Please remember that this is a separate universe from the first Chapter, not just the exact same thing from Kakashi's POV. Apart from that please see Chapter 1's Author Notes.

Kakashi was numb, everything was numb. And he wondered if this was a good thing, because he knew he was dying, he could feel the life trickling out of him, but he was numb to the pain of it. He knew that he was filled with it, saturated with the overwhelming agony, but without actually feeling it, he just couldn't seem to make himself care. So he went about his duties, all the while leaving trails of blood, of gore, or everything that made him... him. But no one seemed to notice. He wasn't surprised, what was this mask good for except keeping people away, not letting them see him, who he was.

'Well, it didn't do it's job now did it?' whispered a voice that sounded like ice and stone, and only lived inside his head.

'No, it didn't,' he replied, wearily. It probably should have scared him that there were voices talking to him in his head. Or that, worse yet, he was answering them. But it didn't, or maybe it did and he just couldn't feel it. He was beyond the point of feeling fear or alarm... or anything else for that matter. Because it was too much, and he had broken and he was already damaged.

And the voice was right, after-all. His trusted mask, which had done its job for so long, had failed him. Three little kids who each needed him in their own way had slowly torn it away, thread by thread, until he walked beside them with nothing but a smile to cover his lips. And he had been happy that way. For a short time he could almost see it, see in them a team so much like this one, only this time he would make it right; he wouldn't make the same mistakes again. And he hadn't. He had made different ones.

He had let Sasuke become obsessed with revenge. He had let Naruto be chased out of his own village by the threat of Akastuki and his own quest for strength. And Sakura... he had failed her worst of all. He had never stopped to think that she needed him just as much as the other two. She was always been the smart one, always the cool-headed one. But she was also the weakest one. She had never really tried at anything but getting Sasuke, and so that was all he had seen: the lovesick girl who wasted what talent she had on a boy who would never look at her twice. In that way he had signed her off, put her in her own neat little box in his mind labeled 'Well Meaning Airheads Who Will Never Amount To Anything' and that was the end of that. Then he had heard,-"She can break you into a thousand pieces with just one punch." "Yeah, and then put you right back together again."-had seen with his own eyes exactly what she was capable of and for the longest time, he couldn't understand, couldn't accept, that this woman was the same silly, boy-crazy girl-child that he had met 7 years before.

And then it had happened. And he should have known, he should have seen it coming, he should have moved faster, thought faster, but he didn't and he hadn't and it was too late. And the Rasengan tore through her chest while the Chidori consumed her back, just as they nearly did so many years before, but this time he didn't, couldn't, step in-between them, couldn't save her. And with her last breath she didn't say anything, just smiled and very peacefully died, because she had finally proven herself: she had helped her friends and that was all she had ever really wanted.

Life had never been particularly kind to Kakashi but that second, when the life left Sakura's eyes, and the next, where he felt the crushing weight of knowledge mixed with grief, were the cruelest kind of trick for the universe to play. Because she had been his student, and she was dead. Because she has his friend, and she was dead. Because in that moment he knew that she was also the second woman that he had ever loved, and she was dead. They were both dead, and it was too much. Too much regret, too much heartbreak, to much feeling. And so he stopped. Stopped hurting, stopped feeling, stopped living.

So now Kakashi was numb. Because it was better to feel nothing at all. And he moved but didn't see where he was going. Spoke but didn't hear what was said. Ate but didn't taste any food. Just waiting for the time when this curse would leave him. When death would finally give up on its little game of cat and mouse and just take him away. Until then he would do his duty and talk to the voices in his head, and dream of sweet release.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

He knew he should go see Obito, or his father, or Rin, or Jiraiya, but he knew they would all forgive him. It wasn't like he was in any rush, but still he felt his pace speed up and heart begin to pound. And he reveled in it, in the anxious, churning feeling in his stomach because it was the first thing he had felt in years.

It had taken longer than he planed to die. Again and again he came so close to the end he sought just to have it plucked away from him. Towards the end he had almost begun to curse Tsunade for the many times that she herself had pulled him back from the brink. Each time he would return to consciousness just in time to hear her whisper in his ear.

"Not yet Kakashi. We still need you here." And he accepted that, because really what other choice did he have? He had long ago forgiven his father for his mistakes, but Kakashi still refused to take the road he took, because in his mind it was the easy way out. None of his friends had had the luxury of dying at their own hands, why should he? And so he continued, taking every S- or unranked mission he could get his hands on. And finally, after four years he had finally died, taking the Akatsuki Zetsu with him. And now he was here.

The land of the dead was exactly what he had expected. Was exactly what he had imagined almost constantly for the last 4 years. It looked just like Konoha, smelled, felt, probably tasted, just like Konoha. But it was completely different. Because in the land of the dead, it is not reality, but imagination that shapes the world around you. And Kakashi had imagined an empty Konoha, he had imagined an entire world with just him and her to inhabit it. But he could still feel other possible realities tugging on the edge of his vision. With little to no effort he could be surrounded by all the ones he had loved and lost. Soon, he would be, but not yet. First, he had something to do.

He knew where to find her. On a tiny red bridge across a tiny clear stream, a bridge that holds no real significance to anyone but the four members of Team 7. He knew where to find her, and there she was, sitting on the railing, feet dangling over the river. And he moved silently, but he knew she could hear him, feel him, in the same way that he had known where she was.

Neither of them spoke for the longest time. Finally, her clear voice split the quiet air.

"I'm not going to say that I'm glad you're here but...well, I'm glad you're here," she said, and he could here her smiling. He couldn't help but smile in return.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," he replied. She exhaled in what was probably a tiny laugh.

"You did everything you could. I'm sure," she said wryly.

"What do you expect, when I knew what was waiting for me on the other side?" Quiet returned and Kakashi could feel the smile slip off her face.

"I'm sorry, Kakashi. I'm sorry I had to leave," she whispered. He leaned forward on the railing and looked over at her.

"I know, but I'm not. If you hadn't left who knows how long I would have ignored it." She glanced over at him, slightly surprised.

"I suppose you're right. Although I still would have preferred the alternative," she replied. Kakashi just gave his trademark shrug.

"What's passed is passed. It seems a little late for regrets." At that, her smile returned.

"I suppose you're right. After all, we have forever for 'what ifs,'" he turned to face her fully and gave her his most heart-warming eye-crinkle.

"I like the sound of that."

The End.

There you have it, two separate tales of death and second chances.

~Necessity