"Sakura watch out!" Neji shouted and Sakura ducked to avoid the kunai that was aimed for her neck.

"Are you alright?" Shikamaru asked the young medic, earning him a nod.

"I see them. Three males and one female. And they're all masked."

There's no doubt that the kunai came from them. But why would they try to stop us? Unless…

"Pakkun, are they the ones who attacked Kiba?" Kakashi asked the small ninja hound, obviously coming to the same conclusion as Shikamaru.

"One of them is. The boy with the bull mask. The other two's scents were in the clearing. The one in the middle…is Naruto." The boy wearing the fox mask let out a laugh.

"Should have known you'd be the one helping them, Pakunn. You were always one of the best trackers I knew." He said as he lifted a hand to his mask and removed it from his face and then threw the hood off from his head. Sakura and Kakashi both let out a gasp when they saw one of the faces that had haunted them for the last decade.

"N…Naruto?" Kakashi managed to choke out after a short, stunned silence. The boy in front of him looked no older than fourteen, but he had the whisker like scars on his face and his eyes were the same bright blue they had had always been, yet they were different. There was pain and trauma in them, as well as the fact that they resembled those of a fox now. His blonde hair was still spiky but longer and his ears were pointed. Naruto grinned at them, showing off pointed teeth.

"Hey guys. Miss me much?"

"Wha…what happened to you?" Shikamaru gasped out. Naruto's fists clenched and his teeth were bared in a soundless snarl of anger.

"Orochimaru and the Teme happened. They screwed around with me and the others so bad that most of us can't even show our faces in any village."

Sakura's hand flew to her mouth. Her Inner was screaming that it was a lie. That there was no way that Sasuke would ever do such a thing. But she also knew that in the time that she had known him, Naruto had never lied nor had he talked about Sasuke with such hatred and anger in his voice.

"Where have you been all this time? Tsunade and everyone else have been frantic with worry about you. They'll be glad to see you. However we should put a genjutsu on you so that…" Kakashi paused when Naruto held up his hand, stopping him from continuing.

"I'm sorry Kakashi, but there's no way I'm setting foot in the village again. Ever." Those words were like a kunai to Sakura's heart. All this time she had dreaming of the moment when Naruto would return to the village and be a big part of her life again. It had what had kept her going all this time.

"Why? Why won't you come back?" She shouted at him. There was silence as blue eyes met emerald.

"You know why. The village hated me when I looked normal. If I came back looking like this, I'd probably be chased back out within the hour."

"But, Lady Tsunade would protect you. The villagers wouldn't go against her orders." Sakura argued, determined not to give up just yet.

"The council would never allow it. I'm really sorry that I worried you and the others Sakura, but things can never be what they were."

"Why do you care anyway?" Another voice sounded out and Kakashi glared at the bull masked boy.

"He's a ninja of Kohona and my student. He is also very important to me and I…"

Next second he found himself pinned to the tree trunk, one of the boy's hands round his throat in a bone crushing grip. The killer intent pouring off him so vicious that everyone was finding it hard to breathe.

"How dare you pretend that you ever cared about him, Hatake! You were one of the ANBU that was supposed to protect him when he was younger, yet you constantly stood by and let him be beaten within an inch of his life, leaving it to Weasel to save him from being killed. Even when he was your student, you never lost a chance to hold him back or ridicule him. How many times did you even bother to train him or Sakura? You only ever cared for the Uchiha and look how he repaid you! He betrayed you for Orochimaru while Naruto stayed loyal to your teachings and tried to earn your respect and just once have you acknowledge him as a strong person!" Kakashi flinched at the boy's words and felt a guilty pang in his heart because every word was true. He had hated Naruto in the past, blaming him for the death of his sensei and in retaliation had done very little to help him. Eventually Weasel had lost his temper and reported him to the Third Hokage who had demoted him to Jonin as a punishment. So when Naruto had been assigned to his team, Kakashi had decided to do everything in his power to sabotage Naruto's career as a ninja, choosing instead to focus only on Sasuke. But after the mission to Wave and the Chunin exams, his opinion had been changed. naruto had proven, to him at least, that he wasn't the Kyuubi but Naruto Uzumaki of Kohonagauke and he felt guilty for what he had done. But he never got the chance to earn his trust and make up for the pain that he had caused him.

"Let him go Minotaur!" Naruto shouted and quickly shunshined over to them when he saw that his friend was determined to crush his former sensei's windpipe.

"Why should I? After all he's done to you, he deserves to die!" Naruto grabbed his arm and forced the boy to look at him.

"Don't do this. For me. For the others." There was a tense silence. Shikamaru was trying to figure out a way to help Kakashi if Minotaur didn't listen to Naruto, and Sakura was torn between letting Naruto handle it or smashing both boy's jaws in. It seemed like an eternity when Minotaur loosened his grip round the copy nin's throat and flung his body into a tree near to where the othe Leaf nin were at a force that none of them thought possible. Shikamaru winced when he heard the bones crack.

"Sensei!" Sakura shouted, darting forwards and managing to catch Kakashi before he fell to the ground.

" FOR KAMI'S SAKE MINOTAUR! WHEN I SAID LET HIM GO, I DIDN'T MEAN THAT!" Naruto yelled. Minotaur simply shrugged his shoulders.

"That piece of trash deserves worse."

Neji's eyes widened. Minotaur's voice had been bugging him. It seemed familiar but he just couldn't place it. That is, until he heard Kakashi being described as trash.

"Byakugan!" Next second he found himself staring into a face that he had thought he would never see again.

"Y…You!" Minotaur turned to face Neji at his shout, removing his mask as he did so.

"Long time no see." Despite the fact that he remained emotionless and controlled on the outside, Neji was shaking in fear on the inside. He was now facing the only enemy who had figured out his ultimate weakness and had come within an inch of ending his life as a result. Even though he was more stronger than the last time, it was clear that Kidomaru had also improved.

"I killed you, I saw you die!" Kidomaru grinned. But it wasn't the same cocky, excited and sadistic grin that Neji had seen. It was strained. As if he was fighting back hidden emotions.

"Nothing is as it seems in the ninja world. What you saw was a Genjutsu, you were so weak that it was easy to fool you." Neji growled and his fists clenched. Instantly Naruto was in between them, his arms outstretched.

"Neji, I know that this is difficult to take in. But please don't do anything that will cause us to attack you. You've seen what Kidomaru did to Kakashi."

"Why are you protecting him? Have you forgotten that he was partly responsible for Sasuke falling into Orochimaru's hands! That he tried to kill all of us including you! He's nothing but a monster!" Naruto's eyes narrowed at Neji's words but he still didn't move.

"I haven't forgotten that day, Neji. In fact it's heavy on my mind every day that I still breathe! But when everyone else had abandoned me for dead, he was the one that saved me, even though we were enemies! He went back for his team mates, even though he was wounded and knew that he faced death if he was found by our ninja! Is that the behaviour of a monster to you? I owe him my life and he is my friend. I will stand by him all the way…even if it makes me your enemy." Shikamaru and Neji were all thrown by his words and couldn't find anything suitable to say after that. But Sakura wasn't so speechless.

"What about us? We pushed ourselves to the limit for you! We stood by you through thick and thin ten years ago! We even didn't a fuck that you were the vessel for the Kyuubi! Doesn't that mean anything to you? You're no different than Sasuke! In fact you're worse than him! At least he never fooled any of us into believing that we actually meant something to him before he tossed us aside like garbage!"

If anything was to shatter Naruto's heart, this was it. One of his hands flew to his mouth and he took a step back as if Sakura had physically struck him. His mind was in turmoil. Was he really worse than Sasuke, just because he had chosen his new friends over the village? There was a yell of rage followed by a string of curses. Kidomaru turned to see Tayuya struggling to hold a furious Deidara back and instantly went to help her out.

"If that's how you feel then I won't burden you with this demon's presence any longer, Sakura."

Let's go. They won't follow us. He mentally said to the others.

They'd better not! Tayuya snapped back, but he didn't hear her. All he wanted was to get away from this place. From Sakura. He vanished with a blur of yellow, closely followed by the others.

As soon as they were gone, Shikamaru turned to Sakura.

"HOW COULD YOU HAVE SAID THAT TO HIM?" He roared at her, visibly fighting back the urge to punch her in the face. The image of Naruo's reaction to her words clear and terrible in his mind.

"It's true. He doesn't care about us. They were right. He is nothing more than a…"

SMACK!

"DON'T YOU DARE FINSH THAT SENTENCE SAKURA! IF HE WAS A DEMON, WHY DID HE STOP KIDOMARU FROM KILLING KAKASHI AND PREVENT A FIGHT FROM BREAKING OUT BETWEEN HIM AND NEJI?" Sakura clung to her stinging face and glared at Shikamaru for a few seconds before turning her attention to her sensei. The lazy shadow user couldn't bring himself to look at Kakashi or Sakura as she healed the copy nin's wounds. He couldn't believe that Naruto was a demon, or that he was a worse traitor than Sasuke. He just couldn't.

"We have to go back and tell Lady Tsunade what we found out."

"Shouldn't we try to follow them?" Neji asked but Shikamaru shook his head. It would be suicide to do that if the reaction of Naruto's companions was anything to go by. Besides, they would most likely be long gone by now. Letting out a sad sigh, Shikamaru leapt back and started the long journey back to Kohona not giving Neji and Sakura the chance to object to his decision.

Here's a question for you;

I probably won't have Naruto returning to Kohona, but do you think that he should forgive the village, or not?

Let me know what you think. Thanks!