Fan Fiction Name: Requiem for the Rokudaime

Chapter Name: Thoughts on a Foolish Cause: Gai

Info: As all in Konoha gather to pay respects to the Rokudaime Hokage as he takes his place on the Memorial Stone, some people take some time to remember his exploits and his quirks. The Rokudaime is not who you think! Rated T for general cursing.

Disclaimers: Well, I do not own any of Naruto, nor do I own the many characters of these fan fictions, save my own creations. It's sad, but all too true. How I wish I owned them….waaaaaahhhhh!

Requiem for the Rokudaime

Chapter 8

Well, well. It looks like the rivalry has come to an end. The genius, the young man who, at the age of thirty-two, had managed to be the second youngest Hokage of all time and had killed the greatest threat to Konohagakure. The very man I had proclaimed my "eternal rival" and had so many pointless attempts at what even my father had described as "sibling rivalry at its best." Granted, there really was no relation between me and you, but sometimes it felt like it…

Maybe it's time to cut the crap. The stupid, false perverseness. The complete foolishness of my "springtime of youth" horse-shit.

You, Hatake Kakashi, were just as much a brother to me as anyone could have been. Hell, we grew up together, and your father and mine were even on the same team as genin. We grew up as brothers, and damn well we reconciled as them too. I even remember the day that we had met, even though we we're only four at the time. I had heard from my father on how his friends genius son was allowed to go to the shinobi academy at the age of three.

I didn't really understand the significance at the time, but then I knew right then I would have to meet you. I had heard about just how cool the shinobi were from my father, so to hear that you were a kid like me and were going, you were nearly divine to me. I had spent the rest of the night begging my father to meet you, to allow me to see "the cool kid who's a ninja!"

The next day, after the whole thing had happened, it looked almost like I wasn't going to be able to meet you. But then, just as the night was going to end, I heard my dad come home, just like any other time. I had been lonely, because I knew that mama was gone, baby brother was too, so as usual I went to the door happy as can be.

Instead of barreling into my fathers strong frame and being lifted up into his arms, I instead barreled into a short kid with silver hair and wearing a mask. After a few seconds of confusion (with my dad not really helping the whole situation), we exchanged our first words with one another.

"Why are you wearing a mask?" I had said from where we finally ended up, my eyes caught on the weird blue thing I saw covering your mouth.

"How do you have such big eyebrows?" You asked back, your eyes widening with shock as your gaze went straight to my eyebrows.

From that moment, we we're the goofiest, but best, friends any two kids could ever be. I watched in awe as you managed to become a ninja when I could barely throw a ball around. But, seeing how my great, new "ototou" had become a ninja at such a young age, I pushed myself, got into the academy, and managed to graduate at the age of seven. Seven! Through my hard work, I had proven myself to be as much as a genius as my great oni-san.

Okay, so I needed to catch up a bit, but I was seven, for crying out loud. I had managed to keep the prodding, loud, obnoxious older kids from making me give up my dream, despite the fact that I had loved taijutsu to the point of "near-obsession." Well, you spoke no truer words to me.

At that time, me and my great, mask-wearing ototou were going to take Konoha by storm!

Well, until that day.

That one day. You and I were happily discussing our missions, wandering around from here to there when we had accidentally came across a large crowd. I just wanted to go around, but you, my ever curious ototou, had to find out what had happened. I decided to ditch you for once, but if I had been there, maybe I could have seen the horror you saw.

It was that day that we found out that your father had failed a mission.

That so many people, including my father and only living parent, had died. That you had to watch as your father made his decision to commit suicide rather then face the disgrace while he wasted away.

You had become so entrapped in your own world that you didn't even see what had happened to me. I began to act ridiculous, wearing bright green spandex while screaming that this was my springtime, and it was being blacked out by clouds. It had been something I read in a book, just before this whole shit pile happened. A book of poems, ironically enough Even when I became a chunin, I kept it up, and yet you and I didn't talk to each other for nearly seven years after that. With your importance in the Anbu, and my advanced taijutsu training, it was hard to even know that you were still alive, let alone the fact that you now had the famous Sharingan.

The next time we talked, I made a declaration that changed our relationship, and somehow got us closer again. A way to get my old ototou back.

"I don't care how much of a genius you are! You're someone who should have a rival to help out your stress issues! Hell, I'll be that rival, jackass!"

Somehow, with that angry series of words, we we're back in each others lives, albeit in an odd and beneficial way. We did stupid things, like when we were kids again. Push up contests. Rock, paper, scissor contests. Ramen-eating contests. It was stupid, childish, and altogether moronic, even with the extreme persona I had somehow developed. Yet you were willing to go along with it. I may have been annoyed with you on the outside as you somehow took on aspects of your teammate. Lazy, uncaring, and perverted. I took on aspects all my own.. Emotional, loud, and overzealous.

They were like what you wore on your face all those years ago, on that day that we met. They were masks for the world to see. They were masks to hide the fact that, despite our massively different outlook and manner of dress, we had been friends, and damn near just as close as brothers.

When I started training my team, the team with Lee, in my mind you were going to be much like I was to you: the foil and the fool, a way to see that despite our "rivalry" we could work together. I kept my mask, and when I truly tried to help, I got a "convert", so to speak. The one person who even you said was much like me. Determined, driven, and, in the same token, limited. I never really meant for Lee to dress and act like me, but in the end I kept it up, seeing how his determination increased when he began to act like me.

I know your shock when you saw that I had taught the Renge to Lee, and how I had even taught him how to open the gates. You were concerned for him, the way that a good uncle should. With Lee essentially my son now, you played your role as uncle, even in calling me on me teaching him how to open the gates. You said that you were out of line, but you were entirely right: I had risked his life just so he could become much like me, to do so much damage to your own body just for a extra burst of speed, an extra ounce of strength.

It's funny to see Lee act like the mask I created when I lost my father on the same day you lost yours. He's gotten better, mind you, but he still can be quite dense. After all, he doesn't even notice that the younger girl he has been training in taijutsu, one of the genin who passed the year after your genins did, has been looking at him. The way she blushes when he's around. The way her eyes light up when she sees him. What's even funnier is that the girl looks a bit like that Sakura girl from your team, the one Lee fell for at the chunin exams. Just with brown hair and, well, bigger breasts.

In a funny kind of way, it's similar to how that blond student of yours, Uzumaki, had acted to the attention of one Hyuuga Hinata. Even I saw that one, and now it looks like the little idiot has finally seen it too. Maybe Lee will see this Natsume Ayas attention soon enough, and then there will be plenty of little Lees running around as well.

At this moment, I would bet you ten Ryo that you would be laughing at me now, at having to describe a woman and only being able to find a look-alike with that kind of noticeable difference, and how you would be cringing at the thought of more fuzzy browed kids running around Konoha.. Maybe with all those stupidly perverted books of yours from Jiraiya and your sarcasm, you might have finally rubbed off on the great Maito Gai. Or maybe, you're the young boy I had come to see as my ototou, the younger brother I never had yet had surpassed me, and I vainly tried to catch up any way I could.

Well, no, I don't see you that way at all. You were my friend. My adversary. My brother. All in one odd, silver haired, mask wearing package. And even with this gash down my back, and my movements limited, I know that I'll keep this mask on, the mask that said that I would never let some stupid injury keep me down.

After all, you said it best, the day we went to fight Orochimaru together (with no one looking, of course).

"It doesn't matter the masks we wear, Gai. Its what is deep down, and there you're my friend and my brother. And now I want that brother by my side to the end."

So long, my brother. By the way…the final count was 61-60. You dying before me does NOT count to your wins.

END

A/N: Now, I know this is quite UNLIKE the Gai you have come to know in Naruto, but as I have seen Gai in the way that he acts, and how Kakashi acts towards him, something always told me that there was something deeper, something more profound in that "eternal rivalry" of theirs. So, I came up with this idea based on that conclusion. The way that Gai acts is a mask, much like Narutos cheerfulness and Sasukes brooding, to hide the loneliness, in this case form losing what had become in Gais mind his brother.

The fact that Gai gets really worked up with Kakashi, and the way Kakashi becomes even more uncaring, helps me come to this conclusion as well. If it was a mask, like I say, then why is it that despite Kakashis apathy and Gais irritation that both seem to be willing participants, and the challenges are essentially random in nature, much like childhood or even sibling rivalry…Bingo! Instant contact!

Let me know what you think of this Unmasked Gai. Oh, and to answer a question…yes I did blatantly steal the name (and in my opinion, she'll look like her, so looks too) of Aya Natsume of Tenjho Tenge.

Oh, and as a further note, I have two more chapters in the works: one with Shizune, then I'll post Kabutos, which would lead to…(dun dun DUN!) another surprise chapter!