Well, I just needed to say that I lost the original Chapter 10, where Black Hinata was supposed to meet up with Team 8, so this is filler... I'm so sad... I liked some of the ideas from that chapter, too, and it's been hard to write Kiba, Shino and Akamaru in... I hope my story never gets deleted again... Waaay too troublesome...

Hopefully they'll meet up by the next chapter... with the holidays and all, my mind just keeps jumping back and forth from Christmas shopping and new story ideas and Bleach episodes...

So, I felt like making a chapter about Gai. Who, oddly enough, bears a very strong resemblance to Jackie Chan. (Is it only me who sees this?) Whenever I see Jackie Chan, I think Maito Gai, and vice-versa. It's probably the hair, the large NOSE, the quirky enthusiasm and the cheese-ball attitude... And Lee is probably created out of Bruce Lee's likeness...

Come to think of it, if there was a "Naruto" live action movie in the works... I'd cast Brad Pitt as Kakashi! Can't you just IMAGINE him with silver hair? Kawaiiiiii... And George Clooney as Jiraiya... an older Jake Gyllenhall as Iruka... Colin Farrell as Asuma (because I can see him with his beard)... and hot diggedy, let's cast Tom Welling as Genma... (shivers in delight!) Sean Connery as Sandaime Sarutobi... HAHAHAHA! I'm on crack...

And, on a final note... please forgive me for this sorry excuse for a chapter... it's gonna be crap. Like this story, it makes no damn sense. Very long nonsensical chapter... don't flame me for the weirdness... or if you're a Gai-enthusiast.

And I cannot say this enough... Characters, whether they're from Naruto or elsewhere... are OOC!

Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey was a very sad man.

And Gai blamed Hatake Kakashi for his misery. It was all his fault, really, showing up early for their morning meeting and all... Destiny was out of synch (he had once listened to one of Neji's and Tenten's tirades about fate and astrology while appreciating his students' passions on subjects they had both ardently claimed to know about so well) which was why Gai was having a terrible Jan Brady-esque day.

(It's always Kakashi! Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi!)

What was wrong, you ask?

TEAM GAI was a no-show for PRACTICE!

The world was clearly coming to an end!

Neji, Tenten AND his beloved pupil Lee weren't at the training field today! (Gai liked to claim he didn't play favorites, but he couldn't help but fawn over the overexuberant youthfulness that was Lee...) However, Lee had been acting very strangely around him these past three days- avoiding his presence when necessary, not joining in the GAI! LEE! GAI! LEE! sunset-emblazoned embraces, and worse of all... as of two days ago, he had changed his entire look...

They weren't twins anymore!

But we will delve into that later in this chapter.

So, rather than sitting on a tree stump all by his lonesome and feeling sorry for himself, he dried the tears from his eyes and made a pledge to search for his students. He felt bad for doubting they would miss practice intentionally. He decided to slap his own face five hundred times as a form of both punishment and training and, ignoring the strange stares from the onlooking villagers, set off on his journey.

Humming a happy tune, he skipped energetically towards Tenten's home. Before he knocked on the door he spotted a piece of paper taped to the window.

It read:

"Out for vacation, will be back in three weeks!"

And written in fine print on the bottom right hand corner of the note:

"Bye, Lee-kun! I'll miss you the most! Love, Tenten-chan."

"Tenten-chan is on vacation and she didn't tell me?" wailed Gai as he ripped the note from the door and clutched it against his chest. He burst into fresh tears. "Am I such a subpar character that my pupils cannot tell me when they will be unavailable? Is my flame of youth dimming? Damn you, Kakashi... look what problems you have created in your attempts to best me at everything!"

Yesterday:

Neji had been busy counting birds (Byakugan training) in the middle of the forest, Tenten had been practicing her accuracy (and stealing glances at Lee) while Gai encouraged Lee to give him a piggyback ride five hundred times around the village. (For strength training, of course, and because piggyback rides were a symbol of youthfulness...)

However, Lee looked towards the shrouded figure in the bushes and after a moment he gave his sensei a queer look. "Um, no offense, Gai-sensei, but don't you think that would look rather inappropriate?" he said, causing his teammates to drop their jaws on the floor as he promptly jogged off to punch the training posts a couple hundred times.

Gai resembled a fish out of water. Lee had just blown him off! That... that was a Neji thing to do! While he was sputtering incohesive words about dying embers and the loss of youthfulness, Tenten had shaken off her initial shock and admiration for Lee's new persona and took the opportunity to tell Gai that she and her family would be gone for several weeks to visit her grandparents.

However, the only words Gai had registered from her twenty-minute ramble about the importance of family were, "-thank you, Gai-sensei!" And with those thoughtful words (he assumed Tenten was thanking him for such a wonderful and youthful training experience), the strangely coiffed Jonin temporarily forgot about his grievances with Lee and promptly gave Tenten the biggest hug he could muster while weeping joyful tears into her hair.

'Geez, it's only for 3 weeks- he acts as if I'll be gone forever!' she thought. 'Ooh! Maybe Lee-kun will have the same reaction to me being away!' Her eyes were filled with happy sparkles.

"Tenten-chan! May the flames be with you!"

"Uhh... right... Gai-sensei! The flames..." She sweat dropped.

Tenten ran to Lee to tell him exactly what she told Gai-sensei in hopes that she would receive a kiss to remember him by...

So you see... Tenten did in fact tell Gai that she'd be gone a couple of days. But you know Gai... he has an attention span that is limited only to Lee's exciting spirit, Tsunade-sama's bountiful breast-s-ss, and competing with Kakashi's supreme awesomeness...
Gai left the weapons specialist's home and could've sworn his youthful ears had picked up the sound of Lee's training grunts, the sounds getting louder as he walked several miles toward an open field. What he saw nearly knocked him off his feet.

Lee... his cherished apprentice... was with... GASP... ANOTHER MAN!

'Who is this beauteous beast and what is his relationship with my protégé?' he thought angrily, clenching his teeth in anger. PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! The light reflecting off of his teeth were worse than the flash bulbs from a paparazzi attack on Brad and Angelina!

Readers, this was no ordinary beast.

Rock Lee was with... THE ROCK! THE ROCK of WWE fame and acclaimed action film star!

Gai hid behind a bush and watched with baited breath as his eyes roamed towards the two men in the wrestling ring that seemed to have evolved out of nowhere. Flanked on all sides of the ring were a gaggle of lovesick women chanting out "ROCK! ROCK!" (Because the chanting was intended for both men). The Rock was about to show Rock Lee how to do the Spine Buster, followed by the People's Elbow.

Gai became instantaneously jealous of the camaraderie shared between Rock and the Rock. Lee had never looked happier.

Gai felt even more miserable than before.

Oh dear God, how did these two meet?
Flashback, 3 years ago, Chunin Preliminaries...

Lee had been recovering in the ICU unit at Konoha Hospital following the brutal beating delivered to him by none other than Suna's mysterious Sand nin Sabaku no Gaara. Recently, the Godaime had delivered Gai and Lee some heart-wrenching news that Lee would never make it as a ninja of Fire Country. Gai, tormented by the fact that his hardest-working student would never fulfill his life's passion of becoming a proud shinobi of Konoha, had stalked out of the hospital to do 10,000 leg kicks of injustice.

A random nurse, overhearing Tsunade's prognosis, felt pity for the polite young patient in Room 301 and decided to make a request on Lee's behalf to a famous charity, asking that a famous person give the boy the encouragement he needed to make a speedy recovery and help lift up his spirits.

Well, we all know what happened since then- Lee got better, he got liquored up and performed the Drunken Master (arrgghh, a Jackie Chan movie, too, I might add, though it was a pretty awesome movie...) and nearly defeated Kimimaro's ass. But only because Gaara had helped, too...
And two years and fifty-one weeks later...
Flashback, one week ago... somewhere in Los Angeles...

High off of the success of his latest movie, "The Scorpion King Lives On", Dwayne Johnson, aka the Rock, was opening the masses of fan mail from his fans from all over the world from his private jet. One particular manila-colored envelope had caught his personal interest- it had been addressed to him from the Make A Wish Foundation.

He opened the letter; here's what it said:

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Joy and I am a registered nurse at Konoha Hospital. Recently, one of my patients had been told that he would remain crippled for the rest of his life. My heart breaks at this news, for Rock Lee is known as one of the most dedicated shinobi-in-training in our entire noble village. For him to know that he will never be able to serve his home as its protector brings those who know him great grief. Would you please come and make it a wonderful day for a bright 15 year-old boy?

Sincerely,

Nurse Joy

Thinking that it would provide him with even more good publicity, he called his agent and let him know that he would take the opportunity to help an underprivileged youth. It was dated 3 years back... but who cares? Everyone wanted to meet the Rock. Hopefully this kid was still alive. It would've been a waste of his time if he wasn't.

So here he was, five days later, in Konoha, and the trip had been pretty rough. For one, planes couldn't get into this village, two, there were no cars available, either. The Rock had to walk and it socked (sucked- sorry, I wanted to rhyme). Dusty and exhausted from his trip, he checked into an inn, rested for a few hours, then headed straight for the hospital to find out some information about Lee's whereabouts. A very busty platinum blonde doctor with the most hypnotic brown eyes, who also happened to be something akin to mayor of this foreign land, was kind enough to point out that Lee was just beyond the village limits training.

Well, the Rock was kinda happy that the kid was no longer a cripple- the boobacious blonde had said that Lee had recovered from the injuries he sustained. 'The kid's got some crazy stamina,' thought the Rock, as Lee turned whittled a training post down to a toothpick using a flurry of lightning-fast kicks and punches. 'Quick on his feet, fast with his hands...' The Rock's musings were broken off by the strange appearance of a large red tortoise and an even stranger man atop it's back.

"Who in the Blue Hell is THAT?" quipped the Rock.

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

What he saw nearly caused him to lose his lunch. The hugging. The crying. The extremely loud DIALOGUE! Not to mention the 10-second sunset that appeared at 9 in the morning... This guy, Gai, as he had been called, had some serious issues. The obvious influence he had on the kid- mind, body and soul-was disgusting. The Rock vowed to help de-Gai Lee as much as he could. The kid looked like he could use a couple of pointers on how to be a more acceptable member of society, someone like the Rock.

The Rock walked back to his room where he wrote out a plan of action, and went straight to bed. He figured tomorrow would be very taxing on his nerves.

The following day, when there was no sign of Gai in sight, the Rock approached Lee as he was making his 279th lap around Konoha's borders. "Hey, Kid- Come here. We need to talk."

Because Lee was so well-mannered and very unassuming, he decided to listen to the intriguing strange foreigner who amazingly had the same name as himself. Stepping into a small sandwich shop, the two men were seated and the Rock got down to business saying what he had to say. What the Rock told Lee shook him to the very core:

Essentially, the Rock told Lee that Gai was a bad man who loved him like a Catholic priest loves altar boys. And, on top of that, his sensei wasn't very hip AT ALL. In fact, the Rock had poignantly stated that Gai was a Roody Poo Candyass...

At first, Lee refused to believe the Rock's lies, adamantly defending his honorable sensei's honor. But the more he thought about it, the more he began to see the truth behind the Rock's words, and furthermore pretended not to be confused by his off-colored references to teachers of Catholicism and Roody Poo Candyasses...

Lee found it strange how often Gai initiated the lingering embraces. Gai didn't hug Neji... or the words of encouragement that bordered on being a little too intimate... those scenarios had yaoi written all over them!

And those stares Gai got from the opposite sex weren't because they were amazed by the Green Beast's beauty... In fact, had he paid more attention in the past, he would've seen that those women were REPULSED by him! If these things were thought of Gai, and Lee wanted to be like Gai... it was no WONDER Sakura was so disgusted at the suggestion of dating him!

"What has he done to me?" whispered Lee, feeling sullied and scared. "Will I ever be normal again?"

"It's not your fault. That Gai... he's just a sick individual. It'll take some time, Kid, but the Rock'll help you out. The Rock'll give you some pointers. And most importantly, the Rock'll help you score with chicks!" said the Rock, slapping Lee across his back. The Rock lifted a perfectly arched brow at how rigid Lee stood- an average man would've been pushed forward by his brute strength. But then again, the Rock had looked at Lee's green jumpsuit and bright gold-colored leggings and blue shoes and decided he was not an average person.

Lee looked at his new mentor with shiny eyes. "Oh, thank you... uh... do I call you Rock? Or Rock-sensei?" It felt strange saying his own name...

"Nononononono... you just call the Rock the Rock. The Rock has no other names. Except Dwayne, but that name is only reserved for the Rock's wife, close family members of the Rock, and good friends of the Rock..."

"Um... the Rock, sir? Do you always refer to yourself in the third person?"

The Rock narrowed his ticking eye at his new project. "Listen, Jabroni," he started, now wondering if it was wise for him to volunteer his services as he refrained from massaging his aching temples. "The Rock says know your role, shut your mouth."

Lee gulped audibly. "Yes, sir, the Rock, sir."

It came as a surprise to the Rock that Lee was a fun, if not overtly odd, person to hang out with. Sure, the kid's high spirits and wholesomeness got annoying as heck sometimes, but Lee made up for that by being impressed with the Rock's tales about his wrestling career and the mythical place known as Hollywood. The Rock liked to have his ego fed.

But... first things first- The Rock was NOT going to walk around the town with a dork. Lee had to get a makeover.

Yes, very cliché in most stories featuring Lee...
Gone was the abysmal green body stocking, as it was replaced by a fitting black wife-beater tank and a pair of black track pants with white stripes running down the sides. The tank emphasized Lee's physique, revealing his muscular arms and chiseled abs and chest that were normally hidden beneath the brutal pine-hued polyester-blend jumper. Next, he literally threw Lee into a beauty salon, where his brows were waxed and his hair promptly cut and gelled back (I'm thinking Yusuke from "Yu Yu Hakusho"...).

Lee looked into a mirror and couldn't believe how AMAZING his transformation was! He now had APPEAL!

However, the Rock wasn't through yet. He just couldn't get over Lee's strange Raggedy Andy eye shape. He walked out of the beauty parlor (where Lee was still gushing over his new look) and went into a small store across the street. He returned holding a pair of black ski goggles with yellow lenses. And voila, after putting those on, Lee was a changed man. Lee went from having regular APPEAL to having SEX APPEAL!

SCORE!

Next, the Rock gave Lee tips on how to be totally badass and woo the ladies. Since Lee was a fast learner, he learned how to talk the talk and walk the walk in no time. The "Lee Rocks" fan club (quickly established by Tenten who was the president and supported by 50 or so screaming fangirls) followed him wherever he and the Rock went.

Lee enjoyed the Rock's life lessons and tips on how to avoid or confront Monkey Asses and how to 'layeth the smacketh downeth' thick. Granted, he had enjoyed his time with Gai-sensei, too... but that was before he found out from the Rock that what Gai did could be constitutated as child molestation... and he never had his own fan club in all the years he had with him. Watching all the girls swooning over him encouraged him to be even more like the Rock, and finally Rock (er, I mean, Lee) had asked the Rock to show him some of his wrestling moves. They sounded enthralling!

There wasn't a prouder moment for the Rock (aside from family-related things and college scholarships and being a 7-time WWE champion). "Alright! The Rock is gonna show you what the Rock is all about! Because wrestling is the Rock's THANG!" He raised his hand to the air and caught a microphone that fell from the sky. "Lee- Can you SMELL-LALALALALA OWW! What the Rock is COOKIN'?"

The Rock's crazy yet very catchy series of phrases only caused poor Lee's head to spin. The Rock certainly was a hard person to understand. Perhaps the Rock was making him a power lunch or something? 'How very thoughtful of my new mentor!' he thought happily. Lee enthusiastically answered "NO! I cannot smell-lalalalala- YOSH! what the Rock is cooking!" The Rock gave Lee yet another WTF look. "However," Lee continued, with his eyes on fire and his fist balled in front of him, "If it comes from the Rock, it must smell and taste delightful! YOSH!"

"YOSH!" cried Tenten and his fangirls in glee!

Back to today...

Gai would not stay in hiding any longer. He had been tormented for long enough! How much more pain could he possibly endure without Lee by his side? He jumped from his hiding place yelling out "DAINAMIKKU ENTORI!" and pointed an accusatory finger at his new rival, the Rock, who lay sprawled on the floor, knocked out cold by the dynamic flying kick Gai delivered to the Rock's face.

"YOU! How dare you destroy the magnificent bond between a teacher and his student! You are even worse than my eternal rival Kakashi!" He took one last look at the shocked expression on Lee's face before running off...

...in the general direction of the Hyuuga homestead.

To be continued... DUN DUN DUN!

Can you smell-lalalala-YOSH! what this whacked out author is cooking?

Beware of an upcoming Neji/Gai reunion!