Chapter 6

Sorry for not updating this will be short most to see if i can find some inspo for the story, both work and studies have been keeping me away. I am hoping to start up again so I hope you will continue to read my story.

"Talking"

"Thinking"

"Bijuu and Jutsus"

Hiruzen really were embarrassed about his village. How could people not see Naruto for the child that he is and not the monster that attacked their village 6 years ago. Even though he understood why the civilians did what they did, they had no knowledge about sealing and what that practice did but what he could not forgive where the shinobi that chose to hate and belittle Naruto even though they should know better.

Naruto is like a sealing scroll that the Kyuubi is sealed in, he would never understand have his fellow shinobi could not see that. He looked at Naruto who was listening to Shikaku's son with avid ears and glittering eyes he was nodding his head at the other boy and pointing at different pieces. "I don't think I have ever seen him this happy or relaxed" "Hokage-sama? Shall we take this conversation to the other room it is not for little ears and frankly I want to talk freely" Hiruzen turned around at Shikaku's voice and saw him gesturing to the doorway.

He followed Shikaku to his office and thought he looked stiff Hiruzen looked closer and saw that it was not just that he was stiff. "No" thought the Hokage, "he is angry too". Shikaku is frowning at him and Hiruzen just sighs to himself. "Just spit it out Shikaku, you can speak freely without punishment." He sees Shikaku's mouth open but then closes only to open again. "How can this happen?! How is it that I can find a terrified child sopping wet in a cave in a part of the village that no one goes to?! And not just any child but the child of an Hokage that was beloved by the village. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!"

He looks away because right now he cannot meet Shikaku's eyes for he knows he screwed up when it came to Naruto. Minato died for this village in the belief that his son would be a hero, but all he has given Naruto is a reason for people to scorn and abuse him. He tried to make it right by giving Naruto to a good orphanage but that did not make anything any better since all the orphanages are run by civilians and therefore under the influence of the civilian council.

"I know I messed up this whole situation Shikaku when Minato died, I lost my footing for a while and therefore a lot of influence within the council. The civilian council together with my former teammates have taken away a lot of my power if we speak politically." He sighed he really was too old for this but the person that he wanted to take over right now was too angry and hurt to take the step towards Hokage again. "What do you mean you lost your influence over the civilians; you are the HOKAGE how can you not let someone from the clans just adopt him? Minato had friends in all the clans they all respected and loved him and would have offered to give Naruto the home he needed." Shikaku was waving his arms in the air in a clearly frustrated gesture.

"Shikaku" Hiruzen sighed trying to calm the man down some at least, "it is not that simple. Until Naruto starts the academy and graduate, he is under the civilian laws and I as Hokage do not have influence over civilian orphans. He huffed irritated now too "do you not think I have tried everything I can do? I have been blocked every time I tried to get Naruto adopted. They won't let a clan adopt him because he holds the Kyuubi and no clan should have that power for themselves, which yes is a ridicules argument but for now it is working enough for the civilian council to put a stop to it."

Hiruzen looked a Shikaku, and he could see the frustration there he felt it to when talking about the council that for now had far too much influence over shinobi affairs but with all the rebuilding that have been going on over the last five years Hiruzen began to realize that he had in the process dropped to many balls for his own liking. He is known as the God of Shinobi and for the last five years he had not lived up to that title and that needs to change if his village will ever have a chance.

Shikaku took a deep breath and tried to gather his thought, maybe he thought this was just not the Hokages fault all the clans had turned their back on the Naruto situation. Maybe all the clans had dropped the ball even if a shinobi village was a dictatorship that did not mean that the clans that had chosen to live there should not help make changes. They all needed to change, they all needed to make it clear to not just the ninja populace but the civilians that this was first and foremost a ninja village and they as civilians should not have influence that reached above ninjas.

"We all need to change, don't we?" Shikaku turned a frustrated eye towards the Hokage "we all dropped the ball after Minato died, instead of closing rank around each other to help one another we chose to close rank around our own clans to protect ourselves." "Yes, we did Shikaku, we just did not want to admit that we changed or that it was necessary to try to better ourselves. After the attack and Minato's and Kuchina's death we for some reason just wanted everything to get back to normal we wanted the whole thing to just go away, and that is okay we needed to grieve, but it has taken us to long and we need to get back to being the village that we were before.

They could both hear Shikamaru and Naruto's voices in the other room. "We need to build a better future for them it can't be the children's job to make this village better it need to happen before they come along." Shikaku knows he must fight not just for Shikamaru and Naruto but all the children that wanted to become a ninja it was not fair to leave the village worse for the kids. Shikaku knows that Konoha could be better, and it was their jobs to make it so.