"Hokage-sama."

"Hm?"

"I'm requesting for all the people who participated in the final round of the chunin exams to earn their titles."

"Fine." He agreed without any second thought.

"No question?" Naruto cocked an eyebrow."

"I trust your judgment." Hiruzen shrugged without looking up from his paperwork.

"Hmm... I see. I'll leave you to your paperwork then." Naruto smiled as he eyed the stacks of unfinished work on the desk.

"Mhm... AND DON'T GO THROUGH THE WINDOW THIS TIME!!!" the Hokage yelled as Naruto headed out.

"Too late, already did!" Naruto yelled as he burst out the window. At this point, Hiruzen didn't even bother fixing the window any longer.

"MEOWWW!" A certain cat leapt onto Naruto's face the moment he opened the door.

"Woah, woah, did you miss me?" Naruto laughed.

'No stupid peasant! I'm hungry!!!"

"You can speak cat?" Naruto asked.

"Oh, thats useful."

"Tora~ you don't hate me right? The fox is just talking nonsense to get me jealous right?"

Naruto ignored him. "I bet you're just hungry. I'll grab you some food."

"MEOW!" Tora protested as he eyed Kurama, circling around him, hissing.

"Okay, okay, fine. I'll be right back. Behave you two." Naruto laughed.

Naruto shook his head, exasperated as he walked into his room to get changed in normal civilian clothing. He grabbed some cat food off the counter and poured some into Tora's bowl. The feline happily stopped her pacing and dug in while Naruto got ready for bed. Usually he had missions but the Hokage gave him a temporary break since the chunin exams just took place. Naruto sighed and stubbed his toe on the bed. He winced.

"Uhh. Old habits kicking in again..."

"Oh yeah, I remember. Now that one hurt. I thought I was going to have to suffer from a broken pinky."

After Tora finished her food, she hopped into bed with Naruto and curled up at his side. Naruto gently rested his hand on her soft back as he slowly stroked her fur.

"With good things always comes sacrifice you know Kurama." Naruto softly gazed out his window at the lights below him.

"Alright, alright. Night." Naruto said as he reached over and turned off the light. The moment Naruto's head hit the pillow, years of train and work flooded over his senses and he immediately drifted off to sleep.

Naruto woke up to Tora hissing at the window. Then he realized there was a red glow in the air and outside his window. "Kurama. What's going on?" Naruto asked frantically, getting out of bed and getting in a defensive stance, pulling out a kunai from his sleeve.

"A figure...?"

"Did you see who?"

A note wedged between the window caught his eye. Naruto eyed it warily as he approached it and pulled it out. He looked at the words on the paper but all it read was:

"Meet me where the dust shadows the light."

"Where the dust shadows the light..." Naruto muttered

"Its the name of the place we call our normal meeting place." Naruto started to pace. "This doesn't make sense, how did this happen? If this note is what I assume it to be, then that mean Itachi, Sasori, and Dei have been found out."

"Lets hurry. I'll create a clone to notify the Hokage." Naruto explained as he quickly pulled on his anbu clothing and shunshined away.

"Yes I know that however if we are correct, then Obito has made contact with Madara before and has most likely trained under him for quite some time. I can't risk them getting hurt. Besides, theres also the leader and the other members to worry about. They are strong, I'm not going to argue with that, but not strong enough to fend off all of them simultaneously. It would definitely be a huge stretch.

Naruto got worried, 'If Obito knows, then the leader, Pein, also knows. This might get messy..."

Naruto created a clone and ordered him to notify the Hokage. The replica nodded grimly and shunshined away. The original Naruto furrowed his eyebrows in thought for a second before he changed courses.

"I think its best. I want him along. I want to get things cleared up." Naruto quickly sent a mental message to his clone to tell him to ask the Hokage to watch over Sakura and Sasuke for the time being.

"Kakashi get up! We're going on a mission." Naruto burst through the door and rampaged Kakashi's closet , flinging out his Anbu gear and throwing them onto his head. The silver haired jonin woke up with a start, looking around his room before getting the message. "I'll explain on the way. Get dressed." Kakashi nodded as Naruto stormed out of the room. "I'll wait for you outside. You have 30 seconds." With that, Kakashi flung the cloths on and packed his basic necessities and ran out of his house before swiftly locking it.