The rest of that night was spent sleeping in a place nobody would ever find him: the forest of Training Ground 44, also known as the Forest of Death. It was filled with tigers. He would never be noticed.

In the morning, he woke up and stretched. Faint sunlight was already streaming through the trees. He would have liked to find a sunny spot and spend the rest of the morning dozing. I shouldn't. I ought to return quickly. Or should I? This was a trip for himself, his own reasons, to learn to let loose. He made his way to a river and padded along its banks, searching for a good place to rest.

He found one. Kakashi made his darkness extra absorbent of heat so that his real body would also get to experience this joy, and he lay on his side. The sun warmed his belly very nicely. Mmm. I might be a dog, but it's not so bad being a cat every so often. He flipped his tail. The sun's heat soaked in quickly, and he started to growl softly. It was the best he could do for a purr.

There was a rustle in the bushes. He looked up in time to see a genin dart out, lightning quick, swinging a weapon that shone with dazzling light and made a harsh clanging sound upon the ground. "Hyaa!"

Kakashi blinked. The whole display was more amusing than anything else, all noise and flash. Was he supposed to react?

The genin paused. They clearly did not know what to do after their display got no reaction. They raised their weapon and charged, streaking towards him with more dangerous intent. Kakashi twisted onto his feet, leaped forward inside the genin's lunge, buried his head in their gut and lifted them off the ground, up into the air, landing several meters away with a thump. They dropped the sword midflight.

He turned and waited for the genin to get back to their feet. The genin did, in a hurry. They looked at him. At their sword, lying on the ground closer to him than to them. Back up at him. Kakashi sat down and waited.

The genin crept forward. Kakashi liked them already. On some level, this genin had already realized that he was no tiger. That demonstrated a level of understanding of the situation not often found in ones so young. The genin crept forward, stopped and assumed a defensive stance, then lowered it and crept forward again. They picked their sword up in one quick movement and leaped back, putting several meters between them and him.

Kakashi could guess what was going on. The Forest of Death was a great place for particularly promising genin or newly graduated chunin to hone their skills. Hunting dangerous animals amid a forest of unpleasant surprises kept the animal population within manageable levels and was good exercise in coordination, sensing the environment, and other things. Forest of Death training ranked one step below a B-rank mission against hostile shinobi. This genin was not alone. The rest of their team had expected them to force him to his feet and chase him into a prepared trap. But Kakashi hadn't run. He was not going to be trapped. So then, what would this team do?

The genin took another leap backwards, and the rest of their team appeared. None approached. Instead, the three of them began to perform handsigns. As one, they shouted, "Demonic Beast Appearance!"

Oh, that was too good! Kakashi gave up his tiger form immediately and took on the appearance of a six-limbed kink-tailed horror with a wild mane of undisguised pure darkness. He screeched, a sickly evil wail that sent the entire surrounding forest into flight, even some of the plants. The genin screamed. He grinned at them, then leaped up into the air and flew away, undulating up and down through the trees.

He burst out laughing. The way they screamed! It reminded him of the tricks he had played as the monster clone in that small bayside town. He loved scaring people! The looks on their faces! The way their souls twitched! He didn't stop laughing until he reached the edge of the training ground, and that was only after a deliberate effort. I should stop laughing. I don't want to give away my position as I travel through the rest of the village. He changed back to a tiger form and continued to chuckle as he leaped over the fence and ran away.

The team was definitely going to report what had happened, so Kakashi didn't bother disguising himself. He ran directly up the walls in his tiger form and leaped over, startling a couple of guards into screaming. He stopped and gave himself a chance to laugh again after he was out of sight. There. Now the guards would report a most recognizable tiger leaving the village, and nobody would waste any time searching the entirety of Konoha while on high alert. He was doing them a favor.

He decided to stay in his tiger form as long as he was within the Land of Fire so that, if he should happen to be spotted, the patrols would also be able to report a suspicious tiger traveling away from Konoha and everybody would have further reason to relax. He set off at a nice, brisk walk, not bothering to hide himself at all.

Once he left the cover of the trees, his back and shoulders were bathed in sunlight. He took a moment to soak it in. Then he continued to walk. He could walk and sunbathe at the same time. Why did I think the world was a desolate and terrible place before?

Many hours passed in a cheerful mood, racing down the occasional hill and sniffing at grass. He sensed a farming village at the far edge of his sensory range and considered paying a visit, but decided not to.

Many hours after he had set out, Kakashi finally got the chance to have his question answered. The same patrol from the day before came back, this time from the west. They were relaxed, having finished their patrol and looking forward to the successful completion of a mission. The Byakugan user still had his Byakugan on, of course, but the others weren't keeping a strong lookout. They didn't notice Kakashi until they nearly ran into him.

The rest of the team skidded to a halt or leaped off to the side. The Byakugan user followed their example, leaping backward. "What's going on?" he asked.

"A tiger!" one of his teammates said. "What is a tiger doing out here?" They all had weapons in their hands, ready to fight. Kakashi had no interest in fighting. He stood still and watched them.

The Byakugan user deactivated his eyes. "What?!" He reactivated them. "Ah… This is not an ordinary tiger."

"What is it?" another one of his teammates asked.

"I don't know. I can't see it!" He deactivated and reactivated his eyes again. "It's invisible to the Byakugan!"

The rest of the team gasped and assumed defensive stances. "What kind of hiding jutsu can shield one from the Byakugan…" the second teammate muttered.

One that destroys chakra. Kakashi looked around. One of the group was using weapons that had their reach greatly extended by chakra, similar to Asuma's wind blades. Kakashi walked up and swiped a paw through one of the blades. The kunoichi gasped at the sight of her blade broken before her chakra reformed it. She slashed at him with her other blade. The chakra disappeared instantly, and only the physical blade made contact. Kakashi toughened his flesh so that the blade would not penetrate - no need to scare them too badly just yet. Learning about his immunity to chakra was enough.

She pulled her blade out of his hide and stepped back, eyes wide with fear. "It's immune to chakra!"

"That explains why I see nothing…" the Byakugan user said in a shaky voice. The Byakugan saw chakra. It allegedly saw other things too, but everything else was coated with natural chakra so that was really just an extension of the power to see chakra. To one who was knowledgeable enough about their eyes to understand how they worked, it would make perfect sense for a creature that could not be coated by chakra to be invisible. Kakashi was glad he had found such a knowledgeable person. Now that that was accomplished, he leaped over the head of the kunoichi and resumed his travels.

By nightfall he was outside the Land of Fire, comfortably trotting along in his wolf form again. Ah, this feels so much better! More right. He decided to stay up and enjoy trotting along in his proper form under the new moon. Everything was completely visible, glowing and textured and in relation to him. It felt a little like how his legs were in relation to his arms. That sense was extended to the world he passed through, which seemed weird at first but made sense when he remembered that his darkness did not naturally come with a body. It needed to have a more fluid sense of how things were positioned, one that did not rely on the limited stretching ability of flesh and the confines of skin. It felt odd to be trotting along in a body after he realized that. Cautiously, he gave up the wolf form, lifting into the air as an amorphous blob of darkness. He moved forward and discovered that he could drift over the grass and between the trees perfectly well because of that strange sense.

He assumed the wolf form again and settled down to sleep. He sniffed around, looking for someplace that smelled suitable. He would know it when he smelled it. He was in a scrubby land full of bushes on the edge of a proper forest. He plunged through the bushes towards the trees in a search for shelter.

His nose was struck by the smell of lightning. His heart leaped up into his throat. No; it could not be true. He was nowhere near that place. But the combination of bush and tree reminded Kakashi of his childhood den, the place where he had hidden himself shivering in the rain a long time ago. He remembered that night in flashes. And the morning after, he had been adopted by tigers. That was why a tiger form seemed right on him, if not quite as right as his wolf form. It was because somehow, a tigress had been there, the night after something large and powerful with a deep roar killed his family.

Kakashi found himself staring at the ground beneath a kind of evergreen tree. It was not the same kind. He was surrounded by a tangle of bushes. They were a different species. He pawed at the ground. There was no hole dug here, and there never had been. He lay down beneath the tree, scooting sideways on his belly to wedge himself under the lowest branches. He was too large to comfortably crawl under there anymore. It did not feel as if it was going to rain, but if it did, he would feel nothing. His thick fur and cover of darkness would keep him warm and safe. The bottom would not drop out of the world.

Could it be true? Could the world really be...okay? Could the good things in it last, even without his frantic efforts to grab and hold on to them? Could he really be safe?

Kakashi shivered. Everything had this way of disappearing. He couldn't trust it not to. He scratched at the soil and held tightly onto his remaining memories of his mother and sister and brothers, afraid that before he knew it he would have lost them.

He slept fitfully, dreaming of searching and not ever quite finding.

.

The next day was not as good. Kakashi woke up tired and worried from his memories, and that did not change. He was not inspired to run and chase butterflies. The cool breeze under a cloudy sky did not make him feel safe, nor did he desire to fly. He passed through lands that he later realized he did not remember.

He stopped on the edge of a small creek. I am looking for something that can guide me when I'm in exactly this state of mind. Can the moon and the world be such a thing? He sat on the bank of the creek and looked up so he could see the sky. And he waited.

The soft clouds overhead did not speak to him. The waving branches of a nearby tree did not call for his attention. Everything he looked at seemed vague, unimportant, lacking substance. The only thing important and real was the grief he felt for the meaning and substance he had had in the past, which was now taken from him. Where did yesterday go? I want to have fun again.

He laid down with his head resting on his paws and stared blankly at the water. His wolf form seemed to have no meaning either, when just last night it had been wonderful. Should he not have stayed up past nightfall? Perhaps staying up had done something to him that made him feel unwell. Kakashi chastised himself for making a stupid mistake.

The water rippled. It rippled again. Then it began to dance, the whole surface broken into shards of light by rain. He looked up. The clouds had grown darker without him noticing. He closed his eyes and listened to the rain. He could feel it in a way, falling onto his fur and soaking in. Water trickled down the back of his neck.

His eyes wrinkled. There was something about the trickling water. He took a deep breath and felt something inside him come out of hiding. He opened his eyes. The rain streaking toward him, forcing him to shield his eyes, looked real. It had substance again.

Kakashi got to his feet and started to walk. The mud he stepped in felt as if it mattered. He passed the tree and thought, This tree really exists. He looked up at it and noticed a fantastic array of details that he hadn't noticed before. It was no longer the idea of a tree. It was a real tree, with all the complexity that entailed, because no tree was identical to any other.

Perhaps it's not as simple as finding something that can pull me out of that state. I must play a role in my own salvation. The rain couldn't reach me until I was ready. That sounded real. As he walked, he turned this idea over, looking for flaws in it. He did not find any. It matched his experiences in the past.

I ought to find out what it is I need rescuing from, too. He recalled everything he could about how he had just felt. It was as if I was not part of the world. As if the world had abandoned me. He had felt small and alone and perceived no possibility of help, because nothing seemed to exist aside from himself. The bottom had dropped out of the world.

What? I thought that couldn't happen. I am grown, and large, with thick fur and strong claws. I should not feel like I did back then when I was small and hairless. He halted. That was it. The mysterious passing void he fell into every so often was a recurrence of the way he had felt that horrible night. Why hadn't he noticed? The mood doesn't remind me of that night specifically. I've felt it too often since then. It's too familiar.

He knew that night was important, but he had never suspected that it continued to have power over him. He resumed his traveling trot. He had a lot to think about.

.

He did not run, so nightfall came when he was still some time away from their base. Kakashi decided to sleep on his own again. He would return in the morning tomorrow.

He was back under the cover of forest, so he leaped up into a tree. The moon was still new, so he watched the stars. He looked for what Orochimaru saw. Several times it seemed like he almost saw it, but then it was gone. The stars did not promise him the same things they promised the snake. To Kakashi, the stars kept to themselves, unconcerned with him or any of his business. If he ever thought that something he might do was of catastrophic importance, looking at the stars would remind him that it was not. He did not see a destiny up there. He did not see anything he could approach, even if he wanted to.

Kakashi called up the memory of the sky that did not exist. He closed his eyes and pictured it in his head. It was sparse, thin, too empty to provoke any great feeling in anyone who looked at it. It was not a vision of awe or wonder. It was just a murky blackish-purple puddle with a bunch of specks floating in it.

He called up the mischievous personality he had assumed the last night before leaving. You can't just leave me here! His eyes flew open. Why had he remembered that indignant cry from his dream? He tried to remember what had happened in the dream. The cry had come from beyond the tangle.

Was he remembering what it was like on the other side of the tangle? How? He had never been there...or so he thought. Did he have a dark clone over there? His memories felt like the memories he got from his dark clones, just older. When did he get a clone on the other side of that tangle? How?

Kakashi burned with questions. If only I could get another clone over there! If he could get another clone past the tangle, he might learn what the tangle was. He was also dying to know what was on the other side. The sparse memories he had managed to pick out were not enough. He too wanted to know about this world where people honked like geese.

He draped himself over the branch and tried to get to sleep. It took a long time. Thoughts of what he would do with all he learned today made him want to get up and be active. It must have been an hour or more before his body and mind got the hint and settled down to sleep.

He dreamed of being on a mission as an undercover musician. He was female and traveled with a flute. The details of what mission he was really on were vague. All he knew was that he must not be discovered.

He made polite goodbyes and disentangled himself from the people of the inn. He went upstairs and opened a door, which led into the Hokage's room. He crept over to the desk and looked through the papers there. One of them was covered with numbers and had the name of a bank at the top. He remembered what that meant. If he took the paper, the Hokage would come after him, pressing down with all the might of the T&I department. He put the paper back.

He left the room, and was no longer himself. He was Orochimaru. She played the role of a traveling musician wonderfully. Kakashi was also an outside observer. He took notes.

As Orochimaru, she descended the tower until she entered a crystal tower made from the crystals of the First Hokage's necklace. She tried a door. It was locked. She pressed on it, really putting her back into the effort. Kakashi began to sweat. As an outside observer, he knew she should not open the door. A black hole was inside.

She nearly had the door open. She nearly had it. But it was too late. There was no more time, and she had to go. She left the door behind, running up a flight of stairs, across the upper landing, and out onto the balcony. She leaped from the balcony, intending to escape.

She did not escape. At the moment her feet left the railing, she was snatched by a giant bird. It was a summons from one of the people obstructing her mission: a giant crow. It cawed. She twisted, but could not pull free. So she turned into a snake. The crow was not a snake eagle, so it could not hold a snake. She fell to the ground.

She twisted every way she could, searching for where on her body the flute had gone. She needed it. Flutes were used to charm snakes. She found it and grabbed for it, but she couldn't seem to get her jaws around it. It knocked against her fangs or the scales around her mouth, bouncing away. She chased it but could never seem to open her mouth wide enough. It kept bouncing away.

The flute was lost. It fell into a large chasm in the ground. She sat on the edge and sighed. Her mission had failed. Her mission was to get the flute.

Kakashi the observer's heart pounded. The music was getting increasingly tense. He knew that meant a jump scare was about to happen. A dark human figure appeared! It stood off to the side, watching the snake charmer. It walked toward her. She picked herself up and walked away, not knowing that the dark figure lurked behind her. If only she would turn around!

The dark figure followed her to town. It followed her across fields. It could be seen walking at the far left edge of the screen as she negotiated prices with a shopkeeper. Kakashi waited desperately for the moment when she would turn around and discover the existence of her shadow.

But she never did.