| [Jan. 15th, 2017|07:08 pm] |
No one exactly rushed to volunteer. Ryouma flexed his hands and remembered the last time he'd touched an chakra-limiter sealed cell, the bars that had bitten and blistered his fingers. If Kakashi wouldn't spare him the time to experiment, maybe they could poke it with a stick…
Genma told Kakashi, "You watch for where it flares." He swept a narrow, assessing glance around the rest of the huddled team. "We're all about equally spent, but Namiashi's got the densest reserves." The corner of his mouth edged into shadow with an apologetic lilt. "Maybe if you brush it with the back of your hand?"
Muck squelched as Kakashi edged back, shielding himself from Kimiko's view behind Ryouma's shoulder. He pushed his eyepatch up, squinted at the grate, and then craned his neck for a better angle. "Ready."
Raidou sighed, reached carefully past Genma, and tapped two scar-toughened knuckles against the grate.
Seals ignited with a crackle. Raidou snatched his hand back, swearing. The seals burnt out again, subsiding to an eerie shimmer where the glow-light caught their edges.
Beside Ryouma, Kakashi made a soft, satisfied little sound. "It doesn't stretch all the way to the edge." He tugged his eyepatch back down, covering the Sharingan, and dug out a new light-stick. Squeezing past Ryouma to the front again, he snapped the stick in half.
Glowing goo spilled out, dribbling down his fingers. A few drops fell, shining, in the muck. Kakashi reached up to paint quick, slashing marks around the upper circumference of the grate, at the edge where iron sank into rock. He kept his other hand curled over Sango's fuzzy head, shielding her from drips.
When Kakashi finally stepped back, Genma took his place. He brushed his fingers over the outer edge of one of the bars Kakashi had marked, testing it carefully. No seals blazed, this time; no limiters bit. Genma pulled his hand back and flipped through fluid handseals. His chakra bloomed in a tight, contained halo. He reached up again, and touched the first bar.
Nothing happened.
Genma's eyes narrowed in concentration. His jaw worked sideways, teeth grinding as if he had a senbon there to chew. He released the bar, dragged a finger down to smear the glowing paint, and moved on to the next bar.
Ryouma glanced sideways at Kakashi, about to ask if he had any idea what Genma was doing, and saw the eyepatch pushed up again and the Sharingan spinning.
"You ass," he hissed.
Kakashi leaned easily out of elbow-range. "Keep it down," he murmured, barely a whisper. "Sango-chan's listening."
Raidou looked over, frowning. Kimiko and Fukuda were looking, too. Ryouma shut up, seething, and shifted again to block Kimiko's view of that treacherous red eye.
Genma ignored them, working his way slowly around the grate. He skipped several bars in a row, moving from 3 o'clock at the grate's edge to 12, then back down to 9. Grimacing, he stooped and felt in the stinking sludge for the bottom of the grate. Ryouma began a preemptive search for the rest of the moist towelettes he'd begged off Kurenai.
"A little lower," Kakashi said, narrow-eyed. He hadn't marked the lowest bars, presumably because glow-paint was useless under sewer ooze. "Just about—"
His head came up, alert, the tendons in his neck cording with tension. Genma's did, too. |
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