Asuma started to arch his eyebrows--talk, woman; I don't speak dog!--but the movement of skin over much-abused skull bones did nothing good. He winced, then deliberately relaxed his face.

The medic's eyes sharpened, like a hound spotting a hare. His hands twitched, then quickly stilled. He darted a glance at Tsume, a second at Asuma, and then abruptly folded his arms, expression turned stubborn.

Asuma snorted softly. "If you have a rising urge to do your job, I'd give into it. The worst I'll do is snap you in half if you get it wrong." He smiled toothily, then winced again.

The medic made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. Tsume answered with a growl that started low and rose like the tide, wild and spine-tingling. Asuma felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift. Ancient, extinct races had heard sounds like that, right before they'd become extinct.

"Okay, okay," snapped the medic, turning pale. He jabbed a finger at Asuma. "Look up towards the lantern."

Asuma gave the man a warning glance, then did as ordered. The light stung his eyes, making him squint, but the medic cast a swift shadow as he came over, setting his hands on either side of Asuma's jaw and gently turning his head. Little sparks of pain cracked off, sharp and biting even around the codeine's numbing touch. Asuma gritted his teeth.

"Hold still," the medic ordered, peering into his eyes. Sun-beaten fingers felt carefully around his forehead, sliding beneath the Guardian Twelve band, and then slid through his matted hair. Asuma's breath hitched every time a bruise or raised lump came under tactile scrutiny; how many times had he been hit in the head?

He was just about to shake the medic off when the man's fingers found the most recent injury to the back of his skull, where Gurou had headbutted him down to the deck, and pressed. Something grated. Asuma's vision sparked and whited out, agony lashing through his head. He cried out, grabbed for the table, felt hands grab him in return, and didn't hear the savage snarl when forty pounds of furious muscle and fur slammed into the medic's chest and dropped him to the planks.

"-kull fracture! It's a skull-bloody-fracture! Get off me, you raving lunatic!"

Found the table, Asuma realized dizzily, when vision came back and he discovered himself half-lying on it. He swallowed hard. From the floor, snarls and yells rose up. A yelp suggested teeth had found flesh.

"Oh, flaming Buddha," muttered a voice from the door. Asuma twisted painfully to see himself standing in the threshold, arms full of medicinal supplies and something that looked like a crewman's shirt. "Did I miss something interesting?"

"Skull fracture," Asuma croaked. He managed a kick under the table and hit something that might have been Tsume's flank. "Don't kill him. I'm still alive."

Tsume took one sidestep to catch her balance after Asuma off-set it, still growling down at the medic.

He made an aborted attempt to pull his bitten arm in protectively against his stomach, but stopped when it came close and Tsume ramped the growl up a notch.

"How am I supposed to work like this?" the medic bellowed.

"You haven't been snapped in two or gutted, have you?" Tsume pointed out, and climbed off him. "Now be careful."

The medic glared up at the wood planks overhead. Then, with a deep breath, he pushed to his feet -- watching Tsume.

She smiled.

He took half a step away, cradling his bleeding arm. "Are you sure she isn't rabid?" he muttered, taking another step toward Asuma.

Her smile vanished. "If I am, you're the first I'm gonna infect..." She padded menacingly toward him, head low.

He scooted around to Asuma's other side. "Look, you've got a skull fracture. Not much I can do about that. Your pupils look good but if there's internal bleeding -- well, then you're screwed. Sorry. I can bandage the rest of you, since you've torn it all off." That he was disgruntled at his work being destroyed was obvious.

Tsume got a running start and leaped back onto the table, landing carefully with her foreleg tucked up by her body. The codeine had dulled the edge on everything. There was only a vague throbbing left, and it was easiest not to think about that.

The clone set down the mess of bandages and medicine, shifting subtly to where he could support Asuma if anything else happened. Tsume pawed through the pile, pausing when the medic squawked again.

"Would you stop that! Those things were sterile!"

She stared at him. "It might be best if you remembered that I'm not some diseased mongrel."

He edged back behind Asuma.

"If everyone could stop yelling," Asuma said carefully, easing the words out between clenched teeth, "I'd appreciate it." His hands had found the edge of the table just before Tsume had leapt back onto it; he pushed himself upright again, catching his balance when the room lurched. Renewed nausea coiled through his gut.

Skull fracture. Son of a bitch. Even genin knew what that meant. The headache to end all headaches, for starters. Black eyes, confusion, dizziness, slurred speech, convulsions...

Death, if he got really unlucky.

He considered the thought, accepted it, and shoved it aside. His nose and ears weren't bleeding or leaking, the medic had said his pupils were the same size, and when he very carefully lifted a hand to the back of his head and tested gently, nothing felt grossly misaligned.

A crack, then, webbing through the bone. If there was a bleed beneath that, at least he wouldn't know until he dropped.

He straightened up.

"If you've got a painkiller that goes with codeine and won't knock me out, I want it." The words came out short and fast, clipped by pain. "And you can re-bandage my back, but if you touch anything else you're going to get a short, sharp flying lesson. Understood?"

The medic tossed off a dry salute, then froze very still when Asuma's clone loomed up behind him.

"Understood," he said.

"Good," muttered Asuma, and dropped down onto the first bench that presented itself. Lash marks pulled across his back; he didn't have the mental room left to care. "Tsume, you feel up to heading on-deck and seeing what that other ship's doing?"

She hesitated, looking at the medic. If Asuma had a skull fracture, there wasn't much she could do about it -- no point, then, in worrying over it. Except to the extent that all it would take was one quick jab from a chakra-less civilian to cause enough damage to kill him.

The medic knew exactly where to hit.

She switched her gaze to the clone, standing protectively at Asuma's back. It had as much a chance at stopping the medic before he struck as she did. She provided a good dose of fear as a deterrent, but large, muscle-bound ninja didn't usually need help with that.

"Sure," she said finally. "Holler if you need anything." With one final glare at the medic, she hopped down off the table, got her bite of now-cooled meat from beside the stove, and padded out of the galley.

When no one could see her, she went back to limping. Her shoulder felt weak. Even without hurting, it was still unwilling to support her full weight. Something was strained or torn. If she were really smart, she should probably change human and bind it.

That wasn't going to happen.

She reached the deck and paused to scent the wind. It was blowing away from the other ship; she couldn't even tell that they were there, if she didn't look. Silently, Tsume headed over to the rail and lifted her head, finding the other boat not too far off -- far enough to be out of cannon fire, she guessed, but lying still in the water. Small figures milled about on deck. They were lowering a boat.

For the love of the Wolf...

She turned and headed back down to the galley, resisting the urge to limp as she came back into sight. "They look like they're gonna try and head over here. I think we ought to explain to one of their crew that if they move, we'll capsize them. And then let the guy go over and explain." She bared her teeth. "Hopefully one of our captives can swim."

"Good plan," Asuma said slowly, after a too-long pause to turn it over inside his aching skull. Standing behind his back with the clone's hand pressing a warning grip into one shoulder, the medic paused mid-stitch and made a disgusted sound.

"Something to add?" Asuma demanded, low and dangerous.

There was a brief moment of silence, then the needle bit back through flesh. Stubbornly, Asuma refused to wince. He'd snapped a dozen stitches in the fight with Gurou, most of them along the one long lash mark that stretched from his left shoulder to his right hip. Grudgingly, the medic was re-stitching them. For the most part, Asuma had gotten lucky with his lash wounds; only four were deep enough to require sutures, including the cut across his cheek. The rest just needed re-bandaging and a proper healer's attention when they made it home.

He drummed his bloody, slowly scabbing fingers on the table. In his other hand, a retrieved and newly lit cigarette glimmered in the galley's low light.

"We've got twenty-four sailors in the brig, but only twelve of them can actually stand up. The buyers are pretty much useless, except for information, and we only need one high-ranker for that." His voice was flat and steady; the voice of a man contemplating objects, not human lives. He pulled carefully on his chakra, twisting unnatural soldier-pill energy through his pathways, testing how much he could draw.

Probably enough. And there were always more soldier pills.

"I can sink the other ship from a distance," he said, blowing a thin stream of smoke. He met Tsume's ice-pale eyes squarely. "Want to put the rest of the buyers on it first?"

"You can't do that!" the medic protested, needle and thread pausing above Asuma's back.

Tsume stared at him. "Did you want to go over and warn them? I'm sure we could arrange for that."

He turned to give the clone an appalled look, as if it might step in. It stared at him. His Adam's apple bobbed, his shoulders straightening. He dropped the needle, and it fell lightly against Asuma's spine. "You're just going to kill us all. I don't see why I should help you, first."

The clone's grip tightened on the medic's shoulder, and Asuma began to turn slightly. Tsume leaped lightly onto the table -- it was beginning to feel natural, and with every leap she was getting better at keeping the weight off her injured shoulder. The clone kept the medic from backing away.

"You're going to help us because we can kill you painlessly -- or I can eat you alive. Break your legs, start with your guts..." Her words devolved into a low growl, so soft it was almost a purr.

The medic turned green. With a trembling hand, he picked the needle back up and looked down at his work.

Tsume's jaw dropped, tongue lolling out in a silent pant. She turned her head and took half a step closer, nosing in toward Asuma's jaw.

Still couldn't smell anything other than nicotine -- and now cigarette smoke. She flicked her tongue over a whole patch of skin, and got a very faint scent trace: pain, exhaustion, soldier pills.

He breathed a soft, wry laugh at the first touch of her tongue, lifting a hand to rub it over her head and down her neck. She crouched slightly, ducking before he got as far as the lash marks across her shoulders, and backed away. "They're lowering a boat. Looks like they're planning a party to -- who knows, offer us cheese and tofu. Probably poisoned tofu. Don't think I can shout loud enough to tell them to stop, but I could maybe get their friends back to them, stall them that way." If she got the buyers out of the hold and into the little boat they had tied on the side of the ship -- surely that would keep their own guys from coming over. It would be much easier to sink the boat if they weren't also fighting off a boarding party.

"Sounds good." Asuma twisted to look over his shoulder, trying to track how much more the medic had to do. Fresh stitches and reforming scabs pulled, sparking warning pains through much abused flesh. The medic's hand was down by his hip; the man looked up and scowled, prickly even when his face still looked as green as a well-watered lawn. Asuma twisted the other way.

The long lash mark was mostly done. Twin gashes on both of his hips still needed tending to; half of the old sutures had popped on each, leaving thin streaks of blood to darken his waistband. The cut on his cheek just needed a new bandage. All of them had already been doused in astringent, along with what felt like the rest of his battered hide. Whatever else happened, at least he had some protection against infection.

Which was a blessing; the last time had been no damn fun at all.

"That'll do," he said shortly, making his mind up. "Just throw a bandage on me and finish up."

"Are you crazy?" the medic demanded, then seemed to remember he wasn't supposed to care. "Fine. Just stop squirming."

Asuma snorted--carefully--and clamped the end of his cigarette between his teeth. Nicotine wasn't exactly a painkiller, but the sweet chemical flush drifting through his blood was definitely doing something for his ability to think. He concentrated, set his hands together, and pulled on his chakra.

A second clone cracked into being. Blood-free, dressed in the full black-and-bone of ANBU's uniform, leaning casually on one hip. It grinned at him.

"Buyers?" it said cheerfully.

"You got it," Asuma said. "Drag the wounded around a corner when you're done and put them out of their misery. Don't let the others see what you're doing." They'd figure it out quick enough, but it was easier to deal with men who hadn't seen their comrades murdered right in front of them. The clone nodded and strode towards the door.

The medic's hands spasmed against Asuma's back, halfway through unrolling a length of bandage around his torso.

"Quick deaths," Asuma reminded him softly. "Far better than anything else they could look forward to."

"Bastard," the medic returned, empty-voiced.

"Hm," Asuma agreed, and reached for Tsume again, gentle fingers tugging at her whole ear and brushing along her furry cheek. "Want to sit for a bit, love? You're looking stiffer."

They had at least five minutes before they needed to head upstairs and kill people.

She looked with longing after the clone, setting aside the desire to go help. Helping meant action. Meant not having anyone poke or prod at wounds, or even mention they were there. Meant not having to think beyond the moment.

She sighed and sat down, leaning more on her good shoulder than the other, so that one forepaw barely touched the wooden planks at all. It took barely any motion to tip her head into Asuma's palm, closing her eyes halfway -- still watching the medic -- and enjoying the feeling of strong fingers sinking into fur. "Not that stiff," she murmured, ears relaxing. She swept her tongue across his pulsepoint; the only way she could get a scent off him. "'S just matted fur." Which was partially true, anyway. Blood was drying slowly across her back and under her jaw, sweeping the hairs up into a scabbed mess. It pulled on already injured flesh. She'd have to break it up at some point -- a quick roll on her back would do it. Get everything bleeding again, too, but at least she'd have movement.

But it wasn't the whole truth, and hiding an injury could get someone killed. Her ears slicked back against her head. "I'm a little sore," she muttered at last, "and my shoulder's off. But nothing bad." Nothing she wanted to think about, either.

Nothing like the wounds Asuma was currently wearing -- lashed and broken and beaten to a pulp. At least his clones didn't have skull fractures. Maybe she could convince him to sit still and be quiet until they got home. That would take a miracle on far too many levels to count.

A little sore. And the sky was a little blue. Asuma snorted to himself, ruffling her ears until they rose up again. By ninja standards, Tsume was probably hitting anywhere between a four and a six on the injury scale that ran from mild nicks to missing limbs. Not pleasant for her, but definitely survivable.

Though her back was a damn mess. If he got the chance, he decided, he'd dig up hot water and a few cloths, and do something about it.

"Done," the medic declared, putting a final knot into the swathe of bandages that lapped over the entire stretch of Asuma's torso, stopping just above his waistband. The lash marks below that would apparently have to fend for themselves, along with his cheek.

Cautiously, Asuma stood up. Dizziness swamped him, but ebbed slowly when he took a deep breath. He felt constricted from shoulders to hips, like a lady in a tight corset, forced to stand up straight. But that wasn't exactly a bad thing.

"Good enough," he said, after stretching carefully to test his new range of motion. "Thanks."

The medic's face had faded from green to white; beneath his tan, he looked like a bloodless corpse. He probably hadn't gotten much sleep in the last two days, Asuma realized. Not with the men around him dropping like flies.

The medic drew his own deep breath, crossing trembling hands across his chest. "So what happens no--"

The clone lifted its hands from his shoulders, grabbed either side of his jaw, and snapped his neck.

"That," said Asuma, watching the body drop. The clone met his eyes, lips moving in a quick silent prayer Asuma could feel itching in his own throat. He coughed and turned back to Tsume, reaching past her for the crewman's shirt the clone had brought back. It was hard to lift his arms higher than his shoulders; in the end, the clone stepped up and dragged the rough canvas shirt over his head, yanking it down to his hips.

Asuma gave Tsume a shameless smile, crushing his brief flicker of embarrassment. "Come on, pretty thing. Let's go deal out some justice."

Or revenge. It was all the same thing, really.

Tsume pulled herself to her feet, muscles beginning to stiffen once she'd sat down. The false burn of chakra was beginning to turn stale. She had none of her own left to call on, long burned out by exhaustion, freezing, burning, injuries -- jutsu. She summoned what energy was wearing thin and forced it into her shoulder, bolstering ligaments and muscles, firming the joint. Asuma was kind enough to move away, giving her space as he gathered his belt and pouches from the pile of their things.

In the room he'd made for her, she climbed laboriously down onto the bench, and from there to the floor. She stood for a moment, watching Asuma assemble his gear, feeling just a little sad that the loose canvas shirt covered him so completely. Not that the lashes were pretty, but the muscles had made for nice eye-candy.

Before, she'd hadn't had time to be looking. But now she did, and he was dressed. She dropped her jaw open, amused by her own thoughts, tail breezing back and forth behind her.

Asuma glanced back, one eyebrow quirking. He was getting better at speaking canine -- or she was just really obvious.

"Nothing," Tsume said, padding up to him and glancing through their things. Soldier pill -- maybe in another hour. She didn't want to screw up whatever was going on at Kuromaru's end. It wasn't normally something she had to worry about, but... well, nothing was as it should be, if she was in this form and they were both alive.

Assuming he was alive. She would know if he weren't, surely. Her chakra would bleed away and not cycle back, so --

So none of this was helpful to think about. She dragged her mind away and glanced at Asuma as he stood, sliding weapons into pouches. "There is some good news about all this," she said, tail whisking again. "I think you managed to have that moon-eyed tattoo on your back removed." Her jaw dropped in another grin.

Asuma stared at her, halfway through finding a resting place for his bloodstained trench-knives where they wouldn't slice something important. It took him a second to work out what she was talking about--it'd been years since he'd gotten that tattoo, and it wasn't exactly in a place where he could get a frequent reminder of its existence--but when he did, he barked a short laugh. It hurt his head, but not his sense of humour.

"Heathen," he told Tsume mock seriously, toeing the weapon-scroll out of their ravaged pile of things. "Shutdown Assassin was--and is--one of the best bands out there, and you're privileged to even look upon their name. You should be bowing down in worshipful awe."

Tsume snorted loudly. Asuma threw half a grin at her and resisted the urge to try and feel between his shoulderblades. After six years, the badly-done band name was barely more than a fuzzy string of kanji slowly bleeding ink into his skin. A fading reminder of teenage rebellion and far too much alcohol.

And definitely obliterated by one of the marks striping down his back.

He was more annoyed about that, he realized, then the tiger-suit of scars he was probably going to spend the rest of his life wearing.

Moving more sharply than a moment ago, he crouched down and swept the weapon-scroll off the floor. The heavy parchment yielded beneath his fingers, warm and supple as well-worked flesh. He spun it over the back of his wrist, making his bracelets chime, and caught it with a snap.

"Right." Dark eyes narrowed over a fading smile, a setting jaw. "Lead the way, gorgeous."

She forced herself into movement, trotting ahead and out the door, moving swiftly up the stairs onto the deck.

The clone in bone and black stood by the rail, watching a small boat row furiously back toward the other ship. The world still smelled like brine and salt. She was beginning to think it was never going to smell of anything else.

"What's the plan?" she asked as Asuma came out of the darkness of below. "We should find out how these buyers learned about our weapon. You need to sink that ship. I suppose everyone needs to die eventually, since they've all seen the weapon work, and -- bloodticks, we need to get home." It was a laundry list of problems in the making. She grimaced and slid up along the bulkhead, twisting to scrape fur matted with scabbing blood. It left a rust-red streak behind, along with a fresh wash of pain, and didn't increase her mobility much. She whined and started toward the brig, three steps ahead of Asuma.

"Hey, whoa!" Crouching wasn't his favourite activity right now; he hooked a foot up instead, catching Tsume in the concave hollow where her hind leg met her belly. She leapt arthritically over his foot, injured leg tucked up high, and spun around to give him a "what the hell?" look. Asuma gave her one right back. "Okay, first of all, don't go around sandpapering yourself to pieces. It's gross, and it makes me hurt for you. Second, give a guy a minute to think when you ask him eight questions at once."

Or one big question: now what?

He flicked the butt of his dying cigarette over the rail and licked split lips, eyeing the not-too-distant ship. The little rowing boat had almost reached it; the even littler figures on the ship were signalling to it, wheeling around to present an easily accessible broadside for the returning crew to reach.

As far as Asuma could sense, none of them were ninja. Which made things easier.

"See the clones?" he said to Tsume, pointing a hand at his two creations. "They move better than we do. Order them around if you need something." Eyes like chips of pale sky gave him a look that was all kinds of frosty. Asuma grinned back, feeling stitches pull across his cheek, and then climbed awkwardly up onto the ship's broad wooden railing, looping his arm around a rope to anchor himself in place. He crossed his legs loosely, dug a soldier pill out of one belt-pouch, and watched the other ship, waiting for the right moment. "Give me five minutes to knock off problem--" he called up her list, "--two. Then we can drag the remaining crew out and think about getting home."

The moon was a high crescent of silver in the velvety sky, gleaming over the waves. It was a good thing, Asuma thought, that they hadn't travelled far enough for the constellations to change. Even after five years away, he knew these stars better than any other sky-map.

The scroll dangled loosely between his fingers. He leaned the un-sliced side of his face against the taut gangropes, inhaling salt and brine. The soldier pill dissolved on his tongue.

"What's your preference, sweetheart: water, wind, or fire?"

She stalked over to where Asuma sat, looking out at the ship floating steady on the waves. She had a sudden flash, their captain walking closer, the smell of lust, his wingmen following, hands--

Her skin crawled and her stomach flipped. Hackles rose all along her spine, clear down to her tail. She sat, tail wrapping around her as if it would help keep the memory at bay -- protect her from seeking fingers the way she hadn't been protected earlier. It didn't.

But he was dead. She'd killed him herself. Could still smell his blood on the deck. There was no telling what his crew would have done, but he was gone.

Her hackles didn't lower. Fire was the most painful way to go, followed by drowning. The crackle of skin burning, the agony of inhaling water. Flesh blistering, heart bursting. "Just make it fast," she muttered at last. "I don't want to have to listen to them."

The people who'd hurt her were dead. These moon-blinded fly-minds would have stolen a Konoha weapon, and would serve as an example of what happened to people who tried such a thing -- but she didn't want to smell burning flesh for the next several days. Her ears flattened. Her hackles remained up. There were enough bad smells on this boat without adding to them.

It was funny the difference time to could make. Hot-blooded, adrenaline-soaked, half out of her mind with fear, Tsume could have put paid to that entire ship a dozen times over and never blinked. But now, a bare handful of minutes later, cooler and steadier and rational, she didn't want to hear her would-be rapists scream. Or, at least, the crew they'd left behind.

Asuma did.

All he had to do was look at Tsume. See the jagged black fur rising around blood-clotted mats, the delicately fringed ears clamping tight to her skull, the lips that couldn't seem to decide between trembling and peeling back. They'd hurt her, and that was bad enough. But they'd made him watch.

Blue-sheened metal clinked when his fingers locked together around the scroll. Asuma glanced down at his hands, at the heavy bracelets with their scraps of faith carved inside, and yanked his eyes away. He could pay penance later.

After they'd paid theirs.

"If you don't want to watch," Asuma murmured, "now's the time to look away."

Now ain't the time to remember you're squeamish, he'd told Natsumi, seconds before he'd brought his blade down on a dead kunoichi's neck. You don't get to chose which bits you like.

But sometimes, you really, really did.

The little boat reached the ship. Asuma lit his fingers with chakra, shoved it through the scroll, and twisted eight solid seals around parchment that felt like flesh. Glimmering daggers of air sheared together, flickering deep blue with chakra flames, and hammered down on a deck filled with screams.

Blind and deaf, no one managed to dodge.

She didn't look away. The screams were kept blissfully short, ragged and torn across the water. And then the boat floated at peace, a glimmering shape in the moonlight. Blue chakra flames danced along it, wind and air twisted into physical being. Wood screamed, shattered with a thunderous crack, and the whole boat started to sink. It didn't take long.

She stood and backed away, still watching the swirl and rush of water as the mast was slowly swallowed by the ocean. Tsume's tail curled between her legs and her hackles bristled as high as ever.

They were going to take her over there -- that much she'd gotten before the world had gone black, and that much had been confirmed when they'd started dragging her in that direction. The captain -- she assumed -- had--

Died. The captain had died, and while the others had smelled like lust, they had been delivered back to their ship, and into the sea. They hadn't touched her.

She backed up another couple of steps, as if she could fade from sight, taking her memories with her. Asuma moved and she ducked, smothering a growl before it could surface. He was only climbing down, looking pale and taxed.

"We can't just kill the rest and have done, can we?" she muttered unhappily. Not that they'd done anything, but they'd looked while she'd been strapped to the mast. She shook herself, hackles lowering halfway. The sailors didn't need to suffer, but did they have to stick around?

"Not if we want to make it back," Asuma said slowly, half-clambering, half-falling off the rail. He steadied himself before he hit the deck, breathing through the after-effects ofchannelling that much chakra through a body mostly convinced it was broken, and shoved the weapon-scroll into a belt pouch. Tsume watched him, eyes wary and tired.

She'd flinched.

Vindicated rage and heartsore satisfaction cracked like brittle iron. Asuma set his back against the ship's side and slid down, feeling every inch of twenty counted lash marks, and the dozen more beneath them. Carefully, he tipped his head back and let it rest against waxed wood, cushioned by matted hair and his Guardian Twelve sash. His legs splayed out on the deck. Beneath half-lowered eyelids, he watched Tsume.

Her ears were still pressed flat, her tail tucked down by her hocks. In the arctic moonlight, her back glistened.

He worked a little saliva into his mouth. "Come here, love."

Tsume's sleek, feral head lifted slightly, but she didn't move. Ice-blue irises were only thin rings around dilated black pupils. If he hadn't heard her talk, he'd have guessed she was a badly lost wild creature. Some bastard hunter's abandoned plaything.

"No one's going anywhere," he said softly. "It's just us and eight poor fucks in a box. We can take five minutes if we want it." He wanted it, if only to process the way his personal body count had just jumped by thirty souls.

And because Tsume's tongue wasn't flicking the backs of his knuckles, dampening the side of his throat, or surprising the hell out of him by licking a lash mark. She hadn't shied once from him in two days. Why now?

"C'mon, love." He held out a empty hand, palm up, and dredged up a wan smile. "Promise I won't bite."

Achingly slow, she took the first step forward. After the first, she couldn't have stopped her own momentum. Tail still tucked between her legs, she slunk up to Asuma and sniffed the palm of his hand, sweeping her tongue across it.

Still smelled like nicotine. More sensitive receptors in her mouth identified exhaustion, pain -- but all things that had been there before. Just more, now.

She ducked her head and bumped his wrist, gratified when he turned his hand over and fondled her ears. Her hackles lowered the rest of the way, and she sat down beside him, curled against his hip and ribcage, leaning her head against his chest. His arm settled around her carefully, keeping off the lash marks across her back, fingers digging into the fur on her neck.

"You'd just get a mouthful of fur, anyway," Tsume said, trying hard to shove everything aside, to make it all normal again. She tipped her head up and licked at the edge of his jaw, scraping her tongue over black stubble. She stopped after a moment, pressing into him instead. Her whole body throbbed as if she'd never taken the codeine, bruises coming to life, old caresses from a dead man slithering down her skin. She didn't have breasts anymore, nor anyplace he could shove his--

Her paws shifted, as if she could find a better spot, one that was curled tighter against Asuma.

"Think there's bleach around here?" she asked on a shaken breath she turned quickly into a humorless laugh. "The deck reeks." Of blood, of fear, of two dozen hands, of leftover lust. Until now, she'd been able to keep moving, keep going, replace thought with action. Now there was little action to be done, and her head was screaming with memories. She twisted again, flicked her tongue over Asuma's neck, and tried to scoot farther under his arm, lash marks or no.

If she got any closer, she'd be sitting inside his ribcage. Deeply relieved, Asuma tightened his hold, careful to avoid the weeping lashmarks she'd just torn open. A memory stirred, unfurling in his mind's eye; dragging Natsumi into the warmest hug he'd been able to manage with hypothermia in his blood, letting her cry herself out on his chest. That had been shock; pain from her broken, re-set fingers, and a tumble down a waterfall; the reaction every new girl had to certain grimrealities. This was--

--pretty much the same thing. Fear instead of shock, an almost-rape instead of breaks, but grim was grim, no matter how much experience you had.

"We could get you nose plugs," he murmured, voice deepening until it gravelled, and slid his arm under her ribcage. It barely took a flicker of chakra to lift her into his lap, she was so light. She tensed for a flighty second, then flattened herself against his chest, head tucking down beneath his chin.

Which put her teeth damn close to his throat, Asuma reflected, but he didn't care much. Maybe it'd make her feel safer.

Amitabha Buddha, but she was just a scrap. Barely half her original weight, and small enough for her shoulders to only just reach his knee. A wild wolf carved entirely of lean muscle and delicate bone, wrapped up in fur that should have been sleek, hiding a terrified woman.

Who was still making jokes.

He drew his knees up, putting a shield of legs either side of her, kept his arm wrapped around her back, fingers buried in the thick fur of her ruff, and fumbled with his free hand for the first belt-pouch his fingers managed to touch. Half of his things were gone, but they'd left his cigarettes...

And the other half of the smoking equation, too, if you planned to hang around non-addicts after indulging your fix. A smile lit Asuma's face. He pulled the silvery little packet out, dropped it on the deck, picked the foil open with ragged fingernails, and grabbed the first piece of half-crushed gum he managed to free, tossing it back like a soldier-pill.

Mint had to be better than blood, right?

He crunched the little white pellet between his back molars, saliva flooding across his tongue, and ducked his head to blow gently across Tsume's long muzzle. It was almost easy to ignore the migraine that pounded through his head with every jaw flex; some things just mattered more.

She blinked and pulled back, then realized what he was doing and leaned forward, nose twitching. Mint, predominantly. Not the fresh earthy green that it pretended to be, but a sparkling sharp fake scent that tried to overwhelm everything else -- and nearly succeeded, even for her.

But threading beneath, she could catch stale cigarettes, sugary peaches, a bevy of vegetables, no one scent clear enough to name. Blood, and something underlying everything -- Asuma, she guessed, and nosed forward to try and pare it out.

He leaned back a hair, inhaling before he blew over her nose again.

Tsume stretched along his chest, lifting her muzzle closer. Sharp and cool -- a fast moving wind, or maybe the edge of a blade. Something like the ocean -- no, that was saltwater. Salt covered everything. She leaned in again, and he pulled back, her nose quivering a finger's width from his mouth. Something -- something like an unseen valley after a fresh rain--

His breath broke into a huff of suppressed laughter, and she realized that she was practically climbing into his mouth. She pulled back a little, ears flopping sheepishly.

As distractions went, this one had worked perfectly. Gone were thoughts of capture and rape and remembered terror. Or maybe that was the safety of sitting curled in his lap, wrapped in strong arms and bracketed by legs. She couldn't smell left-over fear, and the dark night was calm, at peace. Hard to think that just an hour ago they were planning an escape. She shivered, curling more comfortably against his chest.

"I think I can do without any more excitement for this mission." He blew out another mint-scented breath and she lifted her nose. "Maybe we should just leave them all locked up. We can float and nap." They had too much to do. It wasn't any more than a nice thought -- but it was a really nice thought.

She could almost catch his scent, as air rushed over her muzzle. It was driving her insane. She edged in -- just a little -- intent on tickling out that weave of smell under the overwhelming mint.

"Don't tempt me," Asuma groaned, almost cross-eyed with the effort to keep Tsume's face in focus. Her breath tickled his lips, warm against the stubble-covered edge of his jaw. He could see every shade of blue in her eyes, the deeper flecks of indigo scattered through irises so pale they gleamed faintly in the moonlight. Her slit pupils were still blown out--with the joy of scent-hunting, he hoped, rather than still-lingering fear. Moist black nostrils flared with every inhale. He could see the red tip of her tongue edging between ivory canines.

Not into bestiality, he'd told her earlier, and he'd meant it. But it was still far too tempting to close the nothing-gap between them and press an amused, close-mouthed kiss to the tip of her nose.

Tempting, but not very smart, he realized, when her eyes widened and her head reared back. Thorny front paws dug into his chest. The sudden change of weight pressed his spine harder into the ship's side, spiking little shatters of agony down the entire length of his back. He caught his breath.

"Easy, darlin'." The words came out grated; his hands hesitated between tightening and loosening, not wanting her to flee but not wanting to trap her, either. He caught a strained smile and threw it at her. "A kiss is all you're getting, lady wolf. If you want more, you're going to have to be really convincing. And have some decent medical experience."

Because, seriously, the only way he was getting it up in the near future was if someone found a way to lace little blue pills with morphine, and shoved them down his throat. And even then he'd probably just have a stroke.

Wrapped in his scent, it wasn't hard to smell the spike of pain, even covered by nicotine. She froze, trying not to make anything worse.

After a long while his skin grew less gray under his tan, his breathing a little bit easier. "If you wanted medical experience," she said dryly, "you should have kept the medic alive longer." Not that she really believed that; it was kinder to kill him fast rather than draw out the anticipation, and there wasn't any more he could have done.

She leaned in warily, and when Asuma didn't flinch again she brushed her tongue over the hard line of his jaw. One hand relaxed on her fur, petting. She gave him another lick, a little more firmly this time. Her tail twitched in an easy wag.

Did she know any medical jutsu? She could shore up another person's chakra reserves -- that was pretty basic. She could heal her own bones, necessary for shifting back and forth from wolf to human. A slice might tear further, but a bone could puncture organs.

That wouldn't help Asuma, though. She couldn't heal his bones for him. On the other hand... She pulled back and looked at him consideringly.

He lifted one eyebrow back at her.

"I--" She stopped, cutting the words off. She couldn't teach him the jutsu in wolf shape -- could she? Probably not. She wasn't even sure it would work. She licked her chops and tipped her head, still regarding him. He didn't have the chakra reserves needed, but they had soldier pills. It was his skull, but at least the bones weren't out of place.

She'd probably have to change human. Her ears fell. But if it worked, it meant less likely death. That definitely trumped wanting to remain wolfen.

"I know a bone-healing jutsu," she said slowly. "But it's a self-done thing. I can't do it on you. And if there's any soft tissue between pieces of bone, it'll be destroyed." Given the soft tissue was probably his brain...

But if his brain was leaking out the break in his head, he'd already be dead. At least, that made sense to her.

"So... if you're good at learning new jutsu... It hurts like nothing else, though." Maybe he wouldn't want to do it. Maybe she'd be able to stay wolf. Maybe she could just walk him through it.

She was kind of enjoying sitting safe and enclosed in his lap.

Asuma caught his breath on a wry snort. "What doesn't?" he muttered, every inch a young cynic, and turned the idea over in his head. There was no real flaw he could see. He had a crack in his skull; she had a way to fix it. If he was hemorrhaging blood or brain tissue, he was already dead and just didn't know it yet.

And there wasn't much he wouldn't give right now to ease the pounding between his temples.

Carefully, he freed a hand from her back and wiped it over his lower face (did it count as wolf-kissing if she only licked him?), then rubbed his fingertips down the length of her long muzzle, feeling hard bone beneath short, fine fur. If he looked really closely, he could see the blurry marks of scarlet tattoos still tracing down her cheeks...

Amitabha Buddha, he missed the human Tsume.

"I can learn it," he said, wrenching his thoughts back to a useful place. "But if it really hurts, I'm probably not going to be much use for a while." Especially if healing bones tightened around a swollen brain. That could be a problem. He wet his lips, weighing pros and cons. "Lemme take another soldier pill. I'll sort you out with some clones first--see about getting this ship turned around--and then we can tinker with my skull. Can you teach me with paws?"

"Depends on how well you follow direction," she muttered, angling her head to look at her wolfen toes. "I can tell you what seals you'll need. I'm not sure how to describe the chakra movement, but I can do it..." So if she described the seals and ran her chakra in the correct pattern at the same time -- they'd just have to hope he could figure out the exact moments to shift chakra, and precisely how it would move down human pathways.

That was indescribably moon-blind, when she could change human and show him. The last thing they needed was someone who'd managed to fuse his bones together because she hadn't wanted to be female.

"I'd better just release this jutsu," she mumbled at last. "And then I can show you. Let's get the ship heading the right away and I'll go human again." Ducking, she nudged his arm aside and slipped down onto the deck. "I have twice as many solider pills in my case than the standard," she said, glancing over her shoulder. "You're welcome to them." Because if he created enough shadow clones to sail a ship, plus chakra for the bone jutsu... he might need them.

If she could force the energy from a solider pill down her constricted, minor pathways, she might be able to help with the shadow clones. This was not going to be fun, though.

"Now that's not right," Asuma said, with something like knee-jerk flirtatiousness, "you're much too pretty to be a junkie."

Tsume snorted, a deeper, rougher sound dragged through wild animal lungs, and twisted to give him a look over her matted shoulder. Something like amusement danced in pale blue eyes.

Asuma winked at her. The loss of physical contact left his chest cold, his arms empty, but at least he could crush his own anxiousness by making her feel more at ease. She didn't want to turn human, it was obvious in every line of her wiry, tensing body.

But he really, really needed her to.

Half her kit was jumbled up with his, stuffed into the belt-pouches strung around his hips. He fumbled it out, searching for the little metal case that rattled with chakra boosters. Never take more than twelve in a day, the Quartermaster had told him when he'd issued Asuma's own metal case. Not unless you want to spend the rest of your very short life bleeding out through your ears.

He couldn't remember how many he'd taken since they'd gotten free. But he didn't feel worse. And he'd had none at all during their night and day spent in ropes and cages.

He grabbed the first pill his fingers touched, cracked it between his back teeth, and rode the wave of dark red energy that burned through his pathways. Muscles clenched in tight, ecstatic shiver. He'd tried heroin once; this felt a lot like that, but better.

He could still move, for starters.

Four clones, smiling and stretching and fully clothed, took the first edge off. He dumped as much navigational knowledge into their heads as he could remember, yanking it up from scrambled memories and a mind that still couldn't completely focus, and unleashed them on the ship. Three shot up into the rigging, tightening ropes, loosening others, unfurling sails that caught the freshening breeze with a snap of canvas. The fourth headed for the wheel, darkly focused eyes fixed on the clear heavens as it brought the ship around. The smoke of their summoning drifted away, dispersing like ash on the wind.

They'd need the sailors soon, but Asuma didn't want witnesses for whatever he was about to go through.

He blew out a long steadying breath, leaning back against the side.

"That should do it, love."