Chapter 4: Preparations
It had been a week since Naruto was appointed Hokage by the council, during this period of time several high-impact actions were taken for the village and the shinobi world, because apart from learning to be a Hokage in three days, he had the visit of cloud ninjas, so he was forced to classify Sasuke as a missing ninja and surprisingly the Raikage wanted to organize a summit to gather the five Kages of the main villages, something that had not happened since the times of the first Hokage, he had responded positively to the Raikage's request and after this the three Kumo shinobi left for their village. This had been the most important event in the three days of his preparation, after this he had talked to Master Fukasaku so that he would prepare a training regimen to complete in four days, to which the toad was more than happy to help.
Before leaving the village he had a talk with Kakashi to explain the situation to the jounin about his Hokage degree, to which the one-eyed shinobi was very surprised and his eye opened to sizes never seen before, he told the situation to his sensei and asked him to take charge of the village these four days, as he was afraid that Danzo would make some move and needed someone reliable to take care of any unforeseen, and of course Kakashi was happy to help his blond student in something and to be taken into account by Naruto, after this they caught up for a while as a sensei and student, and about how Naruto's parents would be proud of him, without any more talk Naruto said goodbye to start his training with the toads.
The four days on Mount Myoboku had passed quickly, between training all day, eating bugs and sleeping, and it was only an hour to return to the leaf, his training had been in a few words 'fruitful', with the help of the clones and his surprising naturalness for the wise mode had managed to raise his time wisely, because it went from five minutes to twelve minutes, also the number of clones he could do in this mode had risen to fifteen and he could throw up to five rasen shuriken before losing his, his taijutsu also improved exponentially thanks to the toads style. Apart from his skills as a sage he also dedicated himself to learning ninjutsu, especially of the wind type and some jutsos of the toads that use oil, and with the help of the toads he prepared strategies to counter the known abilities of the sharingan and a possible mangekyo sharingan by Sasuke, he had main focus on countering genjutsus and the techniques of Amaterasu and tsukuyomi that he knew from Itachi because he did not know the total of Sasuke's abilities. He was proud of his progress, he had done so much in just four days that he wished Jiraiya was there to see him, but it was about time, soon it would be his official appointment before the whole village and he was nervous, but more confident than the first day he received the news.
Konoha was partying, soon it would be announced who would be his new Hokage, people were elated and took this moment to rest from the reconstruction work and celebrate this day, there were many rumors about who would be his Kage but nothing was official.
Office of the Hokage
Naruto was surrounded by the elders, Shikaku Nara and his sensei Kakashi, the blond one was wearing black shinobi pants with matching sandals, he had a black long-sleeved shirt with orange lines on the sleeves and collar of the same color, over his clothes was a cloak similar to the one he used in his fight versus Pain, but this was white with red flames on its bottom, in the back he had the kanji for Rokudaime. "Don't get nervous Naruto" Kakashi told him as he put a hand on his shoulder and gave an eye smile to his student, who smiled at his sensei, "it's time, once we finish our speech and say your name you have to leave and it will be your time to speak" koharu said, with a nod from Naruto the elders along with Shikaku and Kakashi went out to the terrace of the Hokage Tower to start with the ceremony. Homura's voice was heard loud when he finished his speech "so let's give a round of applause to our Rokudaime Hokage and hero of the Uzumaki Naruto village", Naruto's body moved on autopilot towards the terrace, until he was shaken by Kakashi and he could hear the cheers of the people, the applause, the cries of excitement, the chants to his name, and he was surprised, he was up here being applauded and recognized by those who threw glances at him as a child, he had struggled to change that and this was the result of so much effort, his reward for never giving up and a new responsibility on his shoulders, he lightly wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve before tears came out, he smiled and Kakashi proceeded to put Hokage's hat on him, to which the cheers erupted even louder, after a moment Naruto spoke "inhabitants of leaf village, I am proud to be your new leader and to lead the way for all the generations present here, I know it is a difficult time for everyone, but we are the greatest village of all and as long as people keep their hope, THE WILL OF FIRE WILL BURN STRONGLY IN OUR HEARTS!, the village is not your buildings or your territory, the village is all of you who fill it with life, that's why this day I promise as your new Hokage to carry everyone's will to fire and protect it with my own life if necessary"" people went crazy, jumped hugging each other, cried with joy and sang LONG live UZUMAKI NARUTO!
The rookies and the Gai team were gathered in front of the Hokage Tower, the amount of people there was unheard of, all the streets were full waiting for their leader, "Who do you think the new Hokage will be?"Kiba asks, "I think it will be Kakashi sensei, after all I can't think of another for the position" Choji replied" "maybe it's like that, I've heard from several jounin that Kakashi is the one who is giving the missions and distributing the reconstruction tasks" Tenten spoke" "I heard from my father that a possible candidate is Danzo Shimura, he told me he was a veteran and fellow sandaime, he is also very influential in the council, so it must be an option"" Shino intervened, the ramblings of the shinobi were interrupted when the elders came out to start the ceremony and gave their full attention. Surprise was what everyone felt when they saw Naruto, or rather his Hokage, the reactions were quite varied, Rock Lee was talking and shouting about how great Naruto's flames of youth were, Kiba was ranting about how Naruto had overcome it, Ino, Tenten and Sakura were trying to explain what was happening, Neji, Shikamaru and Shino didn't say anything, they just gave a small smile in recognition of their friend's fulfilled dream, Choji was talking about how shocking the news was while eating a package of potatoes, and Hinata was happy for her crush, the boy she loved was finally achieving his dream and this made her very happy.
Naruto was in his new office, one that brought back many memories, like when he told the sandaime that he would remove the shadow and become Hokage, these memories brought him a smile, his work had started after the ceremony and his first task had been to choose his two bodyguards for the Kage summit, his first choice had been Kakashi and Gai, but Shikaku recommended that he should think about it well, since he could not take his best ninjas out of the village along with him, so after thinking about it for a while he decided to Neji who was a jounin and trusted friend, and for Yamato in case for some reason he lost control over the kyubi, once this was done he sent them to call to warn them of this mission, and the first one to arrive was Yamato who congratulated him and went out to get ready, now he was waiting for Neji when they knocked on the door, "go ahead" he left Naruto, when the door opened he managed to see Neji, but he was surprised to see his other friends along with him, "How about guys?, I didn't expect to see you around" Naruto spoke, "HA!, what kind of idiot Kage doesn't expect to see his ninjas, after all you're still the same old knucklehead" Kiba said sarcastically, to which Naruto got a vein on his forehead and replied "coming from the stinky dog I'm not surprised by those manners, maybe I should send you to the academy again now that I'm Hokage", before Kiba could reply the others laughed softly and caught Naruto's attention" "What's up guys?"the blonde asked, "it's good to know that fame didn't go to your head, you still owe us an explanation as to why you didn't say anything about this" Sakura said playfully, to which Naruto got nervous and ran a hand through his hair while apologizing, "Don't worry Naruto, we wanted to come to congratulate you personally and also talk about an important topic" said Shikamaru, "thank you guys that means a lot to me, and what do you need to talk about?"Naruto replied" "well, in the course of the week we met to talk about a somewhat sensitive topic, it's about what are you planning to do with Sasuke" he spoke in lazy, Naruto changed his attitude to a serious one and closed his eyes before opening them and talking "I guess they heard about him joining akatsuki, and let me tell you that it's true, that's why I decided to include it in the Bingo book", everyone looked surprised before Sakura took the floor "are you sure about this Naruto? don't you think there was some mistake?, after all he is Sasuke, he is our teammate and friend, maybe we will find some way to bring him back without causing problems", Sakura had said those words almost pleading and in a trembling voice, to which Naruto seriously said "what they say is true, this Sasuke I don't know him anymore and he is a danger, he was my best friend but his actions endanger the village and as Hokage I will not allow this to happen, Sakura you must understand that he has already made his decision and as Hokage I have already made mine", followed Naruto got up from his seat to hug a crying Sakura and told her "don't worry, we did our best, some people just don't want to be saved so look ahead and don't sink into regret Sakura" the hug lasted some time until Sakura calmed down and they changed to a more cheerful theme, then Naruto told Neji about his mission and after a few more words everyone left the room. Tomorrow would be the day I would leave for the summit and I had to be mentally prepared for whatever might happen.
Author's note: Thanks for the comments, I will follow your recommendations and try to focus more on spelling details. The next chapter begins the Kage summit and the action, so stay tuned and thanks again.