Chapter 8
Nao sees Sarutobi shaking his head in exasperation as the clan-heads start shouting. In his opinion they’re very dramatic. Who cares what he tells his nephew? He doesn’t go into their homes and tell them how to raise their kids. They’re being rude!
Hiruzen turns his head towards Nao in an deadpanned expression, as if to say: “Really?! You just couldn’t stay quiet?!” Nao simply shrugs. The Sandaime looks as though he wants to rip his remaining hair out.
Nao turns his attention back to Kakashi. His former sensei’s expression is a mixture of pain and hopefulness, which makes his heart ache in sympathy.
“SILENCE!” the Hokage’s voice booms through the room, heavy with killing intent.
The clan-heads sit back down and stay quiet. Danzo, who sat calmly during all this and glared at Nao, turns his gaze back at Sarutobi.
“You know the law! You were the one who made it. This man broke it. He’ll be executed for it! It doesn’t matter who he’s seemingly related to. After his death you can explain why you thought, you had the right to keep him a secret, Hiruzen. You’re…,” Danzo starts condescendingly, but is interrupted by the suffocating killing intent, that trumps that of the Hokage.
Hands slap the table loudly as a blue gaze leans over it to stare at the war-hawk. The blond leans so far that their noses are nearly touching.
“It’s Hokage-sama! Consider this my last warning!” Nao punctuates every syllable. His voice turning close to inhumane as he says Hokage.
The clan-head beside Danzo backs away as far as possible, shivering in fear as all the others. Nao returns to his position behind the Hokage’s right shoulder, staring straight ahead as though nothing happened.
“Now, let’s all clam down. I was just about to explain everything Danzo. As for the law, it had been agreed upon that Nao is exempt from it.” Hiruzen takes out the scroll containing Nao’s “files”, using a jutsu he projects it at the wall for everyone to see and starts explaining the story they had come up with. The file consists mostly out of black lines, but it looks legit enough for the clan-heads to not call them out on it.
“As you see, Nao kept his part of the promise and now I’ll keep mine. As of this morning Namikaze Nao is the official guardian of Uzumaki Naruto and reinstated as a jounin of Konohagakure.”
Most of the clan-heads simply nod their head in agreement even though all of them are aware that they didn’t get any information whatsoever. They would never admit it out loud but the Namikaze’s killing intent scared them, they never felt chakra this clearly resting on their skin.
“If you’d excuse me, I have a nephew to pick up. Kakashi-san, I’ll get back to you on the dinner I mentioned. Fugaku-san, I’ll visit you one of these days at the precinct, we have to talk about Itachi’s placement under my team,” Nao says and simply vanishes.
Fugaku stands frozen before the Hokage not having expected to be addressed directly. Hiruzen already sees the migraine coming. They hadn’t even talked about Itachi or any sort of team, Nao will bring him to an early grave. He just sighs tiredly and motions for the Uchiha to follow him, this will be a long discussion. He has the ominous thought that this won’t be the last time for him cleaning up a mess Nao starts without telling him.
Nao makes his way towards the academy, still regretting not having severed Danzo’s head from his body. He never hated Danzo in the past/future, he hadn’t really known the man for the majority of his life. He strongly disliked him after the Pein attack but hate had never been an emotion Naruto dwelled upon. After Sasuke came out with the truth about the Uchiha massacre, he felt disgusted by Danzo, but still didn’t hate him.
Nao, to a certain extent, understands him. Danzo has seen three wars, losing almost all his precious people to it. The only thing he had left is what his teacher the Nidaime gave them, Konoha. He hung onto the village in a obsessive way, not truly understanding that it isn’t the village but the people he has to protect. For Danzo, peace isn’t attainable. You either live in an active war or an inactive one. War is just part of life and only those who are the most powerful can truly survive it. So taking kids from their families, putting them through torturous training and making them into mindless killers, is just a way to ensure everyone survival. Nao remembers how he himself sent children to missions against Zetsu forces, for he had no other shinobi left. All the other wars before them had child soldiers as well. To the public and history books it is shown as the last measure, an exception, and it is one only used during exceedingly long wars. Danzo thinks the same way but for him it’s just the small difference that the war has never ended, they simply prepare for the next one. If one follows his logic, his actions make sense. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s still wrong. Danzo is crazy. He would argue that he isn’t and is simply rational, the same way a Jashinist would. Just because you believe in it doesn’t make it right.
Nao stops in front of his old academy. So many nostalgic memories surface in his mind, he really missed this place. A couple of parents are already waiting in front of the building as the blond approaches, most of them are clan-members and only a couple of civilians. All of them stare at him but aren’t confident enough to approach him.
The bell rings and the students start trickling out of the building. Nao sees a couple of familiar faces and is really taken back by how small all of them are (and cute). He sees a little pink haired girl skipping over to her mother, not yet even remotely as confident and fierce as the future medic she will be. Marching through the rest of the small kids is a familiar duck shaped hair making his way towards a woman who holds out her hand. Little Sasuke’s hand twitches up before he holds himself back and complains that he is old enough to walk on his own. Nao has to hold himself back from laughing out loud, Sasuke wouldn’t appreciate it. During his academy days he always thought that Sasuke always looked arrogant and angry even before the massacre, but looking at him now it’s obvious that it’s all simply a show and Sasuke has always been a brat.
Nao sees his nephew making his way slowly out of the academy looking at the ground at dragging his feet, he looks sad. The sea of children part as though they’ll get infected by some kind of disease if they touch him, parents move their kids a little behind them and glare at Naruto. Nao would get angry but he honestly is simply too tired to deal with stupid people again, he already did enough of that at the meeting.
“Naruto,” he calls to get his attention and sadly that of everyone around them. Sad blue eyes glance up and fill with tears as a large smile takes up his face, the sad look disappears as though it has never been there.
“Uncle!” Naruto shouts and throws himself in Nao’s arms. Nao doesn’t even deign the crowd with a glance when he hears them whisper and gossip. He puts Naruto on his shoulders and makes his way home as he listens to him chattering away.
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It’s been a couple of days since the meeting. Nao spent most of his mornings training with Shisui, after he lost his tail of Root shinobis, and his afternoons with Naruto. Yesterday the two of them decided on a small house close to the training grounds as their new home. It wasn’t in a good shape after a stray jutsu hit it, but it made it cheap an it has a rather big garden which Naruto loved. Nao already plans on putting seals on his property so no jutsu can destroy it again or any enemy (Root shinobi) can enter. He isn’t as good with seals as Uzumakis were known to be, he can’t really use them in the middle of battle, if it isn’t pre-planned. But give him time and he can whip up a functioning seal anytime anywhere. He’ll make sure that Naruto can use them as an Uzumaki should. They’ve already started his training and Naruto is really great with a little guidance and a lot of patience from Nao.
There was only one issue, every time Nao picked up the little ball of energy from the academy, Naruto left the building in a bad mood only to be happy at the sight of his uncle. Nao plans on addressing it, but he also wants the kid to tell him his problems. He already has enough on his plate with the little stunt he pulled on the Uchiha clan-head.
The idea of building a team and having Itachi in it, wasn’t really planned, he had just blurted it out. The thought of a thirteen year old being an Anbu-captain just doesn’t sit right with Nao. He knows that taking Itachi out of Anbu will be seen as a slight to the Uchiha, so putting him under his own authority and also out of the hands of the advisors, seems logical. He’ll simply tell Fugaku that it’s a temporary placing for a special task force and that Itachi was hand picked by himself for his exceptional talents as a shinobi. Creating a team also allows him to get Shisui in it, wearing a different Anbu-mask of course. It was actually Shisui’s idea and he annoyed Nao about it for hours before the blond finally agreed. He has been teaching the nuisance how to hide his chakra from sensors, so that Danzo’s shinobi can’t spot him. It wouldn’t be helpful against a sage but against every other sensors it should work or at least confuse the signature for someone else’s. It’ll take him most likely a couple weeks to get the technique down. Shisui is a true genius as Itachi always said. How no one never takes him seriously shows how great he really is, he’s masterful at deceit.
The technique Shisui is learning, had belonged to the small Hisoki clan from Mist. Shiori the last Hisoki already in her mid fifties had taught it to everyone during the war. Kakashi had been the first to master it and it had taken him nearly three weeks. Sasuke had tried to copy it with his sharingan, thinking that it had been the way Hatake had learned it, but due to the technique hiding once chakra signature their had been no chakra to be seen. Everyone had a good laugh out of it, the one time that Sasuke’s arrogance had made an ass out of him. Any time he got all arrogant and mighty again they loved to remind him of it and start laughing all over again.
Shisui had been surprised to find out that such a technique even existed. He had asked Nao, why he hasn’t registered it for every other Konoha shinobi to learn. It had left the time traveller contemplating why the thought of random Konoha shinobi learning it made him uncomfortable. He realised that it was due to him being trusted with it, not to only survive an apocalypse, but also because at that point it had felt like they all were a village, a clan, a family. They had wanted to protect each other and not some old clan traditions. Not teaching just anyone those techniques was Nao honouring all his teachers and all the people he lost, it is the least he can do. All of them died, but he lives and has to honour their sacrifices even if they don’t know about it. He made Shisui swear to never teach it to anyone, and if he finds out that he did… well the threat was open for interpretation, and by the way the young Uchiha paled he most likely will never break the promise he made.
He has been looking for a fourth member in his squad. The Sandaime having told him that only having Uchiha in his team would seem preferential. Nao had some things to say about that, after all the number of Uchiha shinobi promotions had decreased exponentially since Kurama’s rampage. He had held himself back, after all he had scolded the old man enough last week, not that it wasn’t deserved but a man’s pride is a fickle thing and Nao needs Sarutobi as a docile ally instead of a pesky enemy. He had found a promising candidate in Kurama Katsumi, but already having two of the best genjutsu user in in team her role would be unnecessary. He settled for Gekko Misora, an older special jounin. She had retired from active duty due to health issues but still works at the hospital thanks to her great medical jutsu knowledge. Her medical specialisation will be helpful for his team and maybe she’ll help push Itachi into a less-violent shinobi life.
Having his team set and home ready to move in, Nao is ready to begin phase one of his plan.