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Entropy	By : ersatzbeta Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1332 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from writing this or any other fanfiction.

Chapter List
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Chapter Thirty One
Kakashi swam up out of darkness gradually, awareness returning in stages. First came the knowledge that he was conscious. Then, that there was some sort of noise outside of him-- that there was, indeed, something outside of him. At first, he couldn�t make out what it was. A bird? The ocean? Music? It came to him in bits and pieces. His name. Someone was saying his name. He struggled to think. Where was he? What was going on? The feeling in his body was slow to come back. He was slow to register that he had a body at all. It was kind of peaceful there in the dark, and he didn�t want to leave. He drifted and let the noise wash over him.
Eventually, he made out that he wasn�t just a loose chain of thoughts. That he really did exist. And that noise, that voice, was familiar. He didn�t understand it yet, but he was starting to feel things again. He was pressed against something, something flat and hard. Perhaps he�d better see what was going on. His eyelids were so heavy and reluctant to open. And when he did, finally, pry one open, he wished he hadn�t.
His eye burned, sharp and stinging, and everything was blurry. He closed his eye again. He lay, inert, and waited for the pain to sink back to an acceptable level. Was something in his eye? He wanted to reach and wipe at it, but his limbs were leaden and impossible to move. He felt something cool and wet brush over his face and he tried to jerk away, but he wasn�t sure he�d moved at all. It was then that the noise resolved itself into something he could understand.
�Can you hear me?�
�Please, wake up.�
�Come on, Kakashi.�
�Wake up. I know you can.�
�Please.�
�Kakashi.�
And then came the awareness that something�no, someone, was touching him. Disoriented, befuddled, Kakashi tried to move away. He opened his eye again, though it stung and he couldn�t see properly. He spoke, but all that came out was a groan. A different voice then, one he thought he should have known but couldn�t place.
�He�s awake.�
�Can you hear me, Kakashi?�
�If you can, open your eyes.�
It didn�t make sense to do what the voice said, but he concentrated hard, harder than he�d ever concentrated in his life and cracked his eyes open for the third time. A dark blur moved in front of him. He blinked furiously, willing his eyes to focus.
�Kakashi? Do you understand me?�
Again, the not-quite familiar voice. Kakashi inhaled and tried to focus again. He smelled blood. And, beneath that�grass? He tried again and coughed. Then, two voices.
�Do something!�
�I am, but he�s not responding well.�
�Then try something else!�
�Calm down, Sasuke. I can�t handle the both of you at the same time.�
Sasuke. The name rang a bell, dropped down into his thoughts. He had to wake up, for real, had to shake off how strange he felt. Sasuke needed him. Kakashi closed his eyes and opened them again. There. He could see a bit better now. It was the kitchen table. Kakashi was at the kitchen table. He was slumped over it, one cheek resting on it. It felt sticky beneath him.
Again, a dark blur moved in front of him.
"He's awake."
Kakashi focused hard, and the blur resolved itself into a face. It was Shikamaru.
"What are you--?" said Kakashi.
"You don't remember what happened?" said Shikamaru, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised in disbelief.
And then things clicked into place in Kakashi's head, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach again. The stress of things, things he was definitely not going to think about, things he had already buried, had overwhelmed him. Completely.
"Oh," said Kakashi.
He drew out the syllable, paused, and then spoke again, testing his ability to put words together.
"How bad is it?" said Kakashi.
Shikamaru snorted.
"You hit your head on the table and you're bleeding a little from that," said Shikamaru.
Ah. So that was why the table beneath him was sticky. Kakashi guessed it had probably gotten into his eye, too.
"From what Sasuke could tell me, it sounds like you had a panic attack," said Shikamaru.
He studied Kakashi's face. Kakashi felt absolutely naked.
"Though I don't know what could have caused it," he said.
Kakashi moved one hand carefully until he could touch his face. His mask was still on, but his hitai-ate was gone. He felt across his forehead. There was a shallow slice across it, probably from the metal plate on his hitai-ate. He let his hand drop back down to his side.
"You won't need stitches," said Shikamaru.
"Why are you here?" said Kakashi.
"Oh, just in the neighborhood," said Shikamaru.
Kakashi stared at him. A lie so obvious ought not to count as a lie at all.
"There is no neighborhood," said Kakashi.
Shikamaru sighed and scowled down at his feet.
"Neji asked me to look in on you," he said. "And now I understand why. Troublesome."
Kakashi noticed then that Shikamaru was holding his hands in a seal.
"Would you mind getting up now?" said Shikamaru. "I'm getting tired of holding Sasuke."
"Holding Sasuke?" said Kakashi.
Kakashi sat up cautiously. The room spun around him, and he grabbed onto the table for support. He turned around in his seat by degrees and found Sasuke behind him, pinned down by Shikamaru's shadow. Sasuke looked furious and worried, though he relaxed a little as Kakashi looked at him. He clutched a bloodstained cloth in one hand. Interestingly enough, Sasuke's chakra had already started to come back, and it twisted in on itself, turbulence reflecting Sasuke's mood. The Sharingan swirled in his eyes.
"Not my first choice," said Shikamaru. "But I thought it was better to be cautious than for Sasuke to draw the attention of the ANBU."
He released the seal and shoved his hands into his pockets. Sasuke gave a little start, as if checking to see that he could move again before he took three steps toward Kakashi. He gave Shikamaru a murderous glare. And then all his attention was on Kakashi, chakra reaching out to him.
Kakashi found it hard to breathe again. He forced himself to relax, muscle by muscle, until he reached some semblance of his normal self. He was pointedly not thinking about the things he wasn't going to think about. His blood pressure rose incrementally, then, just as subtly eased down again. Now, to reassure Sasuke.
"Sasuke," said Kakashi. "I'm fine."
He could feel intent radiating from Sasuke and knew that Shikamaru's presence was the only thing stopping Sasuke from doing or saying anything else--kept him aloof and wanting at the same time as he wavered on the edge of what he would allow himself to express. Kakashi worried about how worried Sasuke had become, and something inside him jerked sideways when he connected the cloth in Sasuke's hand to the wound on his forehead, connected his voice to the first voice he'd heard, coming to.
And then, Kakashi felt something in the energy that pushed itself on him, and it drove all other thoughts out of his head. The vibration in Sasuke's chakra was much stronger now. Adrenaline shot through him as he realized that not only could he feel it, but that Shikamaru could probably feel it too.
Kakashi's head still wasn't working right and was still a bit fuzzy from his lapse into unconsciousness. He eased his left eye open and tried not to wince as the Sharingan streamed information into his brain. Sasuke's potential was null; he telegraphed no potential movement, though his chakra continued to flow erratically and his Sharingan was active.
Shikamaru shared a look with Kakashi, volumes communicated in the merest twitch of an eyelid. Kakashi nodded his head a fraction of an inch.
"Sasuke, your chakra�" said Shikamaru. "It's�"
He stopped and scratched his head. He lowered his hand to the back of his neck.
"What about it?" said Sasuke.
"Your chakra's coming back faster than a person would expect, considering Neji's most recent visit," said Shikamaru.
Sasuke frowned at him. Shikamaru stared right back, eyes hooded and bored-looking.
"Are you trying to imply something?" said Sasuke. "I don't see how it's any of your business, either."
Sasuke's sharp eyes moved from Shikamaru and landed on Kakashi.
"Kakashi," said Sasuke. "You're not telling me something, are you."
It was a statement of fact, one that Kakashi could not deny.
"There's something wrong with your chakra," said Kakashi. "A vibration."
Sasuke laughed then, the sound bitter and bleak.
"Is that all?" said Sasuke. "You're overreacting."
"It's affecting your ability to control it," said Shikamaru. "Even I can tell, and this is the first time I've seen you, even in passing, for months."
"It's no laughing matter," said Kakashi. "If the Hokage--"
"Don't you talk about him," said Sasuke. "Don't you dare."
The tomoe in his eyes wavered, started to draw together. Kakashi sucked in a breath of air. The Mangekyou was surfacing, and Sasuke's temper was very short, it seemed.
�You�d better leave, Shikamaru,� he said.
He allowed his own eye to start the shift. Shikamaru nodded and backed out of the room, careful not to make eye contact. Kakashi was interested to see he didn�t even look in Sasuke�s direction at all. A wise move, no doubt. At least Shikamaru was smart enough to back down from a confrontation like this. Kakashi wasn�t certain of his own ability to face Sasuke at the moment, either, despite his currently limited chakra.
�Sasuke,� said Kakashi. �I don�t want to fight.�
�Because you know you�ll lose,� said Sasuke. �Coward.�
Disdain was etched across his face, was written in the very air around him.
�I may be,� said Kakashi. �But that doesn�t mean I�m wrong about your chakra.�
�My chakra is fine,� said Sasuke. �So fight me, unless you�re afraid.�
Kakashi shut his right eye just as Sasuke snapped into Mangekyou.
He fought hard against the pull of Sasuke�s eyes and pitted his will against the strength of Sasuke�s anger. Dimly, Kakashi felt Sasuke�s chakra trickling away, even as the younger man tried to force him into the illusory world. He broke out in a sweat as pain pierced his eye. Sasuke was more experienced in controlling his inner world, far more able to drag someone in; Kakashi was fighting tooth and nail and could barely keep the wolf from the door. If he got pulled in, it would all be over. Sasuke could rend him limb from limb, over and over, and he wouldn�t be able to do a thing about it.
The room around Kakashi started to lose its colors. Shape and form began to drain away and he knew it wouldn�t be much longer now. His eye burned. He gritted his teeth and prepared himself. Then, even as he felt Sasuke�s power ebbing, it was too late.
Kakashi felt the connection take hold, and he was gone.
A/N: Okay...what to say about this chapter? I suppose I should apologize for Kakashi getting knocked around so much lately, except I'm not especially sorry. It's the price of progress, I guess..the bits where he gets knocked about are actually the least convoluted plot-ish bits that I've come up with, and I'm all for the overall story making sense! (And now, really and truly, things are starting to come together on that front.)
If you'd like to be put on an email update notification list, email me at ersatzbeta @ gmail.com. I'm hoping at least five people are willing to do it; it feels like a lot of effort to go through for less than that. That being said, I'm happy to give you, the reader, plenty of time to sign up. I'm not in a hurry, I just want to be sure that the interest for such a thing is there.
Anyway. I'm trying to stick to an at-least once a week update schedule, so I'm hoping to have the next chapter up no later than Thursday next week. I hope you've enjoyed, and I'll see you later!
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Entropy