| [Jun. 3rd, 2009|07:55 pm] |
Fifteen years of practice had made Kakashi very, very good at keeping his mission focus in place. But that one word almost undid him. He locked his jaw, leaned Ginta back against the wall, and reminded himself of the facts of life. Of Tsuyako, bleeding out on the flower-patterned blankets.
"Later," he rasped, and moved aside for the first returning clone. It took his place, hands filled with a bulky medi-kit and a basin of lukewarm water. The second clone crouched down by Tsuyako's side, checking her over with efficient hands, feeding its knowledge back to Kakashi.
Broken bones, shattered teeth, amputated fingers. Missing skin. Marks of torture.
He didn't let himself think about Ryouma.
Ginta was better, and worse. Quickly, gently, the first clone sponged away the blood and muck caked to his skin and shredded clothes; peeled away chemical-gore drenched bandages to reveal most of the damage. The sword gash to his right forearm, the deep puncture wound in his left thigh, still glinting with embedded metal and slick yellow pus. Burns, bruises, lungs scorched with smoke. And that right leg. Deep clawed wounds in the calf muscle, bones that grated beneath the clone's quick, careful hands, and a foot wrenched all the way round on itself. Dislocated, if they were lucky. Shattered, if they weren't. Pale skin, hollow eyes, hands that trembled.
Kakashi took a deep, copper-laced breath. Not dead. The rest they could work with.
"Hold tight," he said, calm and entirely contained, and sat down again by Ginta's legs. A syringe flashed in the clone's hand, filled with clear morphine; another gleamed in the second clone's grip, already emptying into Tsuyako's lax arm. Soldier pills pressed against two sets of bloodless lips. "Breathe deep. We're going to fix this."
We. It was never just I in a rescue.
And it wasn't just his hands that held Ginta down, waiting for blue eyes to fill with understanding, and unfocus with painkillers. Cloned fingers tightened above and below shifting bones, keeping them straight; but it was Kakashi's careful grip and steady chakra that wrenched Ginta's ankle back into place, trying to save the foot before constricted blood flow killed it. It popped.
Lucky. |
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