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Red Seas at Dawn [Feb. 7th, 2017|09:27 pm]
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[tousaki_ryouma]
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[User Picture]From: [info]shiranui_genma
2017-02-08 03:46 am (UTC)

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While the baby finished nursing, Team Six got ready to move. They stripped to their underwear, and Genma sealed their clothes into a scroll. Between the edge of Kakashi’s black tank top and his long-legged trunks, his skin was almost luminous in the mist-filtered sunlight. The others wore nothing beyond supportive black briefs. Kakashi greased up first, and then Ryouma took the pot, smearing handfuls of the thick, protective substance over his skin. When he’d finished his arms, legs, he worked over the front of his torso while Kakashi helped with his back. Raidou and Genma did the same for each other, and then they turned to Kimiko.

She stripped perfunctorily, then bent to unswaddle Sango. The baby’s eerily blue skin was quickly hidden under the protective grease. When Kimiko was finished applying the grease to herself as well, she nodded at the bundle of her own clothes and Sango’s blankets. “You can pack those,” she said.

Genma cursed himself for having sealed their clothing scroll already. He keyed it open, laid everything out again, this time with Kimiko’s belongings as well, and focused his chakra, feeding it through the script on the chakra-sensitive paper. His soldier-pill fueled chakra was still holding steady. The jutsu caught and flared, and their belongings were pulled into the sealing dimension with a soft crackle, leaving only the tightly rolled scroll on the sand.

Raidou and Ryouma had fashioned tow ropes for themselves, with large loops to go over their shoulders so they could pull Genma and swim hands-free. Genma turned to Kimiko. “We can harness you to my back with the baby to my chest,” he said.

“I’ll carry her like I did with Namiashi,” she countered.

“We can do that,” Genma said. “But my chest will be warmer than my back. And I can make sure the air bubble keeps her fully enclosed.”

Kimiko nodded reluctantly, but refused anyone’s help. She secured the squirming baby snugly against Genma’s chest with the carrying sling. While she prepared to climb into the her own harness again, Genma looked down at the fuzzy-headed infant. Sango tipped her head back at just that moment, open mouthed and smiling, and grabbed for Genma’s chin, hooking her fingers into his mouth. For a bewildered moment, Genma stared at the happy baby, and then Raidou and Ryouma secured their tow ropes to the harness, and helped Kimiko onto Genma’s back.

She was light, even for a civilian. Looking at her, it was clear she hadn’t had enough to eat in some weeks, but it wasn’t until Kimiko was on Genma’s back, with her bony joints pressed against his body, that he was really aware of how malnourished she was. The baby was plump — Sango must have been taking every spare calorie from her mother when she nursed.

While Kakashi made sure there was no remaining trace of their presence on the beach, Raidou led them to the water’s edge. “Stay close to us, Hound,” he said. “Everyone keep your chakra tamped. Shiranui, we’ll keep an eye on you but if you get in trouble, yank the ropes.”

“Got it.” It took Genma, Raidou, and Ryouma working together to cast an air bubble large enough to enclose Genma, Sango and Kimiko, and even so Genma’s legs and Kimiko’s feet were exposed.

Icy foam swirled around their ankles. Kakashi cast his own bubble and sank beneath the waves. Ryouma and Raidou followed suit, with the tow ropes slung across their chests. Genma shunted chakra through the coils at the base of his brain to trick his hypothalamus into creating a rapidly spiking fever, and ducked under the next breaker. The undertow dragged his feet out from under him. Genma threw a hand reflexively over the baby’s head. Kimiko’s fingers clawed against his shoulders. The two ropes went taut, and then Raidou and Ryouma were swimming, pulling them away from Aoshima’s shore as fast as they could.