Naruto : Chapter 23

The civilian council was at a loss how they had lost a good part of their power in such short a time. The Hokage seemingly had suddenly grown a backbone. He was keeping the ninjas that formerly had done their bidding under a firm watch.

It had taken them a week to find out, but both the jonin commander and the ANBU commander had given orders to all ninjas that the civilian council had no say in shinobi matters. They had no authority to order ninja to do anything.

The Hokage, after all ninjas had been informed, even the new genin had been told the orders, had given them a warning to not try to usurp his power. Trying to usurp the Hokage's power was treason and would be handled accordingly.

They had held a meeting to discuss their options, but soon realized that there was nothing they could do. The Hokage held the power of the military.

They only had control over the civilian affairs as long as they didn't threaten the military strength of the village. That meant withholding service from shinobi in any way or sabotaging the goods sold to shinobi.

They knew if they continued to treat the demon like he deserved to be treated, they would face the Hokage's wrath. After checking on the sales numbers of the past three years, they made a surprising discovery.

The only things the demon brat had bought from them were the occasional fresh products like milk and eggs. Nothing else. How did the brat do that? As much as they tried to find out, they couldn't wrap their minds around it.

The brat was the dead last of his class. A failure as a ninja. There should have been no way for him to manage that.

In the shadows Gazelle, the ANBU on duty grinned under his mask. This promised to be interesting in the future. He was one of the ANBU that were more than tired of the arrogant behaviour of the civilian council.

Having them obsessed with trying to figure out how the so called demon brat managed to trick them was indeed amusing. And from what Kakashi told about his team, the blond was really good.

...

After finishing their snack, Kakashi took his team back to the Hokage tower to report about the mission. He had made his genin run the whole way back in a sprint.

After all, two miles should be nothing for a ninja; even a fresh genin should be able to do it. When they reached the gates, Sakura wanted to collapse. Her sensei was definitely a sadist.

"Team seven reporting back from a D-rank mission." Kakashi informed the guards.

"Already? Didn't you have that field clearing mission?" One of the chunin asked.

"Yes, my team was just good in their time." Kakashi answered.

"Okay, we have noted you being back." The other chunin said and Kakashi led his team to the tower.

"Did you also have the impression that two of the three genin were about to collapse?" One asked.

"Yes. The Uchiha is hiding it somewhat well, but the girl was really obvious. Strangely Uzumaki didn't seem tired." The other answered.

All ninjas had been briefed to not refer to Naruto by any derogative terms, so most just called him Uzumaki when they talked about him.

"I wouldn't think he would be tired after a sprint. Don't you remember how we had to hunt him down after one of his pranks? If he has practice in anything, then it is running at high speeds." The first one said snorting.

"True." His partner replied.

...

In the Hokage Tower Kakashi instructed his genin to watch how he made his report as they would be required to do it themselves in the near future.

"Team seven back for report." Kakashi stated.

The chunin on duty nodded and took out a notepad for a short summary. Kakashi would later hand in a thorough written report about the performance of his team after all. The Hokage just wanted to get an overview of the successfully fulfilled missions every day.

"Team seven was tasked with clearing out the field of the newly moved in Takashima couple.

Genins Haruno, Uchiha and Uzumaki took to clearing the field of stones, wood and other waste, leaving the remains for shadow clones of Uzumaki to be sorted into categories for later use by the Takashimas.

After four hours of work the field was finished. Individual report on the performance of my genin will follow in my written report." Kakashi said.

"Good, the short report will be handed in to Hokage Sama." The chunin confirmed.

"I have a question, Kakashi sensei." Naruto asked.

"Yes, Naruto?" Kakashi answered.

"Is there a possibility for a genin to take more D-rank missions outside of the ones a team does?" He asked looking at an immense amount of missions labelled D-rank.

"With the permission of Hokage Sama and the jonin sensei of said genin it is definitely possible. Why, are you interested?" Kakashi asked.

"You know that I am an orphan and I need to earn money someway. This would be the easiest way for me to do it. I could give some missions to my shadow clones and let them do the missions while I am busy with our team's training." Naruto argued.

"Hm, if Hokage Sama agrees I don't see any reason to not allow it as long as you do the missions properly. But I want you to keep it to three missions a day.

I don't want you to be too tired from chakra exhaustion for your team training." Kakashi said.

Naruto looked at Kakashi as if he was crazy.

"Sensei, chakra exhaustion is no problem for me and you know it. I would have to fire A-rank jutsus around for five hours in a row to get exhausted. And even then I would probably be up again after an hour of resting and eating." He said.

Kakashi had to agree with the statement, but didn't comment.

"Naruto, don't brag with false abilities. You can't have that much chakra." Sakura scolded.

"No, Sakura, Naruto is right in his statement, he does have overly large chakra reserves. He has been born with them and his training only increased them over time." Kakashi admonished her. He would have thought she was too tired to argue after all the hard work of today.

"But he can't have more chakra than Sasuke. Sasuke was always the best and the strongest at the academy." She protested.

"Didn't you realize yet that I faked my abilities in the academy? I would have thought all the training sessions last week would have made that much clear. Sasuke has large reserves for a fresh genin, that's true, and compared to the others in our class he has the largest reserves, but he is nowhere near my level." Naruto set her straight.

"How big could your reserves be, idiot?" She sneered.

"Kage level." Kakashi said, shocking both Sakura and Sasuke. "Naruto's reserves are the biggest of anyone in the village. But large reserves alone don't make a good ninja. You need to have good control over your chakra too and the experience from fighting opponents."

Naruto nodded. He knew the only thing he really needed for a promotion to chunin was said experience. He had the abilities and control without a doubt. But even he had to admit, he was getting better and stronger with Kakashi's intense training.

Training on his own had given him a very good base to work with but the teamwork exercises his sensei came up with helped him practice to really use the theoretical skills he had. It would be invaluable in the field.

He knew the old man wouldn't promote him to jonin straight away, but if he got the experience he needed in the next six months until the chunin exams only a natural catastrophe or something similar would be able to prevent his promotion. Kakashi dismissed his team with the reminder to be at the gates at six like the other mornings.

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