Dark Phoenix of Konoha by White Angel of Auralon

Part 33 - Aftermath

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.

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.

Thankfully for the chunin promotions only the shinobi council and the judges for the exams were required, otherwise the civilians would have tried to make a nuisance of themselves. They had tried insisting that they had a right to decide as well, but Kakashi had shot that down, claiming a purely ninja-related decision.