Ryouma woke with a wrench. It was day, pearled with mist. Raidou bent over something on the ground. He was wearing ANBU armor, and his hands were red. He said, without looking up, "Quick. You have to heal him."

The thing on the ground was Genma. Blood leaked from his mouth, thick and black, clotted with the last liquefying shreds of his lungs.

Ryouma's chest felt as if it were rotting, too. He said, blindly, "I didn't. I couldn't."

"I don't care." Raidou looked up, and half his face was gone. The sharp line of his cheekbone broke under a thumb-shaped imprint. "Fix him."

"I can't." Ryouma's hands flexed, empty, dripping black fluid. "I don't know— He never taught me—"

Genma's breath whistled through the collapsing wreckage of his windpipe. His voice was a sick parody of that warm, sandy tenor, but the words were perfectly clear. "End it."

Raidou held out a kunai.

"No," Ryouma cried, and jerked awake.

Grey light gleamed cold through mist. He sat braced against clammy rock, with a sharp pain in the back of his head and his heart thumping against his ribs. Kakashi slept curled at his knee, undisturbed. His clean cotton mask shrouded mouth and nose, and left his scabbed cheekbone and a stubble-sheened slice of jawline bare.

A few meters away, Raidou bent over Genma, shaking his shoulder.

Ryouma bolted to his feet. "Is he okay?"

Raidou held up one hand, wait. He shook Genma again, harder. "Shiranui."

Genma twitched and mumbled, lashes fluttering against his cheeks. Raidou shifted his grip, pressing his thumb into the soft skin under Genma's ear, and Genma jolted violently up with a knife in his hand.

Raidou caught his wrist, shifted the other hand back to Genma's shoulder, and said quietly, "Bad dreams?"

Shallow pants stretched into a deeper, controlled breath. Genma's sleep-fuzzed gaze skipped from Raidou to the misty forest to Ryouma, and returned again to Raidou. His hand relaxed on the knife hilt. "Sorry, Taichou."

Raidou cupped the back of Genma's neck for the gentle space between breaths. Then his hand dropped. "Forget it. You're not the only one." He shifted back on his heels, looking up at Ryouma. "Hanging in there, Tousaki?"

Genma's gaze sharpened. He tucked the knife away and pushed blankets down, ready to rise. Ready to shoulder responsibility for their team, for Ryouma, for Kimiko and her baby, for a woman he'd had the courage to kill.

"I'm fine," Ryouma said. "Lieutenant, you—"

Genma pushed sweaty hair off his brow, watching him.

"Nevermind," Ryouma muttered. "It's getting late. When do we move out?"

"Now," Raidou said. He tipped his head toward Kimiko, a dark tangle of blankets in the cave. "Get them up."

Genma glanced at his wristwatch and then pushed to his knees, reaching for his gear. "I'm ready." He glanced up at Raidou, eyes narrowed. "You never woke me for a watch. Did you get any sleep?"

"Got up five minutes ago, when my clone dissolved," Raidou said. "I'm officially well-rested."

"I'll make sure to word it that way on our mission report," Genma said, folding blankets with quick, jerky movements. Raidou huffed softly, and reached for a sealing scroll.