Mainly the dynamics of Team Guy. Enjoy, and let me know if you liked it.

"Could one of you please explain to me why you thought it was a good idea throw a bucket of paint onto Sakura Haruno?" Guy asked in exasperation, his usual bright demeanor gone as he surveyed his three young charges, who currently stood side by side in front of him.

None of them responded. Guy wasn't sure if he had been expecting them to; Lee, perhaps, but certainly not Neji or Tenten. He exhaled, wondering if it was a good thing that every member of his team was so stubborn. He sincerely regretted his decision to accept the invitation from Kakashi to get a drink at a nearby bar instead of staying to supervise the teams.

"Lee," he said, looking at the student who idolized him with great intensity.

Lee's gaze remained downward, hanging his head, and didn't respond.

Guy sighed and focused on his next student. "Tenten."

The girl in question looked up at him blankly, and Guy noticed that a butterfly rested on the open palm of her hand, gently moving its blue wings. He stared at her, and she met his gaze quite impassively. Knowing that extracting a straight answer from Tenten was just as likely as Kakashi showing up on time for a meeting, Guy moved on.

"Neji."

He didn't dislike the boy, but Guy never thought the day would come that he would have to resort to Neji to get an honest answer from his students. Not that Neji wasn't truthful, but just because every word he spoke was convoluted with his own ideas about fate, and it could become monotonous to listen to him speak for long periods of time, and also slightly irksome, due to the sense that he was lecturing them all.

The only response Guy received was stony silence.

"You are lucky that Haruno-san was not hurt," Guy informed them sternly. "If the paint can had hit her on the head instead of spilling midair and just splashing her, she could have been concussed or killed." He stared at them. "Would you have found that funny?"

Neji met his gaze, silver irises alight with an emotion Guy rarely saw him express: mirth.

"I have to say, Sensei, I don't think that one of us intentionally spilled a bucket of paint onto the girl because we thought it was 'funny.'" A corner of Neji's mouth twisted upward into the faintest of smirks. "Maybe we just got tired of her whining, and decided to give her a real reason to complain." Neji quirked an eyebrow and it was Guy's turn to respond with stony silence.

"What about you, Tenten?" He looked to the lone girl of his team, and she tore her attention away from the butterfly once again. "Did you think what happened was amusing?"

Stupid question if there ever was one, Tenten had never expressed a sense of humor and rarely smiled, instead most of the time maintaining a totally blank expression reminiscent of a doll, perplexing and unnerving many people in the process.

Per usual, Tenten let several seconds pass before she replied. "To be fair to Haruno-san, all of them were annoying. That loud blonde boy and the Uchiha as well, even if he was a genius and very handsome." She stretched out her arm, allowing the butterfly to fly free, and she watched it go before turning back to Guy. "All that glitters isn't gold, I guess."

Before Guy could even think of how to reply to such a statement, another voice cut in.

"No matter how annoying you may have found her, it was not right for you two to do that to Sakura-chan!"

The Second Green Beast of Konoha glared at his friends ferociously, obsidian eyes blazing with anger. Neither of them was particularly threatened, or at least didn't outwardly display it. Tenten retained her lack of expression while Neji scoffed.

"Spare us the outrage, Lee," Neji said. "Just because you find her attractive doesn't excuse her infantile behavior."

"And just because you do not like her does not excuse your behavior!"

"Oh please, Lee," Neji said haughtily. "Such imbecile like that is guaranteed to get her comeuppance eventually; the assignment we received to work with her team to repaint public buildings is evidence that I was the one fated to hand it out."

Guy interrupted the argument, stunned at its sheer absurdity. "Neji, are you saying that fate condemned you to pour paint onto that poor girl?"

"I didn't 'pour paint onto that poor girl,'" Neji replied loftily. "I did my duty, as I was fated, to show that know-it-all her place by knocking over a paint can and letting the contents empty on a child who desperately needed a lesson in manners, who just so happened to be standing directly beneath." Neji shrugged, and folded his arms over his chest. "In all honesty, I can say that white is a better color than pink for her."

"That is not a laughing matter, Neji!" Lee retorted angrily.

"Fate is never a laughing matter, Lee."

"There is no such thing as fate!"

"Fate is what led me to cover Haruno-san in paint today."

"It is?" Lee asked.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Neji demanded.

"You were jealous that I was talking to Sakura-chan and not you," Lee stated calmly.

"That's totally unfounded," Neji said flatly.

Lee shrugged. "Usually I talk to Tenten and you as we work, but since Sakura was there, she had all of my attention. You were jealous and upset because you felt like you had been replaced."

"Ridiculous," Neji insisted, but his pale face now was tinted pink in the cheeks.

"I do not think so," Lee replied, grasping one of Neji's hands tightly, causing the other boy to jump back in surprise at the unexpected gesture. "You are my friend and rival, Neji. There's no need to feel jealous. No one could ever replace you."

Neji didn't seem to know how to respond to this, and looked away. Lee just smiled at him.

Guy glanced over at Tenten, to see that she had folded her arms across her chest, and was also looking away, but amazingly enough, her expression was vaguely annoyed, although Guy couldn't fathom why.

He sighed mentally. If this was what his students were like at thirteen, they could only get worse during their remaining teenage years.

Then a thought occurred to him, and Guy couldn't help but smile. If nothing else, at least he would get to watch his kids mature into adults, and be there to help them through it.

Unfortunately, another thought along those lines came to him. Guy knew that he was obligated to be there for his students, because none of them had any other well-intentioned adult to guide them. If he were stand by and watch, but not intervene as they made decisions, they would destroy themselves, slowly but surely.

The incident with Sakura is also mentioned is Chapter 6: Darkness Part II. I hold no ill will to her, I just can picture Neji doing something like that.