| [Feb. 9th, 2011|09:03 pm] |
The last part of a run was always the hardest, especially when the landscape went vertical.
The scenery stayed reasonably flat for the first twenty miles, slowly grading up in a gentle incline. It was only in the last five miles that they hit the foothills of Mount Nikkō-Shirane, and things got complicated.
It was fortunate that Baiji could chakra-walk.
In summer, Kakashi suspected this trail would only be mildly difficult. But the unseasonably cold weather brought sheer ice, wind-stripped rock, and no vegetation. Occasionally he saw the blasted trunks of trees that might survive until summer took a hold, but mostly it was snow hiding sharp edges.
The wind cut into flesh like a scythe.
When Kakashi chanced a glance at Ginta and Baiji, there was almost nothing to see. Ginta was wrapped in his ANBU cloak with the hood drawn down and his head bowed, shoulders hunched, gloved hands clenched around Baji’s collar. Pakkun was completely hidden from view in his lap; Kakashi hoped they were helping each other to stay warm.
Baiji was still going strong, despite the gouts of white saliva foaming around his panting jaws. He wasn’t built for this weather; he was a fighter, designed for battlefields. But he wouldn’t falter until Kakashi did.
Kakashi was starting to feel very much like faltering.
The knife-thin path cut up the mountainside in sharp zig-zags, doubling back and forth on itself in increasingly steeper trails. Kakashi kept his feet limned with chakra, walking on snow just as often as rock. He slipped once, when Baiji lurched on a patch of jagged ice and yelped, but he was too cold to care much about skinned knees. Too cold to bleed, even.
Hallway up the mountain, in the V-neck of two crags, Ginta’s head pulled up and he shouted a halt. Baiji flopped down instantly on the first flat surface, and Kakashi knelt down to check the state of his paws. Cold, but not raw. Good.
“Here?” he rasped, as Ginta slid off the massive dog’s back. “Are you sure?”
There wasn’t anything here. |
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