title; the hokage's decision
summary;the council was surely going to give him a headache, so why not change everything in order to avoid it?
fandom; naruto
characters; rookie nine, jonnin senseis and the saindaime hokage
spoilers; first few episodes, maybe.
rating;K
word count; 708
notes; i've been thinking. if the council is powerful, the civilians (and perhaps ninjas too) wouldn't want sasuke paired with naruto on a team, so they would complain all about it. if it were true, then why not have the hokage avoid such a headache that it would surely give him and change the teams? it may become something more, or it may not even come out of this, but i thought the idea was worth trying.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, the Hidden Leaf Vilage, sighed tiredly as he looked at the files in front of him. It was that time of the year again, the one where he had to choose where the Gennin would go; he had to create teams of three and hand them over to a suitable Jōnin-sensei until they became Chūnin and could go on in different squads. Each year, it became harder and harder for him to keep on making balanced teams. There were either too much trackers, or too much ninjutsu users, or maybe there weren't suited senseis willing to take a team. This year was proving to be extremely difficult for him, as the civilians on the council wouldn't be happy if he followed his usual method of putting the dead last with the rookie of the year. No, they would definitely not be pleased if they found out their precious Uchiha was in the same team as the demon gaki and village pariah, Uzumaki Naruto. This team would bring him such a headache he immediately cut it – having Kakashi training a Gennin team, even if it was the council's order, was already hard enough, trying to convince this team would be for the best might as well be what killed him after all -.

With that idea in mind, the Hokage immediately discarded that idea, leaving Uchiha Sasuke's file on a pile with Kakashi's as an open team. Moving along, he saw there was the Ino-Shika-Chō Trio again, this time their offspring, and immediately put them together, knowing if he didn't, both the council and their parents would be very unhappy. Pairing Asuma with them, as his teaching methods would suit this team the best, he laid their files in another pile and started to work on the rest. Yūhi Kurenai was the last Jōnin-sensei; a kunoichi specialized in Genjutsu and five other students. An Inuzuka, an Aburame and the Hyūga heiress – trackers - and, while they would have been a good match for a team, leaving Naruto with Haruno Sakura and Sasuke, the council problem would come up again. Sighing, he decided to keep the Haruno girl on Kakashi's team while debating which tracker would fit best to complete the team. The heiress wouldn't do, because the Sharingan and the Byakugan together in a team never really worked. This automatically put her in Kurenai's team together with Naruto. Now, which one to put where?

That was the worst part of the job, the Sandaime complained to himself as he got up and stretched his old muscles, some bones cracking and others popping. He grimaced at the slight pain; he really wasn't as young as he wanted to be and the Hokage work was really taking its toll on him. Pacing a bit, he went back to the task at hand. It wouldn't do to dwell, they had to be ready for that morning, after all. Not knowing really where to put the Aburame boy and where to put the Inuzuka, he went on by what little he knew of them. While the young bug user, Aburame Shino was just like his clan, he knew the Inuzuka boy could be very loud and this could make having him on a team with Naruto really complicated. Two loud mouths and hot heads never did work out as well. So he decided on putting the Aburame boy with the Yondaime Hokage's son while the other boy filled the Sharingan team. Maybe his team's seriousness would rub off on Naruto and he would become less hyperactive? Sarutobi wondered, but realized quickly it was never going to happen; the most likely scenario would be Naruto rubbing off on them.

Finally finished, Sarutobi summoned an ANBU and told him to call the Jōnin-senseis. It wasn't that late yet and they could go over the teams without needing to meet extra-early the next day. He sat down on his chair to wait, knowing Kakashi was chronically late, and casually smoked from his dear, dear pipe.

As, finally, all the Jōnin-senseis were assembled, he began to tell them why they were there. When he finished, there was a shout that could be heard through the entire Hokage Tower. "NANI?"