Red.

RedredredredredredredredRED-

Crimson blood, smeared across hands and arms and chest, children covered in blood-

There are hands on her arms, voices, but-

She just started to care about the brat, Kushina's brat, clan-family-kin-blood-

And now he's dying, red-red-red-

She can't save him-

She can't save any of them-

So much blood- her hands slick, red like Grandmother's hair, like the hair of cousins she barely remembers, like Kushina-

Would she have died if I was here or did I kill her, running away away away-

And now her son is bleeding redredred and Tsunade can't save him either, can't save anyone, can only hold them as they bleed and bleed and bleed and she can't save them and they die in her arms and she can't save them-

Voices, raising in pitch, hands, on her arms, she feels them trembling against her- holding her?

Holding her in place.

She didn't-

Did she try to move?

Which way-?

Is it better to run? Leave them behind, leave them to die, but at least as long as she can't see it then it's not her fault notherfaultnotherfault-

Or did she try to-

To-

Paint more blood on her hands, more and more and more but she can never save them anyway but she has to try and leave them to die in her arms just another person she can't save just another person's blood on her hands-

More words, hands moving away from her, and Tsunade stumbles-

Were they holding her up?

Then- back, against her forehead- "Kid no-!"

Jiraiya. Panicked. Something happening-?

She falls.

Blinks.

Finds herself… in a field of cherry blossoms.

Inoichi knows that nursing migraines with sake does not actually make them go away.

He knows this.

Hell, even his fucking prisoner knows this, Uzumaki Karin's judging eyes boring into him as he takes another swig.

…he should probably not be using her cell as a hideaway to drink on the job.

Right at the moment, he can't quite find a good reason not to though. It's surprisingly hard to care about things, at the moment.

If he cares too much, he's going to do something stupid.

…more stupid.

He's not so drunk that he's unaware of how-

There's stupidity and then there's treason and-

The thought makes him laugh, almost hysteric.

Treason.

What a joke.

"If you're planning to use my blood to fix your liver or- or cure your fucking hangover later, I will gouge your eyes out and eat them for dinner." Uzumaki Karin promises with bared teeth.

Inoichi doesn't point out that she's still in restraints. He remembers Uzumaki Kushina, he's not going to tempt her into getting creative.

But she does have a point too, because he already promised that Konoha had no intention of using her for her kekkei genkai and yet here he is, not even speaking to her, just plastering himself.

That's another funny one. Konoha. And promises.

He promised. That Konoha-

Promises.

What are promises?

What is treason?

Can he even-?

He can't blame her for jumping to conclusions and assuming he plans to test out the limits of her abilities. How could he?

Fuck.

He thought Konoha was better than that but-

What is better, really?

What is treason?

He needs to reassure her. Karin. Uzumaki Karin.

He needs to do a lot of things.

He should be with Sasuke. After everything, the likelihood of the genin to run off and do something reckless is far too high to be ignored, but-

Inoichi stares into his bottle, as Karin's threats get more aggressive and unhinged.

Fuck he's probably scaring her. That's not what he wants.

But-

How convenient, that Sandaime-sama is dead, he muses.

"Are you seriously accusing me of that?!" Karin snaps, and Inoichi drags his attention back to her. Oh. He's complaining aloud again.

He really has drunk too much.

The tsukiyomi is a terrifying technique.

…what's even more terrifying is what Sasuke's memories of it imply about Itachi.

Inoichi remembers-

The despair, the pain, the sense of I have to do this I don't want to do this I'm sorryI'msorryI'msorry-

Itachi forced his own memories of killing the clan and his parents on Sasuke, again and again and again and again, a nightmare loop of agony and horror, and it's easy to see how Sasuke assumed the guilt and fear and pain were his own emotions at being forced to live through the illusion.

…for Inoichi, an expert at memories and mindwalking, it is just… easy to see that those were in fact Itachi's emotions, Itachi's memory recreated in perfect form and projected onto his brother-

It wasn't a snap.

It wasn't someone splitting under pressure and murdering his family in a blind rage.

…Inoichi remembers the tensions, in the wake of the Kyuubi attack. The rumors, regarding Uchiha eyes and their powers and tomoe swirling in the Kyuubi's own eyes and maybe someone's a traitor-

Inoichi doesn't know what to do. It's almost undeniable, now, that Uchiha Itachi killed his entire clan on Konoha-sanctioned orders.

And he can't even ask anyone to confirm it. Oh the elders quite possibly know, but asking them… if they wanted him to know they would have told him. Asking now, especially when there's still a chance that Danzo could become Hokage…

He doesn't know what to do. He needs to talk to Shikaku, but Shikaku's still in the hospital, and that's not secure enough to talk about something like this, and-

And-

What could he do, anyway?

What can any of them do?

So… he's drinking his problems away in the most secure place he knows, because he's the fucking head of it.

This is so not compliant with OpSec.

He could be executed for something like this.

Fuck, he almost wishes they would. Then it would be someone else's problem.

And yet-

"What. The fuck man. Are all villages this fucked up? And I thought the smaller ones were bad, holy shit. You fuckers are crazy."

Inoichi lets himself faceplant into the table.

Maybe when he wakes up things will be fixed by-

Someone else. Anyone else.

What good is OpSec anyway when your own village leaders authorize the genocide of an entire clan?

If he leaves T he's going to do something stupid. The Akimichi and Nara clans don't deserve that. Everyone knows their three clans are so tightly intertwined-

If he does something stupid they're all going down with him.

So-

Fuck OpSec.

He's taking a nap here. No one disturbs Yamanaka in the midst of prisoner interrogation. It's practically a law.

"Oh by the gods I am actually going to have to help your sorry ass aren't I?"

"Sorry about that," the strangely-dressed man says, hands laced behind his head as he grins at her, "but you were kind of freaking out and you are crazy strong Onee-san, even Jiraiya and I together couldn't move you, but you were seriously losing it over that blood, so this was the only way I could think to get you away from it. You doing better?"

It must be… "Natsu?" She questions, looking around, "Or Sakura? I know there's something odd here, but Jiraiya didn't want to explain it on the road, so…"

A sheepish laugh, as the man shrugs and awkwardly adjusts his scarf.

"Yeah, I'm Natsu. Sakura should be up that way, we can go say hi if you want? She'd probably appreciate it honestly. She's been yelling at me all day…"

Tsunade looks around. She hasn't really mindwalked much before. Sat in on an interrogation or two before, but not frequently enough to know if this place is odd or not. She starts walking in the direction Natsu pointed though, catches wind of him sighing behind her before he catches up.

"We're not sure how it happened, but I got stuck in Sakura-chan's body way back during her genin exam. Inoichi wasn't able to figure out how to separate us, so we've just been trying to make it work while everyone tries to figure out how to properly get me back into my body so Sakura can have hers again."

A hesitation, Natsu glancing awkwardly at her for a moment, "There was a whole mess with Orochimaru for a bit there. He mentioned that Sakura-chan and I are related, and when I told Jiraiya he wondered if it actually is a kekkei genkai thing, but ugh that's still so weird to me. We can leave whenever you want though. I just thought you might need a sec to calm down."

Tsunade hums as the cabin and lake come into view, then catches sight of the girl in the window. Shy, nervous, waving hesitantly with her face lit red.

She looks at Natsu, casual, languid-

The young girl who looks exactly like the genin who accosted her earlier, and the grown man who acts exactly like the genin who accosted her.

"I think… that I'd like to ask some questions of the two of you, before we return."

Natsu looks askance at her, then shrugs. "Yeah, sure thing nee-san. Oi, Sakura-chan, mind if we hang out for a sec and chat?" He plops down in front of the window casually, like he's used to it, and Sakura peeks up at her with red-red cheeks, an older girl eying her curiously from deeper into the cabin.

"Tsunade-sama! O-of course, Tsunade-sama! Whatever you need!"

Tsunade looks between them, the sheer dichotomy of their existence, and really wishes she had some sake.

But-

She always did like a mystery. And this is-

Something she can solve. Fix. Figure out. Something that isn't red-red-red-red-

So she can take a few minutes here, and figure things out, and then go back to-

To Naruto. Who she is going to punch into the ground for getting himself injured when she explicitly ordered him not to-

No one was dying. As the panic fades, Tsunade's medical training takes over, and she knows-

No one was dying.

So she just needs to brace herself.

And punt that brat into the sun for worrying her.

But first-

Take a moment to breathe. Calm down. Question the new brat and Sakura-chan and unravel this fascinating puzzle. A nice distraction.

Tsunade looks between these two polar opposites, united only by the vibrant pink hair they share, and smiles.

Sakura eeps while the brat bares his teeth at her in turn.

Tsunade always did love a challenge.

He wakes to a cacophony of voices. There's a migraine, somewhere in his brain, pounding behind his eyes, and he is not opening them, not even under pain of death or torment.

Blearily, Kakashi picks out the voices of his genin, each of them yelling over each other and trying to protest… something he can't quite follow, and he's 90% sure that groaning in the background is from Jiraiya.

A low current of killing intent leaks out of a central figure that he can almost place, but thoughts scatter and escape him as he tries to figure out where he's felt that chakra before.

Savage nightmares linger just below the surface of his thoughts, an eternity of torment echoing through his soul that no amount of kai could save him from, but-

It feels… insubstantial.

A nightmare of the past, and no longer the inescapable prison of self-cycling agony that he knows he was just recently bound to.

Kakashi's… pretty sure he was close to breaking out on his own, anyway, before someone cut him free of the perpetual motion machine of chakra that Itachi somehow imprisoned him in. It'd… taken a while. For him to realize how it worked, how it self-sustained, the agony of torture that felt so real keeping him distracted, but-

He'd been starting to unravel it.

He's going to have to make a note to perfect that technique, make a record of it-

Maybe find someone to help him test whether it's only Obito's eye that allowed him the opportunity or if anyone could learn, though how to test…

"Oi. Hatake. Stop playing dead and get your ass up to deal with these brats, or I am going to embed each and every one of them into the Hokage monument as a new permanent feature."

That voice-

Kakashi wants to just go back to sleep, because he feels like he's gone without for weeks and while it's probably not the case, the genjutsu only artificially exhausting him…

But the voice plus the chakra is finally enough for him to place Senju Tsunade as being the one in the hospital room, glaring down his brats, and while the idea of opening his eyes is still abhorrent, he should at least try to figure out what's going on.

"Maa," Kakashi sighs, determinedly unmoving, "Surely that's going a little far~?"

"S-sensei-?" Naruto's voice squeaks out, Natsu and Sasuke silent, but Kakashi can feel the weight of their gazes.

It's almost enough to make him want to sit up and comfort his brats, because Naruto sounds-

But no. Not death nor torture will get him to open his eyes, and he stands by that.

Or lays by it.

Tsunade's displeasure suffuses the air. "Your brats. Are incorrigible." Her words are almost snarled, bit around an emotion that might be fear or fury or guilt, and he can hardly tell the difference. "Naruto. Is an idiot. Whom I explicitly instructed to avoid any and all uses of the Kyuubi's chakra while he was recovering from chakra exhaustion, and he is lucky that nothing poor came of his reckless stupidity."

"How-"

"Sasuke," Tsunade continues, talking over him without hesitation, "Is a suicidally reckless fool who thinks that letting his brother murder him will somehow solve all our problems, out of some misguided belief that Itachi is targeting his teammates just to hurt him. What the fuck are you teaching your brats, Hatake, even I know that Itachi snapped as a result of being unable to handle ANBU work, and I'm not even part of this village anymore! I know that ANBU missions are generally classified, but are you seriously saying there was nothing you could tell him to help him make sense of things?! Why am I the one dealing with your brat, do I look like a fucking therapist to you?! Well?!"

Kakashi chokes, wonders if it's worth trying to sit up or if he should just- ah, no, answering as fast as possible is clearly preferred-

"Aha… that is… there's just so little anyone really knows about the massacre, it felt wrong to spread around only half-certain theories-"

"Oh by the fucking Kami-" A huff, rustling cloth, "Let's talk about the walking fucking abomination that is your third student then, shall we?"

The menacing edge to Tsunade's voice is intense enough that Kakashi gulps, making a show of pulling the blanket further up his face.

Naruto laughs, so clearly his brats aren't that worried. Good to know.

"That's a very rude thing to say about a brigh-"
"Do not start with me."

Kakashi sighs, cracks open his own eye briefly, and immediately slams it shut. Absolutely not. "Is something wrong with Natsu, then? I noticed he's been rather quiet."

A laugh, from his most conflicting student. "Onee-san thinks we're all stupid, and got seriously pissed off when the ANBU she summoned couldn't get ahold of Sakura-chan's family records."

What. Onee-san-?

"I didn't even want to be Hokage, but now I'm going to fucking have to just to deal with you and I don't even get to get drunk for it," Tsunade grumbles, and Natsu laughs again.

"Anyway," she bites out, clearly redirecting her attention back to Kakashi, which is tacitly unfair, he just woke up-! "Natsu and Sakura explained to me the rough summary of the situation, but did you seriously just leave his care to Inoichi without any second opinions?! Did you even get a sensor to check up on them?!"

"Well, Sandaime-sama wanted to keep the situation as quiet as possible, so we mostly just left it to Yamanaka-sama to find a solution…" Kakashi sweats as he feels Tsunade's temper spike.

"You can't fix a chakra mutation from the mindscape, Hatake! It took me two fucking seconds to confirm that Haruno Sakura possesses a kekkei genkai, and maybe twenty minutes to run enough scans to piece together how this happened. And you're seriously telling me that no one in this kami-forsaken village bothered to figure this out before?! I don't want to mess with anything until I know a bit more, I want at least a full diagnostic report of her and her parents, as well as access to her full family records before I touch anything, but-"

A grunt of frustration, stomping, "Your medical situation shouldn't have taken this long either. I'm not some fucking goddess, I can name a dozen medics that I've personally trained in the past that should have been able to get you back up Hatake, what the fuck has happened to my hospital since I left?! Do I have to do everything myself?! Does my absence magically make the whole village forget how to do their damned jobs?!"

Kakashi opens his mouth, amused despite himself at the thought of Tsunade's rampage across the village, but she cuts him off. "Jiraiya! Make yourself useful and go find that lout Inoichi! I don't care where he is or what he's doing, you get his ass over here yesterday."

"Oh thank-"

"GET!"

The sound of breaking glass, and Tsunade lets out a disinterested hmph.

Kakashi sweats. "Did you… just punt him out my hospital window?"

"He was taking too long. And clearly this window isn't even rated for shinobi care, so it needs to be replaced anyway. What happened to my gods-damned standards."

Kakashi foresees the brutal mutilation of the hospital administrators. It's impressive, because usually the Sharingan only lets him see five seconds or so into the future.

"So, can we go now or-" Natsu pipes up, and Kakashi winces.

Tsunade's chakra spikes. "None of you damned brats are going anywhere, until I get this mess sorted out. I will break your legs and tie you to the beds if you disobey me. Are we clear?"

"Yepyep completely clear-!"

"Tch. Fine."

"Sheesh, okay okay, no need to glare like that-!"

Kakashi laughs as his genin babble their agreements. The universal reaction to Tsunade-sama on a warpath-

"You are not exempt, Hatake-"

"Ahaha, but look at me, Tsunade-sama! I'm bedridden, I couldn't go anywhere if I wanted to~!"

The doubt radiating from Tsunade is expected.

The three matching shades of doubt from his genin, however- "Now, that is completely uncalled for."

"Sensei likes to disappear…" Naruto muses.

"Always dumping us into a mess and then vanishing, so he doesn't have to clean it up." Natsu adds.

"We should get Gai-sensei to sit on him." Sasuke's two ryo.

"Maa, maa, let's not be hasty now~"

A scoff from Tsunade. "I'm going to do some rounds on the rest of this floor, since Jiraiya is taking his sweet time. If any of you so much as think about stepping out of this room, I will make you one with the walls."

The door closes with a firmness that isn't quite a slam, and Kakashi laughs. Hopefully, he doesn't sound as exhausted as he feels. No need to worry the kids, after all.

Slowly, carefully, Kakashi pushes himself up to a sitting position, eyes still firmly closed against the light. "Did Tsunade-sama break the curtain rod too, or can we make it a bit darker in here?"

"That bad, huh?" Natsu muses. "Unfortunately, your room doesn't actually have proper curtains. Rod's there, but nothing else, so who knows. Onee-san was pissed about it the whole time she was working with you, kept grumbling about all the ways this room sucks. Is it really that bad?"

There's a lot Kakashi could say to that, but-

"Onee-san?" He has to ask. It's going to drive him mad otherwise.

Natsu shuffles, nervous. "She threatened to tutor me in shogi, so I'm just playing it safe."

Sasuke scoffs, but not loudly. "You're pathetic," he snipes, as Naruto interjects-

"Hey, hey, come on I know you're annoyed but-"

Kakashi sighs. The work of a sensei never ends, after all. He might almost miss the genjutsu already.

̶H̶e̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶'̶t̶.̶

"Sasuke-kun. About what Tsunade-sama said…"

Naruto's the one who speaks up first, hesitant, "She was a little, um… Sasuke's just worried about us, you know? S-since Itachi attacked you guys…"

"I'm not worried about anything, dobe. Shut up."

"Sasuke-"

"It's fine. Just leave it."

"I can't do that, Sasuke-kun. I'm your sensei, and it's my job to look out for you. I understand that this is a conversation we would ideally have in private, and if you'd rather wait, then as long as you agree that we will have it, I'll drop it for now."

"There's no point in it, you would never understand anyway! So just leave it alone!"

The migraine pounding through his skull is getting no better. If he opens his right eye, Kakashi knows, the light will lance through like a serrated needle, agonizing and awful.

If he opens his left-

Kakashi is a genius. But the Sharingan is a kekkei genkai for a reason. His brain isn't made to process information the way the Sharingan records and stores it. It will be an entirely different sort of agony, trying to use it now, when his head's throbbing pain could already constitute a form of natural torture.

Two different forms of agony, and they're both going to be unbearable, but-

It's his student.

Kakashi has to pick one.

He cracks open Obito's eye slowly, fights not to grimace as the always non-stop drain on his chakra caused by it increases.

Sees Naruto, slumped over the eating tray, eyes focused on Sasuke.

Sees Natsu, sitting on the end of his bed, leaned back on his hands and kicking his feet as he looks up at the ceiling. Watches pink hair slip over his shoulder as he tilts his head and flashes a grin at Kakashi.

Finally catches Sasuke's eyes, his last student leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed.

Sasuke flinches, looks away. Visibly gets furious with himself and drags his eyes back to meet Obito's, his own Sharingan whirling.

"It's true," Kakashi starts, one part of his focus keeping careful eye on his chakra reserves, and the rest studying his students, "that I might not understand exactly how you're feeling. Everyone is different, everyone's pain is different, and while in some ways, we might have experienced similar things, in others, we cannot even begin to compare. So maybe, if you explained yourself, I would understand, or maybe I wouldn't. But…" One hand comes up, and Kakashi feathers the edges of Obito's eye. His own stays firmly closed. "It took my teammate sacrificing his life for mine. For me to realize that I was wrong. That Obito had been right. That- that my father's initial decision, back then, had been right. Those who abandon their mission are trash. But those who abandon their teammates, their friends. Are worse than trash. If I had understood sooner, learned sooner, then… well. Then maybe Itachi would have been the one to murder Obito, and I'm not sure that's much of an improvement. But- we don't know. We never will."

Kakashi leans forward when Sasuke tries to break eye contact, fights the burning agony of his already-pounding head trying to record the information his Sharingan is trying to report, and catches his student's eye again.

"You're scared. And in pain. Itachi was bolder than we ever imagined he would be, waltzing into the heart of the village, and I don't even know what he wanted. But… I know this team. I know myself. I won't abandon my teammates, any of them. Do you really think they will, either?" Kakashi nods towards Naruto and Natsu and Sakura, invisible but so utterly present in the tilted line of Natsu's head, the tell he's long since adopted for when Sakura was watching. "We'd follow you eventually, even if it took a while to drag myself out of this bed. Whether we understand you or not… you're part of our team, Sasuke. We won't let you fight alone. And I don't want any more of my teammates to die."

Guilt and shame flutter across Sasuke's face too fast for anything but the Sharingan to catch, as Kakashi lets Obito's eye flutter shut.

Tsunade-sama is going to have choice words about how much chakra he let it drain. But. If he can get through to his students, any of them, all of them-

It's worth it.

A sigh, sounds of sliding, a thunk as Sasuke undoubtedly sits on the floor. A softer one, head colliding with the wall.

"Itachi… said he came here for the jinchurikki. Said that… it clearly wasn't in the village. He left, then… he's after Naruto. I don't- Sensei and Natsu both- and I couldn't stop him- I don't-"

Kakashi recognizes the sound of a voice going thick with tears, begins slowly leveraging himself from the bed, Natsu's hands immediately moving to support him.

"No one… stopped him," Sasuke doesn't quite sob, "Hundreds of people, trained shinobi and children, he killed them all and no one stopped him, and you and Natsu couldn't even stop him, no one can stop him and I don't want to watch him kill anyone ELSE!"

The last part is nearly a scream as Kakashi falls to his knees and wraps his arms around his student, pulling Sasuke into him. Naruto and Natsu's arms immediately wrap around them all, a group hug on the floor of the hospital as Sasuke gives in and sobs into Kakashi's shoulder.

He vaguely remembers a report, that Itachi trapped Sasuke in a genjutsu the night of the massacre, and forced his brother to relieve it from Itachi's perspective.

Kakashi wonders, now, whether it was a normal genjutsu, or the strange, self-sustaining one he used on Kakashi, the eternal torment underneath the black sun-

Sasuke clings to Kakashi tight enough to hurt, trembling in Team 7's collective arms.

"You won't," Kakashi promises, one hand coming up to his student's head, resolve crystalizing. "You won't ever have to watch him kill anyone ever again. I swear it to you, Sasuke. I'll make certain of it. Not Naruto, not me, not anyone. We'll figure it out. And we'll stop him."

"Y-you can't- p-promise that-"

"Psh, please. He didn't kill anyone this time, did he?" Natsu interjects, leaning more firmly into their huddle. "Sure, we got a little roughed up, but we're all still here. So what are you doing running around doubting us, eh?"

"Yeah, teme, do I look dead to you!? Even if that guy wants me, he can't have me! I'm not going anywhere, dattebayo! We're gonna get stronger and stronger, until we're so strong that his stupid eyes can't even look at us without immediately seeing his own defeat! Five seconds into the future?! Peh! We'll get strong enough to beat him up in one second, so he won't even try! Hyah!"

"It's a bit like catching Tora," Kakashi adds, ignoring the sudden feeling of doom from his two rambunctious genin, as Sasuke hiccups into his shoulder, "you can't just approach someone like Itachi from the front. But a careful trap, with a lot of planning… no one is invincible. Sure, a lucky genin could kill even a Kage, but… why rely on luck? Luck may be an important part of any shinobi's life, but… we're more than that. And Itachi isn't the only genius in this world. We can catch him. Not today, and not tomorrow, but- no one catches Tora in the first hour, either. Ne~?"

"Can you really compare that guy to Tora, though? He didn't even hiss at us!" Natsu protests, pulling away from their circle with a growl. Kakashi gets the distinct feeling he's being glared at.

How strange, to once again remember that Natsu is nominally an adult. Not even in the "all shinobi are adults" way, but-

An actual adult.

It's such a childish argument.

And yet-

Sasuke bursts into wet laughter, shaking in his arms in an entirely different manner, laughter nearly hysteric but clearly so, so necessary.

Kakashi holds him through it, listens to Naruto pout on the other side.

"It's not that funny, is it? Am I missing something sensei?"

Kakashi isn't quite sure how to explain the concepts of PTSD and emotional whiplash to his genin who should have learned the basics already while in the Academy, but he tries to find the words regardless-

"Just-" Sasuke flaps a hand, as his laughter stumbles into sporadic giggling, "Itachi. With Tora's stupid bow." Sasuke eventually manages, still hicupping and giggling as he struggles to calm down.

Natsu barks a laugh as Kakashi snorts, and Naruto's eyes burn into the side of his head.

"Aah," Kakashi reaches out to ruffle Naruto's hair, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice, "Naruto-kun doesn't actually know what Itachi looks like, does he? Perhaps I can draw him a picture later."

"No way it's that funny," Naruto grumbles, falling into Kakashi's side with a hmph.

Natsu snorts as he scoots back in. "It's a little funny."

Sasuke still can't figure out if he's laughing or crying, but… that's alright. That's what a team is for. To hold you together through all of it.

Even if that means both at once.

Tsunade sweeps back into their room just as Kakashi makes it back to his feet, all three of his genin keeping him steady.

Not that he needs that, really, he probably doesn't even need one now that he's upright, but he won't shoo them off if they want to be helpful.

"What are you doing."

Three sets of nervously shuffling feet, and Kakashi laughs. "Maa, maa, we were playing cards, obviously!"

Kakashi doesn't need to be able to see to know that Tsunade's deadpan stare is attempting to bore holes through his skull. "Really."

"Of course, what else would we be doing? Staging an escape?"

"Hatakes." She scoffs, stomping forward and grabbing Kakashi's shirt. He only flails a little as she drags him to the bed to the yelping protest of his brats. "Always a headache. Sit."

"Ah, I believe Tsunade-sama may have mistaken me for Pakkun, I know we look very-"

A spattering of laughter from his traitorous children, as Tsunade shoves him down with a glare sharp enough to kill. "If you mean to tell me that you've burned off this much chakra in a card game, Hatake, I am going to end you. What on earth happened to it all?!"

Kakashi laughs lightly. "Maa, well, there was a black cat, you see, and they're bad luck, so my chakra got a bit spooked and-"

Kakashi dangles in Tsunade's grip, one foot braced on the bedframe so she isn't holding his entire weight up by his hospital gown, when the door opens a second time, slamming shut immediately after.

"Hatake, you need to stop existing," the voice of Yamanaka Inoichi barks out, and Kakashi nearly protests, because wow, what a way to greet him, he thought they were friends, but Inoichi just keeps going-

"So that your existence can stop causing me problems, if it's not your genin fucking ruining my faith in our government it's your fucking pet Uzumaki somehow breaking out of high-security restraints just to sober me up and now I have to write a fucking incident report and it's all your-"

Kakashi's eyes both fly open as he processes what's being said, and Inoichi cuts himself off with a gulp. He's leaning against the door like it's the only thing holding him up, staring at Kakashi's students arrayed on the other side of the bed.

Tsunade sets him down with uncharacteristic gentleness.

Kakashi doesn't look behind. He can still feel Naruto there, can see Natsu out of the corner of Obito's eye, Natsu looking at something directly behind Kakashi, but-

He can't look.

His chakra slips away like water through a sieve, but-

Kakashi stares at Inoichi who stares at Naruto somewhere behind him, mind empty, thoughts sparking and dying in instants.

What does he say.

What can he say.

He almost can't think of a worse possible way to break the news to Naruto-

Naruto.

Behind him.

"S-sensei? What-"

Kakashi really wishes Tsunade had just left him to break out of Itachi's genjutsu himself. Then someone else could deal with this. But-

Fuck.

They're his kids. He needs to-

He doesn't even know where to start.

His chakra slips away, draining, draining-

"Shit, Hatake, close your damn eye you're bleeding too much chakra-!"

Hands, reaching-

Kakashi realizes, suddenly, that he really is-

No. He can't pass out, that's not fair to Naruto, shitshitshit-

He slams Obito's eye shut, falls into Tsunade's glowing hands, and clings to consciousness with everything he has.

Distantly, he processes Inoichi apologizing, but-

In, out.

In, out.

Kakashi focuses on breathing, counting each breath as he fights back the blackness creeping through his eyes.

He can't pass out on Naruto, can't-

In, and out. Breathe.

The world wobbles at the edges, when he cracks his own eye back open. A migraine still pounds through his skull, more fierce than ever. Kakashi is pretty sure he's been tortured less painfully than his head is throbbing right now.

But-

He shapes the words carefully before he says them. He can't mess up, even with the sparks across his eye and the blinding agony in his skull.

"Naruto… I'm sorry. This isn't… how I wanted to talk to you, I had-" He sways, words scattering as his vision starbursts.

"Hatake, fuck, what did you do?! Shizune! Jiraiya where the fuck is Shizune, get the fuck out, get me an assistant- Hatake! Did you use your Sharingan right after waking up from a coma, is that why- HATAKE!"

Kakashi would never denounce Obito's final gift, but-

As he struggles to stay awake and fails, Kakashi viscerally misses having full chakra reserves. Misses what chakra exhaustion used to feel like, before he received a non-stop drain on said chakra that didn't care what condition he was in, but just drained and drained and drained and drained-

He knows that only unconsciousness will slow it enough that he can actually regenerate chakra instead of losing it until it kills him, but-

He doesn't want to leave Naruto alone, without even a proper explanation-

Cool chakra, pressing into his head-

Kakashi sleeps.

A/N: don't usually bother copying my author notes from ao3 because lazy but this one is still valid so:

every time i do a kakashi pov i am forcibly reminded of how much i fucking HATE writing geniuses.
this is why i dont write code geass fic. even tho i really really want to write code geass fic. fuck geniuses.
like. ugh. the problem isn't even the "making them smarter than me" thing, because there are all sorts of guides and tips and tricks for that. the problem is pacing and flow. like. that ending, with inoichi. i don't know if it reads well to you guys or not but my logic is like:
when kakashi realizes what he's saying, he instinctively uses obito's eye because inoichi is t&i. he WOULDNT say something so damning in a compromised room without thinking, so he must be compromised in some way, so Kakashi needs to see him clearly, to figure out how much danger the kids are in-
But it's actually inoichi. There's no sign of a henge, and there's no inconsistencies in appearance, and- it's inoichi. saying this. out loud. in a room with a massive hole in the window. and like. the problem is i just dont know how to write that in a way that still makes it feel fast, you know? like the problem with writing as a medium is that the very nature of words tends to mean that the more you use the slower it feels. you spend an entire paragraph describing a character cataloguing someone's features and running a checklist, people are just going to think wow everyone's just standing around waiting on him? it's hard to make that feel INSTANT, like kakashi activates his sharingan and checks everything off in a split second and then finds himself confused and off-footed and still with a splitting migraine because he can't find anything wrong and.
i dunno. it's just hard to make things feel FAST with writing, sometimes, which is a huge part of my problem with fight scenes too. and the nature of the sharingan, and the naruto world, and how geniuses are treated there, stuff like kakashi's internal realizations SHOULD feel fast. he should be putting stuff together and figuring things out ten steps ahead and it should just feel fast. and i dont know how to do that.
so i fucking hate writing him.
at least anime can use slo-mo to express that sort of thing.
ugh.