They were supposed to have left an hour ago. Minato sighed as he waited for his final student to arrive. Obito was always late. For the past year, Minato had been trying to get Obito to show up on time, but his ideas never seemed to work. He had even resorted to telling Obito to arrive at an earlier time than Kakashi and Rin, but he was somehow still later than the others.

Next to him Rin was fidgeting, clearly getting tired of waiting for her teammate. Kakashi was leaning against the gate, his irritation not visible. The sound of heavy footsteps alerted him to Obito's arrival. "Sorry I'm late! A merchant knocked over his vegetable stand and I stopped to help pick them up."

"Nothing should keep you from being on time. As a shinobi you shouldn't allow civilian problems to hold you up." Kakashi's tone was haughty.

"It's just a scouting mission, no one is in danger." Obito bit back.

"And what if the mission had been upgraded during the night? You would've been late and we would've been a person short. Not that it matters, since you aren't even a good shinobi." Kakashi was now standing up. Obito opened his mouth to retort, when Minato decided it was time to step in. "Obito, Kakashi, focus on the mission."

His team of two genin and one chuunin turned their attention towards him. "Our job is to scout the area within a 20 mile radius of the southern gate of Konoha. It should take us two days. The mission is a C rank. We will split into pairs, but we will be within a mile to each other at all times. Rin and Kakashi, you two will be together. Kakashi, I want you to use the tracking skills I taught you to make sure you remain within a mile of Obito and me." Kakashi mumbled something. Minato was pretty sure the words 'Obito,' 'loud,' and 'mile' where somewhere in the sentence. "Rin, because Kakashi will be focusing on us, you will be examining the surrounding area." Rin nodded. "Obito you're going to make sure we don't drift away from Rin and Kakashi."

"Sensei, if Kakashi is keeping track of us, why should we have to keep track of them?"

"Because Rin and I could find something that causes us to stop. If we stop, and you aren't keeping track of us, we will be separated and the situation could become dangerous. Baka." Kakashi said. Obito clenched his fist and took a step toward Kakashi.

"That's enough. Since we are already an hour late it is best we leave now." His team nodded, but he saw Obito stick his tongue out at Kakashi.

oOoOo

Why did he have to get stuck with such an arrogant teammate? Obito was sure that no one had ever had to suffer with such a teammate. Kakashi was unbearable! He acted like he was so cool. Just because he was a genius and had become a chuunin when he was eight, did not make him a better shinobi! As soon as his sharingan developed, Obito would show him!

At least Sensei had been smart enough to put Obito and Kakashi on separate teams. Though it should've been him paired with Rin, not Kakashi.

"Obito, how far are we from Kakashi and Rin?" Minato's voice broke him out of his thoughts. Shoot. He hadn't been paying attention. He focused his chakra into his hand and lightly touched the tree he was resting on. The others were half a mile away. "Only half a mile." Minato started jumping through the trees again. Obito took off to catch up to him. "Minato-sensei, why are we patrolling this area?"

"There was a fire in the woods yesterday. From what we've gathered, it wasn't natural. It could be anything. The Sandaime wants to make sure that nothing is endangering the village. I explained that last night." Of course Obito hadn't been listening. Minato briefly wondered how he ended up with such a…unique team. It was a good time to talk to Obito about his lateness. "Obito, why can't you ever arrive on time?"

"I always intend to make it, but stuff happens. Some days I sleep in, others I forget where I put my weapons." Obito shrugged. "I know it's important for me to be on time, but every morning something happens that keeps me from showing up on time." Obito decided not to mention that some of the Uchiha teens hid his things on a daily basis. Obito wasn't exactly the ideal Uchiha.

"Please just try harder. Right now it might not seem like a big deal, but once you start getting harder mission, it will be." There was silence for a minute. "I am entering you and Rin in the chuunin exam coming up in two weeks."

Once again, Obito stopped. "Chuunin? That is so cool!" He pumped his fist into the air. "I am going to be a chuunin in two weeks!" Minato wanted to point out that a high percentage failed the chuunin exams, but decided against it. It wouldn't faze Obito anyway.

oOoOo

Kakashi was enjoying the quite that came from being separated from Obito. For the past year all Obito had accomplished was being loud and obnoxious. When Kakashi had first learned that he was being put on a team a with two genin, he had hated the idea. He was a chuunin shinobi, two genin would only hold him back. He had accepted the idea a bit more when he learned that his sensei would be Namikaze Minato, Konoha's Yellow Flash, and that one of the genin was an Uchiha. Then he met the team and he hated the idea once again. Obito was everything an Uchiha was not. Where most Uchiha's were quiet genius', Obito was a loud idiot. Kakashi sometimes thought that the reason Obito still didn't have his sharingan was because he didn't act like an Uchiha. Maybe somehow the kekkei genkei skipped Obito because he wasn't an Uchiha at heart.

"Rin are there any chakra spikes?"

"Rin shook her head. "There are small wavelengths of chakra, but with the village this close, that's nothing unusual." Kakashi nodded and kept moving.

Rin snuck several glances at Kakashi. It was true that she had a crush on him, but she hated when they were alone. It was always too quiet. Kakashi was a mystery to her. He never opened up to anyone, not even Minato. Even for a shinobi, it couldn't be healthy to keep of his emotions bottled up.

They jumped in silence for hours before Rin felt something. From what she could feel, it was a person, but there was no chakra emanating from them. She told Kakashi.

"If there's no chakra, then it's probably just a civilian. We should still check it out." Kakashi turned to go in the direction Rin had indicated.

"It probably is a civilian." But it didn't feel like one. Rin didn't know how to describe the feeling she had, but it was like she knew that whoever it was, was someone extremely powerful. She took the lead, Kakashi just followed her silently.

"We're getting closer to the Hokage Mountain." Kakashi noted from behind her. She hadn't noticed, but the path they were on headed straight towards the monument. They were still four miles from the mountain when Rin saw the body. It was lying face down, completely still. Rin couldn't help but think that the person might be dead. She had never seen anyone look so still.

As she and Kakashi got closer, the first thing Rin noticed about him was his hair. It was the same color blonde as Minato's, which was unusual. Most of the villagers had dark colored hair. Rin knelt next to the body to see if he had a pulse. It was faint, but steady. Slowly, Rin and Kakashi turned the man over so he was now on his back. Rin was once again surprised. He looked a lot like Minato. Kakashi seemed to be surprised as well, for he stared at the man for a moment before looking at her. She nodded and inserted a small amount of chakra into the man's body. He didn't have any external or internal injuries. His only problem seemed to be chakra exhaustion. Rin had never seen someone in the state of exhaustion this man was in. There wasn't a trace of chakra left in his body. This man should be dead, but he wasn't. Rin was training to be a medic nin, but this was beyond her knowledge.

"Minato-sensei and Obito are almost here." Kakashi said.

oOoOo

As soon as Obito told Minato that Kakashi and Rin had suddenly changed course, they had done the same. There wasn't any urgency in Kakashi and Rin's pace, so Minato wasn't worried. The clearing where the two had stopped was up ahead. The first thing Minato noticed was Rin's face, which looked confused. The second was the body of a teenager. Minato quickly assessed that the man was still in his teens, probably eighteen or nineteen. He was wearing the standard shinobi vest, marking him as a shinobi without a hitai-ate. All other thoughts stopped when he saw the man's face. It wasn't quite the same as looking in a mirror, but it was close. The man's hair was the same color as his, and his face was shaped similarly. The biggest different came from the twin set of whisker-like scars on the man's cheeks.

"What's his condition, Rin?"

"He's exhausted all of his chakra; and I mean all. I know he's used chakra before, but there isn't a trace of any left. He should be dead." Minato nodded.

"We need to get him back to Konoha." Minato didn't like the idea of leaving his team, but Kakashi was a chuunin. If he was older, he would be in charge of his own team right now. "I'm going to take him to the hospital. I want you three to finish the mission together. Kakashi, you're now the leader." Kakashi and Rin nodded, but Obito grumbled about Kakashi being in charge of him. "Obito, a good shinobi does his best, no matter if he likes his leader of not." Obito reluctantly nodded.

Minato carefully picked up the body. It was for occasions like this that he was glad for his Hiraishin no Jutsu . Within seconds Minato was at the hospital. The nurses immediately took the man's from his arms. "Do you know what his condition is, Minato-san?"

"My student said he has severe chakra exhaustion." The nurse nodded and the man was placed on a stretcher. Not knowing what to do now, Minato sat down in the waiting room. He would stay until there was new news on the man's condition. In the meantime, he was left to ponder why the man looked so much like him. Rin said that the man had used chakra before so the man was probably a shinobi. What had caused this man to lose all chakra? Nothing unusual had happened in Konoha except the fire. And the fire could be something as simple as a shinobi being ashamed to admit he had lost control during training. Was that how the man exhausted his chakra?

Minato looked up when he noticed a nurse making her way toward him. He stood to his feet and met her by the reception desk. "What's the man's condition?"

"Your student was correct in diagnosing the problem as chakra exhaustion. I have never seen anyone so drained. I don't know how the man managed to stay alive, but we were able to stable him. It'll probably be five to six days before he regains consciousness." The nurse glanced down at her folder. "Can you please notify the Hokage? I know I should put the report in myself, but we are short on staff today." The nurse was fidgeting slightly. Minato hadn't even thought that it would have to be reported to the Hokage that an unknown shinobi had been found. Stupid.

"I'll do that now. Please, update me on the man's condition." When the nurse nodded, he left. Walking toward the Hokage Manor, Minato wondered again how the man came to be in the woods.

A/N: I actually had this chapter written before I posted the first chapter, just so you know why I'm updating so quickly. This chapter was harder to write than the last chapter. All four of the characters have personalities that we don't know much about. The easiest person to write was Kakashi, which surprised me. There is so little about Rin, even in Kakashi Gaiden, that I'm just going to have to make her my own.