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fallen_senbon ([info]fallen_senbon) wrote in [info]fallen_leaves,
@ 2008-02-10 01:18:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood: curious
Entry tags:genma, mission, raidou

It Takes an Assassin [closed to Genma & Raidou]
Takes place the day following Pride and Falls and Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Genma arrived at the specified basement briefing room a good fifteen minutes early. Coffee in one hand, notebook in the other, he waited patiently, sipping at the scalding, bitter liquid and keeping a wary eye on every ninja who walked by. The Intel guy who was going to give them their briefing--or gal, he thought, not that it mattered--would undoubtedly be punctual. But it was his partner he was anxious to see. A new guy, Minamoto Touji, supposedly a sharp-tongued taijutsu specialist with a long scar across his face from some kind of duel that you weren't supposed to ask about. Well not actually new. He had a year and some months under the mask already, but he was new to Genma. That was enough to make him both curious and wary.

He glanced at the mission brief he'd received again.

Mission Rank: B
Agents Requested: Shiranui Genma, Special Jounin 010203, Minamoto Touji, Special Jounin 011354
Description/Objectives: Protect Iijima Kihei, a prominent merchant and land owner of Bungobashi province of Fire country from threats made by the local branch of the Shimeda crime syndicate. Though the threats are from local thugs, it is believed they may working in cooperation with shinobi from an unknown source.
Expected Hazards: Encounters with unknown enemy shinobi. Etc.

Pre-mission Briefing: 12/21, 1100, Room B1-104
Special Notes: Agents preassigned due to need for specific skill sets.

Signed
ANBU Mission Desk

It didn't tell him much. A protect the fat rich old guy mission, with a threat from thugs who were probably backed by hostiles. Kind of a typical B-rank, really, at least as far as ANBU went. He was kind of surprised it hadn't been given to the regular corps, but maybe the client wanted ANBU for the scare factor, or more likely the village council pegged the guy as someone Konoha wanted to keep alive for financial reasons, so they were making sure by sending their best spooks on the job.

It didn't matter. What mattered was whether this Touji guy could do the job, keep the client happy, and wasn't too much of an arrogant pain in the ass, as he was rumored to be. It was 10:58 when the sound of footsteps approaching with a purpose brought Genma's head up from his coffee. He was surprised to see the scarred face entering the room though. Not Touji.

"Yo, Rai. You lookin' for me? I have a briefing in like two minutes, but my partner's not here yet, and Intel probably won't show 'til 1105."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 09:46 am UTC (link)
Raidou lifted an eyebrow at Genma, and then glanced around the room. Being one of Intel's basement briefing closets rooms it lacked for windows. He stepped inside and leaned against the wall, lifting one leg to press his foot back and brace himself. "Hey, kid. I'd check the sky to see if it was red, but you don't get much of a view from here. You're early. Are you sick?"

Raidou pulled his own mission brief out and waved the scroll at Genma, before shoving it back into his pocket. "Minamoto ran into a little trouble during training the other day. Nothing permanent, but he's not going to be fully mobile for at least a week or so. You get me instead," he smiled faintly. "Lucky you."

Raidou had given Minamato the option of conceding gracefully. It wasn't his fault the guy had a glass jaw. Besides, Intel should know by this point that he and Genma liked to run together. Their success rate nearly doubled on their paired missions. Less injuries. Happier clients. It made sense really.

Raidou was nothing if not logical.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 09:54 am UTC (link)
"Seriously?" Genma's face brightened even further from the happy smile of greeting he'd thrown his friend. "You're seriously assigned to this mission? This is great!" He leaned back and kicked a chair out next to him, in obvious invitation. Suddenly the prospect of this mission became a whole lot more pleasant. Good company, a reliable shinobi at his back, a friend. He and Raidou were paired on missions a lot, and they seemed to always do better together. Even when it was a three or four man mission, if Raidou was there, it was better. They worked together well--some of the other guys had teased them about being psychic--but there was more to it than that. Genma had a good feeling about the mission now.

"I thought you had some other assignment," he said, and tipped the last of the coffee into his mouth. "Damn, I'm sorry Touji got hurt, but seriously, this is great. Mission gods must be looking out for me for a change." After the briefing he'd be sure to burn an extra incense and offer a prayer of thanks.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 09:55 am UTC (link)
"Seriously." Raidou's mouth quirked up into one of his rare crooked grins as he pushed away from the wall and dropped into the chair Genma had kicked out for him. It was hard not to feel pleased in the face of that enthusiasm. But that was what Genma did -- made you feel wanted. Raidou stretched, working the kinks out of his spine and checked his watch. Intel would show up any minute. "And don't waste your time feeling bad for him. The guy's an ass. I had to run a mission with him last month. I was about ready to feed him to damn Mist just to get some peace. All he did was bitch, bitch, bitch..."

Perhaps there had been just a speck of revenge in Raidou's motivation. A very small speck. There had definitely been a good measure of satisfaction in measuring his taijutsu against Minamato's and coming out on top.

It had proven his point.

"Yeah, lucky you," he added dryly, turning his face to the door as footsteps echoed by. "They cancelled my mission. I was all set to have a week off -- get some sleep, catch up on my reading, maybe do some training if I was feeling really adventurous. Now I have to play babysitter." He heaved a dramatic sigh "If I believed in your mission gods, they'd owe me some karmic pocket change."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 10:10 am UTC (link)
"Speaking of bitch, bitch, bitch," Genma said, and raised an eyebrow. "You could always have turned it down, you know. So I'm thinking you're here because you either need the money or you like to complain or both. Although seriously, it looks like a cake mission. Guard the rich guy... Didn't we used to play that when we were in Academy? It always sucked to have to be the rich guy, actually. I liked being the assassin, but playing guard is cool, too. And we're just there for a week, for his birthday party on Wednesday and and while he does some kind of ceremonial thing for the opening of a new bank or something on Friday. If I was the enemy, I'd let the party and ceremony go by and take him out after all the hoopla calmed down, but I guess they want to make a point more than they actually want him dead."

He leaned back and produced an orange from a pocket that didn't look nearly big enough to have been concealing the fruit, and started tearing the peel off in ragged chunks. The rich, oily scent of citrus filled the small room immediately, and when he had a few sections free, he held some out to Raidou. "No sign of Intel. Guess they want us cooling our heels. So Touji's an ass, huh? That confirms the rumors anyway. Did you hear the story about his face? Some kind of duel over a chick is what I heard, right before he joined ANBU."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 10:13 am UTC (link)
"Hey, I'm entitled to a little complaining," said Raidou easily, taking the offered orange segments, "I have a valid reason. Reasons. I have to work and I have to put up with you for a week. It's very hard on me." Generally it was never a good idea to eat anything Genma had given you unless you were absolutely sure he'd washed his hands first. Genma's tolerance for poisons was fast becoming legendary; something might numb his tongue and prompt a slight scowling headache could lay a normal agent out flat for days. Raidou eyed the sections of bright fruit thoughtfully and weighed his chances. "Extra money always comes in handy," he said a shade absently, letting Genma fill in his own answers as to why Raidou hadn't turned down the mission.

Technically it was bad form to turn down something you'd volunteered for.

"Yeah, I heard that rumour. Never got the chance to ask him though," he added, in response to Genma's mention of Minamato's scar. "I figure it would only have been fair to trade stories and when he heard about how heroic I was getting mine, well, you don't go around bruising your mission partner's egos. That's just unfair." Raidou's free hand rose automatically to brush the raised edge of scar tissue that started at the bridge of his nose. He yanked it down just as their errant Intel briefer walked in the door.

"You're late," said Raidou shortly, and ate his segment of orange.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 10:19 am UTC (link)
Genma swiveled around in his seat to face the arriving Intel agent. A short woman with reddish brown hair upswept in a style that said I don't take shit from anyone, but her expression was softer. She looked young, maybe just a little hesitant. A rookie, probably, here to brief two veteran Hunters, and armed with a small pile of maps and scrolls and a nervous smile. She flinched when Raidou accused her of being tardy, and offered an embarrassed smile and a small-voiced apology. Definitely a rookie. Or else a really good undercover chick pretending to be a rookie, but that seemed unlikely.

"Go easy on her, Rai," he said, with a lazy grin. "Maybe she was waiting on docs and maps to get their shit together." He tossed a segment of orange up in the air and caught it in his mouth with easy grace, showing off for both of the other occupants of the room. Why not? It was shaping up to be a great day.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 10:22 am UTC (link)
An hour later he and Raidou had pretty much all the information they'd ever need. Layouts of the client's house and office, maps of the town they'd be in, analyses of weak spots in defense, lists of his allies and enemies, more lists of suspected enemies and collaborators, and evidence linking the yakuza in the area to shinobi from Hidden Sand, technically Konoha's allies, which would make any skirmishes with them that much more tricky.

Genma sauntered along the hall with Raidou, heading for the cafeteria and a bite to eat before they headed out. "She was pretty good, once she got over her nerves, don't you think?" he asked. "Got all that info laid out well enough. More than we really need, but too much intel is better than not enough, right?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 10:27 am UTC (link)
Raidou rolled his eyes. "Uh huh," he said, "She was very good. Very thorough. I particularly liked the neat way she bent over every time you looked at a map. It offered such a nice view down her shirt." Raidou folded his arms behind his head and leaned back a little as he walked, stretching out a spine gone stiff with the long hour spent watching people flirt over mission briefs. "If only every Intel send off was so festive, we wouldn't be able to move for rookies clamouring to join up."

Honestly.

Raidou ran over a quick mental checklist as he talked, comparing the useful information he'd managed to glean against what he already knew. It really was going to be a cake-walk mission, the only kink was the possible involvement by Sand. "You know, I bet she's still back there. You could skip back and take her out to lunch, lover boy. I have a book. I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself until we have to leave."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 10:42 am UTC (link)
"You were looking down that cleavage just as much as I was, and don't pretend you weren't," Genma said, and deliberately jostled into Raidou. "Besides, I have a strict no-Rookie policy. And I'd rather have lunch with you. You're cuter that she is anyway."

It was actually all true, every word he said. Not that Raidou would likely believe any of it. But that stuttering ingenue charm the Intel girl had had worn off fairly long ago for Genma, Raidou was much better company, and he was, as far as Genma was concerned, better looking.

"Besides, it's mystery curry day in the caf. When you add enough spice you can make anything taste good."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 10:45 am UTC (link)
"Of course I'm cuter then her," Raidou deadpanned, ignoring the old flash of hurt that curdled in his stomach. "Even on your best days you can barely match up to me, lover boy. I'm just too pretty for you." He jabbed Genma in the ribs with his elbow and sidestepped away to avoid a return blow. "And no rookies, huh? Well, at least you're encouraging them to live long enough to be veterans."

There were lots of things Raidou liked about Genma. His intelligence. His banter. The way he was about as likely to give up as Raidou was. His stupid ever-present senbon and his backwards hitai-ate. Lots of things.

He hated the way Genma lied.

"I'm thinking food poisoning is a bad way to start a mission," he added. "But you're more then welcome to try the mystery curry. Just be prepared to get laughed at when you get taken out for getting the runs at the worst possible moment."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 10:53 am UTC (link)
"Don't be sarcastic, it's unbecoming," Genma said and decided not to turn the tussle into a scuffle into an outright spar. They had a mission to leave on in less than two hours, and it never did to show up to your client already bruised. He really didn't like the almost mean-spirited undertone to Raidou's voice though. Couldn't quite figure out what it was about, other than self-consciousness about that stupid scar. It seemed like there was more to it. Maybe he'd been interested in the Intel chick?

"Rookies will only break your heart," Genma said, instead of the twenty other things he thought, like what's eating you? and dude, it's not that big a deal and you're the only one holding yourself back. He didn't say it because it wasn't the right time or place and Raidou didn't need to hear it from him. Not right now, anyway.

"I'm not gonna get food poisoning from curry. It's the eggs you have to watch out for. And if I got the runs at a bad moment you'd save me, wouldn't you? I mean, I would for you."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 10:55 am UTC (link)
"Yes, mother dearest," said Raidou, and shoved his hands into his pockets. He shook his head slightly and got control of his rising temper. It was never a good idea to leave angry for a mission. Not if you intended to come back whole. It especially wasn't a good idea to be mad at the man whose back you were supposed to be watching. And not because Genma had done what he always did. "Of course I'd save you," he muttered, scowling slightly, "It's my job, brat. And I haven't let you down yet, have I?"

Raidou was physically incapable of it. He suspected if someone ever sliced him in half there would be 'back up' carved into his core. Besides, it was Genma. He was the closest thing Raidou had to a best friend. The one person Raidou would probably sell a client up the river for, as long as Genma made it back with all his limbs attached.

The closest prayer Raidou ever came to uttering was that that exact situation would never happen.

"Though, if I'm saving you because you got the runs at a bad moment, don't expect me to be nice about it. You'd be mocked forever and ever." Raidou shouldered the cafeteria door open, feeling the rush of air carry the scent of spices and possibly vomit to his nose. He grimaced. "Y'know, it's never too late to get take out."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 11:01 am UTC (link)
Genma paused as the odors and noise of the cafeteria washed over them. "You've never let me down," he agreed. "And you never will. In fact you are saving me from humiliation and probably salmonella right this very moment." He linked his arm through Raidou's and swung them around one-hundred eighty degrees. The door swung shut with a whumpf of moist, scent-laden air. "So where do you want to get food then?"

Maybe food would cure Raidou's bad mood. That was probably the problem. Low blood sugar. He's probably skipped breakfast, or didn't eat enough of one, or something. They'd feed up on something Raidou liked, like those disgustingly healthy tofu cubes in bland sauce with vegetables, or something. Eat some fruit. Maybe he'd be able to talk Raidou into oden--that was healthy, and it at least had a little flavor and no risk of spinach.

And then Raidou would perk up and things would be good, and the mission would go like silk.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 11:09 am UTC (link)
"I'm a hero like that," Raidou agreed after a moment, pulling his arm free. "One day there will be a statue of me." He shook his head and shoved his hands back into his pockets. Genma didn't deserve to play punching bag just because he was feeling cranky. "Sorry. Ignore me. I think I slept funny or woke up funny or something." Raidou mastered himself, getting a reign on his emotions before he said something even more stupid.

"If we're going to be gone for a week or so, there's some stuff back at my place that could probably do with eating." He shrugged, "It's cheaper, and saves me coming back to a fridge with things growing things. Plus, coffee." No one made coffee quite like Raidou. It was practically a living being. If he ever figured out how to communicate with it, Konoha could definitely use it as an offensive weapon in the next war.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 11:13 am UTC (link)
Saying no to Raidou cooking for you was on the list of ten stupidest moves you could make as a citizen of Konoha. At least as far as Genma was concerned. Raidou could cook. As in actually cook, with seasonings and ingredients and so forth. If you gave him a little time and a few spices, he could make even roasted frogs or those awful little cricket larvae taste good when you were on a mission and had run out of rations. Genma was not fool enough to let talent like that go to waste. Especially when there was also Raidou's ballistic coffee in the offing.

"That'd be great," he said with enthusiasm, and headed for the stairs without hesitation. "Do you want to raid my pantry on the way? I don't think I've got much..." A half-eaten yogurt, a jar and a half of salty pickled ginger, four beers, a pot of mustard, and three eggs of unknown provenance, plus a bowl of tangerines and a lemon that was starting to show its age, to be exact. And tea. Really, really good tea. Red Bluffs' First Blush Young Tips, hand harvested and worth its weight in gold. That was for special occasions. For ordinary drinking there was some rather exceptional sencha from the Lower Swallow Valley of Tea Country, and some very nice genmai-cha, and for days when he was feeling like it, some roasted tea from Earth Country. Genma wasn't much of a cook, but he was serious about tea. "But you're welcome to it."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-10 11:16 am UTC (link)
Raidou was familiar with the usual state of Genma's fridge. The first time he'd opened it he'd stared, blinked, closed it, and suggested take out. After that he'd generally taken to just bringing food over with him whenever he visited Genma's apartment -- or money, if they were intending to go out. It was an arrangement that worked fairly well for both of them. Raidou got a test subject for his more adventurous cookery moments and Genma remembered when he was supposed to eat half the time. "That's okay," he said, following Genma up the stairs, "We're trying to avoid food poisoning, remember?"

Raidou lived next door to Genma and for all that they shared a wall, the two apartments could not have been more different. Genma's place was lived in and comfortable, with a permanent strata of clutter that made Raidou's hands itch to sort out. His bed, which Raidou made a point of not looking at, was low and big enough for three people, compared to Raidou's neatly made single. They both had bookshelves stuffed with literature, but while Raidou's boasted a series of passably written fiction and painstakingly collected treatises on philosophy and war, Genma's visible selection included travel, poison, language and foreign erotica. Only the latter hadn't surprised Raidou.

And then there was Genma's shrine. Scorched and broken and clearly of great value. Raidou had no equivalent to it, but occasionally he found himself fighting the urge to bow respectfully when he walked by.

Raidou's apartment was small, neat, clean, and could almost have been empty if it weren't for the very subtle signs of human inhabitation. He disabled the traps on the door with a set of moves so long ingrained into muscle memory he didn't have to think about them, and let them both in. "You want coffee?" he asked, making his way over to the small fridge and switching on the battered coffee machine as he did so.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-10 11:26 am UTC (link)
"Do I ever not?" Genma asked, and slouched in past Raidou. The studio apartment was almost unnaturally tidy, and it always made Genma just a little nervous when he first entered. He'd been in Raidou's place enough times by now to know that sitting on the starched-looking wool-blanketed bed would not in fact crack the thing. Nor would sprawling on the floor, leaning on the counter that divided the kitchen from the rest of the room, pushing aside neatly stacked papers, setting a cup on the table, leaving Raidou's toilet seat up, or any of the other insults Genma might offer to the orderliness of Raidou's life actually break anything. In fact, it was probably something Raidou desperately needed.

"You ever read anything interesting?" he asked, fingering idly over Raidou's collection of books. "What's this one with the foreign writing?" He held up a slim volume bound in white leather, obviously well used, and thumbed through it. Maps, charts, diagrams of military action. "Oh, more strategy shit," he said, disappointed, and placed it back on the shelf.

He glanced at Raidou's weapons next, shiny and sharp and ready to go. That at least mirrored his own. No ANBU no matter how lackadaisical, let his weapons be anything other than mission-ready. If you'd just come back, fallen down exhausted, and hadn't had time to consider cleaning and sharpening your katana before you were summoned to your next mission, you took your spare. It might not have as excellent a balance, your spare kunai might not have as lovely a heft, but the edges were honed and true, and even your second best were weapons most shinobi would envy.

Genma sat on the bed, sprawling back to lean against the wall, legs slung out in front of himself open and loose. "Maybe we'll get lucky and the guy we're guarding will feed us, but I'm not betting on it. So this may be the best we eat in a week. What're you gonna cook?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 12:44 am UTC (link)
"I'm thinking stir fry," said Raidou, with his head in the fridge, "Of which you will not see one single solitary noodle if I hear anymore thinly veiled insults about my reading material. That book is a classic." He stood up to give Genma a wry warning look and set a few ingredients out on the counter. It was about time he used up that tempeh anyway.

Stir fry was a quick way to clear out the vegetable drawer and would save Raidou from having to come home to a fridge full of slowly oozing greenery. He dug out his somewhat battered looking wok -- most of the things Raidou owned were somewhat the worse for wear, being much used before he'd inherited them one way or another -- continued the fight against salmonella by washing his hands, and set to work. Not that it was really work.

In his lighter moments, Raidou would have admitted to truly enjoying cooking. It was a different art entirely from the shinobi way of life (ignoring the way they both relied on an undercurrent of well sharpened blades), but one he had discovered a surprising amount of skill for. Occasionally it was just nice to be able to create something with a bit of colour. Raidou's mood lightened as he chopped vegetables with the precision of a man well used to handling knives of all shapes and sizes, and added cumin seeds to the heating safflower oil simmering in the wok. He glanced up and felt a smile twitch his lips at Genma's customary sprawl across his bed. "Some days I swear you don't even own a spine," he muttered as he tossed freshly cubed tempeh into the wok.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 12:51 am UTC (link)
'Stir-fry' was of course a code word for leftovers. But that suited Genma just fine. The scent of the seasoned tempeh sizzling in the wok made Genma's stomach growl long and loud, and he glanced down at himself in surprise, then grinned up at Raidou. "At least you know it's going to an appreciative audience," he said and relaxed even further, oozing across Raidou's bed like not only was his spine absent, but the rest of his bones were mere gelatin.

Actually, lying down was rather nice. His sleep the night before had been disturbed by night terrors and aching hands, and though he'd finally drifted off again sometime after five with the earliest of the early rising birds just beginning to pip, he'd woken at nine with a headache and a distinct feeling that sleep was something only other people managed to do properly. A yawn and a stretch and another prodigious stomach growl announced that Genma had skipped breakfast in favor of a shower and a work out. That orange he'd shared with Raidou in the briefing, plus the cream and sugar in his coffee, had been the sum total of calories Genma'd managed to consume so far that day.

"So we're having noodles, not rice?" he asked through another yawn. "You have leftover noodles to use up?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 01:16 am UTC (link)
Raidou lifted an eyebrow at Genma's transformation from elite if overly casual ninja to a somewhat exhausted looking heap on his bed. That's what you got, he supposed with a scowl, for waking your neighbours up in the early hours of the morning with extremely vocal sex. Not exactly the smart thing to do the night before a mission. Raidou was used to Genma's wall-thumping antics, having lived next to him for the past several months, but that didn't mean he had to like it (as the several kunai marks in the wall in question attested), and it certainly didn't mean he was going to be sympathetic about it.

Raidou scraped the last of the vegetables into the wok, added a generous amount of soy sauce to the concoction and waited a moment before he threw the noodles in on top. He stirred the mixture gently, tossed in a few more spices when the occasion called for it, and finally dished out a good measure onto two plates. That was the other nice thing about stir fry, it didn't exactly take long to make. Neither did coffee. Though by the smell of it Raidou briefly considered that it might be safer to use it to clean his weapons rather then drink it. Nah. They were ninja -- both used to tests of endurance. He made two cups and added extra sugar to Genma's.

"If you fall asleep on this mission and die because you couldn't keep your pants zipped," Raidou said, as he dropped a gently steaming plate onto Genma's stomach, and sat down next to him, holding the coffee mug in front of his nose. "I'm going to be fully justified in laughing at you forever and ever."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 01:19 am UTC (link)
Genma yawned, rolled upright, and sat crosslegged, balancing the plate between his knees and reaching for the mug. Raidou's coffee would make up for his lack of sleep and then some. "Who'm I gonna screw on this mission?" he asked. "From what Intel told us the guy's an old fart with a harpie for a wife. Not exactly my type. Or were you volunteering?" He ducked the inevitable punch without spilling so much as a drop of food or drink, and tucked into the steaming stir-fry like a starving man.

"This is awesome," he said between bites, when his stomach was finally getting past the point of absolute panic that the food would disappear if he didn't eat quickly enough. "Anyway, don't worry, I'll keep it zipped. It's a mission." There were three kinds of mission sex: sex with the target because that was the mission, which this mission was not; sex with your partner, and with Raidou that was just not an option; and sex with some local--a good way to get yourself compromised or killed. Nope, this was gonna be a dry spell.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 01:27 am UTC (link)
Raidou ate his own meal at a much more sedate pace, taking a moment to appreciate his food. "I'm not talking about the mission," he said with an eyeroll, "Well, I am talking about the mission, but that's not what I meant." By this point he knew Genma would never compromise a mission for a quick fling. That was a basic rookie mistake and then some -- far too easy to get a knife in your front while you lay on your back. You died that way and everyone got screwed.

"I'm talking about you being barely able to keep your eyes open, lover boy," Raidou pointed with his chopsticks for emphasis. "Was it really that hard to go one night without company?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 01:37 am UTC (link)
"What, last night?" Genma asked with surprise. "I didn't think we were that noisy. Anyway we were asleep by one, and he left around two." There hadn't been any pointed thunks of kunai piercing the rather thin wall separating his apartment from Raidou's, so he'd figured he hadn't disturbed his neighbor. Unless Raidou had been awakened by Genma's own later wakening. But that didn't bear thinking about. He'd been reasonably quiet, and his trip to the rooftop to stargaze, where he'd found Sumire, was in part because he was trying to be quiet and not alert Raidou to the fact he was awake. Anyway, he couldn't have really been screaming, or Raidou would have come in and given him whatfor at the time.

Genma took another long swallow of coffee, thick and sweet and fragrant. Possibly a bit caustic. "We ought to see what the LD-50 is for this stuff sometime," he said, laughing. "Except my rats would give me a hard time if I was lethal dose testing on rodents with something I drink on a regular basis."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 07:00 am UTC (link)
Raidou indulged in a quick moment of mental math as he polished off the remainder of his stir fry. If Genma had fallen asleep at one, as he claimed, and the mission briefing had been at eleven, which Raidou knew for a fact, past experience suggested Genma should be well rested and somewhat languidly chilled out after his night of endorphin-raising activities. But he wasn't. Which either suggested his latest conquest hadn't really been up to the task, or something else was going on.

Raidou drained the last of his coffee and collected both their plates, rising to take them back to the sink. "Seeing as it's my coffee you plan to test, I'd be obliged if you don't tell your rat pals where to find me. I'd hate to wake up with a lot of pointed rodenty looks directed my way. That's how phobias start." He washed the dishes quickly and stacked them neatly on the draining board, leaving them to air dry. Then he set his elbows on the counter and gave Genma an assessing look. "You okay?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 07:11 am UTC (link)
"Yeah, fine. Especially now that you fed me," Genma said. He slurped the dregs of his coffee and wondered whether his nervous system could handle a refill. He decided that given they'd be jogging out on their mission in an hour or so, it probably could. It'd wake him up and any shakes he could work out with the physical activity. "Hit me again, barkeep?" he said, holding out his now empty mug.

And he wasn't going to answer Raidou's question. Not the question Raidou was really asking. The are you on the edge of some kind of break, do you need those little red pills, is something wrong? question. Nothing was wrong. It was winter. Sometimes his hands hurt worse in cold, damp weather. Bad dreams just happened. It wasn't like Raidou didn't have them himself sometimes, after all. No. Nothing was wrong.

And they had a mission to run. Missions were good. Made you focus. Especially missions where Raidou was your backup and you didn't have much to do but guard some rich guy. He grinned at Raidou, and while the start of the smile might have been a little hollow, by the time his teeth were showing, his eyes were alight with good humor. "I promise not to sleep when I'm supposed to be on watch, especially if you feed me coffee."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 07:16 am UTC (link)
Raidou held up a hand and gestured for Genma to throw his mug, he caught it neatly and refilled his own along with it. "I'm cutting you off after this one," he said wryly, as he made his way back to the bed to hand Genma back his mug, "I'm starting to feel too much like a drug dealer for my own comfort."

Raidou didn't join Genma on the bed this time, instead he veered to one side and set his coffee down on the counter before heading to his weapons chest. A quick flicker of chakra disarmed the seals. He knelt easily and began to sort out kunai from shuriken and scrolls from senbon. With an hour left before they had to go, Raidou was more then ready to start readying his kit. Everything was already neatly laid out, but Raidou still wanted to give his tools a last look over before he got his gear on. You never knew what could let you down and luck would always make it the one thing you hadn't checked.

As he pulled out his armour and laid it carefully to one side, Raidou thought about Genma's smile. It was like any one of Genma's smiles; a perfectly designed bow of lips and flash of straight, white teeth that made woman breathless and certain men wish they'd worn looser pants. It left Raidou feeling a little cold. He didn't like it when Genma fell back into his charm and used it as weapon and distraction both. But right before a mission wasn't the time to pick a fight over it. He had to trust that Genma knew his own limits. Hope he was just a little tired for perfectly ordinary reasons.

If Genma wasn't telling him something that could get them both killed, Raidou was going to damn well make an afterlife if he had to. Then he would track Genma down and kill him all over again. "You should get ready," he said, instead of repeating his question, "If you make us late for this mission you won't even have the chance to fall asleep on watch. I'll kneecap you long before we get there."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 07:56 am UTC (link)
"Yah, yah, slavedriver," Genma said, and rolled to his feet with sinuous grace. "I packed my gear already, so all I really need to do is suit up and stow the new docs we got from Intel this morning. I like these missions where we're not undercover and can just wear our uniforms and masks and be the fucking spooks we are, you know?"

Raidou was uptight. Mission nerves maybe, since he'd been hauled on as a replacement at the last minute. Or he was annoyed at Genma for keeping him up last night. Or both. He was kind of a grouch, really, Genma thought, but that was part of his charm. Odd how you could like a guy for being temperamental, but it made him honest. You knew where you stood with Raidou, because he didn't hesitate to let you know.

And he was, Genma had to admit, easy on the eyes. If you overlooked the scar. But really the scar wasn't that big a deal. Certainly not the big deal Raidou seemed to think it was, although he never said anything about it. But in six months of close companionship, sharing missions, training space, nights on the town, and living quarters, Genma had never once seen him even glance in a mirror. Not to shave, not to comb his hair, not to brush his teeth. Even passing by shop windows, Raidou seemed to deliberately avoid catching sight of his reflection.

It was something he probably ought to bug him about. But not right now. Not on a mission. When they got back, when things were calm. Maybe then he'd bring it up.

"I'll go get ready. Come pound on my door when you're set."

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 08:01 am UTC (link)
The third day of the mission Raidou confirmed Shimeda's connections to Suna. The kodachi through his shoulder was fairly solid evidence. The sand jutsu primed to take his head off was really just the icing on the proof cake. He grunted and dropped to one knee, using the weight of the fall and the enemy shinobi's grip on his weapon to drag the blade free with a sharp wrench and a nasty sucking sound. The jutsu scythed neatly over his head and failed to snip off even a hair.

Hey, thought Raidou, as he threw himself to one side, bonus.

Iijima's birthday celebration was probably a dead loss, but he wasn't actually dead, so Raidou chalked that up as a win. Genma's flickering whirlwind of attack-defense-death to his right was pretty much every advocation of Konoha's skills any potential client here would ever need to see. That and the six ninja already dead at Raidou's own hands suggested they would probably be earning some significant bonus pay for this mission.

Possibly hazard pay, too, Raidou thought, as the fresh wound sliced through his shoulder flared a subdued warning. He wouldn't feel the real sting until the adrenaline had worn off. That was a bonus all by itself. He dodged another attempt to take his head off and gutted an angry looking kunoichi, spinning her corpse into the arms of her comrades. That was more then enough distraction to leap back into the fray with a tight grin behind his mask and Iijima's wife's scream echoing in his ears.

Raidou spared a glance to check she wasn't being horribly skewered, and took a nasty crack over the back of his head.

The sky in Fire country was really quite pretty this time of year. He admired it through a hole in the ceiling from his back for a short moment, and then forced himself once more to his feet. For a third bonus, Genma seemed to be having a much better time of it. Nightmares aside. Apparently he fought better sleep deprived. It was unfortunate Raidou couldn't say the same.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 09:07 am UTC (link)
The attack had come from the southwest corner of the room, the most shadowed position, where support pillars and a curtain for the catering crew made for nice hiding places. That hadn't surprised Genma. The numbers, though, that had been a shock. They weren't trying to just assassinate their target, they were trying for a wholesale shock and awe campaign of indiscriminate slaughter. Party guests, Iijima's family, serving crew. Although Genma was suspicious of the caterers now. They had links to the organized crime groups in the area already. If they weren't the actual perpetrators, they could still easily have been the conduits.

He was far busier than he wanted to be fighting assailants who were very obviously shinobi when he saw Raidou take a hit. A bad enough one, by the bloom of blood flowing over his bare shoulder, that Genma worried. He didn't have time to keep worrying for long, because the weighted end of a kusuri-gama came flying at him, and it was all he could do to twist so that the thing caught him on his armored chest rather than in the unprotected neck. It still hurt like a son of a bitch, and pissed him off. How the hell many ninja did they intend to throw at them? And wasn't it obvious, by the litter of corpses, that their mission was doomed to failure?

Kusuri-gama asshole was winding up for another throw, which Genma put a stop to with a well placed kunai. The enemy ninja gave a short, strangled little gurgle of a cry as Genma's blade pierced his throat. Then the client's wife screamed and Genma turned. Raidou was going down, he didn't see by what weapon, and two ninja were grabbing for the screaming woman. A kidnapping? Was that their real aim? Motherfuck.

He cast a paralyzing jutsu on the three of them--he'd apologize to the client's wife later--and leapt in with katana raised, hewing the legs out from under one of the ninja. His jutsu was a short-term one, though, and the other shinobi was already working free, hands blurring through seals and eyes glittering maliciously over a dark swath of cloth. Genma's own eyes were just as fierce, but well hidden by the sedately smiling cougar face of his ANBU mask.

When the wind jutsu the man cast hit him, though, his eyes flashed through anger into pure adrenaline-fueled rage. The air was like a blade, slashing Genma's pants to ribbons over one hip, knocking him off his feet. When you took a hit in battle you weren't supposed to really feel it, but Hokage's balls that hurt. His utility belt fell with a thunk, severed by the jutsu, and the heat of blood flowing over his leg was an immediate and unwelcome sensation.

Genma went down on one knee, already prepping a jutsu to fry the fucker to a crisp, in time to see Raidou stagger back to his feet. If they could just get the assholes to give up and run, they'd be fine. At least the client was sensibly cowering under the table.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 09:31 am UTC (link)
"Right," Raidou snapped, feeling his head ring with the echo of that blow, "Now I'm pissed. Before I was just mad. But now I'm going to have to carbonize each and every one of you just to feel better--" he swayed once, staggered slightly sideways, and flinched as Genma's fire jutsu blew a nice shiny crater in the floor. "Or I'll just let him do it. That works too."

There was blood on Genma's hip, flowing in a bright red ribbon down his leg. Colour-wise it matched the bright flames he was calling up. Raidou didn't have time to worry about it, nor did he have time to worry about the wet trickle he could feel oozing down the back of his head. Mostly he was concerned with Iijima’s wife, especially when she ran screaming straight into the arms of another Suna ninja. That and the four shinobi that stood between him and his brand new target; the ugly shinobi whose muscled arms were wrapping around the client’s wife’s thin, pretty neck. Genma was ANBU, he could take care of himself, even with fire-red streaking his leg. Iijima’s wife couldn't make that claim.

Raidou caught his balance with a quick shove of chakra down to his feet and glared through the narrow eye-holes of his ox mask. "Choice time, my very annoying friends. Pick carefully." He drew two kunai and let them spin around his hands. "Either you back the hell off and live an extra five minutes, or you stay and fight and die in the most painful ways I can invent." Sometimes you really just needed to make a good threat.

Iijima’s wife shrieked again.

Genma was still on his knees.

Raidou growled and leapt forward, throwing up three shadow clones to even the odds a little. The kunai in his hands spun once more and buried themselves in the soft meat of wide eyes. Two ninja dropped -- one with a shriek and the other with a heavy thud. It was a good shot. Very accurate. Nicely carried out. Raidou didn't have time to appreciate it. Instead he dodged a katana swing, ducked a swipe of sharp claws aimed at his throat, and sprinted for the wife, leaving his clones to deal with the remaining two ninja.

Which was when he ran into a problem. It was a jutsu, and it slammed him hard into the ground. Raidou cursed as sand bonds snapped out of nowhere, rising up from the floor itself to tighten brutally around his body, pinning his arms and legs and squeezing most of the breath from his lungs. He gasped something very uncomplimentary at the Suna jounin shedding the last traces of his concealing henge -- a party guest, go figure -- and jerked his head around to find Genma once more, fighting the sand that wanted to crush him into a much flatter and less pretty version of himself. "Lover boy!" He couldn’t breath. "Get the wife!"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 09:39 am UTC (link)
Get the wife! Yeah right, and meantime Raidou was suffocating under a load of sand, and the client himself would be unguarded if Raidou was out and Genma went haring after the stupid wife. It was a no-win situation. What he needed was backup. And his backup was Raidou. So first priority was making sure Raidou didn't snuff it. If they wanted to kidnap the wife, then they'd undoubtedly be wanting her alive to put pressure on the client, and that meant they'd be in touch. He glanced up at the ninja pair tugging the wife away, and swore. He'd definitely apologize to her later.

His real first priority was keeping the client alive. Genma followed Raidou's example and set a pair of shadow clones to guarding the man who was now wailing that they had to save his wife and he'd do anything, anything they asked. The next thing was dealing with the Sand nin who'd cast that jutsu that was crushing Raidou. He matched elemental for elemental, calling up metal from the spilled blood slicking the dance floor, from the man's own bloodstream, from the iron in the steel bolts and screws in tables and chairs, and sent it cascading, molten and glowing, for the other ninja. The other ninja put up a blade to block it, but the liquid metal just flowed around it, heating the kunai to red hot as it touched it, and covering the man's hand with a sheen of fire and a smell like burning pork. The man gasped and gaged, pulling his hand shrouded in cooling iron to his chest, and fell, screaming. Genma stepped in and severed his head from his body. You could almost consider it a mercy stroke.

He glanced at Raidou to see that indeed, with the caster's death, the jutsu was dispelled, then fell to his knees again, injured leg not capable of holding his weight, and temporarily drained of chakra after casting that jutsu. It was an ugly one, but sometimes it was exactly what was needed.

The abductors had evidently made free with the wife, but it appeared the threat to the client was for the moment nullified. Just one more thing to do then, and plenty of blood to do it with. Genma swiped his fingers across his bloodied hip, shaped the last of his readily available chakra, and summoned a rat. "Follow the wife," he told it.

He'd definitely have to apologize later.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 09:43 am UTC (link)
Air, Raidou decided, was definitely underrated. From now on he was going to appreciate air. Oxygen was his new and very special friend. He rolled onto his side and gasped deep lungfuls of it as the sand's hold over him shattered, broken by the caster's ignoble death. His head ached fiercely with a sickening, nauseous pain. But head wounds always did that. His shoulder was mercifully numb. Raidou spared a moment to appreciate that along with air.

The client was safe. Most of the Suna ninja were dead. Genma was alive. The wife was gone. Raidou could breathe. Possibly that counted as a draw. A win if you took into account the number of cooling Suna corpses littered around the room.

If they got the wife back, they were definitely entitled to some bonus pay.

Raidou got his hands underneath him and pushed up, making it about halfway. He was bruised, very, very bruised, but nothing felt broken. Even the strike to his shoulder had missed his collarbone. The worst damage was to his chest plate, which had cracked under the crushing pressure of sand. But that was a hell of a lot better then his ribs.

Raidou scanned the wreck of the birthday party surrounding them, eyes flickering over the few huddled guests that hadn't fled, and sent his clones to herd them together -- away from the client until they could verify if all of them were legitimate. Then he looked at Genma and allowed himself a relieved laugh as most of the tension spilled away. He cut it short with a wince as his head throbbed. Blood spilled down his arm in a warm wash that didn't actually feel all that bad. "Think I got hit," he told his mission partner soberly, "I don't recommend it. Rates very high on the Things To Avoid list. How's your day going?"

There was a slight possibility, Raidou considered, that he was mildly concussed.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 10:34 am UTC (link)
Genma gave Raidou an exhausted, unhappy sigh. His face, still hidden by his mask was just as weary. "Lie back down before you fall over," he said shortly, and reached for his fallen hip pouch. Easily to hand was a slender metal tube in which rattled soldier pills. He needed chakra now, to replace what he'd spent on that jutsu. On the battle. Because he needed his shadow clones to keep order while he checked over the client and tended Raidou. Head injuries were such a bitch, but that better be all it was that was making his partner so loopy. It probably wasn't poison. Raidou wasn't choking or clawing his mask off desperate for air, or puking his guts up, or any of the hundreds of other things poisons did to you. He was just sounding dazed and not altogether with it.

He slipped gloved fingers under his mask and popped the pill, bitter and salty, into his mouth. It gave him the rush he needed, artificial but usable, like an electric light that couldn't quite mimic the sun, but was certainly good enough to read by. The chakra boost let him create two more shadow clones and send them over to where Raidou's clones were dealing with the few remaining guests, then Genma went to the client, who was shaking and pale, shocked and terribly upset, but unhurt. Thank every god ever, Iijima was unhurt.

"You need to stay here," Genma told him. "My guards will watch you while I check on my partner."

The man nodded numbly, obviously confused as to who exactly Genma meant. Between Genma, Raidou and their clones, there were a multitude of black and white armored and masked ANBU in the room--some standing, some wounded. "My wife..." he started to protest.

"I'm already tracking your wife." Genma told him, and handed the man a cup of wine that had miraculously remained unspilled on the table throughout the melee. A disturbing thought suddenly sprang to mind--had the wife in fact been one of the conspirators? Maybe her whole kidnapping was staged. He didn't give voice to his thoughts, though. Instead he put his hand on the client's shoulder in a reassuring gesture. "Don't worry, sir. Everything is under control." And with a little chakra pulse, he made sure the client would rest until he actually had things under control enough to make that statement true.

Next was Raidou. Genma moved slowly, painfully, and knelt by Raidou's side. There was enough distraction that he decided it was safe to push his partner's mask back. He needed to check his eyes, his complexion. It was easy to slide into field medic mode, focus on the important things. The ABCs. Airway, Breathing, Circulation... Raidou was breathing fine. And his neck wasn't fractured thank gods. There was a bloody knot at the back of his head, but the shoulder wound was most worrying, bleeding heavily and too fast. Too close to too many vital blood vessels and nerves and chakra pathways.

"I'm gonna bind up your shoulder so you don't bleed to death on me, and then I'll work on your head, alright? Client's safe. Is anything else hurt enough I need to worry about it?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 10:37 am UTC (link)
Raidou jerked his head automatically back as Genma's hands drew his mask away, flinching from the touch to his scar. It was a long ingrained habit, made worse by the injury to his skull. He'd spent several long, agonizing months in hospital with people's hands bringing new pain to his face every damn day, replacing bandages as the skin had sloughed away. As the tissue had died. He wasn't fourteen anymore and he knew it, but some things were hard to banish. Harder when your head was splitting open.

"Your hip, idiot," he said, in answer to Genma's question. He lifted a hand and pressed it hard over his wounded shoulder, ignoring the bright new hurt that brought and concentrated on stemming the blood flow a little. He tried to think clearly. "You should deal with that first. No point both of us keeling over from blood loss. You know the order." Medics were precious on the battlefield, they had to be treated first. They were harder to replace. Even basic field medics like Genma. Cannon fodder were better at holding it together. Raidou was better at holding it together.

High pain tolerance, he told himself sternly, stop wincing.

"I'm not going to die from a nick like this anyway," he added, "It's not nearly grand enough. I have plans. Very big hero plans." His stomach turned over with a neat little flip and Raidou paled under his tan. There were no hands touching his face. He was okay. He was fine. More then fine. He needed to sit up and stop being a snivelling wuss. "None of them involve me getting taken out this easily." He swallowed hard and gave Genma a dizzy look. "I think I took a hit. Possibly two. I don't recommend it." Had he said that already? Raidou locked his elbow and shoved himself completely upright with a faint hiss. "Your hip is bleeding. You should deal with that."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 10:47 am UTC (link)
"You're going to lie the fuck back down and let me treat you," Genma snarled and put his hands on Raidou's shoulders to steady him. "You have a head injury, and maybe I really should treat that first, if it's going to make you behave like a fool." He didn't wait for Raidou to agree or disagree, just channeled healing chakra to his hands and clapped them to his partner's head, one in back over the knot, one at the forehead where his brain would have potentially smacked against the inside of his skull after the impact. He could feel the chakra disturbance of a mild concussion, but no obvious hemorrhage or hematoma forming, thank gods. Just a little mild swelling, some jarring of electrical paths. He could fix this. He knew how to fix this. Getting a concussed ninja back on his feet was one of the first things you learned how to do, once you got past basic first aid. It was second nature just about, to push healing chakra in past scalp and bone and dura and into the soft, delicate grey matter. To nudge things back into alignment. Raidou'd probably continue to have a headache, but at least he'd be thinking clearly and have a sense of balance. Headaches were what pain pills were for.

He could feel Raidou tense, almost shaking, even when he was sure the jutsu had done its work. "Pain bad?" he asked, and dropped his hands away, searching Raidou's eyes. They focused, pupils were equal, but he looked ill and pale. "You need one of these," he said, and got another soldier pill out, along with a blood pill and handed them to Raidou. "You with me? I'm gonna bandage your shoulder now." His voice was softer, gentler, more worried. He wanted to give him pain medication, too, but they were still in the thick of things, and Raidou wasn't screaming in agony. If he could tough it out on soldier pills alone, that would be safer.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 10:52 am UTC (link)
"It tickles a little," Raidou said tightly, fighting to reign in the instincts that wanted him to strike at the hands on his face. It was Genma. Genma healing him for fuck's sake.

Besides, you never, ever struck at Genma's hands. Not ever.

Raidou took the pills offered to him and crunched them grimly, using the familiar bitter taste to centre himself a little. "I'm okay. I'm here." He was here and the hands were long gone. The old agony was long gone, replaced by the fresh new ouch in his cranium and the steadily growing ouch lancing through his shoulder. Neither were as bad as what had come before. Raidou gathered the pain around him like a different type of armour, better then the cracked plate that guarded his chest, and used it to drag himself hard into the present. It wasn't acid, it was just a head crack. A sword slash. Barely an anything.

He was definitely not going to throw up over some nine-year-old hurt. Not when he had a job to be doing.

Raidou focused on Genma, locking his eyes on that very familiar cougar mask. He studied the smiling design painted delicately over bone-hard porcelain, losing himself just a little bit in the swirls of ink. Bright non-bloody colours. He could see the shadowed yellow-brown of Genma's distinctive eyes through the narrow slits cut for vision. Hear the smooth timbre of his voice, pitched at the level medic's everywhere apparently knew from birth. That soothing tone that settled Raidou's nerves and riled him up all at once, because dammit he wasn't an infant to be soothed.

There was fresh new energy in his system, healing chakra in his head, and a blood pill shoring up the loss from his shoulder. The confusion was ebbing, replaced by much more solid nausea and the determination to not be sick that went with it. Nice well-known ground. Raidou summoned up a hard smile and took a breath through his teeth, "Definitely here. Your hip's still bleeding, kid. You want to deal with that before I have to make good on my promise to kneecap you?"

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 11:02 am UTC (link)
"I know my hip's bleeding," Genma hissed back. "I'll deal with it in a minute." He knew it because it hurt like a fucking bitch every time he shifted his position even slightly, as severed muscles spasmed and clenched and frayed nerves screamed that there was something terribly, terribly wrong. Not for the first time in his life did he wish there were a handy jutsu you could cast on your body like a snooze button on an alarm clock. An I know something's wrong, and I can't deal with it right now, give me a few minutes function. There wasn't one. But there were some similar jutsu for easing discomfort that looking at Raidou he could see he ought to cast now. Nausea was just as incapacitating as pain, after all, and Raidou looked positively green.

Different hand seals than for the concussion, and a different focus of action, but it was another jutsu that acted on the brain, and one that often got cast for head injuries. He remembered his sister casting it on him when he was still a punk genin and she was a medical apprentice, when he'd been miserable with some stomach flu or other. Nausea was nausea was nausea, and there was a specific nexus in the brain that handled it. You just had to calm it, send it to sleep. He raised his hands and saw Raidou flinch.

Oh gods, this was about his face, wasn't it?

"I just want to make it so you stop feeling so pukey, alright? I'm going to touch your head, right behind both ears, with two fingers. That's all. It's quick and it doesn't hurt. Might make you feel warm a second but that will go."

And then we'll bandage your shoulder and I'll see if I can figure out what to do about my hip, and then we'll wake up the client and hustle him back to some safer room. And then, if we're not too fucked up, we can try to start tracking down the wife and dealing with the corpses and the guests and...

It was enough to make Genma himself feel a little ill. This was turning out to be a bigger job than Intel had promised.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 11:06 am UTC (link)
Raidou wondered vaguely if it was possible to get whiplash from a partner's moodswings jerking you about. There were moments when Genma was worse then any teenage girl he'd had ever had contact with. It was probably growing up in a house full of sisters -- that had clearly done something to Genma's brain. Or it's my brain, thought Raidou, with some resignation. He eyed Genma's hands warily, and then snarled at himself for behaving like a spooked genin. "I'm fine," he told Genma firmly, and purposefully relaxed his posture as much as he dared. It was never a good idea to let your guard down completely, particularly not in the wake of an attack that had left them both injured and dragged off the wife of their client.

Besides, the room was still full of party guests. All of them potential clients for Konoha. Raidou had no intention of acting in a way that reflected anything but good light on his village. No concussed craziness, no vomiting, and definitely no twitching like a frightened rabbit every time Genma reached for his face.

He held himself perfectly still as Genma worked his jutsu and counted up to ten and backwards to one, skipping the number four both ways. It wasn't like they needed any extra bad luck on this mission. He was down to two when the nausea broke and receded, drawing back from its stranglehold. Raidou didn't relax until Genma's hands dropped, but the harsh lines of his face eased slightly, and the colour of his skin definitely improved. Warmth curled up in his head and then shattered out like a little sunburst. It was a distinctly odd feeling. "See?" he muttered, "Fine. Didn't even have to hold a kunai to your throat or anything."

He wondered if Genma even remembered that old offer. It seemed like a very long time ago.

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 11:13 am UTC (link)
"Kunai to my..." Genma blinked, and remembered. An offer made when they'd hardly known each other, when he'd been the one on the verge of cracking up over an injury that was too close to touching on unhealed wounds from missions past. "Yeah. I guess I should have offered, huh?" he said with a shaky laugh. "Least I didn't get my hands all cut up this time." The fact that he could say it so plainly, even make a joke of it, spoke volumes about how their friendship had evolved in the six or seven months since that first mission together.

He busied himself getting out bandages and antiseptic, and prodding at the blade-width stab wound on Raidou's right shoulder. A single edged blade, he'd seen it actually, a kodachi, leaving a slim, somewhat triangular slit just above Raidou's collarbone, piercing the deltoid and trapezius muscles and exiting in what was barely a scratch at the back. "You're fucking lucky this didn't get your brachial arteries and veins," Genma said, marveling at just how stupendous that luck had been. A centimeter to the left or right, the angle just a little more steep, and Raidou would have been bleeding out, not just bloodied. He splashed antiseptic over the wound, then slapped a clot-forming pad over it and wound a roll of elastic bandage over that in a figure eight, anchoring at around Raidou's chest.

"You can't use that arm," he warned when he was done. "We ought to put it up in a sling. It's a nasty place to get such a deep cut." As an afterthought he ran a finger down Raidou's arm, tracing over black gloves and the bone-white straps anchoring his arm guard in place. "Can you feel that. Can you feel your fingers okay?"

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 11:16 am UTC (link)
Ouch, thought Raidou, a shade testily as Genma splashed stinging antiseptic everywhere. The adrenaline was definitely wearing away, ebbing with the nausea. He winced faintly as the wound notched quickly up from a distant annoyance to a sharp and very present pain, drawing his attention as snarling nerves woke up and informed him something was not right. He followed the pathway Genma's finger traced, watching the anonymous black cloth of his gloves that hid a multitude of old silvery damage. For an odd moment he was tempted to ask Genma to take them off. Show his scars. Fair trade, brother.

It was probably the fading edge of his concussion.

"I feel lucky," he said, just a little dryly. "And I can feel that fine, all my fingers are registering okay." That wasn't quite true. His hand was slightly numb, stinging with pins and needles. With some of that luck it was just the blood loss and not nerve damage. Genma couldn't do anything more for either one of those that he hadn't already done. There was nothing to gain by worrying him.

One arm down. That left three working limbs, even if it cost Raidou his ninjutsu. He definitely couldn't do seals one handed. Three limbs was more then enough. He was ANBU. Three limbs was plenty. "Forget the sling for the moment, I don't need it getting caught on things. Just patch your own lucky self up, and we can get started sorting out the remains of this little party." Raidou found a crooked grin somewhere, measuring it against Genma's blank mask. His shivery laugh. "Hide and Seek, eh? Party games. What fun."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-11 11:27 am UTC (link)
"Let me know if that changes," Genma said. Not that he was sure what he'd do if Raidou did start showing signs of nerve injury. The fact that he could still move and feel his fingers argued that the blade had missed the important nerves, anyway. "Are you still dizzy? I'm not exactly sure what I can do about my stupid leg right now, but I might need you to help. I don't think it's that bad, really," he added, twisting to look down at the bloodstained skin showing through slashed black fabric.

"It's not deep, anyway. Kind of like I got raked with one of those clawed weapons, only it was some kind of jutsu." He prodded at the cuts--five ragged parallel tracks swiped across his hip and outer thigh--hissing through tightly gritted teeth, and splashed more of the antiseptic over it. Disinfection was a special kind of hell, and he was briefly sorry for having put Raidou through it. But a few moments of misery from the alcohol on raw nerves was infinitely preferable to a suppurating wound later.

He checked the room again. His and Raidou's clones still had the other occupants under control, though their voices were starting to rise now. The aftermath of terror was nervous babbling and anxious laughter from the civilian guests, as they compared stories and darted frightened glances at the ANBU clones around them. They needed to get this under control. And he needed not to be limping around, Genma thought with a deeply annoyed sigh. He took a kunai and enlarged the rip in his pants, peeling away the tattered ribbons of cloth to fully expose the injury, then slapped a rectangle of folded bandage over it, and used another elastic bandage to secure it. It would have to do for now. He picked up his utility pouch with a regretful sigh. Repairing the belt was going to be as much or more of a pain in the ass as repairing the injury.

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[info]fallen_raidou
2008-02-11 11:31 am UTC (link)
Raidou followed Genma's line of sight, watching the blank face of his cougar mask turn as he scanned the room. Civilians. He sighed slightly. Civilians always complicated things. "No I'm not dizzy," he said, turning back. "You do good work, lover boy. My head feels like it took a crack, but I'm thinking as clear as I ever do." The headache he could live without, but it wasn't debilitating now Genma had dealt with the nausea, just annoying. He touched a hand gingerly to the wound on the back of his head, feeling the slightly crusty edges that marked drying blood. It had been a heavy hit, but at least his skull wasn't cracked.

The wound over Genma's hip was a little more concerning. Raidou was no medic, but he had more then enough experience with injuries to know what probably needed stitches. If nothing else it looked like it would hurt like an acid bitch and definitely get in the way of Genma's motility. And with the tear in Genma's pants and the flash of white new bandage, it was the equivalent of a shiny new target for enemy ninja. The elastic cloth wrapped around Raidou's own shoulder posed a similar problem. There was nothing worse then taking a hit on an already semi-serious hurt.

Raidou picked up his mask grimly and slid it back into place. They would both just have to deal for the moment, there would be time to fall back and lick wounds later. For now they both had a job to do. He gathered his legs underneath him, bracing himself with his good arm, and got to his feet. Swayed once and caught his balance.

Okay, maybe slightly dizzy.

Raidou waited for it to pass, breathing slowly through his nose, and offered his hand to Genma. "Ready to play scary ANBU for the lovely civilians? I don't know about you, but I'm definitely in the mood to be the bad cop."

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[info]fallen_senbon
2008-02-12 05:26 am UTC (link)
Continues in It Takes a Partner

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