“Another ten ccs, I think,” the voice said, somewhere on the very edge of his hearing. Something touched his wrist: fingers, pinching at his pulse. He strained against the bindings, but his reactions were sluggish, nerves misfiring, muscles weak as water. Noise clotted in his throat, senseless as an animal’s growls.

“Ten ccs? Are you certain, Haibara-sensei?” someone else asked. “I mean—not that I’m questioning your expertise, but... He’s been given a larger dose over a longer period of time than any of our previous subjects. Are you sure he’ll still be useable, after?”

A laugh, warm, pitying. “Does it matter? We’re only guaranteeing his physical condition. Suna’s been informed of the risks. If they choose to wager on a seventy-five percent chance, that’s their concern. Ten ccs.”

“Ten,” the second voice agreed unhappily, and cold seeped into Ryouma’s vein.

His eyes flicked open.

There was a white ceiling, and a white wall. Sunlight on his face.

Two hours, perhaps, before Suwo-obaasan and Izumi-obaasan came for him, to hoist him out of bed and into a chair, feed him rice porridge and stewed vegetables, wash and shave him and leave him staring out the window. If he was lucky maybe they’d pull him to his feet, let him pace. They worried to each other about his muscle tone. He was fairly sure that letting him walk tight circles around his room wasn’t part of their orders, anymore than the sponge-baths and the regular shaves were, but he was pathetically grateful for it.

If they knew, he’d be back in the cells. And then, eventually, mercifully, dead.

Something stirred beside him. He thought fleetingly, horribly, of rats; he’d been bitten in the cells, before his guards realized he wouldn’t defend himself. He’d never been so terrified, lying alone there in the dark, feeling the claws scrabble over him and the sudden sharp pain. Not daring even to flinch, praying someone would come before he lost a finger...

“Whatever y’thinking,” a voice rumbled against his shoulder, “s’making you smell terrible.” A body moved against his side, rolling over. Hard muscle under soft cotton. An arm flopped over his chest, and a sharp-boned nose and chin shoved against his neck. “Sleep. S’early. S’all safe.”

Breath ghosted warm against his throat.

Ryouma stared at the ceiling.

S’all safe.

They hadn’t known about Kakashi. And even if they’d found out—even if someone inside the village was selling rumors and shreds of gossip—they wouldn’t know about his sense of smell. Ryouma hadn’t known about it until their first mission together, and he’d been as ardent a consumer of Sharingan no Kakashi stories as anyone.

Not a genjutsu, then.

He blinked, hard, against the burning in his eyes. Then he peeled himself carefully out of Kakashi’s protesting grasp, eeled his way to the bottom of the bed, and stood up. His muscles obeyed him; his head swam a little, then steadied.

Behind him, Kakashi rolled over again and dragged himself groggily up against the headboard. He peered at Ryouma from under a wild tangle of tousled hair. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Ryouma gritted. “Except I reek. Gonna take a shower. Go back to sleep.”