Kakashi hadn't lied, exactly; the march of complicated symbols spreading from Ryouma's knee to the expanding circle on the floor was interesting, but they were medic-designed. They had a small, specific range of efficacy, not for combat. Ryouma might have found them more useful, if he was able to read them and sober enough to try.

There was a second layer of seals around the edges of the room, colorless and dormant until a medic needed them to restrain a violent patient. They were more applicable to Kakashi’s skillset, but he’d seen them before.

Since he was here for Ryouma, it was inconsequential.

“Done,” Goro said.

It took Niimi-sensei another minute to finish her seals. She inspected Goro’s work, pronounced it good, and politely waved the nurse out of the circle. “We’re about ready to begin, Tousaki. How’re you feeling?”

Ryouma considered for a moment. “Drunk.”

Niimi-sensei chuckled, Goro smiled, and even Hyuuga Mitso’s lips twitched. Niimi-sensei said, “Enjoy it. Mitsu, ready?”

“Whenever you are.”

Niimi-sensei settled herself comfortably and placed her hands over Ryouma’s knee. A faint green glow shimmered between her fingers. “Let’s get this show on the road. Goro, watch closely. I want you to tackle the smallest adhesion.”

The young man grinned, but it faded when Kakashi gave him a long, slow look. He ducked his head and assumed an attitude of intense focus.

The light strengthened around Niimi-sensei’s hands, spilling across Ryouma’s skin and into the seals, which lit up in turn. The glow spread out through the circle, filling the room with sharp, dark shadows. Hyuuga Mitso’s eyes narrowed — a reflex, Kakashi assumed, since she could see through her own eyelids — and she said, “Start a centimeter more proximal.”

Niimi-sensei’s hands adjusted.

“There,” Hyuuga Mitso said.

“Deep breath,” Niimi-sensei told Ryouma, and she began.

Even outside the limits of the containment circle, Kakashi felt the chakra shift. Ryouma made a sleepy, questioning sound, but there was no pain in it. He looked the most relaxed since…

Since Kakashi had known him, actually. Which was a strange thought, because Ryouma carried himself with a confident ease that tried to seem effortless, but there was always a ripple of tension. Fidgeting hands, a jogging leg, movement barely suspended. Even when he slept, Ryouma frowned and rolled away from them.

None of which was unusual, just revealing, but it was odd to look at Ryouma under surgical lights and find him peaceful.

Niimi-sensei made a satisfied noise, and Hyuuga Mitso said, “That’s the first one.”

“Find me the distal end of the tear,” Niimi-sensei instructed. “Goro, why do I want to work on that before the next adhesion?”

“Because it’ll take the most time,” Goro said immediately. “And because adhesions are how the joint is trying to stabilize itself, so treating them is more like symptom-relief than fixing the actual cause.”

“Very good,” Niimi-sensei said.

“That and it will take at least two sessions to address that tear,” Hyuuga Mitso added. “Cartilage has poor blood supply. It’ll need all the work we can give it.”

Goro nodded. Kakashi wondered if that last part was for the apprentice's benefit, or for his. Perhaps both. Ryouma was too busy blinking slowly at the light show on the ceiling to pay much attention.

A faint crunch brought him back down in a hurry. “Ow,” he said, head jerking off the pillow.