Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I promise to return Kakashi only slightly used.

Doppelganger

He was running, sprinting, the world was flying by. The colors of the world blurred with the speed of his passage; his chakra crackled visibly around his fist, illuminating a masked face with blue-white light. Bursting through the forest and into a clearing Kakashi spied his target. Drawing back his fist, he checked his target with his wildly spinning red and black eye. Surprisingly, the target showed not an ounce of fear and made no move to escape or run away. He remained almost chillingly still as Kakashi's fist punched through his chest, slicing through blood, flesh and bone, to come through the other side.

Sighing, his mission complete, Kakashi jerked his arm to remove his fist from the grisly corpse. His fist remained firmly in the body; it was almost as if the corpse was holding it in. Trembling, Kakashi look up to actually examine the corpse's face. His eyes met another pair of mismatched eyes, one dark, the other a violent red with three black commas swirling around the pupil. A thick shock of silver hair and pale skin completed the image.

"No…", moaned Kakashi.

"NO!", he shrieked this time.

Wildly he examined the corpse with his Sharingan, looking for genjutsu, but he found none. Suddenly, he felt a pair of strong hands on his arm, jerking and pulling. The corpse was pulling itself along Kakashi's still embedded arm.

Kakashi panicked. Screaming, sobbing, Kakashi tired to rip his arm from the gapping hole in the corpse's chest, but it was of no avail, he could not stop the corpse's slow, painstaking progress. Blood dripped for Kakashi's arm as broken ribs shredded skin. The corpse's own wound was hardly bleeding, only a dark ooze seeped from the wound.

Finally the corpse stopped at about Kakashi's elbow. Cloth covered lips slowly moved. In spite of himself, Kakashi leaned in to hear what the corpse was saying.

"-ashi? Why Kakashi? Why Kakashi? WHY KAKASHI? ", the last two words were screamed and Kakashi recoiled in horror.

At the same time the gaping wound started to pour blood. Not a few drips, but a stream, a deluge. This fountain of red sprayed over Kakashi, horribly hot. The bleeding did not stop. Kakashi felt as though he was drowning in it, it was in his hair, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Choking, he spat out a metallic mouthful. Suddenly, he realized he was drowning in blood; he was in a giant pool of it. He tried swimming, but the corpse was still attached to his arm, a dead weight pulling him down. Frantically struggling, Kakashi managed to claw his way to the surface, and get one breath, but dead weight of the corpse dragged him down again. Blood filled his nose and mouth. The corpse was dragging him down, actively pulling him away from the surface. It was dark, warm and suffocating beneath the surface. Kakashi's lungs were burning, limbs numbing, and mind fogging. The liquid was closing in, and he reached towards the surface one last time…

And lurched awake with a strangled gasp. Sobbing raggedly, he sucked in the warm night air.

Eventually, he managed to control his frantic breathing, but could not stop the shivers racking his body. Whenever he closed his eyes, the faces of his many victims assaulted him. There would be no sleep tonight.

Shuddering, he wrapped his arms around his sweat slicked torso, but he still could not get warm. Touching his chest he could feel his heart beating, but it felt false, unreal. His heart was gone, not, perhaps, ripped out at once by a chidori, but slowly, over time, in little bits and pieces. If he had his heart, he would not be so damned cold. He could not stop shivering.

-end-

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