-Hiruzen-

.

Hiruzen isn't even surprised anymore when Naruto comes crashing into his office. Naruto's been practicing his Body Flicker with Shisui, but it seems he's a little clumsy with the necessary fine control for the technique. He always multiplies his momentum when he comes out of the technique, and it always sends him flying into some unfortunate wall.

Naruto is completely unbothered by his impromptu make-out session with Hiruzen's bookshelf, and plops himself down cross-legged on top of Hiruzen's desk.

"Jiji, the Academy sucks!"

Hiruzen sighed tiredly.

"I understand you want to move on, but the basics are essential for any ninja. Try paying attention and you might find you learn something interesting."

"Hey! I'm not the only one who thinks so! Sasuke's bored out of his mind and Hinata... well, Hinata's nice about it, but she already knows most of this stuff. Kiba and Shikamaru sleep through most of the classes, and I'm pretty sure that Sakura's the only one who's taking notes! Most of us know all this stuff already!"

"Most of you, but not all of you. And the teachers need to make sure everyone understands before moving on."

"But we do understand! All the clan kids have been learning this stuff since they were in diapers! I've been learning from the freaking Kyuubi, Jiji! The only kids who don't know this stuff are the civilian kids! You're stunting the clan kids' growth! Why don't you separate the classes or something, so the kids who already know this stuff can move on and the kids who still need to learn it can get their 'solid foundation' without holding everyone else back?"

"That'd only increase the gap between the groups, and it'd discourage friendships between civilian children and clan children. We pride ourselves on teamwork, Naruto. The teachers shouldn't isolate children from an early age like that."

Hiruzen winced, and Naruto sent a scathing look at him. Probably not the best choice of words.

"I'm gonna ignore that you told me that young kids shouldn't be isolated. They kind of already are, anyway. Choji and Shikamaru are in their own corner, and me and Sasuke and Hinata are in our group, and Ino hangs out with Sakura sometimes but usually they're fighting over Sasuke. Shino kind of just sits on his own, and Kiba hangs with Choji and Shikamaru or bugs me or Sasuke. The civilian kids practically worship Sasuke, and hang out in their own groups. Doesn't that kinda sound like they're being separated? Changing the classes wouldn't really change that much. And you could have everyone in the same recess times and put them in the same classes for stuff like history and math. Just separate classes for stuff like taijutsu and chakra theory. It's not that hard!"

Naruto paused and cocked his head, as if listening to something. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. That probably wasn't good.

"Hey, there are civilians in the council, right? Do they have any say in how the Academy works?"

Hiruzen winced again. How in the world can a child and a chakra construct be this well-versed in politics?

Naruto made a face like he tasted something way too bitter.

"That's... I can't even tell you how stupid that is. That's like putting a baker in charge of a weapon shop! Civilians can run stores and be pretty smart, but they don't know squat about ninja! Why in the world would civilians have any say in ninja school?! Are you trying to get kids killed?! No, don't answer that! I'm coming to your next stupid meeting and you better make sure you fix this!"

And with that, Naruto kicked open a window and flung himself outside, no doubt to vent his frustration on whatever poor shopkeeper decided to snub him first.

.

-Naruto-

.

True to his word, Naruto showed up halfway through the next council meeting with absolutely no regard for the ANBU stationed outside to keep intruders out. Some members (idiots, all of them) immediately tried to catch the blond menace, but he's not the number one terror to the ANBU for nothing. Hiruzen just resigned himself to the inevitable rant of righteous fury.

Naruto wasted no time in weaponizing his (frankly terrifying) singing voice to get everyone to stop moving and cover their ears. He took his best intimidating stance (surprisingly effective, for a seven-year-old), and channeled his inner Fuzzy to give the most menacing death glare possible.

"You're all stupid. Get your acts together!"

The effect was immediate. There were civilians screaming for "demon" blood, advisors who attempted to intimidate him with their own (rather pathetic) death glares, and clan heads (Shikaku) who were too rational to do anything but hide under the table and plug their ears so as not to hear the cacophony of shrieks. Even Hiashi and Fugaku (who was warned, and brought earplugs) looked a little miffed. It takes Hiruzen a solid ten minutes to get everyone under control. He throws a halfhearted glare to Naruto, who isn't bothered in the slightest and doesn't bother to ask permission to speak again.

"Are there civilians in charge of shinobi stuff?"

When no one answered, Hiruzen sighed and decided to bite the bullet.

"Parts of the Academy curriculum and D-rank mission assignments."

"And are there shinobi in charge of civilian stuff?"

"Import rules and some other things."

"Stop that. Civilians are smart in civilian stuff and shinobi are smart in shinobi stuff, so stop putting the wrong people in charge of the wrong stuff! And there's other stuff too! Like, seriously, why the heck were there ANBU spying on Sasuke's birthday party? He's seven! Do you think the Uchiha are gonna rebel or something? Why do you think that? Because if they rebel, they've probably got a reason! They're not stupid enough to do something so risky without a really good reason, and I bet if you just did your jobs and fixed it instead of just showing them you don't trust them by setting ANBU to watch a seven-year-old's birthday party, they wouldn't have a reason to be unhappy!"

The room paused.

"Naruto, we were trying to keep that affair a secret."

"What?"

"We were hoping for the reintegration of the Uchiha back into Konoha, and letting every other council member know that there was possibly a coup being planned wasn't the best way to encourage that."

"..."

"..."

"Good idea, impressively awful execution."

Hiruzen spluttered incoherently for a second. Shikaku yawned, looking rather bored. The Hokage shot a glare at him. Fugaku sighed and spoke up.

"Forgive me for being so blunt, Hokage-sama, but if reintegrating my clan into Konoha was your goal, then you've been doing incredibly poorly."

There was a pause, as some council members were staring in disbelief at the Uchiha clan head. He continued, unbothered by the stares.

"You have not offered any sort of compromise or aid to our clan while we have been increasingly disgraced and pushed from the village. You have been allowing our situation to worsen to the point where we thought it to be beyond saving. You have shown nothing but distrust in your dealings with our clan, or you have at least given the very strong impression of distrust without bothering to correct it. I am hard-pressed to believe that you didn't understand the message that your policies and blatant ANBU spies were sending. And even if you were not the one who ordered the spies, you certainly knew of them, as they did not cover their presence nearly as flawlessly as ANBU usually do. I was rather inclined to believe that you were not pursuing a compromise."

"And on the subject of secrets; I believe that our little menace here is proof enough that you don't always have the greatest track record with secrets. I know at least half of the people here had some idea of the situation, and frankly speaking, the whole village has been gossiping about our clan for the last few months. There was little point in trying to keep the political situation a secret, although it was oddly thoughtful of you to try to keep a potential coup a secret."

At the semi-confirmation that a coup was possible, the room once again devolved into chaos. Naruto had to start singing again to get everyone to shut up.

"Fugaku-san definitely wasn't perfect either. If I'm understanding this right, Fugaku-san could've just talked to Jiji and Jiji would've said he wanted reintegration, right? So obviously Fugaku-san didn't actually try to negotiate at all! Sometimes you just should be a little less proud and tell people when there's a problem, Fugaku-san!"

Fugaku winced and glanced away. Naruto narrowed his eyes, and then nodded to himself.

"Ok, you guys suck. We should do a reelection. I actually think I have a decent shot! Most of those ideas I got were from Fuzzy, so maybe he'd actually make a good Hokage? Oh! I could be Vice Hokage!"

Naruto bounced excitedly, while the whole council stared in horror.

It was silently agreed among the whole council that they would be better, if only to be sure that they were superior governors to the "evil demon" who was apparently better at bureaucracy than the actual civilian politicians and shinobi clan heads.