#TO JUST PUT A BOUNTY ON SOMEONE'S HEAD SUPPOSEDLY BECAUSE THEY ASSASSINATED A RIVAL VILLAGE'S JINCHUURIKI

[secret-engima]

Konoha’s orphan system

BACK AT IT AGAIN BOISSSSSSS. So a few people expressed interest in hearing me ramble about my HCs for Konoha’s orphan welfare system (aka more reasons to hate Sarutobi Hiruzen), so I GUESS I’M DOING THAT. Before we get into this, just know these are 100% HCs that only acknowledge canon long enough to kick it in the nuts. I *did* try to make it reasonably canon compliant so that it could work for multiple aus (yes ppl can use these HCs in their fics if they want, just credit me pls :)) but canon is barely compliant with itself so…

With that out of the way. ONWARD.

The Konoha Orphan Welfare System was established by Tobirama sometime before the First Shinobi War, likely around the time there was a population boom of civilian inhabitants that were not tied to any shinobi clans. Now shinobi clans all have their own system for caring for in-clan orphans (some better, some worse), but the civilians, and specifically the rising population of civilian born shinobi … didn’t have that. If the parents died and there either wasn’t any close family to take them in or the close family that remained were somehow unable/unsuitable for it, then you had kids on the streets and that is both against the literal reason for Konoha’s founding and also a security hazard, so Tobirama set up the orphan system in a way that could be expanded upon as the population required going forward.

The first layer of the system are the Konoha orphanages. While there was likely only one or two to start with in Konoha’s early days, by now there have to be more. Depending on where you estimate Konoha’s total population sits (I have been informed that canon references like- 80k exactly once?? But I don’t remember and I cannot find it on the wiki so *yeets*) I’m going to spitball and say there is somewhere around 10 large orphanages in Naruto’s time. That is probably nowhere near enough orphanages but in CANON we have Literally One so baby step improvements people.

Now, when a child of civilian or shinobi parents is orphaned, there’s a call put out in Konoha (and *only* Konoha, again, ninja security concerns) for relatives who can come take the child. If no one steps forward in a week’s time, then the child is put into the orphanage system. During wartime, this layer of the system tends to get overcrowded for … obvious reasons, especially with refugee children like Kabuto being shuffled into the orphanages alongside born Konohans. Any child from infancy to age 6 (academy starting age) lives in these orphanages under the care of the Matrons who run it, some of whom are civilians, but a good portion are actually retired shinobi (male and female, similar to nurse, the term is gender neutral in this context), I will come back to that in a hot second. Now, during wartime, again, this system can get backed up and so you’ll have kids above the age of 6 still living there as was the case with canon Kabuto. But when *not* clogged by a refugee/orphan influx, the next stage of the system are the Orphan Apartments.

At the age of 6 (or when there are openings during overcrowded times), kids are sat down by the Matrons and given the choice to join the Ninja Academy or not. Obviously since this is a shinobi village they are encouraged to take that route, but they are actually allowed other options, and kids who have things like physical disabilities are sometimes encouraged to stay out of Academy instead. Whether they are in Academy or not, they are then moved out of the orphanage they live in and moved into the Orphan Apartments.

Orphan Apartments are multistory buildings funded by Konoha and consist of a base floor with a common kitchen, common washroom for clothes, and storage room for extra blankets/bedding/etc. The floors above that are small, one room apartments, 11 per floor, as well as a group shower room (the apartments have water closets). 10 of these are given to the kids, one per apartment (barring twins/triplets/etc, who share an apartment), and the 11th belongs to the Floor Caretaker. The Floor Caretakers are all retired shinobi who have some reason for no longer being able to take missions, either ones who willingly chose to retire (rare) or ones who have lost limbs or suffered some other kind of disability and are no longer considered fit to serve on missions above a D-rank.

The Floor Caretakers are in charge of making sure the 10 kids on their floor are fed and healthy, as well as teaching them basic life skills like budgeting their orphan allowance, how to safely use appliances like washers/dryers, how to cook basic healthy meals, etc. They also help them with schoolwork if necessary and crucially, for the Academy students, teach them additional chakra exercises, weapon basics and other skills that the clan children would already have been taught, in order to help ensure the orphans aren’t all left in the dust by their counterparts. For Academy students living in the Orphan Apartments, they will be there until they graduate, at which point they will be moved to a genin apartment complex (there are lots of apartment complexes that cater to a specific rank of shinobi, with each rank having a set rent based on the average “a shinobi of this rank should be able to make at *least* enough to handle this on top of food” income. Of course, if an orphan is adopted pre-graduation, they will move instead into the home of their new family, freeing up the apartment for another orphan out of the orphanage.

Speaking of ADOPTION.

Any child in the orphanage or orphan apartments is up for adoption, obviously, but most adoptions don’t happen until a kid moves into the orphan apartments and has been added to either the Academy track or not. The Floor Caretakers compile regular reports on each kid on their floor to show to interested (and vetted) potential parents. Many clans choose to add new blood via adoption of a promising orphan rather than relying on marriage (though it is likely if the orphan marries later it will be to someone who has the clan blood), and will send discreet shinobi members to observe (spy) on the prospective kids for a second opinion rather than solely rely on the Floor Caretakers’ reports.

Children who are not on the Academy track tend to get adopted out more often than their shinobi counterparts, this is because children who are not going to Academy are instead encouraged to become an apprentice of one of the many professions keeping Konoha running. Adults who take an orphaned apprentice also become their legal guardian in the eyes of Konoha, until they have achieved mastery or reached the age of 17, whichever comes first, and are required to be able to adequately house, clothe, and feed any apprentice they seek to take before they are allowed to adopt/apprentice them.

Shinobi clans will often keep a close eye on non-Academy orphans as much if not more than Academy orphans, as each clan does have civilian specialties to pass on and enough shared resources to enable the adoption fairly easily. Apprenticed orphans are expected to work to pay off their “debt” to Konoha for 5 years, during which up to a third of any income they make will be taxed to Konoha. As apprentices *are* paid during the latter half of their apprenticeship, it’s usually expected that the apprentice will still be living with and at least partially provided for by their guardian/master during those years of service and so aren’t at risk of being taxed right out of house and home or anything. The point is to make more artisans and masters of needed crafts, not create a homeless population that poses a security risk remember.

Orphans who are either Academy students or apprentices can also be Sponsored. A sponsor is different from a formal adoption, and adopted orphans don’t lose their Sponsor if they are adopted down the line. Sponsors are … well basically anyone who has good standing in Konoha and at least *some* money to back it up. These can be retired jounin, retired *ANBU*, civilians who’s family have been in Konoha for at least 3 generations, or businesses who have been in Konoha for more than twenty years (and also aren’t owned by a new resident to Konoha, again, paranoid ninja security reasons). Sponsors can only sponsor up to three orphans at a time. A Sponsor will provide additional funds for clothing, equipment of the orphan’s intended profession (shinobi tools/protective mesh for Academy students, tools for any apprentices of a certain profession), as well as additional learning opportunities.

To use an Academy student for an example, a sponsored Academy orphan will be able to petition their Sponsor for money to pay for better equipment, and if they take an interest in a specific skillset, the Sponsor will use their influence to help procure additional training or mentorship in that skillset. An Academy orphan with a sponsor who takes an interest in becoming a kenjutsu practitioner, for example, won’t have to wait and hope their future genin sensei is proficient in a sword. Instead they can petition their Sponsor, who can then use either money or connections to secure a teacher in kenjutsu. Sponsors, in turn, can expect something in return once the Academy student graduates. For civilian Sponsors this is *usually* just being given priority by that shinobi for any missions they put forth in the future (or a discount for services rendered if the orphan is a civilian apprentice instead of a shinobi). Business establishments also get discounts or priority treatment from the orphans they sponsor. Some businesses that employ shinobi on the regular as security intentionally Sponsor orphans who only want to become career genin or chuunin, since those are far more willing to take “boring” long term jobs than a shinobi looking to climb the ranks and become a jounin (and are less likely to be pulled and sent off on a risky A or S-rank down the line).

Jounin who are retired also use this system as a roundabout way of passing on their skillset or encouraging talented young shinobi without having to worry about actually adopting a kid. ANBU agents in particular don’t necessarily have time or the mental balance to adopt a kid, but if an orphan catches their eye, they can Sponsor them to help them get the resources to excel, whether or not that kid ever grows up to join ANBU.

Okay so. With all that- mostly covered and hopefully I’m not forgetting any gaping holes in my worldbuilding, you might be wondering “how does Naruto’s and Sasuke’s horrible childhoods fit into this???” To which I say:

Shimura Danzo and Sarutobi Hiruzen.

Remember that bit I said earlier? That *all* orphans in the orphanage and orphan apartments are up for adoption so long as they live there? Remember how I also mentioned that *clans* usually have their own in-clan system for dealing with clan orphans and so those don’t get put in Konoha’s system? Welllll.

To start with Naruto: Naruto by rights *should* have never entered the orphan system, since he has a godfather (Jiraiya) and presumably a godmother (I do not know if it’s *canon*, but the fanon I see everywhere is Mikoto, which makes sense considering she was canonically good friends with Kushina). But Jiraiya is a (horrible no good waste of space) spymaster who lives on the road and Mikoto is an Uchiha, which Danzo has been subverting for years and in fact was still subverting *while* the Kyuubi was rampaging everywhere. Iirc he’s the one who ordered the Uchiha to not engage and instead stay back and guard the civilian bunkers, which led to a lot of rumors (that he also started) about the Uchiha’s “suspicious” involvement in the Kyuubi attack. Hiruzen is a pushover when it comes to his old “friends”, we see this in canon, and especially to Danzo, so it’s no wonder why Mikoto was never allowed to claim custody of Naruto even if you fanon that she was his godmother and had a legal right to him.

So what about the other clans? Minato was incredibly popular and beloved, the other clans by rights should have been fully willing to take Naruto in, even with the whole- Kyuubi Jinchuuriki business. But then you have to consider the Politics™ of the situation. Jinchuuriki are considered less people and more living nuke repositories. We see this all over canon, in literally every village. If a Jinchuuriki’s identity is known, they are shunned and feared. So handing Naruto over to another clan would not, politically, have been seen as giving a child into the custody of someone who can raise him, but rather handing *one* clan the keys to immense power that the other clans wouldn’t be able to fight against. Massive power imbalance. Which Hiruzen wouldn’t want in the wake of the Kyuubi attack and then like 3 years later the Hyuuga Incident, and Danzo certainly wouldn’t want because he’s a paranoid old coot who thinks that the only person who can be trusted with ultimate power is himself. So Naruto is, politically, kind of impossible to adopt without majorly upsetting the power balance of the clans.

So. If we want to be *generous* and assume Hiruzen didn’t default directly to sticking Naruto in a shoddy apartment on his own when he was a literal infant, what he probably did was try to loophole his way out of the situation by not revealing Naruto’s parentage to anyone if he could help it and submitting Naruto into the orphan system during the high influx of post-kyuubi orphans in the hopes that Naruto would skate through unnoticed until Hiruzen could either arrange for a civilian family to adopt him or just hope that Naruto can slide by unnoticed in the system until he’s a genin and leaves the orphanage/orphan apartments.

Cue red-eyed t-posing Danzo meme. Because of course Danzo wouldn’t want a “weapon” like Naruto to fall into the hands of cushy civilians. Danzo is at fault for the entire campaign to smear and isolate and then kill an entire founding clan of Konoha, spreading the rumors that Naruto is actually the Kyuubi in human form or other such things is absolutely within his preferred method of isolating perceived problems. So Danzo has a few key people leak Naruto’s existence as Not A Normal Child throughout the village, causing a grieving, traumatized village to pick him as their scapegoat of choice, which meant Naruto would never be adopted by civilians. Because the civilians would either hate him or be too afraid of the reprisal of their neighbors if they went near him. With the civilian option shredded, and also the anonymity that could have let him skate through the orphan apartments unadopted until his genin years also destroyed, Hiruzen’s options are then “have this child raised outside the system entirely” or “give the child to Danzo and Root” and Hiruzen at least had the braincells to realize giving his old friend who has tried to murder him in the past a *whole entire Jinchuuriki* was a terrible idea. So into a slummy apartment all on his own the toddler goes. As for why it was a slummy apartment and not being raised by Hiruzen himself?

*Points back to the clan power imbalance thing*, *points at Hiruzen being a pushover doormat who let Kumo behead a HYUUGA TWIN BROTHER OF THE CLAN  HEAD to avoid conflict*.

As for Sasuke, very similar deal. Konoha’s system was never set up with the total annihilation of a clan in one fell swoop in mind. A mass genocide like that was just- never meant to happen. Sure clans can dwindle and die out during wartime (see- the Hatake clan), but that was not an instant process, there is supposed to be time for a dwindling clan to see the worst coming and prepare for it, make arrangements for what they want to happen to any orphaned kids if the clan adults all die out. Sasuke didn’t have that, and the Uchiha *had* no system in place. Arguably if they had a system for such a catastrophe in mind it likely would have been an agreement between them and the Senju, that either clan would take on the orphans of the other if the worst should happen. But by that point the Senju clan is just Tsunade, who has already run for the hills years ago.

Once again, Sasuke got treated less as a child in need of help and more as a political piece that no one could claim without causing a riot among the other clans for the imbalance. Now I’ve seen different fanon on if Sasuke grew up in the empty clan compound or had an apartment in Konoha, and canon has … literally *both* interpretation depending on *what flashback episode you are watching* so either Sasuke got taken out of the compound and moved into a genin apartment that Hiruzen paid for out of guild (not orphan apartments because again, anyone in there is available for adoption by legal default), or Sasuke just had to suck in up and live with ghosts for 6 years, which did his head NO FAVORS.

ADD TO THIS is Danzo again, who categorically would not want Sasuke to get help of any kind. Because Sasuke is a loose thread that he can’t take care of himself. Canonically, before Itachi leaves after the clan is dead, Itachi goes to Danzo and says something like “you do anything to Sasuke and I will come for your head and air all of your dirty laundry to Konoha on my way in”. If Danzo is seen taking Sasuke into ROOT, or killing him, or harming him, then Itachi will come for him. But if Sasuke is just … benignly neglected by Konoha as a whole to the point of death or defection … well that’s not his fault. His hands are tied.

I could *also* at this point go on a long ramble of my personal hcs that it’s REALLY INTERESTING that Shippudden introduces the glorified radar seal keeping track of any intrusion into Konoha and yet Orochimaru (who has worked with Danzo before to commit inconvenient warcrimes) and Sound Four (who work for Orochimaru) managed to get in multiple times specifically to try to kidnap and subvert Sasuke (thereby taking him out of Konoha without Danzo being to blame and making it far more likely he will be killed by a third party and thus is no longer a loose thread in Danzo’s machinations). And yes I know it’s actually just an example of Kishi’s swiss cheese worldbuilding but I just went on a 3k rant about an orphan system I made up wholesale to deal with those holes SO. But I think I’ve rambled enough for one post so I will leave that there.

#Secret Engima Rambles #naruto worldbuilding #ninja economics #my headcanons #naruto #konoha #this probably has holes in it #but I TRIED MORE THAN KISHI DARNIT #HEY REMEMBER THAT TIME DANZO TOOK OVER AS HOKAGE #AND THE FIRST THING HE DID WAS PUT A BOUNTY ON SASUKE'S HEAD #WOW RANDOM HUH #ESPECIALLY FOR THE GUY WHO'S BEEN ADVOCATING WW4 FOR YEARS #TO JUST PUT A BOUNTY ON SOMEONE'S HEAD SUPPOSEDLY BECAUSE THEY ASSASSINATED A RIVAL VILLAGE'S JINCHUURIKI #okay i will shut up now