"Your mission is to help teach a class at the academy." Team 7 all looked at the Hokage as if he were nuts, well Naruto and Sakura did at least. Kakashi had slight disbelief, seeing as Naruto was one of his students, and wasn't known to be the brightest.

"But we just got out of there!? Why do we have to teach a class?" Naruto cried out.

The Hokage sent a withering look towards the team, "Because Iruka was injured and is taking a day off to recuperate." Naruto looked down slightly, knowing what the Hokage said was true.

"What age group are we teaching?" Sakura tilted her head slightly.

"You will be teaching the children 7 and up. It's only for one class, after that another chunnin should have returned from their mission and be able to fill in." The Hokage leaned forward onto his folded hands. "Any other questions?"

Aoi looked at his team, and seeing that no one else would ask, he did so. "What type of things will we teach?"

The Hokage flashed a full force grin. "I was begining to wonder if any of you would ask. You will be expected to teach them the basics of chakra." Nobody reacted to what he said, so he just sighed a little. "Get going, your class is starting."

They all filed out the door, a good half of them knowing that this was going to be a rather interesting class.

_+_

Aoi stood behind his teammates with Kakashi, while the three formed a ragged line. Naruto was sweating buckets from nerves as kids continued to file in. Sakura stood there with ram-rod posture, trying to look professional. Sasuke was glaring out the window with his arms folded. Kakashi looked over all his students and sweatdropped slightly.

Soon the bell chimed, signaling the begining of class. All the kids looked forward expectantly, but soon noticed that Iruka was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Iruka-sensei?" A boy stood up and asked.

The girl next to him stood as well, regarding the five figures at the front of the room. "And who the heck are you all?" She questioned rudely.

Sakura stepped forward after seeing that none of her male teammates were doing so. "Hello everyone~!" She greeted in a sing-song voice. "Iruka-sensei isn't feeling well today, so we're going to teach your class for a while."

"Whatever! You're probably all stupid!" A boy in the back of the class shouted.

"Yeah, just go get someone else, billboard brow!" The girl in the front row yelled out.

There were shouts off echoing agreement throughout the room, and the irkmarks on Sakura's head grew in number. Not realizing why, Aoi grabbed Sakura's shoulder. What he didn't know was that Sakura had been about to snap and yell at the children, most likely resulting in their tears. Sakura looked back and calmed instantly when she saw it was Aoi.

Kakashi looked at his only student that still had a clear head. The other two boys were getting rather angry as well. Maybe him not getting irritated will help us here... Kakashi had a thoughtful look on his face.

He leaned down slightly to whisper in Aoi's ear. "Can you gather their attention? After that start calling names for roll-call." Aoi glanced at Kakashi, then turned and grabbed the list of names.

"Excuse me?" Aoi said politely. The kids kept talking over him. They weren't yelling at the team anymore, but they weren't listening either.

Kakashi leaned down and whispered in Aoi's ear again. Aoi nodded.

Aoi's fist slammed down on the top of the podium set in the center. All the kids looked at the loud bang and saw a glaring Aoi. They shut up. "Was that okay?" Aoi looked to Kakashi. Said man nodded and Aoi looked back at the class with a fake smile.

"Now that I have your attention, we're taking roll-call." All the children nodded in a fearful stupor. Aoi listed off names monotonely and the children relaxed slightly when they knew he wouldn't kill them.

By the end of roll, all the female students had little hearts in their eyes. Some were looking at Sasuke and some at Aoi as well. When Aoi looked up from the paper, he glanced at his team. All three genin backed away, waving their hands in a gesture of denial. Kakashi noticed and sighed slightly.

"Aoi, since they're used to you, take them through what chakra is." Aoi looked back at the chalkboard and at a scroll that lay on the podium. After a quick glance through the scroll as a refresher, he walked up to the blackboard.

Surprisingly, though Aoi was a rather boring and monotone teacher, none of the kids fell asleep. The opposite in fact, they seemed rivited on what he was saying. Aoi was a good teacher as well, with Kakashi telling him what to do at points. He could answer questions, and his other teammates would interrupt with questions for the children. The class went fast, and the bell soon chimed for lunch.

While all the boys pulled out their lunches and swarmed out the door to play, the girls swarmed forward and bombarded Aoi with questions. Sakura, though she knew they were about 8, grew increasingly jealous.

"Kakashi-sensei, wasn't the other chunnin supposed to be here by now?" She looked up hopefully.

"Hmm... Not sure. You all seem to be handling this well however." The girls soon dispersed to eat their own food and Aoi walked over.

"Kakashi... sensei, can I sleep?" Aoi questioned, following Sakura's example of calling him sensei.

"While it's lunch break, sure." Kakashi smiled at the boy. All four were surprised when he lay down in the middle of the floor and fell asleep immediately.

Naruto poked him curiously, but Aoi didn't stir. "I've always wondered how he fell asleep on command."

The team chatted, Naruto at Sakura and Sakura at Sasuke. Kakashi sweatdropped at their social skills. A half-hour later, there was still no sign of their replacement and lunch had ended. Aoi stood behind the podium apathetically. They hadn't been told what to do if their replacement didn't show.

"Kakashi-sensei, what do we do?" Sakura whispered urgently.

"Hm?" Kakashi looked up from Icha-Icha Paradise, which he had been avidly reading. "I suppose we could ask the Hokage. Until I get back, have them review their notes or play a game."

"You're leaving us here?" Naruto asked in a panic.

"Sure, Aoi looks like he can handle it. Make sure to help him out though." Kakashi walked out the door. What he didn't know, was that for the first time Aoi was experiencing being uncomfortable. All eyes were silent and staring directly at Aoi. Aoi, though he didn't show it, was uncomfortable staring back into the sea of eyes.

Sasuke, of all people, walked up and spoke to Aoi. "Calm down." Aoi looked at Sasuke from the corner of his eye. "Take them through some addition problems." Aoi nodded and Sasuke walked off.

They went through simple math like addition, subtraction, and at one point, since it was asked, why it was important. This went on for a good 45 minutes before Kakashi returned. He came up and stood silently by his students.

"Kakashi-sensei, what did the Hokage say?" Sakura asked in a hushed tone. The kids were all working on adding the two numbers in the hundreds.

"He said that the replacement had a serious delay on the mission and wouldn't be back. We have to teach the whole school day." Kakashi lazed out as he pulled out his book.

All three looked at Kakashi with dumbfounded expressions, jaws hitting the floor. "But, um, hey, Kakashi-sensei, what do we do with them?" Naruto finally said after getting his voice back.

"Arithmetic, which we're already doing, target practice, and now that they know chakra a little, we teach their first jutsu." The three nodded and looked back at Aoi. His head was tilted in slight question, but they just nodded and held out their thumbs.

So the day went until one o'clock when the academy let out. Aoi walked over to his teammates, and they all smiled at him broadly. "You did great Aoi! Believe it!" Naruto said, patting the boy on the back.

"It was so cool how you taught the class all by yourself!" Sakura squealed in utter fangirling enjoyment.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted.

Aoi looked at the smiling faces of his teammates, heck even Sasuke's mouth was slightly upturned, and tried a slight smile in return. They were all grateful that it hadn't been them who had to teach. Then Aoi's gaze fell on Kakashi.

"Can I sleep?"

Kakashi gave a closed-eye smile, but there was a dark aura about it as he replied in a happy tone, "Nope!"

All of them walked into the Hokage's office for their next mission.

_+_

"Sasuke, distance is 5 meters."

"Sakura, 5 meters as well."

"5 meters away, believe it."

"Why are we catching a cat?" Three bodies anime fell at Aoi's blunt question.

"We're all in position, converge and capture the target." Kakashi ordered, ignoring Aoi's question.

There was a yowl of fright and then Naruto's yells as the cat clawed at his face.

"Red ribbon on the left ear, target confirmed." Sasuke said professionally. Sakura looked at him in awe as he said this, as if he were a dream come true.

Naruto let out another shout as the cat clawed its way from Naruto's grasp. It started to run off in the direction of Aoi, who hadn't ran out to capture the cat like the other three. The cat, who had been running full tilt, made a quick cut to avoid him, but Aoi's arm flashed out and caught it by the scruff of the neck. It was still somewhat of a kitten, so it made no objections to being held like that. Aoi gently put the cat in his arms, cradling it.

"Right then, good job team. Let's go report to the Hokage." Kakashi started to walk off and his team followed behind him quietly.

_+_

"Good job you three," The Hokage said as the woman walked out, drowning her cat in blubber. "For your next mission you have harvesting carrots, cleaning stables, or babysi-"

"No way!" Naruto shouted out. "I'm done with these lame missions, I want a real one!"

"Naruto!" Iruka, who had been supposedly resting, yelled out. Seems like someone's a workaholic.

The Hokage cut in before Iruka could say more, "Missions are put into catagories based on difficulty..." Everyone, except Aoi, zoned the Hokage out. Aoi listened intently, as this was something new to him.

Iruka eventually noticed Naruto was just sitting there contemplating his ramen choices. "Oi! Naruto, pay Hokage-sama some respect!"

"I don't care! I'm not the pranking brat I used to be! I'm a shinobi now!" The two smiled slightly, then the Hokage spoke.

"Fine, I'll give you a C-rank." All three of the extremely bored genin perked up. Aoi just tilted his head in question. "It's an escort."

"Who is it? A princess? Feudal lord?" Naruto was practically bouncing with excitement.

"Come in here please!" The Hokage called out.

The door began to open slowly, and unconsiously all of them leaned forward in anticipation. They were sadly dissappointed when an overweight man walked through the door. He had a bottle of sake in one hand, and his posture was slouched and uncaring. He had a hat on his head to keep him safe from the sun, and had typical worker clothing on.

"These brats are going to protect me?" He questioned.

"Who are you?" Kakashi asked in a polite tone.

"Tazuna, master bridge builder from the Land of Waves." He straightened slightly as he said this. "Are you sure these pipsqueaks can protect me though? Especially the short one with the stupid face."

They all lined up, their height going from Aoi to Sasuke to Sakura and finally Naruto. Naruto's face became a mask of rage and he leaped at Tazuna. "I'll kill you!"

Kakashi stopped him quickly, "You can't kill the man we were assigned to protect."

"And the tallest one." Aoi looked at Tazuna. "Can you really see me through all that hair, girl?"

Aoi just stared at him blankly before responding in a monotone, "I can see you fine. My name isn't girl, it's Aoi."

"Strange name for a girl." Tazuna remarked after recovering from the uncaring answer.

"I'm a boy."

"Oh..." Tazuna just looked at Aoi uncomfortably while Aoi's gaze was blank.

"Right then, meet at the gates in 30 minutes." Kakashi said and all of them disappeared. The Hokage let out a little chuckle when Tazuna continued to stand there dumbfounded.

_+_

Hello all you wonderous readers~! I hope you liked this chapter, and I have to thank you peeps for commenting on that last one. I thought a lot about your comments, and Aoi won't be cutting his hair for a while. I'm having a hard time deciding if I want him to cut it though... it makes him more... I don't know, I just like the idea of his long hair. So you know the drill:

Comment, eat, vote, fan, sleep, and help the hungry. Because I know you are all great people.

-Nicky~