I no own Naruto. This is just me being … silly.

Nya!

SANITY 8

Raidou's day passed by in a daze. At some point, he grew irritable with everything that went on around him. People kept away from him as the day went on, being the storm cloud that he was. Raidou couldn't care less. He couldn't even remember why he was angry in the first place. Sometime during his class' recess, he found himself seated comfortably in one of the couches in the staff lounge, looking out the window. Raidou felt a nagging feeling growing with every passing moment deep inside him. He didn't like having to worry about things that didn't require his concern; particularly when he didn't know what the root of his concern was.

He didn't even notice the entrance of his colleagues until he heard the soft purring of a cat beside his feet. Blinking, he found a fluffy gray and white cat brushing its tail against his leg. That was when he noticed that Iruka, Genma and Kakashi had walked in to the room.

"How did your mission go?" Raidou asked, reaching down to pick up the cat that behaved and settled on his lap immediately, turning its furry squashed-looking face at Genma.

Genma was silent for a moment. Only when Raidou looked up to acknowledge Genma did a reply manage to come out from Genma's dry lips.

"It was successful." Genma said, swallowing.

Iruka quickly excused himself, approaching to take the cat. "Uh –"

"A stray cat, isn't she?" Raidou said, looking up and smiling at Iruka softly. "No home? You were wondering if there was anyone who'd like to take her in?"

Iruka blinked. "Yes." A frown came to the Chuunin's face as Kakashi and Genma exchanged looks.

"I'll keep her. Friendly isn't she?" Raidou said, stroking the cat's back.

Silence came upon the three as they all blinked while Raidou continued stroking with his fingers. "Of course! That'd be great! Please take care of her, Raidou-san!"

An immediate blush came to Iruka's face when Raidou nodded and smiled. "Will do."

Silence fell upon them once more. Iruka didn't stay for long since he had classes to attend to and quickly excused himself from gradually tensing atmosphere. Kakashi was wise enough to follow Iruka's example after raiding the box of donuts by the coffee counter, waving and disappearing behind the door. Genma however, was merely staring at Raidou quietly, a thousand things at the tip of his tongue while remaining a statue as Raidou continued to stroke the cat's fur.

When it took too long, Raidou looked up and sighed. "Okay, what's bothering you?"

Genma, to say the least, looked a bit startled by the question. "Uh. Nothing."

"Don't lie, Genma. It's all over your face." Raidou muttered, looking a bit peeved while he moved to rub at one of the cat's paw.

"It's been very difficult lately." Genma managed to say, shakily pulling a stool and trying to make himself as comfortable as he can. He merely ended up getting extremely tensed rather than relaxed.

"How come?" Raidou blinked, looking up at Genma.

"You know when you feel like you know everything at one point then bam!" Genma slapped a fist in to his palm lightly, pointedly not looking at Raidou. "Outta' the blue, you're doubting what you once knew. Everything you knew."

Raidou was silent for the moment, contemplating on what Genma just said. He was studying the younger man, noticing the needle Genma normally chewed was not present. "Sorta'. I think."

Genma released the breath he didn't realize he was holding at Raidou's answer. "It's kinda' like that. I –" Genma stopped speaking when Raidou gave a sharp cry and jerked his hand back just as the cat jumped down his lap and scurried away out the open window.

"Damn cat!" Raidou growled, eyes narrowing and facial muscles drawing together to an expression of anger that Genma rarely saw on the older Jounin's face.

There was a moment of hesitation that shouldn't have been there in the first place deep inside Genma, before he stood up and quickly grabbed the tissue box from the nearby table. "Here." Raidou pulled out several sheets of tissue and quickly pressed it against the cut on his hand, which was bleeding too much for a simple cat-scratch. "It looks deep." Genma said just as Raidou tossed a wad of soaking bloody tissues in to the bin and grabbed cleaner wads to stop the bleeding.

"Fucking cat dug its claw in that's why. It's so going to pay for this." Raidou hissed, wincing a bit as he applied more pressure.

"Let me see." Genma reached out for Raidou's hand only to stop when he found Raidou glaring at him.

"What? I've had wounds worse that this before."

For a moment, Genma was tongue-tied, blinking and brain not comprehending the words. When he finally did, he lost his temper. "What the fuck is the matter with you?"

Raidou's glare didn't falter when Genma's yell reverberated through the lounge. "You're treating me like a baby!"

"Well I'm sorry if my care for you runs too deep!" Genma yelled, honey eyes flashing with emotions he's been trying to keep in control for quite some time. "I'm sorry if my caring for you offends you! Why don't you just hit me while you're at it, huh?"

Raidou grabbed more tissue once the one he was holding got too soaked. "No one asked you to care!"

If possible, it angered Genma even more. "You're right! No one did! Not you! Not anyone! You're not the Raidou I once knew!" Genma took a step back towards the door, tossing the box of tissue he was holding towards the couch Raidou was previously occupying. "Right now, I wish you'd just fucking bleed to death! Maybe the loss of blood will bring some sense in to that screwed up head of yours!"

Without another word, Genma left, upset and slamming the door. Raidou tore his gaze away from the door and continued to nurse his bleeding hand. It was a good minute later did he head for the clinic nearby to get his hand bound.

XXX

Raidou fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. The day's happenings might not have been exhausting to the body but it exhausted his mind to points of breaking that he didn't know how to handle it but collapse and surrender to sleep.

He found himself melting in to a dream landscape where everything was white and quiet. Confused, he took a look around and found that it was indeed an empty white space; like a huge room painted white from top to bottom. Only then did he notice that his supposed to have been bandaged hand was bleeding again; the three deep gashes caused by the cat's claws looked like angry welts and was protruding around the broken skin like it was infected. The blood dripped from his hands on to the white floors even while he tried to stop the bleeding by the gripping the gashes tight with his other hand. Something warm and wet landed on his cheek, then on his nose and forehead, then all over his chest and sleeping pants. Raidou noticed the dense red drops and knew it was blood. He winced as fast falling drops landed on his eyelids, making him blink and curse.

He looked up and found a person standing directly above him, wearing sleeping pants and gripping a bleeding hand too. Raidou's lips parted in surprise as he noted that the man above him, who looked like he was floating or standing on an invisible surface, had the same posture as he did. The blood that was falling on Raidou was his own; that man above him was him.

"Then …" Raidou mumbled and looked down, to find a mirrored image of himself looking down too, only the scene he was seeing was no longer white but red. Confused, he looked up again and found the reflection above him looking down at him, no longer gripping the bloodied hand but holding it out instead, so that the blood from the ugly now purple swollen gashes fell on Raidou's face and gaping mouth till Raidou found himself drowning in his own blood, his own life.

Raidou sat up from bed with a cry, hands moving up to his face in terror. It took a few moments of stilled silence to calm his panicked mind, white swirls of mist forming and disappearing from his frantic breaths from the cold temperature of his apartment. When Raidou's mind finally did calm down and his breathing evened, he ran shaking fingers through his hair and then stared at them, noting uncontrollable tremors that racked in his cold body.

"Geez." He sighed with relief, and clenched his hands to fists, feeling the cold touch of his fingertips against his already white palm. The cold bothered him just as much as the dream did. Swallowing, he swung his legs off the bed and bit his lower lip as renewed coldness shot up through his feet. "Damn cold! Fuck!"

He felt for the switch on the wall and flicked the lights on. Raidou wrapped his arms around himself and quickly fiddled with the switch at the bottom of the window where his heater was placed, turned the machine on full blast and welcome the warm air. He held his fingers out towards the swinging panels till he brought back some feeling in to them. He remained in his room, till he was warm enough to fetch a drink from the kitchen.

A quick glance at the kitchen wall clock told him that it was only three in the morning. He set his kettle to boil and prepared a cup of chamomile mixture. He was still too sleepy to be up but the nightmare shook him and it was only nerves that were even keeping him on his feet. Senses out, he pulled a stool and slumped on his counter, waiting for the kettle to whistle. He remained that way until he heard a series of raspy strangled noises. Blinking, his honed senses picked the noise up easily, the sound becoming louder the more he focused on it. It puzzled him that it sounded near.

Stifling a yawn, Raidou moved out of his kitchen to his living room where his kunai was lying haphazardly on the floor. It took a few moments for him to collect his memory, clearly remembering that he had tossed his kunai holster on the couch along with his flak jacket. The jacket remained on the couch, folded once over the arm rest in the same manner Raidou remembered. Scratching his head, he picked the fallen kunais on the floor and placed them on his living room table, moving towards the door where the noise was coming from outside.

The moment Raidou touched the first door-bolt, a shiver run down his spine just as those hiss-choking-like noises got louder. He shouldn't be hesitating in opening his own front door, especially when he can't sense any sort of killing intent around him or a person's presence. Steeling himself, he wrenched the door open and stepped outside his hallway only to stop cold in his tracks. The hallway was dimmer than it should've been and right in front of his door, on what should have been clean walls was a pinned cat. Raidou watched with horror as those choking noises engulfed him, eyes glued to the tortured gray animal that was held in place on the wall by a kunai in the throat; the kunai's angle was embedded in such a way that it kept the struggling animal alive but damaged it's vocal chords.

Raidou's eyes trailed to the kunai that looked too familiar. Raidou took a step back from the choking animal that was staring at him with angered and begging yellow eyes. Raidou knew that cat and as soon as his mind registered who that cat was, the gashes on his hand throbbed in reminder.

"Fuck. Oh fuck." Raidou stumbled back towards the apartment, tearing his gaze off the struggling cat that gurgled blood and soiled the floors and walls with it. His mind went in to full blown panic frenzy as he skidded to his knees by his living room table and quickly counted the kunais he had. What should have been six was only five and Raidou didn't know how many times he counted it but he felt a scream bubble in his throat and tear out like a rampaging animal. The cat's nearly-silenced screams were suddenly extremely too loud for him take.

The loud rattle and groan of the elevator ascending pushed Raidou to his feet to bolt out of his apartment towards the approaching elevator, only to stop once again with a scream at the tip of his tongue when he saw the call button glowing. He looked around him wildly, desperate in finding some sort of presence and found none. The elevator came to a stop at his floor and Raidou looked in to find it empty, eerie and waiting and couldn't stop the whimper from escaping his lips as he ran blindly for the stairwell. He pressed the timed-light-switch and hurried down the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. His whole body shook with the onslaught of cold that surrounded him, hindering his normal agility and speed. He stumbled several times and scraped his knees and toes on his way down. His desperation made him whisper frantic prayers as landing after landing was left behind.

"Help me. Gods help me!" He begged desperately and toppled on the ground by the fourth floor catching sight of the big painted number on the wall that made him pull a memory from the back of his head of one of the doors on the fourth floor having a pair of boots sitting outside on the doormat. The moment the thought crossed his mind, he turned quickly to continue his way downstairs just as the timer for the light switch came to a stop and the entire stair well was flooded in darkness. Raidou stumbled, lost his footing and fell head first down the stairs, landing with a grunt and a cry on the third floor's emergency exit door. "Help me. Oh gods please. Please!" He whimpered, leaning against the wall and shakingly searching for the switch he couldn't find. The cold numbed him, doubling his panic as screams of terror escaped his mouth in to the night. "Genma! Genma! Genma!"

The cat's tortured cries rang out even louder; all Raidou could do was clamp hands to his ears, huddle and shut his eyes while tears leaked out from the closed lids and call for his friend's name over and over again.

XXX

Genma woke up with a bit of a start that morning. He hadn't been dreaming but what woke him up was the feeling as if someone used his chest as a landing cushion. A glance at the clock told him it was a quarter past eight.

"Shit." He grumbled and quickly hurdled for the bathroom to get dressed before heading for the administration building to complete his assigned missions.

He found Iruka looking upset that morning. "Ah, good morning, Genma-san."

"Ei Iruka-sensei." Genma greeted, stifling a yawn. "You look like you just got slapped. What's up?"

"Slapped with horror you mean." Iruka said, frown deepening. "Remember that cat yesterday?"

"Yeah. Made Raidou scream bloody murder for nearly taking his hand off." This time, Genma didn't stop the yawn from coming out of his mouth.

Iruka frowned at him. "I found the cat."

"What are you so upset about then? It ran off from Raidou yesterday. Good thing you found it." Genma rubbed at a sleepy eye, just as he noticed Iruka look more upset. "Iruka-sensei?"

"It was in one of the garbage bins outside. It was dead Genma. Hole in the throat." Iruka sighed. "It looked like an accident. You know how things are around here. Can't help but throw kunais at a small snap of a twig."

"It must have been an accident." Genma said. "It's not uncommon to find such things."

"I know." Iruka sighed. "Whoever did it could have at least wrapped it in plastic or some bag rather than leaving it like that."

Genma reached forward and patted Iruka's shoulder. "It's all right Iruka-sensei."

"Yeah." Iruka sighed, reaching out for one of the folders. "You're an hour and a half late Genma-san. This mission was supposed to be taken at seven, not –" Iruka glanced at the wall clock. " – at eight-thirty-five."

"Sorry. I sorta' slept in. I'll make sure I finish it though." Genma apologized and took the folder.

"And to think only Raidou-san would be late." Iruka grumbled.

Genma blinked, looking up from the folder he was reading. "He didn't come by yet?"

"No." Iruka sighed. "And he's going to get hell from Hokage-sama. This has to be done by today." Iruka tapped at the folder that was assigned to Raidou. "Can you drop by and see what's taking him so long? He's usually here early."

Genma was about to say no but something forced him to pick the folder up and nod. "I'll go now."

"Thank you, Genma-san." Iruka said, smiling. "Take care on your mission."

"Yeah." Genma waved and disappeared out the door, heading for Raidou's apartment complex. It didn't take long for Genma to climb the staircase to the tenth floor, choosing to ignore the elevator simply because he didn't like the loud rattle of the machine. Pushing the sliding emergency door open on the last floor, Genma made his way down the hallway, yawning once more and blinked at the site of Raidou's wide open doorway. "Raidou?"

Puzzled, Genma made his way inside the apartment, noting the scattered kunai on the living room table and the folded flak jacket on couch arm rest. He couldn't feel any presence and it made him worry. Genma's frown deepened, footsteps quickening as he headed for the bedroom and pushed the door open. A startled gasp broke from Genma's throat at the sight of Raidou crumpled on the extremely cold floor, unmoving.

"Fuck!" Genma dropped the folders and was by Raidou's side immediately. Hoisting the older man's weight on one arm, he stared with horror at the blue tainted lips and pale face color. "Oh god." Genma whispered, quickly feeling for a pulse that he found very slow and almost not there. The body in his arms was cold, Raidou's fingers and toes tinged with blue that was turning purple. "Raidou? Oi! Raidou!" Genma shook the man a bit and only ended up with Raidou's head lolling to one side and remaining unconscious. "Fucking ass-wipe froze his ass to death!"

Grabbing the blanket from the bed, Genma threw it over Raidou's shirtless frame and bit back the shiver than run down his spine as he lifted Raidou in his arms and carried him out of the apartment. Genma was starting to find the place too cold for comfort, the soft drizzle of rain outside not helping with the temperature either. Shifting Raidou's weight against him, Genma hurried down the staircase, stopping somewhere between the fifth floor and fourth floor when he heard loud doors slamming simultaneously. Genma remained frozen for a moment, holding Raidou closer to himself and looking behind him to find the emergency door swinging open. It didn't take more than a brief second for Genma to turn around and jump down the stairs with chakra-induced steps. His heart pounded in his chest as loud as horse hooves on asphalt just as he rushed past the last swinging door and in to the morning drizzle. Genma cast the complex an almost trapped looking glance before turning around and rushing for the hospital to get Raidou some help.

XXX

Genma watched doctors come in and out of Raidou's room. It was mild pneumonia and nothing serious. Apparently, Raidou was suffering from a mild concussion as well. It was a freak analysis in Genma's opinion because no one got a concussion just by falling off the bed. No one got pneumonia from sleeping on ceramic or marble floors either. He voiced out his thoughts to the hospital staff taking care of Raidou and was told that those were indeed Raidou's symptoms, whether he fell off the bed or not or slept on cold floors or not.

Either way, Genma found it fruitless to argue with medics and simply remained silent and frowning as Raidou was wheeled to the recovery room, asleep. Genma followed quietly, watching as the medics kept Raidou tucked on a clean bed before leaving.

Genma didn't know what to think. While the blue tinge was gone from Raidou's lips, his tanned skin was paler than it was earlier, with an almost sickly yellow tinge to it. Genma was torn in debating as to which was a better color; pale yellow or deadly blue. Simply watching Raidou lie still and breathe was enough of a reminder at how dead looking Raidou was in his own bedroom floor.

Pulling a chair, Genma sat beside Raidou's bed, taking one of the pale hands under the sheets and holding it close to his forehead.

"Raidou. What's happening to you?" Genma asked in a whisper.

It was a good hour later did Genma stand up to leave and gather those mission instructions he left at Raidou's bedroom doorway.

XXX

The images flashed in his head like a malfunctioning projector. It was a memory that couldn't make sense nor did he have any recollection of it.

He stumbled through a slightly messy looking apartment, blood dribbling down his clothes and creating a mess on familiar looking ceramic walls. The window was open, letting in a rush of cold air as clanking sounds of weapons hitting the floors bounced off the walls. Anguished prayers of desperation mumbled out of his dry lips, tears running down pale and bloodied cheeks.

The scraping of a stool was ear shattering. The knots of thick wires being tied to the ceiling lamp hook was even louder. Stepping on the stool, he slipped the round knot over his head and slid it down his throat, securing it with a tug.

"Heavens forgive me and purge the blood off my hands. Heavens hear my prayer and grant me release from this hell. Heavens give me sanctuary."

And then he was choking and swinging from the ceiling, the vision of the open doorway slowly fading, so he could no longer see the bloodied limbs scattered everywhere on the apartment hallway; nor could he see the bloody sprays of anguish that marred the clean blue wall paint.

All he knew then was the extreme cold claiming his body, and his throat closing to silence off his feeble prayers and the feel of blood bubbling out of his lips and more tears falling down his face.

Raidou snapped his eyes open, breaths coming out in thirsty gasps as his mind focused on the clean hospital ceiling. Desperation flooded him, eyes watering and scrunching up in a sudden show of vulnerability, as he begged for the presence of a friend, the name spilling out of his mouth sounding like an anguished prayer.

"Genma …"

TBC

Arrr … finally an update! Scared my self one too many in attempting to write this. Wrote it in broad daylight too.

Uhm yeah, I should be concluding this very soon. Not far off before it ends anyway.

Err … bad? Rotten tomatoes bad?

I pity both. Really.