered in paint) but other parts of it were unrecognizable.
Besides, the genin had been in the Hokage office the whole time, everyone agreed. Everyone very carefully didn’t mention how practiced at least one of the three was in escaping ANBU guard.
They recovered enough papers and unidentified ‘civilians’ from the wreckage to deduce that the warehouse had definitely been used to run a foreign network of operatives. Unfortunately, all the information they got out of the spies on the nature of their attackers was useless.
Three of the four named attackers were years-dead, and one of them had gone so deep into hiding that he definitely wouldn’t have appeared just to blow up a building.
(Probably.)
(Did Kakashi’s desire to run from the Hokage hat outweigh his desire to be a troll?)
(Several shinobi abruptly realized that that was a question they never wanted answered.)
The testimony of the spies that had gotten away was equally useless to their countries. The Iwa spies didn’t dare mention the Yondaime, the Kiri operatives were killed at the first mention of ghosts, and the Kazekage frowned, abruptly beginning to question the sanity of his spies and the foundations of his planned invasion.
Konoha ramped up security – they told themselves it because of the spies, because of the upcoming Chuunin Exams, because of information those spies had divulged, and a whole variety of reasons that absolutely did not include the fact that half the shinobi corps was now partially convinced that ghosts were real.
The fact that many patrols were concentrated around graveyards was a pure coincidence.
The Sandaime returned, serenely smiling at the gate guards and ignoring the weeping and delirious praying and the slight scent of smoke in the air. He kept his serene smile, and didn’t react to the several shinobi that burst into tears upon seeing him. He didn’t flinch or twitch at the sudden, shocked silence upon his entry to the Hokage Tower, or everyone’s relieved sobbing.
He swept past Umino Iruka, who was contemplating the ceiling like it had just dealt him a grievous blow and left him to die a slow, poignant death underneath pouring rain, and Arakiwa Yui, who stared blankly at the opposite wall like she’d endured things that no shinobi, civilian, or summons should ever have to endure.
And then he opened the door to his office and was greeted by three children working industriously.
Sasuke noticed him first, his scowl deepening as he straightened. Naruto caught sight of him when he tipped the hat out of his eyes – it really was adorable, how it was just slightly too big for him – and beamed, jumping out of his chair. “Jiji! You’re back!”
Sakura looked up last – gave him a calculating look, stared back at the paperwork in front of her, and sighed, reluctantly getting up.
“Yes, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura,” he smiled at each of them, “Did you take good care of Konoha in my absence?”
Sakura nodded demurely, Sasuke twitched out a yes, and Naruto began babbling about all the interesting things they’d done over the week, about Sasuke setting traps and paperwork turning Sakura-chan crazy and Yui-san being so nice and helpful and all the new people they met and he didn’t think there was so much writing to do as Hokage but that was okay because he’d hire Sakura-chan to help him and Sasuke-teme was actually very good at being a bodyguard and he’d train more and become the best Hokage in the world, dattebayo!
The Sandaime smiled and nodded at all the right places, lifting the hat off of Naruto before it ended up on the floor.
Of course, the moment it was in his hands, there was the sound of swirling leaves.
“Yo,” Kakashi said from the window.
“You’re late!” all three genin shouted reflexively. The Sandaime smiled sharply at his preferred replacement.
“Maa, I went on a vacation,” Kakashi blinked, “Since all my genin disappeared to go run personal errands for the Hokage.”
“Liar!” Naruto shouted fiercely.
“You left before we took the mission,” Sakura crossed her arms.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes and grumbled something about lazy teachers and reading porn.
“And here I thought I could come and offer some training now that you’re done,” Kakashi drooped, “And some new jutsus. But if you just want to berate your poor old sensei, I’ll guess I’ll leave –”
“No!” Three genin leapt after their sensei with war cries. Sarutobi could hear their screeches as they pursued Kakashi across the rooftops, and watched them go with a fond smile.
“Ah, let’s see what those rascals got up to when I was gone.”
“Warehouses blown up. Spies. Sabotage. Ghosts. And all before the Chuunin Exams?”
“We’re…we’re sorry, sir, we…we increased the patrols after the explosion. And no one’s caught sight of the…the Yondaime, Uzumaki Kushina, or the others after it happened.”
“Hmm…well, if they ever do reappear, let me know.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then instead of taking a vacation, I can retire!”