Fukuda leaned away from the wall where she'd been pressed, but she didn't take even a single step to disturb the muck. She stared back into the blackness of the tunnel behind them, and her chakra slivered out like a thin sensory arrow, instead of the Konoha nin's broad sweep.

Kakashi said, between his teeth, "Six. Coming fast."

Kimiko sucked in her breath, but made no other sound. Genma swung back to the grate, lifting dripping hands from the muck to grip two bars at once. "Eight more points, and we can take this down. Hound, can you do it?"

Pale fingers were already slipping into seals, in the corner of Ryouma's eye. Kakashi pushed forward to crouch in the ooze beside Genma, curling one hand around an unmarked bar. His spinning red eye seemed alight in the darkness.

Raidou began to loosen the jury-rigged straps of his sling. Fukuda made a harsh sound at the back of her throat, and tugged one strap tight again. "Get her out."

She pushed past Raidou, chakra-walking on the muck now, with no attempt at concealment. Kimiko said, desperately, "Nee-san—"

"I've got this, Taichou," Ryouma said, shouldering past Raidou as well. He focused chakra to his feet and slogged to the surface after Fukuda. Her shoulders were straight, hips aligned, empty hand rigid in preparation for a strike.

Ryouma shoved an unmarked knife into her hand. "Just don't stick that in my back."

He could feel enemy chakra ahead of them, now: six, as Kakashi'd said, and closing in fast. Fukuda didn't even look at him. She said, her voice low and steady: "I told you, once, my team didn't murder their own countrymen."

Ryouma bit his lip. "Yes."

"If I'd come back from that mission," Fukuda said, staring fixedly into the dark tunnel, "they'd have expected me to turn Kimiko and Sango in." The blade spun in her hand, and ended pointing downward in a reverse stabbing grip, a knife-fighter's grip. "Help me protect them, Konoha, and we'll call it quits between us."

"My name's Ryouma," he said.

The edge of her mouth curled, before darkness swallowed them.