Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. No profit is being made off this. Etc.
If someone had asked Haruno Sakura where she thought she would be five years from graduation, she would probably have said something about "Sasuke-kun," maybe "ninja," and definitely "Sasuke-kun." Lying face down in a ditch, covered in mud and barely conscious, was not a scenario she had considered.
In contrast, Shiranui Genma was surprised it had taken this long. Raido had been telling him for years that he would end up dead in ditch somewhere if he wasn't more careful. The only problem with his prediction was that Genma wasn't quite dead. But not too long to wait now, he thought. He could feel the blood still sliding out of his stomach; the kunai didn't make a very good stopper for the hole it had created.
He could feel Sakura shivering underneath him, where he lay shielding her body with his own. They were both soaked and so covered in dirt that they blended in perfectly with the ditch. It was raining, a hard downpour that had hurt for a while as it hit Genma's lacerated back, until the nerves stopped sending any signals at all. He had lost his vest somewhere, a long time ago.
The rain was a blessing however. It washed away their scents, as well as their tracks, and obliterated the sounds of their breathing. Even lingering on the edge of consciousness, the two shinobi clamped their chakra down, controlling it tightly within their chests. They were so drained that there was barely anything to leak anyways, and even a Hyuuga might have passed them over for dead, if he wasn't paying attention.
Genma was not shivering, however much his body cried out to follow Sakura's example. He was a ninja; he could overcome impulses like that. And he would, because even the slight movement of shivering could catch the enemies' eyes. If that happened, it was over.
Sakura started mumbling under her breath. Genma slid a hand quickly under his chest to cover her mouth. How hard had that branch hit her? She laughed into his palm, and he dug his arm farther through the mud so he could better stifle the noise. The movement jarred the kuani in his gut.
Genma was afraid, lying prone in the shallow water running through the ditch. He was sliding ever closer to an edge he already knew far too well. The familiarity did nothing to alleviate the terror, only intensified it, because he knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that this was not something he could recover from. The darkness was waiting for him, and now Raido wasn't there to smack his face and ask him what the bloody hell do you think you're doing? He almost laughed at that memory, but sound was not safe. Raido... Genma wasn't going to see him again. That hurt more than the kunai, even more than the poison spreading through his veins.
Sakura coughed, and Genma had to press down to keep her body still. This wasn't going to work for much longer. He was going to die, and the young chuunin who was all that was left of his team would die as well. He wondered who she would miss. Who would miss her. He couldn't feel his legs anymore. The paralysis began to slither up his body, tendrils of numbness wrapping themselves around his fingers, his hands, his arms, stretching into his chest, grasping at his heart and lungs. He gasped for air, floating, disembodied, because his body was gone from him. Sakura coughed again, wet like she was drowning. Genma tried to wrench himself from the darkness.
His lungs spasmed, and then he couldn't feel them anymore. His head hurt, fireworks snapping in his head, burning his eyelids and boiling his blood. Thought was gone. Then the pain was gone as well.
A/N: I had originally intended for this to be a longer story...but then I turned it into a one-shot. Yay.