"Love is a kind of military service."

– Latin Proverb

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An Intermission.

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Kurenai could taste the sour sweat on her lips as she licked them fervently. Her dirty fingers, sticky with mud that oozed beneath her fingernails, curled tightly around the trigger. The woman's knees were buckled in the wet dirt while her helmet continued to slip further down, covering her eyes from this offense. Perhaps she should leave it there, she thought caustically, so she would be spared the carnage rippling past the red stained hills. Just close your eyes and shoot. His only advice to her.

Kurenai grinded her teeth, enamels gritted with grains of sand – having face-planted into the ground to avoid a barrage of bullets. Dammit, why couldn't she just shoot her damn gun?

Genma was beside her, kneeling with her, and kept making lewd comments under his rushed breath. His eyes were dilated, fear and excitement awash in his caramel irises, and the older soldier dared to smirk as smoke billowed in front of their foxhole, "Damn, sure is a fine day to get the shit beat out of you."

Kurenai only grunted, mind racing with thoughts and images of him – trying desperately to forget the bloodstains that had painted themselves across his abdomen in the infirmary, the way he smiled at her as she was pulled away from him, the way he told her how to fight – just close your eyes ...

"Dammit.." Kurenai couldn't feel the nerve endings within her fingers any longer, the digits so taut and strained. Just pull it, she kept berating herself, just pull it and look away. Genma suddenly lowered his gun and slid down the side of the foxhole to sit in the dirt. Kurenai merely glanced at him before returning her eyes to the fog in front of her. She couldn't see anything anyway, so why couldn't she just shoot?

"He loved you."

"Shut the hell up, Shiranui." Kurenai bit out. Her heart was bleeding, coating her rib cage in wondrous splashes of mahogany crimson – try as the woman might, she failed to wipe away the image of his shaking hands, how he attempted to grab her own and tell her everything.

Genma rested his gun on his knees, "He was getting ready to ask you, you know."

Kurenai feigned ignorance, the falsehood slipping from her lips so much easier to say than "I know". "What the hell are you talking about."

Genma knew he should get up, align his barrel towards flickering shadows ahead and just shoot the hell out of them. He knew he should be watching how the sprays of blood splatted across the dirt, how men's eyes would roll back and a moan escaped their lips – 'meet your Maker' ... But here he was, out of snarky comments and left with only the image of Kurenai clasping Asuma's limp hand as if the world were held up by those numb fingertips.

The lieutenant was batshit crazy for placing that gun in her hands after they dragged her away.

"You got to fight now, Kurenai. Save the tears for later." Her throat was too raw and red and tender to scream out that it was too latelatelate –

Genma felt his hands clench as he made himself utter softly, "He was planning to do it next week."

She was silent, no longer watching out for guns aimed between her eyes, refusing to let her hands rest. Next week. That foolish man. Merely seven days too late.

The older of the two ran his scarlet fingers through his hair, grimacing slightly with how stringy and limp it had become. Gunpowder was caked on the inside of his cheek, tongue lured to the acerbic substance because Shiranui had forgotten long ago what anything else had tasted like. There was blood on the back of his teeth as well – the bruise of shrapnel colliding with his upper lip still pulsing. The heartbeat of the beast.

His fingernails were purple from frost and – dammit – he couldn't rip the image of Asuma's glassed gaze staring unto him. Of his chapped lips murmuring something, something...

A rumble of bullets shook the foxhole hardily, as if it were all merely a deck of cards – Kurenai the jaundice queen (who's king had his sword aimed at his temple); Genma the crippled joker (who was the forever-scapegoat destined to make her forget). He could fiddle with masks until the bullet ripped through his cornea, but he slipped that one on tight. For merely her sake because he has no one back there. He grinned sardonically.

Except Hatake, of course.

His finger shook as he traced the barrel of his artillery – what's supposed to save him; from perhaps an untimely demise, but Hell's hounds already were licking his ankles with ardor ('master, master').

Does it still count if they're already dead?

His grin slanted towards a dark-humored smirk. – And a social retard?

Genma felt Kurenai shift, legs restless with immobility, snapping him from reverie. Her knees still bore scars of the dirt she was forced to kowtow to – "get down, get down goddamn it!" – and she wondered absently if she should just stand after all.

She turned away from the condensing air that caressed her jugular. Four AM was barreling down upon her shoulders. It's been seven hours.

He's been gone for seven hours.

Fuck – wasn't that damned number supposed to harness luck?

She could hardly see the hands that were shaking around the trigger of her gun, so she knew that Genma would never see – see her put this goddamn barrel in her mouth; see her pull the trigger, eyes wide open; see her brains and tissue and red splatter across his cheeks and paint the foxhole wall a wonderful vermillion –

She just had to closer her eyes and shoot.

It would take seven seconds.

Her lips hugged the barrel tight.

Genma spoke only after three.

"He gave me the ring."

Kurenai's teeth clamped around the metallic mass until her jaw ached and her eyes shut and the tears bled through her ducts.

Genma mumbled low, eyes focused on his frost-bitten fingers, "I hope it fits. 'Cause it'd be a damn shame if it were too small now, ne?"

What a shame, what a shame –

– he was too young..

– he was too strong..

– he was too alive..

..to die on a misshapen cot with a eulogy.

Kurenai slowly slips the barrel from her mouth, tempted by only the lingering thought, the minuscule wonder:

Will it fit?

Because she could still taste her husband's lips on the trigger.

Because the barrel was too large and cumbersome – and something needed to be perfect.

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A/N: Just a brief intermission of sorts. I know I haven't updated in forever, ever, ever – and I am truly sorry about that! Real life, other fandoms and other inspirations got in the way. I sat down today though just to type out the last few paragraphs of this little vignette. It's a little darker and grittier than the previous chapters, I think. Also, I can't help but be ruffled by how one can most likely tell where I left off and where I began after a long while. My writing style has certainly changed from the last time I gazed upon this chapter.

I will update as soon as the Muse fairy strikes again!

Till next time,

H. 92