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The Next Day
Hokage's Office, Hokage Tower
"This is the result of the interrogations conducted by myself, Yamanaka Inoichi, and Mitarashi Anko, Hokage-sama." Ibiki stated as he placed a pair of scrolls on the desk, "One of them spilled his guts before I could even do more than mildly threaten him. With the information I got from him, I was able to authorise the use of the Yamanaka Clan's mind-reading techniques."
The scarred man regretted the fact that it was illegal to use the Yamanaka Clan's Hijutsu on Konoha citizens with only the suspicion of wrongdoing or even minor misdemeanours. And unfortunately, civilians and retired shinobi trespassing into a Category 1 restricted areas, open to all active shinobi but not civilians or retired shinobi, without permission, was only a misdemeanour. Using a jutsu in a public place was another offense, but since the kekkai ninjutsu they'd used only kept people in or out without doing any damage it was catalogued as a misdemeanour on the same lines as disturbing the public peace.
Taken on their own, both actions were fairly minor crimes that would have resulted in the group only facing fines and possibly a few days in holding cells.
If someone hadn't spilled the beans anyway.
But since one of them had sung like the proverbial canary, Ibiki could, and had, used that confession to use the skill of Inoichi to parse through the minds of the other thirteen members of the 'Spandex Brigade' (He had to credit the boy for his to-the-point nomenclature) and find out exactly what they were up to.
Sarutobi folded his hands on his desk. "And the summary?"
"All fourteen are guilty of premeditated attempted murder against one Uzumaki Naruto." The scarred Tokujō stated simply, his tone containing no emotion, merely reciting the facts as they had been discovered, "As well as numerous cases of minor harassment, intimidation and price gouging of the same individual. It's only a shame that they aren't active duty ninja, so we can't simply court martial them." there was a touch of disdain added to that final sentence.
The Hokage privately agree with Ibiki's opinion, but unlike Danzō, he respected the rule of law and didn't twist it to suit his vengeful vendetta, particularly when Naruto hadn't received anything worse than a few scratches from the encounter.
If they had managed to seriously harm Naruto, on the other hand, he would have given Mitarashi Anko free rein to use them as instructional test dummies for the newest recruits in T&I. She had been asking for some prisoners to practice on recently and…
Shaking himself out of the wistful daydream, Sarutobi nodded at Ibiki. "Good work. Now, how to punish them…"
"There's enough evidence to send them to the Broken Branch." Ibiki suggested absently. The Broken Branch was the civilian equivalent to the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility, where ninja cases severe enough to warrant imprisonment outside of Konoha itself, yet mild enough to not warrant being sent to the Hōzuki-jō or executed, were imprisoned. Whereas the KSCF was in the middle of an active volcano, the Broken Branch was in the middle of the largest lake in Hi no Kuni, as the Water Walking Exercise was usually beyond the skills of even chakra active civilians.
"True." Sarutobi nodded magnanimously, "and for the civilians among them that will probably be the best idea, but a third of them are retired shinobi, which would make escape a definite possibility.
The Head of T&I snorted. He sincerely doubted that any of the Spandex Brigade (he made a note to have that nickname appended to their files) could Water Walk more than two steps without losing concentration and taking a swim.
Then again when one was locked in prison, training would likely be one of the few things one could do to pass the time, and even the most out-of-shape retiree was a danger to any other civilian contained in the prison.
"And their crimes are just barely mild enough to not warrant the KSCF. Plus in their current shape, I doubt they'd survive the conditions it would put them in." The Hokage mused, "Hōzuki-jō is of course out of the question and the internal prison cells are somewhat full at the moment with former members of the Civilian Council, at least until their crimes are fully processed and they can be transferred to the Broken Branch themselves."
Ibiki smirked grimly with satisfaction. The retired members of the Civilian Council had thought that their little schemes were all buried and hidden from prying eyes. Well, the ninja councillors had been more than happy to carry out a bit of forensic paperwork and, wouldn't you know it, there was a positive plethora of crimes committed by the former members of the Civilian Council; double-book accounting, bribery, embezzlement of public funds and other varied and distasteful crimes.
It was actually a bit surprising that they'd managed to get away with it for so long. Ibiki personally blamed it on both the chaos surrounding the long-term effects of rebuilding after Kyūbi attack nearly levelled the village, and the focus that was put on keeping an eye out for outside threats after the Hyūga Incident.
If you focus too much on watching for enemies at the gates, you tend to miss the ones forming within the walls.
Then there were the cream of the crop, the conspiracy charges.
'Conspiracy to undermine the strength of the Weapon of the Konohagakure Shinobi Forces, otherwise known as the Jinchūriki of the Kyūbi no Kitsune, Uzumaki Naruto.' He thought to himself grimly. While he wasn't a fan of classifying the boy, or any of his fellow shinobi, as if they were a mindless tool, it was what the paperwork required in order to get what needed done.
That and there was a bit of poetic irony at getting the people that had refused to treat the kid as a human being by classifying him as something else. After all, military assets were incredibly important to a shinobi village's survival and sabotaging them was a capital offense.
He wondered how those fat and arrogant former councillors would appreciate a life sentence to spartan quarters and bland food. Not well, he knew.
In an unrelated development, the few remaining troublesome elements on Council had hunkered down, likely hoping to wait out the storm.
"There are still free cells in the maximum security wing." He pointed out.
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