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fallen_tsume ([info]fallen_tsume) wrote in [info]fallen_leaves,
@ 2008-04-28 19:55:00

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

Three is a Crowd. Four is a Fuck Up. [Closed to Tsume, Raidou, Genma]
Follows Three is a Crowd. Four is a Pain in the Tail.

Morning dawned storm-free. Tsume watched it out of half-lidded eyes, having woken a few hours prior. Her internal mission-alarm was over-developed.

Genma had been asleep still, thin nose lit by firelight, the yellow glow ghosting over his cheekbones and strands of hair. Raidou had been keeping watch, with Kuromaru only half-way dozing beside her.

Tsume had spelled Raidou and gotten dressed, moving quietly in the pre-dawn, checking her supplies--fifteen soldier pills, down by three, ten blood pills, down by one, and clothing that was torn past usefulness--before dressing in her spare uniform, packing up her weapons and kit, and slipping out of the cave door to breathe fresh air and scan the surrounding area.

It was there that Kuromaru gruffly told her he'd offered to take the next watch, and the human had said no. Tsume ruffled the thick fur behind his ears comfortingly, bending her arm to reach the head he nudged into her ribcage. "S'all right. He doesn't have to trust you," she murmured into the lightening sky. "He makes me sneeze, anyway."

Kuromaru eyed her like she'd lost her mind, which made little sense. He knew what she meant; it was a common enough Inuzuka term for someone who tickled your senses unpleasantly. Before she had time to ask him what the look was for, though, he was staring out at the nearby forest. "Prey," he growled softly.

Tsume flashed her teeth. "You want it?" One of them had to stay.

He considered, then plopped his rump on the ground and smiled up at her.

Tsume gave him a quick grin and darted off into the trees, using the hunt to loosen cold-stiffened muscles gone sore from her battle with the elements the night before. The morning was still frigid, burning her lungs as she breathed deeply, bringing scents clear and clean from far away.

It was half an hour before she returned, the start of her chakra-trail checked to be sure it had held overnight--she was a better hunter than that, but paranoia made her cautious--and a couple of winter-thin fowl grasped in one hand.

Kuromaru lie in front of the entrance, panting in the sun despite the fact that he was sprawled in an ice patch. Tsume paused outside to strip the birds of breast meat, paring off the biggest chunks before tossing the rest to her familiar. The pieces she'd taken she sliced thin so they'd cook fast and carried them inside, tossing them onto the rocks by the fire. The meat was no more than a supplement to ration bars, but anything was better than living on the pre-packaged crap they were given for field missions.

Tsume had fifteen cousins, most of them male. She figured the smell of roasting bird would wake these two up better than anything besides an exploding tag.



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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-29 03:17 am UTC (link)
Drifting awake to the scent of cooking food on a mission was fairly unparalleled as wake-ups went. Raidou shifted, rolled slightly in his sleep when his senses registered a change and informed his brain he needed to be conscious to understand it, and fetched up with his back against the wall. He blinked awake and then stilled, casting a wary glance over the cave. When nothing unusual triggered a mental alarm he relaxed a fraction and sat up. Tsume was proving herself to be the better class of teammate by not only being awake, alert, and apparently fairly recovered from her brush with hypothermia, but also the provider of breakfast goodness. Assuming any of that was for him and Genma, anyway.

Speaking of which...

Definitely still asleep. Raidou found a hidden smile to go with along with a back-cracking stretch as he regarded his partner. Genma had uncurled a bit in the night and shifted into his customary sprawl--hips down, hands in, legs akimbo. Raidou knew if he got much closer, he'd hear the very, very faint sound of snoring.

All was right with the world, then.

"Morning," he said to Tsume, and leaned over to tap Genma carefully on the shoulder, thankful he'd made the decision to take a double watch. "Up and at 'em, lover boy. We've got places to be and people to kill." He considered and then amended, "Well, person."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-29 03:59 am UTC (link)
Genma came awake at the touch, but he didn't move. The first thing he was aware of was that it was Raidou waking him, and there was no sense of urgency. So that was fine. He could stay burrowed under the blanket where it was warm and he was comfortable. The next thing to penetrate his consciousness was the smell of something good cooking. Maybe Rai was making him breakfast? That was nice. He wondered vaguely if there would be eggs, rolled ever so slightly, and found himself on rock, not a futon. That woke him up the rest of the way. Mission. Shit. Tsume. Cold. His watch. What the hell time was it?

He sat up, stretched and yawned and shivered. There was light coming in through the slit-door of their hideout. Too much light. And where the hell was.... No there she was. Sitting up, evidently tending the cooking whatever it was. With Kuromaru in the doorway, giving him an inscrutable look.

"You skipped my watch," he accused, and scowled slightly. It was marred by the second enormous yawn to split his face in as many minutes. Rubbing his cheeks brought a little life to his features, along with a few more odd grimaces. A toothbrush would be a good thing. And a quick trip outside to water the bushes. He got to his feet with another stiff-legged stretch. "Shouldn't have skipped my watch."

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-29 04:05 am UTC (link)
"Skipped mine, too," Kuromaru growled, licking up bits of blood and gristle from the ice patch in front of him. It melted under the onslaught of his tongue, and he snuffled at the dirt below. "Big damn hero." It wasn't a compliment.

Tsume glanced at Genma as he moved past her, gaze following him as he passed Kuromaru, too. Then she turned to give Raidou a small smile. "You're just making friends right, left, and center, aren't you?" She wasn't going to complain about her watch being stolen. Of the two of them, he'd certainly been in better shape, and she'd certainly have put them all in danger by attempting it. Chakra depletion and hypothermia did that to a person, even if Inuzuka did bounce back fairly well.

Genma, on the other hand, wasn't Inuzuka. She remembered more than she'd been aware of knowing the night before, even remembered his unnatural heat and lying outside. The last thing they needed was for the medic to get sick. What was the point in being able to push yourself past your limits, if you didn't have a medic who could drag you back?

She flipped the slices of bird, then stood and paced to the other side of the fire. Kneeling by the blanket she picked it up, pausing to sniff before folding it. It didn't tell her what she wanted to know; smelled too much of woodsmoke for the subtler scents of man to be much use. A lift of her chin and a soft inhalation told her that Genma'd finished his business outside. The acid-sting of urine was obvious. She headed out the door, catching him in a bit of weak sunlight.

"You feeling all right?" She telegraphed broadly, not really wanting a senbon through any bits of her skin, and reached up to put the back of her hand against his jaw. Generally, humans responded better to that; it was enough of a mother-checking-for-fever move that most people didn't think to object until it was done. His skin was normal; she pulled the Inuzuka-mother-checking-for-disease move and shifted her hand, rolling it to use his shoulder as a brace--idiot tall men--and rose up on her toes. It put her right up against him; she kept her body open, harmless, defenseless so as not to get attacked and wished he were a little shorter so she wouldn't have to practically climb him to smell. She tucked her face near his neck, as close to the throat-glands as she could get and inhaled quickly, breath rushing in and out of her nose.

The same sour-metal smell as the night before. No grape scent, no decay, no syrupy odor that made her think of illness. Good. Tsume rocked back down onto her heels and nodded once, approving.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-29 04:12 am UTC (link)
OK, Genma knew Inuzuka were odd. They had a strong sense of smell and they used it all the time the way normal people used vision and touch, but the sniffing? That was getting downright weird. Plus she'd been cold enough the night before he could almost have wondered if she'd managed to get some kind of hypothermic brain injury. He followed after her, not quite sure how to ask, "Why the hell do you keep sniffing me?" except in those or fairly similarly blunt words, and she had certainly been giving every sign of acting like a concerned medic, not a nut-case.

Although really anyone in an ANBU uniform could be considered a nutcase at least to a certain extent.

"I'm feeling fine," he said, and ducked into the cave after her. "Are you? What's up with the sniffing?"

Okay. Not so tactful. But it could have come out ruder.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-29 09:03 pm UTC (link)
Raidou stood up and stretched again, rolling his shoulders to loosen up. "Making friends," he said quietly to no one, "is a very special talent of mine. It goes well with looking fabulous." He had a quick glance at what Tsume was cooking--some sort of bird meat, he thought, presumably freshly hunted--and took the opportunity to change his clothes quickly while everyone else was sniffing each other outside. Clean clothes meant less scent to potentially warn an enemy, and Tsume was making sure everyone had scent on the brain. When he was finished dressing he went outside to do a little shrubbery watering of his own, sidestepping Kuromaru carefully.

"It's your cologne," he told Genma cheerfully as he passed. "Drives the girls wild. I've told you to cut back, but will you listen..." Ah hah. Small tree in the distance. Perfect.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-29 09:11 pm UTC (link)
Tsume quirked an amused eyebrow at Raidou's comment, and crouched to poke her meat. It'd be done soon, edible for fragile human stomachs. She settled back, finding a bandage and wrapping it over her wrist, between thumb and forefinger, around and over again. Her arms were bound in bandages; she didn't unwrap them to look at the marks. More scars. Nothing hurt, nothing felt hot or tight. They'd done a good job. One more bandage around her wrist wasn't going to make her look any more damaged, and she needed somewhere to carry them, anyway.

She didn't quite know how to answer Genma. In point of fact, people rarely questioned what she did; she'd always somehow assumed they'd known, even while she knew they probably just chalked it up to Inuzuka craziness.

What was up with the sniffing? Why wouldn't she be sniffing? She peered up at him from beneath spikes of loose hair. "I'm feeling fine," she mimicked back cautiously, as if it might be a trick question. "I was checking for sickness. I wasn't sure how long you were in the rain, and if you're gonna come down with pneumonia I'd like to know before we take on the unknown bloodline limit. I mean, you don't exactly look up to snuff this morning." Why else would she be sniffing? Well, granted, barring really great cologne. She'd never smelled any that good, though.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-29 10:03 pm UTC (link)
"What do you mean I don't look good?" Genma asked, glancing pointedly at her bandaged arms. He stretched again, working out kinks in neck and shoulders, cracking his spine with an audible series of pops. Time to get his shit together here, he thought, seeing his medkit still out where he'd left it the night before. He packed his things back up, put kit back in hip pouch, strapped utility belt and weapon holsters to his body. His armour was dry now, had been dry for hours, probably. Snugging it on he felt instantly safer, sturdier, ready for the day. For the hunt.

What the hell was Tsume going on about, him coming down with pneumonia? "I'm great," he said, and pushed his hair back."Mission ready." Not even really too tired. Undoubtedly Raidou letting him skip his watch had something to do with that. A few more stretches and flexes, picking up his katana and feeling the comforting heft in his hands, slotting it neatly into place between his shoulder blades at his back. "But for future reference, I gotta ask you: Do healing jutsu not work right on Inuzuka? Cause that thing I did last night to warm you up kinda went off the rails. Amped up. Like there was too much chakra I was trying to manipulate at once or something."

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-29 10:08 pm UTC (link)
Tsume grinned toothily when he glanced at her arms, giving her bandage a wry look as she tied it off. He had a point. But, really, how were you supposed to make a trail that'd hold without elements? Blood was the easiest to hand, the part of the Earth element that she was most comfortable with. It would hold her chakra flares there better than any glue.

Not that you could use glue to hold chakra, but...

She glanced at Genma again at his assertion, eyes sweeping him clinically. He looked tired, certainly, but not about to keel over. No worse than she looked, if she'd had a mirror to look into. She tugged her gloves on, strapping the arm guards over them. Snugging them tight, she felt instantly muffled, ear- and nose-deaf, as if the mask was already cutting off her ability to scent before she'd even put it on. Made it harder to hunt.

She snapped her head one way, then the other, and her spine popped audibly. She'd checked them that morning, but she checked them again, feeling boxes of pills in one pouch, the few weapons she carried scattered around her person. She picked up her chest plate and strapped it on, tightening it down across her breasts. Damn lack of a sports bra. She'd fed it to the fire.

Genma spoke and she glanced up at him, still fussing with buckles. "You can't be allergic to a healing jutsu," she said with a frown, reviewing her shaky memories of the night before. "I'd taken several soldier pills, but that chakra should have burned off by the time I got back here..."

Kuromaru whined from the doorway. Tsume's gaze flicked toward him, pale yellow eyes catching pale blue ones. Too much chakra.

Oh, of all the stupid ways to kill a teammate... She faced the fire, closing her eyes for a moment to berate herself as twelve kinds a moonfaced pup. "You were." It was barely a growl. She tipped her head, listening for Raidou. Giving a medic a possible weakness was one thing; giving it to everyone was something else. Giving it to a man who made her feel vaguely unsettled--even if there was no reason she could think of--was out of the question. He was still away, though. She kept her voice low, tipping her chin down and watching Genma from the corner of her eye. "There's a chakra bond Kuromaru and I share. We're generally pretty good about shutting it off when we need to, but it takes conscious thought and I was pulling on his as I came in..." and Genma had seen the state she'd been in. Cutting off the chakra supply that kept her moving wasn't something that would have occurred to her, anymore than stopping the chakra flow to her arms would have. But it had left him dealing with the flux and weft of an Inuzuka bond, her own chakra and Kuromaru's sliding between the two of them.

She took a breath to steel herself against giving away too much information, and added, "If we get hit by chakra--something based out of chakra, not something caused by chakra, like wind--it'll affect us both until we shut down the lines. If you're trying to manipulate our pathways, it's best to make sure the lines are closed first. Either of us can do it. It happens automatically if we're both unconscious." The words came haltingly; the bonds were something she'd been taught from childhood not to speak about, unless she had to. But this was information he'd need, if he ever doctored either of them in those situations; even the Pack acknowledged that. She kept her chin tucked, protecting her throat, and her head tipped, keeping him in sight, but her eyes down. It was as submissive as an alpha got.

Kuromaru laid his muzzle on his paws and said what they were both thinking, his ears lying flat against his head. "Sorry."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-29 10:14 pm UTC (link)
So there was an explanation. That was a relief. And evidently it was something that could have been prevented. Tsume seemed to feel pretty badly about it, and Kuromaru, in posture and voice, was a picture of contrition. When Genma spoke it was in the the calm, measured tone of a medic. "Don't worry, it's confidential," he said, looking steadily at Tsume. "And I can understand why you weren't in any shape last night to take care of it." He could understand less why Kuromaru hadn't taken initiative. But he'd undoubtedly been worried. Maybe afraid to sever the connection if that had been all that was keeping Tsume anchored to this world.

Still it had been a hell of a high tax.

"Next time, which I trust there won't be anyway, but just in case there is..." He looked at Kuromaru this time. Calm, unthreatening, but deeply serious. "You'll cut whatever the flow is down so I don't burn myself out working on her, right? And really you might want to warn any other medics you end up working with."

Seemed like it was something any medic ought to learn in training, really. This wasn't the first time he'd taken a mission with an Inuzuka after all. There were plenty of Inuzuka taking missions in the village. Why were they so closed-mouthed about it? But it was clearly an issue. Maybe a weakness. He'd have to remember to ask someone at HQ about it when they got back. Kanae-sensei, or maybe Haruichi. Because damn, that had been some serious backlash.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-29 10:20 pm UTC (link)
She'd never heard of information between a shinobi and a field medic being confidential, but she wasn't going to argue if he felt that way. Her gaze flickered up at him, and she nodded once, relaxing.

Kuromaru's ears flattened farther back when Genma spoke to him, and he turned his head to look outside as if trying to ignore the whole thing. "I'll tell you if I don't," he mumbled, the air from his words barely moving his lips.

"We'll handle the medics," Tsume said, shooting Kuromaru a pointed look at the response that wasn't a 'yes.' She'd take it up with him later, though. Arguing now would only make him entrench his opinions, and really it boiled down to him trusting the medic to pull her through more than he trusted his own abilities. It didn't occur to her that her own response was less than a 'yes.'

"How many other medics are in ANBU?" Kuromaru grumbled unhappily before answering himself. "Just the Hyuuga."

Tsume's nose wrinkled. He wouldn't have to be told, if he ever once bothered to look at the chakra pathways. It was good, really, to have someone who could shut them down. And she hated it.

Kuromaru's head lifted off his paws, ears pricking up. Tsume tipped her head, listening. Raidou was approaching. She gave Genma one last look, half apology and half thanks, and pushed to her feet to go slip on her sandals. "Grub's done, if you two want to divvy it up. There should be enough for three of us."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-29 10:23 pm UTC (link)
Generally it didn't take that long to add a little extra water to the dirt--or rock in this case--but Raidou wasn't an entirely stupid. He figured Tsume and Genma had a little air-clearing to do what with their mutual attempts at walking into the light last night which he wasnot thinking about anymore, and Raidou was more than happy to give them the room to do that. He communed with a fairly stunted looking bit of plantlife for an extra five minutes, and was grateful the weather had warmed now the storm had passed.

By the time he wandered slowly back, hands in his pockets, some sort of accord seemed to have been reached, and there was breakfast. His five minutes of tree-watching had been apparently well spent. Raidou glanced at Kuromaru as he passed and settled himself down by the fire. "The pup already ate?" The dog wasn't his current favourite person, but he was a teammate...

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-29 10:26 pm UTC (link)
"Pup?" Kuromaru nearly squawked, looking up indignantly.

Tsume ignored him in favor of giving Raidou a wry little grin. "You see the rest of the birds sitting anywhere? That wouldn't hold him anyway." Heck, the two nearly whole birds he'd had wouldn't hold him. She hesitated, then had to give Raidou some credit--he probably wasn't used to feeding a beast like hers, and he was trying. "Thanks for the concern."

"Called me a pup," Kuromaru grumbled, ears lolling sideways. "Next thing you know, he'll be calling you a babe."

Tsume kept ignoring him.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-29 10:49 pm UTC (link)
Breakfast didn't take long. The roast fowl was gone, the bones sucked clean and the evidence of their having camped there carefully covered over in short order. Genma'd been hungry--the old 'feed a fever' adage?--and had supplemented his breakfast with a yogurt-flavored ration bar, offering one to his companions as well. Then they'd refilled canteens, loaded up their packs, covered their tracks and headed out on the trail that had cost Tsume so very much to lay.

The sun was starting to peek through the clouds, turning the ice-coated branches to a sparkling wonderland. The fresh snowfall made covering their own trail cumbersome, but when Kuromaru gave the alarm that he scented strangers--not their quarry, and ninja at that--it proved to be a worthwhile effort. The Konoha ANBU circled around, backtracking and falling in behind the intruders. Genma was the first to get a good look at them, and signed for his companions to halt.

"I've seen those masks before. They're Hunter nin from Mist. Undoubtedly after our guy, too. I'm not really looking for a fight, but I think we're gonna have to take them out. Here, now, before they spook Kimura. There's three of them and four of us. What do you think?"

He hoped Tsume was ready for this. She'd seemed fine--limber and energetic, with no obvious lingering effects from her brush with hypothermia. Of course the question of how much of her own chakra was recovered, and how much she was drawing on her familiar's was one Genma couldn't quite let go now. But there was no way to know without asking, and he'd given his word he'd keep that detail confidential.

At least he could be sure of Raidou. He could imagine the eager, lopsided grin and the feral light in his friend's eyes at the prospect of getting into a little engagement with the enemy. The smooth porcelain of the ANBU mask did nothing to hide that from eyes that knew how to see.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-29 10:54 pm UTC (link)
Genma was right on every count; Raidou was grinning, fingers tightening slightly as they grasped for weapons he had yet to reach for. So far this mission had been one long run and two nights spent trying not to spark a fight between their odd little foursome. But finally--finally--here was someone he could hit. Not only hit, but get a real serious work out from. He was itching for that. The past few days--and especially last night--had been a slow grind of waiting tension that was starting to eat at him. Tsume wasn't a bad teammate, but she was getting his hackles up for reasons he couldn't quite figure out. And Kuromaru wasn't exactly a joy and a delight to have around.

In short, he needed to hit someone. And there were three perfect targets.

Raidou didn't bother speaking. He simply nodded sharply and signed: Take them out.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-29 11:00 pm UTC (link)
Kuromaru pulled his lips off his teeth, fur rising in a long line down his back, and dug his claws into the bark. His chakra pinwheeled tight and hard, pupils dilating with excitement.

Tsume grinned over his spine, her own slit-pupils blowing out to take up nearly her whole iris. Take 'em, she signed quickly, and watched Genma for a signal, one of her hands buried in her familiar's coat.

Kuromaru only looked intently at the ninja they were about to ambush, seemingly oblivious to everything else. Tsume knew otherwise. She knew it wouldn't even take her okay, that the instant Genma gave the word Kuromaru would be gone. Predator to human prey. Her own heartbeat soared, and the odors of the forest seemed to sharpen and score against her senses. Fight.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-29 11:45 pm UTC (link)
The terrain was on their side. The Mist Hunters had just crossed into a small glade free of trees, an easy ambush spot. They were intent on their own trail, evidently unaware that they had become the hunted themselves, unguarded as Genma waved Kuromaru and Tsume in first. Go right, he signed to Raidou, and split to the left, rising high on the ice-slicked branches of a large pine to hurl a rain of senbon onto their surprised enemy.

The Mist ninja reacted quickly to the sudden appearance of the huge black dog, falling back-to-back-to-back like three tomoe on a sacred drum, hands raised in defensive postures. Kunai and shuriken streaked through the air towards Kuromaru, but another volley of Genma's senbon deflected them harmlessly into the frozen soil, to disappear under the crust of snow.

An obscuring mist rose up, thick and opaque, shrouding everything in dampness, muffling sound, denying sight. Genma had already unleashed a fire jutsu that flared and flickered, making the unnatural fog glow. The agonized scream of a man burned, and the thick smell of charred protein filled the air. Genma grinned under his mask and leapt down to a lower branch. What they needed, he decided, was a wind jutsu to clear the mist away.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-29 11:48 pm UTC (link)
Kuromaru flung himself out of the trees, bark showering to the ground below, landing behind him as he tore toward the group of ninja. He could sense Tsume running behind him, chakra sizzling down their lines of power as she pulled and it cycled back, a constant loop. She had said this was his temporary pack, and they would watch his back. When thin slivers of metal shot toward his face he ducked his head but kept moving, trusting his teammates to help.

His trust wasn't misplaced. Other senbon rained from above, knocking the ones ahead of him to the side. He leaped over the newly created patch of discarded weapons, pulling his lips off his teeth and snarling loudly. It was amazing what stupid things humans would do when an animal attacked ferociously, no matter how used to being attacked they were.

Fog rose, thick and heavy, muffling sight and sound, and even to a lesser extent smell.

A much lesser extent.

He went quiet, moving through the gray like nothing more than a great black shadow. It swirled around him, thick and damp, clinging to his coat. He followed the scent of the first body, twisted a jutsu around, and sent a clone into their midst. Easiest to pick them off if he broke them up, after all.

The clone whipped past their legs and exploded, flinging out a mass of shuriken. He caught the first man to lunge forward, teeth sinking deeply into flesh. The smell of blood whispered through the fog and the taste coated his mouth. It was perfect.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-29 11:55 pm UTC (link)
While Genma played with weapons and ninjutsu, and the Inuzuka duo went with the much more simple teeth and claws method, Raidou had his own little bit of fun with a kunai, some muscle, and a whole lot of luck when the final hunter-nin broke free of the smoke and ran straight into him.

Never one to look a gift ninja in the mouth, Raidou ducked low, setting his feet, and tried to skewer the man. His blade skittered over solid armour, raising a thin shriek of metal against metal as it sought a join to plunge into. The Mist-nin didn't wait around to get impaled; he twisted, grappled, and snapped a kunai up to block Raidou's weapon. Muscle strained against muscle as both men locked together in a silent test of strength. Sweat slicked Raidou's forehead under his mask, greasing his skin as it trickled down his face and soaked into the high neckline of his ANBU turtleneck. His feet shifted slightly, digging hard into wet earth. He channelled his chakra carefully, gluing himself into place.

"Konoha?!" the man grated, surprise clear in his strained voice. "Why are you here?"

Raidou snapped a knee up between his legs, and broke the ninja's neck when he folded. "Seeing the sights," he said, as the body dropped with a heavy thump. "Enjoying the weather. Usual tourist things, y'know."

The smoke was wisping away. Raidou kiwarimi'd himself neatly away from the Mist-nin's corpse--if the enemy knew where you might be, move--and scanned for his teammates. He whistled a low ANBU call--everyone okay?--and kiwarimi'd again.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 12:08 am UTC (link)
Genma's target proved a resilient fighter, coming back at Genma through the mist with a crackling electric jutsu that even though he'd dodged it, made the hairs stand up all over Genma's body and sent a spine-chilling tingle through his nerves. His wind jutsu, a fairly rudimentary one, pushed the mist aside, but not for long. It rolled back into the gap almost as soon as Genma saw it clear, but it was enough for him to get an idea where his target was. He sent a trio of fireballs hurtling towards the man, spread apart just enough to force the man to dodge the way Genma wanted him to, and brought his katana down in a shimmering flash. It rang against steel, striking sparks against the other man's tanto, and pulling grunts from both ninja as they tried their wills against one another.

"Leaf bastard," the other man grunted. Masked, so his face remained unseen, he wore the grey and black of Kirigakure. He was shorter, more heavily muscled than Genma, with his hair in a shaggy topknot. The skin on the man's throat, Genma saw, was ruddy and thick from years of exposure, and with enough coarse black whiskers to make Genma guess he was from one of the island clans that traced their ancestry to the Western Lands. His accent was pure Water Country though. "It's our right to pursue," the man said, and a kunai flashed low in his left hand, aiming for Genma's thigh.

Genma brought his knee up in a twisting thrust, knocking the blade loose, so that it skittered across the buckles of his leg bindings and fell. He sprang back as a cold rush of water hit him in the midsection, flipping through seals himself and unleashing an earth jutsu that sucked at the other man's feet, pulling him down, anchoring him in place. The Mist ninja's tanto grazed a thin slice over Genma's right shoulder, but Genma's katana landed the decisive blow, severing head from neck with violent force. Red arterial blood spurted up from the ruined neck and rained down on killer and killed alike. The Mist ninja's masked head smacked against a tree trunk with a hollow thunk and fell into the blood-stained snow.

"And our right to deny you pursuit," Genma panted and watched as the fog lifted, searching for his teammates. Raidou's whistle was reassuring, and he answered it with a soft hoot of his own. He counted two bodies down, and turned in time to see Tsume and Kuromaru making short work of the third. All around them, the snow was churned up and stained scarlet, glistening in the sun.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-30 12:13 am UTC (link)
Tsume pushed up from one knee in the slick mud, whistling in return as she slipped under the cover of the trees. Kuromaru had torn the ninja to shreds, after Tsume had blocked the man's jutsu--something with fire that left a scorch mark on her handsome pup's coat, though he'd held on despite it until she'd gotten there to dispatch the Mist ninja.

It was quick work to locate Genma by scent and slide up into the foliage after him, though she took a moment to fling a kunai hilt-first at Kuromaru. The predator in him was running hot and strong, and he looked like he was settling in for a meal.

The handle thumped against his ribs. He whined, picked the kunai up, and left the bloody corpse. Only the chest armor had held up under the canine's jaws. A moment later he was beside her, grumbling about practically missing both dinner and breakfast. Tsume ignored him, checking the burn mark down his ribs. Nothing too bad; a moment's focus and she slid chakra into him, checking organs and bones. He'd be sore, but he'd be fine. No lingering alien chakra chewed on his to infect her; whatever the jutsu had been, it had summoned fire rather than being fire.

She grinned at Genma from behind her mask, lifting her chin to scent for Raidou. Everyone all right, then? she signed, filled with adrenaline. This was what she'd missed, being out of ANBU.

And there was that hackle-prickle feeling. So Raidou was on his way.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-30 12:15 am UTC (link)
Raidou grinned as he dropped in--quite literally--between Tsume and Genma, and shoved his mask to one side, letting air hit his warm face. He felt buzzed; loose and happy in the tightly coiled way that followed a semi-decent fight. Not out of control, not remotely, but definitely revved up. Belly tight and slightly tingly, blood humming, muscles hot and ready for whatever he asked of them.

Genma, Tsume, and Kuromaru were all living, breathing, and--unless he missed his guess--feeling roughly similar. That just made things better.

And the Mist-nin were corpsed, which made things better still.

Raidou stretched, rolling his shoulders to shake out the edge of an ache, and signed back to all three teammates: Got my guy. No injuries. How'd you do?

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 12:41 am UTC (link)
Genma pushed his mask back and wiped a black-gloved hand across his sweat-streaked face. He grinned back at Raidou and gestured with the point of his katana to the severed head lolling against the trunk of the tree. "He claimed they had a right to be here. I didn't bother to ask him for his immigration papers though." He pulled out a slip of absorbent paper and wiped his blade clean, reseating it in its sheath at his back, and using the bloodied tissue to wipe at the red spattered across his bare shoulder.

"Ah shit, the bastard managed to graze me. I thought I might have come away totally clean," Genma said with a grimace and hiss. The thin slice along his shoulder was only a few millimeters deep, and barely oozing. "Anyway it's nothing. And I don't think we've lost too much time." He shook out his arms, stretched and twisted, and used a handful of snow to wash the blood from the front of his vest.

The smell in the air was of cold and copper, not yet tainted by the odor of death. That would come though. "I don't think we can afford to take the time to destroy the corpses. Burning will attract attention we don't want. I suppose we could bury them with an earth jutsu."

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-30 12:44 am UTC (link)
Tsume's chin tipped up again, and she pushed her mask to one side. "Our quarry's not too far," she said after a moment's scenting. "I wouldn't start things that use too much chakra. We still don't know what his Limit is, and if he can sense it..."

"I could eat them," Kuromaru offered helpfully.

Tsume shoved him out of the tree without looking over. He stuck himself with chakra and climbed the few feet he'd fallen. "Well, I could..."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-30 12:46 am UTC (link)
Some things you just didn't want to know. There were a lot of things ninja would eat to stay alive if they got desperate enough--up to and including enemy nin corpses--but that didn't mean Raidou wanted the image of Kuromaru snacking on a couple of unfortunate Mist-nin loitering around his brain. He shook his head, watching as the dog chakra-walked his way back up to their branch. "Veto that," he said firmly. "Too messy and it'd take too long."

Plus, as his youngest brother would say, ew.

"I vote earth jutsu, unless anyone else has a better idea?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 12:51 am UTC (link)
"Earth jutsu's simplest," Genma said, and didn't think overly much about Kuromaru's suggested method of corpse disposal. It was bad enough he was still wiping congealing blood from his body, without having to think about his teammates making a meal of their enemies. "If you're that hungry, we'll toss the corpses before we bury them, see of they have any rations you can eat." Searching the bodies was something they'd want to do anyway, in case there were scrolls or documents that would be useful.

He leapt lightly down to the scene of carnage and leaned over the headless body of the man he'd killed. A swift search of pockets and pouches yielded three scrolls, a couple of maps, a photograph of what Genma presumed was the man's family, and a pair of dogtags stamped "Abarai Satoshi" with a serial number, blood type, and birthdate. "Here, Kuromaru. Looks like Abarai-san liked dried squid," he said, and tossed a package of chili-seasoned cuttlefish-jerky to the dog.

"They were definitely on our guy's tail. This is coded though," he said, holding out a slender strip of paper covered densely in symbols. "I can get Kimura's name, but no details."

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-30 12:54 am UTC (link)
It was highly likely that only Tsume recognized the look on Kuromaru's face as absolute disgust. He let the packet drop to the ground between his paws without even attempting to catch it. In fact, had it come any closer to his jaws he might have ducked to keep any from accidentally landing in his mouth.

Tsume glanced at the paper Genma was holding, but went back to searching bodies--coded things weren't her forte. She sniffed each corpse before touching it, checking for metallic scents or the syrupy-sweet catch of poisons. Just in case. A few weapons on the man she and Kuromaru had dropped, and some ration bars. She tossed them at Genma, stuffed some jerky into one of her pouches, and eyed his pills. Different villages used different colors for pills, but sometimes they were identifiable. She lifted a little case and sniffed delicately, plucking out a series of black ones. "Blood pills," she called, and left the ones that didn't smell familiar for the others to look at.

"Kuro?" She held out one of the pills, waiting for his even more sensitive nose to check it over. The likelihood that they were diseased or poisoned was slim to none, but slim was still slim.

The canine sniffed, then nodded once and returned to looking forlornly at the bodies as if one of his teammates might change their mind and allow him to start eating. Tsume rolled her eyes and heaved the corpse toward the one Genma was searching so they could perform one big earth jutsu to bury them all.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-30 12:56 am UTC (link)
Raidou gave the wolf-hound a dry look. "You turn your nose up at perfectly decent cuttlefish jerky, but dead hunter-nin look tasty? Your priorities are seriously messed up, mutt." He stood to one side as Genma and Tsume got on with the business of body-searching. Both of them were more then fast enough to dodge a booby trap, and smart enough to avoid a poison or jutsu. Tsume's nose alone was apparently more than capable of providing her with an early warning. Raidou simply watched, and--when he was sure he wasn't about to get in the way--stepped forward to have a look at the pills the Inuzuka had turned up. Blood pills were always useful to have. He recognized a few different painkillers, Genma would undoubtedly know more. Raidou swept them up and headed over to his friend.

"You know any doton jutsu big enough to handle our friends?" he asked, holding out the pills. If Genma didn't, Raidou had one or two he could try.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 01:14 am UTC (link)
"Well the simplest one would be the 'make a big-ass hole in the ground' one we all learned in Academy. Boketsu no jutsu. They don't call it the gravedigger's jutsu for nothing."

Genma grinned and took the pills, examining them. Fortunately they were labeled in medical script, which made deciphering them easier. "Damn, these guys were prepared for some serious shit," he said, after a moment. "There are some major painkillers, high-end antibiotics, some poison antidotes I haven't seen in the field in a long time." He held up a clear vial of orange and black capsules and winced. "If they think the guy might be using the poison these are for, we're in trouble. Although maybe they were gonna use the poison themselves. I always carry antidotes to the toxins I use. Did you find any needles?"

He pocketed the useful pills carefully, keeping them separate from his own medkit. They'd be a last resort, if their own supplies ran out. Better to take them back to Konoha and have them analyzed, make sure there was nothing squirrelly about Kirigakure medications and remedies. "I don't guess there's any clues here to what sort of bloodline limit we're facing."

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-30 01:19 am UTC (link)
"Kuromaru?"

He straightened out and sniffed the bodies one last time, nuzzling into folds of clothing. "I don't scent any more chemicals."

"No poisons, no antidotes," Tsume translated, standing and looking around the little clearing. If they'd had anything, then... she lifted her chin, tracking smells, eyes on the ground to look for anything out of place, anything that might have been--

Heavier scent, there, and when she kicked over a log it rolled off of a quickly stashed pouch. Tsume knelt, a senbon sliding to hand, the tip delicately lifting the pouch flap, flicking it open. "Got some lovely glass vials here." She tipped her head to peer inside without touching. "Kuromaru?"

He laid on his belly and sniffed carefully. "It smells like nothing."

Tsume frowned and looked back at their resident poison expert, keeping her skin away from the vials. "They're sealed."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 01:23 am UTC (link)
Genma moved over to inspect Tsume's find, kneeling next to the discovered pouch, touching nothing. Several clear vials of liquid, each held in place by a little loop of canvas webbing. Some were as transparent as rain water, others oily and murky looking. There were six different compounds, judging by appearance. None labeled. All, Genma was quite sure, absolutely lethal. He picked up the pouch without touching any of the vials, holding it carefully as one would an armed explosive.

"You know, I always knew our buddies in Mist were scary-ass mother fuckers. But this confirms it. I think that yellow-orangish stuff is related to a jellyfish poison I once worked with. And I'm sure the blue stuff comes from sea urchins. I'm sure glad they didn't manage to end up using these on us. I've maybe got some immunities to a couple of these but..." But the what-if's of a ninja's life were things you didn't dwell on.

"Wonder if they planned to use them to take out Kimura. Maybe they brought non-standard poisons, since he's one of theirs and would be expected to have whatever antidotes they usually stock."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-30 01:25 am UTC (link)
Raidou stepped over, standing behind Genma's shoulder to get a look at the little bottles of liquid death that had his teammate so fascinated. Any one of those vials could've wiped out all four of them without any hassle at all. Raidou felt a distant shiver ripple up his spine, grounding with a faint prickle at the base of his skull. Genma might've made it with his immunities, but a half-dead ninja throwing up his lungs was no match for a trio of Mist-nin, no matter how much of an ANBU veteran he was.

"Guess it's a good thing we jumped them before they jumped us, then," he said prosaically, regarding the slumped corpses all ready to be grounded for the rest of their ex-lives. He shook off his unease with the skill of long practice and dropped a hand on Genma's shoulders, squeezing it briefly. "Pack up your pretties if you want them, lover boy. We've got some bodies to bury, a nasty-ass bastard with some possible immunities of his own to take down, and I want to get back home in time to catch that war movie marathon on TV tomorrow."

No point brooding, they were all still alive. Better to keep going.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-30 01:29 am UTC (link)
Tsume stepped back to let the boys look at the vials, but couldn't keep from quirking an eyebrow up at the word 'pretties.' What sort of man said--

Okay, and there was the 'lover boy' name again. She looked at Kuromaru. He looked back. They both smirked, though it looked a little more like crazy on the canine. Well, good luck to Genma, then. The idea of doing anything sexual with Raidou made Tsume tense and prickle, and she could just imagine that he'd be rough on anyone--while at the same time being utterly unable to picture that, which was more than a little confusing--but if he was Genma's type...

Maybe this was how they'd snapped teeth enough to get themselves assessed during a mission. Common sense said you didn't send lovers out together--even if they weren't lovers yet.

Great. She hated her personal assignment all over again. She needed to get sent out with the regularly insane ANBU.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 01:50 am UTC (link)
It took another few hours to get to Kimura's hiding spot, but the trail was clear and the fact he'd stopped was obvious. Where he'd stopped, and why was obvious too. A rough and rutted dirt road led up from a pit, which itself opened up in a maw of black. Rusting mining equipment and a broken cart, along with a wind-whipped shanty stood at the edge of the mine's mouth. Genma called a halt, staying in the cover of trees at the edge of the pit, and pulled out his maps, consulting both his and one they'd lifted from the dead Mist Hunters.

"It's a silver mine. Played out over fifty years ago. Abandoned." Genma frowned. "And it's deep. The bastard could be anywhere in there. Good hiding place for him to catch his breath and lay a few traps for his pursuers." He refolded his map and pulled out another one, crouching down in a squat, and laying it out on the ground where his comrades could see it. "Guess that's why they pay us the big money," he said with a flicker of a grin. "OK, this is probably wrong, but it's the best we've got. At least the main tunnels are mapped." The scroll he'd unrolled was crudely drawn, and marked in a script obviously foreign. "I got this off our dead buddies back there, so I guess they were anticipating he might rabbit down this little hole here."

He used a senbon to trace out the areas he referred to as he spoke. "The main shaft had a cave in about a kilometer in, so we know he didn't get past that. There are a couple of side tunnels, but if he's smart he'll stay to the bigger dig chambers, because the air will be better. We'll need light, but light will give us away, and he's undoubtedly trapped it up. But if he's got any sense at all, he probably is down in the former bunks, here. We might be able to get in by going through the air shaft, instead of taking the direct route." He looked up then at two masked and one animal face. "What do you think?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-30 01:51 am UTC (link)
Raidou followed Genma's line of sight--judging by his mask--and looked down into the shadowed black hole that deepened into true darkness. Underneath his own mask the lines of his face hardened, unhappy. He held his silence while Genma spoke, crouching down to study the maps his teammate laid out, eyes following the thin gleam of Genma's ever present senbon. None of it was good.

He glanced at the hole again, and didn't think about ready-made graves.

"So," he began slowly, organizing his thoughts, "It's deep, it's dark, and we don't know the full layout or where our buddy is hiding. It's probably trapped all to hell, and we can't use light because that'll definitely get us killed. Which means no sound, no signals, and no chance if someone gets in trouble." He didn't shift, but his muscles tensed, thrumming with coiled tension. "I don't like it."

The Inuzuka had their noses, which might give them an advantage. Genma saw the worst moments of his life in the dark, which took every advantage away.

Raidou wouldn't be able to see anyone. Wouldn't be able to keep them safe.

He sighed. "We have any other options?"

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-30 01:53 am UTC (link)
Tsume tipped her head one way, the other way, peering through eyeslits at the map Genma had laid out.

It was Kuromaru who spoke, though, his voice gravel-deep. "How many exploding tags do we have?"

Tsume smirked.

"No, I'm serious. We can't smoke 'im out because we don't know what other exits there are, and we--" he jerked his head, indicating Tsume, "--can't scent him if it smells like fire. But if we set some exploding tags here," he nosed the paper, "and here," he nosed again, "then that puts him closer to the entry. We've still got a bunch of ground to cover, but he can't back off as far. And it might even activate the traps, so we can avoid them." He looked up at the humans expectantly.

Tsume stared at the map. Then the cave opening. At her familiar. And finally over at Genma. "Could we do that?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 01:56 am UTC (link)
"We could," Genma said thoughtfully. "But the explosions will definitely let him know we're there, and they could cause cave-ins. And if the air is at all bad, if there are methane pockets, we might end up blasting us and him to atoms. You think the risk is worth it? I figure you can scent out any gas near where you set the tags, but mines are weird places. You never know for sure what's connected to what." Even as he spoke he fished out a roll of exploding notes tucked into his belt and handed them to Tsume.

"I'm thinking you and Kuromaru are the best ones for placing the tags. We can do slow fuse tags and time them, or remote chakra detonation. I've got both." It wasn't a pretty plan, but it was the best they had, and it did, as Kuromaru had suggested, limit their search area for Kimura. Interesting that it had been the dog to come up with the strategy. Proved once again that this was a four man mission, whatever the assignment sheet said.

"How about this? I'll summon a few rats to scout for us. Rats in a mine, he'll never think they don't belong. They go in, reconnoiter, let us know where our guy is and if there are any obvious traps, then you two go in and set the tags. Rai and I will work our way in through the ventilation so when he reacts to the explosions we can corner him." He slipped off one glove and used the razor point of his senbon to draw a bead of blood from his left thumb, preparing for the summoning jutsu. "We should send in some rats in any event," he said, and cast the jutsu, drawing a cluster of nondescript brown and black rats in a puff of smoke. He gave them instructions in a quick and nearly inaudible combination of whispers and whistles, and watched them scatter.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-04-30 02:13 am UTC (link)
As tiny little bits of edible meat ran in all directions, Tsume quietly and calmly reached out and laid a hand on Kuromaru's shoulder. The muscles under his coat were trembling. He turned eyes so dilated they were nearly black on her, and tried to look piteous. He looked slightly insane, instead. "I only had a little breakfast..."

"Teammates, Kuromaru." Tsume gave him the evil eye. He'd smell it, even if all he could see was the ANBU faceplate.

He huffed and glared at the slowest of them. "It's best if populations of animals get culled every now and then... Keep the fat ones from getting too sl--"

"Kuromaru," Tsume growled.

He whined and laid his muzzle on his paws. "I'm sure no one would miss just one..."

Tsume looked up at Genma and offered an apologetic smile from behind her mask, letting it spill into her chakra. Her grip tightened in her familiar's coat, fingernails digging into flesh. "Be nice."

"I will, I will."

"Even in the cave."

"I will!" Kuromaru yelped, whipping up to protest her hold. "Your mother was a prey animal."

"Your mother had six toes."

Kuromaru sighed, very put-upon, and carefully didn't look at the rats.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-04-30 02:18 am UTC (link)
And now they got to deal with fire in the dark.

Raidou stopped not thinking about ready-made graves, and started not thinking about below ground cremations. With little crunchy ex-rats on the side. He gave Kuromaru a watchful look from behind his mask as the dog tried to argue his way into getting a free meal from Genma's summons, and shifted to crouch in a more comfortable position. Waiting was never his favourite part in a mission. Getting hurt was generally what most ninja considered the worst moment, but Raidou tended to lean towards the idea that if you were getting skewered at least you were doing something. Dying mostly, but at least you'd be interested.

He looked back at the map Genma had spread out in front of them, and studied it afresh with as much concentration as he could muster. It wasn't accurate, but it was something. And something was always better than nothing. He couldn't read the script, but the diagram itself was clear enough. Twisty tunnels, risk of cave-ins, nasty surprises around hidden corners, traps and pit falls and that wasn't even counting the missing-nin crouched down there like a waiting predator.

And it was all in the dark.

Raidou flicked a look at his mission partners from behind his mask, then shifted just enough to draw their attention to himself. With the hand neither Tsume or Kuromaru could see, he flicked a quick trail sign at Genma. You be okay?

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-04-30 11:06 am UTC (link)
Fine, Genma signed back with a sharp gesture. Fine, he'd be fine. The fact that Raidou even felt the need to ask galled him. And the fact that Raidou was right to ask nettled even more.

Dark. Pitch dark. It was only the fact that it was a mission and they'd be facing dangers in that darkness that would take every bit of his attention that made this remotely doable. He just wouldn't think about the lightless terror he'd lived through before. That was nothing like this. Nothing at all. This was a mission, and he had every reason to stay alert and on top of his game right there in front of him, in the form of two--no three--teammates.

Even if one of those teammates wanted to eat his rats. He turned to Kuromaru with what he was sure the dog could read as evident displeasure. "I don't care how hungry you are, you don't cannibalize your team. And those rats are teammates, got it? They're doing valuable reconnaissance for us, which will keep you from getting your fool ass killed, if you're lucky. If you're so starved, eat a ration bar."

It would be fine. The rats would come back with info about where was safe and where their target was. Tsume and Kuromaru would plant some explosives to cut off the deeper reaches so their guy couldn't run. They'd corner him and take him down. They together. Raidou would be there and there was no better backup than that. And then they'd go home, have a few beers, collect some mission pay, and go on.

It was a mine, not a prison. A series of caverns and tunnels, not a cell.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-05-01 02:55 am UTC (link)
"I would NOT!" Kuromaru snapped with greatly injured dignity, as if he hadn't just been talking about how tasty they would be. He straighted up, chest puffing out and hair bristling ever so slightly.

Tsume put a hand on his shoulders, fingers digging in past the thick fur. There was something else going on here, something important. Shifting smells and carefully still muscles, some sort of communication between partners of long standing. She watched the two men without watching them, filing information away. They might not know it, but she had a report to make later, and things like this would weigh heavily on what it said.

She wished she could see Raidou's hands. She wished she didn't suspect there was talking going on without her. She wished she could just ignore it, like she would at any other time, and not wonder if they were about to foul things up. They already had, to get her assigned.

Crotchticks, she wanted to go home in one piece, at least on her first mission as a returned ANBU!

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-05-01 03:51 am UTC (link)
"Liar," said Raidou easily, glancing at Kuromaru. The dog was huge, but with his fur ruffled and his pride wounded, he looked more like an offended bottle brush than a savage hunter. Or possibly a savage hunting bottle brush... Raidou shook his head and banished the image. "You keep that up, and we'll all get rat-bitten in our sleep. And... what's the big fella called?" He looked at Genma. "Hoshi?" Back at Kuromaru. "Hoshi's about pony-sized, so that's a big bite." Or a lot of meat, if you had a carnivore mindset.

Fine, Genma had signed. Raidou hadn't missed the way he'd signed it, either; with a curt flick of fingers and a rolling tension that'd stiffened his shoulders, right before he'd turned and snapped at Kuromaru. If that didn't count as working out tension, nothing did.

Two liars, then. For a team of four, that was pretty decent odds.

Raidou dropped from his comfortable crouch to an even more comfortable kneel, and shoved his mask to one side. Air hit his face with a taste of ghost breath, cool and crisp. He inhaled, catching the faint scent of water and fading storms. If everyone else was going to wire up on raw nerves, his job was to do the opposite. To be calm and think, because someone had to and he didn't want to be outmatched by the damn dog...

His mouth hooked up on a wry smile. Better a thinking dog than a non-thinking dog, as long as he wasn't thinking about rat snacks. Raidou unslung his sword and set it down within easy reach. He paused briefly as the new scar on his right shoulder pulled with a tiny flare, reminding him of its existence. It wasn't a big scar, barely more than a puckered line that would eventually blend into nothing, but he'd learned a few interesting lessons from it. Medics Always Came First, was one. And Don't Be Stupid, Moron, was another.

It was with the second thought in mind that he checked over his kit, making a mental tally of what he had, what he didn't, and what he'd already used. He packed everything back up, flexed his right shoulder carefully to double check the range of motion--a habit that would probably hang around until his body memory got used to the idea he was fully healed--and settled in to wait for whatever came next. Hopefully good news.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-05-02 03:21 am UTC (link)
"Right," Genma said, and rolled his shoulders back, limbering up. "We have a plan of attack then."

A rat reappeared, then another and another. Genma knelt down, deliberately putting his body between his summoned rodents and Kuromaru. After a brief discussion with one of them, he dismissed all but one rat, watching them falling back to their own dimension with little puffs of vapor. The one remaining he put on his shoulder.

"Sora says our target is in a section of the mines that was used as a bunkhouse when the mine was operating. It's got living quarters. Looks like he's expecting to be here a while. Maybe expecting friends. And the worst of the cave-ins are to the north and east. If we block off the passages to the west and confine him in the south-east, in the residential section, we'll be safer and he'll be easier to get at. He's got lights rigged in his living quarters, so whatever his doujutsu is, it doesn't let him see in the dark any better than any other shinobi."

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-05-02 03:26 am UTC (link)
Tsume grinned, straightening up and taking several exploding tags that Genma handed her. She formed seals, chakra racing between her and Kuromaru, and murmured, "Juujin Bunshin."

He twisted and warped, rising upright until he stood, nearly a mirror image of his familiar. He took tags from Raidou, then snapped his neck around. It cracked with a series of pops. "Let's go," he said, his grin nothing soothing.

They moved swiftly and carefully toward the main entrance, all too aware that it was trapped. Still, getting in and setting the explosives would cut down the area their missing nin had to fight in. If they were lucky, it might even set off the traps with no one in the way.

Fifty feet from the dark maw Kuromaru stalled, rocking back on his haunches. He scented, drifting first one way, then the other. Tsume dropped to a crouch, waiting. The sun beat down. They sat, exposed. Every shift of air currents, every faint noise made her tense, waiting for the ninja to slide out of the pitch black. She knew Genma and Raidou were behind her. Guarding her back until they couldn't any longer. Her shoulder blades still itched.

Then Kuromaru slunk forward, one hand carefully on the ground, weight shifting. His second hand dropped, shoulders rolling as he slunk closer to the opening.

Tsume followed, matching her hands and feet to his prints. The hint of blast powder reached her nostrils as she came along where Kuromaru had paused. It took another moment of following him to realize that he was threading a path through the traps by following the heaviest scent trail. The path the nin had been taking.

There was no birdsong. No noise at all. Sweat trickled down her spine, under the bone of her armor. Then Kuromaru vanished into the darkness, no more than a pale demon shape. A moment later Tsume crossed from sunlight into shadow. What breeze had been dancing fell deathly still, and the cold from the winter-entombed rocks seemed to leach out into the air. Scents layered over each other, mold and stone, unused metal left to rust, flakes of dead skin and oil, poisons, weapons cleaner, old blood, fear. She followed Kuromaru inch by careful inch as far as the first divide. Then they split, him going left, her going right. She had a mental map of the tunnels, probably outdated. It was enough.

The ground was hard underfoot, trampled by hundreds of steps before hers. She kept her fingertips trailing one wall as she slid into the black, all too aware of what could happen if she lost her way. Her eyes were useless; she didn't want to chance a chakra spike to create light. She pushed her mask to one side to scent better. The strap rasped loudly against her hair. Her steps remained quiet. One foot padded in front of the other. Her fingers slid through tags. Three tags for three tunnels. The ground sloped downward.

It was forever before she found the first shaft. Her foot dislodged a stone, and it rolled away. Echoes rattled out as it found somewhere to drop down. Somewhere wide enough for a man, perhaps. Tsume kept to the edge, unable to see what existed in the black. She set the first tag and moved out again, feet never leaving the rock as she crept along. If anything dropped off, she wanted to know.

Stone pressed down on her. The very air seemed still, heavy. Pushing against her ribcage as if it could stop her from breathing. She inhaled slowly, deeply, refusing to give into the prey-human sense that told her to run now.

Thrice more she stopped, twice for tags. Once when stone snapped under her foot and skittered away into an abyss she couldn't see. It rattled and clattered for a long way before finally smashing to a halt. After that, she tested each bit of ground before trusting her weight on it. Even still, she made sure to keep one hand filled with chakra. If she had to, she could hang from it.

She didn't have to. When the last tag was set she retraced her painstaking steps all the way back to the main shaft; the safe zone, far enough that the blasts shouldn't matter.

There, she waited for Kuromaru. Together they'd join their teammates.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-05-02 02:40 pm UTC (link)
Raidou picked up his sword and slid his mask back into place, head swinging around to watch Kuromaru's transformation from canine to Tsume's male twin. The snap and slide of bones and tendons shifting as the dog rose from four paws to two legs was ten kinds of disturbing, as was the grin that stretched his mouth from ear to ear and still managed to look mostly wolf. Raidou stood, rising smoothly from his crouch, and kept his attention on the Inuzuka pair until they disappeared below-ground. Even for ninja they both moved with a fluid kind of grace found only in wild creatures. Almost inhuman. Slightly frightening if you hadn't lived a life where the monster in the dark was often you.

It still looked weirdly familiar. He shook the thought off with a twitch of his shoulders, turned back to Genma, and crooked a hidden smile at the little rat still perched on his friend's shoulder. "Good recon," he told it, which was more than a thank you, and nodded at his friend. "If our target's holed up in living quarters, let's hope he's not asleep." The smile changed, sliding into something else. "It's about time we had a real fight."

Adrenaline was a wonderful thing. It spilled like a hot charge down Raidou's spine, burning a coil in his belly and spreading out to burn up an echo of fire in his limbs. Hot and harsh and ready, like red metal beaten strong and sharp. He canted his head slightly sideways, gaze slipping to the yawning hole in the ground. It wouldn't be a grave for them, he wouldn't let it. "After you, oh fearless."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-05-06 05:01 pm UTC (link)
When they heard the first of Tsume's tags explode, Genma moved. He and Raidou were deep in the tunnels, closing in on Kimura with the slick efficiency of a pair of hunting hawks. He'd take the lead, drive the man into the blind cul-de-sac where Raidou awaited him, and Tsume and Kuromaru would come behind, make sure there was no escape. It was still a risky plan. They didn't know his jutsu, they were moving in the dim light cast by a few bare bulbs, there had been traps found and disarmed along the way. But they were ANBU and they were good at what they did. They'd harry their pray into the ground.

Kimura burst into the corridor where his pursuers awaited him, a glimmering blade in each hand, glowing with chakra. He screamed something that wasn't even a word, just a syllable, a fearsome battle cry, and charged towards Genma. Genma raised his own kunai, throwing them with deft wrist flicks, sure they'd fly right. One at the man's head, one at the trap wire he'd set in the wall above it. He saw the flash of an exploding tag, felt the rumble as another of Tsume's cave-ins fell in behind him, and smiled under his mask. "Kimura-san, give up now or face your death."

Kimura responded with another shout, another flash of blades, a fresh charge. Raidou should be coming around that corner soon, Genma hoped. Fighting this man in the close corners of the tunnels would be hard. He needed to drive him back. To pin him in that blind alley. He saw his tripwire go, saw shuriken flying through the air, glittering yellow under the incandescent bulbs.

Then it went dark. Pitch dark. And there was crushing, tearing pain. No air, no light, just cold, rough rock pressing all around, and sharp, hot, searing flame through him. Hands crushed. Feet crushed. Chest crushed. Cold, dark, silence.

Shattering.

Genma tried to scream, but his voice was already gone.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-05-06 05:35 pm UTC (link)
Waiting to spring a trap was not Raidou's favourite method of attack, mostly because it involved more waiting. But charging in blind--or almost blind--was usually the best way to get all the wrong people killed. So he hung back and followed Genma's plan. Waiting. Watching his teammate crouched nearly twenty feet ahead, also waiting. The tunnel was dry and cool, utterly silent but for the sibilant whisper of an occasional air current. Raidou could hear the rush of blood over his own eardrums, pounding out a steady beat.

Then Tsume's tags exploded with a dull whumph of roasting air, Genma threw himself forwards, and all hell broke loose.

Raidou held himself still for three rapid heartbeats before he leapt up. Shouts echoed over the rumble of collapsing tunnels. Dust spewed everywhere and coloured the dim light grey. Steel clashed. The packed earth of the tunnel floor made it easy to get traction. He shoved chakra into the soles of his feet and added a greyhound's speed to his run. The claustrophobic tunnel made a sword useless; he left it sheathed. Instead a bare kunai spun in each hand as he skidded around the corner.

Too slow.

Metal flashed, three long spikes straight from a nightmare carved down. Raidou had time to see the angle, the intent, the damage about to be done, and no time at all to move. He yelled something, he wasn't sure what, and threw on a burst of speed. Kimura didn't even glance up. His arm struck, and steel claws bit through Genma's shoulder in a long sweep that sliced him from collarbone to hipbone. Flesh tore, bones broke, blood splattered a black streak across the dirt floor. Genma jerked and froze.

Smoke rose up to choke the dusty air, carrying with it the low hiss of searing flesh. Acid. Acid claws. Flesh lay bare against the torn black and bone of useless ANBU armour, and began to char. Metal spikes, smeared with blood and viscera, twisted, yanking back. Kimura wrenched his arm free, spraying ribbons of blood. Genma rocked backwards, held in the crushing grip of stone shackles melted around his limbs. Skin that should have been whole and lightly tanned began to blister, bubbling into a molten wreck of blood-clotted ruin. Three long wounds seared together, becoming a mortal track across Genma’s body that haemorrhaged black.

In the fractured moment that followed, where time stretched and danced a magician's curve, Raidou stared at the blank mask covering his friend's face, listened to the broken gasp that didn’t have enough air in it to be a scream, and found the space for one clear thought.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

"Genma!"

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-05-06 07:14 pm UTC (link)
The earth trembled, the cave-ins chasing the smell of smoke and charred rock. It smothered everything else. Kuromaru slipped into the darkness and she followed cautiously, her eyesight not as good as his in his canine form. Even the bare bulbs only helped so much, casting uncertain shapes against the wall. She heard fighting ahead, a wordless battle cry.

Around a corner. Another--

Someone was there.

Tsume's steps slowed. Her head tipped as she scented. The curl of ash covered everything, blanketing the caves. She couldn't hear her mission partners anymore. She wasn't worried. Cautious, because only dead ninja weren't, but not worried.

The dark crowded in, hampering her movements.

She peered into the shadows past the glow cast by a swaying bulb. There was someone, but--

A man stepped out of the gloom. He was big, taller than Raidou, with a waist like a tree trunk and arms like branches. His hitai-ate, wrapped around one bicep, declared him Stone nin.

Stone nin? They were hunting Mist.

Brown hair shone as he stepped farther into the light, brown eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiled. He had dimples. He was attractive, but too burly to be handsome. He made her stomach knot and her skin crawl. Tsume took a step back. Another.

He stepped forward.

His scent hit her, earth and sour apples, worms rained out of the ground and left to fry in the sun, wine gone acidic. She froze, shoulders rolling in, crouching instinctively. She was mistaken. She had to be.

"Hey, sweetheart. Miss me?"

Her breath caught in her throat, tangled up with her heart as it lurched. Eleven years. It had been eleven years and he hadn't changed. Bigger than she remembered, stronger. Black faced wolf, how could he have gotten bigger?

"You're the same little morsel you were then, aren't you?" His tone was light. His movements were fluid grace, jounin to her chuunin. But--no. No. Even then she'd been special jounin, recently promoted, and now she was--now she was stronger. She growled, lifting her lips off her teeth. Something cold and hard pressed against her back. She threw herself away from the wall, halfway across the tunnel as memories surfaced.

--rock melt and pour over her hands and feet, up her neck and into her mouth, couldn't breathe, pinning her in place as the world went dark--

No! She'd spent years making herself stronger, forcing the memories back, dealing with her fear-reaction. She wouldn't hide now!

But despite her thoughts she remained ducked as if waiting for a blow, waiting to curl and hide.

"S'okay, sweetie. Just relax. I'm gonna take you home and take care of you. I kept promising to do just that..." When he smiled, it had a sneer.

Should have killed him all those years ago. Tsume snarled, grabbed for a kunai--they were gone. She scrambled backward, searching for something she could throw. Couldn't let him get a hand on her. Drained chakra--bloodline limit, he'd said, he drained chakra and if he touched her she was dead.

Not dead. Dead might have been better.

She leaped back again, searching for shadows, for an escape--why did they have to be in tunnels? Something cold and hard wrapped around her foot.

Stone.

She screamed, bit it off as it echoed, too ragged to be anything but a yelp of terror. She wasn't seventeen anymore, wasn't a half-child, wasn't his lesser in a fight. The sound of her breathing filled the darkness. His footsteps were soft, steady.

He came closer. Walking calmly, like he knew there was no rush. That she was trapped as thoroughly as if she'd already bared her throat.

She was not. A snarl rose up, rumbling out her mouth--

"Tsume!" Raidou.

The snarl stopped. She twisted, yanked at her leg, tried not to feel rock circling her ankle, tried instead to see the men coming to help.

Too late. His breath was hot on her face. "You ever tell them what happened?"

She flinched away, caught up short by her own body. She slashed at his face. He leaned away and chuckled. Fear crushed her lungs. It wouldn't matter if he told them. They were her mission partners. Her teammates. Her breath sobbed out. She bared her teeth.

They came from the darkness, Genma with his whiskey eyes and Raidou riddled with scars.

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[info]fallen_tsume
2008-05-06 07:15 pm UTC (link)
They took in the tableau, the enemy standing so close. Then they began to fan out like good ninja did, one to each side.

"It's all right, boys." The Stone nin smiled, friendly. "Little Bit and I were just getting reacquainted. We've met before, see." He turned to her, eyes cold, lips curved.

"No--" She closed her jaw on the rest of the plea. Don't tell them. If they knew... didn't matter what people said. It changed things.

His smile stretched. "I raped her, and she tried to bite off my balls."

Tsume snarled at him. Pain flared as she dragged on her pinned leg. It didn't budge. She twisted, terrified of what she'd see on her teammates faces. It wasn't supposed to matter. But it did. Whatever they said, it mattered.

Confusion, uncertainty, flickered over their expressions. One at a time they looked at her.

"You didn't tell us that," Genma said warily. "Is that true?"

Someone keened--she keened--and clawed at her own leg. Blood welled, dark and rich. "I was a kid--"

"You were weak."

"I'm stronger!" The scent of disgust filled the tunnel. The scent of anger and mistrust. She pulled, snarled, felt it taper off into a whine. Panic choked her.

"You should have told us." Raidou sneered. Scars twisted. "If you're not strong enough to watch our backs--"

"I am!" She couldn't breathe. "I--"

"Can't trust her if she's not competent," Genma muttered. "She shouldn't be fighting if she can't handle it..."

"I can--"

"Weak." Raidou stalked closer, expression flickering between disdain and contemplative.

She saw the challenge an instant before he jumped. With a snarl she leaped, caught by the stone around her ankle. He grabbed her wrist and twisted her, dragging her down to the ground.

"If you are strong enough, then prove it." His breath was hot on the shell of her ear.

She writhed, free leg lashing. Missing. He pinned her on her stomach, pressing into rock. Scents changed as she struggled, caught by Raidou and the stone around her ankle. Smells became cloying. Musky.

A hand grabbed her free leg and held on. Arousal crouched in the air. She couldn't breathe. Wasn't happening. Pack challenges didn't end like this. Once a person had been raped, once weakness took that form, it often happened again.

Tsume screamed. It echoed, rattled around the tunnels, and vanished. She forced chakra, wrenching her arm around and breaking Raidou's hold. She dragged her hands under her stomach, ignoring skin left behind on rock. She formed seals, felt chakra rage through her--

--and drain out. The Stone nin groaned. "Sweetheart, that's still orgasmic."

"Let her ankle go. If she can face the challenge, let her." Raidou's breath was warm and damp against her skin.

The rock vanished. She thrashed, free foot skidding along the floor of the cave. Her knee bashed painfully, and she didn't care. Better leverage gave her the chance to get her upper body and hand around. Her nails, only slightly pointier than a normal human's, raked across scars.

He reeled back. She scrambled up, ran. A hand caught her hip, flinging her with chakra-enhanced strength. She twisted, trying to rebalance midair, hit the cave wall and slammed into the corner.

"Bitch." Genma dropped a knee into her stomach. Raidou lunged toward her, his big hand closing around her wrist. She tried to break his grip, couldn't, tried to bring a leg up, couldn't.

"You are not strong enough to be alpha." Blood trickled down one cheek from her scratches. She twisted, he grabbed her other arm. Tsume screamed, full of rage and frustration. It battered around the cave uselessly.

"Hold her still. Trust me, watch the teeth." The Stone nin's voice was choked with excitement.

No, no, no nono-- She struggled harder. Rock poured across her wrists, freeing Raidou's hands. One closed around her throat, blunt nails digging into her skin. He smelled like anger and sex. Stone poured across one ankle.

She fought, felt someone caress her arm, her ribs, her stomach. Heard the metallic shiver of a zipper.

Not again.

She wrenched her arm to get free. It didn't help. Fingers at her waistband. A hand clamped around her free leg.

Tsume drew in a breath to scream.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-05-08 05:58 pm UTC (link)
They were dead. They were all dead. Tsume had gone first, screaming curses as the big Mist ninja gave her to his Stone comrades. They should have seen it coming, seen that he had allies. They'd sprung their trap and it had been too late by the time Genma realized the truth; Kimura turned missing-nin from Mist didn't make sense as a lone operator. They should have known there was more to it. He hadn't been running from Mist, he'd been running to Stone. Crossing Fire Country in the process.


The Iwa ninja had swarmed out almost as soon as their earth jutsu had taken hold. They'd taken Tsume, surrounded her, raped her, killed her. Cut Kuromaru down with a binding jutsu when he tried to defend her. Genma had helplessly watched it all, trapped by stone, crushed by the weight of it, cut to the bone by a stroke he hadn't seen coming, bleeding on the earthen floor. Listened to Kuromaru's desperate howls as he was dragged away. When Tsume was dead and Kuromaru gone, more Iwa ninja came. A medic with them, who healed Genma just enough to keep him alive.

He'd known what was coming then.

When two of the masked Stone ninja brought Raidou, beaten to unconsciousness, stripped of his mask and armour, and chained with chakra-limiting shackles, Genma prayed he'd die. They threw them in some miserable little cell-like branch of one of the mine's many tunnels, barricaded the way out with another earth jutsu, and started their interrogation.

It didn't take long for them to figure out that Genma was the mission leader. That Raidou was their leverage. Kuromaru had talked, they told them. He'd been cooperative. Made it easier on himself. They forced Genma to watch as they broke Raidou's ankles. As they beat his handsome, scarred face to an unrecognizable parody of itself. He was strong. He never answered their questions. He was strong, and Genma prayed he'd be just a little weak. That his body would fail before his mind did.

When the interrogator thought Genma wasn't paying enough attention, he grabbed a sheathed katana from one of his guards and used it like a club. Genma felt his collar bone shatter, felt ribs collapsing, and screamed a gurgling, blood filled curse. He screamed again when Raidou pitched towards him, spitting broken teeth and blood onto the floor, trying to stop the second blow.

"Stay back! Raidou, no!"

The sheath was gone, the blade gleaming. It arced down through Raidou's body with almost no sound at all. Raidou fell, head and neck severed at an angle, heart still pumping his blood out in bright scarlet sprays. It seared Genma's skin where it landed.

"Maybe after you rest a little, you'll be ready to answer us, eh, Leaf boy?" the Iwa ninja said. He unsealed the entrance and left Genma lying on the floor with Raidou's still-warm body, with his chest shattered and every breath a struggle. He and his guards left, sealed the door again and then it was dark.

Pitch dark.

A tomb.


Continues in Three is a Crowd. Four is Salvation.

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