| [Nov. 29th, 2016|10:06 pm] |
The stoic ninja thing to do — the thing Raidou would have done — was probably to shove his teammate's hands away and get up to survey the damage and the danger. Genma would've known some clever jutsu to instantly seal the cut, probably without even a scar.
Ryouma wasn't allowed to try wound-sealing yet, and he sure as hell didn't feel stoic. He couldn't see out of his right eye. It stung. Wet warmth dripped down his cheek. He tried to steady his breathing, but fear locked in his throat.
Fuck Rule 25. He fumbled for his cheek, his eye. Kakashi didn't slap his hands away. Ryouma found blood-clotted lashes, the swelling curve of the lid, the soft hollow under his brow, and the fiery edge of the cut.
"That's gonna scar," he said. His voice shook.
"Makes you look like a ninja," Kakashi said. He was working one-handed with something: clotting gauze, Ryouma realized, when it briefly passed into his reduced field of vision. Kakashi pressed the gauze to Ryouma's forehead, commandeered Ryouma's hand to hold it there, and then pulled out his canteen and a water jutsu to flush the blood from Ryouma's eye.
Ryouma had only a moment to blink water from his lashes before Kakashi thumbed his lid back and leaned in. Returning sight dazzled into glowstick green and the rapid spin of Kakashi's Sharingan eye. Black tomoe almost blurred together, like the spokes of a wheel. Ryouma gazed back dazedly. If he watched just a little longer, he might almost see—
Kakashi pulled back. His scarred eyelid slid shut. "Eye's fine. Cut didn't get close."
Relief slackened Ryouma's muscles. He kept himself, just barely, from leaning into Kakashi's hands.
Kakashi'd lost his own eye, after all.
"Thanks." His voice sounded rusty, but steadier now. He pressed the clotting bandages harder against his forehead. "You got tagged yourself, there. Here…." He reached out with two fingers and grazed the lacerated edge of the mask over Kakashi's cheekbone. The dark cotton was spotted and damp with blood.
Kakashi blinked. Ryouma dropped his hand, groping for more of the clotting gauze. Kakashi batted his fingers away and picked up a fresh pad and a set of bandage wraps.
"Neither of you are going to lose your looks over a few cuts," Ginta said mildly, from the other side of the tunnel. Another open medkit lay in the dust between him and Satomi. She was picking rock shards out of the worst of her scratches, while he dabbed at the abrasions on his temple with a folded pad of gauze. His left eye was already beginning to swell shut, but a wry humor still edged his voice. "Genma told me you two get along, but I had no idea. Do we need to give you a moment?"
Ryouma stiffened. Kakashi snorted, tied off the bandage wrap around Ryouma's head, and stuck a spare scrap of gauze to his own cheek under the torn mask. He shifted from his crouch.
Two steps took him across the tunnel, where he hunkered down again to grip Ginta's chin and check his pupils in the soft light of the glowstick. Ginta blinked owlishly, but his head turned at Kakashi's direction. Kakashi released him, rocked back, and said, reluctantly, "Sorry, Sakamoto-fukuchou. I should have predicted the rebound."
Ginta waved him off. "No one died; you're forgiven."
Satomi's bandaged fingers stalled, then moved again, brushing stone splinters out of her shaved hair.
Ginta checked the blood-spotted pad once more, sneered at the red stains, and incinerated it in a brief crackle of blue-edged chakra. "What exactly did you do? Was the seal itself trapped? Because if that's the case, these Mist bastards are geniuses."
Satomi pushed abruptly to her feet. Her voice was as sharp as a slap. "One would have expected Sharingan no Kakashi not to endanger his teammates with another rock fall, this time." |
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