| [Jun. 10th, 2013|04:30 am] |
Ryouma looked up, smiling, and lifted hands humming with chakra the color of clotted blood. “Knew you’d come for me,” he said.
Boar lurched back one quick-half step. Ryouma slammed forward, wrapped his palm over the cool ceramic mask, and rapped Boar’s head sharply into the rock slab behind him.
Boar’s knees buckled. Ryouma dropped him, and cut the genjutsu.
“Some of us learn from our mistakes,” he said, and slid back into shadow.
Ayane was still fighting the other ANBU, and holding more than her own. He left her to it and made his way up the valley, following its river-crazed twists and angles vaguely northward. The stones were loose beneath his feet, slab and shale prone to cracking; he had to step slowly and carefully, picking his way by instinct more than sight.
He was just beginning to think about risking a run up the other side of the valley when another candidate lurched up out of a cleft in the rocks. Ryouma eased back, drawing a kunai, but the dark blot shook its head and put out an empty hand.
“Don’t—” he said, hoarsely. “No, I’m not— It’s Hatake.”
Ryouma snorted. “Try again.”
“Hatake’s hurt, I mean,” the candidate said. “I found him just now—I think he got away from them, but somebody cut him up bad, and I lost my med-kit. He’s still bleeding.”
Ryouma’s hand dropped to his own med-kit, but he hesitated, fingers lost halfway through opening the flap. “Why ask me?”
The candidate made an angry gesture, cut short. “Hell, I’d’ve gone to the ANBU commander herself if she was here! You’re the first person I’ve seen. I sent a clone to find someone else, but I didn’t dare leave him.”
“Shit,” Ryouma breathed. He dropped his head, lifted it again. “All right. Where is he?”
“Back here,” the candidate said, scrambling back between rocks. There was more than just a cleft there; a narrow passage led into blackness, dank and dripping. Not the sort of place he’d have chosen to hole up, but if Kakashi was that badly hurt he was probably half out of his head with pain and blood loss, gone like an animal to ground.
Ryouma ducked his head to follow the other candidate in.
And realized, in the flickering moment before the pain in his neck drove him to his knees, that some mistakes you didn’t survive. |
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