A Choice (and other things they lost along the way)

Kakashi is tired.

A/N: Hi so I have six chapters of this pre-written so Im going to post it all at once because I can be like that.

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It seemed that the impossible was deciding to be possible, because not a week after Kakashi fell unconscious he awoke again. He had severe chakra exhaustion. That killed people. Regularly. You do not recover from that in a week.

But apparently he did. Apparently, whatever new energy that he had was so potent that it sped up his recovery to the point that Kakashi was waking up far sooner than what should have been possible.

He still felt like a boulder was crushing him, but he could open his eyes. Probably. He could try though.

It would hurt like hell, though. But he had to try.

Gathering up the will to do the task he has set his mind on, Kakashi forced his eyes to flutter open-

And immediately closed them again, because just from trying to open his non-sharingan eye, he was feeling like he might pass out. Or die. Or both. Probably both. Leveling out his breathing, he tried to think it through.

When he opened his eye, Kakashi felt like he had all of his energy sucked out of him, got a major headache, and he started to feel nauseous. All symptoms of sharingan. Why?

Maybe he was just really, really tired?

Or that weird-ass energy was messing things up?

He might have had two sharingan, via Orochimaru?

His sharingan switched sockets?

The teleporting thing did something to his eye and it decided that it was done with Kakashi?

Back when he fought Itachi, he did something, and it was just now deciding to make an appearance?

To be fair, only the first three were reasonable. The rest were just his brain trying apply broken logic to a broken situation.

So, he had the symptoms, the possible reasons, and now he needed the cure. For the first reason, it would be rest. For the second one, he needed to try and control that energy like he did chakra. For the third...

Well, for the third, Kakashi was cursed to either be blind, or die of chakra exhaustion. There was no cure.

That, he decided, could be dealt with after he had some sleep.

It was a good, dreamless sleep. The type he only got when he was on the verge of dying.

Maybe it should concern Kakashi, that he was slipping that much. But it was so nice.

And then chakra, mixed with that new energy, rushed through him in a burning tsunami and it hurt. It didn't hurt like the place, it didn't even hurt like his new sharingan, but to be thrown from peacenumbtired to hurtburnedneedtomove was jarring.

Gasping, Kakashi sat up and oh, that was odd. That was odd and disorienting and what was wrong with the sharingan-

Nope. Don't focus on that. Focus on other, more important things. Like his pups. Yes.

Sakura was standing above him, with a grimly determined look on her face as she pumped chakra into his body. Naruto and Sasuke were behind her, and by the rate that she was giving him chakra, she was dangerously close to becoming comatose. It would probably be good to inform her of that.

"Sakura," Kakashi said, "Stop. I don't want you passing out."

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she yelled, "You're alive!" Which, ok? Yeah?

Kakashi felt, more than saw Naruto lunge towards him for a hug, and Kakashi had to manually shut off the instinct telling him that he should pull out a kunai. No, bad Hatake. Don't kill the overenthusiastic child. Bracing himself, Kakashi became the recipient of a tackle-hung courtesy of Naruto.

Kakashi couldn't do anything about it. Couldn't do anything besides ignore the absence of the sharingan and look over Naruto's shoulder, where he saw-

Oh.

Oh no.

Why, why was there something in their camp. Why was there a fox with the Kyuubi's chakra signature in their camp?

No, Kakashi thought, this is not my life.

You know what? Everything was fine. The kids were tackling him, the Kyuubi was out of the seal, Kakashi desperately needed another nap, and everything was fine.

The fact that everything was fine did nothing to sooth his headache, though.

Kakashi could barely believe the absolute bullshit that was coming out of Naruto's mouth.

"So," Kakashi interrupted, "The Kyuubi just... appeared? Out of nowhere? And it can't hurt you? You know, just to clarify that I'm hallucinating." The Kyuubi.

Was that how life was going to kill him? Stress?

Sakura sent him an odd look, "Yes, that is what Naruto just said." Great. Just... great. What was he going to tell Minato-sensei when he got to the afterlife? That the seal failed because he used Obito's sharingan when he had no information?

He was going to ignore the fact that he had both of Obito's sharingan.

"Hn." Sasuke decided to contribute to the conversation, in a way that was not at all useful and added to Kakashi's growing panic just because it was an extra noise.

"Ok," Kakashi said. He was just going to accept it and move on. Change the topic. "So, how long have I been out?"

Naruto's hand shot up, as if he was in a classroom, "I know! Two weeks!"

Two... weeks?

Two weeks.

Two weeks!

Kakashi accepted this. He was calm. He was inner peace. He was the epitome of stability. He was also probably hallucinating, because that type of chakra-exhaustion takes at least a month to recover from.

Sakura must have seen something in his expression, because she said, "Yeah. I know. But I'm like, 50% sure that we're in a different universe, so who am I to decide what's possible and what's not?"

Ho ho ho. No.

Sasuke decided that that was the perfect moment to disclose that he saw a mini-bijuu, and that it tried to attack him.

Even the Kyuubi looked surprised.

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A/N: So, human Kyuubi? Idk I know that this is kinda outta pocket but my brain just went 'yup' when I imagined the Kyuubi confuzzling the fuck out of all the socerers.

And yes, everyone is still OOC.