Ryouma bit back automatic protests about how he'd used more chakra than anyone, even Katsuko with her demon-crippling bursts of wind and flame. He didn't think his native chakra strength was all that much lower than Raidou's, but maybe once you were used to Katsuko everyone was a lightweight. "How d'you want to do it?" he asked instead, pulling his mask off entirely and clipping it to his belt. "Chakra centers?"

Chakra centers were easiest, both pooling the greatest concentrations of chakra and opening more readily to receive or transmit. But the chakra centers were all core body points—crown of head, forehead, throat, heart, solar plexus, navel, groin—and while Raidou was fairly free with the backslaps and headlocks during training, he'd managed to avoid touching Ryouma at all off the practice field.

Hands could work, at a pinch, but Ryouma's were still filthy. He tried wiping his palms on his wet trousers. It didn't help.

"When we get home, you need to figure out a soap-bubble jutsu," Raidou said. "Or steal one off Hound." He pulled his mask off, too, and clipped it at his hip. "C'mere and duck, tall guy. We'll do forehead to forehead."

Ryouma's wet hair made a clammy barrier between them. He pulled back self-consciously, lifting his hand to shove the rain-sodden forelock off his forehead, but Raidou caught his arm first. He raked Ryouma's hair back with his free hand, then settled both palms on either side of Ryouma's face and tugged him down a little to press damp skin to skin.

Raidou was warm. His chakra was warmer still, unfurling like a lotus, and opening to it was like drinking a fire that wouldn't burn. And drinking fast. Raidou didn't ease into the transfer with a widening trickle; it was open gates, floodwaters high, and Ryouma was unsteady and gasping when Raidou pulled back.

His vision blurred, speckled with stars. Raidou's hands fell away, but one gripped his elbow reassuringly until he'd blinked the stars back and the borrowed chakra had begun to settle in his coils. It wasn't the chemical burn of soldier pill chakra, weaker than it should have been, quickly used up, but it wasn't quite his own yet either. Like borrowing another man's well-used kunai, feeling the grooves other fingers had worn into the leather hilt-wrappings, sharpening away nicks and scratches he hadn't put there.

Water chakra, he thought, and... Earth, maybe? The water was melding easier with his own water/fire than the earth, which felt a little like lumps in rice congee. He closed his eyes for a long breath, molding and releasing chakra, and it settled.

"Better?" Raidou asked.

Ryouma jerked a nod, and pulled his mask down. "Fine. Just... Been a while since I had to do that. Thanks."

His breath was still rasping hard, and his skin felt hot and tight, almost feverish. That would settle, too. The excruciating awareness of Raidou's body, strong and solid and so close to his, might take a little longer.

Raidou clapped him cheerfully on the shoulder. "I've got more if you need it. Now, let's find our girl."