| [Sep. 14th, 2013|01:04 am] |
The wind stirred gently through the trees, bringing the smell of distant rain from the north.
“I prefer the kumorasu technique,” Kakashi said at last.
Minato’s supernova signature was plenty of practice for the sensor-inclined, although the Hokage’s blazing furnace was several degrees more comfortable to be around than Katsuko’s grinding open wound. After two days with a subtle migraine, Kakashi had gotten serious about shielding himself.
He didn’t know how she could stand to live inside her own skin.
Genma’s masked face tilted right. “Really? I’ve never been that great with it. Are you a fire type?”
“Lightning and water,” Kakashi said. “And earth.”
There was a beat of silence. “Wow,” said Genma lightly. “That explains a few things about you. I'm fire and earth. I figure it's the fire element that makes kumorasu harder for me. I get… cramps, if you can call them that, in my thoracic channels when I do it. You know what I'm talking about?”
“Fasciculations,” Kakashi said. It was a word Rin liked, mostly for the sound of it. Tiny muscle tremors. “I get them with air-jutsu sometimes.”
Warmth tinged Genma’s voice. “Yeah, exactly.”
Kakashi shifted his grip on the rabbit corpses, blood droplets sliding down his fingers to scatter on the grass. It was a trail, but not much of one, and no real concern this close to home. “I’m going to go back to camp,” he said.
“Sounds good,” Genma said easily, and fell into step at Kakashi’s side, demonstrating the exact reason why announcing your intentions was a trap.
The expected conversation didn’t come, though. Genma walked in silence, only veering off once with a pleased “ah!” to yank a fresh handful of edible fernheads from a tiny grove. Closer to base, Kakashi found lemongrass to add to the collection, and, as Genma had hoped, there were fiddleheads clustered by the narrow stream. Add the dry rice from any one of their packs, and it would make a full meal.
“Any issues?” Raidou asked, when they arrived back.
“All clear,” Genma reported.
“Hatake?”
“No problems,” Kakashi said slowly, eyeing Katsuko.
A stack of fresh firewood stood almost thigh-high, piled like a tower. Next to it, Katsuko sat seiza, palms resting flat on her thighs, mask pushed to one side of her face. Her eyes were closed; her chakra pulsed like a slow tide, jagged threads slowly spinning back into a neater whole. Kumorasu drew a muted veil over her; she was still fully visible, her whole chakra signature available to his senses, but filtered. Bright, not blinding. Worth the price for a spent seedling of chakra.
Despite the meditation, Katsuko’s situational focus was still good enough to know when she was being watched. She cracked one eye open, spotted him, and massacred the illusion of serenity by giving him a double thumbs up.
Kakashi snorted.
Genma glanced at him, and shoved his own mask aside, revealing an amused smirk.
“Ueno,” Raidou said, with his standard dry undercut that was basically punctuation. Katsuko grinned, shameless, and settled back into her trance, expression smoothing over. |
|