Minato and Naruto finally made it back to Minato's home, ready to continue working, but when they opened the door and walked in they both realized they were in big trouble.

Kushina was standing just inside the doorway, her hair was floating all around her, and the glare she was giving them could kill even the toughest of shinobi. "You two made a huge mess ya know!"

"Ah, Kushina, it's not what you think. We were just taking a break from working all day." Minato was waving his arms in front of him, trying to calm Kushina down.

"That doesn't make it okay to leave a mess all over the house ya know!" Kushina turned to Naruto, who was trying to slowly walk back out of the house. "And don't think you can sneak away from me young man. Just because I'm glad you and Minato are working together, doesn't mean I'm going to let you get away with it."

Naruto was sweating as he looked at his mom. Oh man... she's scarier than Sakura...

"Now, you two are going to clean this mess up right? RIGHT?!"

"YES!" Both Minato and Naruto yelled at the same time, with scared looks on their faces.

Naruto and Minato spent the next hour cleaning up all of the maps they had laid out everywhere, rolling up all the scrolls, and organizing as much as they could to make it easier to find things later on.

"Oh man, I didn't know she was that scary." Naruto spoke up as they were finishing the cleaning.

"Yeah, she doesn't like the house being dirty."

Naruto had an amused smile on his face. "She would not like my apartment then. It's a mess." After picking up the last couple of scrolls and putting them in his bag, Naruto turned back to Minato. "Well, I should probably get going for the day. I'll come back tomorrow, yeah?"

"That sounds good." Minato had a smile on his face as he watched Naruto walk to the door.

Before Naruto left he turned back towards Minato. "Thanks for today, dad. It was nice talking to you about everything." He walked out without waiting for a reply.

Minato was staring in awe at the doorway. Naruto was already gone, but he still couldn't bring himself to move. "I'll see you tomorrow, Naruto." After giving one more small smile, Minato finally turned around and walked back towards his room, ready for some much needed rest.

Naruto continued to go to Minato's whenever they had a free day, and together they would narrow down the areas that Madara could be hiding. They even remembered to clean up whenever they left because they didn't want another incident of Kushina finding out and getting mad at them again.

Kushina came home one night and found Naruto and Minato passed out across the table, they each had empty cups of ramen next to them and it seemed like they had been working there all day. Such troublesome men, ya know. Kushina laughed to herself as she carefully picked up the garbage, and neatly stacked the pages in the center of the table. They will definitely regret falling asleep there in the morning. She draped a blanket over each of them before going to sleep herself.

"Ugh... What time is it?" Naruto woke up with an ache in his neck. As he was rubbing away the ache, trying to orient himself to his surroundings, he heard his dad speak up from behind him.

"It's about six in the morning. We fell asleep at the table last night while working."

"Yeah, my neck is feeling that. But how did I get a blanket?"

Minato laughed as Naruto grimaced while rubbing his neck. "Me too. It seems Kushina cleaned up everything when she got home, and put a blanket over both of us before she went to bed."

"She could've just woke us up, ya know." Naruto was pouting as he stood up from the table, his body aching all over.

"That was probably our punishment for making her clean up our mess." Minato laughed as he thought of Kushina with that evil look in her eyes. "I wouldn't put it past her to do something like that after all."

"Well, I should probably get home so I can get ready for training." Naruto began to walk towards the door but was stopped as he heard Minato speak up.

"Thanks for coming over Naruto. I'll see you at training."

Naruto turned to his dad with a smile. "Yeah, I'll see you later."

Naruto made it back to his apartment and changed clothes, he knew he still had some extra time before he was supposed to meet up for team training, but he decided to head there early to meditate. When he got to the training grounds, Naruto walked over to his favorite tree and sat down on the grass. He closed his eyes as he began to feel the energy all around him.

"He looks so stupid, what is he even doing?" Kakashi spoke up as he arrived at the training grounds. He was looking at Naruto who had birds sitting on his head and shoulders, with other small animals laying all around him. The only thing different from the other times he had seen Naruto like this was the orange that had appeared around Naruto's eyes.

"He is harnessing nature energy." Minato spoke from behind the group. "He is in sage mode right now."

"Wow! That's so cool! I thought only Lord Jiraiya knew how to do that! Oh and you too of course sensei." Rin turned to face Minato with a slightly embarrassed expression.

"Yes, well, Jiraiya sensei hasn't fully mastered the technique, and he needs the assistance of the great sages in order to do it, and then it takes me way too long to amass nature energy, so it isn't really useful to me in a fight. Naruto on the other hand has mastered it and he can gather the energy quickly." Minato had pride in his voice as he spoke about how strong Naruto was.

"So does that mean he is stronger than you sensei?" Obito was in awe as he looked between Minato and Naruto.

Minato laughed. "In some ways yes, I would say he is stronger, but in other ways no. He still has a lot of learning and growing up to do." Minato smirked as he noticed Naruto staring at him. "Am I wrong Naruto?"

Everyone's heads snapped to Naruto in surprise. "No, you're totally right." He had a huge smile on his face. "So, shall we get started on training?"

Minato nodded and instructed his team that they would be working on taijutsu for the day. Naruto is well versed in taijutsu, so he'll do a good job at teaching the others. Minato handed two bells to Naruto that he attached to his belt. "Alright, you already know this exercise, but I want you to try and take the bells from Naruto." He looked at Naruto who had an evil grin on his face. "This isn't just about teamwork, I want you three to go at Naruto with everything you've got."

"If you're not prepared to kill me, you'll never get the bells." Naruto interrupted Minato before he could say anything else. "Now... Start!" Naruto disappeared as Rin, Kakashi and Obito got into fighting positions.

"Alright, we are still going to have to work together in order to get those bells. Naruto is a strong taijutsu user." Kakashi was coming up with a plan for them to take the bells. "Obito? Can you be the distraction?"

"For sure! I know just what to do!" Obito gave a thumbs up to Kakashi as he started to walk towards a tree he had spotted earlier.

"Rin, you have good taijutsu skills, after Obito distracts Naruto, you and I will move in to take the bells."

"Sounds good!" Rin smiled, happy that she was being included in the training with everyone.

Naruto watched from the shadows as the three of them quickly devised a plan on how to beat him. This might be harder than I thought. Especially against Kakashi. Suddenly an idea popped into his head and he got a devious smile on his face. Time for some payback.

"Fire style: Fireball jutsu!" Obito aimed the jutsu towards the treeline, hoping to draw Naruto out in the open.

"That was impressive, Obito." Naruto appeared back in the field.

"Just wait until you see this!" Obito was hanging upside down from a branch of the tree as he started making hand signs. "Hidden Jutsu: Frill-Necked Lizard!"

I guess he was always like this then? Naruto recalled when he first ran into 'Tobi' as he called himself, and he did this same thing. He was completely dumbfounded as he watched as Obito's jacket just fell over his face. Oh boy... yep, he's the same...

"You shouldn't let your opponents get behind you!" Kakashi yelled as he dealt a kick to Naruto, but to his surprise, Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke as soon as his foot made contact. "What? It was a shadow clone the whole time?"

"I could say the same to you, little brother." Naruto was crouching behind Kakashi. "Leaf Village secret finger jutsu: A thousand years of death!"

Kakashi felt Naruto jab him in the butt just before he was launched totally into the air, falling into the river that ran through the training grounds. What on earth was that jutsu? Kakashi was grumbling to himself as he ran back to the fight, embarrassed that he let something like that get the better of him.

Minato continued to watch as the fight went on well into the day. When he noticed that Rin, Obito and Kakashi were all reaching their limits, he decided to end the match before they got themselves hurt. "Great job today you guys. I hope you learned some good lessons today."

Everyone nodded as they thought about how they learned to track chakra, sensing your enemies, working together and so much more. They even realized that they had fun doing it.

"You guys did an amazing job! I really had to put in a lot of effort today." Naruto was smiling, resting his hands behind his head.

"What do you mean? We didn't even get the bells." Obito spoke up dejectedly.

"Oh, you wouldn't have gotten these bells no matter how hard you tried ya know." Naruto held up the bells in front of his face. "The point is, you worked together the whole time and you never gave up no matter what."

Minato watched as Naruto gave proud smiles to everyone and the smiles they gave in return. This really is a great team.

Not long after the match had finished, everyone decided to head home for the day since they were too tired to keep going.

"Hey, do you think I could come over and we can work some more on our project." Naruto asked Minato when the other three were far enough away. "I'd like to find out where he's hiding as soon as possible ya know."

"That's fine with me. I'd like to find out as well." Minato agreed as they started walking back towards the village. "But let's get some food first."

Naruto and Minato didn't waste any time getting to work as soon as they got back to Minato's house after eating. They knew that they were getting close and they were determined to figure everything out.

After just a few hours Minato suddenly shouted, making Naruto jump. "I found it!"

"Wait, really?!" Naruto hurried over to Minato's side of the table to see what he had found.

"Yeah, this one area here kept bugging me. So I took a look at some maps that cover the area more in depth and put them all together..." Minato stopped when he saw the bored expression on Naruto's face. "Okay, basically I found out that this area is known for its caves and it's in one of the prime areas that we marked before. I'm almost positive this is the spot."

"Yes!" Naruto bumped his fist with his hand in front of him. "We got him!"

"Now all we need to do is to speak with Lord Third and ask him to approve the mission to go there. Especially since it is outside of the Land of Fire."

"Gramps will agree no problem, ya know." Naruto had a huge smile on his face, relieved that they were finally getting somewhere. "We'll go see him in the morning." Naruto started getting ready to leave for the night, but turned to Minato before he left. "Thanks for helping me dad. I'll see you tomorrow."

Naruto walked home feeling lighter than he had since he had arrived in the past. He finally felt like things were going to be okay.