A/N: Here's the next chapter! Quickly, as promised. I wish, you'd like it) Enjoy!

'Were you able to locate him?' the Kyuubi inquired when his host jolted out of the meditation.

'Yeah, he's in the forest with the rest of Team 7. Training, I guess' Naruto replied, standing up.

For some reason he did not fell steady on his feet and blinking a few times with his now golden eyes was not helping to get rid of haze in his vision. Naruto sank back into a sitting position on the ground, feeling dizzy. He then had to release a huge amount of natural energy which was absorbed during his meditation, but at the moment was dangerously unstable, threatening to turn him into a frog statue, thus falling out of the sage mode.

'What's wrong, kit?'

'I don't know' answered Naruto, being quite confused himself. 'I couldn't retain my sage mode'

The demon was silent for a moment, considering what might have been the possible cause of Naruto's state. 'Do not use it for the time being. Your body must still be weakened due to Itachi's jutsu, which has brought us here'

'You won't lend me your chakra, and now there's a taboo on the sage mode. Makes me quite powerless, huh' the Blond complained, ruffling his hair with one hand nervously.

'Deal with it, kit. Just try not to be reckless and you won't have to go all out while your powers are limited' the demon suggested.

'Ah, sure' Naruto grinned. 'You know, I like it when you care'bout me'

'Whatever' the Nine-tailed Fox flung a reply, huffed – more because the blond boy was right and the Kyuubi did care about him, than being actually annoyed. 'Let's go and find the brat already'

Naruto, who had already recovered from feeling sick, jumped to his feet, amused at the demon's reaction. He gazed at the village which was plastered underneath the Hokage monument. From his position on the 4th Hokage's head he could see the Hidden Leaf village in its full glory: lively, boisterous and simply beautiful with sunlit bright roofs and broad streets in between, filled with people. So nostalgic. A view he craved to see at least one more time. Will it remain this way? Now that he is here to protect his home. There is no way, he would fail again. That's just not what second chances are for, right? Those were the kind of thoughts that had crossed Naruto's mind, before he leaped from the top of the mountain and ran down its side, using chakra not to lose his footing on the steep wall.

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He just couldn't concentrate. Well, it's not like he actually had to, though. He was against Sakura after all and the young kunoichi could be hardly called a threat. Still the fact that one certain Blond won't leave his mind was quite bothersome to Sasuke. What did he care anyway?

'Tch' Sasuke blocked Sakura's kick, not bothering to avoid it.

'She treats him like shit, but he just smiles at her in return' Sasuke threw out his right arm to repel the next kick the girl aimed at his side. This resulted in Sakura losing her balance at the impact and falling ungracefully on her back.

'Shall we call it a day?' the Uchiha glanced down at her. 'I want to go and see how's the Dobe doing'

'Oww' the girl lifted herself from the floor and dusted her clothes. 'I guess'

'Then, Sasuke, maybe we could go and…' she froze mid-sentence as the shouts could be clearly heard from the direction in which their teammate left about ten minutes ago.

Something was wrong. Even Kakashi lifted his eyes from the book and listened. The first to move was Sasuke. He leaped on the nearest tree and, jumping from branch to branch, quickly headed to where he thought Naruto was. His two teammates followed behind.

/o/o/o/o/o/o/Scene shifting line/o/o/o/o/o/

'Sakura-chan is so mean sometimes' Naruto punched a mushroom, which happened to be growing on his path. 'And Sasuke-teme is such a show-off. I wonder if he's at least holding back while fighting Sakura-chan'

Brooding and caught in his thoughts, Naruto practically ran into the guy, whom he met that morning and then spend almost two hours trying to shake him off. Luck sure was on his side.

'!' Naruto sprang away from the man, at what he presumed was a safe distance.

'It's you again!' younger Naruto pointed an accusing finger at his older self, who was still using a henge to preserve his disguise. 'Why are you still following me?'

'We didn't finish our talk'

'No' Naruto shook his head. 'We did… Listen, I don't care what you and the rest of the village think about me at the moment, I'll prove to you all that I can be a Hokage!'

'I know you can' signed the, thanks to the henge, brown-headed guy. 'You just shouldn't'

'Says who?' younger Naruto spat out. 'That's the only way to make the villagers to finally acknowledge me and I won't lose the chance!'

'Why you're always so hard to deal with, kit?' the demon wondered, referring to the teenage version of his host. Older Naruto just cursed under his breath in reply.

'Don't make a fuss. You'll get your team worried from all this shouting' Naruto tried to persuade his younger self. 'Shall we talk somewhere else?'

'Like hell I'm gonna go somewhere with you' Naruto rushed to leave the place, but was grabbed by the elbow, when he tried to pass by the stranger. 'Let go!'

Naruto yanked his arm, but to no avail. This left him with no better choice than to try to kick the guy, the latter however gracefully avoided the blow, disappearing from the younger blond's field of vision for a second. Although Naruto's arm was released, he couldn't do anything to the stranger who reappeared behind him and hit the back of his neck with enough force to knock the teen out.

'I'm sorry' muttered older Naruto as he grabbed his younger self's limp body, before it hit the ground, and threw him over his shoulder.

'Do you really think it's wise to kidnap yourself? ' the Kyuubi asked in bewilderment.

'I don't know, but this way we won't have to chase him again right?' Naruto replied, not really trusting his own decision. The truth is he once again acted on his instincts. Leading a life of a shinobi made him learn that demobilizing his opponents as soon as possible was safer, than granting them time to pull out some trick. For a second he forgot that before him was an inexperienced genin with no secret techniques. And, well, what done is done. Now he better take him somewhere more secure and try to talk to him once again. Maybe dropping the disguise will do the trick.

Naruto's trail of thought was cut off as a bunch of shurikens flew past him, cutting into the nearby tree.

'Put him down' demanded the Uchiha jumping down from the tree branch. He was soon joined by Kakashi, who, despite the situation, looked relatively calm, and slightly puffing out Sakura, who didn't expect to run so quickly, when Sasuke suddenly darted from their training spot.

'Oh, shit. Maybe that really wasn't a good decision' Naruto muttered to himself.

TBC

Dragon77, thanks for reading) I'll update asap)

piratepenguin666, I'm really sorry about that. I had some time issues and couldn't update sooner. I'll try to make my chapters longer) And there will be more insight, I assure you.

Crystalzap, I'm sure, it's going to happen really soon)