| [May. 28th, 2009|08:04 pm] |
When he thought about it later, Asuma was kind of glad Natsumi's freakin' air-missile knocked all the breath from his lungs (again). There was nothing quite like a girly howl of terror to seriously dent your reputation.
He was a little less glad that the shock of the wind's impact snapped his eyes wide open. One glance was enough to laser an image of the velvety evening sky, easy to see now that the spray was behind them, and the carpet of trees flanking the river far below, stretching out towards the horizon. Close up, it was pretty. From a hundred feet and falling, it was just plain scary.
The fact that they were spinning wildly through the air, sandwiched around a naked sword, didn't help. Though it did kick him right in the survival instinct. Behind Natsumi's back, frozen fingers twisted together, knotting into one of the first seal combinations a chuunin learned.
Ox-Boar-Ram.
Chakra he didn't have. He yanked it straight from his chest, where the deepest coils wound around heart and lungs, and tore it through his fingers. The world lurched--
And filled with water.
Hitting the river halfway to the bottom didn't hurt quite as much as smacking into the surface would have, but it was still pretty damn painful. Asuma cried out, inhaled, and choked. Natsumi jerked and spasmed in his grip, bubbles streaming out from beneath her mask. The current grabbed them, violent and swirling from the waterfall that was still way too close, and snatched them downstream. Underwater debris lashed at limbs and backs; broken branches from trees far up in the mountains, stones ripped from the riverbed. The water was warmer, but it was bruising and black and inside his lungs...
When he thought about it later, Asuma decided drowning was the bit that really sucked. |
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