One of the rock-solid, unassailable, unalterable facts of being a shinobi is that missions happen. They come when you aren't ready for them, they come when you'd really rather spend a lazy day doing nothing, they come when you feel like you're about to break from the stress of it all, and no one really gives a damn about emotional upheavals or complicated relationship problems when there's a mission to be taken. Gai, as an experienced veteran, knows this well. Kakashi has convinced him to talk to Lee, to straighten things out and make sure he hasn't hurt that precious young man, but the mission he's just been handed comes first, always. Lee will have to wait for him to get back.
It could wind up being a long mission, though, so he slips a note under Lee's door before he leaves.
Lee-
I have to leave the village for a mission. It is estimated to last two to three weeks, but the worry-date is a month and a half.
The worry date is essentially how long you have to go without any communication before you're declared MIA – or, if the situation warrants, an investigation is sent. Gai doesn't expect this mission to take nearly that long. The duration is the only thing he can openly discuss, though. It may only be A-rank through charity and some bureaucratic shuffling, but A-rank is A-rank, and classified means classified.
I am sorry for the way things turned out – for hurting you, my precious person. I hope you can forgive me for that. When I return, a serious discussion will be in store for us, I think. There is much that needs to be said.
Much indeed – some of it will be pleasant, and some will not, Gai thinks to himself. But there is one thing he knows for certain – he cannot turn Lee away any longer. The damage he may have done is done, and the decision for him now is whether he will hurt Lee further – hurt them both, really, because it pains him deeply as well – by pulling back, or whether he will follow up hurt with happiness and accept Lee. Kakashi has opened his eyes, has made him realize some very important things.
Perhaps, in a way, it is good that he has this mission now. It gives him some time to think, to process what has happened and what he will do.
You are my pride and my reason for fighting. Never forget that. Take care of yourself until I return. After those warm words, there is a postscript added.
PS – You've been letting your ankles wobble too much recently. Some work on that wouldn't go amiss. He can't help it – whatever else he may be to Lee, he is his teacher, and he wants to see Lee improve – has vowed to make Lee the very best there is. That means that he instructs him whenever possible.
With that accomplished, he heads out. The mission is not of the utmost urgency, but the sooner it is started, the sooner it will be finished.
The details are simple. Ogawa is a tiny village, but a prosperous one – until recently. Sitting on a main trade route between the Fire Country capital and most of the eastern half of the country, it has grown up entirely reliant on the steady stream of traders and travelers resting overnight in its large inn and restocking at its travel-oriented shops. A handful of families make their home there, but they do well – Ogawa is not by any means a hamlet, and the denizens would be considered wealthy by most standards.
Until recently, that is. Because of their small size and great wealth, Ogawa has attracted attention of the decidedly undesirable sort. A band of thieves have identified the village as being prime material for a protection racket – they can make quite a bit of money off it, and there are simply not enough people in the village to defend themselves. The profits that swelled their coffers have evaporated, and they have barely scraped together the money to purchase an A-ranked mission.
Technically, Tsunade's voice fills his head as he thinks over the comments she accompanied the mission scroll with, they couldn't even afford an A-rank. That's how badly this has hit them. But they got close enough to it that I'm willing to round up. It's a good cause, the mission details mean that it really shouldn't be B-rank, and it's better for Konoha to send a single jounin instead of a chuunin team. So, here you go.
Gai already has the beginnings of a plan stirring in the back of his mind, but he will wait until he gets to the village and speaks with the denizens to fully develop it. If he thinks too much on it now, his plan will end up being based on assumptions, and that, he knows, is a dangerous situation.
He is the perfect person for this mission, though: because gangs respond to open shows of strength better than subtle threat, this is a mission that calls for abandoning shinobi stealth and making himself very visible. He will provoke a confrontation and take the gang down. If he can, he will do it without killing them – there are enough missions that require killing, no need to add to it when it isn't necessary – but if they are foolish and don't learn, then he will do what is necessary to safeguard the village. The mission is A-ranked in difficulty – apart from the Konoha price scale – because the core of the gang seems to be made up of the remnants of an old independent ninja clan. Better for a jounin to take them on.
He rather wishes he could pass it up, though. Of all the times… he could use a little time to clear his head, yes, but weeks' worth of it? That will only make things painful. He will miss Lee, Lee will miss him, and he's not happy that here will be time for misunderstandings to grow and take on their own life. All he can do is hope that Lee will understand the letter and the feelings behind it. The solution, of course, is to finish as quickly as he can and return home promptly. Lee understands the necessities of a shinobi's life, and will not ask him to compromise his mission or future missions, but Gai will cut time where he can – he will travel quickly, and work efficiently. It will mean weakening his act, but not severely so.
He can and will spend the time thinking about Lee, though. This mission will require brawn and a certain level of energy, but not very much in the way of brainpower, and that means that he will have thoughts to spare. Kakashi has helped him see beyond his own neuroses regarding Lee's age – while he doesn't share the Copy-Nin's completely cavalier attitude toward the situation, he understands many of the basic points that Kakashi has tried to show him. Shinobi have short childhoods; while by most standards, sixteen is still young, Lee has been risking his life for Konoha for years now, and childhood often ends at chuunin rank. His feelings of guilt have subsided, although they are not gone. Legally speaking, Lee is considered an adult, although that is recent – genin come of age at seventeen, chuunin at sixteen, and jounin at fourteen. Perhaps, once Lee has put a little more distance between himself and his sixteenth birthday, Gai will relax.
At the same time, though, one of Kakashi's crueler points is sticking in his mind, haunting him. Do you really have the time to wait for him to grow up more?
He is eagerly welcomed in Ogawa; it is tinier even than the reports have led Gai to think, a small cluster of buildings dominated by an enormous hotel. Gai would term it little more than a waystation, really, but the denizens insist that it is a village, albeit small, and it is theirs. The inn is a gigantic, solid building that can easily house over a hundred people a night, and – according to the innkeeper – it is often filled to capacity.
"Before these bastards came along," he tells Gai, weary bitterness in his tone, "I was planning to build an extension. Double the size of it. Now… ha!" Beside the inn is an enormous barnlike structure that houses the cargoes the traders bring from the country into the capital, and from the capital out into the country. There are a few restaurants, most of them serving low-quality, inexpensive food in generous amounts, a few shops for traveling supplies, and the homes of the small population, set off a distance from the inn and its cloud of commercial buildings.
It is the inn that has received the most attention. AS the innkeeper explains it, the gang has done their homework; they know how much the inn makes and how much it costs to run. The amount of protection money they have been asking for has not bankrupted him completely, but it eats into his profits so that, in good times, he makes just enough to feed his family. In average times, he breaks just barely even, and has had to dip into his savings to feed and clothe his family. And when times are bad, as they have been twice since the trouble started, he has been forced to pay off the gang from his ever-dwindling savings.
"I tried to take a stand at first," he says grimly. "Told them I wouldn't be cowed by a goddamn bunch of thugs or their scare tactics. So they set my house on fire." His fists clench as he describes the way his family are lucky to be alive now; they have been living in a couple of the inn's rooms, further cutting into profit as those rooms can no longer be rented out. Ever since the fire, the gang has been getting the money they demand. "I couldn't risk defying them again. Who knows what they'd do next?" When it comes down to it, this man, like the others, counts the lives of his family higher than money or principle. Gai is glad for it.
"You have made the right choice!" he says, gravely but with an encouraging note. "I will be your strong arm and your shield – keep your mind on the lives of your family, and I will deal with these troublemakers!" They begin to plan.
Three days later, the collectors come by on their weekly visit. Gai has made his plans, and everything is in place. Quietly, subtly, the villagers have slipped out of the village over the past few nights, using the cover of darkness to hide their movements as they gather in a series of caves a mile or so from Ogawa. The last to leave have been those most visible: the innkeeper, who serves as Ogawa's de facto headman, has only left within the last hour. The gang of thugs who have come, heavily armed, for their tribute find only a single solitary figure waiting for them, standing at the gate with his feet planted and a broad, predatory grin on his face.
Gai, for his part, is highly amused as he looks them over. Several among their number do carry themselves with the bearing of shinobi, but certainly not shinobi at a jounin-equivalent level – barely chuunin level, at best. Every thug is visibly armed – their weapons look threatening, but the open, unprofessional display of them makes Gai smirk. A true fighter, even among the criminal classes, has no need of such a display – the latent evidence of skill, the reflexes and motions of a well-honed body, all those speak better than a belt covered in knives – and that true fighter knows better than to display his arsenal wantonly. These men are amateurs. To amuse himself as they approach, he imagines what each member of his team would have to say about this display. Lee would be serious, of course, but would make observations about the potential fear hidden behind such a display. Tenten's comments would be more pointed – Gai imagines that the word 'compensation' would come up a lot – and Neji would simply be disdainful.
Even though it is well over a dozen armed men who face solitary, unarmed Gai, the fight is short, and really rather easy. He doesn't even have to bother with the Gates! It is only the beginning, though, and after he kicks the last man to the ground, he goes over to where the leader is just sitting up, rubbing at his head and groaning, and delivers the simple demand. Never return to Ogawa. The days of preying on the people here are over.
It will take more than that to make these men give up their cash cow, but it is the beginning.
That night, as he patrols the village, he intercepts two of the toughs attempting to sneak into the village with implements for starting fires; he sends them on their way less the firemaking tools, and with several broken bones apiece, to make his message clear.
Either he will cripple the entire gang, a few at a time, or they will leave. He knows that they very well could come back once he has left, but in that time span, Ogawa's finances will recover enough – they do make money quickly – that buying another mission to reinforce the message should be perfectly doable. He intends to mention to Tsunade that follow-up would be appropriate, but this gang doesn't seem particularly tough. He has high hopes for a successful mission that he can feel good about. It is sadly rare in the shinobi world to return from a mission feeling that the world is a better place for having completed it, and Gai looks forward to that ending for this particular task.