Consciousness slammed Raidou like a kick to the head.

After four days spent doing almost nothing but sleeping--when he wasn't worrying, screaming, or so drugged the world seemed like a technicolour playhouse--he hadn't expected to spend long doing the REM dance, especially with Genma finally in sight.

Eight hours proved him wrong.

The heavy dose of painkillers probably helped. Likewise being able to finally lie on his right side without restraints to keep him flat. The slow, even tickle of breath ghosting over his palm, backed by the steady rhythm of a heart monitor counting out living beats, definitely helped.

He slept. If he dreamed, he didn't remember it.

Then knuckles hit wood, and something that was definitely not cognitive thought slammed red hot wakefulness straight down his spine. He jerked off the bed with a cardiac clench--machines shrilled a protest--and grabbed the first thing that looked remotely weapon-like.

An IV stand, as it turned out.

It made a hell of crash as it hit the door, trailing plastic lines and flinging bags of fluid everywhere. Genma woke up with a startled gasp, hand jerking in its restraint, and Raidou realized three very crucial things: they were in hospital, he'd probably attacked a strangely polite nurse, and he'd just torn his morphine drip out.

"Son of a bitch."

They might have had a point with the restraints. But his nerve-endings had finally caught up with current events and he was too busy trying to breathe to feel generous about it.

Panic was an emotion most ninja did their utmost to eliminate from their repertoires. It was a killer, because in a panic, a man didn't think. He was reduced to the level of a field mouse in the instant before the owl struck. Panic stole his humanity.

Panic left corpses in its wake.

Genma had managed to keep panic at bay through all of it, right until Sago had paralyzed him with a jutsu and held up those pliers. And even then he'd managed to think through the red fog of terror, plan his moment, and break that false, poison-filled tooth.

Even when Sago caught up to them at the end, he hadn't panicked: he'd acted. Maybe it was his inability to act now, that tripped the switch the other way.

Metal crashed against metal. Sago hurling his chakra-channeling tools against that bunker door.

Raidou's chakra flared like a shield next to him. Masked ninja emerging from a poison fog, as exploding tags detonated.

Genma's side lanced through with breath-taking pain. Raidou falling, lifeless, against his chest.

His hand twisted and flexed at junctures where no joints should be. Faceless Iwa interrogators, breaking another bone because Genma still wouldn't answer.

Raidou, face a mask of bandages and agony, hissed a stream of curses through clenched teeth. Sago moving in with his rake.

Genma surged up, reaching for Raidou. Then the pain in his hand caught up to him, as if some hitch in time had been released. He went bone white, staring at Raidou without quite seeing him. At least pain drove the panic away.

Something heavy slammed into the door as Hiro pushed it open. With a startled dodge, he intercepted a swinging bag of transfusion blood an inch before it hit his face, barely pulling back the automatic chakra-flow that would have splattered its contents over all four walls. He blinked the Byakugan active without thinking, then quickly clamped down the perimeter of his awareness before he had to run away from his debriefing subjects and revisit the sink across the hall.

What the Hell had happened here? All he'd done was knock on the door!

Shiranui Genma was as bloodless as the last time Hiro had seen him, whites showing in a ring around unfocused amber eyes. His--don't look at his hand, don't look--neck was bandaged, Hiro had seen that from the hallway, but now his constrained breaths came only in short, sharp pants.

Namiashi Raidou was curled into a pain-wracked ball, the last dregs of his remaining chakra fluctuating wildly. The handwritten note Hiro had found pinned on his stack of reports had said, don't separate them, don't talk about separating them, don't eventhinkabout them separately, and he noticed that Raidou was curled towards his mission partner, rather than away.

The two ninja were choked and silent, but their monitors echoed each other in a cacophonous, discordant cadence. The upset IV stand had burst fluid all over the floor.

Hiro didn't think about it twice. He reached over, pushed aside the oozing length of tubing that hung over the edge of Raidou's bed, and pressed the large red button to call the nurse.

Sanity returned with something that sounded a lot like, "Oh, for fuck's sake," as people rushed through the door.

Raidou lashed out at the first hand to touch him, but bandaged burns and a half-healed shoulderblade did a lot for slowing his reflexes, and the medic managed to dodge whilst turning him over. He grabbed the man's arm, felt vaguely familiar chakra, and looked up into a pair of calm blue eyes--a medic he almost recognized.

"Mornin', Namiashi-san. Getting a head start on the day, I see."

Raidou made a noise that had more in common with groaning than actual human speech. Sweat stung his half-closed eyes. On the other side of the bed, white-dressed shapes moved around Genma.

No.

He lunged. A gloved hand caught the juncture between the right side of his neck and his collarbone--the only place where scars and splintered bones hadn't left a mark--and brought him up short. Pain crashed down like a wave.

"Easy, buddy, we're Konoha medics. Remember us? Nice guys in white hats who try to stitch you poor bastards back together?"

A mellow voice said something from Genma's side of the bed.

"Guys and girls. My bad, Mitsuko." The hand against Raidou's neck pushed him gently but firmly back down to the mattress. He gritted his teeth, breath stuttering. Brain scrambling for understanding. "Atta boy. Take deep breaths. We're gonna get you all hooked back up and the world'll be a nicer place. Now if you just look that way..."

The hand lifted, then very carefully touched his temple, turning his head. Raidou flinched, fingers clenching a warning into the medic's muscled forearm.

"Easy. Just look. See, your partner's right there. Focus on that for a minute."

His eyes were closed again. He wrenched them open. The lights were still turned off, but fluorescence bathed the room from the open hallway door. Beeping machines scrawled green reflections into the air; little red lights flickered. It was enough to see Genma's face. The too-sharp angle of his jaw, dusted with a few days' worth of scruffy stubble. The translucent cast to waxen, sweat-sheened skin. Glazed, unseeing eyes, the golden-brown irises swallowed by wide blown pupils.

A sharp sting bit into his left wrist--the hand clamped around the medic's arm--but his right was already reaching for Genma, fingers skimming over the first bit of skin they could touch. Cloth-covered shoulder, bandaged throat, naked jawbone with a thready pulse flickering in its shadow.

"Don' you dare go anywhere, kid," Raidou rasped, choking out the words. "Promised to stay--with me."

Touch. There were hands touching him, pushing him back against the mattress, straightening one arm that clenched across his body, turning his head so that his neck wasn't twisted. Hands adjusting tubing running across his face, and the cold touch of oxygen hissing into dry nostrils. Hands checking IV placements, and injecting a strong narcotic. Hands on his hand, carefully checking delicate chakra seals and intricate splints.

Alarms shrilled: a chakra monitor wailed a warning, and another one--oxygen, maybe, or a disconnected IV line--warbled with it. Someone silenced them. Voices overhead. Get the brachial point in his left shoulder. How big a dose did you give him? You got that? Need a hand? Who's on call for Tadashi?

A jutsu sank into his flesh blocking all sensation of his left arm and hand. The drug took hold, lifting him out of his body.

Touch. One touch pulled him back. A touch of chakra, deep smoky green and crisp like pine needles. A touch of fingertips on his face. Genma's head turned towards it.

"That's it, good. Look at each other. Open your eyes, Genma. Genma." A woman's voice, sounding like his sister. Cold fingertips on his brow, brushing his hair back. "Genma, open your eyes. Can you open your eyes?"

Touch and pressure on his jaw, and Raidou's voice, sounding like grinding stone. Stay--with me.

Genma opened his eyes.

"Right here. Right here, Rai."

Hiro watched from the corner of the room, apart from the chaos, his Byakugan still active and cataloging every minute motion of pained limbs, every flicker of too-wide eyes; every skip of limpingly rhythmic hearts, and every surge of wisp-blue chakra almost too weak to see.

His mission had started from the moment he walked through the door.

What he saw were two ninja, reaching towards each other with all the strength that they didn't have. Two ninja, reassuring each other before they reassured themselves.

Don't even think about them separately, Kotoe-san had said; Kotoe-san was a very perceptive woman. They barely even thought about themselves separately anymore. It was obvious, if you knew where to look: every hitch of breath, every panicked lunge practically screamed it out. The threadbare words, scraped hoarse from throats worn with screaming--they didn't even scratch the surface.

He watched the medics bustle around the two pushed-together beds, and kept silent as they injected swift-acting narcotics into the veins of his main subject. He had waited for eight hours so far; he could wait a few more. Meanwhile he stood in his corner, and observed the slowly steadying heartbeats of two ninja, grown together like trees.

Disaster having been averted, the medics were already rushing out to their next task. The girl--Mitsuko--paused for a moment in front of the door, though, nodding respectfully on her way out; "Hyuuga-san," she murmured, and he inclined his head in return. An orderly tried to slide through in the medics' place, but he intercepted her as she froze gaping in the entrance-way, ushering her straight back out again and reassuring her that she could return later. He shut the door solidly on her rising exclamations of protest, and the room was returned to blessed hospital-silence. The monitors harmoniously chirped their contentment, and the two ninja were wholly absorbed in each other, barely even acknowledging his presence.

Hiro pulled up a chair, and settled in.

If the choice had been Raidou's, he would have lain still and watched Genma for the rest of his life. It was all he needed, in this moment of fragile peace. All he wanted.

But he wouldn't have been much of a ninja if he hadn't picked up on the quiet, watchful presence tucked away in the corner. Even through the haze of drugs--through the sheer relief at that brief flicker of awareness in amber-brown eyes--he felt the old, familiar itch scratch down his spine. The one that said: you're being watched.

He was too damn exhausted to tense up.

Genma's pulse beat slowly beneath his fingertips, measuring out steady beats of not-quite-sleep. His eyes were closed, now. Mouth relaxed and curiously vulnerable without the sharp guard of a senbon clenched between his teeth.

Right here, Rai.

Carefully, Raidou's thumb brushed the corner of cracked lips. Then he twisted, rolling onto his back with the aching slowness of a man who doesn't quite trust his body not to turn around and stab him. It only took one glance to confirm their voyeur was probably supposed to be there. Paperwork, carefully neutral expression covering a lingering tension, and a Hyuuga to boot--Raidou would have bet his entire paycheck the kid was Intel. Maybe T & I, but he didn't have the slightly haunted look that came with that particular gig.

Unless he was a sadist. But if the hospital were letting pain-lovers in to stare at their healing vets, Raidou was seriously over-estimating their basic level of intelligence.

"Want to take a picture?" he croaked, hand never leaving Genma's throat. "Lasts longer."

"Unfortunately, I highly doubt my superiors would accept a photograph in lieu of a report," Hiro tossed back with equally dry humor, keeping his voice low enough not to disturb Raidou's slumbering partner. Though Hiro had seen that dose of narcotic--until Genma burned it off, probably nothing short of a herd of stampeding genin would wake him.

Or potentially a threat to Raidou, given the state they were in now. But Hiro's chakra-flow was carefully contained and docile, and he certainly wasn't going to make any sharp movements. The only possible problem would be his chakra-suffused eyes, but he could hardly deactivate them when they were the reason he'd been assigned to this debriefing in the first place.

"So, now that you're back with us, you want to start by telling me what was so startling about a simple knock on the door?" Airy, light, unimportant; the answer itself didn't really matter, only the reactions drawn out along with it. Hiro kept his apparent gaze focused idly on an uninteresting corner of the bed-sheets, and watched closely.

Us, Raidou noted. Not just 'me'. Us. The kid thought he had some weight behind him.

Definitely Intel.

"No," he said flatly. The answer was obvious to anyone who thought about it for more than half a second. And he wasn't exactly in the mood to go around spelling things out for little Hyuuga punks with more entitlement than manners.

The medics had let him stay behind. As far as Raidou knew, they weren't letting anyone visit yet, which suggested the kid had a reason to be here...

Raidou groaned under his breath.

"I've been debriefed," he rasped, short and frustrated. "Several times, by someone a lot older and better qualified than you. The only thing I've got left to add is some recent firsthand experience on learning how to piss in bed, which you can find all about yourself if you tap the nearest medic on the shoulder."

And if the kid was here to talk to Genma, Raidou had a few more things to add. Like a short, sharp, highly pointed lecture on the merits of leaving sleeping ANBU the hell alone.

"Quite," Hiro retorted sourly, then sat back and shrugged. "I would comment on the futility of being short with Intel, but I'm actually here for your partner."

Raidou was right, of course--Hiro probably couldn't match Kotoe-san's level of skill, not without more practice. He did, however, have two distinct advantages. The first was, obviously, his white Byakugan eyes, active and able to catch every minute twitch, flinch, flicker of eyes, or racing of heartbeat. Just because Raidou knew about it--and was no doubt calling to mind every unsavory Hyuuga stereotype he could think of--didn't mean he could do anything about it.

The second advantage he had over Kotoe-san, far simpler but equally unwise to overlook, was that now Raidou was awake.

Still, there was no need to push, not on that portion of the task. He'd no doubt have plenty of opportunity to observe once Genma woke up. And really, Raidou had already told him most of what he needed to know: snarky ninja were, in general, sane ninja. That was something even Kotoe-san couldn't discern, on a subject drifting in and out of consciousness.

Which was why Genma needed to wake up soon. Because what he'd seen in those few moments, flaring in amber-brown eyes gone wild with terror and pain--

That hadn't seemed like any kind of sanity to him.

Raidou watched the kid; the kid leaned casually back on his elbows and studied the ceiling, apparently content to wait and count tiles until Genma woke up. After a long minute of silence, Raidou realized he'd been relegated to the position of a mildly annoying stick of furniture; ignorable, unless he did a particularly clever trick.

It was, in a word, irritating.

Even more so when he tried to grind his teeth and remembered he was missing a few. The faintest twitch of pale skin around milk-white eyes suggested the kid glanced at him when he hissed softly, but it was impossible to really tell.

On Genma's side of the bed, a heart monitor counted out a quiet, steady beep. The rhythm of semi-unconsciousness. It fluctuated once or twice, suggesting the barest flicker of a dream. Each time, Raidou's fingertips brushed against Genma's jugular pulse, trying to soothe it away. His eyes stayed fixed on the kid.

Unwilling to sleep with a stranger in the room, unwilling to look away even though he couldn't do anything about the brat, gathering boredom forced him to break the suffocating silence first.

"Got a name, kid?"

Hiro twitched, continuing the illusion that he'd actually been looking at the ceiling.

--Lovers. Were they lovers? They had to be. Did they?

Enough.

"I'm Hiro," he volunteered, then continued lightly. "Hyuuga, obviously. 'Kid,' if you really want to antagonize someone who might be your next debriefing agent."

Looking down--with Byakugan gaze still focused squarely on Raidou--he shuffled through his papers. "Really, is it necessary to be so defensive? As I recall, you're the one who threw the IV stand at me."

Hiro wasn't bored, but there were far better ways to pass the time than simply waiting. Especially when his subject was being so cooperative.

There was a little moment of silence. Raidou filled it by counting slowly backwards from ten, skipping four. There was already enough death in the air without him adding more.

It didn't really help.

"People skills aren't your strong point, are they, kid?" he said finally, crushing the urge to struggle up onto his elbows and bellow. "Or do you just enjoy trying to get a rise out of injured ninja? Because they've got a word for that kind of kink." Dryness trickled through his hoarse voice, adding a new depth of cynicism. "But if you've got a way to make my week worse, I'm all ears. You've got to be scarier than missing-nin torturers, right?"

The word came out of his throat without a catch. Anger (bitterness) was a marvellous thing.

Definitely still sane. Hair-trigger, not the most rational, and edging towards the border of hysteria--but sane.

That was a relief. Especially since it looked like Genma might need all the help he could get. Hiro's focus strayed briefly over to the side table--

crazed and shattered hands tremblingly clutching a cup of water

--and he stood, pouring Raidou a glass.

Hiro looked up calmly. "I'm Intel--of course people skills are my strong point." Let him make what he would of that.

"Delusions, maybe," snapped Raidou, watching as Hiro finally vacated his seat and got a lot closer than Raidou was comfortable with. But the kid was just reaching for water, pouring a glass from the jug that had been gathering dust at their bedside since who knew when. He offered it with one pale, entirely steady hand, holding the rest of himself just slightly out of reach.

Smart kid.

Almost.

Raidou gave him a look that would have been dry, if it weren't edging rapidly towards furious. "Did you take your brain out and play with it, brat? I can't drink anything cold, I'm definitely not taking a glass from someone I don't trust, and even if I didn't have half a gallon of drugs swimming in my blood, I wouldn't be able to lift myself up without a helping hand--and if you put one of those near me, you're going to lose it." Dark eyebrows drew together, casting shadows over a bruised, bandaged face. He coughed tightly, speaking more than he really had breath for. "Now back the fuck up."

Hiro raised both eyebrows and backed up quickly, holding both hands up placatingly. "Fine, fine, suit yourself." He walked backwards until he was out of the danger-zone, then settled back down in his chair precisely, sipping the--lukewarm--water.

"You realise there's no condensation on the pitcher, don't you? There's a button right there to lift your bed. And if you don't trust your own Intel agents, then I think you have a much bigger problem than a few broken bones."

A few shattered bones. Well, only one, really. And rippled burns overlaying burns, two crushed teeth, and more protective instinct than a cornered mother bear. But who was counting?

"Do you really need to see my tattoo? I'm not going to hurt your friend."

If Raidou had been younger, stupider, or anything other than entirely exhausted, he would have given into the surge of dull rage and slammed Hiro through the nearest wall, injuries be damned. But he wasn't and he was, and he was still functional enough to know that when a snotty little Intel flunky started pressing your buttons, there was usually a damn good reason for it.

He exhaled long and slow, and cracked his jaw until it stopped clenching. Then carefully, stiffly, ignoring the stretch and pull of bandages laid over warped flesh, he lifted his left hand and splayed out his fingers.

"Genjutsu, infiltration, revenge, sabotage--" Fingers folded down, one after another. "--general bat-shit craziness that comes with doing this for a living... Do you want me to keep going? Because I've got a hundred other reasons why it's in my best interest not to trust your scrawny ass half as far as I could throw it." He took another breath, coughing again, and cleared his throat roughly. "And I'm pretty damn certain that if I had decided to be sweet and grateful, you'd have marked me down as broken and useless. I've been in ANBU five years, Hyuuga Hiro-chan. The only way you're getting inside my head is with a mallet."

He dropped his hand, pressed his forearm hard into the mattress, and forced himself up three hard-won, nerve-screaming inches. Pinned Hiro's pale gaze with hot dark eyes, and glared.

"And you'd never get to hurt Genma. I'd snap you in half first."

Movement did what raised voices hadn't. Beneath his other hand--still held rock steady, even now--Genma's pulse jumped once, and ratcheted back to the land of the living.

This time when Genma woke, it was slower, layers of consciousness peeling back like onion skin as sensation penetrated. Raidou was there. That was the first thing. The most important thing. Maybe the only important thing. Raidou was there, chakra strong and present. Alive. Touching him.

There was discomfort, but not outright pain anymore. Drugs and jutsu still washed through him, filling his mouth with a taste of buttered honey, slowing reactions. They were still in the hospital. Raidou was right there, fingers touching Genma's throat, thumb stroking up and down the edge of his jaw.

There was tension in Raidou's chakra. Tension in those fingers. His voice came rasping through the fog, fierce and defiant. Angry.

Genma opened his eyes.

Raidou was shaking, shoving himself back against the headboard. His head was turned away. Genma lifted his own head to follow Raidou's gaze. By the door was a small, dark-haired young man in uniform greys, with a clipboard. A Hyuuga. Haruichi? No. Genma had a sense of deja vu.

"I know you," he whispered. "Rai?" What was the kid's name? Why was Raidou so tense? If the Hyuuga agent--what was his name?--had done something... But what could he have done? "Rai? What's going on?"

Calm down, Raidou, before you disturb Genma, too, Hiro thought desperately.

"Genma, you know me--Hyuuga Hiro. Intel. Remember?"

Not great memories, but not horrible either, he supposed. Compared to this debriefing, that one had been D-class cat-chasing--with the Byakugan. No real fights, no name-calling, no stupidly making injuries worse in order to present a pathetically intimidating front. He'd apparently gotten off easy.

"They sent me to do your debriefing, since I'm a familiar face." A familiar Hyuuga face. "Raidou was worried about you."

He sent Raidou a sideways, cautionary look while Genma was still blinking in hazy sleep- and pain-glazed incomprehension. Let it go, for now. Just let it go.

Son of a bitch.

Hidden from Genma's view, Raidou's lips skinned away from his teeth. Seal-covered bandages pulled, creasing as blistered flesh moved beneath them. Pain tore into his face. He stifled a yell, left hand clenching in the rumpled sheets, and dropped back down to the mattress. For the first time, his fingers jerked away from Genma's throat.

Raidou was worried about you. Like he was on Hiro's side. Like he'd just roll over and let the little bastard use his name as a way to worm into Genma's good graces. Like he'd see that milk-eyed, tight-faced look and back down--

To stop Genma panicking.

Raidou's eyes squeezed closed. Genma's voice lifted with alarm.

"It's okay, fearless," he rasped, hating himself. "Intel--just want to ask some questions."

Raidou's sudden tension, the strangled sound he made as breath stopped against a straining throat, the way he fell back, combined with the flare of chakra, forest green brightening like lightning through evergreens, was more than enough to get Genma's heart racing.

Then Raidou's hand jerked away. Connection lost.

"Rai? Rai!" He tried to turn towards Raidou, cursing at his weakness, the tangling IV lines, the sling that held his hand--he wasn't thinking about his hand.

Raidou's voice was low and gritty, no more soothing than sandpaper would have been over his burns.

"They can fucking well ask later," Genma snarled. He couldn't reach Raidou. Couldn't see his face.

"Hiro? I remember you. What the fuck?" What had the Hyuuga done? His memory was a little disjointed, but all Genma recalled of the last time he'd talked to Hiro was reasonable. What had he said to piss Raidou off so much?

Genma strained to reach Raidou with his right hand, managing eventually to touch the bed rails. "Raidou? You okay? What did he ask you? Are you okay?"

Hiro ducked his head. "I just offered a cup of water, like I did for you before--his throat sounded dry. I guess I got too close."

Like hell he had. But chagrined, apologetic, frustrated--he could be any of those, if it worked to calm them down. That was the thing about running a debriefing--that however much you might pretend to be their friends, if it got you what you wanted... you weren't. It didn't matter what they thought of him in the end, so long as they told him what he needed to know. Didn't matter if they thought he was stupid, incompetent, or cruel.

There was a reason why, for bad missions, ANBU agents rarely drew the same debriefer twice.

Also probably the reason why the full-time debriefers are so unpleasant to be around. I'm glad I'm a field agent.

"Look, I'm not going to ask anything until you guys get yourselves settled. The medics said you were cleared for debriefing, so that's why I'm here. But if you're not feeling well..." He trailed off uncomfortably. "Well, I'd offer to leave, but I can't actually do that until I get my report. I can wait, though," he volunteered.

Someone else's screw up--you know how that goes. So sorry. Not my fault. Please believe it, and don't clam up on me now.

The medics had said they'd been clear for debriefing eight hours ago. Hiro trusted Kotoe-san far more. Still, she hadn't turned him away; they must be in a stable enough mental condition, as well as physical.

Now, if he could just manage to ask the right questions.

Oh sure, now the brat was playing nice. Raidou choked down a snarl--

If you're not feeling well...

Like they were children.

--and hauled himself over, pressing his broken shoulderblade into the mattress, facing Genma. His right arm was stiff and painful, connected to recently splintered bones, but he didn't need to move it far. He reached out and wrapped calloused, broken-nailed fingers around Genma's wrist, stopping that groping hand short. Weak chakra flared beneath his touch.

"I'm fine," he grated, finding Genma's wide eyes. Making it true. "I'm completely fine. He's just an annoying little snot. He didn't do anything."

Nothing career-ending, anyway. ANBU were supposed to be tough, especially handlers and back-up men. Hiro was well within his rights to kick at a fracture and see what shattered.

Raidou just didn't have to like it.

"Good," Genma breathed. He felt a weight lifted with Raidou in contact once more. Felt himself starting to wake up more fully, struggling through the narcotic cobwebs that clouded his thinking. "Good." He took a deeper breath, felt it catch under broken ribs, and held it a moment, then let it out in a shallow pant, on a soft, pain-filled sound. "Fuck. OK, fuck."

Raidou was fine. Everything was fine. So fine, in fact, they'd been cleared for debriefing.

Why had they sent this kid for it, though? "Last time I saw that kid it was for a debriefing," he told Raidou. "And he was definitely little, but not all that annoying or snotty. I don't think. Actually I was kind of out of it. You showed up after, remember? It was after that mission I had with that rookie, a couple weeks ago."

That was a lot of words for a man who couldn't take a deep breath. Genma let his eyes drift out of focus for a moment, seeing nothing but a blur of Raidou's bandaged face on the other side of a pair of bed rails. Breathe through your nose he remembered. Nurses telling him. Him telling someone else. Oxygen made pain recede, sharpened his thoughts.

He lifted his head a bare few millimeters, to peer over Raidou's shoulder, then dropped back. "I can't believe they want to debrief us already. I mean, shit. We just got back." It suddenly occurred to Genma that he didn't know that. Not at all. "Didn't we?"

"It's been four days," Hiro interjected softly. "We couldn't wait any longer."

Genma hadn't woken up at all? Last he knew, they'd been physically stabilized, but Kotoe-san had sent him away. But--that had been more than eight hours ago! If Genma hadn't woken up again, why had they let him in so early?

Well, he'd answered his own question. They couldn't wait any longer.

He took a deep, slow breath. "I can update you on the current situation, if you want. My information is probably more recent than what you've heard." Flipping through his pile of paperwork, he pulled out his copy of the field operatives' report.

"Four days?" Genma's eyes widened. Raidou nodded. "Four days? What... What..." Genma looked away, trying to recall anything after that desperate translocation. He got what came before instead. There was Sago bearing down on them, burned, choking. Raising that hammer.

Genma swallowed dryly, nauseated. Pain flared through the drugs.

Raidou driving the handle of a katana into Sago's throat. Raidou flying lifeless towards him. Tearing his hand out of the sling to grab at Raidou...

His eyes flicked wildly up towards his hand, encased in metal and bandages. The jutsu that had numbed it was wearing off.

The heart monitor picked up its staccato symphony; Genma's breaths came shallower and quicker.

Raidou's hand on his wrist tightened. Alive. Raidou was alive.

"Four days." He swallowed again, throat choked and dry. "Sago... Sago... I didn't finish him. I ran. Had to run. He, he--"

"He's dead," Raidou cut in short and fast, desperate to throw a dam across that rising tide of panic. "Kid, look at me. He's dead. They sent a team back to track him down and kill him. He's not even dust anymore." At least, that's what the green-eyed nurse had told him. And he had no reason to believe she'd lie.

And if she had, he'd take it anyway. They needed that much.

"You sure?" Genma's voice was raw, his chakra flickering uncertainly. He was trying to pull it back, keeping himself together. "What about the others?"

Raidou didn't know. He didn't hesitate, either. "Dead, too. They're all gone. It's just us, kid, and we're fine." If he could have, he would have fallen onto Genma's bed and dragged the other man into a fierce, protective hug. Shielded him from everything. But Genma's tethered hand wouldn't allow it, his broken ribs wouldn't bend, and Raidou didn't have the strength to lift himself again.

"C'mon," he encouraged hoarsely, tightening his fingers around that hummingbird pulse, "you know the drill. Just stick with me. Answer a couple questions. Don't think too hard. Okay?"

For the barest millimetre of a breath, he broke eye-contact to twist and glare at the little Intel agent still standing in the corner. Don't you dare tell him otherwise. Then his focus was back on Genma, determined not to let him fall apart.

Hiro froze, and thought very, very fast.

It wasn't Raidou's glare--that didn't matter. He would do what he thought was best, as the ranking Intel agent present, and what could Raidou do about it? Certainly not hurt him, as he seemed to be threatening, and it wasn't as if they were friends. He didn't have to "play nice."

But one of the ranking, incontrovertible rules of Intel debriefings was, don't lie. Trust was one of the most important commodities that a ninja had, and one of the hardest to regain when lost. Paranoia was all well and good, but without trust, what did you have?

Not a village, that was for sure.

As a debriefing agent, Hiro was representing, not only himself, but the entire Intel division. If Hiro lied and Genma found out--which he would: that kind of mundane, unimportant-except-to-one-person secret was impossible to keep contained--then the damage done would encompass them all. Genma's usefulness as an agent would be seriously compromised.

Unless Genma understood. Accepted the lie, and realized it was necessary. Was he rational enough to do that? Hiro didn't know.

But was he sane enough to tolerate the truth? No, a little voice in Hiro's head whispered.

His Byakugan was still active. He looked at Genma, just for an instant.

Shuddering, rabbit-quick heartbeat, pulsing fragilely within its broken enclosure. Lungs straining, barely able to draw enough breath. And on the outside--don't look at his hand!--his limbs trembled, pupils flared, and his equally-broken partner's low, steady voice was the only thing keeping him together.

Maybe he could handle it--ninja were strong, and ANBU were steel. Maybe his partner would be able to carry him through it; maybe he'd break, and Raidou would catch him. In an ordinary situation, maybe Hiro would chance it--it was the way things were done.

But Raidou had forced the issue. Told the lie. And if Hiro countermanded that statement now...

I hope you realize you may be costing me my career.

Hiro nodded, tight and small. "Raidou's right. They're all dead."

Genma knew how to do this. Knew the rules. He'd done it for Raidou; Raidou had done it for him countless times. Countless wakings from nightmares with only a vague grasp on the present. He'd watched Raidou's pupils ringed round with whites, while Raidou'd struggled not to feel long-ago acid eating into his skin. Raidou had held Genma's shoulders steady while Genma'd cradled his hands to his chest and shaken in a too-dark room. Stick with me. Stay with me. Breathe. Don't think too hard.

He let the rise and fall of Raidou's chest set the pace. In. Out. In. Out. Let the catch and wheeze in his own ground him. Broken ribs. Every ninja had broken ribs at some point or another. It was familiar. He'd talked a hundred injured shinobi through steadying their breaths so they got enough air into aching lungs. Breathe through your nose, you have oxygen on.

He licked dry lips. "Good. That's good. Someone went after them?" Four days. Someone must have gone after them. There had been more than just a skeleton crew at that temple waystation. They'd had hawks, must have sent for ANBU backup as soon as they had him and Raidou on stretchers. He remembered a gruff voice that had turned soft--Hang in there, soldier. You're safe here.--then commanding--Get another light over here! We've got two down.

"We already thought Sago was dead before we ran into him, Rai, and we were wrong. They have proof this time? I know he was wounded. He'd gotten some of my poison, he was coughing. You hit him hard, he was going down when I jumped us out of there. He couldn't have run far."

It had to be true. It had to. Backup from the temple had to have killed him. Sago had to be dead. All of them, dead.

"You have proof? We left two alive, Rai. We left two alive. At least two. Maybe there were more we never saw at all. Maybe they were on patrol." The words tumbled out fast and raw. It wasn't panic now, but it wasn't calm either. It was mission thinking, paranoid conjecture that the enemy had deceived you and still lurked. It was logic fitted to a ninja's violent life.

Don't think to hard. Okay? Raidou's hand on his wrist was a solid weight, his thumb a slow, steady pressure, moving back and forth in time with his breaths. In... Out... In... Out..

Genma's breathing slowed, his pulse steadied. He met Raidou's eyes. "God damn, Rai. Four days?"

Raidou caught his breath on a single hitching laugh. "Yeah, kid," he said, relief almost strangling him. "Four days. And I spent all of it with my ass in a sling, waiting for you to wake up. Next time, I want to be the unconscious one."

Another lie. He'd rather set his back against the wall than see Genma do it, every time. But after ninety-seven hours without that normally-drawling, always-level voice to steady the world, it was a chest-crushing release to make anything like a joke.

Hiro had backed him up. It was almost enough to make him forgive the brat.

Almost.

But there were questions to answer first--Genma's questions, which were a damn sight more important than Intel's. At least for the next few minutes. He kicked his ragged thoughts back into something like coherence, trying to think around drugs and gnawing anger. Worry that wouldn't fade. Pain.

Genma wanted proof. To be damn honest, so did Raidou.

In the end, he shrugged with one burned, seal-bandaged shoulder. "Don't borrow trouble, fearless. We're home, we're still breathing. And if the bastards left behind friends suicidal enough to come after us, they'd have to go through a whole ninja village first." He forced a crooked smile, reassuring as he could make it. "Not to mention me. Or did you forget I always have your back?"

Hiro watched them, having apparently turned invisible again without even a jutsu. Watched as Raidou's thumb slid smoothly along the skin of Genma's intact wrist, and Genma stared at Raidou like his eyes could bridge the distance between them.

He'd made the right decision. He had. Raidou hadn't given him a choice.

Don't even think about them separately.

Genma needed to trust Intel, as every ninja did--but right now, he needed to trust Raidou even more. Hiro didn't need the Byakugan to see that.

"There's proof," he cut in quietly, even and slow so as not to startle. "It's over at Intel, for analysis."

There was proof, for the ones that were actually dead. Sago's body had been sanitarily disposed of in the field, Intel's report said, but there were certain... requirements... to claim the Bingo Book reward--especially since Sago had already been claimed as dead once before. He imagined that Genma and Raidou wouldn't want to see that particular proof, though--or if they did, he didn't think it was a good idea to show it to them.

Unless it was. But in any case, he considered that Psych's problem, not his.

Besides that grisly trophy, they'd recovered Sago's two summon-chests--T&I and Intel were currently squabbling over who had first claim on them--and a pile of slashed hitai-ate for their records and to soothe the families of the fallen.

Two were missing.

From Kotoe-san's debriefing report and the field agents' descriptions of the bodies, the missing-nin medic and another of Sago's assistants--the one Raidou had consistently referred to as "Green-eyes"--had escaped. Ordinarily they'd be considered of little account--missing-nin, especially from the village of Mist, were not so uncommon that it was worthwhile to track those two as opposed to any others.

Somehow, he didn't think Genma and Raidou would see it that way.

Still, what was done was done. Hopefully Kotoe-san would understand; she'd seen the two of them together. And if she didn't understand, thought he'd done the wrong thing... Well, he'd just have to deal with that when he came to it. As Raidou said, there was no sense borrowing trouble.

"If you don't have any more questions, may I start the debriefing now? I assume we all--" particularly those waiting impatiently back at Intel "--would like to get this done as soon as possible."

Genma took another slow, shallow breath through his nose. Closed his eyes and opened them. Raidou was still there. Raidou had his back. And the rogue Mist ninja were dead; Intel had proof. That had to count for something. Four days was a long time--plenty of time for a new squad to be sent out to deal with their unfinished business. He pursed his lips and hissed out something like a sigh.

"Shiranui Genma, 010203, and Namiashi Raidou, 009717, reporting mission failure, for--" He paused, felt his throat tighten a moment, then free again. It was over and the Mist nin were dead. Sago was dead. And there was nothing he could do for Yukaho or her team but see to it they were honored as heroes. "For rescue attempt of Hara Yukaho and her three genin. I..." He faltered again, looking lost at Raidou.

"I don't remember the mission number. I don't even know what day it is. What fucking day is it?" His voice rose tense and quick.

Raidou's chakra washed over his skin, a protective swell from his point of contact with Genma's wrist. "Thursday? I think it's Thursday, fearless," he said, and rattled off the missing mission number.

"Thursday," Genma echoed. He listened to the steady beeping of monitors, watched Raidou's eyes tracking him. "Mission failed," he said more quietly. "I... I had her tags. Had Yukaho-san's tags. I don't know what happened to them after we--" were captured. Were stripped and manacled and-- His eyes bored into Raidou, seeing past bandages to fresh, weeping burns blistering in the wake of Sago's rake. "We lost our equipment."

He thought of Yukaho's naked, brutalized body, and the bodies of those children half sunk in bloody mire. A little girl Haruko's age, with her arm and half her ribcage severed from her body. A boy with a snapped neck and glassy, sightless eyes.

"They died fighting. There were no survivors."

Questions and answers--a stumbling account of everyday brutality.

As Genma spoke, some of the tension in Hiro's shoulders finally relaxed infinitesimally. This he was familiar with. This he could do.

Brutal as it was, it was routine.

"Their bodies were recovered, and returned to their families." He related the facts in a newscaster's voice; gentle, but distant and unattached. This room didn't need any more emotion. "The team recovered their tags, too, in the bunker along with your things. Your equipment is being held at Intel right now, but I can have it brought over if you want to see it."

He paused. Should he, or not? Raidou might not appreciate it, coming from him, but--

"Your tags. I have them here, if you want." Slowly, he pulled them out of a pocket of his uniform.

He hadn't given them back earlier because Genma had been unconscious and Raidou had been irrational, but maybe it would help. Certainly, in the discussion to come, they'd need something from the present to hold on to.

Though--don't think about them separately--at least they had each other.

That was proof. The last time Raidou had seen their dogtags, they'd been hanging from Sago's belt-loop, clinking faintly each time the big man had swung a blow--

And that was not the thing to think about. It went right up there with dead kids, dead sensei, and four funerals they'd never make it to. He could already see the unfading horror in amber-brown eyes, a permanent watermark beneath the mission report mindset Genma was struggling to keep. It didn't need a mirror in his own.

Besides, Raidou had been awake four days already. Mostly conscious, in between the bouts of drugs-delirium and nightmares about Genma's name on the stone. Long enough to start crushing the memories down, locking them into a place where they didn't hurt anymore.

He'd given his report. When Genma was done, neither one of them would ever have to think about it again.

"Bring 'em over," he rasped, and left his chakra ghosting over Genma's skin as he turned his head (carefully, only halfway, measuring how much pain he could take) to bring Hiro back into his line of sight. Twin sets of metal and chains hung from one pale hand, twisting to catch the light. He could almost see his own name pressed into scratched steel. It'd be impossible to genjutsu something as mundanely precise as that familiar pattern of damage.

Sago was dead.

And Raidou wasn't thinking about him.

"Slowly," he added, lifting his left hand. At his side, Genma's breath rasped in his dry throat. "And we'll take that water, too. If you bring a medic in."

Hiro didn't twitch. Not an inch, not a fractional change in expression. Not a thing to remind Raidou that he'd just made a concession.

Instead he approached the bed, gradually and carefully, two sets of year-worn dogtags dangling intertwined from his loosely-curled grip. They swung together slowly, their metallic collisions achingly loud against the fadeaway backdrop of machine noise and sudden silence. Hiro held them out far in front of him like an offering to a wild animal that might bite or bolt at any time, and watched Raidou's eyes locked on him warily the entire way.

Neither looked away until Hiro steadily settled the tags into Raidou's painfully outstretched hand, and stepped back.

Turning towards the pitcher of water, his back towards the hospital beds, Hiro finally started to breathe again.

Genma watched Hiro's approach and retreat with guarded eyes, picking up on Raidou's apprehension. When the handoff was complete, Hiro stepping away and Raidou turning back towards him, he let his breath go. Raidou held the tags on their familiar steel chains, clutched carefully in his big, calloused hand as if the metal might snap. He looked at them a long moment, then carefully disentangled them and turned with a groan to stretch them out towards Genma.

They hung from tough-skinned, blunt-tipped fingers like amulets. Proof that they were still alive. Genma pulled his wrist free from Raidou's grasp and strained to reach for them, brushing his own scar-marked fingertips against them, making them clink and sway like wind chimes. He managed to grab Raidou's, running his thumb over the raised type, while he stared at his own, reading name, reg number, birthdate. Blood type.

His gaze twitched to the IV taped into the back of his hand, and the thick tube filled with rich blood. A-positive. And Raidou's was AB. He didn't have to look at Raidou's tags to know it. His thumbnail caught on the letters: AB POS. He wondered whose blood it was giving color to Raidou's cheeks, keeping his own heart beating.

"Guess we're really still here, Rai. I don't think they give you your tags in the Pure Land. Course I also don't think it's supposed to hurt this much there." He chuckled dryly, eyes searching Raidou's. "You hear that? Intel's got our stuff. We're never gonna get it back now."

If Raidou had been a religious man, he would have offered up a fervent thank you to the nearest available deity for that spark of battered, unbroken humour in Genma's eyes. The faint curve of cracked, dry lips that meant he could breathe again. Because there was laughter on the air, shaken and shivered thin, but there, and it was all Genma's.

"Guess we'll have to get new stuff," he croaked. "We can make the Quartermaster have his own little stroke. I think the bastard owes me one anyway, after the last fit he pitched."

Genma still hadn't taken his tags. His crooked fingers were wrapped around Raidou's, warming the metal as he traced out the letters. Raidou held his aching arm still, trying to quiet the shiver that was starting to work through muscle and bone. Along his left side, bandaged burns pulled.

"Kid--" It came out something like a choked grunt as his voice hit its lowest register and bottomed out. Genma's eyes widened; quickly, he unhooked his dogtags and pulled them free, tangling them around his wrist. Raidou let his arm drop, dogtags and chain clattering as they hit the sheets. He let out a ragged breath.

Behind him, the sound of pouring water had long since ended. But there was no sign of a medic to prove everything was kosher. Either Hiro wasn't familiar with Intel's occasional practice of using drugs to loosen a pained agent's uncooperative tongue, or he was being deliberately annoying.

Or Raidou was just paranoid.

He closed his hand around his tags, feeling the edge of metal he hadn't taken off for years press against his palm, and decided he was okay with that.

"Medic, Intel-brat." Genma's eyes clouded with confusion; Raidou flicked a glance in Hiro's general direction, explaining. "New water. Warm water. D'you need to write this down?"

Hiro turned back towards the paired hospital beds, his thickly-veined eyes firmly shuttered and clear of emotion. Behind them, though, discomfort was building rapidly. No matter what Raidou thought of him personally--he didn't care!--he couldn't just allow Raidou to treat him this way. If Hiro was acting on his own it wouldn't matter, but in this case the precedent would be completely unacceptable: he was representing not an individual, but a position.

The field agents could hate Intel all they liked, as far as Hiro was concerned, but debriefers had to have respect.

Kotoe-san should have stayed, he thought with a growing edge of desperation. Or someone else--anyone else. The fact was, gaining respect was not where his skills lay. He was, at heart, an Intel field agent: unassuming and inconspicuous, far more likely to under-inspire and over-perform than the other way around. In many cases that was exactly what was called for; in this case it seemed to have utterly backfired. There were others, older and more intimidating--and taller-- who would have been much better suited for this task.

He corralled his thoughts firmly before they could continue spiraling down that path. Because it wasn't entirely true, not at all. With Genma--who was, after all, the assigned subject of this debriefing--his methods had worked fine. The last time, once he'd accurately sized up the situation and Genma's state of mind, he'd managed to put the injured and mission-wary ninja at his ease well enough. In this case--even though the circumstances were far worse, even after reading Kotoe-san's cautionary report--he'd felt confident going in that he could do the same.

Now, with Raidou's disparagement clear for even Genma to see, he no longer felt anywhere near so sure.

Still, he had to handle it. It was his mission, every bit as crucial as any midnight reconnaissance or wartime "retrieval" he'd ever been on. If he didn't do it, who would?

Setting down the refilled cup of water, his hand didn't shake. "I'll go get a medic, if you'll excuse me." Smooth glassy tones, fluid and in control, neglected to provide Raidou's comment with the validation of any direct response. But, stepping with Hyuuga grace over a spilled puddle of IV fluid and slipping momentarily out of the hospital room, Hiro thought--with considerable intensity--that now would be a great time for a brilliant flash of insight.

As usual, his eyes failed to oblige.

"What'd he do to piss you off so much, Rai?" Genma lifted his hand again, still clutching his dog tags, and reached for his friend. "You hurting bad?"

He probably was. Genma hurt like a son of a bitch. The more he was awake, the more he became aware of every single injury, from the most serious--his hand (not thinking about his hand) and something terribly wrong deep in his chest and abdomen--to the least--scabbed-over scrapes on his knuckles, a bruise at the edge of his jaw. And every injury in between. There was a tight pull on his hip where a sword had bitten in. There was the ache in his throat, and the sharp sting of deep cuts, where the garotte wire had dug deep. There were a hundred little insulting cuts and bruises, some chakra-healed, some stitched.

He groaned, and let his hand fall away from its reach for Raidou. "I feel like shit warmed over. You too, right? You look like it."

He looked, now that Genma was awake enough to assess, terrible. Even with bandages hiding most of the damage, it was the hunted look in Raidou's eyes that was so very bad. He reached again for the rail. "Come on, Rai. We made it, right? We just gotta get through a debriefing, and a little healing. Then I'm taking you out for beers and that movie. The one with the dinosaurs."

We get home--there's a movie I wanna go see--with you. Horror flick. Think it's based on--Orochimaru. Guy resurrects dinosaurs.

A picture perfect memory of a half-throttled promise and Raidou was back in chains, watching Genma watch him. Hearing his friend force out plans for the future because giving up now was less of an option than dropping dead. Seeing Genma take a blood-cracked breath, before he'd ordered Raidou to stand.

It was like the edge a flashback--might have been the real thing if he'd had the energy. But it washed away like a greasy film, rolling off broken-burned shoulders, and left the landscape unchanged. His heart monitor fluttered, once, then settled back down. Scarred, crooked fingers barely caught around the bedrail. Raidou focused on them.

He'd been strong then. He could be strong now.

I'm taking you out for beers and that movie.

And later, when Genma could walk and Raidou could look at another person without seeing threat, he'd relax. Breathe again. Might even let Genma be the strong one, just for five minutes.

Moving carefully, he offered his right wrist back to Genma's hand, wary of his own cracked shoulderblade. Warier still of jostling older, long-healed breaks in those reaching fingers.

"Beer and dinosaurs," he said hoarsely. "I'm holding you to that. And don't worry about the Intel punk; he hasn't done anything worse than make me want to kick his ass a few times around the Hokage's palace."

Genma let his tags dangle from their chain wrapped around his wrist, and eased his fingers around Raidou's wrist and hand instead. He felt heavy bones, strong tendons, scabbed, work-rough skin. He traced metacarpals up to Raidou's fingers, and wrapped his own around them. His eyes were trained on Raidou's face. On coffee-brown pupils with too-wide irises.

It was there. It was just under the surface, making Raidou's heart skip beats and his eyes dart. It was in Genma, too, but closer to the surface for Raidou right now. He'd been awake longer. He'd had more time to sit and try not to think. Try not to remember. And here was this kid from Intel, just doing his job, no doubt, tearing scabs off fresh wounds. Giving it fuel to grow.

Genma could feel it wrapped around his spine. Could see it in Raidou's haunted face. He took a breath that shook on its way back out, and quirked chapped lips into a smile.

"Let me handle the kid. I had him for a debriefer before." His fingers on Raidou's squeezed softly. "I'll turn on the charm, right? Maybe he's a closet case."

A rasping, breathless sound cut the air. It took Raidou a second to figure out it was coming from his own throat, and a second longer to realize it was laughter. He twisted his head carefully, half smothering the noise in his pillow, and looked at Genma with warmer eyes. Relieved eyes.

"Have you seen you lately? You'll scare the poor bastard into an early casket." The right side of his mouth twisted up, echoing Genma's crooked smile. "'Course, that might not be a bad thing..."

And Genma knew the kid. He'd said it before, but Raidou hadn't really been paying attention. He was now, though. Focusing on it, grabbing hold of it. In the same way that Genma's hand was grabbing onto his own, while Genma's voice firmed around steady, certain words.

And Raidou believed him.

It was probably a mark of how tired he was, he thought later, that he didn't stop to question it. Didn't think anything but thank god and thank you, and let his eyes slide closed for half a breath, fingers tightening carefully around Genma's warm grip. Other hand still holding body-warm metal: proof of a dead ninja. Maybe he'd let that five minutes happen a lot sooner...

"f'you turn him," he mumbled, "bastard's still not coming to the movies with us."

"No fucking way," Genma agreed. "That's just for me and you. Like a date, no third wheels." He held still, listening to Raidou breathe and the soft chirp of monitors in a staccato harmony. There was a subtle change in Raidou's face, an easing of the lines around his mouth, maybe. A slight slackening of the tension in his throat.

"Rest up, Rai. I've got this watch." He'd said it a hundred times if he'd said it once. Or heard Raidou say it to him. There was a rhythm to it, a cadence. My watch, yours is over for now. I've got this one so you can get the next one. It was like breathing. Natural, calming. A ritual, like prayer. Lighting the joss sticks and clapping your hands...

Genma caught the inside of his lip between his teeth and flexed his fingers in Raidou's.

Like a prayer.

When the door opened and he heard two sets of footsteps, he looked up, lifting his head from the pillow. Raidou stirred, starting to mumble something, tensing under Genma's hand.

"S'okay, Rai," Genma said softly. "It's just the debriefer. He brought one of the nurses like you asked." He gave the nurse and Hiro an imploring look. "You think you can let him sleep? I'll do the debrief with you."

Could he let Raidou sleep? Yes. Yes he could. Hiro nodded, accepting, and crossed around to the other side of the pushed-together beds. The nurse shook her head, eyes sparking with both veiled amusement and respect, and slipped back out the door.

The atmosphere in the room was completely different from when he'd left it, full of tension and wild-animal waiting. Now, hushed and still, it almost held an aura of quiet sanctity. Hiro's motions as he pulled over a chair and resettled his papers were utterly silent, not a rustle or a screech or even the sound of a breath.

Silent, he could do. This, he could do.

"Now," he asked Genma--in a low tone containing not even a fraction of his complete and utter relief-- "could you start from the beginning?"

Genma shifted gingerly against the pillows, trying to keep Hiro in his line of sight without letting go of Raidou's hand. His left hand in its sling limited him to a few degrees of freedom in any case, but there was no way to lie flat on his back and still hold on. For a moment his fingers slipped, and Raidou made a low sound, eyes still closed, reaching to pull him back.

Genma shifted again, getting a more solid grip on Raidou's fingers. It meant turning his head away, to talk to Hiro, but that was a minor concern.

"At approximately three in the morning, on Wednesday, March twenty-six, Raidou and I were awakened for an urgent tracking mission, to answer a distress call from Hara Yukaho."

He could do this. Had done this a thousand times, for a thousand missions, telling the debriefers what they needed to hear. And this time they knew already. Sago was dead. Sago's team was dead.

"We set out after a rapid briefing, at around three-thirty. Got to the area where her distress call came from just after daybreak."

Raidou was right there, hand in his hand, as safe as Genma and Konoha could make him.

Sago was dead.

"It started to rain..."