It all started this morning...

He had woken up that morning with a sharp pain to his skull, and a metalic taste over his tongue. At first, Kakashi dismissed this as simply biting his cheek or something in his sleep, and maybe the time he had been staying up sorting through papers and books could have given him the headache. But he was quick to find out other wise at he stood up and found his knees almost too weak to hold him up, all it took was a round of harsh coughs to loose what little balance he seemed to have and grab the edge of the table to support himself.

There was that taste again, worse now after he settled the fit of coughs. It was then he rushed to his bathroom and pulled his mask down to check. Blood was thickly washed over his mouth to the point where even his teeth were crimson. What worried him more was the fact that he couldn't feel any sort of sore or wound where the blood could have come from. With another fit of harsh, wet coughs, he slapped a hand over his mouth to suppress them as best he could. And there he saw, no more denying it now, the blood that stained his paler than usual skin.

On a different sort of day, he would have crawled back to his bed and slept in. But unfortunately he and his team had a mission they had to leave for today. He couldn't just let them handle it on their own, right? Right. So with a heavy sigh, which led to a sharp pain in his chest, he rinsed out his mouth, washed off the blood from his palm, and got himself dressed.

It wasn't like he walked very far from his own front door before he was confronted by Yamato, who he knew would be on the mission as well.

"Tenzō," he greeted, trying to act as he usually did despite the chills that came to him. For pete sake, he was sweating and at the same time he wanted to find himself a parka or something to get some warmth back. "I take it Naruto, Sakura, and Sai are all waiting at the gate?"

Of course, Yamato shrugged a little. "We were waiting for you as usual. But Sai thought that one of us should go and find you."

It didn't surprise him that Sai would be the one to find it unusual for a jonin to be so late, he hadn't worked with Kakashi as long as Naruto or Sakura, or even Yamato, had. Still, it wasn't like the usual tardiness. Kakashi didn't want to laugh about it so much as he usually did. In fact, he never felt so disconnected like now.

"Hey, did you even hear me?"

Wait, Yamato was talking? "Um.. sorry, what was that?" He said with a forced chuckle, damn it hurt to laugh... literally.

"I asked you if something was wrong," Tenzō repeated.

"Geh... yeah... I'm fine..." With a relaxed look, though it seemed to present the dark circles he had more so than he would have wanted, he walked past him. "Let's just get through this mission."

"... right..." Was Yamato's unconvinced reply as they both walked to the gate.

It was there the three were waiting. Not surprisingly, Naruto was bouncing on his heels with eagerness, Sakura was pinching the bridge of her nose, and Sai just watched with that same blank face. As soon as they noticed that Yamato and Kakashi arrived, they straightened a little and greeted them.

"Alright! Let's go!" Naruto said in a sort of cheer, excited to get outside after a couple weeks without a mission.

And so they were off to their mission. What was it again? Kakashi realized he was having a hard time remembering it. It was also at the same time he found that he was finding it difficult reconizing the same path he had walked down countless times before, so he let himself fall back to the end of the group and followed with swaying vision and a pounding head.

What is wrong with me today? He wondered. It wasn't even long before he was finding it hard to breathe, and he couldn't take deep breaths because it hurt his rib cage to do so. They weren't even moving that fast, this should be easy for him but yet it wasn't. What used to be a couple paces behind the group turned to twenty.

It was at some point the group stopped all together and looked back to him with curiousity. Sakura asked, "Kakashi-Sensei, are you feeling alright?"

No... "Yeah, I'll be just fine."

"Maybe you need to rest," Sai said.

Of course, he couldn't even begin to hope that Yamato would blow it off and decide to keep moving. He wasn't like that, no matter how he liked to seem so much more focused on a mission than the team. "Really, Kakashi, what's wrong?"

"Honestly, I'm okay-." he was cut off by a harsh coughing fit that he couldn't keep back. It was easily enough to send a dizzying pain to his chest as he fell down to his knees. It was in a quick motion that he threw his mask down and slapped his hand over his mouth to cough into it instead. And for a moment, that was all he seemed to notice, the wet sound of his coughing and that flaring pain getting worse with each shakey breath. He didn't even seem to realize that Tenzō was kneeling in front of him with consern on his face.

Thankfully he was able to hold off the rest of the fit before Yamato grabbed his wrist. "Let me see," he said seriously. Of course, he was too weak to argue as his hand was peeled off his face and his friend stared down at the blood stained fabric of his glove. "Damn it, Kakashi, you said you were fine!" Though he was loud, there was still some sort of harshness that only showed he only wished that Kakashi said something earlier. Maybe he could have stayed home to rest if he had.

Naruto simply stood there with a raised eyebrow, hardly understanding what just happened. Heck, if this was bad enough where Kakashi pulled down his mask, he knew he should be worried. Still... there was that old curiousity about his Sensei's face that nagged at him too. And with Yamato kneeling in front of him like he was, he couldn't see anything.

Sakura didn't seemed to care about Yamato's body blocking Kakashi's face, she simply walked forward. She was just worried now. What was wrong with her Sensei? When she found herself standing beside Yamato, she could see it, the dark stain on Kakashi's glove. She blinked before she realized what the stain was. "Let me help."

"Sakura," Yamato said shaking his head, "I know you're conserned, but we need to get Kakashi back to the Leaf. And when we get back, I need you to take him straight to the hospital, I'll inform Tsunade what happened and hopefully she'll send another Team on the mission."

She nodded, staring down at her teacher, who kept his head down. "Alright."

With that, Yamato pulled Kakashi up and pulled one of his arms over his shoulder to keep him from falling over. Kakashi, working to overcome the unsteady vision and his trembling fingers, pulled his mask back up over his face and gave into the weakness. His arm going slack and his head falling as darkness overcame him.

The walk back was quiet, no one spoke a word, nor could they. What was there to say?