A/N:

Disclaimer: All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are Kishimoto.

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Chapter 12: Dynamically Allocated Teams

It was 8:59 and there was no sign of Kakashi. The rest of team 7 was gathered at Training Ground 6, waiting with varying levels of patience. Naruto was being uncharacteristically quiet. Sasuke, on the other hand, was being characteristically quiet. I was engrossed in working on my rudimentary sensor abilities.

Every chakra user had the ability to sense chakra, though the range and precision of said ability varied immensely from person to person. I'd read reports of one ninja from Hashirama's era who could feel the exact position of every piece of chakra in the world, though he couldn't tell you a single thing about any of them aside from location. There were others who had very little range, some even requiring physical contact to use their abilities. My mother was like that. There tended to be a trade-off between range and precision, though there were rare individuals who had both.

The exact location of the line of demarcation between sensors and non-sensors was a matter of some debate, but that was semantics and I didn't care. There was general consensus that sensory abilities ran along bloodlines. I wasn't sure that this was actually true, as it was also understood that they required some amount of practice, and no one was going to waste time practicing something if they thought it was genetic. Plus, there were a number of cases of "spontaneous fundamental bloodline transfection" a.k.a. someone developing a sensory ability that their parents lacked (it turns out academics in Naruto's world shared many characteristics with those back home). I didn't really care about that either, as my mother's brand of sensing was exactly what I wanted.

She needed to be touching the person or object in question, but if she were she could tell the precise properties (intrinsic and extrinsic) of the chakra inside it. As far as sensor abilities went, it was one of the more common. I had initially disregarded it when deciding where to focus my efforts as it, while undeniably situationally useful, had relatively few combat applications. Now that I had figured some of the underlying rules of sealing, however…

If I could determine the exact chakra patterns that went into a given jutsu, I thought I could use seals to replicate it. Probably. In theory. If I were lucky. However, figuring out those patters would require a precision of sensing far greater than the usual. That would actually be less difficult for me than it sounded: as it turned out, I'd been practicing that brand of sensing on myself for much of my life.

All ninja could sense their own chakra, of course, but I'd just recently discovered that most had only a vague sense of it. They could tell approximately how much chakra they had, but knew nothing its disposition and little of its nature. They could direct their chakra, but the only way they knew it was obeying was by seeing results and by feeling their levels of free chakra decrease. The sense of my chakra system I'd cultivated during my backyard meditations was incomparably more discerning than that of my peers. I'd asked my mother about it, and she'd said that sounded similar to how her sensing had started.

I could sense my own chakra well enough that I could probably create a fūinjutsu version of one of the jutsu I knew—assuming the process was, in fact, possible. Problem was, I didn't know any particularly useful jutsu. Henge and Kawirimi could be useful, but the seal versions would share most of the shortcomings of the originals, so I gained little by committing them to paper. There would be some advantages, and I could probably obviate some of the drawbacks with time and effort, but I doubted it was worth it. Not as my first option. Developing the seal would likely be an extensive undertaking. If I were going to go to that much effort, I wanted it to be for something highly impactful. I had a jutsu in mind, but I knew I'd never be able to cast it myself. I had to learn to direct my senses outward.

Which brought us to that morning, at 8:59.

I was sitting in the lotus position, one of my explosive seals sitting on my lap. My eyes were closed, and my awareness was running along lines of ink and chakra. Mom and I had talked it over, and she'd said inanimate objects, particularly ones with my own chakra in them, would be easiest to start with. It was somewhat harder than turning inward, but manageable. It felt like using a muscle well-developed by playing one sport in the playing of another: the strength was there, but the balance was off, and everything felt just a little awkward.

I finished following the lines and took in the seal as a whole. I could feel the pent-up chakra humming, but it was restrained, directed, channeled by the seal. It was a beautiful 'sight', marred only by the geometric imperfections that were obvious from this perspective. I could feel them weakening the seal. There were many places where a line of varying thickness stopped the chakra from flowing smoothly, others where an inexact angle kept the crossing lines from properly supporting each other. I could even feel a number of spots where chakra was flowing out of the seal, escaping speck by speck. So that was why seals lost potency over time…did that mean a perfectly drawn seal would last forever? Was it even possible to draw a seal perfectly?

Ha! I'd had no idea this would be so useful for diagnosing my sealing. I should have tried this months ago!

And what was this troublesome bit, here? The chakra rose and fell erratically. A rough spot on the paper, perhaps? That might account for—

My eyes opened and my awareness returned to my body as the 9 o'clock bells began ringing. Bong…Bong…Bong…

On the ninth ring, Kakashi appeared. He took in the three of us sitting in front of him.

"What a bunch of serious genin. Smile, why don'tcha? You're ninja now." He let that hang in the air for a second before continuing, "And happy times for us in that profession are few and far between, so grab 'em while you can." He grinned, taking the bite from his grim words.

Still giddy from my sensing success, I smiled back freely. Naruto seemed confused at the indirect disparagement of his dream but smiled nonetheless. Sasuke scowled.

"Which segues us nicely into our first topic of discussion for today: what it means to be a ninja. Let's stretch while we talk, why don't we?" He dropped into the splits and leaned forward deeply, pressing his chest to his leg. I glanced at my bemused teammates before following suit. They joined us on the ground a split-second later.

"I guess I should start with a small correction. I called being a ninja a profession moments ago. While that is ostensibly true, it is akin to calling two swords an armory. To be a ninja is more even than a way of life. It is your life. While you are on mission, every moment demands your attention. The second you slip up is the second you die.

"The time between missions is less stressful but no less critical, for that is when you prepare for the next mission. Recuperating, training, planning. This is a duty some ninja neglect, for which they—and often their teammates—usually pay the final price. Ninja only go off-duty once, and it is rarely a pleasant process." He brought his legs together, put his hands flat against the ground and arched his back into a bridge pose that would be the envy of any yoga instructor.

"You will notice I've already mentioned or alluded to death three times. That is no coincidence. Death is a constant companion for every ninja. You must be ready for it. Ready for your death, for the death of your enemies, for"—his eye flicked to me and away so fast I wasn't sure it had even moved—"the death of your friends. As well you not fear the loss of your lives, for they are no longer yours. They belong to Konoha now, and they will most likely be spent in her service." He kicked his legs over his head, passed through downward dog, spun around so he faced us and ended up in a lunge.

"They might be spent to buy a few more minutes, months, or years of peace. They might be exchanged for the lives of many others. They might be lost tragically and pointlessly, particularly likely if you don't listen to me. The point is that your lives belong to Konoha, and she was generous enough to lend them to me for the next few years.

"The life of a ninja is not all bad, of course. You'll be well compensated financially. You will, for the most part, be respected. Revered, even, beyond a certain point. You will be personally powerful, able to effect change by main force, if necessary. And, above all, you will be a part of something greater than yourselves. A glowing ember, or a dazzling spark, in Konoha's great fire." He drew his back leg up and sat down, pressing his feet together and leaning forward as he drew his feet into his groin.

"Of all the students I could have had from this year, you three probably need this speech the least. You are all, for your own reasons, highly motivated, and are already dedicated to the ninja life. You have already lost—"he looked at Sasuke and Naruto—"or suffered"—he looked at Naruto and me—"for Konoha. Still, it bears repeating and codifying.

"A ninja will…

And so it went, for the thirty or so minutes we stretched. I agreed with much of what he said, though he tended to use more dramatic language and evocative imagery than I would have. I wasn't a fan of the jingoism, though I recognized its practical importance for what was in essence a military force and nation rolled up into one.

We listened attentively, copying his stretches as he did them. None of us spoke. Kakashi had a sort of rhythm that made one not want to interrupt. Elements of what he said had been covered at the academy, but much more simply, sporadically, and gently. On top of that, there was his sheer presence. Gone was the unassuming, slouched layabout who'd tested us the day before. His bearing now screamed power and confidence, demanding attention.

I couldn't quite peg it at the time, but a couple weeks later I was able to confirm my suspicions when I got my hands on a video of Minato's swearing-in ceremony. Like so many do when they begin teaching, Kakashi was, subconsciously or not, emulating his first teacher. His posture, his mannerisms, even the way he pitched his voice, were very similar to the fourth Hokage's.

After we finished stretching, he started putting us through our paces. Taijutsu, weapon throwing, ninjutsu, genjutsu resistance, strength tests, endurance, speed, coordination, memory, he tested them all. At first he would just watch, but after a little while he would give small corrections. Nothing major—move a foot slightly, shift a grip here, keep eyes there—but small changes that helped. Given the emphasis that morning on diagnostics (and the scale of the corrections he would give us over the coming weeks) I'd guess that was him testing our ability to take instruction.

He pushed us to our limits. He seemed to know whenever we were holding back and would egg us on. Any time we started to get comfortable with an exercise he would up the ante, adding a new element or making the old ones harder.

We finally finished around four in the afternoon (lunch was eaten while balancing on one foot on a log, with Kakashi occasionally prodding us from unexpected directions). Sasuke and I flopped to the ground, bone-tired. Naruto sat beside us, and even he looked somewhat worn out.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Kakashi stood in front of us, idly toying with the kunai we'd broken earlier.

We answered with exhausted groans. "Anything else you think you need to 'test'?" I asked. "You wanna draw some blood?"

"Of course not; I got plenty of samples while we were sparring."

Naruto looked so stricken that Kakashi burst out laughing. "That was a joke, kid. Guess recognizing insincerity is another thing we'll have to work on." His expression sobered, and he became teacher!Kakashi again. "So here's how this is going to work. Every day we'll begin with a lesson on some aspect of being a ninja, while we stretch. Some will be more of a lecture, like today's, others will be more of a symposium."

I noticed Naruto's confusion and said quickly, "Group discussion."

Kakashi gave me a nod and continued, "After that, there are a few different things we'll be spending our mornings on. I'll be showing you some exercises to practice on your own time. We'll go over those every day or two, make sure you're not forming any bad habits, see if you need more challenging versions.

"I'll also be teaching you new jutsu." Sasuke and Naruto perked up at that. "Some I will teach all of you: there is a battery of basic jutsu every ninja should know. Others will be individual, based on your elemental affinities, aptitudes and fighting styles. On that point, I'll be meeting with each of you over the next couple days to determine just what you want your fighting styles to be, and which techniques you most want to learn."

Naruto jumped up at that, interrupting for the first time all day. "I want to learn all the techniques!"

"Yes, well, sure. We'll just discuss which techniques you want to learn first."

"Oh, okay," he said, dropping back down to the ground.

"Where was I? Right. We'll also be working on some general ninja skills. Tracking, wilderness survival, the like. We'll aim to finish every morning with a short spar. All the skills in the world are no use if you don't know how to put them into practice. Tomorrow I'll go over how to spar usefully but safely.

"Afternoons will be spent doing D-rank missions, as mandated by Konoha's rules for fresh genin teams. D-ranks are relatively simple tasks: repair a roof, deliver some letters, etc. Their ostensible purpose is to teach you teamwork, but I think that's mostly an excuse for cheap labor. Regardless, we will complete them quickly, efficiently and completely. When the mission allows for it, I will be adding some additional…mission parameters. Keep things interesting. You'll find I can be"—he smiled maliciously—"very creative.

"Your evenings and early mornings will be your own. Here's where I would normally tell you to spend as much of your free time training, but given what I know of you three, I'm pretty sure you'll be doing that no matter what I say. Instead, I'll ask that you train intelligently. There are some things you can effectively practice by yourselves, but there are others for which practicing alone will at best do nothing and may even make you worse.

"A bad habit ingrained by practice is much, much more work to fix than it is to just get good habits in the first place. Besides that, unthinking repetition almost never leads to rapid improvement. If you're having trouble with something, you need to try approaching it a different way. Break it down, analyze the components, figure out what exactly it is you're struggling with and work on that. If you aren't struggling with something, figure out how you can take it to the next level. See what you excel at and focus on playing to those strengths. See what you have trouble with and practice covering those weaknesses.

"Unthinking training is one of the most detrimental things I see ninja—new and experienced alike—do. It's like…" He gestured, clearly searching for the right words.

"A week of hard work can sometimes save an hour of thought?" I said, repeating an old programmer's adage.

He chuckled. "Yeah, something like that. Anyway, that's our basic routine for the foreseeable future. Any questions?"

I didn't have any. It seemed very straightforward, and surprisingly well thought-out. I wondered how much of this was the general curriculum jōnin were given to follow (was there even one?), how much was Minato's teaching pattern, and how much was Kakashi's own innovation.

"No questions? Good. We still have a bit of time left today; I'm going to teach you the first of the aforementioned exercises." The three of us groaned in protest, though we still pulled ourselves to our feet. "Oh, calm down. This takes barely any chakra and isn't physically demanding at all. It's almost exclusively a matter of will and concentration."

He sidled over to a nearby tree and walked straight up the side.

"Cool!" yelled Naruto, charging at an adjacent tree. He made it about ten feet up, mostly through momentum, before falling off and landing roughly on his back.

"Dolt," Sasuke muttered.

Kakashi turned around and calmly walked back down. He looked over at Naruto who was now sizing up the tree like an adversary of unknown strength. "Exercises are generally made somewhat easier by knowing what you're supposed to be doing." He turned back to face us all. "This is known as tree-walking. Walking on walls—or any surface, for that matter—follows a similar principle, but trees are generally easiest to start with due to the roughness of their bark.

"This is a tremendously useful exercise for two reasons. It helps greatly with chakra control, something every ninja needs. Secondly, it is itself something you must become proficient at. You need to be able to run, jump, fight, on whatever surface you happen to find yourself on, or you will die to the first opponent who has even a spark of creativity. Not to mention that most ninja-travel through forests happens among the trees."

"The actual mechanism consists of pushing chakra out evenly from the soles of your feet. The bark will absorb the chakra, and—so long as you maintain a steady stream—will hold you to it. You should start out barefoot; it is possible wearing sandals but the additional barrier makes it more difficult. It is vital that you use the proper amount of chakra. Too little and you'll fall off. Using slightly too much isn't a problem, though it will use chakra—your most precious resource—faster than necessary. However, if you use way too much you will destroy the material under your feet. This will both knock you off and, depending on the material and how explosively it shatters, can seriously injure your lower body. Tree bark is relatively benign—the worst you'll get is a couple of splinters—but I still do not recommend it.

"At first you should just concentrate on being able to stand horizontally. Once you feel stable like that, you can try taking a step, increasing the chakra stream with one foot and releasing the other. Any questions? No? Good. Get started." He stepped back and gestured at the tree he'd climbed and the two next to it.

Naruto charged again. He made it a few feet further this time, though whether that was due to chakra usage or simply more speed I didn't know. Sasuke walked slowly up to his tree, placing one foot very deliberately on the trunk and jumping to put his other foot next to it. He held himself like that for about 5 seconds before he fell back down with a scowl. After a second of angry muttering, he tried again.

I walked over to Kakashi and spoke quietly, pitching my voice so the boys wouldn't hear. "You may want to take a look at Naruto's chakra while he does this. I'm not positive, but I believe that his passenger—or its chakra at least, I'm not sure how much agency it actually has—disrupts his techniques whenever he tries to do anything delicate." As I said that, a muffled thump and a short yelp came from Naruto's direction. I turned around to see him brushing bark bits off himself and pulling a large splinter out of his shin.

After admonishing a blushing Naruto, Kakashi turned back to me. "While your concern for your teammate is commendable and your suggestion is something I'll look into, don't you think you should be doing the exercise yourself?"

"Oh, well, uh…" It was my turn to blush. I walked over to my tree and walked up it. As I did, I wondered. Kakashi had seen me walk up the wall at the academy, why was he pretending he didn't know I could do this? Hmmm. Maybe he wanted to follow my lead for how to break it to the boys. They could have such delicate egos. That in mind, this might not have been the best approach. Oh, well, too late now.

Once I reached the top, I flipped off and landed in a crouch to find Naruto watching me open-mouthed. Sasuke was watching me with…pride? That couldn't be right. Jealousy? Anger? Confusion? Regret? He was so hard to read these days.

"That was awesome, Ami! Where'd you learn to do that?" Naruto was bouncing up and down, his earlier fatigue forgotten.

"Yes, quite. Would I be correct in assuming this is something you've practiced before?" Kakashi asked.

"Yeah, you could say that. I saw some ANBU doing it and it seemed like a useful thing to know, so I tried to teach myself how. I figured it would follow the same general principle as leaf-sticking. I failed the first…many…times I tried but, if you'll pardon the expression, I threw things at the wall until something stuck."

Kakashi look contemplative for a moment before turning back to face Naruto and Sasuke. "Alright you two, stop lallygagging. You clearly have some catching up to do, which won't happen with your feet on the ground." After they had returned to their practice, Kakashi turned back to me.

"So, what are your wall-walking proficiencies and deficiencies? Report."

The sanctity of the ninja report had been repeatedly drilled into us at the academy. Clarity, concision and completeness were valued above all else. I spoke as quickly and precisely as I could.

"I can walk and stand horizontally with a failure rate around zero. I am able to multi-task while doing so, though my speed at chakra-using actions is reduced by approximately twenty-five to fifty percent. Running is material-dependent, though only the smoothest surfaces still give me trouble. Calibrating for a material I have never encountered before takes anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds, depending on difficulty. My main limitation is my chakra pool. I have reduced my chakra consumption to the minimum possible, as far as I can tell, but I can still only maintain it for about an hour. Less on porous materials."

"Show me."

I started walking across the clearing towards the tree I'd used before, but he stopped me.

"Let's go find a more suitable tree for you, shall we?"

I raised my eyebrows as I fell into step beside him. Why the change of location?

He kept his voice low. "Seeing your chakra will require the use of my Sharingan, something I would rather not distract them"—he jerked his head backwards—"with at the moment."

We stopped next to a large oak a hundred feet or so down the path. I went to the indicated tree and walked up and down, paying careful attention to using the least amount of chakra possible. Kakashi slid his hitai up his forehead and activated his Sharingan, looking closely at my sandaled feet.

"Hmmm, that does seem to be pretty close to the maximal efficiency."

I dropped back to the ground, eyes on my feet. "I simply do not have very much chakra. Not sure if there's a work-around here. Maybe I can sit on Naruto's shoulders for long trips." I said this flippantly, but I was covering for a fairly deep worry. If I were unable to maintain my wall-or-water-walking, it would severely limit my usefulness in field missions (i.e. most missions), which could include extended periods away from solid ground.

Kakashi laughed at my apprehension. "You think you're the first ninja with an excess of control and a dearth of chakra? There are plenty of "work-around" methods. Give me a second to think about which one would fit you best." He looked upwards, and began making small pointing movements with his hands, as if picking, choosing, and discarding ideas.

Well. That was a nice surprise. I felt a blush returning to my cheeks at being laughed at. Damn this emotional 12-year-old body. I'd only recently "mastered" wall-walking, so I hadn't had much chance to research alternatives once I'd realized my troubles with it. The manga never mentioned any, though I suppose it never really dwelt on the technique at all beyond learning it.

"Yes, that should work," Kakashi said, refocusing his attention on me. "Am I correct in assuming that you have a fairly good sense of your own chakra?"

"Yes, you could say that."

"Good, that will help with this. Are you familiar with spiders' scopulae?"

"I count an Aburame among my friends. I am intimately familiar with most interesting parts of arthropod anatomy." I made a face. I wasn't actually disturbed by spiders or insects, not in the slightest, but it seemed like the thing to do.

Kakashi smiled. "Good. This technique operates on a similar principle. By extending a multitude of tiny chakra constructs out of your feet, you can stick to whatever surface you want, much as a spider sticks to a ceiling. This requires more chakra at any given moment than the traditional technique does, but since you're extending controlled chakra into the surface rather than pushing out chakra for it to absorb, most of the chakra used is recoverable. There will still be losses of course, unless you have perfect control, but they are orders of magnitude less than what you're losing now."

Really? That worked? But…scopulae worked by adhesion. Did that mean that chakra underwent van der Waals forces? Did chakra particles have dipoles? Did chakra even have particles? I thought the current consensus was that it acted like a wave. Did it exhibit wave-particle duality? But that would mean…

"That make sense to you? Hello?" Kakashi waved a hand in front of my face. "You okay?"

I blinked and shook my head to clear it. "What? Yeah, yeah. Just realizing that the physics of chakra make no sense whatsoever."

"You're only realizing that now? What do they even teach at the academy these days?" He shook his head critically. "Anyway, I'm going to go help those two now, before they manage to off themselves." The sounds of shouting reached us. "Or each other. Give that a shot and let me know how it goes. You can come join the rest of us if you prefer, though I would guess that for something delicate like this you'll do better with the quiet here than the combative atmosphere over there."

He turned to leave, but stopped as I held up my hand.

"Kakashi, I…" I almost apologized for the verbal lashing I'd given him the day before, but something in his eye warned me not to. I changed tacks. "Thanks. For…" I waved my hand vaguely, indicating everything around us.

"Don't mention it." He paused briefly. "Seriously, please never mention it again. I'm your sensei. You're part of my team. This is just how it is."

I nodded and he headed off again, whistling tunelessly.

I turned back to the tree, kicked off my sandals, and prepared to do my best arachnid impression:

With great power comes great responsibility.

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Just in case anyone thinks the "mom is a sensor" thing came out of nowhere, it is briefly mentioned in Chapter 1, though the details were never fleshed out.

For Kakashi emulating Minato, people copying their first (or most influential) teacher is a documented phenomenon. I figured that Kakashi's Sharingan would make it so that he would also have perfect recollection of Minato's bearing and mannerisms, so he took the emulation a little farther than most do.

Yes, they are learning more than their canon counterparts did at this point. Fear not that they will be overpowered. Their challenges will be commensurately harder. Also, pretty much every character in this fic is going to be more competent than their canon counterpart, as incompetence is boring. Besides, most of these characters are supposed to be highly intelligent, and highly intelligent characters being incompetent all over the place just feels wrong.