Naruto AU: Hatake Agricultural Adventures
(Alternatively known as the How Sakumo Makes Friends in Suna + the Hatake clan actually being Agricultural Experts AU)
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Plant a Dragon's teeth and you can have an army of grown warriors, or so the legend said.
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Warnings: silliness
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[A Day in the Life of a Hokage Bodyguard] - Syuon vs Tobirama's Paperwork Nightmare
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Syuon Kochi was barely a month into his position and his first posting is already an uncontested disaster.
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The Hokage Guard Platoon was not created to primarily protect the Hokage from attempts on his life as most people would deign to think. Instead, they were there to make sure that Hashirama-sama does not slack off on his duties, such as signing the boring paperwork necessary to keep the village organized and functioning; keep him from being distracted or late to meetings because some random shrubbery or tree or flower would have such engaging gossip that he just had to listen in; prevent him from certainly breaking his serious face during negotiations and clan meetings and acting like a "tree-brained, over-excitable and naive fool of a best friend" as Madara-sama would have called him at least once a day; and making sure that the God of Shinobi does not get the opportunity to dump his workload on someone else.
That someone else usually being his already overworked little brother, who somehow managed to juggle clan head duties atop jutsu research, education administration, urban development, ANBU creation and assignment and so on and so forth for a few of Konohagakure's earliest years until Madara-sama found out about it and handled an intervention. By putting his foot down. Literally. (The gigantic fiery Susanoo one, if you want to be specific.)
Syuon admires Tobirama-sama. He really does. He's brilliant and talented and capable of creating so many wondrous things—and, no Yuato, shut up, he isn't envious of the albino and he is certainly not having a bisexual crisis either—he doesn't ever even want to be the man.
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Being the Hokage's bodyguard means being privy to the more intimate relationships among the Hokage's family and friends. That also means knowing about personal and private details that would smash public confidence into smithereens should these secrets ever find the light of day. Such as knowing that Tobirama-sama's self-care is practically non-existent in direct contrast to his organization and work ethic. Or that he is forever fighting an uphill battle in reining in his older brother's gambling, drinking and idealistic tendencies. (Count is at three 'victories' out of every ten...and Kami, how is their village still standing?)
Which is honestly insane and just looking at the Senju perform all his duties (and more) makes the Syuon's heart want to twist, his brain to curdle, and his eyes to water from sheer sympathy aches alone. His sister would have risked treason and nabbed the man to fatten up had she still been alive to do so. And he would have helped her every step of the way. Even if he had been too young at the time, witnessing his lowly peasant parents overwork themselves to death had left an impression.
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Now, childhood traumas and non-existent bisexual crushes aside, it should be noted that Hashirama-sama and paperwork do not mix. Honestly, the words "Shodaime Hokage-sama" and "paperwork" cannot exist in the same sentence without the words "escape", "ruin", "defeated by", "origami" or anything negative or nonsensical along those lines bridging them. "Madara-sama" and "paperwork" sometimes has the word "fire" tattooed in between, but at least the Uchiha hands in his mostly complete (and sometimes smelling of barbecue) portion on time. The Shodaime, on the other hand, had to be wrangled and cajoled into finishing his workload once he gets past the point of his admittedly impressive short attention span.
(And the blame lies not in the man, but in his bloodline limit. Tobirama-sama had explained it once, even though Syuon didn't really understand some parts of it. Something about how plants are static, responsive only to certain external stimuli, and Mokuton users adapted to their plant-sense by having shorter attention spans and sunny personalities, in order to prevent them from growing mad from the constant monotony of the information they receive from flora. Add that to the fact that paper and furniture made from different individual plants, even if they are the same kind or species, apparently comes off as abominations to those with the bloodline limit and it freaks them out. Or something like that.)
Making the task more difficult are Hashirama-sama's frankly ridiculous excuses and melodramatic attempts at sneaking out to avoid the grueling task of reading, filling out and signing stack after stack after stack of forms. Seeing the God of Shinobi wail, "I'm going to die buried in paperwork! Why can't otouto do it?!" before the proceeding waterworks pretty much removed most of the awe-factor in the man's presence (and made Syuon much better at this job, thank the Kami.)
Honestly. And he thought the Uchiha were supposed to be the dramatic ones.
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Which brought them to this...
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"What do you mean you can't find him anywhere?!" his partner Yuato cried out, hands trying not to pull his hair out in panic. Syuon wasn't in a better mood himself, half-wanting to slap the man in order to shut him up and prevent him from wearing through the floor with his endless pacing.
The Hokage had somehow given them the slip using wood clones and a haphazard chase that got cut short with the hot springs and a few close calls with angry women. It's been hours and hours of fruitless searching for the ANBU squad specifically assigned for Hokage-sitting, and the pile of paperwork had slowly multiplied to ludicrous stacks, but not in the way one would think.
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Syuon should explain.
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Madara-sama had only given three distinct orders to follow to their utmost ability.
One: Never ever lose sight of the Hokage
Two: Never let the Hokage turn his paperwork in late.
Three: Do not, under any circumstances...let the paper breed.
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The shinobi didn't understand the last one at first. He thought that Madara-sama was just being metaphorical. Until the Shodaime gave them the slip for the first time, and the shinobi watched in disbelief as the abandoned stack of papers, for all intents and purposes, multiplied exponentially on its own.
Both Syuon and Yuato could not comprehend what they just saw, and asking senior officer Shiba only caused the Inuzuka shinobi to go drown himself on the secret on-duty stash and his partner Ginmaru to cover her eyes with her paws and howl in distress. Oh, but not before the man left the most disturbing warning: "Tobirama-sama made sure that the Shodaime will never again 'displace' any of his paperwork. With a very good added incentive as to why he should never turn them in late. Ever. So, I am telling you now. Do not piss off the Senju Demon."
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And now, watching Shiba and Yuato attempt to push the multiplying tide of paper with the sheer weight of their backs in order to seal the office behind them, Syuon is filled with a sense of impending defeat.
He's such a failure. An utter failure—
And Madara Uchiha suddenly barged in, dragging the missing shrieking Shodaime by the ear and issuing threat after threat of death, Mito and Tobirama (in that order) at the top of his lungs. Hashirama cried, hands waving wildly then shrinking in concession.
And Syuon thought, that perhaps things will look up after all and Madara-sama and Tobirama-sama will not have their hides.
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Then, as if a sign that the gods do have a wicked sense of humor, the door to the Hokage's office finally gave, and the unrelenting tsunami of paper surged in and made to swallow them all whole.
In that split second, Yuato and Shiba fell, Hashirama tried to jump away only to be tripped by Madara, who was halfway from unleashing a katon firestorm before remembering where he was (and who would be pissed the most should he burn the end month's worth of reports) and shunshined out of there. (Presumably to get Tobirama to earn himself some brownie points.)
And as for Syuon?
Syuon panicked and screamed.
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The three bodyguards ended up in the infirmary to be treated for thousands of paper cuts. It was torture.
Syuon, who developed an acute phobia of paper, had a breakdown when he had to fill out his discharge form and transferred out to a different department (one where he didn't have to interact with paper at any form, with the exception of destroying it.)
Hashirama, meanwhile, got the lecture of his life from Tobirama, while a smug Madara watched on from somewhere behind the younger Senju brother (where he is free to admire the view.)
It was a very, very good day for Madara.
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Notes:
The accursed piles of paperwork on the Hokage's desk had to come from somewhere...
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Roster:
Syuon Kochi (different from normal sound - east wind) [殊音-東風] - one of the Shodaime's bodyguards
Yuato Sakakibara (loveship in struggle - evergreen field) [結愛斗 - 榊原] - Syuon's partner
Shiba (brushwood) [柴] - a shinobi from the Inuzuka clan, and Syuon and Yuato's senior officer
Ginmaru (silver perfection) [銀丸] - Shiba Inuzuka's partner