Here's the new chapter. Has the Kage discussing the results and the chunin promotions, and then we have some interesting plot developments.
He was positively giddy now. The results had far and away surpassed his expectations. He honestly thought it was likely for the sand team to run away with the whole thing. Thank God that the Konoha teams had the sense to team up from the beginning. He turned his attention back to the discussion and said, "So, who do we consider worthy of promotion?" The final decision was mainly done by the Kage, though they had to consider the requests of some of the attending nobles.
Onoki grumbled as he said "Kurotsuchi was the only impressive one and practically carried her team. The other team lost easily. So only Kurotsuchi gets promoted from Iwa."
A said "I think Team C is worthy of promotion. Honestly, in a normal chunin Exams, they would have likely made it past the first round of the tournament. It's not my fault that these exams were full of monsters."
Yagura nodded in agreement, as though the team he sent didn't have those overqualified genin, and said "I think all the members of the one team I sent are qualified. They all have reasonably well-rounded skills and can lead teams if necessary."
Rasa said "Honestly, I thought the team I sent would win the entire thing on their own which is why I only bothered to send them. So I suppose all of them are worthy purely based on ability, though whether Gaara is suitable based on his personality is debatable. But I suppose it's fine to promote him on a temporary basis."
They all looked at him, probably just waiting for him to get it over with. He said in a sarcasticly thoughtful voice, "I wonder who to promote. I'm not sure."
Onoki just groaned and said "Just stop messing around and bloody promote all of them."
Yagura said "I agree. It seems most unfair for any genin who failed this time as well as those who'll be participating next time to have to go against people like that."
He smiled and said "Very well then. All the Konoha genin who made it to the final round of these chunin Exams are promoted."
The nervous leader of Takigakure quietly said "Fu is promoted. That's all." The messenger from the mysterious leader of Amegakure said "None of the genin sent this time were worthy of promotion."
Why did this have to happen now of all times ? The Chunin exams had gone perfectly. But now he'd found out that the convoys taking the two Jinchuriki from Suna and Taki had been attacked. Fu had been kidnapped and all of the Taki ninja had been killed. Rasa had managed to hold back the attacker for a decent while with some help from others, buying the for reinforcements to arrive from the nearby Shinobi villages as well as the Land of Iron, but he'd died in the process, leaving one of the 5 major villages without a Kage.
Normally this wouldn't exactly be bad news, but the idea of some mysterious organization kidnapping their jinchuriki frightened all the Shinobi villages. They were all scrambling to protect their own Jinchuriki. Konoha hadn't been attacked, perhaps because they weren't sure if they handle them given the size of the convoy and the numerous elite Shinobi there. Unfortunately, this fact drew suspicion to Konoha. The organization that had done the act had been identified as the Akatsuki, the mysterious mercenary organization, by the surviving sand Shinobi who had also identified their attacker as Sasori, a former missing nin from Suna. Since the organization itself was known for undertaking missions for various forms of payment, the possibility of Konoha being responsible for the attacks caused doubt in the minds of the other villages, who weren't very willing to share information with them in the first place. At least Suna was willing to give some information, as desperate as they were.
This was a mess. He'd called for Jiraiya and asked for all the information he had on this Akatsuki. He didn't have much, aside from them being an organization of S ranked ninja, which Orochimaru himself had been a part of. Moreover, Itachi Uchiha was a current member.
Suna had appointer an interim leader until someone actually capable and interested came along. Suna wasn't in the best of shape at the moment. They'd slowly been recovering their economy thanks to efforts of Rasa, who'd now died. Unfortunately Konoha wasn't in the best of shape either. It had several strong Shinobi, sure. Maybe more than all of the others. But their average strength level wasn't high. Their infrastructure and population had taken a hit during the attack of the Nine-Tails, and still hadn't fully recovered. They weren't as weak as Suna was right now, but they were not at the level of Kumo either. Considering A's personality, Kumo would probably start pushing their military expansion even further. Iwa didn't care much for their jinchuriki, which was why they let them roam around so much, an approach that Onoki was probably regretting now. Kiri was almost as weak as Suna now, but at least hadn't lost their Kage.
As he was thinking about all this, he noticed Kakashi come in. He sighed. He had a feeling that he knew what Kakashi would ask him about, but asked Kakashi anyway "What do you want ?"
Kakashi straightened up the way he did when making a request, and said "I would like to request a mission to bring Tsunade back to the village." Of course this what Kakashi wanted. He admired the man's loyalty to his people, but he couldn't send his most useful jonin out for something like this. Although, now that he thought about it, it wasn't a bad idea. The village did need it's strength to face what was ahead, and couldn't afford to have a valuable resource walking around aimlessly. He sighed and after thinking for a while, answered "All right, but you have one week. That's all. Who are you taking with you ?"
Kakashi answered "Jiraiya is the obvious companion. As for the others..." He watched as Kakashi trailed off and said in a stern voice "Spit it out Kakashi." Kakashi shook his hand nervously as he said "The other members of my team want to come. I haven't told them what the mission is actually about, but they guessed that it was something that would help Kiba and are demanding to come." Of course his students were the same way. Whatever. He doubted a couple of genin would make much of a difference. "All right, take them along. But remember, one week."
He watched as Kakashi bowed and left. If Tsunade actually came back, maybe he could work on dealing with his other, treacherous student. That was one issue he had to deal with himself, even if he had to give his life for it.
A/N
Hope you enjoyed that. Yes, all the Konoha genin are now chunin. Frankly, if you look at the abilities of every other chunin we've seen, they're certainly at least at that level. A lot of dialogue here. So, the main plot is starting to come along. We have this Tsunade arc, one hopefully short arc after that, and then we're done with part 1.
