[Action Thread][I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go][tag Kabumi, Sasoriza]

[dogtag_ninja]

Hanato missed the grand entrance. Not surprising, really, seeing that he'd been cooped up in the bowels of the hospital all day, tending a succession of pregnant cats, hamsters with overgrown teeth, dogs who'd eaten something they shouldn't have, and one truly awful case with a kitten that had somehow gotten into its owner's stock of poisons. The

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[bloodredsands]

Sasoriza smiled and twitched her fingers gently: the wooden salamander's tail retracted smoothly.

"Language, Kabumi-chan!" she scolded, tugging the medic to her feet and letting her steady herself before releasing her shoulders. "Didn't I always tell you, if you feel the need to swear make sure it's a bit more colourful than that. 'Damn' is so pedestrian, you don't want to sound like all the other kids, do you?"

She produced a small med kit and handed it to the pale young woman. For any injuries she may like to fix. Along with a pair of glasses, in Kabumi's prescription, which she had always carried spare.

"Speaking of all the other kids, we've got one chasing after us like a tag-along puppy dog," Sasoriza said as an aside, turning to the forest.

She flicked her hands out again, and two of her puppets vanished into the trees and leafy undergrowth, while the salamander that had carried Kabumi so faithfully settled at the girl's side to guard her further.

Sasoriza waited patiently, long sandy-red hair resting against her back and over her slim shoulders. Teal eyes turned to the green of the leaves, for the moment their pursuer chose to arrive.

[dogtag_ninja]

Hanato'd be the first to admit he wasn't the greatest ninja in Konoha. Hell, he wasn't even in the top ranks; he was still a chuunin, barely even worth the notice of elites like Hatake Kakami and still less the regard of legends like the Sannin. But he was an Inuzuka, and one of the best of them; and he was, for better or worse, one of Konoha's top trackers.

Perhaps it would've been better if he hadn't been, if he'd lost the trail and spent the rest of the day wandering the woods with his dogs. But he was shinobi, and so were his girls; they were tough and they were fast, and in five years of running solo tracking missions, they'd never lost a trail. They didn't lose this one.

They didn't run into it blind, either. Kemuri had surged a little ahead of the other three, and she whined as the scent grew stronger--not just traces on the ground now, but a definite presence on the wind. Hanato strengthened the flow of chakra he'd directed to his nose, filtering out ambient smells with unconscious skill and focusing on the scents he'd burned into his brain as they followed. Wood and oil and steel, paper, ink, a rough acrid smoke of herbs, unwashed body, vomit, faint lavender...and over all of it, the reek of blood.

He sent Kemuri and Youen circling upwind with a jerk of his head, and he and Haiko dropped from their flat-out run into a steady walk. His lungs burned, but he took long, even breaths, refusing to pant. Refusing to show any weakness.

Even when they came through the last trees, and saw and smelled the women waiting for them. One hurt and sick and tinged with fear; one strong and confident and bloody--though none of it was her own. And nothing in her scent hinted at any emotion at all.

It should have been frightening. But Hanato was beyond fear now. His lips curled back, flashing teeth that should almost have been called fangs. "Give her back."

[yakushi_kabumi]

There were so many things that Kabumi could have given away, and she was being lectured on how common her swearing was? Didn't the Akatsuki member understand that Kabumi knew some of those secrets as well? Not to mention everything she knew about Orochimayu and all the things she--

The anger and fear and pain and frustration were threatening to overwhelm her. Kabumi fumbled her glasses with her only working hand before managing to shove them onto her face. The medkit, she had to fix herself up enough so they could go back, but this was for emergencies, she wasn't bleeding, her hand was broken, her knee was sprained, that damned bastard Kureno she had to kill him he had to die he had to pay for screwing with her mind, no one screwed with her head--

Kabumi could feel the familiar heat speeding along her veins. She didn't care that the whites of her eyes were starting to change.

And then Hanato was there with one of his dogs, and Kabumi came to herself. She forced herself to calm down--Sasoriza wasn't stupid, the woman would have killed everyone in the room with Kabumi, and whether that was out of anger or out of prudence it didn't really matter. Just as long as Kureno was dead, nothing else mattered.

It had taken a few seconds' reasoning, but she was in control of herself again. And if her hand was shaking as it reached inside the medkit, it was just exhaustion, nothing more. "I thought you said we wouldn't see each other again, Hanato-kun," she murmured, pulling out an assortment of pills. "But it seems you can't stay away from me." She downed the handful of medicine quickly.

[bloodredsands]

Oh? So this was the one who'd been canoodling with Kabumi? Tall, dark, about-to-spend-his-last-thirty-seconds-being-handsome: couldn't fault her for choice. Save that he seemed to be under the impression that he had a claim on her. Which he didn't. Most assuredly.

Behind her Kabumi murmurred some unsettling words and downed her medications. Sasoriza smiled internally, this girl certainly had been taught well.

"Kabumi-chan, you take your time," she said over her shoulder, raising her hands gently, readying her puppets where they hid. One dog was visible, likely more were in wait.

"As for you," she looked Hanato in his seething, furious eyes. Nothing but death answered him in her own. "Your mistake was believing she was ever yours."

With that she sent her spider and the salamander twin to the one guarding Kabumi straight for the young Inuzuka, poisonous apendages whirring and stabbing.

He went flying. As did his dog.

"God, I love kicking puppies," said Sasoriza, producing her favourite katana from a compartment in her right leg and advancing on Hanato.

[dogtag_ninja]

Hanato had three seconds, between the time the wooden monsters--puppets?-- charged at him and the time they actually struck. They were barely enough for him to clap his hands into the Tiger seal, mold a blaze of chakra, and dodge the first and second strikes.

The third slashed his left leg from hip to knee, and the fourth caught his right shoulder and threw him back to crash into a tree.

His side exploded with pain, and his vision fogged over, dark mist drawing down like a veil of blood. But his nose was still working, and wood-and-steel was coming closer...

"Shikyaku no Jutsu," Hanato snarled, and focused his chakra once more, and lunged to his feet, bloody and fanged and armed with six-inch claws of nail and chakra. His left leg refused to support him well, but he wouldn't need it for that long. Just enough--

He ducked away from another blow from the spider-thing, forcing the red-haired woman to turn a little to face him--and to put her back to the two dogs springing soundlessly from the trees.

[bloodredsands]

Sasoriza pivoted to the side, controlling her three pupets with one hand as the other brought the katana around to guard her back. The dogs lunging for her back had crossed the invisible chakra strings controlling Kabumi's guardian and given themselves away.

But that meant an attack from three sides now - one dog to the right, one man to the front, two dogs to the back. Ah well, it wasn't as if Sasoriza wasn't better than brilliant at multitasking.

A flick of the fingers sent the salamander for the dog singled out to the right, slamming the already injured dog to the ground and snapping more than a few ribs. Turned her wrist, and suddenly a spider's web of diamond-cut shruriken wire shot past her shoulder to nail one of the dogs trying to get her from behind.

Two down, and the two left were obviously wild with rage. A state of mind Sasoriza had yet to attain, being the cold and calculating creature she was. Flipping low across the ground, she managed to slice the hamstrings of the final canine threat with her katana - but it was at a cost.

As she suspected they might, Hanato's chakra-embued claws sliced into her torso. Shallowly, tearing open skin and gouging wood, but it was enough to truly and sincerely earn him the smash of her katana hilt to his face that shattered his cheekbone. Not to mention the downward thrust of said katana that pinned him by the thigh to the ground.

She snapped her fingers on her left hand and suddenly her nails were razor blades. Ones she fully intended to use on Hanato's face.

[dogtag_ninja]

Somewhere in that explosion of pain below his eye and in his leg, Hanato had a chance to think. It wasn't much, but at a moment when every thought might be his last...it was something.

Haiko was first. And then Kemuri! Youen!

And then he was moving, but his leg wouldn't hold his weight, and his strike was lower and shallower than he'd meant. The tips of his chakra claws sliced her belly from ribs to hip, but where muscle should have parted and guts spilled out, not even blood slicked his hand. Wood, he thought. That's why. All wood...

And then her katana-hilt struck his face and its blade sank into his leg, and someone was screaming--Oh gods, is that me?--and a handful of razors was darting for his face--

He blocked with his forearm, and her razor-nails sliced it to the bone. But his other hand was free, and somehow he hadn't lost his chakra claws, and he raked her again from sternum to navel.

His claws went through this time, a bare few centimeters of wood, and then...

Nothing.

Hollow.

[bloodredsands]

Cosmetic damage and a violation of her carefully constructed torso at the hands of this little whelp.

This was what she got for fighting at close-quarters outwith the safety of her scorpion-puppet. Admittedly she'd wanted to avoid any associations with The Organization and that was the form she took in her dealings with them; and there was no way she could have sauntered so blithely into the village in the guise of a ten foot long, four hundred pound killer scorpion of death.

Or hell, maybe she could have. As Hanato was so sturdily demonstrating Konoha's citizens were freaking idiots. Fighters, but morons.

No more fighting for this one, though.

Sasoriza snatched his wildly slashing hand on the downstroke and broke his wrist in three places without a blink. Then she broke his other arm in two - evenly spaced - sections. No more chakra claws.

Spreading her razor-tipped nails into just the right pattern, she pressed them over the fabric of his khaki green vest, over his heart, and began to slowly push.

She would sever his arteries, one by one, slice them open and watch his blood spurt up and paint the forest a lovely shade of red.

"Now it's my turn to see what you look like on the inside," she told him.

[yakushi_kabumi]

Kabumi watched the fight, gleaning as much information from it as she could. Knowledge was what she had lived for, gathering and dispensing it her purpose. And she had to admit that she enjoyed it, the feeling of knowing.

It was the first time she had ever seen Hanato fight, and while he was outclassed--he never stood a chance, never--he fought with everything he had.

Like he always did.

It was never half-way with him. Never half-heartedness, never duplicity. Simple, honest.

She had despised him for that at first, even as she smiled at him and kissed him and laughed with him. So easy to take advantage of, so unbecoming of a ninja, like the rest of his village.

And then he was down, broken, and Sasoriza's nails were slicing through his vest, toward his heart.

"Or maybe I'll be the better man."

She set the medkit aside and gently cradled her broken hand in her whole one. "Sasoriza-sama." Kabumi's voice was quiet, and she didn't hide the pain that wanted to leak through as she stood up. Sweat was beading down her forehead, and she forced herself to lean against the tree. "There's no need for you to kill someone like him."

Her knee throbbed from supporting her weight again, left hand burning from broken bones healing without proper setting. "He'll die soon enough," Kabumi continued, her eyes flickering from Sasoriza to Hanato and back again. "Wouldn't you rather he suffer, alone?"

[dogtag_ninja]

She was going to slice him open just as easily as he'd sliced her. Only he wasn't hollow wood covered with a thin veneer of skin, and the blood that welled up to soak his vest was real. He could feel his heart pounding against her hand, roaring in his ears in the last surge of fear and fury and adrenaline he'd ever feel--

And then Kabumi's voice, quiet, even, dismissive. Hanato couldn't see her--couldn't see anything beyond the blood-freckled face of his killer and the dark mist creeping lower and lower in his vision--but he could still smell her, faintly, beneath the overwhelming miasma of blood and fear and pain. That hint of lavender...

Hanato gritted his teeth and waited for the mockery to end and the razors to shred his heart.

[bloodredsands]

At Kabumi's voice, Sasoriza ceased sinking her razors into the wounded man's chest, but she didn't take her eyes off him.

"There is no need for me to kill most of the people I do, Kabumi-chan," she answered seriously, studying the muscles trying to put an expression of terror on the Inuzuka's shattered left cheek.

Pathetic, fascinating and so incredibly human.

Glancing up, she saw Kabumi had come very close indeed, despite her injuries. If she wanted any Konoha nin's life spared, putting those damages in Sasoriza's line of sight was not the way to go about it. The ageless Suna puppeteer broke two of Hanato's fingers, idle revenge for the breaks in her Kabumi's hand.

And Kabumi didn't want her to finish the job? There was only one reason for that, she didn't want him to die... or at least, not to die in front of her. To place him in debt? To add confusion to the blindness in his eyes?

To pull his strings.

Sasoriza had respect for other people's toys. And Kabumi obviously had more to games to play with this one. As it stood, neither of them practiced mercy (Sasoriza flat out didn't understand it) so whatever Kabumi meant by this it would no doubt be worse that a simple evisceration of the heart.

With all the care she applied to carving her puppets, she raked her razor nails into his skin and muscle in the exact pattern Hanato had gouged into her own body. A reminder.

She glided to her feet, summonned her puppets to her side, and made the slightest motion with her head.

Come, Kabumi.

Without a backward glance she left Hanato on the forest floor to choke on life a little longer.

[dogtag_ninja]

The pain didn't fade. That, Hanato thought, was how he knew he wasn't dead; the blood still seeped down his chest, his hand and arms and leg and side and face still blazed with agony, his own blood and fear still reeked in his nose.

And somewhere, one of his girls was whimpering.

He managed to move a little at last, tilting his head back and to the side so that bloody leaves cushioned his uninjured cheek. He could barely see the still lump of bloody grey fur that was Haiko. Youen, a little farther off, had managed to pull herself up despite her crippled left hind leg; she was trying to free Kemuri from her wire-bindings, whimpering with pain and frustration and fear. Kemuri snapped at her, barked softly, and Youen stumbled back, limped away. Towards Hanato.

"Hey, girl," he whispered, trying to twitch his left hand up to touch her muzzle. His broken arm wasn't moving very well, though, and she whined and licked at his hand before she limped around him, resting no weight at all on her left hind with its severed hamstring.

First things first, in Youen's all-too-practical mind. Her sisters were hurt, but Hanato was hurt worse; and when he was up and better he could help them all. She just had to get him up. Her leg hurt dreadfully, but she managed to twist her neck enough to clamp her teeth on the blade of the katana still sticking out of Hanato's thigh, pinning him to the ground. Hanato's strangled warning cry turned into a full-throated scream as the dog backed up sharply, wrenching the katana out of his leg.

The scream cut off mercifully, as blood began to pool in the leaves beneath Hanato's thigh. He lay very still, and even when Youen licked his bruised cheek, he did not stir.

The dogs' mournful howls carried nearly to Konoha, raking the sharp chill fingernails of Death down the spines of those who heard.