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Two years ago.
When he opened his eyes, the setting sun gleamed red, and his apartment smelled like fire and ash. The iron stench of blood made him dizzy, and then he realized it was his own and that his jacket was soaked in it.
There was an explosion, and Kakashi didn't even remember it.
Adohira's condition was worsening, and around her were the remnants of the explosion, of her chakra spiraling out of control.
His furniture caught fire before his eyes. The air was humid and ripe with chakra as it smacked around his hair and clothes, rendering him a mere spectator to the destruction.
In her light-headed state, she felt a cold surface on the back of her head, and moments later realized Kakashi had laid her down.
"Stay with me, Adohira!" he echoed like an ebbing tide, drawing closer and then fleeting further and further away.
She stared up at his blurry, wooden ceiling. The plastic fan swiveled slowly... lazily above their heads. As her eyes focused properly, she realized it wasn't moving at all, and it was only her failing vision. The black smoke in the air enveloped them like a cocoon.
First her, and then the fires.
But the fires... are connected to her.
If I disengage her, then the fires will all go out.
I hope.
He concentrated his chakra in the form of a knife and cut open her shirt to get straight her chakra's center. He swiped his thumb across the blood on his jacket to use as ink, and he wrote the characters of an archaic language atop her chakra point. With quick hand signs and emitting a century's old dialect, Kakashi started the jutsu.
Suddenly, an awful, scalding sensation came from inside her. It was like her intestines were being pulled out from her belly button, and the sheer pain of it made her too impaired to scream properly.
He watched as the black, toxin-like chakra lurched out of her.
What is that?! What is that?!? Kak--kakashi--?!
There was never a dire need for this - essentially, a surgery with no anesthetics. Not until tonight.
Lady Tsunade was careful to plan Anri Sato's and Kakashi's missions separately, so that Adohira was never alone in the village, just in case... There was someone always around who knew this forbidden jutsu.
For the first time, the copycat ninja performed it well, but he was ruthless in administrating it, due to the circumstances.
Slowly, the chakra lurched out of her more and more like a crooked, bending limb. He opened his mouth and swallowed the ghastly substance, directing it to himself, both the assailant and the target... It expanded down his throat, firing up like acid inside his stomach. It circled insanely in his chakra point and ran through his network, a parasite taking command of a new host. An explosion of colors tainted his eyesight, a hallucinatory effect, everything vibrating and breathing and collapsing together. His eyes seemed forced open, dilated, and bloodshot, looking agape up at the merciless sun, peering out from his window. An indifferent witness.
