"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!”

"LEE!”

Naruto was very excited to meet the super awesome sensei that is supposed to train him today. He apparently knew the Uzumaki Taijutsu style better than anyone in the elemental nations.

His expectations were high.

Which is why he was a bit worried when the training grounds he walked into suddenly turned into a beautiful sunset on a shore with two green-clad shinobi hugging each other very tightly.

"What the f-"

"OH! You must be Naruto-kun, Kakashi said you'd be joining us this youthful morning." The older one from the identical looking pair spoke up, swiftly interrupting Naruto's rather unyouthful remark before it could be said. He was a tall man with the biggest brow's Naruto had ever seen and a prominent bowl-cut.

"U-Uh yes, are you Maito Gai?" Asked a very confused Naruto. He was pretty sure this was a cruel joke Kakashi played him; he was already planning his revenge. Just as Naruto was asking his question, a pretty girl with two hair buns followed by a boy with long hair and big pearl white eyes walked in the clearing.

The man puffed out his chest in pride, "Indeed I am. Konoha's best Taijutsu specialist at your service!"

"These are my youthful students!" Gai started pointing at the three young shinobi beside him, instructing them to introduce themselves.

"YOSH!" Came an unexpectedly loud voice. "MY NAME IS ROCK LEE, KONOHA'S BEAUTIFUL GREEN BEAST, IT IS NICE TO MEET YOU, NARUTO-KUN!" Proclaimed the green-clad genin as he shook Naruto's hand vigorously.

The pretty girl, seemingly unbothered, walked out to him next" Hi! My name is Higurashi Tenten, my father runs a shinobi store, you should stop by sometime." She said, smiling warmly.

The last Genin just scoffed at Naruto and walked away to train in some weird fighting style Naruto couldn't recognize.

"What's up with him?" Naruto had half a mind not to start a random fight out of nowhere but that boy's attitude made him wanna punch his face very hard.

"Don't mind Neji, he's just a bit impolite." Not even Tenten seemed convinced by her own explanation of his attitude.

Naruto muttered quietly under his breath, "Somebody better take that stick out of his ass 'ttebayo…" Before turning to look at the man who was going to be teaching him soon.

After exchanging some pleasantries, the two other genin of - the now revealed- team 9 left to join their teammate in his training so Naruto and their sensei could talk about whatever it was he needed.

Naruto looked at Gai in excitement, "Is it true you know the Uzumaki Taijutsu style better than anyone Gai-sensei?" He asked.

The man in question flashed the brightest smile Naruto had ever seen and gave the boy his Nice-guy pose. "Indeed I do, young Naruto!" The Jonin exclaimed proudly once more.

Naruto brushed off the feeling, focusing solely on how exciting it is to learn his family's style, he didn't care if the man teaching him was a bit eccentric.

To be fair, his own sensei reads porn in public all the time.

"Thank you for agreeing to teach me dattebayo!" Naruto gave the man a warm smile and a polite bow.

"Why of course young Naruto, it is my honor to teach Kushina-sensei's son."

"Kushina-sensei?" Naruto's face was now full of shock. Hearing his mothers name was still unfamiliar to him and left a weird warm feeling in his chest, but for her to be referred to as Sensei?

Gai chuckled and knelt down so he could look at Naruto at eye level, boisterous attitude momentarily gone.

"I'm surprised my eternal rival didn't tell you, your mother helped me become the shinobi I am today, it truly is my honor to teach you."

Naruto was incredibly moved by Gai's words and he didn't know how to react, noticing his loss for words Gai simply ruffled his hair and stood up.

After the new teacher and student duo finished exchanging pleasantries Gai entered what Naruto would learn to call his sensei mode.

"The Shīru-Ken or Sealing fist is the Uzumaki's Taijutsu style, Kushina-sensei taught it to me back when I was a Genin. The style is made to facilitate combat fuinjutsu." Naruto just recently discovered combat fuinjutsu was a thing and even though his level was nowhere near enough to perform seals without the use of ink and brush he was beyond excited to try it out.

"It consists of swift movements and a level of unpredictability which requires agility and speed." Gai analyzed every reaction he got out of Naruto as he explained, Kakashi had informed him of Naruto's interest in fuinjutsu and he could see the spark in Naruto's eye at the prospect of learning how to fight like his mother.

"That is what we'll be working on today, I'll give you a scroll with the Taijutsu katas for you to memorize later, in the meantime you'll be using this." Gai gave Naruto 4 sets of weights and instructed him to place them on his wrists and legs.

"It's important for you to strengthen your body, the weights will allow you to increase your speed and the training you'll be doing will make you agile and flexible. From now on you will always be wearing your weights and we will adjust them everytime moving with them becomes too easy for you."

Naruto was both excited and worried about the kind of training Gai would be putting him through, he was starting to wonder if Sakura would be doing something similar with Kakashi.

--

"You're late!" At this point Sakura yelled at his sensei purely on instinct. "Only 15 minutes though."

She knew Kakashi was making an effort to change himself for the better and now only got late to things that weren't important. She really didn't mean to yell at him, it just happened.

"Maa maa Sakura-chan, I got lost on the road of… getting what you'll be using to train today." Kakashi eye-smiled at her.

"Before we start…" Kakashi was now looking pointedly at her "There's something I want to talk to you about."

Sakura only responded by giving Kakashi a nod.

"Sakura… you're not a good shinobi." Said Kakashi with brutal honesty.

Sakura was gaping like a fish. She was now painfully aware that she wasn't as good as she initially thought but that statement felt like a low blow.

"You're physically weak, you're uncommitted and those diets you put yourself through make you look a bit malnourished." Continued Kakashi. Sakura wanted to retort but wasn't allowed by her sensei.

"That being said, your chakra control is extremely good, and while it is true that people with lower chakra pools are generally graced with higher control, yours is pretty impressive." He complimented.

Sakura beamed a little at her sensei's praise, it would seem like she wasn't a complete lost cause.

"We got a tough wake up call…" Trailed off Kakashi. "I trust that you will now be giving your all in your training, you have the potential to be great and that's what I want you to achieve. Will you take this seriously?" Asked the Jounin

"Yes sensei!" Said Sakura with renewed vigor.

"Very well then." He tossed Sakura a scroll and a set of weights for her arms and legs, after she finished putting them on he started explaining.

"You'll be learning the Mori no ken or Forest fist, the Senju were a clan that specialized in more than one skill instead of just one or a few, as is the case for most of the clans in Konoha." Kakashi never liked how the clans in Konoha only specialized in one single area and neglected almost every other one, you could feel the admiration in his voice when he talked about the Senju.

"That's how they earned the title of 'The clan with a thousand skills'. Their Taijutsu was very straightforward in order to compliment their many abilities."

Sakura always liked to study and learn stuff, she didn't know Kakashi was so knowledgeable and she didn't know he was this good at giving lectures, she now called this Kakashi's sensei mode.

"For that you'll need core strength, which is what the weights are for, you will also become faster but the type of training you'll be doing will favor mostly the strength of your body, this compliments the training Naruto will be doing." Explained Kakashi.

"Why is that sensei?" Asked the genin.

"The taijutsu style Naruto will be learning is focused on swift movements and agility, I'm sure he will be using weights as well. The difference is the training you both are going to do, you won't be as fast as Naruto and Naruto won't be as strong as you, that's not to say you will be slow or he will be weak, I'm pretty sure you get what I mean."

And she did, Sakura knew not a lot of genin did this kind of training, she was just starting with weights and she knew her weights would only get heavier as time goes by. She might never be as fast as Naruto but she was sure she'll be faster than most genin in the village were.

--

Naruto limped his way to the training grounds his team used, the training with Gai was hell for him. He was forced to run around the whole village for hours wearing weights, he had to do all kinds of core exercises and he even had to do weird stretching; he just couldn't figure out why being able to do the splits would be helpful.

At least he'll start practicing Katas tomorrow.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Yelled Naruto before collapsing in front of the man

"Nice of you to join us Naruto." Said Kakashi giving Naruto an eye-smile.

Sakura was lying in the grass right by his side, she tried to greet Naruto but all she managed to blurt was a grunt.

Just like Naruto Sakura had to do some core exercises and running around, she also had to do tons of squats, sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups and even more sit ups but this time hanging off a tree branch.

The look of pure joy visible in Kakashi's eye when he had her do pull ups with a rock tied to her legs will forever haunt her.

"You hurt me Sakura-chan, I thought we had a great time together." Kakashi mocking her only irked her more.

If Sakura had the strength to do it she would've flipped him off.

"How was training with Gai, Naruto?" Kakashi was curious about how things had been with his self-proclaimed 'eternal rival'.

"Youthful" At first Naruto thought the whole youth speech was fun, now he couldn't even think of the word without wanting to hit his own head really hard.

"You can both rest for a little bit before having lunch, I brought you a balanced meal to replenish your energy and before you ask Naruto, no, it isn't ramen." Said Kakashi much to the young boy's chargrim.

"Ramen is good and I won't forbid you to eat it, but you also need to eat more stuff, without a proper and balanced diet you will always be short, is that what you want?" Asked Kakashi.

Naruto was quick to shake his head, if eating a little less Ramen was what it took for him to grow taller then so be it, he was very self-conscious about his height.

"I understand you didn't have anyone to teach you properly, so I will add cooking to your lessons, luckily for you I'm a very good cook." Said Kakashi while puffing his chest, not that the collapsed Genin could see it anyway.

Kakashi felt a little sad about having to teach Naruto, it wasn't that he didn't want to, he just felt like he should've a long time ago. He knew the Sandaime constantly treated Naruto to lunch but that wasn't enough for a boy who loved eating Ramen 24/7. He was going to make this right now though, better late than never.

After the duo finished resting the team started to eat, Kakashi had decided he would be putting more trust on his team so he lowered his mask for them to see while they ate without making a big deal out of it, sadly for him, the genin were so hungry and focused on their food they didn't even notice.

Their loss.

"Look alive kiddos, we will start your ninjutsu training right now, afterwards we will run some team drills, chakra control exercises and I'll let you go." Kakashi grabbed a leaf from a tree and unsealed a lighting bulb out of a storage scroll from his pocket.

"Sakura, before you learn any Doton jutsu you must be able to control your affinity. You could learn Doton jutsus or jutsus of any other element without doing the exercise but this will allow you to perform every jutsu with a lower cost, the same goes for you Naruto." Kakashi told them, going into his sensei mode once again.

"The first step to mastering your affinity is to turn this leaf into a rock, to do it you need to focus your chakra in a steady flow around the leaf and harden it." He explained as he handed Sakura the leaf, he then walked towards Naruto and handed him a lightbulb.

"Yours Naruto is a bit trickier, what you have to do is channel your chakra into the lightbulb, you should be able to feel a 'spark' if you try to focus your affinity, once you do hang on to it and direct it, too little and it won't turn on, too much and you'll overcharge it and maybe even make it explode."

He really hoped Naruto's lightbulb would explode at some point, Kakashi felt like it was wishing for Naruto to have a hard time but he bought a lot of them and they weren't exactly cheap.

"This is a chunin level exercise, most shinobi like myself learn jutsu without mastering their affinity." Kakashi was a prodigy, hailed as a genius from a very young age, he managed to learn different jutsu before starting work on his nature transformation and even more after he got the sharingan, had he done the exercises earlier he probably would've had a much easier journey through the ranks.

"I'm having you do this so you'll have an easier time down the road and more efficient use of your chakra."

"What does that mean, sensei?" Asked Naruto.

"When a Shinobi gains control of their natural affinity, the jutsus they use become less taxing on their reserves and more effective; that's what I like to call Elemental Mastery." Naruto and Sakura both made 'wow' faces and that for some reason made Kakashi feel incredibly good, he even started subconsciously puffing his chest.

"That doesn’t mean you won't be learning any jutsu until you master the exercises, I will give you each a few jutsu from each of your affinities including wind, we are doing this so you don't waste a lot of chakra; speaking of which…" Said Kakashi getting his genin's attention.

"Chakra control is a very important skill to have, especially for the more complicated and fine arts like Genjutsu, Iryo Ninjutsu and to a certain degree Fuinjutsu." That earned a groan from Naruto, chakra control exercises were a pain in the ass for him and now he will have to do them constantly if he ever hoped to become good at Fuinjutsu.

"We will do nature transformation for a while and then we'll train your control. You know how to climb trees already but you're going to practice until doing so becomes instinctual, when that is finished we'll move towards water walking, is that clear?"

"Yes, sensei!"

"Get to work then."

Kakashi was proud of his genin, they were dedicated and knew how to work hard. He didn't expect them to master their affinities for at least a month but seeing them try was fun, he'll arrange for Asuma to teach them wind after they finish this.

The sound of glass shattering interrupted Kakashi's thoughts and he turned around to see Naruto holding a broken lightbulb, he chuckled and gave Naruto a new one.

This should be fun.

--

"That was great, we'll meet again tomorrow, same time, same place, dismissed."

After exchanging goodbyes Sakura left quickly, she wasn't in the best of shapes and she was very aware about it but Kakashi's training had been torture for her; it was good Tsutsuji got her out of that stupid diet, if she could she would actually eat a horse right now.

Before leaving Naruto had one more thing to do, the last time he talked to Kakashi alone he left saying some stuff that the Jonin maybe didn't want and he felt like he needed to apologize, that's why he walked up to his sensei looking a bit nervous.

"Kakashi-sensei, can I talk to you for a minute?" Asked the nervous blonde.

Kakashi was a bit confused at first when Naruto started referring to him as sensei again, he knew Naruto would and should always refer to him as sensei when they were on oficial shinobi business like training but that was already over by now, but he understood the boy needed time to process everything that was just revealed to him though.

Naruto never knew his parents and even though he wished for them terribly, putting a name to them was even more painful for him.

He felt incredibly happy when he found who his mother was, when he found out she loved him.

He also felt incredibly sad, but the Sandaime explained to him it was bound to happen, giving the person you longed for a face and a name allows you to feel connected, but it also allows you to feel their absence even more.

Kakashi understood Naruto was going through a similar grief again and he wouldn't push him into anything.

"Yes Naruto?" Asked Kakashi, shaking his head away from his thoughts.

Naruto took a deep breath before answering.

"WellIjustwantedtosaysorrycuzlastnighticalledyouyouknowthatandididn'taskbeforey'knowandidon'twantyoutobeuncomfortableorsomethingttebayoitsjustthatwellyouknowi-"

"Naruto, please slow down for me ok?" All things considered, Kakashi was surprised by Naruto's lung capacity.

Naruto sighed, he was hoping Kakashi would catch all of that quickly and he wouldn't have to talk about this for long but it would seem that wasn't the case.

"It's just that I-" Another sigh

"I called you Nii-san last night and it was kinda a spur of the moment y'know? It's not really a big deal I guess, Konohamaru calls me that and we're not related… I guess I just don't want you to be uncomfortable. It's just that you said my dad was like a dad to you too y'know?"

Kakashi now understood what this was all about and knelt in front of Naruto while ruffling his hair. "I was surprised for sure but… I do like the idea of having a little brother."

Naruto looked at him and released a breath he didn't know he was holding, his visible eye watered a little and he hugged Kakashi out of nowhere.

Kakashi was surprised by the hug but after catching his bearings he returned it. It was easy to forget Naruto was still a 13 year old boy, a 13 year old who grew up with only one person he could truly call family, a 13 year old who just lost his first and for the longest time only friend.

"How about we go to your place so I can teach you how to cook a good dinner, and we have that talk about your parents you asked for?" Kakashi suggested.

Naruto released Kakashi from the hug and smiled warmly at him.

"Yes Nii-san."

--

The dinner with Kakashi had gone pretty well and Naruto was surprised to know Kakashi didn't lie when he said he was a good cook. After the dinner was done Kakashi told Naruto he'd do good to see what was on his mother's scroll and promptly left so he could do it alone.