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Teamwork chapter 7 part 2
I still haven't fixed part one to be more easily understandable. I am a bad, lazy asuka. Helpful crit still welcome on that bit. Helpful crit also welcome for this bit!
I think a short personal/feeling-centric moment of interaction should happen next, but so far I'm not seeing it clearly. Hn.
Sakura's tunic was spotted brown with half-dry blood. That was what he noticed first, before even the small redheaded body that lay sprawled in the dust.
He couldn't feel Kyuubi's chakra anywhere, but then again the fox-demon could have decided he was tired of terrifying prey into fleeing and figured out how to hide that surging flow so he could lay in wait instead.
If Kyuubi was still around, he'd deal with it. Because he could see two shell-shocked children clinging to each other as they crouched beside Sasuke's teammate, staring down at the small motionless form of their third.
Shit. Just -- shit. And after he had spent so much time and energy to get the summoner team out of harm's way. He had expected that other teams might move in to check on the cause of the dust cloud, but he hadn't envisioned that result. It was surprising the other two kids weren't in pieces as well.
He kicked loose pebbles as a warning, saw three bowed heads jerk up, Sakura's hand fly to her shuriken pouch.
Her other arm was tucked tight against her belly and he could see dried blood and a bruise that went from elbow to wrist. The wrist was a little swollen as well. Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
"Sasuke-kun," she said, and her voice sounded so strange he stopped in his tracks, still a dozen feet away from them. Exhausted was one word for it. Blank, only at the surface. Scratchy, the kind that comes from screaming.
The two genin looked completely shell-shocked, the white of their eyes showing too much, clinging to each other like children instead of like ninja. Too young for that mess, Sasuke thought, and ignored the fact that Team Seven had been just that age the first time around, when they ran into Orochimaru. He wasn't exactly a proper benchmark for trauma tolerance.
His first thought was to ask what had happened, but it was clear enough. There were more urgent things. "Where is he?" he asked, crouching on the other side of the body.
Sakura inhaled quickly and shook her head, as if to shake her brain awake. "He went to the campsite. To find supplies."
Sasuke blinked. "... Kyuubi went where?"
"No -- Naruto." Sakura blinked back, eyes widening in surprise and then narrowing. "He just -- woke up. I thought you'd convinced them to do something."
Sasuke broke eye contact, looked down at the small redhead sprawled on the ground. Failure all around today. "No. We were attacked. The healer died." He raked a hand through his hair. At least Kyuubi wasn't a problem anymore.
Shit. The kid looked even younger than Konohamaru. Naruto was going to take that so much worse. He should have stayed, even if that would have meant getting beaten up--
The body was breathing.
"... Sakura?" He'd thought the ribbon tied to the spear shaft was catching some kind of faint breeze, but that wasn't it at all. "Why is he still...?"
She sneaked a quick look at the two trembling kids and replied quietly. "He's pinned. It goes all the way through into the bedrock. I can't pull hard enough to free him without putting dirt in the wound and tearing it open even wider, and I can't -- I can't heal fast enough to fix enough before he hemorrhages." She scrubbed at her face with a dirty hand, exhausted. "Did you see any of the jounin? I can't fix this."
"I didn't."
Sasuke didn't like this at all. They were supposed to be around, even more so than at their first chuunin exam. With all the problems regarding the integration of Mist into the alliance, how wary they'd all been that Mist's history of violence would make the test all too brutal, how the higher-ups insisted on jounin-held tokens as a way to avoid leaving no option but bloody battle, there should have been so many of them keeping watch over the genin they should have been unable to turn around without tripping on one.
But they couldn't afford to sit and wait to be rescued. Sasuke got up, frowned at the two other kids. He stepped over the redhead's spread legs and nudged the girl with his foot, not very gently. "Alright. That's enough. We need cover and warmth. Go look for wood, dry grass, anything that can burn without too much smoke. Sakura, I'm going to cut him free. Hold the shaft."
He remembered fighting the two of them, the boy with the glasses and the girl. She'd spat poison at his face even as her teammate fumbled through a textbook-correct, unoriginal kawarimi. He wasn't surprised she climbed to her feet first.
Sakura's hands clenched tight on the bottom of the spear, just over the skin. Sasuke caught a good hold a little higher, sent a tendril of lightning-chakra down his kunai, and sliced through the wood in one clean stroke.
Getting to the part of the shaft that was underneath proved much harder. In the end Sakura moved the kid's upper body on her lap and shifted it up the shaft, gritting her teeth when that tore through the weak layer of scabbing and blood flowed again. The angle was awkward as well. Sasuke cut the shaft as short as he could, and then quickly pushed his balled-up shirt around it so the weight of the body wouldn't push the wood through again. For a minute, Sasuke and Sakura watched the kid's gray face, waiting, but after the first hitch he started taking shallow little breaths and didn't stop again.
"Stubborn," Sasuke whispered. Maybe he would even survive. Sasuke wiped his hands on his pants and got back up. "Let's move him against that rock to get him out of the open, and then I'll go find Naruto."
I think a short personal/feeling-centric moment of interaction should happen next, but so far I'm not seeing it clearly. Hn.
Sakura's tunic was spotted brown with half-dry blood. That was what he noticed first, before even the small redheaded body that lay sprawled in the dust.
He couldn't feel Kyuubi's chakra anywhere, but then again the fox-demon could have decided he was tired of terrifying prey into fleeing and figured out how to hide that surging flow so he could lay in wait instead.
If Kyuubi was still around, he'd deal with it. Because he could see two shell-shocked children clinging to each other as they crouched beside Sasuke's teammate, staring down at the small motionless form of their third.
Shit. Just -- shit. And after he had spent so much time and energy to get the summoner team out of harm's way. He had expected that other teams might move in to check on the cause of the dust cloud, but he hadn't envisioned that result. It was surprising the other two kids weren't in pieces as well.
He kicked loose pebbles as a warning, saw three bowed heads jerk up, Sakura's hand fly to her shuriken pouch.
Her other arm was tucked tight against her belly and he could see dried blood and a bruise that went from elbow to wrist. The wrist was a little swollen as well. Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
"Sasuke-kun," she said, and her voice sounded so strange he stopped in his tracks, still a dozen feet away from them. Exhausted was one word for it. Blank, only at the surface. Scratchy, the kind that comes from screaming.
The two genin looked completely shell-shocked, the white of their eyes showing too much, clinging to each other like children instead of like ninja. Too young for that mess, Sasuke thought, and ignored the fact that Team Seven had been just that age the first time around, when they ran into Orochimaru. He wasn't exactly a proper benchmark for trauma tolerance.
His first thought was to ask what had happened, but it was clear enough. There were more urgent things. "Where is he?" he asked, crouching on the other side of the body.
Sakura inhaled quickly and shook her head, as if to shake her brain awake. "He went to the campsite. To find supplies."
Sasuke blinked. "... Kyuubi went where?"
"No -- Naruto." Sakura blinked back, eyes widening in surprise and then narrowing. "He just -- woke up. I thought you'd convinced them to do something."
Sasuke broke eye contact, looked down at the small redhead sprawled on the ground. Failure all around today. "No. We were attacked. The healer died." He raked a hand through his hair. At least Kyuubi wasn't a problem anymore.
Shit. The kid looked even younger than Konohamaru. Naruto was going to take that so much worse. He should have stayed, even if that would have meant getting beaten up--
The body was breathing.
"... Sakura?" He'd thought the ribbon tied to the spear shaft was catching some kind of faint breeze, but that wasn't it at all. "Why is he still...?"
She sneaked a quick look at the two trembling kids and replied quietly. "He's pinned. It goes all the way through into the bedrock. I can't pull hard enough to free him without putting dirt in the wound and tearing it open even wider, and I can't -- I can't heal fast enough to fix enough before he hemorrhages." She scrubbed at her face with a dirty hand, exhausted. "Did you see any of the jounin? I can't fix this."
"I didn't."
Sasuke didn't like this at all. They were supposed to be around, even more so than at their first chuunin exam. With all the problems regarding the integration of Mist into the alliance, how wary they'd all been that Mist's history of violence would make the test all too brutal, how the higher-ups insisted on jounin-held tokens as a way to avoid leaving no option but bloody battle, there should have been so many of them keeping watch over the genin they should have been unable to turn around without tripping on one.
But they couldn't afford to sit and wait to be rescued. Sasuke got up, frowned at the two other kids. He stepped over the redhead's spread legs and nudged the girl with his foot, not very gently. "Alright. That's enough. We need cover and warmth. Go look for wood, dry grass, anything that can burn without too much smoke. Sakura, I'm going to cut him free. Hold the shaft."
He remembered fighting the two of them, the boy with the glasses and the girl. She'd spat poison at his face even as her teammate fumbled through a textbook-correct, unoriginal kawarimi. He wasn't surprised she climbed to her feet first.
Sakura's hands clenched tight on the bottom of the spear, just over the skin. Sasuke caught a good hold a little higher, sent a tendril of lightning-chakra down his kunai, and sliced through the wood in one clean stroke.
Getting to the part of the shaft that was underneath proved much harder. In the end Sakura moved the kid's upper body on her lap and shifted it up the shaft, gritting her teeth when that tore through the weak layer of scabbing and blood flowed again. The angle was awkward as well. Sasuke cut the shaft as short as he could, and then quickly pushed his balled-up shirt around it so the weight of the body wouldn't push the wood through again. For a minute, Sasuke and Sakura watched the kid's gray face, waiting, but after the first hitch he started taking shallow little breaths and didn't stop again.
"Stubborn," Sasuke whispered. Maybe he would even survive. Sasuke wiped his hands on his pants and got back up. "Let's move him against that rock to get him out of the open, and then I'll go find Naruto."
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I didn't figure out what the 'it' was that pinned was the spear until I read through it completely, because before you never mention where the spear was (I kinda thought he was still holding it. Or something >.>)
But <3 it.
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Or maybe it's not so simple? Maybe Naruto was fighting inside?
One minor quibble so far: Sakura's tunic was spotted brown with half-dry blood
I'd change to "half-dried."
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Wahh. I should have written it faster. I saw how it all happened and impacted them so much better last year when I came up with it. T______T
Will edit, thanks. ♥
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The clinical tone of Sasuke's inner thoughts feels right to me too. He's probably in shock, a state he's unfortunately used to; previous experience has taught him how to soldier through it by being hyper-efficient. Sasuke doesn't shriek out his pain, he chokes it.
"He couldn't feel Kyuubi's chakra anywhere, but then again the fox-demon could have decided he was tired of terrifying prey into fleeing and figured out how to hide that surging flow so he could lay in wait instead." Should be "lie" in wait.
So where the hell ARE all the jounin, anyway??? (Dun dun dunnnn...)
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oops. *makes note to edit*
So where the hell ARE all the jounin, anyway??? (Dun dun dunnnn...)
>:DDDDDDDDD Oh, they'll be around soonish. Maybe. Sort of. Hopefully...?
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Still Sasuke's POV, then? ____ Oh yeah, the kids. (*groan*) And I'm sure things can only get uglier. ____ I wonder if Sasuke's too emotionally drained to deal with the horror right now. And if he'll feel it later. ____ Love it how he picks up the grisly details of the scene: Sakura's voice, the blood, a child down ... I mean, from one thing right to another! ____ Wait, whuh? He just ... woke up? ... The hell? õ.ô That's one thing I wasn't expecting. ____ My bad, it was the healer who died. (I kept getting the Grass team's roles mixed up.) >.< ____ Yeesh, that kid's in a rough predicament. I hope they can save him somehow. ____ Love the way Sasuke's taking charge. ____ Interesting. Sasuke's abilities with electricity comes in handy. =) ____ "Stubborn." Love it. ^^
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Thank goodness Naruto is awake again... he's going to be so messed up from having been involved in getting the kid speared. I'm glad the kid is still alive though... for now. I hope the Jounin get involved soon...
I agree with muryx that this seems more eye-of-the-storm than anticlimactic. It seems like it'll get hectic again soon.