CHAPTER 61: CHANGES

The fallout of Naruto’s actions on Karin had been minimal. The fact that she had protected and healed plenty of people during the assault played a big role in keeping the respect of the ninja population. Her reputation with the civilians took a bit of a hit but that was alright. No one treated her badly, they just treated her with wariness. That had been expected.

Kushina and Minato had moved out and Riku did his best to help them into their new home. He helped Kushina in warding the whole place by inscribing seals on the outside and inside the place, directly on the walls. Under his eyes, an unconscious Naruto was brought out of the storage seal he had been locked up in and saw Minato put all the restricting seals on his youngest son. He was missing his right arm, just below the elbow but the wound was already healed. Courtesy of the Kyuubi’s chakra.

Riku had been a bit disconcerted by Kushina thanking him when he was the one who hurt her baby boy in the first place. She had answered that most anyone else would have killed Naruto and worried about the consequences later. A missing arm was a small price to pay for his life instead.

Riku left the small family alone before Naruto would wake and things become complicated.

The alliance with Kiri was quickly settled. After quickly running his terms to the elders who gave the greenlight, Riku had proposed a non-aggression pact between the mist, the leaf and the sand. He had been insistent on Suna being included and recognized by Kiri as a proper village still and Mei had seen no problem with it. The alliance was also a military defensive pact. Should any of its members be attacked, the other members would take up arms and help defeat their opponent. It was purely a reactionary close. There wouldn’t be any obligation should one of the villages be the aggressor. Lastly, Riku negotiated Humanitarian help if one of the villages ever got in trouble like Suna did. Mei tried to negotiate that but Riku sweetened the deal with what was left of Hoshigaki Kisame and his sword (that Riku learned was named Samehada). Yugao had also given him the Kibas to use in the negotiation, saying that it really didn’t fit the aesthetic of her home in the end. Finally, a sharing of information was agreed upon, regarding activities of villages not part of the alliance. The utter failure of Iwa and Kumo’s assault on both fronts had put the war on a break which turned it into a cold war.

Neither Mei nor Riku believed that launching an assault right now on their enemies was worth it. Both Konoha and Kiri were rebuilding themselves and would be at full strength before Iwa or Kumo could restore theirs.

In the end, Mei left the village with her bodyguards satisfied with the alliance.

Speaking of Yugao, Riku convinced her to stay at the manor at least until his mother got back. Shizune was still living there but they rarely saw each other because of their respective work and Riku felt lonely. Ino and Karin could have moved in anytime but the former wanted to enjoy living with her parents a bit more and the latter wanted to spend some time without her sensei around. Hinata wasn’t free like that unfortunately.

He had discussed with Temari what she and her people would do. After deliberating much on the question, she decided that with how things were with Iwa, Suna could be rebuilt. Riku promised wood for free to build homes and a repayment plan for any materials or other monetary help Konoha would lend to the hidden sand. As such a big group of Suna-nins and a few civilians left for their home to rebuild it. The rest stayed in Konoha a bit longer because logistically, it wasn’t possible for them to make the trip.

Konoha was almost done with the reconstruction and looked even better than what she used to. Riku had grown the trees inside the village himself and his popularity with the villagers skyrocketed. Both for doing it and using the mokuton. The old timers even older than Hiruzen were talking about the second coming of the Shodai or about a new golden age for Konoha. Riku had been amazed at the stupidity of that. He was more like his Uncle Tobirama than Hashirama after all.

Anbu had reported the result of their investigation on how Iwa and Kumo had infiltrated the Land of Fire to reach its very heart and attack Konoha without being detected. Apparently, the outposts with Ame’s borders and the Land of Stairs had their garrison completely slaughtered from the inside. Riku believed it was ‘Madara’ or this Zetsu that infiltrated them with their respective methods. Nagato didn’t know how Zetsu did it but ‘Madara’ was definitely using a Mangekyo sharingan’s ability for that. As such Riku brainstormed for a way to counter said ability with fuinjutsu.

That wasn’t his only project regarding seals. Hinata had provided him with a copy of the notes on the cage bird seal and the five seal masters in the village put their heads together to find a way to remove it safely and to create new protective seals for the Byakugan. One month was all it took for success on both fronts.

“Are you sure it will work?” Hiashi asked Riku.

The Hyuga clan head had been formally invited with Hinata to the Senju manor to discuss hers and Riku relationship and engagement. That is officially. In truth they were planning the unification of the main and side branch of the patriarch family.

“It is. You got the best seal masters and mistresses in the whole Elemental Nations, plus Jiraiya…”

“Brat!”

“Who worked on it. Considering that if it fails, Hinata may not forgive me for that, you can be sure that I triple checked the triple check.”

“... Very well.” He turned towards his daughter with a pensive look. “Is this really what you want?”

“I do, father. I know you don’t approve but the four of us…We’re family of sorts. We can’t imagine living with a single one missing.”

“... Daughter… Hinata.”

“I’ll fight you if I have to, father.”

The determination and confidence she had in her eyes, voice and posture made Hiashi mellow a bit. He was proud of who she had become and ashamed of considering her a failure all those years ago. Now she was standing on her own two feet, making friends with the future leader of two clans and possibly three and also the probably next Hokage.

“I will respect your choice, my daughter.”

Thus started the plan of emancipating the side branch and taking care of the elders. In one single night, thanks to the Botib and five seal masters the 350 members of the side branch were all freed from their slavery and given the new protective seal that was put on top of the head and hidden by the hair. Riku had freed Hinae himself and he got a big thank you kiss out of it. Hinata let it slide but was very descriptive of what she would do to the jonin should she try that again. The very sweet voice the moon princess had used as she threatened her older cousin sent chills down the spine of many Hyuga that were present today. It was clear that Riku was off limits.

The new dynamics of the Hyuga clan was explained to the elders who didn’t like not having their slaves anymore. Some turned murderous and tried to take control back by force. Before Hiashi could deal with them Hinata did by simply being faster. She even used moves she had created and her lightning affinity with it. The mutinous elders had no chance. She proclaimed a new age for the Hyuga clan and listed a few changes. While every shinobi of the clan would learn the Juken, no one was restricted to it.

“It’s time we do away with the tradition that shackles us down. Our clan is strong, yet we never had an S-rank Shinobi or one of our own considered as a candidate for Hokage. All because we’re sticking to the Juken and the Juken only when our Byakugan can do so much more. In the medical field alone we could be the best and we could be looked at with reverence for saving lives.”

Afterward, she publicly renounced her heiress status because of her engagement to Riku (he still had to properly propose to her). Many were favorable for the match but worried about her position as a second wife since Riku being engaged to Ino was a known fact.

“There is no first or second wife in our relationship. We’re friends and partners, everyone has an equal say.”

It has been a bit of a scandal when the news reached outside the Hyuga compound. Riku was marrying two women and that usually wasn’t done. Usually being the key word. The old timers were supportive and just argued that there will be more Senju in the long run and that it was just better for Konoha.

While Hinata renounced her position as a Heiress, Ino couldn’t. Sure a cousin could take her place but it was her duty to lead the clan one day and she refused to ignore it. It was agreed after discussion that Riku and Ino’s first born would be a Yamanaka and succeed Ino as the heir or heiress. No one had any objection to that.

On the Uzumaki side of things. Both Kushina and Karin had agreed to petitioning for making their clans recognized as a clan of Konoha. Naruto should have been involved as well but he was acting like a child and throwing a temper tantrum for Sasuke’s death and his punishment for his actions. It hadn’t yet sunk in that he should have been executed for what he did.

Regardless, Karin would be the one to agree to the conditions put forward by the villages. In other words, children. Kushina wanted to be part of it too as she wanted a bigger family but the situation with Naruto made her think it wasn’t wise. She, having another child and giving them everything that Naruto didn’t get? That was a bit too cruel in her opinion. She didn’t give up on the idea though and hoped one day her son would be alright with being a big brother.

Their plans hit a bump on the road however when one of the conditions was to give birth to a child within the first three years and a second within the first five. Karin didn’t mind but that scrambled Riku’s plan of becoming a father by half a decade at the very least. The foursome had a discussion about it and Hinata shared that she didn’t want to wait until her late twenties to become a mother. That left only Ino wanting for that and everyone respected her choice. In the end, Riku changed his mind about waiting out of love for his bluenette and redhead.

With Konoha returning to normal (mostly), a nasty consequence showed up on Riku's desk. Paperwork. With new business opening and new repartition of the village’s area the amount of documents Riku had to read and stamp had almost tripled. The worst? Hinata wasn’t his assistant anymore. She was helping her newly freed family to accommodate themselves and helping her father dealing with everything. On top of that she was still learning at the hospital and helping the Hyugas that wanted to enter the medical field. There was a lot of work to do because of their better than you attitude that all clan members, no matter the branch, had.

There was always someone from the council with him. Most of the time it was Hiruzen because he had nothing else to do except maybe, sometimes, babysitting his granddaughter or visiting Naruto to mostly talk about what being a hokage was about beyond “being the strongest shinobi in the village”. The visits were few for now with Naruto’s attitude.

Today however the entirety of Team Hiruzen was present in the Hokage office but also Minato and Iruka. The meeting was about changing the curriculum taught at the Academy. With open war looming in the horizon, children didn’t have the option to laze about.

“66% of failure in the genin test is unacceptable. From the reports I have read, most of the time it’s less about the students skills and more about their immaturity.” he commented.

“True but they are children.” Minato said.

“Children that aim to become shinobi.” nuanced Koharu. “I’m not saying they shouldn’t enjoy their youth, I’m saying they should understand what being a shinobi entails. Yes, we need to lie to them to sell the shinobi life but at the same time we can’t have most of them fail and go to the genin corps ignorant of the reality. It’s a waste of resources, most notably time and lives because they won’t be ready to face the hardship a ninja encounters outside the village.”

“A good balance needs to be found between lies and truth.” Homura agreed.

“So far I… took the liberty to reduce the time spent on history to increase the practical portion of their education but only so slightly. Your point of being more detailed about how to do things was a welcome change and my students showed promising results.” reported his father.

““““What point?”””” asked everyone in the room not in the know.

“We can’t just tell them: ‘Here's what you should do, now do it.’ It’s inefficient. It’s better to tell them the process step by step. The example I had used was the leaf exercise. The correct way to teach it is to tell them to focus their chakra on their forehead and imagine it’s like some glue so the leaf would stick.”

“Well, yes, isn’t it…Oh.” Hiruzen said in realization.

“The instructors are so used to those basic and easy exercises that they don’t stop and think that the children are not.” commented Iruka.

“Yes. Also I think that as children ‘training’ is well… boring and annoying. So maybe creating games or challenges that make them work unknowingly about what they need to learn would be a good thing. I remember challenging myself by putting a leaf on each tip of my finger and making them turn right on the odd and left on the even fingers.”

“That’s an interesting chakra control exercise.” noted Homura.

“For the more advanced, for sure.” nodded Hiruzen.

“I let the two of you come up with ways to make the exercises more entertaining.” Riku said to Iruka and Minato. “Now let’s speak about what a student should know by the time he graduates. I was thinking at the very least, the tree walking to start with. What do you think?”

On and on they talked about what was acceptable and not, what was doable and not. It took all morning to set the foundation of the new curriculum and would reconvene on it the next morning. When the meeting ended, Tsunade made an appearance as everyone was leaving for lunch. Riku didn’t bother to greet her and just flashed away to her shock.

“Did you really expect a warm welcome, Tsunade?” inquired Hiruzen, staying behind in the office.

“Well, yes! It’s been a month since…”

“Exactly Tsunade, a month. Without a word from you.”

“He was away for far longer and rarely sent a message!” she protested. In her mind she did nothing wrong.

“Tsunade, you dumped on him your job. You didn’t bother to know about what happened that day. You could have at least come back to the village to check on him and on things.”

“I know my son, sensei. I knew he would do well. You agreed too!”

“For a short time, Tsunade. Dealing with the paperwork? He could deal with that. Dealing with the aftermath of an invasion? He wasn’t ready for it.”

“He had you and the elders for-”

“None of us could help him deal with the slaughter of ten thousand people with his own hands, Tsunade.”

That cut her short and rendered her speechless.

“You didn’t think of that, did you? Iwa and Kumo attacked with a combined force of 16 thousand and Riku dealt with most of them. Alone. On top of finishing the rest of Akatsuki. The job? He did more than well and didn’t need our help at all. Unburdening himself for the choices he made? That he did very badly. He focused on work and nothing else. Young Hinata helped as much as she could but there was a limit. Who he needed was you. You could have delayed your training for a single day but chose not to.”

“I…”

“You have a lot of groveling to do, Tsunade. In any case, It’s good to have you back home. The village without you is never quite the same.”

Hiruzen left the office leaving Tsunade by her lonesome. It wasn't the welcome she had expected but she had so much faith in her son that the thought he wouldn’t do well never crossed his mind. Even when he was completely crippled he never gave up and pushed forward with his iron will. He was so different from her in that regard that she believed he could overcome anything. From what Kakashi and Minato told her about his reactions to what he did in the Land of Wind, she believed that no matter what Iwa and Kumo had sent his way he would have been fine.

Apparently, she has been wrong.