Kakashi sighed as he left the house. There was little point in going to visit the rest of his team's homes. Sasuke lived alone and he doubted he'd learn anymore from Sakura's parents than he'd learned watching the girl interact with her friends. He could feel a headache building already.

He sighed as he walked away, mind working on what training would benefit each of his new, cute little Genin. Sakura would need stamina and endurance training for certain. She'd been spending the majority of her time with another girl who was going to specialize in Genjutsu, and studying, and Sakura wasn't cut out for either of those. Her chakra control was fine, and she had a good strategic mind. She needed more offensive techniques, though, she couldn't just remain support forever. Not only did she deserve better than that, but Sakura would be in severe trouble if she went up against an enemy by herself, as her spar with him had proven to a disturbing degree.

Naruto. Ohhhh, Naruto... Kakashi was going to have to dig into every single chakra control method he could find. The usual ones just weren't going to cut it for the blonde. She had a fairly good grasp of Taijutsu, and moderate planning with all her traps. One part of her file he was willing to believe was her utter inability to use Genjutsu at all, so he was going to have to teach her how to counteract others using it. Her Ninjutsu skills were scattered and haphazard: the three Academy Basics, a B-Ranked Forbidden Jutsu, and apparently several other forbidden techniques from her own clan. That was an excellent repertoire, number-wise, for a Genin, but in actual practice alone or in conjunction with her team, she needed something more. Naruto just wasn't fast enough to be able to get close with Taijutsu and then use the same method she had with Mizuki, even had she not needed the many-tiered conditions to pull it off. He'd have to think of something. He also had to learn more about the way her chakra interacted with the environment and plants the way it did; was it a Bloodline ability or something else?

Sasuke needed some rounding out. He was good for offensive, but that was all he'd shown proficiency for. Kakashi couldn't be sure if he'd gotten the idea for traps on his own, or if he'd just seen Naruto setting hers and decided to stack the deck in his own favor as well. The boy of the team would need more flexibility. As well as a Jutsu or two that didn't threaten to burn the forest down. His Taijutsu was outstanding, and paired so well with Naruto's own that the two would probably rarely encounter an opponent one of them wasn't suited to fight. He'd also need to work on Sakura's Taijutsu, now that he thought about it; he could combine that with her endurance training.

It would also do well to ask both Sasuke and Sakura how in the world they'd managed Nature Transformation chakra training already, though he suspected the answer lay with the rest of the 'Study Night Nine'. And he needed to speak to the other Jounin of teams Eight and Ten and then the Hokage and get those new Jutsu registered. The Hokage was bound to be extremely interested in the Advanced Replacement and- Note to self: Ask if they've developed any other new or altered Jutsu.

To think he'd gone from never having a worthy team before to getting stuck with a group of prodigies. But he had to admit, for the first time in years, the thought of training a team made him... Excited. This team could make it. ...Though he might have to reconsider his late habits if he didn't want to find himself in a trap or prank war with his entire team. Eh, he'd think about that part later.

He ran a hand through his hair. Ahhh, he needed some stress relief after dealing with his team all morning. Makoto had... not been wrong when she mentioned being brave in staying for breakfast. He decided to take a short trip to his favorite place.

"Hello, Setsuna-chan."

The dark-haired woman smiled up at him and straightened, "Kakashi-kun. Shall I have Michiru man the counter for me- so to speak?"

"Maa, I can see you're busy. Whoever has a free moment is fine. It's nothing vital."

"Then I have just the girl in mind. She's new and somewhat nervous, but I think you'll agree with me that she was meant for this. ...And she isn't hard to look at, either."

"I'm surprised you have someone available at this hour."

Setsuna turned around to the speaker tube system on the wall behind the desk, "Oh, it's no trouble at all. Rises with the dawn, that one." She opened one of the tubes, "Minako-chan, could you please come down at your earliest convenience? We have a customer interested in you."

Kakashi was startled when a sweet-but-annoyed voiced echoed right back: "It's no wonder we get mistaken for a brothel all the time when you say things like that! I'll be right down, I was just reading."

He couldn't hold back his laughter as Setsuna closed the tube and turned back to him with a wry expression. He nodded, "You're right, I like her already."

He went to sit at his usual spot at the corner table where the sunlight didn't reach in the daylight hours. The sun was just beginning to peek above the village wall and shops starting to open. The Yamanaka household really did wake earlier than anyone sane had a right to. But then again, two Jounin with years of experience with nine children running rampant about their house for at least five years- the Yamanaka could hardly be blamed for a lapse in sanity.

Kakashi's head turned at the sound of muffled cursing as his lovely healer stumbled down the stairs while wrestling with her kimono sleeve, almost tripping and falling at the bottom and barely saving herself from an ungraceful face-plant. He blinked at being met with another blue-eyed blonde with a love for the color orange. At least this one knew what moderation was, it was a beautiful pale orange, generously broken up with a white bamboo pattern, a large red bow in her hair.

The blonde stumbled but caught herself, finally pulling her arm through her kimono sleeve, and pulled long golden hair from the back of the outfit. Her hair color was deep, a true, vibrant gold, even richer than Naruto's.

The young woman -sixteen or so if Kakashi didn't miss his guess- straightened up and looked around curiously, spotting him and smiling brightly in a way that lit up the whole room and left Kakashi blinking. She was already kneeling across from him when he finished blinking away the spots in his vision, blue eyes capturing him. They were a bright blue, like the deeper part of the sky on a clear day. Not the slightest bit like either of the Yamanaka sisters: Naruto's eyes had a hint of dark gray; stone blue eyes, storm blue eyes. And Ino's were pale baby blue.

She tilted her head and smiled at him, "Welcome to the House of Internal Healing. My name is Minako and I'll be your hostess today."

"I'm Kakashi Hatake."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Hatake-san."

"And you as well, Minako-san."

She waved her hand, "Oh, no need to be so formal with me."

"Then let's both agree to be casual, it's only fair."

"That sounds alright, Kakashi-san. Was there any particular reason you came in today?"

He nodded, "There was. I'm a Jounin, and I've just passed my first first team this year."

She caught on to the slight breathiness in his voice, a soft, knowing smile blooming, "Did you come here to brag, Kakashi-san, or pour out your woes?"

His head dropped, "I'm not sure myself just yet..."

Minako's laugh was beautiful, full and rich but not boisterous or grating, and her giggles as she trailed off made him want to smile. Setsuna had been absolutely right about the girl's knack for this line of work. Her blue eyes sparkled with mirth as she gained control of herself and gazed at him, "Surely they aren't so terrible, wasn't the graduation only a few days ago? Surely they can't have been so bad- yet."

He let out a theatric sigh, "You don't know the half of it, Minako-chan. The horrors, the trials!"

She giggled again, propped her chin on the back of her wrist and tilted her head inquiringly, "Please do tell me about them, then."

Kakashi nodded and eye-smiled at her, "Gladly. It all started when I went to pick them up..."

"...He's late."

Sakura grabbed the back of her jacket as she went to move, "Naruto, no..."

Her friend rounded on her, "He's our teacher! Is he going to freaking teach us or fucking not?! This is a waste of time we could be spending training!"

"Naruto."

The blonde tossed a scathing glare Sasuke's way before giving in and sitting down cross-legged, "Tch, whatever. Ten minutes, teme! That's all the longer I'm waiting! I could get Kaachan to train me better than this."

"I'm hurt, Naruto." Kakashi held a hand to his chest as he appeared in a swirl of leaves. The glare she gave him was venomous and her eyes glittered with blue fire, ponytails whipping around as she turned to him.

"You're going to be." She muttered darkly.

"Sorry, I got delayed because the sun got in my eye and made me take a wrong turn."

The three Genin exchanged doubtful looks before sighing and lining up before him. He honestly felt a little hurt that time: Minako really had distracted him too long when he'd gone to see her that morning, but it was hardly his fault. It was fun to try and make her laugh, and she was interesting to talk to. She wasn't afraid to let her own thoughts be known. ...Like the disapproving frown she'd given him about being late as she'd physically shoved him out the House's door with the admonishment that she wouldn't be going anywhere and would still be there when his Genin were done training for the day.

He clapped his hands together, "Okay! Let's get started. We'll be training until noon, take a short break for lunch, then go to the Hokage for our first official mission." He put his fingers into the Cross Seal and saw the recognition flash in all three Genin's eyes. One clone led Sakura away and another took Sasuke, leaving the real Kakashi with Naruto.

Clone-Kashi pulled out several braces of weights with an eye-smile that had Sakura shrinking back, "Kakashi-sensei?"

"Sakura." He replied pleasantly. His eye opened seriously, "I'm going to be blunt with you, alright?" She nodded and he went on, "Your physical skills are abysmal." She flinched. "So that's what we'll be working on for the foreseeable future. These are training weights, go ahead and put them on, then I'll teach you some Taijutsu forms. We'll go through several sets until we find one that you consider comfortable and I'll proceed to teach you more from there."

She nodded hesitantly, "Yes, Kakashi-sensei."

"Now, while we're working, there are some things I'd like to ask you. Such as other Jutsu you know that you didn't get the chance to show during the bell test, and I'm especially interested to hear how it is you learned several Earth Style Jutsu. You must know that Elemental Manipulation is advanced material."

She put the weights on and spoke at the same time, "That wasn't so difficult. I spend tons of time over at the Yamanaka Compound with Naruto and Ino-chan. I get along better with Ino because we share more interests, but Naruto is my friend, too. Ino's Tousan has a variable schedule so sometimes he comes home early, and that's really some of the only time she gets to spend with him, so I hang out more with Naruto and Makoto-Kaasan then. Makoto-Kaasan's mastered Earth and Lightning Transformation, and I just wasn't as interested in gardening as Naruto, so she showed me some Earth Jutsu. I'm pretty good with them, but the closest I can do to anything Lightning without it blowing up on me is the Flash Jutsu I used on you."

"That you can do any at all is very impressive, Sakura."

The pink-haired girl smiled up at him, "Thank you..."

"Have you been tested for your Chakra Affinity?"

She stood up and tapped her toes to make sure the weights rested well, "No. Ino and Naruto explained that to me a while back, but none of us have been tested. Makoto-Kaasan said that there was no point in testing children because their chakra systems weren't mature yet and the results would be contradictory and unreliable. And besides, it doesn't really matter what our affinities are if that's not the Style of Jutsu that calls to us, right?"

Kakashi blinked at her. He had never heard any student take that stance on the subject before. What an interesting crop of Genin I've got...

Kashi-clone 2 tilted his head, "Tell me, Sasuke, how would you like to advance? I honestly have several areas you need to work on, but none of them vitally more-so than the others. Your Taijutsu is on par with Naruto's, your Ninjutsu Arsenal is numerous for a Genin, and you show enough tactical knowledge to be considered adequate in most mission situations."

"Hn. Chakra capacity. I've been training since I met Naruto to try and keep up with her."

"That... might be a problem. I'll be honest with you, Sasuke: it is likely that you could train yourself into the ground every day for the rest of your life and never have the chakra capacity that Naruto has at this moment- and you can be certain they'll only grow larger as she matures. In actuality, she's got more chakra than myself and two other Jounin combined. I don't doubt that we could improve your reserves, but you need to understand that there is virtually no hope of competing with Naruto in this area."

"I understand that. I've known her practically my whole life, I've seen how her excess reserves even cripple her. I know that I can't beat her in this, but I need to keep up with her. We swore an oath. Whatever extra effort I need to put forth, make no mistake: I'll make it."

Kakashi sighed, "Very well, then. We'll just have to tackle the problem from both ends. Chakra is the combination of spiritual energy and physical energy. This means that more of both those bases can increase the resultant energy: chakra. Here are training weights- and I'll advise you now to not try more than what I give you: excessive weight on the excessively young can permanently stunt growth, cause brittleness of the bones, and damage or rupture organs- all of which would significantly delay your training schedule."

The dark-haired teen nodded and started putting them on, "Understood."

"And on the other side of the equation is the spiritual, this can be done in one of several ways. Sakura has focused on the mental pursuits by expanding her knowledge. If you have a knack for studying, you could try that. Or you could go for the spiritual-spiritual route, and try meditation. The calmer and more spiritually aware you are, the more energy you'll produce. Naruto probably does this unintentionally with her connection to the earth."

Kakashi got to see the very satisfying -and very confusing- spectacle of the Emotionless Uchiha facepalming, "Are you telling me the Dobe was right all these years when she was pestering me to start a garden?"

Kakashi eye-smiled at his student, "That is one way to do it. Starting a garden, raising koi fish, taking an interest in keeping your home neat and even indulging in feng-shui. Visiting the shrines of your ancestors. All of these things can help. The point is to be calm and embrace a state of tranquility. You could even do landscaping and create a calming waterfall. Any of it will work so long as you feel relaxed and open-minded in the environment."

"Hn. Anything else?"

"One other thing, yes. The final way to increase chakra reserves is much the same as increasing physical stamina: the more you use, the more you make. Every night when you get home, probably best to do it after meditation, use as much chakra as you can without passing out. Your body will tell you it's starving, and in a way that is true. You'll need to eat much more because that energy has to come from somewhere."

"Physical training, meditation, chakra draining."

"That about covers it. Now, since two-thirds of those are happening at home instead of here, we can move right on to another point you need to work on. I want you to expand your tactical thinking. This should also help with the spiritual portion of your chakra training. During the bell test you showed a great deal of aggressiveness, but when I confounded the single trap that you'd laid and countered your Taijutsu, you went immediately to the offensive and you went fantastically flamboyant. Do you know the distraction and hindering techniques Sakura used?"

Eyes narrowed in obvious displeasure at being found wanting, Sasuke shook his head, "No, Sakura found those in old Academy texts and from her parents. I spent my time deep in my Clan's archives. I know of reasonable facsimiles, but I haven't focused on learning them." And that also explained how he knew Elemental Manipulation; the Uchiha were famous fire-users.

"You'll want to, then. It's never good to have only one strategy, and as satisfying as 'run in and beat them\burn them to a crisp' is, it's rarely an effective tactic."

Naruto sighed and wove her fingers together behind her head, "Let me guess: Chakra Control exercises?"

Kakashi eye-smiled at her, "Beeee-lieve it." He walked away and crooked his finger, beckoning her to follow. They stopped before the river that fed the lake of Training Ground Three, "Now, are you aware of the memory side-effect of Shadow Clones?"

"Uh..."

"That's what I thought. Have you noticed that when a Shadow Clone disperses, its memories return to you?"

"Oh, yeah! Now that you mention it. I -I mean, the real me- was asleep when I graduated and Iruka-sensei and Kaachan gave me my hitai-ate."

Kakashi raised his eyebrow at that but nodded, "Exactly. Now, what this means in practice is that, with the Shadow Clone Jutsu, you can train at an exponentially greater rate than if you attempted to train on your own without it." She blinked confused storm blue eyes up at him and he sighed, "Say, for example, you needed to do a large amount of research. An entire library's worth of research. Now, if you tried to read every book on your own, it'd take you a very long time. If you had a Shadow Clone read different books than you, it'd take you half the time, and so on and so forth with ever more clones."

"...That'd give me a headache, wouldn't it? I mean, I barely remember the stuff Iruka-sensei and Ino-nee lecture me in."

"That is correct, this training style would be far less effective if you weren't a Yamanaka. But your mother assures me you're trained in mental compartmentalization."

"Yeah, that stuff- imagining my mind as a house with a bunch of rooms that hold all my different and important memories."

"Using that, you can, in a manor of speaking, 'store' your clones' memories and the information they gather for you. Much like the library analogy we used a moment ago. Instead of rifling through an entire building of excess memories and useless information, you should be able to extract the important things -pluck key books from the shelves- and discard the rest. If you weren't able to disregard all those extra memories, we'd have a very big issue."

"Huh? Why?"

"Let's say it takes you an hour to read a book. Because we have twice the Narutos reading those books might mean that the task is done in half the chronological time, but you've still got two hours of reading experience. If you weren't able to extract that information while discarding the 'time' used to learn it, it would have a negative affect on your ability to sense time. You would probably grow impatient with everyday life going too slow, because you become used to so much more sensory information at once thanks to the clones."

"That sounds... very bad."

"Agreed. This is like every other type of training: the key is moderation and wisdom. Now I'm going to ask you, and I need you to answer honestly: do you think you're adept enough with your mental compartmentalization to handle this?"

"I'm not sure. I guess we won't really know until we try, right?"

Kakashi sighed, "I suppose that's the best we're going to get. Then for right now let's try only three of you."

"Got it! Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

"Now here's the actual plan for training today: you see this river here? I want you to wade in and then flood it with your chakra. Have your clones find two other streams to copy the exercise in. Then, when you feel the water saturated with your chakra, you're going to try and move it. Sway it back and forth, hold a portion of it in place while letting the rest flow naturally, making them clash or swirl. The point of this is to become used to controlling your chakra on the large scale. As you begin to get the hang of it, we'll work on smaller and finer control."

Naruto nodded and waded out into the river, "Ready!"

Sakura's muscles were already shouting at her and every move felt like she was swimming through tar because of her new weights, forget her muscles learning any of the forms she'd spent the last three hours learning. Her arms felt like limp noodles and her legs felt like they were made of lead.

She was overheated and sweaty and her hair was sticking to her face and neck when it wasn't being a tangled mess. She couldn't be more thankful that there wasn't a mirror anywhere within viewing distance. Sakura had never realized just how out of shape she'd gotten with Ino. Not that she was 'out of shape' exactly, it was more like she didn't have a shape. She had no extra fat, but neither did she have any muscles.

Kakashi-sensei was determined to whip her into a 'Kunoichi shape' if it was the last thing he did, apparently. It was a good thing her breakfast had been a while ago, because she had been heaving that morning. For as strenuous as the bell test was, at least it had been over fairly quickly once it had begun, and the leg injury then hadn't allowed her to push herself to her physical limits. A blessing as it turned out, because, as she was discovering, they were down right depressing limits.

She'd never been at the top of the class in Taijutsu, but Kami, Sakura had never realized how desperate her situation was! She wondered how Ino was holding up...

The constant training all morning had her feeling like she was going to go up in flame, pass out in a bout of dizziness, or throw up her toe nails by turns. Her heart had been an erratic, fluttering thing in her chest as if it were a terrified bird trying to take flight. Her face was probably the most unattractive sunburn\pass-out red. And through it all, Kakashi-sensei had toed her with his foot and told her to go through another set\kata\lap\whatever-torture-of-the-moment.

Sasuke's face twitched in that way it did when he refused to allow himself a wince. His arms and legs throbbed, and his lungs felt like they were blistered. Kakashi had set him before the lake and had him go through all his Fire Style Jutsu, then insisted on a spar- during which he'd been unable to land a significant enough hit to dispel the clone even once.

His body struggled and protested at the lack of chakra he had left, and his stomach clawed at his spine in induced hunger. He knew now what their teacher had meant when he'd warned that this kind of training would make it feel like he was starving. Also why he should do it after meditating, because his tired, achy, overheated body was in no mood for 'calm tranquility'.

All he wanted was to drink about three gallons of water to soothe his parched throat, devour an entire buffet, and soak in a tub of ice-water until he fell asleep (and if he drowned, all the better; it'd mean he wouldn't have to go through it all over again).

Naruto panted. Running her chakra through moving water wasn't at all the same as sinking it into the earth. She'd thought she'd get it down no problem since the Leylines essentially felt like a series of underground rivers.

What she had failed to realize was that the Leylines were pure chakra. She was sinking chakra into more chakra, essentially just shunting it to a greater part of her own chakra system. And it was different from using it in plants, too. Plants had immature, non-living chakra systems of their own. She flooded them with her energy and, because they didn't have an active chakra of their own, they absorbed it like water, growing and giving her control of them through the manipulation of her own energy.

Pouring her chakra into the river was nothing like that. She poured it out like a massive tank of ink. She could see it saturate the water and then it was just gone. She had also managed to supply their lunch by killing every fish that wound up in that part of the river, their simple (but more complex than plants) chakra systems overloaded and ruptured due to her foreign chakra. She could have run electricity through the water and not killed them so quick or thoroughly. And even though she was a Kunoichi now, even though they were just fish... she still felt rather guilty about it.

Her mind was taken back to the day Kaachan had explained chakra to her and Ino.

"Their bodies will reject incoming, strange chakra unless handled carefully. It's why being a medi-nin is so hard, because they have to learn how to 'match' their patients' chakra in order to heal them."

She couldn't even find her chakra in the river, let alone sense the fish's and then match them! And that all was with only a ninth of her total chakra! She'd only had a third to begin with since splitting with her Replications, then the two Shadow Clones from what she had left. Naruto sighed, she had a loooong way to go.

They met for lunch, all sweaty -though Naruto had taken the chance to dunk herself in the river after her training- all hot, all frustrated, and all tired.

The three of them collapsed back-to-back while Naru-clone 1 cooked up the suspiciously dead fish for them.

All three Kakashi eye-smiled down at their exhausted forms, "Eat up, my cute little Genin, we've got a mission after lunch."

The Genin in question threw their heads back with heart-felt groans, "I hate this!"

xxx

I'm going to level with you here. I am not going to show a bunch of training or the D-Rank missions. There are going to be times when the gang seems Mary Sue-ish, because I and my plot bunny despise writing exhaustive training scenes. They're just... pointless. You guys KNOW they'll be training and doing menial tasks, and the thought of typing all that out bores me to tears, my Plunny refuses to give me material for it.

I will give you the beginning of the training so you get a taste of it, but to be perfectly honest, I'd much rather write about the fights they can have with their skills than spending hours detailing how exactly they built those skills up. If you're hoping for a training montage, this is not going to be the fic for you.

XXX