She waited until he’d finished tightening the sling straps before she pushed her mask aside. “Was it the genjutsu that set you off?” she asked, because working up to delicate questions required the sort of energy she didn’t have right now. “Or did that Kiri-nin do something before he got you with an illusion?”

Raidou’s expression closed down. “He— No, it was just the genjutsu.” He shoved back up to his feet. Katsuko rose with him and caught his arm before he could turn away.

“Rai—” she said, and then cut herself short. She squeezed his arm and let go. “Captain. What happened?”

He stopped, spine rigid. And then sighed. "They made me think you'd died."

He hadn't recognized her, after he'd snapped out of the genjutsu. Had turned on her, even, killing intent clear and deadly.

"Did you think I was an imposter?" she asked. "After I woke you up, I mean."

“Honestly? I wasn’t really thinking anymore,” he said, very low. “I just wanted to… well, you saw what I wanted to do.”

Raidou’s surrender to berserker rage—and the resulting carnage—abruptly took on a new light. Katsuko examined the memories of Tsurugahama from all angles and felt the pieces of the puzzle she’d been missing slot into place.

“Oh,” Katsuko said at first, because anything else she could offer in response paled in comparison. She had to try, though. “I’d do the same. If you were the one who—if I thought—” she struggled for eloquence and came up empty. In desperation, she offered, “Do you want a hug?”

Raidou looked at her, mouth curving in a slight, rueful smile. “We did that already.” He glanced back at the entrance to the hollow, where the storm raged outside. “We need to get moving. If we ran into trouble, the others might have, too.”

The thought hadn’t ever occurred to her. Kakashi and Ryouma were deadly as solo fighters; working together, with the lieutenant’s steady hand and level head to keep them in line, they should be nigh unstoppable. Now, though, a little of her surety wavered.

“Hound does have that fainting problem,” Katsuko said, voice light. “And Ram falls into things a lot after he’s done pulling heroics.”

Raidou snorted ragged laughter. “Exactly. We’ll hit the safehouse. If they’re not there, we’ll patch up and… figure something out.”

“The lieutenant will get them there safe,” Katsuko said, following Raidou out into the rain. “And they’ll tear through anything that tries to get in their way.”

“Let’s hope,” he said, and picked up the pace.

They ran the rest of the way in silence. Fear mounted in Katsuko’s chest with each step.

Ryouma had thrown a twig at her just hours earlier. Kakashi had joined in their good-natured ribbing, and the lieutenant had brought them all back into line. They were starting to become a team, instead of a disjointed jumble of specialized skillsets and personality clashes.

She’d already started to think of them all as hers. If something happened—

No. It was useless to speculate. Ryouma was lethal with his rot jutsu and as sharp as the blade of her katana; Kakashi had torn through entire battlefields before he’d turned fifteen. The lieutenant was cunning and competent, the hand that nocked the arrow to the string and guided its flight. She had to trust that they knew how to take care of themselves.

In retrospect, Katsuko really should have expected the ringing emptiness that greeted her and Raidou when they opened the safehouse door.