 Roughly 2.5 years after the defection, Naruto returned home and alongside Sakura, met up with Kakashi once more. Kakashi was given the latest in his favorite series of adult novels, before sparring against Sakura and Naruto in a mock of the old bell-test. However, Naruto’s cunning overcame Kakashi when the boy shouted out spoilers to the novel, distracting Kakashi and allowing the youngsters to gain their bells. The peace was sadly short-lived as a message came through from the Wind Country that Akatsuki had struck there, with the request for help.
A surprise awaited him there as he was near instantly attacked by one of the residents of the village, the old lady Chiyo. Mistaking Kakashi for Sakumo, who had killed her own son several years ago, Chiyo apologized due to the heavy resemblance between Kakashi and Sakumo. Taking her with them, the team of Kakashi, Sakura, Naruto and Chiyo set off to trail Gaara. On the way to the neighboring River Country, they encountered an Akatsuki member… none other than Itachi. However, Kakashi noticed something different about him and took a moment to speak of the Mangekyou Sharingan which he had suffered to badly from before. When Kakashi discussed the weaknesses of it, Itachi looked on in shock and uttered “…Impossible…”
The team of four managed to bring Itachi down, with Naruto striking the final blow. However, as Itachi began to die, his shape began to change and the corpse was that of Yuura, an agent of Sasori and a former Hidden Sand ninja. It would later be explained that the Itachi they faced was Yuura possessed and transformed into what was essentially a duplicate of Itachi with all his memories, thought patterns and personality.
Team Seven made it to the rendezvous point outside Akatsuki’s base of operations, a large cave. However, as soon as they entered, the Akatsuki member responsible for abducting Gaara, Deidara, sat with his partner, Sasori in wait. Deidara was sitting on an apparently dead Gaara, but as soon as Naruto charged in, Deidara took off, taking Gaara’s corpse with him. At that point, Sakura and Chiyo stayed behind to deal with Sasori while Naruto and Kakashi pursued the airborne Deidara, flying away with the corpse on a huge animated clay bird. Eventually, Naruto and Kakashi got close to Deidara, but Kakashi told Naruto to hold back. Frustrated, Naruto complied until Kakashi finally pulled his trump card, opening his left eye… with a version of the Mangekyou Sharingan. | 
Slowly, the space around Deidara’s arm began to compress and was crushed into nothing, severing his right arm, despite Kakashi commenting on his inexperience with it leading to the move being faulty. A few moments later, the Sharingan collapsed back into the usual design, but bought Naruto enough time to reclaim Gaara’s corpse and begin attacking Deidara directly with his clones, until his knuckles bled from punching Deidara. Eventually, Naruto’s rage boiled over and he manifested into the shape of the Kyuubi with bubbling red chakra, sprouting a second tail from his back. Kakashi noticed the change and upon remembering a warning from Jiraiya, used a tag that the sage had prepared in case Naruto went too far to seal up the Kyuubi’s power.
Meanwhile, Deidara watched from a distance, but was found by Neji’s Byakugan. Chased by Gai’s team, he managed to escape to the remains of his clay bird and swallowed a piece of his exploding clay, planning to use his suicidal attack to wipe out both teams. As the disgustingly obese Deidara inflated with the power of the explosion building, Kakashi managed to use up his last reserves to once again manipulate space, containing and suppressing the explosion from the current dimension. Finally, Kakashi was rather embarrassingly carried home from the Sand Village on Gai’s back. The strain of the Mangekyou Sharingan had taken such a toll on him that he was hospitalized and temporarily replaced by another ninja as the team leader. Under Tsunade’s decision, the ANBU member codenamed Yamato took his place on a mission to meet another of Sasori’s subordinates.
Upon their return, Kakashi was informed of the events of the mission, including the increased skill that Sasuke had learned. After greeting Sasuke’s replacement on the team, Sai, Kakashi announced he had been spending all his time in bed thinking about things. His conclusion was that the only solution was to match Sasuke in power, but Naruto would be the only candidate for training. However, if Naruto were able to complete the training, his skill may not only equal Sasuke, but also perhaps even surpass Kakashi’s own…
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