Disclaimer: Geez, if I owned any of this stuff I wouldn't be writing a fanfic about it, now would I? xD

"Talking"

Thinking

Chapter 18: One Down, Two to Go

"Oi, Naruto!" Kyuubi, still in control of Naruto's body, pretended he didn't hear a word. The person yelled again, but he simply continued walking down the street. I finally get a chance to get out of that damned seal and this happens, he thought. Now I've got to lose whoever this guy is. Kyuubi kept his head down and tried to search Naruto's mind for any idea of how to get out of this mess. It was to no avail. Instead, Kyuubi dedicated his time to picking out a street that led out of Konoha, not further in to it. Whoever was following him and demanding attention had apparently stopped, so Kyuubi turned around to make sure.

Keeping his eyes in the shadows was a hard task, but he managed to shut his mouth over the canines and appear somewhat normal. A cat walked up to him and mewed lightly. Kyuubi never really liked cats. A deep growl sent the cat on its way. He stared up at the roof of a tall building and leaped up to the top gracefully. Crimson eyes swept over Konoha, taking in every little detail. A pack of birds were sitting on a wire, the same cat Kyuubi had sent away was now heading to the pack of birds. His eyes picked out small bits of information that were unneeded and information that he could always use later.

His eyes were drawn to the lush forest. It used to be his own home, but he shook his head to throw any thoughts like that from his head. He didn't need to reminisce now. He sighed out loudly, yet again wishing he had tails. He never could understand how humans expressed some feelings without them. Shrugging, he jumped off towards the forest without a plan.

Naruto took a step to the right, seeing what his counterpart would do. Naruto watched and observed; something the old perv had been teaching him just before they returned to Konoha. He stepped left, his counterpart stepped right. Finally, a thought occurred to him. "What's your name?" Naruto asked. "Mine's Uzumaki Naruto!" he proclaimed. His counterpart just stared and continued mirroring his movements. "You aren't talkative," he pouted. After he was done observing, Naruto finally wanted out of that place. Carefully he walked to the farthest wall and placed himself up against it. He glanced over at his counterpart, who was doing the exact same. A smirk found its way onto Naruto face as he bolted forward. He glanced back after a few steps to make sure that his counterpart was not following him. Unfortunately, this counterpart didn't mirror all of Naruto's movements. It must have been tricking me into thinking it was easy to get out! Naruto gritted his teeth and ran all the same. He wanted out of there; this was no time to be dealing with some illusion. At least he thought it was an illusion.

Keep a hand on the wall, idiot! He yelled at himself before skidding to nearly a complete stop. The light he could see earlier had now vanished. He wished Minato was there, since he probably knew what was happening. Naruto, on the other hand, had absolutely no idea what was happening. He just wanted away from the creepy thing, as he called it. "Yondaime!" he yelled, hoping maybe he would run into him eventually.

Unfortunately, Minato was busy with his own business. She has to be an illusion; Kushina would be in the land of the living or the dead, not here in this limbo place. Besides, I would have heard her earlier, a part of Minato thought frantically. He ignored those thoughts. He hadn't seen his beloved Kushina in sixteen years. Now the love he felt was almost unbearable. That one part of his mind kept nagging him though. Something about getting out, running away; the words weren't really that important at the moment. A loud noise bounced around the walls of the cave, but Minato ignored it completely. That nagging part of his brain started up again. Something about a test, which Minato thought was ridiculous. He wasn't in school. Tests were only given in school. There, that obnoxious sound again.

That's your son! Snap out of it! Minato wished that voice would stop. It was annoying. He wanted to tear his eyes away from Kushina, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. The voice continued to yell at him. Minato finally decided to listen to it a little; maybe then it would go away. Much to Minato's dismay, it only got louder.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Naruto yelled, still running. "Yondaime!" he yelled for the umpteenth time. Naruto stubbornly refused to call him 'father' or 'dad'. Robbed of his sight from the darkness, Naruto had no idea where he was headed, but it was following his right hand. "Yondaime!" he yelled yet again. Running as fast as he could while still thinking, Naruto didn't realize that his right hand was no longer gripping a wall, but instead it was gripping air. He cursed under his breath and reached out his left hand. His left hand also gripped air. Cursing again, Naruto took a sharp left and ran with his hands behind him for a little while. Of course, he periodically yelled out for the Yondaime.

"Yondaime…" Minato muttered. Somehow that meant something to him, but Kushina's trance wouldn't allow him to remember exactly what that was. The noise seemed louder now and Minato thought he heard footsteps. Minato started to come out of the trance, but of course that wouldn't be allowed. The noise and footsteps grew louder. Some part of Minato's brain picked up that information, but it never made any sense.

Naruto, running blindly, had a feeling that he was going to run into a wall. Since apparently the walls moved, that would more than likely happen. He thought, though, that running into a wall might be better than his counterpart catching up with him. Speaking of his counterpart, Naruto turned his head to look behind him. No sign of that thing. Then again, he couldn't really see anyway. "Yondaime!" Naruto yelled before running into something. It wasn't a wall, but it was a little too tall to be his counterpart. It didn't really matter, though, since he fell down on top of what—or who—ever he had run into. They both fell down in a heap, Naruto rolling off and away, into a nearby wall. He rubbed his head gingerly and muttered a few curses.

Yondaime had still been in his trance, his mind telling him to move. He didn't really know why he would need to move; he could see Kushina just fine from where he was. Just when he decided that he could see Kushina better a few steps over, something ran into him—hard. He fell backwards, smacking his head on the ground. Blinking several times didn't help the headache he knew was coming. He sat up and rubbed the back of his head. He opened his eyes yet again to see Kushina. His mind stopped processing information. Even the throbbing pain from his head was no longer relevant.

Naruto sat up and looked around. Even though he couldn't really see, he knew that he had just run into the Yondaime. "Yondaime!" Naruto whispered harshly. "Are you alright?" he asked. No response. "Hey!" he hissed. Carefully, Naruto got up and put his hands out in front of him. Immediately he made contact with the Yondaime's arm. "Hey! What's wrong?" he asked, shaking the Yondaime a little. "You aren't acting normal," Naruto stated. The Yondaime still didn't respond, not even a turn of the head. "What're you staring at?" he asked, turning his head.

Snap out of it! That voice was beginning to bother him again. Not to mention that buzzing in his ear. It almost felt like someone had grabbed him, too. But that didn't really matter.

Naruto decided to resort to desperate measures. "Hey! Wake up!" He yelled first, to make sure that Minato wasn't in his right mind. When Minato didn't respond, Naruto did what he did best. He was annoying. After a few moments of that, Naruto realized that something had to be wrong. "H-hey! Yondaime?" he asked, shaking him a little harder. Again, there was no reaction. Finally, Naruto swallowed down his own pride. "Dad!" the word felt odd, but it was somehow reassuring. He just hoped it would somehow wake Minato up from his trance. "Dad!" Naruto gripped his father's shoulders tightly and stood directly in front of him, trying to see his face. Glaring at his father, Naruto finally decided that it wasn't any use to keep yelling out his name. Minato obviously hadn't noticed, maybe he didn't care, that Naruto had called him dad a few times.

With his pride still intact, Naruto attempted to pick his father, who had a few inches and more than likely some weight on Naruto, up. Needless to say, it didn't work very well. Naruto ended up falling backwards—he had put too much of his father's weight behind him—and Minato fell down with him. Naruto landed with nothing resembling grace and shook his head. The thoughts that were scrambled somewhat made sense, and he realized that the upper half of his body wasn't on solid ground. "Yondaime!" Naruto realized, moving so that he was no longer lying on top of his dad.

"What's going on?" Minato asked in a nearly incoherent mumble. Naruto shrugged absent mindedly and looked around. Minato sat up, the pain in his head and back subsiding enough to let him do so.

"Well, I tried to pick you up and carry you out of this place but I ended up falling down. Sort of on top of you," he added with a foxy smile. Minato just groaned in annoyance. "I don't like this place, can we get moving and get out now?" Naruto asked, looking around and checking for that thing that had been chasing him.

"Yeah, I get the idea. Let's go," he muttered before standing up. He could feel the pain in his head coming back. Hitting your head twice on stone hard ground would more than likely give you a headache anyway. Naruto's hand latched on to Minato's wrist and starting dragging him along. "Any idea how to get out of here?" Minato asked, wondering why Naruto was in such a rush.

"No idea," was Naruto's answer.

"You've got to have some idea! Some sort of plan or something. We could end up back on the side of the mountain we started on!"

"I'm making this up as I go. I never was good at thinking ahead," Naruto muttered. He didn't really want Minato to hear that last part. "I figure as long as we keep moving we'll get out," he explained himself. Minato just sighed and went along with it.

"Fine, but try to think these things through from now on. You are a Konoha shinobi, after all." Naruto muttered something under his breath in response, but Minato paid no attention; he was busy trying to create a map in his head.

"Look!" Naruto yelled before running faster than before. Minato glanced up and reluctantly jogged after Naruto.

"Light at the end of the tunnel, huh?" he chuckled to himself. It didn't really matter all that much, though, since they would finally be out of the mountain. Minato slowed down to a walking pace while Naruto sped up, more than eager to get out of the cave. Once Naruto's figure passed through the exit, Minato suppressed a smile. He could hear Naruto's obvious shouts of freedom and happiness. Minato walked out, covering his eyes from the bright light. "Look, I know you're excited and all, but we're not anywhere near done. Itfs three challenges, remember? This was probably just the first."

Even that statement couldn't calm Naruto down. "But we got through the first! Relatively unscathed, too!" Minato's eyebrows arched, surprised that his son could use a word such as unscathed. Maybe he wasn't as dimwitted as he had led Minato to believe.

"Look, let's just take it easy for a little while. Figure out what went on in," Minato jerked his head in the direction of the mountain, "there." Naruto shrugged, just happy to be out of that place.

"One down, two to go!" he shouted happily, causing Minato to let out an exhausted sigh.

"Any luck?" Sakura asked her sensei, who was currently engrossed with the latest Icha Icha book.

"Hm?" Kakashi replied, taking a moment to realize what she meant. "Oh. No, actually. Just a little information from Konohamaru. He said he saw Naruto walking around earlier and yelled out at him. Wanted to play a ninja game or something like that," Kakashi shrugged. "Naruto didn't respond and just kept walking so Konohamaru gave up and came to me to see if anything was wrong with him," Kakashi shrugged, picking his book up yet again to finish reading. After both Kakashi and Sakura had finished searching, or more like ransacking, Naruto's house, they had parted ways to cover more ground.

"Where did he go?" Sakura asked, wanting to find Konohamaru to question him as soon as possible.

"If I knew, we wouldn't be looking for him, would we?" Kakashi asked smartly.

"I meant Konohamaru!" Sakura barked, clearly her patience was running low.

"I think he went off on a D-rank mission," Kakashi muttered absently.

"Fine, I'll go talk to Tsunade-sama then," Sakura sighed before running off. Kakashi shrugged and went back to reading, a smile forming beneath his mask.

AN: I'm not entirely sure why, but this chapter was a little hard to write. Anywho, hoorah! First challenge is over! If you're wondering what that thing was, it'll be explained next chapter, along with why Kushina showed up. Then, of course, I'll introduce the second challenge! I think. xD Unfortunately, I'm having a lack of inspiration and motivation. When school starts back up, hopefully that'll change. I won't update nearly as much once it does because of marching band. There's more info in my profile, and I'll probably explain it all once it comes around that time. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Shoutouts to my beta and best friend. You guys know who you are.

00Midnight Siren00: Wow, thanks for your 5 reviews. Don't feel bad! I'm just glad you like Scars. Thanks a bunch!

Please read and review! See you all next week!

Elizabet639