| [Feb. 7th, 2015|05:34 am] |
Kurenai suppressed a shudder. "Shiranui-fukuchou reported there was very little left. The jutsu seems to have functioned drastically differently for you than for him. A matter of practice and control, or of jutsu compatibility?"
He tipped his head sideways against the headboard, thoughtful. "Both, probably. Medical jutsu isn't my best skill. I'm water-natured, which helped, but there wasn't time for finesse even if I'd wanted it. Iebara could make perfect weapons. I just… got hooks into his blood and pulled." He opened a hand, palm-up on the pale hospital bedsheet. "That's the closest I can describe it."
Water chakra made sense, for a jutsu that ripped the blood from its victims' bodies. Kurenai made a note. "A jutsu that complex almost certainly has a second elemental chakra mixed in. Earth, perhaps, for the iron in blood? That might explain why his weapons achieved both stability and solidity."
Kakashi's eye dropped half-lidded for a moment. He flexed his fingers, then flickered his hands through a series of seals so fast she barely caught them. No chakra, to her senses; his pathways were still likely too scorched for gathering and molding, but his fingers were as fast as they'd ever been.
He paused when he landed on reverse Snake. Standard Snake was a common Earth chakra seal; reverse twisted the chakra in on itself, magnified and redirected it. Kakashi nodded acknowledgment of her theory, and dropped his hands.
"I think so," he said. "Iebara's chakra felt strange in general, though. Almost rancid. Have you ever felt someone use a forbidden jutsu?"
She shook her head.
He frowned. "How about Tousaki's rot jutsu?"
"I've heard of it, but never observed him in action. I only met him two days ago, with Katsuko-chan."
Kakashi's eye flickered at the suffix, but if he wondered at her use of the diminutive, he didn't pursue it. "Okay, then. You've felt medical jutsu, how the caster's chakra feels bright and pure afterwards?"
She thought of Rin's chakra, fresh and clean as mountain springwater, and nodded.
"Tousaki's flesh-melt does the opposite," Kakashi explained. "It feels worse to the chakra-sense than it smells, which is saying something. Iebara's was worse than that. Tousaki's reverses after a while, like his chakra heals itself. Iebara's felt… corrupted."
Kurenai tapped her pen against her chin. "You think his use of the jutsu over time warped his chakra itself? Possible, I suppose, if the molding corroded his pathways to the extent that even newly generated chakra would be susceptible to its influence… Did you notice any effect on your own chakra after your use of the jutsu?" She caught herself immediately. "Of course, you were nearly burnt out. You wouldn't have. And Shiranui said there was barely enough chakra left in your system for him to sense you at all."
His eye crinkled again, with faint amusement. "Something like that. Next question?"
This line of questioning was probably more suitable for the Jutsu Records Office than for Intel. With regret, Kurenai abandoned theories and scanned back over her notes until she caught another line she'd marked for further question.
"You mentioned that steel blades failed to have any effect on Iebara's blood-manipulation jutsu," she said finally, flipping to a new page in her notebook. "Was it the bloodline element of your superheated chakra that succeeded in slicing his blood-blades, or would any sufficiently intense heat have the same effect? Did anyone attempt to use fire jutsu against him?" |
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