Hello everybody! Sorry, it took me really long to write this chapter – it was difficult to write. I wanna say great thank you to my beta-reader, Phillipa Engles, who inspired and helped me with this chapter! Thank you, reviewers, for you words of approvement and sometimes even threats for not writing more :)

The plot gap with Hiraishin-Shunshin is still a problem but I think I know the way to fit it in the story thanks to Phillipa :)

I hope you'll like this chapter where…well, I won't be spoilering, just read it! ;) And as usual I'm waiting for your reviews!

Chapter 5. When everything goes wrong.

Naruto arrived at Arashi's house late in the evening. He had walked along the streets, played with Konohomaru, he did everything not to go back to the house where nobody was.

"It's foolish," he thought approaching the door. "I lived alone all my life. So why I don't like staying alone here?"

He walked to the kitchen to get some milk, took it out, sat at the table, and suddenly noticed a small piece of paper lying nearby.

"Naruto!" it said.

The supper is in the fridge, just warm it a little. Please don't destroy the house completely. Leave a poor old hokage like me at least a place where I can sleep, ok?

See you soon,

Blondaime.

Reading the last line Naruto, forgetting he was drinking milk, sighed and began to cough and laugh at the same time.

"He's crazy, now I'm sure," he concluded taking out the supper. Vegetables again, yeah?

It was another dish but it was also delicious.

"How many dishes can he cook, I wonder?" Naruto thought finishing it.

He washed the plates and headed upstairs.

He had already made a step towards his room but stopped looking in the direction of Arashi's room.

"Maybe," an interesting thought came into his mind and he shook his head to get rid of it.

"To examine his room more closely…that could be fun," an internal voice suggested.

"It's not fair," Naruto hesitated.

"But it's just checking," internal voice offered. "He closed his room, I swear!"

Naruto came closer to Arashi's room's door and pushed it to assure it was closed. But it opened easily.

"It just can't be," Naruto whispered.

Blondaime…he couldn't trust him that much…or could he?

Hesitating like he was afraid somebody would attack, him he entered the room. It was cleaner than before. 'Flirting paradise' disappeared somewhere. Naruto took one of the scrolls that were lying near the bed, read it a little, and put it down quickly. Boring, it was one of Konoha's laws. Uzumaki turned around and came to the table with photos and couldn't help but stare.

The first one was much younger version of Kakashi-sensei and a boy he didn't know. Also there was a girl. Naruto wasn't sure but it seemed like he had seen her somewhere in Konoha. Yondaime, looking younger than he is now, was in this photo too. He was smiling widely. Naruto looked at the other photo and found more familiar faces. Ero-sennin had shorter hair than the last time he had seen him and less red paint on his face. He smiled with his usual wide smile while Yondaime, who looked even younger than he was in the previous photo, had an offended look as if Ero-sennin had told him one of his favorite jokes a second before. Naruto smiled and looked at the last photo. At that moment his heart stopped for a few seconds. It was a wedding photo. Yondaime wore a red-white suit similar to the hokage's robes in some ways but not completely. His bride was wearing a beautiful white dress. It suited her perfectly. As for their looks…smiles…they were the happiest pair in the world. Holding their hands tight they had expressions on their faces as if that day all their dreams came true.

"What the hell happened?" Naruto thought examining her face attentively. "Why did she die? They were so happy together! Why should she die and leave him all alone?"

He felt really sorry for Arashi. When Yondaime was talking about his wife Naruto saw for a moment the same expression he used to see in his mirror long ago. The feeling of being all alone in the world.

"He looked so alone," Naruto thought. "If he keeps this pain in his heart…how can he live? How can he laugh and joke?"

He stopped suddenly.

"How could I do it? I felt the same loneliness and kept living, laughing, making friends only not to be alone. So he is the same. It's not…possible for us to be so much alike!"

"When he returns," suddenly Naruto made a promise. "I'll do my best for him to not feel all alone. I'll be his friend." This promise made him feel better so Naruto just left Yondaime's room and went to sleep.

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Arashi was sitting near the tent looking at the stars. They were several days journey from the village where they were headed. Of course he could, and he wished to move faster, but the damned rules saying the hokage must have a delegation for the important talks didn't give him a chance.

"I wonder, Naruto, how are you now?" he thought. "I hope Kakashi and ANBU will look after you."

He sighed.

"I'm a bad father. I should be with him not hanging anywhere on these stupid missions. But…he's a shinobi too. One day he'll be sent on some mission and I won't be able to be with him. I wonder…could he be a good negotiator too? The mission at hidden moon showed he had a lot of potential in this field. If these talks weren't so official I would have taken him with me. Looks like we can't we rid ourselves of the talks, Naruto," he concluded to himself. "It's the part of our family."

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FLASHBACK

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"Your last signature," one of the elders offered and Arashi made a quick mark on the papers.

"Finally!" hidden mist shinobies sitting nearby smiled. "After so many years of war…"

The elder mizukage – there were two of them just like in Konoha – smiled.

"Well, to establish partner relationship with hidden leaf I offered and Sarutobi-sama agreed that we should send two our best people on a mission together. To show our trust."

All in the room looked at each other in surprise.

"It's super A ranked mission," mizukage continued. "And we'll send hokage Arashi and mizukage Umi on it."

"Nani!" the blond and raven-haired girl shouted at the same time.

"It would be a good test for hidden leaf and hidden mist shinobies, will they be able to work together, isn't it?" elder mizukage added with smile.

The expressions on the young man and woman's faces were easy to read – they didn't like that idea.

Umi took the scroll and gestured to the exit. Arashi sighed and joined her.

At the doorstep she stopped looking at him attentively.

"You'll do everything I order you. No more your foolish moves or we fail the mission."

Arashi rolled his eyes.

"In your dreams," he answered. "Let me warn you, mizukage-sama. The only order I would listen to is Sarutobi-sama's and he's not here."

Her eyes flashed.

"Ok, hokage-sama," she pointed out. "You want it hard way you'll get it! One way or another you'll listen to my orders and obey them!" with these words she turned around and headed towards the port.

Arashi followed her.

"I don't like the way this mission's started," he muttered. "And I don't understand how such a beautiful lady can have such a bad temper!"

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The usually blue sky of Konoha was covered with dark clouds. Everything looked like it was going to rain. A few drops of water had already fallen onto the ground and everybody was moving at top speed to get home before the rain started.

Naruto was walking to Arashi's house holding ramen packages and milk.

"How many days have passed?" he wondered. It was less than a week but he has already felt lonely without Yondaime. Sitting there, in the house, sometimes everything looked like the hokage would enter at any minute, tell him a joke and everything would be ok. But it wasn't.

Yesterday Kakashi paid a visit and brought another vegetable bowl. Naruto tried to cook them the same way Arashi did but failed miserably. The so-called dish could be used only to poison somebody.

"I'll ask him when he comes back," Naruto thought taking another step. "How he cooks them."

But how, how in the world it could be? He, living alone for all his life now couldn't help but wait for the flashy person living under the same roof, and the list of things he wanted to ask Yondaime grew longer with every day.

Today he had a really awful dream. He dreamt that he woke up in his old house and found out Yondaime's resurrection never happened, and their fight with Orochimaru, the trip to the hidden moon, Arashi's house – everything was just a dream. Naruto woke in cold sweat, breathing heavily. Just when his legs stepped on the carpet he relaxed. He didn't have a carpet at his old house so he was at Arashi's house and everything was ok.

Naruto sighed. This feeling…the one he felt when saying goodbye to Yondaime concerned him a lot. What if it was the truth and the 4th hokage will be killed on this mission and they never meet each other again? He didn't even tell him…

"Tell him what?" the internal voice asked.

Naruto shook his head trying to get rid of these thoughts.

"Where the hell are those keys?" he checked one pocket, then another one – nothing was there.

"Oh, here they are!" he finally found them in the third pocket and opening the door with one hand while holding ramen with the other he managed to enter the house. He sighed and moved his hand to close the door but suddenly stopped it in the middle of the process.

Two women coming closer to the house were walking and talking rather vividly and loud.

"That's the hokage-sama's house!" the first one said.

"It's big! It's really strange he lives here all alone," answered the second.

"Hush, it's a big secret," the first one whispered but Naruto standing near the door heard her every word. "Don't tell anybody. I heard… he was married and his wife…she was killed in the fight with Kyuubi…and you know…they say, she was pregnant."

"He lost both his wife and his child the same day," the other woman whispered in shock. "Poor thing…but I just don't get it, how, after all that he invites this kyuubi kid to live in his own house. After all, he did it! Yondaime is crazy!"

"Don't say it aloud!" the first one got scared. "Offending the hokage is a crime, come on, quicker, before anybody hears us!"

"Yes, you are right," the other one whispered. "Come on…" and quick steps disappeared at the end of the street.

Naruto just sat on the floor unable to move. Yondaime's hurt look while he was talking about his wife stood just before his eyes. Now it appeared to be that not only his wife, but his child was killed leaving him all alone, and the most frightening thought was that he, Naruto, was the cause of it!

Uzumaki got up and left the house to walk somewhere along the streets. He didn't really care where he was and where he was going. There weren't people in the streets – the rain was getting stronger with every minute and nobody wanted to be wet. Naruto didn't care. As long as the rain's drops falling on his cheeks hid his tears it felt good.

Yondaime…he remembered their talks…how angry he was at him, how many times he told him about his hate and the blond hokage didn't answer him back with any harsh words…with any word. He was patient, concerned, he cared for him…the kyuubi kid who killed the 4th's family! At that moment Naruto had completely forgotten he wasn't Kyuubi himself. The only thing stinging into his mind was "me…it was me…I killed his family," and he didn't have time to think how illogical it sounded. It was like that night when Midzuki-sensei told him the truth…no…it was 100 times worse!

So he did the only thing that seemed good for him at this moment – he ran faster and faster through the forest not even paying attention to his surroundings and not thinking about what happened to him next.

"Where did he go?" the ANBU sitting in the tree turned in panic to the other one who desperately tied to find the way Naruto had ran.

"I don't know!" he shouted. "He's moving too fast! No one in the world can move at such speed…except for our hokage!"

"We don't have him at the village now!" the ANBU continued to run. "I'll try to find Naruto, you report to Kakashi and Godaime immediately!"

"Hai!" the other one nodded and ran in the opposite direction.

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Naruto kept running. His power started to leave him and his leg caught on a tree root. The speed did its bad thing – his left leg moved in some awkward way and he heard the sound of broken bone. Awful pain reflected in his body.

"Dammit!" Naruto tried to get up and failed miserably.

"It just couldn't be worse," he sighed giving up after a few useless tries. All that was left to do was to sit here and wait for somebody come and rescue him. But…he didn't want to return to Konoha…seeing Yondaime again after all that happened would be too much for him!

"Here he is!" Somebody shouted and Naruto growled preparing to meet shinobi from his village.

But at that moment he felt needle at his neck and then a strange sensation spread all over his body. Was it just him or did he really see a forehead protector before him…on the head of a man he didn't know.

"It's not Konoha's protector," Naruto was amused. That was his last thought before loosing conscious.

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Kakashi ran to the clearing lead by his dogs. It took some time to find something in the forest – it was still raining and the dogs could smell almost nothing. His sharingan examined the clearing attentively. There weren't any signs of battle but something felt wrong and Kakashi trusted his feelings. Sitting down on the grass he found a sharp thing that looked like a needle.

"Naruto's trace ends here," his dog came by and said. "There were two or three shinobies. I can't smell them anymore…Looks like they performed some jutsu to clean the traces."

"Damn," Kakashi cursed taking the needle. "So that's all we have. You," he turned back to his dog. "Go find Arashi-sensei and bring him here as soon as possible."

"Got it, boss," dog saluted and disappeared in a moment.

"Found something?" Tsunade came to Kakshi concern radiating off her face.

He gave her a needle.

"If they wanted to kill him they could do it with just this," he confessed.

"But there's no reason for them to take away the body," Tsunade shrugged. "He's alive, I really hope."

"Alive and captured, and we don't even know where they took him and what they want," Kakashi concluded.

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For a moment Naruto felt he was awakening. The first thing he heard was two male voices, both unfamiliar to him.

"Our mission was to kill him not capture. Why the hell did you do it?" one of the voices asked.

"He's awakening again by the way," the other voice said. "He's too strong; soon we'll be out of medicine to keep him in this state."

Naruto felt a needle pressing to his skin and began to fall into darkness again.

"We have a few more hours now," the first man sighed. "So answer me, why?"

"Look at him attentively," the second one answered.

"And what?" the first one didn't understand. "Blond kid, claw marks…like we were told before, Kyuubi's container."

"Feel the flow of human chakra in him…then look at his face attentively," taller man said. "Then replace blond hair with black and remember this face…"

It took some time for the first man but finally he exhaled in surprise.

"So…the spoilers…it was the truth! They really had a child! But if he's her son then…" he stopped coming to some conclusion.

"Yes," the other one nodded. "Your thought is right. We were given an order to eliminate the Kyuubi kid to remove Konoha's military advantage. But if we had a chance to turn this advantage to our side…just think about it!"

"Yeah,' a harsh smile appeared on the first kidnapper's face. "I think HE will be pleased."