She looked up at him sharply, as if she could read his intentions behind his eyes. And discovered she could.

He watched her, waiting for any sort of reaction, his muscles in the nebulous stage between tense and relaxed. Not waiting for her to make a mistake, to admit to weakness, but waiting to help, to join Kuromaru in face-ripping.

Hopefully metaphorically.

"He--Botan's still being held," she answered, shying away from the last question. She went back to staring at her knees, unable to respond to the offer she could see in Ryouma's expression. He'd offer help to anyone. He was just like that.

"He didn't hurt me," she said finally. "They wouldn't have let--" Except, if there hadn't been proof, if they hadn't believed her, would that have been the next step? She rubbed her face with both hands. "I snapped teeth. They brought us in under false pretenses, and I got frustrated and threw a chair, and the next thing I knew I was in some -- underground interrogation room and Kuromaru was gone and Morino--" She stopped the words. "Ginta says he's Shida's protege." And he was good at what he did. "But they didn't hurt me."

There was a faded bit of denim on the knee of Ryouma's jeans. Tsume reached out, scraping a nail over it lightly before rubbing her thumb across it, feeling the different textures. Feeling the shape of his kneecap, the swell of muscle above it, then back down over the edge of bone. Her words were very quiet. "I was just rattled, s'all."