AN: I do not own Naruto.

I come back to writing and tell myself to update my stories, but instead, I make a new story.

This is just a prologue.

(Forest of Death Tower)

Kakashi looked on in trepidation at the first match of the preliminary round. His student Sasuke was up and his opponent was no slouch either. The Jonin didn't have high hopes of Sasuke winning this fight even if the boy unintentionally used the dread curse seal he recently acquired from the traitorous Orochimaru.

First, was that Sasuke was still a bit low on chakra from his last fights and had not recovered completely. The second was that the cursed seal was affecting his chakra control and reserves, feeding off them like a parasite. The last loyal Uchiha was fighting on a severe handicap, one he could not afford against his current opponent.

'Kami, Guy isn't going to shut up for this for a long time,' Kakashi sighed mentally. Sasuke had just had to fight Neji, one of Might Guy's students and a powerful Hyuga. The combination of the Hyuga clan Gentle Fist, Byagukun, chakra disruption techniques and Konoha's premier taijutsu user's teachings wrapped into one boy made for a deadly foe. Kakashi already had heard how one of Might Guy's other students had already trounced the Uchiha and knew Neji was on the same level, if not higher.

Kakashi winced when the match began, already seeing Sasuke moving slower than usual. Neji had used his dojutsu immediately and sprung into action. Sasuke had responded in kind, his Sharingan already tracking the older boy's movements.

'He's not as fast as Lee, but he's still pretty close,' Sasuke thought, pulling out a kunai to defend himself. He did not want to engage the Hyuga into hand to hand combat, but with his low chakra and seal eating away with what was left, he knew it was his only choice.

Narrowly avoiding the first few strikes, Sasuke retaliated with a slice aimed at the hands. Neji backed off to avoid the attack and titled his head to the side to dodge the thrown kunai aimed at his head. "Is this the best you can do, Uchiha?"

A flare of anger later and Sasuke had aimed a kick at his foe's head. Neji blocked it, grunting at the amount of force behind it. He then jumped as the Uchiha tried to sweep his legs and let out a snap kick at the younger teen when he saw Sasuke attempt a familiar move. "Stealing your ally's move already, Uchiha?"

Sasuke stood up after being kicked away, wiping away the small amount of blood on his lip. "I'm not stealing, I'm improving."

"Not an improvement if you failed to do it," Neji quipped, successfully getting under his foe's skin. The Hyuga had seen the low amount of chakra Sasuke and a foreign chakra source attempting to weasel its way into the Uchiha's chakra coils.

'No reason to draw this out. Even though we are fighting now, he is still a fellow Konoha shinobi. I don't carry the animosity towards him like most of my clan. That feeling is reserved for the main branch only,' Neji stole a glance at his cousin, Hinata, for a split second, who looked away in response.

Neji being distracted made Konoha's resident Uchiha grit his teeth. "Don't take your eyes off me!"

With a burst of speed and a flash of pain, Sasuke appeared behind the Hyuga. Neji ducked underneath the punch sent his way, slamming his palm into Sasuke's stomach.

The raven-haired genin found it hard to stand, knees threatening to fail him. Neji pressed his advantage strike at many chakra points to restrain his foe. Sasuke fell to the ground on one knee after being struck at his arms, stomach, and hips. Neji stood over him, staring down at the avenger. 'No, not like this!'

'So weak!' Sasuke heard a voice say, 'But I could you make you stronger. Accept my power and show this trash whose eyes are stronger!'

Neji noticed the foreign chakra began to enter Sasuke's chakra coils. His hands struck out, hitting the tenketsu points near Sasuke's neck to stop the flow of chakra, causing the Uchiha to cry out in pain. He did not know what that chakra was, but the sight was unsettling. As it was as black as the void.

"The battle is over, Uchiha," Neji stated to his foe and the proctor, "Whatever is going on with your body is affecting you badly. When you have recovered, then we can have a true battle."

"I can still fight!" Sasuke gritted out. Neji shook his head, as he was trying to be merciful. There was no bad blood between him and the Uchiha. They were both talented shinobi tested by the cruel hand of Fate.

Neji decided to end the battle, knocking the younger teen out with a chop to the neck. He then reopens the closed tenketsu, as a gesture of kindness. The Hyuga then stepped away when he was announced the victor.

Kakashi only shook his head, ignoring the jovial moments of his self-proclaimed rival. A stretcher had been brought out and Sasuke had been placed on it. He told Naruto and Sakura to win for Sasuke if he was not back by the time their fights came up.

"What do you mean you're leaving?" Naruto shouted at him.

"Somebody has to watch over the fool when he wakes up," Kakashi answered before leaving his two students to their fights. No one noticed the dark glare of the Oto Jonin as Kakashi left.

(Later)

Kakashi had returned in time to see Sakura and Naruto fight. The fights had made him feel a little guilty for not putting more effort into his training of his team. But in his defense, he felt like his students could have reached out more than just waiting to be handed everything they needed on a silver platter!

And it was not like he didn't train them at all. It took him months to fix Naruto's taijutsu to an acceptable level and the jonin definitely spoke to the boy after training to see where he had learned these atrocious moves. He got all the names he needed to report to the Hokage for the crime of intentional sabotage of a future Konoha shinobi.

And don't get him started on Naruto's abysmal chakra control. The blonde could barely do the exercises in the academy before even the Wave mission. By then, Naruto could successfully do them for at least an hour before losing control. After being taught the tree walking exercise, Kakashi forced the boy to do variants of the exercise before the chunin exams, like walking on uneven jagged cliff sides.

And the recent fight with Kiba, Naruto's chakra control without the window. It was almost back to the level when his sensei's son was first given to the jonin as a student. Kakashi knew something was up. Orochimaru, the traitorous snake bastard, had given Sasuke an evil hickey seal, so it wasn't far of a stretch that the sanin did something to Naruto. A quick look at the seal created by Monaco, make the Shinigami have mercy on his poor soul, would let Cyclops know.

Then there was Sakura. Yes, she had great chakra control and was fairly intelligent, but her physical prowess was terrible! It made Kakashi wonder who was coddling these civilian kids in the academy. He knew Rin, bless her soul, had it much harder in the academy.

So while he was teaching Naruto chakra control and reteaching Naruto taijutsu, he did an immense amount of physical training and sparring with Sakura. The sparring gave the girl more combat experience, something else she sorely needed. He had to fight him herself because he couldn't trust Sasuke to hold back and Naruto just didn't know how.

And there was Sasuke. The boy was skilled and trained on his own after team stuff was done. How else did he learn all those fire jutsus?

Kakashi, a ninjutsu specialist, showed the boy how to master any of those fire jutsus he had learned. Like how to increase the heat of fireball jutsu with proper breathing or how to turn into its flamethrower variation. With the phoenix fire, he taught Sasuke how to make his barrage of fire spit more precise and give them a little explosive flare. He even taught the boy how to do the Dragon Flame jutsu the Uchiha was trying so hard to learn by himself. Finally, there was unlocking the second tomoe for his Sharingan.

All in all, Kakashi deemed himself a good teacher. He did well with what he was given. He even ignored all the criticism he got from his fellow Jonin, Asuma, and Kurenai, about his lack of teaching because his cute little students told their former classmates about what they learned and the non-cute genin not of his team said he didn't teach them anything.

It's not like his students had a clan of shinobi to go home to and teach them a bunch of family techniques and pick up the slack of their teachers!

Case number one, Sakura getting a draw with Ino with taijutsu. Ino Yamanaka, a clan heiress, should have won. It was the realistic take on things to Kakashi. But somehow a civilian, whose only traits that stood out for a shinobi was her near-perfect chakra control and intelligence, brought a clan heiress to a draw! And Kakashi had seen the scores from the academy, Ino's average score was right behind Sakura's. But Ino had Sakura beat in every physical aspect of being shinobi while Sakura beat her in brains.

Asuma, a mid-range specialist, must have been banking on the teamwork aspect of the Ino-Shika-Choji trio too much. The kids needed to learn how to fight without one another too! He should have taught her more hand to hand combat because somehow Kakashi was able to get Sakura's weakest form of combat to match Ino's, who placed second in taijutsu for the kunoichi, a few paces behind Hinata.

The second case, Naruto beating Kiba. Kakashi still felt like Naruto would have won, chakra control thrown out of whack or not. The boy's endurance and one many army jutsu would have defeated the Inuzuka heir. It would have just been faster if Naruto had proper chakra control.

But if it was Naruto fresh out of the Academy, then it would be up in the air. Naruto's crap melee would have made him easy pickings for Kiba and the dog boy's ferocious style. And if Kakashi didn't teach how to coordinate with his clones, it would then have been in Kiba's favor. But Kakashi had fixed those glaring holes.

So Kakashi did not want to hear any crap from those two anymore. At least Guy understood Kakashi's predicament somewhat, with his own orphan and civilian born girl. Kakashi had noticed he had been hanging more around the eccentric man recently.

'Let's see here, I got one student pass. Asuma got one student to pass. Guy got one student to pass only too,' Kakashi thought as he watched Genin get their slips of paper for matches for the third part of the exam, 'Kurenai got two to pass, so she's going to be smug for a second. But I can't see those two getting promoted. Maybe Shino, but he barely get it as he's got the right mind frame for it.'

'Neji Hyuga vs Hinata Hyuga.'

Nobody missed the glare Neji sent the younger Hyuga, causing the girl to shrink into herself.

'Gaara vs Naruto Uzumaki.'

Kakashi had a mini heart attack, while Naruto was flipping off Gaara for his treatment of Rock Lee. The blonde was bewildered when he heard dark chuckling in the back of his mind.

Gaara, on the other hand, had a mild migraine until he followed the orders of the voice in his head. He mimicked Naruto, causing the blonde to look at him bewildered before giving the redhead the double middle finger salute.

Hope this didn't come off as ranty too much on Kakashi's part. I wanted to make the guy not look so bad in the manner of training. Tell me what you guys think!