Hi! *Dodges Kunai* Um, Sorry? Didn't mean to leave you hanging for so long, but I'm back for a bit, at least, This story is almost done, and well, I might have a few oneshots . . . I'm waiting for the manga to finish before I start the third story in this series, though I may split that into two stories, one for up until Pein (or is it Pain?) attacking Kohona, and the other the war.

But that's the future. As a reminder, there are some spoilers for the manga, in particular a lot of the backstory information and things happening in the war, although I must admit, I'm not up to date with the current chapters.

Now, I promised training and missions this chapter, but first, a brief Recap- Team 7 is closer than ever, and have started wearing different clothes. Sandaime is still alive, but Ebisu died, the Kazekage is also still alive (it's a 'for want of a nail' thing, will be explained later), 'Rose' is the name of Sakura's Inner Personality that is now a split personality and Sakura herself is dealing with a slightly strained relationship with her mother, and Sasuke is discovering some rather unsettling information about the Uchiha clan, as well as discovered information about Naruto's mother Kushina and the Uzumaki clan, which he told to Naruto. Naruto knows the Kyuubi's name, but they're not really friends yet. 3 gennin have been chosen to be promoted to Chunin.

And this whole thing started because Kakashi was turned into a dog/wolf, but that's another story.

Reminder, this is an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE with some DIVERGENCE FROM CANON. I do not own the rights to Naruto, I'm just having some fun.

Tomorrow's Plans

Naruto was staring at the Hokage in blatant shock. Next to him, Rock Lee was also speechless, while Shikamaru was looking uncomfortable.

They had been called in with their teams to the Hokage's office- not the one used for day to day management, but one that was used rarely, for important meetings and had enough room for about 20 people.

The Hokage was sitting in front of a overly ornate desk that rumored had it was built by the Shodaime, with Iruka standing on one side and Jiraiya, who was stealing glances at Anko's fishnets, on the other. Hayate and Ibiki were standing next to her, and Shikaku, Chouza, and Inochi were leaning against the wall across from them.

"Hokage-jiji . . ." Naruto finally managed, making Sakura want to facepalm.

"You heard me correctly, Naruto. The three of you are promoted to Chunin. Uzumaki Naruto, you are promoted for inspiring others to stick through a difficult task, and protecting those incapacitated from danger." As the Hokage spoke, Kakashi gave Naruto the green chunin vest, his one visible eye practically glowing with pride. "Rock Lee, you are promoted for your strength and hard work to overcome what some would claim a debilitating handicap for a ninja." Gai held out the vest to Lee, who was still speechless, and while Gai appeared more stoic than normal, it was pretty clear to everyone in the room that Gai couldn't be more proud of his student. "Nara Shikamaru, you are promoted for your strategy and your discretion in dangerous situations." Asuma smiled at his most reluctant student, who took the vest in silence. "Congratulations, you've done your village, Hokage, and your teams proud." The trio slipped on their vests, and looked at each other before looking at their teams.

'Hell yeah!' Rose cheered, Sakura ignored her to give Naruto a hug. On cue, the office broke into conversations, Ino vowing to pass the next exams, and a quiet conversation between Gai and Lee, before Gai knelt and all but crushed his student with a bear hug.

Sasuke had watched the entire ceremony with a strange feeling in his chest. He was a little jealous that Naruto had managed to make it to chunin before he had, he could admit that, and he was also proud of his teammate's accomplishment, not the least because he was being promoted while Hyuuga Neji wasn't. But there was still an odd emotion that he couldn't place at seeing Naruto in the Chunin vest.

"Congratulations, Dobe." Sasuke offered Naruto a small smile, and got a slightly shaky one in return. Apparently, the promotion still hadn't sunk in yet.

"Thanks, Teme." Sakura rolled her eyes, and Naruto let out a soft yelp as Kakashi roughly ruffled his hair.

"Alright, let's get some lunch to celebrate, then we've got 4 D missions."

"Sensei! Don't ruin the mood yet!" Sakura complained.

"Ah, Sorry Sakura." Kakashi apologized, and Team 7 left, shortly followed by Team 10 and Team Gai.

"Well, I've got some Sound Ninjas to question, Anko?" Ibiki glanced at her, and tried not to feel disturbed at her sudden switch from professional to psycho.

"Who do I get?"

Hayate coughed as they left the room, before looking at Iruka. "If you want to go catch up to Team 7, I can help the Hokage, I have time."

"Go on Iruka." The Hokage interrupted what would have been a feeble protest, and Iruka smiled, passing Hayate the clipboard before leaving as well. "Hayate, if you could head back to my normal office, I need to have a word in private with Jiraiya."

"I'll get the stacks organized, then." Hayate nodded, and left, closing the door.

For a moment, the two remaining were silent, Jiraiya quietly doing a small chakra sweep for possible bugs (and not of the Aburame kind), before turning to his former sensei.

"You want me to bring her back?"

"Orochimaru is injured, most likely beyond the skill of his own healers." Sarutobi sighed, and leaned back in his chair. "I'm not as young as I once was, these injuries . . . there are some on the council who would use them as an excuse to remove me from office."

"Which would be counter-productive given the wreck they'd want to put on the chair." Jiraiya snorted, Danzo was missing an eye and arm.

"And when has that mattered in politics?" Sarutobi gave him a look, and Jiraiya once again felt like a wet-behind the ears gennin who'd made a mistake. "If you're still adamant about not taking the position,"

"I am." Jiraiya loved his village, but he preferred his intelligence gathering to sitting at a desk.

"Then I want Tsunade as my successor, given that my other in village choice is also adamant against it and my third is far too young." Sarutobi sighed. "But if she sides with Orochimaru . . ."

"I know." Jiraiya snapped, knowing where Sarutobi was going with this. It was a sore spot for all of them, but Jiraiya had taken it personally.

"You're probably the only one she'll listen too." Sarutobi said softly.

" . . . Maybe not. It's been a while." Jiraiya crossed his arms. "I want to take Naruto with me."

"Why?"

Jiraiya sighed, knowing what Sarutobi wanted to hear. He would have preferred to keep his reasons to himself, but then again, the old man probably already knew and just wanted him to say it out loud. "Kakashi may have taught him the Rasengan, but there are plenty of things I can teach him, summoning for one, seals for another. Also, from what I've seen, the brat's probably more likely than me to get Tsunade to listen." Jiraiya shook his head at the memory of the two jinchurriki fist-bumping, an obvious change from the Ichibi container's desire to kill. "And because I want to spend time with my god-son. Minato's probably throwing a fit that I haven't been around." Jiraiya paused and then shuddered. "I don't want to imagine Kushina's thoughts." Sarutobi chuckled at the thought, Kushina had been quite hot-blooded when it came to her opinions on family.

"I'll write the mission orders, but you'll have to deal with Hatake yourself."

Lunch for team seven had been fun, they had gone to Naruto's favorite Ramen stand, and had been treated by the Old man and Ayame, who had been ecstatic that Naruto had been promoted. Iruka had joined them, and they'd ended up spending a couple of hours there.

When they left, Team 7 headed to the Uchiha compound while Iruka headed back to the Hokage Tower.

It was after they had entered one of the restored training rooms (that was more like a small recreation room, as Sasuke and Naruto had placed some games and old cushions in) that Kakashi decided to address the complications of Naruto becoming Chunin.

"Now that Naruto's a Chunin, there's going to be a few things different than normal." Kakashi started, and almost kicked himself when he saw the way the three tensed. "We'll still do training and missions together as a team, but there will be times when Naruto is asked to go on a mission with other teams. Especially in the first few months of being a chunnin- they'll want to see how well he works with others outside of his gennin cell. For the most part, he'll still work more with us, but it's still a possibility that he'll have to do a mission with another team, and for longer durations of time." Kakashi explained, but the looks of dismay still hadn't completely disappeared. "What are you thinking of, Sasuke?"

"I . . . I don't want him going on missions without us." The idea didn't sit well with him, and part of it was the strange feeling of a gap opening up between them. Like he was going to lose a friend just after they became friends. Later, Sasuke would reflect that he had opened up to Naruto and Sakura more than he had realized, and he really couldn't stand the thought of losing them or even Kakashi. But right then, all he really could think was that he didn't like the idea of Naruto leaving them.

"Sakura?" Kakashi turned his attention to her, and she bit her lip.

"I'm really glad Naruto's been promoted, but, Rose and I feel like we need to race to catch up before he leaves us behind." Sakura admitted honestly, she'd been discussing this with Rose during lunch.

"Naruto?"

"I'm not leaving you behind!" Naruto looked affronted by the very idea. "I don't want to go on missions without you guys either, but we're ninjas, remember? We have to do our best! And the only reason you didn't get promoted is because the snake-guy interfered! Sakura's still smarter than me, and Sasuke, you're still my rival, so, so there!" Naruto stuck out his tongue and crossed his arms very childishly before pouting. It was ruined by Kakashi ruffling his hair.

"Quite right, and I'm sure I can train them extra while you're away." Left unsaid were Kakashi's own feelings about Naruto leaving the safety of the pack- and Kakashi vowed to find a wall out of view of his students to hit his head on, because a team was not a pack. "Now, about those missions . . ."

"Yes, Sensei?" Sakura tried not to sound dismayed by the idea of D rank missions.

"They're for tomorrow." Kakashi eye-smiled at their mixed reactions of relief and annoyance, as well as Naruto's face fault onto a cushion. "I'm sorry, did you want them for today?" He dodged a throw pillow from Sakura. "Now, we have to plan out training. Sasuke, I believe you're sufficiently recovered to start learning the technique I have planned for you. Sakura, I'll be starting you on basic medical jutsu, your coils are still recovering, so it'll still be a while before you can do more than that. You still have the books I gave you on the theory?"

"Yes, Sensei." Sakura nodded, and pulled out a storage scroll that contained the books.

"Good. Naruto, we'll be working on basic seals for storage scrolls and explosive tags first. I don't know if you read the book yet,"

"I did, it was boring."

" . . . It was just the basic introduction. I'm not a seal master, but I do know something about seals. We'll also work on seal detection and how to disable a seal." Naruto nodded, before looking at Sakura, who just rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I'll help you with the reading assignments."

"I think one of my cousins had a collection of notes on various seals." The library was still nowhere as organized as Sasuke would like, and there were books collected from the other houses still in boxes, but he had trouble focusing in there for long, or anywhere in the compound, for that matter. Cleaning the compound was still a slow process, as he felt a little like he was snooping through people's lives. Naruto didn't have the same problem, but would stop when Sasuke did, recognizing that he needed a break.

"You'll have to look through that later. Sakura, go over the book with Naruto, Sasuke, I'm going to start you on the basics of this technique- Sharigan can't copy it, so your brother won't be able to use it against you."

Hours later, Sakura headed home, having learned to heal small scratches. She wasn't really looking forward to talking with her mother, because of how strained things had gotten lately, and she really didn't want to tell her about Rose (who wasn't too happy about that, and really wanted to give her(their?) mother a piece of her(their?) mind. Thinking of split personalities was a little difficult.) because that would be adding fuel to the fire.

"Ah, you're home." Mrs. Haruno looked up from the stove. "Dinner will be ready soon, will you set the table?" It was a horrible attempt at normalcy, but Sakura went with it.

"I'm home." Sakura smiled, and quietly set the table. "How was your day?"

"Fine, the store is still being repaired. And yours?" Mrs. Haruno sat down across from her and picked up her chopsticks.

"Pretty good, I've been helping out at the hospital, and Sensei thinks I've got the potential to be a med nin, so I'm starting to train for that." Sakura smiled. "Naruto's been promoted to Chunin, so we had lunch together to celebrate. Sasuke-kun and I are going to be training really hard to pass the next test." Mrs. Haruno had winced at the mention of Naruto, and frowned at the mention of training harder.

"I don't know if I want you to take that test again, you were injured."

"Okaa-san, it'd would be different next time." Sakura straightened. "I talked with Sensei. Once a year a village hosts the public chunnin exams. They're used to show off how strong a village's shinobi are. But there are normal, private in village exams twice a year, and they're less dangerous." But they were still dangerous. Mrs. Haruno didn't pick up on that.

"I see. And what does a med nin do?"

"Heal. Stay out of fights so they can rescue their teammates." Of course, there were also the healing jutsus that could be weaponized, but Sakura left that part out.

'Lying by omission is still lying.' Rose pointed out, amused.

'Oh, shut up.'

" . . . Alright then. I guess I can't talk you out of it completely." Mrs. Haruno sighed.

'Excuse me!' Rose practically yelled, and Sakura could feel a headache coming on. 'She's acting like we didn't even give her a compromise! And she still has issues with Naruto?'

'I'll take what I can get.' The remainder of dinner was filled with small talk and some gossip about the neighbors.

And that's it for now, sorry, I'm scrambling to get my notes back in order and finish unfinished stories. Going to be a while before my next update, though not as long as this one took.

Ideally, the next chapter will have: Naruto going with Jiraiya, Sasuke getting an unwelcome blast from the past, and so does Tsunade. However, it's going to be a little different than canon . . .