It had been roughly three days since Naruto's performance at the stadium against all of the genin. Tsunade let him be for the time being because he deserved the rest. That was one reason, the other reason was that she wouldn't have him doing anymore D-rank missions with Team 7, and they couldn't go on them anyway seeing as how Naruto had put Sasuke Uchiha on the shelf with the butchering job he had done on Sasuke's arm.
This was part of the arrangement made between Tsunade and Kakashi. Naruto was no longer considered a member of Team 7. It was a good idea, with Naruto having just destroyed Sasuke and Sakura in combat almost effortlessly, the team dynamics, what little there were in the first place, would have been screwed. She proposed to have him go solo and float between teams, either more experienced teams of chunin and jounin to get field experience, or the younger genin teams to give him some experience in leading teams.
This actually kind of worked out in Naruto's favor. For all of his want to get promoted the fact was that while he was in Ne he was used primarily for solo missions, things that only had him worrying about his own back and what he had to do to survive. This would allow him to learn how to fight in conjunction with others. He needed to learn how to work in a team and how to keep his comrades alive when they were with him. He couldn't argue that he wasn't ready to lead a squad of ninja as a jounin yet, he knew that.
So on the morning that our story picks up from Naruto ambled his way through the streets of Konoha on his way to the Hokage Tower to get himself a mission. The looks he ended up getting from the civilians on his usual path were the usual looks of apathy and sneers that he usually got, but when Naruto turned his own eyes onto them they turned away from him. Naruto sighed as he drew closer to the tower.
Upon entering he made his way to the office of Tsunade, which was filled with the other Konoha genin he had fought, minus Sasuke, all of their jounin sensei, and the genin team from Sunagakure. Naruto raised an eyebrow at all of the people in the room. He looked at Tsunade, "So what do you got for me today baa-chan?"
Tsunade threw the paperweight on her desk at Naruto who just ducked it with a smirk. She narrowed her eyes at him, "…Disrespectful brat… I called you here so that you could begin getting to work helping out with the surplus of missions that we have."
She looked at all of the genin in the room, "Things are still kind of shaky after the invasion but we can't turn away any of the work that comes into us. Not only is the money necessary, but we need to keep up with the view that we are strong, so genin like all of you will be getting higher ranked missions more often."
Tsunade motioned for Naruto to come forward, "You will start off with your chunin duties today. You will be leading one of these teams on a C-ranked mission today. Seeing as you will be the highest ranked member on whatever squad you end up taking you will be the leader."
Naruto pointed at the Suna genin, "So why are they here? And can I pick them?"
Tsunade nodded, "You can pick them if that's what you want. Though they aren't really a team for a mission, more like they are the mission."
Naruto thought to himself for a moment, "Okay, I'll go with the Suna kids. I don't really feel like fighting bandits or something right now anyway so whatever I'm doing with them I'll take that one."
He turned to face them and motioned for them to follow him closer to the desk before he stopped in front of Tsunade, "So what's the mission?"
Tsunade handed them a scroll from the C-ranked pile, "The main reason that the Kazekage's children have been in Konoha for so long has been mostly as some sort of collateral while we begin talks for the treaty between our villages. Negotiations are firmly under way so we are returning them to their village. You will escort them there and wait for Suna to finalize the treaty on their own side before you return with a scroll from them."
He looked at her in confusion, "This is C-ranked? Are you serious? It should at least be B. Oh well whatever…" Naruto scratched his head, "So do I get a team for this or what?"
Tsunade shook her head, "Naruto they are a team. You plus them should be a match for pretty much anything that could attack you between here and there." Tsunade tossed Naruto a scroll that he caught wordlessly.
"Flying solo… Okay I guess." Naruto pocketed the scroll and turned to his selected team, "All right, do you guys have everything you need for the mission or do we need to square away some time to get you restocked before we leave?"
The siblings traded looks as Temari spoke up, "We're ready to go whenever you are. When do we go Naruto-san?"
Naruto cringed when she said his name, "Uh, just Naruto is fine Temari, I'm not much for the honorifics." He scratched his head nervously, "All right if you guys are all ready to go then lets head on out, no sense in wasting time. I'm sure you're all sick of staying here."
As the other teams lined up to get their own assignments Naruto lead the Suna contingent out of the office and out towards the street.
XxX
On their way out of the village Naruto found that while the civilians didn't particularly like him due to his thorough dissection of the entire slew of genin the other day, the ninja higher in rank gave him some respect for it. As he walked towards the target gate he got nods of acknowledgement from the chunin he found out on patrol, the jounin out with their genin teams or just some of the ninja out in general.
As he made his way to the western gate the perennial gatekeepers, Izumo and Kotetsu, got grins on their faces upon seeing Naruto and company make their way to the gate. Naruto walked up and revealed the mission scroll given to him by Tsunade, "Chunin Naruto Uzumaki with a mission to Sunagakure alongside the Kazekage's children."
Kotetsu nodded and marked it down on the traffic ledger. The bandage-nosed shinobi chidingly elbowed Naruto, "Hey kid, good stuff the other day at the stadium. You pretty much sleepwalked through all of those kids."
Naruto shrugged as he wrote down his own signature on the page, "Well we couldn't use killing force on each other, I guess they were all holding back too, but they shouldn't have. Kami knows Sasuke didn't… for all of the good it did him."
Naruto handed the papers back to the two chunin and called for the Suna genin to leave with him. As the two chunin watched him walk away from the village Izumo chuckled, "That kid's going to get promoted before us at this rate."
Kotetsu yawned as he went back inside their booth, "I don't really mind too much. Let a kid with some ambition move up in rank, I'll be fine right here."
Izumo sweat-dropped in response to his partner's comment, "So does that mean that you want to watch a gate for the rest of your career? You are one lazy bastard."
Kotetsu gave a small smirk, "Hey, it beats actually working for a living doesn't it?"
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