| [May. 4th, 2009|05:45 pm] |
When that was done, he sat again, panting and sick, wishing that burns weren't the one damn injury painkillers couldn't really help. His hands were slick to the wrists with Genma's blood, his head was full of the sound of metal on metal, and he still needed to put his pants on.
"Okay," he whispered, voice like a dull thread. "Okay."
He couldn't bring himself to touch his burns. Where the bandages had sloughed away, he could see red-raw flesh, partly scabbed and mostly oozing, but he couldn't put a hand near it. Instead he got up, got another glass of water, and forced two chakra pills down his throat. Then two of the horse-choking antibiotic tablets from Genma's kit, sequestered after their last mission had gone so wrong. He was almost grateful, now, that Genma had kicked up such a fuss, even when pain of swallowing almost lanced his jaw apart. There was no one awake to hear the groan that was almost a sob, and when false chakra slipped burning fingers through his coils, he felt stronger.
Strong enough to drag his pants on, anyway. And strap sandals to his feet and gauntlets to his arms. But his shirt was impossible, and the weight of chest armour unbearable; he left both where they were and gathered up the med-kit instead. It hung on his hip with the other, still unused, and managed to be almost as comforting as the sword he strapped to his right thigh--Genma's sword--and the kunai pouch he tied to his left.
Sago still had their dogtags. But Raidou found his rings buried beneath his clothes and slipped them on, only now realizing they'd been taken. He clenched his fist, feeling the metal bands against his fingers, and drew a little more strength there.
Then there was nothing left to do but get moving.
He could have summoned a clone, he should have summoned a clone, but chakra was a finite resource and gaining distance fast was more important than how much his shoulders hurt. He slung Genma onto his back, hissing when skin pulled tight, flinching when loose-hanging hands brushed too close to burns and scars, and tried to think about nothing but the eighty miles between them and home. The sixty miles to the closest safe house. The five he could lose with a translocation.
Staggering, wavering, but still on his feet, Raidou carried Genma out of the bunker, and destroyed the entrance with paper-bombs he didn't dare take near Sago's cell for fear of freeing him. Then he gathered all the strength he had left to work a jutsu and blurred them closer to home, skipping as many miles as he could with one burst of chakra, breaking their trail neatly in half.
He landed on his knees, cried out with pain, and got up again. Genma hung on his back, lolling head braced against Raidou's right shoulder, their ANBU masks strung from his belt loops because you had to come home with your mask, even if it was broken.
Okay, Raidou tried to say, and couldn't manage it. Okay.
Then he ran. |
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