Two days passed in flickering pools and shadows of consciousness for Genma. He spent up to eight hours each day in a hushed and sterile treatment room, drugged as close to coma as the medics dared, as chakra coils in his abdomen were rerouted, and Ito-sensei made painstakingly slow progress on his hand. Millimeter by millimeter, the doctor threaded nerves and coils together, brought tendons back into place, coaxed collapsed channels to reopen.

There were very few places on the body with as many exquisitely sensitive nerves as the hand. And no part more important to a shinobi, save his brain. There could be no shortcuts if Genma ever hoped to return to active duty. And there was nothing to protect him from the agony of the treatments beyond keeping him so far under they had to keep him on the respirator just to keep him breathing.

When the drugs wore thin, and Genma woke, it was always with a racing heart, wild eyes, a struggling fight against hands that held him down and machinery that kept him alive. It was always with one thought in his head.

Raidou was dead.

They'd pulled his lifeless body away.

He wasn't sure where he was, although he remembered that last desperate race to get away. And now he was being tortured daily. Experimented upon, perhaps, by Sago's medic, the one who had half-healed Raidou's burns just so Sago could have another go at them.

Drugs and the fleetingness of the consciousness he managed only served to keep him lost in his terror.

It was early morning on the fourth day when the pulmonary specialist, the chakra specialist, and Ito, the hand specialist, had a heated conference in the hall outside Genma's isolation room.

"He's already showing signs of pneumonia from the prolonged ventilation and the damage that damned poison did him. If you keep him deeply sedated any longer, you're going to kill him."

"If we bring him around, the pain will kill him."

"He drew chakra from sources he shouldn't have been able to access, and the weapon that was used on him damaged his coils. He doesn't have the stamina to take any more treatment at this point anyway. Let him rest a day."

"If I let any more scar tissue form in his hand, permanent disability is a real possibility."

"Then that's just a possibility we'll have to live with." A woman's voice, low and commanding. "I'm sorry, but I'm overriding you, Ito-sensei. He needs to come off that vent and recover some chakra before we can do anything else. We'll keep him comfortable, and you can continue any treatments that don't draw on his chakra."

By late morning, the heavy sedation was nearly out of Genma's system. At noon they pulled the vent, replacing it with an oxygen mask.

At 1:30 Genma thrashed awake, found himself held down by cool hands once more. He stared into the dark brown eyes of the medic pushing him into the mattress, and croaked his first words in four days. "Where's Raidou?"

Raidou's dead, he told himself. But he had to ask.

"Your partner is downstairs, in the burn unit," the nurse said. Her face was as round as a full moon, her lipstick an unflattering shade of pink. "He's recovering. You need to rest, Shiranui-san. Try not to move..."

Genma's right arm caught her across the chest. His hand fisted into the cloth of her uniform, and he levered himself a few inches off the bed. The woman's scream choked and died as the cloth tightened.

"Prove it."