Disclaimer: Ok so I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto probably thinks if he sells me the rights I'll kill off the pink-haired banshee but she does have a purpose in the story. She's an excellent target. . . for me .heehee

Hubby: And you wonder why you only have boys. . . (shakes his head)

Disclaimer: That thing would never could never be my little girl. She isn't qualified. (Crosses arms over chest and sticks nose in the air.)

Hubby: Uh-huh sure Rose. Careful you don't drown that way. It is raining, you know.

Chapter Six: Yamato's Viewpoint

Tsunade dismissed her once she realized the girl had gotten her point and watched as Sakura sank down on the couch beside Kakashi. She turned to Sai. "I assume she pretty much got the story right for you?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't quite as useless as she made me out to be but she was in the lead most of the way. It's a good thing I draw fast though. She wouldn't wait for me to make sure passages were clear and so precipitated a lot of fights we could have avoided but she was afraid of reaching her LoverToy too late. So she barreled ahead and left me to mop up behind her."

"How did you get injured?"

"One of her flying rocks landed on my leg. Bruised the bone but didn't break it. I got lucky. I think she'd have left me behind also if it had. While she dragged her LoverToy to the surface I continued to mop up the left-overs who were trying to follow her up. Things would have gotten real messy if that rock had hit my drawing hand instead of my leg."

Tsunade glared at Sakura while she waited for Sai to add anything else. When he didn't she turned to Yamato. "Since you went a different way than Sai and Sakura and you had Naruto with you, how about you tell me what you can remember?"

"It was chaos all around. Sakura was right about Naruto smelling the ramen stand but wrong about his comment. He said they couldn't all be bad guys since it was obvious some of them liked ramen. Else the stand serving it would have gone out of business already. I thought it was a pretty astute thing for him to note. But at no point did he express a desire to forget the reason we were there and just go eat ramen. It wasn't that kids style. Only thing he seemed to love more than ramen was a good fight." At this point Sasuke chuckled. He had opened up more since his return to the village but laughter and chuckles were still rare enough to elicit startled glances from those who heard it.

"What's so funny?" asked Sakura.

Sasuke said, "Naruto is the whole reason that stand was there. It was to entice him into the village and while he was scarfing it down, he would be drugged and taken to the labs. Orochimaru and Kabuto felt the same way Sakura does about Dobe's love of the stuff. I told them he wasn't that stupid but they believed his love for the stuff would overpower his battle sense and they could try and force the fox out of him and into Orochimaru. No one ever ate there because the ramen was drugged daily just for Naruto. It was also only open when Orochimaru had reports of Naruto sightings around the base. Someone really should have gotten him out of the blaring orange jumpsuit he always wore."

Tsunade nodded and motioned for Yamato to go on with his explanation. "I think for you to fully understand why Naruto felt he was abandoned by his comrades you need a fuller understanding of Team Seven and the way they operated. When Sai and I were assigned to the team, it was just Naruto and Sakura. He had already betrayed us to join the Snake Sannin and Kakashi had turned his back on the others to rejoin Anbu. He was off doing dangerous missions under the guise of finding his missing student and Sakura was training under you. Naruto had Jiraiya but only when there was no one in the hot springs or other bathing places. He spent a lot of time alone and Sai and I both got to see how the kid thought and worked. We both saw something unbreakable in him and now you say it broke. I hope not." He paused for a few minutes to gather his thoughts back to the dysfunctional Team Seven.

"When you'd be too busy to work with her or you'd send her out to practice with us, she refused to work with either Sai or myself. And she barely tolerated Naruto though he tried hard to show her ways to improve and did his best to build her confidence. She said none of us were worth her time and effort. She said we were all just filling stones until the real members came back. I'll give her credit for one thing. She never did believe he was really gone." He pointed his finger towards Sasuke.

"When she did pay attention it was only so she could criticize our techniques even though it was beyond her abilities to duplicate them. Naruto didn't spar with her but he stood and let her use him as a punching bag while she practiced her techniques."

"I heard her once, telling someone that she was almost strong enough to do what Naruto couldn't. What, in her opinion, he didn't want to do. She was sneering when she said it and I almost went over then and there to teach her just how far off base she was but I didn't. Now I wish I had."

"Later I asked Naruto why he just let her beat on him without throwing up any real obstacles for her to work around. He told me that in the beginning he had tried to do that but she would get so mad she'd tell Kakashi that he was trying to hurt her. Kakashi told him to stop fighting her. He said if she complained to the wrong person the council would think he was letting the demon hurt their ninjas and they'd act on it. But when he tried to stop sparing with her, she complained again. Kakashi told him he had to so that she could improve."

"To Naruto, that meant he had to be her punching bag now that Sasuke was gone. From that conversation, I found out that before Sasuke had left us Kakashi had told Naruto he was never to refuse Sasuke a battle. If Sasuke felt the need to fight then Naruto was supposed to crawl out of his grave and do it. He also wasn't ever supposed to push Sasuke so hard that Sasuke would lose the fight. Kakashi had told Naruto that the only way anyone would believe he'd beaten another nin was if he'd let the demon fight for him. He'd told him the council would take action if they heard he was winning in his fights. So Naruto never fought back against his team or any other of his fellow nins." Sasuke was glaring at Kakashi now as was Tsunade. Even Sakura wasn't looking too happy with him.

"He would meet with her at the training grounds and let her pummel him until she got tired. You may have taught her to be a great medic but I never once saw her use that ability for him. She never found him to be worthy of her skill I guess. Sai and I took to carrying our own medical packs and we'd bandage him up. She would beat him to a bloody pulp and then turn away, sneering about how weak he was. She would berate him for getting hurt in the first place and tell him he needed to learn a better defense if he wanted to beat her. She told him she would get her Sasuke-kun back without his help. Only a strong person could show Sasuke-kun a reason to return. But she was the only one who couldn't see he could beat her with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back."

"After she'd leave with her nose in the air, and we healed his injuries, I'd watch him practice. He'd summon clones to battle against. Divide them into teams and have them practice his jutsus while he tried to build his strength and stamina. I never saw anyone work so hard. Every day it'd be the same thing. She'd beat the crap out of him. We'd heal him and then he'd practice until he couldn't even get to his knees anymore. One or both of us would carry him home and pour him into his bed. He just kept saying over and over again that he had a promise to keep. She's lucky he's a better man than I am."

Tsunade growled, "Why, Kakashi, should I not tie your hands and do to you what you let them do to him?" She put her fists on her desk with enough force to leave small craters behind as she stood up leaning her weight forward.

Again Kakashi gulped. He had been pretending to read his book and trying not to pay attention to the various death glares that were flying over and about his head. He needed to recall every detail of that last fight he could before it was his turn to speak and somehow he had to turn it around to where it was Naruto who misunderstood and chose not to follow them back to the village. As it was he had no idea what she was talking about. "Eh? I'm sorry. What?" he asked.

Tsunade growled and started to come around the desk. Both Sasuke and Sakura moved to stand in front of the hapless sensei as Sakura said, "Now Tsunade-shishui I think you should hear the rest of the battle before you do anything you'll regret later. After all, you haven't heard his side of it yet." Tsunade gave the nin one more gulp inducing look before she turned her smoldering gaze back to Yamato. "Continue."

"Yes Ma'am. When we got there I thought it made sense for Sakura to stay out of the village until the battle was over. I wanted to take Naruto with me in one direction while Kakashi took Sai with him. I knew Kakashi would want to go looking for Sasuke so I figured Naruto and I would look for Orochimaru and Kabuto. But instead before we could split up the way we should have, Sakura made a snide comment to Naruto about the ramen stand and took off to go find her lover-boy. Since Kakashi wasn't doing anything, I sent Sai after her. I could hear her trying to send him away but he stayed with her as the rest of us chose a different tunnel. We came to a passageway and Kakashi decided Naruto should take the left while we went right. I didn't agree but he was the captain. And Naruto obeyed without question. He always did. To him they were good people and he owed them his obedience. I asked him about that once also. He just said people like him who had demons inside weren't good people like they were."

"Kakashi said we might come to another choice and then we would all be split up. We didn't. He and I entered an open area and found about ten Ninja waiting for us just as Naruto appeared in another opening. At the far entrance I could see Orochimaru with Kabuto but Sasuke wasn't with them. We were going to turn away when Kabuto noticed Naruto and took off after him. Of course I ran to help the boy but the other ninjas in the room had other ideas. Kakashi and I found ourselves facing the ninjas while Naruto was left to fight the Sannin, who had followed Kabuto, and his apprentice alone. I passed out due to a knock on the back of my head and that's all I know. I do know the one to knock me out was the last of the ninja we were fighting so Kakashi should have been able to go help Naruto as soon as he finished that guy off."