| [Sep. 20th, 2013|11:01 pm] |
He found Ryouma clinging to an edge of shattered carapace, covered head to toe in black ooze, sinking inch-by-inch down into the bubbling soup of the queen’s remaining viscera. The ram mask was long gone, and he’d lost his sword.
“Nothing has ever been more disgusting than this,” Raidou informed him, gasping, and hauled him out by the armor straps.
Ryouma proved him wrong by hacking up a double lungful of yet more black. He’d breathed it.
Raidou’s nose officially quit. He thumped Ryouma hard between the shoulderblades, until the choking sounds ceased and Ryouma managed to draw a throttled breath, chest heaving. Raidou wrestled him into a soldier’s carry, wincing as warm fluid ran down over his shoulders and back, soaking into bandages, and turned around.
He didn’t run so much as skid his way out of the corpse, sliding down most of the mountain back to Katsuko. She took one look at them and let out a long, relieved breath, folding forward over her knees. It was a moment before she looked up with an unsteady smile. “Good job not drowning, taichou.”
“Tell him that,” Raidou said, dropping Ryouma carefully down next to her.
Ryouma couldn’t sit up. Katsuko had to brace him one-handed while Raidou called up enough chakra to rain a water jutsu down on all three of them, sluicing the worst of the slime away. He put his hand on Ryouma’s forehead. Chakra shivered weakly beneath his fingers, a pale ghost of what it should have been. Ryouma’s chest hitched in shallow, unproductive gasps.
“Deep breath,” Raidou said, and when Ryouma didn’t, Raidou sharpened the order. “Tousaki, slow it down and breathe.”
That hit the mark. Ryouma caught a breath and managed to hold it for a second, shaking with the effort, then let it out and drew another. It wasn’t slow, deep breathing, but it was better. When Ryouma had half a grip on it, Raidou took his own steadying breath and unfurled his chakra, letting it roll down his arm in a warm wave, pressing it into the chakra center directly above Ryouma’s eyes. He didn’t hammer it this time; couldn’t afford the risk of dropping Ryouma further into shock. He just let it wash down the slower filter of his arm, offering it at a speed Ryouma might be able to take.
Ryouma was full-on shaking now, but he drank the chakra in, clumsily at first, then hungrily. The bite was just starting to get sharp when Ryouma pulled his head back, and batted Raidou’s hand away. “Don't...drain yourself,” he managed, before he doubled forward with deep, rattling chest-coughs, and spat another mouthful of black. “Ka'suko's not hurt bad?”
Raidou didn’t know which Katsuko Ryouma was looking at, because the one he could see looked plenty bloody.
“Hi,” she said, with giddy relief at Ryouma’s elbow. “I broke every bone in my body and it hurts.”
Ryouma blinked at her once, as if she’d snuck up on him. “Me, too,” he said. |
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