Kakashi was not in the habit of showing up on time for anything. In truth, he was famous for being late to every event, no matter how important. This reputation had been carefully cultivated for many years, and as far as he knew, nobody ever expected him to arrive at an appointed time, never mind early. The reason for this habit was simple. If nobody expected him on time, then they would never look for him.

Nearly an hour before the test was supposed to start, he had arrived at Training Ground Three. There he waited, crouched in a carefully constructed blind in the trees, known of and maintained secretly by every jonin who took on students and brought them to the place. This training ground was simple, a large dirt clearing surrounded by trees, save for the side with a river on its border. Three wooden posts had been hammered into the ground at some point, and showed signs of regular and brutal target practice from its past use.

He watched silently as Sasuke, Sakura, and eventually Naruto all arrived exactly on time. He observed them for a further two hours, as the sun rose higher and higher, and was glad to note that each of them, Sasuke included, were a little more chatty, generally whispering quietly to one another, possibly planning. At one point, he distinctly thought he heard Naruto say, "That would never work," only for Sakura to shush him.

Eventually he decided they had waited enough to be good and angry, so he took off silently for the entrance of the training ground. Once he arrived there, he started taking a slow and leisurely walk towards his students. When he walked into view, he raised his hand in greeting. "You're late," they all shouted at him. Even Sasuke looked vexed at his late arrival.

Kakashi shrugged and pointed down the road. "You see, a black cat crossed my path and... and..." He shrugged again, and dropped the story, much to his amusement and their aggravation. "So, let's move on." He pulled out an alarm clock and set the alarm for noon, then attached a pair of silver bells to his belt. "You have until noon to claim the bells. Use any means you can." He looked up at them, and let a little iron into his voice. "Come at me with the will to kill me. Nothing less will work against someone of my caliber. Understood?"

The students nodded and settled into fighting stances.

"Right," he said, as he reached into his belt pouch and pulled... "it"... out.

All three of his students stared as he took his well-worn copy of Icha Icha Paradise and flipped it open in front of his face, and he was amused to see even Sasuke turned a little pink. After a few moment and a giggle, he looked back at them, and said, "Well? Begin."

"All right! Let's have a fair fight!"

Kakashi resisted the urge to roll his eye at Naruto as he stood there and brazenly challenged him to a one-on-one fight. He was surprised to see the other two back off slightly, as if they would take no part in it. "Very well, I'll teach you the first shinobi art, taijutsu, then."

Naruto charged at Kakashi, a little bundle of furious energy windmilling across the dirt. He came in high with a leaping punch, and Kakashi didn't even bother to look at the boy as he grabbed Naruto's fist and pivoted, throwing the boy over his shoulder to tumble in the dirt. Undeterred, Naruto rolled to his feet and came in low, aiming for Kakashi's knee. Kakashi raised his leg, again without looking, and let Naruto slide harmlessly by.

"You know, if taijutsu is not your particular skill, maybe you should stop trying to use it against me."

Naruto yelled and charged, this time keeping his feet on the ground. His stance and attacks were sloppy, ill disciplined, but they were also much harder to predict. Kakashi was willing to grant that, in a one-on-one fight, Naruto would probably manage the middle of the back from his Academy class. Not bad for a genin, but not outstanding. Kakashi noticed that the other two were positioning themselves on either side of him, and took several steps back to keep them within his vision as he parried Naruto's ineffective efforts.

Then Naruto was jumping away from him, and he laughed as he shouted, "Now!" Kakashi ducked slightly and glanced at the other two genin... who did nothing, simply standing in place and watching him. Then they raised their fingers and made the sign of release, vanishing into two puffs of smoke... two very large puffs of smoke that flowed around him and Naruto. A smoke screen, using two clones to keep me in place. Meanwhile, the other two must be off planning something. Kakashi found himself approving of their efforts. They obviously had a plan worked out, if they needed no communication, but in the drifting smoke, Kakashi could still see nothing threatening. Then he heard the faint whistle of wire swishing through the air at high speed, approaching from all sides. Oh ho, he thought cheerfully as Naruto jumped over the rapidly approaching wire, a trap. How quaint.

Kakashi jumped hard, straight up, and pulled the forehead protector that covered his other eye up slightly. His sharingan eye activated instantly, taking in the details of his surroundings with perfect clarity, and he used it to observe the trap in motion below him. He saw several lines crossing through the space he had been standing in earlier, and as he watched, further lines could be seen starting to move through the loose dirt of the training ground. Layer after layer of wire started to pull in towards where they had been fighting, crossing the entire area like a flower slowly closing around him. He could see them all, hundreds of wires flowing into the pattern and starting to cloud the area below with the dirt that concealed them. Even as he reached the apex of his leap, he saw the first strands hit the three training posts, where they struck with enough force to dig into the wood, and more than enough force to bind Kakashi to them if they had caught him.

Not bad, he thought, but not good enough... oh. That was when he noticed the single wire attached to the ground, almost exactly under him and pulled tight in a path that lead straight at him... and past him. A shadow flickered in the corner of his eye, and he smiled even as he turned his back to the ground below and raised his arms to prepare for the attack.

Sasuke, using the wire to guide him, had jumped from the edge of the trees, swinging in a perfect parabolic arc, and when he was above Kakashi he had pulled hard, dragging himself out of the arc and flying straight at his teacher, head first and leg cocked for a powerful kick.

Kakashi blocked the kick, feeling it hammer hard into his arms hard enough to risk harming him if it had landed. He barely felt the tug at his belt, but he felt it, and smiled even harder as he resisted the urge to stop the genin from snagging the bells. I don't need to win here, he thought, I need to lose to their combined efforts. How else would you encourage teamwork? He gave Sasuke a push to make sure the boy landed on his feet instead of his head, then landed on his own feet with a thud.

Sasuke landed, gracefully for such a hard landing, then straightened and looked at Kakashi with a smirk. He held his hand out, fist closed, then opened it to let the bells dangle and chime on their strings. From the tree line, hundreds of Naruto's shadow clones set up a cheer, a few even bursting out of the river to do so, while the original Naruto and Sakura broke cover and ran to join Sasuke.

Kakashi stood, tucking his book away, and allowed himself to smile under his mask. "Well done, you three. The trap was well executed and nicely layered, Naruto, and a good use of your excessive manpower. And Sasuke, you focused on the mission instead of proving yourself against me, which is the right choice for a shinobi." He looked at their grinning faces, and decided to go for broke, in the hopes of reinforcing the lesson. "Sakura," he said, allowing his voice to harden just a little, "I am disappointed you did nothing to contribute."

Her face fell as he said that, and Naruto sputtered and raised a fist to argue, but it was Sasuke who spoke first, glaring at Kakashi even harder than normal."When you left yesterday, she was the one who suggested we plan ahead and show up hours early to set a trap. She's also the one who suggested the wire trap idea after we found out the dobe could make shadow clones, and figured out where you would jump when it went off. She even suggested the wire I used to correct my course, so I could jump before you did and adjust accordingly." He said this in the same dull voice, like delivering a lecture, but his tone did nothing to negate the look of pride on Naruto's face, or the shocked and grateful blush on Sakura's.

"Yeah!" shouted Naruto. "She even put together a script for my clones to follow, so I could sound convincing if someone was watching us!" He crossed his arms and grunted. "Not that you'd have noticed, being so late and all."

Sasuke tossed the bells behind him, not even turning to look, and Sakura caught them as they fell. "It is as much her victory as mine or the dobe's. We won together." Behind him, his teammates cheered, and for a brief moment, just a moment, he smiled.

Excellent, thought Kakashi, and he allowed himself a little pride as managing to teach the most important lesson they would ever need.

"Mah, mah, don't get too enthused," he said, waving his hands, "I took it easy on you, you know." They all smirked, and he laughed a little. "Still, I am proud of you three. That was excellent teamwork, and it'll help all of you in your future goals." He looked at Sasuke and tilted his head slightly. "All of your goals," he repeated, and Sasuke gave a small nod. "Well, let's go get lunch, and we'll talk on how we'll be training in the future, shall we? My treat."

Naruto and Sakura's excited shouts rang loud in his ears, but not loud enough to block out Sasuke's quiet whisper.

"As long as it's not ration bars."

Kakashi smiled at his students as they settled into the barbeque place he had taken them to. Naruto had been clamoring for ramen, of course, but Kakashi was footing the bill, and he still wanted to encourage Sakura to eat properly as a shinobi. He was quite content to note that when it came time to order their portions, Sakura's was no smaller than Sasuke's. He was much less pleased at the size of Naruto's order, but he decided to take the loss gracefully.

"You did well," he said after their server left with their order, a strange grimace on her face. The three of them beamed at him as he talked, still flush with excitement from their victory. "In the future, we will have the following schedule. Each day, you will arrive at training ground three no later than eight in the morning. I will try to arrive on time, but should I not arrive, you are to spar or otherwise practice whatever you have been assigned. I trust you to do so, both to make yourself and your teammates into better shinobi. At eleven, we will break for an hour for lunch and personal needs. After that, we'll take a mission, which will be far less exciting than you are thinking, Naruto." The orange-clad boy made a face, but he settled down a little.

"After the mission, we will return to Training Ground Three to continue training as I see fit. We will do this every day." He nodded as the genin looked at him with surprise. "No," he said cheerfully, "I don't intend to work you every day of the week. Instead, I want you to tell me when you need a day off. When you're so sore you think you might hurt yourself, when you need to get something important done, even if you just want to go see a movie, tell me, and I'll give you three the day off."

Kakashi had expected approval from at least two of the genin, but instead, all three looked rather upset about that arrangement. He smiled at them under his mask, and said, "That said, I will also work you as long as you like. If you don't need it, don't take it, and you'll get that much stronger for it."

Naruto grinned. "I'm sure not going to take any days off more than I have to. I need to become strong to become the Hokage."

Sasuke nodded in grudging approval at that. "For once, we agree, dobe. I need as much power as I can get. I'll be right there with you."

Sakura looked at the two of them. "I... I'm not sure I can do as much as you two. I'm not nearly as physically fit as you. I may need to rest my body at times." She didn't mention the occasional family demand, wouldn't, couldn't, not in front of Sasuke. And Naruto, she added as an afterthought. But she looked at their faces, both filled with a mix of understanding and disappointment, and vowed to do better. She clenched her fists and gave them a smile. "But I won't take a single day more than I have to."

Naruto cheered loudly, but Sakura barely noticed. She barely noticed their food arriving. She barely noticed eating her meal. She barely noticed the fight between Kakashi and Naruto when the boy tried to order seconds. Because in that brief moment, when she vowed to be stronger for them, Sasuke had turned and smiled at her. It was a quick smile, and he had gone back to ignoring her after it, but it was the first time he ever reacted to her.

IN YOUR FACE, INO-PIG!, Sakura's inner self shouted.

EDIT: Thanks to Pom Rania, who has now gone over this chapter in an effort to finally stamp out the early installment weirdness *GLUG*

Author's Note: People generally point out by now that Sasuke turns around awfully quick in this story. I could draw out the "Sasuke is angsty" thing longer, but to be honest, in the first canon arc, Sasuke is not nearly the sociopath he becomes after the Exam arc. He is, to some limited degree, sociable, if not friendly. The difference here is that someone who is known to be powerful has directly stated that power comes with teamwork. If Sasuke is willing to betray everything for power, how hard is it to believe that he might have tried something less drastic, if his teacher encouraged that trait instead of letting the little sociopath-to-be mope his way through teamwork building exercises without actually do a single thing to build teamwork. For the purposes of this story, I am working with the premise that at this point in time, Sasuke was still a kid, albeit a mentally scarred one.