| [Jun. 3rd, 2009|06:37 pm] |
The metal and machine-oil scent of the industrial mixers wasn't enough to overpower the toxic choke of chemical dust that rose from them, as masked and goggled workers poured yellow powder into their gaping iron mouths. Ginta crouched behind one giant cog, black with grease and caked with grains and shavings of something that glittered. He gasped for breath, filtering it through the inadequate mask his ANBU turtleneck provided, and held his bleeding right arm in his left. At least they hadn't got his left.
He looked behind him, at the dark triangular space he'd shimmied through to get here. A rotating shaft thicker than a man's body had rumbled to life just as Ginta'd squeezed through the gap between the gears. He'd felt the heat of it sear the backs of his calves, and would have smelt the singed hairs, but the overwhelming miasma of sulfur drowned everything out.
Tsuyako was still back there. One moment she'd been running by his side, bloodied, beaten, but getting out with him, and then she'd been gone. Fallen with a sick cry as something pierced her chest from behind, and Ginta hadn't had time to turn and see who had taken her down, because another four ninja with the Waterfall crest on their headbands had skidded around the corridor, weapons raised.
No jutsu, though. That was important. Taijutsu and genjutsu, and weapons of all kinds, but no one risked an elemental inside a bomb factory.
Blades had sliced through the air, and a bolt from a wrist-mounted cross-bow had taken a sliver from Ginta's ear. He'd ducked into a hole too small for any but the most agile and slender of pursuers, and wormed his way into the heart of the machinery. He longed for his mask, but that was gone, along with his weapons. The cogs rumbled to life, and Ginta had to move or risk being crushed.
"There he is!" someone shouted. A new flight of arrows crossed the room, and this time one struck home. |
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