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fallen_raidou ([info]fallen_raidou) wrote in [info]fallen_leaves,
@ 2008-02-20 23:37:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood:busy
Entry tags:genma, mission, raidou

It Takes a Lot Out of You [Closed to Genma & Raidou]
Follows from It Takes a Morning Person

It didn't take long to track down the 'rich guy's estate' Shinobu had tailed the wife to, and after a skirting look around the place, Raidou could see why they hadn't bothered to flee for the border. Between the Suna-nin still in residence, and the security set up the man of the house maintained, they clearly weren't worried by the possibility of an outside threat.

Mistake, thought Raidou with a slight grin as he scaled his hidden way up the wall. A henge was enough to keep him covered while he climbed to check the upstairs windows, slipping carefully around traps with the ease of a ninja who'd done this more then once. The weight of his shoulder and the cumbersome sling presented a minor problem, distracting him and throwing his balance ever so slightly off. He countered that by staying upright and using his left hand as well as his feet to stick to the weathered stone.

Seven windows--damn this was a big place--one minor run in with a Suna-nin, and a whole lot of dodged traps later, Raidou found the room their client's missing wife was currently calling her own. The woman in question seemed to be napping, curled up on a large looking four-poster in a bedroom that reeked of decadence. There was enough of a gap in the heavy plush curtains for Raidou to get a decent look at her face, confirming her identity. Her sleeping expression didn't seem particularly guilt-wracked, nor was she bound in any way he could see. So far it all pointed to a guilty verdict on her part.

As surprises went, that wasn't a big one.

The security lining that window was a whole lot more impressive then the traps he's missed so far. Raidou studied it for a long moment, memorizing components, and backed away without touching a thing. Getting himself blown sky high through a too-hasty snatch and grab attempt was a stupid way to go out.

He made his way back down the wall, and headed for the agreed meeting spot around the back of the house. A heavy thicket offered a convenient momentary camp for both Leaf-nin to work out their plan of attack. Raidou crouched amongst the thorny branches and waited, counting off the seconds. After five extra he was ready to move and find out what had eaten Genma, when his mission partner dropped in. "You're late," Raidou said, by way of asking how it'd gone.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-20 11:45 pm UTC (link)
"So sue me," Genma said, and after a moment or two of unhappy attempts at a squat, settled on the ground with his aching hip stretched as straight as possible. "I count seven Suna nin still patrolling. I took out a pair of kids--probably genin--who were fucking around comparing their dicks when they were supposed to be guarding the well. And there are traps galore. Man do these assholes believe in traps. They've got all kinds of shit rigged for smoke bombs and flash tags to go off. It's a good system. Warns them, confuses intruders. But I think it means we're dealing with less skillful fighters here. If they were more confident they wouldn't have all these traps laid."

He sketched a couple of rough rectangles in the dirt with the tip of a senbon. "Inside the main house it's what you'd expect for a rich man's place. Secret passageways, hidden rooms, that kind of shit. Our buddy the financier is in his own little suite on the ground floor, kind of tucked back in behind what looks like an office. There's a back stairway that I'm guessing connects to our lady's chamber. I didn't follow it, though, since you were doing upper stories and I had to avoid one of the bodyguards."

He looked up at Raidou for confirmation. "I can definitely get in and slip the guy off without any trouble, but we'll probably end up having to fight. We don't want to leave any of our Suna buddies as witnesses or to retaliate." It was a tricky situation, because really, Suna were their allies. Killing them wasn't a first choice. But it was looking a lot like their only option.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-20 11:47 pm UTC (link)
Raidou nodded, adjusting his mental map. "They have a couple teams up on the roof. Four Suna ninja to my count, working in pairs by the look of it. I'm guessing chuunin level at most, if they were jounin they'd work alone to cover more ground at once. And they're keeping with the traps theme on the walls, I almost got my hide scorched twice. The wife's room is the biggest on the North-West corner, they've got a heavy-duty set-up outside her window. Serious stuff. I think it'll be easier to grab her from the inside."

Hidden passageways could be useful. Raidou considered, weighing various strategies. "The wife's asleep currently, I couldn't tell if she was drugged or just napping. She looked pretty cozy, though." At least eleven Suna-nin to deal with, plus one rich man, and a lady to kidnap. Not the easiest of missions, but definitely not a suicide run. "I'll take out the roof-walkers if you can get back in and deal with your buddy. It shouldn't be too hard to take out the remaining Suna-nin between us, and a clone can hold the wife until we can drag her out."

That was about as close to a wham, bam, thank you ma'am as they were going to get.

"Sound good?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-20 11:49 pm UTC (link)
"Think I should get in there and drug the wife? Might be safer for us if she really is sedated," Genma said, and reached for his pouch... Which was in the wrong place. Stupid belt. A slightly more awkward reach and a slightly slower-than-usual search through the contents brought a little vial of greyish powder to his hand. "This stuff works as an inhalant. Could go blow a little into her face, guarantee us she stays out of the way. Then I'll use that back passage to get to m'lord and give him the old kunai in the carotid. Works every time." He tipped his mask back and grinned at Raidou. The mission was heating up, and his enthusiasm with it. There was nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of executing a well-planned strategy.

"If you're knocking out our chuunin buddies on the roof while I'm dealing with the civies, it ought to draw the other guys to you. So I'll make sure I come running. Maybe I ought to take out one or two of the ground-floor guys before I go after the civilians. Don't want to get you into too much hot water while I take the cushy jobs. What do you think?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-20 11:51 pm UTC (link)
"I'm going to assume this is one of the chemical helpers you're immune to, if it's an inhalant and you're planning to blow it on her." Raidou slid his mask to one side and answered Genma's scimitar grin with his own momentary flash of teeth. He was starting to feel the buzz himself as they geared up to settle this mission in a final way. A decent plan, a solid aim, and a partner he knew he could trust. That was exactly the kind of mission Raidou liked. Lived for, even. "If you can put her out without getting yourself in trouble, be my guest. But security's going to be tight around her room, you might need to stick to the little lord until we can thin the ranks a bit."

Raidou jerked his head, knocking his mask back into place, and rose from his crouch in a single easy move. They were both more then warmed up from their run and their survey of the place, now he was ready for the real thing. The henge slipped back into place as he worked his hands carefully through the seals, ignoring the twinge in his shoulder. "Don't come running too fast, I don't want you stealing all the action before I can get a decent piece."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-20 11:52 pm UTC (link)
"Naw, I figured I'd try out a new poison and see how much blow back I could inhale before I passed out too," Genma said with a laugh, and shook the little glass tube of powder for emphasis. It looked like a scientific sample of ash. "You're good with that, right? Hauling my carcass out of there after I OD myself?" He slid the vial into a concealed pocket stitched into one glove, grinned and tuged his own mask down again.

"Alright, you take the roof. I'll take out buddy boy and the pretty lady, and see if I can eliminate one or two of the ground-floor guards while I'm at it, and I'll meet you somewhere in the middle. Don't you dare get yourself in trouble I can't get you out of." He twisted his shoulders, flexed his spine and got to his feet with a fluid motion. No time to be feeling the gashes on his hip now, and thanks to the rising adrenaline that came with getting psyched for a mission, he didn't.

"You ready?" he asked, and got a nod in reply. "Excellent. Catch you on the flip side." And with a whisper of leaves and a flicker of shadow, he was gone.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-20 11:53 pm UTC (link)
"What does that even mean?" Raidou asked the empty air left in his friend's wake. He wasn't expecting an answer, but sometimes you just had to comment. With a shake of his head and a twist of chakra he slipped out of their hiding place and ghosted his quiet way back to the wall. The rough brick was sun-warmed and solid against his palm as Raidou caught a hold and began his climb once again, picking his way carefully through the traps he'd marked on his first assent. The route took him once more past the wife's room and he paused a moment to check she was both still in residence and still asleep. She'd moved, switching positions to curl up on her side with her back to the window. That suggested she was definitely asleep, rather then drugged. Genma would undoubtedly take care of that.

Raidou hooked a tiny smile behind his mask and carried on, bypassing her to make his way to the rooftop. It was colder the higher he climbed, despite being closer to the sun. He didn't particularly feel it around the new rush of adrenaline-laced blood and muscles warmed from his slight exertion. A one-armed vault lifted him over the edge and landed him neatly on the raised lip of stone that encircled the rooftop. It wasn't a particularly impressive move for a shinobi, but it sure surprised the hell out of the chuunin guard resting there.

He was a lot more shocked when Raidou slit his throat.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-20 11:56 pm UTC (link)
Genma's way in was through what must have once been a cooking hearth, long since replaced by modern appliances. It wasn't surprising the Suna ninja had overlooked this little vulnerability in their defenses, since the chimney connecting the hearth Genma used and the one for the furnace that heated the house were contiguous. Doubtless they thought no one would be foolhardy or skilled enough to attempt entry through an active flue. Doubtless they weren't expecting ANBU.

It only took a fairly simple temperature-reducing jutsu applied to the air immediately around his skin to give Genma enough of a shield to skinny down the chimney and into the kitchen. He waited in sooty silence, listening to the sound of one of the house guards filching something from the larder, then slid behind the other ninja with a whisper of ash-laden air and a hidden grin under his mask.

"Not saving any for the rest of us?" he asked. The man froze. Poor man. Obviously not a jounin, maybe not even chuunin, though he was certainly old enough to be. He was cute, Genma thought a little sadly. Smoky grey eyes fringed with heavy lashes, thick eyebrows, thicker lips and a kiss of stubble along his jaw. Some of those Suna boys were so pretty. It was really a waste.

He left the body in the pantry, carefully slipping it into a dark space behind some rice bales and sake casks, so that if any of his comrades came to snitch a snack for themselves, they wouldn't see him right off and sound the alarm.

That left six, plus Raidou's four, and the two civilians. Next stop, the straying lady and the master of the house.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-20 11:59 pm UTC (link)
The second roof guard didn't go down so easily. Raidou yanked his kunai from the first chuunin's throat and kicked the body to one side so it wouldn't tangle in his feet. Falling in a fight was bad enough, falling in a fight when you only had one hand to catch yourself--and that hand was currently full of steel--was just plain asking for it. Raidou was not quite that stupid. He was a little surprised when the second chuunin drew what looked like an honest to gods mace and charged him, proving, if nothing else, that Suna-nin were brave as well as suicidal.

Raidou dodged the first mace swing--there was no point trying to catch it on a kunai, a small blade wouldn't stand up to that kind of weight--and kicked his attacker squarely behind his left knee. The joint shattered with a satisfying crunch and Raidou stabbed the kid neatly in the back of the neck before he'd finished falling, severing his spine. The scream was short-lived, but it definitely alerted the remaining guards. Raidou smiled grimly, let the kunai go, and drew his kodachi.

Two down, two to go.

He hoped Genma was having fun.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 12:38 am UTC (link)
Raidou had suggested it might be safer to take out the man first, then drug Ijima's wife. He was probably right. Genma considered the possibilities, given what Raidou had told him about the traps laid on the second floor and around the lady's bedroom. There was some tight security there, and so far there was no sound from the roof, no frantic shouts or running from the household guard. That meant that so far, at least, Raidou was successful. The way to the gentleman's chamber was a route Genma had already marked out, too, so despite the fact that he'd have preferred to have the lady safely knocked out where she couldn't do them or herself any harm, he decided to take his partner's advice and go ahead and take out the man first.

His bedroom was hidden behind an ugly little office. An ugly little office that had been empty when Genma passed through it before. This time there was a Suna ninja in there. And he had company. A civilian, by the looks of her, rosy cheeked, bare breasted, and riding Suna pole with what appeared to be a great deal of pleasure. Genma grinned. What was that he'd said to Raidou about mission sex being likely to get you killed? It was terribly hard to concentrate on standing guard when you were busy playing hide the kunai with the girl who did your client's laundry.

Genma killed the ninja first. He had to, given the relative threats posed by the pair. The girl turned a terrified white and opened her mouth to scream when the ANBU appeared in front of her and sliced through her lover's throat with a single, powerful stroke, spraying her with bright arterial blood. Genma looked up at her and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry, sweetheart," he said. "You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In your next lifetime don't screw around with ninja. You're safer with clerks and farm boys." He slid a senbon in under her ear, angling it up to pass through a tiny gap in the bony armor of her spinal column. There was resistance and then the needle slid home, right into the delicate tail of brainstem where it flowed out to become spinal cord. The girl's eyes flickered wide, and then she went limp. Not dead yet, but well on her way. Genma withdrew the needle, wiped and resheathed his bloody katana, then quickly and efficiently snapped the girl's neck. Better to be sure she was well and truly gone. At least his method meant she hadn't felt it. He left her and her paramour where they lay, starting to feel the press of time, and eased into the sleeping lord's room.

This one, at least, was easy. He never stirred. Didn't even flinch when Genma's blade sliced through his throat. And Genma was hurrying now, striking hard enough that the man's head was nearly severed, holding to the corpse by a mere sliver of skin and gristle. The bedding was soaked scarlet, slashed itself and bleeding feathers. If anyone came to check on him, they'd know. But by now surely the jig was up.

The first real surprise Genma encountered was the trap laid in the secret stairwell leading to the lady's room. That, he thought, with deeply-felt ire, was a royal pisser.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 12:40 am UTC (link)
The klaxon that blared and shattered the silence startled Raidou so much he almost missed a block. He adjusted hastily to catch the katana blade on his arm guard rather then his face and dropped to sweep the third chuunin's feet out from under her. Her partner proved himself worthy of the title when he took advantage of Raidou's moment of hesitation and got behind him to bring a heavy cudgel down on the back of his head. The blow missed his skull when Raidou caught the flicker of chakra and jerked himself aside at the last moment, but it landed with a solid crack on his wounded shoulder.

There are some hurts even adrenaline won't wipe away.

Raidou saw an agonized shatter of black and red play across his vision and kawarimi'd himself clear across the rooftop before either chuunin managed a second blow. He landed on one knee, slammed the point of his kodachi into the gap between two tiles to brace himself on, and fought the urge to retch. The shrill of the siren saved him more then his own determination to not be sick and to get up, dammit. The siren wasn't anything he'd triggered, which meant Genma probably had. Siren's brought reinforcements to the point of origin, and if that point was Genma, then Raidou needed to be there. He just had to deal with two chuunin first.

The third and fourth ninja that burst their way through the rooftop door put paid to both Raidou's theory and his plan. But as incentive to get back on his feet, they ranked pretty high. Raidou let go of his sword long enough to force both hands through the seals necessary to call up four shadow clones and bought himself a little time. In the steel and strike dance that followed as his clones engaged and the Suna-nin fought back, Raidou formed one very clear thought; he hated tag teams.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:01 am UTC (link)
The stairwell was full of noise and smoke and wires. Genma was so pissed off at himself for triggering it he didn't feel the bite of senbon into his biceps. He just charged up the stairs and into the terrified lady's room, poison at the ready, and tossed the powder into her face. Since she was screaming she inhaled a good bit of it quite quickly. She also blew a fair amount of it back towards Genma. It worked fast, and she toppled over onto her side, tangled in the bedclothes. By the time she hit the pillows, two ninja were tearing into her room from the doorway and a third was thundering up the stairs that Genma had come up by, screaming that Koujiro and the client were dead and where the hell was Sasaki?

Of the two in front of him, Genma could tell he'd finally found the jounin in this outfit. One, a woman, was clearly in charge, and she moved with the kind of alert grace that signified just how thoroughly deadly she was. She didn't waste time, communicating to her two subordinates with hand signals and drawn weapons. Genma reached for his katana and gasped when his fingers closed around nothing. How the hell? But no it was there, he could feel the weight against his shoulders. The chuunin behind him lunged forward and Genma ducked and swore, stumbling into a dresser. How the hell? He wasn't just tolerant to the poison he'd used on the wife, he was immune. There wasn't a dose of it that he couldn't take. It was actually one he pretty much only used on civilians for that very reason, because more than a few shinobi had worked up a resistance to it. But he sure as hell felt poisoned.

There was a volley of blades coming his way, which he managed to block, finally forcing his numbed fingers to grab the katana and bring it to his defense. That wasn't going to last though, it was most definitely not going to last. And while the lady might or might not have been in on the kidnapping, he didn't plan to have her die in crossfire, although the Suna ninja seemed to be cautions about that as well. So she probably was in on it.

A swing and a miss by the chuunin behind him, and this time Genma did fall, but he managed to strike at the enemy's legs. The blade hewed through one thigh, cutting cleanly through bone, and the boy fell, screaming. Genma rolled under the bed, driving the needles in his shoulder in deeper, and he gasped at a sudden cramp in his belly. Mother fucking fucking fuck.

Through it all the lady lay blissfully unconscious and unmoving.

A snake of sand slithered across the carpet towards him, and he just had time to cast an electrical jutsu to block the thing. He'd seen what those sand coils could do when Raidou had been taken down yesterday, and he had no desire to die that way. Or any way really. He was going to have to take out that jounin. Another cramp had him nearly gagging. Fucking fucking trap. He forced numb fingers into seals and blanketed the room in dense, foul-smelling smoke, then squirmed out from under the bed, crawling over the still-screaming chuunin for the stairs.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:03 am UTC (link)
Raidou was mildly impressed when one of his clones actually managed to take the first chuunin girl out, dropping her with a well-played feint and neck snap when she fell for it. He was a lot less impressed when the damn tiles ripped off the roof and swarmed him and his back-up like a stone army of sharp-edged bees. The clones shredded with four depressingly small clouds of smoke that provided no cover, and Raidou threw himself to one side, rolling on his good shoulder to fetch up against a chimney stack.

Killer tiles. Goddamn.

"You realize you're Sand shinobi, right?" he yelled above the clatter as the deadly roofing regrouped above him.

"We're open minded," said the third chuunin, identifying himself as the caster. "And you're very alone. Why don't you surrender and live a life with all four limbs?"

Raidou smiled and blurred to rematerialize behind the boy, laying his kodachi blade across the kid's suddenly silent throat. "Should've stuck with sand." He snapped the weapon up, cleaving through skin and flesh and voicebox before his blade checked against the hard column of spine. The tiles shivered in mid-air, freezing to a halt before they dropped like slain butterflies. "Neat," said Raidou, and ducked to avoid a strike to his back, taking the chuunin's corpse with him as he crouched and tried to rip his weapon free. The dead chuunin got in his final revenge when his throat refused to release Raidou's blade in time for him to catch the next blow, he jerked his right arm out of its sling and wrenched it up to block a bo staff strike with the hard ceramic guard.

If the chuunin was surprised when Raidou screamed, he didn't show it. He didn't show it even when Raidou's henge dissolved, melting away to reveal both an empty sling and fresh blood seeping into the bandage that covered his naked shoulder. Raidou was surprised, but the chuunin simply reversed his blow, swinging the staff around to smash it down on the newly revealed target.

Screaming seemed like the sensible option. So did dropping the hold on his kodachi and grabbing that fucking staff to smash it back and break the chuunin's nose with. Raidou did both and followed that up with a heavy kick to the teenager's chest, staving in his sternum. Then it was the chuunin's turn to scream and gargle his way to a messy death. Lung puncture would do that to a man.

The final Sand-ninja kept Raidou far too busy to appreciate his retaliation.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:09 am UTC (link)
There were still two ninja unaccounted for, but there weren't any more feet thundering up the stairs. Genma had to hope that he'd manage to take down the two coming after him from above before he ran into any more. And that the woman was the only jounin. Because otherwise? Otherwise he was very likely fucked. The poison--and he was definitely poisoned, no question about it now--was cramping his abdomen with breath-stealing ferocity now, and his hands were both tingling and numb, but not useless, Definitely not useless, thank gods, because the other ninja were coming down towards him now. At least he had the advantage of terrain--always master your terrain--with the narrow stairwell only wide enough for single-file combat. He could fight one and then the other, and the smoke jutsu he'd cast had to still be smarting in his opponents' eyes.

Thrown blades, another volley, and there was less room to block and dodge, so that one clanked off of Genma's mask and another crazed across his shoulder, skittering over armour and digging into bare skin. It was a distraction, and Genma was ready for it, ready for the appearance of whatever came out of that smoke next. He wasn't surprised when it was sand, although where the hell were they getting the stuff? He used a water jutsu to block this time--plenty of water available in a house with indoor plumbing--meeting the wall of sand with a sheet of moisture that sogged it into glop on the stairwell.

The jounin was there now, right behind it, and already casting another jutsu. Another wind blade thing like the one that had torn up his hip came slicing for Genma, catching him in the chest and knocking him back against the wall. Genma's metal jutsu had already been cast though. At such close quarters, and with plenty of metal weapons to use as material, he cast the most vicious version he knew, clogging the enemy jounin's trachea with molten iron. There was a sickening cooked meat smell, but no scream. The woman dropped, clawing at her throat, twitched and writhed and at last lay still.

Her subordinate stared for a terrified frozen moment, and Genma hoped he'd turn tail and run, but no, evidently he was the sort to avenge his fallen comrades, not do the sensible thing and save his own hide. Too bad, really. Too bad for Genma, because the poison was still at work, making his legs too weak to hold him and his hands too limp to form seals. And it was making him sick. The very worst thing, he thought, as he yanked his mask off, would be choking to death because you puked with your mask on.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:11 am UTC (link)
Suna-nin were a pain in the ass, Raidou decided. Literally. The last ninja apparently had designs on that particular portion of his anatomy seeing as how he kept aiming there. Raidou threw himself aside to avoid a scythe blade--a fucking scythe blade--that would've cleaved him in two right at the hips, and caught himself on the flat of his left hand before springing back to his feet. Or that was the plan. He stumbled, lost his balance and landed hard on one knee, wincing as cloth tore and skin smeared away under the rough touch of one of the few remaining roof tiles. A hasty duck saved Raidou from decapitation as the ninja followed up his first attack with a second broad swing designed to end him at the collarbones.

"You're not a chuunin, are you?" Raidou gasped as he pitched himself aside again and scrambled to get back on his feet.

"Sure I am," said the Suna-nin, with a broad smile that had liar painted all over it. "In fact, I'm not even a chuunin. You're looking at the number one genin here. I'm not a threat at all. Stop running."

Sure, buddy, thought Raidou as he dodged another swing. "I'm not running, asshole. This is called not dying. There's a subtle difference." He had no kodachi--it was still buried in the chuunin--and no kunai. One working arm and fancy footwork wasn't going to keep him together long. Raidou leapt over a sweep designed to take him from three functioning limbs to one and came down with both feet on the scythe handle.

Wood cracked, the jounin shouted with outrage, and Raidou headbutted him in the face.

In the golden moment before Raidou's vision went black and the jounin bellowed as his nose shattered and took a cheekbone with it for company, Raidou found the presence of mind to say, "This isn't murder, either. This is called doing your damn job." A knee to the chest kicked the jounin clear off the rooftop to land with a crunch in the shrubbery.

Raidou fell over and studied the world from his back for a short moment. Ow was not quite the word.

And what the hell had happened to Genma?

Raidou forced himself to his knees, and then to his feet, and staggered to retrieve his kodachi. A heel on the chuunin's chest gave him enough leverage to rip the blade free with a juicy sucking sound. The body jerked in a parody of life before it settled, grinning at him with a bright red neck smile. "Good fight, kid," Raidou muttered, and turned to make his way to the door.

Two flights of stairs passed in a blur and Raidou found out Genma had at least completed one objective when he skidded into the wife's room. The lady in question was a crumpled heap on the bed with half a phalanx of cooling Suna corpses fanned around her on the floor, and the hidden passage was wide open. Genma was not there. Raidou almost fell in his haste to get down the narrow secret staircase that separated the lady from her new lord. Three steps down he found out exactly what had happened to Genma. His partner was pinned to the wall at the bottom of the stairs, mid-retch with a Suna-ninja's blade to his chest. His mask was gone. Raidou didn't hesitate; he let all of his killing intent flood out, filling the stairwell with enough rage to match the choking smog that blurred the air already. The ninja turned and Raidou nailed him to the wall like a beetle, shoving his kodachi through armour, skin, flesh, and bone with one blow that broke his sword, killed the ninja, and knocked Raidou completely off his feet.

The Lord's ceiling view was not quite as pretty as the sky outside.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:15 am UTC (link)
The rest of the Suna ninja were evidently coming at last. Those missing two, this kid's backup. Genma heard the running feet echoing off wooden floors and felt the surge of chakra. Not that it would matter, because by the time they got here the kid would have finished the stroke he'd started, driving the point of that blade through Genma's chest just above the edge of his armor. It was more like a throat strike, really, and it would kill him just as surely. And he was helpless to stop it, choking up bile and undigested peanut butter flavored rat bar. Stupid, he thought, his body trying to save itself from the poison that way, because he hadn't ingested it and he was about to die anyway. He thought it all with a strange, clear-headed detachment.

And then the kid turned away, dragging the blade with him, cleaving Genma's black shirt and the pale skin underneath it, but not making it past the cartilage of his sternum. Not tearing across trachea and aorta and pulmonary artery. Not ending him. No, the kid was the one whose heart was torn asunder from its major vessels, who gasped and died, pinned upright against the wall for a long moment before the weight of his body pulled him down. And just beyond him was Raidou, flat on his back and bloody.

"Rai!" Genma got out a single syllable before his body took over and he vomited onto the back of the dead Suna boy, falling to his numb hands and knees over the defiled corpse. If those other two ninja were still out there...

But maybe Raidou had managed to take them out. Oh please let that be the case, and let Raidou be alright! And please Bodhisattva, have mercy and let me stop puking now. Fucking mother fucking Suna poison.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:16 am UTC (link)
"Fucker broke my sword," said Raidou thickly, forcing himself upright. The room tilted in a way that was entirely unpleasant. He blinked hard and grabbed onto the wall, letting the cool plaster ground him while he gathered enough brain function to identify his own feet. His heart was beating a merry rhythm that sent the blood pounding through his veins and eardrums, making every bruise and new cut sing out clearly. His shoulder felt like a raw slab of meat, beaten newly bloody. And Genma was throwing up.

Just another day in the life, then.

Raidou gave up on standing. He found his balance a long way off and dragged it back, levering himself up onto his hands--hand--and knees, before crawling to his partner. Genma looked seven shades of unhappy, maskless and pale and making a determined effort to throw up most of his internal organs. The senbon needles standing out from his naked shoulder were a group of tiny red flags as to why. Raidou jerked them out with a quick snatch of fingers and let all four drop to clatter harmlessly to one side. It was far too late, though. The damage was past done.

If it was fatal, he was going to bring back every corpse here and kill them all over again. Then he was going to butcher the wife. Slowly.

Genma choked and dry-heaved, calling Raidou's attention back to him in the worst way possible. He grabbed his partner carefully by the back of his armour and pulled him away from the chuunin's corpse, tugging him backwards until Genma's back hit the wall and he could sit rather then kneel like a dying man. Raidou crouched in front of him. Genma was grey-faced and shaking, but he wasn't convulsing, he wasn't unconscious and he wasn't foaming at the mouth. His pupils weren't pinpricks or blown out wide. Either his general immunity was standing him in good staid, he hadn't been tagged by something particularly virulent, or it was going to get a hell of a lot worse very soon.

"Hang on, kid," Raidou muttered, head clearing damn fast with the very present danger to his partner. "I'm going to help you, just keep breathing." Genma's second belt died an ignoble death when Raidou sliced it neatly from his waist and yanked it off, spilling his various pouches on the slab floor between them. He located Genma's poisons, his med kit, and his various antidotes and spread them out in front of him, shoving everything else to one side. Then he yanked his own med-kit out and ripped it open. An anti-nausea was the first treatment he grabbed, forcing his fingers to coordinate enough to fill the syringe felt barely short of personal homicide, but he managed and jabbed the needle into Genma's unwounded shoulder. The drug wasn't anywhere near as effective as the justu Genma had worked on him last night, but it was better then nothing. It might buy him the freedom to talk at least.

Raidou was not a poison expert. Not even close. He needed Genma awake and alive to tell him what the hell to do. The syringe shattered as he tossed it to one side and slid his left hand under his friend's chin, ignoring the bile that slicked his fingers. "Okay, you have to tell me what you need. Look at your kit. I need you to tell me what you need. You with me, Genma? What do you need?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:22 am UTC (link)
Raidou. On his knees. Right there. Focus on Raidou. Genma felt the prick of the needle, the burn of the injection, but didn't really register it. He forced himself to breathe slowly, to fight the spasms in his gut and to plan. There were still two other ninja out there, and Raidou was bleeding. The henge was a thing of the past, and the shoulder bandage was soaked through with fresh blood, and oh fuck he was going to puke again and... swallow, swallow... breathe.

Damnit, he was going to need that belt.

There was a litter of medical debris, and vials of antidotes. Standard fare, and given the numbness in his hands and feet, the muscles cramping, the vomiting, this was a standard poison. Might even be a lethal one to which he'd built up a decent resistance. In fact it probably was, which meant maybe the standard compound of antidote A would work. There were a whole series of them--general-purpose antidotes that covered a broad spectrum of poison types. And if you guessed wrong and picked one that wouldn't work, well at least with some of them they didn't do a whole lot of harm. Maybe a little. But Anti-A was safe. Safe enough. If you spent enough time working with poisons, you worked up some degree of tolerance to the antidotes, too.

Raidou's fingers on his face, his bull-faced mask staring Genma down. He sounded just this side of panicked. "S'okay, Rai," Genma said, voice thick and raw from the retching. "I'm alright." Swallowing hard again. "Give me Anti-A. Purple lid. And something so I don't keep puking." He punctuated it with another uncontrolled heave, clamping his lips against the wash of bile that filled his mouth.

Fuck, where were those other ninja? They were dead men if he didn't get this under control.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:24 am UTC (link)
Raidou felt a tiny shiver of relief when Genma spoke. When he handed him a beautiful solution with a purple lid. "You've already had the anti-nausea," he said as he scrabbled through vials one-handed until he found the right one. "Just give it a minute to kick in." Intramuscular injections always took a little longer to start working then intravenous. He found the Anti-A lurking next to a cocktail of vicious looking poisons, and forced his other hand to move well enough to grasp a syringe. The tiny label on the antidote informed him that 40ml was the starting dose. Raidou managed to coordinate himself well enough to get the thick serum into the syringe--his right hand was his leading hand and fuck those Suna ninja for messing that up--and then managed it once again when he unbuckled Genma's armguard and peeled his long glove off to use it like a make-shift tourniquet, bringing up a vein.

Using his right hand to inject Genma was probably a mistake, but Raidou was long past caring about the agony gnawing on his shoulder. He pulled the syringe out, letting it fall and shatter on the wood planking, and stripped the glove off before it did Genma any damage. A look at his partner's face was a decent clue as to why the man had stopped talking. Raidou gripped his chin again and turned his head slightly to one side. "Spit before you choke," he ordered, and then turned his attention to cleaning up Genma's shoulder. The deep puncture wounds were puffy and inflamed. Raidou managed a decent job of disinfecting and bandaging them one-handed.

There wasn't much beyond that he could do but wait. "I killed six," he said, "Well, five confirmed and one guy who took an unplanned rooftop leap. If he's still alive he's definitely unhappy about it." He swallowed and licked cracked lips before shoving his mask aside with the back of his wrist. "I counted three dead bodies including our friend there." He nodded at the chuunin Genma had thrown up on. "Did you get your other two or do I need to go hunting?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:26 am UTC (link)
If there was one single best thing about Raidou, it was the degree you could count on him. He knew what to do with the antidote, knew enough to raise a vein and inject the stuff directly, knew when to ask Genma what to do, and when to just tell him. And he knew how to give a report, how to take out a threat, and how to reassure a comrade.

Genma spit as he was told, retched again, and then felt the antidote start to work. It was like getting a fever, with a sudden chill and a feeling of heat in his breath and eyes. With a deadening of sound and a fuzzing of his vision, so that Raidou's unmasked face was a little out of focus when he looked at him.

"Thanks," he said thickly, and tried to stay relaxed while Raidou worked on his shoulder. "I got four more. One's out there," he indicated the direction with his head, out past the lord's chamber, "along with the girl he was diddling when I did him. And the lord's dead in his bed in there. And there's another dead chuunin in the pantry, behind some rice." Gods almighty, if they were really done this was looking like a much better situation. Thank merciful Buddha.

The high of the fight was all but gone now, replaced by poison and pain and profound relief. "I knocked the old girl out. If those guys didn't hurt her, she's asleep on her bed still," Genma added, and tried to shift his position a little. Hands still numb, legs still weak, and to top it off his hip had taken the opportunity to remind him it wasn't exactly healed. In fact it was bleeding again, damn thing, as was his chest. And now he had no belt to hold his pants up with.

"Did you have to cut my belt?" he complained. "And put your damn arm back in the sling. How much did you fuck it up fighting? I fucked up. Didn't think they'd have trapped the lover's tryst passage. Maybe the woman really wasn't sleeping with him."

At least the nausea was starting to recede. Damn, he really wanted to rinse the taste out of his mouth. And get away from the smell of blood and shit and puke. "Put your arm back in that and let's at least get out of this damn stairwell."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:30 am UTC (link)
Raidou relaxed enough to make his head spin and slouched down to lean his good shoulder against the wall, catching his breath. Everyone that should be dead was dead, the little lady was still in one piece--judging from the brief look he'd gotten at her--and Genma was getting some colour back. His retching had stopped along with the horrible choking sound that accompanied it, and he was complaining. Complaining was good. If Genma had the mental energy to bitch about something as inconsequential as a belt, he was probably going to live.

"Well there's gratitude for you," Raidou said, trying for wry and achieving something a lot closer to weary. The adrenaline was long gone, leaving behind exhaustion, pain, and a low grade shockiness that would fade as long as he rode it out. Some fights ended that way. Generally the ones where you got cracked on a pre-existing injury and your buddy got poisoned. "The wife was fine when I saw her. She's still on the bed and on the other side of conscious."

He needed to stand up. They both did. They needed to get up and be ninja and sweep the house for any more threats. Maybe go down to the kitchen and steal some food. They could both use the sugar, and Genma would definitely need to replace what he'd lost with all the vomiting.

Raidou was definitely going to stand up. Any second now.

"My arm's okay," he said, and let his head lean against the wall to keep his good shoulder company. "Took a whack, but didn't pick up any new cuts, I think. You know, for a guy with enough immunities to eat a live scorpion whole, you sure get poisoned a lot." Raidou didn't close his eyes, he kept his gaze firmly on Genma. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone was out to get you."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:32 am UTC (link)
"Yeah yeah," Genma said wearily. "I'd be deader than that asshole there and so would you probably if I didn't have the immunities I do. Resistance to poison isn't the same as imperviousness to it." As his body was busy telling him. Oh mother fucking fuck, he was going to be sorry about this later, as if he weren't already sorry now. "Where're the needles I got jabbed with? I should take 'em back, see if I can figure out what the stuff is, if my blood on 'em hasn't decomposed the poison too much.

Raidou did have a point though. Why was it that ninjutsu guys always got taken down by jutsu--witness the woman dead in the stairwell with her throat full of congealing metal? And taijutsu-guys like Raidou always got clobbered with weapons and blows. And poisoners got poisoned. Well maybe it wasn't really that way. Maybe you just noticed it more. Karma or whatever. "You got poisoned two months ago. S'not like it's always me. And what about that time in Tsugikawa? That was all about you and poison and being glad I knew what antidote to use."

Actually it had been all about Genma being as close to panic as he ever got, watching Raidou's eyes roll back and his tongue swell, and knowing he had exactly two minutes to reverse the effects of whatever toxin Raidou'd managed to ingest before brain damage set in. It had been all about luck and miracles, and Genma had given half his paycheck for that mission to the monks at Two Cranes Temple in gratitude for that little bit of divine intercession.

He didn't fail to notice Raidou's pale, sweaty face, or his failure to stay upright without the assistance of the wall. "You sure you're okay? You don't actually look it. And I don't want to hear a word about how I look. I'm sure I look like sixteen kinds of shit; that doesn't mean you look great."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:35 am UTC (link)
Raidou nudged the senbon Genma wanted with his sandal, making them clink. He didn't particularly want to touch them with his hands again. A sensible poisoner would coat the whole needle, not just the tip, and hope the victim's teammates--if he was lucky enough to have any--stabbed themselves yanking the needles out. Raidou didn't plan to add to their currently rosy situation by spilling his guts across the floor.

"Yeah, I remember Tsugikawa," he said, and shoved his mask back into place. "It'd be hard to forget, really." As memories went, the one of choking his way to a blackout he knew he wasn't going to wake up from didn't really rank all that favourably. The memory that followed it, of coming back to Genma's worried face and his careful hands, finding that he could breathe and see and was probably going to live... that was a much better memory.

"I look fabulous," said Raidou, and slid a hand up the wall to brace himself as he staggered to his feet. "But I always look fabulous, it's a talent." With his mask back over his face, and his balance almost steady, he at least looked something like a ninja. Raidou steeled himself and lifted his arm back into the sling, biting down a gasp as the pain wrenched up from something manageable to something devastating. The weak painkillers he'd swallowed that morning weren't nearly enough to combat a barely healed injury with some added bruises.

And his headache was still in play. Splendid.

"C'mon, kid," Raidou dragged his voice back from a long way off, and held his working hand out to Genma. "On your feet, let's get this mission finished."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:53 am UTC (link)
"Alright," Genma said, and forced his body to obey his will and get him up, then looked down in dismay at the ruins of his belt and kits. "We can't leave this stuff. Might need it." Especially the Anti-A--a single dose was rarely enough, even in a partially immune individual. They'd deal with that when the first dose started wearing off, hopefully none too soon. He was just as dismayed to see the wreckage of the syringes, although he could hardly fault Raidou for having saved, if not his life, at least his ability to function on this mission. The poisoned senbon lay glistening with drying blood, smallish things as senbon went, probably no more than a six-gauge. Genma crouched back down, hissing a curse when his hip twinged and his legs wobbled, and picked them up carefully with gloved fingers to slipped them into a leather case he extracted from a pocket on his vest.

His hands still felt asleep, and his legs like water, and bending down near the corpse and pools of puke was hardly conducive to eliminating his nausea, but Raidou was right, they had a mission to complete, and if he could get on his feet, which thanks to Raidou's intervention and a fairly iron will he could, then they needed to just keep moving. Carefully putting his med kit and poisons back in order, Genma flipped open the pill case and handed a pair of tablets up to Raidou. He didn't say anything, because he didn't need to. It was obvious what he meant was "take these."

When Raidou didn't immediately pluck the pills from his hand Genma did look up. "Raidou, just fucking take them. You're hurt, I'm poisoned and hurt. And we're gonna have to carry Sleeping Beauty as soon as we finish sweeping the grounds for any more of our Suna friends."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:54 am UTC (link)
Genma couldn't see Raidou's scowl through his mask, but he could probably imagine it with the ease of long-standing familiarity. "The last time I took something you gave me, I ended up flat on my back fascinated by all the pretty lights," he grumbled, and reached out to take the pills. Genma wouldn't give him anything nearly so strong mid-mission unless he absolutely had no other choice, but any painkiller could fuzz your head. You just had to weigh that risk against the danger of getting killed because you were too busy worrying about whatever ouch wanted to gnaw on you. Raidou sighed and slipped his hand under his mask to chew the pills, swallowing them down with a grimace.

"One day they're going to make a painkiller that tastes good." He knelt unsteadily to strip the belt off the chuunin Genma had thrown up on, along with the second belt that crossed his chest. It was difficult with one hand but he managed after a moment of fierce concentration. Both belts landed at his partner's feet and Raidou devoted a second to giving the body a thorough, careful search. He found some scrolls that Intel would probably want, and a few kunai to replace the ones he'd used. He took the med-kit on principle and picked his own up from the floor, stashing both back into his hip pouches. The scrolls went under his armour, and the kunai went into the holster strapped to his thigh.

Anything of real value would probably be on the jounin. Raidou had kicked his jounin off the rooftop. He glanced at the other corpses he could see, trying to get an estimate of their ranks. "Anyone worth searching while we're here?" he asked finally, and got back to his feet.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:54 am UTC (link)
"Ewww," Genma said with feeling, picking up the belt that was less damp. The fact that it was his own puke soiling the belts, or that he badly needed them, didn't really make it any less disgusting. He wiped the slenderer of the two belts as dry as he could with a handkerchief, then threaded it through his belt loops. The other guy was smaller, and a little skinnier, so he couldn't notch it quite as tightly as the kid had, but it still fit just fine. One problem solved. Next came drying off the wide belt, tossing the soiled handkerchief to the ground, and threading his pouches on. It was a little too wide, so he took a kunai and trimmed it down, glad that the antidote was actually restoring some of the acuity to his fingertips again, assembled his replacement utility belt, and strapped it on. It sat low on his hips and pressed savagely against the gashes there. Fucking Suna assholes got you even after they were dead.

"The woman on the stairs is jounin," Genma said, when he saw what Raidou was up to. "She tried that same sand thing on me they got you with yesterday. And she did that wind blade jutsu too. I took the hit on the chest protector." And he'd undoubtedly feel it later. It had to have bruised, front and back, both where the jutsu had hit and where he'd hit the wall as a result. But right now the cut across his breastbone was much more insistent of a pain, even if it was a superficial one. Raidou wasn't the only one he ought to be feeding pills to. But there was the danger of cross reaction with the anti-nausea meds and the Anti-A. It wasn't likely to really do harm, but it could definitely knock him loopy, which he definitely didn't need to be. Maybe a single pill. He pulled the pill case out again, debating.

"The one outside the lord's office is probably chuunin, and the one up in the lady's chamber is definitely chuunin. The dead one in the pantry could be chuunin or genin. Seemed kind of old for genin, but was way too easy to kill for a chuunin." he said, still staring at the pill case. Damn, what he wouldn't give to just be done with this mission and heading home.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:55 am UTC (link)
Moodswings, thought Raidou wryly, as Genma flipped from 'ewww' to his report. He leaned back against the wall and listened as Genma talked, watching him struggle with the belts and wince when the second one laid awkwardly over the bloody patch on his hip. The gashes must be bleeding again. They were both a fair bit bloody, Raidou with his shoulder, and Genma with his hip and the fresh new slice right across his chest. The last wasn't deep, but it definitely looked uncomfortable. It was a hell of a lot better then what might have happened if he'd had been just half a step too slow. Raidou turned his thoughts away from that; there was no point worrying about might-have-beens when you had plenty of nows to take up your attention. He'd rack himself about it later when he was less sore and there was alcohol available.

"Probably not worth bothering with the chuunin, unless you need replacements for your gear. I'll get the jounin, and there's another one lying in m'lord's herb garden outside, if he hasn't managed to get up and crawl a bit. Need to check him before we go." Raidou pushed himself away from the wall and walked carefully up the steps, crouching down to check the Suna-jounin over. She hadn't died in a fun way. Raidou frowned slightly as he searched her (very carefully, you never knew what sort of traps and seals a jounin had placed to gaurd their things). Genma must've been pretty desperate to use his metal jutsu for the second time in two days.

They'd gotten lucky on this mission, that was for sure.

Raidou glanced over his shoulder to see the man in question still apparently hypnotized by his pill case. Still bleeding from the wound on his chest. They really needed to take care of that soon. "You taking one of those, or do you just like looking at them?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:56 am UTC (link)
"They're pretty, like little jewels," Genma said, and finally plucked a single pale-peach-colored tablet out. He put it between his lips, but didn't take it into his mouth. Instead he carefully resealed the pill case and stowing it in his medkit, then reaching for his canteen. He didn't trust himself to dry-swallow the thing with his mouth still bitter with bile and his throat still raw. As it was the sip of water and the little pill sat uneasily in his unhappy stomach, even with Raidou's remedies on board. He reached back into his kit and pulled out a little hard candy--sour plum flavored--wrapped in foil. It would drive the vomit-taste away, and provide some sugar. Definitely could use a little sugar right about now.


"She got anything useable on her?" he asked, and bent down to pick up his mask, sliding it back into place with a practiced motion. His right arm felt a little stiff, undoubtedly due to the swelling the poisoned needles had produced. If this turned out to be a necrotizing poison he was going to have to seriously consider a personal vendetta against not just Sunagakure, but maybe all of Wind Country. But that was borrowing trouble and he wasn't going there. Instead he watched Raidou, deciding that as shaky and pale as his friend had looked, he was probably alright. At least alright enough for them to complete this mission.

"We'd better go out there and make sure he's finished off first," Genma said, when Raidou stood up with his gleanings from his corpse-looting. "I feel good about the recon we did before we came in, so if you count five dead on the roof and we've got another five dead in here, plus the civilians, he has to be the last one, but no sense letting him get a message to some buddies on some other mission in the area." Or letting him come in and attack, in case whatever condition Raidou had left him in wasn't quite as disabling as Raidou thought.

"You good to go?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 01:57 am UTC (link)
"Yeah," Raidou straightened up and made his way back down the stairs. "Reckon I figured out who set your trap, too." He held his good hand up, displaying three vials of clear, viscous-looking fluid. The glass was unlabeled, but the marks etched into the lids were undoubtedly code of some sort. The whole set-up had poison written all over it. He handed them carefully to Genma, content to let the poison expert deal with the poisons. "Found a couple scrolls, too. I imagine Intel will want to take a look." Those were stowed away with the few he'd taken from the chuunin.

Raidou stretched slightly, testing himself. Definitely sore, but the drugs were starting to wear away the edges of his pain. He was functional enough to deal with one most likely dead jounin and an unconscious civilian. After this the run home was going to be a cake-walk. Genma looked to be in similar shape, as long as whatever acid was in his veins stayed neutralized.

Not bad for a B-rank. Though now it was probably closer to an A, what with all the extra hassle.

"Just hang on one sec," he muttered, and snapped open the hip pouch holding his medi-kit again. He dug out a wipe and a spray antiseptic that guaranteed to sting as much as possible as it burned germs alive. Raidou had some vague theories about the sting proving it was working. He angled himself to block Genma against the wall and took care of the cut on his chest, ripping his shirt very slightly to gain better access to the wound. It was ugly looking, but not particularly deep, and the blood flow had undoubtedly washed out most of the muck left by a dubiously clean blade. Raidou stuck a sticky-gauze patch over the top and nodded, stepping back. "Okay, now I'm good."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 01:59 am UTC (link)
Everything about Raidou's body language said he was not taking any shit from Genma about this wound care business. The backing him up into a corner, for one thing. And the eye-contact, from one masked face to another, full of something not exactly as sharp as killing intent, but certainly no less threatening. It was ironic, Genma thought, as Raidou tore his shirt, how they kind of handed the mission commander baton back and forth at will. But it worked. Genma was right to force Raidou to take those pills, and Raidou was probably right to insist on bandaging that wound. And...

"Mother fuck that shit burns!" Genma growled and tensed and let some of his own ferocity leak out. He might be willing to submit to Raidou's treatment, but not without a little protest. "It's fine, Raidou. It's barely a scratch!" It doesn't even need stitches. Probably. Maybe steri-strips. But only to minimize scarring because the skin's tight there. And it could have waited. Probably. By the time Genma finished his silent litany of justification for Raidou to not be bothering with it, Raidou had finished and was patting the bandage into place.

"OK, fine. But you're mother-medic from now on, not me." Genma reached up and tugged carefully at Raidou's sling, tightening it just a little. "Now don't fuck around with that shoulder any more. Are your fingers still feeling okay? I'll rebandage it when we get back to Iijima's place and drop off the lady, unless you think the bleeding's getting worse."

He stood up straighter, waiting for Raidou to step away. "Okay, let's go finish this. And tell me if your head starts hurting again."

Yeah fine, he was still mother-medic. It wasn't a role he knew how to give up, really.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 02:00 am UTC (link)
"I could call you cry baby instead," said Raidou with a wince as Genma messed with his sling. "Or... something else," it was hard to be creative when his shoulder snarled anew, grating his focus into fine strips of frazzled distraction. His fingers were definitely back to tingly; an unpleasant pins and needles sensation, grading towards numbness. If it was swelling compressing the nerves--practically a guarantee with the latest attacks on his shoulder--there was probably something Genma could do about it. He'd certainly claimed he could. But Raidou didn't want his mission partner to waste chakra on something that could wait when Genma needed to recover first. Poison could more then take it out of a guy.

Besides, that was the order. Medics first--any kind of medic, even just field medics--then cannon fodder. Raidou wasn't going to lie down and die because his fingertips were a bit prickly. Or because his head was pounding a bass drum rhythm. He just needed to give the painkillers time to kick in.

"I'm good," he said again, with a careful nod. "The bleeding's not heavy enough to worry about it now. Let's get this tied up first, then we can deal with scratches."

Henge. He should get his henge up again. Especially if that jounin was still hanging around the mortal coil. Raidou bit the inside of his cheek and worked the seals, calling up the image of a fairly pristine looking ANBU and letting it slide into place.

There. Much better.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 02:01 am UTC (link)
With instincts honed over six months of close friendship, shared missions, shared lives, Genma knew. Knew. That Raidou was full of shit. But he didn't have the evidence to call him on it, or the energy to force the issue. The very fact that there was fresh blood on the bandage and Raidou had shown up looking nearly shocky would have been enough to make him insist on more than just handing Raidou a couple of pain tablets, if Genma himself had been fully well. But he wasn't. This was how mistakes got made and compounded, a small voice at the back of his brain chided. He just hoped whatever mistakes he was making now in accepting Raidou's word that he was okay wouldn't prove to be costly ones.

Instead he pushed his trembling legs to work and followed Raidou through the house, past the corpses in the master's bedroom and the antechamber outside it. Past traps they could now safely disable without alerting their enemies. Out into the garden. There was evidence a body had landed in the greenery, and an obvious trail leading towards a gardening shed. Just outside it they found their eleventh dead ninja. He was on his back, limbs akimbo, with pots and gardening tools knocked over and around, and a drying, bloody froth on his lips. His face was horribly distorted, nose and one cheek smashed in, with one eye shut, and one open and staring sightless at the bare branches and sky above.

"Damn, you must have shoved some bone right into his brain," Genma said, looking at the body with a critical eye. "Looks like he stroked out." It must have been a sucky way to die. Not that there were good ones, really. He crouched down next to the body and started the process of searching him for usable material. Scrolls, maps, chemicals, tags. Codes and codesheets would be the biggest win if they could find them, but it seemed unlikely. This was a protection and assassination detail, not a major espionage operation. Though why so many for what looked like a simple civilian target? It was something to consider.

"He doesn't have much useful on him," Genma said, pushing to his feet again, and feeling sick. What he wouldn't give to be lying down, he thought. If they got the woman bundled up, she'd keep. The drug he'd dosed her with would have her out a good five or six hours, and they could always give her a second dose. Tying her up probably wasn't an option, since her husband--even if she had betrayed him--still professed a love for her. But drugged would be good enough.

Genma swallowed and sighed. He really hoped he could keep from starting with the puking again, So far it was just threatening, like storm clouds on the distant horizon. "Think we can get the lady and go? I'm not sure how much longer I'm gonna be good for here."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 02:02 am UTC (link)
Sometimes it was hard to believe the damage a human body could actually take before it quit. Raidou looked down at the person he'd so neatly turned into an ex-person and felt something nameless stir in his chest for a moment, blanking even the pain worming through his system. He waited until Genma had finished with his search and then crouched down and closed the Suna-nin's single open eye, bringing a tiny measure of peace to his battered face. As ways to kill someone went, headbutting was not generally fatal. But a headbutt followed by an abrupt flight had apparently done the job.

There was probably a broad smear of blood painted across the face of his ox-mask. Raidou frowned and dragged his gloved wrist over the porcelain as he stood once again, catching his balance with a tiny waver. "Stay out here and get some air," he told Genma, and turned on one heel before his partner had a chance to argue with him.

It was still sunny, Raidou noticed suddenly as he made his way back up the garden path and slipped into the silent house once. For an ANBU more accustomed to working in shadow and striking from darkness, it felt terribly naked to be caught in the flare of daylight. Raidou blended with scant shade as he ghosted through the house, moving like a strangely silent poltergeist. He paused only to check over every still body. A ten second search for each one revealed a few more scrolls, the occasional interesting looking weapon, and four more vials of suspicious liquids for Genma. He also found a maid hiding in the bathroom.

"Sorry, darling," said Raidou softly, before he crushed her throat with one hand and a flare of chakra. It was quick, if not completely painless. They couldn't afford a witness.

The wife's room was the last one he reached. She was still flopped on her side, one bare foot hanging off the edge of the bed. Raidou considered logistics for a moment and sighed. He couldn't carry her on his own, not with the state of his shoulder, and he definitely wasn't about to traipse back downstairs and drag Genma up to lend a hand.

Clone, then.

Six seals and a minor muted swearing fit later, Raidou had two functional shadow clones and an arm that ached from shoulder to palm. He couldn't feel his fingers.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 02:04 am UTC (link)
There were some things that Genma would have expected Raidou to have figured out by now. The first was that he would--perhaps not happily, but he would--obey any order Raidou gave him in the field that he thought was even partially reasonable. The second was that telling him to 'stay here and get some air' when he wasn't suffering from acute smoke or poison inhalation--and the poison he was suffering from was injected not inhaled--was not an order he'd consider even remotely reasonable.

He would have followed close enough for Raidou to have realized this already if he'd been able to move a little faster. It wasn't as though he were attempting to spy on his friend. But owing to his injured hip and the liquifaction of his muscles from the combined effect of poison and antidotes, he just wasn't moving all that fast. His tardiness allowed him to admire the way Raidou moved with wraith-like stealth. To be impressed with his friend's thoughtfulness and foresight at locating and dispatching the remaining witness, and acquiring the few interesting items the other ninja corpses held.

It also allowed him to be supremely unimpressed with the stupidity Raidou showed in deciding to carry the wife himself, in deciding to bring up clones using his injured arm, and in the body language that told him the result of that action was something really quite wrong with said arm. He stood in the doorway, flared his chakra and cleared his throat, grimly pleased when three masked faces swiveled around as one. Clones were hardly a substitute for the real thing, even shadow clones with their very real physical presence, but they were definitely imbued with the mannerisms and quirks of their maker. The slightly guilty hang to the head, for example, that even with masks couldn't really hide the pouty scowl that was on Raidou's face.

"Shoulder. Fixing. Now." Genma said. That he expected Raidou to present himself front and center for the treatment went unsaid. It was beyond unnecessary to state such an obvious thing.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 02:04 am UTC (link)
Busted.

Raidou would've protested the pouty description--if he had known about it--if only because he was too busy biting his tongue to stop the muttered stream of curses that wanted to spill out and drop him further in trouble. Of the two of them, Genma was not the one renowned for his temper. He was the laid-back, easy going variety of killer ninja, which only made it a whole lot more effective when he did decide to turn some of that anger on you.

Particularly if you maybe kind of deserved it.

Not that Raidou did.

The clones scooped the wife up between them and Raidou did what he always did, which was step forward to face the music. He shoved his mask up, glared at his partner with dark eyes that only looked darker in his very pale face, and snapped, "I'm fine, mother-damn-medic. Quit bitching."

Short tempers ran both ways.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 02:06 am UTC (link)
Genma shoved his own mask back, and matched pale-faced glare for pale-faced glare. "You're injured and shocky and obviously bleeding more than you said or you wouldn't be so fucking white, and your shoulder," he raised hands glowing with chakra and clamped them rather ungently over the injury, "is fucked up."

Very fucked up, as it turned out. Genma could feel the perversion in the chakra paths, the swelling, the bleeding, and what felt like maybe even some bone damage. If Raidou had a cracked collarbone on top of this...

"You fucking goddamned idiot! Are you trying to lose the use of your hand? Are you? Because that's what's going to happen, and in case you haven't noticed that's kind of a career-ending sort of injury."

Soothing the swollen tissues, pushing edema away from nerves, it was complicated work. And it was necessary. The single bright shiny spot in all of this was that it didn't feel like there was infection in the wound. Yet. He could tell what he was doing hurt. Well good, maybe that would give Raidou the clue that this was actually serious and not just some little scrape he could ignore. When he finished he reached up and clapped his hands to Raidou's head without waiting even a second for either one of them to catch their breaths.

"Is it the concussion making you stupid? Cause this is beyond your usual level of idiocy. Way beyond." More healing chakra pouring in, and now Genma was starting to feel the drain. Two metal jutsu in two days, plus his own injuries and bleeding, and the poison and...

He was going to be sick again. Unacceptable. He had to finish the work on Raidou's head at least...

Nope, definitely going to puke.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 02:07 am UTC (link)
Genma's hands slapping down on Raidou's shoulder inflicted more raw agony then all three Suna-nin blows combined. A snarling match between weary, angry teammates would never be able to goad the body into releasing the same rush of adrenaline as an honest to gods life or death battle. It was close, but not quite enough. The painkillers he'd taken didn't even shave the edge off.

Raidou had the minor luxury of blacking out on his feet when his body finally decided enough. The momentary unconsciousness was not nearly as restful as he might have hoped. He blinked awake a second later to find his knees locked and Genma's hands clamped around his head, glowing bright green with healing chakra. Genma's face was roughly the same spring grass shade.

Healing jutsu took a lot out of both the caster and the wounded party, drawing chakra from the former and resources from the latter as it forced the body to regenerate. Raidou had time to think we're both idiots before his knees buckled and his working hand snapped out to grab Genma automatically around the waist, bringing them both to the floor.

One of the clones snorted. Genma threw up.

Raidou left his hand around his partner's waist and curled onto his good side, willing to stay perfectly still until the world stabilized and everything stopped hurting. That was clearly the sensible option at this juncture. He did manage to spare the energy to groan a very heartfelt, "fuck."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 02:08 am UTC (link)
If you are lying on the floor in a sprawl when you vomit, it chokes you, gets on your hair, gets on your body. It multiplies the unpleasantness of the whole experience by at least a factor of ten. If you're doing that while sprawled next to a buddy you are both frantic with worry about and deeply pissed off at, and with a sorely injured hip twisted under you and pulled so that the scabs that your earlier running around hadn't managed to open up have now also given way, well then...

Then you might be as unhappy as Genma was.

His body seemed to have manufactured stomach contents for ejection from pure conjecture about the likelihood that he would eat again at some point. Either that or the few sips of water he'd had from his canteen had magically quadrupled in volume. Oh fuck was he sick. And when it was finally over and he lay in his miserable, twisted heap with Raidou's arm around his waist and the elegant, handwoven carpet soaking up watered-down bilious stomach acid, all he could think was he had to get up, and all his body had to say on that subject was fuck no.

He whimpered. A hoarse, sad little sound. "Rai? If you're dead I swear I'll kill you just as soon as I can get up again."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 02:09 am UTC (link)
Raidou was concentrating on breathing slowly, letting the air slip into his dry mouth with a careful inhale, and out again with a raspy exhale. If he managed it right, letting his ribcage expand just enough to get a decent breath, but not enough to jar anything, he could avoid crucifying himself with jagged pain. His shoulder was a mess, the nerves caught somewhere between numb and frantically overworked as they adjusted to the fast-paced healing forced on them. That would settle if he gave it long enough. It would.

His head was the devil's playground.

Raidou kept his eyes closed and focused very hard on his breathing. He would get that right first, then he would focus on the next thing. Like Genma. Genma who was talking. He should probably answer that. He wasn't technically dead. He just wanted to be. A little. Or maybe he just wanted to black out for longer then a second and sleep through the worst. That would be nice.

That would also be giving up.

He could talk. That was just breathing with sounds. "If you ever have any kids, I hope they get fleas." It was a whisper, and it was a fractured thing, but it was there. Raidou flinched as the sound dug sharp nails into his skull. "Big fleas."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 02:10 am UTC (link)
"Not gonna make babies with the Inuzuka." As a retort went it was lame, but no lamer than Raidou's jab had been.

Raidou didn't sound good. He didn't sound good and that, more than anything was motivating for Genma to finally push himself up enough to see that Raidou had somehow managed to maintain the jutsu that had his clones standing there, holding the limp princess. "Put her on the bed and then for fuck's sake drop your damn clones Raidou." The chakra drain of maintaining not one, but two shadow clones could not be helping, not in the least.

Nor could that aborted healing jutsu on Raidou's head. That had to be remedied. Don't start what you can't finish was a good rule for anyone, but it was sacrosanct for a medic. Half-completed operations, unfinished jutsu, partially sutured wounds--they all led to nothing but trouble.

Getting upright again was out of the question. Turning on his side so that he faced Raidou was manageable, although not easy. When he was there he could see his partner's face, scrunched in pain, pale and beaded in sweat. Probably a fair mirror for his own, only.... worse. Raidou was definitely in worse shape and Genma was definitely worried.

"Hang on, I'm gonna fix it, okay?" Genma murmured, trying to reassure himself as much as Raidou. He brought his hands up to Raidou's head, cast his jutsu again and worked hard at making sure this time he did it right. At least they were both lying down already, so when the chakra drain hit, there wouldn't be any distance to fall. And dammit, how galling to be drained like a fucking genin his first week in the field. Genma wondered if that poison had anything to do with it, or if he was just getting weak. He'd have to train a bit harder, he decided, finally finishing the jutsu with an exhausted sigh.

Now the question was, could they afford to take a thirty minute nap where they lay and recover a bit? It risked another maid or other servant coming in and discovering what had gone on at that estate today. But there might not really be a choice.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-21 02:10 am UTC (link)
The relief Raidou felt as Genma's jutsu flowed through his agonized head like a cool waterfall and washed away the pain was nothing short of a minor religious experience. Not that he believed in such things. He breathed out and relaxed slowly, muscles unclenching as his body registered the pain was finally, blissfully, ebbing away.

It was kind of hard to stay mad at Genma when he put himself through the ringer to make life livable again.

He turned his head slightly, and was glad when Genma's hand stayed there, fingers resting lightly over the hot skin of his temple. Genma's hands--for all their man-made flaws--were truly a thing of beauty. Raidou opened his eyes a bare crack and managed to focus on his partner's face. Vomit was a key feature, as was worry. Exhaustion lay heavily in the pain lines that bracketed Genma's generous mouth, and shadowed his eyes, drawing deep bruises.

Raidou managed to lift the smallest of crooked smiles at him, and closed his eyes again. The fingers of his good hand flexed and spread out momentarily, sliding a fraction before he renewed his grip, trying to reassure. "'m okay." Just weary. He couldn't afford to sleep, but his body was telling him very firmly that he couldn't afford not to. "You 'kay?"

Twenty minutes. Then he'd get up. Definitely.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-21 02:12 am UTC (link)
"Good," Genma said. Good Raidou was okay. Good his jutsu had worked. Good the threat was past. Good he hadn't just killed his best friend.

He should get up. He should at least move his hands away from Raidou's face before Raidou started freaking out about that. He managed one, but not the other, leaving his right hand cradling his partner's head. It felt safer that way anyway, to keep holding on. To feel the chakra moving sluggishly but normally under his fingertips.

They should get moving, but Raidou needed to sleep and let the healing really take hold, and Genma.... Genma couldn't really move. Not enough to get up. Damned Suna poisons. He was going to have some fun analyzing the contents of those vials Raidou had lifted from their dead friends.

"Just rest. Few minutes. Then we'll go." He felt Raidou's hand flex at his waist in something almost like a hug, and kind of half smiled. "Don't worry 'bout me."

Okay, thirty minutes. He could will himself awake in thirty minutes. That ought to be enough to get them mobile. He didn't even really finish the thought before he passed out.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-22 01:59 pm UTC (link)
Continues in It Takes a Will of Iron

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