Author's Note: The previous story in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Jiraiya vs. Paperwork", which I do recommend reading first (along with the prequel to that, because I think I'm hilarious), featuring Jiraiya of the Sannin having to deal with Namikaze Minato as a genin, along with his two very artistically inclined teammates.
TEAM MINATO VS. PAPERWORK
Second, there's Obito.
Like Rin, he really doesn't mean to cause trouble.
It's just that he's cursed.
Minato still doesn't believe in curses, though. He still believes that there's no curse on every Team Seven to have hellish paperwork for the jounin-sensei, just that there's been a series of unfortunate coincidences and a very small pool of teams to draw evidence from. Curses are illogical and impossible, except... Minato's searched for every other possible explanation to understand what's happening with Obito and nothing is forthcoming.
Obito isn't exactly your average Uchiha, but he's still determined to be an amazing shinobi and he knows that for that you have to do your paperwork. So Obito writes his mission reports without complaint. Minato's read some of them and, while they're a little heavy on the exclamation marks and complaining about Kakashi, there's nothing actually wrong with them.
Nothing that would make the desk-shinobi revolt like Obito's teammates' paperwork might.
And yet the papers that Obito hands in at the Mission Assignment Desk, though usually legible, are somehow burnt, soaked, ripped, sliced, stabbed, stepped on, crushed, or covered in anything ranging from fruit juice to cake batter to human blood – several of these at once sometimes.
Somewhere between the Uchiha Compound and the Hokage Tower, something always happens to Obito's mission report. His report goes from a perfectly average mission report to something that might be comparable to the things Minato's sensei claims his female teammate used to hand in to their sensei.
The desk-shinobi are not happy about this.
The Head Desk-Shinobi, who thanks to Rin has somehow become enough of an acquaintance for Kushina to invite the man around to a meal once or twice a month (and Minato still hasn't found out if the man has a name yet), has personally expressed his displeasure with these reports. It is his esteemed opinion that his desk-shinobi should not have to accept mission reports using tongs so they don't have to touch them, and also that Kushina's cooking is as delightful as always.
Minato didn't approach Obito about it, because he knew the boy was trying his best. It was in Obito's nature to do his absolute best, and in Nature's nature to apparently send black cats and helpless little old ladies in Obito's path during his attempts.
Instead, Minato went out to do some reconnaissance on his own to find out what was happening to Obito's mission reports and see what could be done for him. Yes, Minato went out to stalk a child, but he had to see what the trip between the Uchiha Compound and the Hokage Tower was like for Obito without interfering. Letting Obito know that Minato was watching would be interference, so... stalking.
But for a good cause.
Namely: Minato not being on worse terms with the Head Desk-Shinobi than he already was and currently is.
As it turned out, the Uchiha Compound is quite far from the Hokage Tower, leaving much potential for many things to happen to poor Obito on his valiant journey. And, as it turned out, many things did happen to poor Obito on his valiant journey, as though the universe was specifically attempting to destroy Obito's mission report at all costs.
Three steps out of the Uchiha compound, Obito was accosted by one of his cousins and his mission report very nearly fell into a puddle. The cousin desperately needed Obito to stop by the market and pick something up for them, and Obito only managed to save his mission report from being soaked by diving for it. The mission report was fine, but Obito got soaked.
So Obito went back into the Uchiha Compound and came out with new clothes, a market list from his cousin, and his mission report. He deftly avoided the puddle this time, but twenty-six steps down the road, he tripped over a cat that suddenly darted out over his feet, and nearly fell into a different puddle instead. Nearly, was the key word there; Obito managed to just miss it, so he and his mission report were only slightly dusty.
Minato glanced back towards the Uchiha Compound and then up towards the Hokage Tower. It hadn't been five minutes or fifty steps and Obito's mission report had nearly been soaked twice. How much more trouble could Obito get into?
Minato watched in amazement as Obito was nearly smacked with a fish by a clumsy civilian on her way back from the market, nearly run over by a bunch of nin-puppies that had broken loose, nearly run over by the Inuzuka chasing the nin-puppies, nearly crashed into by a cart of eggplants while avoiding a cart carrying rice bags, nearly knocked in the head by a flowerpot falling out of a window, and very nearly slipped into a chicken pen after a water barrel was knocked over by children playing tag.
Minato, amazed, had never known that Konoha could be so hazardous.
In the end, Obito's mission report was trampled by the nin-puppies when the Inuzuka managed to chase them back in the other direction. The desk-shinobi on duty looked at the dust and the claw-marks on the paper, accepted it wordlessly, and then glared directly at where Minato was hiding.
At no other time does Obito experience this series of unfortunate events. It is only when he's holding a mission report that all hell seems to break loose on Konoha, that the universe awakens with an instinctual need to ruin Obito's paperwork.
The next time Team Seven had to hand in their mission reports, Minato went to the Uchiha Compound and offered to deliver Obito's since he was 'in the area'. The other Uchiha nearby clearly didn't believe him, but Obito did and handed it over without complaint, obviously happy not to have to take the perilous journey to Hokage Tower.
As Obito's jounin-sensei, Minato was authorized to hand in his student's mission report for him, and it wasn't much trouble for Minato to do it with the Hiraishin. After all, he could get from the Uchiha Compound to the Hokage Tower in, pardon the pun, a flash.
It was only a temporary solution, but with Rin unintentionally causing so much trouble, Minato was just grateful that there was any kind of solution at all.
He ended up inside one of the big bins outside Hokage Tower. Apparently the janitors inside Hokage Tower were thorough and the seal Minato had secretly placed suffered the consequences of this thoroughness. Thankfully, Obito's mission report was fine and only smelled slightly strange when Minato handed it in to the desk-shinobi on duty. There was no need for them to glare like that, and no need for Kushina to laugh like that afterwards.
The next time, Minato went to the Uchiha Compound again and decided to try getting to the Hokage Tower without the Hiraishin. As a shinobi, he could always use exercise, and Minato was fast even without the Nidaime Hokage's jutsu. How much could happen in a single rooftop run?
On the way, Minato nearly got burnt by a stray experimental jutsu that the Research Department was trying, then nearly soaked by a second experimental jutsu to put the first jutsu out.
He also ended up being caught in the crossfire of a drill by the T&I Department for recapturing escaped prisoners, where the escaped prisoner was being graciously played by a cackling Nara Shikaku, who had been 'volunteered' by his old teammate and had no issue using a henge to impersonate other individuals currently running on the rooftops. It was probably revenge on Minato for Shikaku's inability to beat the ex-hunter-nin's origami record, and also just good tactics.
Especially considering that Inoichi, in a symbol of the close friendship between him and the 'escaped prisoner', had issued an 'at all costs, including ruthless violence, actually please use ruthless violence and punch his stupid lazy face in' command to his subordinates.
Obito's mission report took a senbon to its center, Minato had to use the Hiraishin to flash back to his own apartment and start over, and he only managed to make it to Hokage Tower in the end because Akimichi Chouza took pity on him and helped.
"Trying to make up for your teammates?" Minato asked wearily.
Chouza took a few moments to think thoroughly about it.
"No," he answered finally, obviously completely guiltless and utterly content with his place in the universe. "Your efforts are just that sad."
The desk-shinobi were not impressed with the small hole through the center of the paper, but Minato thought he'd done quite well nevertheless. He was never ever going through that again, but he still thought he'd done quite well and deserved to be congratulated, then to go home and curl up in the warm safety of Kushina's arms for the foreseeable future.
After their next mission, Minato brought Obito into the Mission Assignment Room itself, set the boy up with his own table and writing supplies, and told Obito to write his mission report in the safety of the room where he would hand it in. Because if nobody had to make the perilous journey, then the problem would be solved.
Except, ten minutes into Obito writing it, a chuunin came back from their mission covered in mud and, in their disoriented stumble from several days without sleep, tripped into Obito's little desk. The mission report was lost to the mud, the chuunin was very sorry, and Obito had to start over.
The second mission report was ruined within two minutes when an ANBU fell out of the ceiling onto Obito's desk, cursed profusely for a second, and was tackled by another ANBU also appearing out of the ceiling. The two wrestled for half a minute, then realized where they were, and disappeared back into the ceiling again. Obito's report was lost in the confusion.
The third mission report actually got finished. Then a squirrel randomly jumped through the window, attacked Minato's student and made Obito drop his mission report with a yelp, grabbed the paper, and tried to jump back through the window with it. It was stopped when half the Mission Assignment Room, trained never to surrender any of Konoha's valuable and informative paperwork to anyone or anything potentially a foe, threw whatever was in easiest reach to them.
Obito's mission report was impaled by three kunai, four shuriken, two senbon, and a stapler.
The Head Desk-Shinobi was called in and Obito had to rewrite his report.
The worst part was that Obito wasn't even upset about it and optimistically went about rewriting it. Minato guessed that Obito was just pleased that their were witnesses to why he was unable to hand in his mission report and nobody would call him out for making up 'lies for excuses'. Minato mentally revised his previous opinion of Obito's excuses involving squirrels that had it out for him.
Even under careful watch and guard, when the mission report was finished again, a water pipe in the ceiling burst and Obito report was soaked. It had been two hours now and the desk-shinobi wanted Obito gone before something worse happened, so the Head Desk-Shinobi just sighed, said they'd let it dry out, and accepted it before going off to help his subordinates save their precious paperwork from the burst water pipe.
Minato has been informed that Obito is under no circumstances allowed to work near the Mission Assignment Desk ever again. In fact, the Head Desk-Shinobi wrote a special paper for Obito, relieving the boy of ever having to work as a desk-shinobi ever. Obito would actually be arrested if he ever insisted on working a desk.
Minato, who had had to suffer a handful of dreadfully boring desk shifts himself, is extremely envious, but since it isn't appropriate, doesn't say a thing. Kakashi, who had also been forced to take a few of these dull shifts, usually while on forced medical leave for escaping the hospital and pissing off the medic-nins (which was a dumb thing to do for such a supposedly clever kid, because those hospital medic-nins all had mountains of favors owed them and no problem using them for petty revenge), pouted for all of next week.
Minato tried to convince the desk-shinobi to come get Obito's reports themselves, like they'd tried when Minato was a genin, but they wouldn't do it. They had only been so utterly determined to get a report out of Minato because of Taiki and Hanako, and Kakashi and Rin just weren't weird enough for Obito to get the same privileged treatment of being hunted down by determined desk-shinobi.
Also, Minato was fairly certain that they had known at the time what seemed to befall the person who carried Uchiha Obito's mission report and just didn't want to go through the humiliating experience of being run over by rogue Inuzuka nin-puppies or falling into a hive of Aburame insects.
Minato tried the postal system, but mission reports aren't allowed to be submitted through the regular postal system, and the shinobi postal service had actually preemptively banned the current Team Seven from using their services when Minato's sensei was still a genin.
Minato tried to call discrimination on them, but the shinobi postal service countered with their right to refuse service due to 'unsafe working conditions'. Minato, incredulous, then tried to point out that they were a shinobi postal service and danger was a constant part of their working conditions, but the shinobi postal service replied with a polite letter saying that if he wanted to take them to the Hokage or the Council on it, then they would gladly see him in legal, bureaucratic hell if he wanted to contest.
So the only way forward seemed to be through the suffering, except that Minato refused to keep letting Obito go through the Perilous Trip to Hokage Tower, Minato just could not carry the mission report himself again, and no one besides qualified desk-shinobi and the shinobi postal service were allowed by regulation to carry the mission report. Somehow, Minato needed to make the desk-shinobi or post-shinobi come for Obito's report.
So Minato went to the Head Desk-Shinobi and tried pleading, begging, and bribery. But against the fearsome, incorruptable leader of the desk-shinobi, none of these did any good. Minato had to turn to the last option, the option that he had not wanted to use, the option that every shinobi had to use over their lifetime but should never use against their own village: threats.
If the desk-shinobi did not come for Obito's reports, then Minato, who could not do anything against them himself because he just didn't have what it took to win that battle, would show Uzumaki Kushina the horrible things that were befalling Minato's student and tell her that the desk-shinobi refused to help poor Obito.
It was an offer that the Head Desk-Shinobi could not refuse.
Now, the desk-shinobi grudgingly show up to the Uchiha Compound to collect Obito's mission report and stagger back into the Mission Assignment Room slightly scorched or soaked with fruit juice or suffering from whatever incredibly unlikely accident occurred on their journey. Obito's terrible luck, it seems, is amazingly and very specifically selective.
Minato now can't get any paperwork through the Hokage Tower without jumping through hoops of administrative hell as the desk-shinobi get what revenge they can, but for Obito (and for never having to deliver Obito's mission report ever again), it's worth it.
The only thing that Minato has to do now is be very careful to never mention anything about Obito's terrible, curse-like luck to anyone. Jiraiya told him about how Tsunade and the desk-shinobi teamed up to play a decades-long prank on the Sandaime Hokage and convinced him that there was some sort of Senju Conspiracy. (Which there actually was, except it was for a prank.) And how at some point, Saturobi Hiruzen let down his guard enough to get drunk in the shinobi dive bar, then ranted to a friend about his conspiracy theories in the hearing of an Uchiha, and the Uchiha have only very recently stopped vehemently bringing it up.
According to Jiraiya, if the Senju didn't have to turn in acceptable paperwork, then the Uchiha, in protest of unfair privilege, wouldn't hand in any paperwork. They held a silent protest inside Hokage Tower, just sitting there quietly in their dignified way, holding signs with neat and perfect correct slogans, and under the unnerving gaze of a crowd of Sharingan, the desk-shinobi immediately formed a union and then immediately went on strike.
Without the desk-shinobi, Konoha all but went entirely to hell within the week. Apparently this is the only reason Tsunade came clean with her prank. And also probably the explanation as to why Minato's sensei's generation has this strange, reverent respect for desk-shinobi and the work they do.
The Uchiha didn't believe her, probably because she sent her confession in by letter and it was a very red-faced Sandaime who read it aloud, and so the case keeps being re-submitted anonymously in writing through the shinobi postal service (because even Fugaku refuses to bring it up anymore) to the Council, even though the Council just burns it on sight now. The only living Senju has been gone from Konoha for years, but that apparently wasn't the point and wasn't important.
So under no circumstances does Minato believe in curses. None at all.
oOo
Author's Note: This fic is finished and chapters will be posted daily until it's complete. There will be 3 chapters.
