Author's Note: The previous story in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Jiraiya vs. Paperwork", which I do recommend reading first (along with the prequel to that, because I think I'm hilarious), featuring Jiraiya of the Sannin having to deal with Namikaze Minato as a genin, along with his two very artistically inclined teammates.

TEAM MINATO VS. PAPERWORK

Lastly, there's Kakashi.

Minato had been absolutely sure that Kakashi wouldn't be a problem.

He'd had Kakashi with him for years and though he didn't read Kakashi's reports or oversee Kakashi's every mission, Minato knew that Kakashi handed in properly written mission reports perfectly on time. The boy was very serious about being a shinobi precisely to Konoha's Shinobi Code, which included good paperwork, and the desk-shinobi hadn't come to Minato with any problems before.

But apparently things changed in the eyes of the desk-shinobi when Minato became a jounin-sensei and Kakashi was assigned to his genin team, even though the boy was a chuunin. Suddenly Kakashi's paperwork was Minato's responsibility and there was a problem with it.

Kakashi's paperwork was perfect.

Too perfect.

According to Konoha's Shinobi Code, Konoha-nin are supposed to be a lot of things that a lot of them occasionally or constantly aren't. Minato's old teammates are a prime example of successful shinobi who break a lot of rules about being successful shinobi; Taiki and Hanako are very emotional, not at all objective, and phrase things like (extremely overdramatic) human beings.

Most shinobi can't help but be at least a little unprofessional in their mission reports. There's always something, like underlying annoyance over a mission being misranked, or sarcastic comments on how their teammate did something that just worked so well, or a bit of gleefulness because they just pulled off a brand new jutsu or move for the first time and it was so great and/or badass.

Minato knows that his report after he first successfully pulled off the Hiraishin on a mission was nearly unbearable to read. Jiraiya used the paper to smack him upside the head for the next week to try and get him to stop grinning like a lunatic.

Orochimaru is a good example of a shinobi who lets his moods impact his reports. According to Jiraiya, Orochimaru once wrote a mission report after the store ran out of his favorite shampoo and the desk-shinobi wouldn't come out from under their desks for hours. Minato's not sure he believes that, but... well, then he takes a good look at the Snake Sannin's foul moods and flawless hair, and decides that maybe his sensei's not kidding.

Kakashi's reports, adhering absolutely perfectly to the code, have none of these things. His extremely detailed mission reports sound like they were written by a machine and then had all the personality sucked out of them; his mission reports sound like someone reading a dictionary in complete monotone; his mission reports read like no one had ever told him what a comma or an emotion is. They're so perfect to the rules, utterly bland and so dreary, that desk-shinobi have broken their noses from falling asleep mid-report.

Seriously, Minato's not kidding, no matter what his sensei thinks. Kakashi's reports are really, actually that boring. The Head Desk-Shinobi brought Minato to his office in a secret part of the Hokage Tower, made Minato read one of Kakashi's reports for the first time, and Minato just slid down his chair until he fell on the floor, and then lay there feeling like he would expire from the dullness being inflicted on his soul.

Oh god, it's so boring.

He doesn't understand how Kakashi can even write the things without falling asleep.

It's kind of incredible, though. Kakashi really is a genius for managing to make dangerous missions and battles to the death actually boring enough to put a shinobi to sleep. Enemy-nin couldn't even use Kakashi's mission reports for information because their eyes would glaze over just trying to read those dry, stale, full-but-empty sentences.

It's so bad that Inoichi once said to Minato that they use Kakashi's reports as an interrogation tool in the T&I Basement – torture through sheer boredom – though it's difficult finding shinobi able to actually read the reports to their prisoners in the first place.

Minato is pretty sure that was a joke. Pretty sure.

According to the Head Desk-Shinobi after Minato was done reading, something had to be done before somebody seriously injures themselves trying to read Kakashi's reports or all the desk-shinobi quit to save themselves. And the Psychology Department had already washed their hands of this, because they knew that there was no way Kakashi would ever come near their department.

They'd fought with him before. They lost. Badly.

If they had to go after that boy again, then they had conditions.

Minato then tried to argue that the reports weren't his problem because there was technically nothing wrong with them, but the Head Desk-Shinobi just looked at him flatly and said that, if Minato felt that way, then surely he would have no trouble processing all of Kakashi's reports for them.

NO, Minato's brain shrieked defensively, and that was that.

So Minato tried to explain the problem to Kakashi, but Kakashi just didn't understand what was wrong with his reports. And in that moment of incomprehension, Minato knew that to get through to the boy, they'd have to change Konoha's Shinobi Code, which the Council would never let fly, or Minato would have to resort to drastic measures to get Kakashi to show some personality in his reports.

He considered calling in Kushina, but that was too drastic.

So he called in his old kunoichi teammate.

Mori Hanako answered his call with pleasure and excitement, showing up to meet Team Seven at their favorite training ground the day after Minato called her in. Kakashi had never met Minato's old teammates, since Minato went out for reunions, and was wary because of how Minato had spoken in passing of them, but Obito and Rin were excited about it.

"Minato! It's good to see you!" Hanako declared happily, looking like joining her family's troupe and becoming a tokubetsu-jounin suited her. Today, she was thankfully only dressed like a movie starlet and not anything truly ridiculous; Rin and Obito looked wowed.

"Hanako!" Minato answered, hoping somewhat desperately that this did not end in utter disaster or interpretive dance. "How's Taiki?"

Hanako beaming smile was nearly blinding. "He's Mori Taiki now! The family loves him and his Creative Spirit is soaring beautifully," she answered proudly, practically aglow with love for her husband. "We're taking him on his first tour of the countries soon; he's going to be very popular with the noble circles, I can tell already!"

"Er, that's... fantastic," Minato answered, wondering what in the world was wrong with noble circles.

"But never mind my boasting," Hanako continued, waving a hand as though pushing all of the world's madness and blindness over Taiki's poetry away. "You've called me for help. How can I help you?"

Minato wordlessly handed her one of Kakashi's reports.

Hanako read it silently, her eyes quickly but thoroughly going through the lines. To her credit, she did not fall asleep, her eyes did not glaze over, and her expression only changed to go from curious to incredibly solemn. Once she was done, she looked up, and Minato had never seen a person look so somber and serious.

"I see," she said, looking over towards Minato's team. "This is very troubling."

Minato nodded, then looked over. "Kakashi! Come here, please."

Kakashi warily but obediently came to stand next to Minato and Hanako. "Yes?"

"This is my old genin teammate," Minato introduced. "I think you could learn something from her."

"Hello, Kakashi-kun," Hanako said, bending down so she could be at face-level with the troubling chuunin. "I am Mori Hanako, a tokubetsu-jounin specializing in infiltration."

"Hatake Kakashi," Kakashi answered curiously. "Chuunin."

At this point in time, things seemed to be going well to Minato's eyes.

"Your sensei has asked me to speak with you because there is something very troubling about your mission reports that reveals a deep upset into your soul."

Kakashi looked very confused.

At this point in time, Minato spotted a glint in his teammate's eye and suddenly realized this may have been a massive mistake, but he had no idea how to call if off. There was no way to stop Mori Hanako once she'd already gotten started.

Hanako nodded fiercely. "You are deep in the hold of the Uncreative Ideals made by the Money-Focused Motivations that are plaguing our beautiful forests!" she declared. "I must break this hold and help your suffering soul, freeing your Creative Spirit so that your may join the Unified and Pure Artistic Soul of Konoha and soar truthfully towards Freedom!"

Kakashi blanched. "No, thank you," he said immediately.

Instead of ignoring this and starting an hour-long rant like Minato expected her to, Hanako gave Kakashi an odd look then and stood to her full height, studying the boy consideringly.

"Short and cool response," Hanako noted.

She reached out and poked at Kakashi's hair and mask, while Kakashi and Minato (and Obito and Rin) stared incredulously at her.

"Hip style," she said.

Minato had never before experienced such incredible regret as he felt in that moment when Hanako obviously came to a sudden and gleeful realization. That was when he knew for certain that he'd made a terrible mistake. His old genin teammate pointed at Kakashi, beaming brightly, and declared,

"You're my young and blossoming Cousin Gai's Eternal Rival!"

That was as far as their progress got.

Now, Kakashi is up a tree and won't come down.

Minato is attempting to convince his student to get out of the tree, something that took a lot of effort for Minato to convince Hanako to leave to him. Unfortunately, since he can't be everywhere at once, Hanako is now conversing with the innocent and vulnerable Obito and Rin, so Minato has to get Kakashi to stop clinging to the branches fast.

"Kakashi, please come down."

"No," the tree says sullenly.

"Don't make me come up there," Minato tries.

A kunai suddenly lands an inch from Minato's toes.

"I will defend myself," the tree replies.

Minato glances over to where Hanako is dramatically lecturing Obito and Rin on something or rather, with graceful hand movements that will probably become interpretive dance within the next ten minutes. Once they reach that point, Minato will have to grab his students and run for it.

Rin's thought process is easy to read. Over the past five minutes, she has obviously gone from 'Oh, cool! A kunoichi who used to be on sensei's genin team! I bet she's cool!' to 'This is... um... interesting? Is this a test? Are we being tested? Or is she just... slightly... weird?' to 'This lady is weird, sensei; weeeeird. Why are you doing this to us? What did we do? Save us, sensei!'

Obito, also easy to read, on the other hand, has gone from 'Oh, cool! Sensei had teammates? I bet she's awesome and super nice! Just like Sensei and Rin!' to 'I'm still way excited about this, but I'm also kinda confused? Super confused! Because I have nooooo idea what the heck this lady is talking about, but wow, it sounds super exciting!' to 'Still super excited about this because this lady is super excited about things, even if she is definitely crazy. But that's okay, because I'm cool with crazy and sometimes crazy is kinda cool!'

Minato belatedly remembers that Obito actually likes the strange boy – who is apparently Hanako's cousin and that explains so much – who has proclaimed himself to be Kakashi's Eternal Rival whether Kakashi actually wants to be or not. Obito likes the boy's enthusiasm and dedication, and also how he annoys the hell out of Kakashi.

Minato needs to get Hanako away from Obito right now before Obito is infected and Konoha is permanently doomed to Obito's melodrama.

They don't need another Hanako. They already have her cousin too. And she's going to have kids, probably, with Taiki. That's bad enough. The only reason the village is still standing is probably because those children haven't been born yet and the Mori family is always going on performance tours to spy on and assassinate people.

"- so if you embrace your Creative Spirit," Hanako is saying now, "you can fly with the Unified and Pure Artistic Soul of Konoha, as true and free as the stars themselves, blazing a trail for the Uncreative to follow in your path to Universal Justice!"

Minato puts his head in his hands and groans. At this rate, he's going to become a hermit like sensei.

"Sensei," the tree whimpers plaintively. "Why did you bring her here? And what does she have to do with my mission reports?"

Minato thinks about how he should phrase this before finally deciding: "Kakashi, your reports are so perfect to the Code that they're boring people to sleep. Some personality has to give. She's here to help you change that."

"I don't need her for that!" the tree insists firmly. "I can do it on my own!"

"But I already told you to and you didn't," Minato points out.

The tree pauses, then promises, "I will! I don't know how to, but I will!"

Minato sighs. "It's not hard, Kakashi, just... be a little less professional. Spend a few pages talking about your teammates, express what an awesome sensei I am, explain how bad the food was, talk about your feelings some." The disdain from the tree is practically palpable now and Minato frowns. "Hand them in late; make spelling mistakes; I don't care what you do, just do something to make you seem not like the Konoha Shinobi Code come to life."

"...That shouldn't be a bad thing... and it's not a problem," the tree said sullenly. "They would have sent the Pysch-nin after me if there was really a problem."

"Kakashi, that's because the Psych Department is demanding S-rank pay for bringing you in."

The tree doesn't say anything, but it looks incredibly smug.

"That's not a good thing, Kakashi."

"...Fine," the tree spits finally. "I'll start being more... unprofessional."

Minato's shoulders go slack with relief. "Good," he says. "I'll hold you to that."

"Hmph."

"I will," Minato insists, crossing his arms to show just how serious he is about this. If he has to read another report that makes him want to claw his own eyes out or gnaw his own hands off again, he might actually do it. "Or Hanako is getting a chuunin assigned to her for the foreseeable future."

Kakashi actually falls out of the tree, landing with a thump. Then he flops his silver hair out of the way and stares at Minato with what Minato perceives, under that mask of his, to be unimaginable horror. Minato saw enough of that kind of expression because of Taiki that he can recognize it at twenty paces from just an eyebrow.

"Sensei, you wouldn't," Kakashi says.

"Oh, I would," Minato promises darkly. "I really would."

Kakashi gasps. "But, sensei, you said you don't believe in punishing your students!"

"It's not punishment, Kakashi," Minato returns evenly. What was that term that the Sandaime Hokage and Jiraiya had used when Minato first started to realize the true hellishness of his team's paperwork and exactly what he was in for...? The one right after Minato accused them of punishing him somehow...? Oh, right. "It's a learning experience, for improving your perspective on life."

Kakashi stares for ten whole seconds, then says, "Bullshit."

"Language, Kakashi," Minato admonishes gleefully. Is this feeling why Jiraiya made them run so many laps around Konoha? Punishing students feels great; he should do this more often. "I think I need to call Hanako back over here so she can help you improve your perspective on life."

"SENSEI, NO! PLEASE!"

In the end, Hanako leaves after being told that the Money-Focused Motivations' hold on Kakashi has started to break and he is in a very vulnerable place right now. She stands at the bottom of the tree that he climbed up again when she made to approach him and wishes him a Bright Creative Spirit, then bids farewell to Rin and Obito, who look subtly relieved and disturbingly starry-eyed respectively.

"Come back and visit us!" Obito yells after her, and then ducks and yelps as Kakashi just starts throwing pebbles at him repeatedly. "What is wrong with you, Bakashi? She's nice! OW! Ow, ow, ow!"

Thankfully, Kakashi's mission reports do improve. They're still very, very, very boring, but they're getting better with practice and nobody's getting their nose broken from suddenly falling asleep at their desk. Kakashi is still deeply against being unprofessional and doesn't really know how not to be, but he's willing to do absolutely anything to stop Minato from calling Hanako back to continue helping Kakashi improve his perspective on life.

Kakashi's first attempt at normality was honestly mildly disturbing -

'It was rainy. I don't mind rain.' (Entire rest of report continues as deathly dull regular.)

- but Minato feels that any progress at all is a good amount of progress, although he's willing to bet that future attempts will be equally disturbing and the desk-shinobi are going to raise a fuss about it. But Kakashi even managed to hand his mission report in two minutes past the deadline that would declare it late! Minato took them all out for ramen, he was so proud of his adorable student for giving himself some paperwork flaws.

Late!

Who knew Kakashi had it in him?

oOo

END

oOo

Author's Note: The next part in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Kakashi vs. Paperwork", featuring Kakashi facing the culminating consequences of Konoha's madness as jounin-sensei of Team Seven. If it cannot yet be found on my FF account, then it and the rest of the series can be found on AO3.