In case anyone who reads my other stories comes to this one, a couple of notes. My other stories are on hold (Shinji Tokisaka,) or on hold, possibly discontinued or deleted in the future, (The Tactician's Past), for various reasons. If you want to know more, e-mail me.

Having said that, enjoy.

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Sarutobi sighed. When he had first made hi choice, he had never thought that it would get so bad. Once again, the Sandaime Hokage was proven wrong. The once calm and orderly Hokage's Tower was gone, replaced with sheer chaos. Papers were strewn throughout, shouts echoed through the building. People were ON FIRE.

It had started innocently enough... who would have thought buying Naruto a computer game would become so catastrophic?

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The game was called Hokage, made by a retired jounin with a knack for electronics. It was a simple concept, letting children find out what it was like to be Hokage, to run an entire Hidden Village, and lead it to greatness or ruin.

Naruto had begged him for it, saying that he needed it to become Hokage, and Sarutobi obliged him.

Within a month, Naruto had come back complaining that the game was too easy. He had already beaten the game on every difficulty level, and wanted a new challenge. Having nothing to offer the aspiring nin, the Hokage came up with a simple solution.

He tied Naruto's computer into the Hokage Tower's system, and gave him low level access. Naruto was given full rights to manage D-Rank missions. The worst case scenario? Sarutobi would have to do a little extra work, correcting Naruto's mistakes before he allowed the mission to be taken care of.

What actually happened was far from the worst case scenario.

Naruto reduced the pat rate of many D-Rank missions by 25, but instigated a 10 increase per mission completed daily. This, combined with a communal pool of missions, resulted in a more streamlined and efficient method of low level mission management. Most genin teams had doubled the number of D Rank missions they took, compacting as many as they could into a single day. Most of the paperwork of D Rank missions was relegated to the client and jounin sensei of the genin teams, cutting Sarutobi out of the loop, and giving him some time to actually relax.

When Naruto said that he was getting bored again, Sarutobi just raised his administration level, letting him manage C Rank missions as well. Sarutobi had doubted that Naruto would progress beyond this level, but was once again proven wrong.

Naruto made no radical changes to the existing C Rank policies. However, he made in mandatory for another nin, or at least special jounin rank to accompany genin teams on their first C Rank missions, the only exceptions being when their sensei had sufficient qualifications to handle at least A rank missions solo.

Over the course of six months, the genin casualty rate on C Rank missions dropped 31.

Once again, the Hokage raised Naruto's administration rank, and the cycle repeated itself. Within five years, before Naruto had turned eleven, he was running Konoha, and had no idea that he was doing it. He was so ridiculously addicted to the game that he did almost all of the work needed, meaning that most of the administrative office was effectively paid for nothing, and the Hokage could actually take a vacation, a feat that had been unreachable by and Kage in any village.

The only drawback was that Naruto put so much effort into the game, his schoolwork suffered, and he failed the genin exams twice.

Another year passed and Naruto finally managed to reach genin rank, and found himself on a team with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, with Kakashi as their sensei. It wasn't until they took a C Rank mission to Wave country that Sarutobi learned to what degree they had grown to depend on Naruto's efforts.

It took only 20 hours for the system to break down, and the ninja who had been sitting around doing nothing actually had to do their job. They had grown so used to simply signing the occasional paper, that their efforts did more harm than good, some even set off a few of Naruto's new security measures, resulting in several conflagrations that had ignited several unfortunate bystanders. It was only now beginning to settle down, thanks to the Sandaime's efforts to restore order.

It was at that moment, when order was so close to being restored, that Sarutobi received a message from Kakashi. Their mission was at least B Rank, perhaps even A Rank.

Nothing destroys order faster than seeing your leader break down in tears.

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Hours later, Sarutobi had finally regained control of himself, and had sent for one of the available ninja to go and support Team Seven.

"Yo! What do you want old man?!"

"Team Seven's C Rank mission has been elevated to B, or even A Rank status. While I have the utmost confidence in Kakashi's ability to accomplish the mission, the high rank means that his genin are far more likely to be killed. While such things are expected, one of the genin is vital to Konoha's continued existance."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. Protect the Uchiha brat."

"Sasuke isn't the one I want you to protect."

"You want me to guard that pinked haired fangirl?! You can't be serious!"

"Your mission is to ensure that Naruto Uzumaki survives."

"You want me to protect THAT brat?!? With that thing inside of him, I doubt anything is going to hurt him!"

Sarutobi sighed at Anko's irreverent attitude, "Anko, what I am about to tell you is the most closely guarded secret in Konoha. Before this moment, I was the only one who knew it, but due to...circumstances... revealing this secret to you has become inevitable. What you are about to hear can never be repeated, do you understand?"

Anko's lazy expression vanished, replaced with the face of a soldier. "Hai, Hokage-sama!"

Within seconds explaining the situation, Anko could barely stand, she was laughing so hard.

"Y-you're telling me that a kid has been running Konoha?!!?"

"Effectively, yes."

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! OH GOD!!! THAT'S JUST TOO RICH!!! I- I think I'm going to die laughing!!!" Anko gave up on standing, changing her focus to breathing. Sarutobi watched impassively as the kunoichi before him regained her composure, though her mouth continued to twitch.

"It was thanks to Naruto's efforts that you were able to receive back up on that mission a year ago."

All traces of amusement vanished from her face the instant he uttered that sentence. Sarutobi locked eyes with Anko, "I trust that you will guard him with your life?"

Anko didn't reply, simply vanishing rather than wasting time talking.

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If you're reading this, i can only assume you read the story. Hope you liked it.

The next chapter or two will be up in the next few hours, I just need to upload them. They were already written, so don't expect an update every day, or every week.

Thanks go to The Fanfiction Forum for reading this over. I couldn't have done it without you guys.