(Author Note: Hey everyone! Thanks for the continued support of my story, I worked pretty hard on this chapter so if you can leave a review telling me what you liked and what you didn't like I'd really appreciate it. I'm always happy with some constructive criticism. Also, for those of you that Don't recognize the characters Masamune and Kojuro, they are from the anime Sengoku Basara and for visualization purposes I ask that you look up Masamune Date, and Kojuro Katakura on Google images, also quick shout out to F3mi for the continued support, thank you for the reviews, they've helped my righting improve. Have a great day everyone and enjoy.)

"We have to go find her!" Natsu cried out after hearing the long tale.

He immediately started toward the forest but was grabbed on the back of his shirt collar by Minato, "Calm down Natsu, I understand you're upset but you need to take into consideration that we really have no accurate information on their location."

Minato let go of his collar; Natsu turned toward Grey and cried out, "Tell me you know where they are!"

"I-I'm sorry Natsu, I was in so much of a frenzy and panic after the fight I kind of just ran off without thinking…" Grey responded clearly regretting the decision to listen to Masamune.

"How do you know we can trust this guy?! You left a friend that was almost dead too someone you had just met?!" Natsu cried out.

"Natsu!" Minato barked, "Take into consideration how your friend feels."

Natsu looked in awe at Grey who dropped his head in guilt, He knew that he had messed up but he panicked and didn't know what to do. Once again he couldn't protect someone who he cared about, instead he just ran, but he knew that there was no running from the guilt that weighed so heavily on his chest. Everyone just stood in silence on the field that Minato and Grey battled.

Minato thought he try to bring up the mood, "Look, I'm sure they're fine, for now, we should go back to camp and rest, the sun's almost set and –"

"Ichigo!" A voice called from the woods.

Ichigo heard this voice before and he knew he recognized it , he squinted his eyes and began searching for who that familiar voice belonged too, his expression was filled with shock when he found who it was, "O-Orihime?"

She stood with both arms in the air waving with two other girls lined up next to her. The trio waved with smiles that could brighten any mans say.

"Wait," Natsu said, " Is that Lucy?"

"And Ur?" Grey said as he stared awe-struck at what his eyes had taken in.

Lucy and Orihime took off in the direction of their friends at full speed, and when each got close enough wrapped their arms around their friends.

"Lucy! I'm so glad your okay," Natsu exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around her in return, wearing an elated smile.

"Orihime," Ichigo said in a flustered tone. She let go and took a step back offering a smile. He returned the smile and said "I'm glad your okay."

In a moments notice, they all felt the atmosphere turn somewhat dense. Grey and Ur had not moved from their original spots, and were staring at each other with pain filled gazes. The rest of the hero's turned to watch the scene not wanting to interrupt their reunion.

"Grey…" Lucy said with a sympathetic expression. She had heard the story about Ur from Grey before and could imagine the guilt and pain that was weighing on his chest right now.

Grey stood as the guilt weighed heavily on his shoulders. He felt so much pain and felt like he didn't deserve this opportunity to make amends for his sins and the only thing that was keeping him from walking away is the pain that she would feel. He began slowly walking toward her and she began to do the same. The setting sun shined an afternoon light from over the mountains as a gentle breeze blew through the air. Once they were only separated by a few yards, they stood there, face to face with each other.

"Hey," Grey said casually.

"Hey," she responded.

Their expressions told each other that they had so much they wanted to say to each other, but they knew to save it for another time.

"You've gotten so tall," she said forcing back the tears, looking up at her disciple, both stood there, just staring at each other until she couldn't hold it anymore. The tears began to flow from her eyes and she threw her arms around Grey and buried her face in his chest; "I don't blame you for anything. I'm so proud of the man you've become. I'm so proud…" she wept, "Please don't feel pain, don't feel guilt, all I've ever wanted was for you to be happy…"

Grey let his arms hang there for a moment. The guilt was overwhelming, but he wrapped his arms around her as well, letting his silence say all that he wanted to. They both embraced each other, standing as the warm sunlight shined down and the gentle breeze collided against their bodies, "I'm so sorry Ur…" he said as the tears flowed down his cheeks, "I never meant to get you killed," he said as he wept harder.

She let go and so did he and then took a step back. She placed a hand on each cheek and said, "You've become such a handsome strong boy, and you've found yourself such wonderful friends. I couldn't have asked for a better life for," she smiled as a hint of tears still lurked in her eye.

"Awe you guys are too cute," Masamune said mockingly, seeming to come out of nowhere with Kojuro right behind him.

Grey's face became red with embarrassment and he quickly turned to Masamune, "Screw you!" he said clearly flustered.

"Who's that?" Ichigo said getting ready to draw his blade.

"This is the guy who saved me," Grey said, "Without him I would've been dead."

Ichigo eased up a little.

"Yeah calm down there muffin top," Masamune clearly trying to get on his nerves

Ichigo immediately became annoyed, "Huh, what'd you say?!"

Minato finally spoke up, "Calm down Ichigo, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it," he said giving that smile that seemed to be able to calm anyone down. Though Ichigo was still annoyed, he stopped with what he was going to say and turned his annoyed gaze in the opposite direction.

Minato walked over to Masamune and held out his hand, "My name is Minato Namikaze, It's nice to meet you."

"Yeah, sure, that's nice, but I think I'd like to get to know you better over some Saki and dumplings, whata ya say?" Masamune said.

Minato stopped for a moment as an Idea popped in his head, "That sounds like a splendid idea! Lets throw a party tonight to have everyone get to know each other! Now we just have to wait for-"

"Guys, what happened?" Naruto cried out finally arriving on the scene. He looked around to evaluate all the new faces, "Uh, What'd I miss?"

"Naruto, It's good to see you're alright," Minato said.

"I heard fighting, is everyone alright," Naruto sad clearly worried.

"Yes, yes, everything is fine, I'll tell you about it over dinner," Minato said.

"Naruto, good to have you back," Ichigo said walking over to him with Orihime, "This is Orihime, she's an old friend of mine, we go to the same school."

"Oh," he said a bit caught off guard, "It's nice to meet you," he said still confused on what he missed.

"Its nice to meet you," she said as she bowed respectfully, "My name is Orihime Inoue."

"There's no need to be so polite," he said scratching the back of his head.

"Naruto, Naruto!" Natsu rushing over to Naruto dragging Lucy with him, "This is Lucy! Me and her are in the same guild!" he said clearly elated.

"Natsu, its kind of embarrassing when you just rush off and introduce me like that," she said blushing. The group of heroes laughed at her embarrassment, which made her more embarrassed.

Masamune watched from the distance standing next to Grey and Ur, smiling at the group's reunion and how the friends were introducing their friends. He could help but feel happy for them.

"My lord you ruined a perfectly good reunion for that young boy," (referring to grey and Ur.) Kojuro said wiping a tear away from his eye and finally appearing on scene.

"Kojuro… Are you crying?"

Kojuro stiffened at that statement, and obviously embarrassed, he responded, "O-Of course not, I was just ah… I had something in my eye," turning his head in the other direction.

"Sure ya did," he said with a half smile.

"So, I never got your name," Minato said to Masamune, but Masamune felt a hint of dissentient lurking in his tone.

Masamune turned to face Minato feeling there was an alternative motive behind his asking him that. He stayed quiet for a moment, trying to figure out what the motive could be, "Hmm… The name is Masamune Date, I'm the big boss of Oshu," he said clearly in an unpleasant manner.

"Oshu huh? Where's that at?"

"Geez, your real big on the personal questions," he said, "Why do you really want to kno-" then he figured it out, "Oh I see what your trying to do, you want to determine if I have my memories, and there's only two ways someone has there memories and that's if they come in this world with them, or they had to kill to get them," he said in an almost arrogant tone.

Minato looked shocked that he was easily figured out, he scratched the back of his head and wore a nervous smile, "Heh heh, so you figured me out huh?"

"Well I sure in hell didn't come into this world with my memories," he said giving that cocky smile again.

Minato immediately got a serious look on his face land almost mimicked the motion of a lion ready to pounce on its prey

Masamune picked up on his killing intent, "Whoa man calm down, I'm not saying I randomly went out and slaughtered a bunch of guys either," he said feeling a bit threatened.

"Then what are you saying?" Minato said clearly not amused with Masamune.

"That girl with muffin top over there," he said pointing to Orihime, "She was surround by a mob of samurai and in order to save her we had to cut our way through. I'm not the type of person to go massacre a bunch of guys without a good reason. After they were all defeated, me, my man Kojuro, and that girl picked up the keys that were dropped by each of them. After we found out that those keys bring back memories, we divided them up between the three of us."

Minato dropped his hostile act and apologized, "*sigh* that's a relief, I'm sorry about my hostility, but if you don't mind I'd like you to answer one more question."

"Yeah, what's on your mind?"

"The samurai you talked about, were they from your world?"

Masamune stopped to think for a moment, "Hmm… yeah, they were, and if I remember correctly they were wearing the…" he stopped and his expression cued to Minato that something was disturbing him. Mintaos' expression showed him that he was waiting for him to finish, "Uh… It's nothing," Masamune attempted to smile casually. Minato didn't fall for it but he decided to drop the subject for now, "Also we should hold a war council tonight to discuss our options and next move."

Minato nodded in agreement, "I think the most appropriate time would be at dinner. Everyone will be gathered and the atmosphere for a war council will be right."

Masamune Nodded in agreement of this, "By the way you're a lot more devious than you look," he said as if he were impressed.

Minato looked confused, "What do you mean?"

"The way you asked those questions, trying to determine weather I was good or bad, just the way you worded them showed me that you're the type of man who can be crafty if necessary."

"Oh, you overestimate me," Minato said scratching the back of his head.

"So what's our next move?" Grey cut in.

"For now, we rest and we'll discuss our next move over diner tonight," Minato responded.

Hours pass, the sun went down, and inside the hide out, the group of heroes sat around a fire with a bowl of ramen while the older men had a bowl of Saki and dumplings, each sitting on a log as a substitute for a chair. They were all deep in conversation, telling each other about the worlds they lived in before and stories of what they remembered so far.

"Settle down everyone," Minato called out, "Settle down. I believe now is the best time to discuss our next move."

The group turned to Minato, ceasing their chatter and gave him their attention.

"Now," Masamune said sitting right next to Minato, "If there is anyone who has any important information they'd like to share now would be the time."

They all sat there, quiet as the warm fire crackled, then one of the hands went in the air.

"I think I know something Important," Naruto said.

Minato looked curious, "What information do you have Naruto?"

Naruto proceeded to tell them about his encounter with the goddess Jensai.

The group sat awe-struck at the information they had just received.

"There's another one?" Natsu exclaimed, "Even if she claims to be on our side we can't trust her! There's no telling what she will do when our backs are turned."

"No…you're wrong," after saying that, Naruto jumped like he had just come out of a trance, he didn't mean to say what he had just said, he said it out of instinct.

"What'd you say?" Ichigo asked.

"W-well its just she stopped my attack so easily and I feel like if she wanted to kill me, she could've done it on the spot," Naruto said trying to defend himself.

Minato turned his concerned gaze to Masamune who in turn did the same to Minato. They stared at each other as if they were having a silent conversation with their eyes. Once they finished their "conversation" Minato turned to the group and said, "Alright everyone, we'll talk about this later," Minato turned his eyes to Naruto, his expression saying that they'll talk about it one-on-one later, "For now, let me share with you the information we've received so far, we have some Intel that there are other groups like us rising up all over the place with the objective to defeat Shi and return to their world, we'll refer to these groups as resistance groups. But ,there are also many people in this world who like the idea of fighting with people from a different universe. These people have banded together and have to objective of staying in this world and fighting warriors they come across. We'll refer to these groups as the Shi Guilds."

"So what do we do about these Shi Guilds?" Natsu asked feeling somewhat excited by the idealism of the Shi guild.

"For now, I think it's best if we all stay here and work on battle strategies with each other. You never know whom you'll end up fighting against and who is going to have you're back. We'll work on improving our teamwork, and also, no one is allowed to leave the hideout area by themselves, if you must leave you need to take at least two other members with you. Understood?"

"Right!" they all said simultaneously.

"Alright," Masamune said, "Let's all get some shut eye. We'll start team work training tomorrow."

Hours passed and everyone fell asleep from the exhaustion. Even though the day was long and much energy was wasted on it, Naruto couldn't sleep.

Naruto had one thought on his mind, "Sasuke," he thought out loud. The crescent moon shined its radiate light down as Naruto bathed it in. Sitting on the cliff outside the cave almost felt like he was in a love story and the only thing missing was the girl to come outside and ask, "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong," he heard footsteps and a voice asked coming from the dark cave.

Naruto turned and gazed with his almost lifeless expression, "Oh it's you," Naruto said as Minato walked out of the darkness, "*sigh* so much for a love story…"

"What was that?" Minato asked taking a seat next to Naruto.

"Nothing just thinking out loud, what's up Minato-Sensei?"

"Sensei? Where you'd get that from," he chuckled.

"We'll you're obviously a Jonin from the leaf village, I'm sure I know you but I don't know what kind of relationship we have, so Minato-Sensei just kind of suited you."

"Hmm… Okay I like the sound of it, but I didn't come out here to casually talk."

Naruto looked confused, "What is it Minato-Sensei?"

"You're obviously tired, I can just tell by your expression, so what's on your mind son?"

Naruto's expression turned to disbelief, "What'd you say?"

"I said you're obviously tired."

"After that."

"What's on your mind?"

"No, after that."

"… Son."

Naruto stared awe-struck. With the memories he had he knew that his father was dead, "But… In the future… you-"

"Stop," Minato interrupted, "I don't want to know what the future is like, no spoilers for me thank you," Minato smiled, but his expression told Naruto that he had an idea that he was gone in the future. Naruto dropped his pain filled expression toward the ground.

"So what's on your mind?" Minato repeated

"Well, back in our world, my best friend left the village and I've been trying desperately to get him to come back, but no matter what I do, I can't get through to him, and he's out there right now, doing what, I have no clue. I just don't know what to do…"

The duo sat in silence for a moment as gentle breeze blew through Minatos' hair as he stared silently at the crescent moon.

"You know," Minato started, "They say that the moon is the yang while the sun is Yin, but the thing about Yin and Yang, is that there is a little piece of both inside each other. I believe that you are the Yin to your friends Yang, so don't give up, don't you ever give up, cus' its not over until you believe its over. It's only over when you fell like you don't have the strength to carry on, but you never lose that strength, you lose the will, as long as you have the will you have the power to do anything. Nothing is impossible."

Naruto stared at his dad, awe-struck at the feeling in his rejuvenation.

"And remember," Minato smiled, "You have friends that you can rely on."

Naruto stood up, "You're right! I will get stronger and I will save him! Nothing is going to stop me from bringing back Sasuke! Thanks dad," Naruto's expression was full of life and hope, "I'ma go get some sleep so I'm ready for training tomorrow!" Minato watched as Naruto jumped to his feet rushed back inside the cave and disappeared in the darkness. He was happy that he was able to share this moment with his son. He turned his gaze toward the sky and watched as the clouds passed over the crescent moon.

He heard slow footsteps coming from behind him but didn't wince and kept his eyes on the moon.

"Itachi, I was hoping that maybe you would've been able to join us in our dinner but you disappointed me when you never showed."

Itachis' red Sharingan glowed in the dark night as he took a moment to respond, "Sorry, but I was busy scouting around trying to find where-abouts' on Shi."

"Did you find anything useful?" Minato stood up and took a spot in front of Itachi.

"Nothing on Shi, but what I did find is another group of several resistance members, they have a camp to the north of here, and it looks like they are planning an attack on a Shi guild."

Minato stood and for a moment, thought in silence contemplating the options in this situation, "Did you scout the Shi Guild they plan to attack?"

"Yes."

"And what are the odds of success of their attack?"

Itachi stood, with a more serious expression than usual, "I foresee casualties on both sides, as for the team who will sustain more, I cannot say."

"Hmm… This is troublesome, which Shi guild do they plan to attack?" Minato asked trying to get as much information as possible before coming up with a decision.

"The Kenshi."

Minatos' eyes widened at his response, "You're sure its them?"

"Yes."

Minato turned around and thought for a moment. This group known as
The Kenshi was made up of three swordsmen that were said to have no equals when it came to a blade and they had made a name for themselves by going around and destroying Shi guilds and resistance groups alike.

"So I assume the resistance group is trying to eliminate them to protect the other resistance groups… When do they plan to attack?"

"One week, three days."

"Alright, we're starting teamwork training tomorrow, the day before they attack The Kenshi, I'll take a few members of our group and go talk to them, and with any luck, we may be able to dissolve their group into ours. Than you for the information Itachi."

"Of course, now I must ask my leave," After finishing that sentence he dissolved into a dozen black crows that flew up and vanished into the night sky.

Minato turned around and began walking back to the cave, The real fight is starting soon, Minato thought to himself, I only hope I have enough time to give them an amble amount of training.