“With me,” Genma told Ryouma. They got to Abe just as Usagi lowered him to rest on a cradle of tree roots at the water’s edge. “Wash your hands with alcohol, then find me the hydrogen peroxide in my kit. It’s in the brown, square bottle. Usagi-taichou, give him a blood pill if you haven’t already.”

“She did,” Abe said. He was a little pale, but that could be from adrenaline. It was hard to say how much blood he’d lost, since there was nowhere for it to have pooled.

Ryouma scrambled to obey.

“Tourniquet?” Usagi asked, already yanking one from her med-kit.

“Just below the knee if we need it,” Genma said, “but not yet. Try a clotting bandage.”

Usagi shoved the tourniquet back into her kit and used her teeth to rip open the packaging on a dressing.

“Give it to me,” Abe said. He clamped it hard over the injury, but blood soaked through after only a few seconds. “Another one.”

Usagi gave Abe the second bandage, while Ryouma came up with the hydrogen peroxide.

“Shouldn’t you disinfect it with alcohol?” Kasumi asked.

“Leeches secrete anticoagulant enzymes in their saliva,” Genma said. “Hydrogen peroxide inactivates them.” He caught Abe’s eye. “In pain?”

“None,” Abe said. “It’s numb.”

Genma nodded and gestured for Abe to remove the bandage. For just a moment he got a look at the circular wound, but blood welled in a torrent, bright red and running unnaturally fast down Abe’s calf.

It wasn’t arterial, thank the mercies. But it wasn’t going to stop without stronger measures.

“Go ahead with the tourniquet,” he told Usagi. “Tousaki, as soon as the bleeding slows, pour the peroxide into the wound.”

He flexed his fingers, rehearsing the seals for wound closing. It was an elemental medical jutsu, but if he sealed it without stemming every bleeding vessel, he’d do to Abe what he’d done to himself on the last mission, and create a bigger problem than the one they already had.

Raidou slipped up behind them to wrap a blanket around Abe’s shoulders. He found the original leech bite on Abe’s arm, still dripping blood in its own right, and bandaged it.

“Ready?” Genma asked.

Abe nodded. “Don’t leave it on too long.”

“I won’t,” Genma promised. He lifted his chin towards Usagi. “Go ahead.”

Abe grunted when she tightened the tourniquet. His lower leg slowly went pale, and after a moment, he lifted the bandages again. This time the bleeding was more sluggish, but it still wasn’t entirely stopped.

“Tousaki, peroxide,” said Genma.

Ryoua poured a thin stream over the wound. When it hit blood, it immediately bubbled and fizzed.

“A little more,” Genma told him. “We want to flush out as much of the leech saliva as possible.”

Kasumi glanced down at the bubbling wound. “Gross.”

Usagi reached back with one hand to thwap her rookie on the head. “Go help the lieutenant.”

Ryouma gave the bottle a more vigorous pour, flooding the wound, and Genma got another look at the perfect concentric circles the leech’s teeth had incised in Abe’s flesh. The worst bleeding came from the center of the wound.

Probably best to work from the inside out, like he had with Kuroda’s wounds. He sent chakra flowing to his hands, flicked through seals so familiar he didn’t have to think about the order, and set the soft glow of healing chakra over Abe’s leg.

“Let the tourniquet off slowly,” he said several minutes later. Abe swore softly as blood and feeling returned to his foot. At first it looked like a complete success, but beads of blood began to well at the edges of the new scabs.