| [Jan. 12th, 2011|08:21 pm] |
Asuma shook blood and blistering flesh off his hands--kids' flesh, oh Kanon--and narrowed his eyes at the heart of the disaster. The burst tanks were a welter of exploded metal, skewed out like a red-raw, burning roses. The whole one...
Was starting to smoke.
Chakra, seals, hands moving fast enough to burn themselves, and the soupy earth lunged up like a fist and swallowed the thing whole. He tempered the jutsu quickly, trying to cradle without crushing. To wrap the tank up in mud and dirt, and sever the gas lines before any flame found its way down -- half of them had already ruptured, goddammit -- but without making the earth around it into a leaking, waiting hazard for the future.
It held. Asuma blew out a breath, ripped more earth up onto the burst tank to quench some of the flames, and refocused on the screaming. Other Inuzuka were taking the five badly burned children away -- he could hear some kind of warning klaxon in the distance, closer to Konoha. Rescue crews on their way.
But there were houses on fire here, and people trapped inside.
He shot a look at Tsume. Her dress was already scorched, snarling around her like a scarlet banner; her arms were blood-streaked to the elbows. Kuromaru lunged out of the smoke and leg-locked himself to a halt at her side, back end skewing around. His fur was smoking.
"Water's not going to work," Asuma snapped. "We need to get the people out, then crush the buildings flat. Take down the trees, if we have to." She knew the grounds and her people better than he did. "Where first?" |
|