Naruto : Chapter 88

Kakashi sat behind his desk with the Sandaime and Tsunade standing to his left and right. In front of the desk stood his team, Hinata, Shino and Shikamaru. Kurenai and Asuma stood behind their respective students.

"You've all been called here to be informed about your results in the chunin exams and the invasion after it.

Let me start with Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, Shino Aburame, Hinata Hyuga and Shikamaru Nara. You five have all shown good tactical skills in your fights as well as a skill level that puts you above a normal genin.

It is my pleasure to promote each of you to chunin," Kakashi said and Tsunade and the Sandaime handed the vests and certificates over to them.

All five had smiles on their faces and put their new vests on. Then all eyes rested on Naruto.

"Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze. During the chunin exams and following invasion you've shown exceptional skills and leadership qualities. You managed to capture Suna's jinchuriki Gaara alive and showed great strategic and tactical abilities in all fights you were in.

Thanks to your and Tenten Jakonato's performance while stalling the invaders to completely evacuate the civilians, we didn't suffer and casualties among the civilians.

For your outstanding performance, you're hereby promoted to special jonin," Kakashi said and handed Naruto his vest and certificate.

Naruto had a true happy smile on his face. Finally he got acknowledgement.

"Congratulations to all of you," Kakashi said once all of them had put their vests on and had taken the congratulations from their teachers. "Now that you aren't genin anymore, your jonin senseis aren't responsible for your training anymore.

It is up to you to improve your abilities, though your senseis will still be available for advice and simply talking about things. There'll also be some changes to your teams."

The group of six listened intently. Tsunade stepped forward.

"As some of you may know, I'm going to completely rebuild the way medic nins are trained by the village.

The final goal is to have enough medics that each team will have one when they take a mission outside of the village. For that reason, I wish to offer you all the possibility to at least learn some basic skills. Next to that, I would like to take you, Sakura, as my personal apprentice.

You've shown great abilities in the area already and Shizune has praised your intelligence and fast learning from your training under her over the month before the chunin exam finals," Tsunade said.

"Really? I would be honoured to learn under you, Tsunade Sama!" Sakura exclaimed happily.

"Very good, then be at the hospital tomorrow morning at eight to start your training. Just a warning, I'm a very strict teacher," Tsunade said.

Sakura simply nodded.

"I'd like to get some medical training as well, Tsunade Sama," Hinata spoke up. "But I don't know if my father will allow it."

"Don't worry, I'll convince him if he gives you trouble. I've wanted to get a Hyuga into the medical program for ages, but your clan always blocked.

As I have complete freedom in my recruiting, which was one of the conditions Hokage Sama granted me upon my return and taking over of the program, I can choose whoever I want as long as they're willing to invest the time into the training," Tsunade stated and got a confirming nod by Kakashi.

"Then I'll gladly enter the program," Hinata said.

"Good, be at the hospital tomorrow at nine as well," Tsunade informed her. "Those without previous training will work under Shizune first and if they show enough promise, I'll take over some lessons as well."

Hinata nodded, smiling happily.

"I'm no good at medical techniques, I simply have too much chakra, even if my control is far better than my reserves would let you think. I'm good with basic first aid," Naruto said.

"I'm just not interested in medical jutsus, even if I know how useful it is from being treated by Sakura," Sasuke said. "My goal is catching Itachi and forcing him to finally tell me the truth about the Uchiha massacre. Something doesn't add up there.

I'll capture him and wring all information I need out of him. If it turns out he's just an arsehole, I'll kill him after that, if not, I'll hand him over to Konoha's justice. I need to become much stronger before I'd stand a chance against him though and medical jutsus aren't the way for me to get there."

Kakashi was surprised to hear his student's changed goal, but he was very happy about it. At least the probability of him running off to kill Itachi was lower now.

Shikamaru and Shino also declined attending the medical program.

"Good, as you're perhaps aware, the village despite our preparation still lost a large number of ninjas. We still need to take as many missions as before, therefore the teams are being changed a little. Hinata, your starting training for the medical program will take about two weeks. For that time you'll be excused from missions. Naruto, Shino, Shikamaru and Sasuke, report for a B-rank mission tomorrow morning at nine.

In two weeks when Hinata's initial training is over, Naruto, you'll move to taking command over the new genin team of Kiba Inuzuka, Ino Yamanaka and Choji Akimichi. You'll be leading them in C-rank and low B-rank missions until Asuma Sarutobi isn't needed for constant higher ranked missions anymore," Kakashi informed them.

They all nodded.

"Except for Naruto you're dismissed," Kakashi said.

The five chunin bowed and left the office, telling Naruto to meet them later at the barbeque place for celebrations, which he agreed to. Then he looked at his sensei curiously.

"Naruto, for the next year, you'll be given a high number of missions where you'll lead a genin or chunin team that consists of those around your age to get experience with leading teams. While you have the skillset of a full jonin, you lack the experience.

Prove that you're ready then and you'll get the promotion to full jonin then. Contrary to new chunins, you'll also have some more duties to prepare for.

Once you're back from the B-rank mission, you'll be trained in things like withstanding torture, spying in enemy territory, dealing with stress and loss of a member of your team and training of a team. Even if you get your promotion, you won't be given a green genin team to train until you're at least sixteen," Kakashi informed him.

"I understand, sensei," Naruto confirmed.

"Good, I'll make sure you get the pamphlet with duties of jonin after you return from your mission. Right now none are left as the storage where they were kept was hit by a fire jutsu in the invasion and burned down.

Printing new ones has a low priority right now. I also wanted to inform Tsunade Sama as my advisor of your unique position in the village," Kakashi said and Naruto nodded, knowing that as one of the sannin she had a right to know.

"Do you mean his jinchuriki status?" Tsunade asked.

"No, what I was talking about is that Naruto is the village's top seal master and also operated under the codename Dark Phoenix," Kakashi revealed.

"You're Dark Phoenix?" Tsunade asked surprised and then chuckled. "A great deception you pulled off there. Everybody thinks that we have two seal masters besides Jiraiya now. It will make others think more if they dare attack us. Seal masters are tricky to conquer.

I can see why you'd keep his identity a secret. He'd be a major target should the truth be found out. Even more so than being known as Minato's son."

The others just nodded. Naruto was then dismissed and went to join the other freshly promoted chunin.

...

Naruto, Sasuke, Shino and Shikamaru stood in front of the Hokage. They all wore their new vests that symbolised their new rank. Naruto, similarly to his father, wore his trench coat over his attire.

He had kept his former clothes and not taken to wearing the standard Konoha uniform for chunin and jonin that his sensei wore. Sasuke and Shikamaru wore the uniform now while Shino kept his high collared shirt under his vest, which he kept open.

"Good to see you four. The mission you'll be taking today is, as I already told you yesterday, a B-rank. We have got information that a pair of missing nins has been attacking villages along the border to River Country. We don't know which village they are from, but the description of the jutsus they used indicates one of the smaller ninja villages.

There were victims of poisoning in the second village that was attacked and one victim in the fourth village was found with burns from fire jutsus. Otherwise they seem to prefer weapons," Kakashi informed the team.

"Your job is eliminating the threat. Either capture them if you can, or kill them if they pose too much of a danger.

Here is a permission slip for the armoury that will enable you to stock up on certain seals. You'll be given chakra storage seals, normal storage scrolls, seals to verify your teammates and paralysis seals. Naruto is in command with Shikamaru being second in command."

The four boys nodded.

"Be careful and look out if there are more missing nins in the area. It could be that it's a group that pretends to be smaller than it is. If you come across other missing nins that don't have anything to do with your mission, I'll leave it to your judgement to see if you can capture them or kill them for their bounties.

Now that you're chunin or, in Naruto's case, special jonin, you'll be given a bigger cut from the bounties you bring in for the village. In case something goes wrong, try pinning the blame on another village, preferably Iwa," Kakashi told them.

Shikamaru and Shino looked surprised at this order, Naruto and Sasuke only nodded. They were already used to that kind of order from their training under the new Hokage.

Kakashi had a policy that while things could go wrong, you should never admit fault if there wasn't enough proof of you being the culprit. And if you could blame somebody else, all the better. Successes were to be promoted as being done by Konoha shinobi, failures were to be hushed up as well as possible.

The group was dismissed and Naruto led them to the armoury. After handing over the permission slip to the guard, he quickly collected the necessary seals without any of the others looking at him strangely.

They knew that he was the expert on fuinjutsu among them and would know which seal was which. He handed the sealing tags over to each of them and they put them away in their pouches. Naruto told them to meet in half an hour at the gate to get the mission started.

...

Hey guys I really need some power stones to Elevate the ranking :)

...

if you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my p atreon :

 p atreon.com/CarriePoppins