If Asuma's rambling chatter wasn't the first clue, the way he trailed off into panting silence should have been. Distracted by the burn in her lungs, the slow shredding of her foot-wrappings, the increasing pain in her chest and her desperate longing for a bra, Natsumi barely noticed. He was keeping up; that was all that really mattered.

And then he wasn't.

He'd stumbled before; they both had. They rolled back to their feet and pushed on with a breathless joke, a forced laugh. But this time Asuma hit hard, grunting in pain as he caught himself a second too late. He'd barely made it up to his knees by the time Natsumi turned back for him. He was gasping for breath, and sweat dampened his hair and glimmered on his bruise-darkened chest.

Natsumi was only a few degrees above frozen.

She hesitated just within reach, hoping against hope. "Do you need to rest? Water?" Her cold fingers scrabbled for the canteen. "This isn't a good place to stop." The wind funneled through the trees to snarl in her tangled hair and claw at her bare shoulders, and the trees were sparse here, with no shelter in sight. "Can I give you a hand up?"