He can't understand a world where everything's grey, where men kill for little more than money, even if he is one of those men. He refuses to see it, so in his world, everything's black and white. Someone's good, or they're bad. He's good, he's always been good, and he'll fight people who are bad, and then he'll go to heaven, because the good don't go to hell, and isn't this life a lot like hell? He can't deal with the thought that maybe, just maybe, there's nothing after this, and there was nothing before, and that, maybe, just maybe, there's no one greater than he is, keeping everything in line and in check. And that thought, that men control the world, and the universe, and anything and everything, terrifies him more than anything else, except the thought that there is God.

So, confused and flustered and so very lost, he prays. He prays for his students; that Tenten will be safe, that Neji will become happy, and that Lee will finally become what he wants to be. He prays Genma will come home to Raidou, that Kakashi will finally see Iruka, that Naruto will become Hokage. He prays for Kurenai and the baby, for Asuma's soul. He prays for everyone and everything in the village, from the children that play in the streets to the old men who die in their sleep. Finally, when he's done with his village, his people, he prays for his sins.

He prays for the men that he kills. He used to try to pray for them, one at a time, name by name, but there's too many, and he can't remember them all. They're a blur, faces fading into more faces, and so he prays for them all together.

"God," he says, because God is neither 'dear' nor 'his,' "save them," and 'them' grows bigger every day.

And every night, like clockwork, because Gai is a very reliable man, he says his little prayers, on his knees, with shaking hands. And when he finishes, he sits, awake, wondering if he's really that good enough, if he's going to go to heaven after all, or if, after all, he's going to be stuck here, in hell, forever.

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