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Leap of Faith. [Asuma & Natsumi] [May. 29th, 2009|12:53 am]
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From: [info]fallen_natsumi
2009-05-28 07:47 pm (UTC)

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She had warning: plenty of it, as chakra flared and the ground shook beneath her feet, and the wind shredded Asuma's shout and whipped it away. Natsumi took one step backward, nearly turned her ankle on a tumbling stone, and saw steel swing and sink.

"Oh hell no!" she screamed over the earthquake thunder. The bow was a living thing in her hand; she sheathed the arrow in chakra and sent it slicing through the wind. The quiver was at her hip; she set another arrow to the string, drew, and loosed before she took another breath.

Her fraying genjutsu couldn't hide the arrows. The woman turned, contemptuous as a flame, and let the first arrow barely kiss the side of her throat. The squat man with the knife wasn't quite so fast. Her second arrow pinned him by the throat to the red-painted pillar of the gate.

The third arrow never left the string.

Rock splintered with a sound like a giant's scream. Natsumi didn't even have time to turn before the cliffside sheered away and she was falling. She spun anyway, gathering chakra into her legs for a leap back to solid ground and safety, but another slab of granite smashed sideways into hers, and she lost her footing and her control. Her chakra exploded; the rock shattered beneath her feet. A razor-edged shard sliced her thigh. Something else hit her right hand. The arrow splintered. And she was falling, gods, gods--

Already the bridge was a thin, swaying thread down the gorge and against the sky. She caught only a glimpse of purple before the rising cliffs blocked out the sun. Too high to jump; she could have managed twenty feet, but never sixty. Seventy. Ten meters with each second, they'd learned that in the Academy, and velocity increased the farther you fell--

Just hitting the water would be enough to kill. She wrenched chakra up, slammed it into her bones. A rock hit her elbow and ricocheted away; she barely felt it. The fingers of her right hand would barely move; she dropped the bow and forced them through the seals anyway. Bird, Boar, Monkey, Ox, Horse, and a cushion of air caught her and slowed her fall. She took one breath--Oh gods, let him be safe, let me go home again--and then she hit the water.