perhaps it wasn’t the smartest decision to use hirudora , he might as well leave his signature on the scene of battle . and the explosion was visible even from a great distance . many were after his life , and they wouldn’t miss the signs . gai didn’t care though , he’d let himself fall and not resist the urge to lose consciousness , neither did he fight the sensation of the jutsu he was caught in . for the first time since his father died over a decade ago , gai was just so fucking tired . he knew once he regained consciousness , nothing would’ve changed . lee’d still be a jinchuriki , he might even be dead . and tsunade - sama would not be pleased with his actions , even if he just did the ANBU’s job for them . for now he’d rest in blissful ignorance as his body was healed , though .
for a while there was only nothingness , gai saw strange shapes && colours , muffled sounds and dull pain overshadowed any other sensation he might’ve felt . he couldn’t distinguish what was real and what was his mind’s fabrication . because he was CERTAIN he felt lee’s hand holding his , and that surely wasn’t real . ( how did he know it was lee’s ?? he’d recognize the touch of these cute , smaller bandaged hands anywhere ) unless both of them were dead . and , pitifully so , gai found himself not minding if they were . he’d introduce lee to his grandfather , gai had so ached for his two most important people to meet for such a long time now .
he also found himself hearing jun’ya’s voice , he’d regret accidentally killing his comrade . maybe he didn’t make it out of the afternoon tiger’s range after all . but as the minutes dragged on , gai regained more && more consciousness . he was walking ?? his arm was drapped around something . he began to combine the puzzle pieces , realizing what was going on right now . ❝ yeah . . . ❞ gai spoke softly .
❝ i’m fine . ❞ the pain ripping through his body was bearable , gai has opened the gate of joy often enough that the pain afterwards didn’t completely immobilize him . it’s the pain in his heart that was so much worse . equally piercing yet hollow . what now ?? brutality and death only got him so far , he’s facing a dead end .
“Man, if this doesn’t get you in the running for ‘Dad of the Year’, I’ll personally help sue,” Jun’ya quipped as he’d since helped patch up the worst of Gai’s injuries, but the way he saw it, damage from the Eight Gates themselves would take far more than just a quick once-over. In the dim plain where the sun began to crest the horizon, the brooding clouds that had swathed the horizon had been vaporized by Hirudora as if they’d never existed at all. It was immensely powerful, which meant the healing time extolled would need far longer, and that was what he could just surmise by looking at him. Coming from a clan of healers on his mother’s side meant he knew enough to pass as a med-nin even if he’d never touch the institution with a thousand-meter stick. What mattered then and there was getting the man back to Konoha and ensuring he could see his kid live to see another day, even if Jun’ya doubted it’d be a happy reunion when he could already see the endless red tape that would try to prevent the Jonin from seeing the boy. Sure, Jun’ya would likely be spared some flak since he was stateless, but the consequences would remain to be seen.
It was an agonizingly slow week as the pair trekked from the Land of Lightning to the Land of Fire, then into the heartland where Konoha was. With his dojutsu and ability with genjutsu, it at least meant he could erase their tracks with relative impunity instead of leave a trail behind his comrades could sniff out and possibly interfere with. As long as Gai’s semi-comatose state prevented him from verbalizing what he wanted to have happen in the wake of their assault, the least he could do was create a ground zero that would both be mostly untraceable and able to be dealt with later. It preoccupied Jun’s thoughts in between nursing Gai back to health, but by the time Konoha’s massive gates loomed into view, he seemed to have recovered enough to travel on his own without much assistance despite Jun’s hawkish surveillance of the Maito who was too proud to be anything but the helper versus the helped.
Though questions abounded, one of Jun’ya’s relatives was able to speak on his behalf and circumvent the bureaucracy that would’ve deterred them otherwise and allowed Gai access to the Hospital first where he received a thorough check-up by one of the Medic Corps members before being sternly told he needed to rest and take it easy, though the Chinoike snorted at how unlikely that would be to have happen which elicited a derisive glare from the med-nin who’d overlooked Gai’s diagnostics. Once that was over, well--
Pretty much nothing kept the taijutsu master from making a rushed beeline for Lee’s room, at the boy’s side in a heartbeat while Jun’ya looked on with some measure of relief. The consequences would be steep, but at least he thought the man deserved a moment of serendipity with his son that and an uninterrupted reunion. “He looks aright to me. Guess his old man raised a tough one, eh, Gai?” Jun’ya jested with a slight smirk to alleviate the heavy atmosphere. They deserved the moment, at least.
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