Ninja Psych Eval
Shizune checked her list of patients for the day, and sighed dramatically. Tsunade looked up from her paperwork with a scowl. "What?" she snapped.
"Did you have to schedule the worst cases on the same day?"
"It was the best way; the others only take about 10 to 15 minutes each. I need a whole day just to deal with those five."
Shizune gulped as she looked at her schedule. This was going to be a very long day.
Konoha Jounin Annual Psych Exam
9:00 -10:15 Kakashi (fake). Gai
10:30 - 11:45 Anko
12:00 - 1:45 Kakashi (real)
2:00 - 3:15 Ibiki
3:30 - 4:45 Jiraiya
"Tsunade-sama, why are there two appointments for Kakashi?"
Tsunade smirked and sipped her sake daintily. "I told him 9:00 and then scheduled Gai for the same time because then when Kakashi's late, as usual, he'll actually be on time.
At 9:00 promptly, a green blur burst through the door.
"Tsunade-sama! I am ready for my exam! I have been feeling most youthful this year!"
Shizune closed the door quietly and returned to her desk, thankful for the thousandth time that she wasn't the Hokage.
"So Gai," Tsunade said, "how have things been? Have you been keeping that journal like we discussed?"
Gai's eyes filled with tears. "It is most youthful of you to care about my health, Tsunade-sama."
"So… yes or no?"
"I've been very well, and I love training the youthful flowers of Konoha!"
"Gai, the journal?"
He scratched the back of his head in embarrasment. "Er… no?"
"Gai, we really can't make any forward progress if you won't work with me."
His eyes teared up again. "I have failed you, Hokage-sama. As penance I shall walk 500 laps around Konoha on my hands while balancing a chair on my feet."
With that he jumped up, flipped over onto his hands, lifted a chair using only his feet, and left. Shizune wasn't surprised to see him doing handstands; she'd seen Gai do stranger things before.
When Shizune opened Tsunade's door, she saw her boss polishing off a bottle of sake." "What is it with the jounin anyway?" the apprentice asked. "Are any of them sane?"
Tsunade laughed. "I've never known a sane jounin. They see too much death and end up neurotic. I've seen some bizarre coping measures used to deal with the stress. Gai's weirdness, Kakashi's Ichi-ichi obsession, Jiraiya's … whatever it is he does. They're just finding ways to deal with being turned into death machines. That and the kind of chakra usage they regularly abuse their body with can make a person insane. Our bodies really aren't built for that amount of power."
Shizune left, and Tsunade made a note in Gai's file to check his lithium dosage.
Anko bounced in, and as usual she pretended nothing was wrong and the world was a big joke. She spent an hour and a half trying to get Anko to talk about her childhood experiences with Orochimaru, to no avail. All Anko wanted to talk about were her confused feelings for Gai. That was new, and slightly disturbing.
Kakashi arrived at 12:10. "So sorry, Tsunade-sama. An old lady with a black cat needed my help, so I spent the entire morning trying to help her and avoid her cat at the same time."
"Kakashi!" she growled.
He grinned and shrugged winningly.
"Alright, let's get started. Have you been taking your medication properly?"
"A crow stole it?" he said tentatively.
A vein started pulsing on her forehead. "And the journal?"
"Ah, well, there was a grease fire at my apartment. I had been writing in the journal at the kitchen table, so it was the first thing I grabbed to put out the fire."
He stopped at the look on her face. "I'll work on it this year," he said, more to appease his destructive boss than out of any motivation to actually do the work she wanted.
The rest of the appointment was spent with Tsunade trying to get any kind of actual communication from him. He skillfully evaded her questions, but she was able to tell he still felt guilty for almost everything in his life, especially his perceived failings toward the Uchia clan. She released him with a note to increase his anti-depressants.
She tapped her pen on the desk nervously. Ibiki was next; he was the only Konoha ninja who could make her nervous. He just enjoyed his job too much, which was disturbing. He had an aura like a swamp, dark and potentially filled with deadly things. She could seriously imagine him snapping completely and killing a large portion of the village.
She heard him in the reception area and took a moment to compose herself. She didn't dare let the predator know how she felt about him. It seemed like the man could absolutely smell fear.
Ibiki entered, place a paper on her desk and sat down silently. His perfect posture and empty eyes were unnerving.
Tsunade read through the paper. "Highly self-aware as usual. Have you been taking your medicine properly?"
He nodded. She hadn't even suggested the journal. The idea seemed ludicrous. "Alright, see you next year."
He left silently, and Shizune entered. "Is he finished so soon?"
"Hai. The way I see things, Ibiki is such an accomplished liar that he could easily fool anyone he wanted, and he tends to view these sessions as interrogations. It's easier to just let him do his own analysis. It's startlingly accurate."
He began to read over the report. "He suggests I raise the dose on his anti-psychotics."
Shizune gulped. "He's on anti-psychotics?"
"Yes. Those pills keep a lot of us from getting murdered in our sleep by Ibiki. There's a reason he's the chief interrogator."
Shizune shuddered. "Why did you schedule so much time for him then?"
"I need a nap. I saved the worst for last."
"Jiraiya-sama? How is he the worst?"
"He's not the most neurotic, but he really takes the most energy to deal with."
At least Jiraiya was prompt. He burst through the door with his special Kabuke-no-jutsu, and leapt into his best presentation stance. Theatrical music sounded with no apparent source - just another part of his superb technique.
"It is I - Jiraiya the frog sage, lady entrancer, and great Sanin!"
He stopped as he saw that his carefully prepared entrance was lost on Tsunade. Her head lay on a pile of papers, with a small drool puddle smearing the ink. Three sake bottles littered the desk around her. He thought she looked adorable like that - perhaps even approachable.
She really is a beautiful woman, he thought - even though it is a fake beauty. He'd seen her real self - older and wrinkled. She was still beautiful to him, even with her silly vanities. He couldn't help but brush some stray hair from her face so he could see it better.
Shizune heard Tsunade's furious yell seconds before Jiraiya was violently thrown through the wall, then through the wall in the reception area. He finally came to rest embedded in the wall of the walkway.
Shizune starred in shock at the destruction before her. She looked into the hole to see him slide into a dazed heap with a grin and a nosebleed.
"Jiraiya-sama?" she asked when she saw him stir. "What happened?"
He grinned even wider. "I just went to touch her face. My hand might have…slipped."
There was another loud yell from Tsunade's office, and a sake bottle barely missed Shizune as it whizzed past to hit Jiraiya square in the forehead, knocking him out again.
Tsunade stepped over the rubble in her doorway and glared at the unconscious Sanin. She took a sticky-note from Shizune's desk, and she wrote a note on it. She stuck the note on his chest.
"I'm taking the rest of the day off," she said as she made her way over the shambles of her reception area. Shizune ran after her to keep her from drinking and gambling all her money away.
Jiraiya woke up to find a confused Naruto shaking him roughly.
"Hey! Ero-Senin. What happened?" he asked anxiously. It looked like there might have been an attack on the Hokage.
"That Tsunade packs a punch," he said as he touched his head gingerly.
Naruto was furious. "Leave her alone, you pervy sage! Why do you keep bothering her anyway?"
Jiraiya laughed, and then wished he hadn't. He had a small concussion from the sake bottle, and moving made him see two Naruto's. One Naruto was quite enough.
"I don't know. Why do you keep bothering Sakura?"
Naruto turned bright red and stammered. "I…it…she's just so…"
"Exactly," Jiraiya said smugly just before he passed out again.
Naruto noticed the note on the older man's chest and pulled it off to read it. It was simple and direct. "Clean up the mess you made, baka." He shuddered. Tsunade was scary.