Reaching For A Dream by Noodlehammer

Ch 8

VOTE, FOLLOW, SHARE, THAT SORT OF STUFF ONTO THE STORY

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"Genin Uzumaki, you have been called before this council, because we wish to ask you some questions pertaining to the abilities you revealed during the Chunin exam preliminaries." Elder Mitokado Homura spoke, opening up the special council session that had been called for that very reason.

Sarutobi could only sigh with resignation. He had known that the council would give him headaches over Naruto's fight in the preliminaries and he had been right. Had it been just about anyone else, this council session wouldn't have happened, but since it was Naruto they stuck their noses into everything, just because he was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. The blond's surly attitude towards people had made them even more paranoid and they felt justified in calling a full council session to interrogate a Genin just because he had turned out to be surprisingly capable. He couldn't even fault Naruto for having no patience for the people of Konoha, considering the way they acted.

The elder council, Danzo included, along with all of the clan heads were in attendance. Even the three civilian representatives had managed to get themselves included, using some loophole about how this issue concerned the civilian population as well to join in on what was technically a shinobi only issue.

The civilian representatives weren't liked much by the clan heads, though the elder council found them useful sometimes. The reason for the dislike was that unlike the clan heads who were all active shinobi, with the exception of Hyuuga Hiashi who had retired to focus fully on his clan, the civilian councilors were professional politicians. In other words, they were a pain in the ass to deal with.

Councilor Akiyama was the oldest of the three, an older man in his late fiftees, his black hair going silver at the sides of his head with a meticulously groomed goatee, giving him a distinguished look. The man was always asessing the council proceedings with sharp, dark eyes, speaking up whenever he thought he could influence something to go the way that he wanted it to.

Councilor Ishida was over a decade younger, brown haired and brown eyed. The kind of man that you would overlook reflexively because he was so unassuming. He was however as manipulative as any politician and used his unassuming appearance like a tool.

Councilor Kimura was the only woman on the civilian council and the youngest of the three, being in her early thirtees. She retained a youthful appearance with shiny black hair and green eyes. She had always been a beautiful woman and wasn't above using her looks to get what she wanted.

The three of them knew that they needed to present a united front if they wanted to achieve anything in a shinobi village, so they did so in spite of their no doubt conflicting interests. They went to great effort to present a cool, collected and trustworthy image, always dressed in high quality clothing and looking almost obsessively tidy.

In a hidden village, the word of the Kage was law, they only reason that they were even on the council was because the Sandaime thought it would improve the workings of the village. Most of the civilians had been devastated at the loss of the Yondaime, but these three were secretly pleased, as the young Hokage had been intending to disband the civilian council.

The shinobi on the council trusted them less than they would trust the Tsuchikage and never took anything they said at face value.

"Yeah, what about them?" Naruto asked disinterestedly, picking his ear and flicking some ear wax towards the civilians. The neutral but pleasant expressions on their faces froze and all of the shinobi were easily able to pick up on the fact that the civilian councilors were quite annoyed by the display of disrespect even if their faces didn't show it.