Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Rivalry ❯ Walk On ( Prologue )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The darkening clouds over Konoha swayed in the breeze, the light spring rain slowly falling to the ground, barred by trees and buildings along the way. Not a single poor soul could be found on the streets as doors were locked and windows closed. The hidden city had become a dead town as the rain pattered the dirt.
Yet outside the large towering gates could one find the shinobi, silent like hawks and clever as squirrels, watching over the Leaf like guardian angels of death.
It was any other rainy day in late April.
Though, somehow, Gai doubted May would be filled with blossoming flowers this year.


Gai staggered along, occasionally stumbling into a tree, a light cynical, delusional laugh forcing its way out and a far off smile plastered to his face. Still, it wasn’t a smile one would know Gai to carry with him, no shining teeth and exuberance that seemed to radiate from that twist of the lips. It was as silent as death, unsure about everything including its presence, and heavy like the rain beating down on his bowl-cut hair. And even with his footsteps wavering and eyes tedious and hallow, the eerie smile remained.
He could never afford to have it falter.


And love
Is not an easy thing
The only baggage
That you can bring
Love
Is not an easy thing
The only baggage
That you can bring
Is all that you can’t
Leave behind


Rain or no rain, it didn’t make a difference to the copy ninja, he would visit the memorial everyday if it ended up killing him. Kakashi said something like that to Genma once when he was passing by another day right before a flood struck. At least he was able to protect the monument from a falling tree.
Well, not like a giant slab of cold stone needed protecting, but, even though it almost crushed him alive, he felt satisfied with his promise.
He would give his life to guard without a moment’s hesitation.

Soaked thoroughly to the bone, Kakashi casually walked along through the woods, trying to shake his clumped-together strands of hair so they wouldn’t fall into a sopping heap on the side of his face. Finally letting it give in to gravity, he ignored it and continued to head back to the village when he felt someone nearby. Immediately going into faithful shinobi mode, he dashed behind a tree, performing a couple of hand seals and becoming invisible to the untrained eye. Silence and calm, the trials of life had put him threw much so it would be rare to feel a pounding in his chest and a rush of blood to his head from a mere threat like this. He waited for a sign of presence, finally watching it come by from around a tree. Recognizing the trudging figure as a fellow shinobi, he dropped the spell and instantaneously teleported behind him, a cloud of smoke singeing in his wake.

“Yo,” Kakashi raised a hand, eye still drooped lazily, his entire presence portraying impassiveness.
But when no bursting response from Gai was given, it was quickly replaced with concern.
“Uh, Gai?” He tried again, reaching out a gloved hand and touching his still shoulder. The green beast turned, Kakashi was startled, his hand retreated in shock.

“Ah, my rival,” He started with a monotone voice that made Kakashi want to cringe. “How are you?”
Kakashi was torn between two realities and he knew it. On one side, this was henge no jutsu and someone was horribly impersonating Gai. On the other, something was terribly wrong with Gai, as if his slightly hunched posture and sagging eyes weren’t enough proof. Making any rash decision on either could cost the village or his pride, so he decided to play it cool, wary but nonchalant.

“Gai…” He started but paused, not sure as what else to say. He decided to take this time to evaluate the green beast. Gai, also, was soaking wet, and everything had seemed to have lost its luster. His hair wasn’t as silky, his face paler, eyes cold, dark, and dull like brick. Even his green jumpsuit seemed to sag with him. Their eyes finally meeting, Gai started again.

“Y-You heard, right, my rival?” His voice began to quiver as his chest rose and fell sharply, racked with soft sobs. The situation was finally laid out before Kakashi as he mentally slapped himself for forgetting. The fact it occurred a week ago was no excuse to let it slip his mind, a loss was a loss that must never be forgotten. His own visible eye softened for his strange friend; Gai must have been on a mission when it happened. “Surely- surely you know…that…” Gai trailed off as another wave of grief gripped his lungs, forcing him to sputter and hard marble eyes to force close. He turned his head to the side and bit down on his teeth. Kakashi remained quiet; the only sound breeching the gap was the bitter rain falling from the heavens above them.
Gai wasn’t the only one crying apparently.


And if the darkness is to keep
Us apart
And if the daylight feels like its
A long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
Before the second you turn back
Oh no
Be strong


Gai took another raspy breath, the cool air enflaming his lungs as he pushed onward. Smile still lingering for the sake of sanity.
“Lee,” He murmured, finally opening his eyes again to feel a burning sensation near the edges of them. “Lee, he didn’t… he couldn’t…” Another sob racked his body, keeping his head down near his chest so he wouldn’t lose balance from the force.
It just didn’t seem right. After all he had done, after he taught the boy all he could and held him as close as he would a son…
The very thing he taught the boy, the very thing he ended up allowing, had brought the demise of the boy.
He was so proud of Lee for willing to risk his life on that operation to fix his body. The boy assured Gai that when he returned from his mission they could start training again, everything would be the same as it had been before he fought the spook from the sand during the Chuunin exams.
Lee really was a true shinobi.
“Why,” He choked out, vision of the grass below him blurring together in a mass of green.

“That’s enough, Gai.” Kakashi’s voice cut through piercingly while resting both hands on his shoulders, keeping him steady so Gai could lift his head. The green beast did so, stared back at Kakashi’s soft eye with spite. “Let’s get out of the rain.” Gai took a deep breath, forced every muscle in his face to cooperate as his smile grew, and glared back up at the copy ninja.

“I swear I won’t lose to you, I swear on my life I won’t lose to you,” He chanted, his face becoming numb as tears slid by his grin, running off of his chin and blending with the rain around them. And for a very rough moment, he had the glory of victory, a clearing of sky within the tempest, before it fell through like a rotten wood floor.

He couldn’t afford to give in to anguish.

He couldn’t afford to lose to Kakashi.

But it was clear as day.
Gai lost.
And as his smile finally crumbled, he fell to his knees and let the dam holding the pain in his heart give out all at once.


Oh oh
Walk on
Walk on
What you’ve got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on
Walk on
Stay safe tonight


Kakashi knew this would happen one day. He knew from the moment Gai created the pact, the challenge of the point system. Perhaps it wasn’t set in stone, merely an accusation his determined pride made for putting up with the man and insisted that this was nonsense, that he didn’t have to prove anything to a jumpsuit-wearing freak. Something that said he couldn’t possibly lose to someone like this in something as important as protecting people, as being a better shinobi. The fact he actually had to lay down some effort, sometimes a lot of it, to keep level with the man was what hurt the most.
But he knew he would win because he couldn’t lose.
Yet time and time again he lost. Not just amongst frontal spars with the green beast either. He found himself crying over the loss of friends, some during a battle he was in, a battle he should have done things differently in, crying over the regret that he couldn’t save them. He cried when his beloved sensei, the Yondaime, gave his life to protect the village, a village the copy ninja couldn’t protect himself and he cried for the man he also couldn’t protect and he cried for those who died that he couldn’t protect. And yet Gai never rubbed it in his face over these victories; after all, they never had good taste to them, the victory in making a grown man cry like his soul was being devoured by a demon. And Gai never gave into those tears of loss, despite his bouncy over exuberance, his dramatic emotions, they never submitted to such feeling.
Kakashi even began to wonder if this man was schizopathic, if he was even capable of feeling regret and woe. Began to wonder how many more victories he needed to attain to level himself to the unfeeling man.
But he always knew he would win. Because thinking otherwise would certainly lead to failure. He didn’t normally follow that kind of code, but it was a given for this situation, for being Gai’s rival.

And as he stood there with Gai at his feet, finally overcome by sorrow and ache, Kakashi was unsure what would become of everything, of them, of their dreams and rivalry. All he could do…

Kakashi knelt down to his level, stared at Gai long and hard as he wept until he could hardly breathe. Extending his pruned hands and wrapping them around Gai’s back, he pulled the man closer until his face was buried in the copy ninja’s vest. Moving his bent knee out of the way and resting his head on top of Gai’s, Kakashi sighed and chuckled an empty laugh.

“You’re going to catch pneumonia, you idiot,” He mumbled as Gai hiccupped, curled up closer to Kakashi’s warm body.

All he could do was protect.


You’re packing a suitcase for a place
None of us has been
A place that has to be believed
To be seen
You could have flown away
Like a singing bird
In an open cage
Who will
Only fly
Only fly
For freedom


Gai quietly made his way through the woods, another late mission the Yondaime had called him for. He quickly packed, gathering everything he would need for a few days on the road, and set off. But before he could even get very far from Konoha’s great doors, he had found an intrusion.

There his eternal rival was, clinging to the ground, crying under the soft moonlight that shone down from above.

And Gai stood by there, not sure what to do. Kakashi always was so confident, so cool and collective, that it was startling to see the copy ninja in such a state.
But, no, he had a mission to do at the moment. Raido would need a little more backup than he was given, he needed to go help his fellow jounin.
Then again, Raido wasn’t curled in a ball, clawing up dirt and grass while sobbing and on the verge of whatever more of a mental breakdown he could possibly go through.

“Rin,” Kakashi began while sniffling and pulling his mask into place. “She’s gone.” And before he could utter anything else, he doubled over again and cried out curses, incidents, and lots of other inexplicable things.

Gai stood there, thinking, watching, waiting, sitting down behind him. Rin, she was supposed to go on that mission to Iwa no Kuni, the land of stone…
Was that the very same assignment he and his rival had argued over who should go on? That’s right, they were in the Hokage’s office, maybe it wasn’t Gai’s place to be there from the start, after all, the Yondaime had called Kakashi there, not him. But they fiercely gnashed at each other like angry dogs, verbally and physically until, finally, the Yondaime had intervened, noting that Gai had just gotten back from a mission and that he should get a little bit of rest before moving out again. It was typical of the Yondaime, he was always able to settle differences it seemed, as both of them were silenced.
And now Rin was gone?

It would have been easy for Gai just to throw out the idea that if he had gone on the mission, maybe Rin wouldn’t have died. It would have been so easy for his pride to just let himself get away with mentioning something so harsh, but he bit his tongue in silence.
Even he knew there were times when one needed to be modest.

And, while still thinking, watching, waiting, sitting down behind him, Gai also wondered what would become of this, of the two rivals.

Slowly as the ground underneath them spun with time and the moon slowly stultified into the dark and silver-edged clouds, Kakashi’s trembling and sobbing gradually faded as he finally turned back to Gai behind him, never moving an inch. His reddened weary eye glared back at the green beast as his head hung low.

“What, don’t have anything else better to do than haunt me,” the copy ninja growled. Gai figured Kakashi probably thought of the possibility if he had let the green beast go instead, he stayed silent.

“You have a lot of work to do,” He mumbled quietly as the gaze on him hardened again.

“Come again,” Kakashi growled in an even lower voice, making Gai wonder if he was in actual danger here. But all the matter, he forced on his famous smile, jabbing up his thumb in front of his rival’s masked face. The copy ninja only had a few moments to blink in confusion before the other fist punched him in the face, sending him flying into a tree.

“I said,” Gai stood back up, pulling back his fist and still smiling and watching an irate shinobi sorely pull himself out of a pile of toothpicks. “You have a lot of work to do if you still want to be worthy as the title of my eternal rival!” Once again, Kakashi only had enough time to glance at him incredulously before Gai disappeared in a flash, smoke the only thing left behind. He immediately tensed as he felt Gai looming behind him. “Breakdown in spirit costs two points in my book, Hatake. Better not fall too far behind!” Gritting his teeth in fury, Kakashi reached into his holster and grabbed a kunai before turning around and clashing the metal with one Gai had already taken out.

“I need to be worthy for you?! What the hell are you talking about, the only reason I was going threw this shit was because I felt sorry for your sad ass!!” A smirk grew on Gai’s face as he jumped back,