| [Dec. 16th, 2009|03:11 am] |
Chakra hit him like the deadly wave of a dam breaking, surging through parched streambeds, breaking down the riverbanks. His charred pathways fried all over again. He was drowning, burning, sloshing full of too much energy that wasn't his and couldn't figure out where to go--
His slick fingers knotted in her hair, painfully tight. A little of the bright-burning foreign chakra rerouted itself. Maybe his body, scorched by twelve years of molding chakra--and surviving the occasional soldier-pill overdose--knew how to deal with this, too, as long as he didn't mess it up by thinking about burning up.
If he was going to roast alive from the inside out, he might as well get something out of it.
She tasted like blood. Maybe that was him; he must've bitten his tongue when he'd slammed into the wall. The faint flavor of char was probably him, too. Sparks danced across his tongue, sizzling edges of a river of chakra; he thought abruptly of Kakashi. But her mouth tasted of ginger candy, sharp and spicy, with a tingle like caffeine, and he could feel her grinning against him. She hadn't quite laughed in battle, but she laughed when he kissed her, and she kissed him back.
Kakashi kissed like a drowning man, but Katsuko kissed like a girl thoroughly enjoying herself, like a girl promising nothing and looking forward to everything. She matched him step for step, and she took the lead when he paused to offer it. Relief rumbled deep in his chest, mingled with surprise and delight and an unexpected, reckless joy.
He'd killed the bad guy, saved the girl, kissed the girl. Everything else would fall into place.
He bent his head, heedless of the pain in his shoulder or the firestorm in his coils, and deepened the kiss. |
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