| [Jun. 2nd, 2009|10:41 pm] |
No tangled on Natsumi's tongue and caught somewhere in her teeth, betrayed by breathlessness. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean, anyway. You won't fall. I won't let you. They were almost there. He couldn't give up now, not within sight of salvation. She wouldn't care even if the lights weren't the monastery they'd prayed for, even if it were an encampment of rapist and murderer missing-nin. This was still Fire Country, and civilization meant safety. Survival.
The canteen she could abandon, as she'd left her armor behind where Asuma had fallen, as they'd left their scattered gear behind with the kunoichi's corpse. The sword mattered. She stooped painfully, without loosening her grip on Asuma's side or wrist, and found the scabbard. Shoved it through her belt, opposite the hip where the bedraggled head still hung, and wasted a moment fighting for air before she could move again. Asuma was nearly limp, his breath fast and shallow, his heart hammering against her shoulderblade. His skin was so dry she thought it might crack. He needed help now.
And no one else could get it for him.
Leaving him wasn't an option. Translocating wasn't any better; she hadn't even the chakra for a bare clone, and pulling chakra out of him might weaken him too much to fight. Sheer muscle strength, built by years of too-heavy bows and too-harsh training, was all that remained.
"Just--hold on," she whispered to him. "Don't give up on me."
He cried out again when she pulled him across her shoulders; his side was sticky against her back, and his weight drove her down, cracking her sternum into her knee. She couldn't stop, or she might never finish. She reached right-handed through his legs, locking her elbow around his knee, and gripped the tattered fabric of his jeans with broken fingers that had gone beyond the point of pain.
He wasn't fighting her anymore, and that frightened her more than anything else.
When she lurched to her feet, his weight nearly dropped her again. The scab on her lip ripped beneath her teeth; the length of her hair, caught beneath his body, tugged her head painfully back. She couldn't free it. She closed her eyes, breathed a brief and bloody prayer, and stumbled on. |
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