AN: I apologize to everyone for the lateness of this chapter. A lot of my relatives have been sick lately, and I just haven't had the time to write at all. I haven't abandoned this fic though, so I hope you enjoy this chapter.

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Chapter Five: First Fears

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The cautious seldom err. - Confucius

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It wasn't long before Gai sent along a message to Kakashi detailing his plans. In true Maito Gai form, the message was found in an almost empty milk carton in Kakashi's refrigerator and was encrypted in a code that utterly failed to be innocuous. Kakashi sighed and set about cracking it.

"Dear Mr. Youthful Ninja," the letter began. "We apologize, but the price of our milk has gone up. But please, give us the opportunity to explain!"

Kakashi set the note down, momentarily distracted. This was absurd, even by Gai's standards. Then again, there was that persistent rumor about the Hokage refusing to let Gai go on undercover missions. Something about Gai throwing the mission when he tried to fight some important somebody-or-other's body guard for some perceived slight of honor. Kakashi had dismissed those rumors as being too bizarre to be true, but...

Kakashi picked up the letter again.

"We have set up a date for a seminar promoting cow friendliness..."

Kakashi incinerated the letter.

Anyway, he knew enough. Gai had a mission lined up. All he'd have to do is wait for the Hokage to give it to their teams jointly. The details didn't matter.

At least, the details weren't worth sacrificing his already tenuous sanity for.

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The week progressed as usual, on the surface. However, Kakashi slowly began to feel an underlying tension in his team. It was evident in dozens of little ways. Team Seven was training harder than ever, which was a minor miracle. Kakashi had never seen a genin team train together like his rookies. Together being the key word.

Kakashi had trained like a madman as a member of Team Minato. But he had only attended the bare minimum of team exercises. There had been times when Minato had literally been forced to order Kakashi to participate.

Not his prouder moments.

His case, of course, was extreme, but it wasn't uncommon for young genin to underrate the importance of teamwork. It was the reason why Konoha gave genin to jounin commanders. Drill teamwork in the brats above all else.

But Team Seven appeared to be the exception that proved the rule. All three were very proficient in their various fields. Sasuke, as expected due to his Uchiha heritage, was going to be a ninjutsu specialist. He was mostly concerned with increasing his chakra reserves. Sakura had definitely decided to expend her energy mastering medical ninjutsu, which made Kakashi wonder if she, like so many other kunoichi her age, idolized Tsunade the Sannin. Naruto, no doubt thanks to the Kyuubi, was practically a walking reservoir of chakra. Kakashi had found that Naruto loved learning new techniques, but Naruto loved finding new and unusual uses for said techniques even more.

Most of these new uses were due to Naruto's signature jutsu, the Kage Bunshin. Naruto's ability to multiply into a small army in seconds was on it's own, quite formidable. But Naruto had a talent for taking small, harmless jutsu and turning them into potentially battle-winning annoyances.

For example, Kakashi taught his team a water jutsu designed to condense water vapor into drinking water. It was a technique he had copied off a Mist nin, and in Konoha's moderately humid climate it produced a small trickle of water, enough for a single drink. It was a slow technique, and absolutely useless in more arid climates, but it took a fair degree of chakra control. Perfect for his talented genin.

Sakura, with her excellent chakra control, performed the jutsu correctly on her first time. She then allowed Sasuke to copy her with the Sharingan. Which was interesting in two respects, first Sakura's willingness to share with her team, and second the fact that Sasuke had asked permission to copy first. Most Sharingan users... most Uchiha, had had a tendency to copy first, ask questions later, even when allies were involved. But then again, Sasuke seemed surprisingly non-committal about his clan. On the few occasions Sasuke talked about his family, Kakashi couldn't really discern Sasuke's real feelings on the matter.

Kakashi wondered if Sasuke knew himself.

In any case, it was Naruto who was the most interesting out of the three. It took him a few tries to get the jutsu right, but when he did, a torrent of water resulted that drenched his shoes (and Sakura's, who was unlucky enough to be standing next to him.)

After a loud, angry argument and an equally loud, pain-induced apology, Team Seven found that they could no longer practice the jutsu because Naruto had inadvertently "wrung" all the water out of the air. Thus, the training session ended a half success. At least the kids had learned the jutsu, Kakashi decided. Naruto just needed, as always, to work on reducing his chakra output. As he left, though, Kakashi noted a thoughtful look on Naruto's face that quickly disappeared.

The reason for the thoughtful look became evident next day, during a sparring match. Sasuke and Sakura had collaborated to cover the field in paper bombs set to go off on touch. Naruto quickly preformed the Kage Bunshin jutsu, and each of his clones jumped into the air. Kakashi waited for them to fall and set off the bombs.

Instead, each of Naruto's clones formed a familiar set of hand signs. The same, uncontrollable torrent of water appeared, soaking the area and rendering the paper bombs useless.

Naruto still ended up losing that sparring match, but it was still a testament to Naruto's penchant for the unexpected. And while the use of the jutsu in that manner was highly situational, it was still a technique that could prove useful. Ninja prepared for every eventually were ninja who survived, after all.

In any case, Team Seven was under normal conditions more obsessed with training, individual and team, than any other genin team Kakashi had ever witnessed. (Team Gai didn't count, because as far as Kakashi could tell, Gai and his protege weren't human.)

But as the week went on, Kakashi noticed little things. The usually subtle chain of command was showing up more often. Naruto would sometimes bark out orders directly to Sakura and Sasuke, who followed them unquestioningly. Sakura too was more bossy than usual. Unlike Naruto, her orders were always politely worded as requests. Kakashi still didn't understand how the chain of command had evolved. He understood why Naruto led, he was good at it. But Kakashi would have guessed Sasuke to be the second in command, not Sakura. He also would have expected Sasuke to balk at taking orders from either of his teammates, but he just took it with a strange complacency that didn't really fit.

Friday was the oddest day of all. All three of the genin started complaining about wanting a more difficult mission. Which was natural enough, they'd had quite a few months of D-ranks. If Kakashi hadn't known Gai was planning a joint mission, he would have given it to them. They were obviously more than capable of doing a C-rank mission. D-ranks were normally reserved for teams that needed help on their teamwork anyway, which was not Team Seven's problem at all. But he knew what was coming down the pipeline and cheerfully denied them.

The result was quite unexpected.

They kept on about it for a while, for one thing. Team Seven was normally very professional, but for some reason they were very stuck on the idea. Once it was clear to them that Kakashi wasn't going to move from his position, they became very quiet. Kakashi pretended to read his book, and thus noticed Sasuke and Sakura give Naruto helpless, questioning glances once or twice. Naruto stared at Kakashi meditatively.

It was odd behavior, and it was enough to cause him to trail Naruto, as the ringleader, around town after he had dismissed his students. Naruto seemed quite normal, if terribly hard to follow (Kakashi nearly lost him twice, a testament to Naruto's subterfuge skills since no one wearing that shade of orange should have been able to disappear at all.)

He listened as Naruto met up with Umino Iruka at Ichiraku's, and felt a little better after hearing Naruto complain to Iruka about the lack of mission. Iruka yelled back about how Naruto wasn't ready for such a mission. Kakashi filed Iruka's strange protectiveness under his list of Naruto-related anomalies. Then again, Naruto did have a knack for making loyal friends out of the strangest people.

Maybe that explained Team Seven's general weirdness.

He nearly gave up watching Naruto for the night. But if there was one thing ANBU had drilled into Kakashi, it was to take no chances. Thus, he continued to follow Naruto after he waved goodbye to Iruka.

It was getting late, and Kakashi was wondering when Naruto was going to head home when he suddenly realized that Naruto had passed a certain storefront for the third time in half an hour. Warning bells went off in Kakashi's mind, but it was too late.

He followed Naruto until, finally, the clone dispersed. Kakashi hadn't even noticed the switch. He had no way of knowing when Naruto had created the clone, or where the real Naruto had been while Kakashi was watching the clone.

Kakashi felt very glad that he had enlisted Gai's help after all.