A demon’s thorax dented and exploded as Kakashi punched his arm through it, splattering the mossy walls with sizzling chunks. He wrenched his hand back, letting the body fall. Three more demons surged up to take its place. The narrow corridor writhed with teeth, claws, and lethally arched tails. He couldn’t see Genma.

Better vision would help.

A thread of lightning and the Bird hand-sign melted the quartermaster's black mesh, freeing the Sharingan. Blue lines of fate snapped together, tracing the path to the future. If he moved there, stabbed this way—

Yellow blood sprayed.

Kakashi vaulted over the twitching remains of shredded demon corpses, running up the smooth tunnel wall and across the ceiling. He clashed with two demons who'd had the exact same idea. They could chakra-walk. He ducked a poisonous stinger, shoved the fading remains of the Raikiri through a multi-eyed face—serrated jaws crumpled; a hissing scream burst into blood—and drew his tanto, pouring white chakra through it.

Genma’s chakra signal was wide open, unsuppressed, but growing fainter. The ANBU spark was buried in twisted, metal-tasting chakra patterns, vanishing deeper underground.

They were dragging him the opposite way from the civilians.

“Goddammit, Tanuki,” Kakashi panted, and beheaded a demon that tried to gut him.

Yet more roiled up, crawling over the walls. Most of them were small, half grown but wicked-fast. If he dodged this way, killed that one, followed Genma—

That one would poison him.

Bolted the other way, ripped through those three—

The fourth would drop and bite his spine out.

There were six avenues to Genma, and all of them ended badly. Kakashi backed up a step. Then another. The demons crowded forward, weirdly lit by the white chakra dancing over the tanto blade. One lunged; he cut it down. The next twisted around the blade and sank long teeth into his arm. Claws tore at his legs.

Kakashi ripped free and ran.

Around the corner, the broken tunnel forked, one side angling down. He shoved the tanto back into its low sheath, split his chakra into a clone, and sent it bolting like a banner-man down the other side. A visible chakra signal of come get me. The downwards path tipped sharply to the right, spiralling around an awkward curve and abruptly into darkness. The walls were completely smooth, recently carved; the glow-fungus hadn’t had a chance to grow.

He hated mines.

A glimmer-seed of chakra was all he could risk. Kakashi let it spark into his palm, put his other hand on the wall, and moved as fast as he could. Hissings and clickings faded behind him, swallowed by the tunnels. He couldn’t feel anything from the surface. The civilian signatures were brighter, closer. Genma’s spark...

Kakashi focused, stretching his senses as much as he dared.

There, distant. Moving away.

Still alive, which was something. Probably about to be an egg-host. With that much chakra, they could give him twins.

That was not something Kakashi wanted to explain to the captain.

But the civilians were the mission. They were closer. The last hatchling chamber had been unguarded, and they had less time than Genma. If there was anything worth rescuing, Kakashi could send them out with clones, give the demons a chance to settle and disperse, then hunt for Genma.

Unless they just killed Genma.

Either way was a bad choice, and he only had two Raikiri left.

He pressed the collar-mic button with a blood-slick thumb. The team was too far above to get a transmission, but Genma might, even if he was too paralyzed to answer. “I’m going to find you,” Kakashi told the reeking blackness. “Just hold on, don’t die, and try not to get pregnant.”

Static hissed back at him.

Abandoning stealth for speed, Kakashi ran for the glimmering human signatures.