Team 7's (primary) kunoichi was starting to get a feel for their Jounin instructor and… it was a bit unsettling, to say the least. He (or very occasionally she) obviously tried to do what was in their best interests, pushing them in their training so hard that Sakura was quite sure something would have broken if it weren't for all the healing they got, coupled with the large meals and the careful pattern to their practice, but sometimes that peculiar intensity would creep up and...
Hiroki-sensei wasn't mean, not intentionally anyway, but he- sometimes he didn't seem to quite get why something he did might be upsetting.
"But it's still orange, Naruto, and a prettier shade than that awful fluorescent thing you were wearing. I know you were attached to it, but you must see this is better?"
Their instructor was frowning gently behind his mask, brows pinched together as he shifted on his feet slightly awkwardly. The reason for his distress was fairly obvious: Naruto was currently vacillating between anger and mourning. All over his new clothes.
Sakura had to admit, Sensei was right; the new outfit was definitely easier on the eyes, and still had lots of orange. A slightly oversized hoodie sat atop cut-off cargo pants, hems and sleeves tied down with bandages; the hoodie was done in a dark but vibrant shade of bloody-orange while the cargo pants were black with brighter orange edges and red swirls on the pocket flaps. It was actually pretty decent looking; still bright, but no longer blinding. The only odd thing was the large kanji '9' on the front of the hoodie, but she didn't think the complaint was about that particularly.
"I- I just-" -Naruto deflated slightly and sighed, running a hand through his shaggy blond hair- "I guess so. I would have liked to say goodbye, I guess."
He picked at the jacket in a vaguely despondent way and sighed again.
"I appreciate the thought at least. It is more comfortable…"
And like that Hiroki-sensei was happy again.
"Oh good! I'm so glad you like it! Really, the future Hokage needs to dress the part you know!"
Sakura blinked and frowned ever so faintly at the Jounin.
"You really think Naruto will become Hokage?"
It wasn't impossible she had to say; the orange ninja definitely had a way with people, and was becoming less... erratic as time went on. It still seemed a stretch to imagine him in the formal white robes of the Hokage, but maybe if he was taller…?
"Of course Sakura. Last time I checked Naruto was… let's see… him and him and him and him and… oh fuck."
She blinked at the sudden profanity. Had she ever hear Sensei actually swear before? Naruto seemed perturbed as well, darting in front of Hiroki to look up into the hood a little anxiously.
"What? Am I not going to be Hokage?"
The elder Uchiha waved a distracted hand at the quivering blond.
"No, no, you are, you're sixth in line, I think. But, I just realized that I'm probably uh, fifth? Because of Sensei, and his Sensei, and Tsunade-hime and… well. Uh…"
Sakura and Sasuke had stumbled to a halt a few paces on down the road, and they wore mirrored expressions of soft horror.
Hiroki-sensei was, um, a Good Ninja, but… well. It probably wouldn't, that is to say, Konoha would... Hiroki-hokage would be a little… apocalyptic? As in, would Sensei even know what to do with the position? Or… just… genjutsu everywhere?
The team exchanged grim looks of determination. It was clear what they had to do.
"Naruto, you're going to have to be Hokage someday."
Sakura nodded alongside the younger Uchiha and they set off down the road again with long strides, Naruto still befuddled enough to simply nod in agreement and mutter a distracted thanks. Sensei flickered and was back in position ahead of them, visibly ignoring the grim revelation of the village's potential future alongside the Genin.
"Well, I found a nice easy D-rank for us to do today, and then we can go out for some ramen before afternoon training, how's that sound?"
He gesticulated animatedly, clapping his 3 pairs of hands together, once more in high spirits.
There was a general rumble of still faintly stunned disgruntlement and assent as the team attempted to dispel the genjutsu only to have all six arms remain in place, clasped cheerfully together. The Genin gave a collective blink, as instead the pulse of chakra simply changed Sensei's hoodie from blue-grey to green-grey. They continued on their way towards Hokage Tower regardless, surreptitiously attempting to dispel the extra arms every so often, following behind their quietly humming teacher, who started a complicated snapping rhythm with his superfluous limbs.
Sakura was of two minds about D-rank missions. On the one hand, it wasn't training, which meant she wasn't in a constant state of feeling like her arms and legs were about to fall off. On the other hand, the missions themselves were boring as hell, and Sensei often found ways to 'liven things up' which could rapidly turn even something as simple as trash collection along the river into an 'exciting' game of dodge-the-kunai. And Sensei used live kunai. (Sakura really hated having a medic for a teacher.)
"So, what are we doing today then?"
Hiroki-sensei smiled down at her, patting her gently on the head with one of the aberrant limbs.
"Baby sitting."
. . .
"This, is Aburame Saiko, and you will be taking care of her until her cousin finishes with his Genin team at 1. Saiko-chan is my girlfriend's daughter, so if something happened to her, I would peel off all of your skin and then grow it back. Okay?"
That was the same threat Sensei used before every D-rank, raising the unsettling possibility that if he was serious now, he was serious every time.
"Her momma is off eating the bad ninja alive with her kikai, isn't she? Isn't she? Yes she is! And you're gonna be just like her when you grow up, aren't you Saiko-chan?"
Seeing their instructor with a baby in his arms, their cheeks squished together while he cooed to the infant, was one of those things which was just… so wrong on so many levels.
Hiroki's smile was so big his whole face was squinted with it, but as always there was something a little bit off about the expression, a certain extremeness to it that made the stretched lips ring false, even though Sakura was pretty sure he really was that happy to be hugging the baby. Oh well.
"Now, I don't want you getting lazy, so we'll be putting in a little practice too. I'll give you an hour to prepare before I'll try to 'assassinate' little Saiko-chan." -he gave the baby one last cuddle before gently relinquishing her into Sakura's arms- "Your job is twofold: keep her safe, and keep her happy. If she cries, you lose. If I touch her, you lose. I can't touch you, and if you touch me you win. This is good practice for future bodyguard missions; you would not believe how spoiled they can be. I swear, one time a client actually complained that they couldn't sleep with someone invisible in the room! Honestly! Like they could even tell I was there, watching them, counting their breath…"
Sensei's rant was dulled to inaudibility as he wandered away, shutting a sliding door behind himself as he strode off to give them time to prepare. Sakura immediately turned to Sasuke for direction, for strategic thinking was merely one of his many awesome skills.
"What should we do?"
The raven-haired boy glowered after his relative for a moment before turning to look back at the quiet infant sitting on a blanket chewing gently on a plastic kunai. After a long moment he huffed quietly and glanced at Naruto.
"Idiot. You're good with traps, right?"
The blond was about to retort angrily, before he realized that he had been almost complimented. He swelled up and nearly started yelling with pride but caught himself at the last instant when Saiko hiccuped, and spoke in a quieter tone. His voice was still as loud as his clothing, but not quite deafening.
"Yeah! I'm the best! I can rig up something for the doors and windows…?"
He trailed off slightly, looking at his teammates for approval. Sakura nodded firmly, a confident smile on her lips.
"Good. Be extra thorough though; you know sensei will probably see through most of it. We just need to keep him away for…" She glanced at the clock in the corner, "3 hours."
Sasuke grunted agreement.
"Naruto, spread some clones around the perimeter so we know when he's coming. I'll patrol the inside of the house; Sakura, you keep a look out for genjutsu. You're the last line of defense, so make it count."
In no time at all they were fully set up for the mission, and as ready as they could be to fight a taijutsu focused Jounin in close quarters from the wrong side of an ambush.
...They were so boned.
. . .
Sakura shifted the bundled up infant in her lap slightly, bouncing the larval bug ninja gently up and down and singing softly under her breath as her eyes tracked over the crack in the door and the shadows of the trees on the windows which shifted in a light breeze.
A quiet grunt from outside caught her attention and she was immediately on the alert, singing quieting as she tensed. Another soft sound drew her focus back towards the corridor where she thought she might have heard a muffled curse. A loud bang followed, causing her to jump slightly in surprise before the door slid open, a glitter splattered Naruto swiping uselessly at the thick coat of color on his clothes, stopping abruptly when he came face to face with her brandished tessen.
Her teammate's face shifted to apologetic, smiling through the embarrassment.
"Ahh, sorry Sakura-chan, I didn't mean to scare you. I accidentally set off one of my own traps and Sasuke said you might have some towels or something I could use to clean myself off."
She let out a huff, eyes rolling as she lowered the fan from a ready position.
"Jeez Naruto, could you be a little less careless? You know sensei's been trying to get you to pay more attention; the least you could do is listen."
The kunoichi let out a sudden yawn, barely covering her mouth with the back of her hand. Naruto frowned in concern face scrunching with the motion rather cutely.
"Are you okay Sakura-chan? You're looking a little tired. You haven't been training too hard, have you? Sensei's such a meanie! He should ease up on you a little!"
The pinkette sniffed, taking a deep breath and shaking her head to clear a little of the drowsiness.
"It's better that he doesn't. I want to be a ninja, not a pampered princess."
The blond slouched, muttering something disparaging about crazy Jounin under his breath and stepping closer to Sakura and the baby. Her eyes narrowed a fraction, and a pulse of her chakra was followed immediately by the hand holding the tessen whipping back up to slash at 'Naruto's' face. The genjutsu broke, her fatigue evaporating in an instant, and the bladed edge of the fan was blocked by a raised bracer as Sensei emerged from the puff of smoke signaling the release of a Henge.
"Very good Sakura-chan. How could you tell?"
She smiled proudly at the Jounin, shaking a few strands of hair out of the way as she pulled back and steadied herself with her fan spread in a protective position.
"The reflection on the glitter was wrong; it was too shiny. And I knew I shouldn't have been feeling sleepy, I had a big cup of tea with breakfast and the caffeine normally keeps me awake till nearly dinner time. You shouldn't have called attention to the genjutsu if you wanted it to slide by me."
Sensei hummed, tapping his chin as he nodded thoughtfully.
"That's pretty impressive Sakura-chan, but you've forgotten one thing."
There was a gentle tap of fingers on her shoulder as the image in front of her wavered and dissolved.
"I'm very good at genjutsu."
Sakura gritted her teeth and smiled grimly.
"No. I didn't."
She dropped to one knee, holding the 'baby' aloft a second before the bundle in her arms exploded, orange paint splattering all the walls and coating Sakura and her Sensei in a thick layer of goop.
"...ah. Impressive. Suicidal, but impressive. Where is Saiko?"
The comfy chair in the corner collapsed into sections of cardboard as the genjutsu she had used on it dissolved under the strain of the drastically changed environment. An unusually calm Sasuke held a napping Saiko, both of them clean of paint. A moment later the last member of the team stepped through the sliding door, Naruto shooting a pleased smirk at their disheveled Jounin-sensei, who nodded approvingly.
"Well, I must say, that was very well done. I hadn't anticipated a suicide technique but there is still one thing you're all forgetting."
The trio frowned at each other in confusion before their instructor dissolved into a cloud of smoke, and a cheerful gurgling sound came from the doorway. Hiroki stood there with Saiko in his arms, and a small smile on his face as Sasuke jerked in surprise and dropped the doll he was holding.
"I'm a Jounin, and you… have to clean all this up."
Sensei was evil.
. . .
A/N:So, someone pointed out that Pinkette isn't a real word. True. It's what is called a neologism. Pink is not a naturally occurring hair color in humans, but, if it was, it would probably have been named by the French, like Blonde/Blond or Brunette/Brunet. Thus, Pinkette, or, in the masculine, Pinket.
Anyway; does Sasuke know Saiko is his cousin? Not explicitly. He probably suspects, after having sat with her for an hour with time to look over her features etc. But Hiroki likes to leave stuff unsaid. If Sasuke asked him outright, he'd tell the truth, or deflect in a truthful direction. But Sasuke won't ask, because it's nice to have a little ambiguity.
Also: Naruto's clothes likely matter very little in a camouflage context, but fluorescent orange is a gross color to wear day-to-day. His new duds are prettier.
So, the line of succession for Hokage on official paperwork is: Kakashi, Jiraiya, Gai, Itachi (though you need the clearance to see it), Hiroki, Naruto. The actual line of succession (because Hokage choose who they want to take their place) is just Kakashi, Naruto, (if the sky is falling), Hiroki.