Author's Note: Okay, first thing is that this is crack. This fic and all the fics in this series (the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series) fall firmly under Ridiculous Nonsense, even if there turned out to be a whole bunch more world-building and character development than originally intended. I do not actually think Konoha or the Elemental Countries work this way, though it'd be really funny if they did. It is for fun and meant to be funny, so let's leave crit and sensible solutions at the door.

The "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series originally started as some fun daydreams about how much nonsense poor Saturobi Hiruzen probably had to put up with as a jounin-sensei. Somehow, this evolved into a generation-spanning fic series about a Curse-That-Is-Not-A-Curse and ninja being incapable of anything but nonsense. "Team Kakashi vs. Paperwork" is Part 4 in this series, though each installment can (more or less) stand by itself.

The previous story in the "Team Seven vs. Paperwork" series is "Team Minato vs. Paperwork", which I do recommend reading first (along with the prequel to that, because I think I'm hilarious), featuring poor Namikaze Minato having to deal with Kakashi, Obito, and Rin as genin.

As many of you likely guessed, Kakashi's bad luck took a much different turn.

This work was originally posted to my AO3 account.

Tags on AO3: Humor, Paperwork, Konoha Village, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Crack, Explicit Language, Swearing, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Crack, Universe Alteration, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

TEAM KAKASHI VS. PAPERWORK

There's another Team Seven. After so many long years and failed teams, Kakashi has finally passed the fourth Team Seven in Konoha's commonly-known history after his own, his sensei's, and the Legendary Sannin themselves. Oh god, what was he even thinking?

Kakashi's not oblivious, he knows what's coming for him. He remembers his sensei nearly pulling all of his bright blond hair out over his students' collective inability to turn in paperwork that might make the desk-shinobi happy. He remembers Jiraiya's stories about all the problems that he and his teammates caused for the Sandaime Hokage, and all the stories about Jiraiya's troubles with his own minion genin and their terrible, terrible paperwork.

Mori Hanako and Taiki – Kakashi shudders at the reminder of them – are still living happily in the village somewhere. Kakashi knows this because Gai adores them and insists on telling Kakashi every update in his cousins' lives, completely oblivious to the fact that Kakashi is definitely not listening and doesn't at all care about the completely incomprehensible success of Taiki's latest book of poetry, or Hanako becoming an infiltration teacher to capable chuunin, or how their kids are making popsicle-stick Hokage Monuments in their art class at school this week.

Kakashi's pretty sure that Gai has his student slip their photos in Kakashi's wallet while Gai distracts him (and it's absolutely no one's business is Kakashi is too lazy to take them out).

And, huh, Rock Lee, now there was a surprise. While Kakashi's glad Gai's found someone – to pass his techniques onto, not because Kakashi has ever entertained the thought that Gai would make a really great parent – he was horrified to learn that that kind of extroverted weirdness could appear outside the Mori family.

Oh god, they're not just breeding, they're infectious!

Lee, of course, was immediately and joyfully adopted into the Mori-Maito family fold. The boy will never be an actor or an infiltrator, but he wasn't half bad at the interpretative dance necessary for the adoption ceremony, which Kakashi only attended (as Gai's Plus-One) because someone (Gai) promised him an eggplant dish (it wasn't worth it). And on that note, he will pay good money to never see Mori-Maito interpretative dance ever again – it's always a combination of all of his worst nightmares come to life and set to music.

The only reason that Kakashi sticks around when Gai and Lee suddenly drop in with Mori Hoshiko, Honoka, and Takashi for a playdate is because, while there's no way the ankle-biters aren't going to turn out weird, it's Kakashi's civic duty to make sure they don't end up in green jumpsuits. Being part of Mori-Maito family, those kids need someone relatively normal in their lives.

Kakashi's not talking about himself. God, no. He means Pakkun and his summons, all very sane and excellent role models, who love spending time with children and helping the kids act out plays for their 'Uncle Gai' and 'Big Brother Lee' while 'Uncle Kakashi' hides in the tree outside the window. Kakashi had no idea that Bull and Bisuke loved musicals so much and could hit those kind of high notes.

… He's lost his point.

Kakashi's point is that Team Seven's paperwork is cursed and now it's his turn as jounin-sensei to suffer. All the evidence suggests that it gets worse and worse with each generation, so Kakashi's expecting hell that'll make his ANBU training look like Academy recess in comparison.

It's always possible – however absolutely tiny the possibility – that the fourth time will be the charm, but Kakashi's not betting on it. His luck, while great for keeping his fantastic ass alive, is just not that good. Plus, Kakashi's luck is pretty shit in general, and his luck when it comes to paperwork is even shittier, so he owes the universe a lot of suffering and now the time has come to pay his debt.

The desk-shinobi, while extremely, extremely fearful of the upset that is to come, are practically seething with vengeful glee that Hatake Kakashi is going to suffer Team Seven's paperwork curse. They have been waiting for this comeuppance for a long time.

Which reminds Kakashi that he should probably find that mission report that was due three weeks ago and finish it, or at least get somewhere past the current length of three sentences, which are either about a bird he saw or a missing-nin he fought, one or the other. The desk-shinobi have been waiting for that for quite a long time too and he should probably do something about it.

Eh, maybe later. He already made his report to the Hokage.

He has no doubt that this generation of Team Seven is going to be the worst. What he already knew of his adorable little minions before he got his team, the profiles that he was given when he was assigned his new team, and the Bell Test he ran after he met his new team, they all cinch it.

First, there's Uzumaki Naruto.

What Kakashi already knew: his sensei's son is definitely Kushina's son and has apparently been committing pranks then successfully fleeing the ANBU sent after him for years. That speaks of a potential skill and innate talent that makes Kakashi regret agreeing to be the kid's wrangler, because it sounds like a good way to pass out from exhaustion and then get drawn on with permanent marker.

What the profiles told Kakashi: his sensei's son is a problem student who, in the opinion of his Academy teacher, would apparently benefit from a more kinesthetic learning approach and a very patient teacher. Kakashi looks forward to taking a hands-on approach and helping his sensei's son improve his perspective on life.

What officially meeting Uzumaki Naruto told Kakashi: this is going to go either fantastically or terribly and there will never be an in-between. Ever. Also, the orange looks even worse up close and Kakashi is going to pull his protector down on his normal eye if he has to keep looking at it.

Second, there's Uchiha Sasuke.

What Kakashi already knew: the Uchiha heir has replaced Kakashi in the Psych Department as their poster 'problem child'. Kakashi is absolutely not at all upset that it's no longer a picture of him that hangs in their main office with a whole bunch of warnings next to it; it's not like he worked really hard and systematically to add to that list of warnings or anything. (Shut up, Tenzo, he's not upset.)

What the profiles told Kakashi: the Uchiha heir is a very skilled if very unfriendly student who, according to his teacher, gets a lot of intense attention for everything that he does from most of the other students. Kakashi looks forward greatly to helping little Sasuke improve his perspective on life as well.

What officially meeting Uchiha Sasuke told Kakashi: holy shit, Sasuke actually deserves that spot on the Psych Department's wall and Kakashi is definitely looking forward to helping little Sasuke improve his perspective on life. He hasn't met a colder, more closed-off, more issue-ridden kid since himself, and that reminder alone deserves a number of laps around the village to help warm the kid up.

Third, there's Haruno Sakura.

What Kakashi already knew: absolutely nothing.

What the profiles told Kakashi: the pink-haired girl is more of a classroom student than a shinobi, but her teacher is of the opinion that she has the potential to be very good if she could just stop being fanciful and redirect her ambitions. (Whatever that meant.) She would likely make a very good medic-nin, or one of the other Konoha factions that generally stayed within the village with interspersed missions, like the Academy teachers or the desk-shinobi or so on.

What officially meeting Haruno Sakura told Kakashi: oh no, fangirl. Help. He didn't sign up for that. 'Redirect ambitions', yeah, right. No shit.

Also, whoever got conned this year into putting these teams together, given the feud between the Academy teachers and the desk-shinobi, is doing as bang-up a job as all the previous people conned into it. Clearly, this team was designed to be efficient and functional and not at all resembling a bunch of explosive tags about to go off.

But, then again, maybe that's intentional. Kakashi's due the worse Team Seven yet by tradition, by curse, and by universal return energy. Maybe the universe and some random desk-shinobi or Academy teacher or other shinobi just decided to help things along and get their long-awaited revenge on the side.

Finally, Team Seven as a whole.

What Kakashi already knew: there will be horrible, horrible paperwork.

What the profiles told Kakashi: these children have problems and his doom is nigh.

What officially meeting Team Seven told Kakashi: this dysfunctional mess will make the curse proud.

Genma and Anko will be happy. They have quite a number of bets on how terribly Kakashi is going to suffer under Team Seven's paperwork curse.

Genma, having had to chase Uzumaki Naruto across Konoha a number of times as ANBU, is certain that Naruto is going to make his mother proud and wreak hell of a kind like the last Team Seven did on his father.

Anko, on the other hand, is betting on Sakura being the worst of the lot. Not as a symbolic gesture of support for another potentially chaotic kunoichi or anything similar, Anko is just absolutely certain that it's going to be the quiet one. Look at that pink hair! In Anko's wise and learned opinion, hair like that is nothing less than an omen of pure evil.

Kakashi ignored them both and supposed then that it's going to be Sasuke who's the worst. He isn't sure how, since there was utterly no way to predict how any member of Team Seven would go off the deep end in terms of awful paperwork, but the boy had the moodiness for it. Kakashi can already see future interference from the Psych Department and the Council due to whatever problems the Uchiha heir's mission reports will undoubtably cause.

Kakashi checks the time and realizes that he's made an exceptionally fashionable arrival time for himself and had better get moving before his cute little genin try to kill each other. He can't let them do that, if only because Inuzuka Tsume is holding the betting pot and she'll rip his face off if she has to hand the whole thing over to Ibiki for betting the whole thing will end in multiple homicide.

At the very least, his genin won't have to write their own mission reports until after their first C-rank. D-ranks, which he's so looking forward to assigning and will without doubt greatly improve all his students' perspectives on life, don't really need mission reports and the jounin-sensei is permitted to make a collective one for the whole team. (Kakashi searched through so many manuals and Shinobi Code books to find that loophole.)

And while Kakashi loathes the idea of making work for himself where he could get genin to do it, he's willing to scribble a few sentences about vegetables and home repair to put off the curse for a little while longer. It's not a permanent solution, but it'll probably at least give Kakashi some idea of what to expect from the little monsters as he gets to know them better, and also a reprieve from the oncoming hell of the combined forces of Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura.

God, does Kakashi love procrastination.

oOo

Oh damn, he can't procrastinate any longer.

They already made their verbal report on the Wave C-rank turned A-rank to the Hokage, but today is the day that his genin's written mission reports are due. While Kakashi has no problem turning in his own reports ridiculously late – he's not turning in his own mission report today – the desk-shinobi will dump his dead body in the Forest of Death if they think he's been passing on his own carefully-cultivated paperwork habits to malleable genin.

So Kakashi's told his team to meet at the usual place and is prepared to just get this over with.

At least, unlike the Sandaime and the Toad Sannin and his sensei, Kakashi is going into this with his eye wide open and fully expecting to face almost certain death. He can't afford to be arrogant on this one. Over a decade in ANBU and he knows that he's still not ready for this fight; all he can do now is just let it happen and not run away to join his sensei's sensei and hide forever.

Kakashi even has a few theories about what he's going to face.

Naruto, he's betting, is going to do something that involves his pranking abilities. If Kakashi had to line his current adorable little genin with the Team Seven members of the past, he's going to put Naruto down as a horrifying and disastrous combination of Senju Tsunade, Mori Hanako, and Uchiha Obito. He's going to do something big and dramatic that'll cause village-wide chaos.

Sasuke is easy to pin down (which probably means that Kakashi is going to be horribly wrong about him, because that's just how these things work) as being a combination of Orochimaru, Wakahisa Taiki, and Kakashi himself. Sasuke, it seems, is the incarnation of Kakashi's misdeeds coming back to give him his just desserts. The boy is moody, dramatic, with massive, extremely justified psychological issues, and Kakashi honestly wouldn't put it past Sasuke to have a secret hobby of terrible poetry.

And Sakura... oh god, Kakashi's just realized that this would make Sakura somehow a combination of Jiraiya, Namikaze Minato, and Nohara Rin. Kakashi doesn't even remotely know what on earth that could possibly be like, but he knows that he fears it on an instinctual level deep inside his soul.

He's signing them all up for the Chuunin Exams as soon as possible.

All his genin are here now and Kakashi wants to leave some period left in the day to recover from whatever's going to happen, so he's officially run out of time. They all have their reports tucked away, so he won't see anything if he just keeps watching. Besides, it's either this or help Gai and Lee plan Taiki and Hanako's surprise anniversary party and that's just not happening. (He physically cannot go through another catering taste-tasting session.)

Kakashi takes a deep breath and then hops out of his tree, startling all three of his genin. Hmm... that's not great. He'll have to work on their observational skills if they really didn't notice him, come up with some drill or another that'll help them improve their perspective on life.

"Late!" Sakura yelps, on reflex instead of actually being an accusation, then she frowns deeply and says in a confused voice, "...by fifteen minutes?" She checks something in her thoughts, probably looking for a missing two hours but finding nothing, and is forced to confirm, "Late by fifteen minutes."

Sasuke slowly reaches for a kunai, face blank but posture full of suspicion. Kakashi's going to guess that the paranoid little brat thinks he's an impostor, while Sakura's probably running through the probability of someone managing to impersonate their sensei in Konoha, and Naruto...

"Oh my god," Naruto says, eyes going wide. "Who died?!"

Kakashi raises his hands and makes a calming gesture. "Maa, Naruto, no one's dead."

Yet, his mind points out helpfully.

"I just want to get this out of the way so I can enjoy my weekend," Kakashi tells them, stuffing his hands back into his pockets so his genin can't see them twitching with the knowledge that his entire weekend is probably going to be an all-out grudge-match between him and the desk-shinobi.

Kakashi saw one of the desk-shinobi today and, in preparation for this day, as the desk-shinobi have been preparing for since his new Team Seven was formed, she was armed to the teeth and then some. He's not sure he's going to win that one.

Sasuke still looks suspicious. "We didn't need to meet to hand in our reports," he says, watching Kakashi carefully for further signs of non-Kakashi-ness. "Mission reports can be handed in individually by each member of the team."

"So there was no need for us to meet today?" Sakura asks, clearly outraged.

Naruto groans loudly and thumps his head back against the tree he's leaning on. "I could have handed this in yesterday?" he says, then realizes angrily, "It's our off-day! I could be sleeping right now!"

Kakashi originally despaired at the idea that his cute little monsters would never agree on anything, but Sasuke and Sakura clearly concur by their betrayed looks that turn into hateful glares. Well, at the very least, Kakashi can pat himself on the back for improving their perspectives on life and instilling some sense of unity and cooperation in them, even if through shared homicidal feelings.

Kakashi feels a tingle of fear down his spine at the knowledge that Naruto's had his mission report ready since yesterday. Naruto trains his skills hard, but he's more of a spur-of-the-moment kind of person in planning, except when it comes to his pranking, which is at least partly planned out beforehand. Oh, this doesn't bode well.

Also... "Sasuke, I'm not an impostor. I have the Sharingan, you have two, and if you stab me, I'm throwing you in a river," Kakashi says bluntly, staring challengingly at the boy. When the boy's hand doesn't move and he just looks sullen about it, Kakashi adds gleefully, "I think it'll improve your perspective on life a lot."

Sasuke takes his hand away from the kunai very quickly and Naruto says, "Oh shit, it really is him!"

"Sensei, why are we doing this?" Sakura demands with all possible preteen exasperation. "I have to help my mother clean the house today."

"I thought this was something we should do as a team for the first time," Kakashi says with a very casual shrug, and all three genin still immediately. "Big milestone and all that, handing in your first mission report, and for an A-rank too."

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura stare disbelievingly at him.

Kakashi ignores their looks and claps his hands together, nearly wincing at the loud sound. "So!" And oh god, his false cheeriness is grating even to his own ears. "Mission reports! Let's see them!"

His adorable genin still look confused, but they all pull out paper anyway. Kakashi watches them all very warily and resists the urge to jump away and use his Sharingan. The hospital medic-nin will hunt him down if he runs himself into the chakra exhaustion wall twice in such a short amount of time, even if it was to face the Team Seven paperwork curse.

At first glance, everything seems normal. Nothing terrible is glaringly obvious. Sasuke's seems a little short, but the kid's not much for words, and it doesn't look like terrible poetry. Sakura's is folded neatly, but only in half, not anything like Rin's complicated origami creations. And Naruto's is a little scuffed around the edges, but in fine shape nevertheless - no nin-puppy pawprints or anything.

Naruto holds his out towards Kakashi.

Kakashi's ANBU-trained instincts, which have automatically switched to S-rank-level alert, catch the sudden movement and potential threat to his life immediately. 'IncOMING KUNAI! POISON SENBON!' they screech, taking over his senses. 'EXPLOSIVE TAGS! EXPLOSIVE TAGS! EXPLOSIVE TAGS! GET BACK! RUN, RUN, RUN!'

Kakashi is five steps back with a kunai in hand before he even realizes he reacted.

Naruto, still holding out his mission report, has his jaw wide opens as he gapes at his sensei. Sakura and Sasuke are equally wide-eyed, and now Sasuke has his kunai fully in hand as he hastily searches the area for whatever potential threat he thinks Kakashi sensed.

"Sensei...?" Sakura asks warily.

Kakashi immediately stands up straight and tucks the kunai away, cursing his own survival instincts and wondering how the hell he can play this off. "Ah... Sakura, just thought I saw the black cat that's always wandering in my path and making me late," he explains.

Any hint of sympathy instantly leaves Sakura's expression, while Naruto keeps on staring disbelievingly and Sasuke scowls sullenly while tucking his own kunai away. Sakura holds up her own mission report and Kakashi is very proud to say that he manages not to flinch at it.

"Are you going to take our mission reports?" Sakura demands.

No way in hell. Kakashi's not touching those things unless someone ties him up and pushes them in his face, and even then he'd roll himself away. He's resigned himself to how those papers are going to make his perfectly decent life a miserable, bureaucratic hell, but he's not going to make it that easy for his cute monster genin.

"No, no, just wanted to make sure that you had them," Kakashi says, pulling out his spare copy of his spare copy of Icha Icha Reliance (he's not risking any of his precious book collection to what's about to happen) and starting towards the Hokage Tower. "Hurry up! Let's go!"

Even though it's probably going to make the paperwork curse even worse than it's already going to be, Kakashi's soul still feeds off the glares that his students are all leveling at his back. Admittedly, he could be really nice to his genin in the hopes that they'd make it easy on him, but that didn't work for any of his predecessor jounin-sensei, including Minato, who was generally known as an exceedingly nice pushover unless someone pushed too far over the wrong line and he very suddenly wasn't.

And... well... there are good reasons why Kakashi's got a lot of bad paperwork energy coming his way.

Meeting at a training ground and then walking to the Hokage Tower is pointless according to an irate Sakura and moody Sasuke – if they had to meet up at all, why could they just meet up at the Hokage Tower itself? But Kakashi disagrees; there is a very good reason why they're taking the long route and leaving themselves out in the vulnerable open like this: he needs to know exactly what he's going to be in for the foreseeable future.

If he's going to face the Second Coming of Obito's Perilous Journey to Hokage Tower, then Kakashi wants to know sooner than later if he has to know at all. If the first time is going to be the worst, he needs to jade himself for his own self-preservation, and if they're going to get worse over time, he wants to have some inkling of what he's facing. Scouting the territory ahead was a vital part of surviving deadly missions, every shinobi knew that.

So far... nothing. Good god, he hates suspense.

Suspense, in Kakashi's firm opinion, is for improving genin perspectives on life and for the excellence that are his sensei's sensei's novels. Every time he experiences a drawn-out feeling of tension, it usually means that the ceiling is about to fall in or everything would end with everything on fire – at least, that's how it worked on his ANBU missions. Otherwise it usually just meant the other jounin had gotten dangerously bored and were seeking booze and/or entertainment, or that Gai was about to appear out of nowhere and challenge Kakashi again.

Oh god, Kakashi hopes Gai doesn't show up. He doesn't need that right now. There's a reason he told his genin to meet up when Gai has an appointment with the caterer for Hanako and Taiki's wedding anniversary party (seriously, he cannot go through tasting fifty-three different kinds of basically the exact same thing again), and that reason wears a green jumpsuit (he doesn't care what kind of sad face Gai makes or how many tears there are). Thankfully, Gai had dragged his genin with him to food-taste instead, so that meant no smaller green jumpsuit either.

Oh god, what if Hanako or Taiki shows up? He'll have to go missing-nin then, because this paperwork is going to be bad, but he doesn't want it to be Mori family bad. It'll be just his luck if they do show up and damn, he's going to miss Konoha. Oh well, couldn't be helped; off to the beaches of Fire Country for him.

He's not going to miss Konoha's staring though. They're being watched, as they walk towards the Hokage Tower, by many, many shinobi. There are two elderly ex-shinobi watching them from a restaurant table; there are a handful of Academy teachers slumped on a bench who look still-hungover from their continuous school-break partying last night and clearly pity him what's coming; there's a medic-nin just coming off a night-shift blatantly staring and letting their to-go meal drip on the ground; there's an ANBU in civilian clothing buying their groceries and spying just behind them; and there's a desk-shinobi scout who quickly disappears to warn his waiting fellows of their approach.

And also, clearly with nothing better to do with their time, Genma and Anko wave at Kakashi from atop a roof. Kakashi, still pretending to read his book, subtly flips them off and ignores their responding cackles that he can still hear half a block later.

He can't afford them any attention, not with the chaos that could pounce at any moment and the dangers that lurk in every shadow and around every corner.

"Stop," he orders his genin.

They do, and even though their understanding of what is happening hasn't been cleared up, none of them bother to look confused. Instead, Naruto groans loudly and drops his head into his hands, Sakura's face pinches and she crosses her arms, and Sasuke looks like he very dearly wants to smack his head repeatedly against the nearest wall. Sasuke settles for hitting his head against Naruto's back instead ("Dead-last, stand still."), and it really says something that Naruto doesn't even seem to notice or care.

"Again?" Sakura demands flatly.

"Sakura, street safety is very important."

All three of his genin stare at the ox-drawn cart of vegetables slowly passing by to make its way to the market. A brisk walk could have let them cross the street before the cart got in their way, but Kakashi's not taking any chances. Just like he didn't take any chances with the puddle he made them take a large circle around and the street he made them avoid because he thought he saw a squirrel down there.

Sakura huffs and starts tapping her foot as they wait for the ox-drawn cart to slowly go by. Once it's finally out of the way (after a whole thirty-eight seconds), she makes to go forward immediately, just like Naruto, but Kakashi slips his book away and grabs them both by the collar of their shirts before they can make a terrible mistake.

"It's important to look both ways before crossing the street," Kakashi reminds them when they stare questioningly at him. When they keep staring questioningly at him, he adds, "For safety reasons."

Sasuke, with his makeshift wall taken away from him, sighs like he's the most long-suffering person in the whole wide world. Then he steps up, activates his Sharingan, and makes a dramatic show of looking down left down the street, then right, while all his teammates stare at him with general expressions of what the hell (Naruto and Sakura) and huh (Kakashi).

Then Sasuke deactivates his Sharingan – ooh, Kakashi is so not envious about that, not at all – and marches across the street without looking back. Since the boy's point has been pretty effectively and undeniably proven, Kakashi releases Naruto and Sakura, who follow their teammate immediately, then pulls out his book and wanders to join Sasuke on the other side of the street too.

"Maa, Sasuke," he comments casually, "I think that was overkill."

Sakura and Naruto stare incredulously, while Sasuke looks absolutely mutinous.

Probably a bad idea to make wisecracks with the situation that Kakashi's in, but... he couldn't resist.

oOo

Author's Note: This fic is finished and chapters will be posted daily until it's complete. There will be 3 chapters.