| [Aug. 1st, 2016|10:18 pm] |
Given that Ryouma's new painkillers came with strict instructions to be taken with food, he was on board with this plan. He expected a stop at the hospital cafeteria, but Kakashi led the way down to the lobby and outside instead. The sun hung low over the Hokage Monument, casting a hazy golden light down the long, broad road to the Palace.
Kakashi squinted up the street, nodded to himself, and set off.
It wasn't difficult keeping up; Ryouma'd used crutches before, and he'd had Genma's recently example to copy, if nothing else. Kakashi's stride seemed a little shorter than usual, anyway, as if he preferred to saunter through Konoha at this time of day. The street vendors were still doing a brisk trade, and the izakaya outside Intel's windowless building had opened its doors, but Kakashi didn't turn aside.
The doors of the Hokage's Palace stood open on this balmy spring day, guarded by a pair of chuunin doing a keen impression of the ANBU guards further in. A brief check of dogtag IDs, a wide-eyed glance at Ryouma's half-a-pant, and they were through.
Ryouma was beginning to sweat. The brace dragged at his leg; he banged his toes on the stairs and bit down on a swear. The bottle of painkillers rattled in his pocket. Once they made it up to the top of the Monument, he promised himself, he was never coming back down.
At least for another week, until he had to do this all over again.
They reached the blank wall in a deserted back corridor at last: the ANBU exit, which Commander Sagara had shown them on the day of the Third Trial and which Ryouma hadn't used since. He leaned on his crutches and tried to catch his breath.
"You got the chakra for this?"
Kakashi favored him with a sardonic look under lowered lashes, and formed the Tiger seal. A tiny spark of white-bright chakra leapt from his fingers to the plaster. The door melted out of the wall, opening onto a downward sloping tunnel lit by one flickering bulb.
"Good memory," Ryouma said, eyeing the slope warily.
Kakashi hung back to seal the door again. Ryouma gritted his teeth and started down the tunnel, placing his crutches carefully in the dim light and uncertain footing. The stone was worn smooth by time and tread. He spared a little chakra for stability, threading it through the wooden crutches to catch and release at each step. It was easier than water-walking, at least, and it gave him something to focus on besides the painkillers in his pocket.
Three switchbacks, then the vertical shaft and the seal-hidden doors to the lift. Kakashi managed that seal, too. Maybe his recovery-time estimate to Raidou wasn't that far off, after all. |
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