Chapter:63
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Inoichi growled as well. The boy was the same age as his daughter and the thought of someone treating her like Naruto had been treated sent his anger skyrocketing through the roof. No child should have to endure that.
"Naruto-kun has tried to conceal the extent of the civilians' ire against him from me." the Hokage said sadly, "It wasn't that he didn't trust me, far from it. It was that he thought he could handle it on his own. Where have you ever heard of a child who is not a shinobi making such a decision?"
"One who has been forced to grow up faster than he should have." the younger man replied grimly, "So his usual 'Happy-Go-Nuts' persona is a mask? Makes sense."
"Not a mask per se, a shield." Sarutobi corrected him, "If the villagers don't see him affected negatively by their bullying, they'll not be as…zealous in their acts of malice as they would other wise be. At least, that is what I assume was the general line of Naruto-kun's thinking."
"'Sticks and Stones may break my Bones, but Names will never Hurt me.'" Inoichi quoted, "It does sound like something a child would think up. I take it you've made it clear to him not to hide things from you anymore?"
"About the villagers, yes." Sarutobi allowed, "But it seems he has another secret that he hasn't told me about. Uma (Horse) witnessed him absorbing a scroll that he had bought while under a Henge."
"Absorbing?" Inoichi sounded incredulous.
"It dissolved in a burst of blue light that then flew into Naruto-kun's chest." Sarutobi said, "No chakra was detected and it was no genjutsu. I am, quite frankly, at a loss as to how to explain it."
"Why not just take the direct approach?" Inoichi asked.
"Because that would reveal the fact he is being followed around Konoha…everywhere but the Academy and Training Ground 13 anyway." Sarutobi replied, "I see no issue in waiting for Naruto-kun to come to me, as he always does, eventually."
Seeing Inoichi's sceptical look, the old man chuckled, "Naruto-kun can be mature when the right circumstances call for it, but he is a twelve year old boy. He will likely show off this bizarre skill to me in hopes of impressing me or something. He has a hard time keeping secrets from me."
"As you say, Hokage-sama." Inoichi said, "Will you be keeping the ANBU tracking him?"
"Yes. Thanks to recent events, I can even justify it to Danzō." Sarutobi replied sourly. Shimura Danzō was a pain in his neck, someone who had been a part of Team Tobirama under the Nidaime Hokage himself. The man had always thought that he should have been Sandaime Hokage rather than Sarutobi and had done his utmost to counterbalance the Hokage's 'weak' policies with his personal ANBU group, Root.
Danzō had been urging him at least once a month for the last twelve years to turn Naruto into a weapon 'For The Good of Konohagakure', not that that was the real motivation behind it, Sarutobi knew. No, the old warhawk wanted control of the village Jinchūriki to oust Sarutobi from his position and become the Hokage himself.
For multiple reasons, this was not something that the Sandaime was going to allow to happen. For one, Danzō would get at his surrogate grandson over his cold dead body. For another, Danzō's policies would destroy Konoha, turn it into a mockery of Senju Hashirama's vision.
This he could not allow.
"I have been making a few inquiries and the ANBU have rounded up a few people -mostly former Council Members, oddly enough- and it would be appreciated if you could handle them personally tomorrow." Sarutobi continued, returning to the original topic of conversation.
"It will be a pleasure, Hokage-sama." Inoichi replied with a smirk, "My wife is unhappy about Naruto's treatment and will be happy I'm working towards resolving some part of it."
"Good to hear." Sarutobi smiled. After a few more minutes of conversation about who Inoichi would be interrogating, the man left.
"Now then…when will you come to talk to me, Naruto-kun?" Sarutobi mused.
The Next Day, Early Morning
Naruto's New Apartment
[Recipe Mastered!]
You have successfully mastered the recipe [Plain Cooked Rice]!
You gain 50 EXP to the [Cooking] Skill.
"Well…that was easy." Naruto remarked absently. He had only been trying to cook rice for the last couple of days, so he was surprised to have gotten it mastered this quickly.
…then again, it is very difficult to mess up putting rice and water inside a rice cooker and leaving it to cook, so maybe it wasn't all that surprising.
Mentally consulting his knowledge of his [Cooking] skill's [Recipe's], Naruto decided that the next thing to try was toast. He truthfully didn't have a preference either way for breaded products, but it was the next 'recipe' that was Level 1 on the list he had.
In the [Cooking] skill description, there was a drop-down menu that allowed him to pull up recipe's that he knew and view them, as well as how well he could cook them and their relative difficulty levels. The more complicated recipes even required him to have mastered certain recipes beforehand in order to cook them.
Setting the bowl of rice on the table, Naruto sat down, picked up his chopsticks and chomped away at it as he made plans for what to do after the Academy was let out today. He would have to see when Sakura-chan wanted to have her lessons in taijutsu, as well as water all of his plants.
There was also the issue of the chakra metal ingot he had received from the mysterious 'Forest Lord' that was watching his progress in Training Area 13. Naruto had no idea about prices for such a thing, but he would have to guess that it would be quite expensive indeed. This meant that questions would be asked when people found out about the fact he had it. He didn't know how widespread the knowledge of chakra mutations was, but he knew the civilians would accuse him of stealing it from someone.
The best thing to do would be to take the ingot to his Jiji and tell him where he had gotten it, or a version of where he had gotten it at least. He would simply claim to have found it in the burrow of the giant mole he had defeated. The fact that it had been sealed inside of a letter was a detail he didn't want to bother the Hokage with.
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