32 32.Chunin Exams

Naruto teleported back to the Uzumaki village. He knew that staying in Konoha a second longer will be dangerous while Gai used his eight gate. No matter what, Gai cannot travel to the Uzumaki village before his life expires. So Naruto was safe here and the flying thunder god was surely overpowered. After reaching here, Naruto saw Sasuke and Sakura sitting in a corner of the ruins along with his clone. Naruto dispelled his clone and showed Danzo's hands which had two pairs of sharingan to Sasuke.

Sasuke seeing it, became angry, but cooled down a minute later and said "I'm having revenge against the village for this." Naruto nodded and said "You need to train and get stronger first". Sasuke also nodded. Naruto then took them to the house while explaining about the Uzumaki village. Sakura and Sasuke were surprised that they travelled so far in not even a second, but didn't ask him due to the circumstances. They entered the house and Naruto introduced them to Karin and vice versa.

Karin after hearing the story, became angry at the leaf village and promised to take revenge on the village for trying to hurt Naruto. Naruto sensed her emotions with Kurama's chakra and was genuinely happy that someone in this world cared about him. He then assigned Sakura to Karin to train her. Karin was first jealous of another girl, but after getting to know that Sakura was in love with Sasuke, she promised to help her. Naruto started helping Sasuke train and started his own training as well.

Time passed. Naruto and Karin got even closer as Karin was the first person who cared about him and the feelings of love blossomed between them. Sakura and Sasuke also got a lot closer to each other as well. Sakura genuinely cared about Sasuke so much that she left her home and family to follow and help him. Sasuke also understands that and his character also started changing. So they became closer as well. Naruto repaired another house for Sasuke and Sakura to give them some privacy and to let them get closer as requested by Karin.

Back at the leaf village, the matter was covered up. Kakashi went back to brooding to yet another grave of Gai which was installed in the graveyard. Kakashi blamed himself for not being able to stop his students. He also thought that his actions were similar to betrayal even after Naruto explained about the corruption of the village, he sided with them. He also knew that sacrifices of some Angus had to be made if they want to take on the council, but at the moment, he didn't support Naruto. Danzo went into seclusion as he had lost both the first Hokage's hands and the Sharingan. At this time, as many Jonin Anbu were killed in the fight, Hiruzen sent for Jiraya to return to the village.

After a few days of getting the message, Jiraya returned. Hiruzen explained that Naruto caused the event and killed many Jonin and escaped with Sasuke to Jiraya and wanted him to track Naruto down and stay inside the village to protect the village, but Jiraya would not buy the story. He looked for Kakashi and clarified the matter. Kakashi told him everything truthfully. Jiraya then questioned Hiruzen and as he didn't get any answers, he went out of the village to look for Naruto as Naruto was also his responsibility and he was his godfather.

A few days later, it was the time for chunin exams. As everything was set down before a long time, it couldn't be stopped as cancelling the exam showed the village's weakness. Also he couldn't declare Naruto as a missing nin because he was a Jinchuriki and a weapon to deter the other villages. He couldn't let any villages know that they were lacking a tailed beast. So the matter about Naruto defecting was kept under wraps as well.

Time passed and the chunin exams went down as usual, except Orochimaru couldn't find Sasuke and Gai's team didn't participate the exams due to his death. Even if the news of Naruto defecting was suppressed, The clan leaders came to know of what exactly happened and Danzo was responsible for it and Hiruzen supported Danzo. After hearing this, they had doubts about Danzo's involvement in the destruction of uchiha clan as well. So the big clans like Hyuuga clan tripled its security and took back Hinata, the Hyuuga hairess from the academy saying that the clan would train her. So she too didn't participate in the chunin exams.

So in the chunin exams, only team asuma remained. So Danzo made sai part of Kurenai's team as a replacement for Hinata and entered the chunin exams. The chunin exams second round venue was still the forest of death. After the third round, the finals were supposed to take place after a month. Danzo in the meantime contacted Orochimaru to stop the leaf attack which they had planned, but he couldn't as Orochimaru had already assassinated the Kazekage and couldn't stop the attack anyway. Orochimaru had also decided to stop the attack at one time after failing to find Sasuke, but went with it as the preparations were completed and he could find Sasuke later.

Like that, in the one month time, all the genins who passed the third round started to train. Hiruzen was busy in managing the village. They had no clue that Orochimaru had already infiltrated because Sasuke was not present for him to attack and let his presence known. Thus, the village had no time to prepare. Danzo also made a choice and asked Orochimaru to get him another arm and a sharingan to let him infiltrate the village and kill Hiruzen. Orochimaru accepted and thus Danzo got a new arm and also a Sharingan that was collected by Orochimaru as he had a good collection of sharingan and DNA of many Shinobi.