The Villagers of Konoha looked up in horror, certain that they were going to die.

The Shinigami had

suddenly appeared in the center of town accompanied by a towering skeleton in a black robe with a
scythe strapped to its back.

"Hang on a sec, I think I'm gonna... BLEARGH!" The Shinigami said as he proceeded to vomit on the
small park near the shopping district.

The Shinigami looked down at the contents of said vomit and blinked.

"Huh?" he said. "Well, there's no way in hell I'm eating those again. Home Grim and step on it."

"Yes Master." the skeleton said an instant before he and the God of Death vanished, completely
unaware of the panicked mortals they had left behind.

When the bravest made their way to the park, a most amazing and miraculous sight met their eyes.
The first four Hokages of Konoha were there, and they appeared to be alive. Or at the very least not
under the control of someone who was trying to destroy Konoha. The fact that the first three were
beating up on the fourth took a little while longer for them to process. The brave and foolhardy Maito
Gai had been the first to actually approach them and speak to them.

"Why are you beating up on the Yondaime in such an unyouthful fashion?" he asked frowning in a
serious manner (something he did when he tried to think of anything more complicated than 2+2=?).

"He left me to deal with all of the paperwork I retired to get away from!" Sarutobi Hiruzen Third
Hokage of Konoha said. "The selfish bastard wouldn't let me be the sacrifice, and he left me to raise
his kid after Jiraiya skipped town."

"JIRAIYA WHAT?!" Namikazi Minato, the Fourth Hokage yelled, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the
Senju brothers were doing their utmost to beat the crap out of him.

"I can understand some of Sandaime-Sama's rather unyouthful anger at him, but why are you beating
him up?" Gai asked.

"The little bastard got my grandbaby pregnant and didn't even bother making an honest woman out of
her before she died." Senju Tobirama, the Second Hokage said.

"I've gotta go with family on this one." Senju Hashirama, First Hokage of Konoha said. "Besides we
wouldn't have been in this mess if that little moron hadn't taught that Sarutobi punk how to summon
the FREAKING GOD OF DEATH!"

Tsunade smiled as a wicked plan came to mind. The four Hokages that had been vomited up by a
rather drunk looking god of death had been thoroughly examined at the hospital. Over the course of
the examination it was revealed that they were truly alive and didn't show any signs of being
controlled by anyone. Since none of them were actually retired at the time they had died, they could
still be considered active Hokages. That meant if she played her cards right, she wouldn't have to deal
with anymore paperwork, ever. Sure, she would have to share the title she hadn't really wanted in the
first place in exchange, but it was well worth the trade.

While at the hospital, the first three Hokages had spent most of their time catching up on everything
and picking on the fourth who generally spent his time vowing to do some very horrible and
anatomically impossible things involving various sharp objects to Jiraiya the next time he returned to
Konoha. There had been a rather touching reunion between Sarutobi Hiruzen and his family in which
the Third Hokage's eldest son got the crap beaten out of him by the first, second and fourth Hokages
while the third Hokage and his younger son Asuma watched. Nobody who saw the incredibly one-sided
fight could figure out why they had done that or why the victim's family would simply stand by and let
it happen. The only things that any of the witnesses to the event could catch were "Naruto" and
"Orphanage the second Hiruzen's back was turned".

The hospitalized Hokages were the current talk of the village and there was a great deal of speculation
on the identity of the mysterious son of the Fourth Hokage and great grandson of the Second. The
theories ranged from the tame to the exceedingly outlandish. One name never came up though. It
was a pity it hadn't, considering that it was the correct answer.

It was into this village that Naruto and his teacher Jiraiya returned from their three year training trip.
As Naruto was signing in at the gate, the guard peered at him intently as if seeing him for the first
time, looked over at the Hokage monument, looked back at him in disbelief, looked back at the
Hokage monument, and looked back at him before rubbing his eyes as if he were seeing things.

"Holy Shit!" he yelled when Naruto failed to disappear, before he hopped over the desk, grabbed a
random off duty shinobi who turned out to be a rather startled visitor from Suna, yelled "Cover for
me!" and ran off.

"Umm..." the confused Sand Shinobi who had found himself behind the desk before he could even
blink said, uncertain as to how to deal with this situation. "You signed in already, right?"

"Yes." Jiraiya said looking as if he were trying not to laugh. "Naruto, I think you should watch the gate
until I find a replacement for our new guard."

With that, Naruto found himself staring at a rather uncomfortable Sand Ninja who wasn't certain if he
should remain sitting there or if he should run for it before his day got any weirder.

"So, you wouldn't happen to know how Gaara's doing, would you?" Naruto said after fishing around for
a topic of conversation.

Meanwhile, the former gate guard who would receive the chewing out of the century from his
supervisor after his gate duty partner ripped him a new one that evening had managed to reach the
Fourth Hokage's room at the hospital. He slammed the door open and stared at one of its current
occupants for a couple seconds.

"Holy Shit! I was right!" the man yelled.

"Right about what?" Senju Tobirama, who had been about to take a cigarette lighter to the Fourth
Hokage's hair while his brother used his Mokuton technique to hold him down, asked.

"The de...Uzumaki Naruto's his son!" the man said.

"Yeah, so, what of it?" Tobirama asked as he set the Fourth Hokage's hair on fire.

"Well he just arrived at the gate less than five minutes ago." the man said as he watched the Fourth
Hokage squirm, trying to put his hair out. The Third Hokage, who had just been watching to this point
apparently took pity on him because he doused the fire with a quick water jutsu.

"Really?!" Tobirama exclaimed, looking excited. "Yay! I finally get to meet my great-grandbaby!"

Tobirama then ran out of the room. His brother Hashirama turned to follow.

"Sorry Namikaze, but you lost all rights to the kid when you put that demon fox in him" Hashirama
said to the Fourth Hokage who was struggling to get up.
Naruto, who had learned of Gaara's promotion to Kazekage from the Suna nin who had been tapped
for gate duty suddenly found himself squished between two strangers who looked a great deal like the
First and Second Hokages before he was even half-way to Ichiraku's. Jiraiya had tried to extricate him
and promptly got his ass kicked. As soon as the shockingly brutal beating was over, he found himself
being grabbed by the man who looked like the second Hokage once more. He tried to squirm away but
it was no use, he was much too large thanks to the growth spurt he'd hit last year.

He found himself being dragged to the hospital against his will as his usual tricks for escaping larger
opponents such as the ANBU or the Military Police were no longer available to him. For one his clothes
were finally the right size and couldn't be easily wriggled out of, and for two, he was much too large to
be diving between people's legs to make his escape.

It was at the hospital that he saw someone he never thought he'd see again. Upon seeing him, he
didn't know whether to laugh or cry or scream and faint. He ended up doing the latter.

A few hours earlier, after the Third Hokage had managed to wake Naruto up and calm him down, he
had persuaded the boy to tell his great grandfather and his great-granduncle his life's story.

Tobirama looked at Hashirama after Naruto had finished his story and fallen asleep, apparently lulled
into relaxation by Tobirama's constantly carding his fingers through his hair.

"What would you expect from Madara's line? They wouldn't know loyalty if it jumped up on a pool
table and stripped in front of them. We should have gotten rid of them when we had the chance, most
of the rest of the clan was potentially salvageable without them around." he said.

Kakashi smiled as he filled the bottle. He couldn't wait until the sun set. His sensei had given him
permission, permission the Third Hokage had denied because he feared a backlash from the citizens.
It was a pity really, because if he'd been given permission years ago when he first asked, he wouldn't
have had to cause nearly as much destruction, one or two shops gone and the rest of the store
owners would have known how to behave.

Usually for this kind of thing, he would have a team at his back wearing the masks of others who
made sure to be seen in the local drinking establishments and on the streets, but the others had
refused when they learned who he was doing these "burn sales" for. He knew that soon they would
regret not participating.

He had selected tonight's target, it was the store that sold Naruto that hideous orange jumpsuit
several years ago, ripping him off by charging him double for it. It would be the fifth time a "Going out
of business, everything that isn't burned must go!" sign went up in as many days because of him.

It was about time Konoha remembered why you never messed with the ANBU or their families, and
despite the fact that he wasn't allowed to act like it when anyone might be watching, he considered
Naruto family.

Tsunade looked at the winning hand and shuddered, throwing the cards towards the rabbit masked
ANBU against whom she was playing. Something bad was going to happen, and she had the distinct
feeling that she was going to be the one stuck dealing with the fallout.
Sighing, she went and got the forms authorizing her predecessors' discharges from the hospital. There
was going to be some trouble with housing. While Asuma was willing to take his father in until the old
man could be set up elsewhere, and her grandfather had all but demanded that he be allowed to move
into the spare bedroom at the Hokage residence, both the Second and Fourth Hokages had requested
to move in with Naruto upon his return. She knew that Naruto would be too kind to say no to them
since their other option appeared to be the street as all of their assets had supposedly gone to their
heirs long ago, and she pitied the poor boy.

"Tsunade-Sama, I discovered the reason behind the recent acts of arson in the shopping district!"
Shizune said as she barged in.

"Well, what is it?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"The Fourth Hokage gave Kakashi permission to erm, deal with certain shopkeepers on Naruto's
behalf." Shizune said.

"He did what?! Did death addle his brains or something? There's a reason Hiruzen-sensei and I had
been holding Kakashi back. By the time Kakashi's through, we won't have a shopping district." she
said, desperately wanting a drink. She knew the rest of her day was going to go downhill the instant
she won that hand.

Tsunade thought it was way too early in the morning to be up, but her grandfather was moving into
her guest room this morning, and she had to make the old man feel welcome, or who knew what
would happen. Grandpa Hashirama was very exacting, and had an extremely bad temper at times. If
she thought she could get away with it, she would have foisted the task off onto Shizune.

She smiled graciously when he arrived half an hour late - having spent that half hour inspecting the
front garden and finding it lacking - hoping the smile didn't look half as fixed as it was. She generously
offered him tea, which he promptly refused in favor of inspecting the rest of the house, and
complaining about the changes made since he'd had it built, especially the Hiraishin seals that had
been drawn on the hardwood floors of just about every room in permanent marker.

When she saw the look on his face when he inspected his new room, she had felt like screaming. She
had given all of his favorite colors to an interior decorator as well as an order for some pre-founding
furniture or at least some acceptable replicas of such on the day he'd made his demand/request and
had been assured that her money had been well spent. The room had looked rather nice when she
had examined it the day before. What could be the problem now?

"Where's my old alarm clock?" Senju Hashirama asked as he scowled at the brand new clock radio on
the nightstand.

"I'm not entirely sure, but think your brother destroyed it." she replied as calmly as she could. An
alarm clock? He was this upset about a friggin alarm clock? If she hadn't been trained since earliest
childhood to revere her ancestors, she thought she might pound him.

Minato was sure he was going to regret his decision, but he had refused to stand down when both he
and what would have been his grandfather-in-law if he hadn't decided to hide his and Kushina's
relationship for the safety of their little accid- er...son had decided to move in with said child when it
was revealed he would be returning to Konoha around the time they got out of the hospital. Naruto
was out helping his predecessor/successor get settled in with his own son, but he had given them a
key and told them that there was space in the storage closet and that he'd set a pair of futons out in
the main room.
The building didn't look very promising. In fact, it looked like it should have been condemned. This
was no place for someone who should have been declared a hero.

"You've got to be kidding me!" The second Hokage muttered at his side as they made their way up the
stairs.

As they made their way to the door Naruto indicated belonged to his apartment, Tobirama muttered
under his breath beside him. When they got to the right door, he knew he shouldn't expect very
much. After opening the door, he knew he was right. The place was in worse condition than the
shoebox he had gotten after he had moved out of the orphanage.

"Holy fuck!" Tobirama said as he looked around their new living accommodations. "It's my old
bachelor pad!"

Uchiha Madara had been gulping down some sake at a dive in Grass country when he'd heard the
rumor. Apparently, according to the waitress' sister's cousin's uncle's best friend's dog (which wasn't
as weird as it sounded since the dog in question belonged to the Inuzuka and could speak after a
fashion) Konoha's first four Hokages had defeated the Shinigami and been restored to life. Deciding
that he must see for himself if this was true as it could derail a large number of his plans, he swiftly
settled his tab, barely bothering to go through his Tobi routine as he did so, and got a couple bottles
of a local plum wine to go.

Two days later, he found himself in Konoha standing outside the apartment building in which the
Kyuubi Jinchuriki and apparently now two of the four Hokages dwelled. Senju Tobirama was there in
the flesh hauling what looked like old drywall to a nearby dumpster. As the man threw his heavy
looking load in the trash, he happened to look up at just the wrong moment.

"Tobi?" Tobirama said looking somewhat surprised.

Madara wasn't sure what he should do at this point. If he ran, Tobirama would chase him and the rest
of Konoha would follow eventually leading to trouble he absolutely didn't need right now when his
plans were so close to fruition. Perhaps he should try to convince the Senju that he'd mistaken him for
someone else? He couldn't use his normal voice, since Tobirama would recognize that in a heartbeat.
Here's to improvising...

"Tobi's name isn't...shit."

That hadn't come out as planned.

"Hey Hash! Come here and look!" Tobirama yelled.

"What?" a very familiar voice called back as Senju Hashirama's head poked out of an upstairs window.

"It's Tobi!" Tobirama called back.

"Who?" Hashirama said.

"God, don't tell me you've forgotten Tobi! Madara used to come up with the wackiest shit when he was
drunk!" Tobirama yelled back.

"Hang on a sec." Hashirama called down before hopping out the window, running down the side of the
building and joining his brother.
"Well damn...it really is Tobi. He's even wearing one of the stupid masks Izuna got him to complete
the routine." Hashirama said when he finally got a look at him.

Tobirama looked up at the sky, and suddenly got an odd look on his face.

"What is it Tobs?" Hashirama asked.

"I just realized that it's ten in the morning." Tobirama said as he pointed at him.

"Well shit." Hashirama said.

"Jeez Madara, when'd you start drinking? It usually took you hours to get this trashed." Tobirama
said.

Why did that question leave him feeling oddly disturbed?

"Well, I went on a bender after Hashirama defeated me at what they're now calling the Valley of the
End." he replied.

"And?" Tobirama asked.

"And what?" he said, as he tried to remember when that bender had stopped and failed.

"Oh sweet...for the love of...Tobs, you grab his right side, I'll grab his left and we'll drag him to my
granddaughter for a couple of Detox Jutsus." Hashirama said.

He ran for it. Honestly he did, but Hashirama and Tobirama had obviously gotten alot faster while they
were dead.

THE NEXT MORNING:

Uchiha Madara groaned when he awoke. He had the headache from hell, his stomach felt like it was
trying to escape, and his bladder felt like it was at three times normal capacity. He got up to stumble
off in search of a bathroom or at the very least a convenient tree or outdoor wall (he'd learned his
lesson about indoor walls after the judicious application of a frying pan by his mother) despite the fact
that it brought more pain and another escape attempt by his stomach. It was while he'd stumbled into
the wall by the door to the room he was in that he happened to look down.

"What the fuck am I wearing?" he asked the world at large as his eyes took in the long cloak with red
clouds the gray pants and the white...leg warmers?

Eventually, he found the restroom, and after a "What the fuck happened to my hair?" he did his
business. It was while he was washing his hands that something seemed to hit him.

"The moon? Seriously?"

The Tsuchikage stared at the report. He'd read it three times, but the words hadn't changed. He'd
heard the rumors that had made their way around the Elemental Countries, but he hadn't put any
stock in them. Until now...Konoha's strongest had returned. The Yellow Flash was back, and
apparently he had a son.

Onoki sighed. Soon, he would have to give news that would cause panic amongst his people. If he
didn't confirm the rumors, they could swell into something that would cause even greater panic at a
later date. Before he gave his speech though, he would need more information. There were
contradictory reports over the infamous Fourth Hokage's condition. One even had him languishing in a
hospital near death after having been badly beaten by the other three Hokages that had been revived
alongside him.

There was also the matter of the Yellow Flash's son. There was any number of rumors about the child,
including a more recent one that he was Konoha's town pariah, Uzumaki Naruto. After requesting that
the more reliable looking rumors about the Hokage's condition be looked into, Onoki requested
photographs of those most likely to be the Yellow Flash's offspring. A while later, the requested
photographs had arrived, and he sorted through them.

"Yamanaka." he spat tossing the first one aside.

"Yamanaka, Yamanaka, Yamanaka, Senju, Iwako, Iwako, Senju, Uchiha?, Inuzuka, Nara, Senju,
Yamanaka." he muttered as he rejected the next several. The Yamanaka sure got around.

He then got to the photograph of a boy who was identified as Uzumaki Naruto. The boy's stance and
features practically screamed Uzumaki! to him despite the quality of the photograph that had
obviously been taken shortly before Orochimaru had invaded Konoha three years earlier. All the boy
needed was the red hair and gray/green eyes. He nearly rejected him as the illegitimate offspring of
yet another Yamanaka, except something in his gut stopped him. He'd learned to trust his gut over
the years.

"Get me more information on and a better picture of this one. Make it as recent and up to date as
possible." he said to his assistant as he handed the Uzumaki's photo over.

If there was even a small chance he'd be facing Namikaze's son across the battlefield, he wanted to
know exactly what he'd be up against.

&!&!&

Madara stared mournfully at his short hair. He had spent over a decade growing it out, was it decades
ago now? He had always carefully brushed it to a lustrous shine that either made women jealous, or
made them drool over him. Now...Now it was pitifully short, and more of an iron gray than a glossy
black. There was one bright spot in this though, at least his hair didn't grow in that godawful duck butt
pattern that Izuna and his descendant Sasuke's did.

His eyes finally drifted down to his face, and he winced once more. Time and alcohol had done a
number on him over the years. When had he grown so old? Had it really been so long ago that women
- even Senju women - would wait for hours just to catch a single glimpse of him?

His once massive fan-club was now down to a pair of old biddies and a newsletter that was more
about the exploits of their grandchildren than it was about him.

How could this have happened?

&!&!&

Hashirama scowled as he picked at the carry out his granddaughter had given him for dinner. Earlier,
the brat had tried to foist all of her paperwork off on him. If there hadn't been someone who was paid
to keep the Hokage Residence in order, he strongly suspected that she would have foisted that task
off on him as well.

He honestly didn't know why he loved the brat, she was just as disagreeable as her grandmother. He
knew exactly why he had loved her grandmother, and there was no way in hell he was going to do
THAT with his granddaughter.
 &!&!&!&

Sakura and Ino had been sitting up in Ino's small loft having a bit of down time which consisted of
pigging out on fattening foods they generally wouldn't touch, and gossiping. They were talking about
boys, and some of the more attractive men in the village that they would consider dating. Currently,
Ino was asking Sakura if she could picture her married to certain men.

"What about the Yondaime?" Ino asked.

"No, just no." Sakura said shuddering.

"Why not?" Ino asked, starting to sound offended.

"Besides the fact that you'd look like you two were related?" Sakura asked. "You'd be Naruto's mom."

Ino paled as she processed what Sakura had said and shuddered herself. God, Sakura was right.
Namikaze Minato looked like he could be her older brother, and having a son her own age was
just...Eew.

"What about the Nidaime?" Ino asked after a while.

"You'd be Naruto's great-grandmother, and Tsunade's great aunt." Sakura replied.

"Hash, you'd better get your granddaughter, Madara's drunk again." Tobirama said as he joined his
brother for their customary morning jog.

"What makes you think Madara's crawled back into the bottle again? He seemed fine the last time I
saw him." Hashirama asked his brother as they headed toward the wall.

Tobirama simply pointed to the Hokage Monument where five faces and a butt loomed over the
village.

"Should I be worried that you know what Madara's ass looks like?" Hashirama asked his brother.

"Not really, it was Izuna who told me about it." Tobirama replied. "You know how people in our family
had a tendency to name kids after the first thing they saw when they poked their head out the door
shortly after the kid was born?"

"Yeah, poor Benki." Hashirama replied, remembering his rather unfortunate cousin. The tradition had
been perfectly fine when the family had mainly lived in tents, all mom had to do was poke her head
outside, and bam the kid was named after some kind of tree, flower, or animal. When the Senju
started giving birth indoors however, things got a little...interesting. Fortunately for him, the first
thing his mother had seen was a column. When it came to his brother, his mother had poked her head
into a hallway and seen another door. When it came to Benki however, the boy's mother had gone
through the wrong door and poked her head into the bathroom.

"The Uchiha tended to take a little more time when naming their children." Tobirama said.

"Really? And they still named him Madara?" Hashirama said, incredulously.

"I said they took a little more time, but not that much more. Madara was named after the odd pattern
of freckles on his backside that he was born with." Tobirama replied.
"I take it that Izuna wasn't named after Mt. Izuna then." Hashirama replied, remembering the shifty
look on Madara's younger brother's face when he had told him what he'd been named after when they
were hammering out the details for the new village.

"Nope, he was named after his aunt who was named for her father's riding weasel." Tobirama replied.

"Riding weasel?" Hashirama asked, almost unable to process the illogic of that statement.

"Madara's grandfather had the Weasel summoning contract, and used to ride a giant Izuna into battle.
The next guy to get the contract didn't use it, because the damn thing kept eating the horses."
Tobirama replied.

"How do you know all this?" Hashirama asked as he and Tobirama neared the end of their first lap
around the village proper.

"Izuna tended to spill information he shouldn't have while he was drunk. While you were busy sitting
there laughing your ass off at "Tobi", I was gathering blackmail material." Tobirama replied with a
shrug.

Hashirama winced as his eyes flicked back up to the giant butt that graced the Hokage monument.

"We really need to find Madara something to do." He said.

&!&!&

Madara awoke to find himself in a hospital bed suffering from a massive hangover. He vaguely
remembered heading to a bar after wandering through the empty Uchiha district, but that was about
it. He tended to be insane and somewhat psychotic while he was drunk, and on the night of the
Massacre, he'd been completely fucking hammered, rather than slightly buzzed as usual. After the
battle high had long since vanished and the forced forgetfulness had worn off, all that had been left
was...regret. Sure, the clan had signed their death warrants with their treasonous activities, but did he
have to commit the atrocities that he had? Itachi had wanted to spare at least a few of his clan, the
elderly and infirm, and the children who had been too young to understand what was going on, but he
had followed his brother's great-grandson and swept through the district like Death incarnate, killing
all in his path from the ancient elder who had occasionally given him sweets as a child to the youngest
infant still wrapped in the hospital blanket he'd been brought home in.

He turned his head to the right, and found himself facing a pink haired teenager who strongly
resembled the magenta haired nuisance who had chased him across three countries until he finally
knocked her out and sold her to some merchant named Haruno something or other. The hairs on the
back of his neck stood up as a feeling of dread washed over him. She looked entirely too cheerful, and
with Medic-nins that tended to be a very bad sign.

"Good morning Uchiha-san, my name is Haruno Sakura." the girl said smiling. "Tsunade-sama asked
me to inform you that you were selected as the initial candidate for her one-step program."

"One-step program?" Madara asked, dreading the answer.

"Yes. Any time you approach an alcoholic beverage with the intention of drinking it, you will become
violently ill." the Haruno girl replied.

Great, just fucking great. He'd taken to using alcohol as stress relief after his mother had burned all
his porn and put a seal on him that prevented him from acquiring more of it when he was a teenager.
Now, he would have to find something else to do, and he refused to take up embroidery as Izuna had,
even if it was an extremely creative way of getting around their mother's porn ban.
After taking his vitals and writing something down on his chart, the girl left. A minute later, the Senju
brothers stopped by for a visit. If one didn't know better, one wouldn't assume the two to be siblings
at first glance. After you got over the fact that one was tanned and had smooth dark hair and dark
eyes and the other was rather pale and had spiky grayish white hair and red eyes, you would notice
that they did indeed strongly resemble one another. This had been because they were half siblings
with different fathers, Tobirama's father - having been clanless - had taken his wife's name after
earning it in trial by combat.

"Hey Madara, how'd you like to be Hokage?" Hashirama asked while Tobirama set a gift basket that
Madara strongly suspected had been booby trapped next to his bed.

Madara had the distinct feeling that Hashirama was putting him on.

"What's the catch?" he growled out.

"You'll only be Hokage for one day a week." Hashirama replied.

"One day a week?" he asked.

"Yeah, Tsunade finally talked us into taking up our old duties, but since none of us were willing to go it
full time..."

"A week is seven days long, and there are only five of you." Madara pointed out.

"Namikaze's kid and Sarutobi's grandkid get to share the position every Nichiyobi." Tobirama said
rubbing the hand that Hashirama swatted when he tried to filch some candy from the gift basket.

"What day would I get?" he asked, seeing as Hashirama actually seemed serious about this.

"Kayobi, when else?" Tobirama replied with a smile.

"Let me guess, you got Suiyobi and Hashirama got Mokuyobi." Madara replied.

"Yep. Tsunade got Getsuyobi because she was the last one we picked a day for, Namikaze got Kinyobi
because of his hair, and Hiruzen got Doyobi because of his Earth affinity. We were going to ask that
Danzo kid to fill in the extra day, but Hiruzen, Namikaze, and Little Tsunade outvoted us." Tobirama
replied as he made another move for the gift basket.

"Fine, I'll do it." Madara said.

"Great!" Hashirama said. "Me and the family are going to go to Suna with Naruto for a Meet 'n Greet
with the new Kazekage, and I was wondering if you could cover for us. It'll just be for six days since
Namikaze's staying behind."

"Okay." Madara replied.

"Great!" Hashirama said, and then he and his brother left before Madara could have the chance to
change his mind.

After they departed, Madara was left with the distinct impression that he'd just been had.

Three days later he knew for a fact that he'd been had. Tsunade had not been doing her paperwork for
quite a while in hopes of foisting it off on her predecessors. As Madara waded through a large pile of
documents that had needed to be seen to yesterday, he'd come to the conclusion that the position of
Hokage was basically a glorified Paperwork-nin job with Missions Assignment Desk duties and the gods
knew what else thrown on top. The only perks were the snazzy title, the bragging rights, and having
one's face carved on the side of a mountain. If he hadn't come up with his little side project, he
probably would have snapped at the end of the first day as he wasn't really the type to sit still for any
length of time.

For his side project, he'd decided to prove that those damnable Senju had never intended to give the
position of Hokage to any of the Uchiha. As the first two Hokages were Hashirama and his brother,
and the last three were a student of the Senju, a student of the Senju's student, and a student of the
Senju's student's student, this appeared to be laughably easy. In reality though...

"Little Aiko would have been horrified at what her clan became after her death." Utatane Koharu said.
The tears in her eyes at the memory of her deceased student from her first and only Genin team
which she had taken unusually late in life were genuine. Further interrogation revealed that Uchiha
Aiko had died on her first mission away from her teacher. For years, Koharu had blamed herself
believing that if she'd been there, she would have been able to save her student. Careful questioning
of Mitokado Homura and Namikaze Minato revealed a pair of nearly identical stories, Uchiha student
dead on first solo mission and teachers genuinely blaming themselves.

Both Koharu and her teammate Homura had trained Uchiha, as had Orochimaru, Tsunade, Jiraiya,
Namikaze Minato, and Namikaze's student Hatake Kakashi. All of those Uchiha would have been viable
for selection from the pool of candidates for Hokage which pretty much consisted of Senju Tobirama's
teaching line, and all of them with the exception of Hatake's student had died long before the
Massacre, long before they were old enough to even be considered for the position in fact. Madara was
going to get to the bottom of this, and whoever was responsible would pay dearly.

&!&!&

Tobirama sighed in relief when Konoha's gates came into view. This week had been interesting to say
the least. Instead of a nice walk and a little desert vacation complete with those neat date candies
Suna was famous for, Tsunade had been stuck working curing a poisoning case involving the
Kazekage's older brother, and He, Hash, and Naruto had gone off to rescue the Kazekage himself.
They'd been too late, but fortunately an old lady named Chiyo had come up with a Jutsu that didn't
involve unwilling sacrifices that had brought him back to life. To make matters worse, he never once
got his hands on any of the candy.

When he reached the market square, intent on getting some of the candy he'd been craving for the
last week, an interesting sight met his eyes. The no-longer young Shimura Danzo was chained to a
post, clad in nothing but an adult diaper. Next to him was a sign that said "No rocks, poison, or
weapons please. (We don't want him to die too quickly)". As Namikaze emptied a basket of rotten
tomatoes by his side by throwing them at the man, a white haired man in prisoner's garb approached
with a privacy screen and a replacement diaper.

Naruto, who had accompanied him this far as he was on his way to Ichiraku's, started laughing.

"What's so funny?" Tobirama asked his descendant.

"They're making Mizuki change that old guy's diaper, and from the looks of it, it's full." Naruto replied
before he turned down the side street that led to his favorite Ramen stand.

When he reached the Hokage tower, the first thing he did was head up to the office to see what the
deal with Danzo was. When he'd last saw the kid, he had been willing to sacrifice himself for his village
and his Hokage, he couldn't have changed too much since then, could he?

In response to his query, Madara pulled out a scroll on which something that looked a bit like a family
tree had been drawn. The groups of three indicated that it was not a family tree however.
"Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead." Madara said as he pointed to six names on the tree. All of
them were Uchiha. Two had been his students' students, three had been his student's students'
students, and one had been his student's student's student's student.

Tobirama felt like getting a basket of rotten eggs.

"Not only that, but the bastard was stealing children." Madara said as he pointed to an extremely pale
black haired, black eyed teenager who was dressed in a black shirt that exposed his midriff and a pair
of black pants. "Egaku here like his mother was born without the Sharingan, but that didn't give the
bastard the right to go poaching him from my clan!"

Forget eggs, he was getting potatoes. Those things left bruises. He should know, he and his brother
had been pulled off potato peeling duty when they had gotten into an argument that led to a potato
fight.

"I did it for the good of...OW!" Shimura Danzo said. The first and second Hokages had been throwing
potatoes at him for the last two days. He knew he should have given up on trying to explain his
actions, but he was hoping that if he got through to them, they might stop with the potato throwing
and turn him loose since his punishment had been decided on by Uchiha Madara who they had rather
famously not gotten along with.

It wasn't as if he'd really had the Uchiha in the Nidame's teaching line killed. He might have arranged
things so they went on missions that were slightly above their skill level. The fact that they didn't
make it back wasn't exactly his fault, since the Hokage had the final say on all missions.

His main problem currently was the fact that neither Hashirama nor his brother were inclined to listen
to him at all. After Madara had made his claim of murder and kidnapping, Hiruzen had gone and
tattled on him just like back when they were kids, and those two traitorous teammates of his had
backed him up. As always, Hiruzen came up smelling like roses despite the fact that he'd been
"Lookout" like he always was, like that time they'd pranked the Shodai Hokage's wife, or the time
they...OW. Those potatoes effing hurt.

"Hokage-sama." a messenger who ran up to the First Hokage said. "Hokage trainees Uzumaki Naruto
and Sarutobi Konohamaru are requesting your presence."

"I may as well go and see what they want." Senju Hashirama said as he dropped the potato he was
holding in the bucket by his feet. "You staying here Tobs?"

"Nah, I may as well come with and see what sort of mess they got into this time. This got boring
several hours ago." Senju Tobirama said as he too dropped his potato.

Disagreeing with the Senju while they were dead was well and good, Danzo reflected, but when they
were alive, well, the Valley of the End came to mind.

&!&!&!&

"What do you need now boys?" Hashirama asked. Having those two around made what would have
otherwise been a rather boring job interesting.

"Someone found your original desk in storage, and we had it pulled out for you." Naruto said
cheerfully as he pointed to a very familiar and somewhat battered desk that time had not been kind
to.

"That's nice of you boys." he said as the other Hokages who had turned up to see what the surprise
the boys had for the First Hokage was. "I remember the many happy hours Mito and I..."
Madara looked up at the ceiling and started whistling, Tobirama started looking at the floor, Hiruzen
found his fingernails to be extremely fascinating, Hiruzen's teammates quietly refused to look at each
other, Tsunade quietly stood there blushing.

"Hey, is that the desk from storage room three?" Minato who was the last to arrive asked. "Man, I love
that desk. Kushina and I used to..."

"Used to what?" he asked, hoping the answer wasn't what he thought it was.

"Well, um, Naruto was conceived on that desk." Minato said, sounding somewhat embarrassed.

"Would anyone else care to make a confession regarding my desk?" he asked the group who were
trying their hardest to look innocent.

"I got bored waiting for you to get out of a meeting, so I had one of your secretaries." Madara finally
stated.

"Ladies seem to like the desk for some reason." Tobirama finally said with a shrug.

"Back when we were young, and somewhat innocent, Koharu, Homura and I, well we, ahem." Sarutobi
said.

"Me and Dan..." Tsunade finally stated.

He strode out of the room, grabbed the first Chunin he found, and dragged him back into the room.

"I want you to take that desk outside and burn it." he ordered as he pointed to his formerly beloved
desk.

"You want me to burn THE desk?" the Chunin asked, sounding horrified.

Orochimaru read the report that had been rushed to his base. They wanted to destroy The Desk? But
he hadn't finished studying it...

Hopefully the petition that had gone up when a Chunin had dragged The Desk out of the tower and
into the courtyard would be successful. If it wasn't, he would have to find a way to save it, as his
attempts at recreating that particular piece of furniture had so far been unsuccessful. If even half the
legends he'd heard about it were true...

He called for Kabuto.

"Rescue The Desk. If you cannot do so, bring as much of the ashes as you can retrieve for further
study. Take as many men as you deem necessary." he ordered.

&!&!&!&

Itachi frowned. According to rumor which traveled faster than light, especially in the Shinobi world,
The Desk was being threatened. The sacred relic upon which he and his younger brother along with a
sizable portion of the last few generations of the Uchiha clan had been conceived was to be destroyed
by the Senju. While he would rescue it out of principle, he himself had personal reasons for wanting to
rescue that particular piece of furniture.

"Come Kisame." he said as he got up from their table at the bar. "We must go to Konoha."
"Why?" Kisame asked. He and Itachi didn't eat indoors too often, and he'd been enjoying himself.

"The Desk is in danger, and I must go and protect it." he replied.

"What's so important about "The Desk"?" Kisame asked, having heard several patrons including a
couple of Konoha nin sounding distressed while speaking about some desk.

"It is the sacred relic upon which my parents and I were conceived, and upon which I lost my
virginity." he replied.

Kisame stopped and stood there looking poleaxed.

"You have had sex?" Kisame said when he finally found his voice. "You have had sex?"

"What's wrong with that?" he asked. Kisame wasn't all that much of a prude, so he didn't understand
why his partner was so shocked over the fact that he'd indulged in carnal relations. He'd been a bit
young at the time, but then again ninja grew up faster than civilians.

"Nothing." Kisame replied. "Other than the fact that I owe Deidara five-hundred thousand ryo."

&!&!&!&

Senju Hashirama sighed. He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but the desk he'd created for his
office back when Konoha was little more than a few hastily built houses and a dream had become
some sort of fertility symbol or something. Apparently most of the ninja and a sizable portion of the
civilian population were either conceived on the desk or had a relative who had been if the stories he'd
heard were to be believed.

How this could be without there being a line about a mile long every day, he didn't know or even want
to know. Just the idea of hundreds or even thousands of people doing THATon his desk made him feel
somewhat queasy.

He'd ordered the desk to be burned despite the number of happy memories associated with it, such as
the conception of Tsunade's mother. That order had yet to be carried out. Apparently, a small mob
rounded on the poor administrative nin who had attempted to carry out his orders.

He'd soundproofed his office several hours ago to tune out the chant of "Save The Desk!".

As he tried to get some paperwork done, one of the few administrative nins who had hung around the
office rather than go outside to either join or hold the crowd back arrived with a messenger hawk
which had made its way from Iwa.

He pulled the "for his eyes only" message off of the bird and deciphered it. It was a request for a desk
just like his. He crumpled it and screamed in frustration.

Screw the desk! He was going to go out there and destroy it himself!

Hashirama glared at the crowd that had gathered around the tower. Though they'd appeared reluctant
to do so, they parted, clearing a path between him and The Desk. Despite the fact that he'd loved that
desk dearly up until that morning, he couldn't keep the look of disgust off of his face as he approached
it. The thought of several generations of people including Madara doing THAT on HIS desk sickened
him.
The Grand Fireball Jutsu was a Uchiha trick, but that didn't mean he couldn't do it despite the fact that
his main affinities were Water and Earth. Closing his eyes so he couldn't see the offending piece of
furniture, he started the handseals for the jutsu, ignoring the cries of "Not The Desk!". In the middle
of the jutsu, shortly before he was to release a massive fireball that would have uncreated his
creation, he'd felt someone Shunshin up next to the desk. There was a brief Chakra flare, and then
whoever it was Shunshined out of the area before the fireball was released.

From around him and behind him there was a loud cheer and a yell of "He saved The Desk!".

Moments later, there was confusion as the crowd searched for the hero of the hour in order to lift him
on their shoulders or something, and the person who'd rescued the desk from the cleansing fire was
nowhere to be found. Said hero of the hour had likely booked it as quickly as he could in order to
avoid his wrath.

&!&!&!&

The spy from Kumo smiled. Sealing the desk which appeared to be some sort of sacred relic to the
citizens of Konoha and getting away with it had been all too easy. Sure, he would be catching hell for
abandoning his mission, but such a prize as this was something that Kumo couldn't do without. If the
stories he'd heard about this piece of furniture from the members of the crowd who'd gathered to
rescue it were to be believed, the desk that the Shodai Hokage had been about to destroy despite the
protests of his subjects was the source of Konoha's extreme fecundity. Once he brought it home, it
would be Kumo that would be blessed with great increase and there would be more Kumo ninja than
you could shake a stick at in a mere generation or two.

Grinning and waving at the Konoha idiots who were guarding the gate, he slipped outside of the
village where he ran straight into an Iwa ninja who'd been ordered to test Konoha's defenses while the
village was in a relative state of turmoil...

&!&!&!&!&

The Tsuchikage frowned at the report he'd read on one Uzumaki Naruto. Rather than being like his
father, the boy was like a certain other Uzumaki he'd had the misfortune of being acquainted with.

Back when he'd been a young man who was barely starting out in the world, he'd been assigned to a
long-term spying mission in Uzushogakure. The people there had known he was a spy, and hadn't
cared. They had ruthlessly exploited him however, constantly sending him out on any number of
make-work missions that they hadn't wanted to bother with. The ninja he was most often paired up
with on these missions was an Uzumaki who'd had the most atrocious luck.

He couldn't count the number of times that Uzumaki had gotten them into trouble, nor could he count
the number of times that the Uzumaki had just barely gotten them out of it again with a few quick
words that had left their opponent standing there scratching his or her head while they made a quick
escape instead of creaming them as they could and should have. According to this report he'd
received, the Yellow Flash's son was the same, except for the fact that instead of completely
bewildering his opponents, he somehow made most of them want to become better people. The
Godaime Kazekage was a prime example of this, as the boy had been a complete psychopath before
he'd met Naruto three years before.

If he decided to do so, getting rid of the boy would be a bit tricky. Any assassin he might send would
more than likely end up like the last three. Two of them had left their respective villages' forces in
order to join religious orders, and the third had retired to become a lumberjack. The fact that the third
ninja hadn't wanted to become a ninja in the first place was immaterial. If the Uzumaki could subvert
Tanigakure's best assassin who was apparently very happy spending every day except Wednesdays
when he wandered around a small Fire Country town dressed in drag as he went shopping for lingerie
cutting down trees, chances were that he could subvert anyone.
 &!&!&!&!&!&

Madara scowled over the fact that he'd been sent out to hunt for the guy who'd stolen that damned
desk since it wasn't his day to be Hokage. If he'd known that he'd be stuck taking orders from those
damn Senju and their puppets every other day of the week...

Deciding to kill time by "interrogating" the gate guards, he headed over to the village gate. After an
hour of chatting about nothing in particular after his first question hadn't revealed anything of import
since the pair of Chunin he was talking to hadn't been on shift at the time of the furniture theft, he
noticed a pair of figures coming up the road.

Actually, he'd noticed several figures coming up the road during that hour. What made these two
unique was what they were wearing. The pair of men, one taller and the other shorter were dressed in
the Akatsuki uniform. The hilt of a certain sword was visible over the shoulder of the taller of the two,
marking the pair as Itachi and Kisame. Kisame who had joined the Akatsuki which he himself had
recently abandoned upon being given a liberal dose of sanity during the detox because...Well, shit.

"This is going to be awkward."