The Last Hope-Revised

This is the revised version of my story the last hope as you can tell from the title… Contains spoilers up to chapter 367 including Yondaime's real name.

Summary: AU Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, Gaara, Itachi and Haku. They each had their own broken childhood, their own pain and made their mistakes in life. Yet they walk on. This is their story. Completely different from the original story fic from now on.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am not making any money off of this, therefore do not sue me!

"Speech"

'Thinking'

Flamez are welcome as long as they are not just none sense like "it sucks" or some thing like that... if you have to flame me, at least tell me why I suck!

On to the story!

Chapter 5

General POV

Before Tsunade could announce her decision, she was interrupted by almost the entire Konoha clan counsel. Even Hiashi Hyuuga, who is more or less the head of the clan head after the Uchiha massacre showed up.

As the "leader" of the clan leaders, Hiashi spoke up first, "Tsunade-sama, Shodaime's law states that as long as all of the head agree on a certain matter, the Hokage must follow on that decision. The clan counsel has voted and has decided unanimously to allow the reenlistment of Uchiha Sasuke, Namikaze Naruto and Hyuuga Neji without the enforcing of any punishment."

Tsunade glared. "What about Uchiha Itachi?" Tsunade asked.

"Well," Hiashi replied, "that we will leave for Hokage-sama to decide."

Tsunade smirked, "Sly as usual Hiashi. As one of the ten ANBUs who signed THAT mission document, you knew from the beginning that he was going to be rewarded rather than punished. That's why you didn't bother right?"

Hiashi had just smirked. Tsunade sighed and explained Itachi's situation to the rest of the counsel member who looked lost. It causing yet another uproar. To the counsel, the return of the members of the three most powerful clans of Konoha is already an event that will up set the entire balance of the power, having Uchiha Itachi being innocent from the beginning will surely cause a scandal.

However, Hiashi was not focused on the whole Itachi incident; he was busy staring at the scroll in Neji's hands that bared the Hyuuga main familt seal and the lack of a branch clan seal on his forehead. Seeing his uncle's gaze Neji smirked and made an ever so slight jerking movement with his head. Hiashi being the very sly man he is realized that Neji does not want to talk about what is going on in front of all the clan heads of Konoha. After all, whatever that allowed Neji to access the Hyuuga clan scroll will probably cause another scandal in Konoha. it would be much less damaging if the Hyuuga clan were to be able to get some damage control done befre hand.

Meanwhile, the rest of the clan head have calmed down and Tsunade secretly smirked. While she had not planned on letting the three missing ninsgo free, she did not really want to punish Naruto, who despite everything was still a little brother to her. Outwardly putting on a very displeased mask, she said in what she hoped sounded like a displeased voice, "Fine, as the counsel has… requested, the three of you will be automatically put back into you former positions."

Seeing the relieved smirk on the trio's faces, she couldn't help feeing sadistic and has drawled, "While I m letting you three go scotch free, do realize that you are still genin by Konoha standard and your missions probably wont go higher than C ranked…. However, as everyone else your year has already been promoted to chunin or higher, you three are for now stuck on the same team. But you will probably enjoy that." Turning around, she faced Itachi and said in a slightly more apologetic voice, "Itachi, it seems like that your return to the ANBU is on hold. I'm putting you in charge of the "missing-nin team". You will be returning to your ANBU position when they," she cocked her head at the glaring trio of former S classed missing nins and continued, "become chunin in which they will automatically be drafted to the ANBU unit. You will then remain as their squad captain."

Although the elder Uchiha remained as stoic as ever, the trio had already started to protest.

"What? I had enough of Itachi in the Akatsuki…. He's a total slave driver!" Naruto whined.

"I won't work with him, although he had nothing to do with the clan massacre, I still don't like him." Sasuke spat, still not forgiving the elder Uchiha for sending him after an empty revenge.

"I refuse to be under the power of an Uchiha!" Neji snarled. Typical Hyuuga.

Before an Uchiha verses Hyuuga argument could break out, Tsunade stepped in. "You are lucky to have the opportunity to reenlist without any punishment. If anyone has the right to complain it's Itachi and he's not complaining so you shouldnt either. Do not act like real genin and complain about team assignments or I will reconsider the decision to immediately draft you three to ANBU as soon as you are made chunin." Ignoring the miffed looks of the trio for being compared with a mare genin, Tsunade faced the former Godaime Kazekage who was looking extremely bored having been pretty much ignored since arriving in Konoha. She continued in a much politer tone, being after all addressing a former kage, "Temari-san is currently in Konoha for a trade negotiation, please stay for a while and I will send for her as soon as our own matter in Konoha settle." The clan heads at that seems to finally realize that they had been rudely ignoring a very important individual and bowed or nodded to Gaara in unison.

Gaara nodded and replied, "Thank you Hokage-sama." He was finally shown some respect. As one the strongest shinobi in the current time, Gaara did not like the fact that he was treated as an invisible shinobi.

Thus the discussion in the Hokage tower was adjourned.

Later, in the Hyuuga district…

Currently the entire Hyuuga clan is in an uproar. The clan was already extremely surprised at the return of the clan genius, when he returned with the Hyuuga clan top secret scroll that Hiashi had failed time after time to secure, pandemonium occurred. Neji had repeated what Orochimaru told him almost three years ago after everyone had finally settled down, but his revelation had once again caused an upheaval. After Neji had been asked to repeat the story eighteen times and having proved time after time that he is capable of opening the blood seal on the scroll, the Hyuuga elder counsel was forced to admit that Neji was indeed the true head of the Hyuuga clan. This sent the entire clan into chaos.

After securing the spot as clan head, the first thing Neji did was ordering the removal of the cursed seal on all of the branch members of the clan. However, Hiashi still had the chair on the clan counsel as Neji was not yet sixteen which was the bottom line age to be on the counsel. Neji trusted Hiashi. After all, Hiashi was the person his father had trusted with the mission to bring the clan together.

Two weeks later

It was two weeks after the reenlistment of four of Konoha's most notorious missing nins, and everything was somewhat calmer. The return of the newly dubbed "missing nin team" had caused quite the commotion and the sudden change of the head of the Hyuuga clan caused the team to be the center of everyone's discussion.

Although their skills were more than enough for jounin level, the team being genin still was stuck doing D ranked missions. If they were lucky they sometimes were granted C ranked ones. To them however, the missions held no difference, all of the mission were easy enough that they can do them half asleep.

To the other shinobi it is some what comical to watch the four former S classed missing nins doing D ranked missions; especially when they were made to 'capture' the cat of the wife of the Fire Lord. Anyone would imagine that the sight of four teenage shinobi who are able to make even the toughest, most seasoned shinobi back down chasing a cat is amusing indeed. Poor, poor cat…

The team themselves though, couldn't help but to envy Gaara. Upon returning to Suna, he was immediately declared ANBU and was put in to the position of successor to the new Rokudaime Kazekage, which just happens to be Baki. The team couldn't help but to curse Gaara's luck. Well, Gaara was the Godaime Kazekage when he defected and they were only genin. It was normal that when Gaara returned that he will end up in a position of power, especially since Konoha did not punish their missing nins up returning.

After the return of Itachi, Naruto, Sasuke and Neji, and the death of Orochimaru, the balance of the war was suddenly tipped in favour of Konoha. The other villages almost tripped over themselves to get an alliance treaty signed with Konoha. Right now, in the Hokage tower, Tsunade is expecting the Godaime Mizukage of Kiri, who had insisted on being neutral ever since over throwing the corrupt Yondaime two years ago.

Hokage Tower

Tsunade in the traditional Hokage robes seated patiently for once in her life to wait for the Mizukage. She knew that this treaty can secure the war for Konoha. Kiri is going at an insane rate ever since the Mizukage established the new trading system. Behind her, sat the entire Konoha clan counsel that represented the shinobi and the elder counsel that represented the civilians, their votes will decide whether the treaty will pass. Itachi was also present as he was currently taking the position as the Uchiha head as Sasuke is not old enough. The rest of the 'missing nin team' was also present because they were after all, part of the reason that many nations are now signing treaties with Konoha.

Everyone in the room tensed as a member of the squad of 'escorting ANBU' came back announcing the arrival of the Godaime Mizukage. Shortly after a shinobi in the green and white Mizukage robes and a thin veil pulled across the face (imagine Gaara's dad and replace the blue with the green) walked into the room followed by two teenage boys and a teenage girl. Tsunade was about to start on the standard greeting, she was interrupted by two loud clangs.

Turning around she saw that Sasuke and Neji had stood up from their position. She caught an ever so slight flash of surprise across their face before they arranged their facial expressions blank. "Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo; what a surprise." Sasuke said in his usual monotone, raising an eyebrow.

Jugo smiled nervously and Karin blushed. Suigetsu just snorted and retorted, "Oh, we are not the only ones you know. Right, Mizukage-sama?" drawling out the last bit.

"Suigetsu is correct," a serene voice confirmed. When the Mizukage removed his veil, Naruto jumped out of his chair and exclaimed on the top of his lungs, "Haku!"

Tsunade sighed, what now? Claming herself she asked "Is it me or is there anyone else that is also feeling lost."

To her surprise it was not her shinobi but the Mizukage himself answered. "Both Uzumaki-san, oh I apologize, Namikaze-san and Uchiha-san has met on their first C rank later A rank mission. Back then I was working with Kirigakure no Kijin Momochi Zabuza-sama. If I'm not mistaken, we have also met, Hokage-sama."

Puzzled, Tsunade struggled to remember exactly had she encountered the Mizukage. Not remembering no matter how hard she tried, Tsunade asked, "Oh, is that so Mizukage-sama?"

"Hai," Haku replied, "I believe we have met in the wave country, I was injured then. I believe you even helped to cure me."

"Wait," Tsunade blurted, "You are that little girl I met?" She regretted it the instant later. It sounded extremely rude.

"What?" She heard Naruto burst, "you are a girl?" (Hey majority rule, Haku stays as a girl as planned)

Before she could reprimand Naruto for being rude to such an important person, Haku interrupted. "It's ok, when we first met at wave I was indeed pretending to be a girl. No harm done. I dress up as a boy most of the time anyways." It seems that Haku was as nice as ever.

"Alright," Tsunade let out a breath of relief, "now if you two," she turned to Sasuke and Neji, "would explain about how you know the other three."

"Well," Sasuke replied, "They were also Orochimaru's 'subjects'. I believe Neji freed them when I fighting Orochimaru as they were also brought to the Akatsuki base as a part of the elite team of the sound." Seeing the skeptical look sent their way, Neji quickly added, "We believed that they also had a possibility of taking over the sound army and is a great to the Oto side."

The elder counsel went into an uproar at that. They refused to continue negotiations with the former subordinates of a traitor. The shinobi clan counsel was much more understanding as in the shinobi world, it is common knowledge that someone who's you ally today can become the enemy the next and vice versa. Thus, they broke into an argument.

It took a while for Tsunade to calm down both counsels aided with Itachi's death glare that held the promise of suffering.

Sighing, Tsunade pressed on "That still does not explain how they ended up in Kiri and became what seems like the Mizukage's personal guard squad."

She was met with silence before Suigetsu answered, "They don't know that. As the former student of Zabuza, I had wanted to acquire his zanbatō. I dragged Jugo and Karin to the wave for the sword and ran into Haku here. She thought that I was a grave robber and we fought. She ended up winning though. Since she was also a former student of Zabuza she had offered us a position as elite guard to Mizukage after assessing all of our skills. We had no where to go anyways so we accepted."

She then turned around and once again glared at Sasuke and Neji, "Well, the part that you freed those three was certainly not in your re-enlistment repot." A vein popped on her head when Sasuke just replied, "That had nothing to do with the Oto and Akatuski's plan or the death of Orochimaru that you requested us to report on. I didn't think that it was going to be important." She palmed her forehead. Those former missing nins are going to be the death of her one day.

"Alright," she continued, "now that all that is out of the way, let the meeting commence"

To be continued…

You will notice that I have in fact changed the summary. From this chapter on, the story will be mostly different from the original one…. Some things might remain the same, but most will be different.

I really apologize for the extreme delay of putting up this story. My teachers are giving me a lot of work and my mother is no longer supporting my fan fiction writing as my English provincial mark was extremely low by my standard. I think she blames my fan fiction writing. So right now my computer is locked and I can't break in. Currently, I can only write this story at my school library which doesn't have word, meaning I have no spell check, making my story writing process so much more painful. Here, I will apologize for the possible drop in writing skill as I'm currently working with out a spelling or grammar check.

Also, was the Haku being Mizukage thing cliché? I hope not. It was a spur of the moment thing.

Anyways, the decision of yaoi or no yaoi is still up to you. It's currently unanimous to do yaoi though… yay!

Well, sorry for the delay and have a good day!

Shiho signing off!