Asuma didn't so much wake up as spiral gently down from the fluffy clouds his mind had been wallowing in. Not a lot had changed. He was still belly-down on the bed, head still resting on a complete lack of pillow, wrists and ankles still tied to the rails, body still entirely absent of clothes.

But there was no pain.

For several frozen minutes, he stayed very, very still. When he finally risked moving his head--there was no change. His brain stayed inside his skull, his back didn't catch fire. Heavily stitched cloth scratched his cheek.

"Okaaaay," he mumbled. The words slipped and slid, tumbling out between numb lips.

Drugged, then.

He blinked heavily, trying to piece things together. All he could see was a blank wall, which wasn't greatly helpful. When he focused, he noticed the light wasn't as bright as it had been. How long had he been out?

Clothes rustled behind him.

"Some'ne there?" he tried to say. His tongue moved like a slab of lead.

"You back with us already?" A shadow moved on the wall. Fingers pressed against his throat. "Hmm. Yes, very good. Strong buck, aren't you?"

"--?" Asuma said, struggling to twist his head.

"Your girl's still okay, by the way. Looks a bit terrified, mind you. And a bit sunburned. But I reckon I would be, too, in her position." The fingers withdrew. "No, don't move yet, you great lummox. I've just spent the last hour putting you back together. If you rip one stitch I'll suture your eyelids to your ears."

"Gnh?" Asuma managed, after a long pause to reflect. "...'sume?"

"Your friend? She's tied to the mast. I just said--" There was a long sigh. "Listen carefully. You're concussed, you're doused with a decent dose of painkillers--and a paralytic, I might add--and you're dehydrated. I'm not even going to talk about the wounds. What a damn mess. Now, I'm going to get some water into you, you're going to drink it, and then we might see about getting you back to your girl."

The ropes loosened around his wrists, then his ankles. Asuma tried to move and found he couldn't, beyond a weak sort of twitch. A hand grabbed his shoulder and rolled him over. He stiffened, waiting for agony, but there was nothing. The same hand found the back of his head and lifted it; a cup was set to his lips.

It was just water, but it was sweeter than nectar. He drank greedily, feeling it wash something like sense through his head. The man holding him was small, somewhere between thirty and fifty, and apparently constructed entirely out of sun-beaten skin knotted together by stringy-looking joints. Level grey eyes found Asuma's unfocused ones.

"Good lad."

With herculean effort, Asuma managed to salute him with one finger. The man merely snorted.

"Pick your battles, junior." He looked away, towards the door, and bellowed. "Oi, Gorou! Your patient's still breathing! Come and scrape him up before I toss his ungrateful ass overboard!"

A hulking shape blocked out the light from the door. "Patience, old man."

"Patience, my arse. How much longer until the damn drop? I've got half a dozen wounded men trying to stay alive and half a dozen more to hand back to their families."

"Soon," Gorou--the whip-ninja--said simply. "Before midnight, if the weather holds."

"Good. Get your playtoy out of my infirmary."

Asuma tried to struggle, before he remembered Tsume's promise and stopped dead. Gorou simply gave him a look, then hauled him up. There was still no pain. Asuma endured being tossed back over the man's shoulder with a dull, deep-throated grunt. It was humiliating, but at least it didn't hurt.

It got a lot more humiliating when he landed at Tsume's feet, amid a chorus of catcalls.