It was. There was blood all over Ryouma's hands by the time they finished, and dripped and spotted over Genma's shirt and pants. At least it didn't show on the ANBU blacks. Genma's nose was straight again, taped down and packed with gauze in place of the ridiculous bandage mustache. His eyes watered from the pain, but he'd refused more meds. He had morphine in him already.

Between the morphine and the exhaustion—compounded by the jutsu he'd used to drain blood from his nose and reduce the swelling—Genma was clearly clinging to consciousness only by the ragged ends. When Raidou eased out from behind him, he slumped down onto his elbows as if his strings had been cut.

"Sleep, lieutenant," Raidou said, gently. He liberated a couple of blankets from the pile to drape over Genma, giving him a space a little separate from Katsuko and Kakashi. "You've done the lion's share. We'll take it from here."

"Thanks, taichou," Genma mumbled. He managed to get one hand on the edge of the blanket and pull it up to his chin. His eyes focused, bleary, on Ryouma. "Make a medic of you soon enough."

Ryouma's chest tightened. Still?

"Don't tease me," Raidou said, before Ryouma could speak. "After today, I'd pay solid gold for a second medic." He gave Genma's blanket-swaddled foot a rough parting pat, before he shifted around to the other side of the platform to check on Katsuko.

"Gonna get rich," Genma mumbled, and went out like a burnt-out light.

Katsuko was nearly there, too. She huddled down further into the blankets when Raidou tried to ease them back, and then kicked at him. "Taiiiichouuu."

"Sorry," he said softly, smoothing her hair. "Just had to check. Go to sleep."

Katsuko huffed and pushed her head against his hand, like a sleepily offended cat. Then she burrowed back underneath the covers, wrapping herself around Kakashi. Two thin fingers crept up to the edge of the blankets to pull the pile over her head again.

Raidou smiled fondly down at the moth-bitten mound, and reached across her to give Kakashi's spiky head a careful ruffle, too. Then he pushed himself stiffly off the edge of the platform, glanced at Ryouma, and tipped his head toward the door.

Out, at last.

Ryouma wiped the blood off on his pant legs and followed Raidou out into the passageway. Steel-caged lightbulbs flickered with an ugly yellow glow, catching on the armor of the two kage bunshin on guard outside the cell and glinting in the eyes of the woman who huddled wrapped in her emergency blanket, watching her watchers.

Too many deaths already tonight. Why was she still alive?

Raidou stopped in front of the bars. Katsuko's clone glanced up at him and then shifted away, clearing the door. Ryouma's shadow clone kept its tense crouch. The chakra he'd poured into it was barely an ember by now. It wouldn't last much longer.

"Get me an IV," Raidou said to the clones. "And the spare mattress, and some clean clothes— there was a stack with the towels. Bring one of those, too."

Katsuko's clone nodded and ducked away down the hall. Ryouma's took a moment longer, and a long cold stare at the Kiri nin, before it unfolded. It went back into the bunk room and returned a moment later lugging a rolled blanket and the sole cot mattress they hadn't been able to fit on the sleeping ledge. Raidou put a hand on the trigger to the cell door's automatic lock.