| [May. 11th, 2008|07:32 pm] |
The only reason Kakashi didn't get crushed into sheer rock and break every bone in his body that wasn't already in two pieces was because Haruichi hit the rock, and Kakashi hit Haruichi. Even that was almost enough to shove him right over the edge, battering his shocky nervous system with every sensation that ranked as 'bad'. Pain, cold, pressure. And he couldn't breathe.
That was what happened when bastard Mist-nin tried to drown you in a hole in the ground.
Kakashi didn't have the luxury of panic. He didn't have anything besides a whole lot of rage that burned up from the acid in his stomach and tried to replace the job of oxygen. It wasn't enough to live on, but it gave him a half-second of focus to really appreciate the amount of pain he was in. Haruichi's arm around his chest was the only thing stopping him from getting swept away by the crush of water and dashed against every rock until what was left wouldn't even serve for a spectacularly messy paperweight.
Haruichi's tired arm.
Kakashi writhed in the water, twisting as bubbles slipped out of his mouth, and fought injury and agony to get his own functional arm around the medic, locking them together. Haruichi had refused to let him go, so Kakashi wasn't going to. His personal survival instinct was that strong at least.
He still couldn't breathe. Steel bands screwed into his temples and tightened, squeezing his skull. Kakashi wondered if the bones would fracture first, or if his brain would simply rupture. He couldn't breathe. His chest ached, skin drawn tight over muscle and ribs. He couldn't breathe. His blood wasn't getting air, organs weren't getting oxygen, brain wasn't going to survive. He couldn't breathe.
Three minutes, that was all you had when you went under. Less if you were hurt.
Kakashi didn't know how long he'd been underwater. Long enough to hurt. Long enough to get grabbed by the current and spun around and hurt. Long enough to not breathe.
Two minutes left, maybe one. He didn't know where Pakkun was.
The water squeezed, lashing against his skin, and Kakashi lost the fight. His body needed to breathe now, and it didn't care there was no air. His mouth opened, thoat worked, lungs inhaled. He got nothing but filthy water, and now he was cold from the inside out. Kakashi convulsed, body automatically trying to curl as it coughed and retched. He inhaled more water.
Then he panicked. He was going to drown!
Which was exactly the moment Haruichi chose to yank his head above the water. Kakashi gasped, feeling relief like no other, and promptly vomited up a chestful of dirty water. His body took that as its cue to double him back over, and knocked him into the damn sewage again.
He inhaled more water, less air, and reached a whole new level of misery to go along with broken bones. |
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