Author's Notes: Okay, this is important. I kinda decided to end the story in a very drastic way. I just want you to understand this and PLEASE don't get mad at me for anything here in this chapter. Also, there is only one more chapter to go before this story is finished. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 7

Making a Friend

Our Heroes Think

In four separate areas of the chaos driven village, the students gathered together and began discussing what needed to be done. Team seven hid quietly in the bushes a few streets away from the shelter. Team eight sat in the back of the parking lot, all seated on the ground. Team eleven, who had been running after Asuma once more, stopped to talk in the park like always. Tenten and Lee found a spot on the rooftop of another building after losing Gai's track. Each one (plus Buster) looked very serious.

"We need help." Sasuke admitted to his group.

"And fast." Ino agreed with Shikamaru.

"But who can help us now?" Shino asked his teammates, feeling hopeless.

"We just need to think." Lee sighed, and the two closed their eyes in deep thought.

Suddenly, Naruto looked up at Sakura and Sasuke, as if he'd come to realize something.

"There is one person!" he cried, getting their attention.

"Who?" Choji gasped, looking back at Shikamaru.

"I'm not really sure this'll work…" Kiba mumbled.

"…but I've heard he's good." Tenten told Lee.

"The Hokage?" Sakura asked.

"No, not at all." Naruto told her. "But I'm pretty sure he's the only one to help us now."

Moments Later…

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto bellowed, running towards his old teacher's home with flailing arms. Iruka sat outside on a comfy chair, enjoying the night air. From where Iruka lived, the chaos had not yet reached his neighborhood, so he had to sense of the oncoming danger that struck Konoha. He looked up at his students, especially Naruto, and smiled. It was nice getting visitors, since teaching took up too much of his time to actually make him sociable.

"It's just Iruka, Naruto." he told his tired ex-student. "I'm not you sensei anymore. Cute puppy, by the way."

Buster looked happy for the complement and raised his adorable head from Naruto's arms to show it off. "Thanks." Naruto said simply, although in any other time he would have shown the dog off.

"We have a problem!" Naruto cried. Iruka closed his eyes.

"Did the ramen stand close early again, Naruto?" Iruka sighed. Naruto shook his head quickly.

"No, no!" Naruto cried. "Much worse!"

"Kakashi has…!" Sakura began, but the sound of yelling stopped her.

Tenten and Lee, along with team eleven and eight, ran in the same franticness as they had come before them. As they all crowded around Iruka, they all babbled and shouted all at once.

"Um, guys…?" Iruka said in a meek voice. Still, they did not hear him, for he was much to quiet.

After a moment of not listening to him, he tried an old method from when he taught them; by whacking them in the heads with a thick, heavy scroll. As they sat on the ground, nursing their heads, Iruka smiled down at them, looking a bit annoyed.

"Now, one at a time." he said slowly, swatting his scroll against his palm.

Naruto looked up at him. "Kakashi wouldn't let us in his house, so we snuck in and found a lot of dogs and we made him put them up for adoption because he had too many. I mean, way too many. Anyways, suddenly all the puppies were kidnapped and Kakashi took them all to an abandoned shelter and he won't give them back and he's gone crazy and stuff!"

"Asuma-sensei was going too far with his smoking habit so we tried to start a no-cigarette healthy lifestyle while we changed our unhealthy ways as well. But Asuma began to withdrawal really bad and he secretly planned to by some strange Cuban cigars from some dealer. And we caught him buying them and tried to take them away but he got mad, kidnapped Shikamaru, and after smoking them all at once, blew up that old creepy warehouse at the end of the village." Choji told him.

"Kurenai buys too much crap so we took away her credit cards and ran illegal fundraisers to help her with her many debts but I think she went insane because soon all the stores began to have super Mega-Sales and she wanted shoes but we said no so she drove herself mad and now she's trying to jump off a JC Penny." Hinata cried, talking very fast.

"Gai-sensei never left us alone so we put up a restraining order to keep him away but when that didn't work we gave him a shock bracelet and that stopped him for a while. But Lee got upset and he STUPIDLY gave Gai-sensei a key to unlocking it and yesterday he kidnapped Neji who is now taped to Gai's back while Gai tears the town apart!" Tenten gasped.

"What kind of tape?" Iruka asked.

"Duct tape." Lee told him.

"Damn…just as I thought…" Iruka mumbled.

"Will you help us?" Hinata cried.

"I'll do what I can." He told her. "Come with me, Kiba, Shino, Hinata; take me to Kurenai."

Team 8

Kurenai was still on the tall roof, threatening to jump when the four of them got there. Sales people were frantically trying to offer her deals on sales and clearance, but even this was not enough to calm the disturbed woman down. They watched her toss pop cans down onto the scared witnesses.

"How about a free pair of boots?" one woman pleaded. "Uh…uh…ninja boots?"

"Credit cards!" Kurenai bellowed, throwing down a copy-right protected can of soda onto the woman.

"A free coat?" a man asked. "Two free coats? Three? Four?"

"Credit cards!" Kurenai repeated, tossing down what looked like a small rock. It hit the poor man with such ninja force that he feel to the ground out cold. The paramedic nins had come to scoop him up; apparently he was not the first to have this happen to him.

"This is sad, really." Iruka said very quietly. "And to think I had a crush on her in grade school…"

"What was that, Iruka?" Kiba asked.

"I was thinking how we should get her down." Iruka lied calmly. He turned back to them.

"The reason she's up there is because you took her cards away, correct?" Iruka asked them.

"She's a shop-o-holic!" Hinata blurted. "She had to be stopped!" Her teammates looked at her oddly, for she had been the one to reject the idea in the first place.

"She was in debt." Shino explained. "And I was tired of going on her Victoria's Se-se-se-se…"

"…secret…?" Kiba finished, for Shino had begun twitching again.

"…errands." Shino said at last. Iruka raised an eyebrow at him.

"Okay," he sighed. "I think I may have a plan… Does Kurenai like you guys?"

"I don't know anymore." Kiba admitted. "Probably not."

"We should still try…" Iruka sighed. "Follow me."

They shoved their way to the front of the spectators and stood near the front of the building, under where Kurenai stood. She hissed down at the people, but when she saw her students, she began to make low, growling sounds.

Iruka pulled out a mega-phone from his back pocket (God forbid why that was there in the first place…) and called up to her. "Kurenai," he shouted. "Your students have something they need to tell you." Without breaking his gaze from Kurenai, he passed the mega-phone to the person on his right; Hinata. She took it with trembling hands and slowly moved it up to her mouth.

"Sensei?" she said, the micro-phone making her voice unusually louder, which made everyone surprised. "It's me, Hinata; your favorite student."

"Hey!" Kiba snapped. Hinata shrugged.

"She told me I was." Hinata said calmly.

"Must be a girl thing…" Shino whispered back to Kiba, who looked hurt.

"Hinata can't be the favorite, can she?" he whispered back, but he noticed that Kurenai looked a little calmer after hearing Hinata's words. He dropped his head in utter defeat.

"I just wanted to say we care about you, and you're making a big mistake." Hinata continued. Shino and Kiba pulled the mega-phone towards them.

"Sensei? It's Kiba…"

"And Shino…"

"We just want to say that you're very important to us, and we don't want anything bad to happen to you."

Behind the three, the audience "aww-ed" loudly. Kurenai looked down at them mildly surprised.

"We're sorry about the credit cards." Shino added. "We only wanted to look out for you. We were afraid your debts would be too much for you to handle on your own."

"We paid off at least half of them, too." Hinata told her, after ripping the mega-phone out of the boys' hands. "We only wanted to help."

"Come down, please!" Kiba yelled. "If you jumped, we'd have no sensei to kick us around anymore!"

"Or make us run in circles." Hinata sighed.

"Or make us run errands at…at…" Shino stuttered.

"Victoria's Secret!" yelled the audience behind him. Shino nodded in thanks.

Kurenai looked odd, now. She looked both touched and confused all at the same time. But she still did not budge. Finally, Kiba grabbed the mega-phone from Hinata and looked up.

"If you promise to spend your money wisely," he shouted, but hesitated to finish. Finally he chocked out, "…we'll give you your credit cards back."

That was enough. Kurenai grinned happily and walked down the wall to her relieved students. She contentedly hugged them, and with that, they walked home along with all the spectators. Iruka smiled at them but remembering his other jobs, he dashed away as well.

Team 11

Iruka found the team in the park again, waiting for their instructions.

"Do you guys know where Asuma is?" Iruka asked them as he arrived.

"Some ninja guy came up to us a while ago and told us he was spotted near the warehouse he exploded." Ino told him. "The guy looked really weird. He kept mumbling about quitting his job or something. He looked totally stressed out."

"Alright." Iruka sighed. "Let's see…What can we use to stop him? We used compassion and fluff for Kurenai…now what can we use for Asuma? Quick, do any of you guys have anything we can use?"

The three looked at each other awkwardly and began emptying their pockets. Iruka examined each item closely, but looked disappointed with each one.

Finally, he looked over at Choji's items and stopped.

"What is that!?" Iruka gasped.

Choji held it up for Iruka to see. Iruka grinned and looked over at Shikamaru, who by now realized what he was talking about. Ino and Choji didn't understand.

They found Asuma skipping in the moonlight with a bungee cord in each hand. No one knows why he had bungee cords, or where he got them from. In fact I'm pretty sure even he didn't know why or where he had gotten them. But he had them, non-the-less.

The four of them hid silently in the trees, watching; waiting for the right moment to expose themselves. Iruka finally looked over at Choji and nodded.

In ninja-like stealth, Choji tiptoed out into the open, the item in his hands. Nervously, he cupped his hand to the side of his mouth and called out. "Asuma-sensei!" he bellowed, his voice cracking slightly with uneasiness. Asuma, who was quite a bit away from Choji, spun around with a murderous look.

Choji swallowed hard but held up his item. "I have nicotine mint gum!" he told him. "It's cinnamon; you favorite!"

Asuma's expression changed at the sound of 'gum' and 'cinnamon.' He looked like a puppy begging for a treat, and just as that, he dashed towards Choji, stopping to sniff the minty gum.

"Do you want it?" Choji asked him. Asuma nodded, looking very pleased.

"Then stop smoking those cigars!" Choji snapped. "And then the gum is yours."

Asuma stopped begging, and looked up at Choji oddly now. He pulled out a cigar and looked at it, and then looked up at the gum. He looked back down at the cigar, then at the gum, then the cigar, then the gum again. By now Choji was shaking with fear, for if Asuma picked the cigar he'd surely kill Choji on the spot. He looked over at the other three for encouragement only to see that the others had climbed a tree for their own safety and were grinning down at Choji with false confidence. Choji looked back at the confused Asuma fearfully.

Asuma looked as if he wasn't willing to make an answer anytime soon, so Shikamaru up in the tree suddenly whispered down, "Take the gum! It's better!" Asuma moved his hand towards the gum, then towards the cigar, then the gum, then…

Finally, after about ten useless minutes of this, and because Iruka knew he had to be somewhere else helping the other teams, Iruka climbed down carefully and slowly approached Choji and Asuma like those guys from the Animal Channel do when approaching a lion. He grabbed the gum from Choji and looked right at Asuma.

"If you don't take it, I will." he told him. "Then you'll never have this gum ever again."

And low and behold, Asuma looked horrified by that. He snatched the gum out of Iruka's hand and shoved it into his mouth happily, now completely forgetting the cigar he now had dropped.

Shikamaru grinned at Iruka. "Thanks." he smiled. "Looks like its over for Asuma. That gum should keep him occupied for at least a day."

"Good." Iruka sighed, relieved it had worked. "Now I'll leave it up to you guys."

And then, like a ninja in the night, he dashed away to find the next of the people who needed his Iruka-ness.

Team Gai

Tenten first spotted Iruka and waved at him to get him to find them. They hid quietly in the dark ally on the destroyed streets of Konoha.

"First, where is Gai?" Iruka asked them.

"Well…" Lee mumbled.

"We don't know." Tenten said bitterly. "We lost track of him at least two hours ago." She glared at Lee again.

"He's still wearing this bracelet you put on him, right?" Iruka asked them.

"Yeah, but it's turned off." Lee said.

"Don't they usually have a tracker in them that works when it's been broken or turned off?" Iruka asked again. "In case something like this ever happens?"

Tenten blinked. "I never thought of that." she admitted. She pulled out an instruction manual and looked it over, flipping through the many pages. Finally she grinned up at them.

"Lee, there may be hope for you yet." she smirked at him.

"How do you do it?" Iruka asked her. "Quick, we need to find him."

Tenten pulled a remote-like thing and showed it to them. "I forgot about this. It's a remote to send the shock bracelet off without Gai-sensei getting close to the other ones. I never thought I'd have to use that, but I never noticed the tracking button on the bottom."

"Good work, Tenten!" Lee cried. "Now you can find Gai-sensei with that!"

"You mean you can." Tenten corrected him with a sinister grin. Lee's smile faded instantly.

"Yeah, but what do we do when Lee catches him?" Iruka sighed. "We can't just find him and have no plan to stop him."

"The key!" Lee cried. "I still have one."

"I get it!" Tenten gasped. The two looked proudly at Iruka who had no clue what they were talking about.

"If we, and by that I mean Lee, can get Gai's bracelet turned back on with one of the keys, he'll be shocked by Neji's." Tenten explained. Lee grinned at this until he realized his name had been said.

"He still has the bracelet on?" Iruka repeated in disbelief. "I mean, I know he's Gai, but he'd take it off, right? He's not that stup…"

Sadly, his students shook their heads.

Tenten started up the tracker and the three raced off into town. "He's somewhere near the markets." Tenten told them. She planed to hand off the device to Lee and run far away when they got too close to Gai's location. Lee, holding the key of destiny, raced behind her. He had a mission, to turn Gai back to the way he once was. This was mega important.

Once they reached the marketplace, they stopped and listened.

"I hear Neji!" Lee whispered.

"What's he saying?" Iruka asked.

"He's just screaming…" Lee mumbled.

"Neji is such a drama queen." Tenten sighed. Lee looked at her, thinking, So are you…

"Okay, Lee." Tenten whispered. "It's up to you. Go turn the bracelet off right now."

"Gotcha!" Lee hissed. "I'll save you Neji!" And with a heroic dash, he leapt away.

Lee ran stealthily through the streets, looking around for Gai and following Neji's excessive wailing. As the screaming grew louder and closer, Lee held onto his key tighter.

Finally, Lee spotted Gai savagely ripping apart a trash can. Neji's voice was growing hoarse and he looked tired from yelling for so long.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee shouted. His teacher, the one he had looked up to for so long, turned to him, grinning.

"Join me, Lee!" Gai laughed. "Join me and Neji in our youthful bliss!"

"Stop saying that, it's weird!" Neji snapped.

"Gai, this is wrong." Lee cried. "I need to let him go, or I'll have to stop you."

"You think I can be stopped?!" Gai suddenly growled, his voice turning demonic. "I'm Might Gai of Konoha! I will never be stopped!"

He lunged at Rock Lee, who screamed and began running in zigzags to get away.

Crap, Lee thought miserably. This is impossible! How am I going to stop him with this tiny key!?

"Believe in yourself!" came a voice in Lee's head. "After all, you are the Green Beast of Konoha! You can do it. Believe!"

"I am the Green Beast of Konoha!" Lee cried. And with that, he spun around and tossed the key at Gai. As if in slow motion, the key clicked into the lock perfectly.

With the powers of Lee's mind, he turned the key mentally, and suddenly Gai was on the ground screaming. He ripped off the duct tape and fled in terror, dropping the key Lee had given him.

"Lee, you did it!" Neji cried happily. But as Lee ran to hug him, Neji punched him hard in the face.

"You got me kidnapped!" he yelled. "Gai told me!"

"I'm sorry, Neji!" Lee gasped.

"You did it!" Iruka cried. The other two had run out of their safe spot far away to congratulate Lee.

"Good work!" Tenten grinned. Lee held his hand up to stop her.

"Do not congratulate me for I have only caused pain." he said heroically.

"Good lord," Neji groaned. "Can we just go home?"

"Oh, yeah!" Iruka cried. "I still have to help Naruto! See you guys around!"

The three of them waved him off as he ran away.

Team 7

When Iruka found Naruto and the gang, they were trembling in fear and anxiousness.

"Where have you been?" Sakura cried when he came to sit down with them. They were all seated on the sidewalk in front of the shelter.

"I finished all the other problems." Iruka told them proudly. None of them looked impressed.

"So what's the situation?" Iruka asked Sasuke.

"Kakashi's still in there." Sasuke mumbled. "That's all we know."

"Buster misses his family!" Naruto cried. "All his friends are in there and he's worried."

Iruka winced. That dog was just too damn cute.

"Okay." Iruka sighed. "Let's think; how should we get Kakashi out?"

"We run in and yell at him." Naruto said breathlessly, just as soon as Iruka stopped talking.

"You really do act without thinking, don't you?" Sakura sighed. "You're honestly hopeless."

"I am not!" Naruto snapped as Buster growled in agreement. By growling, I mean he growled cutely.

"Do you guys have anything to say?" Iruka asked them.

"No." Sakura sighed.

"If we knew what to do we wouldn't have asked for your help." Sasuke said rudely.

"Well, if no one else knows what to do, then we have to go with Naruto's plan." Iruka sighed. Sakura and Sasuke looked at each other awkwardly, then at Naruto, who was beaming.

"Why are you so happy?" Sasuke snapped.

"I'm the smart one, today!" he grinned. Sasuke slapped him.

"There is nothing smart about your plan." Sasuke snapped at him.

"But it's all we have." Iruka corrected him. "Let's give it a try."

"You ready, Buster?" Naruto asked the puppy. Buster nuzzled his head against Naruto's chin happily.

"I love you so much, Buster!" Naruto giggled. "You're the best dog a boy could have!"

"You coming, Naruto?" Iruka called. The rest of the team stood at the door.

"Yeah, coming!" Naruto grinned. Still holding Buster tightly, he raced in after them.

They raced back down the stairs to find the same scene as before; crates of dogs piled high with Kakashi standing proudly on top of the. This time, oil lamps around the room were lit and burning, giving the room an ominous feel.

"You guys are back for more?" he taunted them.

"Buster's not happy about what you're doing!" Naruto snapped. "He's angry at you for imprisoning his family!"

"Buster is not yours!" Kakashi snapped. "He's mine!"

"He doesn't want to be yours if you're like this!" Naruto snapped back. "Kakashi, you used to take such good care of your dogs, but now…now…!"

"You're crazy!" Sakura finished.

"Because you made me give them up!" Kakashi hissed. "If I took such good care of them before, why'd I have to give them away!?"

"Kakashi, stop this." Sasuke snapped. "This isn't you. You never act like this!"

"You're too out-of-character!" Naruto yelled.

"You made me this way!" Kakashi screamed. "And now I'm going to leave…and I take all my dogs away!"

"What?!" Sakura snapped. "Iruka, do something!"

Iruka shrugged. This was just too weird.

"Not only that, but when I leave with my puppies I'm blowing up this whole shelter." Kakashi snapped. "And you can't stop me, because I have the dynamite already here!"

"You fiend!" Naruto gasped.

Buster suddenly leapt out of Naruto's arms and began barking loudly at Kakashi. "You tell 'em, Buster!" Naruto yelled proudly.

Sasuke kept his eyes on Kakashi and began backing up. Maybe, from an angle, he could throw a kunai at him to distract him, and then Sakura and Iruka could…

Suddenly, Sasuke bumped into something. He turned around to see what it was but it was too late. An oil lamp tipped over, crashing on the ground. A few feet away, Sasuke saw crates of TNT.

Kakashi gasped and leapt off his crates to get away.

"This is bad!" Sakura gasped. "Run!"

"What?!" Naruto asked, unaware of what happened. Sakura grabbed the back of his jacket and raced out behind Iruka and Sasuke.

Outside, they raced away to a good distance. Naruto squirmed and yelled the entire way out.

"What re you doing!" he snapped.

"We had to get out, Naruto!" Sasuke yelled.

"You guys are so spastic!" Naruto shouted. "Buster's still in there! I have to get him before Kakashi does…!"

Behind them, the building exploded into ruins. Naruto turned and watched it in horror.

Author's Notes: PLEASE DON'T GET MAD AT ME! PLEEEEAAAAAASE!