Naruto looked at Tsunade and glanced around the room. He wondered why exactly Kiba, Neji, and Choji needed to be wheeled into Sasuke's room. What was so important it couldn't wait until they were strong enough to walk?
He also noticed Shikamaru and Lee coming in. If not for the fact that Kakashi and Sakura were also there he'd think that it was a meeting about the retrieval mission which had barely been a success. He glanced again at Sasuke, who looked absolutely pissed off. Naruto resisted the urge to wipe the look off his face. It seemed that since the Valley of the End Naruto had reached his limit for bullshit and wanted nothing more than to pound the smug asshole right out of the prick.
Tsunade cleared her throat, catching the attention of everyone in the room. "Alright now that you are all here I will make my announcement. I am here to announce the decisions myself and the council have come to. First off, Sasuke Uchiha, you are hereby stripped of your ninja rank and your chakra will be sealed until such time we think you have proved your loyalty to the leaf village."
Sasuke immediately protested, "You can't do that!" He clearly wanted nothing more than to attack the woman and Kakashi tried to intervene, "Don't you think that is a little harsh Tsunade-sama?"
All the members of the retrieval team stared at the man in shock. Was he really going to argue such a light sentence when the guy had tried to defect to one of the villages' greatest enemies?
Tsunade snarled at them, "I wanted a much harsher sentence! He almost got four people killed. He was attempting to betray us. I think for that he should at minimum be imprisoned."
Tsunade ignored Sakura's attempts to defend her crush and moved on, "Anyway this is not a debate I am telling you what has already been decided. Next up, Choji Akimichi, Kiba Inuzuka, Neji Hyuga, Rock Lee, and Naruto Uzumaki you all have earned the position of Chunin."
Total silence greeted this declaration. Naruto managed to speak first despite his surprise, "Are you serious, Granny?"
Frowning at the nickname she said, "Absolutely. The Sound Four were clearly jounin level and you all not only survived you completed the mission. We have decided that you have proven yourselves worthy of the rank and the accompanying responsibilities. Congratualtions," she smiled warmly, and almost as an afterthought added, "And Shikamaru will be receiving special commendations."
Sakura shrieked, "You're rewarding him? He almost killed my Sasuke-kun!"
Naruto finally snapped, "Oh shut up you damn banshee!"
Everyone looked that him in shock. Kakashi immediately scolded him, "Naruto that was highly inappropriate."
Naruto snarled at him, "Oh I call her a banshee one time and that's inappropriate? What about all the times she called me stupid or a moron or a loser?"
When Kakashi failed to respond, Naruto turned to the Hokage, "Granny I'd like to be pulled from Team 7."
Almost everyone was too shocked to respond, but Tsunade, collecting herself quickly, asked, "Why?"
Naruto said coldly, "They are holding me back." He ignored everyone's reactions and focused his gaze on his soon-to-be-former team. "Tell me, what have I gained from this team? I certainly haven't gained a team!"
He turned to Sakura, "What kind of ninja are you? Do you remember the day of team selections? When you said your likes, hobby and dream you looked at Sasuke, blushed and squealed. You diet when if you were training properly you wouldn't have to worry about gaining weight. You are so proud of your chakra control but the reason you can control it so well is that you hardly have any. And you don't work at getting stronger. After how freaking useless you were in Wave I thought you might actually try and improve yourself.
"But no, in the Chunin exam you needed Bushy Brows, Team 10 and Sasuke to rescue you. And then you had what was little more than a schoolyard brawl with Ino, the only person in our whole class that may have been worse than you and you still couldn't beat her!
"And even after all of that you still haven't improved at all! You found Sasuke before he left the village and not only did you not immediately raise the alarm you offered to go with him! Your allegiance is to your village first, not to some damn crush.
"And then you asked me to save him and bring him back. You knew he left willingly what did you think I would be able to bring him back uninjured? He hurt me a lot worse than I hurt him and the only thing you cared about was that I hurt him. You never even visited my room."
The other rookies, Tsunade and Kakashi were amazed at how much tension was between these two. They couldn't believe how idiotic Sakura had been. And they couldn't believe that she was so obsessed with the would-be traitor.
Sakura looked as if she had been slapped. She wasn't really that bad right?
Naruto's gaze abruptly changed to Kakashi, "And you!" He said it as if it were a dirty word, "What the hell have you been playing at?" Seeing Kakashi's confusion he decided to elaborate, "I thought you were supposed to be our teacher, why the hell didn't you ever actually teach us anything? Since I've been your student I've learned tree-walking, water-walking, summoning and rasengan. And those last three I didn't learn from you.
"You never trained us you just had us do missions. And even then don't try and say you were trying to teach us teamwork because Sakura just sat out of everything that she thought might get her dirty and I always ended up doing most of the work.
"During the preliminaries you said that you didn't think even Sasuke could beat Neji. And you knew I had to fight him and the first thing you did was pawn me off on someone else. Did you even know that I had met Ebisu before? That he hated me? Did you even care? Did you even notice that Ero-sennin took over my training? And you know something, Ero-sennin wasn't even paying attention to me, he spent most of the time peeking on women and it still took him less than an hour to realize that Orochimaru had screwed with my seal."
At the sharp looks he received he said, "It happened in the forest of death. He noticed and removed it and you know something, everything got like ten times easier. Hell if I'd been left to Kakashi's care it'd still be there probably."
Kakashi immediately protested, but Naruto never gave him the chance, "Oh don't try and say you care or that you always have my best interests at heart. You've never trained me, you've never tried to stop my teammates from hurting me, both with words and fists, the first chance you got you pawned me off on someone whom you couldn't even be bothered to make sure didn't have a history of treating me like a waste of space.
"And you clearly played favorites! You taught Sasuke the chidori, a jutsu on par with the rasengan and then you told Ero-sennin that you thought I wasn't ready for the rasengan! And you know something? I never put my powerful jutsu through my teammate's chest which is more than I can say for your golden student."
This received gasps from everyone. Tsunade immediately began examining him for injuries even though she had already personally healed him. Naruto smiled up at the woman, thankful that he had her in his life.
"Team 7 has held me back. Who knows how strong I could be right now if I didn't have a brooding asshole and his number one adoring fan and a clearly biased teacher? I improved so much in just about two months learning from Ero-sennin. If I had someone teaching me the six months before the exams I might have not looked like I was pulling a win out of my ass at the last second. And the fact that I was strong enough to win despite everything means I could've been so much better with just a little guidance."
Naruto sighed and returned to the original point, "I can't stay with them anymore. They have proven beyond even the slightest shadow of a doubt that I am not wanted nor am I welcome on their team. And if I want to be made fun of and have my dreams mocked I can just talk to some of the villagers. I don't need that from people I'm supposed to be trusting with my life. If I'm really going to be a chunin then I want to be on a different team. They have always been the ones leaving me behind to rot.
"This time, I'm leaving them behind."