"How can you stand Neji?" Naruto asked. He'd met up with Team 9 on his way to meet up with his own team, like he did most days when they were already on their way to the mission office. They walked together a lot... In the time they'd been meeting up, Naruto had gotten tips and tricks from Gai, offers of sparing and hanging out after training for the day from Lee and Tenten (that he'd taken them up on a few times), and general advice from the more experienced Genin. But Neji... well, he barely spoke five words that weren't degrading or belittling in some way.

Towards both Naruto and his own teammates, but especially Naruto and Lee. Tenten was mostly spared his biting words and cutting glares. Mostly...

She laughed lightly. "Shared misery." She said with a wry smile. At his confused look, she elaborated. "Don't get me wrong, Gai-sensei and Lee are both great guys. Gai-sensei is a great teacher, and Lee is very caring. But they can be a little... much sometimes. Especially when they get going. Sometimes they can forget that not everybody is a stamina or workout freak like they are, and there are their eccentricities. So, like I said, shared misery. Me and him may not get along all the time, and I may not like how he treats Lee and others around him sometimes, but at the end of the day, it's us two against them." She chuckled a little.

"And, despite his general attitude, he is a good teammate. He watches our backs, he's usually the first there with a field kit when one of us is hurt, and he coordinates well with us when we need to do a battle formation. Oftentimes in battle, it's like we just know what the other two are thinking." She looked at Naruto, and stopped when he did. What they didn't notice, was that the rest of Team 9 was listening to their conversation.

Naruto looked dejected. "I wish Sasuke and Sakura could be like that." He muttered.

"What do you mean?" She asked, glancing at Gai-sensei and seeing him looking serious.

"No matter what I do, I can't get them to work with me. Every time I try to ask them to meet up after training or missions, they either ignore me and leave, or demand to know why they would want to go anywhere with me and leave. The only comments I ever get are degrading and if I were ever in trouble and needed them, they would probably just stand back and laugh, probably make a few comments about me not being strong enough to handle it by myself." He said, miserably.

"Where is Kakashi in all this?" Gai asked suddenly, disturbed. Gai couldn't believe that Kakashi let this happen, not with all the preaching he did about teamwork, but then again... Kakashi was kind of the Lone Wolf of the village. He worked with teams, and worked with them very well, but he was off on his own more often than not. And considering how Kakashi started his own career, he supposed it shouldn't be too surprising if Kakashi knew nothing about how to get these kids to work together.

Naruto shrugged slightly. "They aren't as bad when he's around. But, he's always late, and he's always reading that book! He never pays us any attention." At least, not when Naruto was around. He had no idea what happened between his teammates and Sensei when he wasn't there, or if he really did ignore all three of them equally.

Gai frowned, and Neji for once was silent. He knew that he didn't treat his teammates the best, he was cold and often seemed heartless. He also didn't really see the point in being nice to them, and, while he was rather impressed with how strong Lee was, he still thought it to be a futile endeavor considering his lack of Chakra abilities. One of these days, the other boy was going to come up against an enemy that he just couldn't fight with just Taijutsu. However, he also knew that he would never even contemplate the idea of leaving his teammates behind if they were in trouble. The concept of working as a team had been trained (beaten) into him by Gai, and even the Hyuga, despite how standoffish they were on general principle.

"Hmm... perhaps I should speak with my Friendly Rival." He muttered. "Do Not Worry, Naruto! You and Your Teammates will Someday Share your Power of Youth Together!" He boomed, extending his arms and beaming at his students and one tag-a-long.

Naruto blinked. "Er, thanks, sensei." He smiled weakly, not quite sure what he meant, but choosing not to really question it.

"Now come, you do not want to be late, and we have a Youthful day of missions awaiting us!" Gai announced, and turned to continue on their way.

Tenten grimaced, but turned to follow her team, with Naruto following after them after a moment. "See you guys!" He waved them good-bye at the spot near the bridge where he met his team. Unknown to him, Gai paused and created a Shadow Clone to follow him and observe Team 7. He grimaced at the sudden drop in his Chakra reserves, but he had enough for another if needed, and he relied more on his Taijutsu than anything else, anyway. Besides, he didn't anticipate needing a lot of Chakra today, since they were on D-ranks while he waited for a good C-rank to come in.

"Your late!" Sakura yelled, glaring at him when he finally reached the bridge.

He took a deep breath and plastered the biggest grin on his face before bouncing over. "Com'on! Sensei's not here yet!" He said loudly and boisterously.

She growled and stomped towards him. "That's no excuse!" She screeched, raising her fist and hitting him. Hard.

"Oww! Sakura!" He whined, kneeling down and holding his head. She snorted, satisfied, then stomped back to where she was standing. As soon as her eyes fell on Sasuke again, she was back to sighing and watching him with doe-eyes. Naruto stood up, still rubbing his head, and sighed before going to stand by the rail to sulk. Sasuke, for his part, completely ignored his two teammates.

In his tree, the Clone shook his head at what he'd witnessed of Naruto's teammates. For one thing, surely they knew to do some personal training while waiting? His Genin knew to not wait around for him on the rare occasions he was late, they knew to use their time productively. He'd often come to the meeting spot to find the boys helping Tenten improve her already impeccable aim by wearing bullseye's in various places on their bodies and running at high-speed around to provide a fast-moving target. It also had the added benefit of providing a good workout for the boys, and improving their evasion tactics.

And not even Neji, he who in the beginning absolutely loathed having anything to do with his fellow teammates, would have just hit another teammate like that. She didn't even ask him where he was or let him explain.

"Most Unyouthful." He muttered, narrowing his eyes. After watching them for ten more minutes, in which they did nothing but sigh and swoon over the Uchiha (Sakura), he huffed in annoyance and vanished, appearing moments later in the most likely place to find one perpetually late Jonin instructor.

Kakashi didn't acknowledge his presence at first, but then he finally spoke. "You're quiet today." He commented, sounding amused, and concerned. Why had Gai sent him a Clone? That wasn't like him. His Chakra felt unusually serious, too.

"Young Naruto made some interesting comments this morning." Gai said simply, and Kakashi finally turned his head, showing his interest and confusion. Kakashi knew, of course, about Naruto's 'meetings' with Team 9, Gai had regaled him with the details of Naruto's Youthfulness more than once. "So I made a Clone to observe his teams interactions."

Kakashi sighed and turned fully, not liking where this was going. He knew that, despite the personalities on his team, Gai's team was one of the most successful working units among the Genin forces. He also knew there were problems among his team, but he hadn't observed anything too troubling. "What happened?" He asked warily.

"Naruto was perhaps a few minutes later than the time you set to meet, as he was with us talking. Instead of asking him where he'd been, he was yelled at for being late. When he tried to apologize, he was hit instead, and wasn't allowed to explain why, even though he tried to point out that it wasn't like you were there, or that they were doing anything other than standing around. She then started sighing over the Uchiha, who ignored his teammates completely. I am sure they are still right where I left them, standing around and doing nothing." Gai pointed out one of the parts of the scene he saw that bothered him, after explaining the part that really bothered him. "You know, even with all the problems I had with Neji in the beginning, not even he would berate and strike his teammates for no reason at all." He said with a raised eyebrow.

Kakashi sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair in frustration. Why did it sound like his team was getting worse? "I thought they were starting to come together better than that." He muttered. They still had problems, of course, Sasuke and Sakura refused to have much of anything to do with Naruto unless he was there to force them to work together, but... "What exactly did Naruto say this morning?" He asked, concerned and dreading the answer.

"He said that if he ever got into trouble, he was sure the two of them would prefer to stand back and laugh, or taunt him about not being able to handle it himself." The Clone answered promptly. "He said they weren't so bad when you were around, but that you weren't around often. And when you were, you read that book of yours all the time."

Kakashi sighed. "I was trying to let them work out their own dynamic." He explained. "It's my experience that you can't force good teamwork, perhaps I should try something drastic..." He muttered. If Naruto felt that he couldn't trust his teammates to watch his back on a mission, then...

"Something will need to be done, Friend, or they will completely fall apart at best." Gai warned, and it was only their long friendship that kept Kakashi from getting offended at being told how to handle his team. Gai was under no illusions, if he were anybody else, he might have found himself in the hospital for a few days at minimum for daring to talk this way to the powerful Elite.

Kakashi merely nodded and vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving the Clone to sigh and look at the Memorial Stone, easily picking out his fathers name on the stone, before letting his eyes wander over the many names covering its surface. Some of the names belonged to somebody he knew, others were before his time, or those that he'd just heard in passing at some point. Quietly, he paid his respects to the fallen before going back to his tree near the bridge to see just how Naruto's teammates acted with their sensei around. He was surprised to find Kakashi sitting beside him, seemingly watching for himself before he acted.

"And here I thought they would be more mature and independent by now." Kakashi muttered. Did they just stand there every morning, waiting for him? Gai said nothing.

"Yo!" Kakashi said, raising a hand and waiting for the usual screech of 'You're late!' from his pinkette and blonde. "Ah, yes, well, I had to take care of some business this morning." He said simply, for once not using any of his usual excuses.

"As i- wait. That actually sounds real." Sakura paused halfway through her usual shout that he was also a liar on top of being late. He just raised an eyebrow at her, ignoring how Naruto was eyeing him suspiciously before glancing up at the sun, and eyeing him again. Ah, he was only a half-hour late, opposed to his usual hours.

"Helping an old lady with her groceries, and avoiding a black cat aren't realistic?" He questioned, faking a wounded expression.

She just glared, so he shrugged, not actually caring. Suddenly, he straightened up, and the lazy care-free attitude he usually portrayed disappeared, replaced by the Elite Jonin of Konoha and ANBU Captain. His students blinked in surprise at the change, with Naruto cautiously straightening up himself.

"I had hoped that the three of you could learn to work together without my having to force it. I had hoped that this could become a strong, tight-knit team. Even though none of you ever did anything as a team outside of training and missions, I'd hoped that would change in time. It has become clear to me that none of what I'd hoped for will ever happen." He glared around at the three of them. "Of the three of you, only Naruto makes any attempt at teamwork or bonding as a team. And the two of you..." He shook his head in disgust before sighing. "Clearly you three can't be trusted to work things out on your own. So..." He grinned evilly. "I will have to work it out for you." Sakura and Naruto looked apprehensive, while Sasuke looked just as passive and indifferent as ever. Kakashi was momentarily offended that he wasn't taking this seriously, but decided that he would learn soon enough.

Clone-Gai nodded in satisfaction and settled in to watch, just out of curiosity. He could have dispelled himself, but he was interested in the young Uchiha, although so far he was not impressed, and Naruto. He felt that he'd seen enough of the girl to know what she was like. She was loud, abusive, and she fawned after the Uchiha despite his own attitude towards her. He hoped that Kakashi could fix that. He couldn't help but notice that Naruto seemed hopeful right now.

He hoped that Kakashi was able to get through to them. As a Jonin-sensei, it was his duty to ensure the safety of his students, no matter where the threat came from, while under his care. The other Jonin-sensei of the village shared that duty as well, and any one of them could and would report to the Hokage if another team wasn't a safe environment and request one or all of the students be transferred to another team. It was preferred that the Jonin share his concerns with the sensei responsible for that team, and see if the situation resolved itself first, technically speaking Gai didn't have to say anything at all to Kakashi about Naruto's concerns. He could have gone straight to the Hokage.

Yes, they were learning to be Shinobi, learning to be fighters, killers, assassins, and thieves. But that didn't mean they shouldn't be able to train in safety. There was a certain level of trust expected, trust that the Sensei would have the best interests of their students well-being in mind as well as their training. Trust that your teammates would be there for you (at least after the expected time period where they learned to get along and be a team).

Did training accidents occur? All the time. It was the job of the sensei to ensure that those accidents were infrequent, and were actually accidents, and not purposeful.

He smiled in satisfaction when he saw that the three Genin were currently being chased through the trees in a rough circle around the training field. Kakashi wasn't going easy on them, not anymore it seemed.

Sakura fell to the ground, panting. Her limbs were no longer able to support her weight, she felt like she'd been run over by a run-away horse. And it's entire herd. Followed by a herd of the Nara deer.

She didn't know what had gotten into their lazy sensei over the last two weeks, but she didn't like it. Ever since he arrived, only a half hour late, to their team meeting it had been hard work-outs. Running laps until they couldn't anymore (no set number, just run), hard sparring sessions, ninjutsu drills until it felt like her hands were going to fall off, tree climbing until she passed out, strength building exercises. And the whole time he was talking about the values of teamwork and challenging them to learn to work together.

To make matters worse, he'd taken great delight in forcing them to live in each others homes. He refused to let them go their separate ways at the end of the day.

For the first night, they stayed in Sasuke's apartment. Then they'd stayed in her house with her parents fawning over Sasuke and either glaring at or refusing to acknowledge Naruto's existence (her mother had even 'forgotten' to make up a plate for Naruto for dinner... Sasuke was surprisingly the one to speak up first and share his food with the blonde, with her adding part of hers. Kakashi had been pleased when it was mentioned the next day). Then they'd spent the night in Naruto's apartment.

She'd been appalled to realize he lived in the red-light district of the village, in one of the most run-down buildings there. He had no food in the kitchen, half his appliances didn't work, and he had no hot water for her to take a proper shower. She'd even seen the faint outline of painted words, obviously cleaned up and faded with age, but still there.

They were just faded enough, though, that she must have misread them. Sure, Naruto could be annoying, but to call him a demon and tell him to die?

Regardless of how little he had, he'd shared what he did have without hesitation. It was... humbling, to say the least. And it was probably what her sensei was trying to achieve with making them live together at each other's apartments. He'd forced her eyes open, that was for sure.

After those three days, he'd moved them into an old clan compound and told them to make it livable again, because they were living here for the foreseeable future. Neither of the boys had been able to tell her what clan this used to belong to, and her sensei wouldn't say. All Naruto knew was that it had been abandoned a very long time, probably before they were even born, but he'd seen Genin teams in here maintaining the buildings, so somebody from that clan was still around. Sasuke had said that if the clan were truly dead, then the village would have claimed the land and either torn down or fixed up the buildings for their own uses by now.

It had taken them a surprisingly short amount of time to fall into a routine while living here. Most of the struggle seemed to be in getting Naruto to eat anything other then instant ramen. She didn't think his refusal came from not liking other food, either, there was something more there...

"Come on, Sakura. You need to keep moving." Naruto stopped beside her and reached down to help her up. He was barely breathing hard, like usual, and Sasuke was jogging in place nearby, keeping an eye out. Today they were running evasion drills, and they could not separate or stop under any circumstances. They had to complete the course as a team, or not at all. The only reprieve Kakashi seemed interested in giving them (for now) was if they were helping a teammate up after they fell.

(Because it was teamwork, right?)

"Come on!" Sasuke hissed, and grabbed her other arm, almost jerking her to her feet. Between Naruto's place under her arm, and Sasuke holding onto her other elbow, they managed to get moving again, but they all knew that they were sitting ducks like this. It would be much harder to evade when she was being held up like this, so she did her best to get moving again under her own power.

If anything, these last two weeks had hammered home just how weak she was. She could not remember the amount of times the two boys had had to carry her like this, or take a hit meant for her because she was too weak to even move.

"Move!" She heard Naruto shout a moment before she was shoved forward roughly, the dull thunk of a Kunai hitting the dirt right where she had been standing letting her know the reason why. She gritted her teeth, got her feet under her again, and forced herself to keep moving. She did not want to spend the night in the hospital again, no thank you. She heard Sasuke on her other side deflect some more thrown weapons while they ran, and she pulled out several Kunai of her own.

"Come on, guys. Almost there. Just a little further." Naruto started a quiet litany of encouragement under his breath as they ran and stumbled, fending off attacks. They'd been out here for forty-five minutes already, they had to be close to the end point of the 'course' Kakashi had set up. But, not only were he and Sasuke having to practically carry Sakura by this point, he could see Sasuke starting to lag, too, while he himself knew he could keep going for several hours.

"Stop here for a moment." Sakura gasped suddenly, and the boys pulled her close to a tree, under some overhanging branches.

"What? We have to keep moving." Sasuke said urgently, knowing that if they stopped for more then about a minute, Kakashi would come after them again to flush them out. She didn't say anything, merely reached for his leg, making the boys look down. "Oh." He said, blinking. He hadn't noticed that.

"Let me pull this out, then we can keep going." She huffed out. A week into their new training regime, Kakashi had thrown medical texts and jutsu scrolls at her and told her to start studying. He'd even signed her up for the entrance exam at the hospital in two more weeks, to see if she could start in the learning program for field medics at least. If she excelled there, she could go on to learn how to be an actual doctor and not just a field medic. Of course, it would require her to take shifts there that would leave her out of team training a few days a week, but she felt it would be worth it. That wasn't to say that the boys weren't going to learn what they could about medicine, she was going to teach them what she could so that if she wasn't around for whatever reason, they weren't completely hopeless.

And just because she hadn't started taking the actual classes yet, didn't mean she didn't know what she was doing right now, not since she'd practically devoured any bit of theoretical knowledge that she could get her hands on, not just what Kakashi had given her, and then he'd walked her through what he knew of first aid and field medicine when needed. She'd been skeptical at first, but she actually found herself interested in it, and good at it, she felt like she could really go far in medicine.

When Sasuke went to protest, she shut him up with a quick look. "It's lodged in a major muscle group. If I don't get it out, it will just slow you down. Adrenaline is probably the only thing keeping you going as it is." She grumbled and quickly pulled the needle out, applying some Healing chakra to the area carefully. She was confident enough that she could do it right.

"Alright?" Naruto asked, glancing back at them for a second from where he was keeping watch for their sadistic sensei.

"Yeah, lets go." The small break gave her a bit of a boost, but the few precious moments of being in one place after such intense exercise meant her muscles were already starting to cramp up. She grimaced when she stood up and shook her legs to try and alleviate it a bit.

As soon as she said that, a hail of Kunai and more Senbon needles rained down on them, making them bolt. "I think he's starting to actually aim those things." Naruto grunted at Sasuke's observation.

"He's also starting to use more weapons. He's never used Senbon before." Sakura puffed.

"Just keep moving!" Naruto gritted out as Sakura almost tripped and dragged him to the ground with her. It was a good thing she did, too, because a sandaled foot sailed right through where his head was a moment ago. Kakashi landed on the ground in front of them, eye-smiled at them, and vanished again.

"Move. Move, move, move, move!" Sasuke urged, alarmed by this break in pattern, and started pulling them along, senses sharp for any sign of their sensei making a return appearance.

"Almost there." Naruto grunted when he hauled Sakura to the side a few moments later to avoid another hail of weapons, and deflected another sent straight for him. Of course, they never knew where the 'finish line' was, but it had to be almost over, right? The two boys were practically carrying Sakura between them at this point, while Sasuke himself was barely keeping upright. They'd already gone further today then they had all week.

"Time!" Kakashi was suddenly standing in front of them, all eye-smiles and lazy attitude as if he hadn't spent the last hour and a half trying to kill them. (Of course, they didn't know enough about him yet to know. If he really wanted them dead, he wouldn't be trying. They'd be dead already.)

Sakura immediately collapsed, almost unconscious, while Sasuke allowed himself to collapse. Naruto was the only one to remain standing, but Kakashi wasn't too concerned about that. He knew it would take a lot more then a chase through the forest to bring down an Uzumaki.

"Good job today. You three stayed together, and you were only hit once." He congratulated. Which meant it was time for him to up his own game. Sasuke was correct. He had actually put effort into aiming in the last fifteen minutes of the exercise. He snorted when all he received were mild glares from two teens who were half-awake (if that), and a full blown glare from Naruto. He didn't say anything, though, instead handed over their lunches. They'd earned them, after all.

"Finish eating, and then we have D-ranks." This was the first mission they'd taken since Gai had spoken with them, he'd chosen to focus on whipping them into shape before trusting them with another mission. Since he'd 'fixed' Naruto's housing situation (by moving his entire team into the old Hatake Compound), he wasn't too worried about his students not having funds for the time he spent focused on their training instead of taking any missions. The only thing they'd needed money for was food, and Sasuke and Sakura both took care of that since Sasuke had a regular allowance from his family fortune and Sakura still got a weekly allowance from her parents.

Naruto wouldn't know what to get, anyway, nor would most shopkeepers sell to him. Or sell to him for the correct price.

"Missions?" Naruto perked up, even though it was those stupid D-ranks. But it was something that wasn't training!

"Yes." Kakashi confirmed.

"All right!" Naruto cheered, making Sakura feel even more exhausted just sitting next to him.

"Where does he find the energy?" Sasuke groaned.

"I don't know, but he's carrying me to bed tonight." Sakura grumbled. She was too tired, she might just collapse as soon as they got in the door. Sasuke was almost in the same boat as her, so that left Naruto to carry them.

Kakashi and the Gai-clone in the tree smiled at the interactions, pleased with how far this team had come in such a short time. He was glad his ploy had worked. Now he just had to keep up the pressure so they didn't fall back into old habits. It was almost time to make them share secrets, like the Kyubi and Itachi.

They were a much better team now, and he wasn't going to let them go back to what they were.