| [Feb. 9th, 2011|08:47 pm] |
In the snow-bound silence, Kakashi’s breath spilled into the air like blood from a sliced jugular.
“You manipulative bastard,” he rasped.
“Are you going to stop?” Ginta’s voice was stripped-down flat, unbothered by the accusation. He knew it was true; he obviously didn’t care.
It was a good ninja trait.
“Ten minutes,” Kakashi said, and looked away from Ginta’s lightning-blue eyes to brace his hands on his knees, fighting for air. Now that he had stopped, his whole body had very definite ideas about staying that way. His lungs felt raw, rasped inside by ice and hard breathing.
Ginta shoved his ANBU mask up, revealing a black cloth mask that he hooked down. Underneath it, his skin was white-blue where it wasn’t flushed red. “We know he didn’t make it to Yukihana,” he said. “There’s a place up here — Dainichi Nyouraiji —it's a derelict temple that we had a safehouse in. It's where Ryouma was based." He gestured, pointing east. "We should go there. The search teams might not have checked it.”
It was a slim hope; if Ryouma was at this temple, he’d been there for three weeks without making it to Yukihana.
But it was a hope.
“Okay,” Kakashi said, and sank down to his knees in the snow. It came up to his thighs -- almost to his hips -- but there was nothing else to sit on. A fumble of cold hands in his belt produced a double-dose of soldier pills, a half-frozen canteen, and a ration bar. He flipped his ANBU mask up and his cloth mask down to take them all.
Ginta’s mouth went flat and white. Kakashi looked up at him, and couldn’t bring himself to care.
“You, too,” he said, after a moment. “Soldier pill. Ration bar. Ryouma’d be just as pissed at you.” |
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