Natsumi buried her masked face in Asuma's shoulder and threw her other arm around his neck as the thundering force of a swollen river swept them over the edge. Then they were falling. And if she had a chance, it was now.

Her left hand was stiff and numb with cold, but it moved enough to bend the searing fingers of her right hand halfway into the Bird seal. Bone ground against bone; white light flashed against her closed eyelids. She bit down on a scream and forced the pitiful remainder of her chakra into shape. Boar next...

Too slow. She was forming the seals at a fifth of her usual speed; there was no way she could finish the jutsu in time. Natsumi strangled panic and locked her hands together behind Asuma's neck. "Brace yourself!" She could barely hear her cracking voice over the thunder of the falls; she didn't have time to wait for him to understand. She set her index fingers together in a crooked parody of the reverse Horse-seal, palms facing outward, and slammed chakra through her hands with everything she had.

Pounding water exploded into spray around them as the blast of concentrated wind ripped through. A hollow boom shook the cliff behind them; then the reflected wind hit Asuma in the back like a straight-line tornado, flinging them clear of the waterfall and the rocks below.