Chapter 2: Aftermath
"Hey, my only and favorite rival!" Guy yelled.
Kakashi woke up from a particularly disturbing dream about Obito's death to find Gai leaning over him. "Noni?" he asked, still groggy from sleep.
"Wake up, my rival! You should be experiencing the benefits of youth!'
Kakashi groaned and pulled the covers over his head. "Mmmrph ov" he said. The swear was muffled by his comforter.
Gai put his hands on his hips and tapped his foot impatiently. He eyed the silver bush of hair sticking out from the covers. "Come on. I have a lot planned for us today."
"Since when do you plan things for us?" Kakashi growled. "I need my sleep. I had a really bad day yesterday, and I don't have any missions today."
Gai knew what he was referring to. "The Psych Evaluations? I know; they were rough for me too. I failed Tsunade-sama, something I've never done before."
"Then you should understand how I feel. Go away."
"Never, my eternal rival! The best way to defeat the blues is to test your body and push it to its physical limits. You are behind today. I've already scaled the Hokage monument using only one hand while whistling Konoha's theme song."
"Gai, Konoha doesn't have a theme song."
"It does now! I created it while I was scaling the monument. I also wrote a sonnet on the value and beauty of youth, did all my Christmas shopping, and knitted a sweater for Pakkun."
Kakashi thought Pakkun would probably bite Gai when he saw the garish, badly knitted sweater. It was orange and covered with smiling flowers and suns with happy faces.
"Come on, Kakashi," Gai whined. "We gotta do stuff. Lots of stuff. Anything will do, really. I've got so much energy today."
Gai was so energized he seemed to be practically vibrating. He rambled on and on, talking faster and faster. Finally, Kakashi managed to get a word in. "Gai, when's the last time you took your medicine?"
He stopped and looked embarrassed. "I lost it, but I'm fine. I'm just really energized today! Come on, come on, come on, come on already!"
"You're manic. Go away." He pulled himself back under the covers, reminding Gai of a turtle.
"No hiding for you, Hatake Kakashi. You will enjoy the day, even if I have to drag you out of here."
"Go away!" Kakashi stuck an arm out from under the covers blindly reaching for a kunai he knew he had left on the bed stand. Gai grabbed the weapon before Kakashi's hand could find it.
"Kakashi, it's five in the afternoon. This can't be good for you. When's the last time you took your medicine?" Gai couldn't resist a superior feeling. He was winning several times today.
"A crow stole it?" He'd already used that one on Tsunade, but he was too tired to come up with something better. He thought about getting up and making something to eat, but it seemed like too much effort. His body and mind felt heavy, and he just wanted to sleep forever.
"I may be manic, buy you're depressive. How's that for the pot calling the kettle black? I win!"
"You're loony, Gai."
"Then I challenge you to a new contest. We shall compete to see who can be the most sane!" Gai was insanely proud of himself at the moment.
"Sure, whatever," Kakashi said, but Gai had already bounded out of the window, seeking ways to prove he was more sane than Kakashi.
Ibiki was a wreck, but he didn't care. He thought he was having a wonderful day, even if the voices in his head were back. He'd decided he'd had enough of the side effects from the anti-psychotics. He had to turn down missions lately because it wouldn't be good for a ninja to have the chronic squirts from his medicine while in the field. He wouldn't let anything stop him from serving his village, certainly not a little thing like sanity. He figured he could stop taking the medicine, and if he was very careful no one would notice. He was wrong.
The voices in his head were in full swing today. They suggested things that were funny, things that were good, and things that were very, very bad. He stood on one of the larger streets and just watched the people wander by, enjoying the interplay of his senses.
He saw Gai heading toward him. The man seemed hyped up – even more so than usual. He spread his arms out and grabbed Ibiki in a great bear hug. "Ibiki – my buddy!"
"Sense when have I ever been your buddy?" he asked, too shocked to do anything about the hugging green atrocity.
"Sense now, of course! Let's go do something! Kakashi has no youth at all in him today."
The rambling was causing Ibiki's eye to twitch. In his manic state, Gai failed to notice that other ninjas and even civilians were quickly leaving the area.
The voices were having a field day with this.
"Let's play with him!" one voice said.
"Let's tear that horrid green thing off him, and make him run around Konoha naked. That'd be funny."
"Hug him back; hugs are good." This voice always disturbed Ibiki.
Gai pulled away and looked at Ibiki. "Come on Ibiki-chan. Let's run a race around Konoha."
"Chan?"
"Let's kill him!" all the voices screamed at once, and who was Ibiki to argue with them?
Kakashi wandered out of his house in his favorite kunai covered pajamas, concerned by the noises he heard. He was more than surprised to find Ibiki sitting next to Gai's disemboweled body. Ibiki was sitting in the middle of the street in front of Kakashi's apartment building, very intently painting a hopscotch court on the concrete using Gai's blood.
Kakashi blinked and tried to take all this in at once. "Ibiki," he asked, "when's the last time you took your medicine?"
Ibiki just smiled at him over Gai's body. "Not long enough. Come play with me Kakashi. Play with me or I might play with the rest of Konoha. It's your choice."
As a jounin, Kakashi knew he bore the responsibility to stop this madness, the responsibility to restrain Ibiki, the responsibility to protect Konoha, the responsibility to…
He was too bone tired for this. "Screw it," he muttered. "I'm going back to bed."
Ibiki decided to play with Konoha. It was the only time in history a hopscotch tournament was held at kunai point.
THE END