Sixth Kiss: The Space between Dream and Reality

He felt his lungs compress then expand from the confinement then escape of air. He was a lonely dune amidst a dust storm, his feelings being whipped and whirled in his consciousness. Kurenai was slowly expending her energy pouring all of her chakra into generating genjutusus. Kakashi's mind was thoroughly scrambled; she was successful in making him retreat for the abandoned shrine. It served its purpose for this exercise, now it was his turn.

The animalian drawling moan from the floorboard on the veranda alerted him of her arrival. Cloaking himself in darkness, Kakashi crouched low with a summoning scroll poised between a pair of raised fingers. The tattered shoji parted and Kurenai's red and green form materialized, he recalled Galatea and the myth of her rebirth from her sculptor's love and devotion from lifeless ivory marble. Kurenai too was reborn from cynicism and blood to this almost volatile phoenix who tasted the vibrancy of the human soul, imbibing it like nectar sapped from the tree of life. The swell of pride behind his schooled features belied the schoolboy excitement Kakashi was not entirely sure he ever experienced. Kurenai scanned with her red eyes the blackness for any camouflaging, she could detect none, and even stranger was the absence of a chakra signature that had been present seconds earlier.

Kakashi wasn't branded by ANBU because of dumb luck; he was a genius as much as she was loathe to admit it. Centering her spirit, Kurenai began a series of breathing exercises, then her hands blurred through hand seals. He was just able to identify the string and activated his sharingan reflexively. The tearing of a scroll alerted Kurenai to Kakashi's emergence; she fell into a defensive stance and prayed.

"KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU! DOTON: TSUIGA NO JUTSU!" The ground vibrated then split rupturing wood and earth as Kakashi's eight Ninken exploded from the dirt charging her. When she saw the largest canine, a black pit bull roughly the size of a small car become airborne, Kurenai swiped the ball of her thumb over her sharpest tooth piercing the flesh.

"KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU!"

Tomomichi, a retired ninja who wiled away his days fishing at the lake smiled at his catch. Half dozen rainbow trout, he and Anzu-chan would be feasting tonight. He felt a skip in his step come on and let himself savor the pleasures of gloating in his success. But as he crossed the deer path to the old shrine he was blown back by a tsunami's force of chakra through a tree, his dinner swinging on a branch snapped in half hanging together by a thread of bark.

"What… was… that?"

The shrine was now piles of debris tossed about as though the aftermath of a hurricane. The Ninken froze in their tracks, beady eyes fixed heavenward as they saw a white Bengal tiger, roughly the size of a house snarling at them baring its fangs. Kurenai stood on its plush furred back, a smug look of triumph enhancing her pretty visage. The feline summons dropped her jaws and let loose a mighty roar that blew a wind tunnel of an arctic blast sending the yapping dogs back to their realm. When the dust cleared and all that remained was a frosted Kakashi slumped on his knees in the middle of the field, Kurenai dropped off the tiger's back and bowed, thanking her for her assistance. The summons inclined her head and vanished. The temperature slowly began to rise and the snow melted from Kakashi's sweat-damp uniform and grass, slicking it sloppily. He saw a blatant opening and unhindered by Kurenai's last assault he rushed her. Predicting this Kurenai smirked and performed a seal to one of her simpler henges.

Kakashi stopped short when he saw Kurenai drop to the grass on all fours. The kunai he brandished was limp in his fingers as his hand fell to his side. She crawled to him on baby knees and smooth palms shrouded in a chiton of sheer white. He could clearly see her swinging breasts from the gaping material sloshing around her narrow frame, thighs wet and she was ready for him.

"C'mon Kakashi-kun," she enticed, "quit being stubborn and put that away." She smiled, the heliotrope paint stripes rising on her apple cheeks. "Come and play with me…" Rin's ruddy eyes glimmered in the fading sunshine and she licked her lips reaching for him. That was cruel, even for Kurenai. Kakashi sheathed the kunai in his thigh holster and reached around to dip his fingers in his white pouch.

"You win," he slouched cracking open Icha Icha Tactics just to spite her. Kurenai goggled behind Rin's face. Kakashi sauntered by already engrossed in another depraved tale. Oooh… were those the Tethers of Trust? "But to be honest, I'd like to see you wearing that."

OWARI