| [May. 25th, 2009|08:36 pm] |
Ryuichi started at the touch, still looking at the missing-nin. The man was dead. Had been for a little. The body was still hot, still bleeding. Still thinking it was alive. Still in denial. Now and again the face changed, and Ryuichi saw Katsuko dead, black marks on her neck and his hands that had put them there. Another turn, another heartbeat, and it was just the missing-nin again.
Just a trip, just a trip.
Katsuko’s voice almost snapped him out of it. It only took one look to remind him that she was still there, still alive. That the mission wasn’t a failure yet. It only took one survivor to make it back home, but Ryuichi wouldn’t be that one. He’d come back with Katsuko, or he wouldn’t come back at all.
“You saved my life,” she said. There was something wrong with her voice.
Ryuichi shrugged her hand away, standing up hesitantly. To his surprise, his legs didn’t fail him. “I didn’t,” Ryuichi said.
The bunker was spinning . He could see a whole lot of gray and dead things. Izo’s body was crumpled on the ground, Ryuichi’s swords and broken mask lying before the man whose sister had killed the rest of their team. Ryuichi bent down to retrieve the blades. The edges were dented, but they could be fixed.
The same couldn’t be said for his head. Ryuichi felt himself sway, and wondered if Katsuko would kill him for screwing this up. Somehow, it was his fault, or the fault of the drugs, which still made it Ryuichi’s mistake for taking them in the first place.
Whatever came next, he’d take it. They were getting home alive. |
|