| [May. 11th, 2008|06:25 pm] |
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. |
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