Au where a lot of the people who join Anbu are the submissive freaks that cope with shinobi life by putting their metaphorical leash in the hokages hand when minato died a staggering amount of anbu were drifting without their dominant the day Naruto became hokage a whole bunch of retired anbu suddenly joined
Platonic sexual they don’t care as long as they get clear precise orders and they don’t have to do the hard thinking
Naruto is so on board with this it’s funny the anbu that have had a particularly hard mission get to hide under the hokage desk and spend there time with Naruto’s hand on the back of there neck
Naruto gives his anbu a seal so they can go inside his house any time they need too
Just a anbu squad dragging one of their members too Naruto cause they have been spiraling
Anbu that have had missions gone wrong begging to be punished
Kakashi right after giving the hat to Naruto digging out his old hound mask and eagerly joining anbu
I love and adore this with all my being
And these poor ANBU having a few hokage in a row that aren’t rly made for that kinda thing. The orders are enough for most, but almost all of them have an itch that just isn’t being scratched.
There’s Tsunade who is vaguely aware of the ANBU culture but discourages it because she thinks it’s an unhealthy way for shinobi to cope with their lives and decisions. And while she’s not wrong she kinda views it as a thing broken shinobi do / thinks it’s something to be pitied. She gives the orders but she’s bi more personal with them than any other general forces shinobi. Sometimes, if it’s a really bad missions she allows a little smidge of it where they can kneel throughout the report or bow their heads while reporting. But outside of that, she’s like nah stand up and look me in the eye I won’t enable this.
Kakashi understands the culture bone deep but a lot of the ANBU still consider him one of theirs. They remember when he was 14 and hanging off of Minato’s every order so he didn’t have to think about his grief. Then the same with Hiruzen. They know him as another dog with a leash that needs to be held, not someone willing to bypass the leash and go for the scruff. Kakashi does his best but it’s deeply uncomfortable for him to have that kind of control off the battlefield. He’s like “you can kneel and bow your head, I understand that. Just…I can’t do more.” Bros way too far on the other end of control for that to come naturally and ANBU are all to good at reading people to fall for any acts he could put on. If they went to him needing something and they saw him pretend it’d make things 100x worse.
Naruto tho? He loves it. He wanted people to see him his whole life and now he has the power to force them to. But his ANBU don’t need his power. They need him.
His thigh to rest their head on as the kneel under his desk.
His hands loosely wrapped around their exposed throat.
His bedroom to crawl into after a mission gone wrong so he can show them just how precious and loved they are.
(I honestly can’t see Naruto punishing people for their mission failures outright even if it is for kinky reasons. I think he’d twist it so they’re being punished for thinking badly of themselves after the failure or something like that instead. Or maybe it’d be like immediate unconditional forgiveness on his part and making it clear the punishment part is just for them which has made more than one person weep. Like them making up for the failure by being useful another way)
KAKASHI WOULD. HE SO WOULD.
like he’d walk into the deep end with a smile just for this.
