Chapter 57: CH 57
Another arrogant civilian stood, "We are the council boy. You are a ninja of this village and therefore your secrets are ours to know."
Naruto gave him a look as if to say 'are you serious?' He looked up at Tsunade, "I work for you. Not some petty merchant with a superiority complex. Keep him out of shinobi business." He turned to the council, "The only ones that have even the slightest amount of authority over me are the clan heads, and that's because they're all jounin. Outside of the field the only person here that can tell me to do anything is Hokage-sama. Do any of you have the title of Hokage-sama?"
He got a unanimous shaking of heads, "Do any of you have that kick-ass pointy hat?" Another round of no's, "Well then you can all respectfully stuff it. My techniques are my own, you don't need to know them, you couldn't perform them anyway so the knowledge would be useless."
The civilians broke into an uproar while the clan heads started looking at Naruto with amused respect. The main yells from the civilian council were calling for Naruto's punishment until one of them changed the subject altogether, "You should be punished for allowing the Uchiha to escape! He was the last of our most powerful bloodlines and you send another genin to get him instead of yourself!"
Naruto looked at the ignorant man coldly, "Like I said, Kimimaro Kaguya was far beyond anything Rock Lee could have done to him. Kimimaro would have killed him for sure had I not stepped in, which was my job in the first place. I was sent as back-up, to get them out of unfavorable situations, and that was as unfavorable a condition as they were going to face on that mission." Naruto stood and began pacing, "Kimimaro could have beaten Sasuke without trouble. Sasuke only had Chidori and a few katon ninjutsu as something that could slow Kimimaro down, and that wouldn't have stopped him. What I did to make that crater, Kimimaro survived it and launched one final attack. As far as I'm concerned, none of them could have kept up with him. And besides, I was sent to make sure they could carry out their own mission parameters, my own were different from theirs and I did what I thought I had to do to achieve both. Rock Lee had not told me that he wasn't in prime condition. I don't know what would have changed if I had known, but that is moot at this point."
"Get back to the other topic! What did you do to cause the crater!"
The room once again got loud on the civilian side as cries of 'the Kyuubi is escaping' among other asinine remarks were being made. The shinobi side were looking bored, most of them knowing full well that jinchuuriki should be able to utilize the power of their demons so this wasn't much of an issue. Tsume Inuzuka even let out a loud yawn signifying how bored with the proceedings she was.
Naruto made subtle motions to the shinobi council signaling 'blah blah blah' and pointing at the civilian side, getting a few smirks on that side. He looked up at Tsunade, "Can I be dismissed Hokage-sama? I've already spoken my peace, anything from this point forward and there's nothing I can do or have any part in."
Tsunade nodded, "You are dismissed chunin Uzumaki." Naruto bowed to her and left the room. As the door closed shut she sighed as another uproar from the civilians broke out.
XxX
Naruto sighed in relief as he jumped along the rooftops towards his apartment, "Well that wasn't as unpleasant as it could have been. Hopefully baa-chan can block any of their powerplay bullcrap against me."
Naruto arrived and opened the door to his apartment to find Kankuro raiding his fridge. Naruto's eye twitched as he grabbed Kankuro by the collar and dragged him away from his food, "What the hell are you guys still doing here?"