Genma and Kakashi's ANBU sparks were still at the edges of his senses, but they'd stopped translocating and dropped back into a less-exhausting run. He shoved a grunting sow aside, hauled himself over the fence, sluiced off the worst of the muck with a fast jutsu and the water from the trough, clamped his chakra down again, and staggered wearily on. After a little while he found his balance again, and his ears stopped ringing.

He hit the mic again. "Still on a collision course?"

"Dead on," Genma's voice crackled. He sounded barely winded. "There are some trees up ahead. Hoping they're out in the open and we'll have cover to operate from."

Kakashi added, "The signatures on your tail have vanished."

Bunshin, Ryouma decided, called off when their creators realized it made no sense to chase someone who could translocate away—even if he did it poorly. Konoha's new translocation jutsu had turned the tide in more than a few shinobi clashes since the Yondaime had begun to teach it to the jounin; other villages were beginning to work out their own methods of fast movement now, but evidently these Kiri nin weren't on the cutting edge. Ryouma cheered up a little. Better to be shit at translocation than not be able to do it at all.

"Catching up," he said. "You'll smell me before you see me." He cut the mic, so his breath wouldn't rattle in their ears, and poured the speed on.

A jounin's steady run was ten miles to the hour, sustainable for hours or days if food and rest were available at regular intervals. Twenty miles an hour was a sprint, and if he were running to Tsurugahama Port he'd push that fast only with another shinobi's life on the line, but Kakashi and Genma were only a mile or two ahead. They were pushing hard, too. He caught up with them just short of the copse of trees Genma'd mentioned, panting but not yet tired. The humid air curdled in his lungs when he tried to catch his breath.

Genma's pace slackened into a slow jog. Grateful, Ryouma fell in at his side. "How far?"

Genma tipped his chin up at the trees. "If we cut straight through, we should be on them pretty quickly. Another two-fifty meters, maybe."

Close enough that Ryouma could have sensed them himself, if he'd tried, but neither of them ragged him for it. Kakashi said only, "Meet them head on, or spread out and flank?"

"Assess first," Genma responded. "Let's see what we're dealing with here."

Kakashi nodded. "So, meet them head on, or spread out and flank?"

Ryouma choked on a laugh and turned it into a gasp for breath. Genma's mask glimmered pale in the moonlight as he glanced aside at Kakashi. "Spread out," he said coolly. "Let me take point. Stay in visual contact."

"Roger." Kakashi cut away to the right, chakra tamped down to barely a glimmer.

Ryouma faded to the left, where the trees thickened over a groundswell and the wild grass was already growing tall. Cover enough, especially when he pulled together the faintest haze of genjutsu. Moonlight and shadow, and nothing else…

A scatter of raindrops pelted his mask and bare shoulders. Thunder rumbled again in the distance. Ryouma squinted down the slope and saw movement in the darkness, sensed chakra held tight but not concealed. A wet breeze finally shivered the still, muggy air, briefly overriding the reek of blood and pigs with the fresh scent of rain and ozone.

The Kiri nin were bringing the storm with them.