The Uzumaki are all dead. You're not.
As such, some people resent you for living when the 'real' Uzumaki they actually knew and liked don't. "
The silence in the Hokage's office was deep and as damning as everything else Hanzo had revealed in those two weeks.
"Good job. Now you can talk.
"
"But… but that's not fair – and what's even – I have a clan?!"
"Neither was it fair when you broke into my home and nearly killed me. " Naruto collapsed like felled by an arrow through the heart, the man was not letting that go, was he? If only it wasn't such an apt distraction.
"Also, you're not living it up like royalty even though the last two Uzumaki were practically princesses. "
Naruto jumped back to his feet, eyes sparkling. "We had princesses!?"
"As such, certain people think you're a bastard. "
There was a stunned silence. On both sides of the crystal ball.
"But I don't wanna be a bastard!" Naruto whined, falling back down to his knees dramatically. "They made me do it!"
"Like I made you almost kill me?" Naruto punched the floor even more dramatically, is this what his grandson was going to be like? Hiruzen wished his daughter luck if- "Not that kind of bastard. A literal bastard.
Kid with no legitimate parents, born out of wedlock, spawned on the wrong side of the sheets, etcetera. "
Hiruzen met the eyes of those around him with every bit as much incredulity. It couldn't be so easy to-it couldn't possibly have been so easy all this time, could it?
"… I'm a bastard?"
"Never saw your birth records so I can't say," the man masterfully avoided saying a single lie. "But you're blond instead of a redhead, you live off the village dole instead of literally anything else, and you're so obnoxiously loud that I have literally spent the last ten minutes wanting to kill myself.
"
"Why are you always so mean to meeeeeeeee?"
Hiruzen ended the technique before Masanari Hanzo went and really made him feel like a fool.
And now he got to enjoy the awkward silence with just the shinobi elite, how wonderful.
It was Shikaku who broke it, and the smirk he sent the hokage was as self-deprecating as it was insolent. "The man just can't stop embarrassing you, Lord Hokage.
"
"So it would seem," Hiruzen groused. "If it pleases you, Fugaku, we'll go meet him now.
"
"It would please me very much. "
"After you then. Everyone else, dismissed.
Though please leave the man be for now. We've crowded him enough, I think.
" And I don't want to think what he'd do to embarrass one of you next. He met Danzo's gaze on the way out.
Again.
The moment they walked in, Naruto invaded the Hokage's personal space with a literal deluge of where and what and how and "Why didn't you tell me I was a bastard, I can't believe it!" and now he had to explain to a hyperactive child that no, he was not a bastard but it was important that nobody else know that because of reasons only grownups can understand. Hiruzen truly envied Fugaku in that moment, but he supposed he brought this on himself.
"Mister Masanari. "
Hanzo stood. "Chief Uchiha, please forgive me if I don't meet your eyes.
"
"I understand the sentiment. " Which said nothing of his tolerance for it.
"But this is the Hokage Tower. There are elite Anbu watching us.
I am not permitted to inflict genjutsu unprovoked in this place. "
There were indeed Anbu and… yes, Danzo had used their access passages to take a spot behind the fake wall.
"… I suppose we are only ever at the Hokage's mercy. " The man met Fugaku's eyes.
Hiruzen wondered not for the first time why this man's words cut him so easily. "Crow, get Naruto home please.
"
"But-NO, NOT AGAaaaiiiinnnn-!" Naruto's voice faded into the distance before the window shut, re-activating the sound trapping arrays.
"I've some questions about your treatise," Fugaku said once calm returned.
"I'm sure there's nothing in there that you haven't all thought about yourselves," Masanari demurred. He wasn't even playing coy.
"No indeed," Fugaku said dryly, not saying what they were all thinking.
The fact that a mere civilian (and not even the only one) could talk so frankly and insightfully about something of that magnitude based entirely on public information was a slap in the face of each of them and the village as a whole. Shikaku was right.
If a mere civilian could pin all that down without any skullduggery, what the hell had they even been doing with this village?
"I have only one question about this. .
. treatise," stated the Uchiha Clan Head.
"When you spoke about 'clandestine factions', what specifically did you have in mind?"
"… Lord Hokage, I don't suppose my amnesty's still short of its expiration date?"
Oh dear. Hiruzen barely countered Danzo's hostile will burst before anyone noticed it.
Why did I let Fugaku get my hopes up? "… I'm willing to extend it to include today, notwithstanding anything… self-incriminating, let's say, about acts committed outside this period. "
"Right," Hanzo muttered. "In that case, I can only say that I earnestly hope you weren't actually trying to keep it a secret.
"
Fugaku's eyes flickered imperceptibly between Danzo's location and back. "This 'it' being…?"
Hanzo looked back to the Hokage uncertainly. Hiruzen sighed.
Ordering silence or anything else would make Hiruzen incriminate himself, and if a civilian had somehow found out, what point even was there? "Please speak freely. "
"Right, so… my wall. " What followed was a thorough description of Masanari Hanzo's basement shelf rack, the wall behind it, a tract on the material physics involved in the rusting of nails, and everything that didn't make sense about the whole thing, after which Hanzo finally finished with "-and so I'm really hoping the ones who clearly had the wrong idea about me have had their orders clarified.
While I understand that village security is important, I hope I've sufficiently proven I'm working for rather than against it by now. I'd appreciate if I could live without the uncertainty of...