Genma knew enough to recognize an obvious signal. He straightened up and stretched, raising his arms above his head and arching his back. His shirt slid up, baring the knotted edge of the demon-scar across his lower belly, still pink and healing. Raidou looked back out to sea. Genma yawned, slapped his own cheeks semi-gently, and said, “You’re right, punching a hole in the deck with a falling rookie would probably not improve our popularity with the crew.”

His voice was steady and alert. His shoulders, when Raidou looked back, were squared. Raidou wasn’t relieved; he’d never had cause to worry.

“Wouldn’t be that great for the rookie either,” he said dryly, and turned to lead the way back to Ryouma.

They joined Ryouma on the cross-bar, flanked either side of him, and received the updated report. (“It’s fucking cold.”) On the darkened beach, the captain’s cloaked lanterns were tiny spots of dim light. There was no sign of Kakashi, but there wouldn’t be.

Ryouma yawned. Raidou swallowed down a reflexive echo.

Genma said, “Tousaki, name the twenty-seven bones in the hand.”

“Lieutenant,” Ryouma said tragically.

“Lieutenant is not one of them,” Genma said. “Try again.”

Raidou leaned against the mast and snickered.

Ryouma groaned and began, “Five distal phalanges, four intermediate phalanges…”

Over the next two hours, Raidou listened to them explore skeletal topography. He learned that the average adult human had two hundred and six bones, but a newborn had two hundred and seventy, because humans were weird fusing creatures. The wind cut colder, and the sea grew rougher. Below them, more than one sailor spat over the railings and swore about freak June weather. Genma grew tense again, chakra flickering out every few minutes. Ryouma joined him. Their combined energy buzzed against Raidou’s senses; he didn’t waste chakra trying to match them.

As time slid away, Genma stopped correcting Ryouma’s mistakes. Then he stopped asking questions. When the silence stretched, Raidou stepped in to tell Ryouma a few of his own medical stories, learned through playing sporadic assistant in healer’s tents during the war.

Ten minutes before midnight, the captain’s lanterns gathered back into the boat at the shore. Raidou readied himself for a renewed fight.

Genma sat up rigid. A beat later, Ryouma did too. Raidou followed their gaze to a shower of blue-white sparks on the clifftop, and a slim, running figure heading down to the water. It didn’t stop at the edge of the ocean; it hit waves and kept running, bolting towards the ship.

Genma, Ryouma, and Raidou dropped down to the deck.

Kakashi’s clone leapt up onto the railing and snapped, “Thirteen’s here. Injured incoming.” It burst in a crack of smoke.

Genma let out a single tight breath and ran for his medical kit. Ryouma scrambled after him.

Raidou cut through the grouped sailors, ignoring shouted questions, and found the First Mate. “We need blankets, hot water, and somewhere our medics can work.”

Horikiri looked at him for a silent moment. “There’s a table in the upper messdeck; we can clear it.” She raised her head and rapped out orders. The deck burst into movement.

Raidou peeled off one more clone to tell Genma, and threw himself over the railing, racing towards the dying shower of sparks.