Chapter Text
"Morning, Anko," Shikako muttered as her assistant entered the Hokage's office with a pile of paperwork and a steaming mug.
"Coffee, boss lady?"
"Thanks, you're a lifesaver."
"Ha! Self preservation. You know how you get without caffeine in the morning."
"I'm not that bad," Shikako said under her breath.
"Keep telling yourself that, boss lady. Got a new message from the Toads. It sounds like the plan for Naruto and Sasuke to use the Convergence thing to get home fell through."
Shikako sighed. "Let me guess, they had to fight off an alien invasion and screwed up the timing."
"Good guess. Some kind of invasion. I'm not sure if it was aliens or not. Not too late to try out my plan."
"We are not telling them that Sakura and Hinata have started having wild monkey sex together to see if my idiot teammates will spontaneously teleport here out of sexual frustration."
"I still think it'd work."
"I don't want to live in a universe where it does, so we aren't finding out."
"Spoilsport."
"Anything else urgent?"
"The Council is making noises about knocking Interim off of your title again."
"I said urgent. If they want to make me the actual Hokage they'll have to fight me first."
"It's been almost a year. At this rate, even if Naruto comes back to pick up the hat, he'll be called Nanadaime and you'll be Rokudaime."
Shikako snorted. "Over my dead body. Preferably over theirs."
"If you kill Naruto you'll have to keep the hat."
"Which is the only reason why I won't."
Anko looked at her notebook. "It's not urgent but your minions destroyed another training ground last night."
Shikako sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Why this time?" Her attempts at getting Chiyako and Hanabi to express themselves freely had obviously gone horribly right. You know you've done something wrong when your genin team's peacemaker is the Inuzuka.
"Chiyako is thinking about becoming a Jounin sensei and the other two protested passing on the Lucky Sevens curse."
"There is no curse."
"Keep telling yourself that, Ho. Ka. Ge. Sa. Ma." Anko enunciated every syllable of her title in a way that was only appropriate for a woman greeting her lover in nothing but an apron. It frankly made Shikako's skin crawl, despite the fact that this wasn't the first time the snake summoner had done that. The worst part was that Anko only did it so Shikako wouldn't protest being called boss lady.
She fixed Anko with a glare. "I thought I told you to stop that. Why do I put up with you?"
"Because Shizune is pregnant again, Ino sucked at my job and you scared everyone else away, boss lady."
Shikako muttered curses at everyone in the entire village that helped land her in the Hokage's office, starting with Tsunade, who retired for health reasons, proceeding to her teammates for landing themselves in an alternate dimension without her, and then Kakashi for effectively going missing nin before they could dump the hat on him. Unfortunately, the position of Hokage required a certain level of reputation and there weren't that many options available. That led to cursing at everyone who could handle the paperwork but hadn't distinguished themselves in combat. Her dad would have made a perfectly acceptable Hokage, except he had been smart enough to avoid building the reputation needed. He was actually rather smug about that.
Then Shikako went back and cursed Kakashi again, because he deserved it.
"That's a new one," Anko said in a tone of admiration. "Where would you even get a syphilitic tuna fish?"
"Out."
"Just a reminder that your boy toy is arriving this afternoon."
"Gaara is not my boy toy."
"But you knew who I was talking about," Anko sang.
"Out!"
Anko cackled and dumped the pile of folders on her desk before practically dancing out of the office. Shikako shook her head ruefully while letting a shadow of a smile cross her face. Anko was a certifiable pain in the ass, but a good assistant and she seemed much happier now that they managed to get the cursed seal off of her.
Of course, any positive feelings were only momentary as Shikako tackled the pile of reports.