Trust (Sasuke fanfic) COMPLETED

The Ending: New Routines

I get bullied at my division a lot.

Sometimes (most of the time), I turn a blind eye to it. After all, other than taunting me with their words, making me run the most mundane errands, and giving me a lot of paperwork, there's nothing much they can do.

"It's okay," I once said to the Kitsune twins. "Right now, I'm just in the Administrative Tracking Division. Once my skills get recognised... I will be naturally promoted to the Field Tracking Division."

"You are skilled already," Sekken (unhelpfully) answered.

I laughed uneasily. "I'm only a C-ranked jounin. Anyway, doing admin work for now isn't so bad. I learn a lot!"

"Are you telling us that," Sora said. "... or are you trying to convince yourself?"

Truthfully, I did not like doing admin work at all. Sorting paperwork of what sensors in the Field Tracking Division did and tidying up their reports only made me more envious. For all my genin (and chuunin) life, I had always dreamt of being in the field, working as a sensor – but I was stuck in the office doing paperwork.

One day, I snapped.

For some reason, all of the other jounins wanted to leave work earlier, and started piling paperwork on my desk.

I glanced at my stack of work, at the clock, and was feeling so tired that I blurted out, "My shift ends in less than an hour. I don't think I should be doing so much paperwork, or I'll never end on time."

One of the senior jounins gasped in mock horror. "Is doing overtime unheard of?"

"No," I said, struggling. "But I finished my work. These are yours! You guys are the ones knocking off when you haven't finished your work."

Another scoffed. "Watch your place, girl."

The senior jounin sighed. "We shouldn't be so hard on her. It's expected that she cannot fathom working overtime... after all, she probably thinks being the Hokage's niece warrants her a good life."

I clenched my fists. "I never thought that! The truth is that you're just pushing your workload on me – "

"Time's wasting!" a jounin called, passing by my table and adding yet another folder to my stack. "We have a reservation!"

The senior jounin did a mock salute. "Do your best, little Mika-chan."

They left the office clattering, leaving only me and a few other jounins behind. I looked at my workload, swallowing back any grievance before reaching out for a folder and began to work.

Needless to say, I knocked off an hour after my shift that day. I went back home, mumbling a half-hearted "I'm home" as I changed to my indoor slippers and set down my stuff.