He didn't quite believe it until he burst into the clearing and saw the crater, the blood, the burning trees, Kakashi on his knees with his head lolling back and his bare throat exposed beneath the shredded mask, and the Kiri captain stooping in for the kill.

Ryouma had never ripped through a kawarimi no jutsu faster in his life. He latched onto the faint, almost undetectable ember of Kakashi's chakra, and wrenched them both through the universe. Smoke broke around him, catching in his throat, and he stumbled on the charred, broken ground at the edge of the crater where Kakashi had knelt.

The Kiri captain was only two meters away, eyes wide with shock at the substitution. She tried to stop, to pivot back to the spot across the clearing where Kakashi now lay, but momentum was against her. She skidded in the mud, and Ryouma caught her by the elbow with a hand edged rot-red. He shoved chakra through.

Her lower arm dropped away, splashing rot, and landed in a puddle of blood.

He tossed her back into the crater, still alive but not for long, and went to Kakashi.

His hands were trembling when he cut the jutsu and knelt. Kakashi lay where he'd fallen when the substitution technique had dropped him, but he was trying to lever himself up, and both his eyes were wide open beneath the bloody-wet shock of his hair. There was barely anything left of his mask, just a few shreds of black cloth stretching from the bridge of his nose to the edge of his jawbone, a fluttering panel that only half-concealed his mouth. His armor hung half-open, banging against his bent elbow, and the black fabric of his underpinnings was nearly as shredded. There was nowhere that Ryouma could touch him that was not dark with charred blood.

"Tanuki's coming," Ryouma said, uselessly. He curled his filthy hands over his knees. "Can you hold on?"

Kakashi's head came up. He seemed to be trying to focus on Ryouma's face. The faint light from a few burning trees caught in his mismatched eyes. "He's gonna yell," he managed, in a voice like crushed gravel. "A lot." His head swung, almost too heavy for his neck, but he put his other hand down in the muck and braced himself. The edge of his mouth curled. He had a scar there, slicing down the corner of his lip like he'd tried to kiss a kunai. "They shoulda taken that boat."

"Yeah," Ryouma said. His own mouth tugged. "There's no tigers in the sea."