Chapter 2

Naruto landed in the valley and set Sakura on her feet as they looked around. Looking for anything that would tell them there was trouble before they saw Sasuke stumble into the clearing by the statues. He took several stumbled steps before dropping. They ran over as the fox stood looking at them. Sakura rolled him to be able to see the wounds. Sure enough, Sasuke had a wound on his upper chest. He had a large gash going through the entire upper chest and out the back with a deep cut to his abdomen and several broken ribs making it difficult for him to breathe. Sakura began healing as Naruto talked to the fox.

"I need you to head back to the Uchiha compound. Tell Kakashi that we're bringing him back. Sakura, what do you want them to do?"

"I'm going to need bandages and ointments. And pain medication. I can't heal these wounds completely and he doesn't have anything like the Kyuubi to get him back on his feet." Naruto nodded before the fox gave sharp nod before he was gone. "How are you doing?" Sakura asked Naruto as she looked at him from the corner of her eye as she healed.

"I'll be fine. Between you and Kyuubi, I'm almost completely healed. Gonna take a bit to heal some of the ribs and bruises."

"What about you're chakra?" He looked at her for a minute as she finished healing what she could on the upper chest. "Do you really think I wouldn't notice how low your chakra dropped after using that scroll? If you were anyone else you would have been dead."

"But I'm not someone else. Besides, it wouldn't have killed me. It's one of my family scrolls." Sakura looked at him. "My dad was the fourth."

"I know, Naruto. Shikamaru and I figured it out a long time ago. You look exactly like him, you've been able to master his techniques that are only for the family and one of your little spots is his old house." She paused with a small smile. "Why didn't you ever tell anyone?"

"Because I found out when I was fighting pain, and it wouldn't have changed anything after that." She sighed before going back to healing the last wound on Sasuke. "Ready?"

"Yeah." Naruto helped pull Sasuke up and they wrapped Sasuke's arms around their necks before Naruto glanced over at Sakura.

"You lead, I'll follow." She nodded and they two worked together. It took them an hour to get back, they met the others by the main house pulling Sasuke in, and laying him on the ground before Sakura got back to work doing what she could. "What do you need?"

"You have any of your scrolls left?"

"A few but I think they're just my kunai and stuff like that."

"You don't have any of the medical ones?"

"I'll check but I don't think so. We were getting over run." Naruto reached into his jacket pulling out five scrolls and laying the out between him and her.

"That's all you have left?"

"Yeah, used most of them trying to beat Madara back a bit." She sighed as she reached out and took one of the scrolls letting the others watch as she released the contents.

"At least you have one left." She smirked taking the ointment and bandages before getting to work. After an hour, Sakura leaned back exhausted. "We have to wait for his body to heal the rest. He'll be fine just unconscious for a while."

"You're amazing at your medical jutsus." Tsunade said looking down at the young woman.

"I had a great teacher." She smiled.

"Sakura, you need to sleep." Naruto said as he helped her stand up and Temari took her.

"Come on let's find a clean room in here." She helped Sakura walk down the hall to find a place to sleep while the others were left.

"So you've gotten stronger." Jiriaya said. "How much stronger?" Naruto grinned as he shook his head and walked out making his old teacher follow him before the others filed out. "Naruto, you're my student. How powerful have I trained you to be in the future?" Naruto stopped in his tracks and stood for a minute as Kakashi walked closer.

"Naruto..." He said making Naruto turn and look down sadly.

"You trained me really well, and the rest I had to learn on my own, on the go after you were killed." Naruto turned and was gone before anyone could stop him.

"We're going to have to wait for Sasuke or Sakura to get up now." Shikamaru said with a heavy sigh. "More than likely it's going to have to be Sakura."

"I think you're right." Kakashi agreed as the two older ninja looked at them. Kakashi sighed as he glanced back the way Naruto had disappeared in. "Let them explain, but we need to wait for one of them to wake up to find him. They're the only two who know his newest places."

"Sakura's asleep." Temari said walking back over to them. "Where's Naruto?" She looked at Kakashi and Shikamaru.

"He told Lord Jiriaya about him being killed and he took off." Shikamaru explained as Temari sighed sadly. "This one's going to take Sakura. How long do you think that's going to take? We came back for a reason so we need to start focusing on it."

"She started her healing thing and should be good in an hour at most. I think if Naruto was here she could get it even faster."

"That drains Naruto pretty far down though."

"Sakura was telling me that they had been working on one that didn't do that to him, so they could do it in the middle of battles and not have to worry about him going weak."

"Well it's no use now, so we just need to wait." Kakashi said as they followed him to a large room to sit and talk while they waited.

After three hours, Sakura walked into the room with Sasuke following her. She looked around and rolled her eyes as Sasuke stopped.

"Where's the Dobe?" Sasuke asked.

"He took off after he told me I'm gonna die." Jiriaya said as Sakura and Sasuke looked at each other.

"That one's yours." Sasuke said as he walked over and sat heavily as he winced sitting down.

"I'll get him. Sasuke, you're not completely healed yet, let everything have a chance to rest and mend before you start acting big and tough." She turned and took off quickly leaving the others. Sakura ran across the rooftops fast making sure not to be seen before she landed in a little clearing seeing Naruto sitting on the roof of the old building. She slowly walked over and jumped to the roof to sit next to him.

"I thought it would be cool to see him again." He said not looking at her; instead, he focused his eyes out at the surrounding trees. "I thought it would be cool to be able to talk to him."

"I know."

"I wanted to talk to him and show him what I can do now, but…."

"You always remember getting the news." He gave a small sharp nod still not wanting to look at her. "Well you have a chance to talk to him and show off. You shouldn't think about what happened in the past. Focus on the fact you get to see him again. Besides I know how much you like to show off." She smiled making him finally look at her with a small smile.

"How's Sasuke?"

"He's awake and with the others. He's going to be sore like you are, but he'll live."

"Who said I was sore?" He said looking away as she shook her head and pushed on his side slightly making him jump at the pain. "Okay, I get it, I get it."

"How are you feeling with your chakra?"

"It's getting better, almost back to full." He looked at her with his bright blue eyes for a minute. "How about you. You drained yourself pretty far healing me and Sasuke right after doing everything in the battle."

"I'm okay, I slept for a while and I used one of my jutsus to boost it. I'll be okay though. I'm just as tough as you and Sasuke."

"I know you are." He smirked as she leaned over resting her head on his shoulder. "We better get back and start getting this worked out." She nodded as they stood up and started back to the Uchiha Compound as the sun sank in the sky. They walked into the room seeing them all still there talking.

"'Bout time, Dobe." Sasuke said making Naruto give him a look he knew well before both gave a smirk.

"Granny, aren't you supposed to be working or something?" Naruto asked turning his bright blue eyes back to her and Jiriaya.

"What's it matter to you, brat?" Naruto smirked as he looked at Jiriaya before turning his eyes to look at his friends from his time.

"Let's get this going and get things fixed." Naruto sat next to Kakashi as Sakura took a seat next to him.

"So what exactly do you have to do?"

"Kill Madara Uchiha."

"And Kabuto." Sasuke added. "We may be able to get Itachi's help now that we're in a time when he's alive. We need to try to get the Akatsuki disbanded. They only give him strength, even now." Naruto nodded.

"But how do we get a group of evil ninja to disband from their leader?" Temari asked.

"We go one by one." Sasuke said making everyone but Naruto and Shikamaru look at him. "We pull them apart at the seams. No one knows how powerful we are now; they all still think we're thirteen."

"You gave that up when you came running here."

"I escaped without anyone knowing. There's no way they could find out."

"You can't possibly know that. We don't even know if Madara and Kabuto came back here. All we know is we're here because Madara screwed with the signs while Naruto was working the jutsu."

"Even if he did, there's no way they could know I am here."

"Enough." Naruto said making them stop and look at him as Tsunade and Jiriaya looked at him curious as he kept his eyes unfocused looking at the ground in the middle of the group before looking up at everyone. "Sasuke's right. There is no way to tell he is with us, but Temari has a point. He did screw with the signs, we don't know what happened. Shikamaru and Temari weren't supposed to come back with us in the first place but they did." He paused taking a breath as he looked away thinking.

"What do you want to do?" Kakashi asked as Naruto looked up at him.

"We need to get a plan in case they are here. If they did come back, we need to be prepared and I think going after the members one by one is a good idea. Shikamaru?" He looked at his friend who was lying back lazily against a wall.

"I'll come up with something. Between me and Temari we can get something worked out for both plans."

"Then we should heal until we have a full plan worked out." Sasuke said as Naruto nodded.

"Yeah." Naruto turned and walked out making Sakura turn to follow him as the two older ninja looked at the others for information only to see them shrug. They stood and walked out seeing Naruto and Sakura talking down the hall. They ducked into a side room to watch, wanting to know what was going on.

"Naruto, we'll get this worked out."

"I know, Sakura, but how long before we go back to nothing? Everyone's probably gone now anyway. Sasuke and me together had a hard time holding up out there."

"Naruto, trust our friends and us to save everything. We were trained by the best. Me, you and Sasuke are the best in the world and we've helped train our friends to be as good as they are. You really think we can all win this?" He looked at her as she dared him to disagree only to see a smile start to spread.

"I know. Granny should have been in the camp she should have been in with the villagers and kids getting away."

"Naruto, we needed you on the field. If she wasn't there you would have had to stay in the camp and we wouldn't have been able to last as long as we did." The two stood looking at each other before Naruto gave a smile as she shook her head.

"You can be pretty smart sometimes." He grinned before

"And you can still be so dimwitted." She laughed before both their head snapped as they heard something from down the hall. Tsunade and Jiriaya were still looking at each other in shock not noticing Naruto and Sakura look at each other before back down the hall.

"Sakura-chan I think we have some eavesdroppers." Naruto said as the two's hearts sped up.

"Naruto, don't." Sakura said as he gave her one of his famous grins. "Naruto, you know what she'll do to you." She warned as he shrugged. "I don't want to hear it. I'm not going to fix you this time." Suddenly Naruto was gone. Tsunade and Jiriaya stood still wondering what was going on.

"What you looking at?" He asked making them both fall through the cracked door and into the hall way startled. Naruto walked from the room as Sakura walked down the hall towards them.

"We…uh…" Jiriaya stuttered.

"We wanted to know what was going on. You are different than how we know you." Tsunade helped as they stood up and saw Sakura give Naruto a sympathetic look as he shook his head and tried to play it off.

"I've been through a lot. Grew up along the way, that's all. I have more important things to worry about other than acting like a class clown or the village prankster."

"Naruto!" They heard before they saw the other start running down the hall to them. "Naruto, he's here." Sasuke said as he held out the dead snake. Naruto's face changed from his happy carefree self to a serious leader as he started think quickly.

"What's going on?" Jiriaya asked as Naruto turned and went out to look at the night sky from the roof top.

"Kabuto's sending a message using the snakes." Sasuke said. "Madara's going to go for the toads next."

"The toads?"

"He sent a message saying he knows Sasuke's here and to show us that they are here and next it will be a message to make Naruto go after them." Sakura explained as they stood out in the cool air looking up at Naruto on the rooftop with his eyes closed

"How good has he gotten?" Tsunade asked.

"You're about to find out." Sasuke scowled as he and the others from their time pulled Kunai. Jiriaya and Tsunade looked at them before they were surrounded but ninja covered in black. Sasuke lunged as Naruto flipped down helping while the others spread around fighting. It didn't take long after Shikamaru was able to use his shadow techniques and the others showed off a little of their power. They were down to the last ten when Naruto glanced over from his fight to see Sakura holding well before suddenly she was stabbed in the back. He narrowed his eyes as he saw her drop to her knees. Everything seemed to be running in slow motion before it suddenly sped up and Naruto was pulling from the fox killing the last remaining ninja. He settled to fox as he walked over to Sakura who was trying to heal her wound as she winced and cough only to pause seeing the blood fall to the ground in front of her.

"Sakura…" Naruto said as he pulled the kunai out and had her lean back against him as Tsunade knelt and quickly started to help heal

"Naruto, the kunai…." She said as he nodded.

"I know." He said before looking around. "They meant to get at least one of us with it."

"What's going on?" Jiriaya asked as Tsunade looked at Naruto who was talking to Sakura softly.

"Sakura, what do you need?" He asked as she started to close her eyes. "Tell me what you need to fix this." He said roughly making her open her eyes.

"I need the…" She paused as she tried to take a deep breath. "The book….. Jonin…" She trailed off as he eyes drifted closed.

"Sakura. Sakura." He said trying o get her to wake up before checking to make sure she was still alive. He looked away before he lifted her in his arms and handed her off to Sasuke. "Take her to a room. I gotta get the book."