Starting over

#83 Debriefing

Naruto POV 

We reappeared in front of Sunagakure’s walls, startling the two guards that were posted at the entrance to the village. I painted slightly since it took a lot of chakra to teleport such a large group, but other than that we were fine. “Ah Hana, Nine. Welcome back.”, we were greeted. Nodding, we led the council into the city, towards Gaara’s office. 

Gaara immediately knew, that I had blown my cover as we walked into the room, just from the fact, that we were way ahead of schedule. He shot me a look that promised, that he would deal with me later, but instantly turned to the council and greeted them with a smile. 

Waving his hands he dismissed Temari and me, along with our teams. We blurred away, towards our training ground, for a quick debriefing. 

“Alright, all together, this mission was a success, your teamwork was great, when it needed to be and your individual skills seem to have improved. However there were a few things, that we have found, that still need work. Joaba, Korun, great teamwork but you need to work on the speed of your jutsu and on your strength and endurance, it was clear, from the second attack, when the two black tengu attacked you, that you wouldn't last much longer. Shiji, you also need work on your strength, but primarily you need to increase your chakra reserves. Horun, you also need work on your reserves and maybe try to get your chakra control higher, so that you don't waste as much chakra on your jutsus. Paira and Gabu, you were almost flawless, just keep training everything so that you don't slack off and you will be fine.”, Temari said, after she and I had talked about our conclusions from that mission. “Ok, that’s all. You are dismissed until we are summoned to escort the council back.”, I finished and the six Anbu blurred away. 

“You okay?”, I asked, when Temari sighed and leaned her head on my shoulder. “That was way to close.”, she mumbled. “I should have been able to detect him running at me.”, she continued. She shot me an angry look, when I chuckled slightly and wanted to shout at me for chuckling at her almost getting killed, but I was faster and started to explain myself. “Don't worry about your detections skills, they are just great, but I had actually calculated this. The thing is, Akira has a special skill, that can cause everyone in her vicinity to look at her and completely forget about his surroundings. She can control who it affects to a certain degree, that is why the black tengu was not affected. We had planned this from the start, when we came onto the clearing.”, I explained, earning a surprised and confused look from the blonde girl. “But why? I mean, if you hadn’t done this, you would not have had to reveal yourself.”, she began and then her eyes went wide. “Where is the good in possessing a weapon or technique with such prestige and power when you can't use it to intimidate your opponents?”, I asked, confirming Temari’s suspicion that I had intentionally revealed myself as the son of Minato Namikaze. “Look at it from this point of view; Suna is a giant fortress surrounded by a vast desert. No one would dare to attack us alone, and if they get word, that I have mastered the hiraishin, they won't even dare to attack us, even if they have all four great villages in an alliance. I mean, Gaara is a beast even without Shukaku’s help, in the desert he is arguably even stronger than me and with the help of his partner, he is almost unbeatable. If you take us and the Anbu into the equation, not even the seven other beast together could defeat us. And we still have the whole of Suna’s shinobi to back us up.”, I tried to reason. 

“While you are right, have you thought about all the casualties, that such a conflict would cause?”, Gaara’s voice came from behind us. I looked behind me and saw Gaara standing there, his arms crossed, a stern look on his face. “Yes, I have and I am sure, that as long as we do not try to take over any of the other villages we will be fine, since the other leaders would most likely have the same fear of losing to many good shinobi. Since they know, that Suna is the best defended of all the great shinobi villages.”, I said, earning a thoughtful nod from the kazekage. “And besides, I am relatively sure, that you could convince the council to keep it secret what they saw.", I added. 

"Well, that would be true. The problem is that the council will go to Konoha after we are done here and they want to make a trade deal with them, too.", Gaara explained. I was surprised at that because, one; I didn't know that Ishigakure wanted to negotiate with Konoha, too, and second; I wouldn't have thought that Gaara would accept that so easily. 

" I can see that you have problems with that, but believe me, I have tried to talk the council out of it. The problem is, even our council thinks it would be a good step towards an alliance between the leaf and us. We just have to deal with it and see, maybe they have changed since you left it's been a decade after all.", Gaara said.

"Let me remind you of the meeting after the chunin exams.", I said with a grim face. The memory of that meeting was still etched into my mind. 

"Yeah I know, but I think Tsunade has put her foot down on these people.", Gaara argued. 

I shrugged and decided to let the topic drop, not wanting to argue with the Kazekage anymore. 

"Well, anyways, team Daiku and Shiro will be responsible for the protection of the council until they are back in Ishigakure. You have permission to keep your identities hidden while in Konoha, but the hokage has sent me a letter, that she wants to talk to you both in private. I don't know what she wants to talk about, but she pleaded to me that I would send you two to her.", Gaara ordered, receiving a nod from Temari and me.