A long time ago I took a class that taught me everything about being the leader of my own genin team. Admittedly, I was reading the most of time, but there was one part I paid very close attention to.
On the first day you meet them, your students are three separate people;as they grow, they must shed the parts of themselves that don't belong in the Shinobi world. The unspoken requirement on the Chunnin exams is that by the moment the three step into the room for the first test, they must not be three, but one, each a of third of their team. This is the only way you can prepare them for what was to come.
I never wanted to be a teacher; Gai talked me into. Alright, he screamed me into the same way he screams everyone into doing anything. One could call it the first of his little challenges. So I took the class with him. No big deal, I wasn't planning to actually take on any students to begin with, and I knew exactly how I was going to wiggle out of it.
My teacher, and probably his teacher before that and his teacher before that, had all used the same test to see if their three had the potential to be molded into one: the infamous Bell Test. The first group I had, (I can't even remember their faces now,) failed miserably. As did the next group. And the next. And the next. Every year I was told I was going to hard on them, and ever year I would say they didn't have what it takes. So it went for five years. On the fifth year, something changed. It was Gai.
'Till this day I can't figure out how he ever judged that odd collection of brats he was given could ever become a functioning team. Yet somehow, he turned out to be right. He'll never stop rubbing it in my face.
I watched him out the corner of my eye that whole next year. Secretly, I was hoping to see his particular brand of loud, obnoxious teaching fail. I never bothered to learn the names of his kids, but I knew enough about them from watching; there was the prodigy from one of the great clans of Konoha, the graduate with the best aim of not only her class but perhaps the classes of the last ten years, and the failure at life. To this day I could never understand now that pathetic little kid grew to become that one third that the team needed. Or how he could possibly stand to become a miniature of Gai, as if one wasn't more than enough.
One day Gai told me something about teams that confused me even more. "It's not three, rival," he beamed, prodding me in the chest with one finger, "it's four." I shrugged and ignored him.
Still, it utterly fascinated me how such a jumbled mess of three, or even four, could become one. It was curiosity that made me let up on the next test I gave, which could be classified as the second biggest mistake of my life. They passed, barely and only by chance, but they passed. They were certainly three very different kids, and just like with Gai's team, I didn't see how they could ever cooperate. It was then that I truly started to learn.
It was ironic. I used to think of them as a unit; one big mess of brats that could never get along long enough to even finish a mission. But slowly, so slowly I hardly noticed, I saw them as three individuals, each for their own strengths and weaknesses. The last of the Uchihas, advanced in talent beyond the others, but far lacking in teamwork. A clever girl who could grasp the theory behind anything, with the highest natural level of charkra control I've ever seen, but blind to the world around her except for the thoughts of one who couldn't care less. And last, the Kyuubi boy, the son of my old teacher, energy and chakra abound, but no sense of his own limits, which I later learned might not be such a bad thing after all. This was my team, but I soon grew to know them as Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto. I acknowledged them as three, came to love them as they were, and so they grew into one.
It was a strange sensation, like I was part of something again. The things I learned from that class all those years ago and from watching Gai, and now from my own team as well, started to come together. It's true, three cannot make one. As for four, that is even harder. I don't think I can, or that is it even wise, to consider myself an exact fourth of my team. Likewise, it is not my job is make sure they can function on their own completely like I first thought it was. Now I know that I must be neither invisible nor a complete part. I have to be a wedge of sorts, filling in the gaps that the team lacks, places where they haven't, or in some cases won't, fill in completely. I also have to force them together, make sure they stay put. Yes, being a wedge is a hard job, but I considered myself fairly good at it. Arrogance cost me.
I sent them to the Chunnin exam on their first year. I thought they were ready, and although they all came out alive, I was wrong to let them in. It was only a few months afterwards when everything fell apart. With Sasuke gone, the rest of the team scrambled to feel complete again, but the hole left by Sasuke was impossible to fill. And so team seven crumbled in my fingers.
Naruto left not long after to train with Jiraiya, and Sakura stayed to become a medic nin. They each had a new teacher now, they don't need me anymore. They've grown up, and I can still see some of the places where they used to fit together. They may not be connected by mutual bonds of friendship, but determination still keeps strong. Bound by determination, they even surpass me.
A long time ago I took a class that taught me bits and pieces of being the leader of my own genin team. I did my job and prepared my students for the real Shinobi world. They've moved on, and I am still here, standing in the same place in front of your grave, wondering what comes next.