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Tweak says, "What is this a missile launch?"

fallen_asuma (fallen_asuma) wrote in fallen_leaves,
@ 2009-06-26 21:29:00

Kunoichi and Bastards. [Asuma & Tsume]
[Takes places directly after Pirates and Ninja]

There were only so many ways you could swim back to consciousness in thirty-six hours before it became something like routine. This time, Asuma woke with a soft little gasp that was barely more than a deeper inhale, and felt his fingers twitch. He didn't open his eyes. Some wary, uncertain part of him wanted caution. Wanted to know what the hell had happened before all that black...

"You awake, old man?"

It was a surreal experience to hear your own voice twisted into humour and something that wasn't quite worry.

"Unhg?" Asuma managed, and slit one eyelid open. He was lying belly-down on a broad table, unwounded cheek pressed against wooden planks that were just a mite too sticky for his personal taste. He winced.

Directly in his blurry line of sight, his own face grinned back at him. "I'm gonna take that as a yes. You've been asleep for hours. Are you brain dead, or what?"

"Good question," Asuma croaked, and opened his other eye; one lid still lifted higher than the other, but at least he could see. Gingerly, he pulled a hand up and pressed it to his head. Understanding came back--Tsume's freakin' skull-cracker jutsu--along with a thorny blossom of pain, but it wasn't anything like it had been before. He eased his fingers through matted hair, feeling around to the back of his skull. It was tender and aching, but solid when he pressed cautiously--and then a little firmer.

Nothing gave.

Relief was a beautiful thing. Asuma accepted painkillers and water from his clone, tucked his left arm beneath his head, and went back to sleep. This time, it was nothing but healing.

When he woke again, the room looked exactly the same, his clone looked excruciatingly bored, and he really needed to take a piss.

If that wasn't a sign of good health, he didn't know what was.

He slid off the table, caught his balance against the clone, and used it as a brace until his legs remembered how to walk. The ship didn't have much in the way of facilities, but after a little searching, he managed to locate a closet-sized room with what looked like a hole-in-a-bench kind of set up. The clone leaned against the outside of the door and offered helpful commentary. Asuma was gratified to find he wasn't pissing blood.

There wasn't a sink. But there was, for some reason, a mirror. After a long minute of staring, he managed to recognize something of himself in the wide-eyed stranger looking back. Mostly, there was bruises. Black eyes. Cuts across his forehead and both temples, only half hidden by his headband. His lips were a dry cracked mess, rimmed with old blood at the corners. His cheek...

Well, at least he'd have another cool scar.

And there were cigarettes in his hip-pouch, even if Tsume had walked off with the medkit.

And he was alive, which pretty much made up for everything ever.

Trailing smoke, a raspy whistle, and only occasionally supported by his clone, Asuma limped back up to the deck to find out what had happened to his errant partner.

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fallen_asuma
2009-06-26 04:10 pm UTC (link)

Left alone with half a crew of terrified sailors and four waning clones, Asuma leaned on the railing, studied the skyscape, and wondered what to do with himself. Every mission had one of these moments, when the excitement was over, injuries had finally sorted themselves out on the line between painful and probably not fatal, and the immediate future held nothing but waiting.

After a moment, he remembered the two still-hovering clones, whacked his forehead (very gently), and ordered them back to work. The third was still up in the rigging, eyes fixed on the horizon, voice cracking out orders to the men around it. The fourth was leaning lazily on the wheel, idling the wooden spokes between its hands; out of all of them, it had the most chakra left.

There were eight sailors, ranged out between the deck and the sails, all of them burly and tanned and barefoot. Asuma regarded each of them in turn, but found none that would meet his eyes. He thought about striking up a conversation, but condemned men had nothing on their minds but the hangman's noose, and he wasn't in the mood for begging.

The distant land was still nothing but a smudge on the horizon, like a god's blurry fingerprint.

He sighed.

Then he finished his cigarette, lit another, backtracked his steps to the galley, dug out the first three edible-looking cans to catch his attention and a small keg of something that was probably water, headed back up onto the deck, (didn't stop to think about checking on Tsume), grabbed the first abandoned shirt that presented itself, and clumped up to drop--carefully down behind the wheel-clone.

"Hey."

"Mornin'," returned the clone, without looking at him. "Bored?"

"Yup." Stiffly, he yanked the shirt on. Then he pulled out a trench knife to set about levering the cans open. "What'd I miss?"

"Your pretty little partner almost goring a guy to death, for starters." The clone sounded amused. "Didn't even kill him before she tossed him overboard. Turns out your buyer's captain was the only one who knew anything."

"Damn," Asuma muttered. He licked a drip of juice off his blade, then pulled a face and spat, ridding himself of the taste of enemy blood. "How's she been?"

"Tsume?" The clone glanced back, head tipping thoughtfully as Asuma nodded. "Tense, snappy, snarling. Tired and hurting. Pretending she wasn't checking on you every ten minutes. She threw up after she got done with her screamer. Good, otherwise."

There was probably some social commentary in wordless acknowledgement Asuma gave, as he accepted everything and questioned nothing. If anything, he was grateful; at least Tsume had got to vent something on one poor bastard.

Which left eight for him to deal with once they hit land.

Silence settled, broken only by short commands and high whistles from clones and crew. By quietly slapping waves, and the mental noise of half-formed plans. He polished off two cans and half the water, smoked his remaining cigarettes, took more painkillers, organized his thoughts enough to scrape together the threads of thank you into a battered, silent prayer, and passed the time playing cards with the wheel-clone.

Halfway to the shore, one of his deck-clones shimmered and vanished, startling the sailors. Asuma scowled and pressed more chakra into the remaining three. Despite that, he was down one more doppelganger by the time they made it almost within hailing distance of land.

There was a harbour. Small, weathered, boasting mostly tiny fishing vessels and a few bigger sloops. Away from the sea-front, ravaged looking buildings faced the ocean, the paint peeling away from salt- and sun-blistered wood. He didn't recognize it, but at least it was there.

Relief was beautiful.

Asuma waited until he could hear the shushing crash of surf breaking against sand, and then rose to his feet, snapping a wordless order through his clones.

It took sixteen seconds to break eight necks.

He helped drag the bodies into the hold, set his two remaining clones to the not completely impossible task of docking the ship alone, and went to wake Tsume.

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