Words scoured away. Ryouma opened his mouth, found nothing on his tongue, and closed it again. He looked down at Kakashi's hand on his knee, striped with scars: the dark sear of a bad burn, the toughened knuckles of a lifetime punching wood and bone, a faded white line long ago laid bare by a blade. He looked up again, searching Kakashi's hidden face.

The nurse called his name.

Ryouma flinched out from under Kakashi's hand and stumbled to his feet. "Here!"

The nurse didn't laugh at him, which was more than he deserved. She did make him step into a tiny locker room to shed his clothes in exchange for another flimsy hospital gown, but this time he got a much-laundered robe to wear over it, and slippers for the cold trek down a short maze of hallways. Kakashi padded behind, a silent shadow at Ryouma's heels.

They stopped outside a door with a blinking green light over the lintel. The nurse wrote a few swift lines on her clipboard, dropped it into a plastic box on the wall, and opened the door. She looked back at Kakashi. "You're welcome to observe, but you'll need to stay outside the red circle. Or there's a waiting room down the hall, if you prefer."

Kakashi glanced at Ryouma, brow raised. "Gonna deny me the chance to watch experts play with seals?"

"Only if you promise to stop 'em if they try to have their wicked way with me," Ryouma said. There was a windowed panel set high in the door; he could see through into a small room, with blank white walls and a varnished wood floor. There was a blue plastic mat laid out in the center of the floor, like the world's most hygienic futon. A painted line the color of fresh blood marked a wide perimeter around the mat.

"There's a reason we give you easy-access gowns," the nurse said cheerfully. Ryouma choked on a startled laugh.

"I think I've read that story," Kakashi said thoughtfully. "It ended well." He thumped Ryouma's shoulder and slipped past them to open the door, staking out a corner spot on the outside of the circle with a view of the exit and a convenient wall to lean against.

Ryouma followed more slowly. From the inside, he could see an array of machinery tucked neatly against the near wall. He recognized chakra and blood pressure monitors, as well as the ubiquitous IV stand, but couldn't even guess at most of the others.

The nurse took his robe and directed him to sit on the blue mat. She wheeled over monitors, careful to position them outside the red perimeter circle, and attached an array of long-lined leads to his chest under the gown. Her fingers were cool and efficient as she swabbed the back of his hand, found the vein, and inserted an IV needle. A blood pressure cuff squeezed his other biceps; he flexed back, experimentally, until he heard Kakashi's quiet scoff.