How did they do it? The fighting is all occurring somewhere around Kumogokure, yet they managed to reach the leaf within a few hours.(the same day essentially.) At the beginning of shippuden, Kakashi said that it would take 3 days to reach the sand village from the leaf, and I doubt the distance is that much larger than the cloud/leaf village distance. It's even more mind boggling considering neither of them have any S/T ninjutsu.