Chapter 6: Save the Day
From the start, Yuugao's first real mission with Squad Six had its problems. They'd been together for two months by now, far longer than most normal cobbled-together teams had before they started a mission. But though they'd trained together nearly every day of those two months, there were still a few hitches to their rhythm, a few anxious glances or dropped cues, that told of a shaky bond of trust and a team that hadn't yet quite come together into one smoothly functioning machine. It wasn't much; Yuugao doubted any outsider would have noticed it.
They all knew it, though, and the knowledge put the faintest edge into their eyes and voices as they laid their plans. The company of bandits they'd been hired to remove had successfully terrorized a mountain pass for months, and the rumors of support from an important Fire Country lord made it imperative that the bandits "disappear" without a trace. Hayate had saved final planning until they viewed the terrain. Now, leaning over the railings of a narrow stone bridge that arched over a lazy river cutting through a canyon, they discussed their options.
"We could just ambush 'em here," Ryouma suggested, tossing a rock meditatively in one hand. "Shou lures 'em out with a genjutsu or something, and we get 'em all on the bridge and collapse it beneath 'em."
"You couldn't be sure that would take them all out," Yuugao objected. "And we can't risk any of them getting away. We'll have to take them out one by one. The genjutsu is a good idea, though."
Ryouma tossed his rock once more, caught it, and flipped it into the waters below. "Okay, so Shou pulls his genjutsu and the rest of us pick 'em off as they come down. How 'bout it, Shou?"
Hayate nodded, scanning the layout of the land. "This is a good choke point," he said, and pointed to the narrow bridge. "If you give us a good lure, Shou, say some kind of broken down merchant's caravan in the middle of the bridge, then we could set ourselves at either end of it and pick off the bandits one by one as they come. It's a narrow enough approach to the bridge, and a narrow enough bridge, that I think we'd be in good shape."
Shou's masked face followed Hayate's hands as he pointed out the attack points, and he nodded slowly. "I can do that," he said. "Maybe cast something in there that will make the bandits think they hear one of their comrades calling them. But..." He glanced at Yuugao, then Ryouma and back to Hayate. "I'll need a guard. It's a complicated genjutsu, and you won't want me breaking it to fight."
That made sense. Hayate considered his personnel. Really, the best ones for the job of picking off the bandits were himself and Ryouma. Which left Yuugao to guard Shou. But the place where the team held together the weakest was between those two. Shou's trust was lacking. Yuugao was the most awkward with him. Hayate didn't take long to come to a decision, though.
"Yuugao, you go with Shou as his guard. You'll be down there." He pointed to a clump of scrubby brush at the base of one of the bridge supports. "Ryouma, you take the south end of the bridge; I'll take north."
Shou tilted his head in acquiescence. "Alright," he said, and looked at Yuugao. "Are you comfortable with that?"
Yuugao's lips tightened, just a little, but it wasn't visible under her mask. It made sense, really. She'd seen a few of Ryouma's viciously destructive ninjutsu in action, and she knew that Hayate's sword was undoubtedly more efficient than her fists and feet. Still... Guard duty?
It's a vital job, she told herself sternly, trying to ignore the faint doubt in Shou's voice, the question that seemed to admit his lack of complete comfort even as it inquired about her own. Shou has to be kept safe, and I'm the best one for the job. Even if--especially if--it wasn't necessary. At least Hayate and Ryouma's skills could be put to good use.
"I'm fine with it," she said shortly, tugging at a loosening strap on her left arm guard. "Anything else, taichou?"
"Give us a moment to get into place," Hayate said, and reached a hand back to unfasten the catch holding his katana in its sheath. "Then go ahead and pop up the illusion as soon as you're ready."
Shou nodded and started to move off.
"If you get into trouble, give us a signal, and we'll back you up best as we can."
"We'll be fine," Shou said, and squared his shoulders. "You'll let us know when you've finished them off, so I can drop it?"
"No," Hayate said and laughed. "I thought we'd just let you keep the jutsu up forever while we go off to enjoy the hot springs."
"Very funny," Shou sniffed.
Ryouma clapped Shou on the shoulder, hard enough to jostle his teammate, and chuckled. "I thought it was hilarious," he said cheerfully.
"We'll signal you as soon as we're sure there are no more to be lured out of hiding," Hayate said, and stood up straight. "Go." And then he was gone himself, reappearing moments later at the north end of the bridge.
"Right," Shou said and looked at Yuugao. "Time to get to work."
"Right," Yuugao echoed, a little dubiously. She sighed, watching Ryouma flash through practice seal sequences as he jogged off to the south end of the bridge, and then set her own hand on the railing of the bridge and leaped over it. A touch of chakra to her feet kept her from sinking into the gently-rolling river ten meters below, and she trotted to the scraggly brush at the north bank without even wetting her feet.
"How long will the genjutsu take to work?" she asked as Shou joined her there. Nervous energy kept her moving, pacing lightly over the uneven ground, taking a few half-dancing steps as if to meet and counter some imaginary opponent. The bank sloped steeply up to meet the canyon wall, and there was only a little open ground beneath the bridge before a rock spur ran out to block their view of the downstream bank. Up-river, they had a little more rocky shore-line, strewn with tumbled boulders, before a tangle of twisted trees and brush obscured their view in that direction as well. Not a very good position. She hoped Shou wouldn't need that guard, after all.
Shou glanced around for a good place to shelter himself, and frowned under his mask. They were open to ambush from both directions if they were found. Of course his job was to make sure they weren't found. He'd just have to trust Yuugao to deal with it if they were. His frown deepened.
"Once I cast it, it should be immediate. Unless you dispel it, you'll see it too, since it will be a wide area broadcast." He picked his way over to the stone feet of the bridge pier, and settled against it. At least there was something at his back.
"Is this going to be okay?" he asked her, meaning the position he was taking. "I'll start as soon as you say ready. Then we just have to wait for the quarry to take the bait."
Yuugao settled for a position on the slope of the bank, half-sitting and half-leaning against a large boulder. The bridge's span shaded them from the hot August sunlight, although the river's moisture made the air more muggy than cool. At least no one from above would be able to see them in the bridge's shadow, unless they were a good distance off and looking at exactly the right spot--and even then, hopefully Shou's genjutsu would disguise them. In any case, unless the river were going to surge up and swallow them, Shou had picked the best place he could.
"I'm ready," she said, twisting her torso in a loosening stretch. She worked her shoulders silently and waited for Shou's genjutsu to hit.
She almost didn't notice when it did. There was the tiniest surge of chakra, and then she heard Ryouma's voice calling, faint and far-away in words she could barely make out: "Come quick! We've got a real prize this time..."
Her muscles tensed in the very beginnings of movement, before she caught herself. "Kai," she whispered, pressing her chakra-bright fingers to her heart. The interruption of her own chakra dispelled the genjutsu's effects on her, and once more the river's lapping against the bridge pillars and the buzzing of the cicadas were the only sounds to disturb the bright afternoon. And then, far away, more voices calling--but these were real.
The genjutsu had two components: the auditory hallucination of a comrade calling, and the actual caravan on the bridge. It took all Shou's concentration. He had to cast a broad net, since they really didn't know how far away the targets were. And he had to make the illusion of the stalled caravan on the bridge as realistic as possible. He thought up details of caravans he'd escorted as a chuunin, of the wondrous riches of a Wind Country merchant's wagon he'd marvelled over as a child. Purple canvas drapery, gold trims and fittings. Sleek brown mules, with their long ears and bony withers, harnessed in red and black leather, with tassels and plumes. He imagined the fat merchant berating his driver over the broken wheel, the women and servants milling around in confusion. And then he carefully materialized that fantasy in the middle of the bridge.
He was still able to spare a little attention, though, to the surprised shout of a voice he didn't recognize, and the sound of something heavy falling to the ground. Hayate must have got one, he thought, and hoped Ryouma was having similar luck. Then he tuned it out completely. It was more than enough work to maintain the genjutsu without having to monitor his team as well. That was what Yuugao was there for.
Yuugao almost jumped again when she heard the running feet overhead, the shout cut short by the whisper of blade into flesh, and the thud as the body hit the bridge. A moment later, as she was gritting her teeth and forcing herself to relax against her boulder, the corners of her vision caught the flicker of sunlight as a corpse plunged into the bridge's shadow and then into the river. Water arched up, sparkling; a moment later the body bobbed to the surface, already half a meter downstream. Yuugao watched it float away out of the corner of her eye. "One down," she murmured to herself. Out of an estimated bandit troop of fifteen or twenty... This might take some time.
"Shou," she hissed, uncertain if he'd hear her. "Is the genjutsu showing them attacking?"
"Shouldn't," Shou answered in a distracted voice. He tried to keep his concentration steady and his chakra flow unaltered. It was hard to maintain the genjutsu and converse with his teammate at the same time, but if Yuugao was worried, he needed to know why. "Is something wrong?" he asked. He could feel the sweat trickling down his face under the mask, and tried to even out his breathing.
Another body fell to the rocks, this time only partly in the water. Then another from the other side. They were getting them. He just had to keep it up.
"If the bandits don't see their teammates attacking, won't they know something's wrong?" Yuugao asked. She licked her lips, folded her arms, unfolded them. Two bodies fell in quick succession from Ryouma's side of the bridge; she caught sight of one of them as it floated downstream, half-melted. Ryouma's worst ninjutsu built upon the combination of his elemental natures of Fire and Water, attacking his enemies' bodies themselves rather than just the ground or air around them. Even in their team training sessions, she'd never seen him use any of those ninjutsu before--and, she decided with a badly-suppressed shiver as she watched the bodies float away, she really didn't want to see them any closer.
"The bandits ought to see their own guys, just not ours," Shou said. "They'll see them fighting with the caravan's bodyguards." His voice shook, and he shifted his position a little, feeling the rough stone at his back scrape against his armor. "Is something the matter?" he asked again, sounding a little irked. "I need to concentrate on this."
"No," Yuugao said, watching the water where a still-thrashing body had just plunged, trailing entrails from a belly slashed open by Hayate's sword. When the man surfaced again, he was very, very still. That made six, out of...say twenty, to be safe. Where were the rest of them? They should have been attacking in a group, or as much of a group as they could manage if they'd split their forces upstream to attack from each side of the bridge. But while she could hear Ryouma's laughter and feel his chakra surges as he fought, Hayate's side of the bridge was momentarily still.
Was something the matter? Shou had the genjutsu entirely in hand, it seemed, and yet something kept niggling at Yuugao. Maybe it was her narrowed field of sight, cut off by the rock at one end of their little river-bank hideaway and the thick tangle of brush at the other. Maybe it was her urgent desire to be doing something, as all of the men were. And maybe it was just the queasiness biding in her stomach as another body plunged into the water from Ryouma's end of the bridge, shedding half-rotted lumps as it fell.
If she watched the horrible fruits of their harvest anymore, she was going to be sick. Clenching her teeth, Yuugao shoved away from her walk and wandered a little upstream, keeping close to the rough wall of the cliff. She could still hear the sounds of fighting--Hayate had engaged another enemy, it seemed--but at least she didn't have to listen. If she got very close to the twisted trees, the cicadas even drowned out the clash of steel...
But they didn't quite drown out the sharp shout behind her. Yuugao whirled, just in time to see a ragged-looking band of men leap over the jutting boulder downstream and rush towards Shou. All of them were armed and murderous, and one of them wore a battered and abused hitai'ate, too scratched and dirty for her to even make out what village's sigil it bore.
That didn't matter, now; it didn't even matter that he must be at least a chuunin, to have recognized and broken the genjutsu on him and a handful of his fellows. What mattered was that they were bearing down on Shou--Shou, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground against the bridge's pillar, who had to maintain that genjutsu if Ryouma and Hayate were to have any chance of completing their mission on the bridge above. Shou, who didn't dare break his hands from the seal to defend himself.
The first sword was slicing for Shou's neck when it met Yuugao's arm guard with a bone-rattling impact and a shower of ceramic chips. Then Yuugao's foot met the brigand's throat.
Shou flinched hard, then scrambled to his feet, pressing back against the stonework and watching with a racing heart as Yuugao fought off the attackers. There was a motley assortmant of weaponry, as befit a band of highwaymen. Katana, curving cutlasses from southern lands, a long blade on a pike that reminded Shou of a naginata, but for the elaborate scroll of the blade itself. Yuugao was still on her feet, but there were too many men for her to fight alone, and Shou didn't dare drop the jutsu. Not now. He jumped to avoid a sickle arcing towards his feet, and kicked up a cloud of gravel and dust, stopping one blade with the sole of his boot.
A hand connected then, driving a shorter blade along Shou's shoulder, and he spun away from it. "Dammit, get us some backup!" he shouted. His shoulder blazed and bled, but at least the dagger hadn't sunk in. A shallow slice was all he could afford to take.
Yuugao was already bleeding from a long cut along her shoulder-blade, a shorter gash over her collarbone; her arm ached badly where her arm guard had stopped the first sword, and she prayed she hadn't cracked the bone. But none of those hurt more than the sight of Shou's blood slipping down his arm, and not even that hurt as much as her knowledge that Shou was right. They needed backup; she couldn't take all these men on her own. Three men at most, perhaps, but not six, not when she had Shou to protect and a rough, uneven terrain that threatened a wrenched ankle or worse at every step. She took down one man with a savage kick that echoed the one with which she'd broken Hayate's collarbone; but this one wasn't pulled at all, and a slicing chakra-laden wind followed the path of her kick. Her foot crunched through bone, and her chakra blazed through flesh. The man screamed and dropped.
He was only one out of six, not counting the man whose throat she'd crushed with her first kick. Three of the remaining men were coming in for her again, while another headed for Shou and the sixth man, the shinobi, stood back to begin a sequence of seals. His movements were far slower than any high-level Konoha shinobi, rusty with disuse; but they were fast enough that she had no doubt his jutsu would hit before she could defeat her three attackers and get to him.
Shou's right, she thought despairingly, and lashed out with a punch that carried biting wind in its wake. The brigands drew back just a little, laughing as her attack failed to do more than scratch their faces--but it accomplished her real intent. With a brief moment of breathing space, she threw back her head and cried, "Taichou!"
Hayate had been about to engage a short, barrel-chested bandit who was rushing down towards his "prize" when he heard Yuugao's desperate shout. He didn't stop his motion, though he took less care with his kill than he might have. His blade swung out of the shadow of Shou's illusion to sever the man's grimy, beard-stubbled head from his equally grimy body. Then he was at the side of the bridge, looking over, seeing Shou and Yuugao under attack.
"Ryouma, you take over here," he shouted, and didn't wait for acknowledgement. He was already over the side of the bridge, coming down on the man who was hanging back--the one who was undoubtedly a shinobi. As he fell he cast his jutsu, Mikazuki no Mai, and a whirlwind of Hayate clones materialized, blades flashing, voices crying, so that it seemed a whole host of swordsmen had descended upon the attackers.
The enemy ninja had been mid-seal, weaponless but for his marshalled chakra, which he turned in fright to unleash on Hayate. It was poorly coordinated, no doubt due to his sudden change of focus, and the shower of icy shards the man flung at Hayate did nothing to slow him down. The man was sliced into three pieces by Hayate's and his clones' blades before he had time to shout.
The icy little daggers the man had materialized shattered against Hayate's mask and armor. A few grazed the exposed skin of his shoulders, and one ran a long red furrow through his hair that hurt more from the impact than the slice. He spun away from the corpse and towards Yuugao and Shou, taking out two more of the attackers from behind before they had time to turn.
There was still a man aiming a blade for Shou, though, and Hayate wasn't quite close enough. "On your left!" he shouted to Yuugao, and his own blade clashed with the sword of the third man who'd been attacking her.
Yuugao didn't waste time on thanks; she'd wasted far too much already, in those brief heart-beats of frozen watching. Hayate's technique wasn't quite ninjutsu, not wholly kenjutsu; but whatever it was, it was just as destructive as Ryouma's flesh-eating ninjutsu. It was also agonizingly beautiful, in the silver sweep of swords, the spinning men so graceful they cut into her heart. If she closed her eyes, she didn't doubt she'd see the dance play out on the inside of her eyelids, falling, flying, following the cutting wind of sword-blades into a terrible kind of beauty.
But time wouldn't stop, even if she wished it to, and Shou was still in danger. Yuugao was just close enough that she could leap into the air, legs scissoring in a double-kick that caught the brigand's head briefly between her calves and broke his neck. She landed in a crouch, just beginning to pant. Her arm hurt, and her shoulder and collarbone; her shirt and vest beginning to stick to her chest with the messy bleeding of the flesh-wound. But her eyes returned to Hayate anyway, for just a brief moment before she could force herself to glance around and ensure all the bandits were dead.
The last bandit was a good swordsman, but he was no match for Hayate's speed and skill. His blade hissed against Hayate's, then both men sprang back. One in loose-fitting tan tunic and pants, the other in sleek bone and black armor. The expression on Hayate's mask was impassive as ever; the expression on the rogue swordsman's was pure terror. He swung wildly, Hayate evaded deftly, and then the man was falling, blood soiling his shirt with appalling speed. He gasped, groaned, and then was still.
Hayate dropped his own jutsu, so where there had been a confusing multitude of clones and translucent, ghostly images of Hayate, now there was just the man. He turned then, still moving with the exquisite speed the adrenaline of the fight brought. His longish hair flew out, and glittering drops of sweat and blood showered from it, spattering down across his mask and armor. "Are you alright?" he asked. "Yuugao? Shou?"
Shou was shaking, still holding the jutsu, and one whole arm was drenched in blood. Yuugao looked no better, bloodied and holding her arm. "How bad is it?"
She glanced guiltily at Shou before she answered with a brief, "I'm fine." She could still move her fingers normally, and though her arm ached beneath the chipped arm guard, it was the duller ache of a bad bruise rather than the sharper pain of a broken bone. Shou worried her more. The wound itself didn't look too bad, aside from all the blood, but he shouldn't have been hurt at all. Shouldn't even have been in any danger, if she'd been doing her job...
Hayate's jutsu was, for a moment, forgotten. Yuugao rose to her feet, moved the recent corpse out of the way with a heel and a well-concealed shudder, and knelt beside Shou to carefully check his sliced shoulder with the tips of her fingers. As she'd guessed, it wasn't too bad, but it was in an awkward spot and was bleeding badly. With bloody fingers, she pulled a wad of pre-cut bandages out of her belt-pouch and pressed it to his shoulder. Only then did she dare ask Hayate, in a voice too deliberately flat to be as casual as it sounded, "Was that the last of them?"
"Ryouma had one or two more to deal with, but I think that's it," Hayate answered. He shook the gore off his katana, wiped the blade down with a folded square of cloth, and resheathed it, then knelt next to Yuugao and Shou. "Hang in there, Shou, just a minute or two and you can drop the jutsu," he said.
Shou's reply was a barely perceptible nod of the head. He was shaking with effort, panting a little. But Hayate knew his squad well. Shou had hidden reserves of stamina to call upon. "As soon as Ryouma's done, we'll call this mission complete," he said. Even if one or two of the bandits escaped, they'd killed fourteen by his count. Sixteen when Ryouma dispatched the last two that had still been on the bridge. This band of thieves would not be harassing any more travellers.
Hayate looked closely at Yuugao's wounds now. The cut on her collarbone had already stopped bleeding, but the one along the edge of the armor in back was still oozing. He pressed a bandage against it and held it, while she attended to Shou's shoulder. "Are you hurt anywhere else? Either of you?"
Shou shook his head, again a barely perceptible movement. Not surprising given how hard he was concentrating.
Much as she would've liked to shrug off her injuries, Yuugao knew that in such instances toughness often meant stupidity, and that a hidden weakness could get one's team as well as oneself killed. "Bruised my arm, I think," she said, nodding down at her left arm-guard. The bandit's sword had dug a long divot out of the ceramic plate, and her arm throbbed steadily beneath it. Better that than Shou's head gone, though. Far better.
"It won't slow me down," she promised, and closed her eyes briefly, hoping they couldn't see the flicker of movement in the dark eye-sockets of her mask. She'd called on all her speed to interpose her body between Shou's and his attacker's sword, but what if she'd been a moment slower? A moment faster? What if she'd actually been attending to her duty, instead of allowing herself to be distracted? Would the blood that soaked slowly into their bandages now never have been spilled?
Would she have had to shame herself, admit her weakness, and call for help?
Her throat was still raw with the pride-searing agony of that cry. But deeply as she regretted her mistakes, she couldn't help but be grateful, in some small shameful part of herself, that she'd been privileged to see the dance of Hayate's sword.
"Not broken?" Hayate asked, and eyed the damaged arm guard. "It looks like you took a serious blow." She seemed strangely withdrawn, and he was concerned. It had been their first mission as a team after all. Her first mission as ANBU. He glanced up at the bridge, hearing no further sounds of combat from Ryouma. Was he finished? Looking at Shou, Hayate hoped so, for Shou's sake.
Shou was still, eyes unfocused behind his mask, holding his jutsu with all of his strength. By Hayate's estimate he'd probably be able to maintain it another half hour if he had to, but that would exhaust him to the point of collapse. Not an outcome Hayate wanted. Not at all.
He checked the bleeding under the bandage on Yuugao's shoulder, and was pleased to see it was nearly stopped. "I'll tape this," he said, and glanced up towards Ryouma's position once more.
Yuugao could hear Ryouma's footsteps on the bridge, his strides long and impatient; she wasn't surprised when they paused, switched direction, and thundered to the edge of the bridge. His voice called down, "Think that was the last--ah, hell, I'm not shouting."
A moment later he'd dropped over the edge of the bridge like the bodies he'd kicked through the railings, landing lightly on the surface of the water with his knees flexed and his mask shoved up to the side of his head, baring a bright unholy grin. "If we didn't get all of 'em, the rest aren't coming," he complained. His eyes skidded over the bodies and his teammates' wounds without a flicker. "You guys gonna patch up before we move out?"
"Drop the jutsu, Shou," Hayate said and put a hand out to steady the other man should he falter.
Shou let out an exhausted sigh, sagged a little, then shoved his mask up and scanned over his team. "I'll patch..."
"No you won't," Hayate interrupted. "You recover. No one is seriously hurt, I don't think. Let Yuugao finish taping your shoulder." He reached a gloved hand up to push his own mask off, and winced when it raked over his cut scalp. A little rivulet of blood cascaded down his hair and into his eyes, and Hayate frowned and smeared it across his forehead.
She couldn't quite help the flicker of a worried glance when Hayate pushed his mask back and the blood ran into his eyes, but he looked mostly unharmed beyond a few more scrapes in his bare shoulders, and she knew from long experience that head-wounds always looked worse than they really were. He'd be fine. They'd all be fine. Shou was even responding now, wincing as she pulled the wad of soaked bandages away from his shoulder and dabbed gently at the clotting wound. But he kept still when she smeared antibiotic cream over his shoulder and taped the lips of the wound shut, just as Hayate had done to her a moment ago.
Hayate himself was crouching next to her now, watching Shou with the oddest expression, a mixture of concern, weariness, and adrenaline-driven alertness. He was still catching his breath, wiping occasionally at the blood that trickled into his eyes. He didn't look at her; nothing about him seemed to direct any blame, any disgust at her inability to complete the one (simple?) task she'd been given. But then, perhaps that was why he wasn't looking at her.
Yuugao sighed and smoothed the bandage across Shou's shoulder. "That should do it," she said, rocking back on her heels. At long last, she let herself loosen the straps of her arm guard and drop the damaged piece of equipment to the ground. She peeled her long black glove down to her wrist and grimaced at the dark bruise already beginning to rise on her forearm.
As a reminder, it would be a fairly good one.
"Are you sure that's not broken?" Hayate asked, and reached out a hand to Yuugao. "Let me feel it."
"If it's broken," Shou said, looking up, "it's because she stopped a blade that would have severed my head from my neck with it." He pushed his mask off his face now and looked at Yuugao a little shyly. "So, uh, thanks."
Hayate nodded. "Good work, both of you," he said. "Sorry I didn't get here a little sooner." He glanced at the corpse of the ninja he'd dispatched, wiped his face again, and turned to Ryouma. "You're in good shape, right? Go see what our man over there was wearing for a hitai-ate. He used an ice jutsu on me." Then he reached for Yuugao's arm again. "Come on, let me take a look."
"It's fine," Yuugao protested, cradling her arm against her chest with a glare that dared him to even think about pulling it away. "It's just bruised." And throbbing worse than before, now that she'd pulled the supportive guard and glove away from it, but she'd dealt with enough broken limbs--both hers and others--in the past to know that it definitely wasn't broken. Cracked, perhaps, but it could heal on its own in that case. And though she really had needed the gash on her shoulder blade tended, to let her captain handle her arm would be just another step along the path she'd already taken, of admitting she couldn't handle her responsibilities by herself.
To Shou she added, in a low voice, "I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner."
Hayate's own expression darkened, and his voice took on a hard edge. "Yuugao. You are my squadmate and my subordinate. And you are injured. Now either let me see your arm or..."
He didn't finish what he was going to threaten her with, in part because he wasn't sure himself. His head ached, and there was still an annoying trickle of blood dripping through his hair, and if Yuugao was injured, it needed seeing to. That's where his focus was, and the remaining adrenaline from the fight went directly into his sense of urgency now.
"I'll check it over," Shou interrupted. "Please, Yuugao." You could almost hear the san he still had to make an effort not to use with her name. "And do something about your head please, Hayate. I think that's your own blood you keep wiping away."
Hayate let out an exasperated little sigh and pulled his mask off all the way, putting a hand to the top of his head where his scalp was indeed sliced neatly open. "Well hell," he muttered, and gave Yuugao a sheepish look. "Alright, let Shou examine it in his capacity as medic, please."
That was reasonable, at least. Shou was their medic, and she'd saved his life; she believed firmly in the repayment of debts. She would have liked to give Hayate one last scowl before she turned to Shou, but there was something disarming about the slightly abashed look on his face, the sternness replaced by sheepishness as he tried discreetly to wipe his bloody hand on his trouser leg. How could he be both the avenging angel she'd witnessed a few bare minutes ago, and this ordinary young man?
How could he so easily remove his masks, when she never could?
Yuugao sighed, proffered her bruised left arm to Shou, and shoved her mask to the side of her head with her right hand. It didn't seem to make a difference. She still felt ashamed of her weakness, bruised in her pride more deeply than in her flesh, and--more shameful still--unable to regret what she'd witnessed.
If they had to be rescued, at least it was by a man she could admire.
Ryouma's return was a rescue of an altogether different sort, and she managed to shove away her thoughts as he came trotting back with the battered hitai'ate dangling from his hand. "Kirigakure no Sato," he said, tossing the abused steel plate on its ragged bandanna to Hayate. "Didn't recognize him from the Bingo Book, so he's probably some low-level nobody's bothered tangling with." He aimed a kick at a corpse sprawled on the ground, the man whose neck Yuugao had broken. "D'you want me to melt these guys, or should we just toss 'em in the river with the rest?"
Hayate gave the scattered corpses a frown. "The river really doesn't move fast enough here. I suppose we ought to clean up after ourselves enough that we don't end up sending disease downstream to whoever drinks the water." He frowned more deeply and rubbed another trickle of blood across his forehead. "But we want to leave enough of a sign that they're dead and gone so that any of their buddies who escaped will get the idea they don't want to come back."
Shou, who was still inspecting Yuugao's arm, said without looking up, "Decompose a few, bury a few. Leave the blood where it is."
Hayate nodded. "That sounds like a decent plan." He put a hand up to his head and felt a goose-egg forming where the ice-shard had struck. His gloved fingers came away stickier and he made a face.
"Put a bandage on it, Hayate," Shou said, and looked up at Yuugao. "You're right, it's just a bruise. We were both lucky." Shou's face colored slightly and he ducked his head. "Thanks, Yuugao."
None of them had missed the face Hayate made; but while Shou gave orders for a bandage and Yuugao looked discreetly away, Ryouma dug in his belt pouch, tossed a square of folded bandages to Hayate, and sneered. "Mop it up and stop being such a wimp, Hayate. You're not impressing anyone with all the bloody hero stuff."
Yuugao opened her mouth indignantly and shut it again a little too fast. She wasn't sure if Shou had seen her, wasn't sure what he'd make of it if he had. Wasn't sure what she made of it. She dropped her gaze to the rocky ground--and then glanced up again at Shou, trying a small smile. If she couldn't explain it, perhaps it was best to ignore it. "I'm glad I could be there, Shou. Thank you for what you did, as well."
"And Hayate and me just lollygagged around on top of the bridge, eh?" Ryouma asked without real heat. He flexed his hands, crouched down next to the last man Yuugao had killed, and started the seals.
Yuugao looked quickly away.
Hayate pressed the bandage Ryouma had given him to the top of his head and watched as the jutsu took effect. It was a foul process, softening and rotting the flesh right off the bones, and it didn't surprise him when Yuugao chose to look away. Ryouma had tried to explain it once, an acceleration of decomposition by increasing heat and drawing moisture out of the body's cells. Shou had gotten the gist immediately, likening it to some medical techniques he used. Hayate was happy to leave his knowledge of the process entirely theoretical.
He studied the Kirigakure bandanna a moment, then looked up at Shou and Yuugao. "So what happened? I'm guessing our friend from Mist there is the one who broke the genjutsu and targeted you?"
"They came from behind that rock," Shou said and pointed. "Yuugao was patroling the other direction. We had a shitty position, blind on both sides, and she couldn't be both places at once. But she still managed to get between me and the attackers before I would have been forced to drop the jutsu." He stood and put his hands on his captain's shoulders. "Kneel, I want to look at your head now."
Hayate did as Shou bade, kneeling and letting the medic examine the cut on his scalp. "Yuugao?" he asked, letting Shou work. "That sound about what you think happened, too?"
"Just about." Yuugao was still studying the chisel-marks on the rough granite blocks that made up the bridge's pillars; the hum of chakra, the violent stench of rotting meat, and the whisper of decaying flesh sloughing away from crumbling bones made her quite certain that she didn't want to look around just yet. She told the pillar, "I was almost at the trees, and the cicadas were loud enough that I didn't hear their approach. Just the shout." Her lips thinned. "If I'd been more attentive--closer to Shou--I would have had the advantage over them. They couldn't come around the rock all at once."
"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," Hayate said. "If you'd been on the other side and they'd come from the west instead, you'd have been even more vulnerable." He frowned and winced when Shou opened a small antiseptic wipe and sponged at the cut.
"Hold still. You need a stitch in this," Shou said, getting out a pre-threaded needle.
Hayate gave Yuugao a long-suffering look. "Fine, fine, I'm holding still. I told you Shou was a pain when he's in medic mode, didn't I?" He didn't wait for an answer. "From what I can see, you were doing the best you could with bad terrain. Yuugao was patroling the bank with the greater number of places of potential concealment. Shou had a clear view of the direction the attackers came from. And he called the alarm in time to get you over to him so he didn't have to break the jutsu. It was good work. You did well." He still looked unhappy. "I should have scouted the area below here better. And we weren't anticipating a ninja amongst our enemies. That's an Intel failure."
Yuugao sighed. "Yes, sir." Her fingers returned probingly to the painful bruise on her arm; yes, it still hurt. She winced and dropped her hand to her knees.
"Done!" Ryouma said cheerfully, and gravel crackled as he rose to his feet. The smell was already dissipating, drawn away on the river's breeze. When Yuugao dared to glance around, Ryouma was kicking sand and pebbles over a long, low line of what looked like rich black earth. He caught her eye and nodded down at what remained. "Mostly organic compounds. The weeds'll grow well here for a while."
"Ugh," Yuugao said, faintly. Ryouma grinned and wandered off to the next body.
When Shou finished stitching Hayate's scalp and had pronounced him good to go, Hayate stood, pulled a candy bar from his pouch and handed it to the medic. "Here, eat this. You worked hard. We won't be leaving until Ryouma's ready, so you should rest up."
"We all worked hard, Hayate," Shou protested, but Hayate was already moving towards Yuugao.
"Walk upstream with me a minute and show me how far you were when you heard the enemy," Hayate said, and he produced a second candy bar and held it out to her. "It's not much of a bonus for your first successful ANBU mission, I'm afraid, but it's all I've got to hand." He smiled at her, hoping she'd lighten up a little. She looked far too downcast, and he knew from his two months' work with her that she tended to take little lapses in perfection as serious failures. "You did good work. I put you in a bad position, I'm afraid."
"It wasn't any worse than anyone else's!" Yuugao protested, but she took the candy bar anyway. Her ungloved hand fisted around the wrapped bar. This was the hard part.
"I'm--sorry I had to call on you," she said, skirting a large boulder without really seeing it. "I should have been able to handle the situation on my own--to make enough of a breathing space to use a jutsu, at least." Even Ko-shuurai no jutsu, the little balls of lightning, would have taken out several of the enemy if she'd stopped to use it. But if she'd stopped, Shou might be dead.
They were almost at the line of brush and twisted trees; she stopped, nodded to the ground where her turning feet had kicked little gouges in the sandy shore. "I was standing here when I heard them." The candy bar was squelching in her grip; she relaxed her fingers and tried to smile. "I might've moved almost as fast as you, getting back to Shou."
And that brought up more thoughts, a little less painful. Driven to honesty, Yuugao added, "Your jutsu was very impressive." She couldn't quite meet his eyes at that, and ripped open the candy bar wrapper instead. Chocolate, half-melted by the warmth of the day and her hand. She broke off half and offered the rest back to Hayate.
Hayate accepted the chocolate with a smile. "It's really yours, you know," he said. "You earned it. But I won't turn down chocolate with peanuts if it's offered." He bit into the bar and crunched the peanuts, enjoying the flavor and the sugar. The distance they'd covered was impressive: Yuugao must indeed have used speed that would rival his own.
"Yuugao," he said, and his voice was low, demanding her attention. "You didn't do anything wrong. You did just what Ryouma or I would have done in similar circumstances. None of us thought we'd be dealing with someone capable of actually breaking Shou's genjutsu and attacking in force. You were patrolling here, where there was the most risk of a lone operator stumbling onto your position."
He looked at her then, standing stone still, insisting she meet his gaze. "You saved Shou's life, and you saved the mission, because he didn't have to drop the jutsu. Our mission was successful because of the part you played in it. Stop worrying about what might have been. For the future, we'll learn from this. If we're ever in a similar situation, I'll advise whomever is doing guard duty to pop up a clone."
Yuugao grimaced. Why hadn't she thought of that? She took a large bite of her melting candy bar to stifle the instinctive I'm sorry, sir; at the moment, she was fairly sure an apology wouldn't go over well. (When did it ever?)
The chocolate coated the inside of her mouth, smooth and rich and creamy; she swallowed and looked at the wrapper in surprise. This was the good stuff. Did Hayate habitually reward his squadmates with chocolate for a job well done?
Izumo would surely have something to say about that.
"Yes, sir," she said at last, resisting the urge to drop her eyes to his shoulder or throat. "I understand." A moment of hesitation, and then, quietly, "Thank you, Hayate-taichou."
"I hope you do," Hayate said, and didn't break his gaze. "You are an integral, critical part of Squad Six. We just successfully completed our first mission as a team." He looked away at last and leaned back in an arch with his hand on his hip, stretching his back. "Well, want to help me give Ryouma his chocolate?" he asked, and popped the last bite of the bar Yuugao had shared with him in his mouth. "And next time, you really are allowed to eat the whole thing."