3rd POV - Sarutobi Hiruzen
Sarutobi Hiruzen was the 3rd Hokage of Konohagakure No Sato for several decades now and had seen a lot in his long life. He went through 3 major shinobi wars, witnessed the death of the 1st Hokage, watched his teacher, the 2nd Hokage, sacrificing himself to save him and his companions, felt helpless as his Uzugakure allies obliterated by other ninja villages , lost several of his children, elected a suitable successor with the will of the strongest fire he's ever seen, lost that same successor, witnessed the aftermath of a massacre within his own village, promised a mother to care for her child during his death and did not keep his promise. All these things made him quite experienced, but even he didn't understand some of the things that happened recently.
He began to receive complaints from Danzo about his inability to increase his ranks with the orphans as the orphanages were no longer lacking in subsidies. Hiruzen, taking advantage of this fact, reminded Danzo that his agreement to increase the root ranks depended on the managers of the orphanages and as long as they were able to support themselves economically, he would not be allowed to collect new members from the civilians. In contrast, the longtime friend's demand to cut the village's funding for orphanages was petty cut.
"Since he has the money to support all the costs of the orphanage himself!" roared the friend with obvious displeasure. Hiruzen was surprised by the one-eyed old man's display of emotions. It had been years since he'd seen an expression of anger on his friend's face.
Interestingly, that didn't change anything as the person supporting the orphanage just donated even more money making all the orphanages private. That was the slap in the face that Danzo felt even more and began to actually consider eliminating the boy, to which Hiruzen warned that if that happened, he, like the Hokage, would further diminish his friend's authority.
"Will you support this outsider, Hiruzen?"
"He is a nobleman from the land of fire and his grandfather is an important nobleman of the court of Daymio." Rationalized the old Hokage. "If you even think about touching this child, the village funding will not only be cut back, it will be cut completely."
That pacified the old one-eyed man a little, but Hiruzen wondered if Danzo knew who was actually responsible for his headaches? Hiruzen knew who was responsible for this and was surprised by the situation as there was no suspicious motive and in fact there were only contributions to the village. Thanks to the donations, the orphans who were once rooted would become regular ninjas for a variety of reasons. One of which is the fact that the generous young nobleman wants to be a village ninja himself. Besides everything being caused by a little boy no more than 8 years old...
The young noble heir even befriended the heirs of ninja clans within the village and didn't seem to have any prejudice towards Naruto, which was a plus in his books. The blond Uzumaki himself made it clear that the boy was important to him in one of their conversations, and even when he started to watch over their meetings there was never any suspicious discussion or attempt to influence the jinchuuriki. The young man was so beneficial to the village that he began to develop dozens of events that increased the village's funding by 100% from the nobles. Only one of the events organized by the boy brought in a significant amount of income that visitors to the fire capital did.
Dozens of escort missions made the village incredibly prosperous in those few weeks. Naruto also trained with more focus than he had ever seen him before and took his dream of being a Hokage more seriously, although Hiruzen had doubts about the blonde's intellectual ability before, now he was almost an average reader.
Of course, there were still some doubts Hiruzen had about the new residents of the nobleman's compound. Two women (a grown woman and a girl the age of the Akashi heir) and two men who were supposedly related to the samurai who protected the child. The records named them as members of the branch of the Satoru family. Satoru Karin, Satoru Saya, Satoru Kimimaru and Satoru Haku. These four new people were energetically strong, but could be explained as members of a samurai clan from the land of iron, which it was always known, was also capable of using chakra quite proficiently.
That said, now the two little friends were in front of him, supposedly at the behest of the genius child of the most successful civilian family as merchants. The old man was surprised by the date request that little Uzumaki had made in his friend's name and was delighted with the chance to speak to the child and preach the will of fire to him.
"To what do I owe the honor of your visit, young nobleman?" The old man asked with a gentle grandfatherly smile. "I was surprised when Naruto asked me tomeet you, although I've wanted to meet you as I have for some time, but your complex is quite protected."
"Ah, Hokage-Sama, I apologize for that, but Mikami-nii is very protective and has put all our property under fuinjutsu and only allowed people can enter." The boy smiled bitterly at the old grandfather, to which the man nodded understandingly. He already had some idea how complicated some brothers could be... even this year he had to deal with one of those troubled brothers...
"I understand... may I know the cause of the visit then?"
"Well, to be blunt, you do know that my family members have recently moved into the village, don't you? Although it's been a few years since then, I'd like to thank you for not making things difficult for them..."
"That's not a problem, young noble."
"Call me Ryu. I plan to enter the ninja academy this year and being called that is kind of… uncomfortable."
"I see, as you wish then, Ryu-kun."
"Well, anyway, my nii's family has a pretty strong faith in their guardian god and they wanted Hokage-Sama's permission to establish a temple dedicated to that god on the village grounds..."
"That...not a problem, actually, but...was that your request?" Hiruzen was surprised by this. Establishing a temple in honor of the god who safeguarded the Satoru family was a fairly easy thing to do and didn't need permission...unless it's very big. In that case it would be necessary to buy a swath of land and selling land in Konoha was not an easy thing to do.
"Since that's the case, you could visit when the inauguration party happens...although it shouldn't happen this year as we need time to build the temple properly, after all..."
"Will it take so long to build a temple?"
"Yes, my family wants to make the temple a public place, you see, in that case it takes a certain level of opulence involved and therefore more construction expenditure."
"Isn't this expense somewhat arbitrary? I mean... a temple doesn't have to be that big. Right?
To which the boy responded by handing over a drawing of what the temple would look like when built. Hiruzen was shocked. The temple was a typical Shinto temple with representative details, honden dedicated to a deity hitherto unknown to the old man. The god's image was one of the most beautiful Hiruzen had ever seen. He was a man, much like the little boy in front of him, with silver wings and pale gold hair. The figure wore a black haori with a muscular torso exposed with a sword strapped to his waist on the right side of his body and a bow in his left hand... he was a brave and quite handsome figure.
"What name of this deity?" asked the old man with a bit of excitement in his voice.
"Ryugami... my name was given by my father in honor of the patron god..." explained the young man with a warm smile. "Would you like to visit and pray at the temple when you are ready?"
Hiruzen took out his pipe and sucked a considerable amount of smoke into his lungs before nodding in agreement. This brave figure... was a god quite pleasing to his eyes and he didn't resent the idea of converting to the god.
"He is a god of what?"
"Battle, wisdom, foreknowledge, shinobi arts, fortune and lust..." commented the boy still smiling.
"Lust, isn't it?" the old man looked at him knowingly. In his conversations with Naruto, old Hiruzen discovered that this was a little pervert... "Well, you have my permission."
"Arigatou, Hokage-Sama." The boy bowed in sincere thanks.
"Okay...if that's all, you guys can go."
"Goodbye Hokage-Sama."
"Bye, jiji." Naruto, so far silent, said goodbye to the old man as well.
I hope he's a good seedling for the fire's will when I'm gone. thought the ignorant old man