With a speed possessed only by the Prideful Green Beast of Konoha, Maito Gai charged straight into the village hospital, avoiding hospital staff and patients as best as he could, but was too preoccupied to take notice if any damage was done.

He all but leapt into the room, breathing rapidly from the physical exertion as he found the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade, looking over a file with a grim expression.

The woman's eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the exhausted jounin, now crawling on the ground like a paraplegic without a wheelchair. "G-Gai!? You look exhausted, did something go awry with the mission?"

After inhaling enough air, the taijutsu master replied: "N-no…….(huff), After my (huff) mission was finished, (huff) I flew back here as fast as I could!!………"

He took another big breath. "But more important than that……LEE!! What became of Lee's operation!?"

Tsunade gazed at the man sympathetically and apologetically. "I'm sorry, Gai. The surgery failed. Rock Lee is dead."

Upon receiving the devastating news, the jounin did not react immediately, and several seconds passed before he released a bloodcurdling wail with tears leaking out of his eyes like a crack in a dam.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! LEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

Tsunade looked mournful. "In fact, the surgery didn't just fail, it failed spectacularly. It was a complete disaster, there was blood everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Blood was gushing out of all his orifices like jelly through an air hole. It was a horrible, but mildly interesting event."

Predictably, this did nothing to placate the howling Sadful Beast as his bawling intensified.

"And for some reason, while Lee was gurgling with blood in his mouth, he mumbled something about hating medicinal dumplings and Hyuga Neji's lack of youth, whatever that means."

"WHY!?" Gai cried as he pounded the floor, "Why did the operation fail!? It was a fifty-fifty percent chance!!"

The Fifth Hokage scratched the back of her head sheepishly. "Er, about that, I think I forgot to mention my horrible disadvantage at gambling because of my terrible luck with games of chance. And since this surgery was similar to a gamble, well, factoring in the necessary computations, it should have been a five-percent chance of the operation succeeding. Sorry."

"Oh, LEE!!" Gai sobbed with as much melodrama as a man as himself could muster, "If only I knew! I should have told you! I should have told you that I'm your FATHER!!!"

Tsunade looked fairly surprised. "Wh-what!? You're Lee's father?" She paused to give that information a thought. "Then again, it does seem quite obvious, wonder why I didn't realize that before."

Unaware of anything around him, the joujin continued to sob, and once in awhile saying something about the temporariness of youth and spandex and vanilla ice cream. It wasn't exactly the most coherent thing to ever be articulated.

Rock Lee's funeral wasn't fancy. Only the people who knew Lee were there, thus narrowing the number of people attending to a bare twenty.

Naturally, Gai was publicly crying up a storm, entirely devastated by the loss of his favorite pupil and apparently illegitimate son.

Kakashi, while having never been serious about the competition between himself and Maito Gai, was slightly happy about the ten million points he won insisted by Gai himself for failing his student and only inheritor of his eyebrows.

All members of the Rookie Nine were saddened beyond belief, but were coping in methods they were familiar with. Like Naruto slurping up ramen, Kiba licking his crotch, Shikamaru admiring the clouds or whatever the cliché is.

Standing next to a somber Tenten, Hyuga Neji smirked discreetly.

"Good riddance," he muttered.