Serious Business

The Seventh Hokage of Konoha listened intently as a pair of his civilian councillors outlined what they believed to be a problem of utmost importance: this week's garbage had been collected three hours later than usual. Surely, this was a problem that only the legendary Uzumaki Naruto could solve.

Naruto nodded gravely and put on what he hoped was an appropriately concerned yet stern expression. He'd dreamed of a lot of things over the years – and he was one of the few people fortunate enough to achieve most of his dreams – but this meeting was not one of them.

He had a loving – and extremely sexy – wife, plenty of friends, and the respect and esteem of the entire world. Yes, things were pretty awesome. Perhaps the only thing he really wanted that he didn't have was a family of his own although he'd certainly enjoyed trying to start one with Hinata.

He'd even finally achieved his dream of becoming Hokage, albeit after Kakashi had spent a few years with the hat to give Naruto the time he needed to grow and learn everything he needed to know. When Kakashi had finally handed over the position, Naruto had wondered how the Copy Ninja could bring himself to do it. Wasn't this what every ninja wanted, to be Kage of their village?

Now, he understood why Kakashi couldn't wait to give up the title and return to his post as a somewhat lazy yet strangely effective genin instructor. But Naruto loved his village – even the civilian councillors who were convinced that late garbage collection was a prelude to the apocalypse.

So what if he'd briefly considered forming a few familiar hand seals and blowing the room to smithereens? The fox could always heal him, and the councillors would probably survive. Sure, they'd be a little mangled, but nothing that Sakura couldn't fix. He was only human, and they'd been droning on about garbage for two hours. Naruto had taken out armies in less time than that.

He was hard-pressed not to throw himself at Sasuke's feet in gratitude when the other man shoved his way into Naruto's office. As usual, the Uchiha managed to look equal parts pissed off and bored.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed, and the councillors froze in their seats. "Leave."

Naruto bit back a laugh at the expressions of outrage on the councillors' faces.

"Uchiha-san –"

"Uchiha-sama," Sasuke corrected. "To you, I'm Uchiha-sama."

The councillor flinched and glared into Sasuke's eyes. Naruto had to hand it to him. For an old civilian, he had guts. But looking into the eyes of an Uchiha was a recipe for trouble. A sliver of chakra was enough to call up the crimson depths of the Sharingan.

"You've taken up enough of the Hokage's time with your meaningless prattle. I have a matter of grave importance to discuss with him. You can leave, or I can throw you out."

Most of the time, Naruto wished Sasuke could lighten up. He loved the other man like a brother, but he practically defined the term "stick in the mud". Even Sai was more cheerful than him, and the ink-user had a whole shopping list of problems. Right now, however, he was egging Sasuke on, at least in his head. Come on! Give it to those stupid councillors!

The councillors scowled and then hurried out of the room. There would be trouble later – they'd probably try to pass another pathetic motion criticising Sasuke's behaviour – but Naruto couldn't care less. They were finally gone, and Sasuke had about a billion of those motions on his record already.

"So, what's this matter of grave importance you've got?" Naruto asked. "Please let it be something that involves the two of us going out and blowing up lots of stuff. How about a mountain? It's been a while since we've blown up a mountain."

Sasuke sat down and put his feet up on Naruto's desk. There was precisely one person in the entire world that Naruto would let do that, and Sasuke wasn't her even if he did look kind of girly sometimes. Naruto shoved Sasuke's feet off the desk. "Technically, I blew up that mountain, dead-last. And no, I don't actually have anything of grave importance to discuss with you."

Naruto grinned. "Did you get thrown out of the house again?"

"No, I did not get thrown out of the –"

"Karin totally threw you out of the house, didn't she?" Naruto wasn't normally one to point and laugh at someone else's misfortune, but this was Sasuke. So he did exactly that – he jabbed one finger at Sasuke and laughed his ass off. "This is what, the third time this week? Let me guess, you forgot to put down the toilet seat again, or maybe you were late to dinner."

Naruto thanked every deity in the universe at least twice a week that Hinata was an absolute sucker for his puppy dog eyes. Sure, she could – and did – get mad at him sometimes. He wasn't perfect. But she was always quick to forgive, and he wasn't above grovelling and pouting if that's what it took. Karin, on the other hand, was a certifiable psycho, which was probably why she got along with Sakura so well. Sasuke was also one of the most stupidly proud people that Naruto knew. If he and Karin got into an argument about whether the sky was blue and Sasuke said it was bright pink, then damn it, the Uchiha would spend a week out of the house rather than admit he was wrong. It was a good thing that Hinata didn't mind letting Sasuke sleep in the guest room.

"We were arguing about how many children we should have," Sasuke said. He shuddered. "She wants twelve children, Naruto. Twelve! What kind of woman wants twelve children? Doesn't it hurt giving birth? And how are we going to look after them? One baby seems like enough of a hassle, twelve will be worse than the war."

"Well, you should be happy your wife wants to have kids." Naruto smirked. "Plus, weren't you the one going on and on and on about how you had to restore your clan and all that."

"That was before I actually knew how annoying children were," Sasuke replied. He'd been press-ganged into looking after the kids at the academy more than once. "They're monsters. They're loud and noisy and demanding."

"Well, if they're anything like you, they'll just sit there and scowl all day." Naruto rolled his eyes. "But please tell me that you didn't come here just to complain." He gestured at all of the paperwork on his desk. "You could at least help me with some of this."

"Not a chance. You knew what you were in for when you signed up." Sasuke's lips curled. "But maybe we could make things more interesting." He took a sealing scroll out of his pocket and unsealed his own pile of paperwork. "Do you know what these are?"

"Requisition orders for ANBU," Naruto said. "Which you need to have done by tomorrow, Mr Commander of the ANBU."

"I'll wager my paperwork against yours."

"Really?" Naruto wasn't about to turn down the chance to fob some of his paperwork off on Sasuke. "What kind of game are you thinking?"

"Cards." Sasuke pulled a pack of playing cards out of his pocket and slapped them down on the table. "Don't think I've forgotten how you cleaned out the others the last time we had a poker night. You're good, but I'm better."

Naruto knew what Sasuke was up to. He'd never been very good at standard diplomacy and all the little tricks and intrigues it involved. He was more of a "hit the other guy until they agree" person. Hinata, however, knew quite a lot about that sort of thing, and she was a very good teacher. Whenever Naruto had needed to study, she'd gone with a very simple plan: each correct answer resulted in one less piece of clothing and a perfect score came with its own, extremely interesting, reward. Naruto could be very intelligent when he put his mind to it.

"Fine, but I'm checking those cards first. I remember the last time we played – you marked them. Where I come from, we call that cheating."

Sasuke stared back across the table. "We're ninja, Naruto. Cheating is what we do."

"Yeah, yeah." Naruto picked up the cards and examined them. Good, they seemed unmarked, and there weren't any jutsu on them either. "We're friends, Sasuke, you're not supposed to cheat against your friends at cards."

"Says the man who once transformed a clone into a clock on the wall so he could see what was in my hand."

"That was after you cast an illusion on the cards to make everyone else think you had a straight flush." Naruto passed the cards back to Sasuke. The dark-haired man began to shuffle. "So, how are things are ANBU HQ? They can't be too busy if you've got time to pick a fight with Karin."

Sasuke made a non-committal sound. "The new recruits are still settling in. A few of them are good, but we might have to send some of the others back for more training. They've gotten soft."

"The war is over, Sasuke. Things are peaceful, at least for now." Naruto shrugged. "I'm not surprised they've gotten soft. But do what you need to do. We have to be ready in case trouble come up."

"I'll get them ready, one way or another. Did you know that one of them almost blew his arm off with an exploding tag? It was actually kind of funny until Sakura showed up. You know how she gets when she has to reattach limbs. She didn't take too kindly to all the laughter either. She almost put another three of my ANBU in the hospital."

Naruto pursed his lips. That would explain the angry letter on his desk from his pink-haired teammate about ANBU being full of jerks. He could understand her ire. It wasn't that nice to laugh at someone who'd almost blown their arm off. Then again, ANBU was supposed to be the elite. People in ANBU weren't supposed to almost blow their arms off with their own exploding tags. So, yeah, it was kind of funny. And she had managed to get the arm fixed, so no harm no foul.

"You know, I never thought she'd end up the crazy one. I mean I've got a demon in me, and you've got your whole… thing. But she actually had a pretty normal life, family-wise, and she still turned out weirder than us."

"She married Kakashi." Sasuke's lips curled. "I would say that is the definition of crazy."

"And you married Karin." Naruto smirked. "Probably the only one who married somebody normal is me. I mean come on, Karin likes to heal you by letting you bite her. You can't tell me that isn't kinky, especially when we both know that she can use other healing techniques."

Sasuke's Sharingan swirled threateningly. "That's my wife you're making fun of, dead-last. Besides, your wife used to perv on you with her Byakugan. I'd say that's plenty strange too."

"Well, I am pretty awesome down there if you know what I mean."

"Don't even start." Sasuke dealt out the cards.

"Don't bother trying to threaten me with those funky eyes of yours, Sasuke. I know exactly what you can do with them, and you don't scare me." Naruto picked up his cards and forced himself to look calm. His hand sucked. Sasuke, bastard that he was, probably had a perfect hand too. "And turn those off, will you? I'm pretty sure that having your Sharingan on is cheating."

"Make sure you don't cheat either." Sasuke scowled. "That means no Sage Mode or Nine-Tails Cloak Mode."

"Fine." Naruto glanced back down at his cards and then at the clock on the wall. "We'll make it a two form minimum bet. We've got two hours before my next meeting too."

An hour later, Naruto had forty new pieces of paperwork to do. He was certain that Sasuke was cheating, but he couldn't work out how. The Uchiha hadn't used any illusions, and the cards themselves were unmarked.

"Okay, what gives?"

Sasuke laid his cards out on the table – another win. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's the seventh hand you've won in a row. No one is that lucky."

Sasuke chuckled. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."

"And do you promise to keep your end of the deal?"

"Fine."

"It's my eyes." Sasuke smirked. "You're forgetting that even without my Sharingan on, I've got fast eyes. I've already learned all of your little tells and twitches. You might be able to fool someone else, but even without my Sharingan I still know you well enough to guess most of the time. Plus, you've also had some really bad luck."

"Cheater." Naruto formed a hand seal. Twenty clones popped into existence and got started on the paperwork. "Just so you know, Sasuke, you're a big jerk, a big, cheating jerk."

The Uchiha started shuffling again. He knew Naruto. The blonde couldn't stand losing. They'd play cards right up until his next meeting. "Why don't you just use clones for your meetings?"

"Somebody put a law into Kohoha's constitution forbidding the use of clones for official meetings unless we're under direct military threat. I have a feeling it was probably Kakashi – it's the kind of thing he'd do to mess with me. I think he's just jealous of how much chakra I have."

"Idiot. Not everybody can spam clones like you."

"And not everybody gets born with awesome eyes that can do cool stuff." Naruto laughed. "Like you said, we're ninja. We've got to use what we've got."

"Fair enough." Sasuke dealt the next hand. "Clear your schedule tomorrow."

"Oh?"

"You agreed with me. ANBU is getting soft. You need to come by and help me toughen them up."

"What did you have in mind?" Naruto didn't bother to hide his interest. "Thinking of showing the newbies what their commander can do?"

"They should know what I'm capable of." Sasuke studied his cards. He had another good hand.

"And you're thinking of sparring me to show them?" Naruto grinned. Sasuke was one of the few people who could truly push him. "Are you sure you're not just pissed off about how I beat you last time."

"Maybe I am. Are you worried I'll get my revenge?"

"Hah." Naruto laughed. "Book a big training ground. I want to make sure all of the newbies get to see me kick your ass."

X X X

Naruto didn't really kick Sasuke's ass although he did win their spar. His victory, however, was marred by the realisation that levelling one of the village's largest training grounds meant that there would be a veritable mountain of paperwork to fill out.

X X X

Author's Notes

As always, I neither own Naruto, nor am I making any money off of this.

As the manga is starting to reach a conclusion (I could be wrong – we all know how a battle can go from being almost over to taking another seventy chapters), I thought I'd put together a series of short chapters about what life might be like after the war. I don't think Naruto would become Hokage immediately (he's too young), but I can see Kakashi stuck with the job while Naruto learns the ropes (Tsunade having retired after the war).

Naturally, being Hokage in a time of peace isn't nearly as exciting as being one during a time of war. And garbage collection is very important.

I won't be focusing on just Naruto, but I will probably be spending most of the chapters looking at the members of Team Seven and the Rookie Nine. Let me know whom you would like to see next.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.