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Lost in the Dark [Oct. 22nd, 2017|02:19 pm]
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[User Picture]From: [info]yuuhi_kurenai
2017-10-22 09:34 pm (UTC)

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Chakra still worked, but the orange-shifted light wasn't the only thing strange about the Dog Dimension. Shadows fell oddly. Perspective and distance seemed to shift: Kurenai couldn't keep an accurate estimate of how far away those stone claws seemed. Seventy-five kilometers, a hundred?

Raidou couldn't run that.

He was trying, anyway. One hand pressed to his side, the ceramic mask pulled down over his face. She could still imagine the clenched jaw, the forehead sheened with sweat, as every footfall jarred. Ryouma eyed him warily, but said nothing. Kakashi never glanced back.

ANBU. Raidou only seemed like he had common sense. The other two didn't even bother pretending.

And where was hers, when it came down to it? She hadn't spoken a word against this whole mad adventure. She hadn't tried to hold Raidou back, or even left a clone or a message for Konoha to find. She'd trusted her own life and three of Konoha's most valuable soldiers on the word of a small brown pug, all in the desperate hope of saving a fourth.

Too late to turn back now. She ran grimly on.

The rolling grasslands turned to woodland. Raidou was audibly struggling for breath now, low shallow gasps that ended on a hiss. A massive tawny hound came up beside him, shoulder-high to Ryouma, and crouched low.

Raidou lurched aside, the relentless rhythm of his steps broken. He tried to circle the dog. But the thick neck stretched out, and the dog bit down on the back plate of his armor, jerking Raidou to a stumbling halt.

He twisted his neck to look back, torso held painfully straight. His voice scraped the lowest registers. "What?"

The dog rumbled, far deeper.

Kakashi slowed briefly. "Her name is Kabe. She's offering you a ride."

Raidou repeated, blankly, "What?"

"Thank you," Ryouma told the dog, fervently. He grabbed Raidou's arm. "C'mon, Taichou. You can hold her scruff. Uh, that's okay, Kabe-san, right?"

Kabe grunted and slewed her head around, dragging Raidou by his scruff in turn. He yelped. "All right, all right. I'm getting on. Let go." Leaning on Ryouma's shoulder, he levered himself up onto the dog's back. His elbow was shaking, and sweat slicked his shoulders.

Ryouma crouched over him protectively, one hand reaching back for his belt-pouch. He said something, low. Raidou shook his head. "Tell you when I need it. Let's get moving."

Kakashi took the lead again, with the heavy-bellied silver female loping at his side. Kabe unfolded to her feet again, surprisingly careful. Raidou grabbed her loose ruff, clamped his legs around her broad barrel, and somehow didn't fall.

Ryouma ranged between them: lengthening his stride to catch up to Kakashi, dropping back to keep an eye on Raidou. The golden-furred shepherd shadowed his side. Kurenai pushed through the growing stitch in her side and tried not to fall behind.

And suddenly they were scrambling up a steep shale slope, beneath the twilight of the stone claws' shadow. Kurenai dragged in ragged breaths, open-mouthed. Had they really been running that long?

Ahead of her, Ryouma asked Kakashi worriedly, "This was further away ten minutes ago, wasn't it?"

"Don't rely on your eyes here," Kakashi told him.

Ryouma's shoulders tightened. He tipped his head back, staring up at the looming spires of stone against a deepening slate-colored sky.

Kurenai looked, too, through Meikougan eyes.

There was chakra in the world here, in every struggling blade of glass or shard of stone. The dogs blazed with it. The three ANBU were denser pillars, netted with deeply cut pathways. No genjutsu tangled them, but the hilltop above—

She'd been in Konoha the night the Kyuubi attacked. She'd seen that firestorm of chakra, brighter than the inferno it unleashed. This wasn't, quite, the same.

But there were more of them.

"Kakashi," she said, as quietly as she could. "Sharingan."