In the hours after Lynx's death and cremation, Naruto didn't stop screaming until someone finally hit him with a Genjutsu that put him to sleep. The boy started screaming and crying again the instant he awoke several hours later however. Eventually, after being knocked out two more times, Naruto finally stopped screaming.
The team had already been in low spirits as they made their way back to Konoha thanks to the failure of their mission and the death of their teammate. Naruto's screaming and, later, inconsolable crying didn't help matters any. The fact that Naruto refused to eat, and wouldn't sleep unless someone knocked him out with drugs or or a Jutsu just made matters worse. Because nerves were frayed and tempers were short, they had been less inclined to comfort the boy and try to make the child who had had death hidden from him for far too long understand than they should have, and the results of that decision rapidly made themselves known.
After they got home, no matter how many times they tried to coax the child to do so, the child still refused to either sleep or eat. The boy grew dangerously thin before their eyes. Any attempts made at force-feeding him only resulted in a mess as the child struggled in the grip of the one who tried to feed him and screamed like a banshee. Dark circles formed beneath the child's eyes as he continued to refuse to sleep. By the time the Hokage saw the boy and decided that it was best that the child retire from ANBU and possibly the ninja forces altogether considering his fragile state, the child was severely emaciated.
The team stuck by the child who continued to decline over the following days and weeks, hoping that he would miraculously improve but, knowing that they were awaiting the inevitable.
One day, as Naruto lay in the infirmary hooked up to an I.V. and a number of other machines that monitored his deteriorating condition, Crow made a hesitant suggestion. He thought that he might know something that would help the child, but it was a clan secret that he couldn't share with the team. Despite the fact that the the clan that the boy who was at an age where most children would be graduating the Academy belonged to was under suspicion, and the fact that half the team believed that the Uchiha had had something to do with the Kyuubi attack, the team decided to allow this. There was really no other hope at this point, as the Yamanaka weren't inclined to enter the boy's mind after Inoichi had run into the Kyuubi that one time, and nothing else that had been tried had worked. It wasn't as if whatever Crow had planned could do any further harm to the child, considering...
After bundling the boy up and sneaking him out of the infirmary, they handed the child to Crow and settled down to wait and hope.
Sakura had watched as Naruto was carried to Konoha by the leader of the ANBU team that had been sent to retrieve them after Kakashi-sensei had been injured and their mission had gone to Hell in a handbasket. Over the past two days they'd been traveling, Naruto had completely refused to eat, hadn't slept, and hadn't said a word to anyone. The pain-filled look in the boy's eyes worried her because it was so unlike the boy she had known for years.
Based on the ANBU team leader's body language, what little of Kakashi-sensei's expression she could see, and the covert glances and handsigns the two exchanged, this unprecedented change in Naruto's behaviour was both familiar and expected. She wondered why they would expect something like this, since she'd never seen Naruto behave this way before, even when he was at his most depressed. She was also curious about where the ANBU team leader knew Naruto from, because Naruto had never before mentioned knowing any ANBU personally, and that was just the sort of thing the boy she knew would have bragged about back at the Academy.
All in all, exactly who Naruto was as well as what was going on with him was a mystery that she was unable to solve, because she was missing so many pieces of the puzzle that it wasn't funny. What she had been able to put together with the pieces she did have didn't make sense. Between the Academy and his placement on Team 7, there was no time for Naruto to have been in ANBU. And, besides, the ANBU who were the best of the best didn't take Dead Last near-dropouts. She wouldn't have a chance to discuss this with anyone and get their opinions on the issue though, because Kakashi-sensei had made her swear to tell no-one about this mission. Apparently, something they had seen or done during the mission from Hell had been classified for a reason she couldn't fathom.
Sasuke warily watched his seemingly near-catatonic teammate who had greater depths to him than he'd previously suspected as they made their way back to Konoha. When it came to the other boy who frequently antagonized him, he'd been looking at the near-blinding surface for so long that he had pretty much forgotten that there might be something underneath that surface. The clues that there were more to the idiot who had made it his mission in life to bother him had all been there, but he had not associated the disparate incidents and pieced them together. Now that he began to do so, the picture that formed was rather disturbing.
The thought that That Man had done something to the boy that had made him the way he was now had disturbed him greatly. And, it was clearly Itachi who had done it, whatever it was, considering the number of comments Kakashi made about Naruto's similarity to someone called Obito who was presumably the Hatake's former teammate Uchiha Obito. But, there was another thought that disturbed him even more greatly, and that was "Was there something about ANBU that drove the people in it insane?".
The fact that there was evidence to support this supposition was frightening. Both That Man and the Dead Last had served in ANBU and, both of them ended up suffering serious mental problems. It had only been after joining ANBU that That Man had begun acting strangely and pulling away from him. It had been after making Team Captain at what he'd heard was an insanely young age that That Man had suffered some sort of psychotic break and slaughtered the entire clan except for him. When it came to the Dead Last who would be so easy to overlook if he weren't constantly clamoring for attention, well, the fact that he had problems was patently obvious, especially now.
When they finally got back to Konoha and Naruto holed himself up in his apartment, not leaving for anything, not even missions or training, Sasuke and Sakura were almost relieved because it solved the problem of what to do with the teammate that they both found themselves to be frightened of for different reasons and didn't know how to deal with. Kakashi who found himself watching almost helplessly as his exhausted student dropped weight at an alarming rate and glared at him distrustfully each time he approached to try to get him to eat or sleep, on the other hand, wasn't anywhere near relieved. He was worried that Naruto wouldn't pull out of his current state and that things would go the way they had the last time, or worse, considering the fact that Uchiha Itachi wasn't there to bring about a miracle.
It had been out of the desperation he had been feeling that he had taken the advice of the man whom he couldn't remember aside from the impression he had of the sound of a tinkling bell and brought Naruto to an isolated section of the forest and left him there alone. There could be no other explanation for why he had done something so potentially foolish, something that could place Naruto at such great risk of being captured by Konoha's enemies while he was in his weakened state.
Edited 8-21-12.
