Uchiha Mikoto settled herself before the grave of one of her best friends with a grim expression, and silently asked for forgiveness for failing to fulfill the promise she had made to that very same stone the day it was first carved with the name now engraved on it. It was not an uncommon occurrence. She had visited that site many times, mostly to sort through the frustrations that plagued her for not being able to fulfill her promise the last promise she had made to her and then dismiss them as excuses and apologize again.
Ever since Uzumaki Kushina had died along with her husband the night of the Kyuubi attack, Mikoto had taken it upon herself to raise her child. She was the most logical choice, considering she was one of the few people who had known her well enough to actually remember her after four years of her death. She supressed her rage at that fact. Uzumaki Kushina's "disappearence" from Konoha's history had been an intentional move on the Sandaime's part to protect little Naruto from anyone discovering about his parentage while also allowing him to use one of his parents' family names, she knew. But the sheer indifference her sacrifice had garnered, making people dismiss her as "that Whirpool kunoichi" whenever someone actually remembered and asked about her was simply infuriating, especially since everyone assumed that she wasn't a hero simply because her name was not listed on the memorial stone. Because her name wasn't on a damn rock.
Mikoto took a deep breath and unclenched her hands, smoothing the fabric of her skirt where she had gripped it as she did so. It wouldn't do to get angry over something like that, especially considering that she had failed Kushina just as much if not more. Oh, she had tried, all right. She had taken care of Naruto when he was a baby, seeing as no one else seemed to volunteer for it (and didn't that make her feel like crap. The son of Konoha's two greatest heroes being treated like a pariah not even an hour after being born) and she already had everything she could possibly need to take care of a baby since her Sasuke had been born barely a few weeks before. She had experience raising children, Itachi was living testimony of that. She had the money to take care of Naruto and her own sons comfortably. She had the approval of the clan. She had the approval of her husband to adopt Naruto. She could provide him with a home, a family, emotional and economical support and, when the time was right, stories about his biological parents. But apparentely, it was not enough. Naruto had been literally taken from her arms when he had been barely a year and a half, still a baby by any standard. But apparentely old enough for an orphanage. An orphanage.
Mikoto took a few deep, calming breaths again. She fought back the tears threatening to make their way out of her eyes and forced herself to face the gravestone before her. That she had been deemed unfit to take care of Naruto in favour of an orphanage (she suppressed a sneer at the thought) was not her fault, she knew. But the reason was so ridiculously unfair and blatantly untrue that it almost made it worse. The Uchiha were suspected of being behind the Kyuubi attack. After generation upon generation of loyal service, after years of continuing to work as one of Konoha's most prominents clans even when they were unfairly being watched with distrust, the people they had once called allies and comrades still didn't believe in them.
Mikoto sighed, too tired of that old argument to be really angry anymore. It was simply tiring. She knew the real reasons behind the collective ill will towards her clan well enough to be sick of them. The Uchiha had been one of the founding clans, and were strong and proud. She had no qualms about admitting that a good number of them were a little too proud. They also had been the first ones to produce a traitor, though if someone was still upset about Madara and believed him to be "proof" of the Uchiha's "thirst for power" as a whole, then she would seriously doubt that person's judgement in shinobi matters... or in anything, really. But the bitterness of envy coupled with people's irrational wrath over them for being the only clan with no casualties on the attack had originated just as irrational theories and justifications for their attitude.
She would, though only on the back of her mind, admit that being nowhere on sight during the attack only to be found as soon as everything had ended with the whole clan on one piece and unscathed was somewhat suspicious, and would spur many a shinobi's paranoia. But the idea of someone of their clan using a tailed beast of all things against Konoha, their own home, was simply ridiculous beyond known reason. If they were really traitors, they had had a perfectly good opportunity not ten years ago to betray the village on the war. But grief and paranoia (acquired, ironically enough, through the war) rarely mixed well, and even more rarely listened to reason. It probably would have been easier if they could have explained where and what they were doing during the attack, but it would have involved the reveal of various clan secrets. Namely, the Uchiha's meeting place under the tatami of the family's temple, the secret to awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan and the real cause of death of one of the clan members. They had all been reunited to decide on the punishment of Uchiha Katsuo, who murdered his best friend in order to obtain the Mangekyo. Well. Not all of them had been reunited. Mikoto suppressed a shudder at the thought of just what could have happened to her sons, and the rest of the children of the clan, for that matter, had the attack not been on the other side of the village. Genius or not, she didn't think that Itachi would have been able to protect both himself and the baby from an angry tailed beast. Scratch that, Mikoto was sure Itachi wouldn't have been able to protect himself or the baby had the attack been on their side of the village.
Mikoto shook herself to get rid of the unpleasent thoughts and sighed longingly. If only she had been able to convince the clan to tell the truth about that night, at least to the Hokage... but it was a huge risk. The information would have been just as likely to exonerate them as to put them into even more trouble. Possibly both. After all, having a clan that became more powerful through killing allies didn't exactly scream "trustworthy". But having a member of said clan put into jail with a seal on his eyes right after the attack with a rather uninventive story about why he was there (not that they could be blamed for not coming up with a better cover. They couldn't exactly let Katsuo roam free and have half the clan kill the other half seeing as there were no repercusions, and they had quite a lot to think about aside from good covers at the time) didn't really help matters, either.
Since they were in charge of the shinobi police force they could control Katsuo's stay in prison so that there were no leaks, but that was another can of worms entirely. The Nidaime Hokage had given them that task generations ago, and they had always performed their duty with pride and honor. But the people had taken to look at it as a sign that the Nidaime didn't trust them on the field and wanted to keep them controlled. Which was unfortunately true. Mikoto rubbed her temples and willed away the headache that came over her at the memory of the rather lengthy debriefing about Uchiha Katsuo's imprisonment in front of the Hokage, the Council and Danzo (what Danzo was doing there nobody questioned, even though Mikoto remembered a time not so long ago when the Sandaime would have told him that this wasn't his business and to head out), nevermind that every conceivable detail they could possibly ask about was already covered on the ridiculously long forms they had to fill with all the proof, facts and circumstances concerning each and every prisoner. She was quite proud of her husband and herself for being able to lie at the Council (and Danzo) so much with a straight face.
She looked up at the sky with a sigh and imagined her friend shaking her fists on that frustrated way she took whenever one of her friends was down and telling/yelling at her to stop moping and do something about it, and above all else, to never give up, dattebane! She snorted at the thought, but only managed to quirk one side of her mouth upwards, halfway between a smirk and a grimace. Her friend was dead, and even so she was sure that if Kushina could come back to the land of the living for even a single hour she would be the one to try and make her feel better. Right before going to the Sandaime and scolding him for putting concerns with little backing over her son's security and then proceeding to thump each and every person, shinobi and civilian alike, that had ever looked badly at her son in the head, with a generous dose of screamed threats for good measure. This time the thought did make her giggle.
Everything would be far easier if they could somehow prove that the Sharingan couldn't control a tailed beast, Mikoto knew. The problem, apart from the obvious difficulty of proving such a thing beyond doubt, was that the Sharingan could, in fact, do that. It was needed a fully developed Mangekyo, a lot of experience and ridiculously large chakra reserves, but it was possible. And each and every story many a clansmen had laughed at about Uchiha Madara controlling the Kyuubi in the past against Konoha was true. So they had been patient, acknowledging that they were a little suspicious (though never out loud, of course) and accepted the "polite request" of the Hokage to move to a single compound, thinking that that would be the end of it and they would go back to being trusted in no time.
Oh, how wrong they had been. It had been four years since the attack, two and a half years since Naruto had been taken from their custody, no doubt out of fear that they would brainwash him / control him and the Kyuubi for their own purpouses (what those purpouses people thought consisted of Mikoto never knew), and nothing had changed. Well, some things had. They had endured even more vigilance, the jounin had been "encouraged" to persuade other occupations rather than sensei of teams of genin and, the thing that pained Mikoto the most, Naruto had started living alone. She had suppressed a scream of outrage when she had known. Naruto was four. How was he going to fend for himself alone? Especially since nobody had taught him, because Mikoto had been as close to him as she had been allowed to (that is, she had looked at him from outside the windows of the orphanage without ever making direct contact with him) and she knew for a fact that the workers there had barely paid attention to him, giving him just the bare minimum they could get away with without endangering his health.
She hadn't given up, though, making sure to check on Naruto regularly and calling the caretakers out on their lack of professionalism. Not the best move towards making the Uchiha well-respected in the village again, but at the time she couln't have cared less. On the week since Naruto had moved to that horrible, rundown apartment, Mikoto had prepared all his meals, that Itachi had delivered without Naruto noticing him (bless ANBU stealth training) but being conspicuous enough so that the watchers the Sandaime had appointed to monitor Naruto could clearly see what he was doing and that he wasn't making any kind of contact with Naruto himself directly.
The lengths to which the Sandaime was willing to go in order to mantain the Uchiha away from Naruto were simply ridiculous. The excuse he had given for it had been the same that he had given two and a half years ago: if Naruto was seen with members of the Uchiha clan, much more so if he was going to be raised by them, people would start making connections, especially due to Mikoto's friendship with Kushina, and someone would eventually come to the right conclusion about his parentage, putting his father's enemies after him. Mikoto's protests that her friendship with Kushina, not to mention her marriage to the Yondaime, were not what one would call "public knowledge" since Kushina was erased from the records or that, if what he feared actually happened, the Uchiha could protect Naruto were dismissed with a simple "it's too risky".
She had actually sought the Sandaime once, and asked him, as a personal favor, and unofficially, if he really believed them to be traitors. At that moment she saw just how truly old the Sandaime was. He had told her, tiredly and regretfully, that he did not, in fact, think so. But the people were not content with just that, and the clues, circumstancial as they were, that pointed to the Uchihas made it impossible to just ignore the matter. Mikoto didn't need further clarification to know that he wasn't talking just about resentful civilians or paranoid chuunin. Danzo had always distrusted the Uchiha, and he was taking the opportunity to control them, put them on a leash and watch their every move. Not so long ago, the Sandaime would have stood firm against him and everyone else. But the years, the wars and the regrets had taken their toll, and now Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't have the will to fight anymore. He would defend his village and battle to the death for it, but not before taking every measure possible to avoid the conflict. She couln't quite bring herself to blame him for it, since she had seen many other people becoming like him after the wars, hell, Itachi was one of them. People, mainly very old or very young during the war, that despised conflict and tried to find an alternate solution to everything, utilizing force only when ordered to. A valuable trait in a shinobi. A potentially disastrous one on a leader.
The Sandaime should have chosen a Godaime and stepped down after everything had settled down somewhat, but there had been no eligible candidates. With Jiraiya and Tsunade out of the village, the only powerful and respected shinobi that could take the position were Nara Shikaku, Hyuuga Hiashi, and her husband, Uchiha Fugaku. But Nara Shikaku was more of an strategist than a fighter, not suited to the position of "strongest of the village" with people like Hyuuga Hiashi or Fugaku being able to best him on a one on one fight. Hyuuga Hiashi was also out of the question, since the division of his clan was a really delicate and controversial matter, barely allowed by Konoha's law as "bloodline protection". He had no chance of becoming Hokage as long as the Hyuuga insisted on marking their children with the Caged Bird Seal, at least not without a fierce opposition, which was the last thing they needed at the moment. And as for Fugaku... yeah, not a chance. Not with half the villagers still wary of the Uchiha clan. And with no eligible candidates around, the Sandaime didn't have any other option than taking the hat again, in fear that Danzo would try to take the position himself. So they had resigned themselves to that treatment, but didn't give up trying to get their old standing on the village back. They had proved themselves time and again, lamenting Obito's death, as he would surely have been their best shot at presenting a trustworthy image, since he had been the Yondaime's student (Mikoto had cringed at the hipocrisy of some clan elders that only now seemed to be lamenting Obito's death, but she hadn't shown it) and made Itachi enter ANBU so that they could know if the people (or at least the leaders) were changing their opinion on them. The results hadn't been really encouraging.
Their concerns about Danzo's blatant distrust and the Sandaime's reluctance to stand strong as a leader had been proven right when a Kumo nin tried to kidnap the Hyuuga heiress. To the clans of shinobi, it had been terrifying. The details had been kept from the general public, but most of the clan heads had known about the secret agreement to prevent a war: giving Kumo a sample of the Byakugan. They had given up one of their own. To prevent a war against people that attacked first, they were the ones making concessions. It was just testimony of how much the years and the wars had affected the Sandaime. The Uchiha clan elders had had a fit about the whole incident, fearing that if it had been the Uchiha that had been targeted, the enemy would have a functioning sample of the Sharingan, and they would probably lose one or more of their clansmen. Not to mention Danzo's meddling would be far worse for the Uchiha that it probably had been for the Hyuuga. Who knew what could happen if things kept the way they were. Even more worrying was that the original problem of not having eligible Hokage candidates still stood, even if Hatake Kakashi and Itachi's names could be added to the list. The original problems still stood, and even though both Hatake and Itachi had gained quite the reputation, they were both too young (especially Itachi, being only ten) and, while good choices for the long-term, they still didn't have an immediate solution.
Mikoto shook her head and got up slowly, bowing to her friend's grave as she did so. Worrying about it wouldn't do her any good for now. She could only go home, make dinnner for her boys and Naruto (that Itachi would deliver) and hope that things got better in the near future. And if they didn't, maybe she should start considering the options the most radical members of the clan were proposing. They weren't good by any means, but it really was difficult to find alternatives.