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Haruichi didn't believe in luck, which was probably odd for a ninja and certainly inadvisable for a medic; how else were you supposed to avoid blaming yourself when things went to hell? The standard answer on that from Haruichi had to do with Fate, but there wasn't much chance you'd get him to say it. Especially not as he was scrambling soundlessly through treetops in an effort to save Hatake Kakashi's life. Fate and luck were loaded words around that one, make no mistake; and Haruichi found himself collossally unsurprised that their first encounter after two years was thus far straying into the realms of nightmare... and he hadn't even found Kakashi yet.
Biting down nerves and his woefully vivid imagination, Haruichi didn't notice his breathing quicken again as he looped around a high thicket and darted above another small glade - just a black and white shadow on the dew-beaded grass. Five minutes warning he'd been given, long enough to put his brand new uniform on, and now eleven hours later he still hadn't reached the agent in peril. Intel had shown him a map, Arakaki-taichou had all but thrown his guide at him, and he'd bolted out the door before even getting his mask on straight. Now he was flitting through a thinning forest he hadn't even known existed, most likely to still be full of Mist-nins looking for the same person he was - and with far less benign intentions. Haruichi had been sent alone to save Konoha's precious prodigal son from hells untold and he realized now, maybe an hour before dawn on his first mission as an ANBU, that this was what drove him insane about Hatake Kakashi. Every time he had to deal with him he felt like he was in over his head.
It was not a feeling Haruichi relished, and it snuck up on him again as he heard a low voice come out of nowhere beside him.
"This smells like the place," grumpled the little dog in his satchel. Haruichi slipped to a silent stop on a branch, boots pressing into dewy moss, and scanned the area with his Byakugan to check for enemy nins before looking down at Pakkun's wrinkled brown nose. "You said that two hours ago when we started into this forest," he whispered, hearing his voice echoed back oddly by the mask he wore. Pakkun growled, weakly but agitatedly all the same, "Because it was and it is, medic-brat. This is where the scent trail ends. He probably masked his to hide."
Haruichi inaudibly muttered something about irony and Pyhrric victories to himself and turned, putting his back to the trunk of the tree they were in to cover his blind spot. If this was close enough to the place, the only chance they had now was his Byakugan. If Kakashi's own dogs couldn't scent him out then it was visual contact or nothing, and Haruichi had no plans to go home with nothing. He formed the seals with his gloved hands, channelled his chakra and flared his white eyes open to scan the area. He undertook nearly ten minutes of silent searching, staring at and through more leaves, bushes, trees than he could remember ever seeing before; then - futher away in a craggy deep dip in the land, laced below ground level by tunnels and caverns. Haruichi poured all the concentration and skill he had into the search, all the time keeping other senses tuned best he could to possible attack, and then he found something. Underground. In the rock.
A shape in the haze of white and grey he knew. A canine mask and a bloodied hand. Haruichi focussed, delicately manipulating the muscles in and around his eyes with a cold and logical part of his brain until he saw the picture. Until he saw Kakashi's body. And then, until he saw Kakashi breathe.
"Got him," he hissed to the pug, taking off. So much for Fate and luck, he wasn't too late. Not yet.
The rock under Kakashi's side was warm. In the distant part of his mind that was up-to-date with current events, he knew that was because he'd managed to drag his heat blanket out before he'd collapsed, and it was reflecting his own waning body-heat back at him. But as current concerns went, that was very low on his list. He'd bandaged what he could as well as he could and refused to think about the way one of his hands didn't seem to be working very well. The light in the cave was non-existent. A sharingan look only showed him his own chakra, which was no help at all, and the chakra drain from keeping it open would kill him faster than what the mist-nin had done. He kept Obito's eye closed.
Moving enough to swallow down a crushed handful of painkillers, and the bitter iron-tasting blood pills that were probably the only reason he was still alive enough to hemorrhage onto the crushed silvery blanket, was an exercise in willpower. But he was a shinobi, sometimes willpower was all you had.
He was definitely alive, dead things didn't hurt this much.
Kakashi had no concept of time. He knew he had to hold on twelve hours, but every slow heartbeat lasted a special eternity all of its own. He breathed carefully, pulling air into unwilling lungs, and measured the seconds by pain. It was a living thing. A monster that wormed through his body and found new and exciting places to chew on. It got worse when the painkillers wore off, but moving now shoved him right past agony into a full body nightmare. He held still and didn't whimper because whimpering made his ribcage shake and his lungs shudder and that only hurt more...
He passed out for a while, then he woke up. It was hard to tell which was which.
When he could, Kakashi thought about names. Three names that he saw almost every day, and remembered long past the time he'd forgotten his own. One was a name everyone knew, and two were probably unimportant to anyone but himself. Three names. He counted them out silently and lost time in the syllables.
Minato.
Obito.
Rin.
There was a kunai in Kakashi's right hand, and a suicide pill in his left. If the mist-nin found him, he'd use either without hesitation. Both if he had to. But until then he thought about names. They meant he was home, even if he died on the border.
Despite every urge and instinct in his brain and heart, Haruichi didn't bolt straight to the concealed crevace in the rock that led to Kakashi's whereabouts. He hadn't detected any of the Mist-nins sent after the Hunter ANBU and his prize, but that didn't mean they weren't there, or wouldn't be there in short order if he gave them reason to be. Carefully concealing his trail and presence, Haruichi took a circuitious route and kept his Byakugan brightly burning his surroundings into his awareness as he approached Kakashi's shelter. There had been an illusion cast over the entrance, but that couldn't fool Hyuuga eyes - not once they'd seen what lay beyond.
Realizing there wasn't going to be room, he tugged off his satchel and katana and pushed them into the crevace first before sliding in himself, picking them up again, and making his way surefooted through the darkness. Kakashi was about ten meters ahead, and barely breathing properly under his amorphous foil blanket. Pakkun whimpered sadly, using whatever canine senses he had to determine this sorry sight. Haruichi hissed air worriedly through his back teeth and called out quietly as he approached.
"Kakashi, honest to the gods, could you be more freaking morbid!" He put the satchel down for a moment, letting tired Pakkun leap out and scurry over to Kakashi, before keeping on advancing over the slippery rocks, his voice echoing oddly in the high chamber of stone. "Only you would wait to be rescued in a ready-made grave twelve feet under the ground!"
Kakashi couldn't smell anything beyond the wet mess of his own blood, but he heard the faint scrape of metal against rock, and the rustle of cloth and breath that meant person. The lack of footsteps that meant ninja. Paired together that meant it was time to chose between his left hand and his right, and hope Obito wasn't going to laugh too hard when he ended up wherever he deserved.
The kunai handle was pressed tight against the fresh burn charred over his palm. Kakashi wrapped his fingers around it and made his choice.
Which was right when a very familiar voice cut through his agony and smacked him right in the memory. Kakashi didn't flinch--it hurt more than whimpering--but he managed to turn his head enough to get a blurry impression of a white mask drawing closer in the dark. Then there was a snatch of breath, a scrabble of claws, a low whine, and a hot tongue soaking the fabric stretched over his neck. Kakashi almost stabbed his attacker before he realized it was Pakkun, and it wasn't an attack unless you counted relieved licking as painful. "...m'tt?"
"Fuck, Hatake-brat, you call this a bandage? I could do a better job and I don't have one oposable thumb to my name." Pakkun's voice was almost drowned out by his whine. Kakashi couldn't seem to get a hand up to pet him. And there was still a kunai in his hand, so that was probably a bad idea anyway...
He cleared his throat painfully, trying to think beyond everything that hurt. "Who...?" He knew that voice. He never forgot anything. But it was so hard to think.
"Haruichi," Pakkun didn't need the full question. "It's Haruichi. You know him, so don't you dare fight him." He shoved his nose under the edge of Kakashi's hound mask and pushed it off his face. Kakashi twitched as a tongue swiped over the bare strip of exposed skin left between mask and hitai-ate, washing away dried blood.
"Haru'chi?" Haruichi was gone. Probably dead. He'd left two years ago, and when he'd been part of ANBU he hadn't worn a mask or run missions. He'd stayed in the basement and insulted the battered pieces of unfortunate agents that got dragged into his care. He couldn't be here now.
Which meant he wasn't here now.
Which meant Kakashi was probably delirious.
"Sh't," he groaned very softly, and wondered if he'd get any benefit if the image tried to heal him. At least it'd make for a nice dream.
Haruichi wasn't sure what to take more offense over; the fact that he was getting a character reference from a dog or the fact that it didn't seem to be worth anything. True, this wasn't the first time his appearance on the scene was followed by fluent cursing, but usually when somebody was half-dead they were just a little glad to see a medic. Well, irregardless he had a job to do - whether it thrilled Kakashi or not.
"It's simply spectacular to see you again too, you sawdust-brained idiot," he shot back, finally getting close enough to crouch down next to Kakashi. He pushed his mask to the side of his face as he cracked a set of glow-sticks and strategically tossed them around Kakashi's prone body, holding one in his hand. His eyes flicked to the dull shine of metal and he snatched the kunai out of Kakashi's visible hand and put it quietly on the cave's cold stone floor as he assessed him for injuries, uncerimoniously pulling away the thermal blanket by degrees to get a look at him. Both with normal sight and with his Byakugan, for both versions of vision were needed here.
It did not look good. As if it ever did when it was Kakashi but still... Haruichi immediately began to prioritize treatments and pull items of kit from his satchel. He was immensely grateful he'd brought it (originally only because he'd needed some way to transport Pakkun) because it was only with a full field kit he'd be able to get Kakashi home alive. He tugged one glove off with his teeth and put his fingers to his neck to get a pulse and his temperature. Both of them indicated he was in shock and would be staying there. Given the array of injuries Haruichi had detected, and the length of time they'd been left to fester, he was not surprised. The one plus side was that he wasn't about to bleed to death, even if it probably felt like it, after this many hours if he was going to he would have done so.
"One of these days--" Inject him in the thigh with painkillers so he had less of a reason to scream later. "--I'll show up and you--" Unhook the buckles on his armour and arm guards so they'd come off in a moment. "--won't be bleeding all over the place--" Crush some blood pills and soldier pills into a small canteen of water and shake it. "--and then whatever will we talk about?"
Haruichi looked down at Pakkun in the greenish light of the cave. "Can you keep an eye out at the cave entrance? It'll take at least seven minutes to stabilize him, we could do without interruptions."
Kakashi was more than familiar with the ninja pain scale that ran from a simple one--a graze you barely noticed picking up--to a screaming ten--a limb that pulped before you lost it. Currently he was riding the broken wave somewhere between seven and eight, and finding a heartfelt thank you that the world no longer hinged around a nine. Then Haruichi did something that involved letting go of the ragged ends of Kakashi's own chakra and replacing it with his own, shoring up the copy-nin's fairly devastated system with fresh new energy that glowed green and healed.
There wasn't a whole lot of difference between seven and six, but when you were living it that tiny drop meant everything. Kakashi swallowed hard and said "Oh," very quietly, eyes flickering shut for a moment as he ignored Haruichi shoving a canteen into his working hand to really appreciate the increment of pain lost that meant life might be worth living if he hung on just a little bit longer...
Wait, canteen? The copy-nin blinked, opening his visible eye a crack to regard the metal container held loosely in his left hand. A thread of logic ran through his weary mind and spelled out: your mouth is dry and your head fucking hurts. Canteen probably means water. If you drink it your mouth won't be dry anymore and your head might feel better. You should probably drink it.
Kakashi forced his arm to move, lifting the little container that was far heavier than it should be, and discovered he was still wearing his mask. Mostly by accidentally soaking it. He scowled, coughed, hooked the bloodied bit of cloth down with clumsy fingers, and managed a decent swallow before he had to stop or choke.
Slowly, Haruichi had said. Take it slow.
For possibly the third time in his life, Kakashi followed one of Haruichi's orders without protest. The water was oddly spicy, and flavoured with the bitter-iron taste of blood pills. Kakashi managed as much as he could and then let his hand fall, dropping the canteen back into his lap as he coughed again. The burn of new chakra--a soldier pill, he realized; that had been the spicy taste--curled in his belly, spreading out to lap at his exhausted chakra coils and bolster them with fake (but no less usable) energy. Even with the snarl of broken bones yowling at him, he was starting to feel almost human again. Human and very, very tired. He slumped just a little, trying to lean more against the wall than Haruichi, and muttered, "If I only mess up one side, I can still lie down comfortably on the other. S'logical." The familiar phrase 'trust me, I'm a genius' rose up in Kakashi's mind, demanding to be said. He knocked it aside--it was hard to feel smart right now, what with his current inability to move much, let alone think--and replaced it with a much quieter, and oddly sincere, "...thanks."
It was amazing how grateful a little pain relief could make you.
White eyes flicked up away from the splints Haruichi had started to prepare, the faintest hint of surprise in them. He supposed they really were in trouble, if he had Hatake Kakashi thanking him. It was the sort of thing that ought to come with the suffix "-and then hell froze over" so Haruichi wasn't going to complain. Just work faster. At least he was absorbing the medicines quickly; Pakkun had yet to alert them to intruders but Haruichi was understandably concerned about waiting in this ready-made grave for something to happen.
"Drink a little more," he advised, pulling some tape and biting off a few lengths. "Then I'll fix your forearm and ankle for the journey." He took Kakashi's arm guards and put them next to the small lengths of balsa and bandages - one of them would make the arm splint, the other might be worth something stabilizing the ankle.
Haruichi eyed the shattered bones with his Byakugan. The forearm was a clean break but the ankle was a disaster, not to mention the swollen, bleeding tissue that had bruised up and malformed the injuries even further in twelve hours. He leaned over and was careful to untie rather than cut the fastenings on Kakashi's footwear and expose the ankle. Long training kept the wince off his face: gods this was going to be messy... and take too long. The start of septicemia was clearly indicated. The chakra paths were strained and damaged, most likely due to an emergency stabilization Kakashi didn't have the concentration to hold. Not that anybody did, in a break this severe.
Well, Haruichi was a great one for challenges so here it went.
"I've given you all the painkillers you can take," he told Kakashi. "But this is going to hurt." With that, he began.
'Hurt' was an understatement.
Over the last twenty years Kakashi had taken more than his fair share of broken bones, but there was really no way to grow accustomed to the special grinding agony that bludgeoned you right in the nervous system when part of your vital internal structure shattered. Haruichi's order to stay quiet was still ringing in his aching skull, but it was hard to hold that in focus when the world had narrowed down to the choice between 'fight' and 'run' and he didn't have the power to do either. Kakashi tensed, head slamming back to hit the wall as his muscles clenched tighter than a garrote wire in a nervous genin's hands.
Kakashi's right forearm was broken, and his right palm was seared raw, but his left arm was fully functional and--despite what Haruichi had said--he was more than capable of using it to give or take a blow. The instinct to do that now as Haruichi's hands moved and molded over bloody, bruised flesh was overwhelming. Kakashi held on as the medic cleaned out the ugly gashes mottling his ankle--sustained when one of the Mist-nin jounin had shattered the joint with a jutsu he hadn't even seen to copy--and thought of home. He thought of Pakkun. He thought about his room back at ANBU HQ that smelled like him and was the only place in the world that felt almost safe when he put all the seals up. He thought about a name on a rock on a hill that would be truly forgotten if he wasn't around to read it. He thought about anything but the press and shift of Haruichi's fingers, and the blistering hemorrhage of pain that broke after each touch.
Kakashi cracked before the splint went on. "Stop." The word was half a whisper, half a threat as his fingers tightened around the canteen still in his left hand. He had the angle to crush Haruichi's skull with it if he swung hard enough. "S-stop."
He kept going for two seconds longer (he had to) but then Haruichi did stop. His throat felt tight, and it was odd he noticed that when most of his senses were concentrating on how hot his fingers felt as his chakra kept spilling out in carefully directed strings to repair Kakashi's bruises, bones and bloodied tissues. He was doing his best as he knew how, but this was the kind of damage that needed a ten hour surgery in a dedicated healing studio with about a hundred-thousand healing seals at a five-person team's disposal to fix.
Haruichi had and was neither of those things. And Kakashi was far too conscious. He left his fingers where they were, trying to think through another way to do this if he could find it - a way to make sure Kakashi could ever walk properly again, never mind be a functioning jounin. A twelve hour run back was so long... maybe too long. His fingers flinched slightly.
"It didn't. You've moved on to hallucinating," Haruichi replied evenly, very quickly backpedalling from the crevasse of screaming anguish they'd been about to crash down. Paradoxical and insane as it might be, Haruichi had the feeling that this was one of those times when his own voice was going to keep the patient in his care calmest... so he didn't give Kakashi the chance to start spiralling off again. Once he'd edged him around to lean against the wall more comfortably and strapped a splint to his ankle, he kept speaking to him as he splinted his fractured arm. "And you're lucky you hit me in the head just then instead of breaking my mask, the quartermaster bitched at me enough for needing one with decent eyeholes and I doubt I'll get another one in a..."
Haruichi's voice fell silent, there was the muted crunch of blood-vessels around his eyes as his Byakugan flared to life, and his eyebrows quite quickly rose in shock. Then Haruichi turned his face down so he could continue binding the splint and then Kakashi's burnt hand - very, very quickly. His attention though, was focussed up above them. At the source of the burst of chakra he'd just sensed so extraordinarily vividly about a quarter mile distant... near the top of the slope that led down into the basin of stone they were currently underneath.
"Kakashi. That scroll you stole... it was waterproofed, wasn't it." It wasn't really a question.
Kakashi couldn't really smell anything over the blood and burn stench filling the cave, but he didn't need to. Even with the scattered shards of panic still carving up his focus, he caught the change in Haruichi's mood. The shift from medic to something else entirely. The sharper focus that went with A Problem, and the sudden speed with which he moved. That swiftness brought new pain as Haruichi's hands moved over his injuries, binding the hurts rather than healing them. Either the medic was out of chakra--which was A Problem all of its own--or he was in a hurry for much worse reason.
"Yes," rasped Kakashi, trying to think. "It was." Which meant Mist-nin would have no problems flooding them out of hiding. Of simply drowning them both and looting their bodies. The scroll was long gone by now, safe at home--but the Mist-nin didn't know that. Kakashi looked up at the ceiling and saw only black. The green light didn't stretch high enough to illuminate the rock over their heads, and his chakra was far too low to sense anything.
Pakkun's low warning growl confirmed what Kakashi didn't have the energy left to; enemy ninja.
They'd found him.
"Well, that only took a day," Kakashi whispered to himself. He couldn't run, he definitely couldn't fight, and he couldn't provide a warning that would tell Haruichi anything he didn't already know. He wasn't much of anything beyond a dead weight. A heavy dead weight that would get the Hyuuga killed if he couldn't get away fast enough. Kakashi looked down again, and then he jerked his hands away, coughing a scream down. "Go," he said shortly, when he could speak again. "Now."
He was not going to cost Haruichi his life. Not if he could help it.
"Oh don't make me slap you," Haruichi snapped, grabbing the halves of Kakashi's armour and tying them to his satchel by the straps. "I've done ever so well refraining from it thus far." Moving as quickly as he could, Haruichi gathered up all the scraps of uniform, footwear, bandaging and weapony that had scattered around them and stuffed them into the medical satchel. "What's his name... Pakkun-san, come here please," he called quietly, snapping a finger at the mouth of the crease in the rock they'd snuck in by. Hell, he didn't know how to get the nin-dog's attention and he needed it right now. The little pug scampered over, giving Haruichi a look that was likely to be unimpressed as he settled next to where Kakashi sat against the wall. Haruichi rubbed the heel of his hand against the sore spot on his temple, but didn't look away from what his enhanced vision was showing him now. Water. Lots of it.
Arriving now, with the splash and gush of oddly neutral temperature liquid through every crack and crevice in the basin - including theirs. Genjutsu seals did not trick water and gravity, and there wasn't going to be much that could trick the Mist nins who were by now doubtless reinforced and perched in every tree and atop every high boulder waiting to see what might scurry from the cracks.
Haruichi was a Hyuuga. He did not scurry anywhere. He focussed his eyes on Kakashi and Pakkun again, lukewarm water on his fingertips as he reached to start snatching up the glowsticks too. "We can't lose anything, or it'll float out and they'll know we're here," he said, stuffing a few of the chemical-lit things between his armguards and his cold skin for light - and reaching over to attach one to Kakashi's splinted arm. They'd be able to find each other and light a small way in front of them this way, for what it might be worth. The water sloshed in higher and faster by the moment, and Haruichi had to lunge his arm out sharply to catch a glowing green rod that nearly bobbed away from them. That would be all they needed - the enemy would either know they were here, or that they'd successfully flooded a rave. Which, coincedentally, this cave was probably large enough to host - and therefore might serve to save their lives.
"This cavern is quite high, there isn't likely to be enough water to flood it completely if we can stay afloat. So as long as they aren't smart enough to drop an electric jutsu on top of this and fry us we'll probably be alright..." And as for keeping afloat, Haruichi knew exactly how to make sure of that. He'd paid attention at the orientation Genma gave him (though it had probably cost him a good dozen IQ points) and he remembered everything the other agent had told him about his uniform and what it did in emergencies. Haruichi's eyes narrowed as he looked down at his chest and fished around on his ANBU vest for that red thing Genma had pointed at. "Hn. Where's the float-pull on this thing..."
Kakashi flinched when water hit his feet. It climbed quickly, soaking into his clothes, swirling over his limbs. It felt freezing, icy against overheated skin. He knew that was his own issue; fever destroying his body's ability to tell the actual temperature. He didn't much care because it was cold.
And it hurt. There was still no feeling in his shattered ankle, thank the sky bullies and Haruichi's justu. But he could feel the pressure elsewhere, hitting bruises, messing with his fragile balance, torturing on his injured arm until he lifted it. That pain wasn't anywhere close to what his ankle had been, but it was enough to make him consider biting through his lip just to distract himself. He had sharp canines, he could easily get through if he did it hard enough. Fast enough. The brain had a gating mechanism for pain--new injuries would blot out old ones. His lip would hurt, and his body would forget about broken bones. Kakashi set his teeth, braced his jaw--
And Haruichi lost his mind.
"It's not a damn life vest!" the copy-nin snapped, staring as the medic groped for a cord because he was insane. "It's armour, it doesn't float. It'll just..." drag you down. Kakashi blinked, then lifted his head as the water flowed higher--up his legs, up his waist. It slowed just below his lungs. He began to shiver. Haruichi looked ghostly, cast in green light and broken shadows. "T-tell me you can actually swim," he asked, teeth beginning to chatter, and reached out his good hand to grab Pakkun by the necktie.
The little pug gave them both a disgruntled look, kicking his legs to stay afloat. "You," he snapped at Kakashi, "stop being a self-sacrificing moron. I need you, even if you think no one else does. Or had you forgotten that?"
Kakashi blinked.
Pakkun rounded on Haruichi before he could answer. "And you! You better be able to swim, or at least float worth a damn, because there's no way I can drag you both out of here myself."
If there was one universal law Kakashi was prepared to accept, It'll get worse before it gets better would be the first to spring to mind. It always got worse, and if you were very, very lucky, it might get better.
Whirlpools, however, were not a good way to go around improving your quality of life. Or your luck.
Kakashi turned his head as Haruichi's warning rang above the thunder of water and the choke of bile rattling around in his own lungs, and stared at the vortex cut out in green light. It swirled in the middle of black waves, deadly as a sharingan's spin. Even as he watched, it widened. The current grabbed at him, tugging what remained of his clothes and pulling at new bandages. He still couldn't feel his ankle, but he could feel the way Haruichi's grip slipped. The way his own arm around the medic's waist tightened and ached and gods this was the last thing they needed.
He couldn't find Pakkun.
The dog was gone. They were both going to die.
Kakashi gasped air, feeling the fetid cold curl into his chest, and decided he was not going to drown in a fucking hole in the ground for a scroll he didn't have, with a medic that shouldn't be here, looking for a dog that was gone, because he hadn't dodged quick enough a day ago. It was a stupid way to die. He wasn't doing it. He refused. Karma could eat him later.
Having reached that decision, Kakashi realized there wasn't a whole lot more he could do but hang on, hold his breath, and hope Pakkun hadn't drowned.
Then the water ran out.
There was no gradual decline, no warning dip of waves. There was simply water up to the ceiling, closing over their heads and taking the last snatch of air, and then there was none. The copy-nin blinked, had time to glance down, and then both of them plummeted with all the grace of a swan flapping two broken wings. The rock rushed up to meet them.
Kakashi was lucky; he didn't break anything else. Mostly because he landed on Haruichi.
Haruichi was also lucky; he didn't have a broken spine. So maybe his armour didn't double up as a floatation device but so far as he was concerned the fact that he could still feel his arms, legs and everything inbetween ranked his brand new uniform up amongst such inventions as the syringe and the espresso machine for life-saving capacity. Of course, being able to feel his arms, legs and everything inbetween also meant he could feel a stunning amount of pain shooting around his body - not to mention a bruise the exact size and shape of his katana's handle swelling against the back of his neck where he'd fallen on it.
But that, all of that, paled in significance to the fact that even with Hatake Kakashi sprawled on his chest armour he could breathe. And breathe air.
It almost erased the spike of mortification he was trying to ignore after losing his grip on the ceiling like that. Despite everything, Haruichi felt his cheeks heat at that - but focussed on taking even breaths until he could speak.
"Th--that was exciting," he coughed, bracing his hands and trying to sit up and pick Kakashi up too. His eyes scanned him for injuries in the green light as best he could, light chasing away the darkness where his hand moved. No point asking if he was alright, after that Haruichi didn't even know if he was alright, a fact illustrated when he saw blood where he touched Kakashi's pale skin and realized idly that it was coming from his finger. Hm. "Suppose its just part of the local charm wh-when you take shelter in a ready-made crypt."
Haruichi was a memorable individual, but somehow in the two years he'd been gone Kakashi had managed to forget how completely insane he was. Either that or his genius brain had tripped some repression reflexes out of pure self-defence. Kakashi wasn't sure his brain loved him that much, but the thought was nice.
Currently his body loved him a whole lot less. Getting beaten up in a fight was one thing--at least a ninja's pride could stand that, as long as he managed to get in some decent deaths of his own--but getting half-drowned like a rat in a hole--a rat in a hole having an unfortunate meeting with a child and a bucket--was just not cool. Kakashi didn't give much of a damn about cool generally, but for once he would've liked it to fall on his side.
Fucking Mist-nin. If he ever got back to Konoha he was going to learn a flame thrower jutsu and come back and toast some ass.
He didn't fight Haruichi's attempt at lifting him, nor did he help a whole lot. His one working arm was trapped under the medic's body and probably turning a nice purple shade with new bruises. His broken arm was held tightly against his side, guarded as best he could. He wasn't quite sure what the rest of him was doing, beyond hurting. He didn't care a whole lot, either; something else was taking up his attention. "V-very... exciting," he tried to turn and felt bones grind. "You see P-Pakkun?"
The dog. Pakkun, that was. Oh shit. The two of them would've just been dragged under and drowned against the floor in this cavern, but the little dog could've been sucked into one of the smaller tunnels or crevaces that'd drained the water away so quickly.
Oh shit. Haruichi tried to keep his expression level, given that Kakashi had turned and could see his face now; and coughed despite himself, water leaking past his teeth, before speaking. "Hang on," he put his fingers together in their seal to aid his concentration and channel his weakened supply of chakra. The vessels around his eyes swelled, the bloodflow increased so dramatically he felt his heart shudder behind his ribs to keep up, and he caught up with his sight so he could scan the cave.
Favouring optomism, Haruichi angled his head back (his neck protesting viciously around the bruise) to cover his blind spot and scanned the roof in a hemisphere of dark blurs and pale grey shapes. Chakra. The dog had chakra, not human but he could source it with his eyes if he--
"See him," Haruichi murmurred.
It only took a second to be sure, and were it possible, Haruichi's face reddened even further. Twelve feet up the little pug was hanging upside down from the ceiling, looking wet and thoroughly disillusioned with the notion of waterparks but otherwise fine.
And he hadn't fallen off the ceiling. The dog had outperformed him. Haruichi resisted the rising urge to slam his face into his palm and stay that way until the world imploded.
"Nice plan, medic-boy. Next time let's bring an inflatable alligator and have us some real good times," grouched Pakkun, his dangling cape managing to drip water right into Haruichi's eyes even from this distance.
Bite me, you little git, Haruichi thought, but wisely did not say. Not least becaue he had no doubt Pakkun actually would. To add insult to injury, the little beast dropped from the ceiling, executed a perfectly concieved little summersault and dropped soundlessly to the wet stone floor. Scene of ungodly nautical carnage, death certain from on-high, and here was the little flash bastard himself.
"I see where you get it from," Haruichi muttered at Kakashi, crawling past Pakkun to retrieve the medical satchel and the varied paraphenalia attached. Once he had it, he got up to his unsteady feet and started unloading everything they didn't explicitly need. The parts of Kakashi's armour, the glow sticks, half the bandages...
"We've got to get out of here. Your genjutsu ward must have been washed away by that."
Kakashi stirred, muscles tightening as a tiny breath pulled a whimper out of him. He'd drifted, focus torn apart by the drugs Haruichi had flushed his system with and the deeper hurts those meds were trying to take away. The endless leap and fall of tree-running with no actual rhythm to it wasn't helping him. The second he got a grip on himself, a level plateau of pain that was endurable, Haruichi landed, or shifted, or swerved, and Kakashi had to remember why ninja were supposed to be silent when they fled an enemy.
At least Haruichi wasn't slowing down. At least it would be over faster.
"No," he answered, voice muffled against the medic's shoulder. He could feel the slide of sleek muscles as Haruichi gathered himself for another jump and tried not to stiffen, he didn't want to throw his rescuer off balance. "I'm dreaming about a happy place. It has bunnies."
He'd been thinking about home. About his room that smelled like nothing more than himself and pack, like safety. About the stone he hadn't visited in at least a week, perhaps longer.
He wasn't thinking about Mist-nin until Pakkun's sudden warning bark jammed a spike of alarm through his side. Kakashi's head jerked up, both eyes opening just in time to catch a blur of movement. Scent hit his nose just as a jounin smashed into his flank, knocking all three of them from the branch Haruichi had landed on. He couldn't tell how many there were, only that they were there.
A hand like a vice wrapped around Kakashi's broken forearm, wrenching a scream from his throat even as it ripped him from Haruichi's back. He didn't have time to block, or twist, or even get his other arm up to defend himself before the Mist-nin slammed him down into the forest floor. Agony roared up like a black wave as he hit the ground on his side and skidded to a halt in the leaves, the jounin's weight on top of him. A knee caught him in the sternum, knocking the breath right out of him. One arm was twisted beneath him--he hadn't been able to get it out of the way--the other was held behind his back, forced up almost to his shoulder blade.
"Hello, Sharingan Kakashi," said the man, and yanked his arm higher. Bone crunched. "Where's the scroll?"
Ground and sky tumbled in Haruichi's vision as he was spun violently, silently for his part, out into the air. The force he was flung with sent him clear over the dirt-scrubbed clearing Kakashi was pinned in and into a tree that his feet tore gashes in with the boost of chakra he forced into them on impact. There was half an instant to hear a heartwrenching scream -- Kakashi! -- and Haruichi sprang like a shot towards the sound. He had never moved so fast in his life, and when a pair of huge jounin sprang forward to block his path he somehow moved even faster, lilac-blue light spilling over his fingertips and his eyes flaring automatically back to life with a crunch of widening blood vessels echoed horrifically by the crunch of bone ahead of him.
They were hurting Kakashi. Right there. Right in front of him. As Haruichi threw himself into a half-spin so tightly controlled it barely registered on sight, he felt something inside him quietly and definitively snap. These bastards hadn't known how safe they'd been when he couldn't get his hands on them for doing damage to his people; and Haruichi was going to illustrate the difference fucking with a medic's patient right in front of them made to your long-term health. Potentially suicidally, he threw himself between the two blocking nins and their kunai-studded fists, using his slight size and the unpredictable arced swiftness of the jyuuken to dodge one surprised fist and catch a kunai in the chest armour as he stabbed out with his fingertips - right into the biggest one's core chakra point. The blow was glancing, and the man thought it pointless for the half-second he had to turn on his heel with his partner - ready to cast kunai at Haruichi's back as he bolted onwards to the where the third of their number was crouched down, idly ripping Kakashi's arm out its socket.
Then his heart - to put it colloquially - tried to turn itself inside out and exploded. Not that Haruichi paused an instant to view his handiwork. The partner's kunai were ducked best they could be (which was very neatly, when you had Haruichi's field of vision) and with a silent snarl of rage Haruichi slammed right into the man calmly torturing Kakashi for the scroll and sent the pair of them flying right over the copy-nin as he was flung painfully to the dirt again. Force equalled mass times accelleration, and for all his scrawny weight, Haruichi had had plenty of accelleration in his favour at the moment of impact. Blood tainted Haruichi's mouth before he'd even hit the ground again, he'd bitten through his lip, but once he did hit dirt the situation flowed into quite the tableu:
Haruichi backed to Kakashi, to where Pakkun had landed - bristling with rage and fanged hate - and the two remaining attackers took up positions to his far left and far right. Doubtless believing he couldn't see in front and behind to hold his ground if they came at once. Stepping into the first pose of his favourite jyuuken kata, Haruichi took a breath (much easier now, how about that?) and got ready to prove them spectacularly and fatally wrong.
The world was a narrow place for Kakashi, sharpened down to the dagger-edge view between bone breaking and stay conscious. He could feel the jounin's hand on his arm, squeezing a lava-hot fracture of agony up the bone. His skeleton was burning, breaking from the inside and carving into his muscles with sharp fragments. Tendons stretched, drawn out to their limit. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe because there was a knee under his ribcage, forcing the breath out of his lungs. He definitely couldn't get the air to answer the Mist-nin's question, but even if he'd been capable, he wouldn't have said where the scroll was. Not even if it took the pain away.
You died before you betrayed your village. Even if you died by inches. That was why they called it the heroes' stone; because you had to earn your name's place there.
The copy-nin fell into himself, vision collapsing further as the world began to fall away, and then Haruichi cannon-balled into the man killing him by degrees, and ripped him away. Kakashi saw nothing but red as he was wrenched around by his twice-broken arm, hitting the ground on his other side. His body, aware that his mind definitely wasn't up to date with current events, kicked in and pulled in a desperate breath. He choked, coughing, and tripped over the edge of consciousness.
"..ang on, kid. Stay with u..."
Pakkun.
Kakashi couldn't focus.
"...keep breathi..."
He didn't know what was going on anymore. He couldn't see. Sound faded in and out, twisting vision with it.
Above him, flanking Haruichi, the Mist-nin stared at both Leaf-ninja with hard eyes through their masks. The one that had grabbed Kakashi shifted slightly, body angling into the beginnings of an attack. "Hand over your partner and we'll leave you alive, little one," he said calmly. "He's already dying anyway."
Pakkun's growl deepened through baritone and hit bass, echoing in his chest. His teeth gleamed in the dim forest light.
The other Mist-nin drew two kunai. "We're not even going to hurt him much. Just enough to find out what he knows. It'll be quick."
Haruichi took the moment the posturing started to tug the kunai out his chest armour and drop it to the ground before it could be driven all the way into his lung. It gave him a distraction from his disbelief; even at ANBU level the big-bad guys couldn't help but sneer and gloat? And call him 'little'! Well screw this for a game of silly buggers, they really didn't know who they were dealing with.
"If it's information you want I'll give you this: try to put another scratch on him and I'll send you home with your intestines for a hat."
Silence for a second, then a quiet snicker in stereo. The leader of the pair began to channel chakra to his hands. Haruichi could see it, even as he listened to his amused reply. "Is that a challenge?" The one to the other side squeezed the kunai in his grip. "I love a challenge."
Then you'll simply adore me, Haruichi snarled internally as in just an instant the kunai flashed through the air and a fireball sped for his head, and the battle for Kakashi's survival truly began.
Blood rushed in Haruichi's ears, so loud it drowned out sound and for a moment it was as though he was back underground, underwater. Then the tanto which had stabbed him in the forearm thoroughly enough to skewer his radius was given a vicious twist. Lights of colours most humans never knew existed blossomed like lensflares in Haruichi's vision and forced him to gasp in pain so loudly it felt as though the world could hear it.
It was a classic détente, and Haruichi knew the other tanto would be headed for his throat in just a moment. It'd probably have arrived before the jyuuken kicked in, if only his opponent hadn't been so amused by the stifled sounds of pain coming out of him. Noboru gave the tanto another sharp twist.
Haruichi gave Noboru's bollocks a rather sharp kick. And with that final witty retort the pair of them fell down onto the bloody grass; Noboru suddenly choking on blood and what he'd be soon to realise was his pancreas, and Haruichi trying desperately to pull his arm off of the tanto in the flailing man's grasp and coughing in pain himself.
Help came from an unexpected quarter when Pakkun leapt onto the bastard's forearm and held it still long enough for Haruichi to wrest the tanto from Norboru's grasp and free his arm - even though it still had a knife stuck through it. Cold, blinding pain was still shooting to his chest from the very bone of it, but Haruichi didn't let himself care. He grabbed a kunai from his hip pouch and slit Norboru's heaving throat, then - shockingly gracelessly - clambered to his feet and went over to do the same to the still-flinching commrade and steal his hip pouch. The man looked so surprised about it Haruichi had to wonder if he'd even noticed the kunai sticking out of his face.
That accomplished, he turned, pain still distorting his vision, blade still stuck in his arm, and made for Kakashi's crumpled shape. "Kakashi? Kakashi, you're still bloody well alive, right?"
Kakashi was trying to gather himself enough to get up, to open one eye, to do anything useful other than lie in the leaves and pant in stricken breaths while he wondered how hurt Haruichi was. Pain writhed through him like maggots through an old corpse, chewing his body to bleeding shreds. The only thing that didn't hurt was the ankle Haruichi had sliced neatly off his sensory network, and the absence of any feeling was just as sickening.
His stomach flipped over with a lurch that made his ribs ache, and Kakashi clenched his teeth against a mouthful of acid. Haruichi was injured, he didn't have time to lie around and throw up. He had to get up.
He managed to vaguely identify where he thought his uninjured arm might be--twisted underneath him--when Haruichi's voice cut through the mist of agonized panic, and brought profound relief. "Dying, I think," he whispered, afraid to speak louder. "You?"
"Fan-frigging-tastic," Haruichi replied, shuffling over and dropping down next to Kakashi. "And if I wasn't going to let those pricks mouth off about your medical condition don't think for an instant I'd let you, either." He squinted and reached over to take Kakashi's pulse and lift his eyelid. Relief so strong it cancelled the pain in his arm coursed right through him. Not dying. Seriously injured. Not dying, not this second anyway. There was time to breathe. He pulled his hand back, and shoved his mask to the side so he could take a deep breath and feel air on his face. "Go to medical school, then you're allowed to come back and tell me you're dying. Until then shut up a minute."
Leaves crunched, and Haruichi tipped the contents of the stolen pouch onto the forest floor. He had no idea where his satchel was, and he was going to need it, but he could take care of that in a moment. Bloody fingers were still nimble enough to pick through a few scrolls, a bingo book, and finally to find a small medical suture kit and some bandages. Haruichi brushed it to the side, where he could find it in a moment. His already pale face was blanched dangerously from the persisting screaming wound in his arm and the weakness that seemed to be spreading from it, but it was nothing on Kakashi - and even if it had been Haruichi wouldn't have stopped. The patient came first. "Pakkun?" he called, still looking at Kakashi instead of his arm and swallowing down a wince. "Can you go find my satchel, quickly please?" He had to get this blade out his arm, and in a way that wasn't going to leave him bleeding to death.
Kakashi could hear the lingering crush of paws against leaves that meant Pakkun had run to do as Haruichi asked without a backwards comment. That probably meant things were serious. That and the fact that his bones felt like they'd been shattered and knotted into new shapes. He flinched when Haruichi's hand ghosted over his face and brought a sharp spike of light into the world, then groaned when the flinch did worse things to the new shapes.
He needed to pass out. He needed to pass out and sleep through the worst and wake up home. Or dead. Either was preferable.
Instead he pulled together every single shred of waning strength and managed to crack one eye open. The light stung, digging into his blurry vision with a nasty bite. He blinked, tears gathering, and managed to get a vague impression of movement and scent. Haruichi. Blood. He closed his eye again.
Over the slow build of incomprehensible sound filling his ears, he thought he heard Pakkun running back. Haruichi telling him to shut up. Blood filled the air with a raw-body smell--it wasn't all his. He pulled more words together, dragging them out of the red-black lights filling his head, rasped them out. "...you... hurt?" | |
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