| [Dec. 8th, 2011|08:47 am] |
Ibiki nodded, and cast the same jutsu again, sluicing a little more chakra through it this time. Already loosened soil rose like a snake from the ground, twisted into a thin coil, and packed itself against the side of the excavation. When that brought no flare of panicked chakra from Pakkun, and a nod from Asuma, he tried a different jutsu. Hand seals and chakra shapes combined with a press of flat palms against the raw side of the hole, and a shallow spiderweb of cracks appeared in the earth. It quaked for a moment, then collapsed, sending a cascade of rubble into the bottom. He used the first jutsu to siphon the loose soil back up again, dropping it at the rim.
There was still no sign of distress from below.
“I can widen this and keep the sides compacted and stable if you can keep digging at the center,” Ibiki said, looking up at Asuma. “That way I won’t run the risk of excavating a trap with chakra.”
Asuma flicked a two-finger salute to the temple. Not the ANBU salute, Ibiki noted. He picked up his shovel and jumped back in, resuming digging. “Just don’t drop anythin’ on me.”
The temptation to let a shower of pebbles fall was hard to resist, but Ibiki pushed it aside and set to work. Pakkun’s dire warnings — they’re barely breathing, Baiji is running out of energy, the roof is starting to groan — kept him focused on the task at hand. No Konoha shinobi, even the most foolhardy and disobedient, deserved the death that awaited Sakamoto and Hatake if they didn’t get to them in time.
It took nearly another hour of digging before they got to a layer of fractured concrete slabs that sounded hollow under Asuma’s shovel. Asuma’s shoulders were streaming sweat and his face red with a combination of effort and cold, and Ibiki’s chakra control was beginning to waver after so many repetitions of the same two jutsu over and over. He jumped down into the hole with Asuma, and working together, they excavated one edge of the slab.
By silent agreement, they crouched, put gloved hands and bare shoulders against it, and lifted. Rubble and earth clattered down into a black pocket of air as the slab moved. Ibiki groaned and shoved, putting more muscle into the lift. The slab shifted and settled. A dark, triangular hole opened into nothing. |
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