3 3 Konoha

"Alright, let's go." at Minato's command he and Naruto raced from their hiding spot at maching speeds. Minato quickly marked several surrounding trees while the two male chuunin followed at a slower pace. The enemy was momentarily surprised. The Leaf nin used this to their advantage; three enemy chuunin and one jounin were taken down before the others got their bearings. Naruto and the team sensei each took two jouninwhile Obito and Kakashi worked together on defeating the chuunin. Naruto hoped to get his done with quickly so he could help the two. He didn't doubt their skills, he knew that Kakashi had been an excellent shinobi even when he was young, however two against seven didn't exactly give them good odds.

One of the jounin shinobi in front of him flashed to the right while the other two the left. They both pulled a ling blade katana. While one swung low to his legs, the other aimed high to his neck. As a result he couldn't duck or jump to avoid their attacks. It was a good strategy, it was quite obvious the two were used to working on a team together. But for Naruto- who was used to clever maneuvers such as this one- a trick like this was easy to avoid. He used a simple replacement jutsu and hid in the trees. Creating two very durable clobes to fight the jounins, Naruto observed their fighting styles. Man it would be so much easier if he could use rasen-shurikan, but unfortunately the one who created the rasengan was only a few yards away and would definitely question the use of his self-developed jutsu by a stranger, especially its final form which he had never perfected due to the extreme amount of chakra necessary to perform it. The jounin seemed to only use kenjutsu combined with chakra against the clones which gave Naruto an idea. Kakashi's blade had been knocked out of his hands and lay at the base of Naruto's tree. He jumped out of it and grabbed the blade just as the two clones were dispersed in a white cloud. The jounin once again ganged up on him. He deflected the blade of one before targeting the others hand. The blade struck home and cut the ninja's tendons in his right arm, but the jounin was quite persistent because he just switched his blade to his left hand and continued fighting. He ducked the attack that followed and cut the tendons of his other hand making his blade fall to the ground. He quickly scooped up the chakra blade channeling his own chakra into it, and sliced through his neck decapitating him. He faced the other incoming nin who had a renewed fire in his eyes, and ducked to the left before he ran the blade through the base of his skull, severing his brain stem granting him a quick death.

Naruto glanced at Minato- who had already killed one and was seemingly finished with the second- before racing to assist Kakashi and Obito who were fighting several yards away. They were almost overwhelmed. It took less than a second to close the distance between them, killing a few on the way. He handed Kakashi his blade, who fought more effectively with the thing in hand. With Naruto there now, the chuunin were dealt with quickly.

Minato too, finished his battle and the four went back to Rin making sure she was alright. She was fine.

Rin did a quick examination of her teammates, concluding there were no major injuries. Obito had a fractured arm and a few scratches which Rin quickly healed before moving on to Kakashi who just pushed the girl away insisting that he was alright. Knowing Kakashi, Naruto guessed that was probably true. At least he didn't fight like he was injured. None the less Rin kept fussing until he let her treat his scratches. Minato had a gash on his shoulder but was otherwise unscathed.

Almost as an afterthought, Rin checked over Naruto who was leaning heavily on a nearby tree fighting exhaustion as sage mode wore off. It was all he could do to keep from passing out on the spot. His brain was muddled from the battle with Madara which he forced from his thoughts until later. Time travel may have also had a place for blame. The golden color faded from his eyes.

"Naruto, you're about to collapse. Are you sure you are okay?"

He was about to nod that he was fine, but then he really did pass out, the world around him fading into darkness. He said a last silent goodbye to the sun before losing consciousness.

|¤|Ω|¤|

"Is he dead?" asked a silver-haired Hatake. He kicked the boy's form lightly.

"No, he's not dead!" exclaimed the medical nin. "𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦." she murmured under her breath so only she could hear.

"What was that?" questioned Kakashi.

"Nothing. Now would you please stop kicking him!" The boy just shrugged but stopped his assault.

Minato made his way over and paused a minute to look at the kid more closely.

"Is something wrong sensei?" inquired Rin.

He shook his head. "Nothing. We should get going. I don't sense any other ninja near us, but we should still hurry just in case. We aren't in any condition to fight another enemy squad at the moment." He once again scooped the boy into his arms. He was surprised by the small leak of chakra that was coming from him. It felt so much warmer than any other he had come across, this surprised him because Naruto's whole demeanor was so cold when he was awake. But looking at him now, he seemed so much younger than his alleged nineteen years.

"Sensei?" asked Rin in a slightly concerned tone with a furrowed brow. Again he shook his head to snap out of it.

"Come on."

"Sensei are you sure we should be bringing him back to the Leaf Village? He could be an enemy nin." cautioned Kakashi once more, even though he had just helped them. He could be a spy for all he knew.

Minato shook his head. "No, I don't think he is." There was definitely something strange about the boy but he didn't think he was an enemy. Whatever he was, the Yellow Flash vowed to find out.

|¤|Ω|¤|

Two hours later and they were at the village gates. The gaurds that were on duty smiled and waved all friendly to the village hero and his cute little students. They cast a curious glance at the unconscious person in Minato's arms but didn't question it.

They hurried along to the hospital and once in the lobby they met with a rather flirtatious nurse-in-training that seemed to be around twenty.

"How can I help you fine men today." She purred while batting her eyelashes and leaning her chest close to the jounin's arm. The three younger one's present were more than a little annoyed at the woman flirting with their sensei. They wished Kushina was there to teach the lady a lesson, but at the same time glad she wasn't because then the unconscious male wouldn't be the only one in the hospital.

Minato remained oblivious. "This boy needs medical attention." he said anxiously. He was good at staying calm while in the field, but when he wasn't and someone was hurt he acted as if the world might end.

"Of course, right this way." She replied still not looking at the patient.

"No, I mean for real. He could be dying."

"Ah sensei, I think that's a little dramatic." Obito said. Minato wasn't buying it. He demanded to see a real doctor.

"And he doesn't even know this guy. Imagine if it was one of us." wispered Obito. Rin giggled a little, but she too was worried for the stranger. To be that drained and still fight even more - in sage mode none the less! If he remained untreated there's no telling what might happen. Not to mention that when she had first examined him, he seemed to have multiple internal injuries.

Finally the flirty nurse went to find a more trained specialist.

After about ten minutes none other than Tsunade herself came to treat the object of the Namikaze's worry.

"What happened?" she asked in a professional voice.

"We found him in the forest on our way back from our latest mission."

Tsunade put her hands over the stranger and let her chakra flow into him informing her of his injuries. Her eyes widened fractionally. In a hurry she grabbed the boy releaving Minato of the burden, and rushing away calling orders to the staff who immed followed. This didn't help the blonde's fretting.

"Minato-Sensei you need to give the mission report." reminded Kakashi who looked rather bored with the whole thing. Minato nodded.

"Alright, you three stay here. I'll go give my report, then when I get back you will be dismissed." Obito and Rin looked glad at that while Kakashi couldn't care less. In a flash he was gone.

|¤|Ω|¤|

"How interesting. Sage jutsu you say?"

"Yes Lord Hokage, but it was strange."

The Hokage was a short old man with graying hair and a matching goatee. He sat in a chair behind a desk that was filled with papers. The wall behind him had many windows letting in the light of the cloudless day. "How so?"

"Well normally it takes a long time to gather the right amount of nature chakra to enter sage mode because it difficult to balance with your own. But this kid did it in less than a minute. I've never seen anything like it." explained Minato.

The Hokage ran his fingers through his beard thoughtfully. "Is that so?" he pondered. "Well I would quite like to meet this young man. Where is he?"

"The hospital. When we found him he was unconscious. He woke up momentarily and then passed out again."

"And he is from the Leaf Village?"

The blue eyed man hesitated. "Yes well, he had a Leaf head band and he didn't appear hostile. I don't think he is an enemy."

Sarutobi seemed to consider this. "Bring Inoichi along just in case." The man bowed and then left without any further discussion.