Ryouma didn't move for a moment after Kakashi's fingers relaxed their bone-biting grip on his wrist and slipped back down under the foil blanket. Kakashi didn't try to tug the blanket up higher, or squirm down under it, or even turn his face away. He just set his half-bared jaw, sharp-carved in the steady green light, and stared fixedly at a point just over Genma's left shoulder.

Well. That was clear enough.

Genma was already digging in his kit again, pulling out the familiar metal vial of blood pills. Ryouma balanced the emptied canteen against his knee and pulled his own canteen out as well. His chakra still molded smoothly, flowing into the hand-seals and then surging out eagerly to focus streams of clean water out of the dying mizzle. No need even for a soldier pill yet.

Later, maybe. They had miles to run and an injured enemy to guard, and Kakashi was clearly in no shape even to sit up on his own. Genma wouldn't be good for much either, if he kept spending his chakra like water.

Why the hell had he saved the Kiri captain? She'd meant to kill them. She would have killed Kakashi, if Ryouma hadn't intervened. Maybe she hadn't wanted the fight in the first place, but she hadn't called Iebara back and she'd plunged into the fight when she realized Konoha was beginning to get the upper hand. She might not be a threat now, but she would be later. Even if she couldn't form seals without her right arm, that wouldn't stop her from palming a kunai and cutting any throat she could get to.

Maybe Genma just meant to leave her here. She'd be a danger at their backs, but with luck she'd be too busy dying of shock to follow them.

The canteens were full, and Ryouma's pants—and the top of Kakashi's head—were a little cleaner from the spray. He cut the jutsu and held both bottles out to Genma. "I didn't lose much blood."

Genma accepted his own canteen, but waved off Ryouma's. He took a long drink. "Hound, if I give you a pill, can you swallow it? Ram will help you with water." He tipped a dull red-brown blood pill into his own mouth, crunched it between his back molars, and took another throat-bobbing pull at his canteen.

"Yes," Kakashi said. He was starting to slur, heavy eyelid dragging down over the grey right eye. Morphine kicking in, Ryouma hoped, not chakra-depletion slamming back. He was still shivering, but not quite as violently as before.

Genma passed a pill over. Kakashi swallowed it obediently, and managed most of the canteen before he coughed and shook his head.

Ryouma drained the last few swallows, and wished he'd heated it first. The condensed rain water chilled his throat and iced in his belly. Kakashi hadn't protested, but Kakashi didn't seem quite capable of complaining about anything at the moment. His head rocked back on Ryouma's crossed shins and then tipped sideways to rest his lacerated cheek against Ryouma's left knee. He didn't pull away this time when Genma reached out to check his pulse.

"Soldier pills are helping," Genma said, relieved. He was breathing a little easier, though his voice was still nasal and raw, thickened by his broken nose. He capped his empty canteen, tucked it away, and began slathering his hands with an antibacterial wash. "I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but we need to close what wounds we can before we move him." He rubbed the last of the sticky gel off his fingers onto his wrist, and then touched Kakashi's shoulder. "Sorry, Hound, we need to strip you down. I'll be as fast and gentle as I can. Ram will keep you warm."

That begged for a joke. Ryouma couldn't think of one.

Kakashi took over for him. His eye slivered open, and he rasped, "B-big jutsu. Gets ev'ryone 'n my p-pants."

"You wish," Ryouma scoffed, which was possibly near the top of his list of Least Successful Comebacks Ever. But Kakashi's scarred mouth curved in half a smile, and if he could joke things couldn't be nearly as bad as they seemed. Ryouma tousled his blood-matted hair, and then left his hand there, wrist-deep in sodden spikes. He called up fire chakra, tempered it, sent it trickling down again through Kakashi's skin. The shivering didn't ease, but Kakashi's bare lips were finally beginning to look a little less blue.