This chapter goes out to Thordenchilde, enjoy folks.
It was bright and early on a Tuesday morning, and Team Seven had been waiting for Kakashi for the past 24 hours, 37 minutes, and 54 seconds. In that time they had sparred, gotten breakfast, beaten the living shit out of each other, review first aid, gotten lunch, discussed battlefield tactics, sparred, brawled, discussed their goals for the future, gotten into another fight, plotted out how the three of them could achieve their goals as a team, picked up dinner, got in a fight over dessert, nearly killed each other finding sleeping spots, plotted the demise of Kakashi, gotten breakfast, and were just recovering from their latest brawl, when the sun rose in the East.
"Hn... where is he?" Sasuke asked while nursing the black eye he'd gotten from Naruto's elbow.
Sakura sighed while she rubbed her knuckles that had been sore since she connected them with Naruto's chin. "We don't know, he's never been this late before..."
Naruto stood on a branch looking at the surrounding area without any visible bruising or marks on his body, despite having the most injuries suffered. Sasuke to be honest was surprised he was standing after the knee to the groin the blonde had taken, but it didn't seem to slow him in the slightest. "Do you think we should keep waiting for him?"
"I'm starting to think we should see if we can't find him..." Sakura stated with a worried whine to her voice.
"Good morning students of my most youthful rival... where is your teacher?" Gai asked as he walked onto the scene.
"We don't know... he's over a day late..." the three answered in unison, before Naruto dropped out of the tree, and pulled out a deck of cards.
"Want to play some poker with us while we wait, Gai-sensei?" Naruto asked innocently while Sakura and Sasuke began scheming for a way to keep their money in their wallets.
Gai smiled nervously, which caught the attention of all three ninjas. Backing up slightly he let out a sheepish chuckle. "It would seem I am unable to... for it seems my esteemed rival has gotten into another argument with Pakkun again..."
"Wait... this has happened before?" Sakura asked sweetly, cutting off one of Gai's routes of escape, while Sasuke moved to block the other.
"And no one felt the need to warn us?" the Uchiha avenger asked coldly, causing Gai to start sweating. It was when Naruto slung his arm around the jounin's shoulder that he really began worrying.
"See... you are going to go with us to the Hokage, and we're all going to have a nice long discussion about this... right?" the blonde asked in a tone that sent chills down the Taijutsu master's spine.
"R...Right..."
Meanwhile, in a land far, far away, Kakashi looked around the ice and snow covered land curiously. "Are you sure this is the way to go Hibiki-san?"
The black haired youth adjusted his black-spotted yellow headband and nodded confidently. "Absolutely! We'll get you to your meeting spot in no time with this shortcut!"
Kakashi shrugged and decided to follow the strange boy that offered to guide him. Stupid Pakkun saying he couldn't find his way around without him. He'd show that mongrel that Kakashi Hatake was a full grown jounin and didn't need some smart mouthed dog holding his hand and guiding him around.
The strange place filled with talking orange mushroom people, and weird walking turtles they had just left was probably a area of Konohagakure he'd never been to before. That strange blue hedgehog he'd met before was probably from there as well. Looking at the group of wolves running past them, he could have sworn he heard them mentioning finding something called Paradise, he began wondering when it started snowing during summer in the Land of Fire.