Ryouma could have shaken Kakashi, but Kakashi was grey around the eyes, too, slumped heavily against him and breathing hard. Genma shot them a quick, hard look, and then hitched himself up to put a steadying arm around Katsuko. "You're probably about due for new painkillers. Is it just the shoulder?"

"Yeah," Katsuko said. She was holding very still, breathing slow and shallow. "He just jarred it. I'll be fine."

"You lie down, too," Ryouma told her. "Both of you. I'll get you painkillers in a minute." He waited, bracing Kakashi, until she eased carefully down onto her back.

Kakashi rasped, "Sorry."

Katsuko tipped her chin up onto her chest, and gave him a crafty look. "Make it up to me by keeping the pigtails in."

Kakashi tried lifting his hand to his head again.

"C'mon," Ryouma said, mercilessly. "You can look at yourself in the mirror." He hauled Kakashi off, out of the bunkroom and down the hall to the toilet.

It was slower and harder than when Raidou'd been there to help, and his shoulders burned by the time they reached the bathroom, ugly reminder that he'd hauled a much less conscious Kakashi much further only twenty-four hours ago. He steadied Kakashi through the indignities of relief, and then propped Kakashi up against the narrow metal sink and waited for the reflection in the cracked mirror to register.

Kakashi stared at himself for a long moment, eye slitting narrow and then slowly widening. He turned his head, brows drawing down again, and poked at one of the pigtails. "It is uneven."

"She only had one hand to work with," Ryouma said. "It was slow going." Probably better not to mention that Genma had lent a hand once or twice, too. He scraped the thin bar of lavender-gray soap off the edge of the sink and held it out. "Want to wash up?"

Kakashi took the soap, leaned his hips into the sink, and began slowly and meticulously to wash his hands. A distant, unreadable look darkened his eye as he scrubbed out the half-moons of reddish grime under his nails, and he lathered the soap up three times for his right hand alone. His skin was pink with scrubbing and beginning to wrinkle when he finally rinsed off the sliver of soap that was left. He set it down on the sink edge again, careful not to let it slip, and said thoughtfully, "It's nice. Still smells like a lady's bedroom, though."

Ryouma lifted his brows. "Which you know, because you've been invited into so many ladies' bedrooms."

"Kushina liked perfume," Kakashi said, and then shut his teeth with a click, as if he'd just realized he'd said that aloud.

"Kushina?" Ryouma said, blankly. "D'you mean—"

He stopped. There was only one Kushina the village knew well enough to call by name. Uzumaki Kushina-sama, the last jinchuuriki, the woman who'd hosted the Nine-tailed Fox and then died sealing it to save them all.

She'd been the Hokage's wife, too. And the Hokage had been Kakashi's sensei. No wonder Kakashi'd known her.

Mockery shriveled away. Ryouma cleared his throat and grabbed a towel. "Here. Dry off."

They hobbled back to the bunkroom in silence.