The inauguration of Lady Tsunade as the Godaime Hokage was short and abrupt much to the consternation of the elders. She refused to wear the official robes and grumbled about wearing the hat, though that she donned in a symbolic show as she gave her oath. She removed it immediately afterwards and stalked back into the Hokage tower to the amusement of the shinobi that had gathered to watch her be sworn in.
Sakura and Yamato were summoned two days after she took office and Sakura assumed it was to do with the rather forceful demands from a Senju clan elder that she accept the Senju name and clan. Shikamaru and Asuma being in the office meant that her assumptions were wrong.
"Haruno, Nara. Out of all of the candidates in the chūnin exams, you two stood out the most. Haruno not only did you answer every question in the first stage correctly, you didn't have to resort to cheating to get them. You also managed to give those same answers to your teammate without anyone catching you cheating. What's impressive is that a selection of those questions were taken from the last jōnin exams."
Shikamaru and Asuma turned and looked at her sharply while Sakura tried to hide her blush. "In the second stage you managed to not only meet the second stage objectives, and bring your unconscious teammates to the tower in record time for a Konoha team, but you also managed to capture and bring in Orochimaru- a K-rank missing nin. Yes it was a lucky shot that you made, but I know my old teammate. You had to have had some skill in making it stick."
Sakura was beet red and just wanted to hide from the praise. She'd thought she'd wanted recognition of her skills, but it all sounded so ridiculous.
"Finally you made it through every single one of your matches in the third stage. You showed your worth and your dedication and your strategic potential in each match by only stringing out the showcasing of your skills and never reusing one so your opponent was always caught off guard. I am especially impressed by your approach to your final match, you showed that you know your limits and that you know when to hold back and when not to. You have increased the village's reputation and your own. I am very proud to congratulate you for advancing to chūnin."
"Thank you Hokage-sama," Sakura whispered, accepting the scroll and the green flak jacket. She slipped it on over her usual outfit and it felt too bulky. She wasn't exactly large and she imagined she looked like she was playing dress up in her father's clothes.
"Nara, you also passed the first stage of the exam without being caught cheating, and judging from your answers you also managed to answer some of the jōnin exam questions on your own. Your team made it through the second stage with time to spare and without any injuries- which is also something that we look for. You showed a lot of strategic thinking in both your preliminary match and your match in the third stage, and even though your forfeited you showcased your skills and you showed that you are also aware of your limits. I am also very proud to congratulate you for advancing to chūnin."
"Doesn't sound nearly as impressive as Sakura's speech," he mumbled as he accepted his own green flak jacket. Asuma winced at the comment but the Hokage only smiled.
"Of course it doesn't, you Nara are the laziest people I've ever met." Sakura snorted and Shikamaru grinned and donned his new apparel.
"Thank you Hokage-sama," he said, leaving it up to them to decide if he was thanking her for the promotion or for her comment.
"For now, you'll both remain where you are team wise until you've passed a field medic first aid course. Haruno, don't forget you will need to visit the mission pay desk to sign for your bounty."
Sakura paused. "What bounty?"
"Orochimaru's bingo book bounty. I've just approved the payout." Asuma choked, while Yamato clapped her on the shoulder.
"Looks like it's your shout for lunch today," he grinned.
"You're making her pay for her own congratulatory lunch, shame on you Yamato. We're having lunch with Ino and Chōji at Yakiniku-Q at noon, you're welcome to join us."
Sakura's face lit up with a smile. "That sounds great Asuma-sensei. Thank you Hokage-sama. I'll swing by the pay desk soon," she added bowing. The blonde waved her away.
"Make sure that you do. You can send the next team in."
"SAAAKURAAA!" Ino's enthusiastic squeal echoed throughout the tower and Sakura braced for the hard hug her best friend subjected her to before she'd even left the Hokage's office. "You made chūnin! Congratulations!" She frowned at her teammate. "Forehead I get. How did you get promoted?"
"I'm not just a pretty face. I'm talented and smart too," he shot back.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ino growled reaching out and gripping his new jacket threateningly. Shikamaru looked away like he was already bored of the confrontation.
"For such a talented and smart guy, you're a bit of an idiot Shikamaru-kun," Sakura drawled. His eyes flicked up to her sharply and he tensed. He slapped Ino's hands away lightly, she- in return, turned and looped her arm around Sakura's, her hair whipping him across the face.
"Tch, troublesome," he muttered shoving his hands into his pockets while Asuma and Chōji grinned at him, silently agreeing with Sakura's assessment.
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Kakashi arrived on the bridge three hours after the time he'd told Naruto and Sasuke to meet him. He'd gone through some serious introspection since his genin team had been split up. He felt all twisted up and his usual response of compartmentalise and ignore wasn't working.
He was angry over Sakura's accusations. He was angry over her words and her actions towards him and her teammates- former teammates. He was angry that she'd abandoned them. Those that abandon their teammates are worse than trash.
He was angry because in hindsight she had made a valid point. They weren't a good team. Not to her, and not to each other. He was angry because that admission just made him feel all sorts of emotions that he hadn't had to deal with in a long time, emotions that he didn't want to deal with.
"Yo," he said, alerting the two boys to his presence. Sasuke glanced over silently, and Naruto who usually yelled and caused a commotion merely got to his feet and waited. He was feeling the absence of their pink-haired third the most. "I think we need to discuss a few things."
He led them to a nearby picnic table and placed two journals in front of him, one with an orange cover the other with a blue one.
"Sakura was promoted to chūnin today," he stated and watched how both boys reacted to that news in completely opposite ways. Naruto was happy for his friend even though he whinged that he'd wanted to be promoted too. Sasuke on the other hand was seething with anger. His Sharingan had flickered into life and his fists were clenched. He was even leaking a small amount of killing intent.
"She's weak," Sasuke hissed. "How did she get promoted?"
"No, Sasuke, she's not weak," Kakashi snapped, his tone hard and unforgiving. "She was just unmotivated. When she found that motivation we'd already written her off," he said including himself in that statement. "That's not her fault. That's ours for not noticing that she'd changed."
Sasuke glared up at him and Kakashi glared right back at him. "Turn your Sharingan off Sasuke. Don't ever look at me with those eyes in anger again." He leaked out a bit of his own killing intent and he knew the instant when the two of them realised that for all of his affable facade, he was underneath it all an S-ranked shinobi with a well deserved reputation both inside and outside the village walls.
"We're going to find some motivation ourselves," he continued when the red eyes turned back to black and he'd dialled back his feared persona to one that they were more familiar with. "But the first thing that both of you need to do is stop lying to yourselves. You will never improve, you will never succeed if you cannot fairly assess where you are emotionally, physically, and intellectually."
"What do you mean Kakashi-sensei? What are we lying to ourselves about?"
Kakashi turned cold eyes onto his own sensei's son and steeled himself to break the boy down so he can be built back up stronger.
"You think you're going to be able to be Hokage without putting in any effort. Your Academy marks show that you don't know much in the way of the village history, of the geography of the five nations or their history. I bet you can't even answer a single question about Konoha's allies, or the agreements that we have in place for trade."
Naruto made a face. "Why would I need to know that? That's boring. I don't need any of that."
"You need all of that just to be a chūnin. You didn't manage to answer any of the questions in the recent exams by yourself, you should have been able to answer at least three of them with what you should have learned at the Academy. Being Hokage isn't just about being the strongest or the best fighter in the village. It's about protecting and enhancing the village itself. That's about politics, and negotiation, a good Hokage is one that doesn't need to fight on the battlefield, they win their wars diplomatically. The village will never respect you if you place them in danger."
Kakashi shifted his cold eye onto Sasuke who was smirking at the blonde.
"Sasuke's lie is that he's anywhere near catching up to his brother, that a few A-rank jutsu is going to be enough, that there's a shortcut, an easy way to getting to where he wants to be, and that he's going to get better without anyone's help. The Uchiha clan was arrogant in their superiority, they relied on their dōjutsu, they thought they were better than the rest of the village just because they were Uchiha when in actual fact the majority of them never advanced further than chūnin if they made it there at all. Sasuke has all of their faults, all of their weaknesses, and he's currently blind to not only the people who are willing to help him get there, but the strengths of others."
"So help me," Sasuke ground out through gritted teeth.
"I can't help you until you stop lying to yourself first. This is not going to be easy. This is not going to be quick. You are not going to be able to beat him if you cannot move past your anger."
"You don't know! You have no idea!" he screamed.
Kakashi hated himself for his words because he did know. He knew what it was like to lose your entire family even if his entire family had only been one man to Sasuke's entire clan. At the end of the day they'd both been left alone at a very young age. They'd both be subjected to the sight of lifeless bodies in their home and both had had to clean up the resulting blood from the floor. Sasuke didn't want to hear that though, and Kakashi had spent so long keeping it to himself that he couldn't tell him.
"I said move past not forget! You need to get a handle on your emotions and work though them otherwise they will rule you and you'll always fall short of where you want to be." He felt like a hypocrite and promised himself, promised Sasuke and Naruto that he'd do better. He promised Sakura too. The one he'd already let down.
"We're going to put down your goals, and then set some realistic intermediate goals to work towards. Naruto you want to be Hokage. An intermediate goal of that will be to read up on the village's history, or learn about our allies. You may need to even set smaller goals or a list of things you need to do to work on that goal, like get a library card." He used Naruto as an example because Sasuke was looking a lot more vulnerable than usual underneath the simmering anger.
"We'll draw up an individual and a team training plan that will help you achieve those intermediate goals. Finally, there will be no bugging or pestering each other about what's been spoken of today. They are none of your business. You can be supportive without knowing everything. If you want to share that's fine, but respect the other's privacy. You will not like the consequences if I discover that either of you have broken this rule."
"Yes Kakashi-sensei."
"Yes Kakashi-sensei."
"Good, at some stage, you should congratulate Sakura on her promotion and if you can, apologise for being part of the reason she left the team. I have my own apology to give."
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~G