Warnings: spoilers for Chapter 668, character death

Notes: I was a bit unhappy with the way Kakashi's reaction was written in the chapter, and somehow that dissatisfaction led to this.

Feedback is always appreciated!

The first time they spar — properly, all-out, no-nonsense spar — Gai opens the first three gates in the blink of an eye.

Kakashi sees red, though his headband is still covering Obito's eye, because even with his own he can read the strain in the other boy's muscles, the way his blood seems to boil close to the surface of his skin. The idiot charges him like a green rhinoceros, all momentum and no brain.

His own blood simmers, and he is half-a-second slower than normal to block the first kick because he realises this feeling is anger. He is livid, and he does not know why, cannot yet understand the coil of discomfort nestled in his gut.

Four, five, six.

Gai now has his own room in the hospital, stocked with chakra-enforced shackles and sealed windows. An entire medical team assembles each time to study his body, its wear and tear and inhuman feats. All of them point out that he will be lucky to live past fifty. Gai reminds them that Youth! and not luck is what truly matters.

They can never manage to contain him for more than a week.

Seven should be named the Gate of Hell, Kakashi thinks, breathing through his mouth. He hates it here. He always gets headaches from the stench of antiseptic death. The bleach-white walls of the hospital corridor remind him of bones, as well as the sounds they make when crushed.

Gai, who has the pain tolerance of a whale on morphine, howls.

It's amazing that he's conscious, they whisper. His muscles are in ribbons.

The doctors won't allow him into the room, and the coward in him is grateful.

Every time Gai uses the forbidden technique Kakashi beats him harder than usual, as if bruises could possibly deter the force of nature that is Maito Gai. The maxim is that actions speak louder than words, but neither works on a man who wears a skintight jumpsuit to bed.

He has been staring at the same page in his book for an hour.

Gai is uncharacteristically quiet. It might be because of his broken jaw, or perhaps it is the bandages across the right side of his face, or the fact that four days ago every single bit of muscle in his body was ripped to shreds.

The hand that lives permanently in Kakashi's pocket twitches, uncomfortable like an introvert at a raucous party. He blinks hard, unable to keep it from curling into a fist, knuckles brushing against the fabric of his trouser pockets.

Then both of his hands are bunched into Gai's shirt. Icha Icha falls to the ground. He shoves the other man so hard the tree creaks, doomed forever after to grow slightly tilted.

"Why are you trying to kill yourself?"

His voice is low compared to the rush of rage in his ears.

Gai's eyes go rounder than ever, a study in contrast to the sharp angles of his hair and body. He does not fight back, does not complain about the bark against his newly-healed back, salvaged from minced flesh. His brows draw together, like he is contemplating a difficult maths question.

"I am not." Kakashi cannot help but wait for a loud Kakashi! or Rival! or some kind of ridiculous posturing. It doesn't come. "I'm only trying to protect that which is worth dying for."

The solemn face Gai has on at the moment is the same face he wore to his father's funeral. He hasn't thought of his own father in years, but now he laughs brittlely and wonders what Hatake Sakumo had imagined he was protecting.

"Do you understand?"

Kakashi looks away and unsquares his shoulders into their customary slouch. He plucks his book from the ground, thumb tracing its battered spine before turning to leave.

"Don't protect me."

It is half-threat half-plea.

Obito's eye — God, he hasn't thought of it as that in an age — throbs and pulses. He watches as chakra slides toward Gai's heart like a viper. Something explodes in his ribcage.

Don't, he wants to scream, don't do this. But the words are stuck in his throat, and he cannot open his mouth or he will vomit fear and blood.

Gai gives his student a thumbs-up and Kakashi has to lock his knees to keep from crumpling. Resolutely, the other man does not look at him. Then he lurches into one of his suicide charges, except this time the odds are impossible rather than improbable, he really will die, and Kakashi will never, ever forgive him

(self).