"Now, Naruto, you know what to do, don't you?" Iruka said, a very fake smile plastered on his face.

"Yeah. I'm sorry!" Naruto said, waving his hands. "Why can't I go and train now? It's more fun." Iruka tried to dissipate his growing anger at the boy's pigheadedness.

"YOU IDIOT! IF SOMEONE, REFERRING TO YOU, PAINTS OUR HONORED HOKAGES' FACES-"

"You mean the old man."

"Quiet! It means that YOU have to CLEAN THEM UP!" Iruka finished his ranting, staring at the mostly nose bleeding Hokages.

"Fine!" Naruto mounted his platform and started to scrub.

Thirty minutes later…

Ugh…only done with a fourth of the First Hokage's face! Naruto thought. Wait, is Iruka asleep? All right! I'll sneak away to test my own teacher…Naruto started lowering himself further, but Iruka's voice screamed,

"YOU DON"T LEAVE UNTIL EVERY DROP OF PAINT IS GONE!" Ok. Now that I know how many steps until Hokage…I can see that there are a few million steps more... Naruto thought. "So? It's not like anyone is waiting for me at home. I just wanted to see if you could sense me going away." Iruka looked at Naruto with a mixture of feelings, while Naruto went back to scrubbing frantically at the carved faces. Naruto noticed, saying,

"What?" in a nonplussed expression.

"Well…once you're through here…I'll…we could…I'll buy you a bowl of ramen." Naruto's face suddenly lit up like a jack 'o lantern.

"YEAH, BABY! TALK ABOUT MOTIVATION!"

After they'd dumped Gaara at the hospital for a little bit, Kakashi and Jiraiya went to the Hokage, who'd just returned. Sarutobi listened intently, then replied,

"I can't send him away. The boy is presumably from Suna, correct?" The two shinobi nodded. "The reason why I came back so early is because Suna is nearly completely destroyed by unknown forces. Their Kazekage is dead." Kakashi and Jiraiya raised eyebrows, not believing, and masking the amazement on their faces. The Third Hokage continued. "I will still have to consult several ninja about what you told me, though; it's a very large matter." With that, he dismissed them, telling them to come again three hours later.

A large number of people were assembled with the Hokage beginning to speak about Gaara, and his trip to Suna. They kept quiet, although you could hear some of them mutter,

"Isn't two enough?" and,

"Stupid bijuus!" and,

"Wow, Suna's dead." But after he was finished, they started to fire questions at him.

"How will we know that Shukaku won't break out and destroy the village like Kyuubi nearly did?" asked Ibiki. "My way would be to kill him, but I suppose you don't want me to do that." At the last sentence, the audience yelled,

"KILL HIM!" The Hokage raised his eyebrows, and replied,

"Correct. If we kill him, the demon will die, but so will he. We still need to honor Suna with him, as we don't know if there are any survivors. And don't you agree that if the enemy got ahold of a jutsu that could resurrect ninja, we would have a powerful ally rather than a powerful nemesis?" Several shinobi in the crowd were agreeing with the notion, while others shook angry fists. "Ibiki, to answer your question, I would reinforce his seal." Sarutobi finished. Ibiki narrowed his eyes. He still didn't trust the demon container. Not one bit. "But don't you all agree that with the Kyuubi, the Shukaku, and a lesser demon, our village would be the strongest? No one would be able to stop us." More shinobi started to nod at this. "Now. One more thing to settle. Who would like to take care of him?" Immediately the audience shrank back, leaving four members-Iruka, Jiraiya, Gai, and Kakashi. "Would any of you four like to take care of Gaara?" Iruka shook his head.

"I would be honored, but…um…I already have Naruto…sort of." The Third Hokage let it go.

"Jiraiya?"

"I would love to take care of him, as he seems like a great kid, but I really just don't have the time. I travel too much, so I wouldn't be able to give him the required attention. I would still like to visit him, though. Oh, and I just don't think we should let Gaara become corrupted by Gai's 'power of youth'." While Gai yelled out indignantly ("THE POWER OF YOUTH IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY WITH!"), several people laughed just because it was true. Hiding a smirk, Sarutobi finally turned to Kakashi.

"So, would you like to take care of him?"

"Sure. I'm not training anyone right now."

"It's settled." The Third Hokage, aka Old Man, said this with a tone of finality and a gaze that offered no argument. "If any of you disagree, please voice your protests now." His calm voice permitted nothing from the audience, and they knew he was asking only out of politeness.

Two minutes later…

"No, I don't think there are any problems, seeing as we've stood for two minutes of silence." Kakashi smiled underneath his mask. "I suppose you'll say to treat Gaara like a human next, Sarutobi?" Most of the crowd cringed, because they often did it anyways.

"Thank you for reminding me, Kakashi. As Kakashi said, please don't treat Gaara, Naruto, or Kirayuki like a monster. This meeting is over." He sat back down on his chair, sighing as he muttered, "I'm getting too old for this."

Finished! In case you don't know who Kirayuki is, that's my OC. You'll hear more about her later. I'm so sorry for the wait, but I've recently received a piano contest invitation for the Bach Festival. I'm Level Five, and I'm supposed to compete against all other ages with my piece, Invention No. 8. So, predictably, I've been working on that for most of my time (boring!).

That means I cannot update for some time on this story or my others for a while. I'll try to type it up fast in my free time, but I may not update for a month or more. That being said, R&R!