Chapter 24:Supposed prelude to Chūnin exam(FIN)

"Good, you guys are here." Kakashi said, greeting his team after 7 days of rest.

He was surprised by Sasuke's speedy recovery, who had serious injuries on his right arm and abdomen.

It is all thanks to Uchiha military recovery pills and Kurama chakra that accelerate his body healing mechanism, which while not as potent as Uzumaki, was enough to recover at a faster rate.

"So what are you teaching us?" Naruto asked, anticipating to improve his capability after not being able to do anything to help Sasuke during the fight,

without realising how terrifying his power was as no one commented about it.

"At first do the sa-"

"Didn't we done it already?"

"It does not excuse you skip, regardless of how mundane the training is and it helps you to hone your chakra control, or at least keeps it for not falling off." Kakashi assured, who also does sand grains counting training as well on a daily basis and noticed the result.

Reluctantly three nod and began doing their training for an hour.

"Afterwards, I will train each of you individually so don't sulk too much." Kakashi added and just like that, they were in high spirits.

'They really hate it...'

***

"Alright, let's start training." Kakashi said before doing a clone seal and summoned 3 clones of his.

In the next moment he pulled out a scroll and released sealed items, showing weights for leg, arms and torso and instructed them to wear the ones that had their names attached to it.

Contrary to their appearance, the arm,leg and torso combined weigh at least 25% of each of their body weight and were custom ones, ordered by Kakashi, hence labeled by their name so that they don't wear the wrong one.

Afterwards each of them went different ways, each with a Kakashi clone.

In Sasuke side, Kakashi was teaching all basics he knew from his father and from Anbu about Kenjutsu and correcting his stance and position of sword Sasuke hold depending on the situation of the fight, as holding a blade incorrectly by a slight margin could cost him his life if he faced against someone, skillful than him.

In Sakura's case, it was their usual spar with the addition of Kakashi aggressively fighting with a Kunai, where he occasionally threw at Sakura to dodge when she least expected.

In Naruto case however who can use multiple shadow clone jutsu, he was being taught how to place traps like bear traps,

makibishi in the ground to hurt enemies , tying strings to trip enemies when they rushed towards him or other and showing different situation to use smoke bombs, like if smoke bombs are placed at his clones, any enemies who dispel those clones would have their vision blinded for a few second due to being so close to smoke bomb, lowering their guards to attack.

Thanks to the weight, they were doing miserably slow and kept making mistakes and injuring themselves in the process.

However due to experience they had after doing 31 C rank missions and facing actual danger, they did not voice their complaints.

"Ah yeah, forget to mention you guys have a B rank mission to finish today." Kakashi lazily said, who received a glare from Naruto, whose face says 'Are you planning to kill us?!'

Sakura sighed, seeing no point of arguing back.

Sasuke was confused how exactly they got it, as they were normally not reserved for Genin unless during wartime.

And of course they were allowed to use jutsus during missions since it was compulsory for them to wear weights for missions unless it was A rank mission.

But he forgot to mention 15 C rank missions they had to complete alongside 16 C rank missions and other 3 B rank missions during a 2 weeks period since he was not planning to be merciful to them.

***

'Looks like Sunagakure and others indeed wished to have a Chūnin exam after 6 months.'

3rd Hokage sighed, seeing that the current Chūnin exam had to be canceled since they were met with some unknown crisis that prevented them from coming for the current exam.

They did not disclosed further, supposedly to maintain their dignity, so 3rd Hokage did not pursue them.

He can hold Chūnin exam just for his village, but they would not make much of a point as it was used as mini wars in an effort to normalise ties to prevent any more war and please the Fire Daimyo and his officials.

So after calling elder council and discussing with Danzo, his fuck bud- I mean the Dignifying Director of Root and his other two friends, whom monopolised other sectior in Konoha, they declared cancellation of the current exam, giving the same explantion other villages gave to them.

Fortunately for them, their village Genins were sensible and could wait for 6 months for the next exam.

Though in truth, Genins in Konoha did not care, they were already busy being pissed thanks to Team 7.

For over 3 months they have completed 93 C rank missions, 8 B rank missions and 1 'A' rank mission, which was an incredible feat during peacetime.

Thanks to their performance, every C rank mission they received, their client had multiple complaints against them and sometimes reduced their commission price.

Two things were common among the complaints.

They expected Team 7 to do it.

They expected other teams to have a 'clients is right' policy while performing well in mission.

So the Team 7 was a team sought after by clients and loathed by all other teams in the village, especially by recently graduated Genins, who could not believed Naruto, the dead last, was that good and well liked by their clients.

Some tried to bad mouth Naruto like revealing him being demon fox/Jinchūriki, which are met with ridiculement mostly because clients had no idea of shinobi profession, as their fight are far faster they can keep up with and nature of mission after A rank were never published in public, so naturally they did believe tail beast and Jinchūriki were myth made up to scare civilains, finding it ridiculous that a person who could bore so much a power, especially a kid like Naruto who bore no animalistic trait they were describing.

Hence their tactic backfired badly, where they were met with even more complaint and reduction in commission as they believed they were trying to spread misinformation out of jealousy which could had worked, if Team 7 were not good at mission and handling clients feelings and pride.

Naturally, some of them out of hatred tried to target him as last resort, only to met with severe warning letters from 3rd Hokage, courtesy of Kakashi reporting and clients bias towards Team 7, where few of them even no longer a shinobi after taking away forehead protector, in basis of doing a terrible job according to their clients and going against 'Will of fire' by trying to attack their fellow comrades.

Danzo gave full support to it, since he was looking for test subjects to use on anyway and they were ideal targets since not many people would care if they 'disappeared'.

This was all thanks to the butterfly effect, Sasuke heavily underestimated more than he assumed in the beginning.