#lvyeshou

"....Come get your FUCKING sensei."

the day zabuza becomes a seven swordsman of the mist, four of them have died. he's young at the time, a few years after his massacre of all the soon-to-be genin of his generation, with an eye on kubikiribōchō and a revolution brewing. suikazan, kurosuki and biwa have dragged themselves back to kiri in the wake of their failure, lamenting about a jutsu they had never seen before. something that had made their opponent extraordinarily strong with the touch of a thumb to a pressure point, that had caused him to go up in flames and only become stronger as a result.

there hadn't been a chance, they said, and when zabuza goes back to their battleground, he begins to understand. the earth has been scorched, haphazard footprints burned into the grass, trees knocked down and debris still settling. he'd been protecting a son, and it's the first time zabuza has seen so much destruction in the name of love. as he gathers the remaining swords to bring back to the village, he tries to visualize the man that could have done this. tries to imagine what it must feel like to love so dearly that you're willing to die for it.

he's never quite able to paint the picture.

-

zabuza attempts a revolution, fails, defects, and steals kubikiribōchō all in one fell swoop. it isn't his best work, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with a little fine tuning and the kid that he's plucked up off the side of the road for some reason.

then he finds hatake kakashi on a bridge in wave country, and, well. he's able to paint the picture a little better.

-

agreeing to kakashi's half-baked plan to bring him back to konoha had been for haku's sake. a gamble on atonement. the revolution isn't over with, zabuza spends each day meticulously gathering and planning, but he's settled into a sort of routine by the time he's well enough to actually work. it takes haku a little longer. it's no matter, zabuza will work enough for the both of them. appeasing an old kage is the least zabuza thinks he can do for haku's comfortability.

what he isn't expecting is the green and orange and eyebrows that had been described to him so many years ago. scorched earth, a man on fire, with convictions louder than he is. zabuza observes, watches kakashi fold in on himself whenever gai is around, sees the children flock to him even as they whisper about how strange he is. the looks on their faces are awed even despite it.

gai moves like he's already proven his point. like he has everything meticulously laid out. living on his own borrowed time. he hovers around his people with love on his tongue and in his hands, but there's a storm in his eyes that rages stronger and more deadly with each day. zabuza finds himself drawn in, moving listlessly towards him, sunlight filtering through the haze of mist. the kind of sunlight that burns. it wouldn't be the first time zabuza's allowed an element to swallow him whole.

-

the first time zabuza sees him open the gates, stragglers from iwa have attacked konoha in an opportunistic follow up to orochimaru's invasion. in the wake of konoha's hurt and anger, the problem is dealt with swiftly. zabuza accompanies gai into the fray because they'd already been together; sitting far too close at a teahouse, biceps brushing and sending gooseflesh up the length of zabuza's arm. he'd been thinking about setting a hand to the back of gai's neck, wondering if he'd melt the same way kakashi does. he doesn't get a chance to test the theory.

gai is beautiful in this as he in everything else. the first gate into the second reminds zabuza of a bijū, a haze of fiery red enveloping him, pupils and irises so light they look nonexistent. just two endless pools of bloodshot sclera, and zabuza can't look away.

he stands almost uselessly as gai fights, moving so quickly it looks like he's teleporting. his fists make sickening cracks against bone, burning flesh, and each time the soles of his feet burn into the earth, zabuza is transported back to that fateful day in kiri. if he looks hard enough, he thinks he can see a smile pulling at the corners of gai's lips.

the iwa nin are dealt with and the villagers are none the wiser. genma presses a gentle hand to gai's cheek after tsunade has assessed the situation. gai leans into it, mutters what is likely reassurance, and watches her reluctantly leave with the hokage.

zabuza stays rooted to the spot, like he's waiting for permission to be in gai's presence.

-

i crave it, he says later that night, nothing makes me feel more alive. he's nervous, but not hesitant. he means every word of it, even if he's unsure what zabuza may think of him. it almost makes him laugh, that someone as good as maito gai thinks he has to defend himself to a demon. but he knows it isn't the time to joke, not when gai flutters anxious fingers against his breastbone, almost like he's making sure his heart is still beating in there. maybe it's beating too much. zabuza thinks he's starting to understand the sentiment a lot more.

"i do," zabuza says, and thinks about the mist that lives beneath his skin. that coils and roars and houses something not quite human within him. thinks about the destruction his hands are capable of, how much he's taken and how now, he wants to give. it doesn't change his nature, but the guide is different now.

it's always been this way for gai. how cruel, living with a beast and having to battle with righteousness. zabuza does know what it feels like.

they're back at the teahouse, still open even in the late hour, and their arms are pressed together again. this time a little closer. this time, their thighs touch too, and zabuza finds himself clinging to gai's every word. he wonders if gai can see it; his pathetic ardor. if he can see that the gates don't scare him the way they scare kakashi.

"that beast in you won't yield for anyone, not even you." trust me, he wants to say, the demon hasn't let me go in thirty years. "why work against it when you can work with it?" giving in to his instincts, zabuza settles a hand on gai's shoulder, squeezing firmly. "and when the time comes, well..." he thinks back to scorched earth and dead swordsmen and a man on fire. "wouldn't it be nice to feel alive before you go?"

The subject came out of nowhere and Shino was all but prepared for the question. In fact, he put down his juice and blankly stared into the distance for a few seconds to process what Gai-sensei decided to ask - completely trying to ignore the gleam of excitement in the man's eyes.

"It is partly true..." Shino mutters, memories dribbling back piece by piece. The scars of his emergency surgery from years ago has yet to fully fade, unlike the little scars his insects regularly leave on his body. A reminder of how careful he needs to be.

"There are many medications that we can't be administered due to the interference they can cause to our insects, especially opiates. If a serious injury happens to be low enough, we can receive an epidural... However, in my case, my injury was in my chest area. Therefore, my surgery had to be done without it. Plus, we need to remain fully awake or else our insects will defend their nest. The risks of the medical workers getting killed during a procedure is high." Shino explains slowly, equally as a way to inform Gai-sensei as to prepare himself to explain how it felt.

How was it like? Once again, Shino stares into nothing for a moment, gathering his thoughts to form proper sentences.

"It was extremely painful." He begins, "I've experienced sensations out of what my understanding of pain was prior to my surgery. My skin being cut open was painful in the familiar way you'd understand as a Shinobi. However, everything that was done inside my body - cuts, cauterisation, my ribcage getting sawed to make way to my internal organs, the repairs done on my organs... It felt like... I could feel every pull, pressure and stretches but it all registered as intense cramps. Though, my bones getting cut was the worst. The pain was unbearable, dizzying, and I had to be given adrenaline to not pass out. Gai-sensei, controlling my insects through this experience was the hardest trial I've ever faced."

Shino gives Gai-sensei an honest frown. Why is he so interested?

There are not many things that can break the Uchiha's focus once he gets set on a task. Company, more often than not, is not one of those things, but it's not often that he has it in the first place, is it? Sasuke's laser focus on paperwork of all things-- he has to try harder now that he's relegated to writing with his right hand instead of his missing left-- is probably the safest thing to interrupt him with, but today has not been kind to him.

Disappointment after disappointment ; he's met with the limitations of medical ninjutsu as a whole. Still, he's tried to circumvent many things, some pertaining to Gai and many others to the vast world outside of his little circle. Beneath endless documentation on experimental drugs and treatments, calculations about Gai's condition are still drafted in neat little lines on paper. There is no point in any of it, not after he's had limbs removed, and no hope that he could ever walk again.

Better people than both of them have tried for more and failed. Better people die every day, never tasting the bitterness of the shinobi world. Mostly, he thinks about Kakashi who's worn thin as is, the relationship between them perplexing but not unnoticeable. Sasuke would like to believe he is not one to cast judgment, but he does so readily even if he never voices it.

"Shinobi can't be good people." Is what he says finally, his voice lacking the performative kindness his job requires of him. What he wants to say, is that Gai is not a good person for the same reasons he is a good shinobi. Sasuke looks at him, hopeful with his intention, and sees a man who sees only what propaganda wants him to see ; he sees his own limited situation and copes with it as best he could, because what good is he if he can't fight anymore?

Sasuke places his pen down and, if he had both hands, he would fold them neatly across the desk the same way he does when he is delivering bad news.

"Are you asking because you want comfort or because you don't know anymore?" It could be either, it could be both, he doesn't know. He isn't going to pretend he knows what's going on in Gai's head, or why he lingers around him long after he's done playing doctor for him. Their relationship isn't the best, but it's not awful either, and if he can survive his next words, then maybe it could be better.

"The lover’s whisper, irresistible… magic to make the sanest man go mad." [your pickkk]

Sai nods, taking notes in his little booklet with a pencil he's taken to chewing on the back end of-- Yamato-taichou had told him that picking up 'absent-minded' habits might help him appear more person-like to friends and strangers, so he'd picked up this one, even though he doesn't really like the taste of the eraser. "Of course, Gai-sensei, thank you--" He writes out: LVR WHSPR. MAGIC? and tries not to think about how much Gai-sensei sounds exactly like one of Kakashi-senpai's silly pornographic books that he passes on to Sai every time he asks him about how to handle romance.

It seems like Gai-sensei might be just as hopeless as Kakashi-senpai when it comes to love. Still, he is willing to hear the man out.

"Thank you for helping me with my girl troubles," he closes his notebook and holds it against his chest, blinking at Gai like a particularly docile lamb. Calling his difficulty wooing Sakura "girl troubles" feels like it diminishes both Sakura, and his difficulty with impressing her, but calling it anything else would mean... perhaps that it was something more serious. "Do you have a lover, Gai-sensei? Have they affected your sanity levels significantly? How do you deal with it?"

Her trembling hand forms the ram seal again.

Sharp. Precise. Angry. “Kai.”

Nothing. For the fourth time—

nothing.

Tsunade stares in absolute horror.

Not mild confusion.

Not professional curiosity.

Horror.

At the sunset bleeding across the sky.

A sunset that has no right to exist considering it is barely after noon.

At the waves crashing against a shore that should not be there.

Because they are in Konoha.

In a forest.

A damn forest.

There are trees.

There is moss.

There are training posts twenty feet away and a squirrel frozen on a branch with the same haunted expression Tsunade can feel trying to crawl onto her own face.

There should not be waves.

There should not be seabirds crying overhead.

There should not be golden light spilling over them like the world has decided to become sentimental without first filing the proper paperwork.

Then how?

How?

Her eye twitches.

“What technique even is this?” she asks, equally fascinated and horrified.

Because she had heard of it.

Of course she had heard of it.

Everyone had.

The unexplained phenomenon of Might Gai and Rock Lee being able to manifest the mirage of a sunset through sheer emotional excess and deeply concerning amounts of youth.

She had thought it was a rumor.

A stupid rumor.

The kind of nonsense academy instructors whispered about after their third cup of tea because no sane shinobi wished to admit Konoha had somehow produced two men capable of violating reality through enthusiasm.

And yet.

Here ti was.

The ocean.

The sunset.

The wind catching in Lee’s bowl cut with all the dramatic sincerity of a war memorial.

Tsunade feels something inside her sink.

Not fear.

Worse.

Recognition.

This is real.

This is happening.

This is going into a report.

And no one is going to believe a single word of it.

Her fingers twitch at her side.

She forms the ram seal again because perhaps the fifth time will be the one that restores sanity to the world.

“Kai.”

Nothing.

The waves continue to crash.

The sunset continues to burn.

Rock Lee continues to stand there, eyes shining, fists trembling at his sides as if her telling him he had done well on a mission had personally resurrected his ancestors.

Alone.

He is doing this alone.

No Gai.

No paired technique.

No visible genjutsu anchor.

No chakra pattern she can read cleanly.

No seals.

No summoning array.

No logical explanation.

Just Lee.

Just emotion.

Just the terrible, impossible power of being praised by Senju Tsunade one time.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” she whispers.

The words come out thin.

Offended.

Almost betrayed.

Because chakra has rules.

Reality has rules.

The human body has rules.

Tsunade has spent her entire life cutting those rules open, studying them, mastering them, bending them until they screamed.

And this—

this sparkling, sunset-soaked, ocean-scented nonsense—

has the audacity to ignore all of them.

Lee’s tears catch the impossible light.

“Thank you, Tsunade-sama!”

A wave crashes behind him.

Tsuande closes her eyes.

Slowly.

With dignity.

With restraint.

With the exhausted grace of a woman who has survived war, death, politics, Jiraiya's flirting, Orochimaru's tantrums, Kaksshi's tardiness, the council, and one too many men with dramatic eyebrows.

“Never mind,” she mutters. “I don’t want to know.”