The Jinchuuriki's Brother

Academy Chapter 4: Questioning Loyalties

"Talking"

'Thinking'

Jutsu/ Bijuu/ Summons

Flashbacks and Setting

I don't own Naruto

Chapter 8: Questioning Loyalties

At The Next Monthly Council Meeting

"How is our rebuilding process looking this month? Any updates?" the Sandaime Hokage asked his council. It had been over 7 years since the Kyuubi attack, and while they had rebuilt most of their village's physical infrastructure, they had yet to recover completely.

It wasn't so easy to replace experienced shinobi, as it took years of training, and then even more years of gathering experience. It was a little easier to replace craftsmen and business people, as the replacements now had something like 7 years of experience under their belts. Still, they were still a work in process, and couldn't equate to the skilled workforce who had perished in the attack, as they had decades of experience.

"Our economic sector is slowly, but steadily recovering still. We've had a 5% increase in productivity from our workforce compared to the same time last year, and we're getting close to reaching 90% of our pre-Kyuubi levels of revenue from business and trade." One civilian council member reported.

"Still, that's not to say everything is all rosy. We're still short of reaching our goal in trade revenue. The quality of our products still hasn't reached pre-Kyuubi levels, and their image in other villages are even lower than their actual quality. We currently need to secure more trade partners." Mebuki reported.

"We've received reports from our team in Kusagakure (Hidden Grass Village). They say talks have been going well, and we might have them as trade partners in a bigger capacity if talks go through." A different civilian councilor added.

"Good, good. I knew I made the right choice sending that team." Hiruzen said in approval to that bit of news. Looked like things were slowly improving in Konoha, though not as fast as they hoped. Still, some progress was better than none.

"Only problem is that our revenue is increasing, but our expenditure is still way too high for us to be saving up any significant kind of money. Our coffers are still nearly empty, and we have nothing in terms of emergency funds. Another disaster to the village, and we might not be able to recover." Mebuki told Hiruzen. "Perhaps we could ramp up mission frequency again?" She suggested to the old Hokage.

The Nara Clan head spoke up. "Our emergency level of mission frequency is unsustainable. Our shinobi began to decrease in efficacy after a few months of non-stop missions, which started to impact the image of the quality and efficiency of our shinobi. It might make more money in the short term, but it does more harm than good in the long run. Which is why we stopped doing that and started giving adequate time to rest after missions again." Shikaku explained to the civilian council, who didn't understand shinobi matters that well.

"He is correct Councilor Haruno. Shikaku, please tell us the current state of Shinobi affairs." The old Sarutobi asked.

"Hai Hokage-sama. We've been able to add to the number of Jonin we have, coming close to 87% of pre-Kyuubi numbers, but they don't have as much experience as the shinobi we lost, who were battle-tested veterans of the 3rd Shinobi War. Honestly, their quality is slightly questionable. We have quite a few promising Chunin however, though the overall number of Chunin are slightly smaller than what we were hoping for due to the number of promotions we were forced to give to meet the required number of Jonin."