(A/N) We are back. A special thanks to Xana100 for telling me some of my story's faults in a constructive way. I have gone back and made my previous chapters better by adding line breaks and bolding transitions. Hopefully that will make it easier for my new readers happier with the ease of reading.

As always, thanks for the continued reviews. Keep them up!

I don't really have anything else to say, so on with the chapter!

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Chapter 18: Kakashi's Plight

Minato just smiled at Kakashi's reaction to seeing him. However, Naruto and Kushina were rolling on the floor laughing. Hinata and Tsunami were just giggling at the face that Kakashi was making (Again, think Enel's face, but with Kakashi's mask on). Team 7 were just confused as to who the strangers were.

Kakashi gathered himself and asked "Is that really you, Minato-sensei?"

Minato's smile broadened, and he said "Of course it is."

Kakashi stuttered out "But…but…how?"

"A side effect of the way that my son took control of the Kyuubi's power. I had sealed myself and Kushina into Naruto to help him control the Kyuubi, but due to his unorthodox method of taking his power, our powers were not used up, so now he can summon us whenever he wants." Explained Minato.

Suddenly, a light bulb went on inside Kiba's head. He suddenly shouted "WAIT A MINUTE! SON? KYUUBI? YOUR NARUTO'S FATHER? THAT MEANS YOU'RE THE YONDAIME!"

"Yes, I'm the Yondaime Hokage, but that matters little. Anyways Kakashi, you've grown from the shrimp that you used to be when I was your sensei. And you have a team of your own now. However, you still haven't gotten over what happened with Obito and Rin. I've watched Naruto interact with you, and most of the time when it wasn't you helping him as an ANBU, then it was when you were standing at the memorial stone. You really need to but the past behind you and look to the future. Maybe get a girlfriend or something."

Kakashi looked depressed and said "How can I move past it, it's my fault that both of them died. If it were not for my own lack of belief in my teammates, then I could have saved Obito. And-"

Kakashi was interrupted by Kushina's fist smashing his head in. She then said "If it's your fault for their deaths, then it's my fault for the deaths the day of the Kyuubi attack. I was the Kyuubi's jinchuriki, so their deaths fall on me! And do you see me moping about it? No! I look towards the future, and I see my son as the greatest Hokage that the leaf has ever seen! With my daughter-in-law by his side! They will make Konoha the strongest that it has ever been! So get a grip Kakashi, and look to the future!"

Naruto blushed at what she said and said "Do you really think that, mom?"

Kushina turned to Naruto and said "Of course I do sweetie. After all, it is the parents' job to support their child's dreams. And I do believe that you will the strongest Hokage that the leaf has ever known. Just keep training and hold Hinata-chan close, and you will make it."

Sasuke then chose to speak up, saying "As if that dobe could ever become Hokage. He is weak. The position is much better suited for someone like an elite Uchiha. In fact, I-"

Sasuke was interrupted by Kushina's fist smashing his jaw, while at the same time, Hinata sent several lighting fast Jyuken strikes to key points in his body, immobilizing it once again. Kushina broke his jaw, but he was still conscious.

Kushina looked down at him and said "My son is not weak. He is much stronger than you will ever be!"

Hinata also looked down and said "You were about to insinuate that you were going to become Hokage. That would never happen. The Hokage has to be completely selfless and humble, two things that you are the complete opposite of, and two things that my Ruto-kun is wholeheartedly. Never say such a thing again in my presence. It disgusts me to think of you being Hokage. You would ruin the village."

Minato then spoke up, saying "There is a reason why there has never been an Uchiha or Hyuuga Hokage. The reason being that they seem to have inborn arrogance. There are four exceptions to that. For the Hyuuga, they are Hitomi, and her daughter here, Hinata. For the Uchiha, it was in fact Itachi who would have the greatest chance of becoming Hokage, along with his best friend Shisui. I believe that Itachi is not as evil as everyone makes him out to be. Someone gave him no other option than to slaughter his entire clan. I am rather glad that he did it actually, as the Uchiha's arrogance would one day ruin the leaf. However, from what I've seen, he made a bad choice in letting his little brother live."

The banshee then spoke up, screeching "But Sasuke-kun is the strongest ninja in the leaf!"

Naruto and Hinata again winced at the volume of her voice, before Kushina spoke up saying "I swear, you are worse than all of Minato-kun's fangirls combined. That brat is nowhere near the strongest in Konoha. That title would be held by the Hokage, and then he would be followed by Naruto and Hinata here. Then would be Kakashi and Guy."

Kiba's eyes widened at what she said and he asked Kakashi "Are Naruto and Hinata really stronger than you?"

Kakashi closed his eye for a moment, before sighing and saying "Together, definitely. One on one, it would be a close match since I have years of experience on them, but I also don't know the full extent of their strength, as they have done a very good job at hiding it. Naruto only revealed his swordsmanship, strength, and speed during his fight with Zabuza, and that's all I have seen of them fighting. And even still, he could have easily been holding something back. Remember, the key to being a successful ninja is using deception. However, I am in the bingo book, which I am sure that he has read, and my reputation as the copy ninja is pretty widely known. So they both have the advantage on knowledge. Overall, their advantages outweigh mine, so I can assume that they would win in a fight against me. Besides, my chakra reserves are much too low to even think about outlasting them, especially since I gather that they cannot run out of chakra, at least that I've seen."

Minato smiled at Kakashi and said "That was an expert analysis, Kakashi, given the information that you have. I have trained you well apparently. But yes, you would lose to both of them in a one on one. But you are only wrong when you said it would be close. Your stamina is just too low for it to be a close match. They could easily send wave after wave of shadow clones that have the same chakra level as you do at your max. They have numbers on their side. You should seriously think about training up your stamina, Kakashi.

Kakashi again sighed and said "I know that stamina has always been my weak point, along with my small chakra reserves, but training with Guy is a bit much."

Naruto heard this and spoke up "I recommended to Kiba that he train with Guy, so why don't you join him? That way there is someone to resist Guy's flames of youth, so that Kiba doesn't become corrupted by their youthfulness."

(Meanwhile in Konoha)

"Guy-sensei, someone is trying to prevent us from spreading our youth!" said a green spandex wearing mini-Guy.

"I know my dear pupil, and we must not let our flames of youth be put out by such negativity! If we cannot spread our youth to at least one person today, then we shall do 100 laps around Konoha on our hands!" replied the original.

"And if we cannot do that, then we must do 1000 pushups!" replied Lee.

Guy shot Lee his brilliant smile, and said "I like your way of thinking, Lee! Come, let us show our dear village the power of our youth!"

"GUY-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GUY-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

The two youthful men crashed together in a hug of youthful proportions, leaving Konoha to experience the Sunset Genjutsu of Eternal Youth.

(Back in the Land of Waves)

Naruto, Kakashi, Hinata, Kushina, and Minato suddenly shuddered. Naruto spoke up and said "I think that we were just lucky enough to miss another show of youth in Konoha."

Kakashi spoke up and said "I agree. But I guess you are right. I will take Kiba when we get back and we will train with Guy in our spare time. Anyways, Minato-sensei, Kushina-san, I have to thank you. I think I'm finally out of the funk that I was in before. I have been letting my skills dull recently, so now I need to train to get them back up to par. Anyways, as I was saying before I noticed you two, my team and I have gone down to the village for some information. The place is a complete mess, and the town's only hope is for the bridge to be completed. Apparently Gato is keeping the whole land of waves under a tyrant's fist. So here is what we will do. My team will stay with Tazuna as he works at the bridge. Meanwhile, Zabuza and Haku will work on finding out where Gato has holed himself up in. Naruto and Hinata will be helping my team with the bridge until Zabuza locates Gato. When he does, Zabuza, Haku, Naruto, and Hinata will go to where he is and take him out. I have to stress that when you do, you must leave no witnesses. If other nations find out that leaf ninja murdered a business tycoon in cold blood, bad things will happen. Meanwhile, my team will stay here with Tazuna in his house, just in case."

Minato spoke up and said "That's a fine plan. Naruto and Hinata's shadow clones will really speed up the bridge's building process, so instead of having your team help with the bridge, you should find a place to train them instead. They need to be on a level higher than what they currently are if they wish to survive in the ninja world."

Kakashi sighed and said "As always, you are right Minato-sensei. We will get on that right away. It's too late to start on the bridge building today though, so Naruto and Hinata can do whatever." Turning to Hinata, he then said "As much as I don't want you to, can you please heal Sasuke's jaw, and restore movement to his body?"

Now it was Hinata's turn to sigh, and she said "Very well. But do try to train them well, as they are too weak right now, and will die if they cannot get stronger and work as a team."

Hinata then sat next to the still form of Sasuke. She then held her hands over his jaw, and they started to glow with a lavender chakra. In a moment Sasuke's jaw was healed. She then jabbed Sasuke in the spots that she had jabbed him before, giving mobility back to his body. He immediately jumped up and tried to punch Naruto, but was quickly stopped by Minato grabbing his arm, who said in a deathly serious voice "I would not recommend doing that again. While Kakashi might get in trouble with the council if something happens to you that is his fault, I will not. I could easily destroy you, and while they might yell at me a little, they can't do anything to me. And they already know what will happen if they try to do anything to Naruto or Hinata. So, don't do anything stupid again in my presence, if you value your pitiful existence."

Sasuke took his arm back and walked out the door, grumbling. Of course the fangirl followed him, so Kakashi took Kiba and followed them.

Minato looked to Naruto and said "Since we are no longer needed here, we will go back." He and Kushina then vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Hinata looked to Tsunami and Inari and said "I'm sorry about that. Kakashi-san got really unlucky with the people who were put on his team, and as you can see, all of us are not fond of them. Kiba is the only one who is decent. Ruto-kun and I will go and sleep outside so that Kakashi's team can have the house. We really don't mind, so long as we have each other than we will be fine. Besides, we don't trust the emo to try and kill us when we sleep. We will come by tomorrow morning, and you won't see us until then."

With that, Naruto and Hinata walked out the door.

Zabuza spoke up and said "Haku and I will head back to our hideout to gather a few things. We will sleep there so you don't need to worry about us either. We will come back when we have learned of Gato's location."

They then headed out the door.

(Back with Naruto and Hinata)

Naruto and Hinata were currently sitting on a branch in the tallest tree in the forest. They had their tails wrapped around each other's, and were enjoying the moment.

Naruto spoke up and said "Well Hina-chan, this mission certainly hasn't gone as expected."

Hinata sighed and said "It would be fine if the emo wasn't such an arrogant prick, and if he didn't have the banshee following his every move. Although Kiba is fine now. Kakashi-san really is unlucky that he was forced to teach Sasuke. If only we could get rid of those civilian council members already, then we wouldn't be having this problem. I looked over Sasuke's file one day when we were pranking ANBU headquarters, and he has failed all of his mental evaluations. Technically, he is not fit to be an active shinobi. It's only because the civilians love him so much that he is here and not in a mental hospital.

"It's pretty obvious that he is not in his right mind," replied Naruto "But to fail all of the mental evaluations is unheard of. He is very unstable. In some ways I can't blame him though. If he went through that Tsukyomi jutsu or whatever it's called, then I can't blame him for being not in the right mind. However, one would think that by having his entire clan slaughtered would humble him, not make him even more arrogant. I have no idea what the civilians see in him, other than the bearer of a dormant Sharingan."

The sun was just finishing setting as they talked, and the sky was turned a beautiful shade of orange by the last bit of sunlight.

Hinata commented on this saying "The sky is so beautiful. It makes you just want to forget about your worries."

Naruto smiled sadly and said "Yes, but our worries will still remain even if we forget about them. We have a lot of work to do before we can go back home, and even more before we can even dream of getting the village fixed to the way it should be."

Hinata looked at Naruto and gave him a soft kiss before saying "Then we won't ever forget about them, and we will look to the future. We will eventually accomplish our goals, and we will do them together, one at a time."

Naruto smiled a genuine smile and said "Thank you Hina-chan. I was feeling a little down, but you always make me feel better. We will look to the future together, and we will never let each other go, no matter what."

Hinata gave Naruto another kiss at this, before saying "So do you want to sleep out here like we said, or Hiraishin back home?"

Naruto smiled warmly and said "I think I would rather just spend the night out here, alone with you. But we won't be able to sleep together in this tree, as we would fall out, so let's find a more pleasant spot."

Hinata had a glowing smile at his answer, and they hopped out of the tree as the sun finished setting. They wandered through the forest a little before they found a clearing full of flowers. They laid down next to each other, and chatted about small things as the stars slowly started to show themselves, and the moon steadily began to rise. They slowly drifted off to sleep to the ambience of the surrounding wildlife and each other's breathing.

Hinata awoke early the next morning to the dawn sun glaring into her eyes. Rubbing the sleep out of them, she kissed Naruto awake, and said "Good morning Ruto-kun. Did you sleep well?"

Naruto smiled and said "I will always sleep well with you next to me."

His response was rewarded with a kiss, and Hinata said "Well I guess we should head back to Tazuna's place. I'm guessing that it is around six right now, so Kakashi should be awake. I would like to speak with him about his team."

Naruto nodded and said "Same. So let's get going."

They headed back to Tazuna's and knocked on his door. Kakashi was the one who answered it. He said "Good, your back. I hope it wasn't too much of a trouble for you two to sleep outside?"

Hinata giggled and said "No it wasn't. Thanks for your concern though. We both slept great outside in a beautiful flower filled clearing. In all honesty, we could have just used the Hiraishin to go back to our house, but Ruto-kun wanted to spend the night with just me. We have a guest at our estate."

Kakashi's eye widened at that and he said "You two can use the Hiraishin? And who's your guest?"

Naruto grinned and said "I have mastered the Hiraishin, and Hina-chan is well on her way. But we only use it as a last resort, as I'm sure you know the reasons why. And our guest is Yugito Nii."

"Yes I understand the reasons why, but did you say Yugito? Isn't that the transfer student from Kumo?"

Hinata smiled and said "Yes she is, and while you might be thinking "Why the hell are you letting a foreign ninja into the most secure clan compound in Konoha", I assure you that she is completely fine. In fact, we will let you in on a little secret. She is like us."

Kakashi's eye widened once more and he said "She's a jinchuriki?"

Naruto grinned and said "A former jinchuriki. Now she is a Hanyou like us. Which is precisely the reason why we trust her. She is our sister. She has also told us the real reason for her being in Konoha, and we are working to combat that. She was sent her to spy on the Hyuuga, and to pick out the weakest one for them to capture. Currently, we have the cloud believing that Hinata is the weakest Hyuuga, when in reality, she is the strongest. But you have to keep this a secret. Tell no one. If people know already this information, then they were meant to know it. Also the transfer student from Taki is a Hanyou too."

"Very well, this will be kept a secret. Would you like to step inside now?"

They stepped inside and Naruto spoke up "So how did training with your team go?"

Kakashi gave his eye smile and said "Better than I thought it would, actually. I got them started on the tree climbing exercise, and both Sakura and Kiba completed it pretty quickly. The emo took a little longer, but he got it done. Hell, even Akamaru can do it now. I then started them on the water walking exercise. None of them have it down yet, but they are making good progress, especially Kiba. After seeing you in action, I think his drive has increased tenfold. I had them working until three in the morning, and they were barely able to drag themselves back her to get to bed. I actually had to carry Sakura. I don't expect them to be waking any time soon, so when Tazuna wakes up, feel free to go to the bridge and start helping them. When they do wake up, its back to training for them. I am no longer going to slack off. I will be doing my own training while supervising their's."

"So what sort of training can you do while keeping an eye on them?" asked Hinata.

"I got the idea from seeing one of Guy's favorite youthful self-punishments. I will be doing handstand pushups, while water walking with my hands. That way, I will help my chakra reserves and stamina at the same time."

Naruto grinned and said "Targeting your two weakest points in one simple exercise. Smart. It's good to see you taking your life as a ninja seriously. Now we will just have to work on you being on time. You wouldn't want to show up late to your own funeral, would you?"

Kakashi laughed and said "I don't think that anyone will have to worry about me being late again. The real reason why I was constantly late was that I was always mourning at the memorial stone, and I would lose track of time. But your mom literally knocked some sense into my head, and I won't be doing that again."

At this moment Tazuna walked down the stairs, noticed Naruto and Hinata, and said "Good to see that you're back so early. This way we can get to work sooner. I'm ready to head to the bridge whenever you two are."

"We can go whenever. We had just finished talking with Kakashi-san." Replied Naruto.

"Okay then, let's head out."

Naruto, Hinata, and Tazuna walked out the door and headed to the bridge.

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And that's a wrap. If you guys are thinking that I made Kakashi seem weak, it is actually because in part one, Kakashi wasn't all that strong. He fainted from chakra exhaustion from his first encounter with Zabuza, and he could only use Raikiri four times a day. So this way, I can have him start getting as strong as his Shippuden-self earlier on. It is also true that Kakashi has never had very good chakra reserves, and his stamina is sub-par too. But I intend to fix that. A few months training with Guy and he will be a new man! (But not in the youthful way, I will not have Guy corrupt Kakashi or Kiba)

Anyways, on with the omake!

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Wheel of Torture Chapter 10

The root members still hadn't learned that what they had seen were shadow clones, so they were back at the door once again.

As always, they were doomed with failure.

This time the wheel stopped on "Goron Rollout".

Suddenly, there was a great rumbling noise coming from up the road, and a large dust cloud that was steadily approaching the root's location.

Ironically, the root members were standing in perfect bowling pin formation.

The first Goron got a strike.

The rest squashed the downed pins.

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And that's the omake! Special thanks to 3154 for the idea. Rolling Gorons make perfect bowling balls, don't you think? This reminds me of Orcarina of Time, when you are a kid and trying to climb death mountain for the first time. Those Gorons just loved treating you like a bowling pin.

Anyways, until next time,

Slice N Dicer