#if i were to go on id add in how kiri and suna get involved and how gaara befriends team 7 and how kisame eventually ends up with itachi

[sporksaber]

If hiruzen (and danzo bc if he was alive itd be him or a puppet hokage he controlls) did die two decades earlier who would become the fifth hokage after Minato died? Like, Kakashi would be too young and inexperienced, they couldn't allow a clan head to do it, and the sannin had all dipped.

Depending on the timeline you use (bc I think there was retconning/unreliable information) orochimaru could have still been around. (If you use anko's age, he had to of been in the village when naruto was born. Anko is 24, was a genin between the ages of 10 to 12, and didn't catch orochimafu's attention until her first chunin exam. So it was at most 13 years before the start of naruto when she recieved her curse mark.)

Orochimaru becomes hokage and raises naruto au.

Cannon plays out with orochimaru still in the village until naruto is born, at which point there's some bullshittery that leads to hiruzen dying. As he dies he names orochimaru his heir under the condition he raises naruto (this condition may or may not be secret blood/soul binding jutsu enforced. Whichever ends up being funnier).

Orochimaru looks at little infant naruto and is like, I hate you and your father, and then carries him off to go claim his hat.

Now, I headcannon orochimaru as being kind of shit at administrative work entirely because he's never done it before and obviously none of hiruzen or Minato advisors want to support him. So he's not having a great time.

Cue his secret root research buddy danzo popping up to try to blackmail him. This lasts about two hours of orochimaru playing along before he kills him and is done with it.

At some point durring the early days of orochimaru settling into his position and dealing with the work that goes into rebuilding a destroyed village mikoto pops up at his house like where is my godson. And orochimaru let's her in and then she's like oh my madara you built him an actual nursery, I expected to find him in a closet. Orochimaru wats to be offended, but he did try that at first.

It is a number of months until orochimaru is able to properly get back into root, at which point, much to his disgust, naruto has started crawling. Orochimaru is still a shit person but he's been distracted away from his immortality bullshit. I'm going to say he was definitly dabbling in curse marks before this but whether or not he put one on anko yet is hard to decide.

Regardless, Anko is frequently forced to babysit naruto and is pissed about it.

But back to root, orochimaru has a moment where he decides that he's not hiruzen or Minato and the nice village act is unnecessary. So he just folds all the parts of root into the corresponding legitimate divisions of the village. Hiding shit is unnecessary when you're a military dictator. Are there division heads who are horrified by all the shit that was going on that they didn't know about (but they know hiruzen and most likly Minato did)? Yep. But what are they gonna say about it? (Especially when it's decades old?) So orochimaru does continue his experiments and some are genuinly horrible, although there is less done on orphans as a side affect of it not being as hidden anymore.

[A note before I continue, I'm not considering the madara rabbit goddess stuff here. It's too complicated and the kind of arc I personally always skip.]

Back to the Uchiha. The lack of people actively trying to screw them over means their social status in the village is much better than it was before. Itachi is probably still pulled into anbu very young, and I think he'd eventually become orochimaru's apprentice. He also hates orochimaru, but that's besides the point. Orochimaru allows it because he still doesn't like administrative shit and eventually plans to go back to his experiments full time. If he didn't have a point to prove he'd of bailed already. Itachi ends up in the assistant position fanon sakura often ends up in for tsunade and Kakashi where they make sure the paperwork is actually done and no extreme diplomatic issue pops up due to their sensei's shit personality.

Speaking of tsunade, she defs comes to visit after the first few years. She kind of ends up just getting into constant arguments with orochimaru (who probably uses toddler/very young child naruto to mess with her often) and reorganize the hospital before leaving again. Jiraya takes longer to visit. He probs had an argument with orochimaru early on, and jiraya is being stubborn while orochimaru knows he'll crawl back eventually.

What else do I need to cover? Naruto loves his wierd pale dad (who does not let him call him dad under any circumstances). He ends up living a very comfortable life. Orochimaru's parenting style is very science based so he never needs anything physically and all the emotional needs are met by mikoto and to a lesser extent anko and Kakashi (who was put on guard duty fir like a week when there was a kyubi kidnaping threat and then just never left). He gets to grow up besties with Sasuke, and does very well in the restructured academy (because the Canon academy doesn't really teach shit and orochimaru made it include harder and more spread out topics with the option of specialization) as he now has a support network to work with his needs.

Anyone who knows me knows sakura is my favorite character. She thrives under the new academy and is able to have all her strengths worked on to the point she's on par or better than naruto and Sasuke when they're put on a team together. (I imagine teams are planned I'm advance to a certain extent. I always find reasoning people give for sakura to be on their team really fun.)

Sasuke is still a dick, but without the trauma and with his mom to put him in his place. Also, like in the manga, he has a bit of reciprocation for sakura's crush (which isn't as strong here), but idk if they'd be endgame.

Orochimaru does come to care for naruto. Because it's naruto. But he is never really affectionate outright. (Naruto knows he loves him though. Which he does in his own way.)

I think im one for now. Enjoy.