Chapter 62: Preparations

Naruto and his team arrived in the Hokage's office and there was a heavier aura in the room than usual, it was much like the day when they were promoted to Chunin, it felt like they were being picked apart by the Hokage's eyes piece by piece.

"Usually a ninja of Konoha takes many years to advance in rankings, but the three of you have proved once again that you are worthy of being promoted to Jonin, all three of you have completed various A-rank missions with each other, by yourselves, and with other's proving that you can work with anyone, Konoha hasn't seen such talent in years so the council and I have decided to promote you to the rank of Jonin, now usually this would be a moment to celebrate but we have important things to talk about." The Hokage's serious voice informed them.

The three of them nodded seriously and waited for the Hokage to continue.

Hiruzen sighed deeply before he started talking again "As the three of you know the civil war in the Land of Water between Kiri and the Rebels has been raging for a few years now, the leader of the Rebel faction has reached out to Konoha, now we have considered sending help to them but the risk of losing too many ninjas is far too high and the benefits do not outweigh the losses we could have, and in case the rebels lost we would automatically gain a bad relationship with Kiri, but recently they have made some advancements and Terumi Mei, the leader of the Rebels has once again reached out to us, now we can't send them too many ninjas as we are still quite low on numbers but the three of you have been selected to go out and help them in defeating Kirigakure, it will be classified as an S-rank mission, of course, if you do not want to take this mission it is alright, the mission will undoubtedly involve a lot of killing, fighting, and you will most likely not be instantly accepted so physiologically this will be a difficult mission but I am confident that the three of you can accomplish this mission, Terumi Mei will arrive in Konoha in a day so you have today to decide whether you will take the mission and to make your preparations.

The three of them looked at each other briefly before they nodded, "We will accept this mission Hokage-sama." Naruto replied briefly.

Hiruzen nodded one last time and dismissed them, they needed time to tell their friends and family and to make their preparations.

The three of them all headed home, in this case, Naruto went with Sasuke since he needed to say goodbye to his aunt and uncle.

They arrived and from the look on Fugaku and Mikoto's faces they were already aware of the mission and Itachi looked quite sad, it was obvious that they had accepted the mission so they talked about the things that could happen and eventually Fugaku left with Sasuke, Naruto needed to say goodbye to a few more people so he also left.

Naruto first went to Ichiraku's, the little restaurant was one of the most important places in his life so he felt obligated to tell them that he would be gone for a while, then he went to Kakashi and Guy who were once again competing with each other and told them what he'd be doing, they were surprised but having both served in the Ninja Wars they weren't very worried for him, they knew about how strong he was so there was no reason for them to worry, the only person that would give him any problems would be Terumi Mei or the Mizukage, and perhaps the five remaining swordsmen of the mist who were still allied to Kiri.

There wasn't much left for Naruto to do other than gather supplies.

Naruto went home and grabbed a few scrolls that contained most of his stuff, which, admittedly, wasn't a lot as he kept almost all of his stuff in his inventory, there wasn't much else left for him to do so Naruto decided to make himself stronger.

He had leveled the 8 Gates to the max level which meant that he could go all the way to the 8th gate and survive, the gamer's body made it so the skill took HP every second but Naruto wasn't capable of using it for over 5 minutes so he decided to use his skill upgrade card, he hadn't gotten any missions that would give him another one so he was contemplating on using it but he decided that the 8 Gates was a good enough skill to use it on.

Naruto grabbed the skill upgrade card from his inventory, selected the skill that he wanted to upgrade and clicked confirm.

Nothing much happened other than a notification going off.

[You have upgraded The 8 Gates.]

[You have gained a new skill!]

[The 8 Heavenly Gates

Description: The 8 Heavenly Gates is the upgraded version of The 8 Gates, it is much stronger than the first version of the skill and can be taught to others, instead of taking away HP and vitality from the user it takes away 5% of your total chakra with each Gate opened, The 8 Heavenly Gates enhance any attack or jutsu and can even be utilized by channeling the energy you gain into a weapon that can absorb chakra, The 8 Heavenly Gates also grant you a few special attacks that are only useable by unlocking all 8 Heavenly Gates.]

Naruto grinned, he should've used the upgrade card earlier if it was this good, he wondered what the upgrade card was capable of doing.

Now that he had gained a new skill so he decided to go to a remote training ground and test it out, it would be best to try it out in a safe environment before using it in a war.

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