Impossible to Forgive

Chapter 27: Limping

Sasainako smirked, "But you know, I'm still not entirely sure if you're bluffing or not. Also, I really have nothing to lose by attempting to put you under the genjutsu. Either you die by your hand or you die by my hand."

She closed her eyes in intense concentration as her hands started to move through a fast series of seals with practiced precision.

After about five of her hands signs, Kakashi made his move. His slouched posture straightened in an instant, and he broke the necks of the two men guarding him before they even had the time to call out. He lowered them to the ground without a sound and kicked Sasainako in the chest so hard that she went through the wall into the room next door.

Kakashi rushed over to me and undid the leather straps holding me down.

"Dear god, Kaiyo, what on earth did she do to you?"

I tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it turned into a pained grimace. "Oh, nothing much." He sent me a look that showed that he clearly did not believe me. "You... didn't happen to hear any of it, right? I mean she said that you were close enough to be listening the entire time, but don't know if she just said that to get to me."

He helped me up gingerly and didn't answer. He didn't need to; the look on his face answered for him. He had been forced to listen to all of my tortured screams.

"I'd never felt so hopeless in my entire life, and after Obito... well, that's a hard one to trump."

"I'm sorry, Kakashi." I looked around and leaned more heavily into him, "So do you have any sort of plan right now?"

"Um no, you see I just couldn't let her complete the jutsu, obviously, and I didn't have the time to form any real plan. I figured that I'd save your life and then take it from there."

I had a small spark of hope, "I'm sure that the village has noticed our absence by now so maybe they'll send a retrieval squad. You are the Hokage after all."

"Maybe, but we can't rely on hope."

I smirked at him, "Hey, you stole my line. Since when were you the pessimist? That's my job, not yours."

He smiled back at me, "I guess you're right, but we really should move while we have the chance."

I glanced over at the hole in the wall and noticed that Sasainako had vanished. I took a step forward, but instantly regretted that. If my hip hurt on a normal day, it hurt a million times more after someone had spent a hours jabbing senbon into it.

I hissed through my teeth in pain as I clutched the useless joint. "Evil bitch."

Kakashi looked over at me and a wave of understanding crossed his face, "She targeted your hip, didn't she?" I didn't need to answer; it was rhetorical. "Can you walk?"

"I think so, but getting out of here is more important than whatever state my hip might be in."

Kakashi moved his arm so that he was holding me completely upright, "Let's move then."

He started limping while carrying my weight, and I realized that it hadn't even crossed my mind that he might have gone through a similar hell to my own.

"Are you alright?"

He nodded, "I'll manage. She only sent her thugs in to beat up. I think that she simply didn't have time to get to me, yet."

"Let's get the hell out of here before she finds that time."

With that we sped up, limping out of there as quickly as we could.