| [Nov. 14th, 2011|03:10 am] |
Asuma didn’t have the breath to scream. The fight between the pack of ANBU and the remaining orderlies was short and bloody, ending when a freezing water jutsu flooded the cell block. The fire went out like it had never existed, leaving blackened stone and charred bodies, and a thin film of heat in the air. Asuma lay half-conscious in a hand-deep lake of brackish grey water, trying to breathe through the aching crack in his chest and the agony in his head.
“One of ‘em’s alive!”
His cell door broke open. Quick hands checked his pulse, lifted him upright. An ox-masked face wavered in front of his eyes. “Sarutobi Asuma?”
Smoke-choked vocal chords wouldn’t let him get an answer out. He wrapped his hand around a gauntleted arm and took three tries to scout-sign Yes.
“We’ve been looking for you,” said the Ox. “You scared the hell out of Nozao when you vanished. Took him a day and a half to track you. You’re lucky we were nearby.”
A sharp voice came from the hall. “The scientists are gone. Masa found a kid in the operating room, says he’s okay. Sarutobi alive?”
“Just about,” said the Ox.
“Get him out of there.”
Asuma’s fingers slipped and skidded on the bone-white gauntlet, but he managed to get out: Girl?
Behind the mask, brown eyes darkened. The Ox turned towards the hall. “Any word on Hiku?”
“Found him outside. He’s blasted to hell, but Kiyoko reckons he’ll keep his arm. Don’t think the girl made it, though. Kiyoko said she wasn’t breathing.”
There was a noise in the cell, like someone groaning through glass, and Asuma realized it had come from his own throat. His fingers clenched hard around the ANBU’s wrist and his eyes blurred; warmth and wet spilled down his cheeks, worse than blood.
The ANBU gripped his arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ll take you home.”
“No.” He forced the words out, more shape than sound. “The kid’s--Kusa. Ichiba. Take--him home.”
The ANBU blinked once. In the slatted, smoky light, the scars on his bare shoulder looked like roots writhing under skin. “We won’t leave you,” he said quietly.
“Can’t take me,” Asuma groaned. “Free agent. Signed the--paperwork.”
The agent in the hallway made an impatient sound. “We’ll debrief him in a civilian hospital if we have to, just get him off the floor, Namiashi. Kiyomayu’s got field-medic training, and Tadayu used to be Intel. Take them with you. This mess’ll take weeks to clear up.” He strode away, yelling something about trackers.
Namiashi pushed his mask to one side, revealing that the scars ran all the way up to the bridge of his nose. He didn’t look much older than Asuma. “I really don’t like that guy,” he muttered, then nodded when another agent appeared in the door. “Kiyomayu, help me out here.”
She was an Uchiha. Asuma looked up into a pair of blood-red, flickering eyes, and the whole world slipped away. |
|