Written for KakaGai Week, Day 4: Future.

Hopefully the time period is fairly obvious from the story text, but Kakashi and Gai are mid-teen-ish and this is, of course, some nebulous time post-Nine-Tails attack.

"Hound!"

Kakashi's eyes narrowed with annoyance, but he caught the kunai heading for his face, returned it with three more, and turned to see what Rabbit was yelling about this time. One of their targets was getting away, Rabbit was dealing with three encroaching enemy nin - he could no doubt handle them, but he was pinned down for now - Boar was occupied with his own fight, and behind him Bat was sitting in the dirt. Still breathing, and even awake, but not exactly up for giving chase.

Kakashi turned, sliding into a crouch and launching himself over the tumbled remnants of an earth wall Boar had summoned up earlier.

A few moments of effort and he was falling upon the enemy nin, disabling one and then dropping nearly flat as he heard the thin whistle of blades flying towards him. He glanced back and found that Bat had struggled up to one knee, hands already full of blades again. He nodded to Kakashi, and he kept moving, slipping out of sight to take another nin from the back.

The third was forming an unfamiliar sequence of seals, and Kakashi frowned slightly as he reached up over his shoulder for his sword. He stopped just as his fingers brushed the hilt, watching a glow flare from the enemy nin's hands, winding into a tangled ball that looked almost lightning and almost like flame.

It shot off towards Rabbit, whose back was turned as he rose from dispatching the last of the enemies he had been facing.

. . .Rabbit had the scroll that had been their secondary objective to retrieve, undamaged. And he wasn't even looking at the incoming ball of sparking energy.

There wasn't time for an effective jutsu from Kakashi's position. He dove, shoving Rabbit out of the way and rolling out of the jutsu's path himself. Not fast enough. He cringed beneath his dual masks, summoning up his own lightning in hopes it would overwhelm the foreign energy as the ball struck his left shoulder, glancing off and driving into the ground.

Kakashi stifled a scream, but couldn't stop himself from slamming into the dirt, fingers twitching. Light surged through his vision, blanking out anything else. His heart clenched, with a heavy thump and a feeling like a blade had been driven through his chest.

"Kakashi!"

Kakashi jolted awake, his back aching all the way through his shoulder and down into his chest, near his heart. He opened his eye and winced as the ache lanced up into his head, crossing between his temples. "What the hell, Gai." he snapped before he realised Gai shouldn't have been anywhere near his mission.

Gai was leaning over him, and Kakashi jolted back, opening his mouth to snap again, but-

Gai didn't so much as look at him even as he scrambled to sit up, and Kakashi frowned, thrown. And Gai. . .

Gai was much broader through the shoulders than Kakashi was used to - certainly much more than Kakashi himself. He was taller, his chest and arms thick with far more muscle than his slender frame could have carried, his jaw broader and more solid.

Kakashi frowned. The ANBU mission had been a longer one, but he had only been away from Konoha for a few weeks. This made no sense. Neither did Gai ignoring him - Gai had never in his life ignored Kakashi, no matter how firmly Kakashi tried it in return.

"Ah, good morning, my Beloved Rival." Gai smiled brightly, leaning just a little closer.

Kakashi's brow furrowed - that was a new one. And Gai's voice - aside from being deeper than Kakashi was used to, it was soft and fond. Not that 'fond´ was necessarily entirely unfamiliar in his voice, but-

The bed shifted slightly.

Kakashi's eye widened and he nearly threw himself backwards as he watched . . . himself moving to sit up, blanket sliding down his bare chest. Obito's Sharingan was covered with a deep green band, and his face was . . . otherwise completely uncovered. He didn't seem to care, either, yawning lazily and flapping a hand at Gai.

"We are going-"

"-to oversee the children's graduation exams, yes." the other Kakashi finished for him. He beckoned.

Gai grinned and settled on the bed beside him, one big hand - those had grown larger and broader as well - sliding over his bare shoulder. "We have time before we'll have to be there." he said, leaning forwards a little more.

Kakashi toppled backwards off the bed as Gai matched his gesture and met him with a soft kiss.

"What the fuck!" Kakashi burst out before he could stop himself, rolling forwards and leaning up on his knees, peeking over the edge of the bed again. The other Kakashi had arm wrapped around Gai's broad shoulders, curling into him, and that was definitely the kind of kiss exchanged between people who had shared many in the past. "Kai!" Kakashi ground out, flaring his chakra, but nothing changed save a deepening of the ache pulsing through his body.

"Mm. . . We should still prepare ourselves." Gai said in an even deeper, throatier tone. He was making no move to pull away, however, one hand ruffling the slightly drooping spikes of the other Kakashi's hair where they fell over his neck, the other settling low at his waist, pushing the blanket further away.

Kakashi recoiled, confused and growing angry with it. Fiddling with his porcelain mask, he opened Obito's Sharingan, bracing against the intensification of the pain he had anticipated it would bring, but . . . nothing changed. He closed it again hurriedly.

"We have plenty of time." the other Kakashi murmured against Gai's mouth, nipping at it playfully, smiling again, a softer expression that Kakashi thought he had ever seen on his own face. Certainly more than he had in . . . years, if he had ever worn a look like that.

The other Kakashi was . . . different, too; he was still slender, like Kakashi always had been, but there was more muscle on his frame, enough to pad out some of the thin lines Kakashi was used to seeing. The bones of his hips jutted out more, his ribs less. There were a few scars Kakashi didn't recognise, most of them faded and pale.

Now that Gai was sitting beside him, Kakashi could see that the other Kakashi was apparently almost as tall as the strange new Gai as well.

"Plenty of time is never enough time," Gai said with a low laugh that Kakashi could almost feel, and certainly never would have imagined the other boy was capable of, "when you get going, my Beloved Rival."

The other Kakashi gave a soft, rolling laugh in response, languidly arching his back and groaning, then moving in a sudden rush, knocking Gai aside. Not away, but dragging him down onto the bed and moving to straddle him as he sprawled on his back.

While Gai was dressed much as he had been Kakashi saw him recently, the other Kakashi was apparently completely naked save for the patch hiding away Obito's eye. "We have until this afternoon," he said, sliding his arms over Gai's shoulders as he sat up, "and are you complaining?" The other Kakashi looked . . . playful, arching even closer to Gai.

"Complain of my Cherished Husband's enthusiasm?" Gai said, and Kakashi choked, eye widening. "Never." Gai kissed the other Kakashi almost softly. "But I am not allowing you to make us late. Again." he growled against the other Kakashi's mouth. He laughed, but the fiercer renewal of Gai's kiss muffled the sound.

"This is mad." Kakashi said blankly, dragging himself to his feet and wincing, reaching up with one hand towards his shoulder, resting at the base of his neck and shy of the burning pain in his back. "This is a genjutsu and-" he broke off. It wasn't, and he knew it. His chakra levels were fine but the genjutsu hadn't broken when he attempted it and Sharingan made him nearly immune to genjutsu anyway, and the strike of the jutsu had been nothing like-

"It would be tradition." the other Kakashi said, all but wriggling in Gai's lap, and Kakashi cringed back. "We were late last year, and the year before. . ."

"No!" Gai lifted his head, giving a stern look. "Not agai-" his declaration faltered as the other Kakashi pulled the collar of his jumpsuit down further and leaned down to kiss or bite at his throat. "Kakashi. . ." he moaned, and Kakashi winced again, both at the sight before him and the deepening throb of pain transfixing his chest.

Kakashi might have whimpered, unable to hold it back through the grogginess and the pain lancing from his heart up to his head and back.

"Rival! Kakashi!"

Kakashi winced, opening his eye - both eyes, and a spike of pain made his breath catch before he hurriedly closed Obito's Sharingan again. Gai was leaning over him again. His Gai, though - the familiar one he knew, not the foreign . . . grown and powerful figure of a man he had seen with the strange figure of himself.

"Gai." Kakashi said, groaning. He was in the hospital, he realised, and sighed.

"Kakashi! You're awake!" Gai said, his voice softer than usual, perhaps in deference to the fact that they were in the hospital - or perhaps because Kakashi couldn't quite wipe the wince off his face.

"It seems so." Kakashi said, pressing his elbow against the bed and forcing himself upright. His breath caught at the pain of moving that much, but it ebbed quickly, as it had not been before he . . . woke from the jutsu that had been holding him. Apparently for some time, if he had been brought back to the hospital in Konoha while unconscious.

"And as such I need to speak with my patient. Excuse us."

Gai bowed politely to the doctor - he was familiar, one of those who treated the ANBU when they returned with too severe or too distinctive injuries, though Kakashi did not know his name - and took himself away.

"What happened?" Kakashi demanded, swallowing, wanting to hear that he had been trapped in some kind of new genjutsu.

The doctor glared mildly over his glasses, and refused to answer Kakashi until he had been examined and provided satisfactory answers for a series of irritatingly thorough questions. Kakashi repeated himself after the doctor had been writing notes for a full minute without asking anything else.

"You were caught in a powerful jutsu that shows the target their own future." the doctor said, not looking up. "While the visions shown have been noted to be variable in nature, it is not an illusion technique."

Kakashi glanced past the curtain drawn most of the way around his bed, seeing Gai fidgeting slightly where he stood just outside the open door of Kakashi's room.

". . .no." Kakashi said flatly.

"It may be kinjutsu," the doctor said pointedly, looking up, "but I assure you, we are familiar enough with it to identify the effects."

"Why- Why is it kinjutsu?" Kakashi asked, frowning, shaking his head. Perhaps what was shown was not real, or it blended genjutsu with divination, or-

"Because there is no way to break from its hold until it wears off on its own. Your raiton seems to have disrupted, possibly weakened, it enough to bring you back before it drove you mad." Kakashi went still as the doctor spoke. "Many of those targeted by the jutsu go mad as the time they are trapped in the hold of a future reality extends, and when they finally wake - if they wake, rather than die," he said dispassionately, tapping his pen against his clipboard, "they bring back an imprint of their future selves, instead of who they once were. It disrupts the natural order. That is why it has been forbidden."

"Hn." Kakashi inclined his head in acknowledgement, his throat tight as he thought of that older, entirely strange Kakashi. Thought of that Kakashi waking in his body, or a version of himself mixed with . . . him. He shuddered, shoulders tense.

"I recommend you square with whatever you saw and try not to let it affect you as much as possible." the doctor said, making a final note on his clipboard. "You'll be kept for observation but as long as your pain from the lingering effects continues to decrease you will be released tomorrow."

Kakashi nodded again, and the doctor sighed, returning the clipboard to the foot of his bed. "Try not to cause any trouble for my staff this time, Hatake-san." he said dryly.

Kakashi ignored the instruction, closing his eye and pressing his hands over his face.

"Are you all right, Rival?" Gai asked - he hadn't heard footsteps as the other boy approached his bed, but that wasn't surprising, not any more.

Kakashi heard beloved rival and cherished husband again in his mind, a recognisable voice despite the deeper tones, and saw a passionate, lingering kiss behind his closed eyes. He shuddered and dropped his hands, looking up at Gai, watching him with a concerned expression.

Square with it and don't let it affect his life, Kakashi thought. Right.

"I'm fine." Kakashi bit out. "What are you doing here?" he added, because no one was ever alerted when he was brought to the hospital, let alone when it had been from injuries sustained on an ANBU mission.

"I heard that you were struck with an unknown jutsu and I had to be sure that my Eternal Rival was healing well!" Gai said with a smile. "I brought you flowers but they said they were not allowed on this floor." he added, brows drawing together. "I am sorry."

Kakashi nearly choked, fingers curling in tight against his palms. "Get out." he snapped after a moment, his voice unsteady.

". . .Kakashi?" Gai said almost gently, and Kakashi shook his head, pressing his hands to the sides of his head.

"Get out!" he yelled, ignoring the pain it caused him even as he winced, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Ah, my apologies, Eternal Rival." Gai said, sounding pretty much like he usually did, Kakashi's shouting apparently not bothering him. Not that it usually seemed to. "They told me you needed rest to recover, and that your head was probably still hurting, so I should be quiet. I will leave you to rest. But I will return!" he promised, and Kakashi groaned, dropping his hands.

A warm, callused hand covered one of his own, and Kakashi stiffened. It squeezed lightly, thumb brushing over his knuckles, and then was gone.

When Kakashi opened his eyes, so was Gai.

Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy to banish him from Kakashi's mind - not this one and not the one he had seen that apparently waited in his future. And he would be back, anyway. Gai was always back, no matter what Kakashi did to get rid of him.

Kakashi laughed, a little hysterically, as that thought meshed with what he had seen of the Gai waiting in his future.

So. . . Kakashi may need a little time to go minorly crazy over this revelation, or he may block it out entirely - or maybe even come to terms with it sans a breakdown *coughs* - what do you think is most likely? (Ah, bb! & teenage!Kakashi, you are so very messed up.)