025 -- [Action || Voice]

[endgames]

[When Shikamaru heads down to Asuma's apartment Monday morning, he finds it empty of everything but Kurenai's things and a silver lighter standing on the table. It's wrong, but he doesn't give in to the false hope.

Of course it would stay. Even though Shikamaru gave it back to him, the lighter stopped being Asuma's the moment he picked it off his dying body.

Kurenai must've stepped out before it happened. She's a ninja, and not so senseless to have left the door wide open and run off in her grief. And so he waits for her, and tries to find his words.

After he leaves Kurenai, he has to tell Ino. Team 8 he'll find in person too - he has a request for them on top of this. It's been too long since they've heard a stir from their enemies.]

[It's well past midnight before an announcement comes, after he's made this post and spent a few hours going over the discussions there. When people are either busy with the information he gave them, or asleep.

He smokes a cigarette on his way back to his apartment in the night air, putting it out before he steps into the building, his posture falsely relaxed until he steps into his own room.]

Sarutobi Asuma is gone. [There's a pause and- no, he doesn't think it was mentioned.] Also, Haruno Sakura returned to her world a few weeks ago, for anyone who knew her.

Funnily enough, I haven't seen that masked Akatsuki guy in a while either...

[Too many people to filter that too. It's vague enough, but anyone who needs to know should get what he means. It would have been better news if he'd known before.

He'll answer journal comments in the morning.]

Comments

[generalflirt]

[Hm. Hindsight makes that seem silly, but alright, that makes sense. Go on]

1/2

[endgames]

...I suggested a more effective formation. Asuma refused.

[Just keep that in mind. He doesn't think he needs to elaborate.]

[endgames]

So anyways. The battle gets underway, and Hidan draws a symbol in the ground with his own blood, see? [He thrusts a hand out suddenly as he talks, violently. Tracing the image in the air.] A triangle in a circle. And all the while he's ranting about how everything's set up. That the ceremony can begin.

[Shikamaru lets his arm fall back down, staring flatly.]

It was an intense battle for a while, but it changed drastically all of a sudden. Hidan's weapon was a triple-bladed scythe. Cumbersome for him, but hard to dodge. Eventually it drew the smallest bit of blood.

Even as Asuma was setting up a counter-attack, he got very excited. He ate the blood; licked it off the scythe. And then instead of dodging Asuma's fire jutsu, he runs into it to stand in that circle from before.

When the smoke clears, his skin has changed colors. Black and white, like a walking skeleton. And Asuma's burned in the exact places that he is.

[generalflirt]

[...Oh. So he made himself into a voodoo doll? That's just spooky, and his eyes widen. But he. nods]

[endgames]

If Hidan was a psycho before, after this... well it's something else. When he stabs himself in the leg and Asuma takes the damage too, he's laughing like he's getting high off it.

["Hurts good doesn't it? Attacking the vitals is a fucking waste! This pain, this is the shit! As the other dies, their agony radiates through my body! And living through is pure ecstasy!"]

Laughing, and talking about where to stab next like a kid who can't decide what candy he wants at the store. I held him with the Kage Mane, though, before he could do anything.

And when I figured out exactly how it worked, I dragged him out of the circle. It broke the curse. And then I stabbed him through to hold him in place with Kage Nui, and Asuma cut off his head.

[He laughs, bitter.] But you already know that didn't work, right?

[generalflirt]

[Ah, of course he does. But severing a head didn't work? Jeez.]

[endgames]

No, no. He still bitches and moans from the ground, of course. [The smile fades again, and he sighs.] That's when his partner finally gets involved. Lightning bruiser type. He incapacitated Asuma and...

[Getting ahead of himself again. He starts flicking the lid of the lighter again.]

His body was, in essence, like that of a rag-doll only held together by thick black threads. He could control these, and one use of it was to reattach body parts. He put Hidan's head back on, and then we were fighting two of them.

Or well. Kotetsu and Izumo were. They took on Kakuzu and tried to protect Asuma. Asuma just worked on avoiding Hidan's scythe again.

[generalflirt]

[Wow that sounds desperate. Where's the backup]

[endgames]

Getting out of the way of the scythe turned out to do as much damage, though. See, I was wrong. The curse isn't broken until the victim is dead.

In the process of the battle, Hidan had stepped back into the circle. When Asuma dodged the scythe the last time, the true target was Hidan himself.

[Blankly, he uses two fingers to point out the spots where the blades stuck on his own body. Lot of vitals areas, there. Liver, kidneys, large intestine.]

[generalflirt]

[That's a pretty insane technique. But he keeps his eyes fixated on Shikamaru's face, his look impasse]

[endgames]

He dug the scythe around too, to tear him up. Again, like an adrenaline rush. Izumo and Kotetsu are done by this point - Kakuzu's strangling them in the air. I'm useless.

[It's a lot easier to recite it, he's finding. There's not much expression here, as he pulls it from memory. It's clearer than the apartment is.]

So when Hidan pulls out a retractable spear and stabs himself through the chest, there's no one to stop him. I ran, but I couldn't even get close.

[Still keeping up with the lighter, by the way, but now he shuts it.] ...aa. Looking back, I'm pretty sure the asshole got off on it.

[generalflirt]

Mah, that's some overkill.

[Lightly. Quietly. It's more to ground himself in this apartment than anything]

[endgames]

[He shrugs, still here.]

We'd have been next, but back-up arrived - Ino and Chouji's groups. They got us out of there while the rest of their squad distracted the Akatsuki. Didn't last long - seemed like they were called away to do something else.

Ino tried to heal Sensei, but he was toast and he knew it. Rather than put her through that, he imparted some last words to each of us. He told me about the King, and the one that was still in Kurenai's womb, which I promised him I would look after. Gave me a message for her.

[He's cutting out a lot here, but that's not for Masaomi to know.]

His final request was one last smoke. That's what he's going back to. I hope he enjoys it.

[generalflirt]

[...Uh huh. So that's that. There might be more (has to be) but holy shit he was still alive with that many injuries?]

[endgames]

And that's that. Sarutobi Asuma dies at barely thirty, with a baby on the way and an almost future.

[And like last time, it's because he didn't do enough. If Shikamaru listens closely enough, he can hear his heartbeat telling him that.

use-less

fail-ure]

[generalflirt]

By the sound of your story, you weren't very involved in the fight. [He says this lightly. It's not accusatory, it's... if anything, he's baffled]

[endgames]

I used up all my chakra in the first part of the battle. After holding Hidan back and dragging him out, I'd reached my limit.

[generalflirt]

Hoooh. How old were you?

[endgames]

Sixteen. It wasn't long ago.

[generalflirt]

Then you've improved a lot since then.

[endgames]

[He shrugs.] That's a different story.

[You asked about Asuma, and that's that.]

[generalflirt]

True.

So how was the funeral? Do ninja do that?

[endgames]

["By the way, does Konoha bury their dead?"

...]

Ask Ino, if you want to know that.

[generalflirt]

Ah, so you skipped that, did you? Killing that Hidan fellow, or just to skip it?

[endgames]

You heard me say he's immortal, right. I didn't have a plan at that time.