The Hokage wasn't certain whether he loved or hated Momochi...Uzumaki Zabuza. Whether or not it had been planned on his part, he somehow seemed to have solved the Sasuke problem, and reduced a sizable amount of the paperwork he had to deal with in the process.
After one too many intruders who had taken exception to the fact that a Missing-nin from Kiri had taken up residence in Konoha had distrubed Zabuza's sleep by being caught in the traps he'd set throughout the apartment building he now lived in next door to Naruto during the first few days after his arrival, the man had come up with the bright idea of claiming the nearly abandoned complex that had been Uzumaki Naruto's home for the last six years as the Uzumaki Clan compound under some obscure law from the founding of the village. After the man had managed to correctly fill out all one hundred and some-odd pages of paperwork as well as the more than fifty pages of Clan Registration Forms in under three days after he got them, he felt that it was only fair to sign the approval. By turning the building into a clan compound rather than an apartment complex, the Uzumaki had been given the authority to make the traps within lethal, and to kill any intruders if it was deemed necessary. Both he and Naruto promptly made the village aware of this little fact.
To avoid certain legal issues, it had been decided that the Konoha born Uzumaki Naruto would be named as Head of the clan since he currently wasn't a wanted man. They managed to get away with it since, due to some past oversight that his predecessors had missed, the Uzumaki had never actually been registered as an official residing clan in Konoha and the first Uzumaki to do so could name themselves Clan Head whether or not he or she was so in reality.
Upon seeing that his teammate was Head of a clan, the arrogant Uchiha boy had refused to be outdone and demanded to be named Head of his clan. As the previous Head was deceased, and the next in line was currently a Missing-nin, this had been allowed as the Uchiha boy had legally become an adult the day he became a Genin. Upon becoming Head of Clan, the Uchiha boy was promptly forced to deal with the day to day responsibilities his regent had been supposed to take care of but had seriously been slacking off on, including the maintenance of the Uchiha Clan Compound that neighbors were starting to complain was becoming an eyesore, and dealing with petitions for outside intervention from clans that were still technically under the Uchiha Clan's protection.
The end result of this, after the older Uzumaki had pointed out that Naruto wasn't doing a half-assed job and was getting his training and missions done as well as tending to all of his responsibilities towards his clan (which at the moment were only filling out the odd form, paying the utilities on time, and making sure Umino Iruka and Haku who were under his protection weren't homeless), was that the Uchiha boy who insisted that he could do everything by himself as well had become swamped in paperwork. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the brat hadn't decided to reinstate the "hostage" system and ordered that one family unit from each clan under his clan's nominal protection be placed solely under Uchiha authority. After the initial inundation of paperwork, the Uchiha boy was forced to deal with a new headache when he found that he needed to provide suitable homes for the new families in his care, and was forced to reopen the Uchiha district for habitation. This had of course caused a new flood of paperwork to pour into the boy's inbox. Especially after an inspection revealed that less than half of the homes were found to be "habitable" and three shop buildings needed several upgrades and four more needed extensive renovations before they could be considered up to code.
As far as the Hokage and everyone else who was watching from the sidelines were concerned, the kid deserved what he got since he had arrogantly demanded that he be given those duties and never bothered to stop and consider the fact that there was a great deal of difference between a clan with two members, a one building compound, little to no monetary resources, and two clans with one member each under its protection, and a clan with one member, a compound that consisted of a sizable section of the village, considerable monetary resources, and ten clans with dozens to hundreds of members each under its protection in regards to responsibilities before he made his decision.
With the Uchiha boy who was now taking up the hereditary role of Chief-of-Police in the Konoha Military Police Force which was now being reinstated now that there were enough people under the banner of the Uchiha to fill the ranks with a skeleton crew completely absorbed in clan and police matters, there was less chance of him going rogue - as was projected might happen if an outsider offered him a way to defeat Itachi in exchange for his services - or causing trouble within the village later.
With the Uchiha boy dealing with his clan's matters, there was also the added bonus that the petitions that had been coming to his desk from those under the Uchiha's protection as well as the complaints from the neighbors and requests for mediation from Independent clans and clans under the protection of the Hyuuga, the Senju, and the Nara to resolve issues with clans under the protection of the Uchiha hadn't hit his desk in the last couple of days now that they had a "proper channel" to go through.
Uzumaki Masao felt slightly uncomfortable as he crossed the bridge into the country that was now called Wave. It had been a very long time since he had been over this much water. That, and his old instincts were screaming that it was very, very bad to be out in the open like this especially when you're being followed.
The journey had started when his son Koyo had pointed out that Kinmaru would have liked to have had his ashes buried in his old ancestral home which had technically been Uzushiogakure's satellite village rather than Uzushiogakure proper, and Koyo had somehow got permission for the family to travel. They had been followed from the place he'd once called home by at least one Ninja, and when they had reached the borders of Fire Country, they had picked up an additional tail who seemed to merely be curious about what they were doing there, considering the fact that he never bothered to call for reinforcements or treat him and his and their tail as a threat.
Eventually, he, his son, his daughter, his son in law, his daughter in law, and three remaining grandchildren reached the other side of the oddly named bridge. Once on the Wave side of the bridge, they decided to stop in a nearby village for the night. The local inn was a somewhat shabby affair that had recently had a new coat of paint added to it, and its wraparound porch appeared to be the local hangout for the elderly crowd. Deciding to get a feel for the locals while his son checked them in, he attempted to strike up a conversation.
"Naruto's a rather odd name for a bridge." he said, marking himself as an outsider, and therefore either something to be shunned or an interesting source of new stories depending on the local attitude.
One of the men peered at him intently, taking in everything from the bottoms of his travel-worn sandals to the top of his head of graying red hair.
"Now you guys start showing up. Naruto was in the Academy and Zabuza was hired by the enemy and even he helped us in the end, what's your excuse?" the man said.
"Excuse? Er, excuse for what?" he asked, completely confused.
"As to why you weren't here when we needed you. When your lot settled here, you promised to protect this place. We understood why you left during the wars since your presence was detrimental at the time and your village needed you back there rather than out in the colonies, but when everything settled down you never came back." said the old man who, now that he really thought about it, was around his age.
"Leave it Kita. Their home got trashed worse than ours did. I can understand, considering we were almost broken ourselves before Naruto came and inspired Inari, and helped bring two of the enemy to our side." another man said.
"Who is this Naruto you keep mentioning?" he asked. The men spoke of him as if he should know him.
"Uzumaki Naruto, son of Uzumaki Kushina and some nameless blond from Konoha. Tazuna here named the bridge after him, and considering what he did, it's rather fitting." One of the men who had previously been quiet said. "If he hadn't inspired Inari, Inari wouldn't have shamed us into fighting, if Inari hadn't gotten us to fight, we would have never been able to drive off Gato's men and there was a good chance that Naruto and his team as well as his cousin would have gotten themselves killed trying to do so. The boy had fought not for the mission he'd been assigned to, but because he saw it as the right thing to do."
"The name Kushina sounds vaguely familiar, but..." he said, musing over which branch of the clan this Naruto person could have come from.
"I think I heard Naruto and his cousin Zabuza discussing it at one point while Zabuza was recovering from the battle," One of the other men hanging around on the porch said. "There were several siblings mentioned and the names Sato and Kenji stuck in my memory because my uncle was named Sato and a cousin of mine has a kid named Kenji."
"Oh, them. We quit speaking with that branch of the clan after the wind jutsu Seiki used in a misguided attempt at mowing the lawn destroyed my father's favorite cherry tree. There was a rather nasty row between Dad and Seiki's parents, and we haven't spoken with them since. " he said, once he figured out whose kids that lot were. Seiki had been older, and therefore cool when he was a kid. He had also been rather prolific, having had seven children instead of the average two or three.
When Masao sat down to dinner that night after a solid hour of discussing the intricacies of Uzumaki clan politics with the old men on the porch, the beginnings of a plan had begun to form in his mind. When the man called Tazuna read out a letter that one Uzumaki Naruto had sent his grandson to the entire inn, the plan began to cement. It seemed that it was time to reopen lines of communication with a certain branch of their clan. What was one prized cherry tree and a bunch of rather creative insults in the grand scheme of things, especially when his family's life was at stake?
The next morning when he buried his grandson next to his father's memorial marker in the ruins of the town which looked to have been partially cannibalized to build the bridge they had come into Wave on, he found his son looking at him expectantly.
"Weren't you going to put the scrolls in?" his son asked.
"No." he replied sadly. He'd planned to bury the scrolls that contained their clan techniques and research his line had done with his grandson, but he would need them now.
"Why not?" his son asked, a curious emotion crossing his face.
"We are going to need something to offer." he replied.
"Offer? To who?" his son asked.
"To the new head of our clan." he replied. Family and the Clan were all, and they had been scattered across the world without anyone to lead them for a long time. Far too long a time. Someone had finally filled the needed post, and was calling them all home. Now that he and his no longer had a home, he would heed that call.
Edited 2-17-17.