Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, which is probably a good thing since I'd probably end up killing them for my own sick and twisted amusement.

They are lying. Or if you want to be diplomatic, then they aren't telling the complete truth. Because the paperwork is the hardest thing but it's not the kind of paperwork you would think.

On the first day, you'll walk into your office and having the entire village cheer for you hasn't entirely worn off so there will still be a slightly insane smile stuck on your face. And then you see them. The documents and files piled high on your desk like miniature mountains and your hands cramp just thinking about them.

You've heard the horror stories of how previous Hokage's have gotten lost into the paper avalanches or how Sandaime would sometimes forget to go home for the evening as swamped as he was by work.

But instead of doing what any sane shinobi would do and running as fast and as far away as possible you don't falter because the same person who convinced you that becoming Hokage was a good thing had also heard the stories and knew just what to say to make you forget them and your common sense. They'll explain that knowing you are protecting the village more than makes up for the paperwork. That every smile from every child lightens the load a little more and that being Hokage means that you are the best shinobi in Konohagakure. Not simply the strongest but the best

So you sit down and you smile reassuringly at the anbu guarding your door and maybe they smile back but you can't tell so you turn to the papers that will swallow you up if you let them and the first thing you see is a death certificate.

You can't place a face to the name and you might have passed this person on the street but you don't know them and now, you never will. You tell yourself that this is the life of a shinobi and promise that you will get to know the rest of your subordinates better. So you sign it and you get over it and you go on to the next document. Which is another death certificate.

And for a moment you're startled to realise that there is an entire pile underneath the first two of death certificates but within seconds you have calmed yourself and you shift to another pile telling yourself that you'll come back to these later.

You make a big show of signing important looking documents because that's what Hokage's do. They sign papers all day and look out benevolently onto their charges and somehow manage to remain the strongest shinobi in the village.

And when you finally return to the first pile you feel a little guilty that you have neglected the dead. You feel as if you are stopping them from making their final journey so you make another promise to yourself. You promise that never again will you wait to sign their death notices or read the mission reports that are attached. And then you leave for the day and your secretary –a male chuunin today- will tell you that more paperwork has come in, and some nearby shinobi will make a crack about it and you can't believe they can say it without a trace of dark humour in their voices.

And this happens the next day and the one after that and the one after that and this is the one of the few things you cannot delegate to one of your chuunin helpers and you feel guilty for even wanting to even if you're sure that somewhere out there in the vast space that is Konohagakure, there must be someone that is better suited to dealing with this than you are. A shinobi who won't tremble every time they look to the left and see that there is a new mission report with a dead member.

And you're the one who sent them on this mission and got them killed and it's their blood on your hands and nobody else can see it and sometimes even you can't but you know, without even looking, that it's there.

It's in the red-brown colour stained permanently into your lifeline and the random and increasingly frequent walks you take to get a breath of air not tainted by the lingering scent of death, and how when you read the mission reports suddenly it's your hand that was holding the kunai that slit his throat or it was your fingers that felt her heartbeat slowly fade as they curled tightly around a pale neck.

And it never matters how they die, if it was painful or just a poison slipped into their drink because in the end it's you who sent them on that mission when you could've –should've- sent someone else who wouldn't have died or maybe they would have but the floating what ifs are still better than the cold hard certainty that you've killed another person and they will never go home to their families -if they even have any left- and all the plans that they made for the future they used to have, will disappear along with their souls, and there is one less person that can smile at you and make you think that your job is almost, almost, worth it, if only for a second.

That's what they never tell you about being Hokage because no one wants to know they'll wake up gasping because they can feel blood and gore streaming through their fingers but all they can see are blindingly white sheets and moonlight shining through open windows…

Naruto gingerly takes the sake bottle from Tsunade's limp fingers as she trails off. As he gingerly leads her out of the Hokage's office, he promises himself that tomorrow morning when he returns -as Rokudaime this time- he won't falter before the wooden desk that he can already picture in his mind, blood soaked deep into the grain.