Fugaku groaned as he dragged himself into the Hokage's office where the Sandaime would be waiting to teach him the proper method for putting out fires and filing paperwork as Hokage. Because he'd rather stupidly allowed that fool of a Sandaime talk him out of going after a certain clan elder who had been laden with bags of paint and feathers and let the old man go yesterday rather than decisively nipping things in the bud, the first crisis he would be dealing with as Hokage was his own clan. The coffee and aspirin he'd had for breakfast was doing absolutely nothing for his hangover, and because the only thing he'd been able to stomach for breakfast this morning had been coffee and some aspirin, he was in a worse mood than usual. Woe betide anyone who crossed him before he was feeling halfway human and the jackass with the sledgehammer found something better to do than beat doubletime every time anything brighter than a candle across the room hit his eyes.
The first inkling Fugaku had that there was trouble had been when he'd been awoken at three in the goddamn morning while he was still drunk and wanted nothing more than to sleep it off. It turned out that the individual who'd awoken him had been one of those ANBU brats who didn't officially exist and wouldn't take "fuck off and come back at a reasonable hour" for an answer.
Apparently, "Danzo-sama" really wanted to know why there was a naked Uchiha who was covered in paint and had feathers braided into his hair giving him a pressed ham in the wee hours of the morning. Not even bothering to come up with a realistic excuse, Fugaku had informed the brat that it was a "Uchiha luck ritual", told him to "tell Danzo he's welcome by the way" and rolled over and went back to sleep.
It was only when he was more fully awake when the sun was up in the sky leaking light through the blinds that his wife had so thoughtfully drawn for him and setting the jackass with the sledgehammer to work that Fugaku had fully realized that he had utterly failed in his duties as Clan Head. THAT had happened. There had been a repeat of the Founding Afterparty on his watch. Three generations of vigilance and he goes and ruins it all by being the first Clan Head since Madara to allow things to get that out of hand.
Sure, the party celebrating his ascension to Godaime had been a little wilder than the usual parties amongst the Uchiha who had so rarely been given cause to celebrate these days, but he hadn't realized that it would get THAT wild. He had thought his clan more restrained. Especially now in this time where they had to set an example for everyone else as one of the Founding clans of Konoha, and were reminded of this fact daily.
The party had been rather hastily prepared since his clan had next to no warning, but the Uchiha had learned to be quick at everything, including setting up impromptu parties. The village, which wasn't in quite as much of a partying mood as the clan, had been practically raided for supplies as Uchiha descended upon the main shopping district like a swarm of fire-breathing locusts, snapping up everything from paper plates and bunting to mini sausages and kegs of beer.
The fireworks that had started before it was even properly dark had been fun, as had the quickly arranged games that had been set up for the children. There had been a little more alcohol than usual flowing since the clan hadn't coordinated and just about everyone had thought to grab booze to make sure there was some. He'd had more drinks in one evening than he usually did in a month since everyone it had seemed had wanted to buy him a drink, and he couldn't refuse, not then. Stupidly trusting the Sandaime's assessment and his own clan members whom he'd thought were better behaved than they actually were, he had staggered home around midnight, and crawled into bed rather than watching, and carefully counting the number of Uchiha who were running about in the streets of the district which had taken on a carnival atmosphere in order to make sure that preparations weren't being made...
Everything had led to this however. Him sitting in the Hokage's office, in the Hokage's chair, wearing the Hokage's hat along with the uniform that symbolized the fact that he was responsible for Law and Order in the village helplessly watching the utter magnitude of his failure grow increasingly apparent every hour as report after report came in.
He was already learning to dread hearing the words "Hokage-sama". Especially when said title was directed at him. Him whom they were looking to for answers. Him whom they expected to fix everything.
Uchiha Tekka groaned as something crawled across him yelling "Mom! Mom! Mom!". Blinking at the blue pattern that had been painted on his arm and wondering how it got there, he heard a voice growl "Buzz off Kiba!".
The memories started flooding in. The memories of the ancient elder who had been an adult when the village had been founded sixty-one years ago. The secret of the ancient Uchiha tradition he and his generation amongst others had been let in on. The fun he and his friends who'd been just as buzzed as he had been at that point had had painting each-other and braiding feathers into each-other's hair. Sure, the feathers were store-bought and dyed in odd neon colors - predominantly orange - rather than the traditional gathered hawk feathers, and the paint was store bought and in colors not found in nature and not hand-prepared woad, but it was the thought that counted. Right?
He'd gone to do one of the Traditional prank raids on the Inuzuka, and things had not gone to plan. Really not gone to plan.
The utterly brilliant prank he had been pulling when he'd been captured lay unfinished, and Inuzuka Tsume's youngest was crawling all over him because he was in Tsume's bed.
On the whole, he could say that things had gone way better than they could've gone when he'd been caught.
Itachi, recognizing the signs of mild poisoning and calculating that he had hours before his situation became urgent, wondered exactly how and when he'd been poisoned as he leaned over the roof he was on and vomited. He'd come back from his mission a little early, and when he'd returned to the compound, he'd been swept up by his older cousin and best friend Shisui who had informed him that his father had been named Hokage while he was away before dragging him to a corner of the district-wide party in celebration of his father's ascension. It was in this corner of the party, where he was allowed to try alcohol for the first time - actually encouraged to since it was a very special day - that he'd learned of an ancient Uchiha tradition.
Happily stripping out of his clothes, selecting a sunny yellow paint, and barely holding still long enough for Shisui to braid a bunch of neon green feathers in his hair, Itachi waited until he'd be released to follow his clan's ancient tradition. He'd known exactly where he'd go the second the ancient elder had finished explaining things to him.
He'd somehow fallen asleep during his vigil, quite possibly because of whatever he'd been poisoned with, but a quick check after he was done vomiting had shown that his target hadn't yet awoken and set off the surprise while he was passed out. Carefully backing out of view of the window, moving as conservatively as possible since each movement set his head to pounding, as did all of that godawful sunlight, and the noises of Konoha below, Itachi waited, deciding that he would go to the hospital only after he had witnessed the results of his work.
Finally...
The screams as that sadistic proctor for the First Phase of the Chunin Exams crawled out of bed and discovered the first of Itachi's non-lethal traps were absolutely glorious...Watching, he could see why so many amongst his clan fell prey to the Curse of Vengeance.
Shisui grinned at his pint-sized partners in chaos who were curled up under the tree he'd found himself under, still fast asleep. Mikoto had asked him to look after little Sasuke because Itachi was still on a mission at the time she'd asked, and she'd wanted to participate in the party more fully than she would've been able to if she'd had Sasuke in tow. Shisui, who was content to run around with sparklers like the kiddies, had agreed to watch Sasuke.
If Shisui had known that this was what they had been talking about when the Clan Elders had been going on and on about following Tradition, he would've paid far more attention years ago. As the evening had progressed, word of mouth had spread that one of the oldest of the Clan Elders would be sharing a bit of forgotten wisdom on this, the night of the First Uchiha Hokage's ascension. Deciding to pay his respects to the Elder early and be done with it so he could get back to the party, he and Sasuke and Itachi whom he'd encountered on the way had been among the first to learn of a tradition that the clan had tried to keep buried during the years since the founding of the village.
Gladly helping Itachi and Sasuke with their paint and feathers, and having been helped in turn, he had made his preparations, sent up a prayer to the Kami of trickster foxes, and set out with Sasuke while Itachi ran off to complete his Noble Quest of Vengeance alone.
It had been while he was out and about with Sasuke trying to decide where to go and what to do that he'd run into the third member of their group who had been covered in mud and leaves, likely in accordance with Senju tradition. Having seen the five year-old Uzumaki in action, Shisui swore never to underestimate him again. Give that kid some explosive tags and other things rather than a bucket of glitter glue, and there would be one very dead enemy at his feet before said enemy could even register surprise.
The Uzumaki now however was cutely curled up with Itachi's little brother. Shisui wished he had a camera to capture this moment, because it was the cutest thing ever.
Uchiha Izumi smiled as she saw the end result of the efforts she and the children who had joined her in this her noble quest had undertaken. This their noble quest had ended in absolute victory against their supposedly indomitable foe.
Around her, the Academy aged children of the clan were in varying states of consciousness. After learning the value of tradition from the most ancient of Clan Elders last night, they had discovered a valuable lesson about both family and teamwork and exactly why it was a bad idea to go it alone. All good things that were highly valued in the village of Konoha.
Their joint efforts had led to an absolutely wonderous result that none of them could've done individually. A result none of them had believed they'd ever see considering what had happened when each one of them had tried the same on their own, and how they'd each been told that such a thing would never happen no matter how hard they tried because measures had been put in place to prevent such a thing long before they were born.
Getting up, she could categorically state that despite the Chakra Exhaustion, she did indeed have the energy to dance upon the ashes of Konoha's Ninja Academy once more. Laughing, she once again sang "Schoooooool's out for-ever!". Those with her who were still awake smiled and joined her, doing little dances they'd invented on the spot while chorusing "No more pencils! No more books! No more teacher's dirty looks!"
As they were dancing a brown haired ninja with a scar on his nose who looked to be about fifteen years old walked up, took one look at the ruins of the Academy, one look at the naked Uchiha children who were covered in paint and had feathers braided into their hair who were dancing in the ruins of said Academy, turned around and walked off muttering "...Told them for years that they'd been neglecting the fireproofing seals, but they told me I was worrying too much. Said that it would take over two dozen Uchiha firing Katon jutsu for three hours straight to..."
Whatever else the boy had said was lost as he turned the corner and walked out of sight into the early morning sunlight.
Tora was not having a good morning. Not at all. He'd escaped the smothering embrace of Madam Shijimi once more the night before only to find himself running smack into a bunch of juvenile Red Eyes who'd apparently been waiting for him to do just that.
Rather than trying to catch him, they'd chased him, and chased him, and chased him all through the night and into the day. They'd chased him through trees. They'd chased him through mud. They'd chased him into a river and back out again. They'd chased him into a kennel and chased him some more when he escaped, driving him through every unpleasant place he could think of while avoiding harm to themselves.
The next time he saw his owner, he was going to put up with any number of smothering hugs if only to keep himself safe from the Red Eyes.
Utatane Koharu yawned as she headed into the Tower in order to have words with the Godaime regarding the behavior of certain drunken members of his clan. She had been woken up at two-thirty in the morning by the presence of a stranger who turned out to have been a Uchiha. A naked, paint covered Uchiha who had pressed himself against her bedroom window sunny side up. Rather than giving the scream that the young idiot who couldn't have been older than thirty had likely been expecting, since she'd seen it all before and in more places than her two idiot teammates who'd gotten oddly shy when she'd charged into their tent while they were dressing after they'd hit puberty, Koharu had opened her window and said "I'll give you a Four for your performance. I'd give you a Six, but certain aspects of the presentation were rather...disappointingly small."
Apparently forgetting the lesson that a ninja who insults you always, always, always had ulterior motives, the young Uchiha at the window had reacted to the disparagement of his manhood in the exact manner that Koharu had predicted he would. Not even thinking about the very laws the Uchiha were tasked with upholding and what doing such would give her leave to do, the young man had charged through her open window and into her home as expected, his Sharingan ablaze but his reflexes dulled by the copious amounts of alcohol he'd consumed earlier.
The second the young Uchiha entered her home, she showed him exactly why she still wasn't on the list of retired ninja despite her sixty-one years, as well as a number of the lessons she had learned over the long years of her association with Shimura Danzo's former teammate Kagami whom she had even dated at one point. Once she had finished delivering her lesson, she had dragged the unconscious Uchiha to the outside trash, pitched him in, and went back to bed in order to get a few more hours of sleep before she made her way to the Tower to speak with the Head of his clan about the young man's utter stupidity and apparent lack of proper training since she was certain the moron who'd woken her up would be out for at least that long.
Koharu got up bright and early - after the sun was up for sure - as was her routine. After showering, dressing, and preparing herself a cup of tea, she went out to briefly check on the Uchiha whose breathing indicated that he was sleeping it off in her trash. Thus ready for her day, Koharu left her home and made her way to the Tower where the Godaime Hokage had better be waiting if he knew what was good for him since Konoha couldn't afford to have a Hokage who slept the day away, even after a party of epic proportions. Which the Uchiha's party obviously hadn't been considering the fact that the village wasn't in ruins and people weren't running about putting fires and water out and chasing the trees back into the forest.
If the Sandaime had to come into the office early after the party at the end of the First War which had nearly done to Konoha what the enemy had not, then the Godaime would have to come in now after his piddling inaugueration celebration.
As Koharu approached the Hokage Tower/Administration Complex, she spotted Homura coming in from a different direction despite the fact that she distinctly recalled him stating that he would be spending today with his family.
"A couple of drunken Uchiha wandered into my back garden." Mitokado Homura explained before she could ask.
Koharu winced in sympathy for those poor poor Uchiha.
"I figured that our new Hokage might want to sign the Get Well Soon card since they're his family." Homura said.
Danzo showed no outward expression of emotion as he ordered several ROOT trainees to clean the outside of his house and set the grounds surrounding it to rights. In addition to performing their exceedingly primitive luck ritual on every window of his house, the Uchiha had lit a bonfire in his garden using his patio furniture, his back deck and some of the house's siding as fuel and performed a dance not seen in Konoha since the Founding while consuming alcohol and a number of other substances whose nature he hadn't inquired into in a manner that they likely believed would help them better commune with nature.
After performing this ritualistic, intoxicant fueled dance which had obviously returned the Uchiha to a more animalistic state, a number of Uchiha had marked his front door and a number of other areas on his property as their territory before fertilizing his potted plants, some of which they had missed, leaving droppings on his front porch and near where his back deck had been.
He'd told Sarutobi time and time again that the Uchiha were savages, and not only did the man not listen to him, he had named their leader Hokage. The village would be lucky if it was still standing a week from now.
"They were found where with WHAT?!" exclaimed the newly appointed Godaime who was dearly wishing that the entire week had just been one long bad dream and that he'd wake up in a world that made sense soon.
The Sandaime who quietly stood to the side ready to assist him should he ask it since it was the Godaime's first full day as Hokage looked too amused for the Godaime's tastes. It was bad enough that he'd obviously failed as Clan Head and allowed a repeat of THAT to happen, but he was getting his nose rubbed in it again and again in his position as Hokage. He still had absolutely no idea how the village would respect the police again after the events of last night. His clan, which was almost the entirety of Konoha's police force had not only run amok breaking laws left, right and center the night before, but they had done it all while being completely naked, as the paint and the feathers didn't count as clothing according to a decency ordinance that had been created by the Nidaime.
As Fugaku was taking reports that were now arriving three at a time regarding the actions of members of his clan who had been up to a great deal of mischief, most of it involving property destruction, one of the secretaries came in with paperwork that the Sandaime had assured him was perfectly normal which was then piled on top of the paperwork that had been generated by the actions of his inebriated clan. It was at this point that one of the Sandaime's old teammates walked in, probably in search of the Sandaime in order to drag him out for a round of drinks or some old people's game now that the Sandaime was officially retired.
"Good, you're here." Utatane Koharu said, looking directly at Fugaku rather than the Sandaime. "I came to speak to you about the possibility of returning one of your clan members to the Academy for remedial training."
"You can't" Fugaku sighed as he reached for some of the paperwork on what was now his desk since he was, much to his regret, the Hokage. "The kids burned it down last night."