Chapter Three:

Chapter Three:

Hospital Havoc

Everything around her was dark. Erin frowned as she looked around her warily; this place was creeping her out.

It was almost as though she had been locked in an endless dark room, with only the fact that she could feel the ground beneath her feet to reassure her that she wasn't in another dark void.

"Hello?" she called out hesitantly. "Is anybody here?"

The sound of footsteps softly approaching her came from behind the nineteen-year old, and she spun around to see a boy no older than thirteen or fourteen standing there, eyeing her speculatively. Erin arched an eyebrow as she stared at the black-haired boy in front of her; he looked like he was about the same age as Keith, her almost thirteen-year old brother.

"Who're you?" she finally asked, and the boy gave her a toothy grin in response.

"Why do you need to know?" he asked cheekily, and Erin rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I don't know," she began, sarcasm practically dripping from her voice. "Maybe it's because of the fact that I want to know what the bloody hell is going on here!!"

The boy flinched as he slowly took a step back away from her, his brown eyes wide. Erin stared at him intently as she crossed her arms across her chest and slowly drummed the fingers of her right hand against her left arm.

"Well? I'm waiting."

"Oh, I would love to know what I did to deserve this," the boy grumbled darkly under his breath before he looked over at the older girl. "You can just call me Nanashi for now."

"Nanashi? What kind of name is that?" Erin asked incredulously, both of her eyebrows raised all the way up into her hairline. 'Nanashi' groaned and slapped his face with his hand, obviously irritated.

"You are way too skeptical," he grumbled as Erin gave him a 'duh' look.

"Hey, I have a little brother about the same age as you. I think I'm allowed a healthy amount of skepticism here."

Nanashi rolled his eyes as he reached up and adjusted the goggles that he wore pushed up above his face, which knocked against the Konoha forehead protector that he had tied around his forehead. Erin briefly toyed with the idea of ruffling the boy's already messy black hair, which stood up in every which direction, as she watched him for a few seconds before she decided to stop teasing the boy and get down to business.

"So, where am I exactly?' she asked nonchalantly, forcing down the feeling of intense unease that she was currently experiencing. Nanashi glanced over at her and smirked, obviously glad that the nineteen-year old was no longer taking pot-shots at him.

"Well, right now, you're asleep," he pointed out knowledgeably. "I guess that you could say that this is a dream world."

Erin's eyes widened slightly at this bit of information, but she forced herself to remain silent to see if she could learn anything else. Nanashi didn't notice her slightly shocked expression as he continued his little narrative.

"As far as I know right now, this is kind of the only plane of reality that I can interact with you, but that may change later on," the boy stated with a slight shrug. "At least that's what I was told. I guess that it has something to do with extenuating circumstances or something like that."

Erin arched an eyebrow curiously at this comment as she stared intently at the black-haired boy in front of her, her expression slightly incredulous.

"Wait, so this isn't just a one-time thing?"

"Nope."

The nineteen-year old stared at Nanashi for several moments before she turned around and started to walk away, massaging the bridge of her nose. The teenage boy watched her for a few seconds before he ran after her.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?!" he demanded as he somehow maneuvered himself in front of Erin and stared at her accusingly. The teenager looked down at him for a few moments before she finally responded.

"Someplace sane, hopefully," she muttered as she glared at Nanashi, her eyes slightly narrowed. "I know that Jess said that it would happen eventually, but I didn't think that I'd go insane before I even turned twenty."

"You're not insane!" Nanashi snapped, and Erin rolled her eyes upwards as though asking for heavenly guidance.

"Give me one good reason why I should believe you," she retorted as she glared at the smaller boy, sarcasm blatantly obvious in her voice. "As far as I know, you're just a hallucination or something."

Nanashi opened his mouth to respond, only to stop as the world around them became fuzzy, and Erin began to feel slightly disoriented.

"Damn, you're waking up," he grumbled, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black pants. Erin managed to give a confused 'huh' before everything around her shattered into millions of pieces, and the bottom of her stomach dropped out.

--

Erin's eyes snapped open as she shot upright with a gasp, her heart beating wildly as she pressed a hand against her chest in an effort to try and slow it down. What the hell was that all about? Sure, she'd had some pretty weird dreams before, but the one that she'd just had topped the charts.

'Okay, no more all-nighters for me if they're going to give me freaky dreams like that,' the nineteen-year old grumbled as she sat up in the bed that she was currently in and looked around her.

The entire room was pitch-black, and she could barely see the dim outline of a door off to her left with a thin sliver of light showing underneath. Erin slowly shifted her covers about a little so she could sit up better, and she winced as a slight twinge of pain shot up her right arm when she tried to move it.

"What the hell?" she hissed as she reached over and felt her arm, silently noting the bandages wrapped around her hand and wrist. A slight frown crossed the teenager's face as she felt up her arm to where the pain had originated, and promptly hissed out a curse when her fingers connected with an IV line, and a needle inserted into her vein inside the crook of her elbow, as well as some bandage tape to secure it. Erin growled out a low curse of aggravation as she immediately removed her fingers from the area and repressed a shudder. She hated needles with a passion.

"So, you're finally awake," a voice said from a spot on her right-hand side, and Erin jumped a little as she looked over in the direction from where the voice had originated from. She still couldn't see anything since her eyes hadn't adjusted to the inky darkness of the room, so it was a little disconcerting to know that someone else was in a room with her and that she couldn't see them.

"What happened?" she finally responded nervously. "Where am I?"

The person was silent for several seconds before they answered, and when they finally did speak, Erin realized that whoever it happened to be was a guy.

"You're in a hospital right now," he stated simply. "You had a really high fever and passed out. I brought you here when you wouldn't wake up, and that was over a day ago."

"Oh," Erin said as she let out a sigh and ran her left hand through her bangs pensively. So she had passed out at school then. The teenager shook her head as she felt the bandages around both of her hands and wrists; those had definitely been some weird dreams that she's had. Thank goodness that they had just been only that, dreams. But why did she have bandages around her wrists?

"So, you're the one who brought me here?" she asked. The man sitting next to her bed was silent for a few moments, as though confused by her actions.

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"Huh?"

Erin snorted at the obvious bewilderment in the man's voice as she looked over to where she assumed he was sitting.

"I said thank you," she repeated, a small grin twitching about her lips. "Most people wouldn't have done something like that."

"Are you sure about that?" he queried. Erin stared intently at him for a few seconds, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dim lighting enough so that she could see the shadowy form of her Good Samaritan, before she responded.

"Yes, I'm sure," she stated thoughtfully before she felt exhaustion hit her like a truck. The teenager covered her mouth as she let out a huge yawn, and the man gave a faint chuckle at her actions.

"You should probably go back to sleep," he suggested, and Erin felt a hand press down on her shoulder, gently pushing her back down onto the bed. "You're still very ill, and it wouldn't do for you to make yourself worse by not getting proper rest."

"Okay," Erin agreed wearily as she felt her eyes start to slide shut, but she forced herself to push them open again as she reached for the IV still stuck in her right arm. She didn't want to go back to sleep with that damn thing still in her. Just when she had grasped the edge of the medical tape securing the evil needle to her, she felt a strong hand encircle her wrist and stop her from pulling the tape off as it gripped her firmly.

"The nurses put that in there for a reason you know," the man stated sternly, and Erin gave a muttered groan in protest.

"But I hate needles," she grumbled. "I'm not a damn pincushion."

There was dead silence in the dark room for several seconds, and the teenager felt a slight chill run down her spine as she looked over at the shadowy form that was her rescuer. Had she said something wrong? Just as she was about to say something, the man finally spoke, giving Erin cause to sigh in relief at the release of tension in the room.

"No, you're not, but you still need to leave that IV alone for now. The nurses will probably take it out tomorrow once they see that you're awake and lucid," he pointed out as he released Erin's wrist. The teenager hesitated slightly as she watched the man warily before she decided to pretend that nothing had happened, and rolled her eyes in response as she pulled the heavy blankets that covered her up to her chin and snuggled down under the relaxing warmth.

"That still doesn't change the fact that I hate needles," she muttered defiantly, and the man hesitated before he chuckled once again, only this time with a slightly wry note to it.

"You certainly are a stubborn one, aren't you?" he remarked, and Erin made a faint scoffing noise. Something about this guy kind of unnerved her… okay, hell, he really unnerved her. The best thing to do was act like she hadn't noticed anything, and make a joke out of it.

"Damn straight," she stated before her eyes widened slightly as a thought hit her like lightning. She was so dead.

"Crap," she groaned as she flopped back down onto the bed, all thoughts of keeping the mood light thrown out the window while attached to a lead brick.

"What's wrong?"

"I need to call my roommate tomorrow and let her know what's going on, otherwise she'll probably be having a stroke over the fact that I've been missing for over a day now."

"That can be arranged," the man stated calmly, and Erin heard him shifting slightly in his seat. "However, right now, what you need to do is rest. Worrying about things won't solve anything, and all it will do is slow down your recovery."

"Okay, point taken," the nineteen-year old muttered as she finally allowed herself to relax and lay back in her pillow. Before she even realized it, she was immersed in a deep, dreamless sleep.

--

Kakashi watched the teenager intently for several moments before her breathing evened out, indicating that the girl was sound asleep. The Jounin let out a sigh as he leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair.

He had gone back and reported to the Hokage after he had deposited Erin at the hospital, and the Third had requested that he watch over the girl and find out more about her. Kakashi frowned underneath his mask as he scrutinized the sleeping teen from his seat; the Hokage had described her as being in her early teens, but judging from the conversation that he'd just had with her, she was obviously older than that. Mid teens was probably a closer guess, although she could easily pass as a very lanky thirteen-year old at first or second glance.

It was also obvious that she'd had absolutely no experience with ninjas before, or any previous training as one either. The expression on her face when he had stopped her from pulling off her bandages had been one of pure and utter shock, and Kakashi could easily tell from the way that she had looked about the room with wide eyes that she couldn't see at all in the pitch-black darkness of the room, while he had been able to observe her perfectly.

There was no way that any shinobi worth their salt would allow themselves to be caught completely unaware like that, no matter how sick they were. Even Genin had better perception than this girl had, and most of them had just finished training at the Academy! Not to mention the fact that developing your night vision was a strict requirement to become a ninja.

However… the Jounin let out a frustrated sigh as he leaned back in his chair, his thoughts buzzing about his head like a horde of annoying, relentless bees. The one thing he had noticed right off the bat was that the teen was pretty perceptive. She had sensed his hesitation and tried to laugh it off, making a joke out of the tense atmosphere.

Kakashi's frown deepened even further as he remembered the disturbing lack of weapons or scrolls inside of the girl's bag when he had searched it. He had found a grand total of three paperback books with the cover on the wrong side, a strange-looking pencil and stick-like eraser, a regular eraser, a binder of some sort, and a notebook, as well as what looked like a hand-held radio with headphones. All in all, nothing really unique, except for the fact that all three of the books, and the notebook, were filled with some archaic form of writing that resembled chicken scratch, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out how the strange-looking radio turned on. Everything that he had found out about the girl didn't make any sense at all, except for the obvious fact that she definitely was a foreigner.

The Jounin sighed as he slumped down in his seat, silently cursing himself for agreeing to take on this assignment. Not only was nothing making any sense to him at the moment, but he also knew that going without sleep for two nights in a row was definitely not going to go over well with his body. So far, all he had done was watched a teenage girl sleep off a dangerously high fever, and hold a brief conversation with her for all of five minutes. But unfortunately it wasn't like he had anything else to do though, since his team was currently taking the Chuunin exam and wouldn't be back from the Forest of Death for another three days.

It was too bad that he didn't have enough light to read his book right then.

--

When Erin woke up the next morning, she was surprised to see that no one was in the room with her. The teen arched an eyebrow curiously as she examined her now-sunlit room, and absolutely found nothing out of the ordinary for a hospital room. The nineteen-year old glanced back over at her right arm and scowled when she caught sight of the IV still stuck in her, her expression darkening slightly. She had just reached for the tape securing the evil needle to her when a loud and cheerful voice coming from her doorway practically caused her to hit the ceiling.

"Oh, you're up!" a nurse squealed excitedly, and Erin immediately clapped both of her hands over her ears to protect them from further damage as she spun around to glare at the teenage girl standing in the doorway.

"What in the-?!" she began, only to be cut off as an older woman entered the room and started to scold the girl.

"Himeno, I told you not to do that when the patients wake up!" the dark-haired woman snapped as she lightly swatted the teenager. Himeno looked properly ashamed as she nodded in agreement to the woman's statement, and started to fidget with the apron that covered her nurse's uniform.

"I'm sorry, Rika-san," the girl muttered, and the woman now identified as Rika rolled her eyes in response.

"Just don't do it again," the older woman scolded as she shooed the brown-haired teenager out of the room. "Now go help Yuma roll bandages. I know for a fact that she needs the help."

"Yes ma'am!"

Erin just sat there and stared, absolutely at a loss for words, as she sat there and watched the nurse turn around and let out a sigh.

"Forgive her," Rika muttered as she walked over to the nineteen-year old's bed and gently removed the dreaded needle from her arm before disinfecting the area and bandaging it. "She's just very enthusiastic about her job."

"I don't mind just as long as she doesn't try to burst my eardrums again," Erin replied wryly as she brushed a stray strand of her tawny-colored hair out of her face. The older woman arched an eyebrow in amusement as she set her clipboard down on the small bedside table before pulling a thermometer out of her apron pocket.

"Well then, since you seem to be a little more alert than the last time I checked up on you, I'll need to take your temperature," she stated as she wiped down the glass rod with a small piece of cloth that smelled strongly of alcohol. "Now open your mouth and hold this under your tongue until I say so. You had better breathe through you nose if you can so you don't throw off the reading."

Erin did as she had been asked and watched Rika as she pulled the chart back out and started studying it intently, scribbling things down on it occasionally. Once the woman had judged that enough time had passed, she pulled the thermometer out of Erin's mouth and inspected it closely.

"103.5; that's still far too high, but not nearly as bad as it was when you were brought in," the nurse 'tsked' as she recorded the teenager's temperature onto the chart that she currently held. "The other night when you were brought in, you had a fever of almost 106."

"Isn't that when brain damage starts to occur?" Erin asked nervously, and was rewarded with a stern look from the older woman.

"Yes," Rika remarked tersely, her lips pressed tightly together in a thin line. "Not to mention that you were soaked to the bone from being outside for an extended period of time. It's a miracle that you didn't catch pneumonia in that state. As it is, you have a serious case of the flu that was made worse by your carelessness. You need to start taking better care of yourself young lady!"

Erin cringed slightly at the scolding before she noticed that Rika had whipped out a wooden tongue depressor and was now eyeing her intently.

"Umm… what's that for?' she ventured nervously. The older woman's expression became slightly apologetic as she gently held Erin's shoulder.

"I need to take a sample of the tissue at the back of your throat to make sure that you haven't contracted anything else," the nurse stated calmly, and the nineteen-year old's eyes grew wide as she attempted to voice her protests.

"You really don't want to do that, trust me on this. I have a- GACK!!"

Erin choked on the tongue depressor as she suddenly found the wooden medical instrument shoved in her mouth and scraped along the back of her throat. The teen's eyes bugged out as she instinctively jerked backwards, and Rika took this opportunity to yank the tongue depressor out of the girl's mouth. Erin briefly eyed the woman in front of her with absolutely loathing for about a second before she clapped a hand over her mouth and bolted off towards the bathroom connected to the hospital room.

She had barely made it inside when the sounds of the toilet lid being thrown open and retching reached Rika from her spot next to the bed. The nurse waited until the retching sounds came to a halt before she ventured into the bathroom to see Erin kneeling in front of the toilet, sweat beading her forehead as her arms shook while she glared at the interior of the toilet bowl.

"Are you alright?" Rika queried softly, and the nineteen-year old slowly looked over at her with an expression of weary dislike etched onto her now-wane face.

"I have an overactive gag reflex," Erin stated coolly as she reached up and shakily wiped off a bit of bile from the corner of her mouth, her tone somewhat accusatory. "That's what I was trying to tell you."

"Oh."

Rika gently helped the wobbly teenager to her feet and escorted her back over to her bed, where she forced Erin to lay back down and drew the covers up over her.

"You stay here, and I'll bring you something to help settle down your stomach," the older woman told her kindly. "How does that sound, love?"

"Fine," the nineteen-year old muttered as she hunkered down under her blankets. Now she felt ten times worse than when she had first woken up. Rika didn't seem to notice her discomfort as she left the room with the promise to be back soon. Erin privately hoped that the older woman would forget about her for an hour or two, and just leave her alone in her misery for a little while.

"I hate hospitals," she growled under her breath, hazel eyes flashing darkly. "All they do here is try to kill you faster!"

--

Kakashi repressed a yawn as he slowly walked back down the hallway towards the room where his temporary charge was located, having just left the hospital cafeteria and the slop that they called 'food'. He had briefly contemplated the idea of consuming a cup of coffee to help fight off his weariness, but had immediately nixed the plan when he caught sight of the brew try to escape from the coffee pot.

Without any human assistance whatsoever.

The Jounin lazily observed all of the nurses and doctors rushing around the hallways, most of the focused intently upon various clipboards containing the medical statistics of their patients or delivering needed medical-supplies to specific areas. He had been kicked out of Erin's room and had been told to take a break by a very persistent nurse. Wanting to avoid as much conflict as possible, he had agreed.

And hence now his current musings as to whether or not the coffee in the hospital cafeteria needed to be executed.

Kakashi wearily rubbed his forehead as he entered the hospital room that he had left Erin in, only to stop when a small nagging thought insisted that something was wrong. The twenty-six-year old slowly examined the room, noting the still-steaming bowl of rice porridge with only a few bites taken out of it sitting on a tray on the bedside table, before he finally realized what was strange about the scene before him that he was viewing.

The bed was empty.

At first, Kakashi didn't register this. He was too out of it to really even notice, having missed out on his precious dose of caffeine.

Then his inner ninja kicked in and promptly gave his caffeine-deprived brain a good swift kick in the ass. The Jounin cursed under his breath as his gaze immediately darted over towards the window, which offered a convenient escape route, before he heard the unmistakable sound of retching and the toilet flushing inside the bathroom that was connected to the room. The door opened, and a wane-looking teenage girl clad in an off-white hospital kimono tottered out before she flopped back down on the bed without even noticing him.

"I hate being sick," she grumbled as she buried her face in the pillow. Kakashi stared at her for a few moments before he decided to announce his presence. The older man loudly cleared his throat from where he was standing by the door, and he was rewarded with the girl jerking slightly as she looked over at him.

Erin's eyes widened to an almost impossible degree as she stared uncomprehendingly at the silver-haired man standing not five feet from her bed. Understanding dawned within the nineteen-year old's hazel-green eyes as the memory of her supposed 'dream' hit her like a brick.

A tall man with long silver hair that seemed to defy gravity… one eye covered by his headband…a black-gloved hand holding onto her wrist with an unyielding grip…a lazy, drawling voice that indicated a hidden intensity behind his nonchalant act…

"Now now, that wasn't very nice. We just want to talk to you."

"Kakashi, hold onto that little hellion!!"

Rain… cold… fear…running from countless adults that seemed to be able to duplicate themselves at will…escape… tears… wanting to only sleep for a little bit…

"Oh hell," Erin whispered fearfully as she slowly pushed herself away from the Jounin, who was now eyeing her intently. "It… it wasn't a…"

She didn't dare finish her statement in the fear that accepting what she was looking at would make it a definite part of reality. The nineteen-year old felt a cold trail of fear go down her spine as her body started to tremble uncontrollably; this, whatever this was, there was no way that this could possibly be normal. Being chased out of a village for no apparent reason by a group of people that she had never met before in her life didn't happen in real life! Stuff like this didn't happen to people like her. She was just a freshman in collage for God's sake!

'That's what you thought when Patrick died,' a voice inside her whispered nastily, and the teenager immediately shoved the thought out of her mind. She didn't even want to go down that road right now. Her current situation was bad enough without bringing up any other painful memories.

Erin gritted her teeth as she glared at the man in front of her, whose expression seemed to be a combination of concern and puzzlement, as well as a bit of suspicion thrown into the mix, at least from what she could see. The skintight black mask that he was currently wearing pretty much hid his face from the nose down, masking any facial expressions made from that point on. The nineteen-year old silently cursed her luck as she realized that she hardly made a threatening figure, sitting there in the hospital bed, her body trembling beyond her control. Of all times for her to come down with the stomach flu…

"It wasn't a what?" the man asked calmly, a silvery eyebrow arched questioningly. Erin's expression darkened as she backed away even further, as far as her bed would allow her without falling off.

Something about this guy practically screamed 'danger', and she wasn't buying the calm and collected 'nice guy' act for a minute.

"What the bloody hell is going on?!" the teenager finally exploded as a feeling of helpless fury welled up within her. "Who are you, where am I, and what in the hell is going on?!"

The man stood there for several seconds before he calmly leaned up against the wall next to the door and stared at Erin intently.

"My name… hmm, I don't really feel like telling you that right now and you are currently in…" he paused for a second to look out the door of the hospital room. "…room 641 at the hospital, and I can only assume that, from your previous statement, Hell is in fact bloody."

Erin twitched at the blatantly sarcastic statement as she glowered furiously at Kakashi, her expression murderous. He was screwing with her! If looks could kill, what might have been left of him would have easily fit in a matchbox.

"Why you smug son of a-" she began angrily, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the blanket covering her, before the older man cut her off.

"If you're going to insult my mother, I suggest that you do it well outside of my hearing range," he stated coolly, but there was no mistaking the hint of steel in his voice. "Now, if you have any questions, I will gladly answer them if you use a reasonable tone of voice."

"…" The nineteen-year old scowled as she silently counted to twenty in an effort to get her temper under control before she allowed herself to give a nod of agreement. Kakashi's visible eye curved upwards, and it took Erin a few moments to realize that he was smiling underneath his mask. This guy was seriously weird… and it wasn't just his attitude either. This whole situation was completely screwy.

"Where am I, asides from being in the hospital?" she asked hesitantly, and mentally flinched when she heard the obvious tremor in her voice. Kakashi didn't seem to notice this as he watched her carefully.

"Don't you already know?"

"No, I don't, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here and asking you a stupid question."

"Remember what I said about being reasonable?"

Erin frowned darkly at the Jounin's comment, but let out a long sigh before she responded. "Could you tell me where I am, please?"

Kakashi gave her another one of those weird eye smiles as if to say 'now that wasn't so hard, was it?' before he answered her question.

"You're in the village of Konoha, which is part of the Fire Country."

Erin was two seconds away from saying 'bullshit' before she decided that it was probably best if she kept her disbelief to herself. Even though she knew that no such place existed, she needed to give the impression that she was too weak to do anything so she could catch her 'babysitter' off-guard. Although the nineteen-year old privately doubted that she was even in a good enough condition to make it down the hall without collapsing.

That still didn't mean that she didn't have a chance to make it out of there though.

'Damned if you do, and damned if you don't,' she thought wryly as she eyed the masked man standing by the door thoughtfully. Kakashi arched an eyebrow at the teenager's searching gaze, and she rolled her eyes in response. The Jounin suppressed a groan as he stared back at the obviously p.o.ed girl, matching her glare for glare; why did he have to get someone who was so difficult?

"Any other questions?' he asked, with only the faintest hint of sarcasm evident in his voice. Erin frowned thoughtfully as she stared down at her bandaged hands, the reminders of both of her frantic dashes through the forest, and the encounter with what must have been all the adults in the village.

"Yeah, I do have one more," she said finally, and Kakashi prepared himself to have more obscenities launched at him for whatever crimes the teenager thought that he had committed against her. He was surprised when her hazel-green eyes locked directly onto his sole visible one and a look of confusion briefly crossed the girl's face.

"Why? Why were you all so intent on capturing me? I've never even been here before, and I suddenly had what must've been half the town out after me the other day. What did I ever do to you to deserve this?" Erin asked softly before her expression hardened and she glared murderously at the Jounin. "If this has anything to do with that red-eyed freak with the spinning pupils that I met in the woods, and you went after me on his orders, then you can go tell him that he can stuff his filthy opinions up his-"

She was cut off as Kakashi immediately stiffened up and looked at her, his eye narrowed dangerously.

"Red-eyed freak?" he asked coolly, and Erin scowled as her temper started to get the better of her once again.

"Yeah, the creepy dude wearing a long black cloak with red clouds scattered all over it. He and his psychotic buddy tried to kill me when I first woke up in the woods outside of here."

The teenager let out an involuntary yelp as Kakashi suddenly seemed to disappear from where he had been standing by the door and reappeared not a foot from her bed.

"What did he look like?" the man growled, and Erin cringed slightly at the anger in his voice.

"He had long black hair that was pulled back, and he probably had at least a few inches over me," she stated as she tried unsuccessfully to squash down any fear that she felt at the moment. "And he was wearing the same headband that you have on, so I figured that you probably know him."

Kakashi didn't say anything for a few seconds as Erin stared at him apprehensively before he finally made a comment. "Did his… I believe that you referred to him as his 'psychotic buddy', say his name at all?"

The teenager paused for a second before she responded; she had a really bad feeling about where this conversation was probably going. "Yeah, he called him 'Itachi-sama', whatever that means. That's a pretty weird name if you ask me."

Erin backed away another two inches as the look on Kakashi's face darkened considerably, and she sent out a silent plea for the protection of any merciful god that miraculously happened to be in the area. She was now officially freaked out. The Jounin didn't seem to notice her unease as he started grilling the nineteen-year old. "Did his headband have a large horizontal scratch through the symbol?"

"Umm… I think so… I was a little too busy trying not to let him strangle me to notice crap like that," she growled back testily, the helpless fury that she had felt earlier returning full-force. "All I saw was that he had the same symbol on his headband that you do."

"And so you thought that he was with us," Kakashi finished as he cast a jaundiced look at the teenager. "Is that why you threw your ramen bowl at Asuma?"

Erin could tell that he obviously felt insulted from her comment about how she thought that Itachi was with them, but she ignored the warning signs as she glared right back at the older man.

"If you're talking about the guy with the cigarette, then yes, that is why I chucked my lunch at him," she shot back as she crossed her arms across her chest in an obviously defiant gesture. "Now, are you done playing forty questions, or are you going to tell me why I had what looked like everyone here chasing after me?"

Kakashi's eye narrowed at rude tone in the teenager's voice, and she tried to scoot a little farther away from him again, only to loose her balance and fall over the edge of the bed with a loud 'crash', followed by a very foul curse that would have put a sailor to shame. The Jounin rolled his eyes as he calmly walked around the bed over to where the teenager had fallen.

"You seem to have a talent for hurting yourself," he remarked lazily as Erin shot him an indignant glare from where she lay before she scrambled up into a kneeling position and shot under the bed.

"Oh no you don't!" Kakashi growled as he immediately dropped down to his knees and grabbed the fleeing teenager's ankle, only to receive a lovely kick to the face before he could get a hold of the other one. The Jounin let out a pained grunt as he tightened his grip on the nineteen-year old's leg, much to her immense displeasure.

"Let go of me, you bastard!" Erin spat as she kicked her captor again, this time in the throat. Kakashi immediately let go as stars somehow entered his line of vision and he found that he couldn't breathe momentarily, while Erin used this opportunity to bolt out of the hospital room and into the hallway. She paused for a second in front of the door before she pulled it closed and pushed a nearby chair in front of it to block the doorway.

'Okay, first I need to find a phone and call Jess,' the teenager thought as she ran down the hospital corridor, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure that Kakashi wasn't following her. 'I'm pretty sure that guy's gonna be pissed beyond belief once he gets out of there, and I really don't want to be around when that happens.'

Somehow, she managed to make it all the way to the stairs without collapsing, but she fell to her knees and clapped a hand over her mouth as her stomach started to heave. Erin silently cursed whoever she had caught the flu from as she barely managed to make it to a trash can before she got sick.

"D-damn it," she hissed as she slumped down against the wall across from the door leading back into the hospital corridor and rested her head against the cool concrete wall behind her as a wave of dizziness swamped her entire being. She had used up all her energy getting angry at Kakashi, and escaping for her hospital room.

The nineteen-year old involuntarily shuddered as she wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged them to her chest, resting her forehead against her knees. She hated feeling this weak; even though she had managed to ditch the silver-haired ninja through sheer dumb luck, she knew that it was only a matter of time before he found her again. There was no way that she could possibly make it out of the hospital in her condition without help.

Erin groaned slightly as her stomach started to churn again, and she shut her eyes as she gritted her teeth.

'I will not throw up, I will not throw up, I will not throw up,' she repeated silently as a roaring sound filled her ears. She was so busy concentrating on not getting sick that she didn't notice the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs leading to the roof.

"So this is where you were hiding," a familiar voice muttered grumpily, and Erin flinched at the sound. She hadn't even made it five minutes without being caught, and what was worse was that she didn't care right then; all she wanted to do was to stop feeling like she was going to hurl.

"Go away," she mumbled, her forehead still resting against her knees. She knew she probably sounded like a little kid right then, but she could care less at the moment. Instead of leaving, Erin heard Kakashi walk closer to her, and the nineteen-year old hissed out an incomprehensible curse under her breath.

"I heard that," the Jounin remarked dryly. "And despite the fact that you believe that I am a 'persistent little bugger', to use your exact words, you are coming back to that room with me even if I have to use force."

"Go to hell."

"Hmm… how about no? I don't quite feel like it."

Erin's eyes widened, and a furious scowl crossed her face as she looked up at the man who was currently standing in front of her with an annoyingly innocent expression on his face. She opened her mouth to say something very nasty before she hastily shut it and curled back up into a ball as her stomach started to roil again.

"I'm going to murder whoever gave me this!" she hissed through clenched teeth, sweat beading on her forehead as she fought against the urge to be sick. The teenager sat there for several moments in silence, stubbornly refusing to allow herself to look any more vulnerable than she already was as she ignored Kakashi in the hopes that he would go away. After a minute, and no sarcastic remarks, Erin slowly looked up to see the last person in the world that she wanted to be anywhere near her at that moment crouched right in front of her.

"Are you alright?" the Jounin asked calmly, and the teenager eyed him warily in response.

"No, I am bloody not alright. I feel like death warmed over right now," she grumbled darkly. "So why don't you do me a huge favor and just kill me now and get it over with."

Kakashi's lone eye widened slightly at the teen's statement as he peered at her closely. "Do you seriously think that I'm going to kill you?"

"Why else would you and the rest of those people have been throwing knives at me the other day?"

Erin stared at the silver-haired Jounin in front of her intently, although she was caught off-guard when he shook his head and started chuckling. The nineteen-year old looked at the older man like he was crazy, and was silently debating the merits of seeing if she could manage to make it down the flight of stairs behind her when he stopped laughing.

"Most of those were illusions, little one," he chuckled as he reached out and ruffled the girl's hair. "Those were meant to scare you, and the few real ones that you encountered were thrown in an attempt to direct you into an ambush."

Erin scowled as she knocked Kakashi's hand away from her head and ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to flatten it.

"Gee, thanks," she grumbled sarcastically. "I'll keep that in mind the next time I have a bunch of nutjobs out after me armed with throwing knives."

Kakashi arched an eyebrow as he regarded the teenager thoughtfully.

"I've never seen someone your age be so cynical," he remarked, and Erin gave a low growl in response as she forced herself to her feet, ignoring the rush of dizziness that followed her sudden movement.

"And just exactly what do you think that my age is?" she asked angrily as she clenched her fists so tightly that her fingernails dug painfully into her palms. Kakashi merely stared at the angry girl as he stood up and stuffed his hands lazily into his pockets; he could tell that he had hit a nerve with his comment.

"Fourteen or fifteen at best," he stated nonchalantly, and noticed with interest that Erin's knuckles went white as she clenched her fists even harder. Fury burned deep within the teenager's eyes as she glared at him.

"I'm nineteen, moron!" she hissed. "I am not some little kid that you can appease with a head pat!"

"Well, you certainly aren't acting like it," Kakashi commented. "I have students who're twelve that behave better than you are right now."

Erin's right eye twitched as she glared at the Jounin before she spat out what sounded like a stream of insults, but it was in completely different language than from what Kakashi was used to hearing.

"Fuck you, you slimy arrogant bastard!! Do me a favor and piss off, you stupid wanker! I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I am sick and tired of-!" the nineteen-year old was stopped in mid-rant by Kakashi pressing his hand against her mouth, his expression stern.

"I may not have been able to understand what you were saying just then, but it doesn't take much for me to guess that it probably wasn't anything flattering," he remarked coolly as he grabbed her left forearm when he saw her hand twitch slightly, effectively preventing the girl from hitting him. "Now, are you able make it back to your room by yourself without putting up a fight, or am I going to have to knock you out and drag you back there?"

The teenager leveled a furious glare at the lanky Jounin's single exposed eye, the promise of a painful death shining in her eyes as she proceeded to shriek a long series of unintelligible curses into the older man's gloved hand. Kakashi merely arched a silvery eyebrow as he waited until the stream of profanities died out before he spoke in lazy tone.

"Now now, is there really a need for that?"

"Bastard!!" Erin snarled as she forcefully jerked her head away from the shinobi's smothering grip and tried to land a knee to the man's groin, only to have him twist out of the way with ease before he released her wrist and snagged her knee, putting the teen in the incredibly awkward position of trying to balance on one leg with her back pressed up against the wall.

"That wasn't very nice," the Jounin drawled as he gave the now-shocked and fuming girl a slightly dismissive look, planting his hand firmly back over her mouth. "And don't even think about trying to bite me. I can tell you right now it won't work."

Erin froze, a perturbed scowl crossing her features as she glared what could only be described as 'blazing daggers of doom' at the older man currently restraining her. How the hell had he known that she was about to do that?

"I could tell by the look in your eyes," Kakashi stated simply before he arched an eyebrow. "So, are you going to play nice, or am I going to have to throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes so I can get you back to your room?"

Erin made a small sound that was muffled by his hand as she stared at the Jounin incredulously, her eyes wide. Kakashi arched an eyebrow as he removed his hand from the teenager's mouth, and she took a deep breath.

"You're kidding me, right?" she asked hesitantly, and hope welled up in her chest when the ninja smiled at her.

"Nope, not at all," Kakashi stated with a grin. Erin twitched slightly at the older man's comment, but she opted not to say anything else in the hope that if she kept her mouth shut and didn't give her tormentor any ammunition, he wouldn't be able to get on her nerves as easily.

'I can't believe this guy. It's almost like he's enjoying messing with me,' the teenager thought as she stepped away from the silver-haired Jounin and reached for the door that lead back out into the hospital hallway. It was right then that Erin finally noticed that she wasn't wearing what she would have called 'hospital clothing'.

"Umm… what happened to my clothes?" she asked, and Kakashi merely gave a nonchalant shrug in response.

"How should I know? The nurses were the ones who dressed you."

"You were the one who was in my room!"

"… I only dropped you off at the hospital. I was ordered to return here and watch you, and by the time I had come back the nurses had already gotten you all cleaned up."

Erin scowled as she let out a frustrated sigh. Getting information out of this guy was like talking to a brick wall, although she privately thought that a brick wall might be more responsive, and definitely a lot less aggravating.

"God, are you annoying!" she grumbled darkly under her breath as she stepped back out into the hallway, ignoring Kakashi's sharp 'Hey!' as the door almost hit him in the face. The teenager rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest, stubbornly refusing to allow the Jounin to see that her hands were shaking. She didn't need him to know that she was on the verge of collapse.

"You have got to be one of the most violent women that I have ever met," Kakashi stated calmly as he caught up to Erin, who had been several feet ahead of him. "And the most stubborn."

"You'd be pretty upset too if you woke up in a hospital with someone standing guard over you even though you know you've done nothing wrong," Erin shot back. "Not to mention the fact that nobody's even considered telling me what the bloody hell is going on!"

"If you've done nothing wrong, then why'd you try to escape?"

Erin paused for a second, a startled look flashing across her face before she responded. "I plead the Fifth."

"You plead the what?" Kakashi asked quizzically. The nineteen-year old glanced over at him and gave him a look that plainly said 'just exactly how stupid are you?' before she rolled her eyes again.

"I plead the Fifth, you know, as in the Fifth Amendment? Its part of the Bill of Rights…" she stopped when she saw the uncomprehending look on the older man's face. "You know, it's pretty sad when a cop doesn't even know about the Bill of Rights. I feel so flattered to see my parents' taxpayer dollars at work."

Even though he didn't understand half of what the girl was talking about, Kakashi could tell that the comment was meant to be an insult just from the extreme sarcasm in her voice. Although he had absolutely no idea as to how she came to the conclusion that he was a cop…

"What makes you think that I'm part of the police force?"

"Hmm, let's see… you made the comment earlier about reporting to someone, all the questions that you were asking me earlier, and you move like you've had training in some form of self-defense," Erin pointed out, holding up a finger for each point that she listed off. "Not to mention the fact that you found me even though you were still blocked in the room by the time I got here."

"Hmph, all those things that you just listed out are things that any competent ninja could do in a heartbeat," Kakashi remarked, and Erin froze before she turned around to look at him with wide hazel eyes.

"…You know what, I thought that you were off your rocker earlier, but now I know that you're completely mental," the teenager stated seriously as she took several precautionary steps backwards away from Kakashi, eyeing the man warily as though she expected him to suddenly attack her. "Ninjas don't exist."

"You don't believe me?" Kakashi asked as he arched an eyebrow, and Erin responded with a classic 'no duh' look.

"C'mon, I may only be nineteen, but I'm not that naïve," she retorted as she rolled her eyes. "'Ninja', pfft, that has got to be one of the dumbest excuses that I have ever heard."

"What makes you think that I'm not a ninja?" the Jounin asked. Erin just shook her head and sighed before she gave the older man a disbelieving look.

"Would a ninja have let a nineteen-year old girl kick him in the face?" she countered sarcastically as she pointed to the red mark that sloped down from above his eyebrow to his nose and disappeared underneath his mask. Kakashi's eye narrowed slightly as he looked down at the shorter girl standing in front of him.

"You caught me off guard when you did that," he remarked somewhat stiffly. "I didn't expect someone so sick to fight back like that. But it definitely won't happen a second time, since I am a ninja."

"Bull."

"What if I could prove it to you?"

"Oh, I'd pay to see that," Erin said as she shook her head in disbelief at the older man's statement. Kakashi didn't respond to the teenager's jab as he formed several hand signs in rapid succession, his hands moving so fast that Erin could barely even tell that he was forming distinct symbols.

"Kage Bunshin No Jutsu!" he declared, and a sudden cloud of smoke erupted around him with a loud 'poof!'. Erin took a step back as she looked around her wildly, all the hair along the back of her neck standing up. She had a really bad feeling about this…

"What the hell?!" she growled as she waved some of the smoke away from her as it started to dissipate. It was at that moment that Kakashi walked up out of the rapidly thinning smoke and gave her an expectant look.

"Well?"

"Oh wow, you managed to make a cloud of smoke," Erin drawled sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "What a phenomenal achievement. And all you need is a smoke bomb."

"Who ever said that I was just making a cloud of smoke?" a familiar voice asked from behind her, and Erin immediately spun around to see Kakashi standing right behind her. The teen's jaw immediately dropped as she stared incredulously at the individual in front of her before she whirled back around to face the Kakashi who had walked out of the smoke.

"How… why… how… what in the… how are there two…" she stammered shakily as she looked back and forth between the two Jounin before she raised a hand to her forehead and nervously ran a hand through her bangs. "Holy shit…"

It was at that moment that the remainder of the smoke finally cleared away, and there stood yet another Kakashi, who looked at her meaningfully with a raised eyebrow.

"Yo," he said calmly as he held up a hand. Erin went dead white as she stared at the Jounin before she started to tremble slightly. It was then that her body finally decided that it could no longer handle all of the stress that she had been forcing on it, and the nineteen-year old's eyes rolled back up into her head.

She was unconscious before she even pitched forward, and she would have hit the hard wooden floor beneath her were it not for Kakashi darting forward and catching her as his two clones disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"Whoops," he muttered as he looked down at the pale form of the senseless teenage girl that he was currently holding. That had definitely been one reaction that he hadn't expected.

The Hokage was not going to be happy when he heard about this.

--

And here's the third chapter! I hope that everyone liked it, and that I didn't keep you in suspense too long. So far, people seem to really like this story, and I'm glad that I've managed to produce something that people seem to find worth reading.

Envy: You know, if you concentrated on writing a story of your own instead of working on fanfictions, you might actually become famous.

Wandering Hitokiri: (Scowls) Oh shut up, you stupid palm tree! I can just as easily screw with your mind like I did with Itachi. (Points over at said weasel boy, who is currently huddled in a corner and muttering under his breath.)

Itachi: Evil scary… evil scary… very, very, very scary…

Envy: (Sweatdrops) You can't say that I didn't warn him… besides, it's not like I could possibly lose my mind as easily as that pathetic human over there could! I'm a homunculus; you'll have to try a lot harder than that.

Wandering Hitokiri: Somehow, I don't think that I'll have to try that hard to make you lose your mind; you're already more than half crazy as it is.

Envy: What?!

Wandering Hitokiri: You heard me, idiot.

Envy: Shut up! I know where you sleep!!

Wandering Hitokiri: And I know where your human remains are.

Envy: … I hate you.

Wandering Hitokiri: Good, at least you have enough common sense to recognize that.

Envy: I'll get you for this someday.

Wandering Hitokiri: Not in your lifetime. (Smirks) After all, I am a hitokiri.

Oh, and stuff said by Erin that's written like "This" is said in Gaelic. You'll find out a little more behind that in later chapters.

Reviews:

TheCrazyScotswomanOfDOOM: No, I agree with you. I don't mind a little romance, but you have to develop it, not have the whole 'love at first sight' cliché. That's what really drives me nuts, and I've noticed that the characters involved in stuff like that tend to be really shallow. Which is the main reason why I never read romance novels… they're nothing more than trashy Mary-Sue stories that managed to get published. I read one once, and I got maybe five pages into it before I put it back on the shelf because I wanted to gag.

Lady Renyel of Arella: Thank you very much.

rockleefan: Yeah, Erin does seem to get into a lot of trouble. She just has a talent for it… I torture my poor characters a lot. (Grins evilly) Sorry if I wasn't clear enough with the whole 'being mistaken for a thirteen-year old' bit. Okay, here's the story behind it; one of my best friends is nineteen, and she keeps getting mistaken for a thirteen-year old all the time, even though she's about 5'5. I asked my dad about it once, 'cause it happens to me too sometimes, and he says that it's because my friend and I both have very 'youthful' faces. So, it'll be a good thing when we're like thirty, but right now it's just a pain in the ass. Anyways, if Erin's the only teenager in the area, people usually mistake her for being thirteen, but if there is someone who's around thirteen near her, people think that she's older than that, but not by much. That's how that whole thing works. I hope that I answered any questions that you had about that little situation.

TwoCrazyGirls: Thank you. I'm glad that I surprised you. That's what I was aiming to do. (Grins) Do me a favor though, and don't sic Snape on me. I already have a hormonal palm tree to deal with, and I can barely keep him off my back without excessive use of force.

Envy: Hey!