Part 2

It took two days for Gai to find them. Two. They were within a 12 hour run of the village. All he’d had to do was go the opposite direction as the village had been ordered to for the last five months. 

He found them on the main road. A blond boy, Naruto Uzumaki, was at the front. His head was angled to the ground and he looked exhausted. Slung across his shoulders was the lanky arm of another boy: Sasuke Uchiha, the last of his clan. Sasuke’s feet were barely moving.

In Naruto’s other hand was a foot. No shoe on it, though it was thankfully connected to a leg. And that leg was connected to his dearest friend Kakashi Hatake. Who was being dragged across the dirt by Naruto. And on top of Kakashi’s chest, curled up in a tight bundle was a young girl with dirty short pink hair. 

Gai leapt from the trees above and landed on the road in front of the small procession with a grin. Closer to Kakashi now he could feel the man’s chakra was startlingly off balance but that he was still alive. Gai’s grin became brighter and more genuine. 

Naruto’s head snapped up and red eyes fixed on his. Gai said, “Hello, precious genin of Kakashi!” 

Sasuke lurched to the right, standing on his own to the side of Naruto with a sword drawn and ready. On Naruto’s other side now stood the pink haired kunoichi, her fists raised and eyes intent on him. 

They didn’t say a word. They didn’t move any further. 

Gai looked at them one at a time. Sasuke Uchiha’s eyes were blood red with full six tomoe sharingan trained on him. He was literally swaying in place and there was a flush across his face. The sharingan eyes were intent but hazy with what Gai recognized as a fever. His right arm was covered in dirty bandaging and there were several spots where blood had soaked through. The kid may be up only through willpower but the hands on his sword were steady and strong. 

Naruto Uzumaki was standing straight up and his fingers weren’t curled into fists but what looked like claws. His clothes were absolutely shredded with holes and covered in blood. The teeth being bared at Gai were canine like and reminded him strongly of an Inuzuka or even Kakashi’s. And the kid’s chakra was sickening. 

The girl on the left was dressed in only loose pants that were obviously made for an adult twice her size and an extremely dirty sports bra. Her body was covered in bruising and he could see the intense swelling and discoloration of her wrists and shoulders. He struggled to find a piece of her body that wasn’t beat up. There was blood around her mouth and the fighting stance she had fallen into wasn’t one he was familiar with. 

“Be at ease, genin, for I am a friend!” Gai said. “I’m sure Kakashi has spoken of me before, I am Maito Gai, the green beast of Konoha!” Gai gave his signature grin and extended his arm in a thumbs up. 

The instant he moved all three of the children reacted. 

He watched in amazement as Sasuke went high, jumping and swinging his sword down towards Gai’s head. Naruto went straight for him, claws first and aimed for his stomach. The girl, he belatedly remembered the name of Kakashi’s rarely mentioned kunoichi Sakura, went low, foot kicking out toward a vulnerable knee. Gai shot back several meters to clear all three attacks. He stumbled when Sakura’s kick hit the ground and left a crater the size of his body while also making the surrounding area quake. Sasuke fluidly moved with the momentum of his missed swing and spun around to grab Naruto's wrist. With a pained grunt of exertion he swung his teammate in a half circle and let go, sending the blond sailing toward Gai. 

The snarl that left the boy’s mouth was more startling than the sight of him flying through the air. Gai side stepped and Naruto landed in a skidding crouch behind him. He turned to try and speak with Naruto but had to swing back around when Sasuke’s sword came down at his shoulder from behind. Gai dodged and hit the flat side of the blade to get room between him and the Uchiha. As his palm impacted with the weapon, lightning raced down the metal and blasted Gai back several meters. 

He didn’t have the time to react before his back hit a tree and his movement was suddenly halted. He expertly got his feet back underneath him before he fell to the ground and he rolled his shoulders back as he took a second look at the three children. Their eyes were fixed on him once again, that unnatural stillness overtaking them as they waited. 

Gai took a slow step forward and they didn’t twitch. “I am a leaf shinobi,” he said slowly. He pushed his flak vest open to reveal the hitai-ate tied around his waist. All three sets of eyes flicked down to look and then the children sneered in unison. 

Gai, puzzled, gestured next at Kakashi, but the movement once again spurred them into action. The pink kunoichi was suddenly in front of him with her fist coming toward his chest. He swung his forearm forward to block her, reinforcing his block with his chakra, having seen the damage she could do with her strength. 

Her fist impacted his arm and stopped with a sound like two boulders slamming together. She cried out in pain and leaped back and away from him, cradling her arm to her chest. Sasuke and Naruto were already moving in to cover her before she’d gotten more than a step backwards. Both boys were leaking killing intent in a way that low level ninja shouldn’t be able to and Gai’s eyebrows furrowed even more deeply. 

He shifted his stance in preparation for Sasuke’s incoming attack, it wouldn’t be difficult to do, but he wasn’t looking forward to the lightning again. He fought off the initial instinct to slam the younger boy into the ground and end the fight, he refused to hurt Kakashi’s students when they were already so wounded. His attention, however, was drawn away from the boys and to the sight behind them. 

Kakashi’s previously prone figure lurched and rose to a standing position in an entirely unnatural manner. He didn’t move with the grace of the Copy nin nor with the easy fluidity of Kakashi. It looked more like the man was being pulled up by puppet strings and forced to his feet. Then the man was a blur of movement as he sped toward Sakura. The speed was familiar, that was Kakashi, no doubt. She pointed shakily at Gai and he watched as Kakashi pivoted in place and sped toward him. 

Gai could have stopped the attack but he was honestly too shocked to move. The kunai at his throat was less startling than the half delirious and fully murderous gaze that Kakashi leveled on him. The bandage tied around his head to cover his eye was little more than a torn scrap of dirty cloth and his friend’s mask was gone entirely. The mouth that so few had ever seen was pulled into a sneer that perfectly matched his students’. He hadn’t seen Kakashi like this in… years. Not since ANBU and the crushing grief that haunted his rival. He’d hoped to never see Kakashi in a situation like that again. 

“Kakashi,” Gai said softly, hands coming up in the universal sign of surrender. He’d long learned not to meet Kakashi’s traumatized instincts of violence with any sort of resistance. 

Two blinks and there was still no recognition in that very familiar eye. Kakashi’s hand tightened on the kunai and Gai started to think the man would really kill him, or at least try to. Gai would almost undoubtedly be able to stop him considering how strung out Kakashi was. 

Then the kunai dropped to the ground entirely as Kakashi’s hand fell to Gai’s chest. “Gai?” Kakashi whispered. Naruto leapt forward but Kakashi gave a jerking motion and Naruto dropped to the ground again, falling into a waiting crouch. Kakashi hadn’t looked away from Gai, and the green clad man made sure to keep eye contact. He could feel the relief coming off the other man which was startling in of itself. Kakashi’s mouth curled into a smile and he said, “Get them home, Gai. Please.” Then Kakashi dropped like a stone. Gai instinctively moved to catch him, but his arms were brutally shoved to the side and then very nearly chopped off by Sasuke’s following swordstrike. It was Naruto’s arms in which Kakashi was caught. Sakura and Sasuke moved between them and Gai at the same time as Naruto fell back a few steps with Kakashi in tow. 

“Please, you must have heard him, yes? I’m here to help him and you,” Gai said. He was starting to wonder if he’d need to injure Kakashi’s students just to bring them home. 

“Maito Gai, huh?” Sakura said. She gave him a full once over and then made a gesture that had Sasuke and Naruto retreating further, dragging Kakashi with them. They didn’t stop until they were on the other side of the road. Sakura backed up more slowly, eyes intent on Gai the entire time. She stopped in the middle of the road several meters ahead of the two boys. 

Gai stepped forward with an arm outstretched and she hissed and made a chopping motion. He stopped moving. She nodded and then brought her hands together in a hand sign. Gai could feel her chakra burst from her and crash through him. Any genjutsu would have been obliterated, but when he didn’t change she still stared at him distrustfully. 

“You’re Kakashi’s friend?” she asked. Sasuke came to her side. 

“Tell us something about him then,” Sasuke said. His sword was still drawn but not held as if he was about to attack. 

“About my dear rival? Why, of course!” Gai boomed. All three flinched away from the sound and he frowned. He spoke much quieter the next time, “I know why he’s always late everywhere.” 

Naruto’s head cocked to the side in interest and it would have looked cute except for those red eyes staring back at Gai. “Tell us,” the blond said. Demanded really. 

“He likes to visit his ghosts,” he said after a moment. 

“Where?” Sakura questioned. 

“The memorial stone.” 

Sasuke’s sword arm dropped and he hunched over with physical relief, like standing straight had been a painful experience. Sakura eyed him a little unsurely but her posture relaxed as well. Naruto remained at attention though. “We go where we say. You do what we say. You don’t get to take Kakashi and leave,” Naruto growled out. His voice was strained and gritty. 

Gai nodded and replied, “Of course.” 

“We mean it,” Sakura insisted. “Don’t separate us, or we’ll kill you.” 

And she said it so very confidently that Gai paused. He’d seen them work and they were alarmingly fast and coordinated, but he could still have taken them all out if needed. But looking at them and their torn up clothes and dirty skin, he believed that they’d make sure they didn’t go down without a fight. Not that he wanted one. 

“I won’t separate you. I won’t leave you behind. I’ll get you all home, in one piece. That’s my word!” He gave them a grin and a thumbs up but made sure to move much slower. Naruto’s eyes squinted at him but otherwise they didn’t react violently. 

Gai’s smile fell from his face and he whirled around in a precise movement, leg kicking out with tremendous force. His foot slammed into the chest of a sword wielding masked ninja. The force of the kick sent the other flying, much like Sasuke’s lightning had Gai. A blur passed Gai and he watched as Naruto, before the enemy had even hit the ground, pounced and dug clawed fingertips underneath that mask to tear at the delicate throat. Blood spattered across Naruto’s face and clothes though it was impossible to tell where it landed due to the mess the boy already was. 

Naruto turned his head while still crouched on top of the dead ninja to look at Gai. “Okay,” he said. “Sakura said we’re close?” 

Gai watched some blood drip from Naruto’s hand and then replied, “You’re very close. And once we get home we’ll get you the medical attention you need.” He turned to look at Sakura and Sasuke for the last half of the statement. As far as he could tell Naruto wasn’t injured at all, which was a miracle considering how his teammates looked. 

“Fine,” Sasuke said and gave a tight nod. “Lead the way then.” 

***********************************************************************

Gai gave a sigh of relief when he saw the gates in front of them. They’d only followed the road back to the village and it had still taken them three days to get back. Sakura had to stop frequently to both catch her breath and do a rudimentary check of Sasuke, who was in the deep throes of a truly terrible fever. Then she’d check Kakashi, pulling back the cloth over his eye to look at the sharingan. Gai still hadn’t managed to catch a glance at his friend’s eye thanks to Sakura’s protectiveness of it. He didn’t push them to show him though, if Kakashi had made it this far, he could last a little longer. 

They’d been attacked four times in the span of their short journey. Each combatant wore a blank mask and black standard clothes. They often fell out of the trees above them as an ambush and Gai had to admit they were very good at masking their chakra, but other than that the fights weren’t that difficult or prolonged. Half the time the kids took care of the attack before Gai could safely move through them to try and help. 

After a particularly bloody attack Sakura said to him, “They used to be a lot more powerful. I think we killed all the strong ones several weeks back. Now it’s just these guys.” She gestured at the very dead ninja with an arm and leg missing. 

Gai collected all the masks as they went and his mind mulled over what it could all mean. Blank masks were hunter nins, but he had no idea where they had come from. Which village orders they were following. Their clothes were all the same and gave no identifying factors for Gai to see. 

He had eight of the masks in his bag by the time they stepped through the arch and into Konoha. Some were more bloodstained than others. 

He caught Izumo and Kotetsu’s gazes the moment they set foot in the village. Kakashi was slung over his back with his wrists held together with Gai’s right hand so the man wouldn’t fall off. Sasuke was a shaking lump of child curled up in his left arm. Gai had been startled by how small Sasuke was when he’d first picked him up. They may be genin, but he couldn’t forget how young they really were. 

Gai had offered to hold Sakura as well, he was positive he could make room for her and they all weighed nearly nothing to him. She had declined however and instead slung her arm over Naruto’s shoulders and leaned on him the entire walk back. It slowed them down but Gai wasn’t going to push it. He could still feel both their gazes on him as he walked. 

Gai gave a discreet hand signal to the chunin pair watching the gate and Kotetsu zoomed off to go and grab medical help. His heart broke when he turned to check on Sakura and Naruto to find the young kunoichi was crying silently. There were no sobs or gasps for breath or any sounds at all. Just large tears streaming through the dirt sunk into her skin. Watery green eyes met his and she said, “Thank you.” 

Gai only gave her a tight nod and looked away before she saw his own tears starting to gather. He had no idea what these three genin had been through but they were clearly strong. And strength was something that Gai respected above everything else. 

The group was soon flooded by medi-nin that Gai had to force back before the children attacked. Then he called one or two forwards at a time and sat with Sasuke and Sakura as they were examined. Kakashi was laid to the side, several medics already working to stabilize him. Naruto prowled at Gai’s back, eyes taking in every movement made around his friends and sensei.

Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi were eventually laid out on stretchers and carried to the hospital, Naruto scrambling his way between them all in a rush of concern and fear. A couple of the medics sneered at Naruto and Gai made a mental note of each face that did so. He wasn’t normally good with faces or names, but these he would remember. He’d make sure of that. 

Kakashi was whisked away to emergency surgery and Gai had to hold Naruto’s shoulder with a crushing grip to force the boy to stay put and not rush after his sensei. Naruto was buzzing with chakra and energy so brutal that even touching the boy was painful. Naruto eventually relented and retreated back to stand between Sasuke and Sakura, who had been laid out on matching beds in an examination room. 

Gai stood beside the door and watched Sasuke and Sakura both succumb to sleep as IV’s were slipped into their veins and healing chakra forced into their wounds. Naruto growled at anyone who moved too quickly or stood too close and Gai didn’t feel that he would help the situation by stepping in. 

“He needs to go,” a voice said at his side. Gai looked over and then down at a very short medi-nin. She looked up at him and said, “He’s unharmed, and he’s taking up valuable space.” 

“Those are his teammates. Surely he can stay with them, they’ve been through a traumatic experience,” Gai reasoned. 

The medi-nin, a woman of middle age and many frown lines, huffed and replied, “I won’t have something like that,” she pointed at Naruto brazenly, “crowding me in a small room.” Naruto’s red eyes had locked on her the moment she’d made a gesture in his direction. “He’s fine. Remove him. Immediately.” 

Gai looked at her and asked, “And what is your name?” 

“Maki.” 

“Well, Maki, I have to say I am unimpressed. I expected more from the ninja of this hospital. I have never been met with such hostility before, why young Naruto?” 

She glared and spat out, “You know why.” 

Gai did and he didn’t like it. “Your ignorance is unbecoming of a shinobi, Maki.” 

“Fine, I’ll remove him myself!” The smile that curled her lips wasn’t kind and was far too gleeful. Gai’s hand was on her shoulder before she’d taken a step and if he used more strength than necessary to stop her, he’d put it down to nerves. 

Naruto shifted his stance wider and his eyes remained locked on her. Gai knew the moment she got past Gai that Naruto would pounce, and he’d seen the results of that. “You won’t be touching him,” Gai said. He took the shoulder in his hand and pushed backwards, away from his three charges. Maki stumbled through the door frame and only barely avoided falling to the ground by catching herself on the opposite wall. 

“How dare you!” 

“I am officially requesting a new medical professional, Maki. I would recommend finding someone who does not share your… discriminations.” 

“The Uzumaki brat needs to leave!” 

“Naruto is going nowhere. He will stay with his teammates and recuperate. He may not have any superficial injuries but he is undoubtedly just as malnourished and weakened as the others.” When it became obvious she was going to keep arguing with him he added, “And I do not think you would like to explain to Kakashi Hatake when he wakes up, why his student was treated so poorly.” 

She paled and bit her lip as she glanced down the hallway as if the copy nin would materialize next to her. Gai gave a sad but smug tight lipped smile. “I did request a new medi-nin, did I not? Make haste, Maki, for my patience is waning.” 

She briskly retreated down the halls and out of sight. Gai crossed his arms over his chest and continued his lean against the door frame. When he turned back to check on the kids Naruto was trying to crawl into Sakura’s bed. 

“Hold on a minute, Naruto.” Gai stepped in and slowly approached the blond. Naruto stopped halfway into the bed and looked at him warily. “She’s healing. She needs space.” 

Naruto looked down at the filthy girl. Gai once again noticed all her many bruises and lacerations, but his glance lingered on the swelling of her joints and limbs. 

Naruto placed both feet on the ground and nodded. “You’re right. Besides, I need to stay awake to watch over them. I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

Naruto stumbled over nothing as he retreated back to his previous position equidistant between the two beds. Gai hadn’t seen the boy sleep since he found them, and he’d bet a lot that he hadn’t slept for at least a couple days before that. The boy’s stamina was truly incredible. 

“You need rest too.” 

Naruto shook his head adamantly and nearly knocked himself over with the motion. “We’re not safe.” His eyes bore into Gai’s. “Even here, especially here, we’re not safe.” 

“You’re safe with me.” 

Naruto stopped breathing for a moment but then he gave a shaky nod. Like he believed it but didn’t know why he did. Gai straightened and said, “Watch them for a second, I’ll be right back.” 

Naruto’s chakra gave a pulse as Gai ventured into the hallway and navigated toward the nearest room. Luckily he found an empty one on the first try. He grabbed one of the rolling beds and dragged it out into the hallway and back to the room the kids were staying in. Gai startled a little when he found two Narutos inside, one just inside the door where Gai had previously been standing and the other still between the beds. 

Gai’s heart clenched when both Naruto’s brought their hands together and went through the signs for a simple genjutsu dispelling. Once he passed the test, the second Naruto poofed into smoke and the original asked, “What are you doing?” 

“I have brought you a bed, young Uzumaki. You need to rest as well.” 

Naruto shook his head but didn’t stop Gai as he slowly started to push the third bed between the other two. Naruto backed up as the bed encroached on his space. Naruto jumped onto it the moment that Gai’s hand let go, and then Naruto reached out to grab the bars of his teammates’ beds and pulled them right up next to his own. 

Only when he had all their beds lined up and as physically close as possible did Naruto start the conversation back up. “I can’t sleep.” 

Gai raised a brow and asked, “Can’t or won’t?” 

“Both.” 

“If you do not rest you will not have the energy to see your comrades through their own recoveries. Every shinobi has their limits, Naruto, and you’ve reached yours.” Gai wasn’t so sure he actually had, the boy had just created a shadow clone after all, but he’d been pushed too far regardless. 

Naruto slumped into himself and Gai badly wanted to hug him. 

“But we’re not safe.” Naruto had tears in his eyes when he finally found the energy to look back up. Gai wanted to pummel the ones responsible into oblivion; he’d once killed a man with a backhanded slap, and he’d do it again without prejudice. 

“I’ll be here, Naruto. I won’t leave the room for a moment.”

“What about Kakashi-sensei?” 

“He’ll come and check on you when he can, his recovery won’t be easy either.” 

“No, I mean, who’s going to look after Kakashi-sensei?” Naruto’s voice dropped as he whispered, “They’re after him too.” 

Gai placed a finger to his lips as he studied Naruto. Something very strange was going on, something that couldn’t be talked about directly. Gai wasn’t good at such things. “I can have another friend watch him. Kakashi would want me to focus on you three though.” 

Naruto gave a nod like that’s what he expected of Kakashi and Gai was proud of his rival. “Can you trust this friend? Like really really trust them?” 

“Shiranui Genma is a powerful special jounin as well as one of my original genin teammates. He’s fought bravely by my side many times, and I trust him with my life. He is also a good friend of Kakashi’s.” After Kakashi himself, there was no one Gai trusted more deeply. “He was one of the ones that helped me find you, actually.” 

“You had help?” 

“Of course.” 

“Okay, but I want to meet him.” Naruto pulled at the thin sheet beneath him. He looked one moment away from dropping into oblivion. “Then I’ll sleep. Or try to.” 

Gai nodded with a friendly smile. “I’ll hold you to it, brave Naruto.” Then he bit his thumb and slapped his hand to the ground. A small tortoise appeared in the resulting smoke and Naruto looked down at it with idle curiousity. “Find Shiranui and tell him to come to the hospital at once.” The tortoise nodded and disappeared in another puff. 

“Kakashi tried to summon his dogs once while we were running. They were closing in on us and we needed a distraction. Nothing happened and then he screamed. Really loud, which just made it easier to find us. He didn’t wake up for another week after that.” 

Gai asked, “How did you get away then? What was your distraction?” 

Naruto grinned and his canine teeth sharpened as Gai watched. “I was. I’d used all my chakra on shadow clones to buy us time before, so I had to go in myself.” 

The pupils in his red eyes morphed into slits and the whisker marks on his face deepened. Gai could feel chakra lapping at the edges of the room. “We took care of them though. They chased us for hours but we were faster. Stronger.” Naruto glared into Gai’s eyes. “We had something to protect so we wore them down and killed them.” 

Genma appeared in a flash at the door. He leaned casually against the door jam and said, “You need something, Gai?” His senbon was flicking back and forth in his mouth and his eyes were only on Naruto. 

The boy snarled and a growl deeper than he should be capable of rumbled out of his thin chest. Genma’s eyes widened and Gai quickly moved between the two. “Naruto, calm down. This is Shiranui Genma, my trusted comrade.” 

Naruto closed his eyes for a moment and the whiskers faded back to scars. When he opened them again his pupils were back to normal but the color was still blood red, though Gai hadn’t seen them be any other color since he found them. “Genma, huh?” 

“And you’re the Uzumaki brat that Iruka’s always talking about, right?” Genma asked. 

Naruto smiled and his teeth were normal as well. “That’d be me.” Naruto sombered and asked much quieter, “Was he worried?” Naruto’s eyelids began to drop down like they were being pulled by a great weight. 

Genma, who had been one of the people that had helped Iruka get through each day, huffed out a sad laugh. “He was a wreck. Wouldn’t eat a bite of ramen either, I had to force feed him saury and rice for a month.” 

Naruto sniffed and all the hard edges around his face and posture slumped. He finally looked like the heartbroken bedraggled and exhausted child that he was. “You took care of him?” 

Genma nodded. “He’s a friend. A good one. He helped me out a few years back when I was in a similar situation. He never let me give up, so I didn’t let him either.” 

“Thank you.” 

“No problem, kid. Just go to sleep.” 

“Will you help Kakashi?” Naruto asked. He had to force his eyes open when they threatened to shut. 

“Kakashi? I heard he’s in chakra surgery.” 

Gai nodded and interjected, “They say he’ll be done in a few hours.” 

“Doesn’t matter where he is, he needs to be watched.” Naruto’s shoulders had stiffened up again as he looked at Genma. “Don’t let them…” Naruto cut off and chewed at his lip as he glanced at Sakura. “Don’t let them take anything from him, okay?” 

Genma and Gai exchanged a confused and concerned glance but neither found anything of help in the other. “What do you mean?” Genma asked. 

Naruto shifted uncomfortably and reached a hand out to close around Sakura’s wrist. “Just… he’s vulnerable right now, okay? His eyes especially.” 

Genma nodded without thought. Naruto’s voice was edging into desperation and he didn’t like the sound of it. “I’ll make sure he’s protected, Naruto. No worries.” 

Naruto gave him one last glare. “Gai said he trusts you.” 

“He should. I’ve almost died for him several times, and vice versa.” 

Naruto’s eyes slipped closed and he fell back onto the bed with Sakura’s wrist still in his hand. Gai and Genma both winced as the chakra snapped back from the edges of the room and into his frail body. It would seem the boy had finally had too much. “Dying is easy,” Naruto mumbled before his body went limp against the thin mattress. 

Genma turned to Gai and raised a brow in question. “What the hell was that?” 

Gai shook his head and said quietly, “I would say it’s just paranoia, a common effect of trauma as we know…” 

“But?” 

“But I saw Kakashi when he woke from his coma to come to their defense in the forest.” Gai sat down heavily in the only chair in the room. “Something happened, Genma, something really bad. And more importantly, something is still happening.” 

Genma mulled the words over for a long moment. “Did you talk to Kakashi?” 

“No more than a few words to help him recognize me.” 

“He didn’t recognize you?” 

“Like I said, I don’t think this is just paranoia.” 

Genma gave a brisk nod and bounced to the balls of his feet. “I’ll find Kakashi then. You, me, and Anko have the next couple weeks off anyways. Officially we’re on suspension for insubordination.” 

“And unofficially?” 

“I’m not sure yet, but Anko will figure it out. She and Ibiki have been making some progress recently. Apparently we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed something is off.” 

“The worst enemies are the ones within our own ranks.” 

“Traitors get what’s coming to them,” Genma growled. He flicked his senbon to the side, waved his hand in goodbye to Gai, and strode from the room. He had a comatose jounin to find. 

Usually, finding Kakashi in the hospital wasn’t hard. Just follow the shouting of irate medi-nins and Kakashi would be there trying to escape out a window. This time was a little more complicated. He asked a few questions and eventually found the operating room. He didn’t ask for permission before slipping through the doors and into the nearest corner. 

Kakashi was laid out on the floor surrounded by complicated seal work. Five different medi-nins were crouched at spots around the body, all funneling chakra into the overlapping seals. Kakashi was almost glowing with their combined energies. 

“It’s not working,” a very tall, thin woman muttered to herself as she walked around the whole assembly. “Why isn’t it working?” 

Genma, once his eyes had adjusted to the gloomy lighting and shine of chakra, finally saw what the problem was. Or what he assumed the problem was. The sharingan eye that Genma had only seen a few times in his life was wide open and staring at nothing. Kakashi wasn’t conscious, that much was obvious, but the red spinning eye was definitely active. 

Genma raised up an inch and a half as he pushed himself to his tiptoes and craned to see the eye a little better. Around said eye, Genma could just make out...squiggles. He frowned and dropped back to his normal height. He knew little about seals, especially seals that went on living beings. 

He did know that seals were finicky and sharingan were rare. The seal being made for the sharingan meant that Kakashi was the target. Or at least a target. 

“That’s enough,” the pacing woman said. 

“But Lady Farhu, if we leave it, he’ll die. It’s a miracle he’s still alive,” one of the crouched medics said, Genma couldn’t tell which one. 

“Yes, his chakra network is severely damaged. If we can’t undo this damn seal, we’ll just have to alter it.” 

“Alter it how?” another medic asked. 

Farhu hummed and for a long few minutes the room was still again. She stopped pacing and was staring at the seals around them all. The medi-nins continued to pour chakra into Kakashi. 

Genma took the time to craft a simple but highly effective illusion. Half genjutsu, half something else entirely, he weaved a small wall between himself and the room. Anyone who looked at him would find their eyes sliding to the side. Unable to focus on him. He wasn’t going to risk being kicked out. 

“It’s basically a lock, right?” she asked rhetorically. “So let’s change the target for the lock.” 

“What?” 

“It’s locking his sharingan open, forcing his chakra systems to flow continuously. So let’s just move the seal, a little bit, and lock the sharingan away instead.” 

Genma watched over the next three hours as Farhu scrambled around and changed symbols here and there, instructed chakra flows to different locations, and even painted seals into Kakashi’s skin. Until finally, she sighed and stepped back. Genma stood on his tiptoes once again to watch as the red faded away from Kakashi’s eye and then it slipped closed. 

A sigh of relief left Genma and he knocked his head back against the wall behind him. How did Kakashi get himself into these situations? 

‘Chakra system damage’, she’d said, that wasn’t something to dismiss. It was rare and often permanent. He knew several shinobi that had been forcefully retired, or killed, thanks to damage to their chakra cores. Was this the end of Kakashi Hatake’s career? It seemed anticlimactic, though perhaps not to the three genin that had dragged the guy home with them. 

Impressive bunch they must be. The way Naruto had looked at him… Genma wasn’t used to being intimidated by genin, but the kid was an Uzumaki after all, and the fox inside him was clearly not pushed down all that far. The hokage would be displeased. Genma shifted uncomfortably. If the hokage found out. 

Genma thunked his head once again into the wall. Damn his friends for dragging him into this. Damn the hokage for going soft with his age. And damn the council and the suspension they slapped him with. He looked at Kakashi’s beaten prone figure. Genma was a lot of things: a flirt, a menace, an idiot, but he wasn’t someone who left their friends hanging. 

When they picked Kakashi up and placed him on a rolling bed, Genma allowed the illusion around himself to fade. When they wheeled Kakashi out and down the hallway, Genma followed. The lead doctor medi-nin, Farhu, was the one to finally bring up Genma’s sudden appearance. “Shiranui Genma,” she said, as she continued slowly rolling Kakashi forward. 

“Should I be flattered or concerned that you recognize me? Hopefully I didn’t do something to make myself look like too much of an idiot.” 

“More like an ass. I’ve worked with Kakashi-sama several times, I helped heal a head wound of yours a few months back, and I have to say that you could rival the infamous Kakashi’s escape attempts when it comes to this hospital.” 

Genma winced and tried to remember what she was talking about but he tended to block out any memories with green chakra and white starched sheets. “I’m sorry and surprised to say that I’ve forgotten meeting such a lovely woman as yourself.” 

“You tried to flatter me then too.” 

“All good things I assume.” 

“Bit of a mixed bag, really. But you were trying to be complimentary at least.” 

Genma sighed and wondered how he’d ended up in this situation again. Oh yeah, cause his friends were reckless idiots. Much like himself apparently. 

“I assume you’re here to guard Kakashi then, the hokage sent you?” she asked. 

“He does tend to need some guarding, our copy nin. If I promise to include keeping him here in the hospital as part of said guarding, can I stay, pretty please?” He added an overexaggerated pouty look at her through his eyelashes. 

She rolled her eyes and replied, “Like I could stop you. I also doubt you could stop him on his way out, but you’re welcome to try.” 

Genma’s fake pout turned far more real at the veiled insult. Then he thought about Kakashi and the genius’ ability to worm his way out of nearly everything. He bowed to her point and prodded, “So how’s his condition?” 

“Bad.” Her brows were furrowed together and she was biting her lip as she thought. Genma took the moment to look around and figure out where they were. A helpful sign with an arrow said that they were headed to the ICU section of the hospital. That wouldn’t do. Gai and the kids were in the opposite direction. 

“His chakra system is a mess,” Farhu’s voice brought his attention back to the doctor. “Hatake isn’t new to chakra exhaustion by any means, but this goes far beyond that. It’s basically impossible to push oneself to this sort of extreme but that seal over his eye was steadily pulling chakra from him.” 

“Can you give me some more specifics?” 

“Look, when a body runs out of food it starts to break down the fat stored in the body, right? And when it runs out of fat it’ll move to muscle and pull energy from vital organs and systems. The body will literally start to destroy itself in order to survive.” She gestured at Kakashi and Genma swallowed heavily. “The same thing happened to Kakashi’s chakra system. So much chakra was forced from him that his pathways started to collapse in on themselves in an effort to stop it. But the seal pulled more anyway and started to destroy the vital structures of the chakra hot spots. His chakra system is collapsing in on itself.”

“Can it be stopped?” 

“Stopped, yes…” she hesitated. 

“Don’t skimp me on the details here, doc.” 

“We locked his sharingan closed instead of open, but that’s not a long term solution. It’s still going to create a blockage in his chakra system and prevent proper healing.” 

“And if we can get the seal off him?” 

“His systems would hopefully reset themselves, but there’s too much damage already to expect a full recovery. Then again, he’s sort of known for exceeding expectations, isn’t he?” The question was more hopeful than Genma was comfortable with. 

“And if we don’t get it off?” 

She looked at him and said sincerely, “I don’t know.” 

“Shit,” he said succinctly. She laughed shortly before her energy seemed to be gone. 

“However the future goes for him, he’ll be spending quite a bit of time here, won’t he?” 

“Yes. And if he leaves, I’ll hunt him down again and again and drag him back by his ridiculous hair.” 

“What if I had a solution?” Genma slowed down gradually until he stopped in place and Farhu matched him. The other medi-nin that had been helping push gave Genma an annoyed look before he left with a huff, leaving Genma, Farhu, and Kakashi together. 

“I’m listening.” She crossed her arms and appraised him with a very doubtful look. 

“Hey, what’s that look for?” he asked with mock affront. 

“What do you think it’s for?” 

He sobered and cleared his throat. She leaned a little closer to him. “Kakashi isn’t going to stay put, we both know this. Not unless he has a reason to.” 

“And his continued health and life isn’t reason enough?” He looked at her with a skeptical expression to match the one she gave him earlier. She scowled but motioned for him to continue. 

“Fortunately for you and me, this time there’s three reasons for him to keep his ass in bed.” 

“And they are?” 

“They’re cute and small and down two floors on the other side of the hospital in the general ward.” 

She looked confused for another half a minute before her lips parted in realization. “His students. I haven’t seen them yet but I heard they came in in bad shape.” 

“They’ll live.” He pointed at Kakashi. “I’m sure you’ve seen the way he reacts when a teammate is injured though.” 

She grimaced and glared down at the unconscious form. “You’re such a pain in the ass, Hatake.” She grabbed the rails of the bed and wheeled Kakashi back the way they’d come. “You make a good point, Shiranui, maybe you’re not a lost cause like I thought. But I’m holding you personally responsible if he gets into trouble, or worse - gets those genin in trouble.” 

He held up a hand and gave a slight bow, “Of course. I’ll take my job as ninja wrangler very seriously.” He let a bit of his very real concern bleed into his voice and was glad when she didn’t push any further. 

She ended up putting him in the room directly across from where Gai and the kids were. She neatly hooked Hatake up to an IV and something else he didn't recognize that closed over his wrist. Maybe a heart rate monitor. Genma didn’t like looking at Kakashi when he was in the hospital or unconscious or even sometimes when he was caught in the rain and spotted at the memorial stone. It was easy to forget that Kakashi didn’t have the same sort of brawn as Gai or the broad stature of Genma. Kakashi was lithe and when he wasn’t moving with that exaggerated slouch or his nearly godlike speed, he looked very small. And breakable, which shouldn’t be a word ever used in a sentence with the guy. 

When Farhu left with several more warnings, Genma retreated from the bedside to the door frame. He leaned against it and looked over at Gai who was doing the same. 

“How is my rival, Genma?” Gai asked. 

“Alive.” 

“And?” 

“Things aren’t looking great for him, Gai.” 

Gai frowned and his shoulders pushed back making him look even bigger than he was. It was something Gai had done since they were children. Whenever he was met with a challenge he was unsure of or bad news, or facing a fear, he didn’t shrink into himself like most people. He spread his body wider as if he was expecting a blow and fully intending to not let it stop him. Genma admired Gai for that. And for a lot of other reasons. The green spandex, leg warmers, and over-the-top smiles made people underestimate him. But there was no one he’d rather have on his side right now than Gai. In the past he’d made sure to always be on Gai’s side too. 

“He’s strong,” Gai declared. Unlike Farhu’s words that had been hopeful but uncertain, Gai’s were full of confidence. And concern, but there was no lack of faith in Kakashi there. Genma didn’t know if it was misplaced or not. 

“And the kids?” 

Gai pushed his shoulders back even further and stood on the balls of his feet. “Besides all three of them being malnourished and exhausted, Sakura has countless bone fractures in her limbs. Most are in her right arm and leg. Torn ligaments around her joints, specifically shoulder, elbow, wrist, and knee on each side. She’s running a small fever but nothing dangerous. The biggest concern is healing all the fractures and a few fragments of bone that have torn into muscle.” 

Sakura twitched behind Gai and Genma looked at her closely. She looked ragged and beaten bloody. There was still mud and blood smeared into her skin and tangled in her hair. 

“And the Uchiha?” 

“Sasuke has third degree burns all up his right side. Other than that he has a few contusions and a sprained ankle. The biggest problem for him would be the infections that are ravaging his body due to the burns not being properly cleaned and cared for. He’ll be on intensive antibiotic treatments as well as chakra flushing for at least a week. The fever is dangerous, especially considering how long he’s been dealing with it, but cursory scans show little brain damage. His fever is in the early stages of breaking.” 

Genma winced, little brain damage didn’t mean none. If it was that bad then Genma didn’t understand how the kid had managed to keep moving with that kind of a fever wracking him. “What about the Uzumaki brat?” 

“No injuries.” Gai’s response was tense and he moved to look behind him at the three genin. 

“None?” 

“None at all. No scars or bruises either.” 

Genma took his senbon from his mouth to twirl it around his fingers as he thought. “He has blue eyes, right?” 

Gai paused and nodded weakly. “Interesting.” Genma ran his tongue over the back of his teeth.

“Their skin was also covered in old and new seals.” 

“Like Kakashi’s?” 

“No, these were made in blood and, according to one of the medi-nin, a completely different style.” 

“Whose blood?” 

He shrugged but said, “Best guess? Naruto’s.” 

Genma raised a brow and hummed a confirmation. “He is an Uzumaki.” 

“One with no seals training though. How could he possibly know?” 

“Did the medical staff have any idea what they were for?” 

“They thought they might be for staying awake and chakra channeling.” 

Gai sighed heavily and sank down to sit with his legs crossed. Perfect posture. It placed his considerable size square in the middle of the doorway. Genma slid himself down to the floor and lay sprawled out. Placing his senbon back in his mouth he leaned his head back on the frame and closed his eyes. “What a fucking mess,” he muttered. 

They sat like that for a long time. They traded a few thoughts to each other but mostly they sat in silence. Frequently checking on their charges and watching for anything. Not really knowing what, but they were ready for it. 

It had gotten dark out before Gai shuffled a little in place to reach back for his pack. The lights had been dimmed for overnight hours and the staff was few and far between. Anyone still on full duty would be over in ICU, surgery, or research. Gai pulled out one of the blank masks he’d stashed earlier. 

He tossed it over into Genma’s lap without a word. Genma lifted it up and studied it. “Looks like hunter nin to me,” Gai said eventually. 

Genma was about to nod in agreement when he noticed the small character under the chin. He ran his fingers over it and tilted the mask to see the writing better in the dim light. He froze when he managed to make it out. 

“Not hunter nin,” he said quietly. 

“No?” 

“You’re always missing the details, Gai,” Genma scolded. His heart was going a little too fast for comfort and his fingers had covered the small character to stop any unwanted eyes from spotting it, not that there were any around them. 

“That’s not true!” 

Gai was right, it wasn’t true or fair to Gai’s abilities. He noticed plenty of details, they just weren’t the ones Genma noticed. The little things Genma saw and cataloged were generally more important however, as they held more pertinence beyond combat. 

“This is Root.” Genma briefly held the mask up before that same urge to hide it made him push the mask into his vest to conceal it. 

“Root?” Gai questioned. 

“A shadow organization.” 

“Is it part of ANBU?” 

“No.” Genma scoffed at the thought. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad.” Genma shifted to give Gai an intense look. “We both know I hear a lot of things.” Gai nodded. It had saved both their lives several times over. “I know damn near everything that happens in this village. I know every shinobi here, every ANBU identity, I helped create half of our current alliances with daimyos and lords. I’ve been to nearly every country in every land. The only times I’ve caught even a snippet of something about Root, were thin rumors about other rumors.” 

“So what do you know?” Gai asked. He always looked goofy when he was so serious, his giant eyebrows furrowing like they were life forms in of themselves. Genma couldn’t find any humor in it at all as he stared at his best friend. 

“I know two things...and a half.” Genma ducked his head and turned to look into the room as a night nurse walked down the hallway and ducked part way through the doors of several empty rooms as she made her rounds. She passed Genma and Gai without trying to do the same to the doors they were sat in front of. He waited until she disappeared around the corner. “The first thing is that Root is into shit that ANBU black ops wouldn’t even touch. I mean shit so dark and fucked up that T&I shinobi won’t talk about it. 

“The second thing I know for sure, is that it’s here in Konoha.” 

“Where?” 

“No idea, I just know that Root is a creation of the village hidden in the leaves.” 

“And the half? The last thing?” 

“The hokage’s in on it. Clams up real hard whenever it’s so much as hinted at.” 

Gai frowned with his whole body, mouth downturned, shoulders squared and defiant, eyebrows pulled together and his fists clenched where they sat on his knees. “It would seem…” 

Genma glanced at Gai to find him staring over his shoulder at Kakashi’s bed. He knew from experience, having been sitting and checking on the guy constantly, that the only thing really visible from that angle was the wild gray hair. It was matted and even dirtier than Sakura’s. There was decidedly less blood in it though, more just mud and other questionable substances. 

“It would seem the hokage has been making some very strange choices lately,” Gai finally finished. 

Genma pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded. “It would seem that way, yes.” 

“It’s very unyouthful.” 

“Well, it’s not like he’s young anymore.” 

“He’s tired.” 

“Aren’t we all?” The conversation faded away as they both fell into their own thoughts. 

Gai was normally an intensely focused person. He didn’t struggle to fall into a routine or training, spending all his energy, both mental and physical, on making himself the best at what he did. On missions he didn’t falter. Even challenges with Kakashi had his full and undivided attention. He found it quite difficult in fact, to not put his all into one thing, one thought process. 

Sitting on the floor guarding three children he barely knew and staring at his… at Kakashi, he couldn’t maintain a single half formed idea or observation. His brain was misfiring on too many levels. It wasn’t his expertise. He was not sent on missions that would give him the schema to accurately identify it, but he felt like he was in the middle of a conspiracy. A word he knew and recognized, but had never spent too much time on. 

He hadn’t thought it would sneak up on him like it had. Like it still was. 

There were too many things to worry about and it all started to amass into a stifling weight on his chest that he couldn’t lift despite his strength. But on top of all of that lay his worry over Kakashi. His rival, his best friend, his most important person was laid out flat. Even when Kakashi came home with severe chakra exhaustion and was forced to a hospital stay, he wasn’t this still. Kakashi didn’t thrash in his sleep but he did move. Sometimes he even talked. On really bad days he screamed. 

Kakashi lay in his bed with his arms by his sides and his palms facing the ceiling. His legs were straight and covered by a thin sheet. Gai had watched him for hours and not a single finger had twitched. It was wrong and sent every neuron in his brain screaming to do something. What was he to do? 

Watch and wait, apparently. Gai looked back over his shoulder to check on the children. They were unmoving just like their teacher. The very air smelled of sweat, blood, and exhaustion. What had they gone through? His eyes returned to Kakashi. The man had been caught before, sometimes intentionally letting himself be caught. He’d been tortured. So had Gai. Any shinobi knew what to expect from torture. How to survive it. Kakashi had survived more than average. 

Yet Gai hadn’t seen the sort of deranged desperation that Kakashi had shown in the forest since...well, since Rin died at his hands. Just like then, Kakashi was barely physically injured. So what had sent Kakashi into that state? His genin were all still alive. Though barely. 

It had taken too long to find them. The hokage had actively misled them all. Kakashi shouldn’t have been found, he wouldn’t have been if not for Anko, Genma, and him. And with that seal over his eye it was clear Kakashi was a purposeful choice. But why? How did any of it make sense? 

His hand patted the pouch on his belt once again. There were seven more masks waiting in there. Root masks, whatever that meant. Gai didn’t have the stomach or heart for ANBU. He couldn’t imagine what would make the ANBU commanders squirm. Didn’t really want to either. Except those people had gone after his precious person and he wouldn’t allow it to happen again. 

Genma was sitting and staring at the door frame, his eyes far away. His face was nearly as blank as the white masks. Genma was a startlingly efficient shinobi, Gai would know. He was also incredibly smart. Smarter than Gai and in many ways smarter than Kakashi. Because Genma was good at things other than just combat and strategy. 

Genma saw things that Gai could never hope to. Saw connections between things that were as far apart as they could get. He could make a split second decision that decided the fate of a city or a country’s alliances just by looking at a general or lord or a situation. 

Gai sighed. What had Genma seen when he looked at the mask? Gai wasn’t used to his friend not knowing things, and by the looks of it neither was Genma. For the first time in a long time, Gai felt entirely out of his depth. 

A shrill beep made him startle and he looked up just in time to see Kakashi rip the IV from his wrist, a cuff from the other, and roll himself out of the bed. He was a tangle of movement and sheet and gray hair. Genma was faster than Gai as he moved to Kakashi’s side. Gai didn’t have the wherewithal to warn him but he wasn’t surprised when Genma’s hand on Kakashi’s shoulder was treated as a threat. 

Fortunately, Kakashi was off balance, tangled in a sheet, and extremely weak. So when Kakashi’s hand snapped down around Genma’s wrist and twisted the arm, it wasn’t difficult for Genma to duck under Kakashi’s arm and prevent the man from breaking the bone. 

Gai was there then and he closed his hand around Kakashi’s wrist and said, “Kakashi!” It was partially a reprimand and far too much a question. It caught Kakashi’s attention though. 

Gai pulled Kakashi toward him and Kakashi immediately dropped Genma’s wrist and fell into Gai’s chest. It was only partially purposeful, Kakashi was clearly struggling to stay upright. 

“Gai?” he asked. When Gai looked down at Kakashi he noticed several things. Kakashi’s facial expression, the complicated seal work over his sharingan eye, and how said sharingan eye was no longer sporting a sharingan. Two dark gray eyes looked up at him. Well, no, the sharingan eye wasn’t gray exactly. Obito’s eye was several shades darker than Kakashi’s. 

Kakashi slumped more into Gai’s body and the larger man easily supported his weight and held him securely. Kakashi caught a glimpse of Genma and asked in the same tone, “Genma?” 

Before either of them could respond, Kakashi went flying into more violent movement. Gai had a strong hold on his body so Kakashi only managed to flail and flop his head back and forth. Gai used his hand to stabilize Kakashi’s neck from the painful looking flopping, but Kakashi was pushing at the chest under his hands and shouting, “Where are they?!” 

Gai lifted one of his hands to point at the door across the way and said with his best soothing no nonsense voice, “They’re right over there, Kakashi. They’re fine. You’re all safe.” 

Kakashi took advantage of Gai’s loosened grip and threw himself toward the door. Gai set off after him and he could feel Genma right at his back as well. Even stumbling and swaying Kakashi was fast. He was already at the beds when Gai caught up. He stood very still, at the foot of Naruto’s bed, both his hands wrapped around the railing and gripping so tightly his knuckles turned white. 

Gai cautiously approached and gently peeled Kakashi’s fingers from the railing. He placed the newly freed hands on his own large chest and steadied his rival with an arm around his waist. “They’re healing, Kakashi. You got them home safe.” 

Kakashi scoffed and continued moving his gaze between the three children in the beds. Gai placed a couple fingers under Kakashi’s chin and pulled the other’s face around to look him in the eye. Before he had been distracted by the difference of those eyes but now he noticed how clouded they were. Shining with something feverish and nasty. Kakashi was looking at something just to the side of Gai’s face but not out of spite or anger but rather what looked like inability. 

Kakashi turned to vaguely look over at the other person in the room, Genma. He was standing only a couple feet away and Gai could see the way the other man was ready to spring into action at any moment. In his left hand he clutched the white mask. 

Kakashi exclaimed something that was entirely gibberish before he launched himself at Genma with a single minded focus that wasn’t on Genma at all. Kakashi was allowed to fumble the mask from Genma with no fight and both Gai and Genma watched as Kakashi’s chakra sparked up to his hand with heady electricity and fried the mask to ash. 

Kakashi’s body immediately started to crumple to the floor and Gai could feel the sickening, dizzying feel of his rivals’ chakra as something happened inside him. Gai caught one arm and Genma caught the other and together they just managed to stop Kakashi from hitting the ground as well as pull him back up to his feet. 

Gai pulled Kakashi into him once again and held Kakashi’s head steady with one hand at the nape of his neck and pressed the man’s face into his shoulder. Kakashi stilled and his panting breaths started to subside and even out. 

“Is he okay?” Genma asked. 

Gai glanced at Genma and then the ashy floor and then gave a one shouldered shrug. “Kakashi?” he asked. There was no answer for nearly a minute. The three just stood there in silence and Gai was thinking about dragging Kakashi back to his room. Then said ninja stirred in his hold and lifted his head to look at the three beds once again. 

Kakashi pointed in that direction and said, “Help me.” 

Gai, not sure if it was the right decision at all, supported Kakashi’s faltering steps the few feet needed to bring them back to the beds. Kakashi said evenly and slowly, like each word was costing him something, “Don’t let them see you have that.” Gai glanced at the ash and wanted to say they couldn’t now that Kakashi had destroyed it, but he didn’t. Just gave a nod. 

“You need to rest,” Gai said. 

“My team…” 

“Are resting, you should too,” Genma pointed out. Gai glanced over to find the man had taken up position back at the door frame, facing outwards to the abandoned hallway. 

Kakashi pushed away from Gai and started to scramble over the railing and into Naruto’s bed. Gai reached forward to stop him but Kakashi wriggled out of his grip and fell with a huff onto Naruto’s body. The boy didn’t even twitch. 

Gai began to protest quite loudly about his rival’s behavior but Kakashi paid him no mind. He struggled to get over the second set of railings as he moved from Naruto’s bed to Sakura’s. Gai was stunned into silence as he watched Kakashi carefully maneuver the girl to the side of the bed, the side closest to Naruto, and slip in beside her. His entire frame was shaking violently and his eyes were slipping closed without his consent. 

Gai reached out but didn’t have the heart to stop him. Small bruised and healing limbs were folded together until Sakura was curled into a small ball and Kakashi pulled her into his chest with some difficulty. Not because the actions were new to him, to Gai they looked rehearsed to the point of instinctual, but because his body was clearly shutting down as he was doing it. 

Then those gray eyes snagged on his and Gai froze in place. It was the first time those eyes had actually seemed to focus and see anything. They were half lidded and Kakashi struggled to keep them open long enough to look at Gai. “Don’t let anyone take them. Anyone anywhere.” Kakashi’s hand reached for Naruto’s bed but didn’t have the strength to move far enough to touch the boy. “Especially Naruto.” 

Gai didn’t say anything, he couldn’t. Kakashi’s arms wrapped around Sakura securely and something inside the man seemed to break or give. His body melted into the hard mattress and he breathed out, “Promise, Gai?” 

He sounded so young. Gai cleared his throat and forced his tears back as he replied, “Of course, my friend. Don’t you worry.” 

Kakashi found some last flicker of strength that he used to pull Sakura’s arm out of his embrace and then placed her hand, as gently as he physically could, over his sealed eye. His arms curled around her tighter, his face angled toward the other two genin, and then Kakashi’s eyes fully closed. 

“What the actual fuck,” Genma stated. Gai turned to find the man had stopped looking into the hallway and was staring at Kakashi in shock. 

Gai felt tears run over his cheeks as his heart throbbed with sympathy for his friend. 

“What happened to them?!” Genma exclaimed and his hand came up to pull at his hitai-ate turned bandana. “What the fuck shakes the most implacable man I’ve ever met to…. to whatever this is?!” Genma gestured at Kakashi’s position and overall situation. 

“We won’t know until they wake up.” 

“Not like that, he wasn’t fully awake,” Genma said. 

“It was much the same in the forest when he rushed to his students’ aid. He wasn’t fully there.” 

“Is it the seal do you think?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Genma and Gai stood in silence for a few minutes, each making their own mental calculations. Gai wiped his tears away and fell into a breathing exercise that helped calm his frayed nerves. 

“No one enters this room,” Genma ordered. “You heard what he said. No one in, and those three don’t leave.” 

“They need medical help, Genma.” Gai thought about the medi-nin who had been so eager to throw Naruto out. “Perhaps there is someone here we can trust enough to help them?” 

“That Farhu lady. The one who sealed Kakashi.” 

“You trust her?” 

“Hell no, but she didn’t kill Kakashi or try to take him away. She brought him here. She seemed genuinely concerned.” 

Gai mulled it over and eventually gave an agreeing nod. “Acceptable.” 

The two of them spent the next three days guarding the room in shifts. Forcing everyone but Farhu to stay out wasn’t as difficult as either had imagined it would be. Genma just had to confess to Farhu and a few other doctors that Kakashi had attacked him upon waking. An instinctual reaction that could prove very bad for any unfortunate soul caught in his path. 

Turned out that nearly everyone decided against risking being attacked by one of the strongest ninja of the village. Only a few spoke out against it but Genma was good at assuaging people’s concerns. The only one he couldn’t seem to fool was Farhu. She interrogated him relentlessly, questioning everything in rapid fire. She studied him and he watched her look at him. Until she huffed and crossed her arms and agreed. 

She took good care of them and didn’t falter under either Gai’s or Genma’s oppressive gazes. They watched her every step and questioned any changes to her routine. She bore it well, explaining what she did as she did it. 

“What do you think I’m going to do?” she asked one day when it was Genma’s turn to guard. She’d just finished flushing Sasuke’s chakra again and was currently switching out the antibiotics in his IV. 

“I don’t know,” Genma confessed. “Nothing, really.” She gave him a disbelieving look but didn’t bring it back up. 

In the early morning of the fourth day, Sakura awoke. Genma was tired and wrung out and he’d blame that for the reason he didn’t notice immediately. She hadn’t moved though. He just belatedly realized he was looking at emerald green eyes after a while and he had no idea how long he’d been doing so. 

She looked wary of him but completely at ease in Kakashi’s grip. He gave her a small wave and her eyes narrowed. Her small hand pressed a little more firmly into Kakashi’s face and she asked, “Who are you?” 

“Genma, friend of Gai’s.” 

“Gai?” Her head moved a little to the side as if looking for the hulking man in the corners of the room. “Where is he?” 

“On his way here. It’s my shift to watch you guys.” 

He wasn’t sure but he thought her shoulders relaxed a little at the words. “You’ve been here the whole time?” 

“Me or Gai, but yes, you haven’t been left alone.” 

“Good.” 

She then started to stretch. Very slowly as she moved from her curled position to push feet toward the end of the bed and her arm, the one not covering Kakashi’s eye, up toward the ceiling. He’d watched her be tended to by Farhu and had seen the x-rays of her bones. He was certain she was in near agony. Chakra healing could fix the damage to the bones but not the nerve reaction to those injuries. She only winced lightly as she moved. She moved confidently and Genma had only met her once, or rather seen her in the missions room with Kakashi, but she’d been far from confident then. 

Her free hand ran through her hair and she grimaced in distaste. “If you’re feeling up to it, there’s a small bathroom attached to the room behind you. Shower included,” he informed her. 

She gave him another once over and then he felt her chakra pulse towards him and at the walls of the room. He kept his expression steady. She relaxed a little further and tilted her head back to look behind her at the small dark room. 

“How are the others?” she asked. 

“Healing. Stable.” 

She nodded but her eyes lingered on Naruto. “Even him?” she asked. 

“Even him.” 

She nodded and curled up against Kakashi once again, her head moving under his chin and nuzzling into his chest. “Good.” It was muffled but he heard it. 

“What can you tell me about what happened?” 

She didn’t answer. 

“What do you remember?” His answer was her shifting just enough to be able to glare at him. 

“Gai mentioned being attacked by masked ninja that he assumed were--”
She jolted in place and glare turned even harder but also wider and scared. “Not here!” she exclaimed as she glanced around them. Then softer she added, “Not now. Not yet.” 

Genma nodded. His stomach tightened even further, though he’d hoped that wasn’t possible. The anxiety and frustration he’d been carrying around had taken to settling in his stomach and muscles. He was sore and nauseous constantly. 

“Where’s Gai?” she asked. She looked smaller now than before. 

“He’ll be here soon.” 

They only had to wait a few more minutes before Gai appeared at the doorway with a thumbs up and megawatt smile. “Sakura, you beautiful petal of youthfulness, you are awake!” 

He moved to her side and she shifted onto her back so she could look up at him. “Thank you, Gai-sensei.” 

He put a hand on her head and replied, “You are quite welcome. I would do it again without thought.” He prodded her in a few places and asked some questions and Sakura allowed it with a small amused scowl. When he was sure she was on the mend and well, he tapped the back of her hand that was on Kakashi’s face. 

Her expression shuttered and she kicked out at Gai, who caught it in one hand. “Look, Sakura.” He tapped her hand again. 

She glared but turned and just slightly lifted her hand to peer underneath. Then she lifted her hand higher as she leaned further forward. She withdrew her hand entirely and smiled as she stared at Kakashi’s face and his closed eyes. Both of them. 

“They fixed him!” 

Genma winced and Gai’s grin dimmed. 

Her hand crept back up and she trailed her fingertips across the two different sets of seals surrounding the eye. “Or did they?” she asked. 

“They’re working on it,” Genma said. She looked over at him and gave a nod of acknowledgement. 

“Am I the first to wake up?” 

Gai shook his head but Genma said emphatically, “Yes. And we’re glad to see your pretty green eyes.” 

“We should call Farhu in,” Gai said. 

Sakura grumbled but when Farhu came in and looked her over she answered the questions succinctly and only flinched half the times she was touched. Gai was honestly amazed. She’d been so constantly protective of Sasuke and Kakashi before. Lashing out whenever Gai got too close or asked too many questions. 

But Farhu was having no real problems with the girl. Sakura’s hand kept creeping back towards Kakashi’s face before Farhu would take it again to do another test of her bone density, and her eyes were always roving over her teammates and Gai and Genma, but she was remarkably well behaved. 

“So it was my bones then? I thought as much,” Sakura said eventually. Her eyes were drifting shut and then snapping open as she fought sleep. Gai thought that she’d probably only spoken as a way to stay awake. 

Farhu looked up at her with an eyebrow raised in inquiry. “What makes you say that?” 

Sakura blinked several times as she visibly processed the question. Then she gave a half hearted shrug and replied, “It took me awhile to figure out where to sink the chakra, you know?” She yawned and shook her head gently. “It’s not just about force it’s also about stability. If you kick someone hard enough to break through a skull then you’re going to damage yourself too, unless you manage to sink the chakra into the right places. That’s all.” 

Gai chuckled and Sakura looked over at him with a suspicious look. “Admirable initiative, my flower petal! That is truly an advanced technique! One that few can master as it requires exemplary chakra control!” He glanced at Kakashi and then asked, “Did Kakashi help you with it?” 

Sakura shook her head clumsily. Farhu was allowing the small body to slowly relax back into the mattress and Sakura’s eyes closed a little further with every inch she sunk back. “Sasuke helped a bit though. Theory and all that…” She opened her mouth to speak again but the only thing that came out was a deep exhale as Farhu laid the girl fully out. She was asleep by the time Farhu had stood fully straight. 

“A remarkable young lady you have here, gentlemen.” Farhu said. 

Sasuke woke to a soft but intense argument between Gai and someone. 

“It’s getting harder to stop certain people from coming here. We need to get them out,” said a voice unfamiliar to Sasuke. The sound of a stranger made Sasuke’s entire body tense up and his only half open eyes instantly scanned the area around him for his sword. When he didn’t find it his hand began blindly grasping for it as panic threatened to swallow him up. 

“We can’t move them, Genma. They need more time to heal!” Gai insisted. 

Sasuke took the time to look around and figure out where they were. His eyes weren’t focusing properly, they hadn’t for a while, but he’d gotten used to squinting and guessing. He’d spent a lot of time in the hospital after the massacre of his entire family and he recognized the smell and off white walls, sheets, and pillows of the shinobi hospital. His eyes snagged on the familiar blurs of his teammates and sensei and the panic that had been building to an excruciating intensity in his chest released a little bit of the weight. Kakashi and Sakura were curled together like they so often were and Naruto was… absolutely still. 

Sasuke’s search for his weapon was abandoned and his hand reached out for Naruto. The boy was never still. He shouldn’t be still. What was going on? The argument had stopped and Sasuke didn’t give a damn. He sort of rolled to his side, his non-burnt side, and reached a little more firmly for the blond. He managed to curl fingers around cloth that he hadn’t noticed, a hospital gown most likely. He pulled weakly and grasped for Naruto’s collar bone, running the pads of his fingers over skin until he reached Naruto’s neck. Fumbling he searched for a pulse. Unable to see and unable to reach properly it took him a couple of frantic moments to find it, but it was there. Strong and steady under the pads of his fingers and the proof Sasuke needed to know Naruto was still with him.

“He’s okay, Sasuke,” Gai said. Sasuke startled mentally. He’d already forgotten he wasn’t alone. How idiotic. He turned his head slowly and painfully to look up at Gai who stood at the foot of his bed. 

Sasuke gave the other man, Genma apparently, a cursory glance before he returned his attention to Naruto. “No, he isn’t,” Sasuke muttered. His voice was rough and gravelly and painful. He wanted some water. Sakura always had the water, as she was the least likely to accidentally leave it somewhere. 

“What do you mean?” Gai asked. 

Sasuke didn’t answer. He pulled at Naruto’s gown again but it wasn’t with nearly enough force to move either the blond or himself. 

Sasuke’s eyes were torn away from Naruto when Genma walked to stand at the foot of Naruto’s bed. A blur of black and shinobi green, with dark hair. He snarled, the way he’d heard Naruto do so often, but it got caught in his throat with the gravel and weakness. 

Sasuke moved his other arm forward, to raise his hand and forearm into a defensive position but he gasped and paled when the bandages pulled painfully on his burns. He fell onto his back and breathed heavily as the pain rolled through him in waves that left him nauseous and light headed, his awareness of his surroundings began to fade away. It didn’t matter where he was, they needed to move. They always needed to move, to stay just another step ahead of the people after them. 

“What do you mean, Sasuke?” Genma asked, reminding Sasuke of his presence once again. “About Naruto.”

 They’d been found. Where were the others? He had to find them, protect them. He had to fight. His breathing quickened in terror and his vision began to black out around the edges. He needed to get them all out of here. Away from the stranger, away from the pain, they needed to hide. They were good at that. Sasuke squirmed and tried to push himself up into a seated position. He needed to move! Where was his sword?

A large hand pressed gently down on his chest and Sasuke collapsed again, panting and grasping for his weapon. He always had it near, where was it? He pushed on the hand holding him in place but it felt as steady as a boulder. Crushing him and killing him and this is how he was going to die? It didn’t surprise him as much as he thought it would. He was growing weaker with every day they were forced to keep moving forward.

“Sasuke, calm down!” Gai commanded. Sasuke feebly glared at the green blur but continued to struggle. 

Sasuke’s lips pulled up to show blunt teeth and he whispered, “This is not how I’m going to die!” His side felt like it was going to tear into pieces and he could no longer even move his injured arm. His chest had a terrible pressure on it that he was sure would break him. At the same time everything felt distant and numb. 

“What? You’re not going to die, Sasuke,” Gai’s voice said, though Sasuke could no longer see him. Gai had helped him though, hadn’t he? He vaguely remembered being held to a strong chest, so very grateful for the escape from the pain each step had caused him while he was walking. Gai had smelled like leaves and sweat. 

Everything was black and his head pounded with each beat of his heart. “Sasuke!” 

The last thing Sasuke consciously thought of was that Gai could fit a lot of emotion into that one word. Like Naruto could. Sasuke had never been able to say so much. Was it something that could be learned?

Sasuke’s body went limp under Gai’s hand and the man ripped it away. Horrified, he stepped closer and tilted Sasuke’s head back, but those black terrified eyes were closed. The small chest finally stopped lurching and the kid’s breath evened out. 

“We need to move them, Gai,” Genma said again. Gai looked over to meet his friend’s eyes and he looked so damn guilty that it tore at Genma’s already churning gut. 

Gai gestured at Sasuke’s bandages and the small amounts of blood that had leaked through when he’d reopened some of his wounds. “But can we?” Gai asked. 

Genma scowled and paced back and forth with vicious shakes of his head. Gai was right and the whole thing was maddening. He felt absolutely useless. All he’d done so far was terrify both Kakashi and Sasuke, and yell at a few council members that demanded to see Team 7 for a debrief. 

“Okay, you’re right,” Genma said. He pressed the tip of his senbon into his tongue to the point just before he’d cut through the skin. The small and brief spot of pain helped him focus on the question at hand. “But things need to change or we won’t be able to keep the four of them isolated for much longer. The council members are getting antsy and aggressive. They’re using their connections to T&I to force their way into this room.” 

Gai hummed and then said, “But we have our own connections to T&I, do we not, friend?” 

Genma gave a surprised huff and then a grin. “You’re not wrong, Gai! And I bet our friend trumps the others!” Genma hopped on the balls of his feet and took a couple steps towards the door. He paused and asked, “You good to watch them for a bit?” 

Gai looked heart broken and there were tears hovering in his eyes, not quite falling, but still obvious. Genma’s own heart lurched but he squashed the feeling quickly and very carefully didn’t look at any of the beds. Gai gave a thumbs up and a shaky nod, “Of course, I am! If you would be so kind as to send Farhu in to treat Sasuke’s wounds, it would be much appreciated!” 

Genma wanted to say something comforting, but he wasn’t great at that. He was much more prone to gallows humor and dry insults. So he said nothing and gave a nod of his head as he left. He needed to talk to Ibiki. And Anko. Odds were usually pretty good they were in the same place as well, so that would make things a little easier. 

“Gai?” Kakashi asked with a few blinks of his tired and barely open eyes. He couldn’t see much but blurs, but he knew Gai’s chakra like no one else’s. His arms tightened around the precious bundle that was in his arms and he looked unseeingly around the room. He could feel Naruto and Sasuke a little ways away. A shaky hand came up to run over the back of Sakura’s head and through her hair. He could feel her breathing and it calmed his heart immensely. “My kids?” 

“On the rebound, my precious rival.” 

Kakashi sighed with his whole body and let his eyes drift shut again. “Has anyone tried to take them?” 

“Yes,” Gai answered. “But we haven’t let them, of course.” 

Kakashi knew his face was pulling into something ugly and violent but he couldn’t really feel what it was. His whole body felt like it was under water and his head throbbed. The familiar echoes and prickling of chakra exhaustion were shaking through his every atom. The feeling was worse this time. He knew chakra exhaustion, and this was more than just that. 

Kakashi managed to open his eyes and focus his sight long enough to see Gai’s face. Those brown eyes were shiny with tears and his expression was grim. It looked all wrong on Gai. Kakashi had left ANBU to keep that expression off Gai. “I’m sorry,” Kakashi whispered. He wanted very badly to lift a hand to Gai’s cheek but he couldn’t. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Gai said with a passionate shake of his head. “In fact, I want to thank you.” 

“Why?” 

“For coming back to me.” 

Kakashi’s brow crumpled in on itself and he shook his head slightly. “I wouldn’t have without the kids. I just didn’t have the strength to. I was the easiest prey of the four of us.” A twisted pride bloomed in his chest at the words. His kids, his students, had proven themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt. They were vicious, smart, stronger than anything Kakashi had ever seen, and loyal. His eyes closed once again as he remembered Sakura dragging him through the Root soldiers when they’d first fought their way out. How he’d begged her to leave him behind. 

She hadn’t. Said she couldn’t. 

Sasuke had once fought off a full team of Root nin for Kakashi. The boy could barely keep a kunai in his hand, but he fought to keep them away from Kakashi’s only barely awake form. Kakashi had screamed at himself mentally, trying everything to force his muscles into moving, into doing anything, but he was just too heavy. Then Sasuke had gotten his hands on a sword. Kakashi watched, unable to do anything else, as Sasuke sliced through each and every one of the enemy and then collapsed next to Kakashi. A small shaky hand coming to cover the sharingan eye Kakashi hated with every fiber of his being. The most recent small scrap of cloth tied around his head had once again burnt away again from the intensity of the sharingan’s chakra. 

Sasuke never said much but Kakashi knew he was as likely to leave Kakashi behind as Sakura. 

Naruto was the same, of course. Throwing himself in front of attacks and weapons to keep Kakashi safe. Eventually, after weeks of travel, Kakashi was able to move his body and muscles. For very brief amounts of time, usually just enough to redirect an attack at one of his students’ backs before he collapsed once again. Then he watched as Naruto did the same for Kakashi. Every time a drop of Naruto’s blood hit the ground after taking the kunai attack for the older man, Kakashi’s heart shriveled a little more. He’d once gotten a full splatter of Naruto’s blood across his face when a tanto was shoved through Naruto’s stomach and torn to the side. Kakashi could feel it on his lips and dripping into his sharingan. He’d closed his normal eye and gotten lost in the black then. Unable to watch any further. When he woke up the blood on his face was gone. 

“I think you were the best sensei we could have ended up with Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto had once said under a black sky. He and Kakashi were the only ones awake, and Kakashi knew on his part it would be brief. “I mean you’re a total pervert and you’re always late and you’re annoying as all get out, but…” Naruto looked up at the sky and Kakashi wished the boy didn’t look so tired and worn. “But I think you taught us what we needed to know. What we actually needed to know, not just flashy jutsu like I expected.” Naruto smiled and Kakashi could only tell because of the flash of those sharp canines in the firelight. “It’s gotten us this far, right? All of us, still together.” 

Kakashi sitting in front of that fire had thought, and once again as Gai hovered over him, that he’d ruined his genin students. He said as much to Gai. Opening his eyes to look at Gai and waiting for the answer to something that wasn’t quite a question. Because Gai had never lied to him, not once, and the Green Beast of Konoha was better at seeing things the way they were than the great copy-nin. Kakashi just looked up into those familiar eyes and hoped for something. Anything really. 

Gai didn’t disappoint. He smiled and replied, “No. You didn’t.” Gai placed a hand on the bed, to the side of both Kakashi and Sakura, and leaned down to be directly above Kakashi. “You’re all here, rival. The whole team together, having fought through the battlegrounds together. That’s only something I’ve really seen you do. Even in your darkest times you risked everything for your teams. You taught them that.” 

“I didn’t teach it well,” Kakashi stated. He knew it and his students did as well. He’d half-assed their training, unwilling to make the emotional connection to them. To care only to lose them. 

Gai shrugged. “The lesson stuck anyways.” 

“I need to do better.” He looked up at Gai and repeated with all the fervor left in his exhausted body and bones and spirit. “I need to do better.” 

Gai’s smile faded into an earnest understanding. “Then you will.” 

Kakashi swallowed heavily and felt all too exposed. Gai always made him feel that way. Vulnerable and anxious but not in the heavy loathsome way. But in a way that made him feel a little more alive. He’d spent a lot of his life feeling dead, spending more of his time with ghosts and regrets than the people and times around him. But Gai had always dragged him back to the vividity of breathing and being challenged. And just like he always had, Kakashi needed that. “I’ll need your help,” he whispered. 

The words left him and it felt like a large chunk of his stomach had been painfully scooped out, but it was worth it when Gai smiled and replied, “Then you’ll have it.” 

“Like a challenge then?” Kakashi asked. 

The stab of hurt that punched him in the heart when Gai shook his head took him by surprise. Gai had never refused a challenge. 

“This is more important than a challenge, my dear Kakashi.” Kakashi tried to focus on the words and not the guilt and regret swelling up in his throat. “I think, after so long, you’ve found your Will of Fire again.” 

“What?” Kakashi gasped. Gai brushed his fingers over Kakashi’s cheek and the copy nin felt himself relax. Gai wasn’t rejecting him, he was trying to teach him something. Over their rivalry, Kakashi was pretty sure Gai had taught him far more than he had given Gai in return. 

“You’re a shinobi through and through, Kakashi. Loyal and lethal as you should be, but did you ever question why you were doing it?” 

“I had to.” 

“No, you didn’t. You could have faded away into nothing when you lost everyone and your father killed himself.” Kakashi winced and Gai trailed his calloused fingers once again across Kakashi’s exposed cheek bone. “You could have taken your dogs and run, they wouldn’t have stopped you. But you didn’t. You kept fighting, over and over again. Why?” 

Kakashi was starting to get very tired again and he cursed that weakness to the ends of the earth. He wanted to be able to stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time. Especially now that he was back in the village. Especially now that his kids were under such risk, a very different kind than they had been when running through the trees for home. 

He grit his teeth hard enough for it to hurt. “Because…” He wanted to say it was because it was his duty. But for a long time Kakashi hadn’t cared about the village. Or anyone. 

“You were fighting for the dead, Kakashi. You were fighting for your team, even after they were gone.” 

Kakashi could see Obito, Rin, and Minato-sensei looking at him even with his eyes open. But beyond them he could see Gai’s thread of thought. And it felt right and Kakashi smiled ever so slightly. 

“Only my eternal rival could have such a pure and passionate mind set!” Gai exclaimed softly with a raised fist of victory. 

Kakashi huffed out a rough sound of amusement and closed his eyes. They were heavy and that last realization had robbed him of a lot of the pent up anxiety and energy that had been balled up in his head for so long. “Whatever you say, Gai.” 

When Kakashi fell back to sleep Gai sighed and ran a hand through the dirty hair of his rival. Kakashi’s face slackened a little further in his sleep, even as he pulled Sakura closer. 

Gai felt raw in a way he wasn’t used to. Kakashi was rarely ever so upfront and outwardly emotional. His rival wasn’t someone who opened up easily, even to him. Kakashi was undoubtedly Gai’s most precious person, and Gai was fairly certain he was Kakashi’s. The two of them had been drawing closer and closer to something for a while now. They already shared complete trust and respect, they’d seen the worst and best of each other. Gai wanted nothing more than for that to continue, and Kakashi was obviously in no hurry for it to end either. 

Then Team 7 had gone missing and Gai thought he’d lost that. Before he and his man of destiny had ever found their true places with each other. He looked down at Kakashi and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. Seeing Kakashi like that, talking about the future and his fears and Gai… Well, Gai pulled back with a satisfaction and worry that fed into each other. He couldn’t tear himself away from Kakashi’s side for a long while. So immensely grateful that Kakashi was still there and still relying on him. 

The rest of his watch shift passed by in a blur. He stopped an overeager paper pusher from bullying his way through the hospital regulations to appoint an official meeting between the council and Team 7. He helped Sakura through a nightmare and then talked to her quietly as she lay awake for an hour. When Sasuke woke for a few minutes, Gai managed to help him calm down adequately and explained where they were, who was with them, and what was happening. By the time Genma had returned, Gai was feeling quite proud of himself. 

Genma either didn’t notice the soft smugness around Gai, or didn’t care. He merely said, “Alright, my shift now. You need to go talk Anko down from killing the council with her most excruciating poison.” Genma rubbed at tired eyes and slumped down into the chair across from the three beds. “Ibiki isn’t helping me out in that respect. He’s fed up with the whole situation.” 

“But he’s going to help?” Gai asked. 

“Of course. He’s putting in the orders now for full isolation of the team until their mental health is more stable.” 

“How much time will that buy us, do you think?” 

“A week. Tops.” 

Gai winced and his fists clenched at his sides. Kakashi’s kids deserved to lick their wounds and recover. “I’ll go get you some food before I head home,” Gai said. 

When Gai left, Genma sunk into the uncomfortable chair facing the beds. He got back to thinking. That’s all he could really do. All of them were sitting ducks right now. And they would be until they could retreat and regroup. He looked at Naruto, still sprawled out in the position he'd fallen into on the first day. He still hadn’t woken up.