It was a bright, cheerful morning as Kakashi and team seven were training at their usual training grounds. Sakura was sparring with the teacher while Naruto and Sasuke practiced jutsus a small distance away.

"Sakura you have to think before you attack." Kakashi had dodged yet another fruitless attack from Sakura and returned with his own. Luckily, Sakura was able to block the incoming kick or she was quite sure that it would have cracked a rib, at the very least.

Sakura and Kakashi continued like this, she'd attack, he'd block and attack back, for another twenty minutes before stopping.

"Sasuke, Naruto, that's enough." The two boys came over, looking tired, and it was obvious that they had been practicing hard today. "Go home and get some rest, all of you, tomorrow we have a mission. Meet outside the Hogake's office at 8:00 a.m. don't be late." He cautioned. With a poof, he was gone.

Team 7 sat resting for a few minutes. They had spent the last two weeks without a mission, supposedly because they need to improve their skills, but they knew that that was another of Kakashi's excuses as they were already more powerful than their fellow chuunins.

"ALRIGHT!" Naruto was jumping up and down, doing his "excited dance" as Sakura calls it, "A mission, a mission, a mission, a mission…..I wonder what it's gonna be. Maybe escort someone to another village? Or track down enemy shinobi…..OH maybe we get to steal an important scroll!" Naruto rubbed his hands together as he grinned devilishly. Sakura and Sasuke rolled their eyes and didn't comment….they knew better than to try and interrupt Naruto.

"Maybe this is why we've been training so hard lately…." Sasuke trailed off his thought….Naruto stopped jumping around and sat down, obviously thinking about what his teammate had just said.

"You know, Sasuke-kun," Sakura also had started to think about this possibility, "you may be right….I mean, we haven't done any missions ever that involved meeting with the Hokage privately for briefing….and usually Kakashi-senseii doesn't find out about a mission until it gets assigned….this mission is obviously going to be out of the ordinary. I wonder what it will be."

"Hn…well, I'm leaving….Kakashi-senseii told us to get some rest, we will probably need it." Sasuke got up and stalked off, hands in his pockets.

Sakura sighed, she would never get closer to the Uchiha, no matter how hard she tried. Lately she had been thinking about him a lot, but in a different way. She had been his teammate for two years now, and the only difference in their relationship since their academy days was that they had come to trust each others as teammates, as 'work buddies…that's all we'll ever be, that's the best I can ever hope for.' Strangely she didn't seem as sad about this as she would have when they were first teamed up. 'I've come to know him a little better than I used to. He's not so mysterious and interesting as I had thought him all those years. But now that I know him better, he really isn't what I thought, what I wanted him to be. Maybe that's why this is not so painful…because I never really loved HIM, I loved the idea of him that I had created in my head.'

As Sakura was thinking, Naruto stared at her wondering why she looked so serious all of a sudden.

"Ne, Sakura-chan?" Sakura snapped out of her reverie to look at him "Maybe the mission won't be that bad, maybe we're just over-thinking it. But maybe we should do as Kakashi-senseii said and get some rest, after today any mission will seem hard."

Sakura laughed." Sometimes you can be so serious Naruto." She chuckled some more, "Come on, maybe we can get some ramen at Ichiraku's before going home."

Naruto's eyes shone as he bounced to his feet, "Let's go Sakura-chan! Ichiraku makes the best ramen in the whole village, especially the miso ramen…." Sakura sighed as she realized the mistake in her offer, but regardless she let Naruto pull her up and lead her to his favorite dinner place, all the while listening to the entire menu of ramen and its quality.

The next morning found three members of chuunin team 7 patiently waiting outside the Hokage's office at precisely 7:59 a.m. When it was finally eight, the door opened and they were told to come in. They entered the office and noticed that Kakashi was late….again. As each inwardly cursed his constant lateness, they were told to take a seat. Tsunade looked at them for a few minutes before speaking.

"Unfortunately I cannot discuss your mission without Kakashi here, so you're going to have to get comfortable. The three looked at each other and sighed. They ended up only having to wait another twenty minutes before the door opened once again and Kakashi greeted them with his customary wave of the hand.

"Yo."

"Yes, we're all glad you were able to join us Kakashi." Tsunade said, glaring at him.

"Yes, well, I had to-"

"Help an old lady down from a tree, I know, I know. Well, take a seat and I will give you the details of your mission." Kakashi took the final seat available while Tsunade continued. "As you are all aware, Orochimaru has been taken care of, thanks to Uchiha here." She nodded at Sasuke before continuing.

"I have very recently, however received word of a new enemy, someone who is said to be even more powerful, and if at all possible, less human." The younger three looked taken aback, even nervous.

"We have no information yet on his name, but we expect it soon. Anyway, I received this report little more than a month ago, and since then I have been going through all of the documents in the library, trying to find a way to defeat our new enemy and about two and a half weeks ago, I discovered an old scroll…an ancient scroll. This scroll, which I have read and reread so as to understand completely, seemed at first a history, of old enemies defeated by this village. However, it has become apparent that this scroll is in fact an ancient prophesy. It tells of events that have happened, which is why it seemed to be a history at first. Then however, I noticed that there were passages that spoke of Kyubi, and also of Orochimaru, though his name was not known. Close to the end there came a passage that spoke of what sounded like the enemy we will soon be facing, and I realized that this scroll was indeed a prophetic history of Konoha. The very last part of the scroll was not information so much as it was two jutsus. The first jutsu, it said, would allow the user, or users, to be transported to where they would find the key to defeating this new enemy. The second jutsu is to be used after the first, to locate precisely the key."

"So, in other words," Kakashi interrupted, "The first jutsu will bring us to the general area, say a forest or village, and the second will be able to take us directly to whatever this weapon is?"

"Exactly."

Team 7 looked intense. The three chuunins were obviously getting overwhelmed by this information, while Kakashi was simply focusing all of his attention on what the Hokage was saying.

"Your mission, will not be known to anyone outside this room. You will have to leave today, at approximately 7:00 p.m. To everyone else, you will simply be gone on a secret mission. After you leave, you are to travel for one day, and tomorrow, at 7:00p.m. you will use the first jutsu. Your overall objective will be to get the "key" and bring it back here using this jutsu," Tsunade handed them each a scroll, "I have studied the ancient jutsu and come up with this, as its compliment. One will take you there, one will bring you back. Now, you may need to surveil the area around the key for a while, as it may be guarded my enemy nin or by the monster himself. Whatever happens, you must do what you can to bring it back, without compromising the safety of you team. The enemy MUST NOT find out that we are aware of him, and he MUST NOT find out that we are looking for a way to defeat him, or he will find us and attack." Tsunade paused. "Are their any questions?" there were none. "Good, now, you must all go pack, you have only," she looked at her clock, "nine hours and fifteen minutes before you must leave the village."

The team was dismissed. The three younger members were at a loss of words, while Kakashi simply picked up the assignment and the jutsus from Tsunade. As the team members walked out of the ninja headquarters, Naruto was the first to speak.

"So, guess we were right about it being a secret mission, eh Sakura-chan?" Sakura looked at him for a minute before addressing her leader.

"Kakashi-senseii, this is real, isn't it?" She was hoping his answer would be negative, but he merely looked at her with his lone eye. She could tell that this was a serious mission by the fact that his eye was no longer droopy, for the first time she could remember. Sakura looked down.

"I guess we've gotta go and pack then. At least Naruto finally gets an exciting mission." She smiled slightly at her attempt at a joke, and while Naruto was the only one to smile in return, the other two members of the team were grateful that she was trying to lift the grim mood that had settled upon them as soon as Tsunade had started her speech.

Nine hours and ten minutes later, Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto were waiting at the gate of the village waiting once again for the arrival of their team leader. Sakura and Naruto crossed their fingers and hoped against hope that he would be on time for once, Tsunade had said that they need to leave at precisely 7:00 and it was only a couple minutes until then.

Just as the second hand on Sakura's watch reached 7:00, Kakashi appeared with a poof, he wasn't late for once, but he wasn't early either.

"Yo." The three just looked at him. "Alright, you all look to be ready, so let's go, we have a ways to go."

"Kakashi-senseii, exactly where are we going?" Sakura had been wondering since the morning.

"We are heading North for exactly one day." Was her answer.

"You mean we aren't going to a specific place?"

"Nope." He replied, obviously smiling at her confusion. "So, enough chit-chat, we need to be leaving." With that he took to the trees, pausing only a moment for his students to put on their packs and catch up to him before taking off again, this time going at a quick pace, one that they would have to work to keep up with.

After a few hours of traveling through the forest, they heard a sound that shook them from their grimly concentrated state. Naruto's stomach began growling, telling them all that it was a good time to set up camp, since a hungry Naruto would only hinder them. Kakashi went on for a few more minutes until he found a place that looked suitable enough for the night. The four dropped down and looked around, making sure that there were no enemies around before finally starting to set up a camp.

The boys sat around the newly stoked fire as Sakura prepared their dinner. Kakashi busied himself with rolling out bed mats, until Sasuke spoke up.

"Kakashi-senseii, the jutsus that will help us to find this key that Tsunade-san was talking about, are we going to able to do them on the first try?" Kakashi looked at him.

"Well, there really isn't the option to practice, so yes, you have to get it the first time or you will probably end up in the wrong place." The three chuunins looked startled. "However, this jutsu looks to be easy enough for you three to do it no problem. So, all we have to worry about is actually getting the key and bringing it back here. The children inwardly sighed, if Kakashi thought they could do it, then they had no doubts.

"I wonder what it is we have to bring back," Naruto started, "I bet it's some sort of wicked cool weapon, like a forbidden jutsu or something. Sasuke and Sakura once again shook their heads and just let Naruto continue his fantasizing. As the night was setting in, Sakura let out a yawn, it had been rather tiring keeping up with Kakashi through the forest, and she was dead sure that they would be getting up early tomorrow morning.

"I guess I'll get some sleep then." Sakura put away her dinner stuff and the stretched while walking over to where she would sleep. She was soon followed by Naruto and Sasuke as Kakashi, as usual, was to keep watch first.

The jounin settled himself on a tree branch, quickly pulling out Icha Icha paradise and turning to the page he had left off on. However, though the book remained open before him, he never left that page, wondering what Tsunade had put the four of them up against.