The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.~ Harold Taylor
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We took Genmai back to his village and watched him reunite with his son first, because he really didn't need to hear this.
Then, we filled Kakashi-sensei in on just what had happened. He listened grimly, especially when I mentioned Orochimaru. Now, post battle, and having to sort my thoughts out to report to Kakashi-sensei, I could see things that troubled me.
Orochimaru was after Sasuke. That much was obvious. But they hadn't tried to take him. He had used them to try and convince him.
"But," Naruto said, puzzled. "How did he know we were going to be here?"
Yeah. And that.
"A very good question," Kakashi-sensei said heavily.
Because that seriously implied a level of information about and/or control over Konoha administration that he shouldn't have had.
"Where did you fight?" Sensei asked.
"Where you left us," Sasuke answered, hands in his pockets. "At the reconnaissance point."
We went back there. Kakashi-sensei only paid cursory attention to the two sidekicks - dead and tied up - before turning his attention to Kajika.
"Kajika Futodoki," he said. "Jounin missing-nin from Mist." He glanced at us and shook his head.
I was a little surprised, too. He'd been strong, no doubt about that, but B-rank or low A-rank rather than what I considered Jounin. Maybe I'd just had too much contact with the elite.
Kakashi-sensei knelt and peeled away the strange hood. "One of Orochimaru's alright," he said.
I peered over his shoulder. Oh. Curse mark.
"It looks different," Sasuke observed quietly.
"Mm," Sensei said. "I've seen those ones before." That was interesting. Just how much experience had Kakashi-sensei had with curse marks? He had known how to seal up Sasuke's…
"They're one of the prototype stages," he continued. "Control… or maybe a better word would be 'possession'."
The chakra but no attack. The yellow eyes. The voice and laugh. "That wasn't a self-destruct jutsu," I realised. "It was done by Orochimaru."
"Most likely," Kakashi-sensei agreed.
I swallowed. "Talk about a guy that doesn't value his subordinates."
Sensei pulled out a scroll and started drawing up the seal to store the body away. Well, yeah. I guess we couldn't just leave them here. I went to seal up the other body to save time.
Then we dropped the prisoner off at the nearby outpost, which was a little out of our way but still better than trying to carry him all the way back to Konoha. The outpost was big enough to have cells, and there'd be a specialised prisoner retrieval team dispatched to pick him up.
We got back to Konoha fairly late in the afternoon, which was still impressive timing considering, and headed for the Hokage Tower.
"Err," Naruto said. "Aren't we going to the Missions Desk?"
Kakashi-sensei smiled. "Ah, sometimes you just need to go straight to the Hokage. Although, you generally need to be a Jounin before you get to decide if you need to…"
Translation; if Kakashi Hatake decided he needed to see the Hokage, he got to see the Hokage.
We did still need to check in with the secretary that managed her appointments, but luckily for us Tsunade was free. She didn't necessarily look too impressed with us though.
"I gave you a C-rank mission," she stated. "You can't possibly need to see me."
"Ah," Kakashi-sensei said. "About that."
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We didn't really hear more about it after that, and to be honest, I didn't really expect to. Genin weren't exactly in on confidential information, especially if they were trying to keep the whole thing quiet and take the infiltrators by surprise.
We had another couple of days off that we filled with team training. Kakashi-sensei drilled us through a series of team work exercises that were surprisingly difficult, but it was good to be working together again.
Then we got called up to see Tsunade again.
"To be honest with you, I don't know what to do," Tsunade said, eyes sweeping over us.
Well that was a promising start. She'd called all three rookie teams into her office, complete with sensei, without any explanation for why. I had an inkling, though, because we weren't the only ones here. Ibiki, Anko, Hayate, several Chunin dressed in Intelligence Division greys including Kotetsu and Izumo… clearly this had to do with the Chunin Exams.
Her next statement clinched it. "With the Final Exam being suspended, it was the opinion of many that none of the students should pass this time around." She paused, but I very much doubted she had called us all here just to say no one was getting promoted. For starters, Team Gai wasn't here. If all she was saying was 'sorry, but no' then Neji would have been here too.
"However," she continued. "I hear that the Third Hokage had nothing but the highest praise for a number of you. Indeed," she cast a faintly annoyed look over her shoulder. "The Proctors of the Exam have argued heavily in favour of promoting several of you. So, in this case, my opinion doesn't really matter. Would the following people please step forward."
She picked up a piece of paper. It was entirely unnecessary, and I'm sure she was just doing it to increase the tension.
"Shino Aburame. Shikamaru Nara and," she smiled faintly. "Naruto Uzumaki."
Naruto froze. I elbowed him in the side but he didn't move until Kakashi-sensei put a firm hand on his shoulder and shoved him forward to stand beside the other two.
"From this day forth, I hope you will strive to achieve a level of excellence worthy of that headband. Congratulations, as of this moment you stand a Chunin."
"Me?" Naruto blurted out, overwhelmed with shock.
"Yes, you," Tsunade said. "The Third Hokage had you slated for guaranteed promotion, and the Proctors were all in agreement on that case. I guess you really impressed them, brat." She was really smiling now, eyes crinkling with good humour.
"Way to go, you guys!" Kiba crowed, apparently having decided that was the end of the formal stuff. "I knew you could do it, Shino!" Kurenai didn't scold him; she was practically beaming with pride.
Shino adjusted his glasses, which seemed to be some kind of nervous tick of his. "I am surprised. Why? Because I lost the match."
Hayate coughed. "It's as the Third Hokage said before the Exam. Winning is not the criteria by which promotion is judged. You managed to show the qualities of a Chunin during your match - one of which was the good judgement to resign when cornered."
If Shino hadn't resigned, and Shikamaru had thrown those kunai, he would have taken serious damage for no benefit because he still would have lost the match.
"These are the only three of the promotions that all the Proctors were in complete agreement on," Tsunade cut in. "Still, for an Exam that didn't get past the first round, I'd say it's a pretty good sweep. Congratulations."
Ino looked disappointed but resigned. She'd had a good match, but the way Temari had managed to take her out had pointed out a critical flaw in her planning. That wasn't really something that could be overlooked, and she knew it.
Sasuke just nodded curtly. His match had been interrupted, true, but even before then he hadn't shown much in the way of tactics. An impressive mastery of Taijutsu and Ninjutsu, yes, but more of the 'hit it until it stops moving' kind. Granted, facing Gaara didn't leave him with many options, but still.
"Con-congratulations, Naruto," Hinata said softly.
"Heh, thanks Hinata," Naruto replied, tucking his hands behind his head. "I wasn't really even thinking about being promoted. I just wanted to show Neji that he was wrong, y'know, about people like us."
A faint pink spread across her face probably from the 'like us' comment.
The shinobi behind Tsunade had broken away to mingle. Izumo and Kotetsu made a beeline for us.
"Who would have thought, huh?" Kotetsu said, clapping Naruto on the shoulder. "You sure surprised us, you know."
Naruto chuckled sheepishly. "Well, Kaka-sensei does say I'm the most unpredictable ninja."
"I can believe that," Izumo said with a smirk. He nodded at me. "Sorry you didn't get through, kid. We recommended you be reconsidered and a couple of the guys agreed with us, but the Hokage put her foot down on anything less than complete agreement."
I blinked, startled. "I didn't even make it to the Final Exam," I protested.
"You impressed a few people anyway," Kotetsu said with a shrug. "The first two exams aren't just to get the numbers down, you know. And technically anything within the exam period counts…"
So, they'd not only been listening to us in the stands, they'd been judging too. Well. That was embarrassing.
"Oh," I said faintly. "Thank you, then." Given that I hadn't been expecting anything, it was easy to shrug off.
"Alright, everyone," Tsunade barked. "Out of my office. I've got work to do!"
The three new Chunin had to go down to Requestions to get their new vests. The flack jackets weren't compulsory to wear, but most Chunin and Jounin did anyway as marks of their rank and simply because they were handy, with moderate padding for armour and a decent array of pockets.
While the other two didn't seem too fussed, apart from some extra pride in Shino's case and extra slouching in Shikamaru's, Naruto had apparently decided that his new Chunin vest was the coolest thing ever.
Which was fair enough. It was one of the first symbols of actual recognition he'd received, right up there with his Konoha headband.
That didn't mean it wasn't annoying.
"Oh, man, this is so cool! Can you believe it?" Naruto asked for about the twelfth time. I think Sasuke was starting to develop a twitch.
"Yes, Naruto," I repeated. Again. "We should…" I was about to say 'celebrate' except I knew he'd want to go to Ichiraku and we'd only just had lunch. I didn't think I could stomach a bowl of ramen like now. "Keep training. We've got a lot to do," I finished, if a little weakly.
"You're right!" Naruto declared. "Just because I became a Chunin doesn't mean I can slack off! There's people out there that are way stronger." He clenched a fist and raised it high. "Let's go!"
I rolled my eyes. Whatever worked.
Then Naruto paused. "Hey, if I'm a Chunin… does that mean you guys have to listen to me?"
Sasuke snorted. "In your dreams, dead last."
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After training, I met up with Ino outside the Hokage Tower and we meandered to the nearby park, claiming one of the picnic tables for our own. Ino had been really keen on the 'study group' idea, and given that we were all currently in Konoha, had decided it was time for the first meeting. If we kept this up, we'd have to come up with a better meeting place - particularly when the weather turned - but for now, with warm afternoon sunshine and no wind to speak of, outside was fine.
"So Hinata was absolutely delighted," Ino said, cracking open one of her books. "You'd have thought I'd invited her to a party or something."
"I guess she doesn't get many excuses to hang out," I said. "Sakura should be finishing soon, right?"
"Yeah. She might stop to grab something to eat though." Ino frowned slightly. "You know, I'm not that informed on the whole medic training thing, but they don't normally work at the hospital, do they?"
"No," I agreed. "Not till much later anyway. But they're hardly going to turn away people that volunteer and it does earn her major kudos. Unofficially, anyway. I'd say it was a sneaky way to ingrate herself, if I thought she was doing it on purpose."
Even though Konoha tried to be fair, there was still a very large degree of 'who you know'. Once training had been completed, the new med-nin still had to be assigned jobs. Typically, whoever was in charge of those assignments was more likely to recognise clan names (particularly their own) and accept that those people had adequate training. Considering that they typically got extra instruction that the rest didn't, it wasn't an incorrect assumption, just unfair. Thus, those clan kids typically got the best postings. That wasn't even going into how head of departments could request specific people be assigned to them, usually relatives. Sakura, by making herself known at the hospital, was circumventing that.
And while it was taking time away from studying, Sakura had always been an excellent student.
Ino snickered. "Sounds about right."
"Hey, there's Hinata," I said, catching sight of her familiar jacket.
Ino stood on the seat, waving her arms. "Hey Hinata!" she shouted. "Over here!"
There weren't that many people around, so it was pretty unnecessary. Then again, Ino had never felt any shame for being loud and the centre of attention.
"Hi," Hinata said with a pretty flush. "I'm not late?"
"Nah," I said easily. "We're still waiting on Sakura. How are you?"
We chatted until Sakura got there, not too long after.
"Sorry, sorry," she panted, dropping a stack of books on the table. "I tried to hurry."
"Don't worry about it," Ino said, brushing it off. "We haven't been here long."
"Right," Sakura said. "So how are we going to do this?"
Ino paused. "No idea, actually," she admitted cheerfully. "I call getting us all in one place a minor miracle. Didn't think much beyond that."
I snickered. "Maybe if we work out what each of us knows, first. Then we can figure out where to go from there."
It was pretty much as expected. Ino was fairly well grounded on the medicinal properties of plants, but only beginning to learn about the human body itself.
Sakura had a surprising wealth of information, far beyond what her classes covered. Apparently she'd been reading ahead, and the other med-nin and nurses had been more than willing to part with tip and tricks during the hospital day. She was pretty good at forming Yin medical chakra, though hadn't actually used it for anything yet.
Hinata also had a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the body, probably augmented by her Byakugan, but stuck solely to making salves and ointments.
"You don't know any medical jutsu?" I asked curiously.
She shook her head. "I c-can't use them," she stammered. "Because of the Jyuuken."
I paused, remembering how I'd tried to make chakra blocks, only to have them fade away when I disconnected. For Jyuuken to continue to affect people after being hit, there must have been something making it… solid. It might have been a natural extension of their Bloodlimit or it might have been harnessed through training. Something so attack based would be difficult to change to healing chakra.
"Because you make those chakra plugs," I expanded. "It means you can't form Yin natured chakra. Or if you could, it would set your Jyuuken back, a lot." There were Hyuuga medics, after all. But Hinata was the clan heiress, and she was expected to fight.
Hinata nodded, a little miserable.
"That's okay," Ino cut in, brightly. "There's plenty that can be done without medical jutsu."
"She's right," Sakura agreed. "Why don't you tell us about your ointments? How effective are they?"
Hinata brightened.