Chapter Three
"Troublesome…" Wearily signing his name onto a slip of paper, Shikamaru placed it back inside a folder, closing it and tossing it onto a foot high pile of identical files. He had just breathed a sigh of relief when there was a knock at 'his' door.
A Jounin entered the room, his arms so full that he could barely see over the fresh batch of binders. "Hai, Hokage-sama." Lowering the stack in front of Shikamaru, he scooped up the old pile and left the room with a respectful nod.
The door clicked shut. Shikamaru did not move. He stared, open-mouthed, in absolute horror at the mountain of paperwork towering above his head.
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"The team composition seems a little…" The ANBU member searched for the right word, one that would get her message across--which was important; miscommunication during missions often meant loss of lives--and yet not set off her decidedly volatile Hokage. "…a little…unusual."
Tsunade smiled, as though she had been expecting this question. "Your ANBU team is there mainly to put a cap on the casualties and…keep the big picture in mind, so to speak." She shuffled a few papers on her desk. "I trust you see why."
The ANBU members could. All too well. Having regular Jounins do an ANBU level mission without an actual ANBU team was…risky. "Then why…why not send a six man ANBU squad?"
"And have it go the same way as the last one?"
The ANBU member winced, glad for her all-concealing mask.
"The objective circumstances call for a rather larger task force, to be safe, but most of the Jounins are away on missions and we can't spare any more ANBU for security reasons," Tsunade explained in a matter of fact voice.
"But…Tsunade-sama…" The ANBU member hesitated. Was her team only the best Tsunade could cobble together when pressed for time? Sending out people that way only led to disaster, from her experience. "Considering the…objective circumstances… Are you sure the personnel for this mission will pack enough…firepower?"
Looking up from a document she had been about to sign, the Hodaime sighed, put down her pen and gave the ANBU member her full attention. "If you only take the objective circumstances into account, perhaps not." She folded her hands neatly on her desk.
"But then--why--"
"Because the circumstances are not all objective." Receiving no reply, Tsunade smiled knowingly again. "You're just the opposite of Sakura," she said with a hint of fondness.
Which the ANBU member thought was so relevant to their discussion.
"You've forgotten the hostage."
Silence. The ANBU member, shameful as it was for an elite ninja like herself, felt completely wrong-footed. The hostage? What did the hostage have anything to do with the mission? All hostages did was be rescued. They had been talking about the rescue team, hadn't they?
"For Kami's sake, would you at least try to use your head?" Tsunade's impatient snap nearly made the ANBU member jump. "Can you say nothing about who the hostage is and who I am sending to retrieve him? Those three Jounins on your team, I trust you know who they are."
Not wanting to further annoy the Hodaime, the ANBU member hurriedly opened her mouth to rattle off the names of the Jounins, but Tsunade cut in before she could do so.
"I think you will find the reasons for their motivation quite obvious."
The ANBU member almost scoffed. Even she wasn't that imperceptive. One of the first things she had learned at the Academy, though, had been that emotional outbursts never got you anywhere. And she was pretty sure that a contrite "Well, obviously I know they took one of their kids" categorized as an emotional outburst. "Will motivation be enough?"
It was a mark of how large their age gap was that Tsunade said, "Sometimes I wonder if the ANBU should take on children as young as you," with a tone of amusement.
Not that the girl denied she was the least in age of all her fellow ANBU members, but…children?
"Perhaps not, Hokage-sama," the ANBU member humored, albeit a little stiffly. Rigidity in tone didn't count as an emotional display, did it?
Tsunade apparently thought not, or didn't mind even if she did. "There's no need to use that voice on me, you know," she said, acquiring once more the sort of patience bred from fondness. "We both know you're capable. Sakura can't do half of what you can. If I sent her on your mission in your place, she would probably die," she admitted quietly.
"But in some ways, I think she understands more than you do."
The ANBU member didn't doubt that. Sakura's mind capacity had to be way above her own just to understand anything Tsunade said. Especially when the pink-haired kunoichi spent half her time with the baffling Hokage.
"One of these days," the Hodaime intoned, turning back to her paperwork, "You'll find that incentive can serve you better than mere physical strength or skill." She gave the ANBU member a solemn look. "And the only way to cultivate truly intrinsic motivation is through being subjective."
Tsunade signed the contract in front of her with a flourish, and with a wave of the Hokage's hand, the ANBU member was dismissed.
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That was it.
Shikamaru had had enough, and he simply didn't care anymore. It was taking all his willpower to just pick up the next folder off the sky-scraping pile, flip to the end of each one and scribble his name. Kami himself would have to descend from the heavens before Shikamaru actually read the troublesome things.
He'd tried, at first. He really had. The first few political letters he'd scrutinized carefully, like he was supposed to, and replied accordingly--to his amazement, he found that he could actually compile a reasonably competent answer.
But after an hour or so of very hard work--and after encountering what looked like an entire dictionary stuffed into a file--he'd given it up as a bad job and started signing the empty spaces indiscriminately.
Which wasn't the most responsible thing he had ever done--which was really saying something--but Shikamaru felt extremely justified in saying that he'd never asked for the job of Hokage, so if they insisted on stuffing him into a white outfit and strapping him down to a desk to sign things, then if he, for instance, accidentally authorized the swapping of ANBU cloaks for clown suits, it would not be his problem.
Really.
"Troublesome," he muttered as he marked yet another document wearily. Replacing the irritating slip of paper inside its binder, he threw it onto a stack of replicas of the file stacked haphazardly on the floor beside him. Without looking up, he automatically stretched out a hand to grope at a spot in front of him on the desk.
Feeling only hard wood, he finally glanced up. Much to his surprise and relief, there were no more files left. His first reaction was to fall back into his cushioned chair and let out a long sigh. At last. He was done for the morning.
A glance at the leaf-green clock on the wall told Shikamaru that it was past noon. His stomach reinforced that fact and he found that he was actually hungry enough to go secure food.
Which was troublesome.
Heaving himself out of his chair, Shikamaru yawned widely and slouched slowly for the door.
"…Yes, I'm going to Hokage-sama's office now," a cheerful voice squeezed itself underneath the closed door into the room, accompanied by swift footsteps. "No, I don't need help with the files, thanks. There aren't really that many…only about a hundred or so."
Shikamaru froze as the words 'files' and 'a hundred' hit him like punches to the stomach. It didn't take an IQ of 200 to tell what was coming next. Quick as a flash, he was back across the room and whipping open the large window behind his desk, leaping out onto the ledge of the Hokage tower faster than when he had pulled the same stunt on Iruka at the Academy.
He really didn't want to sign any more documents.
The door creaked open and Shikamaru flattened himself against the building's exterior wall. "Hai, Hokage-sama--that's strange." The voice floating out from inside the office lowered to a mutter. "He was still here an hour ago…" There was the sound of a heavy load being unloaded onto a groaning desk, and then the footsteps faded away and the door clicked shut.
By that time, Shikamaru had run down the tower wall and was already two blocks away, having moved faster than he could remember in a very long time. He thought back on the positive avalanche of paperwork he would find cascading down his desk when he was eventually forced to return to his workplace, and shuddered. This Hokage business was no joke.
Naruto had absolutely no idea what he was trying to get himself into.
And speaking of Naruto…
Shikamaru squinted as the flash of an orange jumpsuit relocated itself from rooftop to rooftop and out of sight. As he walked along the street, he saw a solitary figure give the bright blur a final wave and then stick his hand into a large bag of potato chips.
The Chuunin-turned-Hokage smiled for the first time since he had set eyes on his white attire. "Oi, Chouji!" Stuffing his hands comfortably into the pockets of his robes, Shikamaru shuffled towards his friend. "Have a couple of chips left? I'm starving."
Chouji didn't move or even greet him back. As Shikamaru got closer, he found his food-loving teammate eyeing him rather queerly. After a moment of thought, he extracted his hands from his pockets. Now that it had been drawn to his attention, he imagined it would look a little strange to do that kind of thing with Hokage robes on.
But Chouji's uneasiness did not die away. When Shikamaru stopped in front of him, he squeaked--yes, squeaked--"Hokage-sama!" He wouldn't meet the other boy's eyes. Glancing down, his gaze fell on his half eaten bag of chips, and as if suddenly remembering Shikamaru's earlier request, thrust the bag forwards. "Hai, Hokage-sama! If you really--"
Shikamaru looked at Chouji, looked at the chips and thought that there was something forced in the gesture. But then he was struck by a wave of hunger that nearly knocked him off his feet and accepted the chips anyway. The moment his fingers brushed the crinkly bag, Chouji retracted his hand like he had been burned.
Again Shikamaru nearly fell over. Chouji never, ever let go of his food. Literally.
"Chouji," he said cautiously, plucking out a chip and chewing on it--he really was starved, "What's wrong?"
The larger boy seemed alarmed, even if Shikamaru had already used his kindest tone. "Nothing, Hokage-sama…"
"Oi, Chouji," Shikamaru mocked reprimanded, trying to break whatever ice had suddenly sprung up between them. They were supposed to be friends, for Kami's sake. "You shouldn't shut your own teammate out like that," he joked.
"GOMEN!"
This time, Shikamaru jumped back slightly, startled. "I didn't…" he hurried to explain, but his voice trailed off as he caught sight of the disturbed, bewildered look on Chouji's face.
"…Teammates…?" the boy was mouthing confusedly.
Shikamaru opened his mouth to ask--suddenly remembered, and shut it again.
Nara, born into a clan traditionally well-adept in the art of shadow usage in combat, graduated from the Ninja Academy of Konoha at age eight.
As much as he respected his friend, Shikamaru highly doubted Chouji could have done the same.
With a sinking heart, he realized he should have been aware of ever since he had discovered himself to be Hokage, and read that article on the same matter:
In this reality, he, Chouji and Ino had never been a team.