The teams from other villages went back home the following day. A new routine settled in little by little. Team 14 still existed, but Jun could choose to perform missions by himself or with other ninjas. His presence on the team was no longer mandatory. However, he chose to remain under Shiba’s tutelage. He continued training with his team and friends.

Izumi even slipped into their group a few times. The others welcomed her as she was Jun’s sister. Even though she was still just an Academy Student, she was more advanced than most kids her age. Her Taijutsu was decent, and she even started walking on walls and trees. They couldn’t train with her seriously, but they humored her.

Being a chunin meant that Jun didn’t get to spend his time only with his comrades and friends. He had to embark on many missions with various partners. Chunins could work alone, but they were usually in teams of two or three. Jun performed some missions with many shinobis like Genma, Kurenai, Asuma, Anko, Izumo and Kotetsu, Ebisu and even Gai.

The difficulty of the missions he did vary from C to B-rank. Most of the newly promoted chunin tried to embark on grand adventures to test their limits. However, Jun had nothing to prove to himself. He knew his limits. Before frantically doing the harder missions, he wanted to spend some time with his family.

Other chunins weren’t as patient. Miyamoto Hyuga went on a long-term mission a week after his promotion. Michi Uchiha left the village for an A-rank mission a couple of days after becoming a chunin. Jun was content with his situation, and no one pointed out his apparent lack of ambition.

He mostly did surveillance missions at the village gate. He also carried out several messenger missions in the region, a tracking mission, and a week-long patrol in the area bordering Suna. He also had a few days of administrative work in the Hokage building and the Intelligence Department, cryptology section. He even had to do some work with the Ninjas Sensor Department. All sensor ninjas in the village were registered there.

Every chunin had to undergo an examination there. Most of them had only basic chakra sensing skills. But if there were promising trackers among them, the Ninjas Sensor Department would train them. That was the case for Jun. He was now officially registered as a sensor ninja of Konoha.

“Tracking has never been one of my strengths,” Jun said to Nami Inuzuka, the captain of the department.

“That’s because you’ve never practiced it. You have quite a respectable range of chakra detection, and your degree of accuracy in distinguishing individual chakra signatures is relatively high.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The way you recognize people by their chakra. You don’t get fooled by Transformation Techniques. We’re going to train you a bit to improve your tracking capability. It’s quite rare for us to have an Uchiha tracker.”

“I’m not really an Uchiha. I have the last name, but I’m not part of the clan. Also, I do not have the Sharingan.” Jun pointed out.

It never hurt to remind people of that. Especially since the Uchiha tended to hang out and work mostly with other Uchiha.

“Is that so? I was going to assign you Shisui as a tracking instructor, but I guess I need to think of someone else.” Nami said.

Jun already knew Shisui was a tracker, but the teenager didn’t know that he was part of the Ninjas Sensor Department. He hesitated, torn between hope and apprehension. He wanted to see Shisui again and work with him, but what if things didn’t go the way he wanted? What if they get worse?

Nami ultimately assigned him to someone from the Hyuga clan. Jun spent the following days learning to recognize human traces, track by hearing, detect olfactory traces and analyze the clues provided by nature. There were also psychological elements involved. There was no point in running after a fugitive if you anticipate where he was going. Jun’s tutor briefly explained to him how to analyze the trajectory of a target, and how to put himself in the shoes of a hunted individual to guess his actions.

A month passed. Izumi had turned nine years old. Jun had been a genin at her age. He had been able to walk on water, understand advanced theoretical concepts of chakra manipulation, and talk about historical events going back to the time of the village’s founders. He had seen his father die and had awakened both the Sharingan and Mangekyo Sharingan.

In comparison, Izumi seemed inexperienced. She had been too small to fully comprehend what war and peace meant. Although she could walk on walls and perform a basic transformation technique, she wasn’t at a genin level yet. She was the best student in her class, but her promotion grew up in a time of peace. Izumi was happy about it.

However, Jun had always compared himself to geniuses of Itachi’s caliber and had felt inferior. But, it pushed him forward. His sister didn’t have the same motivation. She was happy to go at her own pace. She was a talented kid, but that was it. However, Izumi had also faced the harshness of the world. She had known the humiliation of being rejected by the Uchiha, the pain after her friends turned their backs on her. The heartache when Itachi had abandoned her overnight.

She was probably more mature than most kids her age. She was a curious child. She asked questions. She didn’t follow the mass, especially when it came to ostracizing someone. She worked hard at the Academy, and it wasn’t just to please her mother or teachers. She was considering her future.

Sometimes, she thought of joining the police. Other times, Izumi saw herself as a Taijutsu specialist, a Ninjutsu master, or even a Genjutsu expert. She imagined herself to be many things. Jun often was at a loss of words when his sister talked about it. He had never projected himself like this into the future. He had been too focused on the present, on getting stronger, getting promoted… When his sensei had asked him about his dream, he only came up with a short-term goal. He wanted to become a Tokubetsu jonin before the age of sixteen. However, he had said that because he was thinking about the Uchiha massacre, which would take place that year. He wanted to be strong enough to have a chance of surviving.

Life should be more than just surviving. Jun was only beginning to think about his future and wondering where it would take him. It wasn’t an easy question to answer. Did he want to get married one day? Have children? Have students?

Life went on while he was pondering about the future. An envoy from Kumo was invited to Konoha to sign a formal peace treaty, five years after the war ended. It had taken that long for part of the resentment to subside. Kumo had sent a high-ranking jonin to sign the treaty. Jun, among some other chunins, received the order to keep an eye on him without doing anything to offend him. Nobody wanted another war.

Thinking about the situation now, Jun should have known there was something wrong. At first, the jonin behaved well. He attended the meetings with the Hokage. They made progress on the draft of the treaty. He hinted he might stay for a full week to be present for the New Year’s celebration.

Three days passed. The Konoha ninjas began to relax. On the evening of the fourth day, the alarm rang throughout the village late at night. No one really knew what had happened. The following day, all the jonins were whispering among themselves with angry and anguished expressions. The only clear thing that came out of the case was that the Kumo jonin had been killed during the night.

It was bad. Accusations were thrown on both sides. The New Year party attracted visitors, so the ninjas were tense. Everyone feared a new war. Some claimed the Kumo shinobi had attacked a Konoha ninja or a child. It wasn’t clear. Apparently, he had been killed by the Hyuga clan leader when the latter caught him red-handed.

Others protested that it was a set-up. Kumo wanted the head of the Hyuga clan leader for the murder. Konoha almost went to war. As a chunin, Jun wasn’t up to date with the details, but the rumors spread so fast that it wasn’t difficult to follow the matter. Ultimately, the conflict was avoided when the twin brother of the clan leader was executed instead. Kumo’s anger was appeased.

Madoka didn’t come to practice that day. The whole Hyuga clan went silent as if shocked by the extreme situation they had been pushed into.

Hazuki cried when she heard the news. Jun preferred to slip away, uncomfortable to see his mother in that state. Several people reacted with amazement or disbelief. Nami Inuzuka smashed her desk, cursing Kumo. The days passed, and people forgot. Like always, they moved on.