“But never on you, I’m guessing, since you’re the master,” said Genma.

Katsuko nodded sagely. She’d flipped back into something resembling good humor, like an acrobat on a high wire, but she still seemed edgy. He’d only caught glimpses of her tortuously scarred abdomen when he’d worked on her shoulder injuries, but between the scars he’d seen and what he’d learned about the seal containing her chakra, it wasn’t hard to imagine what kinds of wounds the enemy medic had inflicted on her all those years ago.

“I’ll go see what I can find out about the patient you were asking about,” Nakamura said. “Give me five minutes.” He ducked out of the room, leaving Raidou and Katsuko standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed.

Raidou had that ‘just been through chakra healing and need to sleep for the next fifteen hours’ look to him, but all traces of the burns on his face were erased, and there were no bandages peeking out from the collar of his shirt.

Katsuko looked more lively. She, too, was unbandaged, and her arm was moving loose and easy, free of its sling. Extensive healing usually wore patients out, since it drew on the patient’s chakra as well as the medic’s, but it didn’t seem to have made a dent in her abundant supply.

“It looks like Ryouri-sensei and Kimura-sensei were able to get you both patched up. Other than hungry and tired, how are you doing?” Genma asked. “Was Kimura-sensei his usual charming self?”

“That's one word for it,” Raidou said. “But he stuck all my pieces back together, so can't complain too much.”

“Yeah, I hear you on that one.” Genma stretched, testing freshly healed muscles in his abdomen. Brand new nerve connections sent an unpleasant shiver of sparks racing under his skin, radiating out from the scar. He smoothed his palm over it, trying to deaden the sensation. “How about you, Ueno? Feeling back together?”

“I’m good,” she said, a cipher of politeness. How brittle was she?

Genma glanced up at Raidou. “Hey, Ueno, can you give me a minute with the captain?”

“I’ll wait in the hall,” she said just as flatly, and vanished without another word.