Pakkun licked his lips nervously. “They can heal.”

“Without killing me in the process?”

Pakkun lifted his eyes to the white wolf, who was watching them like they were a little stage show laid out for her personal entertainment. He lowered his voice. “If they want to.”

Lovely. Raidou had always wanted to trust his life to the whims of capricious demon-gods. On the other hand, the wolves could obviously kill them whenever they felt like it, and the road to rescuing Genma wasn’t likely to get any safer.

A tiny insane part of him was also a little curious.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Kurenai opened her mouth, then pressed her lips together in a tight, flat line. Her eyes were molten. Ryouma was still on his knees. He dragged himself back to his feet, using Kakashi as a ladder. Kakashi’s hand remained tight around Ryouma’s wrist. Even upright, Ryouma still leaned heavily; Kakashi didn’t shove him away.

“You agreed to let us save Genma,” Ryouma said, shaky but clear. “And we can’t do it without Taichou. So—”

The white wolf yawned, exposing dagger teeth. “Bargaining is boring. Get on with it.”

The grey wolf, who was beginning to remind Raidou of Kakashi, gave an aggravated snort and freed itself from the black wolf. It came forward, towering and lethal, and lowered its head until its rank breath spilled over Raidou’s bare shoulders.

“Humans,” it said, disgusted, and lashed out, twisting its head sideways to bite him around the torso.

Teeth pierced Raidou’s armor, then his skin. He felt blood burst beneath his shirt. Bone raked over bone. His ribs crackled, then caved. Raidou thought, with the pure clarity that flared in the vacuum of bad decisions, shit.

Ryouma yelled. Light blazed in Kakashi’s hand. Kurenai, face gone so colorless it was grey, reached for Raidou.

The wolf’s giant wet tongue wrapped around Raidou’s chest and back, burning hot, and energy like solar flares and bloodlust poured beneath his skin. For a brief, wild moment, he felt like he might detonate from the inside out. The heat sank into bones, muscles, and tendons; things cracked and twisted, and then Raidou could breathe again.

He gasped. The wolf’s teeth released. Its tongue swiped him one more time, then it pulled its mouth away, leaving Raidou covered in saliva, apparently alive, and slightly traumatized. He dragged his hands over his chest-plate. Punctures and slime met his fingers. Kurenai grabbed him by the arm and helped him tear his armor off.

There were ragged holes in his ANBU underpinnings, but the skin beneath was unblemished and whole. If there had been blood, it was gone now. Kurenai’s frantic hands skated down his back and pulled away clean. No pain sparked in their wake. Raidou inhaled. His ribs flexed and didn’t hurt.

He drew another shuddering breath and strangled out, “That seemed like overkill.”

The grey wolf gave him a narrow look. “I don’t like you,” it said, and stalked away behind the white wolf, where it lay down with its back to them all.

The lightning faded slowly, unused, from Kakashi’s hand. Ryouma said faintly, “Taichou?”

“I— I think I’m okay,” Raidou said. He pressed his ribs hard; they held like they’d never been broken. The collection of bruises and scrapes from the Tanuki’s rock and the spar with Genma were gone. Even the faint muscle pain that accompanied a long mission run had vanished. He felt… practically bouncy.

He turned his head to Kurenai. She kept her grip on his arm and her own expression with the same white-knuckled professionalism. “Your color is better,” she told him.

He tipped a wobbly smile at her. “Your friends are right,” he said. “We do get the weird shit.”