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wind-becomes-lightning · 1 year

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The future is ours to own.

Welcome to Obito week Day 1 :) This little fic today is mostly just me being whiny about this hc that I hate which is so prominent about Gai and Obito not getting along. I don't like it I don't want it. So here is my take on their post war relationship.

Obito lives Au

Might Gai & Uchiha Obito

Rated G

2777 words

Ao3 link [x]

for @obito-week: childhood, nostalgia & anniversary.

Gai visits Obito in prison

He didn’t recognise the footsteps approaching the cell. Heavy, with purpose, but lopsided, as if only one leg was working correctly. Obito couldn’t see because a seal had been placed on his eyes and he could not use his hands to feel because they had been bound, but he often understood who was approaching by the way the floor moved.

Kakashi, for example, slouched a little, so he dragged his feet. Obito would know Kakashi as soon as he entered the cellar in which his cell was located. He talked very little until he made it to where Obito was.

The guards had heavy armour and even heavier to carry with their special shuriken bags. Only in Hozuki were people allowed to wear these chakra suppression materials that were not only very effective, but also forbidden elsewhere.

Even in that one case, when Sasuke had visited him, his steps had been smaller, more muted, as if he was trying not to gain too much attention.

So the person that was coming now was neither of them for one, and hadn’t visited Obito before for another. It made him feel tense and worried. Kakashi had told him that the war anniversary was around the corner, which surprised Obito. In this darkness that he was kept in now every day seemed the same and so he had thought it was much longer since then. That someone new was coming now meant clearly that it was someone who was looking for some revenge.

And it wasn’t like Obito minded people who wanted revenge against him, he just didn’t want to cause Kakashi and Naruto, who had so extraordinarily vouched for him, any more trouble by dying.

Though it seemed unlikely that the approaching stranger was up for revenge. He seemed rather cheerful, chatting with guards now and then in a low voice, though Obito could not hear what he talked about with them. That was until the person reached the cell door and had it opened for him. “I am happy to see so much is being done for the inmates in this place,” the voice said excitedly. “I think reintegration is the right step forward for criminals. Help them understand their youth again.”

The guard laughed quietly as if he was a little embarrassed by the words spoken, then the door squeaked and swung open and the visitor stepped inside.

Gai.

Obito could barely believe it. Gai had not spoken a word to him since they had been very young, not even in the war had he looked at him. Gai who had been so much of what Obito wished he had been, a fighter, naturally talented, a person that could make friends easily and retain them. Obito’s whole body tensed up and he pushed himself against the wall behind him. Gai, who’s student Obito had killed during the war in a needless display of hatred and violence.

“Hello Obito,” Gai said in his usual cheerful voice. “My rival's rival.”

Obito pushed himself flat against the back wall. “Hello Gai. I didn’t expect you to visit.”

All these months Obito had waited for someone who had been close to the Hyuuga boy to come and scream at him in frustration. His teammates, his uncle or his cousins- but nobody had come until now. There was only him sitting in his own regrets for weeks on end, thinking of the boy that had been killed so young. What he had wanted was to create a better world for everybody, especially children plagued by war, and in the end he had just become what he always hated.

“Ha, yes, I thought it was time to see you.” Gai walked forward and Obito guessed that he stopped about an arms length away from where he was. “Kakashi allowed me. I know he comes here all the time.”

Obito grumbled: “Too often.”

Kakashi was determined to show Obito that nothing in their relationship had changed. That Kakashi, despite all, still admired Obito as the hero he saw him to be. Obito of course knew that was a farce and that he wasn’t like that anymore, that that version of him had died a long time ago, still Kakashi was stubborn.

Gai laughed, the sound echoed off the walls and filled the room. “You are both so much older now but you still behave like you did around each other when you were teenagers. Feels almost nostalgic. I remember easily locating your team in the Chuunin exams because you couldn’t stop arguing with each other.”

“I remember you kicked me so hard in the face that I needed to get treated for a concussion,” Obito replied and laughed now too. Back then Obito’s pride had gotten beat up so thoroughly that he had exclusively trained taijutsu for the next three months, completely neglecting his Ninjutsu training, which Kakashi had not been too tired to point out.

“Right, you said you would knock me out in five minutes,” Gai remembered. “I took that as a challenge.”

Obito grinned. “Clearly, I was full of shit.”

“No,” Gai said, “you were just young. Youthful passion does that to a person.”

In a way Obito had always admired Gai for his unwavering optimism. He had also hated it to equal measure. In the years that Obito had spent watching Kakashi he had often thought that the only reason Kakashi was still holding on was Gai’s unrelenting optimism. While the wood boy Tenzo was also a big part of what kept Kakashi going, Gai definitely had the biggest hand in it. And as much as it ashamed him now, Obito had really wanted Kakashi to throw in the towel. Give up on the world, just like Obito had.

He had tried the same strategy with Naruto. Had wanted to make him feel despair and pain so he would give up on the world. But Naruto was stronger than that. Even when his mentor died, he carried on. Obito’s internal envy had burned hot and angry. Why wasn’t this boy as desperate as he was? Why wouldn’t he give up on the world like he did? Maybe somewhere he had wanted to excuse himself from his deeds, show that everyone would fall as deeply as he had fallen. So Obito had killed one of Naruto’s friends right in front of him just to see how he would react.

But Naruto still didn’t fall into despair. Neither did Gai when he saw his student die. They had both carried on with hope in their hearts. It was a quality that Obito wished he still had, but somewhere along the way the optimistic and driven version of him had died and this more angry, more cynical version had taken its place. Buried deep under stone.

“I…” Obito started but Gai cut him off immediately. “He was really a good kid, you know? Neji.”

Ah, so he really did come to talk about that. “I can believe that,” Obito murmured.

“He was born into the side branch, a nasty business thing the Hyuuga do where one child is deemed less important than the other. And though he had a good childhood in general he hardened his heart when his father died so as to not be hurt again.” Gai sighed. Obito of course knew that the Hyuuga clan separated their members in main branch and side branch and how it affected those family members. Each of the major clans had their issues somewhere. They couldn’t stay in power for so many decades if they weren’t ruling with an iron fist.

“Even when he entered my team, he did not trust me or his teammates.” Gai tapped with his finger on the cold stone ground. “I think he thought he needed to do it all alone. Become strong, reform his family, avenge his father, bear the burden of being marked for life. He warmed up to the others though eventually and listened to me, but I think it was only Naruto that taught him to be different.

Obito smiled: “Naruto tends to have that quality.”

“Once Neji realised that the future wasn’t set, that he could do as he pleased, he quickly became the most reliable shinobi in Konoha. Not only for missions, not only for our team, but also for his family. I think he really cherished the friendships he had made and the new sibling-like bond he had with his cousins. You could basically feel the real effort that had been made to improve the clan. I used to talk to Kurenai all the time about how much better both our Hyuuga students were doing since they were getting along,” Gai continued.

The pit of despair that Obito always felt when Hyuuga Neji was mentioned opened again in Obito’s stomach. “That is very good,” he said weakly.

Gai moved a little as if he was shifting his weight beneath him. “There were many times I told him that despite what their old traditions say, it was not his responsibility to die for a main branch member. Protecting them, yes. Working with them, yes. Helping them, absolutely. But dying for them? It was not what he was forced to do. It was his choice.”

He paused for a moment and Obito could feel his body tensing up. “And then he did. He made the choice. He sacrificed himself out of his own free will,” Gai’s words were pressed now as if continuing was causing him physical harm. “I am happy for him. He fulfilled what he believed to be destiny by defying destiny and still….. I wish…” His voice died.

Obito had never heard Gai sad like that, not when they were young and not later when he watched Kakashi. Gai was always cheerful and excited, Gai went on and on about youth and love and passion even so much that others got annoyed. So hearing him suffer like this almost felt unbearable. Obito could feel tears run down his cheeks before he really realised that he was in fact crying.

“I’m sorry..” He said with lips quivering. “I should not have tried to force my own twisted view on others. Neji.. probably was not part of that world that I hated so much, but a victim of it. I was so blinded by my envy and rage that I couldn’t see that there were many children like that. He would have deserved to make his own future, he would have deserved to grow and see the world change, his clan change, around him. He… he had so much left to do and… well.. He was just a kid and I…”

He sniffed, but the tears kept coming. Obito had envisioned this encounter many times before. How he would react if one of Neji’s family members would come and talk to him. Kakashi had asked him why it was this specific death that haunted him so much, when he had killed so many people in his quest for the Tsukuyomi. At first Obito hadn’t been able to explain that either. Maybe it was because he was so young and so hopeful, maybe because the reason he had died had been so unnecessarily evil or maybe it was because Neji, unlike Obito, had seen injustice in the world and then tried to correct it as much as he could, while Obito had just given up on himself.

Obito gasped as suddenly two big arms threw themselves around him. Gai was hugging him close, tears streaming down his face too. “He was a kid, yes,” he said between sobs, “but so were you. Kakashi told me what happened to you, about Madara and the manipulation, about Rin and your desperation. You were just a child. You weren’t meant to bear such a heavy burden on your shoulders.”

“Come…come on…,” Obito winced a little as Gai pressed him even closer. They remained like this for another moment, just two grown men crying over childhoods lost. The scene must have been very odd for onlookers, but none of them cared. It felt strangely relieving to sit here and just cry together.

After a while Obito regained his composure. “You should not forgive me for what I did,” he said and wiped his cheeks beneath the seal. “My circumstances don’t excuse the crimes I committed. At least that is also what the judge that sent me here told me.”

Gai let go of Obito. “I won’t forgive you,” Gai said, now suddenly sounding very serious. “I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive you. But I wanted to express my understanding. Despite the anger I feel towards you at the moment I can’t say I would have been any different if all of what happened to you would have happened to me…”

“Nonsense,” Obito laughed, “You were always stronger than me. You will continue to be stronger than me.”

A hand grabbed Obito’s shoulder and pressed it. “It shows how strong your will is that you are still here with us. You tried to sacrifice yourself for the good of the youth of this world because you once again believed there was a future to sacrifice yourself for. Strength shows in many different ways, Obito, not only in optimism or muscle mass.“ Gai shook Obito a little. “You took Neji’s future from him a year ago and you can never give it back, that much is true, but what you do with the future you have been given, what we do with the future we both have given by surviving, is our own choice.”

Obito lifted his hands and pressed them against Gai’s arms on his shoulders. He could feel his lips shaking again. One of the things he struggled most with was the fact that he had survived this war. It would have been so much easier just to die there, become nothing but a distant memory. He was also convinced that it would have made Kakashi’s life much easier.

He now realised why Gai’s steps had created such odd vibrations when he had walked. During his fight with Madara, when Obito was largely under control of black Zetsu, Gai had also tried to sacrifice himself for the future of the world by opening the Gate of Death. Just like Obito, however, Gai had been saved by Naruto and the power that was gifted to him from the Sage of Six Paths. Still, he lost a leg that had since been replaced by a prosthetic one, at least according to what Kakashi had said.

Now they both lived in a future that they tried to preserve and though their setups were completely different, for good reason, they were oddly similar. Maybe Gai was right.

“I don’t think with all that has happened that we can ever be friends,” Gai continued. “I don’t think I will be able to look at you and not feel pain in my chest…” Obito nodded. “... but I think we should try to get to know each other from the very beginning, like we are just young kids meeting for the first time. Start building an understanding between us with the smallest piece first.”

Obito let his hands fall down again. “You mean for Kakashi’s sake?” Though Kakashi had never talked about it, Obito knew he feared that a future animosity between Obito and Gai could cause him constant heartache.

Gai grabbed Obito’s shoulder a little tighter: “No, for us. To show that we know how to use this time that has been given to us.” He finally let Obito go and then stepped back. The air moved as if Gai was ripping his arms around and his voice was suddenly louder than it had been before. “My name is Might Gai,” he roared, “My dream is still to become a splendid ninja and to use the power of my own youth!”

His hand found Obito’s and shook it. Obito laughed a little. So that was what Gai had meant when he had said that they should get to know each other like kids again. “I’m Uchiha Obito,” Obito said weakly and realised how long it had been since he had introduced himself like that. “My dream used to be to become Hokage, but now I guess Bakashi got that role, well, I guess my new dream will be to support him if I can.”

They shook again. “Nice to meet you,” Gai said.

“Nice to meet you,” Obito replied.

Obito had thought that the anniversary of the war would bring him waves of guilt and regret, but instead it had become the first day of the rest of his life.

#fanfiction things #obito week 2023 #obito week #uchiha obito #might gai

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