Dark Phoenix of Konoha by White Angel of Auralon

Part 23 - Wake Up Call

Wake Up Call

The rest of the week nobody saw Naruto at all. He had been excused from his team's training to prepare for the test. While nobody had said so, it was also meant to judge Naruto's progress. The Hokage wanted to know how far Naruto had come in the four months under Kakashi's tutelage. The secret plan was to back the council into as many corners as possible. While the promotion to chunin was completely in the hand of the Hokage and the judges, many of them neutral parties that would never favour one ninja over the other, other things were not. And the council could try to regain some power in the phase of Kakashi starting as Hokage. Not that it would work, but distracting them with Naruto's spectacular performance would be a good way to smooth things over. Naruto would also be announced as the son of the Yondaime Hokage in the finals.

It would have two main effects. It would let Konoha look more impressive to potential customers, but also call Minato's enemies upon the boy. So Naruto needed to show that he was ready to shoulder those two things. For the rest of the rookie teams it would be a show of how much better Naruto was. They needed to strive to get to the same or close to the level Naruto was at now. And if they saw Naruto as a role model they would easier follow him in the future. And if they followed him and trusted him as their leader, the Hokage hoped, it would bind Naruto closer to the village. There was no hope for Naruto to ever more than tolerate the majority of the civilians. They had done too much to him, but as long as the major clans were united around him, he wouldn't leave.

Finally it was Saturday and the eight remaining rookies were assembled at training ground eight with their senseis.

"Good morning. As you can see, Naruto isn't here because he has already started the simulation. This morning he broke into the set location for the information you need to retrieve. Your mission objective is to find as much information on Naruto as you can, track him down and get the information back. But be warned, it sounds easier than it will be. You have one hundred and twenty hours, exactly five days from now on to fulfil your mission. We won't help you at all as we know Naruto's plan in rough. If you manage to get the information back, come to one of the meeting points." Kakashi said and handed them a piece of paper with information. "This is all the information that could be collected about the theft so far. Good luck."

The jonin used the body flicker to leave.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru commented while looking at the piece of paper. "Well, let's see the information and develop a strategy."

"Wait a moment; we need to make sure that nobody eavesdrops on us. There could be a transformed shadow clone of Naruto around. It's one of his favourite methods to gather information. He could also have placed seals around that let him listen into conversations." Sasuke spoke up.

"True, if he knew our strategy, he could easily counter it." Shino agreed and sent his bugs out. After some minutes one came back. "There are no clones in a perimeter of a kilometre. But there were some seals that I don't know what they do."

"We better not test them. Knowing Naruto that could include something really nasty or just a prank." Sakura said. "And none of us knows enough about seals to determine what they do on time."

The others nodded.

"So first we need to find a place where we won't be overheard. I guess there would only be one place where we could get a room that we could fool proof. The academy." Shikamaru said.

"Why the academy, Shikamaru?" Ino wanted to know.

"Because Naruto wouldn't be able to foresee which room we would use and with the constant sound level there overhearing a conversation is hard. He would have to place listening devices in every room to make sure he finds out our strategy." Shikamaru answered.