The next morning, the Konoha shinobi departed Suna. Things were slightly awkward between Gaara and Naruto, but she simply ignored the awkwardness and tried to be cheerfully ignorant.

They walked away from Suna because Naruto wanted Kakashi to continue taking it easy on his chakra. Hinata signaled Naruto that she wanted to talk, so they lagged behind the two males.

"What happened between you and Kazekage-dono, Naruto-chan?" Hinata asked quietly.

"He asked me if he could court me," Naruto said with a sigh.

"What did you say?"

"I told him I'd do it in a heartbeat if he were a Konoha nin or I was a Suna nin, but that I didn't see how it would be possible," Naruto responded.

"Yes, that's the reasonable and logical answer," Hinata said. "Why did you give it, Naruto-chan? You've never let logic stand in the way of what you wanted."

"So mean, Hinata-chan," Naruto said with a fake pout.

Hinata wapped her on the shoulder. Naruto answered her seriously, "I'm so close to becoming Hokage I can taste it. Baachan will probably give up the hat in a few years and I'm the leading candidate. If I knew I could find that kind of love with Gaara-san, I'd give up my dream of being Hokage and risk alienating Konoha, but I'm not giving up my dream and my home over a possibility. I just regret having to tell him 'no.' He's a nice guy who deserves to find love. It's amazing how he turned out once he gave up his fear and hate."

Not long after that they reached a point far enough away from Suna that Naruto could summon her Animal Path crow. They flew back to Konoha.


After they finished their report to Tsunade, the Hokage drummed her fingers on her desk.

"Very good work, you four. Make sure you plug the holes in your skills that you've become aware of. Each of you submit a brief description of each member of Akatsuki you saw," she told them. "I want to see if we can identify them."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," they all responded—except for Naruto who called her Baachan.

"Why didn't you use your Human Path on Sasori before he died, Naruto-chan?" asked Tsunade.

Naruto groaned. "I forgot, Baachan." She glanced down at the floor. "To be honest, I don't like using it, especially on a man like Sasori, but I didn't even think about the option."

Tsunade sighed. "I understand your reluctance and I should have given you and Sasuke-san guidelines on when to use it." She rubbed her hands against her temples. "Here they are, you two: against any B-rank and above missing nin from Konoha, if you can't capture them and reasonably hold them, use your Human Path on them. The same applies to any member of Akatsuki or any significant member of Orochimaru's organization. Against any non-Konoha or low-rank missing nin use your own judgement, but lean toward abstaining. Don't use it against shinobi from other villages outside of war unless you're absolutely sure you won't get caught, then use your own judgement again. We don't want you to get a reputation for overtly stealing other villages secrets. Everyone does it, but subtly and it's hard work. Being able to do it easily upsets the balance. Understand?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Yes, Baachan."

"Do you need us to be involved in checking out Sasori's spy?" Sasuke asked.

Tsunade steepled her hands. "I don't really have any jounin I can spare, especially with Kakashi-san out of commission for a couple of weeks. Still, this is important. Despite three of you being only chuunin and lacking experience, you are among my most powerful shinobi. I want all of you minus Kakashi-san to come back tomorrow at seven in the morning and I'll pair you with someone with more experience to try and capture the spy."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Yes, Baachan."


Naruto joined her teammates at the Hokage's office the next morning. A man with the standard Konoha shinobi outfit complete with a jounin flak jacket was also present. The only real distinguishing part of his clothing was that his Leaf Badge was integrated with a happuri. [cheek and forehead protector]

"This is Yamato-san," Tsunade said. "He will be your team captain for this mission which is to capture Sasori's spy and bring him to Konoha for interrogation about Orochimaru and Akatsuki. He was chosen due to his ability to imitate one of Sasori's puppets. Spend the next five days training together. That will give you plenty of time to travel to Tenchi Bridge using Naruto-chan's bird summon and arrive in time to scope it out before the spy arrives."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Yes, Baachan."

They followed Yamato out of the Hokage's office.

"Which training ground do you use?" he asked.

"Seven," Sasuke answered.

"Meet me there in an hour," he said.

"Yes, Taicho," [captain] they all answered.

Yamato walked off.

"Taciturn, isn't he?" Naruto commented.

"How did you learn that word, Dead Last?" Sasuke teased.

Naruto stuck out her tongue at him.


Team Kakashi, and they still considered themselves that despite their new temporary captain, had not had a lot of time to practice together since they were temporarily disbanded when Jiraiya took Sasuke on his training trip. They took the opportunity before they left for Tenchi Bridge to reacquaint themselves with each other's fighting styles and to assimilate the new techniques that they had each learned. By the end of the first day they were fighting like they had not been apart for nearly three years. It helped that they new each other's personalities well. It was not hard for them to know what each would do—at least as well as any team with Naruto on it could.

Yamato, despite having a quite different personality than Kakashi, appeared to know their old sensei well. After a brief hesitation, he had revealed that he could do Mokuton [Wood Release] Techniques. He said that he was not a Senju, but that the reason he could do Mokuton was personal. He used his Mokuton to create a puppet shell that looked like Sasori's outer puppet with feedback from the three chuunin to get it correct. Naruto and Hinata also helped him perfect the voice for the fake puppet.

Naruto thought his chakra felt familiar. After some thought she realized that there was a great deal of similarity to the chakra of the white half of the weird Zetsu creature that had been involved with Akatsuki.

When Naruto asked Tsunade about the similarity between Yamato's chakra and the Akatsuki creature's, the Hokage had told Naruto that Yamato had been subjected to experiments done by Orochimaru using her grandfather Hashirama's cells, which is what allowed him to use Mokuton.

"That has some disturbing connotations," Naruto said.

Tsunade scowled. "You're telling me! I hate that Orochimaru has continually desecrated my grandfather's body."

"You think Orochimaru created that Zetsu thing while he was in Akatuski?" Naruto asked. She really hated that idea, since Zetsu had also had Kaguya's chakra. She did want to think of what could happen if the Snake Traitor managed to Impure Reincarnate Kaguya or make a clone of her.

Tsunade sighed. "I don't know. I can't even tell if him having done so is the better outcome or not."

Yamato decided to split the team into pairs for combat. He and Sasuke would work together and the team's two kunoichi would also work together. This made sure that each member of the team always had backup.

Yamato himself was a serious type, but he took special glee in terrorizing Naruto to keep her in line—mostly through scary faces and startling her when she was not paying attention. This amused Sasuke to no end that a shinobi as powerful as Naruto could be cowed by a scary face or that someone who was a chakra sensor and had the Byakugan could be snuck up on. Naruto retaliated by using seals to turn all the clothes of both male members of the team bright orange one night. To Naruto's irritation, Sasuke used his Sharingan to find the seals and then deactivated them by using his Preta Path before appearing in public. Hinata had to intervene to get Naruto to remove the seals from Yamato's clothes.

Naruto debated whether she should try and develop Mokuton techniques, but decided she had too many techniques she had mastered or was mastering to add another style to her repertoire, at least for now. She thought it might be possible due to all of the White Zetsu's chakra she had absorbed and the fact that she was heir to the "Mother of Chakra."

Kurama mentioned that her mother had formed chains from her chakra that had the same chakra-surpressing effect that the Mokuton had. Instead of trying to learn Mokuton, Naruto worked on adding chakra suppression to her hair technique. She figured out how to do it during their last training day.


Team Kakashi arrived at the Tenchi Bridge a day early. Naruto and Hinata both went over the bridge and its environs with a fine-toothed comb, but did not find any traps.

As the time for the meeting approached, Yamato created the puppet shell and did some last minute voice practicing. The four of them were staking out the bridge from under cover of trees on the side of the ravine. Naruto was monitoring the other side of the ravine with her Byakugan.

"Someone's coming," said Naruto. "It's Kabuto! Be careful, Yamato-taicho. He's arrogant, but very hard to injure permanently. He's got a very effective regeneration technique."

"I will," said Yamato. He climbed inside his altered Wood Clone and it walked out onto the bridge. He reached the center moments after the spy.

Naruto and Hinata watched the exchange through their Byakugan so that they could read their lips. Sasuke grumbled about not being able to see through Yamato.

"I felt your Sleeper Technique go active two weeks ago, Sasori-sama, and so here I am," Kabuto said.

Yamato made the puppet shell nod. "What are Orochimaru's plans and where is his location?" he asked.

Naruto gasped as a large chakra signature rocketed toward the bridge.

"Incoming," she said. "It's Orochimaru."

The Snake Summoner landed on the bridge behind Kabuto. The spy backed up in order to stand beside Yamato-disguised-as-Sasori.

"Did you really think that I would let a spy get this close to me without having him watched, Sasori?" Orochimaru asked.

"Be ready to intervene," Naruto said. "Hinata-chan and I will take Kabuto while Sasuke helps Yamato-taicho with Orochimaru. We'll hurry as quickly as we can so that we can all focus on the Snake." She was best suited to take down the rogue med nin and Yamato had told them not to take on anyone A-ranked or above on without backup unless they absolutely had to.

Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement while Hinata murmured her agreement.

Kabuto formed chakra scalpels, but his stance was wrong to attack Orochimaru.

"Go!" shouted Naruto. She activated her third eye and Body Flickered to directly behind Kabuto. The traitor felt her coming and leaped into the air before she could slam a Rasengan into his back.

She pushed chakra into her hair and sent it after him. Kabuto Body Flickered off the bridge where he was intercepted by Hinata. The Hyuuga heiress used chakra-coated palms to deflect his chakra scalpels. The Eight Trigrams symbol appeared beneath Hinata as she launched into the 64 Palms. Kabuto managed to dodge or deflect the initial strikes, but succumbed before she was finished.

Naruto Flickered next to them. She could already see Kabuto's incredible regeneration opening his closed tenketsu. Naruto wrapped him in her hair and suppressed his chakra.

"We'll never be able to hold him without me continually suppressing his chakra," she said with a sigh, "and it will take all of us to handle the Snake."

"Do it," Hinata said.

Naruto grimaced and activated her Human Path and yanked out Kabuto's soul. His scream filled her ears as memories surged into her head. She bundled all the memories together and sent them to Kurama to hold and sort through.

"Torch him," Naruto commanded as she withdrew her hair from the traitor's dead body.

Hinata formed the seals for the standard body cremation technique and Kabuto's body burned to ash.

"How dare you dispose of my tool before I am done with him!?" yelled the Snake Sannin. A body with a whole through it's chest lay at Sasuke's feet, but Orochimaru had used his unique Body Replacement to escape death by slithering out of his old body's mouth.

"We dare by order of the Godaime Hokage, traitor!" Naruto answered. "Don't worry you'll get what's coming to you too!"

"You think you've really deprived me of my servant?" Orochimaru asked with a sneer. "No one escapes my service. A fact you three would do well to remember."

"We've thrown off your mark, Snake," Sasuke sneered back. Personally, Naruto thought that Sasuke's sneer was better. No one sneered like an Uchiha. "The portion of your soul you implanted in us squealed as we destroyed it."

"Your eyes will be mine, one way or another, boy!" Orochimaru said.

Lightning Chakra sprang up around Sasuke and he called out, "Heavenly Attraction!" Orochimaru started to be pulled toward the Uchiha boy, but he suddenly split into dozens of snakes. The snakes slithered off the edge of the bridge, except for the one that Sasuke decapitated with his chokutou [straight sword] as it continued to fly toward him in the grip of his technique. The snakes landed in the water below and were washed downstream in the current. Some of them were already swimming to shore in different locations.

"Those snakes were like Shadow Clones in that they all had identical chakra circulatory systems," Naruto said. "I can't tell if one or all of them was the real Orochimaru."

"We'd never be able to track them all down," Hinata added.

"The odds of us capturing or killing Orochimaru on this mission were always low," Yamato said. "Did you use your mind-reading technique on Kabuto?"

"Yes," Naruto said with a depressed sigh. She was going to have to endure days of interviews with Morino Ibiki when they got back to Konoha.