"I guess the Hokage's residence really does have the best rooms in the village," Tsunade said, feeling the perfectly regulated temperature settle over her skin.
She could tell right away it was some kind of seal work. The whole setup was just flawless.
"Yeah, if you say so." Azula's mind briefly flicked to her own place, the Uchiha Patriarch/Matriarch's house, which was hardly a downgrade. "Make yourself comfortable. It's your home too now anyway."
Tsunade's smile turned genuinely happy. "You don't have to tell me twice."
Before this, Azula had been living in the Uchiha compound. With her parents, no less. So naturally Tsunade had been way too embarrassed to just waltz over whenever she felt like it.
And Tsunade's place meant dealing with Mito, which wasn't exactly a walk in the park for Azula either.
But the Hokage's residence, after Hiruzen cleared out, there was nobody left except the ANBU. And even them, Azula could just order to make themselves scarce.
'Finally... we can actually sleep together without it being weird.' That was the only part of this whole political circus Tsunade genuinely cared about, though she'd never admit it out loud.
She was already impatient for Azula to touch her.
"I feel like you're thinking something strange right now," Azula said, catching that smile on Tsunade's face. The one that was just a little too knowing. A little obscene around the edges.
Tsunade's expression smoothed out instantly. "No. I was just thinking about a new procedure at the hospital."
Azula just rolled her eyes. She knew damn well that wasn't what Tsunade had been thinking about, but she let it slide.
"You're going to be named head of the hospital," she said instead. "I guess it's good you're already thinking about work. You're about to be very busy."
Tsunade let out a long sigh just picturing the mountain of crap waiting for her. She'd seen Biwako handle that position, seen the endless stack of paperwork the woman dealt with every single day.
Just thinking about it gave her a headache. Not that she'd even tried to refuse the promotion. She saw it as her responsibility now, a trait she'd definitely picked up from Azula whether she liked it or not.
Azula caught the sigh. The one that screamed I'm already tired but without a single complaint attached.
She decided to drop the work talk for now.
Besides, she had her own mountain waiting. So many things to sort out, so many orders to give, that even with Shadow Clones running around she felt like she was barely keeping up.
"By the way," Azula asked, curiosity getting the better of her, "what exactly did you tell Mito-sensei and Nawaki about you moving in with me?"
"Surely not that so clumsy excuse, right?"
Tsunade had shown up with most of her belongings sealed into storage scrolls, after all. That wasn't exactly subtle.
Tsunade shook her head, looking oddly proud of herself. "Of course not. I told them that since you moved into the Hokage residence all by yourself, you'd probably get lonely. So I decided I'd live with you until you get married."
She said it with this triumphant look, like she'd pulled off some brilliant scheme.
Azula brought her palm to her forehead. "Seriously?"
"What's wrong?" Tsunade didn't get why Azula was reacting like that to her genius plan.
Azula didn't even want to get into it. "Nothing. It's fine. Very genius of you."
Before Tsunade could press further, she switched tracks. "Tomorrow and the next few days are going to be insane, we should rest while we can. I'm exhausted too."
Since it was just Tsunade and she knew the ANBU couldn't see a thing happening inside these walls, she started stripping down without ceremony, leaving herself in nothing but her underwear.
That was something Tsunade could get behind.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," she said, trying way too hard to play it cool. "Quiet moments have been getting pretty rare lately."
She'd convinced herself she was just interested in resting. Definitely not nervous about sleeping in Azula's house.
Just the two of them. Nope.
Azula let a small, knowing smirk slip onto her face. Honestly, her relationship with Tsunade just kept shifting and deepening every single day.
The physical barrier between them was basically nonexistent at this point. Exhibit A: Azula launched herself straight at Tsunade, who was already sprawled on the bed lost in her own head.
"What's going on in there when I'm right here with you?" Azula asked, her hands already working to help Tsunade out of her clothes too. Naturally, Tsunade still had her underwear on underneath.
•••
•••
The next day, Azula woke up feeling genuinely good. It had been a long time since she'd slept that well.
Blame her past life on Earth, where she'd gotten used to having a woman beside her in bed no matter how thin the emotional connection actually was.
She was in a good mood. Right up until she walked into her office.
"If I have to deal with this kind of paperwork every single day, then what the hell are all the administrative positions in this village even for?" In front of her sat a literal mountain of paper that hadn't existed yesterday, which meant this was just the workload from one morning.
Sure, she'd left her clones to handle most of the office grind while she focused on getting stronger. That didn't mean she wanted her clones to suffer like this.
A clone was still a part of her no matter how you sliced it.
But she figured she'd at least skim through what was there before deciding how to handle it.
And the more she looked, the more pissed off she got.
Just to start, there was a report on every single ninja who'd left the village between last night and right now. Their reasons. Their mission details, obviously.
Then there were reports from the ninjas who'd come back. Detailed breakdowns of how each mission went.
Konoha had tens of thousands of shinobi. And that number was only going up. Which meant the paperwork was only going to get worse.
There were ANBU reports on the forces they were monitoring. Spy reports from every corner of the ninja world. Costs for this, expenses for that.
And that wasn't even half of what was sitting in front of her.
"Hell no."
No matter how much she loved control, this was a whole other level. There was no way she was dealing with every single useless scrap of paper herself.
'Is this why Naruto and Tsunade were always drowning in work in the anime?' she wondered. 'But that doesn't even make sense. In their time, the Hokage didn't have total control over the village. Hiruzen did. So either his control freak tendencies ran just as deep as mine, or something else is going on.'
Her eyes drifted to the portraits of the previous Hokages lining the office wall. They stopped on Tobirama.
A scene clicked together in her head. Tobirama the perfectionist, handling every microscopic detail of the village himself and pulling it off through sheer obsessive efficiency.
Then Hiruzen inherits the seat and just keeps doing it the same way, too scared of his own reputation to change a damn thing.
Minato gets the hat after him and thanks to his speed, the workload doesn't bury him the way it would anyone else. And then the whole sad chain continues with Tsunade and Naruto.
For Azula, that was probably exactly how it went down. Honestly, it was her biggest issue with the village right now.
Everything boiled down to inheritance. The founders did it this way, so that's the way it's done, and nobody better even think about changing it.
That mindset was baked into practically every ninja, not just the ones in Konoha. And it meant one thing: stagnation.
From the academy all the way up to the ANBU, the system at the start of Naruto's story was basically the same one Tobirama had set up generations ago.