"Let me down."
I crane my neck, cocking an eyebrow at my busty partner. "Hm? We're almost there. I can make it. I'm not that tired." I am that tired, actually. My stabbed leg had been almost good to go when Samui got captured, but my Breeze Step had torn it right back up. My back is killing me from carrying her for so long. And to top it all off, the pain in my stomach refuses to go away.
At least I get boobs on my back.
"I know," she says, chin resting in the crook between my neck and shoulder. "I want to walk through the finish line myself."
I feel offended for all of two seconds before I realize what she's getting at. "You couldn't fool an Academy brat with that leg of yours, let alone a jounin." It's true, too. I had tried to get her walking on her own a couple hours ago, when I was sure we had cleared the group of murderous foreign genin, and it ended with her collapsing and bringing my exhausted self down with her to the ground.
Turns out the spear she got run through with was the same lightning-coated weapon that Kumo nin tried to hit me with, so her muscles got all locked up on top of the stab wound. Maybe she could have gotten by on a limp with one or the other, but not both. It didn't take me long after learning that to figure out what it meant.
It's a pretty terrible feeling, knowing that for all of the raging against the odds I did we're still going to fail. But at least I put up a fight. And made a friend, I guess.
"I know," she repeats. "But… I have to try." I shuffle forward, left, right, left, right, silent. She sighs. "Please."
I stop, wavering at the jarring change in motion, and grunt. "If you drag me down again, I'm not getting back up."
She smiles softly. "Thanks."
She touches down with her good leg first, allowing one arm to unwind itself from around my chest. Then she tentatively lowers her injured leg. A few tense seconds pass, and pulls her other arm from around my chest, settling the rest of her weight on herself.
A split second later she stumbles to one knee with a small gasp of pain, and I find myself ducking underneath her left shoulder and forcing the both of us up. Six paths save me but that hurts. The two of us stand there for a minute, just feeling miserable together, until Samui tries to pull away again. My right arm, hooked around the small of her back, holds fast.
I meet her annoyed gaze with my own. "This is close enough. Whether or not you limp in there by yourself or with my help isn't going to make a difference." I roll my eyes. "Besides, how are you going to pass the next task if you bang your leg up even more trying to get into it?"
She looks like she's about to object, but thankfully subsides. We continue hobbling down the final stretch towards the cluster of mountains, leaning on one another. The sun is starting to rise, peeking through the cracks in the forest and showering us with light. The low thrumming sound of morning birds drifts through the air. Samui's body is soft and warm against mine, despite the near-freezing water soaking me to the bone. It'd be pleasant if it weren't for the roiling sea of flames in my stomach.
"I know why," she says out of the blue a while later, when the tower itself is a visible if miniscule speck in the distance.
"Know why what?"
"Why I helped your teammates."
I raise an eyebrow at her. "Yeah? Shoot."
"I didn't care about them," she says. "I don't know them and I wouldn't mind if they failed. It would be a good thing, really, not even taking into account their village allegiance."
"I'm not following," I admit. She smirks at me, but the expression quickly softens.
"I didn't care if they failed, but I did care if you failed." She looks away from me, up at the tower in the distance. "I've never met a Konoha shinobi like you before. Or any shinobi outside of my village, really. You did your best to make our partnership work even when you knew I was trying to get rid of you, and you never tried to stab me in the back like everyone at home said you would. You acted like we've been partners since graduation.
"And when you told me you were going to help your teammates get away no matter what, and then offered me an out so that I wouldn't have to suffer for it…" She shrugs. "I realized that I didn't want you to take that fall."
I grin at her, pushing aside the pain radiating off my chakra coils. "I love you, too."
She sniffs. "Please. As if I would ever get involved with a Konoha nin of all people." She pauses, then grudgingly continues. "Though I'll admit that your ability with wind techniques is pretty cool. For a Konoha nin."
My grin widens. "Why Samui, have you been ogling my wind chakras?"
"Shut up."
...
"So, this is it."
The tower isn't that grand, all things considered. It's big, no doubt about that, standing as tall as the Hokage Tower. But besides that it looks to be typical samurai fare. It's made up of drab grey stone and dark wood, probably taken from the forest itself. It's sturdy, reliable, and boring. A samurai tower through and through.
"Wait." I stop a few feet in front of the large double-door entrance, tugging Samui back.
"What is it?" Samui asks, concern mingling with the exhaustion in her voice. I shake my head.
"Just had to see if anyone else wanted to ambush us before we wrap this up," I explain. My partner snorts, giving me a light shove with her shoulder, and we walk the last couple steps and shove the doors open.
Inside is a large, empty room. Gray tiles make up the floor, and the walls are bleached white. The only thing of note in the room is on the opposite end from us: A polished marble door that's five times bigger than me with an illustration of a samurai carved into it. Samui and I move forward, letting the double doors swing groan shut behind us, and push at the new door. It doesn't budge.
"Wait, what?" I regard the door with disbelief. "What the hell is this? Is this a dud? Did they set up a decoy tower to screw with us?" I swear to god if I have to walk another ten miles because of some stupid prank-
"Check the scrolls," Samui says, eyeing the door.
I blink. "Oh, right. Scrolls."
I dig into my pants pocket, pulling out a wet but undamaged Honor scroll, which I hand over to my partner. Thank god these things are water resistant. Otherwise, with Isamu and his gang jacking all of Samui's copies, we'd have been screwed. I take out a Loyalty scroll for myself, and we both tear off the wax seals holding the paper together.
I awkwardly unravel the scroll with one arm still wrapped around Samui's waist, and she does the same with her arm slung over my shoulders. I scan the short passage written within, brow furrowing.
"A warrior without loyalty is a sword with no edge- useful to none," I read aloud.
"But a warrior without honor is a blade with no hilt- dangerous to all," Samui murmurs.
"What's that supposed to- oh shit!" I throw the scroll to the ground and jerk back, bringing my partner with me and causing her to drop hers as well. I hold my right hand up, glowing blue at the fingertips, and a moment later Samui holds up her left. Symbols dance across both of our hands, from the tips of our fingers down to our palms. I squint at them, just making out their symmetry through the glare of the light.
Samui and I share a look. Then we reach forward as one, touching our glowing hands to the samurai door, and push. A seal array bursts into existence around each appendage, spreading out to the edges of the door and flaring brightly. A loud crack echoes from the stone as the door splits down the middle, each side swinging back without any more shoving on our parts.
The glow fades from the door and our hands as it opens up the whole way, revealing the woman standing behind it with her hands on her hips and a stick of half-eaten stick of dango in her mouth.
The Konoha proctor, Mitarashi, whistles when her eyes fall on us. And more specifically, me. "Looks like your teammates were right after all. You made it."
"You mean Sakura and Sasuke?" I ask eagerly. Mitirashi nods, popping a bit of dango into her mouth.
"They made it here last night and wouldn't stop blabbering about you when I let 'em through. Wanted me to let them know as soon as you got here, right after you were done handing a whole squad's worth of genin their asses." She smirks. "Could have sworn they were kidding about that part. Good on you."
"Uh, thanks." Jeez, they must have been pretty worried about me. Or must be. I should probably let them know I'm not dead yet once I get someone to look at Samui's leg.
"Don't mention it, brat." She holds out a hand. "Got your scrolls?" Wait a second. Why would she need our scrolls if-
I hurriedly dig into my pockets and pull out another pair of blue and gray, not even bothering with the discarded ones behind us. I shove them into the proctor's outstretched hand, and they each light up blue when they touch her skin. "Alright, you two are good to go. Head upstairs and grab some rooms. You've still got a little while to rest up before the next task starts."
...
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