Kunoichi and Bastards. [Asuma & Tsume]
[Takes places directly after Pirates and Ninja]

There were only so many ways you could swim back to consciousness in thirty-six hours before it became something like routine. This time, Asuma woke with a soft little gasp that was barely more than a deeper inhale, and felt his fingers twitch. He didn't open his eyes. Some wary, uncertain part of him wanted caution. Wanted to know what the hell had happened before all that black...

"You awake, old man?"

It was a surreal experience to hear your own voice twisted into humour and something that wasn't quite worry.

"Unhg?" Asuma managed, and slit one eyelid open. He was lying belly-down on a broad table, unwounded cheek pressed against wooden planks that were just a mite too sticky for his personal taste. He winced.

Directly in his blurry line of sight, his own face grinned back at him. "I'm gonna take that as a yes. You've been asleep for hours. Are you brain dead, or what?"

"Good question," Asuma croaked, and opened his other eye; one lid still lifted higher than the other, but at least he could see. Gingerly, he pulled a hand up and pressed it to his head. Understanding came back--Tsume's freakin' skull-cracker jutsu--along with a thorny blossom of pain, but it wasn't anything like it had been before. He eased his fingers through matted hair, feeling around to the back of his skull. It was tender and aching, but solid when he pressed cautiously--and then a little firmer.

Nothing gave.

Relief was a beautiful thing. Asuma accepted painkillers and water from his clone, tucked his left arm beneath his head, and went back to sleep. This time, it was nothing but healing.

When he woke again, the room looked exactly the same, his clone looked excruciatingly bored, and he really needed to take a piss.

If that wasn't a sign of good health, he didn't know what was.

He slid off the table, caught his balance against the clone, and used it as a brace until his legs remembered how to walk. The ship didn't have much in the way of facilities, but after a little searching, he managed to locate a closet-sized room with what looked like a hole-in-a-bench kind of set up. The clone leaned against the outside of the door and offered helpful commentary. Asuma was gratified to find he wasn't pissing blood.

There wasn't a sink. But there was, for some reason, a mirror. After a long minute of staring, he managed to recognize something of himself in the wide-eyed stranger looking back. Mostly, there was bruises. Black eyes. Cuts across his forehead and both temples, only half hidden by his headband. His lips were a dry cracked mess, rimmed with old blood at the corners. His cheek...

Well, at least he'd have another cool scar.

And there were cigarettes in his hip-pouch, even if Tsume had walked off with the medkit.

And he was alive, which pretty much made up for everything ever.

Trailing smoke, a raspy whistle, and only occasionally supported by his clone, Asuma limped back up to the deck to find out what had happened to his errant partner.