Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters in the show. They belong to Kishimoto.

Authors Note: Hi this is my first fanfic, I'm nervous about it so please bear with me. However I love reviews, good ones and bad ones. After all that's the only way I'll how to be a better writer. So please read and review, thanks it is much appreciated,

Konoha is of the strongest of the hidden villages. Ten years ago, a boy by the name of Naruto left with his sensei Jiraiyah to go train. However it was supposed to be a trip for Naruto to train and become stronger. After three years they were supposed to return, after the fourth year, Tsunade sent ANBU to search for them only to come out empty handed in the end. After two years they stopped trying. Another four year has gone by, and still no sign of those two figures during this period and the name Naruto was becoming a mere memory for the people of Konoha. Only few people actually remembered that name. The Hokage and Rookie Nine along with a few other people were the only ones who actually remembered who Naruto was. However on this day, the tenth year, third month and 22nd day after Naruto's departure, an event occurred that changed the course of the ninja world.

"HELP ME!"

The man continued to run as kunais flew after him. The only thing that was on his mind was praying for a saviour.

"HELP ME," he kept on shouting as he ran through the forest. He looked behind him to make sure that the ninjas where as far as possible,

'Why me' he thought, 'I didn't even mean to do anything harmful,' as he continued to run. He felt the pain in his legs that came from the fatigue of running for two days straight, but he could not stop, if he did, it would for sure kill him because these men wanted him dead for saying what he said.

"All I said was that HE is the strongest ninja in the world and they got all mad, what's up with these rock ninjas? Why do they care about him? And what gives the right to try to kill me? A man should be allowed to speak his mind in this bloody world!"

Then all of a sudden, without realizing it, the old man tripped and fell into an open area, he groaned from the pain but without stopping he tried to get up and continue running, he realized however, he was surrounded by the 12 ninjas. His mind frantically searched for a way out. There was nothing he could do, the ninjas wanted him dead and they were going to get their wish, he was a peddler after all and knew nothing about fighting. However for some odd reason, the ninjas were hesitant to attack him. They kept on mumbling something about trespassing and entering somewhere where they shouldn't be and kept on checking behind them for someone to appear. However, the leader of the group, a tall shinobi with a muscular frame and an eye patch quickly quashed all of these thoughts by saying,

"Let's just kill this old man and we will be out in no time. Then he'll learn who the strongest ninja in the world is." The old man shut his eyes just as the ninja was about to throw the kunai, he heard a voice call out

"Hey you Iwa-nins are trespassing, and harming an old man under the protection of Konoha, that's punishable by law of the 23rd treaty of Zegna and the reward is death for you all."

The old man opened his eyes and saw the leader of the rock shinobi have his eyes roll back and he fall down dead. His followers looked around frantically searching for the person that just killed the leader without leaving a mark; they heard the trees rustling behind them. Just as they're about to look, a man appeared in the middle of them. He carried a long black staff with golden tips with a thin black beard. He was dressed in all black, with bandages on his shins and forearms, he had a dark blue scarf around his neck and he had the tail of it draped down in front of him to his waist. His dark hair was kept up by a blue headband with the symbol of the leaf etched in it. Without waiting for them to react in a fluid motion, He had managed to knock out all 11 people and kill them with a one-handed silent seal. He did this without even breaking a sweat and it hardly took even a minute. This man had an aura of power emanate from him that could be compared to him, and when he turned to look at the peddler, the peddler realized to his shock that this saviour of his was no more than 18 years old. However, the amount of power that was coming from him was awe inspiring and not possible for someone so young. The young man walked up to peddler, took out his hand and said,

"My name is Konohamaru of Konohagakure, is there anything I can do to help you Old Man?"

The Peddler sat up and remembered the name Konoha is a recent discussion he heard and said, "I am Negana, the peddler, and I realize that I have some news for you that could benefit you."

Konohamaru gazed, at him while scratching his beard he inquired, "What is this news you wish to tell us that could benefit us?"

Negana replied, "I am a peddler I gather information and sell it to people who need it, however since you saved my life I can repay you for giving some information for free, this information is probably useful for your Hokage only. Basically there are ninjas for you to worry about that wish I think to harm you."

Konohamaru looked at Negana, and then said, "Tell me everything, now then" Negana snorted, "Listen I want a favor first, I want to stay in Konoha until it is safe for me to leave, until then I'll give you any information you want."

Konohamaru thought about it before replying, "Fine, come with me, first I'll take you to the Hokage then I'll get you settled in."

******************************

Konoha is very beautiful; very few hidden villages can even say that they can come close to Konoha in any aspect that has to offer. The villagers are nice, scenery is beautiful, and the atmosphere is gentle, and the ninjas are strong. They were led by an amazing Hokage that always smiled and cared deeply about the welfare of village and wanted only the best for it. However, not many people knew the truth behind the Hokage, despite giving off a happy image to the public, she was very depressed inside. For a very long time she yearned for the return of the two ninjas she cared about most. As she sat there on her desk stamping her seal on the long list of papers, only two thoughts were on her mind, the first was Naruto and Jiraiyah, and the second thing was sake and gambling. She decided that now that she was about to finish all her files, she would head out to the casino to gamble for a bit, before Shizune noticed she was gone. Just as she was about to pull on the doorknob to leave, there was a knock. She opened the door to see an old man with lots of grey hair, scraggly beard and colourful eyes; he was wearing an old brown coat. Lots of pockets, his pants were torn and his sandals are very old, he looked extremely tired. Beside him stood Konohamaru, the captain of the famous "Konohamaru Corps" that consisted of him, Moegi, the medic-nin, Udon, the genjutsu specialist, and Hyuuga Hanabi, they were the best team in Konoha for the last two years. Konohamaru was also considered the lead Jounin of Konoha along with Sakura and Neji. In terms of fighting ability he was the best Konoha had to offer, and he was probably the next in line to become the Hokage. He however did not want to become one as of yet. He felt that he was not the next in line; rather someone else does deserve to come before him and for that reason alone, he refused to accept the position.

"Tsunade-Sama, this man has a lot of important things to tell you. Or so, he says." Tsunade looked at the old man, and said,

"Tell me what you have to say."

The Negana then said, "I fear for Konoha. There are two people out there that want to possibly cause harm to it and it is necessary that you guys prepare for them because they are very strong. And I have yet to see people that can even come close to their strengths and make even other hidden villages tremble when they see them. Their names strike fear in the hearts of the Rock Nins and Mist Nin. The Mizukage gave a clear order to anyone who sees them to feel on sight for even a second delay will lead to their death"

Tsunade frowned and thought, 'Who could this be? There very few people that actually have this type of strength enough to make other villages scared and make the Mizukage give such an order. She gazed at the man wondering maybe he was lying in order to get some money or benefits from them, and then asked,

"Why are you telling us this?"

To her surprise, it was Konohamaru that replied, "He is a peddler and peddlers sell information. However I just saved his life so he is giving this information for free and in turn also I am giving him a place to stay so that we can get all the answers we need from him."

Tsunade pondered over what Konohamaru said before turning to Negana again and asked, "Tell me, if you were to compare him to someone, who would be, try to compares him to someone that Konoha knows."

The man thought about it and then said, "Because I am a peddler. I hear the news that spreads in the land, and from what I was told this man defeated the famous Konoha missing-nin, Uchiha Itachi in a battle but couldn't kill him because Itachi managed to flee in time. Also, I hear that Gaara was defeated by him when they were younger."

The Hokage was shocked, to defeat Itachi is something crazy, and there is no one in this village that could stand up to Itachi, not even Konohamaru.

'This shinobi must be extremely strong,' she pondered. "Maybe I should send Gaara a letter and ask them who this man is. How could it be that such a person could be alive, and Konoha had not heard anything about him," Tsunade thought.

She looked at him and said, "Old man, you can stay here for as long as you need, but tomorrow I have to speak to you and find out more about this danger. You can go for now and when you go outside, there is a lady, speak to her, and tell her that I said to take you to the hotel where you will be staying. Moreover, take this seal with you, so they know that you are not lying."

Negana took the seal from her and thanked her, while saying, "I assure you my lady. Tomorrow I will give you the full description of the man and his partner so that you may prepare for him the best you can, for I hope that Konoha stays this way, the beautiful village that is, for as long as time lasts."

With that, Negana stepped outside and left, leaving only Konohamaru with Tsunade staring at him. Tsunade realized that the only Konohamaru would have to deal with this person seeing that he was the strongest. She looked at him and said, "What did you think?"

He glanced at the door before replying, "Well, for one thing, we know that this person is not a bad person,"

Tsunade stared at him in utter disbelief and said, "Do you not realize what the man just said, this missing-nin wants to destroy Konoha. How can you say that he is not bad?"

Konohamaru looked at her calmly and said, "What I mean by being bad is by being part of Akutsuki, not only that but I have a feeling that I know who it is, and this was expected from him for a long time. And I think that you know who he is as well, because they're only very few people that fit that description."

Tsunade looked at Konohamaru with interest, how could he know who this man was? There are thousand of ninjas in the world, yet he believes that he knows this man, she looked at him, giving him a hard stare, she said, "Tell me who you think it is?"

With a straight voice Konohamaru were replied, "It's probably Uchiha Sasuke, he is easily the only person that I know that had the potential to defeat Itachi, and not only that he had fought Gaara before, and practically beat him in the Chunin exams. Not only that, he probably realized the true story behind the massacre of his people, that is a good enough reason for Sasuke to hate Konoha and want to destroy it. As far as who he is with, that could be anybody, but it doesn't matter because the main threat would be Sasuke himself."

Tsunade was surprised, Sasuke had the ability to defeat Itachi at not only that he did defeat Gaara before, added to the fact that the elders of Konoha convinced Itachi to massacre his clan, it would only be natural for him to want to take revenge. Seeing that he is a person who considers himself an avenger and his type of people never have the thirst of revenge quenched. "What do we do?"

"We prepare for him. That's pretty obvious isn't it?" Both Konohamaru and Tsunade turned towards the window to see who it was, and there he was leaning against the window with the orange book in his hand in the standard jounin clothes with the mask covering his face and his hitai covering one of his eyes. Hatake Kakashi gave the peace sign and reply to their stares with, "Yo!"

Konohamaru looked at Kakashi and asked him, "Can you take him on? Sasuke that is, after all, you have the sharingan also. You've taken it to the next level, if there is anybody who can do this, it would be you."

Kakashi walked over to Konohamaru, he looked at them up and down for replying, "There are very few people who could defeat Sasuke, in fact the only person in the world that I know that could defeat Sasuke is not even in this village, he never gave up and that would allow him to defeat Sasuke and be able to bring him back to convince him to stay in Konoha."

Tsunade looked at Kakashi and realized who he was talking about, and she looked down in sadness, "It's been ten years, though, we don't know if they will ever come back or if they are even alive. Maybe, Akutsuki finally caught up to them and captured him," She mumbled.

To this Konohamaru frowned, then he smiled and said, "Don't worry Tsunade, he is alive, and they could not have captured him, because in order to do that they would have to seal Gaara first, and since Gaara has not been caught, we know for a fact that he is still out there and there is one thing we know for sure. When he comes back he'll be really strong."

Kakashi looked at Tsunade and asked her, "What about Sakura? After all, she was trained by you,"

Tsunade replied, "Even though she realizes that Sasuke is a bad person, and she no longer loves him, I do not think she has the ability to fight. She is good, and she'll probably be on the team to help defeat Sasuke. After all, she is very good Medic-nin, she is as good as me and sometimes even better. However, it's just that she does not have the necessary skills to the defeat Sasuke, not only that, but she still believes that only Naruto could defeat him. And for that reason alone, she continues still to wait for him."

"Very well then, well at least I know that Konohamaru and I will be busy for the next little while, I assume Tsunade that means neither of us can be taking any more missions, because were going to need all the training we can get, in order to prepare for Sasuke the best that we can. In any case, I better head off: I have some things to do."

And with that Kakashi poof out of the office, "He's probably just trying to find a new place to go read the book," Konohamaru grumbled, he then looked at the Hokage and reassured her by smiling and saying,

"Don't worry; this is Konoha, no matter what happens, no matter how many wars, no matter how many attacks, Konoha will still stand, why? Because we have the Will of Fire, after all, this is a good time to prove that I'm worthy of being the Hokage of this village."

And with that, he walked out of the room leaving Tsunade to her own thoughts. But I only plan to become Hokage after you Naruto, which I know for sure. As he looked outside you realize it was getting late was time to go to bed, without further delay he made seals and disappeared.

Halfway across the village, a young woman in her 20s, dressed in a pink nightgown with pink hair and emerald green eyes stared at a picture of four individuals. Three children and a man, she stared at the boy was dressed in orange, scowling at the boy beside him. She smiled at him, realizing how much she missed him, and realizing how much he meant to her, however, now it was too late, she had no idea where he was or when he would come back. All she knew was that if he ever did come back. She would tell him the things that she had wanted to tell them for the last ten years. She knew where ever was he was, he was getting stronger, whether it be for her, to bring him back, or to fulfill his dream to become Hokage, all she knew that when he did come back, hopefully, she would have become a better person: So that he would be proud of her when he met her again. Come home soon Naruto, come home soon please. And with that Sakura put down the picture and went to bed dreaming in the land of dreams all the good memories, she had with Team Seven. Halfway across the world, two men lay on the ground getting ready to go to sleep, the younger of the two sneezed, he then stared at the old man with white hair, sending him a silent plea, the white-haired man chuckled and said,

"Don't worry, we will be there soon."

A/N

So what do you guys think? Please let me know.