Sorry for the delay but I had been busy. Anyway I need to the story to develope a little more so you'll need to be patient. Thank you (:

Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own Naruto. (Such a surprise!) :O

Chapter 8: That's what you get for learning the hard way.

I woke up at 5 a.m. Rumbling about how cold it was today I made my way to the shower where I took a quick bath, I couldn't afford to take much time, because my students would be a the gate in a few minutes. Quickly I put my clothes on, grabbed my sword and the 4 coats that were official of Konoha because in the Land of Steel it was really cold. I shivered just thinking about it. Making my way to the door I looked at the apartment once more, who knows if I'm even coming back. Strange isn't it? Shinobi's life it's just like this, taking risks, but, at the same time it's really gratificating and amplifies your pride. Your pride, and maybe, your arrogance too.

My thoughts drifted to the arrogant idiot that everyone was looking for. Sighing I made my way to the door. When I opened it I found Hinata and Ino looking at me with cheesy grins. Well, Ino was, Hinata was just, you know, smiling.

"Hello Kasumi-chan!" Ino greeted cheerfully.

"Hello… Ino-chan, Hinata-chan." I greeted eyeing them suspiciously. "What can I do for you?"

"We know that you're going in mission, but we have a little favour to ask you…" Ino's grin became bigger if that is even possible.

"Ino-chan, I think you mean that you have a favour to ask her…" Hinata replied quietly. Ino glared at her what made the girl shiver.

Okay, these two are seriously creeping me out.

"What is it?" I asked with a fake smile.

"Well, in case you find my fellow comrade, Shikamaru, just tell him that, WHEN HE ARRIVES HOME I'M GOING TO BEAT THE LIVING DAY LIGHTS OUT OF HIM!" This time even I shivered. What's up with the woman of Konoha, they are all freaking scary as hell.

"Okay, the message will be delivered." I stated while turning around to live. "I must go away now. So see you!" I stated and started running to the gate.

"BYE KASUMI-CHAN!" They both yelled.

When I arrived to the gate, my students were already there. Rai and Ryuu were almost hyperactive and Minoru was a little apprehensive.

"Are you okay, Minoru?" I asked the shy boy while giving him the coat. He put it quickly and nodded fervently.

"Come on Minoru! Are you a shinobi or what? Stop being such a pussy!" Rai said when I handed her the coat.

"Rai, different people have different ways of handling the fear." I explained. "Remember that the brave man is the one that faces his fears in the end."

"Well, are we going or what?" Ryuu asked, his hyper activeness made me remember of Naruto.

"Let's go." I ordered and we started running.

-----

Hours passed and I could see that my students were fairly tired.

"Guys I think it's time to rest." They all nodded and stopped, we were already a hour away from our target so there was plenty of snow on the ground.

"Let's do a little fire, shall we?" I asked them. In a matter of minutes we were sitting around the fire while relaxing.

"Sensei?" Minoru asked me.

"Yes?" The shy boy was now playing with his fingers.

"Sensei, have you ever … killed someone?" Suddenly the air became stiff and all eyes were set on me. It wasn't that surprising the fact that he was asking me this, but nevertheless I haven't seen that coming.

"Yes." I answered; my eyes were glued on the fire. By the corner of my eye I saw my students exchanging glances, maybe they agreed in doing this.

"How many?" Rai asked me with a serious tone.

This time I choose to look at them. "I've lost count." I admitted. "When we, shinobi, grow up our missions become more risky and aggressive, because of that, many times we have to kill other shinobi that threat our mission." My students nodded. "That doesn't mean that killing is acceptable because it's not. A righteous ninja must seek peace and show mercy when our enemies ask for it."

"Sensei, why are we in war?" Ryuu gave the final blow but I was already K.O.

I leaned on the tree, deep in thought.

"Well… I think that you are only paying by mistakes of the past. And when I say you I mean my generation, yours and far beyond." They only stared at me. "This is a stupid war, like all the others were. The only reason why the ninja world can't find peace is because of our stupid pride that clouds our leaders' minds and most of all, because we think that the other villages and countries are less than us." I closed my eyes and an image of Naruto came to my mind, his big hopeful blue cerulean eyes and positive attitude were definitely something where my faith relied on.

"Do you think that Naruto can do it?" Rai asked. My eyes opened and a smirk crossed my features.

"Alone?! Hell no!" I said and saw their eyes darkening. "But with everyone's help, that's quite possible." They smilled at me.

"That's right! I'm going to kick any shinobi's ass that threats my village." Ryuu said punching the air. I gave him a look. "Oh, and who threatens the others villages…" He said with no conviction.

We laughed and he huffed.

"I think it's time to go." We all got up. "Remember, be ready to find anything okay? And don't drop your kunai…"

"Even if it moves on his own." They finished.

------

Running is something that we, ninjas, are used to do everyday. Nevertheless it's still tiring when you pass three hours straight doing it at high speed. Well I could just levitate my sword that wouldn't be fair for my students, besides its good to built stamina. After checking on my students that were a little behind me I saw that they were too tired to keep running but they weren't complaining. A little smiled appeared on my face, they were trying to be tuff and I must say that growing in war times requires a really strong mind and body.

"Guys I think we can take a little break, besides I think that we are already in the Land of Steel. We can go walking from here." I told them and they nodded. I looked around and all I could really see was white. The land was almost all covered in snow and I could see that there was something going on here just watching so many footprints on the ground.

"May I know what are you doing here?" A soldier asked us. My students gapped at him.

"That's right, here they don't have ninjas, they have soldiers." I explained briefly.

"We're here from Konoha, we're looking for some of our ninja that arrived here." I explained he nodded and then another soldier, bigger if I may say came.

"As you can see, there's a big commotion around here partly because of the 'Taka' group that infiltrated in the meeting." The bigger soldier explained.

'Taka' ? What the hell is going on here, the only group that I knew of was Hebi and that was Sasuke's group.

"What do you mean with 'Taka'?" I asked them.

"Sasuke's group, they changed their names." The smaller one said.

I nodded, but then stopped. A) Why would Sasuke's group announce their name? B) Why in the name of Kami would a soldier address to Sasuke by his first name? Unless it wasn't a soldier.

I glared at the soldiers and took of my sword, my students seemed startled and so the 'soldiers'.

"Identify yourselves." I demanded.

The bigger soldier sighed. "I told you this wouldn't work."

"Well we had to try…" The other one replied. They both took their masks on only to reveal Suigetsu and Juugo. I tried not to laugh because the look on their faces was hilarious.

"Look, I don't want to fight, as you can see I'm with children and besides I know that you're only following Sasuke's orders." I told them and they relaxed.

"So what are you doing here?" I asked them.

"Supposedly were here to kill the Kages… But the plan as gone wrong and we ended up here alone." Suigetsu explained. "That Sasuke is only trying to kill Danzo and I'm sure that that's what he's doing right now." Like I would care for Danzo.

"Well, it's not like I'm sorry for our lost anyway… You must know that Konoha people don't trust Danzo." They nodded.

"So what now? Are you letting us go with no harm?" Juugo asked me.

"Sensei what are you doing?" Rai asked me sceptically.

"What I told you before Rai. I prefer peace apart from war." Then I turned to Suigetsu and Juugo. "Come with me. I have something to talk to Sasuke, and maybe we can start working for the same side." They stared at me wide eyed.

"This better not be a trap." Suigetsu warned.

"It's not a trap trust me, I have very much interest in letting you live." I told Suigetsu and then turned to the children. "Guys I'm sorry but I can't let you come with me right now." They all pouted.

"Why not sensei? We are perfectly capable of handling dangerous situations." Minoru said managing to look confident. I smiled at him.

"I know but, you're too young to face this kind of things and I don't want you to grow up that fast. So please, could you stay at a friend's house?" I asked them. They crossed their arms annoyed, God I would need to apologize to them later. So I left them with a friend of my master that was trustful.

Suigetsu and Juugo seemed rather nervous with the fact of having to walk with the enemy; I on the other hand was anxious with no apparent reason. I just had this uneasy feeling that told me that something bad was going to happen.

"So what do you want to do?" Juugo asked me while we walked through the deserted streets.

"First I would like to find my Konoha colleagues." They tensed at this. "Of course you'll have to hide." They relaxed.

"Really, how do you plan to convince Sasuke to help you?" Suigetsu asked me with a raised brow.

I shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I'll just have to find a way when I meet him." I almost could hear sweat drops running in their foreheads. But it was true. I guess we're really screwed this time. Well, I have to focus in finding Kakashi first, if I'm lucky maybe Sakura and the others are there too.

"What am I doing here with you?" Suigetsu asked himself and Juugo sighed.

"What Sasuke wants to do more than everything?" I asked them trying to find where he would be.

"Kill Danzo." They both said at the same time. I bit my lip. Killing a Hokage was not good, and this would totally ruin my plan. God dammit.

(Kakashi's POV)

Minutes passed since Gaara left and me, as the new Hokage needed to make a decision. "Naruto..." I called him but he kept standing there looking to God knows where. "Naruto, me and Sai are going to find Sakura and stop her, but... It's like Gaara said you need to make a decision." Naruto shook his head for a moment and me and Yamato traded concerned looks.

Then suddenly Naruto started gasping and panting. I was alarmed by this and rushed to his side.

"He's hyperventilating!" Yamata exclaimed and he collapsed on the snow. Naruto... All this commotion and all this pressure... It's killing him.

"Come on Naruto just breathe okay? Everything it's going to be fine!" Yamato yelled trying to talk to him but he had already drifted to the darkness.

"Kakashi-senpai?" Sai asked me. I shook my head, probably if I was Shikamaru I would be mumbling 'troublesome'.

"Yamato-senpai, please take care of him and make sure he goes straight to the village, I don't want him to bare any more disappointments." Yamato looked weirdly at me.

"What do you mean? I thought Sakura was going to kill Sasuke..." Sai looked at me too.

"Sakura isn't stupid. She knows that she doesn't stand a chance in a one on one match. If I know her well, which I do, she'll ditch Lee and Kiba and then she'll try to fool Sasuke." I explained them and suddenly Yamato looked even more worried at Naruto.

"How far do you think she is capable of going?" He asked me and Sai eyed me suspiciously.

"She'll do anything. That's why I'm so concerned, if Sasuke finds that he's being fooled, let's just say he won't just kill her, he'll do way worse than that. One thing that Uchiha's hate is being fooled." Looking at the horizon I could almost feel the clock ticking.

"We better hurry then." Sai told me and I nodded.

"Yamata, please don't tell nothing of this to Naruto." I told him.

"Hai."

"Sai let's go, be ready to find the worse case scenario."

Done, not brilliant but well that was what I could manage. Anyway I'll give you a little smell of what is about to come:

"Sasuke it is not alright! It wasn't them!"

"You need to have faith." "Faith doesn't want anything to do with me."

"I have a mission and I have to do it!" "You are not a STUPID WEAPON!"

"He losted it."

"I'm done here. Do as you please, I don't care anymore."

"Call the medic-nins! She's passing out from loss of blood."

"Too late..."

"MADARA!"

Yup, that's it. I hope I made you curious. :D