| Into the Breach | [Sep. 13th, 2013|10:38 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 27, about a week after Take the Mask and four days after After the Tornado]
There were perks to dying early on ANBU Team Six.
Genma brought juice boxes to team training session, for one thing. Not that he called them that—he had a long spiel about electrolyte balancing and blood sugar and rehydration—but the fact of the matter was that they came in flavors like Lychee and Coconut, and once Raidou broke your neck in taijutsu practice you could sit under the trees with a drink and a rat bar and call out less-than-helpful commentary while the next victim sweated and strained on the training field. It was slight recompense for the bruises.
Ryouma was pretty sure he'd be feeling these bruises for days. Raidou hadn't exactly gone easy on him during the past week of team practice—Ryouma'd run countless laps, performed sixty-nine sit-ups in a minute, done one-handed push-ups and chin-ups, sparred with his right arm tied behind his back—but the captain's eyes had lit with an unholy delight when he saw Ryouma on the training fields for sparring that morning without bandages on his hand. Katsuko had practically chortled. "One-on-one, or free for all?" she'd asked.
"One-on-one, definitely," Raidou said. They were in workout gear today, worn-out jounin blues and faded tee-shirts, and no painted mask obscured his evil grin. "Step up, Tousaki. Let's test that healing."
He put Ryouma into the dirt two out of three times, but he had to work for it. When Ryouma struggled to his feet for the last time, Raidou was spitting blood from a split lip, and they were both panting and sweat-soaked. "Ready to call it, rookie?" Raidou jibed. "You're looking shaky."
"Rip his shirt off, taichou!" Katsuko yelled from the sidelines. She'd been Raidou's loyal supporter all week, trash-talking every opponent until she herself faced the captain, at which point the cheerful commentary turned into a brutal shredding of Raidou's appearance, abilities, speed, reflexes, intelligence, and imagined relationships with small forest animals.
Ryouma wanted that juice box. He wanted that grin wiped off Raidou's face even more. "Looks like Katsuko wants to see us mud-wrestling," he said sweetly, settling back down into a fighting stance. "Maybe you should—"
"ANBU-taichou!" a woman called from the edge of the field.
Ryouma glanced over. Raidou caught him by the shoulders, snapped a foot around his leg, and dropped him on his back in the dirt. "Don't lose your focus," he said. He stepped over Ryouma's body and headed towards the treeline, brushing dust from his pants as he went.
The others were already clustered around a slim, short-haired woman in runner greys. Ryouma clambered to his feet in time to see her hand a sealed scroll to Raidou, bow, and flicker away to her next delivery.
"Mission summons," Katsuko said, blissfully.
Ryouma curled his fingers into his palm, clenched them into a fist, shook them out again and slipped from Dragon to Horse to Bird seal. A little slow, but still faster than most jounin he knew. He shoved his hands in the loose pockets of his workout pants and craned over Kakashi's shoulder. "Who d'we get to kill?" |
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