Chapter 17
Kakashi came to with his hand grasping, grasping for what he wasn't sure. He reached out again trying to take some hold in the darkness. He opened both eyes and it all came rushing back to him taking his breath away. He panted harshly as the sharingan continued to show him the moments before he was engulfed by darkness. "Yamato" he gasped climbing onto all fours "YAMATO!"
-oOo-
Yamato saw it coming and knew its purpose, but just as he readied himself to face it head on Kakashi pushed him off the branch and left himself open as the target. "NO!" Yamato shouted as he watched the jaw of a summoned snake extend to engulf Kakashi. There was no way he was surrendering his lover. In the midst of his fall Yamato managed to shoot out a tendril to knock the snake out of its course but found it just split in two and was still heading for Kakashi, as he himself was falling into the path of the original white snake. In a last attempt to save his lover, Yamato formed the hand seals in mid-air; he just needed one hand to touch the ground before the snake engulfed him to complete his jutsu. Time seemed to slow for him as the white snake rocketed towards, him fangs bared spitting venom and its mouth growing larger as it neared its prey. "Kashi, I promised" he whispered as the ground came nearer and so did the white body of his enemy. He felt the moisture surround him as he frantically reached for the ground. His fingers brushed the soil and then he felt the solid ground beneath his palm as he let chakra flow through his body. "Please get there in time" he pleaded as the jaw enclosed around him and he was swallowed into the pit of a muculent beast.
-oOo-
"Kakashi?!" he heard the echo of Raidou's voice. Kakashi was weak; he was low on chakra after using the teleporting barrier jutsu and couldn't break out of the darkness without help. "Raidou!" Kakashi shouted back his breathing laboured, "Yamato, help Yamato!" He felt the vibration of something hitting the prison that surrounded him and slowly light filtered through as a crack was formed and grew larger. Raidou's face appeared in the opening and soon Kakashi was pulled out into the open. He surveyed the destruction that surrounded him. Raidou didn't have to tell him, Kakashi's gaze followed the trail that lead from him to a spot where Yamato should have been, but was instead replaced by a large crater where the snake's fang had landed engulfing Yamato before the summon disappeared. Kakashi looked behind him to find that his prison was what he had suspected. In his final moments before being captured, Yamato had chosen to save Kakashi rather than himself. He had used a wood release binding technique to alter Kakashi's path this time from the oncoming summoned snakes and had pulled him into a jutsu that was a combination of his tree binding flourishing burial and wood locking wall. This had caused a protective layer that confined Kakashi in a sphere of the wood locking wall whilst imprisoning the snakes and burying them.
Kakashi fell to his knees as his breathing became more strenuous, you promised me Yama he hit the soil beneath him with his gloved hands. His lover had taken his only option away from him, had seen right through him. Kakashi had decided to give up his body to Orochimaru in Yamato's stead. Mentally and physically Kakashi knew Yamato wouldn't be able to defeat a complete take over by Orochimaru, not after everything that had happened to him. By offering his sharingan and his body Kakashi would have had a better chance of withstanding Orochimaru without completely losing himself, but Yamato had taken that choice away from him. He had made Yamato promise not to carry out any heroics and his lover had done exactly the opposite. Yamato had saved him whilst sacrificing himself. Kakashi traced the veins of the wood tendril left behind, a legacy of Yamato's genius and curse. Damn it Yamato Kakashi fisted the ground again. He had to find him; he had to believe Yamato was resilient enough. Physically Kakashi knew Yamato would be exhausted but it was the mental battle that would determine the war.
-oOo-
Yamato blinked clearing his vision, his mind was hazy and his body was limp. But something was keeping him upright, he blinked again as his vision came into focus. He found himself being supported by a snake bound around his abdomen as it hovered its sneering face just above his head; tongue revealingly slithering in and out of its mouth. He heard a hiss behind him as another being moved out of the shadow into his vision "well, well, well" it hissed as it drew nearer. "I warned you against running. I told you, you were mine did I not?" the face came into view "Lab rat" Orochimaru smirked in his true form, a scaly face with fangs bared on a snakes white body "Your mine Tenzou" he hissed with laughter.