The Hokage sighed as the looked out the window of his office. Normally, the view of the village that he was supposed to watch over and protect soothed him during troubling times, but this time nothing seemed to help with the problems that had all been dropped in his lap in the span of roughly an hour. Yesterday, the village had been ticking along as usual, better than usual even since it had looked like Konoha would have come to an agreement with Kumo that would have led to a mutual defense treaty like the one they had with Suna bringing the world that much closer to peace. Today however, the treaty was yet another unattainable dream, and both the Hyuuga and the Uchiha were both fit to be tied for similar reasons, the attempted abductions of members of their clans.
There had been differing motives behind the attempted and briefly successful abductions, and young Obito's position in the Uchiha clan was uncertain, especially since there was a great deal of pressure from the other clans to have the boy removed from the care of the Uchiha who were still suspects in the Kyuubi attack in the minds of the average villager, but the fact remained that people had broken into the compounds of two of Konoha's most prominent and powerful clans with the intention of removing children from their care. Because of this, the heads of both clans were howling for the heads of the would-be abductors, and for a variety of reasons, giving them to them would be nearly impossible.
If the Kumo ambassador were to be killed within Konoha's walls, war would be declared. With it being less than four years since the end of the Third War and only three and a half since the Kyuubi attack, another war would break Konoha's back. Konoha was barely holding itself above water at the moment, and it would only take a small nudge for the village to drown. Though Konoha boasted 10,000 + shinobi, the truth was that more than half of said ninja were on inactive duty, either being civilians who had been trained to Genin level and could only be called up in times of war or other extreme disasters such as the Kyuubi attack, or being "retired" for a variety of reasons. They'd returned the Academy curriculum to wartime footing, but it would be a while before new ninja would be entering Konoha's forces in significant numbers.
Because of this, he could not give the Hyuuga the justice they wanted for the egregious breach of the security of their home. He had however sent a missive to the Raikage informing the man that he'd rather poorly chosen his ambassador and that should the next ambassador he may choose to send behave in a similar manner, he would allow those whose home he or she invaded deal with them however they chose.
In theory, the Uchiha's request was an easy one to fulfill and he could hand the Hatake boy over to the Uchiha in an instant since he was a member of his own forces, but in fact things were slightly more complicated. Relations between the Uchiha and the ANBU of which young Kakashi was one were strained, and had been so since the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack. There had always been a bit of antagonism between the two groups, but the almost friendly competition and the acknowledgement that at the end of the day all of them belonged to Konoha seemed to be missing lately.
This could be related to the fact that Danzo had been sending his little Root recruits over to spy on the Uchiha district more and more frequently, causing general ill will for the ANBU amongst the Uchiha who didn't differentiate between Danzo's off the books forces and the regular ANBU forces. The fact that both wore similar masks and ROOT "didn't exist anymore" didn't help matters.
The Uchiha district itself had been something of a sore point as well. While it had originally been created for the safety of the Uchiha as there had been a number of unprovoked attacks on them immediately following the Kyuubi attack after a number of villagers had put two and two together and got "the Uchiha did it", it had become something of a separate village as the Uchiha became increasingly insular with each passing day. As far as the Uchiha were concerned however, the district was something of a prison in which they had been unfairly incarcerated after being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.
Things with the clan that his sensei had been wary of were starting to head towards a boiling point, and he was afraid of what would happen when they did.
Kakashi paced around the cell in which he had been placed until is fate was decided. Though he'd thought that the Hokage would understand, he hadn't. In fact, the man had told him that Naruto would be returned to that insane bastard who'd named him Obito and used him to replace his dead son as soon as the man was well enough to get out of the hospital.
How could the old man see that Naruto wasn't safe with the Uchiha, especially not that Uchiha? While the clan as a whole may not have been responsible for the Kyuubi attack, the fact remained that one of them had done it and had gotten away with it. The Uchiha who had been responsible for the attack could get their hands on Naruto more easily with him living amongst them and try again, killing Naruto in the process. That was if the man who was using Naruto to replace his son didn't have a total breakdown and end up doing something to him first.
The Hokage should understand his concerns, considering the fact that he'd lost his own wife during the attack...
Could it be?
Was it possible that despite his claims the Sandaime didn't have Naruto's safety and best interests in mind? Could the Hokage hate the child, and blame him for what had happened as most villagers seemed to? He himself had felt somewhat cold towards Naruto for a while, and then he'd been forced to interact with the boy when that woman had started tossing him out at night.
Considering the fact that Kushina was the Kyuubi's Jinchuriki had been a reasonably well kept secret that wasn't known to the vast majority of the village, there was no reason why anyone should have known that Naruto had become a Jinchuriki as well. The Sandaime could have kept the knowledge of what Naruto was to a small circle much as it could've been with Kushina couldn't he? So, how did the information get out? Why did it get out? Such information would ony serve to inflame sentiment against the child who contained the beast who'd caused so much destruction.
Could that have been what the Sandaime had planned all along?
Why else would the old man have allowed Naruto to suffer the way he had in his short life? Why else would the old man claim that his hands were tied and continue to allow the boy to be treated as he had been if not so the man could watch the child grow up unhappy and unhealthy in revenge for the loss of his wife? The Sandaime was in charge of the village, and being so, he could have easily found a place where Naruto was safe and well cared for. The fact that he hadn't indicated deliberate maliciousness on his part.
He had to get out of there. He had to get out of there and get Naruto safe. Since nobody, not even the boy's godfather who'd hared off for parts unknown, was going to protect his sensei's son, he was all the boy had left, and he couldn't fail Naruto like he had everyone else.
Shuichi did his best to smile for the small boy who was staring at him with such concern. Due to the pain he was in, the smile was mroe of a grimace however. Despite the fact that she had responsibilities to her own family, Mikoto had rather kindly brought Naruto in to visit him at the first available opportunity.
As he looked at the boy, he found that he couldn't get the masked intruder's words in regards to the child's paternity out of his mind. The Yondaime's son. The Yondaime's son who was hated and reviled by most of those who encountered him for something that the child had been unable to prevent or control. If it hadn't been for the boy's eerily uncanny similarities to Obito, he had little doubt that the Uchiha clan would have reviled the child much as the rest of the village as a whole did. He himself would have likely done the same as well had he met him under different circumstances and not seen his own son in the child, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.
The fact remained however that because his Obito had been born to his sensei in this life, becoming his son as he'd repeatedly screamed that he'd much rather be during his more emotional moments, he was in danger, and there was nothing he could do about it from his hospital bed. And, even when he got out of the hospital, there would be little he could do about it since he was so far out of fighting shape it wasn't even funny. If he wanted to protect his child, he would have to train relentlessly until he was in a position in which he could. Until then, he would have to depend on his clan to do what they could to keep Obito safe.
As he vowed to protect his boy come hell or high water, a small niggling at the back of his mind wouldn't let go of the masked stranger, the unfamiliar Uchiha who'd started to call the Yondaime something else before he caught himself, something that had started with "Se".
Author's note: I've gone back and edited the previous chapters a bit, giving them a bit of a polish. The story line is the same, and there aren't too many changes to the story.