| [Jan. 15th, 2017|07:11 pm] |
Chakra poured away beneath Kakashi’s fingers, soaking into metal like blood into a sponge. It was a strange-feeling jutsu: earth and fire natures combining to manipulate something that wasn’t quite either. Microscopic holes tunneled through the grate, turning it brittle.
Genma worked two-handed. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples. Iron weakened under his touch. Slowly, slowly, they gained ground.
A shout echoed up the tunnel.
Splashing, chakra glimmers, more voices. Then the searing, ugly flare of Ryouma’s jutsu burning a hole in the world. Metal clashed. Someone screamed.
Kakashi slapped his hands on the next point. Genma kept moving, careful and meticulous. Metal fragments swirled away in the foul sludge. Four points left, then three. The jutsu sucked chakra like a fountain. Metal wasn’t like earth; it didn’t want to yield. They had to make it.
Blood caught on the air, distinctive even in a sewer.
One chakra signature went out.
Genma’s fingers skidded over metal. Two points left. Kakashi narrowed his focus like a needle, fighting to conserve every scrap of energy he could. The grate shifted fractionally, groaning on its supports. Genma reached for the last point.
Ryouma shouted— and was cut off mid-word. More blood gashed the air.
Kakashi reared back and kicked the grate, putting his weight into it. Genma swore and twisted to the side, yanking his hands back. Cracks split the iron where he’d been touching. Then Raidou was in his place, Kimiko holding on with white fingers, and Genma was gone. Back down the tunnel towards the battle, his chakra signature streaming a comet tail behind him. Raidou hit the grate like a landslide. Metal screamed and wrenched. The grate held.
“Again,” Raidou snapped.
This time they hit together, and something gave. Iron buckled, shearing where it was weak. Two bars snapped. The chakra-limiters snarled and snapped like thwarted guard dogs. In unison, Kakashi and Raidou hammered it again. The top portion of the grate tore free, collapsing forward. Its weight ripped the side-supports free and the barrier began to fall. Before Kakashi could turn back to the fight, Raidou grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved him through the upper gap. “Run!”
Kakashi skidded over sparking metal. “But—”
“That’s an order!”
Kakashi tumbled down on the other side, splashing knee-deep, and snapped his mouth shut. He took one look back. In the distance, steel flashed and a double red-halo blazed. A tall, bloody shadow shoved its hand through someone’s throat. Someone else was on their knees.
He turned and ran.
Metal squealed behind him as Raidou beat the rest of the grate down. Voices rolled back and forth, bounced around by strange acoustics.
“—here!—”
“No—”
“—tenant!”
Then it was just screams, and then as the distance stretched, nothing. Kakashi tightened his arms around the small body tucked against his chest, clenched his jaw, and ran faster. |
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