Kakashi's consciousness returned not with a gentle fade, but with the painful, jarring snap of electricity suddenly being grounded. It was the residual shock of the internal storm, leaving a dull, pervasive throb that radiated from his core and extended into every limb. It was the sensation of a thousand tiny fractures being meticulously stitched together—a slow, meticulous healing process more irritating than agonizing.
He opened his single visible eye. The room was bathed in the neutral, clinical white light typical of the Konoha Hospital's high-security wing. The air smelled of sterile antiseptic and something faintly metallic—residual ozone from the massive energy discharge, perhaps. He was lying on a crisp, unfamiliar sheet, confined.
He sat up quickly, a sharp, momentary dizziness causing him to pause, but his inherent physical discipline forced the feeling down. He looked around the small, private room. It contained only his bed, a simple medical console that hummed with quiet efficiency, and a single, securely sealed window that offered a frustrating view of the sky.
'Where am I? What am I doing in the hospital? What was the aftermath of the experiment?' Kakashi thought, his mind immediately shifting into cold, analytical assessment mode. He noted the constant, muted chime of the chakra monitor beside him. 'The surge was overwhelming. I miscalculated the dissipation curve, but the concentration at the focal point achieved the target density. Now, did I survive the threshold? Was the result recorded?'
Before he could attempt a detailed internal scan—a task his body immediately warned him was unwise with a sharp flare of pain—the door hissed open.
A female nurse, whose face was a study in relieved exhaustion, entered. She was an older Chūnin-level medical specialist, her expression softening into a wide, genuine smile at the sight of him. Her voice, however, was loud and bright, entirely inappropriate for the environment.
"Oh, you are awake! Thank the heavens!" she exclaimed, her tone overflowing with forced cheerfulness. "You really scared Miss Tsunade. I will go and tell her the good news right away!"
Kakashi stopped her with a curt, single-word command, his voice raspy from disuse, the sound dry and strained. "What happened?"
The nurse gave him a confused look, the cheerfulness momentarily faltering into a professional concern. "You really don't remember?" she asked, a gentle sadness replacing her joy. Her voice dropped slightly, taking on the hushed, careful tone reserved for addressing trauma victims. "You tried to commit suicide in the most dramatic way possible. The doctors say it was a miracle you survived the trauma."
She walked closer to his bedside, her voice becoming a soft, narrative flow. "Luckily, your friend and your… well, your other friend went to your house at exactly the right moment. And then they somehow found the Yellow Flash, and he brought you here in time. You've been admitted here for five days now."
Kakashi processed the word "suicide." He remained perfectly still, but a flicker of cold satisfaction crossed his eye.
'Suicide. So they thought it was suicide. Good. It is better. It provides a clean, emotional explanation for a purely logical, technical failure. If they think it was grief, they won't look for the jutsu itself; they will only look for the motive, which is now conveniently supplied.'
He fixed the nurse with an expressionless, serious look, tilting his head slightly as if evaluating an odd piece of foreign intelligence. "What 'girlfriend' are you talking about?"
The nurse looked momentarily dumbfounded, crossing her arms over her chest as if protecting herself from his sharp, clinical gaze. She sighed dramatically. "Oh, so she was not your girlfriend? What a shame! That poor girl looked extremely worried for you; she even brought flowers for you yesterday. She stayed outside your room for hours until she was told to leave. She's going to make a very good girlfriend one day, you know."
The nurse leaned in conspiratorially, her tone shifting to one of insistent, motherly advice. "You'd better go get her before somebody else gets her. You know, Shinobi usually don't live long, due to all the ridiculous missions and chaos happening all the time. Our lives are short and violent. So you better get someone to share your joy and feelings with, someone to remind you that life exists outside the mission reports." She paused, her voice softening with genuine pity, believing she was helping a grieving child. "And after what you did, Kakashi-kun, you absolutely need some accompaniment. Someone to remind you that life is worth living, worth returning to."
She straightened up and returned to her original, bright tone. "Anyway, I will go tell Tsunade-sama the good news. She's been up almost non-stop since you arrived."
The woman started to walk out of his room, the door hissing shut behind her.
Kakashi allowed himself a brief, small grin beneath his mask, one that didn't reach his eyes. 'What an annoying woman. Sentimental and inefficient. A waste of breath. The Uchiha and the girl: just further variables in the equation of my existence. They will be removed from the equation soon enough.' He lay back down, crossing his arms over his chest. He focused his attention inward, running a careful, preliminary check on his inner reserves. He wanted to try a minute manipulation of his lightning chakra, just a spark, to gauge the extent of the damage, but the sharp, internal protest his body had given earlier was enough to enforce caution. He resented the delay.
A few moments later, the silence was violently shattered. The door to his room slid open, slamming into the stopper with a massive sound that rattled the very windowpane. Tsunade Senju entered like a typhoon, her large frame filling the doorway, her face set in a furious, terrifying scowl. Her tone was one of raw, unbridled fury mixed with deep personal disappointment.
"What is the big idea, Kakashi?" she screamed, the volume shaking the sterile instruments on the bedside table. "You are going to try to commit suicide just because your old man took his own life? What do you think your father would think if he saw you in this state, barely clinging to life from a self-inflicted wound?"
She paused, taking a deep, ragged breath that caused her chest to rise dramatically. The anger didn't vanish, but she forced a change in her demeanor, her tone becoming lower, heavier, and laced with genuine grief she rarely showed.
"Look, Kakashi, I understand what kind of stress you are going through," she said, her voice now strained but softer. "The Shinobi world is cruel, and when the village turns on its own heroes… It's unbearable. But taking your life is not a good option. Look at you; you are talented and gifted, arguably the greatest prodigy Konoha has seen in a generation. Don't waste your life, please. There are still people out there who care about you, like that Uchiha kid and that girl. Try to live a life that will bring glory to your father's name, not shame and more tragedy."
She moved to the bedside with unexpected speed and grabbed his hand—a firm, powerful grip that contained immense strength and medical certainty. She fixed him directly in the eye, the weight of her promise heavy.
"Listen to me. If you ever need any help—any medical attention, or even just someone to talk to, someone who knew and respected your father—just come to me, okay? That's the least I can do to honor your father, since your father saved my life once. And don't go around dying, pleaseeeeeee."
The pity in her eyes was almost unbearable. Kakashi stared back, receiving her confession and oath with the cold detachment of a machine registering data.
She finally released his hand and stood up, the professional medical-nin persona snapping back into place, now tinged with a strict authority.
"And if you are thinking about going home, forget it. You are not going anywhere for the next week. You will be under my direct observation. And don't even think about using any Ninjutsu for at least three weeks. After you get released, you go to the Academy—to school—and try to get socialized again. I will write a letter to your instructors so they don't make you use any Ninjutsu. Do you understand?"
Kakashi had faced down during the entire conversation, accepting the torrent of emotion without reaction. Now, he looked up, his voice barely a low whisper, his tone one of simple, neutral compliance. "Yes."
He then looked Tsunade directly in the eye and asked, his tone flat and purely inquisitive, masking the technical desperation of a scientist seeking data. "Why am I not allowed to use Ninjutsu?"
Tsunade's face contorted into an angry, deeply frustrated look, the scientific frustration bubbling over the top of her compassionate façade.
"Because," she hissed, leaning over the bed, her voice now a low, dangerous growl, "whatever the f*ck you tried to do that day completely fractured almost all of your chakra circuits! The coils are stretched and microscopically torn. If you apply any more pressure, any more chakra, they are going to puncture. Then you won't be able to use Ninjutsu anymore, or, worst case, you will die! So, don't die, okay? I didn't just pull that volatile mess out of your gut to watch you finish the job yourself!"
She straightened up, collecting her thoughts and taking one last look at the pristine instruments. "Now, stay in your bed. Someone will bring you your liquid food—that is what you're going to eat for the next three days." With that, Tsunade spun on her heel and departed, the door closing with a firm thunk this time.
Kakashi lay back, staring at the ceiling. He felt the dull, internal ache of his healing coils.
'Fractured chakra circuits. Loss of Ninjutsu forever. Death. The warnings were severe, logical, and technically sound,' he mused, the internal analysis running parallel to the external pain. 'But if I can heal from this, the capacity will be greater. The risk analysis was correct; the execution was simply flawed. The limitation is speed and focus, not volume.'
He allowed a genuine, though small, smile this time, one of pure intellectual challenge.
'Two weeks of forced inactivity, no jutsu… that means two weeks of uninterrupted theory work.. Tsunade's advice was based on my failure. My new goal is to achieve absolute power.'
He closed his eye, the physical pain already receding in the face of his renewed, calculating focus.
'This is going to be a boring two weeks, but a profitable one for my development.'