A/N: yeah I know I shouldn't be writing new stuff when I haven't finished what I'm doing right now. But in my defence I actually started this before everything else. Besides my soon to be started other new fic this was the first story idea I came up with. It's taken me a year to actually get the confidence to write the damned thing.

Anywho apologies in advance for the substandard writing, crappy action scenes, sickening fluffy bits and a little bit of boy/boy love. You know... the usual ^_^.

Rating: Um... surprisingly just a K at the moment. There is gonna be a bit of Kaka/Iru romancing but not until the end and nothing graphic.

Disclaimer: Does anyone actually read these? Not mine Okay!

Otherside: Chapter one

"Kakashi-sensei..." The feminine voice was quiet and worried.

Through the haze of darkness the familiar voice filtered through to his consciousness, eyes still shut tightly Hatake Kakashi mentally smirked.

"Come on baka! Wake up goddamn it!" The second voice was decidedly more masculine, but even at seventeen years old it still lacked the maturity of an adult.

The mental smirk grew, ah Naruto never one to mince his words. The silver haired man almost felt like laughing at the worry evident in both of his student's voices. It seemed the two brats were a bit more attached to him than they let on. He was so not going to let them live this down, but he may as well milk it while he could.

"Sakura, he's not moving... are you sure he's okay? He was hit pretty hard by that guy"

Kakashi felt rather than saw the girl nodding, even if it was a little frantically. Kakashi glowered slightly; he hadn't been hit all that hard. Admittedly the jutsu he had been hit by was something he hadn't seen before but it hadn't exactly been powerful. Kakashi was after all still very much alive.

"His vitals are fine, just a little shallow. I don't get why he won't wake up." The tight exasperation in her voice betrayed the worry "There aren't any abnormalities. It makes no sense."

"The stupid old bastard is probably just faking" Naruto intoned morosely "You know he's probably getting a kick out of us worrying."

From his prone position Kakashi almost laughed out loud. It was scary sometimes how well his brats knew him.

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But all I know is that we really have to get moving soon. I don't want any more of the creeps jumping out of the wood work."

The jounin happily echoed those sentiments. Although a fight had been expected the mission parameters had vastly underestimated the missing-nin's abilities. They had been powerful and well organised, but still no match for him and his team. That however didn't mean he wanted a rematch. Deciding to call an end to his little charade he opened his eyes.

And gazed up into nothing.

Kakashi felt momentarily confused, he could have sworn that Naruto and Sakura had been right next to him when they were talking. He sat up and took in the scene around him, seeking out the members of his team.

Around him the clearing the battle had taken place in was chaos. Tree's were uprooted and blown to bits, the very ground itself had been torn asunder no doubt from one of Sakura's chakra infused attacks. All around the evidence of various jutsu still smouldered and the unmistakeable aroma of burning flesh was wafting in the air. The last thought brought a bitter taste to the copy-nin's mouth; he hated the fact that the younger members of his team had had to initiate the 'cleanup'.

Kakashi's mind flew back to the battle; it had started off fairly simply the weaker members of the enemies group trying rather unsuccessfully to pick them off one at a time. They had quickly been dealt with and then the heavy hitters had joined in. There were four of them all at least tokubetsu jounin, two males and two females. The two ladies were identical twins and attacked in tandem, all fluid grace and deadly accuracy. They had excelled with physical and jutsu projectiles and had sprouted senbon from area's Kakashi didn't even want to think about. The twins had been dispatched quickly by a wolf raikiri, the dark brown of their eyes diming as the electric fangs pierced their skin, severing their major arteries.

The two men were clearly of a higher skill level. Sakura had been taking on the taller of the two, a young man with dark waist length hair, slender but muscular and coiled tightly like a spring. His speed had originally surprised the pink haired kunoichi and the man had been arrogant enough to underestimate Sakura openly taunting her for being a 'feeble woman'. Thinking he had the advantage with his speed had had struck straight toward her in a front on assault. Sakura had just smiled sweetly before raising one chakra filled fist and slamming it into the ground, causing the entire world to tilt sideways. She had them launched her own speed assault and with one well placed chakra scalpel had decapitated her opponent.

Naruto had the final opponent, an elderly man with pure white hair and a ragged disposition. His robes were old and forest green in colour, decorated with an obscure symbol: a warped bell on top of three joined circles. Around his waist he carried several pouches and jars, odd attire for a shinobi. At first he had seemed weaker than the twins just barely fending off Naruto's relentless assault. But as each of his companions fell his strength and skill grew and soon the young blonde found himself being overwhelmed. The man was clearly beyond his two student's level it wasn't even funny, even the three of them struggled, the elder was pulling jutsu out from left and right keeping them scattered, not giving the team chance to regroup.

The old man seemed to be focusing on Naruto trying to wear him down, no mean feat concerning the blonde fox boy. After a lucky earth jutsu hit the jinchuuriki, Naruto's leg was trapped between two slabs of stone and it was then that things started to get weird. The old man began chanting some weird incantation and the three already defeated foes got back up. Even the decapitated man got back up and just carried his head under his arm, like a grotesque impersonation of the headless horseman. The three gathered around the old man, eyes rolled back in their heads a lifeless and inhuman shield against team Kakashi's assaults. The old man pulled one of the jars from his waist and opened the stopper a beam of the brightest light beginning to form at the open top.

The old man began to cackle some nonsense about adding the jinchuuriki to his collection and aimed the jars light directly at the blond.

At this point Kakashi faltered, it was here that things got a little bit fuzzy. He remembered seeing the imminent attack on Naruto and his own body spurring into action, jumping in front of the jutsu just before it hit the blonde. He remembered a distinct painful pulling sensation and then darkness, just complete darkness.

The silver haired Nin frowned at the last thought; it hadn't been the pain that had caused him to black out. So what had it been? It hadn't felt like a knockout jutsu, at least one that he knew of and what had been that whole business about his collection? Kakashi shook his head, filing those questions away for another day. There were more important things to be dealing with at the moment, like finding his team.

He stood up from his prone position and began searching through the ruins. He eventually found his squad behind one of the larger chunks of dislodged earth; the two youths crouched over what appeared to be a body, probably one of their enemies. He gave them full marks for acting accordingly on mission, but a minus for making sure all your comrade's were okay.

After all they'd just left him lying in the dirt.

With a sardonic smirk he sauntered up behind the two nin's, noting that their agitated state meant that they hadn't even noticed him approach. He shook his head in amusement, that missing-nin must have spooked them something rotten, yet more teasing material for the long and troublesome days ahead. Kakashi peeked over their shoulders intent on getting a look at who was more interesting than making sure their captain was okay, he was betting it was probably one of the twins.

After all he would love to know where some of those senbon came from...

He looked down at the prone figure and felt his blood turn to ice.

That was impossible... Denial bloomed in the copy-nin's chest along with a deep seated feeling of panic. Which given the situation he couldn't be blamed for, after all it wasn't ever day you saw your exact copy lying lifeless on the ground. He took a deep breath and steadied his nerves and uncovered his Sharingan. No, there was no henge around the body or genjutsu in the air and small amount of chakra flowing was definitely his own, if not somewhat altered. Although the silver haired man couldn't put his finger on why that was.

Kakashi closed his eyes and opened them again.

There was still no change in his perception, which lead to the only logical conclusion.

It really was his prone body lying on the floor.

The panic intensified and he felt his limbs grow heavy. This had to be a joke, a truly fucking awful joke that his two brats were pulling on him. Anger replaced panic and he reached out to grab the two ninja by the scruff of the neck.

His hand went straight through them.

Fingers of ice cold ran their way up and down his spine as he tried again to grab at the youngsters and again his hand just went right through them and neither blonde nor pink noticed. The feeling of utter helplessness overwhelmed Kakashi and he slumped to his knee's just watching the scene before him unfold.

"Sakura we need to get going." Naruto said voice tense with worry.

"I know. Can you send one of your summons ahead to inform them of the situation? We need to get to the hospital as soon as possible." Sakura replied.

The blonde nodded and quickly summoned one of the messenger frogs of Mount Myobokuzan. The small orange creature greeted the two nin's warmly, but his happy mood immediately vanished when he saw the prone figure of the copy-nin unconscious on the floor. Realising the severity of his assignment, the little creature sat quietly while he received his message and vanished as quickly as he arrived.

The two seventeen year olds looked at one another with heavy expressions.

"We've done all we can Sakura-chan."

"I know." The sadness in her voice threaded through the air "I can't help feeling it's not enough. The amount of times he's saved our asses and now I can't even get him to wake up even though he's fine and..." She stopped as her voice gave out "It just makes me feel useless."

"You are not useless Sakura and I'm sure Kakashi-sensei wouldn't want you saying that. If anyone should be feeling bad it should be me. I shouldn't have got caught and he shouldn't have had to take that hit for me. This is my fault..."

Kakashi watched as his two charges dealt with their guilt over the whole situation and he suddenly realised just how much he meant to those two dysfunctional teens. It was eye opening; they'd obviously gotten closer after the whole 'Sasuke' thing. But that was not exactly a topic they wanted to broach in general conversation. But until now he hadn't realised quite how much he'd come to mean to them and to say the feeling was mutual would be stating it lightly. Those two incorrigible little bastards had wormed themselves under his skin.

The jounin sighed as he watched Naruto hoist the body onto his back and head toward Konoha. Hopefully Tsunade would have some answers and if she didn't...

Well he wasn't going to think about that right know.