Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I'd be the happiest girl in the world, and my parents would want to kill me.

Chapter 1

MEDIC!" a grey haired man roared, as he rushed holding a bloody bundle in his arms. "I NEED A MEDIC!"

A man stepped forward glanced at the man's bundle before ordering for a gurney and flood of nurses. "Are you alright, Kakashi-san?"

"Fine," the grey haired man answered tersely.

"But there's blood—"

"It's all his," Kakashi interrupted, shaking his head.

The doctor looked at him suspiciously for a second before motioning for him to place the boy gurney that one of the nurses brought. Kakashi watched as they took his students away. Absentmindedly, he sat down in one of the empty chairs in the lobby. Once upon a time, he'd been able to draw a single connecting line from his own Genin team with Rin, Obito, and Minato-sensei and his current team.

Sakura was so much like Rin. She had the potential to become an even better ninja than Rin had ever been if she was guided properly. Naruto reminded him a lot of Obito from his determination to his unrequited crush on his female teammate to the goggles he still kept stuffed in his back pocket. Sasuke had reminded him so much of himself as a child, and not in any of the good ways.

Then the Chuunin Exams came around and the three Sannin influenced his students in ways he'd never thought possible. Naruto had a sense of maturity about him; Sakura suddenly had a new vigor for training and medicine, and Sasuke…Sasukewas off lusting for power in Otogakure by now. Who'd have thought that a few months ago he'd actually had high hopes for the three of them! No one would believe him if he told them that he even had dreams of grandeur for all of them.

In his daydreams about them, Naruto would become the Hokage that he wanted—and he would be greater than even Minato-sensei. Sasuke would rebuild the Uchiha to be loyal to Konoha and her Kage. He'd even defeat his brother. Sakura would become strong, and she would find the love that she wanted whether from Sasuke or Naruto or any other boy that she fancied. The three of them would all be great friends first, and teammates second. They'd become Konoha's next generation of heroes, and he'd have been the one that trained them and instilled in them that loyalty to each other and Konoha.

But now…what a mess…

He'd known as soon as he'd agreed to become a Jounin-sensei that he would be able to deal with losing a Genin, and helping the others with that death, but how was he supposed to deal with losing a Genin to another village? How was he supposed to tell his remaining to Genin how to continue on with their lives when a huge piece of themselves had just walked away from their home because of revenge and lust for power? How was he supposed to look the two of them in the eye, knowing that it was his own fault that their teammate was gone? How was he supposed to live with the knowledge that he'd helped the enemy village gain something so precious to the village and two twelve year olds?

"Ah, Hatake-san?" a doctor asked, quietly, breaking him from his reverie.

He jumped out of his seat. "How is he?"

"Well, he'll live. He'll have a long recovery time though. He broke through three ribs and one of his legs. He also has a mild concussion, but I'm not too worried about that. What I am worried about is that the kunai that we pulled—"

"Wait a second, what kunai?"

"Er…You didn't know…Well, from what I can gather, first someone knocked Uzumaki-san unconscious after they'd made a whole through his chest. I'm guessing that it was Uzumaki-san's target, Uchiha Sasuke. There was a period of rest where Uzumaki-san's guest started healing his wound. It seems that either that the target, Uchiha Sasuke, or a third party stopped the healing by reopening the wound and then inserting a poisoned kunai.

"It seems that the poison itself is taking over his cells and then using it to attack his very body. It might be a variant of the effect produced when one of the Akimichi's use the Sanshoku no Ganyaku (Three Colored Pills). We still haven't found an antidote. I have sent one of the nurses for Tsunade-sama's for help. I believe she's working on an antidote for Akimichi Chouji-san after he used the Sanshoku no Ganyaku. Hopefully, it will work for Uzumaki Naruto-san."

"Is there anything we can do to help him fight this until then?"

"If we knew what we were dealing with, I would say, yes. But we don't. For now, Uzumaki-san's guest is busy keeping his body from killing itself, and I have some of this hospital's best doctors healing his chest wound. Until Tsunade-same has created an antidote, we've done all we can."

He nodded quietly, and headed for the door. Naruto wasn't truly his student. He hadn't been his student for a while, if he thought about it. The true job of 'sensei' to Naruto was Jiraiya-sama's.

Jiraiya stared out at the village from his favorite spot—the Hokage Mountain. As a child, he'd used to come there to think, and stare out at the village. When he'd become a Genin, Tsunade used to come up there to tell him how much of an idiot he was for sitting up on top of the mountain alone.

Sarutobi-sensei, when he'd returned to the village for the Chuunin Exams, had told him over a few saucers of sake of how sometimes he'd find Naruto sitting up on the top of the mountain by himself sometimes, or how the gaki would paint graffiti on the faces of the four Hokages. Sarutobi then proceeded to tell him how Naruto had then lead three full ANBU squads and a full Hunter-nin squad all around the village for a day before finally he'd been forced to end the chase by stepping out of his office to capture the boy in a corner of a bathhouse.

He'd had a good laugh over it, and could tell that Sensei had struggled to keep from laughing as well. Naruto was a good kid. He reminded him a lot of himself, though he did have a bit of Minato and Kushina in him.

With Akatsuki on the move, Naruto will have to be trained in using the Kyuubi. But with so many people who remember the Kyuubi's chakra, it won't be that easy. I'll have to take him with me. He sighed to himself. Tsunade had gotten attached to the kid. Would she let him go? More importantly, would the brat want to leave his home?

From his contacts, he understood that Akatsuki would come after Naruto in three years. Would the kid be willing to leave home, friend, and people to train with him for three years? From what he understood from Sensei, his friends and village were the things he fought for—they were all he truly had…

"Jiraiya-sama?" white-haired Jounin, Hatake Kakashi asked, standing some feet away from him. "The Retrieval Team lead by Nara Shikamaru has returned."

"Yeah, what's that got to do with me?"

"Naruto was in it."

"Hmm. How'd the mission go?"

Kakashi sighed, before sitting beside him. "It was a failure. Akimichi Chouji and Hyuuga Neji are still in critical condition. Inuzuka Kiba and his partner, Akamaru, are injured, but are expected to make a full recovery. Nara Shikamaru received the least amount of injuries—a broken finger."

"And Naruto?"

"Naruto…Someone, though I suspect it was Sasuke, ripped a hole through is chest. As his wound was healing, someone reopened the wound with a poisoned kunai and left it there. That was when I found him and brought him here. There wasn't time to stop for the Med-nins to look after him without stopping."

"Has Tsunade looked at him yet?"

"One of the doctors was going to get her as I was leaving. I thought it would be best if I told you myself, instead of you hearing through the village gossip."

"Thank you, Kakashi."

Kakashi bowed, before he began the laborious climb down. He knew that the Toad Sage would come down in his own time. Personally, he probably wouldn't have left the Hokage Mountain either. He would have stayed there until someone called for him, or he'd finally processed the news. He wasn't even sure that he had processed the news that someone would go so far as to attempt to kill Naruto in such a low manner.

But then again, they were shinobi, and they always used tricks to get what they wanted.

One Day after the Retrieval Mission

"SHIT, HURRY UP WITH THOSE SEALS, JIRAIYA!" Tsunade cursed, as she began close wound after wound.

"I'm working on it, Tsunade," Jiraiya snarled from his seat, his brush flying over every part of gauze.

The poison in his student's body had suddenly started reacting by cutting up his body from the inside out. The cuts had started coming out at random, and were mostly shallow, until they started appearing by his tenketsus. Jiraiya swore that the cuts were so deep that he could see the boy's bones. So he sent one of the nurses for Tsunade while one Doctor Tojiro attempted to heal him.

Tsunade had then commanded him to begin sealing a roll of bandages, while she tried to help the blonde as much as possible.

"Done!" he shouted. Tsunade didn't even look at him; she simply reached for the bandage. Without stopping, she began wrapping it around the blonde, lifting him and sliding it underneath. As soon as it was done, she pushed chakra into it.

The cuts that had started appearing while she had wrapped the bandages around him, immediately started closing. The seals glowed for a few seconds. Naruto groaned softly his sleep for a second, and then everything was quiet.

"Is he...?"

"For now, he'll be fine. Call me if anything changes. I've got to get back to the antidote."

Two Days after the Retrieval Mission

Jiraiya brushed the soft golden locks of his student away from his face, letting his hand rest on the boy's feverish forehead. He wondered to himself if this was what his son would've looked like as he stared down at the twelve year old boy.

Funny that Naruto would have been born on the same day as his own child had it survived. Without a doubt, he believed that if the child had survived, Tsunade wouldn't have run off like she did. If anything, their child and Naruto would have grown up in the same house as brothers. But, according to the doctors, little Hikaru passed away twenty minutes after being born. Tsunade, still in pain after giving birth, left the village just minutes after Minato had arrived to take his own son to become a Jinchuuriki.

He had stayed and fought alongside the other Konoha shinobi, holding the Nine Tails back while waiting for Minato to arrive. After it was all over, he found that the hospital had been hit, and no one could find the body of the Sannins' dead baby. They were too busy celebrating the destruction of the Kyuubi. That night, he left the village. He'd never thought of returning, but Sarutobi-sensei had told him that little Uzumaki Naruto was someone he'd be interested in meeting.

So he met the brat. Didn't understand at first why sensei would want him to meet the kid, but after he had, he could see that Minato and Kushina's spirit had definitely been passed down to the kid. The same spirit that he once had as a young man…He'd found it endearing, but now, with the kid in the hospital it was far from endearing. It was stupid. And most importantly, it nearly killed the kid.

Hopefully, it was keeping him alive.

He bent down and whispered, "Keep fighting, Naruto. Keep fighting and I promise I'll train you to become even greater man than your father could have ever hoped to be."

Three Days after the Retrieval Mission

Doctor Tojiro Daichi had never been out in the field, though he had seen his fair amount of enemy ninja. Living in a ninja village, he had also seen his fair amount of weird things. It was impossible not to when you live in the same village as people who could talk to dogs, house bugs in their bodies, or could see at least sixty meters around them by the time they were eight. But one of the weirdest things he'd ever seen was actually very common in other villages—just not this one.

For twelve to thirteen years a child lived by a different identity, different name—a different life. In a ninja village, clan, blood, family name, and even first name were among the most important things on every parent's minds. It all defined the type of ninja that their child would eventually become. And yet, one child—the container of the Nine Tailed Fox—had been doing it for the past twelve years.

The kid had grown up as an orphan. He'd probably been told that his parents had died during the fight against the Kyuubi, and that he would probably grow up without a family in a village where family is one of the most important things to each individual ninja.

It seemed that it would be almost impossible for someone to not know who their true parents were, but this kid had been going under the wrong name for his whole life. Truly, Uzumaki Naruto should be Senju Naruto, son of Senju Tsunade and Jiraiya of the Sannin, and great-grandson of Senju Hashirama the Shodaime Hokage.

It seemed that it would be also impossible that this find would only be made because a young and eager apprentice needed blood to practice some of his jutsus on. Thank Kami he'd made the man swear to never speak of what he'd just found under pain of death. Most things concerning the Uzumaki boy or the Sannin were considered S-class village secrets.

Tojiro Daichi grabbed the vial of blood and his apprentice's findings and headed straight for the Godaime's office. She needed to be informed that her son was still alive.

Four Days after the Retrival Mission

"Will this work?" Jiraiya murmured, his darks eyes never leaving Naruto's face. He didn't bother looking anywhere else—he'd already seen it in the past three days enough to be able to picture it easily in his mind.

The boy's chest was wrapped in sealed bandages. Pale sweaty skin peaked out in intervals around them. His sunny blonde hair had been pushed away so that they wouldn't stick to his face as little beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. A grimace of pain graced the face that usually held a grin.

Across from him, Tsunade was reaching for a towel. She'd just finished administering the antidote she had created for Naruto. It hadn't been easy, since she had to figure out what the poison was doing to the young Genin exactly, before actually finding an antidote for it. Three days of hard work that would, with any luck, heal the little brat.

"Pray to whatever god there is that it does," she murmured. "Because if it doesn't, I don't know what we'll do."

Jiraiya looked up at Tsunade. He could see the fear in her eyes easily. He was sure that she could see the same fear in his own eyes. How couldn't he be afraid? This was his son—the son that he thought was dead, lying on this bed near death. If Tsunade couldn't heal him, would he run again? Would Tsunade? Especially if he knew that his son died trying to save his best friend, just as he had attempted to do years before.

"Kami-sama, please," he whispered quietly, brushing away the wild blonde locks from his son's forehead.

Five Days afer the Retrival Mission

It hurts. It hurts a lot… he thought to himself as he tried to blink the sleep away. He was about to move his hand to rub his eyes, but realized that the warmth emanating from it wasn't his own. He turned his head slowly to find that the hand that was wrapped around it belonged to none other than Tsunade-obaa-chan.

That was strange. No one besides Sandaime-ojii-chan had ever held his hand. Not even Iruka-sensei. Her hand felt soft and smooth, but he could see the faint scars on her knuckles. They were the signs of a trained shinobi…He smiled softly. Tsunade-obaa-chan wasn't that much of a slacker apparently. Suddenly, Tsuande-obaa-chan stirred. Her hand gripped his tighter before bleary eyes stared into his own. "Naruto?" she whispered.

He grinned mischievously. "Naw. You're just dreaming, Baa-chan. The bottles of sake will be marching in here in a few seconds. Just wait, 'ttebayo." She rolled her eyes at him, but she didn't pull her hand out of his. He didn't bother to do so either. It felt nice to actually have someone want to touch him.

"How are you feeling? Anything hurting?" she asked him, frowning. He thought for a second about telling her about the pain in his chest. She must've read his mind or something because immediately, she asked about his chest.

"It hurts a bit," he conceded. Before she could do anything, though, he tightened his hold on her hand and asked, "Baa-chan, did…did Sasuke come back with us?" When she didn't answer, he let go of her hand and turned over on his side.

Failure…

He'd been unable to keep his promise to Sakura-chan. How could he face her when he'd told her that it was a promise of a lifetime? How was he supposed to become Hokage if he couldn't even save his own best friend? How was everyone in the village supposed to acknowledge his strength if he couldn't bring back one of the very first people to acknowledge him? It didn't make sense…

Two quick, hot tears ran down his cheeks. Quickly, he wiped them away, knowing that Tsunade was still in the room. He heard her moving softly around the room, shuffling things about. Then suddenly, he felt her arms wrapping around him and lifting him off the bed. He froze, and then he heard her whisper, "It's okay, Naruto. Go ahead and cry. It's okay." Those words seemed to just break the dam because immediately, hot, burning tears rushed down his cheeks. All he could think about was his inability to bring back Sasuke and his broken promise to Sakura.

A/N: Well, my first published story with this account. Yay me! I've working on this thing for months, with absolutely NO INTENTION of putting it here. Obviously, I changed my mind. Anyways, so this story is a bit AU-ish, and if you think that the little crying scene at the end is way too OOC for Naruto, please remember that Naruto has lostthe guy he looked as his brother. Not only that, but Naruto is always a who keeps his word, and I think this failure was just too much for him. Eventually, people just break, and Naruto was due for a good crying session. I don't believe that after all the crap that Naruto went through in the series, he wasn't just going to stop for a least a moment and let out a few tears. The kid's TWELVE YEARS OLD, for Christ's sake! He has EMOTIONS.

But WHATEVER, I'm ranting here...lol

So what do you guys think, huh? What can I improve? What did I miss during the editing process? Is there anything in the chapter that feels just TOO wierd, AU or not? Leave a review! They actually ENCOURAGE me to update, ya know? Means SOMEBODY is actually reading this crap....