| [Apr. 30th, 2014|05:09 am] |
Adrenaline could do a lot for you.
Raidou grabbed the blade with a gloved hand, choking his grip up around the base where it exited his chest-plate. There wasn’t much blood; he could feel a trickle inside his armor, but steel plugged most of the hole. He had ten seconds, maybe, before his body figured out it was supposed to fall.
Enough time to kill the ninja who’d killed him.
His own sword was still in his left hand. He flipped the grip and stabbed backwards, aiming for his attacker.
And hit nothing.
He was getting really tired of that theme.
“Try again,” said the voice, and now it sounded like it was coming from all four corners of the room.
Dark flickers scratched at the edges of his vision, distracting. Blood pressure dropping, probably. He turned, spreading his chakra out, but it came sluggishly—dammit, he wasn’t a sensor. He slammed it all down into the ground instead, sheathing his sword and dropping the senbon, freeing both hands just long enough to work quick seals. He reached for his most basic affinity. If he couldn’t stab the shinobi or find the children, he’d break the earth and pull the whole house down. Katsuko would know what to do with the wreckage.
He felt the ground begin to tremble around the foundations, and then the sword in his chest melted.
Gleaming metal spilled down across his armor like running water, liquid-silver, and ran sideways across his chest-plate. He yelled and slapped at it, expecting raw heat, but cold silver tendrils clung glue-like to his hands and flowed around his wrists, then up his arms. It was more metal than the sword could have held, and it was heavy. It weighed his arms down, sealing them against his sides. More ran down his legs, forcing his knees to bend.
What the hell kind of jutsu…
Oh.
You dumbass.
His chest was on fire now, numbness given way to the kind of beautifully constructed agony only a talented genjutsu-caster could force onto someone’s nerve-endings. But Raidou hadn’t dropped, he could still think, and that was a pretty good clue his impending death was exaggerated.
He couldn’t get his hands together for a kai, but he never had much luck with them anyway. He never had luck with genjutsu in general, but that was a thought he could panic about later, when he got out of this one. The metal weight forced him down to his knees. Raidou drew a furious breath and bit down as hard as he could on his tongue.
Blood burst into his mouth.
Pain came with it, more sturdy than the false burning in his chest. He tightened his jaw and felt the ripple-shock in his chakra. His vision shivered, and there was reality, overlaid with someone else’s mental playground. The metal wasn’t really there. His sword was in its sheath. He was standing, hands loose at his sides, senbon still dangling between his fingertips, and there was a woman in the room. Light-haired and curvy, solid-muscled, mouth a painted red slash. Light gleamed on the hitai-ate tied loosely around her throat: Kirigakure markings, no slash.
Sanctioned shinobi for hire.
She held the baby in one arm and the little girl in the other. The baby was screaming. The woman regarded Raidou with calm, measuring eyes.
“You can’t have the children,” she said, and cracked her neck sideways.
The genjutsu poured over his head again, sinking hooks into his psyche. He was stabbed, he was burning; his skin peeled off in strips. A long way away, he saw the grey shadow of her movement, splitting into mirror images—clones taking the kids while she moved towards him, the slender stretch of a silver garotte glittering between her hands.
Raidou bit down on his tongue again, wrenching enough control back to regain movement in one hand. He flipped Genma’s senbon around and drove it into his thigh. It was enough real hurt to knock him back onto his mental footing. He slapped his hands together and croaked out, “Kai.” |
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