Hirusen Sarutobi, the god of Shinovi, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure was troubled. Naruto was only four years old and already the indifference of the villagers was starting to affect him.
Sarutobi was not a soft man by any definition of the word, those that had made the mistake of thinking it tended to end up skewered with hundred of shuriken and then set on fire just to be safe (Orochimaru being the exception), but it pained him to see the smile of the boy that should be treated as a hero, grow dimmer day by day, to see the resentment start to show in his eyes. Something that was very dangerous for a Jinchuriki.
To make matters worse Danzo was pressuring him to hand the boy over so he could mold him in to a proper weapon. Not that he would ever agree to such demands, even if he had the support of the council. Hiruzen would ratter kill the whole lot of them if they pressed the issue enough. Danzo knew that, which was why he didn’t try a more direct approach than political maneuvering.
Still, he couldn’t protect him from the villagers. Sure, none would try to do any harm to the boy, the ANBU trailing Naruto would make sure of that, and the ANBU trailing them would make sure they did their job. But he could do nothing about how they treated him, how they talked about him behind his back, nor could he shield him from the cold looks they gave him as if trying to deny his very existence.
The law preventing them from telling anyone of the Kyubi was meant among other tings to prevent the younger generation from inheriting the resentment and fear of their parents, but kids were observant, they could see the way their parents reacted to Naruto and acted accordingly, too young to form their own opinions, they copied those of their parents, and Naruto remained isolated.
Though it pained him to do it, if Naruto had any hope of growing up normally, he would have to do it outside of the village.
Some random nameless village wouldn’t do either. As long as he carried his father’s legacy both on the inside and the outside, a civilian life would be to dangerous for him.
He also couldn’t spare any ninja for the long mission of raising the fourth’s legacy on some remote mountain village. if only Jiraiya wasn’t so busy running his spy network he could…
Sarutobi suddenly had a vision of a Kabuki dressed Naruto spying on women maybe that’s for the best. Then, for the sake of completion he imagined a drunken Naruto gambling away at a bar, then, he imagined him with pasty white skin wearing a lab coat.
He shuddered, and then suddenly, like a lighting jutsu, an idea abruptly came to him.
Were is it? I know I put them here somewhere He started rummaging thru the drawers of his desk lets see… high level jutsu scroll, high level kenjutsu scroll, state secrets, half eaten lunch; I was wondering were I left that, autographed hard cover first edition Icha Icha, blood soaked rag, spare explosive tags; got to check the expiration date on those… success!
Not sparing a thought as to why he had so much useless crap laying around, random crap that half the Elemental Nations would give up their right arm to own. He pulled out a bunch of pamphlets.
Every once in wile, representatives from temples came to the village in order to try and save the blood stained souls of the Shinovi within, they usually made their way to his office and tried to convert him to some religion or another.
He always listened to their diatribe in a polite manner, took the pamphlet they gave him, because they always brought pamphlets, promised to meditate on their words, and showed them the way out. Then, he put the pamphlet away in one of his drawers and promptly forgot about the whole ting.
And so, in his many years as Hokage he had amassed quite a number of informative brochures. From Buddhist, to Shinto, to some religion called Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, he even had pamphlets from Jashinists and from some people that called themselves Mormons.
But, religious aspects aside, a temple would be the perfect place for young Naruto to spend the remainder of his childhood, a quiet environment with people that wouldn’t easily judge him because of his tenant.
Besides, more spiritual strength couldn’t hurt when you were housing a demon in your belly.
Completely pacifist temples were out, luckily those were few and far in between, most religious orders had some sort of mystical martial art or taught some extremely dangerous form of self defense.
Retired ninja sometimes spent their remaining days in those temples, trying to quell the nightmares and regrets that ninja tended to collect during their lifetime like he himself tended to collect brochures maybe I should make that a hobby. He could get in contact with someone loyal and task him with tutoring the boy, so a ninja viewpoint wouldn’t be missing from his life.
But were to send him? The fire temple was an obvious choice, maybe a little too obvious.
Suna was an ally, so maybe he could send him with those refugee air nomads that came from beyond the ocean.
He could also send him to a demon slaying order, or to one of the countless martial arts monasteries that tended to pup up in hard to reach places.
Or maybe something so completely out of their frame of reference that no one would think he would send a Jinchuriki there.
He sighed, it was getting late but he wanted to make a decision now, before he lost his nerve and decided to just adopt the boy, something that would cause more problems than it would resolve.
The Hokage leafed thru the pamphlets one more time and decided on the future of young Naruto, hoping he wouldn’t mess up.
He decided to…
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(Posted Sun, 02 Sep 2012 20:44)
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