Author's Note: I have finally put up chapter four, yes! I had a sudden surge of inspiration on this particular evening and finished up the chapter. I must apologize because this chapter is slightly more Kakashi-centered and doesn't contain a lot of Rin but I promise there'll be more of the lovable medic-nin next chapter! Thank you to everyone who has given me reviews; I can't single you guys out so this chapter is dedicated to all of you! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

"Kakashi, wake up!" The boy in question stirred upon hearing his name, wondering what the entire ruckus was about. The pair had been living together for two weeks thus far and he still had yet to figure out that it was her name that was calling him to awaken.

"What?" he asked sleepily.

"Come on! Get dressed! You're going to be late for your first day!"

He groaned. Today was the day when he'd start his infamous job as a sensei. Why he had been chosen for such a job? The reason was still beyond him. Slowly, he stood up and made his way over to the closet, grabbing his clothes before heading to the bathroom to get ready for what he assumed would be a tiring day.

When he got to the bathroom door, he realized it was locked. "Rin! Let me in, I'm going to be late!"

"No way!" The girl behind the locked door responded. "I am not coming out…not in this thing!"

"What thing?" Kakashi questioned impatiently. He really didn't want to have to deal with anything even slightly dramatic this early in the morning.

Rin heaved a sigh. "This medic nurse outfit…it's despicable! I think they got my size wrong!"

It took him a while to realize that she was referring to her new job's outfit, which had been delivered to their doorstep yesterday via mail.

"We'll get it fixed when you get to the hospital, now come out!"

"No!" She stubbornly protested.

Ok, now he was frustrated. He was definitely not a morning person, despite his insomnia and she was doing nothing to be getting on his good side right now. Kakashi pounded on the door a few times, threatening, "Rin, if you don't get out here right now I'm going to break down the door!" At the rate his morning was going, he really would too.

Just then the lock clicked and Rin stepped outside in her white medical uniform dress. Kakashi gave her a once over and threw up his hands in question. "What's wrong with it?"

"You honestly don't see?"

"No."

"It's like 5 inches too short! I can't go to work looking like this! It's completely unprofessional!"

"Your black dress isn't longer than this one," Kakashi pointed out to her. "Why don't you just put the apron over it?"

An unreadable expression crossed her face as she let his idea sink in. "You really are a genius," she told him before hurrying off to find said apron.

He smirked. "Damn straight," he replied, going into the bathroom.

Coming out just minutes later, Kakashi nearly ran out the door when he realized what time it was. "Hey! Hey!" Rin called after him. "It's ok; I set the clock to a little later so that you'd rush. You're going to be on time, so get back here!" Glaring, he walked back in the apartment. So she had set the clock specifically for him to panic? How nice of her…

She gave him a small smile. "At least have some breakfast before you go," Rin handed him something that was all bundled up and didn't look remotely like any food he'd ever seen but it definitely tasted more than decent. "Here's your lunch," she handed him another package.

"Uh, thanks."

She smiled brightly up at him, feeling much more comfortable now that the apron was around her waist. "No problem, now let's go before we're late."

Together the two walked out into the streets of Konoha, heading towards the hospital. No words were exchanged along the way, except for Rin telling Kakashi that she'd meet him at the academy around 5.

When Kakashi arrived at the academy, he immediately noticed the large amount of students swarming the academy. Had there been this many when he'd gone here? He doubted it; the academy's capacity seemed to have tripled over the years. Walking in to the slightly familiar place, he headed over to where the other senseis were congregating.

"Hatake Kakashi," he simply stated, knowing that they'd place him immediately with his group. The director motioned over to where a group of 3 young children were standing, looking bored out of their skulls. "Be careful," the director warned Kakashi, "they're the toughest bunch we have this year."

Kakashi nodded to show he acknowledged the statement before heading over to the group of 3. Getting closer, it appeared to him that there was nothing special about these particular 'brats'. They looked normal enough and were the basic three-man cell, with two males and one female.

"Yo," he greeted them as he came over.

A boy of about ten years of age with large spiky blond hair that stuck out all ways and big blue eyes asked, "Who are you? Where's sensei?"

"As of now, I am sensei."

"That's not fair!"

"Life's not fair kid, get used to it."

The blonde boy frowned at the man before him, quickly deciding that he did not like his replacement sensei at all. "What's your name?" he demanded to Kakashi.

"Hatake Kakashi," Kakashi responded, the mention of his name drawing a few awed gasps from the mouths of his new young pupils. "Now who are you guys?"

"I am Kaemon Sasaki!" The blonde male declared proudly. He was dressed in a sky blue t-shirt and plan grey shorts.

"A loser," jokingly added the girl beside him, one with brownish-reddish hair and honey coloured eyes. "I on the other hand, am Miyake Haruhi and I will be the number one Chuunin in all of Konoha!" She put her hand out, one finger raised to indicate the number one, a mix of a devilish and arrogant grin crossing her face. Haruhi was dressed in a knee-length white wrap dress with a burgundy and blue collar, her forehead protector tied around her right arm.

Kakashi smiled at the two exuberant students of his. Turning to the last member, a boy with short navy hair and indigo eyes, dressed all in navy, he realized that this was probably the anti-social one of the group. "Murakami Nikko," the boy responded, looking away.

"Oh, don't mind him," Haruhi popped into Kakashi's field of view, "he's just upset because our old sensei promised to teach him a cool technique and now he won't get a chance to learn it!"

"Cool technique huh? I know how that feels. So, how long have you been a team?"

"Almost one year," she informed him.

"Nearly one year? You've been out of the academy for a while then?"

The three nodded simultaneously. "Why do you still meet here then?" Kakashi asked confused. Only academy students were supposed to be on the academy grounds.

"We've always met here; sensei used to tell us that it was the safest place in Konoha and that we should meet here every time."

"Aa. Well let's go for a little training huh?"

At this, all three students seemed to perk up immediately and an aura of excitement surrounded them. Kakashi led them to a forest within the training grounds. His new students paired off and prepared themselves for sparring when Kakashi told them that they'd be doing a different type of training. Truth be told, ever since Obito died he'd learnt the importance of teamwork and trust on a team so the training that he'd be doing with his students today would be centred around that. Though the job's starting date had been postponed, that had given him more time to develop a training method to test their abilities in terms of teamwork and he had come up with his.

Pulling two bells out of his pocket, he tied them around a belt-hole in his pants while his students looked on at him quizzically. "Your training for today will be to get these bells from me. You have five hours and can use any method you choose."

Haruhi and Nikko seemed to brighten up at his words; glad for such a challenge but Sasaki groaned in protest and wondered out loud why they were doing such a pointless form of training. "If it's so pointless," Kakashi had told him, "then you shouldn't have a problem getting them from me."

Sasaki nodded and charged directly at Kakashi, making hand-seals as he went. "Kage bunshin no jutsu!" He shouted and five clones of himself appeared rapidly, running alongside the original. Kakashi threw the boy a bored look, shooting at him a shuriken, annihilating all the bunshin and hitting the original Sasaki in the arm.

Next up came Nikko, who threw a few senbon at his new sensei and gathered up chakra in his hands, preparing to strike and sever a tendon or ligament. 'Ah,' Kakashi noted, 'he's the medic of the team'. Dodging all the senbon expertly, Kakashi proceeded to manoeuvre his way around Nikko's chakra-filled hands, moving so quickly that Nikko hadn't even begun to realize that Kakashi was now behind him before it was too late. He was thrown down to the floor harshly, Kakashi twisting his arm. "Damn it!" Nikko and Haruhi cursed in unison. It was now her turn.

Haruhi, seeing that nin-jutsu didn't exactly work well against him, and gen-jutsu probably wouldn't either because of the Sharingan, she opted for the less subtle approach of tai-jutsu. It was her forte anyway and possibly the only way she could ever even hope to get a bell. Readying herself in a fighting stance, she charged quickly at her sensei, launching a few shuriken at him to distract him. Using the time she'd bought herself, she launched herself into the air, bombarding her new sensei with as many punches and kicks as she could. Eventually though, she ran out of limbs, and just like her other teammates, she was thrown unceremoniously onto the ground.

After that, the three Chuunin pupils retreated into the safety of the forest, each scolding themselves for underestimating their sensei. In hiding, they separately plotted the best way to their sensei's demise. Nevertheless, every time they came up to execute their plan, Kakashi would capture them in a gen-jutsu or catch their limbs in a trap or reappear behind them unexpectedly. Five hours and countless plots later, the three lay in the grass, exhausted, being looked at disapprovingly by Kakashi.

"None of you have managed to get the bells," he stated, "It's because you don't know what it means to be a true shinobi. It isn't just flashy skills and how many times you can take a hit. If they would let me fail you, I would but Konoha is in short supply of shinobi and thus cannot afford such a thing. I'll give you one more chance. You've failed the practical test but perhaps you can pass the theoretic one. You have one hour to figure out the answer to this question: Why did I design this test and what lesson must be learned from it? I am going to go eat my lunch while you three think it out. When I come back, you should have the answer or be prepared to face the ultimate punishment," and with that said, Kakashi left the three to ponder the response to his question.

The three Chuunin students looked at each other fearfully. They had no clue what the answer to his question could be but they definitely didn't want to find out what his idea of an ultimate punishment was.

While his students spent the hour racking their young brains for the right answer, Kakashi took a seat near the memorial, unwrapping the lunch Rin had made for him. He was very surprised when a few moments later, she sat next to him, eating her own lunch. "What are you doing here?" He asked her. "Don't you have work at the hospital?"

"It's lunch break," she replied smiling, "I wanted to come see how you were doing with your students. How are they doing?"

Kakashi sighed and shook his head. "Let's just say that the standards of Konoha have gone down drastically since the time that you and I graduated."

"They're that bad?" she asked disbelievingly.

"They just don't get it you know? The whole concept of teamwork and why you're put on a three-man team just hasn't even crossed their minds. They're so focused on individual ability that they don't know how to co-operate with each other."

"Forgive me, but weren't you the same?" Rin pointed out. "You can't exactly get mad at those kids for not understanding the concept of teamwork because you didn't even understand it until a short while ago."

"If they don't understand something so crucial then they shouldn't be allowed to be shinobi," Kakashi stuck by his statement.

"Are you saying then that you didn't deserve to be a shinobi?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. These kids wouldn't last an hour out there on their own. They'd cause too many innocent deaths, deaths that could be prevented."

"I agree with you Kakashi, but why don't you just teach them about the teamwork instead of expecting them to immediately get it?"

"Because this isn't something that you can just be taught and you'll understand it!" Even though he was half-yelling at her right now, Rin just sat there and looked at him with a huge smile on her face. She'd never seen him so passionate about something, especially something this important. He was right with everything that he was saying but to see him getting worked up about something and not in an entirely negative way pleased her immensely.

"You need to figure it out for yourself. With teamwork, you either get it or you don't! And if you don't get it, then you have no place being a shinobi! We're not just tools; we're living, breathing people who need to rely on one another!" He continued rambling, something very unlike him, and Rin was becoming increasingly shocked – in a positive way- by the words coming out of his mouth. She'd realized that he'd grown from Obito's death, maturing in the best way possible, but she'd never even considered that his ideals had performed a 180 and were now the exact opposite of what he'd previously thought. And she definitely didn't think that she'd live to see the day when Hatake Kakashi admitted that people needed to rely on one another.

When he stopped rambling, Rin looked down at her watch and saw that it was time for her to head back. "Hatake Kakashi," she notified him proudly before going, "you've really grown. You'll be a great sensei."

He looked after her as she walked away, making sure that nothing happened to her while she was still in his view. A new feeling of satisfaction overtook him as he noted the pride in her voice when she'd spoken to him. In a bit more of a chipper mood, he returned to where his students were, hoping that they'd have figured out the answer to his question already. Unbeknownst to him, all three of his pupils had hidden themselves away during the hour in the safety of the forest and had listened in to his conversation with Rin, his words sinking deep into their hearts and really making them think twice about what it meant to be placed on the team they were.

When he got to the place in which he'd left them, they were all huddled together, Haruhi in the middle, her arms around the other two's shoulders. "Sensei," she proclaimed, "we have the answer to your question!"

"It's teamwork; that's the lesson we were supposed to learn from the bell exercise. Instead of being selfish and trying to get the bells for ourselves, we should have worked together and that would have given us a better chance of obtaining them," Nikko continued.

"Teamwork is often key to successfully completing a mission and if you don't have that, then you could endanger the lives of those you're supposed to be protecting, your team-mates, and your village. Without teamwork, you will cause the deaths of many innocent people and fail all missions," Sasaki concluded.

Kakashi awarded them for their explanation with a smile. "You pass," he told them. "If there's one thing you must remember it is this; those who do not follow the rules are scum, but those who do not care about their team mates are even worse scum."

His words seemed to have stuck a chord in their heartstrings for for the next few training sessions, the three of them worked on perfecting their techniques as a group and how to co-operate with each other. By the next week, they'd managed to finally knock their new and –in their opinion- oh so lovable sensei flat on his back once, and Kakashi had treated them all to ramen as a prize of their accomplishment in the field of teamwork.

Later on, when Kakashi offered to teach Nikko a cool technique just like his previous sensei had promised, the young boy had graciously turned his offer down, grinning while letting Kakashi know that what he had taught them about teamwork had been the coolest and most inspirational thing that he could have hoped to learn.

Author's Note: Well, that was chapter four! Hope you liked it! As always, please leave as many lovely pieces of constructive crit for me as you can in your reviews!

Joiz.D- Thank you so much for continuing to review on my fics! All your reviews mean a lot to me and I'm glad that you're always honest about how you feel with regards to certain fics.

catgirl9696- Thank you for all the positive reinforcement. All your 'keep going's have really, well, kept me going:P

Sakra-chan- Yes, I too am a sucker for Kakashi/Rin-ness and they're moments, in any fic, tend to be written so heart-breakingly adorable or sad that it makes you want to cry!

YebbadebbaOnee-chan- I'm very happy you're liking it so far and I cannot wait until you put out a fic! Good luck with writing!

RealyManlyPimps- I have updated fairly soon, haven't I? Glad you enjoyed it so far!

snappa- Haha, your reviews are usually the longest and most detailed and they're a LOT of fun to read! Hope another chapter of 'The Dump, The Worm and The Nutcase' comes out soon!

chibibrain94- Thank you for all your kind words! Hope you enjoyed chapter 4 just as much as you enjoyed the previous 3!

Sachie-chan11- Yes! It's not a bad thing to dance when you brush your teeth! I do it all the time! xD Hope you liked chapter 4!