98I have this urge to make this fic when I wonder how things will turn out to be if Orohimaru isn't a missing-nin and this is the result. I make a one shot because I don't want to make another long series fic that I don't know when I will finish it. The timeline starts from when Orochimaru was still a Leaf-nin and he was 20 years old. He's actually the main character here.
Chapter Four
"Ah, Orochimaru, it's good to see you," Sandaime exclaimed cheerfully from his seat. His prized student immediately was on guard, wary to see his teacher look so damn cheerful, too cheerful in fact. The high stack of paper completely covering the huge table the Hokage was using, only leaving a free space for him to look at his teacher.
"…Indeed," he said warily, his eyes darted to the door he had just entered, wondering whether it was a good idea to bolt. His instinct was practically screaming at him to flee. He was given message by an unimportant jounin that should remain nameless that Sandaime called for him. And now that he was here, already meeting his teacher, he wondered if it wasn't such a good idea after all.
"Anyway I need you to act as a Hokage for now because I have an important business to attend," in a blink of eye the old man was already behind him and ushered him to take his Hokage seat.
"…" Orochimaru blinked. "Excuse me?" but when he turned around his teacher was already gone.
"Think of it as a mission," a happy voice shouted from the door, though its owner was nowhere to be found.
The young ninja stared at the mountain of paper in horrified silence. His body was stiff and he didn't dare to utter a sound at the mission that was just bestowed upon him.
"…And what exactly am I supposed to do?" it wasn't like he knew how. Give him an assassination mission and it would be done in a pinch, but this? He had seen his teacher signed paperwork, but that was it! Heck, he didn't even know where the damned stamp to sign the paper was.
It was needless to say that Orochimaru didn't have fun day. After grilling his teacher's assistant under his death glare and hissing, he found out from the terrified chuunin that his beloved teacher didn't actually have important meeting that day. He then sent several squads of ANBU just to locate where their Hokage had run off. But it was to no avail as they failed to find the old man. Even when he was assisted by several people, Orochimaru felt like his head was going to explode from the sheer stress. Several clients and council members chose that day to complain. And it seemed fate was against him either when more reports were coming in. The snake sennin had to quench his urge to scream hysterically, kill the offending people, and burn all those god damn paperwork.
His fool of a teammate also chose to visit him after he heard the rumor that Orochimaru was acting Hokage that day, and the stupid idiot dared to laugh at him. HIM for god's sake! Jiraiya was sent to hospital after a ticked off Orochimaru proceeded to bust his ass for stress relief, literally. He was calmer after that, but felt another headache come when his eyes landed on the papers in front of him.
What was he supposed to do with these again? He didn't seem to be able to remember. All those words had gone off his head and strained his brain. It was all he could do to not start a screaming fit.
"Um…Orochimaru-sama, there is a diplomat from Sand coming over," the assistant informed the sennin nervously. And it was just ten in the morning too.
It was the last straw.
"AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! I'LL GET YOUR ASS FOR THIS, SENSEI!" he vowed so loud it was heard outside the Hokage tower.
In his hiding place, Sarutobi shivered and it caused him to loose his concentration, making him fail to catch the fish that bit the bait of his fishing rod. The highest ranked ninja of Leaf village groaned, never realizing that his student was out for his blood.
The second time it happened, Orochimaru used kage bunshin to do the work while he was off doing his own things. After his first disaster he recalculated that day to see his mistake and what he should have done to fix it. Then in a moment of brilliance, he remembered about the forbidden technique. Unlike normal bunshin, this technique allowed the user to actually touched thing, and unlike mizu, rock, sand, or other kind of bunshin techniques it had the superior ability in that of having the mind of its user. So the supposedly forbidden technique was for the first time in history being used to do mundane thing like scouring through the paperwork instead of for combat or spying mission.
It sounded like a good idea the first time he thought of it, but he found that it was actually a bad idea.
True that he was free from doing the damn paperwork, but after his clone was dismissed Orohimaru collapsed from the sheer pain of headache. All sort of information flooding his brain in an instant and voila…instant headache! He had to be carted off to hospital and stayed bed-ridden for 2 days.
The third time he was called by sandaime for 'important mission', he went into hiding after his instinct screaming at him to hide.
So was the fourth, the fifth, sixth, seventh and you got the idea. Several times he wasn't able to shirk from his…duty and Orochimaru was truly hating those days.
Several years after that, Orochimaru had already gotten the idea that being a Kage was the worst job in the world. He was freaked out when he heard several council members whispering that he would be a good replacement if the Third died or resigned. He was in panic attack for several days, and not even his teammates were able to help him. If anything they made it worse and he was forced to kick them out of his house before he mauled them.
So it was a heavenly blessing day when he heard that Jiraiya's blonde brat of a student had the dream to become Hokage. The lad was smart and had huge potential, he had to admit that Gama-teme got a good student, but unfortunately he was also naïve. A fact that he used to his advantage. Orochimaru started to work on the brat, polishing his abilities, all in all making him a better ninja than he should ever be under Jiraiya's tutelage. The snake sennin disregarded Jiraiya's fit of screaming of him taking away his apprentice and told him to get his own. He told him practically in the face to go to hell.
The only thing Orochimaru didn't try to change of his 'apprentice' was his naivety and happy-go-lucky attitude. It seemed to work better to have a nice Kage, so he wouldn't have to worry about revolt.
And just to appease Jiraiya, he eventually took a girl named Mitarashi Anko as his apprentice. Good girl, she was.
Orochimaru was proud at his blonde pupil when his name was known as Yellow Flash throughout the ninja world. He even fought with Jiraiya over who taught the blond better, which he won obviously. He was after all a master of debate…as long as it didn't involve stupid politic or paperwork anyway.
Time went on and his dream came true when Kazama Arashi was chosen to replace Sandaime as Yondaime. Orochimaru celebrated the joyful day and drank himself into stupor. He had to be carried off to his home. The terrible hangover the next day wasn't able to reduce his joy.
Life was good. Sandaime and Yondaime approved of him using prisoners of war and enemy ninja as guinea pigs. If a prisoner refused to open his mouth, he would be handed to him. To this day Orochimaru never failed in breaking them. The other also didn't seem to mind when he used his completed immortality jutsu to change body once in awhile as long as it was enemy ninja. Truly, life was good.
When Kyuubi attacked Orochimaru panicked. The stupid Yondaime brat decided that using a suicidal attack was a great idea, which meant all his lifetime hard work to mold him into the greatest Hokage of all time would go the drain. Either Sandaime would be back to his post (which was something he dreaded, for Arashi never asked him to do his job, unlike his accursed teacher), or he was asked to be Hokage (oh, the horror! He'd rather become a missing-nin!), or Danzou would be chosen as Godaime. And he didn't like that fucking man. So it was easy to say that all result was a definite NO-NO!
Desperate time needed desperate measure, so taking a leaf from his student's book, Orochimaru felt like a sacrifice was needed.
Well…actually it wasn't a sacrifice for the intended wasn't aware he would be sacrificed…for the greater good, of course.
The snake sennin easily killed the surprised Danzou and used his corpse for Shodaime's medium, using the newly completed Edo Tensei. His next job was to knock out Arashi from the game, per se. He decided to go through Yondaime's idea to use his newborn as the vessel. Being a vessel of a great demon would make him a great ninja, and Orochimaru intended to mold the boy to be the next Hokage, if only so he wouldn't be Hokage incase something happened to the boy's father.
The sealing was done successfully. Yondaime was still alive, the Leaf was saved, there were more survivors than it should be in canon for shodaime had the power to affect bijuu and Danzou actually did (forced to, but the man wasn't alive to complain) a good deed in his life by taking down Kyuubi with him, even if it was done unwillingly.
So what if he was scolded for days? It was worth it. And in the end the others agreed that he was right doing that thing, even if it was done begrudgingly. It helped when he told them that Danzou offered himself to do the job. Not that it was true, of course. The man was hailed as a hero! He, wherever he was right now (Orochimaru hoped that he was in hell), should be grateful for it!
Now, with Naruto following him like an adorable puppy with awe look on his face as he watched his Hebi teacher showing him the snake style taijutsu, Orochimaru felt sure that he did the right thing. Taking over as ROOT's leader was a bonus.
It also helped that he pissed off those stuck up Uchiha by taking Itachi as his newest apprentice. The family was actually happy when he did it the first time around. They didn't like the result though. The new Itachi was someone that didn't give a damn to stupid rules like his clan made and it didn't help that his teacher's cruel tendency was rubbing off on him (the oldest heir of Uchiha even created a new creative method of torture. Sharingan was definitely a blessing). Attempts to break them off always ended in failure. Itachi was too attached to his teacher and not to his clan.
If someone asked his brother what he thought of his big brother, little Sasuke would answer that his brother was nice, even if he was a prone troublemaker and literal headache to his parents (especially his dad), if a bit (well, a LOT) creepy. If you asked Naruto though, the child would answer that Itachi was the greatest…well second greatest, Orochimaru was the first one, his father excluded.
The Leaf had to be glad that their beloved Hokage was there to temper both Orochimaru and Itachi from going out of control and was actually teaching Naruto to do the same (not that it really worked much, his son was already ensnared by the two and also Anko who became his big sister).
In the background, Jiraiya was crying for being left forgotten. His should-be apprentice (meaning Naruto) was already corrupted by Hebi-teme and taken away from him just like his father. Tsunade only rolled her eyes and didn't bother to console her pitiful former teammate.
Orochimaru was content with his life.
End
What d'ya think?
Short, rushed, but I think it's better than making it into a series fic. I doubt I have the time and patience to do it. It's also unedited, so no need to cry out that my grammar is atrocious.
For those thinking that Yondaime was actually Naruto's father in canon, I have to say that nothing in canon ever said that his name was Kazama Arashi or Naruto was his son. It's just a thinking from the fans, based on Naruto's appearance, the name in the Toad summoning scroll, and also their imagination (mine too actually)