Once the weekend was over, Kakashi had shaken off most of the melancholia that he'd suffered through for Veteran's Day. So when Monday came, he was more or less back to his old self. Iruka still threw the occasionally worried glance his way and Kurenai acted in a surprisingly perceptive manner and checked in on him during homeroom.

"I'm fine," Kakashi replied from his slouched position in his chair.

She looked sternly down at him. "You weren't acting fine last week."

Kakashi smiled sadly and shook his head. "I'm over the worst of it, Kurenai-sensei. Don't worry yourself."

The science teacher sighed. "Fine, fine," she said before dropping something on his desk. "For good luck." Kakashi raised an eyebrow and looked at the miniature origami crane before smiling more sincerely.

"Thanks," he said, putting the mini-crane just under his monitor were the students wouldn't take it and it wouldn't get buried under the normal junk that covered Kakashi's desk.

"Sure thing," Kurenai replied, her long hair swishing as she left his room. She paused briefly at the door, speaking to someone, nodding, and leaving as Ebisu, their illustrious vice principal, walked in.

"Hello, Ebisu-sensei," Kakashi greeted, leaning further back in his chair. "What can I do for you this morning?" The English teacher couldn't help but smile. His homeroom had quieted once the vice principal had come in. Ah, fearing authority. Or at least wanting to hear if someone was in trouble. The desire for gossip never changed, after all.

Speaking quietly, Ebisu stated, "Two things, Kakashi-sensei. One, we're having a drill today. Two, I need to speak with Gaara for a moment. Has he appeared yet?"

The Scarecrow glanced around. "Sorry, Ebisu-sensei, I don't think he's here yet."

Ebisu nodded, not at all looking surprised. "When he does show up, send him to me right away."

"Of course," Kakashi agreed. "Anything else I need to know?"

The vice principal looked down his nose. "No, Kakashi-sensei. I hope to see Gaara in my office soon."

Kakashi nodded and once the arrogant man had left his room, he glanced around. He needed a student that was reliable and either needed a task to keep them out of trouble, or a task to raise their confidence level. Getting up, he squeezed between his desk at the back corner of his room and the couch and leaned over to Hyuuga Hinata. "Pardon me," he said, handing over his gradebook, "can you take attendance for me?"

"Umm, uh," she stammered.

"Thank you, that's very kind of you."

Attendance taken care off, Kakashi slipped out of his room and checked in with everyone on his team. He let all of them know to be on the look out for Gaara (Kakashi suspected the quiet kid was skipping or absent today) and to let them know they'd be through a fire drill today. Fire drills were mandated once a month in their district, and the drill they'd done last month hadn't had any major issues other than no advanced warning.

Team Time during E Period was quiet, taking care of a lot of the tedium that Kakashi hadn't been in the proper mind frame to deal with last week. His excuse for being late was simply that he'd been hunting down one of the eighth grade English teachers to see what he missed during professional development. Since the previous week had only three days, food hadn't been brought in. So, Kakashi hoped that his Italian offerings were enough for his reclusive behavior under the excuse that it was because they didn't get to eat properly last week.

After E Period, however, was interesting. He and Iruka were having the students diagram sentences, a teaching method from decades ago that Kakashi saw immense value in. Just because new teaching methods appeared didn't always mean that the old needed to be discarded, and it gave the students a chance to see how sentence structure was formed and how it could vary.

"Will the Symtex repairman please call the office for a test."

That was the announcement and Kakashi was moving as soon as he had heard "Symtex".

"Iruka, behind my desk." With Iruka ushering the students to his no-student zone, Kakashi pulled out his keys, went to his door, and locked it. Quickly glancing in the halls, he saw Maname walking by. "Maname," he called, "get in here now."

"I have to go the nurse!" she pleaded.

"Now!" Kakashi stated more firmly. Shocked that the Scarecrow used such a forceful tone (he never did), she didn't question him again and scurried into his room. Once that was done, Kakashi slammed his door, took a poster he had velcro-ed next to the door and placed it over the window before finally flipping off the lights. Walking back along the wall towards his desk, he pulled one of his bookshelves from the wall to make an obstruction from the door, and then did the same with his couch before settling by his desk with Iruka and his students.

Grand total? Kakashi glanced at his watch. Eleven seconds. Good.

The reason for the flurry of activity? They were in a practice lockdown. The announcement was the code for a lockdown, and the addition of "for a test" meant that this was a drill. Frowning briefly, Kakashi wished that Ebisu had specified what kind of "drill" they were going to do this morning. But then, Ebisu could leave out important details like that.

Lockdowns were something that Kakashi had put a lot of thought into when designing the layout of his room, though one wouldn't know that by looking at it. After all, the English teacher's military experience gave him some good ideas on fortifying a position. His "desk" was a combination of two folding tables, one jutting out from the back wall, the other at an angle. It made Kakashi's no-student-zone and the only way behind was by squeezing between the couch and the angled table. Under the tables, Kakashi kept his refrigerator, microwave and file cabinets. Because of that, it made seeing behind his desk when students were crouched low difficult. The easily moved poster by the door, the bookcase and sofa were further barriers, and the table jutting out from the wall was clear underneath in case students needed to scurry away.

This lockdown was also a reminder that he'd have to get Kurenai into a sign language class. It was something that Kakashi paid for out of his own pocket, but any paraprofessional or teacher on his team would know sign language in case they needed to discuss something. After all, the Scarecrow, of all people, knew how silence could save a life.

He glanced over at Iruka, who was already signing. "I thought you said it'd be a fire drill."

"Ebisu said 'drill'. I assumed. Does Kurenai have any paras with her this period?"

"No, she's solo right now."

Kakashi grimaced. "Do you know what students are with her?"

Iruka shook his head.

Letting out a quiet sigh, Kakashi looked around at his students. So far, so good. He wondered how long until they got bored and started whispering. Granted, this was a drill, and the students probably thought it was a drill as well, but one thing they were going to learn was that Kakashi treated every drill like it was the real thing. It was training of a sort.

"Ino," he whispered, using precise control of his voice to only let it travel as far as it needed to, "sit down. We don't know how long this will take."

"Sensei!" she whined. "I'm wearing white pants. I don't want to get them dirty!"

Despite having worked with children for years, Kakashi took a moment to be completely shocked by the stupidity of that statement.

"So you'd rather have your pristine white pants covered in blood?"

Ino scowled. "Kakashi-sensei, it's just a drill."

Iruka shook his head. "Drill or not, we treat it like it's real. Silence is paramount, as well as staying low. Now sit down or you'll be spending tomorrow with me after school and Wednesday with Kakashi after school."

Huffing, Ino slumped, squashing the hands of the two next to her, Chouji and Shikamaru.

"Sensei," Naruto turned to the special education teacher, "What does 'paramount' mean?"

Kakashi signed, "Pass him a dictionary."

Nodding, Iruka reached up to the stack of dictionaries kept on the English teacher's desk, and passed one to the student.

"But how do you spell it?" Beside the blond, Sasuke snorted and Sakura huffed, grabbing the dictionary, flipping through the pages, and pointed out the word. "Oh."

"Shh!" Temari hissed from between Gaara and Kankuro, "Don't you know the meaning of the word 'silence'?"

"Temari," Kakashi whispered. "Do you want to stay with me tomorrow after school?"

Grumbling something, the blond girl quieted.

Now, drill or not, trying to have twenty-plus kids sit and do nothing and say nothing for an untold number of minutes was asking for trouble. However, the students had been through lockdown drills before, and aside from the initial conversation, Kakashi was rather pleased with how the students were behaving. So, while waiting to hear an administrator come down the hall and open doors, Kakashi let his thoughts wander. Something from last week's unpleasant place had penetrated into his brain and was starting to make it turn. Gai had mentioned about competitiveness throughout the grade. So the English teacher directed his thoughts to his various classes, thinking about literary groups and who to put with whom.

As the quiet continued, Kakashi started to sign back and forth with Iruka, discussing possible groups, plans, etc. Iruka was more or less able to keep up, but his signing skills weren't in very good practice. By contrast, Kakashi, Gai, and Asuma had gone through a sing language course together and were much better. The paraprofessionals weren't bad, but like Iruka, they were often out of practice.

"Iruka, you need practice. Speak sign with your paras to keep in practice."

The special education teacher just rolled his eyes.

Compared to the excitement of a lockdown (okay, lockdowns are boring. Compared to the sudden change), Tuesday was relatively dull. Gai came in with samples of tests from his first two periods that he'd already graded and was ecstatic to show the significant difference that his competitive pairing had created. It wasn't just that the more recent material was recent; no, you could see that kind of difference on any of the tests that Gai brought in from years previous. This was a major difference between regular learning and competitive pairing.

Naturally, Gai wanted to encourage such rivalries. "We should continue our pursuit in utilizing our students' youth to further their education!"

"We heard you the first time," Kakashi drawled. "I've already been thinking of doing literary groups and Iruka and I have already come up with some group choices for our last two periods." The Scarecrow smiled. "The lockdown actually gave us some team ideas."

Kurenai sat back, thinking. "Granted, I already have lab groups, but I wonder how I can use that for competitiveness?"

Asuma shrugged. "Until I can think of something a bit more concrete, I may make a class version of A Period Excellence, so at least they're doing their work. I'll see how that goes and then I can expand. I need to think of a prize other than Homework Tickets, though."

Together, they brainstormed ways for Kurenai and Asuma to try and pick up the competitive theme, but ultimately, Kakashi believed that if the kids could get into the competitiveness, then they'd create their own. He started listing some of his literary group ideas and Gai immediately remarked on how Kakashi's thoughts on groups were similar to the ones that he'd come up with. If there were "standard" groups across the team, it might end up as "study groups" to pick up on subjects were the competition wasn't as well implemented. In any event, it was worth a try. As Kakashi would say if asked, he'd do just about anything to get the students into learning.

"By the way, in case you haven't heard it over the announcements," the Scarecrow added, looking to their science teacher, "Spirit Week is next week. Monday will be school colors: Blue and Silver; Tuesday will be Hat day; Wednesday will be 'Sports' Day where you were the cloths of your favorite team; Thursday will be Twin Day; and Friday will be for Halloween costumes. Make sure your kids in homeroom know that every day they must still be appropriately dressed for school."

Kurenai nodded. "I remember when the sex-kittens and French maids came in for Halloween at my old school. I doubt middle schoolers would do that, but I'll be firm."

Nodding, they went back to brainstorming.

After their plan, Kakashi lingered to talk to Iruka briefly, making the both of them late for the beginning of F Period. Iruka grumbled and Kakashi smiled as they rounded the corner to his room. The students were already starting with the warm-up that was on the board (most of them, anyway), since Kakashi had trained them well during his first month with them. Once it was reviewed, the English teacher took great delight in dividing them into the teams that he had discussed during lockdown with Iruka.

Temari, Gaara, and Kankuro started the groups with Team 1; Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura formed Team 7; Hinata, Shino, and Kiba were team 8; and Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji rounded things off in Team 10. Some of the teams were only pairs, by what Kakashi and Iruka had agreed upon due to various dispositions.

When the class heard the list of teams, they naturally revolted.

Ino was the first voice to be heard over the din. "Why can't I be in Sasuke's Team?"

"You put me with two mutes!" Kiba shouted.

"Why is Naruto with me and Sasuke!"

"Iruka-sensei, why am I with that stoic teme??"

"Hn."

"What the hell kinda grouping is this?" That was Temari.

"Why put me with this troublesome girl?"

Ino glared at Shikamaru before shouting out once more, "Why am I with two speds? I'll be doing all the work!"

The glare Kakashi and Iruka gave shut up the entire class.

"Okay," Iruka calmly and clearly stated, "many of you don't like your Teams. Tough. In the real world, you can't leave a job just because you dislike your coworkers, you'll be unemployed more than employed. These are your groups, treat them with respect and live with it."

Nodding, the Scarecrow added, "Because I won't listen to any complaints from now on." He glanced at Iruka and nodded, going to one of his many bookshelves to start getting the books for the new unit they would start.

Iruka continued, detailing how grading would start to work. "There are going to be two grades for each assignment. The Team grade, and the individual grade. There are 15 possible points available depending on how your Team grade is, that will act as a bonus on any assignment you choose. Similarly, there is a total of 15 possible points available based on your individual grade, that is reserved for tests and quizzes. You're going to have to excel both as a Team and individually in order to help boost whatever you think needs help."

While Iruka continued to detail the assignment and grading, Kakashi passed out books for each literary group and gave a detention to Ino for such disrespectful language. He also paused with some of the groups who had had more legitimate concerns and briefly spoke with them to clear the air. Once that was done and the special education teacher had finished explaining the assignment, Iruka stated, "Teams 1 through 5, come with me to my room." And thus came the loud shuffling and screeching of chairs moving and books being gathered as Iruka took half the class and those remaining started to get together in their groups.

Kakashi merely sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and opened his ears. The first voices he picked out were from Teams 6 and 9, who were sitting near each other and talking a cross between gossip and switching members. So, Kakashi crumpled up a piece of paper and tossed, letting it land squarely in-between their desks. "Team 6 and Time 9, separate yourselves and don't even think about 'trading' people."

"How does he do that?" one of the girls grumbled. Kakashi just smiled blithely.

Sitting back again, the Scarecrow let his ears flow over the groups. Now that Teams 6 and 9 were separated, they were doing much better about discussing what they needed for the assignment. Team 7, however, specifically Sakura, caught his ear next. Since that team was right in front of his desk, Kakashi listened to the byplay, considering for a moment. Finally deciding that Sakura was mature for her age, he took a gamble and called her over.

"Sakura, may I speak with you for a moment?"

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei?"

"How much do you know about your teammates?"

"Huh?"

"For example, do you know what happened over the summer to Sasuke?"

"Yes," she said slowly, not seeing where this was going. "He lost his parents."

Nodding, Kakashi continued, "Do you know what happened to Naruto just a few weeks ago?"

"Not really. Everyone knows he changed foster parents again, but nobody knows what he did this time."

Good. Sandaime's request to teachers to not discuss Naruto was honored. Unfortunately, Naruto's long-standing lack of status with his peers was injuring him in that regard as well. "He didn't do anything, Sakura. If either he or Sasuke choose to tell you about what happens in their lives, that will be their choice. However, you are the only example of what stability is for them right now. Neither of them is ready for any sort of relationship outside of friendship, because they're dealing with too much right now. So I strongly recommend that you think about what you say with them. Be yourself, yes, but treat both of them respectfully. Do that and you'll avoid most problems in your team."

Sakura's jaw had long since dropped, no doubt shocked at the level of consideration that went into Kakashi and Iruka's choices of teams.

"Don't change yourself, Sakura. Just don't go for things they can't offer."

Still somewhat awestruck, the young girl walked back to her team in a daze.

"Hey, Sakura-chan, what did Kakashi-sensei want?"

That shook the pink haired girl out of her shock as she turned to Naruto. "Kakashi had some questions about an assignment I had turned in. I straightened everything out."

"That's good, now can you explain this assignment to me again, I think I'm still missing something."

"Dobe."

"Teme! What did you say?"

Sakura sighed, suddenly looking very much like a mother dealing with two toddlers. Slowly and patiently, she went through the assignment details for Naruto, while Sasuke started reading the book that Kakashi had given their group. Once she finished, Sakura issued what was probably the best challenge anyone ever could. "I bet that Sasuke will understand this book better than you, Naruto!"

"Hah!" the blond replied. "I'll show you I'm just as good as he is!"

"Prove it," Sakura demanded, an evil grin quirking at her lips. "Read it and then both of you come over to my house this afternoon and we'll discuss the book. Then we'll see."

Kakashi smiled. Sakura was still proving that she preferred Sasuke over Naruto, but in a perceptive twist, she used the competition to get Naruto quiet and reading for the remainder of class. Kakashi briefly wished he could visit Sakura's house after school as well, because he just knew that Naruto would surprise both Sasuke and Sakura with what he understood from the book. That was the spark of maturity he had seen in her. Gai was definitely onto something with this competition approach.

The next team that caught his ears was Team 8. For a brief moment, the Scarecrow was surprised he hadn't heard them earlier, after all Kiba was in the team. But then he smiled to himself, because the quiet and reserved Hinata and Shino had the effect that Kakashi had hoped for. Kiba quieted, especially since Gai had set up Kiba and Shino in his class. While Kiba wasn't thrilled, he kept quieter with Shino and when he got insulting, it was amusing to watch Hinata visibly flinch which provoked an apologetic response from the special education student. Iruka had been right, Kiba didn't mean to be so brash; it was just a reaction to how things were going on in his life.

"Sorry, Hinata," Kiba quietly apologized.

"Umm, it's okay, Kiba. I'm really not all that special...." Kakashi made a mental note to see if Hinata needed to be recommended to one of Jiraiya's confidence-building classes. Hinata's guidance counselor may be listed as Orochimaru, but Kakashi suspected the quiet child would be better off with Jiraiya.

"Getting back on topic," Shino interrupted. "How much should we have read by tomorrow?" He flipped through the book. "I could probably be halfway through it by then."

"What?" Kiba exclaimed. "No way!! First chapter at most!"

The quiet Shino turned his head. "We'll never finish the book on time if we do that pace."

The rough boy slumped. "I know that, but I don't have time after school to read. The only time I'll get is in this class. You two may have SSR, but I'm in Resource getting other assignments done."

"M-m-maybe, we could meet with you before school?" Hinata suggested.

Kiba growled. "I'll be too busy getting breakfast. You know how loud it gets in the cafeteria. I'd never be able to concentrate."

Shino sighed as Hinata just stared at her notebook. "You're going to have to tell us when you can find time, Kiba. If our suggestions don't work, tell us what will."

Frowning, the rough boy thought it over and Kakashi patiently waited to see how he'd solve this little dilemma. If what Tsunade had said at the beginning of the year was correct, Kiba was probably spending every waking moment after school doing odd jobs to try and bring in money for him and his father. Naturally, the question was: What would Kiba do?

Growling again, Kiba rubbed at his eyes. "Tell you what, you two meet me here early and bring me breakfast. I'll read and then we can talk. If it works out, I should be able to get maybe three chapters done without distractions."

"Th-that's reasonable," Hinata stated when it looked like Shino might object to the small amount of reading that'd be done.

"Okay," Shino agreed. "Let's see if we can get more chapters out of you by starting to read now."

"Then we'd better go to the library," Kiba stated flatly. "There's too much noise here, and Iruka-sensei's room will be worse by now."

Kakashi had the passes written before Shino had even come to his desk.

"Sensei, how...?"

"Go on," Kakashi smiled. "You're loosing good reading time." It was encouraging to see Kiba had enough knowledge of self to know what he needed in order to get assignments done. Other special education students, like Ryoko, wanted everything spoon-fed and would throw a tantrum if you didn't give the answer to the question. Kiba, however, knew his limitations and how to work with them; he just wasn't inclined to do so very often. With good students like Shino and Hinata as his teammates, however, he was going to have to work with them and keep up and he knew it. Kakashi didn't miss the glare Kiba had thrown to him and chuckled evilly in response. Students could be so much fun.

Crumpling another paper, he tossed it onto the back of one of Team 6's heads. "Back to work," he stated calmly as the stared, once more shocked, that he had caught them gossiping.

Team 10, Ino Shikamaru, and Chouji was the last team to catch his ears. Mainly because they weren't talking. That meant that they had just been sitting there doing nothing for ten minutes. Right. Getting up, Kakashi pulled up a chair next to their team and waited.

"Sensei, I really don't think this team is going to work," Ino started.

"You can say that again," Chouji mumbled. Shikamaru just snorted.

"Why?"

Ino's cheeks reddened in anger. "Why? Because you put Billboard Brow with Sasuke and me with two idiots!"

"Another detention," Kakashi deadpanned. "Same reason as before."

"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered. And this time Chouji snorted.

"Alright, I know why Ino will have trouble with this team and why this team will have trouble with Ino." Said girl glared, not daring to do anything to get a third detention. "Shikamaru, Chouji, do you two have some reason to not work together?"

"No," Chouji said, "Shikamaru's always helping me in Resource anyway."

The Scarecrow nodded, he knew that Iruka had often paired them, which was why they were together in this team. Ino, however, was being a bitch.

"Then why don't we do this: you two can work together and get the team grade and the individual grade points. Ino will work by herself and get no chances at the bonus points available."

"SENSEI! That's not fair!" Of course, that got the entire class's attention, but Kakashi merely focused in on the blond. If she wanted everyone to hear about this, then fine. That was her choice to make rather than coming to him privately.

"Ino," he stated flatly, standing up and getting the advantage of height (always use any advantage to your disposal), "this is school. An institution. We have rules and you don't get much of a right in what they are--"

"Kurenai-sensei let us come up with the rules in her class," Ino retorted.

"--and you can get written up for insubordination, just like you can get dragged into a meeting with your superior in the military for insubordination. If a commanding officer gives you an order, you do it because if you don't you'll be court marshaled. If a teacher gives you a directive, you do it because if you don't, you'll be written up.

"Get off this high horse of yours, Ino. You don't have a leg to stand on. Everyday, you'll be asked to work with people you may not like. That doesn't mean you blow off the job; you'll get fired. That doesn't mean you insult your coworkers; you'll get fired. That doesn't mean you do shoddy work; you'll get fired and sued. Not everything is going to go your way. This is your team, and if you want any chance at those bonus points, proving you're better than other students, whatever your goal is, you're going to have to work with them. I'm just sorry that Shikamaru and Chouji have to put up with someone as cold-hearted as you."

Challenge leveled at the blond, she glared at him.

"Now get out. Say ‘hi' to Ebisu-sensei for me. And you have a third detention with me for insubordination."

Ino grabbed her books, huffing and growling. When she was at the door, Kakashi called out, "By the way. You're the one who wouldn't come to me in private about this, so you're the one who had this dealt with in front of the class. Owe up to what you do."

She gave him the finger as she left. Fine, she dug her hole deeper each time. Kakashi grinned He'd have a lot to share at Team Time tomorrow. He couldn't wait to see what Iruka had to say.

Friday was relatively quiet, aside from one little fact that many of the students had been looking forward to all week: hall decoration. As part of the whole "spirit week," well, spirit, the grades were assigned to decorate their section of the halls. On Halloween, the end of spirit week, "judges" would decide which grade did the best and give them a prize. The students took the competition very seriously, and it was the general consensus amongst the teachers that it was hell on earth.

Kakashi loved it, however, for the reason that he loved most public gatherings: information. The English teacher hated dances for various and numerous reasons (most of which Never to Be Mentioned in Public), but more organized gatherings like hall decoration for spirit week and student council were always graced by his presence. Hall decoration was usually populated with the upper echelon students - the ones who already planned to be doctors and lawyers and got good grades and were ambitious in politics. Haruno Sakura was, technically, in charge of her team's half of the seventh grade hall. She was the student council secretary, and absolutely loved these kinds of things. When the various students gathered in Asuma's room after school, she'd already had a plan for how to decorate the hall. It included ribbons, banners, balloons, and a poster of the school mascot.

Amongst the collection of grade-getters were a few surprise students: Chouji, Kiba, Naruto and Sasuke most noticeably. Of them, Naruto and Sasuke didn't look particularly thrilled to be there. Sakura went over to them quickly, saying that they'd go straight to her house after this, but that she absolutely must take part in this. Kakashi grinned to himself but said nothing.

"Okay, everyone!" she said loudly to get their attention. It didn't work, of course, so Asuma stood up on a chair and bellowed.

"Oooooooooooooooooooii!" Asuma was the only man Kakashi knew of that could hit the right pitch of that call to make it grate on anyone's nerves. It was the vocal equivalence to nails on a chalkboard.

"Okay everyone," Sakura tried again, a bright smile on her face one of the few hints of her crackling excitement. "Last year we lost horribly to this year's eighth graders, so we have to do our very best this year, right?" There were various grunts of agreement and dissent, but she pressed on. "I have the plans right here, we'll have to divide up into teams. Who's good with blowing up balloons?"

Sakura, Kakashi noted, was a ridiculously organized person. He'd seen signs of it in her neat and almost scripted handwriting, the glances he saw of her notebook in class. She clearly wanted to divvy up the students who arrived into various tasks and then come together to assemble them. Her design was symmetrical, not at all simplistic, but it had certain elegance to it. Her eye for detail and ability to compartmentalize, on top of a keen mind and the beginnings of what promised to be a startling maturity, Sakura would have done magnificently.

Except she didn't quite understand the nature of people. It was one thing to pick good balloon blowers and ribbon curlers, it was another entirely to expect them to do what she said. Friends moved to sit with friends, which automatically dissolved the teams she had just created, everyone was talking and gossiping, and they all wanted a say in the design of the hall. Someone, when Kakashi and Asuma weren't looking, had taken her plans and ripped them up; Sasuke and others just sat on their butts and did nothing; and it wasn't long before the students were wandering and running in and out of the room shouting and poking or trying to fill the balloons with water.

Sakura slumped into a desk, looking dejected. Naruto was nowhere to be seen, presumably off with Kiba and Chouji making water balloons. Sasuke threw her a bored glance and asked, "Can we go yet?"

The look on the girl's face was one of someone about to break, and Kakashi decided to step in and intervene. "Maa," he drawled, slouching in a desk in front of her. "Even the best laid plans of mice and women; ne, Sakura? Some people just have no concept of organization. Some people have no concept of consideration. And some people," he threw a deliberate glance to Sasuke, "have no idea of all the work and thought and time and effort you put into it; how much it meant to you to do good." He noted with a healthy (if hidden) amount of satisfaction the shamed look that Sasuke grew.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto ran into the room. "Look at how many balloons I got!"

Sakura had enough.

"Who cares how many water balloons you made you stupid useless loser!!"

The half dozen students in the room quieted, surprised by the outburst.

"Sakura," Kakashi said softly, "you may want to note that those balloons are filled with air and not water."

"W... What?"

Clutched tightly in his arms, Naruto held close to a dozen inflated balloons, all blue and silver.

"Sakura-chan needed balloon blowers," Naruto muttered, somewhere between shocked and crushed. "I finally learned how a few minutes ago..."

"Naruto..." she whispered. The moment was long, not quite tense but definitely awkward, as the two stared at each other and Sasuke watched them with compete indifference.

Finally, Sakura's head bowed down, she took one of the armloads of balloons. "Do you know where they go?" she asked quietly.

"Uhm, no. I wasn't really paying attention at that part."

"Okay, I'll show you where they go."

The two left to the hall, leaving Kakashi and Sasuke by themselves. The teacher again noted the band-aid on the boy's face. He offered no explanation for it, in fact whenever a student or teacher asked about the band-aid he immediately changes subject. The boy watched Sakura and Naruto with dark eyes, brooding over something. Kakashi started drawling again.

"It must be very difficult to be too cool for something as stupid as this, isn't is?" he asked. "I mean, look at all those idiots, making further fools of themselves by blowing up balloons and getting covered with ribbon. They're so foolish to look at. I have to wonder why they're smiling and laughing so much; why they look so happy; why they're enjoying themselves? Hm?" Kakashi turned to see that Sasuke was nowhere to be seen. He grinned.

Standing up, he wandered into the hall to see what Asuma was doing about the water balloons. The math teacher was standing resolute in front of the water fountain with a particularly evil glare. Various spots of the floor were wet, but none of them looked new. The walls were a different matter, however. The cement blocks were covered with balloons with and ribbons in random patterns that were nonsensical. Hinata and Kiba were trying to work on a banner, but several students were running back and forth, stepping all over it. The scruffy boy finally got fed up and started growling whenever he saw a set of shoes.

"How's the battle?"

"Oh, you know," Asuma said. "Once you get scissors and balloons to students they go nuts." He sighed, making another motion for an invisible cigarette. "Only three water balloons before I stood guard. They're mandated to stay either in the room or in my sight. I hold all the scissors unless they need it and they use them directly in front of me."

"I never knew you were a control freak."

"I'm not, I'm just practical. This is a nightmare waiting to happen."

"Not entirely. Look at that particular trio." Kakashi jutted his chin in the direction of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura; the first two were being directed from by the third in hanging the balloons. It was going to be the only coherent point of the hallway.

"Now there's a bit of magic," Asuma said appreciatively. "It smacks of your handiwork."

Kakashi nodded, closing his eyes and listening. To the untrained observer, he was either dozing or fighting off a headache. In fact, he was listening to the half dozen odd conversations, listening not to their words, but to the meaning behind the words, the underneath of the underneath. He was renowned in the school for his understanding of student body, but nobody was ever able to figure out why. The truth was simple: he listened. It wasn't the words that were important, they very rarely were, it was the message that was being sent, the emotions that were going back and forth, coupled with the outer circles of family lives and the internal workings of temperament and ability. It was a complex web of psychology, but it was one of the things from the old life that Kakashi excelled at and could put to good use.

"Chouji," Asuma called out, "if you help Hinata and Kiba I'll let you have something from my secret stash."

"Really?!"

"Really."

"Right away."

"Ino, put up that bunch of ribbons neatly and I'll give you thirty dollars in your bank account."

"Thirty dollars?! Yes, Asuma-sensei!"

"Kiba, go back into my room and start cleaning up and I'll show you a trick on tonight's homework.

"Ryoko, grab the broom in my room and I'll ignore that forgotten homework assignment.

"Hanamaru, straighten all the posters and I'll let you go to the bathroom.

"Yuuko, collect the empty balloons and I'll allow you to get your things from your locker.

"Kakashi-sensei, could you make sure my room is being cleaned?"

"What will you give me?" Kakashi asked playfully.

"A chance to leave early."

"That's a hard bargain."

"Thank you," Asuma grinned. "Bargaining is the way of life. No one does anything without something in return." The math teacher grinned. "That's why I always win when Tsunade and I go gambling. She always thinks she can get something for nothing; I know that I have to give a little to get a little. Just when she thinks she's going to get away scott free, I take her for all she's worth."

Kakashi grinned as he pulled out of his slouch and wandered into Asuma's room,

We also finally get all the team set ups, which lead to even more groundwork and character building - particularly with the infamous Team 7, since they're the stars of Naruto; and they get a lot of screen time in the coming arcs. The rookie nine all fell pretty neatly into certain, uh, "archetypes" that exist in school. There was a little character meddling here and there, but for the most part we were surprised at how easily everything turned out.

That being said, I'm sure over the chapters to come Ino fans are going to start bashing us. The girls in general were hard to pin down because they get SO LITTLE development in the anime/manga, and trying to figure out what would happen to them over the course of the year was difficult. Ino perhaps goes through the most changes to her character (assuming she has one...). We had a lot of conversation about how Team 10 would first interact in those months where we're completely focused on Team 7, and we sort of figured that Ino would be a bit of a jerk until she got over not being with Sasuke - and this was under the best of circumstances were it was only the four of them: Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, and Asuma-sensei. Here, she's constantly seeing her precious Sasuke with Sakura; and we've seen that whenever the two are together they start butting heads. So, among other things that happen to her, she's going to be a little bitchy for this fic.

I'm also sure that some fans out there are going to be saying that Kakashi shouldn't be meddling and that Sakura should be getting to know Naruto and Sasuke on her own. In real life, it would take faaar too long for her to buy into the Team 7 thing. We only have a few months to play around with and we really wanted a solid team by the end of the story. Since there aren't life and death struggles going on to bring them closer, we needed more of a push. Enter Kakashi.