Naruto: Legacy Undone

As per his usual morning ritual there was a bowl of hot, just shy of steaming, water waiting for Koutou as he entered the room where he was to bathe and make himself ready for the day.

The Daimyo of Hi no Kuni splashed the hot water over his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes in slow cheek to forehead motions before proceeding with the rest of his face, droplets of water pelted the surface of the bowl with a sound that told his brain more than anything else it was time to get up.

He dried himself off ready to enter the adjacent chamber to bathe before a voice dirrectly behind him nearly made the Daimyo leap to the ceiling.

"I trust you had a good rest?"

The middle age ruler whirled around, one hand over his heart. "Don't do that Sarutobi!"

"Forgive me." The Sandaime drawled, lighting his pipe. "Sometimes I forget myself."

Koutou waited a moment to make certain he wasn't about to suffer from cardiac arrest before he took a breath and spoke. "I suppose there's a good reason for you to be scaring off the last decade of my life this early in the day?" Turning around he made his way towards the bathing room and closed the door firmly behind him.

"To speak of Naruto in a setting where you have no need to watch protocol." The Sandaime answered through the door.

"And your office couldn't do?"

"Truth be told, I was anxious"

"Wondering if anything unusual had changed during the return to Konohagakure? No old friend, like the last six occasions you asked me, and the last dozen or so when you deigned to question the instructors you provided for him and Kurotsuchi." He responded drolly. "Quite frankly, he is a remarkable boy. If it wasn't for you saying something's wrong with him I'd have never even suspected. As it is I'm beginning to have doubts on the claim."

Sarutobi puffed on his pipe at that, not responding. He was having his own doubts. The Daimyo's request for four tutors to train the Iwa princess had been fortuitous in its timing. Allowing him to kill several birds with one proverbial stone.

He had granted the Daimyo's request with minimal fuss, staying well within the man's good graces and most likely earning a favor or two, a thing that Koutou was known to repay. He'd sent Itachi away, eliminating a threat to the Uchiha clan as well as eliminating Fugaku's "ace in the hole", ripping the wind out of the revolutionary clan's sails long enough to decide on a proper response without tipping his hand as to his knowledge of their planned mutiny by "honoring" the Clan Heiress with an assignment from the Daimyo himself. In that same gesture getting the girl away from such a volatile environment that was clearly weighing on her psychological health; if murdering her whole family had seemed like the most adequate outcome in her mind. Lastly he'd placed Naruto in a controlled environment where the tutors, the Daimyo, and the next cycled unit of the Daimyo's ANBU guard, could observe him carefully over an extended period while also giving their prodigy the same skills and advantages Iwa's princess was going to get. Putting, at least in theory, one of his own on equal if not greater footing than Onoki's granddaughter. While simultaneously pushing him well out of Orochimaru's sphere of influence where the snake couldn't affect the outcome in any way.

'Move your enemy, Do not be moved by him.' Had held true and had turned that very stressful day into an easy turn around with Koutou's unexpected request.

Orochimaru had been furious. It wasn't something he outwardly demonstrated by shouting or destroying something. But Sarutobi had known the boy since he was twelve. He knew him well enough to tell. He wanted the world to know that Naruto was his success, his apprentice. With four other tutors, ones under the Daimyo's aegis no less, he now had to share in the credit, and snakes were always very territorial creatures.

Outside of his estranged students grievances; The one hang up of this plan that had not panned out were the reports. He continued to receive conflicting views from his sources. Some claimed the boy was perfectly healthy while others, even though admitting they could not put their finger on the issue stressed that something was clearly off with the former Jinchuuriki. Everything from random, snippets of knowledge or comments that shouldn't come from him, to episodes of clearly zoning out, to the point that it took physical contact to snap him out of it.

But there was nothing big like the events described by Itachi and Orochimaru six years ago. And most importantly there wasn't a firm diagnosis.

Some of his ninja claimed PTSD, another claimed Schizophrenia, one had claimed simple ADD (whom had been firmly rebuked by Sarutobi. He insisted that was not a disease or condition it was a lack of discipline by over medicating stupid parents that didn't want to admit their incompetence! Hmpf.)

There were at least three other diagnoses and none of them really fit when held under strict scrutiny.

There were two reasons he was hesitant to really act on this.

Firstly, because Naruto was growing powerful. That was the first and foremost reason. At the rate he was going, Sarutobi had no doubt that Naruto would easily easily be as powerful as his father when he grew. And to stunt that growth now was the very last thing he would do if it could be avoided.

And secondly, it was Minato and Kushina's son.

He didn't want the boy needlessly institutionalized not only for practical concerns of his rapidly growing strength, but for emotional ones as well. And he didn't want the boy to be led to greater harm by sheer inaction...

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