| [Jun. 12th, 2009|04:17 pm] |
Somehow, Tsume had forgotten that it was only just April. The water hit her with freezing intensity, nearly stopping her heart and crushing her lungs. She forced the little bit of chakra she'd gathered into her muscles and blood, making her body work. The cold overwhelmed the pain of salt water in wounds; everything hurt too much to notice it.
There was no way to tell how far from the surface she was. She held her breath and kept swimming, praying she wasn't going farther down, letting her body's natural buoyancy take her upward. Hopefully.
Tsume hadn't spent much time on boats, but she'd spent lots of it in the river near the Inuzuka compound; even when she felt the currents here start to pull on her unnaturally, she kept on.
How far was far enough? She didn't really think she'd be able to escape, but if she could shake loose the weapon, even for a moment...
Her lungs were burning. Fear clutched at her. If she didn't hit the surface--if she was driving herself deeper--
Then she broke, gasping, into open air.
The water pulled back harder. She struggled forward. Her fingers were starting to go numb despite the chakra in her system. She pulled more of it, shoving it down her extremities.
How long had she been swimming? It seemed like forever, one arm over the other, legs kicking furiously. Her body ached from the cold. Every inhalation was an effort, against the shock of icy water. She started counting breaths, fear eased somehow by the feel of the sea sluicing past, by the knowledge that in the open ocean it was a void, but this was natural. This she could do.
Then someone grabbed her leg.
Tsume didn't bother trying to kick free. She curled, using the grip on her ankle as leverage, and clawed backward.
Her nails hit resistance. The hand on her ankle let go. Fighting in water--punching, kicking--wasn't nearly as effective as on land. The sea dulled blows, made them soft. Her claws, however, were always edged. She twisted to follow her attacker, feeling the currents as he moved, and clawed again. More resistance. This time, she caught at cloth so he couldn't escape, and raked her nails above it. Maybe she'd hit his face.
The body jerked and thrashed--
And then water snatched her up, some kind of jutsu tumbling her up and around, far above the ocean but still in the water.
She struggled, thrashing, trying to find any escape. Her lungs burned with the need to breathe. She couldn't see any kind of edge to whatever she was in. It took only seconds for her mind to fuzz out, already overwhelmed by cold.
She hadn't found the edge of the weapon's influence. |
|