Hello! And sorry for the last chapter, as you might have guessed formatting isn't my biggest talent. But your pointers are helping so please keep them coming. I'm slowly updating the first chapters to fix some issues.

In particular I had completely forgotten that in English-speaking countries you use "" for dialog, it looks weird to me and I'm feeling slightly desperate at how many dialogs I will have to correct. Let's see, about 40 chapters that I've already written that way, in each chapters maybe 15 - to change into "", that would make 600 changes… sniff. But I will do it, I also feel a lot more satisfied when the chapter looks at least somewhat good.

Also I'll answer the comments that I can't answer with PM at the end of the chapter, I only recently understood that it wasn't a glich of the system but people who hadn't used a account while commenting.

chapter 6: 4. September IV

Team 7 met again the morning after their quiet celebration on top of Konoha's roofs but the relaxed atmosphere of the last night had been put behind. For once, their teacher had arrived on time and his book was nowhere to be seen which was a sure sign that he was serious.

"I suppose that you already understand that this exam is no joke. The proctors will do anything to get past your limits. It' s not so much about seeing what you can do and more about what you can survive. "

The genin gulped.

"So I will train you. We have seven days. We will train for the six first days. We will meet each morning here at six and stop at eight in the evening. Don' t worry about the food I will bring it."

For one second their teacher seemed to hesitate then looked at them a determined look in his eyes.

"I want all of you to prove that a few rookies cannot be underestimated."

Naruto nodded with enthusiasm and Sakura and Sasuke seemed just as determined.

"First you have to accept that you are at a disadvantage. To put it bluntly compared to most of the other contestants you are weak."

Sasuke wanted to growl his disapproval. He wasn't weak, he was the best genin of his year, he had completed the first task easily, or kind of easily. He wasn't weak.

"You are at a disadvantage for two reasons: one, you are rookies. You have less experience, less knowledgeI do think you can overcome that because you are good. You have more potential, more inner strength and more talent than almost all of the others but the others don' t know that which means that without a doubt you will be targeted twice as often as the other genin because others will believe that you are easy preys. You should keep a low profile. Most good chunins are silent chunins. So got it. Be discreet. Naruto don't get distracted. I'm talking to you specifically: look me in the eye! I repeat: be discreet."

Naruto pouted and huffed.

"I got it sensei I won' t attract to much attention. You don' t have to insist."

"Mmh, I think I will insist. Naruto if you ever want me to buy you ramen in the next ten years you will be very, very discreet and silent and careful not to make a mess."

"Why don' t you tell that to teme over there." He pointed at the Uchiha

"Naruto, how dare you accuse Sasuke-kun he would never..."

"...Actually, I think you make a good point. Sasuke don't pick fights without reason, don' t insult people and stop emitting these... waves of arrogance and sullenness."

Now, Sasuke was really annoyed.

"I' m not the one attracting attention, I mean I' m not the one going around wearing orange!"

Of course, the discussion disintegrated from this point on.

Two minutes later relative calm had settled over the group again.

"If I were to train you in a normal way I would try to find your weaknesses and we would train to overcome them but we ain't got the time to do that. Instead we will train what your best at and you will have to rely on each other to cover your weaknesses."

"So Sasuke. You have the Sharingan and you' re beginning to know how to use it. You have good chakra reserves, you are quick and you are strong. You will be the offensive element of the group. Basically you are the one who is supposed to take out the enemy."

Sasuke nodded, he liked the sound of that.

"So you will be training me to use the sharingan."

"No. I' ll teach you how to use katon great fireball correctly."

Sasuke looked incredulously as his teacher.

"That's bullshit, I learnt that as a kid."

"Then its a shame that you still don' t know how to use it correctly. Look katon is the most appropriate release for offensive warfare, as you so politely pointed out you are already more than familiar with it. I think that a week will be enough to master it completely."

Now on to Naruto..."

The kid was excitedly looking at him.

"You will be defense."

"What! With a cry of indignation the blond boy began gesticulating around. No way I will be a boring guard. If I want to be Hokage one day I need to have super strong attacks to wipe out all my enemies and look cool."

Kakashi was looking at the boy somewhat sadly.

"It that really what you think. Isn't the Hokage's greatest task to protect the village and all its inhabitants? But maybe you don' t want to be Hokage anymore..."

Naruto immediately deflated.

"Ok. You may be right, Kakashi-sensei."

"You have the most chakra and endurance but you lack the precision to actually land hits."

"That so wrong Kakashi-sensei. I beat up a lot of people with my attacks."

Their teacher let out a tired sigh.

"Let's put it that way: right now you have more chakra than me Naruto."

"Reaallyy!"

"Yes. It' s not a good way to measure your chakra since for a jounin I have pretty little of it but for a genin your chakra reserves are extraordinary. But even if you used your strongest attack, even if I taught you a very strong jutsu you would still not be able to beat me. I have more skill and speed and experience and you would never be able to touch me. There is little chance that you could beat a opponent with a lot more experience."

Now let' s think of it the other way around: if a stronger opponent tried to attack you he would have a lot of problems to beat you. You have so much chakra and you have enough resistance to just get back up on your feet every time someone throws you down. We will work on that to find a way for you to use that to protect your teammates."

Again, the boy was nodding enthusiastically. It was almost sad how little one have to give to make Naruto happy. A little like a stray dog whose loyalty could be bought with only a scrap.

"We will work on knew ways to use your clones and I will teach a few tricks to defend with chakra. Now to you Sakura."

The pink-haired girl stood straighter and listened obediently like the proper little schoolgirl she had been raised to be.

"Your strength is your intelligence. Your job will be to direct the energy of these two. In a fight you will have to try to figure out the opponents moves and decide how you will counter them. For the following week you are allowed to question everyone of my orders and you will be allowed to order Naruto and Sasuke to do anything that you see fit. Sasuke, Naruto you are allowed to question or ignore neither my nor Sakura's orders understood. "

A angry shout of "whaaaat" came from Naruto' s side and Sasuke growled. Well, they could learn to deal with it. He wanted Sakura to learn to think for herself, the boys on the other side were already thinking to much for themselves.

"In the morning we will train your mastery of jutzus and chakra together but Sakura you will join us only in the afternoon. Physically you are weak and I can' t accept that and neither should you if you don' t want to be a burden for your team during the exam."

Sakura flinched but nodded.

"Do you see the Hokage mountain behind us. You won't train with us before you have been able to climb to the top without using chakra."

The young girl gulped and looked sceptically at the rocky, vertical surface but nodded again.

"To begin I want to have a good grasp on your chakra reserves and your chakra control. I want you to tree-walk like you learned in the land of waves, keep walking up and down and we will see who tires first."

All three of his genin readied themselves and began the exercise on his signal. Kakashi on his side uncovered his left eye. While the sharingan was a much less precise tool to analyze chakra than the Byakugan, paired with Kakashi's experience he had a cursory impression of their use of chakra.

Sasuke on the left was a strong concentrated presence. His chakra was rushing to his feet with the strength of his intent. His chakra had the incisive coldness he had observed in most Uchiha. His chakra reserves were remarkable as could be expected from the son of a clan head. However his control was lacking. He directed his chakra with a kind of furious determination that still wasted to much energy.

His chakra was plenty and intense but was dwarfed by the radiant presence of Naruto's chakra. It emitted an almost blinding warmth. The feeling of it crashing against his senses was accompanied by a sad sense of familiarity. More than once he had had to rain his emotions in when he felt that chakra and forgot for a second that it was Naruto's and thought for a second that he recognized Minato's brightness. Underneath it he could feel the ferocious and nefarious power of the Kyubi that slowly diluted into Naruto' s warmth like black ink in water. Kakashi made an effort to not let the sharingan get overwhelmed by the raw energy and concentrate on the way Naruto used it and sighed. All similarities stopped there. While Minato's chakra had always projected careful control and restraint his son didn't seem to have the slightest idea of what these words might mean. Waves of chakra were escaping through every wasteful movement he used to climb the tree. And while the boy could now tree-climb his step were still unsure and irregular.

Next to him Sakura' s chakra was almost unnoticeable. She had good chakra reserves for a civilian but for a regular genin her reserves were average at best. Kakashi knew more than anyone how annoying that could be. He was best known in Anbu as the one who failed only three missions in his ten years carrier but was almost as well known for being the one operative who came back from missions unconscious more often than conscious. But still he also knew better than everyone how to make the most of the reserves he had. Sakura wasn't without potential. Her chakra had a interesting kind of sharpness and her control was better than a lot of chunnin with which he had worked with. Assuming that as a civilian she had not had any help when training her chakra control also proved how determined she was and how much she had worked.

After an hour Sakura tired and had to jump from the tree. Kakashi told the other two to come down.

"After the Chunin exam if you are still my students we will tree-walk every day to push your limits. At least Sasuke and Sakura will, you don' t really need it Naruto. However enlarging your chakra pool takes time and there is little sense in doing it know. Naruto and Sasuke you will train your control. Yes, Naruto, again. Chakra control is the basis to learn jutsu. Take this and this."

He put a pebble into Sasuke's hand and a tinier one in Naruto's.

"Now try to do this."

He put a little stone on the back of his outstretched hand and pushed his chakra to let it roll towards his fingers and then flip onto the palm of his hand which was facing the ground. The stone was easily stuck and didn't fall. He let it trail slowly on the underside of his arm before it came back and rolled into his hand.

Naruto immediately tried and immediately failed.

"If you master that technique I will teach you a jutsu tomorrow."

Sasuke and Naruto threw each other a challenging look.

"Don' t misunderstand me, I will teach you a jutsu if both of you master it."

Naruto began to pout but Sasuke looked at him with a downright murderous glare.

"There is no way dead-last will get it in an afternoon."

"Well, thankfully he will have your help, right?"

Rivality was good, teamwork was better.

"Euh, sensei, shouldn't I do it to?" Sakura's timid voice sounded from next to him, she seemed almost hurt.

Instead he just put the little stone on her small hand and told her to try. Right of the bat the stone moved on her palm. It was still somewhat jerky but in just a few minutes she was able to make it move without a hitch along her arm.

Naruto was stuck in admiration of her skill and she did her best to try to hide her pleasure while throwing a few glances at the Uchiha. Sasuked only tsked and began to train.

Sakura felt a twinge of disappointment and even anger at the retreating boy. Sasuke could be such a sore loser. Why couldn't he react like Naruto at least once. She turned back to her teacher feeling somewhat intimidated that she would train with him alone. His bored gaze turned to her and she straightened a bit.

"We will do taijutsu."

Sakura frowned, she just didn't like taijutsu, mainly because she was bad at it, also because in Konoha the beginning of fall was accompanied with an atmosphere charged with humidity and a warm wind that did nothing to dissipate the lingering summer heat and she was sweaty just from the walking up and down the tree, also her mother had washed her red dress yesterday and would complain if she came home dirty.

"Ready?"

Sakura wanted to say no but nodded because anything else would make her look like a sullen little girl in the eye of her sensei. Sakura had read the statistics of the third war. She knew her sensei was the youngest academy graduate ever. At her age he had been about to make jounin. She refused to seem lazy. So she fought as well as she knew. Tried to remember every move she had been taught at the academy. She saw a fist coming her way. The standard defense flashed through her mind. She raised her hand and blocked. The power behind the fist made her stumble backwards. Still she tried a high kick. By throwing a punch his left side should be unguarded. Only her sensei wasn't there anymore. She felt a blinding pain in her side. A yes, she had been presumptuous for thinking that such weaknesses could be applied to a jounin. Well, it applied all right for a young genin which side had been left unguarded after her kick.

"Stand up and try again."

And her side hurt a lot but she didn't want to seem ridiculous so she got back on her feet.

The fights never lasted a lot more than a few seconds and she felt more and more angry, more and more frustrated. Angry tears came to her eyes and she squinted praying that he wouldn't see them.

Again he threw her to the ground and stood above her looking down to her and that was the last straw. Channeling all the strength she could in her left foot she kicked up between his legs in a move that was certainly not on the standard taijutzu list of the academy. He still evaded but his left eye twitched in what seemed to be a mix of surprise and amusement which was a lot better than bored skepticism.

This time Sakura didn' t bother getting up again.

"Ne, Sensei why do I fail."

Kakashi crouched down and she looked at him without hiding how annoyed she was.

"First, you fail because you have absolutely no chance to beat me. There are not a lot of Jounin who could take me in a fight. So I never expected that you could even land one hit. It was just a way to measure your progress."

You probably know yourself that taijutzu is your weakness. But I'm not sure you know why.

"Because I' m weak. She quietly repeated her sensei's words from that morning."

"Not exactly. Certainly you should make efforts to become stronger but my main critic for you is that you fight stupidly."

Sakura felt her cheeks redden and anger rise inside of her. One thing she had rarely been accused of is stupidity.

"In every one of your movements I recognize the academy taijutzu basics, which isn't bad as such. I don' t await from a young genin that he has already developed his own style, especially without a clan to show him how. But you should be realistic enough to know what can work for you and what has no chance of working. Your small and light and weak compared to most ninjas. Learn to work with that."

"So what should I do?"

"Continue working on your speed. Stop trying to block and learn to dodge. In your place I would try to become more flexible."

"You say that because I' m a girl, right? In the academy only the girl had to do flexibility exercises. Most of the boys just skipped it and did strengthening exercises instead."

"That' s bullshit. How do you think I can keep up in Taijutzu with people like Gai. Do you really think that physically I' m as strong as he is."

Sakura thought about that and looked up and down her sensei who bore it with an amused expression. Her sensei certainly didn't look overly muscled and burly. He actually looked pretty thin and willowy. Which did not mean he wasn't strong. She remembered that in wave country he could wield the big sword of the mist sword man with only one arm. And in a contest against Gai she had seen him balance all his weight on two fingers. But still he certainly wasn't quite as frighteningly powerful and muscly as Gai.

"So you are really doing flexibility exercises."

"Yes."

"Then way don' t you tell Naruto and Sasuke to do it to."

Kakashi seemed to think for a moment.

"If I thought they would really listen to me I might but they must think that "girly stuff" beneath them and that they don' t need it which isn't really wrong. Both Sasuke and Naruto are very strong, physically strong, for their age. Naruto is extremely resistant and without a doubt he will become stronger and stronger with age. He can afford to fight frontally. And if he is really serious about being the defensive element of your three-man-cell then I even encourage that. If your task is to protect your teammates you cannot dodge. Sasuke' s technique is excellent, he is strong and quick. Maybe at one time he could profit from more flexibility but right now I won' t force him."

Sakura nodded, satisfied. These seemed like reasonable explanations.

For the next hour Kakashi walked her through various exercises to make her more flexible. And she thought strength work out hurt! Her teacher demonstrated several twisted routines that she found completely impossible to reproduce. Kakashi constantly adjusted her stance and movement and often seemed baffled that she couldn't do certain things ( Ma, what is that. Why can't you do splits. Can't all normally constituted humans do splits. See? It' s easy.). She thought that if Ino had been here she would have made several lewd comments but she hurt to much to think anything of her teacher's hand on her thigh when he told her to move it more to the left or took hold of her shoulders to force her to sit straight

Finally she rolled to the ground forgetting about dirt and sweatiness and just moaned in pain.

Her teacher chuckled awkwardly

"We may have gone overboard a little. Want to see how the boys are doing?"

And so she forced her trembling legs to take her weight again and shuffled behind the copy-ninja feeling wrung-out but quite satisfied with the world. After they neared a clearing in the tree-covered training area Kakashi turned to her and signaled her to be quiet. For a second she wanted to admonish him about sneaking up and spying on people but the thrill of excitment and mischief affected her too and a sinister smile crept on her face.

They were both very careful to not make any noise while approaching, him with swift, agile movements honed over years of stealth-missions, her with the careful meticulosity that her determination inspired her. They hid in a tree a few meters away from the clearing and quickly understood that they hadn't needed such carefulness. Both boys were absolutely concentrated. Sasuke was able to slowly let the pebble roll on the underside of his forearm but his tense expression and sweat-beaded brow showed that the exercise was still difficult for him. Naruto hadn't come so far. He was still struggling to maintain the minuscule stone stuck on his palm turned towards the ground. Suddenly he seemed to look away following the take-off of a bird and the stone fell to the ground.

Immediately he groaned in frustration. Then a second later Sasuke' s fist slammed onto his head.

"And again! You're you but still how is it possible to fail that often."

"Shut up, stupid. I thought you were supposed to teach me!"

Both Kakashi and Sakura mentally prepared themselves for the upcoming storm of an all out shouting match that seemed to be the inevitable outcome of all interaction between these two. However they must have had that argument so often already that afternoon that they only focused back on their task. After a few seconds and a few looks to what Naruto was doing Sauke sighed and walked over to him.

"See dead-last, the problem is not about how much chakra to use but how concentrated it is."

Naruto nodded vigorously which was a sure sign that he hadn't understood.

Sasuke tsked:

"Give me your hand."

"Huh?"

Sauke growled and took Naruto's hand before turning it to face the sky.

"Close your eyes dead last. Now concentrate."

He touched the palm of Naruto's hand with a finger.

"Do you feel my chakra? Try to gather yours just there. Got it. Ok, I think your getting it. Gather more of it."

Then Sasuke drew back carefully as if he was afraid that even a breath could crash Naruto's concentration. Then he picked up the stone again and deposited it slowly on Naruto's hand.

"Now turn your hand, slowly."

Naruto did as he was told and to both Sasuke's and Naruto' s surprise the stone remained attached.

"Move it. No, not like this just let it roll, careful..."

After a few seconds the pebble began to roll slowly upwards.

It's the moment Kakashi chose to emerge in the middle of the clearing among a completely unnecessary cloud of smoke.

Sasuke jumped...discretely. Naruto cried out clutching his heart and dropping the stone in the process. Sakura stepped out from behind the tree with a sweet smile. Their team would be alright.

The boys demonstrated their progress and their sensei seemed satisfied since he promised to teach them each a new jutzu the next day.

Sakura got home quickly afterward, annoyed for once that most civilians lived so far away from the training grounds. She didn't even hear her mothers angered reprimands at her appearance through the haze of exhaustion and fell asleep a second after shrugging off her red training dress.

A friend of mine who read this chapter ( but without reading the rest of the story, so that may be why) told me it could be read as some kind of introduction to a romance between Sakura and Kakashi. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN. Sakura is 12 or 13 and I just don't see it happening. However I will try to developp a kind of friendship between the two as a counter balance to Naruto and Sasuke's friendship.

DawningAurora: Thank you, you were my first comment and such a kind one!

Kayla: You absolutely right, I hope that it looks better now but don't hesitate to point out other things I could correct.