Meanwhile in the Hokage Tower….
The official scrolls had been delivered. The reports, written with the efficiency and precision of the ANBU protocol, were already stacked on Lady Tsunade's desk.
She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, her eyes scanning the crisp, stamped words that marked the beginning of a new era for several young shinobi.
Naruto Uzumaki. Sasuke Uchiha. Sakura Haruno. Karin Uzumaki.
Not just names now, but rising figures in Konoha's future.
Outside, under the late afternoon sun, the courtyard of the Hokage Tower had been cleared for a special Chunin promotion ceremony. It wasn't a public event like the Chunin Exams.
This was a classified elevation, held before a small group of high-ranking shinobi and select Jonin who were cleared to know the true nature of the mission the four had just returned from.
Still, the sense of honor in the air was palpable.
Naruto stood tall, his new dark-green Chunin vest fitting snugly over his orange clothes. He tugged at the collar once, clearly itching to grin, but something in his expression had changed.
The smile came slower now, more grounded. Battle-tested. He shot a glance at Sasuke beside him.
Sasuke's new vest had been modified to suit his leaner frame, with openings near the shoulders to better allow arm movement for his lightning-style techniques.
His hands were behind his back, posture formal, but the faintest flicker of a smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth.
The two stood at attention as Tsunade approached with a scroll in each hand.
"With authorization from me and me," Tsunade began, her voice projecting clearly,
"I hereby confirm the promotion of Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke to the rank of Chunin. This elevation is based not on standard exams, but on real-field performance during high-threat operations, confirmed by ANBU leadership."
She passed Naruto his scroll.
He stared at it like it was a sacred artifact before muttering, "Thank you, Granny Tsunade" with more seriousness than anyone expected from him.
Tsunade resisted the urge to beat the brat up and turned to Sasuke. As she handed Sasuke his scroll, she paused. "You adapted under pressure, took initiative, and kept your team alive. Your parents will be proud of you."
"…Thank you." Sasuke's smirk faded into something more reflective.
Tsunade stepped back as a murmur of quiet applause came from the Jonin witnesses, including Tenzo now named Yamato, Genma, and a visibly proud Kurenai.
Then, Tsunade turned to the side table where two other scrolls were waiting. Her fingers lingered over the names.
"Sakura Haruno. Karin Uzumaki. Step forward."
The two girls stood side by side, Sakura in her updated red-and-black vest, Karin in her black bodysuit with the medic-green overlay.
"I have reviewed the field reports personally," Tsunade said.
"Your work in stabilizing volatile chakra, preserving dangerous biological samples, and assisting in field analysis with the Lotus Seal qualifies as elite-level medical support. You've not only saved lives, you've helped unlock advancements for the entire village."
Karin, for once, looked stunned. Sakura reached out and lightly nudged her shoulder.
"Don't faint now," she whispered.
"Too late." Karin turned to her with a grin.
"I expect you both to outdo me one day. Don't disappoint." As the two received their scrolls, Tsunade added with a smile.
The ceremony ended as swiftly as it began, Chunin promotions in the shadows of war were not celebrated for show.
But that didn't stop Kurenai from giving Sakura a fierce hug, or Naruto from punching the air once they were dismissed.
"I'm a Chunin!" he yelled to no one in particular, laughing out loud.
"Try acting like one." Sasuke walked ahead, arms crossed.
"I'm trying! But I'm a Chunin!"
…..
With their new ranks came new responsibilities.
Within days, Naruto and Sasuke found themselves leading two-man scouting missions, learning to manage time, resources, and logistics.
Naruto struggled at first with planning routes, he hated reading maps, but he was adapting. Kakashi quietly noted how Naruto's instincts had evolved. He trusted Naruto more now to make the right call when plans went sideways.
Sasuke, meanwhile, had begun to rely on his Sharingan not just for fighting, but for terrain scanning and movement prediction, vital leadership skills.
Kakashi had already drafted a specialized counter-intelligence training module for him, tailored for solo and platoon-level work.
Sakura and Karin were now stationed part-time at the new underground facility Kakashi had developed beneath his home.
Between field missions, they took rotating shifts monitoring volatile materials and contributing to seal stabilization projects.
….
Kakashi's lab.
What had once been a dusty, half-used underground storehouse was now a sprawling lab filled with reinforced storage containers, chakra-locked vaults, and sealing matrices inscribed in luminescent ink.
The Orochimaru clone, who had taken up permanent residence here, moved with clinical precision. He wore simple robes and a long black glove on his right arm to cover the seal Kakashi had used to bind his chakra signature.
Despite his unsettling appearance, he worked without pause, cataloging the dozens of recovered items from the destroyed labs.
"Subject V's destabilization patterns match the failed experiments in Lab Beta," he said, scanning a tank filled with dormant senjutsu-reactive enzymes.
"These are crude precursors to what I suspect was meant to graft tailed beast chakra directly onto ordinary subjects. Dangerous. But… intriguing."
Kakashi stood nearby, reviewing data logs with narrowed eyes. On the table before him lay the Genesis Seal's data core, a slim chakra crystal slowly rotating within a suspension field.
"We won't replicate Orochimaru's methods," Kakashi said. "But if we understand them, we'll know how to counter them, and maybe adapt the safe parts for medical or defensive use."
"I agree," the clone replied. "This device-" He gestured toward a segmented metal loop embedded with teeth-like chakra receptors. "-was designed to force resonance with foreign chakra. If we reconfigure it using your sealing Technique, it could serve as a neutralizing countermeasure for tailed-beast-level interference."
"Add it to the second tier," Kakashi said. "I want Karin and Sakura running pressure-stability tests with the Lotus Seal."
The lab's new setup was impressive. Biological samples were sealed in airtight glass canisters, arranged on numbered shelves. A section of the room had been warded specifically for toxin studies, another for regenerative tissue models.
Yamato had returned from an outside assignment and was invited by Kakashi to reinforce the lab's structure and security.
His Wood Release had reinforced the walls, and his chakra suppression tags made the space virtually undetectable from the outside. After all, there were still white zetsu to be wary of.
"You've turned your house into a fortress," he'd told Kakashi dryly.
"It was time." Kakashi only smiled.
…
Orochimaru might be gone, or at least with his hands sealed, but his remnants remained potent. This lab wasn't a vault of trophies. It was a war room.
Kakashi now saw the threat not as an enemy, but as knowledge without restraint. The materials they had recovered could push medicine, sealing arts, and combat techniques forward by decades. Or they could destroy everything.
He had already updated his Genesis Seal. Using purified chakra threads from the recovered research, he refined the internal filtering process, allowing safer genetic integration. It still required careful testing, but the next version would be safer, and more stable.
And he wasn't the only one evolving.
Naruto's unpredictable style was being turned into controlled chaos, perfect for field disruption. Sasuke's Sharingan now stores visual patterns of enemy movements for later review, letting him "replay" fights with deadly precision.
Sakura had stabilized her chakra efficiency using the Lotus Seal, and Karin could now detect micro-fluctuations in foreign chakra signatures, a skill vital to enemy profiling.
Together, they weren't just stronger.
They were smarter. Sharper. And ready for whatever came next.