| [Nov. 29th, 2016|09:58 pm] |
The Uchiha stiffened. That was all the warning they had, before a lethal rain of senbon exploded from the lava tube's walls and ceiling. The clone's body jerked, pincushioned by needles, and fell.
Just before it hit the water, it burst.
Ryouma locked his jaw against the flood of death. The pain wasn't real, but the memory still jarred: tiny lances of agony, a spreading burn, chakra suddenly dissolving away beneath his feet…
"Poison," he said hoarsely. "On the senbon. Some kinda paralytic, maybe. Lost chakra control." He looked around. "Somebody oughta grab one of those needles for the lieutenant…"
Kakashi stooped to pluck two senbon from the stone at the water's edge. He sniffed them carefully, almost brushing the steel against the thick fabric of his mask. "Not one I recognize." He tucked the senbon away in a thin metal case, vanished the case back into a pocket, and asked Satomi, "Did the seal defuse?"
"There's still chakra in it." Satomi tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling, then took two steps sideways, changing the angle. Her voice thickened with disgust. "And a mirrored seal above, behind that lump of rock. I missed that. My apologies, Tousaki."
That was almost as good as an apology from Kakashi. Ryouma cleared his throat. "No problem."
Ginta prowled up the curving wall, a prudent step behind the path Ryouma's shadow clone had taken. At the edge of the senbon launch-field, he curled up into a perpendicular crouch to inspect the surface of the rock. "Clever. They're using the porosity of the lava." He prodded gently at the rough, pitted basalt. "I'll try to set it off again." He took three long steps backward — now hanging almost upside down — and sent in a clone.
Senbon glittered. The clone burst like rotten fruit. Ginta's breath huffed out in a low grunt, but his hands were already flashing through the seals. Another clone puffed into existence beside him and walked steadily forward to its death.
And another. And another.
The senbon were perceptibly fewer, now. They splashed into the water and glimmered in the glowstick light, but the deadly rain was nearly spent. The fifth clone dodged a sad sprinkling of needles, somersaulted in the air, and landed on the surface of the pool with barely a splash. Ryouma clapped, before he caught himself.
The clone swept him a bow, and looked around. "That it?"
"The trap-seal's burnt out." Satomi blinked hard, rubbed her eyes, and stepped sideways again, tracing a slow path across the narrow tube. "I don't see anything more."
Ryouma glanced, not quite casually enough, at Kakashi. Satomi's lips tightened, but she said nothing.
Kakashi thumbed his eyepatch up. Black dots in his scarred red eye spun lazily, a beat behind Satomi's faster tomoe. He scanned the terrain for a silent moment, then tugged his patch down and nodded.
The shadow clone pumped its fist in brief victory, then puffed into smoke. Ginta dropped neatly onto the sandy floor behind Ryouma and smoothed his hair down, looking pleased. "We'll put another clone out front to be safe. Uchiha, you take point behind it." His sharp blue gaze swept over them, gently mocking. "Who wants to make the next clone? Don't all volunteer at once."
Kakashi needed to conserve his chakra, and Satomi couldn't afford the distraction. Ginta'd just re-lived his clones' deaths four times already. Ryouma sighed. "I'll do it."
Ginta gave him a small, quick smile. "Good man. Maybe your lieutenant was right about you." He squeezed Ryouma's biceps, edged past, and snagged Satomi to investigate the burned-out seals.
Ryouma stared after him. "Whoa." He glanced sidelong at Kakashi. "D'you think the lieutenant bragged about us?" |
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