| [Apr. 20th, 2008|04:07 am] |
Genma came alive in a heartbeat. Came alive, shoving back from the table, away from Kakashi. Knocking over the wastebasket, the chair he'd been sitting in, the pair of crutches he'd limped into this room on. Backing up, reaching for a katana that wasn't strapped to his back, and at the same moment realizing that if he'd found it there, and used it, he'd be exactly what Kakashi accused him of being.
"I had to," he rasped, staring in horror at the Intel agent as she rose to her feet. At the sentries as they moved back into combat readiness. "I had to, she couldn't survive. You saw her face! You saw her! She was in agony!" His appeal fell on deaf ears. Just as his own had been deafened on that blood-soaked battlefield.
It wasn't Ayako's agony that Kakashi cared about, not then and not now. The sounds had been muffled and wrong, distorted by a horrible wind that had rushed past Genma's ruined ear drums. Ayako's dying gurgles, and Nobuki's anguished screams, and Kakashi keening for his dog.
"Nobuki was... I.. He was alive, dammit. I had to try to save him. I didn't know about the poison. He was alive, and I could have saved him. You know medical protocol, damnit." He was staring at Kakashi now, shouting--no whispering. Whispering his defense. There was no defense. He'd killed Ayako, and he'd failed to save Nobuki. He'd felt Nobuki's life pulsing out between his fingers, felt his own chakra draining away to nothing as he worked frantically to bring his comrade--his friend--back from a death he'd refused to accept was inevitable.
Kakashi had been screaming at him that Nobuki was already dead, which Genma had known was a lie. It had been a lie. A crazed, desperate lie, because Kakashi's dog was dying, too, and Kakashi wanted that dog to live even more than Nobuki. It hadn't mattered what Kakashi wanted. Humans came first. Human comrades always came first. Summoned animals were lower priority, and if there were two catastrophic injuries, one to a human and one to a dog, and only one medic, the medic worked on the human. Always. No exceptions.
The medic worked on the human.
Genma had worked, frantically, desperately, shouting to Kakashi to just hold on a little longer. To keep his dog stable with chakra support, and he'd get there as soon as he had Nobuki stabilized. As soon as he had Nobuki's heart back. As soon as he had the bleeding under control. But the bleeding had been uncontrollable, and Nobuki had died and by the time Genma turned to try to help Kakashi, it had been too late. Too late for Nobuki, too late for Ayako. Too late for the dog.
He'd stared at Kakashi, and Kakashi had stared at him, mouthing words Genma couldn't hear. All he could hear was the rushing wind silence of damaged eardrums and the frantic hammering of his own heart. |
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