Chapter 24: Manipulation?

Naruto's first order of operation would be to figure out who were dissatisfied about the presence of the Uchiha clan, and then he would need to figure out a way to either appease those people or have the Hokage take care of them, Naruto was not capable of taking care of such a task just by himself so he first needed the support of the Hokage, if he could get that then he could make different plans to deal with those that want the Uchiha clan to be exiled.

The Uchiha clan was in a very bad situation, the general populace did not trust them and the ninja force of Konoha did not like their arrogance either, the Uchiha clan needed to rapidly improve their relationships with the general populace and lower-ranked shinobi.

Naruto first met with Dog, he told him that he wanted to meet with the Hokage and that it was an urgent matter, so currently Naruto was sitting at a table with the Hokage in his office, while Naruto couldn't tell whether there were any others in the room he needed to trust the Hokage this time around.

Hiruzen looked at Naruto who was sitting opposite of him, he had been very proud of what the boy had achieved in a single year, it was clear that he was a genius, and that boy now sat in front of him with a very conflicted expression.

"Naruto, my boy, you look conflicted, tell me what's bothering you?" Hiruzen inquired.

Naruto sighed deeply and started explaining, "It concerns the Uchiha clan, if possible I would like to speak to you one-on-one."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow but motioned for his anbu to leave the room, they were now truly alone, but for extra safety, Naruto took out a silencing seal which would apply to a two-meter circle around the seal, if you were outside of that seal you wouldn't hear a single thing of what was being said inside the circle.

Hiruzen grew a bit concerned but before he could say anything Naruto started talking "I don't want the Uchiha clan to be exiled, so please help me in making sure that my only family left over stays in the village!"

Naruto decided to be straightforward, there was no way he would be able to trick the Hokage into helping him and he couldn't think of any other way to convince the Hokage to help him, other than guilt-tripping him.

Hiruzen's eyes widened in shock, what Naruto just said was supposed to be a secret only known between the upper echelons of Konoha, yet a mere academy student was aware of what the civilians and various clans were demanding.

Naruto took Hiruzen's silence as denial and grew slightly desperate, "Please Hokage-Jiji, they're the only family I have left!" Naruto knew that what he was doing was morally wrong but the Hokage had pretty much manipulated him as well, while Hiruzen was someone he greatly appreciated compared to what the Uchiha family held for Naruto manipulating Hiruzen seemed worth it in Naruto's eyes.

To make it even more believable Naruto forced gamer's mind to display sadness as tears slowly started to trickle down his cheek.

Hiruzen panicked, he knew that Naruto was aware of his relation to the Uchiha's but he did not expect Naruto to grow this attached, while he felt responsible for Naruto and felt guilty for how he treated him there was still a part of Hiruzen that prioritized the health of the village above all, he subconsciously weighed the pros and cons of helping Naruto and keeping the Uchiha around or listening to the minor clans and civilians.

But when he looked into Naruto's eyes and saw the sadness hidden behind those teary cerulean blue eyes the guilt he felt for not being the one sacrificing himself to seal the Kyuubi, the guilt he felt for allowing Danzo to become what he was today, for failing his students, and for failing Naruto came to hit his rational mind in full force and he simply couldn't say no to the boy.

Hiruzen sighed deeply, "I will see what I can do, I cannot make you any promises but I will try my hardest to make sure that the Uchiha are not exiled."

Naruto smiled inside his mind, and dried his teary eyes, he showed a weak smile to the Hokage and thanked him.

"Hokage-Jiji, I actually thought of a few things that could help, I found out about the rumor of the Uchiha getting exiled through some merchants who were gossiping about it, I doubt that you would want the Uchiha to be exiled so I can only think that it someone on the inside trying to weaken Konoha," Naruto told Hiruzen with small sniffs in between his sentences.

Hiruzen actually saw some truth in Naruto's words, if the Uchiha were to be either exiled or exterminated then Konoha would lose an important part of their history and would lose an incredible amount of fire-power as a single Uchiha Jonin could make up for a whole team of normal Jonin, the clan head was a Kage level ninja and his wife was easily an S rank ninja as well, his two sons also showed incredible promise as they both showed talent unseen since the time of Madara Uchiha himself.

And one of the people who were very vocal about their exile was Shimura Danzo a person who while wished the best for Konoha was a very selfish person who wanted any and all threats to be taken care of, this most likely included the Uchiha.

So Hiruzen decided to listen to what Naruto had to say, "Very well I will listen to your ideas Naruto."

Naruto smiled for real this time "First of all, the Uchiha are not very well trusted by the civilians of Konoha so the first thing that has to be done is to increase the trust that the civilians hold in the Uchiha clan, this can be done by establishing shops and moving Uchiha into the center of the village, if we put up a shop that is manned by nice Uchiha then the image of the Uchiha clan could be improved in the eyes of the civilians, the main problem is with the arrogance that some Uchiha hold, we could have some Uchiha Jonin take up the position of teaching Genin and some could even join Anbu, if that happens then we should definitely see improvements in the image of the Uchiha."

Hiruzen was once again impressed by the genius that Naruto held, there was such a simple solution right in front of his nose but he had instead decided to listen to Danzo who considered everything that wasn't directly under his control a threat to Konoha, that had been a grave mistake on Hiruzen's part.

While what Naruto said wasn't perfect it was a great idea, if he could have some Nara look over the plan and make sure that there wouldn't be any backfire then he could definitely make things work.

Naruto and Hiruzen spent the next couple of hours discussing various ideas many of which impressed Hiruzen while Naruto managed to gain 4 points of Wisdom and 2 points of intelligence.

All that needed to happen now was for their plans to be strengthened and for them to be put into action, and of course, they needed the cooperation of the Uchiha's but Naruto was confident in convincing them to work with their plans.