50shinobi theme #17 hopscotch

Title: An Undignified Return

He bypasses the main gate completely, using the alternate entrance technique privileged only to the ANBU. There is no time to answer challenges, no time to stop for help. They must get to the hospital and they must get there NOW.

Tenzou hefts Kakashi's limp body from where it has slipped down his back. In the process, he trips over the tiles of a roof and almost plunges the both of them into a back alley. An extra burst of chakra at the last moment sees them safely over the gap.

The wood-user is beyond exhausted now. That limit was past hours ago when the fire in his limbs turned into numbness and each movement had to be mentally conducted and enforced. It was only conscious effort that kept his arms locked around the Copy-Nin, keeping him in place.

His chakra is tapped out as well now. So when the sweat mixed with the dust ran under his mask and into his eyes, Tenzou pitches forward off the balcony railing. Through some miracle of aerodynamics he lands mostly on his feet and begins to stagger the last hundred yards towards the hospital.

Every faculty at his possession is focused on jerking his legs ahead one at a time, and on holding up Kakashi. Even this is not enough to prevent him from stumbling over his own ruined footwear and jarring both kneecaps against the dirty road. Some child has traced out hopscotch boxes in the dust, and Tenzou wipes out half of them as he brutally circles around a lower leg and puts his feet under him again.

There are too many steps. How can anyone be expected to climb so many steps? Will-power is the only thing keeping this ANBU nin going. When his ankles fail, hands and knees must suffice. Like a caterpillar, he crawls upward, Kakashi affixed to his back by gravity alone.

All sense of time departed long ago, but at some point Tenzou reaches the top. Someone must have noticed the situation, for as he flops onto his stomach, he can feel hands removing and lifting his senpai away. He can't feel Kakashi's chakra presence anymore. Hell, he can't even feel his own chakra presence.

His beleaguered brain coalesces one last thought: he hopes that he will be forgiven for the undignified nature of his return from his first ANBU mission. Then the wood-user dips into welcoming unconsciousness.