| [Sep. 24th, 2013|10:36 pm] |
Raidou paused. “You have a river boat?”
“No, but the Blue Field traders do, and they’ll be passing by tomorrow morning. We could barter your passage aboard,” Kudo said. “They’ll follow the river all the way down to Sanmatsu Pass.”
That was barely hours from Konoha.
“I could hug you,” Raidou said. “That’s perfect.”
“Gives your people a little time to sleep, too,” Kudo said, with a tired smile. “And perhaps yourself. Though, ANBU-san—”
“I know,” Raidou said. “An explanation. Just—wait here a moment?”
“Of course,” Kudo said, with patience Raidou didn’t understand. If he’d been in Kudo’s shoes, he’d be clawing the walls, demanding answers.
He slipped back into the room, and paused.
Hisa’s father, whose name Raidou still didn’t know, had his daughter sitting upright and cradled in his arms. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, and her eyes were barely open. He was slowly, carefully spooning soup to her mouth in tiny amounts, and stroking her throat until she managed to swallow. On the other bed, Namura and Hisa’s mother had Fujiyama braced between them, and were attempting the same task, talking softly as they did.
A clatter made Raidou twitch. The assistant had found a folded screen, and was attempting to set it up between the civilians and the rest of the room. Presumably to give them a break from Team Six’s particular brand of healing antics.
Which, actually, seemed quieter now.
Genma was still asleep, resting peaceful, but it was the kids that really caught Raidou’s attention. Katsuko was fast asleep, slumped down against Ryouma’s chest in a sea of scattered crumbs, with her good hand curled around Ryouma’s ribcage. Ryouma was still sitting upright, but his head had fallen back against the wall, black spikes sticking up against whitewashed plaster like splayed raven feathers. An empty soup bowl was half tipped over in his lap, spoon sliding towards the floor.
At their bedside, once again seated on the wooden floor, Kakashi was finally asleep. His sword was balanced across his lap and his tanto was laid down at his side, which made him look a little like an old samurai woodcut, but his head was resting against the mattress, and Ryouma’s hand was tangled into his wild grey hair. Either to anchor him there, or to prevent him from doing any more wake up tricks, Raidou couldn’t tell.
Some distant, less-worried part of Raidou desperately, desperately wanted a camera.
But only Genma and Kakashi had gone down into the mountain’s dark, and come back with civilian blood on their blades. There were eight others, but they were too far gone, Kakashi’s clone had said. We couldn’t save them. Raidou knew what that meant, and why Kakashi couldn’t meet his eyes. Why Genma was so desperately concerned about his teammates’ health.
They had the full story, and the village deserved to hear a piece of it.
But Raidou didn’t want to wake either of them.
Moving quietly, he went back outside to Kudo and the villagers, who fixed him with exhausted, desperate eyes.
“Okay,” Raidou said quietly. “Here’s what I can tell you.” |
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