Naruto : Chapter 86

Konoha had been hit hard, but not as hard as it could have been. The precautions that had been set up before the chunin exam finals had started had taken out a lot of opposition before it could reach the village.

The lightning wire trap field around the village had only been overcome in the area where the snake summons had broken through.

And as three fifths of the area had been trapped like that, over three hundred attackers hadn't even reached the village walls. Those that had been inside the walls had managed to disguise themselves perfectly as normal guests.

Estimations were that Suna and Oto had sent about six hundred to seven hundred ninjas to attack.

The plan had been to unleash the Ichibi on Konoha to cause as much destruction as possible and kill as many of Konoha's ninja force as he could. But with Naruto taking out Gaara in his fight, that trump card had been stopped before it could be played.

Some important persons had been taken prisoner, like the other two children of the Yondaime Kazekage. They would see what they did with them in the following weeks. Right now Konoha was in a very strong position. The attack had been soundly pushed back and with little loss on Konoha's side.

The ones most talked about were Naruto Namikaze and Tenten, who had been leading in getting rid of the ninjas that had managed to infiltrate the village or avoid the trap fields. Next to them the performance of many other clan heirs, especially Sasuke Uchiha, were discussed openly with admiration.

While the evacuation of the civilians had been started way before the invasion was started, there had been some who had seen which people protected the village where. And the ninjas that had survived the invasion were telling others who had performed especially well.

The T & I department was overfilled right now with prisoners to interrogate. Anko and Kimie were very happy about that and went to work enthusiastically.

The villagers had also caught a few glimpses of the mysterious seal master Dark Phoenix when ANBU inspected areas where the damage had been largest.

Supposedly he was tasked to find ways to secure those areas better in the future. Nobody could make assumptions who Dark Phoenix was. He was clad in dark grey clothes with a mask like the Hokage to hide the lower part of his face and a hood that concealed his hair completely. And nobody ever got close enough to see more.

The Hokage meanwhile had put the village under lockdown for two weeks to take care of the most serious issues right away. There would also be a new policy for entrance into the village.

Many grumbled about the additional hassle, but the ninjas could see the benefit of knowing exactly who got close to the village.

That part had been in work for a long time and only the fact that the current surveillance seal barrier was very complicated and Jiraiya had taken a lot of time to completely understand the formulas, had prevented that it got ready in time for the finals.

After an invasion like this one, it was only logical that security would be upped. Most were just relieved that the losses hadn't been worse.

Most injuries weren't bad enough to keep the ninjas at the hospital for more than a few hours to rest and recover at home. About fifty had to be treated a bit longer and stay for a week, but that was about the longest anybody had to stay there.

The Godaime Hokage had made sure that all medics went through some remedial training to ensure that they were ready for the expected attack. He also had already ordered to check children at the academy for aptitude for medical training.

There had to be a lot of potential that could be exploited and if they started early on, they could ensure that nearly all teams had a capable medic on them.

A few craftsmen had been let into the village to help out with reparations. There were lots of houses that had taken damage and that needed to be repaired as soon as possible.

The main work force came with Tazuna from Wave Country.

Thanks to the help the Godaime's team had given the country some months ago, they had offered to help with the work for a discount rate. It had been happily accepted. The genin teams were all given jobs to help with the rebuilding. It was a good chance to give positive PR to the ninja program.

Many people were waiting for something else though. The announcement on the promotions from the chunin exams. There had been more than enough fights to promote a good number of genin to chunin.

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It was three weeks after the invasion and Kakashi had called in the judges of the exams together with the advisors he had chosen. He had sent Koharu and Homura into retirement as he couldn't stand their condescending ways and had made Hiruzen Sarutobi and Tsunade Senju his new advisors.

The reappearance of Tsunade had been a major surprise for most, but there were rumours that she had returned because of a lost bet.

Truth was that during the month of training for the shortly after the exams, Jiraiya and Naruto had confronted Tsunade. She had been at the stadium thanks to planning on betting on the matches and after the finals taking Shizune back with her as she had trained Sakura.

They had convinced her to stay in the village after Naruto had had a few very clear words about how she was whining like a brat about her losses. He had then let loose with the things he had lost and how he had suffered and that he still wasn't giving up.

He would show people that they were dead wrong going against him and that she should stop living in the past, and instead finally face the present. She was after all nowhere as bad off as he was and others were.

Sasuke had lost his whole clan to his brother, Kakashi had lost his parents, his teammates and his sensei, Sarutobi had lost his wife and daughter and there were countless others that had pulled though and gone on with their lives.

It helped that she had had to overcome her fear of blood to save Shizune, who had helped defending the village in the invasion and had been cornered by three Suna jonins.

Shizune had taken out two of them and Tsunade had punched the third of them through a house wall to save her apprentice. But during the fight Shizune had been hit in two critical points with a wind sword. One wound she had somewhat treated herself, but the second one had been too much for her with the loss of blood from the wounds.

Tsunade had trembled a lot, but the thought of losing the one person she could call family after all her other losses had made her pull though and overcome that particular barrier in her mind.

With a few additional concessions like being allowed to still travel for two months a year when things got too much inside the village and being given free reign over the set up for a medic nin program with enough financial means to do it properly with a good salary on top she had been convinced to come back.

The fact that Naruto had bet her that he could hold up against her in a fight for five minutes when she went jonin level had only helped with it. Now Tsunade had taken command over the hospital with Shizune as her assistant and was bringing them up to speed.

She had also taken up the Senju seat, which gave the Shinobi side of the council a lot more weight in decisions that concerned both parts of the council, few as there were left now that the Sandaime Hokage had cleaned up a lot of messes and the Godaime Hokage continued doing.

The Sarutobi seat was filled by Asuma, the Sandaime's son and Naruto had arranged that his father's seat, each Hokage got one for reaching the office that was hereditary for his clan after that, was proxied by Jiraiya or, if he was out of the village, Shizune for now.

He didn't want to deal with the council sessions right now as he still needed to train more and he didn't like the politics certain council members used. So he had decided to wait until he was at least sixteen to take up his seat, which none of the other shinobi council members had any problem with, thinking it a wise decision.

"Well, we're all here," Kakashi started the meeting, wearing the traditional Hokage robes. "As you all know, we have to decide which of our genin we want to promote to the rank of chunin.

The exams have given us a good number of talented young shinobi to choose from. I think the best way is going by the order of their fights and discuss if the candidate has proven the qualification for the rank."

"That sounds logical," Shibi Aburame agreed.

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