| [Jun. 10th, 2013|01:42 am] |
No one had ever, actually, asked that question before. His sensei had frequently demanded What is wrong with you? but that wasn’t exactly the same. Ryouma eyed him sidelong, thinking through answers.
He settled on one that was close to the truth. “I was fourteen, and it was gross. It made people pay attention.” He nodded to the field, where proctors’ earth jutsu had buried the residue of pig carcass. “Doesn’t need to be that fast. That was the Nikutai Hakai; I mostly use it for corpse disposal. The Nikutai Tokasu no Jutsu, the Human Flesh Melt technique, is better for combat. One touch—a glancing blow—and I can incapacitate a man. Kill him, if he can’t amputate in time. It spreads.” He splayed the fingers of his right hand up the outside of his left arm, miming the creep of necrosis and blood poisoning.
Kakashi’s mouth tilted. “That would definitely get you five minutes of attention. Can you direct it, or does it grab flesh indiscriminately?”
“Whatever I touch.” Ryouma clamped down on his forearm, lifted his hand, leaving a crumpled handprint in the loose wet sleeve. “And that’s whatever I touch—I mean, it doesn’t affect me, ‘cause it’s my own chakra, but I’ve got to stay clear of my teammates when it’s activated.” He grinned crookedly. “They stay clear of me afterward.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Kakashi murmured.
“I carry soap on missions,” Ryouma assured him. “So then you get rot and night-blooming jasmine, or whatever. I’m told it’s a winning combo.”
“You were lied to.” Kakashi glanced at the field as a brown-haired man called up an explosion of lethal glass butterflies and flung them slicing into the targets, then looked back to Ryouma. “Do you do anything besides rot?”
“Plenty,” Ryouma said, a little stung. “Uchiha aren’t the only ones who can breathe fire. Those jutsu just eat a lot of chakra, and they’re not as effective. You hit somebody with that phoenix fire-wing jutsu, and if he’s got fire chakra himself, he’ll walk out of it barely smoking. Mine aren’t as flashy, but they work.”
Well, the Naizou Tokasu was pretty flashy. For a given level of flash. He scowled at the flurry of butterflies glittering through the rain. “My A-rank technique liquefies your inner organs. From a distance. It’s not rot, it’s...”
Bloody vomit, was what it was. Deadly, sure, but not exactly impressive.
“It’s a work in progress.”
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