Blood misted the air when Kakashi exhaled, sharp and violent, and dodged a welter of falling rubble. There wasn't time to swear. There wasn't time to stop. Panicking civillians crushed against his back, driving him forwards into Shouma and Ginta--into the wall of brick and plaster smashing down into the hallway, blocking the exit. Dust filled the air like a mushroom cloud. Kakashi almost took a rebar through the chest.

Ginta didn't scream. Tsuyako didn't flinch.

Hoshika howled, scrabbling up and whirling on the chaos behind them, snapping at screaming workers. Shouma lurched back to his feet, Ginta spilled across his shoulders like a blackened toy, one leg twisted at a brutal angle. Kakashi shoved himself away from the spur of metal that had almost punched a hole through his ribcage and Tsuyako's belly, and tried to collect himself. The room swayed. His temple ached; he reached up awkwardly and touched liquid. Smelled metal.

Breathed metal, because the hallway was a massacre and his arms were full of bleeding woman. Stone and metal had sloughed down behind them, pinning half a dozen civillians and trapping the rest, blocking the open crucible of the factory floor, throwing the hallway into darkness like pitch tar. He couldn't see a single clear face in the mess, just wide eyes and gaping mouths. Hands reaching out.

No way forward. No way back. He didn't dare try a translocation through half-shattered seals.

"Shit," he said, softly, because now there was time.

The sharingan spun, showing gleaming patterns of movement, threads of the future. He sliced a look over the fragile ceiling, trying to see a path through the naked girders and shattered plaster. Orange lit the room above them with a dull glow; cinders showered down, licking sparks over his burning shoulders. More fire, denser smoke. No way up.

Well, what were jutsu for?

He swept his chakra together, sparing the smallest amount he could for two substantial clones, and pressed Tsuyako into the arms of the first. The second leapt for Ginta, gathering his limp body off Shouma's red-soaked back. Kakashi waited the half-second it took for them to get behind him, the half-second more it took for the dogs to drive the civilians back, and staked their survival on a fistful of blue-white lightning and broken birdsong.

Twelve seals. All the chakra he had left.

It felt nearly cathartic when he blew straight through the wall.