phantasmagoria of an orange maelstrom

chapter 4 changes in the old world

(hey guys its been a while, right? Happy new years! Sorry for the wait this time I have some Naruto game music for you all! I though it would be fitting since this chapter only deals with Konoha and Naruto characters!)

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Ninja are preparing. please wait cooly.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

It had been a year since naruto left and the day it boy left a switch flipped in the Third Hokage. Gone was the tired, old and, weary man too old for his job and in his place was The Professor, the second god of shin-obi. He had his anbu compile the name of stores and business that either chased away or over charged Nauto. He had his anbu transform into the blonde ball of sunshine and methodically enter every store and shop to purchase goods. Any one that mistreated him was fined and threatened with loosing permits. While Naruto told Shikamaru and the Hyuga girl had known, not may others knew of the leave Naruto had gone on. It was a secret, and he made sure that it would not escape the children or their parents lips.

While the anbu were doing as such they also scouted for prominent merchants and civilians that were smart enough to do a basic paperwork job but loyal enough to follow his and ONLY his orders alone. They also had to be unbiased against Naruto. He was able to come up with 3, maybe five if he got rid of the 'bias against Naruto' stipulation but he needed that part in pace with Danzo interfering as he always did. This was the creation of the civilian council, a figure head department made for two purposes firstly to appease the populace as Hiruzen knew his new changes and plans were going to be unsettling to some. It also had the added bonus of putting some a small hindrance on the adviser council's (mainly Danzo's) passive aggressive campaign to undermine him. Secondly it lessened the paper work load of minor, in village conflicts and dealings that a Kage should have never had been doing in the first place. They had no real power and did not do anything important but small day to day workings that piled up on the Hokage's desk making the more tedious than it really needed.

He overhauled the clan council making it a force equaling the power of the Konoha advisers council. In essence they could reject certain laws if they overstepped certain bounds, submit their own for suggestions and act as advisors for certain policies. This was another buffer for the advisers council's subterfuge. He also let had both the clan head and adviser council do some small paper work as well, if they were going to constantly drop towers of paperwork on his desk he can give them the more menial work, (like assigning d-ranks) so he could focus on the important parts of running a ninja military.

In order to keep the clans loyal to him and not Danzo, and also to strengthen the village Hiruzen offered incentives if they could provide extra services for the village. The basic Incentive was clans no longer had to provide root with members and clan secrets and, they would get more personalized rewards for better services. The Akimichi Clan lend non active shin-obi to construction and maintenance of the village. In turn they got discounted and sometime free food at all Konoha eateries. The Yamanaka clan helped beautify the village with its flower shop and gave free Therapy to ninja and veterans. Hiruzen struck a deal with the fire daimyo to exclusively use their flower shop. The Aburame clan had non active shin-obi relocate insects and other bugs infesting Konoha to their colonies they got expanded clan grounds. The Nara now helped start tsunade's medical program willing shared some clan medical treatments. The Hyuga had begrudgingly let some branch members join the medical program, and promised too let Hinata and 1 or 2 other main branch join when she graduated in return for more self governance rights. Hiruzen wanted to broach the idea of reconstructing or getting rid of the caged bird seal but he didn't want to push his luck just yet. The clan with the most changes are the Uchiha clan the Military Police Force, first their head quarters were moved back into the village. They also had their missions returned the, however the Uchiha had to share the job with the anbu police. In his meeting with Fugaku, Hiruzen heavily implied this was the best he could do for now, with Danzo and the elders breathing down his neck. Technically the Uchiha didn't need to do anything else, their service as police was enough for the benefits but Fugaku insisted they do something else as the Uchiha had served as police for Konoha for years. So Hiruzen had Mikoto and Shisui to become a teacher and teachers aid respectively both happily agreed.

The schooling system was overhauled too, making the schooling system much better and more rigorous. Over the years since the peace established after the 3rd great shin-obi war, the civilians and done great damage to the schooling system, in a death by 1000 unorganized cuts (or in this case 30 or so seemingly innocuous petitions) trying to alter the requirements so that their 'precious little ninja' could keep up. Minato and later Hiruzen had often denied the changes outright but few got threw being hidden in-between other paperwork. Those few became more and more and now the academy was such a mess that now girls could pass through the system even while being malnourished from extreme dieting and boys not paying attention to anything in class could still pass. Also if the teachers found a student dieting, all they could do is strongly recommend to the students and their parents to stop the dieting. Hiruzen put a stop to that, returning the rigor and high expectations to the schooling system obvious protests be dammed. Now in order to pass a student had to pass the basic curriculum at least one elective corse, an outdoor fitness test, in the form of an obstacle corse, a chakra control test and tai-jutsu test and a ninjutsu test. The chakra control test required students to put a certain amount of chakra in a seal to light up, the tai-jutsu test was a spar with a teacher, the ninjutsu test asked the student to learn replacement, transformation, and the clone jutsu plus one more unique one. A student could also ask to replace the clone jutsu with a second unique jutsu because the clone jutsu was almost useless in real combat and if a student had a high enough chakra pool (like an Uzumaki or some Uchiha) it would be next to impossible to preform. Most students who survived the changes either liked or didn't mind these changes. And the ninja felt it was better suited to prepare the youth.

All in all though Hiruzen was satisfied with his work, for now. More changes were to come but that would happen in time. Right now the third hokage could focus on other work as he eagerly awaited reports from the kage guard on Naruto's progress.