Six Years After (book 2)

Chapter 3

Third person pov

Well. That... was something. Believe it.

The support Naruto had garnered from others throughout the village seemed like just enough to pull the tide in their favor. Shikamaru's righteous anger had been hard and slippery to combat, and Ayumu was well-practiced in talking around people when he needed to. Maybe the note they left off on could've been a better one, but just the same, it almost certainly could've been worse.

At the very least, Naruto didn't think there'd be any coups to overthrow his dad from his mantle as Fourth Hokage. The general conclusion reached was that even if the clan heads and elders did want to do something, what was there to even do? What could any of them do to contain the Kyuubi without releasing him, or without Kurama getting mad and lashing out without the seal to hold him back?

Naruto's parents were Konoha's resident seal masters. They were experts in a dying breed of shinobi art that took practice and precision to understand, let alone to perform. And they'd made it pretty damn clear that they weren't going to be participating in any attempts to restrain Kurama.

Beyond all that, it also boiled down to the simple fact that Naruto's dad was... well, he was Hokage. He was the the ultimate authority. Going against his orders was the same as betraying the village as a whole, and anyone who did could be legally branded rogue. They could argue, and whine, and groan, and shiver in fear, but any actual action against Naruto would be an action against Konoha itself.

Honestly, the only reason they got anyone to reluctantly subside-- at least for now-- was because Ayumu had taken the patented "cute and cuddly and definitely not going to kill us all if we piss him off" angle when talking about Kurama. Emphasis on the flowers, emphasis on the hugs, emphasis on the foxes are actually kind of cute! Even if Kurama sort of didn't look like one with his weird, long ears and--

Yeah. Anyway. Having the heirs of two clans speak out for him had definitely helped. Itachi Uchiha had been surprisingly vocal in his defense. Pays to save someone from dying out in the middle of some random woods that Naruto definitely wasn't supposed to be in at the time!

"That was awful." Shikamaru grimaced, cracking his back like the arthritic old man he was on the inside. "I'm never doing that again. I'm just going to let them burn you at the stake next time. My dad's going to be asking me all sorts of questions in the morning, and if I want to avoid them, I'll have to wake up early. It'll be such a drag." 

Naruto didn't know Shikamaru's dad well, but he knew him well enough to know the guy played mind games on par with whatever Ayumu was doing to Kashi during their therapy sessions. Naruto would not want to tango with that first thing after rolling out of bed either. Believe it.

"I thought it went wonderfully!" Lee chirped out, because he's Lee and he thinks everything goes wonderfully. "The first glimpses of the springtime of youth are beginning to show themselves after a long, harsh winter. In no time at all they will be accepting Kurama into their ranks as one of their own! Soon, we will all be able to peacefully coexist! Yosh!" 

That... was probably not going to happen. 

"Tell the green one I'm going to eat him if he doesn't pipe down." Kurama grumbled out, as though confirming his thoughts. His voice was rife with irritation. "This pathetic excuse for a village is lucky I let them remain standing in the face of their own impudence. They insert themselves into our affairs uncaring of the fact that I could, and will, devour them if they step so much as a toe past the line we've set."

Yeah, definitely not going to happen. Sweet! 

Kurama has an image to upkeep, so Naruto gets why he's standoffish. The beauty of him is that he doesn't have to like anyone else so long as he tolerates Naruto enough not to blow up and kill everyone. Bonus points, nobody else needs to know that Kurama doesn't like them so long as they think he does!