Hey, I'm back! Whoo.
Just a note, these stories don't go in any particular order, and don't follow a timeline. This one's more Hiruzen-centered than TobiMari. Haha, I'll get back to that soon. (Just like I should be writing essays about now... =3= )
This is based off that one Naruto SD episode where Rock Lee doesn't do his summer homework...that's basically what this is, just my twist on it from Hiruzen's time as a genin.
Note: I got a review! YES you made my day, thank you thank you, you are lovely ~
Disclaimer: Naruto/Naruto SD doesn't belong to me, because if it did, Tobirama would appear in Naruto SD, and (Uzumaki) Honoka would come to life and marry Aoba. (She's that supposed Uzumaki from the one random filler episode...I like her. :'D I now ship her and Aoba, yay.)
Oh, and more Omoi x Ringo. That one episode was sweet. No pun intended (on Omoi's life supply of lollipops...)
Team Toka is just an idea, not canon.
Chapter 4: Summer Homework
"I'm doomed." Hiruzen stared at the page in front of him. To be precise, it was page one of his summer work journal that he'd failed to keep up with. Koharu and Homura had easily recorded several week's worth of missions and daily happenings, including training, or just something random to fill in the day's entry. Hiruzen, being Hiruzen, of course, didn't bother to do it.
"I recall you yelling 'I can do this in a day! I don't need it now!' at the beginning of the summer," Homura noted, habitually pushing his glasses up his nose. Koharu sniggered, crossing her arms.
Hiruzen fretted, fingering his pencil and running his free hand through his hair. Tobirama-sensei would kill him.
"When's it due again?" he squeaked, voice rising a few octaves higher than usual. He winced; that was attractive, he thought dimly, taking a few breaths to calm down.
"Friday." Koharu smirked.
Today was Wednesday. So Hiruzen had about a day and then some to finish what he should've done throughout the entire summer. Seeing as it was a daily log, he concluded that he was indeed screwed over and Tobirama-sensei would have his head by the end of the week. On a platter.
"I'm doomed," he repeated helplessly.
"Good luck with that. I'm going out to lunch." Koharu patted her teammate on the back, amused by his situation, and sauntered out of the library. Hiruzen whimpered inwardly and stared at the deadly entry log, a simple, standard notebook with flimsy metal rings and a blue plastic cover. He hadn't even written his name on it yet.
"Homura, what do I do?" he whined, rolling the pencil back and forth dejectedly. Homura sighed, pulling his nose out of the book he'd used to distract himself from his teammate's dilemma.
"Well," Homura said, thoughtful for a moment. For a few seconds, he considered actually helping Hiruzen, but then again, nothing good would really come out of it, and Hiruzen would forget to return the favor anyway. Besides that, he agreed with Koharu—they needed something amusing to start off the fall season. "I don't really know."
"But Homura, you know…everything!" exclaimed Hiruzen, before a librarian whipped her evil eye on them and shushed the boys. "Help me, please!" the Sarutobi continued in a desperate whisper. "I'll do anything, really!"
"Anything, huh? You'll just end up forgetting it or not doing it at all. You're good at weaseling out of it like that." Homura tucked his bookmark into his novel, pushed his sliding glasses up the bridge of his nose, and stood up.
"I won't, I swear!"
"I don't buy it. See you later, Hiruzen." Homura pushed in the chair and walked away. Dismayed, Hiruzen hassled over whether to stay and somehow figure out how to make a convincing daily description of everything he did over the summer—seriously, a daily entry?! He couldn't even remember what he did yesterday!—or to chase after Homura and tackle him (or tickle him) until he gave in. After all, Hiruzen knew one deadly secret about Homura that the boy couldn't bear to part with…
Deciding on the latter, Hiruzen bolted away from the table, despite the librarian's pissed off remark, and dashed through the aisles. He hoped that Homura hadn't gotten far, seeing as the bespectacled boy had only departed from the table less than a minute before Hiruzen. Somehow, Homura walked at the speed of the Flying Thunder God, because he was nowhere to be found, and Hiruzen was hopelessly lost in the great aisles of the library anyway.
Swearing to himself, Hiruzen turned right and ambled among the bestsellers' shelves, glazing over the masses of titles he didn't really recognize or care about. It was only when he paused to look at a book including the words "Monkey King" that he noticed someone browsing novels on the other side. Immediately, he recognized the sapphire blue hair and the petite figure of Mariko, Tobirama-sensei's wife. (Though, in all honesty, "wife" seemed like a title for an older woman, and Mariko still looked like a "fiancée" in a way…)
"Mariko-san!" Hiruzen suddenly shouted, slamming his hands against the frame of the bookshelf. To his horror, the blue-haired girl yelped as a wave of book came crashing down on her side, burying her in a flurry of pages and text. "Mariko-san!" wailed Hiruzen, scrambling around the aisle to where he was.
Apparently everyone around the library moved at the speed of light, because the librarian was already at Mariko's aid. The portly lady scuttled over and helped Mariko out of the paperback avalanche, shooting a menacing glare at Hiruzen.
"Are you all right, miss?" she asked as she began scooping books into a cart. Hiruzen wondered when the cart had gotten there, but before he could think further, the glare was back on him again.
"I'm fine, thank you. I'm so little, I get stuck often!" Mariko laughed, brushing herself off. Indeed, she was smaller in size, but the stout bookkeeper with her crazy bun and squinty eyes was so plump and condensed that she was even shorter than Mariko. In the height department, she was certainly smaller, but Hiruzen couldn't say the same for the other direction. Mariko's waist was about twenty times smaller, Hiruzen supposed.
"And you!" the librarian seethed, pointing a gnarled finger at Hiruzen, who drew in his breath sharply. He'd gotten off track with his arbitrary train of thought, but now he was certainly in a pinch. "You've been troublesome all day! This morning you spilled food all over the place, even though food isn't even allowed in here! Just now, you were yelling with your friends, then you ran through the library, and now look what you've done!" The fleshy lady paused to catch her breath, meaty jowls quivering. Hiruzen winced. "You created a disaster and nearly buried this young lady!"
"I'm fine, really," Mariko offered, but was ignored.
"Hey, I'm really sorry, ma'am, but—"
"In fact, look at the danger you put others in! What if this lady was seriously hurt?! Do you know the trouble you'd be in, young man?! Who is your sensei? I demand your name and his at once. I'll report you as soon as I get the chance." The librarian whipped out a pencil and notepad out of nowhere. Hiruzen wondered if she kept hidden compartments in the folds of her bosom, or something. "Name and teacher. Now."
"Sarutobi Hiruzen's the name," he sighed. The woman clicked her tongue, as if he had even stated his name incorrectly, or rudely in some way. "My teacher is Senju Tobirama-sama."
The woman looked up at him abruptly, squinting her already narrowed eyes. She gazed intensely at him through her pointy spectacles, nose wrinkling up in distaste.
"Really, now? Hokage-sama's brother? Well, this should be interesting then."
"Hey, hey, don't give Tobirama-sensei a bad reputation. This is all me, okay?"
"All you? You should've been trained better. See what you did to this lady?" The librarian pointed at Mariko, who was still awkwardly standing beside them. She shot Hiruzen a sympathetic glance, and then, surprisingly, a wink.
"I'm sorry, really." Hiruzen did his best attempt to look sheepish.
"Miss, I apologize for this boy's brash actions, would you like anything, anything at all?" The librarian offered Mariko dozens of things: half price sales, bestsellers for free, recommendations, extra library passes, etc. "If you'd like, I can give you the name of this boy and his teacher, and you can go report him as well. He certainly needs it."
The woman offered Hiruzen's name, and Hiruzen smothered a snicker. He didn't cover up so well, because the woman whipped him another hole-burning glare.
"It's fine, nothing bad really happened," Mariko explained. "Actually, I know him."
"Do you? Even better! This is his sensei." The woman pointed out Tobirama's name on her handy-dandy notepad. "You know Tobirama-sama, right?"
"Err…Yes, I do."
Hiruzen pictured Mariko slapping her palm to her face in his head. She was probably doing it mentally, judging from the exasperated expression on her face. The librarian failed to notice.
"Oh, of course you do! Everyone knows Tobirama-sama. Well, just in case, he's real tall and has white hair and three red triangle-shaped tattoos on his—"
"Ma'am, he's my husband."
The librarian's mouth opened and closed a few times, like a fish out of water. She gaped at Mariko, narrow eyes opening up wide. Her hands fluttered around her face, panicky, before she nearly lost her grip on her notepad and had to hastily shove it into wherever it was that she kept it.
"Oh… oh dear," she stuttered. "I'm sorry, I didn't know…In any case, this boy should be reprimanded, though."
Mariko ignored the woman's nervous breakdown, and smiled pleasantly.
"It's fine." She turned to Hiruzen. "Saru, Mito wants to know if you and Danzo would like to have lunch and do some extra scroll studies this afternoon."
"Um…can I get back to you on that one? I've got something I have to finish…badly," Hiruzen told her, shrugging. The expression on his face—sort of panicked, and sort of frustrated, with a touch of exasperation—indicated that he was currently in the middle of one of his usual predicaments, and needed a while to work his way out of it.
"No problem. The lunch offer still stands, though," Mariko replied, nodding.
"Thanks," Hiruzen answered. He ducked past both his sensei's wife and the librarian, exiting at what he believed to be Flying Thunder God speed, fleeing the library in record time.
"Hey Saru," Tobirama said on Saturday morning, flipping through the three journals he'd received the day before, "Interesting journal. I like it."
"You do?" Hiruzen grimaced inwardly, ignoring his teammates' giggles. On Friday morning, Kagami had found the poor boy slumped over on a park bench, journal in hand, missing only three more days. The Uchiha decided to bestow a bit of rare Uchiha kindness upon Hiruzen, gently waking him up rather than cackling in his ear and stealing the journal for his little brother to tear apart.
"Hey, man, get up. Isn't that due today?" Kagami shoved Hiruzen in the shoulder. (Okay, not so gently…)
"Kagami? Is that you?" Hiruzen stirred, slurring his words so that they sounded more like Gagami, id dat you? The Uchiha rolled his eyes and slapped his own journal in Hiruzen's face.
"Yeah, it's me, you idiot. Unlike you, I didn't pull an all-nighter." Kagami cheerfully flipped through his own journal. He leaned in closer and whispered, "Though it's okay. I did this two days ago, because Torifu reminded me." He winked conspiratorially.
"That's just like you," Hiruzen muttered, smiling. He'd borrowed Kagami's notebook to check some dates last night, but he got the feeling that it was a rush job as well.
He nodded his thanks, and Kagami waved, setting off with his smug Uchiha swagger. Hiruzen thought about Kagami's team, amused. With Toka at their head, the consequences of not having the journal were probably worse than what Tobirama would come up with, unless the two were plotting against them together in the secret chambers of the Senju complex.
The day before, he'd skipped out on a meal including Mito's world-class Uzushiogakure recipes to scramble through the activities of each day. He referenced lots of friends to make sure he got some of the days accurately. So-and-so's birthday had been in July, Hashirama-sama and Mito-sama celebrated their anniversary earlier in June, yadda yadda, Biwako had forced him into getting ice cream with him on that one Saturday at the beginning of August…
"Anyway, I find some of the earlier ones interesting too," Tobirama continued, flipping through Hiruzen's book. "I appreciate the effort, Saru, but a lot of these don't match up."
"At least I did it."
"That's true." Tobirama flipped to July 7th. "I like how you put Mariko's birthday here, but do you remember what we did the next day?"
"I think?"
"You wrote that you wrestled with Danzo by the creek," Tobirama read from the flimsy notebook. "But actually, according to Homura and Koharu, we left for a mission just outside the village that day."
"Okay, so I forgot some days to record it." Hiruzen shrugged helplessly. He'd referenced with Homura and Koharu, but he'd obviously rushed too much. They'd already been kind enough in lending him a few hours with their notebooks.
"Besides that, I find the second and third weeks of August rather…amusing," the white-haired Senju continued.
Hiruzen froze. He now recalled, ironically enough, that he'd been especially sleepy while writing his way through those two weeks, and that was about where he'd stopped writing, and where he began finishing up Friday morning just an hour before he turned it in with his teammates. By then, Koharu and Homura had reclaimed their notebooks, and Hiruzen went in search of Team Toka, where he took Danzo's by force, and then Torifu and Kagami (surprisingly enough, considering his personality) tossed theirs on his table too.
"Amusing?" Hiruzen echoed innocently.
"Yeah. August 8th. 'We picked out some slugs and stuck them in Torifu's soup, but it turned out we had actually put them in Toka's soup, and it turned out…real ugly. At least the people in the Tea Country are rather understanding of travelers.' Saru, you didn't go to the Tea Country, as far as I know, and this is clearly a Team Toka entry." Tobirama arched an eyebrow at the sweating teen.
"Oh, really?"
"August 17th." Tobirama smirked at the page, and Hiruzen froze. What in the world had he written in his sleepy stupor? The third week of August, he thought. That was around when he found Mariko with one of her Hyuuga friends hanging out in the town center, where he'd gone for a short snack. Had he asked her for something? He must've, because he put down whatever he heard…Oh great.
"What about it?" squeaked Hiruzen, voice hitching again.
"'Tobirama tried picking apples off the tree when we visited the orchard, but he was so tall that all the apples and branches just hit his head. He blamed me for kicking the tree, so I just climbed up a really tall one and hid there. Eventually, I got stuck, and Hashirama had to fish me out with his Mokuton.' Saru, this was a family trip, why do you have it?"
"Uh…It was story time?"
"'And then someone tried to steal my hair, and Mito pulled out what looked like a bitch-slap no jutsu and sent the guy flying.' I'm not sure where that came from, but you obviously don't have hair worth stealing." Tobirama rolled his eyes. "You could've made this a bit more convincing by writing about Mariko in the third person, rather than like this. You weren't there, and you aren't Mariko."
"Hey, I tried."
"Yeah, you did. You tried really hard," Tobirama agreed. "And because of that, I'll reward you."
This reward sounded awfully suspicious, and Hiruzen didn't like it one bit.
"Let's join Toka's team, shall we?"
"I swear, this is Sarutobi's fault," Kagami hissed as he did another five push-ups. Despite his shinobi conditioning, even the genius Uchiha's arms were beginning to fail after 200 out of 1500 push-ups.
"How is this my fault?" panted Hiruzen, pausing to let his sore arms take a break.
"I don't know, but it is! Why are we the only ones doing this!"
"How would I know?!"
"You two are idiots." Danzo sat on a tree branch, swinging his legs idly. Actually, he'd been tied there, and was stuck for the day, while Torifu was tied to the trunk of the tree, a tray of tantalizing roast beef set in front of him, out of reach. Meanwhile, Homura had been sent to run 20 laps around the village, because he had the worst stamina ever, and Koharu had disappeared with Toka. None of the boys wanted to know what happened to her, because the look on Toka's face was beyond evil.
"You're an idiot," retorted Hiruzen, panting as he started push-up number 298.
"Well, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be stuck here."
"At least you don't have to do this!" Kagami snapped, continuing on push-up 312.
"I'm stuck to a tree."
"I'm stuck to a tree and I can't eat!" Torifu exclaimed. The rather placid boy was fretting, and his stomach rumbled audibly.
"This is what we get for helping Sarutobi," Kagami sneered, elbows quaking. Glancing sideways, he watched Hiruzen continue to do his push-ups diligently, and refused to lose.
"I wonder what Koharu's doing," Hiruzen said between pants. They all knew that Homura was running laps, because every forty-ish minutes, he would pass by. After a while, he only came every hour or so. They'd been only going for three hours.
"I don't want to know," everyone answered.
"Hello, Koharu, welcome to the Senju complex." Toka smiled. "This is my baby niece. You're going to take care of her until the boys are done."
Koharu swore the little girl just threw a fireball at the wall, which dissipated before it set anything on fire. The Senju and their crazy abilities. This girl was what, four years old? Koharu winced, because she was never really girly, and she couldn't handle dealing with kids.
"Have fun," Toka said, turning to leave. As soon as the door closed, Koharu approached the little girl and tried her best to be friendly, asking her name and introducing herself.
A fireball singed her eyebrows.
Pshh that ending. I apologize if this story was sort of boring...or just random.
I don't know what happened.
The fireball spitting baby at the end was just something that popped up in my mind, just to torture Koharu. I'm sure that fireballs remind her of Uchiha, and Uchiha makes her think of Kagami, and Kagami is...Kagami, so she gets annoyed. I have this weird idea that Homura has terrible stamina, sort of like myself (-sweatdrop-) and he was forced to run.
The punishments in general were just "YOUTH-IS-AN-EXPLOSION-MAITO-GAI-TIME" sort of thing. lol.