| [Sep. 14th, 2013|01:01 am] |
Genma turned to find Kakashi had already rabbited away to search for traps. “Right, let’s not waste any time on discussing who takes which direction or anything,” Genma said to no one in particular.
He stepped away from his teammates and extended his chakra sense, turning in a slow circle. There were the bright pinpricks of all four of his teammate’s ANBU tattoos—Kakashi’s was a few hundred meters to the north and moving laterally—and there were the background signatures of each ninja: Kakashi’s cool bluish white, Raidou’s much warmer and heavier feeling golden-green, Ryouma’s rusty-sunset glow, and the solar flare that marked Katsuko. Genma’d spent much of their first week as teammates learning how to dampen his own reaction to her chakra intensity; it was that or blinding headaches. One of her former teammates was also a sensor—he’d been invaluable as a resource in figuring out a workaround.
There were no other obvious human presences nearby, and no detectable sources of chakra like a sealed trap might leave. “Nothing obvious from here, captain,” he said. “Hound’s gone north and is circling east. I’ll take south and west.”
“Hound?” Ryouma said. “I thought he looked more like one of those lady’s lap-dogs. You know, the lion-dogs.”
“Or that,” Genma agreed, amused. “But lion-dog is kind of a mouthful.” He flicked a wave at his comrades. “Have fun with that latrine, Lambchop.”
He didn’t wait to hear Ryouma’s reaction to the epithet.
The ground was moist from recent rain, but the only prints Genma found were those of animals—the sharp points of deer hooves, mismatched ovals where rabbits had grazed through, and tiny, clawed tracks from a hunting weasel or stoat. Finding something for dinner besides field rations shouldn’t be too challenging, anyway.
A few heavily-weathered statues to Jizo marked what might have once been a shrine path, and a section of younger trees and dense ground cover was vigorously filling in what had probably been a clearing seven years ago; there was precious little to say anyone had been here in the interim.
That was a good thing.
Genma continued his sweep, keeping himself an even distance from the chakra points at the center of their staked-out area, and Kakashi’s more distant glow. He wondered how his chakra looked to Kakashi. Eventually he reached the point where he’d first detected Kakashi, and started making his way back to center. Across the distance, he could feel Kakashi doing the same. On a hunch, he took a lateral path, aiming to intercept his counterpart.
Kakashi reacted when Genma veered, changing course as well. They met near one of the more sparsely wooded sections.
“I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. You?” Genma asked.
“Dinner,” Kakashi said, holding up four dead rabbits. “There was an old trap on the southeast side, but it’s been deactivated for years.”
“Nice work,” said Genma. He admired the rabbits with a nod. “I found some edible mushrooms we can add to the pot, and there ought to be fiddleheads by the spring.”
Kakashi tipped his head, preparing to return to the others.
“I get the impression ANBU’s not exactly what you were expecting,” Genma said. “How are you holding up?”
Kakashi check-stepped—not quite a stumble, but clearly surprised. “I’m fine,” he said after a beat. His masked face turned to meet Genma’s. “Unless you have a problem with my performance?”
“No,” Genma answered. “You could possibly give your partner a heads up before you disappear when given an assignment to split the labor on something with a teammate, but it’s not like I couldn’t sense where you were.” He shrugged. “But really, I just know it’s hard, at first. Especially to transition from taking a lot of solo missions to working with a five-man team. And Ueno’s chakra...” He made a gesture like an explosion had gone off between his gloved hands. “Takes some effort to be around her chakra if your sensitivity is high. Takahashi Isamu-san from her last team was a sensor. He suggested using the shimizu technique. It’s been helping me.” |
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