| [Jan. 21st, 2009|04:01 pm] |
Oh gods on parade, they were freaking kidding! They had to be. Haruichi's eyes didn't move (didn't have to, with the Byakugan) but his attention focussed on the creeping light at the root of Kuromaru's newly repaired chakra path. The two of them couldn't stop their chakra cycling automatically, and he couldn't do anything to prevent that with the jyuuken until all of their paths were reconnected.
This had not been mentioned at the pre-surgical meeting. He was going to kill Waki. Kill him with a shoe. No, actually. He was going to kill him with whatever was left of that condolence basket the old git had sent him for bringing these two chakra-kinked idiots home alive. Choke him to death with a straw weave. Yes. That was the answer.
Another flickering wave of pain informed him that he had more pressing answers to find, and forced another gasp out. Haruichi bit his lip, forced himself not to make such pathetic displays ever again in this, and knew what had happened.
Once again, his own assumptions had backfired on him in glorious technicolour. He hadn't been able to tell from watching them that the Inuzuka were unable to control their chakra exchange with each other, he'd thought that they simply chose not to because they were rambunctious, uncontrolled Inuzuka. To a Hyuuga, who learned to adjust and control their energies from the moment they could walk or talk, the idea of existing like that made no sense.
And the reality of Tsume and Kuromaru needing to exist like that was hurting him. It was a quieter hurt for the moment, as though the needles stabbing through his paths and into his tenketsu had been withdrawn until they rested as shallow pangs of pain. It wouldn't last. When they lost control of their chakra and it lanced through him to complete their circuit the pain would stab deep again.
Concentrate. It's too late to stop. I have to fix this for them, it doesn't matter if this is part of it now.
A breath. He pulled himself together, felt his heart struggling to beat evenly in his chest and the cold sweat pricking at his curse seal, and took another.
Have to get this done. Have to be able to walk out of here. Have to make it to dinner at seven. Have to kill Waki.
Haruichi stopped biting his lip, and tried to will himself to ignore the swell of painful colour which seemed to be emmanating from everything he could see. It would have been creeping at the edges of his vision, except his vision didn't have edges when he used the byakugan and so it was simply pervading everything with an indescribable tint which pained Haruichi to look at.
He was not happy about any of this, and it showed when he spoke. "We're going to synchronize this. I'll reconnect ten chakra paths, then you can let it go. Then hold back the exchange and I'll reconnect another ten. There are one hundred and sixteen left to connect, we can't waste time. There's no going back once this proceedure has started."
The weakness in Haruichi's posture from the piercing ache in his chakra paths was pushed away as he straightened his back. "Exchange it again, then we start."
Gods, he was begining to understand why he'd been told to stay the hell away from the Inuzuka... how galling to realize the Elders had had a point. |
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