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UP ON HIGH
❤️
Nobody warned Gai about the palace below the earth. Not Sakumo, watching over his harvest and children, nor Hashirama who by all accounts should have known.
Of course, rumours and whispers speculate, fuelled by parties and social gatherings on the mountain in the heavens . They run the gambit for characters and are often seasonally influenced. Tobirama has storms and winds and ships to shepherd, and therefore cannot often be bothered to make an appearance. Izuna is near always in residence, steadfast to his family and too vain to miss an appearance.
Madara’s kingdom never slumbers, the work never ends and he never walks free of it under the sky.
Gai is made of sunlight and rain and all things green. Flowers follow in the wake of his footsteps and trees tell tall tales of his adventures. He lives free of the expectations of others and even if Kakashi chides him once in a blue moon, it’s always shrouded in mystery and never clear. Privately Gai thinks that it is much like Kakashi’s nature to be unclear and mysterious beneath his veil.
So it comes as a surprise to him when the world shifts beneath his feet and a strong hand encircles his ankle and the earth that he loves opens up to swallow him whole.
❤️
Madara rules his kingdom below with both an iron fist and complacent boredom. Here linger the mortals, the demigods cast to mortality and the souls of the damned, and there are so many.
His throne stretches upwards as if to touch the sky and yet it cannot even reach the underlying rock of the earth. The mantle that rests on his shoulders is the heavy hide of a Minotaur—fur curling at the edges and the face of a bull dripping down one shoulder—and it still does nothing to conceal his magnificence.
And he is magnificent, adored in gold and spider spun silks; made of so much stardust that the very heavens themselves run like blood in his veins.
Madara keeps track of the flowers that spring from the Earth where Gai walks, of the robes that shine white and the grain that shines gold in his hands. He looks around as his kingdom, full of darkness and cold, and he feels longing. It doesn’t hurt that Gai himself runs the earth with the stride of an athlete and throws javelin with the precision of endless practice. He is healthy and virile and everything that his kingdom is not.
It comes to pass one day that he finds no reason he cannot simply take that youth for himself, by right, and so he seeks Hashirama’s guidance.
His brother up on high is no help at all, and all he receives is a blessing, Gai is not mortal and therefore not subject to the laws of mortals, but his ties with Kakashi and Sakumo mean that he is rarely alone.
Madara waits for year, but one spring day, it finally happens, Gai is all alone, and on that day he reaches through the veil of the earth and pulls.
❤️
Gai rarely has had the sensation of being manhandled. He’s fast and strong and enthusiastically naive to the plights of young gods. His worshippers pray for good harvest and grain, and under his guidance the grain grows bountifully and year round. Gai is a strong believer that no one should go hungry and so he is more generous and bountiful in his blessings than need be.
Perhaps if he was more prepared he would have leapt from the grasp dragging him under, but he’s too dumbstruck to try at first.
It doesn’t last, and as soon as he hits the ground of the place he’s been unceremoniously brought to, he strikes out.
His opponent is as tall as he is, and muscled strongly as well. Golden cuffs and golden laurels shine in the dim light, and it gives away his position as Gai drops to the ground to sweep his feet.
“Stop,” The god—for he could not be mortal—commands, “I do not want to hurt you!”
“Oh!” Cries Gai. “A friendly matchup it is!” Before he leaps into the air, calves straining and attempting to pile drive the god into the ground. He dodges and he’s fast. A low blow blocked with an arm, a flip over his hair and Gai misses grabbing onto a long mane of hair by mere fingers, not even a foot.
The momentum twists him into a pivot and he swings high only to be blocked by his opponent’s arm, it’s no matter though and he uses the arm as a springboard to flip up and over in the air, twisting to face the other god.
He punches hard with the pivot and it hits hard, pushing the god back for a moment as he retreats, he’s unsure if it’s a friendly match anymore when he doesn’t even know his opponents name.
“What is your name?” He asks, best to know.
“Madara,” the god speaks as he rises, shaking out that wild mane of hair, his voice is a rough gravel. Gai knows that name, knows of Madara the way that everyone on the surface does. The god of death who comes for your final moments. Well, he can’t have Gai.
“This is not a friendly match,” Gai says in a carefully even tone.
“Be careful what you say,” Madara scowls, “It’s not an even one either.”
“You are on, old man,” Gai shouts, punching his closed fist into an open palm. Madara isn’t worried, but he is amused.
His amusement only lasts as long as he’s upright as Gai launches forwards and lays him flat. Madara rolls up and into a crouch, sweeping his leg out to catch Gai right in the back of the ankles.
The core of the earth shakes with the might of him crashing down to the ground in the underworld. (Mortals scream as a mountain erupts with fire far too close to their civilization, they will remember the fight for years to come.)
Their breath comes now faster and audible in the quiet, before Gai opens his mouth. “You cannot have my soul for the underworld, I am not mortal and it is not yours for the taking.”
“How about your heart?” Madara asks, he wants the spring to well up and shine even here in the darkness.
“I am not made of flesh,” Gai considers Madara’s odd request. “I do not have one you can take.”
He’s not sure how many ways he needs to spell it out for Madara that he is not a mortal.
“Not that heart,” Madara grumbles. “I meant your youth and spring-time, I wish it would not be so cold here all the time.”
“Oh,” Gai contemplates, rolling to his feet and holding a hand out to Madara to grasp. “Is that all?”
“Everyone should be blessed with the spring of youth, of course I will stay, but I can’t leave dear Gaia without the glory of my song for too long, so you will have to make do with half the time.”
“You would agree, just like that, just because I asked?” Madara questions, the long mane of his hair is tangled now but it still shines glossy black like obsidian.
“Yes,” Gai agrees with no hesitation. “Expect to spar most frequently, rise with the sun, and quench the thirst of my desires!”
Wait—
“Like right now, I find myself very famished and tired, do you have anything to eat?”
Madara’s hands slip into the edges of his robes, he holds out half of a pomegranate with both hands, he thought nothing of it until Gai had asked for it, but it was born of the underworld, made of his own brand of magic, and so it would bind one to the depths of the earth.
“Only six,” Madara warns, “If you should be here but half the time.”
Gai nods his head, his cheerful demeanor giving way to a steadfast determination as he agrees, “Six… half the time down below, and half up on high.”
…And so he consumes them, one by one, and Gaia comes to know winter and spring, summer and fall, and Madara comes to know fall.
(And in the end, he wins Gai’s heart all on his own.)