Guy walked amongst his students as they practiced individual taijutsu exercises. Here and there, he offered advice and corrections, but overall, he found himself impressed. Each of them had progressed on their own path since the chūnin exams. He watched his female student practice a new jutsu and smiled affectionately. She especially had progressed; she was at a point now that Guy had to outsource her learning of new jutsu, specifically in fūinjutsu.

"Tenten, show me what you have been learning from Kakashi-sensei." He turned to his other students and instructed, "Neji, Lee, spar with each other." His attention moved back to the girl as she demonstrated the three new jutsu his rival had taught her – jutsu that had come to him from Minato Namikaze, to him from Master Jiraiya, to him from Hiruzen Sarutobi himself, who had received his knowledge from the First and Second Hokages. His heart swelled with pride as he watched her perfect execution of the jutsu. Tenten had worked so hard to get where she was, and she had truly become a rock-solid shinobi.

All three had worked hard, overcome many obstacles, and still had so much further that they could go. The youthfulness of his students truly warmed his heart.

He turned back to the loud sparring session occurring behind him only to be shocked. Lee was disappearing and reappearing almost faster than the eye could track as he attempted to counter and slip past Neji's Eight Trigrams Palm Revolving Heaven. Guy's eyes bulged as he watched his student begin opening the Second Gate.

"LEE!"

Lee slowed, his chest heaving from the exertion. Neji's defenses fell as Guy marched over and rounded on his young facsimile. Uncertain how to feel about this turn in Lee's behavior, he punched the boy in the jaw. His hand throbbing, he shouted at the boy, "What in the world do you think you're doing!?"

Lee scowled and rubbed his cheek before standing back up. "I am sorry, sensei. I was overzealous."

"Overzealous? You were about to open the Second Gate! Lee, you promised me when I taught you the Gates. What did you promise me?"

The boy looked away, clearly ashamed. "To only use the Gates to protect My Most Important Person."

"Exactly, you promised to use them either when I told you to or in situations when something important is on the line. To use the Gates in a spar is selfish! What if you had hurt yourself? Or Neji?" He held his hand up, silencing the Hyūga who had opened his mouth to protest. "I know it is unlikely, but what if you had, Lee? A spar is not a battle. There is no danger, no need to fear for yourself or others. Nothing is on the line." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tenten, Neji, dismissed."

Lee's teammates gave him sympathetic looks before they left. Standing alone on the training field, the boy appeared upset. Unusually upset, in Guy's opinion. He looked at the angry place already beginning to swell on Lee's jaw and sighed again. "Lee, I'm sorry that I hit you, but you needed to understand that what you did was wrong." He was not apologizing for the type of punishment, and he hoped Lee recognized that. He was apologizing for the fact that he had to punish him. Typically at this point, the two could fall into each other's arms apologizing before a sunset, but the boy made no move toward him.

"Why did you fight for Neji's promotion?"

There it was. No apologizing, no acceptance of Guy's apology. In fact, the boy looked almost petulant. For the third time that afternoon, Guy sighed over his favorite pupil. "Did you use the Gates out of revenge or anger, Lee?" he asked slowly.

Lee did not hang his head this time. "All of us have worked hard since the chūnin exams. Why would you only fight for Neji to move on to chūnin level?" Guy stepped closer to the boy, intending to close the distance growing between the two, but Lee only turned his head in anger. The jōnin had to steel his heart to keep it from breaking as he stepped back.

"Lee, jealousy is unbecoming of you. You should want your teammates to succeed," he lectured. Rivalry was not easy, but it was something Guy understood deeply. Even in his youth, he had always wanted Kakashi to succeed so that he himself would have to do better, would have to be better, to gain on his eternal rival. "I know Neji is your rival, but you should view his success as a challenge for you to achieve more."

Lee continued to refuse to make eye contact with Guy, and the man shook his head. "Neji has grown a lot since the exams. Emotionally, he has grown. He's proven himself worthy of the additional responsibilities, and I have to say, Lee – you're acting like a child." He turned to leave the training field with the wish that Lee would say something in his own defense so that neither of them left the field angry. Perhaps he was abashed, or maybe he was sulking; either way, Guy hoped that he had gotten his point across and nipped this issue in the bud.

However, his hopes proved unfounded as the days wore on. Training with Lee was difficult when the boy refused to say more than a couple words to him. Not that the boy was necessarily downright rude, but he wasn't as upbeat or polite as Guy would have liked. It was as though the situation was coming to a head, the head being their next mission.

"This is a Rank A mission," Tsunade warned as she handed the folder over to Neji. "Think you can handle it?" Neji glanced back at his sensei as he took the folder. The older man winked as he reclined against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

"We can, Lady Tsunade."

Once again, Guy marveled at his team. He was damn proud of all of his students. With the shortage of higher ranked shinobi, the Hokage had begun promoting the most capable genin to chūnin, and she conceded that Neji had shown great leaps in his maturity after his loss in the final stage of the previous chūnin exams. With that concession, Neji had received his rank and additional responsibilities. Guy felt it only natural that he began to lead missions as well, so the jōnin had decided to take a step back for the time being. He just worried that his other students might have difficulty adjusting to the change.

His eyes roamed over the lean boy to the left of Neji. Lee, he knew, was struggling with the most with this change, but he was also already chomping at the bit for this mission. Guy could see his student's irritation in the clenching of the boy's fists at his side – or perhaps his anger. Guy had pushed hard for Neji's promotion, but he felt Tenten and Lee just weren't quite there yet. He hated how it was hurting the other boy, but he was a touch disappointed in Lee's behavior to this point. It proved what he already knew: the other two simply weren't ready, but he also knew they would be by the next chūnin exams.

"Got all that, Guy?"

Guy blinked and glanced up at Shizune before looking at the Hokage, uncertain exactly which woman had spoken. "Uh—yes! We will complete this mission before tomorrow!" He gave the women a dazzling smile and his signature thumbs-up and turned to his students. "Or we'll do one thousand laps around Konoha! Right, team?" Tenten groaned while Neji rolled his eyes, but neither disagreed. Lee pumped a fist and shouted an inarticulate assent to Guy's suggestion. The jōnin took this as a sign that they were as good as ready. "Alright Neji, what next?"

"We will meet at the gate in an hour. Everyone, get your supplies together."

The team parted ways outside of the Hokage's tower and made their way homes. Guy gathered his things, placed his pack on his bed, and sat down beside it. Slowly he gathered information about the team's mission by leafing through the folder Lady Tsunade had given them. "An A rank?" he muttered as he skimmed the request from the south of the Land of Fire. A missing acolyte. Sightings of rogue ninja. A rediscovery of an ancient temple. He shook his head and closed the file. What could have possessed the Hokage to label this one so highly?

"Better too high than too low," he mused as he considered the different pay rates. Not that it truly mattered to him, but to his students, he was certain it did. If they did a little less work than advertised, he could always work in an extra training session or two. Lee would like that – hopefully.

Lee.

He shook his head once more as he stood. Naruto Uzumaki was rubbing off on his student in a rather unflattering way. Lee was becoming more and more impatient by the day, and Guy wasn't sure what to do about it. Lee had always modeled himself after Guy, but this impatience was leading to what Guy could only describe as pettiness. He was behaving like a petulant child in the face of Neji's promotion!

He sighed and checked the time. Time to join his team at the gate. Hopefully this mission would go well.