There were a couple of things that Sakura would call bullshit on to the end of her days. The first was the Akimichi’s tea seal that they refused to fork over that made their tea unparalleled in all shinobi and civilian countries.
The second, of course, was Uzumaki Naruto.
She winced. Ah, well, not Naruto specifically. His living situation. Primarily his inability to be adopted.
Not officially, of course. Even the Sandaime couldn't leave a kid completely incapable of finding a home. Simply put, there were even more restrictions on him being adopted than there are on Hyuuga Hiashi’s front door. (Sakura would know since she had broken in on multiple occasions to let her slugs slime up the pillows because it was worth it to hear the girly shriek when his precious Hyuuga hair was defiled. No, she was not bitter that they made their own conditioner and wouldn't share, shut up Taicho.)
To put it simply, there were a ridiculous amount of conditions placed on Naruto and his unfortunate, fortunate, incredibly unlucky and blessed existence.
One: The guardian has to be no less than sixteen years of age or an adult under Konohagakure law.
This, she begrudgingly agreed with. All civilian and shinobi-born orphan children had this restriction and while it could separate siblings it did save a lot of house fires from pseudo-parent-siblings trying to make do.
The problem was the section clause underneath that claimed a full psychological evaluation had to take place under a specialist of the Hokage’s choosing (i.e.; he’d essentially brainwash-jutsu them into forgetting about the adoption altogether).
Two: The guardian has to be an active-duty shinobi under Konohagakure law.
That, on the other hand, was complete bullshit. It essentially erased Naruto’s ability to be anything but a shinobi. Any other poor child that wasn’t Naruto and his ‘Can-Do’ attitude would’ve burnt out or quite literally taken their own life to avoid being a shinobi (maybe not at first, but when the bodies of close friends started building up, well…). Real subtle, that rule. It also meant that the guardian couldn’t retire until Naruto passed the exam and became a genin or turned sixteen.
(What if he wanted to be a painter and paint with Sai and quit the shinobi corps with Sasuke and they could all be happy? No one asked him if he wanted to be a painter and it made Sakura’s heart pour all of the tears her eyes couldn’t shed.)
(Then she uncorked a chakra-thread bottle within her and let the tears drop in. There was more than one way to kill and real sorrow was hard to come across to fuel genjutsu. She’d teach it to Sasuke one day, maybe. If he said please.)
Three: If the guardian happens to pass away during the adoption process or post-adoption, the child will be seized by the government.
So that- that right there was a huge problem. Also one of the reasons why some of the shinobi who she came to realize actually liked Naruto would never take him in. Assassination attempts on their person and, if they did manage to adopt Naruto, being on the suicide mission list for the rest of their careers, resulting in them dying. Being the ward of the Hokage (though she knew it was only a temporary favor to a dead man that Sarutobi would just as soon wash his hands of by putting so many restrictions up. If Naruto’s guardian broke a rule he was fair game in the Sandaime’s mind) was infinitely better than being a ward of the militarian state. If they died, not only would they be dead, but Naruto would be much worse off.
Those were the only ones she knew were specifically twisted against Naruto. The other ten conditions related to housing and income and standard of living, all of which she, like the first condition seemed on the surface, agreed with.
The real issue was this: any shinobi who were eligible and strong enough to defend against the Hokage’s assassination attempts and later suicide mission requests to see through the adoption process were all batshit crazy.
Case in point, Naruto would likely never be adopted and would probably turn out fine anyway because the Sandaime was personally invested in the village’s traumatized and indoctrinated little weapon.
And yet.
Sakura hated the orphanage. She'd never lived there personally, having been old enough when her parents died to move out on her own (sort of… she was close enough to the right age that the Sandaime wasn't willing to fight her on it), but had known even before becoming a Shinobi that kids there went missing a little too often. It'd been a boogeyman story told around the playground that upset the orphans who'd lived there or been adopted out.
She met the kids from there decently often. At least, the ones who didn't scare at the sight of her. Before she'd melted half her face and nearly lost a hand and a foot, between missions for the war effort she would sometimes play with the orphans in the park, encouraging them to play hide and seek with her as the ‘enemy shinobi’ for them to hide from. Of course, she may have encouraged them to run towards the village's actual underground shelters, so in case of an attack they'd be practicing how to get down there as quickly as possible. Then she'd systematically mow them down starting with those farthest from the shelters.
She digressed.
“Hello! How may I-” Yori, the middle aged woman who ran the orphanage, froze, her smile stuck on her face. “Ah- um, S-Sakura! What brings you here?”
Sakura grinned, showing off the jagged scar on her lip dragging down her chin. “Yori-san. I'm here for the paperwork.”
“The… paperwork?”
“For adoption.”
“Ad…option.”
“...yes.”
“You?”
Sakura glared, eliciting a yelp as Yori rushed to get out the papers and files. “Which, uh, age group?”
She waved away the stacks of files on older kids. “I'm looking for Uzumaki Naruto.”
Yori’s hands paused in the file drawer. “Naruto? You're sure?”
“Do I seem like I'm not sure?” Sakura's voice edged with something sharp.
The woman shook her head frantically, ruffling her short black bobbed hair. “That's not it! I can't give you the file.”
Sakura assessed her carefully. Her hands rested on the thick dark wood of the desk. “And why not?”
“Because it's not here! You see…”
That slimey old bastard.
When someone wanted to speak to the Hokage, it was customary to set an appointment beforehand, wait a day or two, and see if their request for a meeting was approved. If that someone was a shinobi they would get bored of waiting and eventually climb through the window. Only jounin were ever daring enough to actually do it, but she digressed.
Sakura, who'd never officially made jounin (field promotions during wartime felt more like cheating than anything so she didn't count it), was one of the few with just enough audacity to go in through the front without an appointment.
His receptionist could argue all he wanted that he could be in a meeting, but Sakura had stolen and memorized his ANBU schedule from a poor kid new to the rotation for a reason.
It was with that in mind that she kicked down the doors.
“Sakura-kun,” Sarutobi greeted, absolute flat unamused tiredness on his old face. It was tempered by an attempt at a soothing smile.
“Hokage-sama,” she gritted, only a little bit of her ire leaking into her tone. “Could you tell me something?”
Sarutobi set down his quill curiously. “Of course.”
“Why do you have Uzumaki Naruto’s adoption file?”
The chakra signatures of the shinobi on his guard rotation were swirling uneasily. Sarutobi would've been the image of serene calm if not for the minute clenching of his jaw. “Why are you interested?”
Primary reason why she couldn't stand the man; he answered difficult questions with questions of his own. The never ending dig for information that made them clash so often.
“Wouldn't you wonder if a boy's ability to be adopted directly depended on the Hokage?” Sakura asked back. When his jaw clenched a little more, she knew he understood what she was really saying. She knew exactly what Sarutobi was doing, the conditions placed on Naruto's adoption, and his impossible expectations and greed for a friendly little weapon.
A specific, intimately familiar chakra rolled uneasily in the room at her words- and more so at the implications of them.
He cleared his throat. “You of all people understand his…. situation… is rather unique.”
“Right, the gag order,” Sakura sighed. “Yes, well, I don't believe it's your decision. And you know exactly how I feel about your under-the-rug policies.”
Sarutobi's chakra seemed to rise at that statement, spiking with controlled anger. Never willing to back down to her taunts specifically, he pulled the file from a desk drawer and set it on the table. “Uzumaki Naruto cannot be adopted by an ill-prepared family. Not in good conscience. If not carefully monitored, he could-”
“Grow a social life?” Sakura asked, keeping her voice light. “Not be viewed as an outsider to anyone and everyone who sees his guard and wonders why? Be adopted by a caring family? I agree he deserves safety but I believe you've conflated that with isolation.”
“What would you have me do?” Sarutobi asked, injecting his tone with genuine concern that wasn't quite as genuine as she used to think. “I would love to give Minato's son the life he deserves, but I can't trust just anyone with him.”
Oh Kami dearest, lend me strength, he's actually pulling the sympathy card.
Sakura's eyes narrowed. “I knew Minato as well. His student is one of my few precious people,” she wanted to gag at the admission but it was worth it to feel the surprise from both the Sandaime and the chakra signatures in the corner.
“Then I ask again. Who would you have me give him to?”
“Me.”
There wasn't a single person in the room who didn't balk at the audacity. Sarutobi’s strangled expression seemed to scramble for words to say.
Sakura didn't let him get a word in. “Why not? I'm financially stable, have a house, and we both know that I can keep him safe. Maybe not the best emotionally but considering you're only letting shinobi even try to adopt him I think it can be assumed you aren't worried about that.”
There was a minute of quiet that permeated the room. More surprising than Sakura's adamance that she adopt the jinchuuriki was the sudden acceptance that washed over the Hokage’s face. He nodded understandingly.
“I suppose, if that's what you want, then you'll be allowed to try.” He tested his hands on the desk and leaned forward.
Sakura leaned back, not bothering to hide the suspicious glint in her eye. Disbelief blanketed the room heavily. She almost thought- for a moment, a blissful moment- that he would leave it there.
“Now that that's done, I did need to discuss with you the mission roster, though….”
Right.
See, while Sakura was terribly, irreversibly selfish and had never quite grasped the selflessness that Team Seven preached till the end of their days, she did pick up one trait from one of her mentors.
“If this is about the suicide missions you call S-rank,” Sakura started, a teasing, daring grin playing at the edges of her bared teeth, “I've already put in the request for the change. I'll meet my new squad next week.”
The air stilled and it was brought immediately to Sakura's attention that chakra had been buzzing. She hadn't noticed, so focused on the conversation, that she hadn't realized it was there until it stopped. She could feel familiarly cool, sharp chakra swirling in confusion, anger, and perhaps a little clenching of fear from the corner. Even the Hokage couldn't hide the slight slackening of his jaw, the tenseness unwinding into something undeniably unprepared.
Because while Sakura hadn't been infected entirely with Team Seven’s uncanny ability to ignore self preservation instincts, she did get an unfortunate habit from Tsunade.
Sakura was the worst kind of gambler, playing fast and loose, trading her life for the things important to her. Unlike her shishou, however-
Sarutobi's face cracked into an unhidden, unhinged glare filled to the brim with malice.
-Sakura usually won.
She smirked bitterly, ugly, with all of the twisted pride she could. She could see on the Sandaime’s face that it burned, because it was so pointed and focused on him that hardly anyone dared to call her out on it.
Her existence rankled him for a few reasons.
The first was that Sakura wasn’t an idiot and would never be caught gambling her life away taunting the Hokage if she wasn’t sure she could get away with it.
The second was that no one would take his side over hers for reasons she only thought about after no less than three bottles of shitty sake.
The third and most satisfying was that Sakura was the slug sannin before the slug sannin Tsunade became the slug sannin and he had no idea how.
It was inappropriate, perhaps even a little foolish to hang her neck before he could stab her in the back, but again, Sakura was selfishly protective of her people.
Her next smirk pulled at the wrinkled, burn-scarred, melted-down skin on the left side of her face and brought attention to the fact that Sakura was missing half an ear and had half a pink eyebrow. There was a reason no one ever found out about Sakura’s petty little game of taunting reactions out of The Professor; everyone on his guard had known her before, and could barely stand to look at her face anymore.
No one wanted to look at the once pretty, pink-haired, precious young woman who killed god.
Good.
There was a moment of solid silence that thickened with slow pumps of chakra. Just as the chakra signatures of the shinobi on his personal guard started to cycle unevenly, Sarutobi dismissed them. They were gone a moment later, leaving Sakura alone with The God of Shinobi (he hardly ever called himself that anymore to Sakura's delight; she'd killed god once and he knew damn well she wouldn't hesitate if he gave her a good enough reason).
Sarutobi paused, eyes roving with intent and a potent thickness of chakra filled the room. It was strong, so strong that Sakura wanted to plug her nose, but it was nothing compared to what she'd felt before. There were things far scarier than an old man playing god.
So Sakura, even as Sarutobi’s guard could be felt shifting relentlessly outside the room, took a step forward. She slowly took the adoption file from his desk- not to give him an opening to take them back, just slow enough to make it clear she knew he couldn't do a damned thing about it- and walked towards the doors.
He was quiet for a moment as the heavy chakra funneled out of the air, but he spoke just as her hand met the solid oak.
“You'd make a good Hokage, Sakura-kun.”
Her heart beat loudly in her ears for one- two- three moments. Then she swung the doors open with a derisive snort.
“Don't hold your breath, old man.”
You’ve already tried to trick me under that damned hat once, and I sure as hell won't fall for it again.