Nara Shikamaru; 3 Years Later

Age 15

-Stand In-

It was early in the morning when I heard someone wander into my bedroom. The figure leaned over me for a moment and then left. I figured it had to be my father checking to see if I was awake.

Although I was awake, I was not ready to get up.

I must have lied in bed for another hour or so before I finally opened my eyes.

I pushed myself up off my bed and got up.

I had no missions today and, if I had not yet been summoned by the Hokage for something frivolous then I could assume I had a reasonably free day. I went into the bathroom to put my hair up.

That's when I caught sight of something on my forehead.

After putting all my hair up, I leaned in to see it was writing.

"Come to the Hokage's office at your earliest convenience."

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" I found myself yelling out loud.

Wouldn't it had just been easier to WAKE me up and tell me that I needed to come to the Hokage's office instead of scrawling ink across my forehead? Did they PURPOSELY try to give me the illusion of possibly having the day off for once?

Now I had to take time to wash it off my forehead and then get dressed.

"Shikamaru, is there a problem?" my dad asked as I came down the stairs.

He must have observed my perturbed expression. Luckily, I had been able to get all the writing off my forehead but it certainly wasn't a pleasant surprise after I had gotten up.

"No problem." I said, pulling my vest out of my closet.

"Raido stopped by here earlier." My father said. "He said the Hokage needed you in her office."

"I got his message." I said grudgingly.

I pulled my vest out of the closet and put it on. "I'll be back a little later after I find out what she wants." I said.

"Take your time." My father said. "Your mother is on the warpath."

"So what else is new?" I said.

"I HEARD THAT!!" my mother screamed from the other room.

"Okay, I'm outta here." I told him, suddenly not so unenthusiastic about leaving the house.

I started walking towards the office. I was in no hurry. The message that had been left for me was that I was to arrive at my earliest convenience.

When I was about half way there, I saw Chouji. Or rather, he saw me.

"Good afternoon, Shikamaru!" he said, jogging up to me.

"Hi Chouji." I replied.

"Fine day, don't you think?" he said with a sigh.

"I've seen better." I said.

"Oh Shikamaru!" he exclaimed. "That's not the way to look at things!"

"If you say so, Chouji." I answered.

"Hey, where are you going anyway?" Chouji asked after a bit of a pause.

"The Hokage wanted to see me." I replied.

"Oh, what about training?"

I stopped. "Training?" I said.

"Remember?" Chouji said. "You said you'd help me train today!"

I slapped my forehead. I had completely forgot that I had promised Chouji just a few days earlier that I would help him train. The Chuunin Selection Exam was coming up and he wanted to brush up on a few of his skills so that Asuma would nominate him. After all, now that Ino was a chuunin, he was the only one left on the team. I don't know whether that helped him or hurt him, but he told me that it certainly made him feel lonely.

"Oh…um…" I said. "I…can't today…"

"That's okay Shikamaru!" said Chouji with a smile.

"Can we get a rain check?" I requested.

"Of course!" Chouji said. "You should hurry though! I don't want to keep you from your important meeting!"

"Thanks for understanding, Chouji." I said, waving to him.

I felt bad for him. He had probably been waiting eagerly for this training day since I told him I'd do it.

This had better be important…

I climbed the stairs, skipping two at a time. Maybe, if I finished fast enough, I'd still have time to train with Chouji.

"You called for me?" I said, opening the door only to see that the Hokage was not sitting at her desk. There were a few ninjas in the room, but the Hokage wasn't there.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here!" said Raido. "We've been waiting for the longest time!"

"What's going on?" I asked.

"It seems the Hokage has taken a vacation." Said Raido, picking up a piece of paper and showing it to me. "And left the village in your care until she returns."

I think I must have looked stupefied at this explanation because he handed the note to me.

"Raido—" I read out loud. "I apologize for giving you such short notice but I believe it is imperative that I take a well deserved vacation from my duties as the Hokage. I will return as soon as I can but, in the meantime, I would like to request that you call Nara Shikamaru to fill my position until I return. I trust him with the safekeeping of the village, and I would like you to treat him with the utmost respect that you have towards me. I have faith that our village will see another day."

I looked up from the note.

The ninjas were looking at me.

"This is some kind of joke, right?" I said, expecting the Hokage to leap out from under her desk and laugh at my face for believing it for only a minute.

"I suppose you're acting Hokage now." Said Raido.

I blinked.

"What?" I said. It was impossible to believe that they were going along with it.

"The Hokage trusts you and so do we!" said Raido. "And, if it's her orders then we cannot neglect to fulfill them!"

I put a hand on my head.

"Are you all right?" one ninja asked.

"Ow." I said. "My head."

I was only fifteen years old. Did the Hokage not consider the fact that I was FAR from mature enough to deal with all the chaos that it is to be Hokage? She just threw me into the position without first discussing it with me or getting my consent.

"Excuse me, Miss Hokage…" came a voice from outside the room. I turned around to see someone I recognized, but couldn't put a name to her face. She looked about the room. "Is the Hokage not in?"

"The Hokage is on a vacation." Said Raido. "Nara Shikamaru is filling in."

"Oh, okay." She said with a nod and then turned to me. "I'm from the Inuzuka clan. My brother is Inuzuka Kiba. Has he, by any chance, returned from his mission yet?"

I looked around for support, but all the other ninjas were only staring at me.

"I'm sorry to put this on you…" she continued. "But he's been gone for almost a week and his predicted return time was over two days ago. He's only fifteen years old and he's on the mission all by himself."

"Uh…well…" I began. I had to say something to set her at ease. I wandered over to the Hokage's desk where all the mission scrolls sat. "Well… when a ninja is late from returning home from a mission…" I trailed off, trying to remember protocol. "After three days… a search party is sent out."

"Yes, I'm familiar with that." She said. "After all, the search parties are normally filled with people from my clan. But he's only a genin and he's alone—"

"Well…" I said, but I hadn't meant to interrupt her. "Though it is highly plausible that he is merely lagging in his return…I think this constitutes a small search party."

"Oh wonderful!" she exclaimed happily. "I volunteer."

I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. "Very well." I said. "If there is the chance that you do not find him within two hours… return and a large search party will be sent out."

"I will!" she said, going to the door. "Thank you, Mr. Hokage!"

With that, she was gone.

I froze at the sound of what she had said. Had I just been called 'Mr. Hokage'?

"Two chuunins have just returned from their mission." Said a ninja I didn't know as he came in.

"And I take it that Inuzuka Kiba is not among them?" I said. The ninja shook his head. I sat down at the Hokage's desk. It felt somehow forbidden and foreign to me, as if I didn't belong there. Actually, I didn't really belong there at all.

I guess there would be no time for training with Chouji today.

"All right…" I said. "You may…send them in…"

He bowed. It was amazing for everyone to bow to my every whim like this.

"We completed our mission." Came a family voice as Ino came in the door followed soon thereafter by Sasuke. The two of them stared at me and didn't say anything for a bit. Finally, Ino spat out, "Shikamaru?! You're not the Hokage!"

Yes, this was quite apparent to me. "Yeah well…" I said. "The Hokage's on vacation. I'm filling in."

"Aren't there OTHER people who are more qualified that could fill in?" Sasuke questioned.

That's something I would like to know. But I guess everyone just liked to pick on me.

"I guess." I said, opening the scroll that read when the two of them would receive payment for their labors. I checked off that they had returned on time and noted that they would be paid in the morning. "You'll receive your payment tomorrow morning." I said.

They nodded.

But didn't go anywhere anytime soon.

"You are dismissed." I said.

They both instinctively bowed their heads slightly and left the office.

"Excellent job, Shikamaru!" said Raido. "Frankly, I think I may have buckled under the pressure of having to fill in for the Hokage, especially at the drop of the hat! But you are handling it quite nicely."

How was I supposed to respond to that?

"Okay." I said. "Thanks."

What followed was the aspect of being the Hokage that you never hear about. I had to fill out mission plans and send ninjas off on missions. In addition, I had to receive ninjas back from their missions.

But worst of all, I had to tell people that the Hokage was not here and that I was filling in.

Surprisingly, it didn't really seem to freak people out that I was sitting at the Hokage's desk. This is how an exchange would be;

"Miss Hokage I—oh, you're not the Hokage."

"She's on a vacation."

"So you're filling in?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, okay. In that case, Mr. Hokage…"

It shocked me that they were all so easily just calling me 'Mr. Hokage'. That was probably the most difficult part of the whole ordeal.

About two hours later, Kiba's sister arrived at the door again. She was covered in mud and dirt, but she looked quite upset.

"The smell of the mud obscured the tracking!" she said.

"So…you were unsuccessful?" I said.

"Correct." She said. "In addition, I found a large trap and a sign of a struggle."

It was time to organize a real search party.

"Where's Shizune?" I said, standing up. She was usually in charge of these kinds of things. "Hang on one second." I told everyone in the room.

"Wait, I'll get her, Mr. Hokage." Said Raido.

Maybe they were only calling me that to make me feel special. But it wasn't working.

He took off and I returned to the desk as Kiba's sister paced.

I could see why she was worried.

"You know, I'm sure he's fine." I said. "The Hokage wouldn't have sent him on this mission alone unless she was confident that he'd be able to succeed alone."

She nodded.

That's when Raido and Shizune came in.

"What is it—" she started. "Wait…you're not the Hokage."

"She's on vacation." I sighed. "And I'm filling in. We need a search party."

"Absolutely." Shizune said with a nod.

"We're looking for Inuzuka Kiba." I said. "A genin. He left almost a week ago and was scheduled to return over two days ago."

Shizune looked at Kiba's sister and then back at me.

"Inuzuka?" she said. "As in the clan that has dogs?"

"Yes!" said Kiba's sister. "He's my younger brother and he's only fifteen!"

"He got back a little over an hour ago." Shizune said.

Everyone in the room was silent.

"He what?" I said.

"He came back from his mission and asked me to heal his dog." Shizune answered. "Why, did he not check in?"

"No, it must have slipped his mind." I said, feeling quite annoyed.

"That's Kiba!" laughed his sister, though I don't know how she could laugh after he had put her through all that. "He's so forgetful sometimes! But he's really very sweet."

I didn't care that Kiba was forgetful but sweet. He had caused panic because he didn't come to me to check in.

"Do you want me to go and collect him?" Raido asked.

"That won't be necessary!" said Kiba's sister. "I'll be sure to give him the beating of his life so he'll never forget again!"

"Be sure to tell him the importance of checking in with the Hokage." I said.

She nodded and with that, she was gone. And I wasn't entirely sure if she was joking or not.

"Well, Mr. Hokage, what's next on the list of things to do?" said Raido.

I sighed and slumped down in my chair.

"I don't know." I said. "How about we find the Hokage and bring her back? This is too troublesome."