Kakashi had risen early that spring morning for his daily wake-up run to the memorial stone. He'd headed back to the village at a slower pace, reading the latest in the Icha Icha series. Walking leisurely and detouring through the park, he would still have made it to the bridge in plenty of time to meet his team at eight sharp. But then he hit a particularly vile cliff hanger, and sat down on a park bench to get through the next chapter. He wouldn't be terribly late, and besides, waiting was undoubtedly good for them.

In short, Kakashi's morning was routine so far. Kakashi had heard people complain about 'routine'. Humdrum and boring, they said. For Kakashi, routine meant that nobody was actively trying to kill him and there were no missions that day. Routine was good.

An implausible green and orange streak leapt over the iron fence of the park and darted off a cherry tree, causing a dramatic shower of petals around him as he hit the ground.

Yup, still routine...

"Kakashi, my eternal rival, I challenge you!"

"It must be Tuesday."

"Gyah! Such a cool reaction!"

"Huh-huh. Let me just finish my chapter." Kakashi lazily flipped a page. He'd gotten through the cliff hanger's resolution, but now he was curious as to how the heroine was going to lose her clothes this time.

"It is my turn to choose our proving ground. I challenge you to a match of body, will, control and spirit. We will finally get the true measure of the other. It will be a battle like never before!"

"...Warn me when you get to a point."

"The art of love will be my challenge. We are going to measure our prowess as men. I challenge you to a battle to determine which of us is the better lover!"

A long minute elapsed.

Gai was still stuck in his triumphant pose, but the waves had stopped crashing behind him and the sun was no longer reflecting from his teeth.

Kakashi was still staring at him, completely pole-axed.

"Ah-hah! You have no clever repartee this time," Gai finally tossed at his dazed rival.

"Yeah, you're right. Unless a stunned silence counts." Kakashi slowly closed his book and rubbed his uncovered eye. So much for routine. "Gai, did you just suggest we-we-...I'm under the influence of a particularly disturbing and perverse Genjutsu, that's the only explanation."

"Do you accept?!"

Well, that one was easy. "No."

Gai staggered back a few steps in shock, which was something only Gai would do. "What?! You refuse?"

"Yes."

"You refuse to compete against me? You would turn tail and run from this challenge? You would," dramatic pause, "default?!"

"Yeah, in a nutshell. You win. Congratulations. The prize is yours. Don't spend it all in one place."

Kakashi opened his book again. The explanation to this lunacy was simple: he'd nodded off on the park bench while reading. So hopefully if he went back to his chapter in his dream, he'd wake up soon.

He was just happy he'd chosen the deserted park to stop and read, because even in his dreams, he didn't want Gai shouting stuff like that in the middle of the village. Here, there were only a few squirrels to fall over backwards, stunned. Dream squirrels, at that.

"This is unlike you, Kakashi. Or...is this your way of telling me that I'm an unworthy opponent?"

Kakashi's gaze dragged itself away from the pages to settle back on Gai. It did so very reluctantly. This was a gaze that didn't want anything to do with Gai standing there and talking about sex. It was a gaze which would rather linger on its favourite reading material, though even Icha Icha's innocent - and not so innocent - capers were unappealing in the present context.

"Unworthy?"

"I will not lose, Kakashi! You will declare me the victor, and not by default. My youth, my strength of will and my spirit will conquer, even though your experience in the matter is reputedly vast, and mine is nonexistent!"

You learn something new every day. When Kakashi had gotten out of bed that morning, he had no idea he'd be learning that Gai was still a virgin. If he'd known, he'd have stayed in the sack.

With all the control his Shinobi talent and training had given him, Kakashi closed his book and started to take this seriously, or as seriously as he could without losing his connection to reality.

"Gai," he said, in the tone of someone trying to talk a man in a bird suit off of a ledge. "Gai, may I ask who put this idea into your head?"

Gai finally dropped his posturing and crossed his arms over his chest in a more natural gesture. "I got the idea when I discussed this with Anko."

A tiny whimper was muffled by Kakashi's mask. Gai. Had talked to Anko. About sex. Please let me wake up now?

"Anko?"

"Yes. We ended up at the cafeteria together after we both went off duty late last night."

Anko off duty.

"Was she drunk?" Kakashi asked, handling the words as carefully as the tripwire to a deadly trap.

"She was rather inebriated, yes."

I am definitely awake, Kakashi thought. Even my sick, twisted and Paradised brain couldn't come up with this nightmare.

"She explained it all. Love is a battlefield! Sex is the ultimate test of self, of control!"

Great. That was Anko's spiel alright. Kakashi could almost see it. Anko had gotten drunk and horny, and, not having any of her usual harem around at that point, had decided to fuck with Gai's brains instead.

Gai was continuing with determination. "It is an art that demands finesse rather than brute strength, yet stamina and fortitude are also necessary. The real issue is how to measure such a skill. I thought Anko, who looked very knowledgeable, and, erm, experienced, might be our measuring stick."

Kakashi's eyes went a bit glassy.

"But then she told me that you, Kakashi, prefer the company of men. So the solution was, of course, obvious. No need for a middle man, or woman rather. I find myself preferring this! We've never needed a third party before to declare a victor when we compete."

Kakashi discreetly punched his chest in an attempt to get his cardiac rhythm back to normal. For a second, there had opened before him a possible universe where Anko, Gai and himself were having a three-way orgy. Even Jiraiya wouldn't have come up with that one.

Kakashi had great respect for Anko. As a Shinobi, she was powerful, dedicated and deadly serious in a fight.

When it came to sex, however, Anko had all the restraint and reserve of a rabid weasel. None of the other Jounin took her to task over it. It was their opinion that if that was the worse character defect Anko had picked up from her charming old mentor Orochimaru, then Konoha had gotten off very lightly indeed. If wild sex was what was keeping Anko from carving up her colleagues and rearranging their body parts into new and interesting shapes, then wild sex she would have. Kakashi would have been one of many to step in front of that particular bullet and bed her for the sake of village and country. Fortunately, Anko wasn't really interested in silver-haired, mostly gay porn-addicts, so their sex lives had remained blissfully unconnected. Until now.

Sometimes Anko liked to mess with people's heads; it's what made her such a good examiner. In fact it was no secret that Ibiki was grooming her as his possible right hand. And it looked like Gai had been too tempting a target to resist. Kakashi was ready to bet she'd even suggested the whole challenge thing to him, in an underhand way. The idea of Gai hitting on Kakashi later would be hilarious to a completely toasted Anko.

Gai was still going on about manliness, the ultimate challenge and the eye of the tiger; Kakashi wasn't sure where that had come from or how tigers and their ocular apparatus were even supposed to relate to the matter at hand, but it was just further proof that Anko had really done a mind job on the poor shmuck.

Kakashi looked at the situation strategically; it was serious enough to warrant it. Gai could be very, very stubborn once he set his mind on something.

Time for extreme measures.

"Gai," Kakashi said firmly, interrupting the flow, "I challenge you."

"What?!" Gai did the backward stagger thing again. Though they took turns choosing events, it was always Gai who went looking for these fights. Up until now, Kakashi could never be bothered.

"You heard me. I challenge you." Kakashi stood up, stowing his book away carefully. Hell, if he was going to do this, might as well go all the way and challenge Gai on his strength. "Taijutsu match. Now."

Gai's eyes narrowed, measuring Kakashi finely with all the sagacity of the Shinobi that lay beneath the postures and the brashness. "But what about-"

He interrupted himself abruptly as Kakashi slowly raised his headband from the Sharingan.

"You are my rival and my friend," Kakashi told him quietly. "I respect that. But sex is not something I intend to compete over. We are warriors; we test each other for skill, strength, speed, luck, you name it, but not something as trivial as 'prowess'. Anko's views on that are different than my own." -drunken little vixen, wait till I get my hands on her. "But if you want a challenge, a real one...then get ready."

Gai scrutinized him in silence for a thoughtful minute.

Then he turned and cleared some space between them. He faced Kakashi and slowly lifted his right hand, the left behind his back. Eyes still narrowed, a dangerous ghost of a smile, a pose that looked relaxed and easy, but which Kakashi knew was deadlier than a steel trap. Only a ripple of anticipation, a faint shiver of energy, betrayed the fact that Gai was readying for an attack.

Kakashi smiled slightly under his mask as he took up a defensive stance. Yeah, this Gai was infinitely more familiar and reassuring than the one talking about sex.

Considering what had gone before, it was almost a pleasure to feel Gai's foot kicking him to the forest floor.

Kakashi, flat on his back, glared up at the fluffy white clouds framed by shimmering leaves. He was off-balance still, and who could blame him; it was affecting his timing and reflexes.

"Kakashi," Gai snapped, from some distance away. Kakashi estimated that he'd just been hammered into the park's soft loam and had slid about twelve feet before stopping. Yup, Gai was in top shape. "What is this? You are the one who issued the challenge! Are you going to take this seriously, or-"

Gai staggered back and fell to one knee, an arm raised to parry a crucial instant too late. Kakashi had gone from sprawling to punching his rival in the face at a speed that had caught even Gai short.

"So sorry," Kakashi said pleasantly as he stepped back. "I was just warming up. Let's do this."

Gai got up slowly, rubbing the reddened spot on his jaw; Kakashi had pulled the punch, as usual. They hadn't hurt each other too badly since they were seven, back when a particularly heated game of rock-paper-scissors had degenerated. They never struck seriously, even if not doing so meant losing a match. Twenty-three years after that first fight, the score was standing at sixty-nine to sixty-eight in Gai's favour, but to be perfectly honest, it wasn't about winning or losing anymore and hadn't been for a long time now.

Gai straightened. His left fist settled behind his back and he extended his right hand once more. His eyes were hard, sharp and bright, ready to twitch away if Kakashi used the Sharingan for Genjutsu.

The extended fingers flicked, once, twice, beckoning.

Kakashi smirked and accepted the invitation, darting into the attack and throwing himself against the whirlwind of Gai's defence.

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