Chapter Text
The sun sets on them in the Land of Steam, shattered across red evening clouds. It’s a disadvantage fighting like this; even a split second of glare could mean the difference between life and death. His eyes blur with sweat, body with fatigue. The sunset serves only as a reminder of how long they’ve been fighting, the blood on his jacket, and with no further progress. The Swordsmen are overwhelming them.
Backed into the woods, now, as the sky turns a mottled purple-blue of night, the Third Division is trapped between the Swordsmen and the unknown of the forest – unfamiliar terrain in which they could be driven like cattle to their deaths. They are bruised, beaten, deliriously tired. The enemy presses on, to no end in sight but utter slaughter.
Then, cracked like a whip, the reanimated shinobi snap to attention, frozen upright in rigid terror. Their bodies twitch and squirm for a moment before they’re yanked back into the clearing, thrown into the open boxes from which they first emerged. The coffin jaws snap shut around them, and then vanish into the dark, spirited away by their puppeteer. For a moment, no one dares breathe.
“I can’t sense them anywhere,” someone pipes up, a little deeper into the forest, and everybody turns, “I– I think they might be retreating for the night again!”
Suddenly cut loose, the crowd erupts into confusion and celebration, beneath which Kakashi’s calls for order are quickly lost.
“Quiet, quiet!” He slams the butt of Zabuza’s Executioner’s Blade into the nearest tree with a crack—Chidori would have been louder, but he just doesn’t have the energy—and the chaos halts, facing its commander once more. “First, someone get in touch with Intel or Strategy and find out what the hell’s going on. Anyone who’s able, gather up here, we need scout patrols over this whole area to see if we can locate the enemy. Get the wounded to the medical nin, we’ll set them up in that clearing. Stay on your guard! Psychological warfare is their game!”
The crowd ripples into action, a whirling mass of noise sifting through the trees that has started to swim before Kakashi’s eyes. He pulls his hitai-ate down over the Sharingan but it doesn’t stop the blood rushing to his head, the sickening swirl of motion. The cut in his vest leaves his hand stained, and when he turns away from the crowd crush he stumbles into something tall and bright.
“That wound looks pretty serious, Kakashi,” Gai says, and Kakashi waves him off weakly, pushing past. “Why don’t you see one of the mednin first?”
“It’s superficial, and I will once we get scouts out. I’m– uh,” suddenly the world tunes in to several layers of static, as if on cue to embarrass him. “Uh…”
Gai’s hands on his shoulders keep him steady. “Right; Sakura! Captain Kakashi would like a word with you, if you can spare a moment!”
“Be right over!” her distant voice calls back, and Kakashi thanks Gai wordlessly as Gai steers him to the nearest tree.
“Sorry,” he pants; now that the adrenaline’s begun to wear off, he’s found that the gash in his stomach hurts quite a bit, burning outwards into his chest and wet with blood. Between them, shadowed by their bodies, Gai takes his other hand.
“You’re fine,” he says, and Kakashi doesn’t know if it’s meant to be acceptance or reassurance. He’s having trouble feeling his hands, beyond where Gai’s skin meets his.
When Sakura arrives Gai releases his grasp, pats Sakura on the back, and heads off into the crowd. He might’ve said something to Kakashi. His ears are ringing, though, and he missed it. The ground is coming at him too fast.
It only takes a minute or so for Sakura to have the wound staunched and stitching itself back together; only a few more for Kakashi to regain his bearings and bloodflow.
“How are you feeling?” she asks, in her well-rehearsed bedside manner, and he nods, trying not to groan as he shifts his position a little.
“Better, now. You’re very good at this.”
“I learned from the best,” she smiles mischievously, and Kakashi raises an eyebrow.
“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to say that kind of thing to the person who taught it to you, not just any old shinobi,” he teases, and Sakura shrugs.
Matter-of-factly, she answers, “I did learn from the best; Lady Tsunade is a wonderful teacher. If I’d learned it from you, I wouldn’t have anyone to say that to right now.”
He laughs and then winces, caught by the still-subsiding pain in his gut. “Then give her my regards for her services. I don’t mind being alive, if only to remind you how terrible I am at my job.”
“Don’t laugh,” she says seriously, smiling, “You’re already a vacuum for chakra; if you bust something back open I’ll have to charge extra.”
He salutes weakly, wrist half-limp. “Yes ma’am.”
She works quietly for a few moments, so he takes the opportunity to watch her methodical process, see the intensity of her focus more clearly. He really is grateful; both to be alive thanks to her and that there was someone else there to guide her when Kakashi couldn’t be. Losing Sasuke was harder on the two of them than either will admit now, but he’s beginning to think that of the two, he was the worse for wear. He just couldn’t look her in the eye for so long, after failing Sasuke so profoundly. How could he risk losing anyone else? If he’d been braver, he might’ve let her know sooner what a splendid shinobi she was becoming. Now, she’s the one piecing him back together. Small world.
“Word is we’re consolidating the medical unit into a camp further south,” she says after a while, “They want to set up a hospital there, so we don’t have to take care of the wounded outside.”
He studies her, but she doesn’t quite look up. “So you’re heading that way soon.”
“Yes. A few mednin are staying with each unit, but they want me down there.”
“Good, someone has to run things.” Finally she meets his eye, surprised, and he tilts his head. “What, unless you’re going to let Ino do it?”
Her face cracks into a grin and it warms him, more than the chakra reassembling his skin. “Of course not. Just– don’t get yourself sent back there, alright? And don’t get yourself killed without me here, either.”
“Of course not,” he repeats, getting to his feet alongside her. “I’ll save all my injuries until I see you next.”
She nods soberly as she dusts herself off, looking him over one more time. “Good.” Then, more softly, as tender as she can afford to be; “Stay safe, Kakashi-sensei.”
He puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. She is so much taller now, in so many ways. She was a long-haired, smart-mouthed genin who barely came up to his waist when they met, and three years later she’s the doctor telling him to stay out of trouble.
“I will,” he promises, “And you too. I’ll see you soon.”
“Not too soon!” she chimes as she turns away, and he chuckles, quietly enough not to get scolded.
Moving the most seriously wounded with the mednin cuts a third of their ranks; easier, at least, to defend overnight, with less to protect. With Sai’s help he draws up a crude map of the forest and assigns shifts to scout the area every half hour, but he knows it’s likely an overabundance of caution, because the forest is empty. Even the animals have scattered, repelled by the monstrosity of Kabuto’s corpse soldiers, leaving only shinobi and their battlefield. They’re alone out here. So why can’t he sit down?
Gai feels similarly, he already knows; at Kakashi’s suggestion he rest, Gai only laughed and asked, “At a time like this?”. He hates the idea of just sitting here waiting for sunrise, they both do. It goes against every fiber of Kakashi’s being to deny himself his well-cultivated paranoia. But the platoon needs to rest, or they won’t even survive an ambush if one is coming. And perhaps, if the enemy is regrouping for the night, if the fighting really has stopped once more, if they’re going to have to wait anyway…
Thirty minutes is all he wants. He’s on his last nerve. For two days, three months, thirty years – war can spare them half an hour. Just before it all goes to hell.
“Yo, Gai, would you, uh…” he hesitates when Gai glances up at him from where he’s settled on the ground, and then jabs a thumb over his shoulder, out into the forest behind him. “Can I talk to you for a minute? In private, if that’s alright.”
As Gai gets to his feet, his eyebrows furrow. “Of course. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, just…” Kakashi waves his hand vaguely in the same direction again, avoiding eye contact. “Just need to get your opinion on something.”
Gai smiles faintly, crooked with confusion, but he nods. “Sure. Lead the way, Rival.”
“Great.” He snatches Gai by the wrist so quickly it makes him yelp, stumbling over himself as Kakashi darts into the trees, tugging him along.
“Kakashi!” Gai exclaims, half-chuckling, “Where are we going?”
Kakashi doesn’t answer him, just drags Gai deeper into the darkening wood.
He can hear the faint huff of Gai’s indulgent laughter between the crunch of leaves as they venture out into the moonlight, twigs crackling between their stumbling feet. Everything is painted red by the lunar eclipse, an omen of the war beyond their little enclave, but if he taps back into part of himself he’d shuttered away two days ago, the part that had dreamed endlessly of when he would reunite with his rival, it seems almost romantic; a rosy flush over their private moment.
“Not very stealthy, Rival,” Gai notes as Kakashi kicks a rock into dry brush, and Kakashi smirks.
“Shh,” he chastises, tugging Gai’s wrist. “Quiet.”
“Or what, we’ll get in trouble with the captain?” Gai drawls. Kakashi swats at his hand before taking it again. This is dangerous. This is a bad idea. The Fourth Great Shinobi War is roaring over them, a glacier steadily marring the land, and the night is prying. But all he wants is a few minutes.
Since Kakashi planned the stations for each guard himself, he, of course, knows that they are right on the edge of the furthest posts, just far enough to be out of earshot. So on the last vestiges of safety he pulls—more yanks—Gai into a kiss, mask tugged down around his chin as he lands a little too hard against a tree.
“Fuck, Kakashi,” Gai murmurs in halfhearted exasperation, a little breathless. Kakashi cocks an eyebrow, feigning dismay.
“Your time at sea has made you uncouth,” he replies, and Gai rolls his eyes.
“Don’t you start. You know more about uncouth than the whole of the Hidden Leaf put together.”
“Proudly,” Kakashi says, flashing sharp teeth only Gai has seen. Then, gaze not coincidentally flicking to Gai’s lips, he adds, “Glad to see you’ve recovered.”
Gai smiles, brightening up. “Of course! Not even the Seventh Gate can keep me down for long – certainly not in the presence of my Eternal Rival!”
It’s unclear if this is meant to be flirtatious or just Gai, although Kakashi supposes that’s why they’re still friends—rivals—after all this time. Any question of more has been complicated impossibly, in part due to the immensity of Gai’s self. He is unbelievably earnest but still more cunning than many would believe, and it makes it difficult to tell if his intentions are genuine or in search of something deeper. Kakashi has learned to parse much of Gai’s behavior, but his idea of romance remains an enigma.
This time Kakashi falters, a little more hesitant with nothing concealing his face. “How, uh, how was the mission, anyway? You were gone for… quite a while.”
Gai nods, glancing away. Tenzo’s capture still hangs over their heads; as an Anbu operative, whose capture poses a threat to the entire alliance and the shinobi world by extension, and as their comrade – their friend.
“It was–” Gai begins, working his lip between his teeth, loath to speak of it now that the delirium of exhaustion and fever has left him. “I don’t like boats.”
“So I’ve been told,” Kakashi hums, recalling overheard tales of Gai’s seasickness. “I’ve never liked them much myself, either.”
“It was not my proudest moment, I’ll admit, but I like to know where I fall short. It’s just another weakness to overcome.” Gai shrugs, but there’s a faint twitch in his expression, the distant kindling of something harsh below. He is still, but still as a living bug tacked to a board. “Kisame is dead,” he blurts, “Kisame Hoshigaki.”
Kakashi purses his lips. “I’d heard.” He might say more, but Gai looks strung taut. They’d both had their run-ins with the so-called tailless tailed beast, the monster of Kirigakure, the last member of the Seven Swordsmen – Kakashi had barely escaped with his life, and Gai had said nothing of his encounter at all. Kakashi had gotten the sense Gai was unimpressed with him, but now the league-deep turbulence in Gai’s dark eyes makes him uncertain.
“I was the one who fought him, while the Eight Tails and Yamato tried to stop the intel leak.” Gai goes on, not quite looking at Kakashi but through him. Kakashi frowns, gaze hastening over the twist of Gai’s lips, the twitch of his jaw.
“Did you…?”
“No,” Gai answers, teeth quick around it. “He killed himself.”
Kakashi wants to ask. Kisame was what drove Gai to open the Seventh Gate, to incapacitate himself — the only reason Gai would be standing before him now, of course, is if he’d won. If they succeeded in capturing Kisame, he would’ve faced the same ultimatum as countless prisoners of war before him: spill the secrets of your comrades, or die. There is only one option for men like that. Like them.
He doesn’t want to know Gai’s answer. He doesn’t want to know what Gai thinks of Kisame’s suicide, of why, of how. It must have been quick, brutal. Gai wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“Well, I–” Kakashi stumbles over it, hurried and ungraceful, disconcerted by the hunger in Gai’s eyes. “Thank you for protecting Naruto. I was right to trust you.” His lips turn upwards, slightly, but it’s frail. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Gai nods, half absent, and then smiles. Leaning in, he brings their foreheads together, toying with a piece of Kakashi’s outgrown hair. “Of course,” he replies, soft for Kakashi alone, like they’re speaking of anything else. “I don’t die that easily,”
They stay like this for a moment; Kakashi wants it to feel like an eternity, but the most he can wring from it is a minute or two before Gai pulls away.
“I missed you, Rival,” Gai murmurs, terribly fond, his head tilted to look sideways at Kakashi.
“Yeah, I… I missed you too, Gai,” he fidgets, smiling nervously, “Boring around here without you.”
Gai grows a little smug at this, raising his eyebrows as he leans back to look at Kakashi in full. “I thought you liked boring.”
“Not more than I like you,” Kakashi answers too-quickly, stumbling over it, and something about the way Gai’s smile widens at the fumble sets him on edge. “Besides, you didn’t even say goodbye.”
If he could go back and punch himself, he would. Gai’s face falls.
“Well,” he laughs weakly, a poor recovery, glancing from Kakashi to the forest behind him. “It wasn’t really goodbye. I was always going to come back.”
“Yes,” Kakashi says, and there’s a ‘but’, an asterisk he can’t quite work his nerves around. Kisame’s death sits heavy on his chest – the way it crystallized in Gai, turned him to a shard of bloodied metal in Kakashi’s hands, if only for a moment. Kisame Hoshigaki may not have died easily, but he died nonetheless. Gai vies for eye contact Kakashi won’t give him, now, eyes low.
“I– I’m sorry, Kakashi,” he offers earnestly, grin feeble and apologetic. “From here on out, I’ll make sure not to leave without saying goodbye. I promise.”
“Right,” Kakashi breathes, trying to drum up a little humor. “You better.” His gaze flicks upwards, a tentative smile returning to his lips. “But, ah, if you'd like to start making it up to me now…”
Gai’s face reddens, thick eyebrows shooting up. “Yes, right, of course!”
Their lips meet hurriedly, as Gai fights with the stiff collar of Kakashi’s flak jacket, trying to work his hands beneath to cup Kakashi’s jaw. Then, pushing Gai back for a moment, Kakashi stops him, trying not to pay too much notice to how Gai’s eyes widen as he reaches to unzip the jacket.
“Rival, I…!” Gai stammers, and Kakashi can’t help his amusement at the quickly deepening panic burning on Gai’s face.
“Just the vest,” he assures, “I’m not that uncouth; we’re surrounded by jonin.”
Gai’s face remains as flushed as it was, his laugh raspy as he glances down at the slash in Kakashi’s shirt; the pink line beneath the only remnant of the wound. “Of course, I didn’t mean to– I mean, I hadn’t– ah, here, let me help you,”
Gai is gentle. Even here, with the war machine at their backs, he is gentle, tugging the vest over Kakashi’s shoulders with a focus any other shinobi would reserve only for the most important of tasks. When Kakashi expects him to toss the jacket to the ground, he takes the time to fold it, crouches by the roots to place it down out of the dirt. That is Gai. When he stands, Kakashi realizes he’s been staring.
“Everything alright?” Gai asks, and Kakashi blinks to dispel his trance, escape wherever Gai has him trapped.
“Yeah, fine, you’re just…” Gai studies him eagerly, eyes round in anticipation, and Kakashi can find no other word. He snorts. “Cute.”
Gai scoffs, though his lips have broken into a smile. “Cute?” he repeats, a little scandalized. “I am the Hidden Leaf’s Beast of Prey,”
“Yeah,” Kakashi concedes, nodding thoughtfully. “Pakkun’s a beast too.”
“Now that’s–”
Kakashi kisses him again to silence his objection; a little too vicious, and their teeth connect for a second.
“Shh,” he scolds again, holding Gai by the front of his jumpsuit to keep their faces close, but pointing upwards with his other hand. “Jonin, remember?”
Gai’s exhale of annoyance is hot against his face, against the bitter chill creeping in now that the sun has gone down. The Land of Steam is warmer than Frost, but it is still autumn. “You’re a terrible example, you know,” he mumbles, a little slurred by the brush of their lips. “We could be ambushed.”
“I assure you I would notice an ambush before they could even clutch their pearls at us, Gai. I’m still the division commander.”
“Yes, yes…” Gai replies, unconvinced, and Kakashi pulls away from Gai, back flat against the tree.
“What, you don’t trust me?” he asks, only half kidding, and Gai huffs.
“I trust you with my life, Kakashi,” he insists, the corner of his mouth pulling upwards, “I’ve also watched you grab a boiling pot of water with your bare hands because you were having a conversation with me and forgot it was hot.”
But Gai has watched Kakashi work, too, drawn taut and twitching at every sound. Kakashi once nearly slit Gai’s throat before realizing who he was. Gai knows what lies on the other side of Kakashi’s inattention; he’s been trying to pull him from that ledge all day. This little excursion is selfish, Kakashi will admit, just to ease the knot grinding against his ribs with every order, every time someone calls him commander – it all reeks of his Anbu days, the ache in his gums of canine teeth pushing through. Kakashi has already had to lay two shinobi back to rest whose bodies were desecrated and reused as weapons of war. But three months ago, Gai planned an elaborate challenge for him when he found out Kakashi was set to be named Hokage, just to cheer him up; to work at that little knot. He knows about the bite.
“I know we’re on a mission, Gai,” Kakashi says, souring at the implication, “I’m not distracted.”
Gai frowns suddenly, eyebrows furrowing. “No, of course not, Rival, I only meant…” he takes Kakashi by the shoulders, smoothing the fabric down. Quieter than Kakashi has ever heard him, he mumbles, “Just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
He won’t look up at Kakashi, and with his strange shyness something slides into place: why he’d removed Kakashi’s jacket but not his own; why he’d stayed planted between Kakashi and the rest of the forest, his back turned to the dark against all better judgement.
“Gai,” he asks slowly, and Gai’s fingers fixate on the emblem on Kakashi's sleeve.
“No, it’s nothing,” he answers. Gai is talented at many things; lying is not among them. He can usually scrape through on confidence alone, but now he’s nervous, sheepish under observation. “I only meant– no, nothing, I–”
“Gai.”
“You’ve already been hurt,” Gai says hastily, like an opened faucet, “Yamato was busy with me when Kabuto arrived. If he hadn’t been preoccupied, if I had been in any condition to aid him–”
“Gai, enough of that, alright?” Kakashi interjects, grabbing Gai’s hand where it hovers beside his shoulder. “He had backup; Aoba and Motoi were both with him. Even the Tsuchikage and his squad couldn’t stop Kabuto, it had nothing to do with you. And I’m fine, you’re not–” he stammers slightly, “Stealing me from my duties, or something, I am desperately trying to get away from my duties for half an hour to be with my… rival. You don’t have to be on guard for my sake.”
Gai’s eyes are round, a little damp when he looks up. As gentle as he can be, Kakashi reaches up, brushing his fingers delicately along Gai’s cheek. His chipped-short nails and calloused fingertips scratch lightly over Gai’s skin, but Gai dissolves into his touch all the same. There’s a sadness to it, how so indestructible a shinobi can crumble to the smallest kindness. Kakashi knows it more intimately than anyone; Gai has been breaking him down like this for years.
Gai, he’s discovered, makes it all easier. Not always softer or kinder, but surmountable when softness is an impossibility. Where Kakashi falters, Gai will not. Kakashi can trust him for that: to grab him in by the scruff of his neck when he needs reigning in and shove him forwards when he’s shrinking back; to let him feel safe and silly in the face of a war, just for a little while. He wants Gai to trust him to do the same. He hasn’t always been the most reliable, but he’s trying to be now, when there’s finally enough of him to give some back.
“Here, come sit down, my feet are killing me,” he says, stepping aside a little to offer a hand. Gai takes it, eyebrows raised.
“You said the same thing earlier,” he notes, but he lets himself be pulled down among the roots all the same. “I don’t recall you being so delicate.”
“Maa, not everyone spends their free time running laps of the village, Gai, we’re not all built for it.”
“Maybe it’d do you some good, then! It’d at least help kick that complaining habit of yours.
Kakashi hums, smiling coyly. “A shame we’ll never know.”
Gai snorts and settles in the sparse grass, surprising Kakashi slightly when he lays back against him, resting his head on Kakashi’s chest. It’s dark, lit sparingly by the crimson moon peering through the foliage, but there’s a near luminance to Gai, something strangely bright in how the light hits his eyes. He’s alive now, among the trees, finally coming around from the Seventh Gate and electric under Kakashi’s touch, and when Kakashi glances down, he finds Gai is staring at him. Narrowing his eye, he wrinkles his nose at the scrutiny.
“What?” he asks, cocking his head.
“Nothing,” Gai replies, pressing his lips together in poorly feigned nonchalance as he shrugs, “Cute.”
“Oh, he’s got jokes,”
Gai snorts in mild exasperation, reaching up to draw his thumb along Kakashi’s jaw. “I’m not joking, Rival. Must you play it so cool about everything?”
“Naturally,” he answers, before his brow furrows. “Alright, seriously, what?”
Gai’s face has grown intense, observing Kakashi so intently it makes him nervous in a way nothing else can. Gai never fails to make him sweat; an adolescent anxiety clawing up Kakashi’s throat as he watches Gai watch him.
“Nothing,” he says again, more earnest than before, a sweet smile on his lips. “I’m just happy to see you.”
Kakashi regrets that his mask is hanging around his neck because he has no defense from it now, nothing to shield him from the incessant beaming light that is Maito Gai. He’s so bright it hurts, like staring into the sun or grabbing a pot by the metal. Kakashi might prefer to be doused in boiling water.
“Yeah, I…” What he means to say cuts clean through him, leaves him hollow and whistling in the autumn wind. He can touch Gai, kiss him, tell him he missed him and he never wants him to leave again, but anything more will surely get one of them killed. It’s Kakashi’s curse. It’s all too fragile right now, hanging in the balance of war and death, and he can’t stomach the thought of losing Gai, not as a rival or as anything more. He clears his throat. “It’s good to have you back. You know I need you.”
This, alone, is enough to make Kakashi ache: how Gai gleams at the notion Kakashi needs him. Kakashi would have to be an idiot not to have noticed it by now, after years of Gai watching him, following him, hounding him for any sign of life. Of course he knows how Gai feels. But there’s just no time for it out here. After the war, when Gai’s survival is guaranteed and Kakashi—fate permitting—survives with him, Kakashi will find the nerve to tell him that he loves him. It seems almost silly, after all this, but he knows how badly Gai wants to hear it. When it is safe, when he’s certain it wouldn’t just be a cruelty, when the risk of losing one another isn’t great enough to suffocate him, Kakashi will be able to say it. They just have to make it through this first.
“We should head back,” Kakashi half-mumbles, pulling himself upright. The faintest sliver of disappointment shows through Gai’s expression, a flicker of bare hurt before he wipes it away. “It’s been, uh, about half an hour. Should probably go check on things.”
“Right, of course!” Gai exclaims, leaping to his feet. His face twinges slightly—his right ankle, Kakashi thinks; he’d landed on it wrong earlier and refused any aid in lieu of the more seriously wounded shinobi—but he extends a hand out to Kakashi once more, smiling. “Guess I got used to having more time with you to spare, these past few years.”
Kakashi lets Gai pull him from the ground, the rough scars on Gai’s palm scraping gently. “You’re deconditioned,” he teases, “Too free-spirited for war.”
Gai’s chuckle is lacking some of its usual humor, but his fingers are light when he swats Kakashi on the shoulder. “Never. You, on the other hand, with your aching feet…”
“I need new shoes! These ones gave their last to beat you in your little race.”
“Hah!” This laugh is true, a little too raucous; he startles a nesting bird from a branch above. “What noble sandals, to give their lives for the cause!”
“And now they’re giving me blisters,” Kakashi muses. Gai throws an arm around him – he can afford to, in the dark, under the illusion of privacy. Kakashi wants to stay the night here, under this very arm, but he knows that if they sleep at all tonight, it will be apart. There’s a war on out there, after all.
Still they linger on the outskirts a whisper longer, twined around each other, holding fast to this one breath before it’s gone. Kakashi wants it to last a lifetime, but a shinobi’s lifetime is so rarely what they’d hoped.
In the morning, there will be fighting. They will rise with it like reveille, and it will shake the earth until they sleep; until Madara is defeated or they are all dead, like every war of every nation. But Gai will charge ahead, again, and Kakashi will follow with a promise made since time immemorial to watch his back. In his infinite selfishness, Kakashi begs one more request of the war: that it spare him Gai. If he may keep one thing—not his body, not his life—he prays that it will be Gai. The new generation will go on from this, survive and live lives and tell tales of the Fourth Great War in which so much was lost to save their world, and he does not want Gai to become a story. Not one Kakashi has to tell alone.
This is all he asks; that when this is all over, men like them might wake up in the world they’ve fought so long for.