He couldn’t reach Katsuko.

There was chakra in the flames, making them roar like dragon’s breath as they tore through seals and cells and people. There was still screaming, but it was breaking apart as throats and lungs burned black. Asuma retched again, tasting cooked flesh and old blood, eyes streaming tears. All the oxygen was boiling out of the room, sucked into fire.

He barely heard the door crash, or the swearing, order-barking thunder of Konoha shinobi breaking in. He stripped skin from his arm trying to get to Katsuko, but she was out of reach.

There were still orderlies controlling the jutsu. They met the masked ANBU head on, flinging flame and steel at them.

Fire twisted across the ceiling, close enough that the heat of it tightened Asuma’s skin. The seals surrounding Katsuko’s cell lit up and blistered away, and her chakra raged. The weight of it hit him like a hammer, throwing him clear into the opposite wall. He hit stone and then the floor, fireworks cracking off inside his skull. The fire in her cell flashed white and blue, blazing like a gaslight.

Distantly, he thought he heard her scream.

A single suicidal ANBU broke away from the pack and blasted through Katsuko’s cell door, throwing himself into the heart of that flame. There was a thump of strange chakra, a blur of two bodies and a pair of gloved hands shaping seals, another scream, deeper and rougher--

Flame flashed, blinding and burning.

Then they were gone.