They'd joked about it. And Raidou was still joking.

Better than running screaming, perhaps. Kurenai was finally starting to understand why ANBU humor was so vile.

"You're all still breathing," she said. "Let's keep it that way. Please."

Raidou wrapped his free hand over her shoulder and squeezed gently. "Seconded."

"Thirded," Kakashi said savagely. He'd dragged Ryouma's arm over his own shoulders, stabilizing the taller man without loosening his own grip. Ryouma, still chalky-pale beneath his tan, looked as if he needed the support.

Kakashi lifted his baleful glare to the black wolf. "How do we get to the Tanuki world?"

"We push you," the black wolf said. He strolled back over to study the humans, white jaws lolling around a long crimson tongue. "A wolfling, a rabbit, a snake, and a man. Tanuki will spit you out in seconds. Don't come back here."

"Except you," the white wolf said, her molten-gold eyes fixed on Ryouma. "I'd keep you."

Ryouma shuddered. The white wolf ran out her tongue in a silent, terrible laugh.

The black wolf twisted his head sideways with the sudden violence of a viper strike, snapping at something in the air. His teeth caught and jerked. The world tore. Light spilled through, the comforting warm yellow of a sun Kurenai knew. She could smell greenery growing, and the distant tang of rain.

A massive white paw swept out, caught the shinobi as casually as a housewife's broom, and shoved them through the hole between worlds.

Kurenai fell.

She almost expected it, this time. She tumbled, orienting herself—green, blue, that rift in the sky, with a tiny dog jumping through and the black wolf's eye glaring down like a new sun dwindling—then green again, a forest canopy that reached up and struck the breath out of them. Branches snapped, leaves sliced, but Kurenai hit a heavier branch with a palmful of chakra, and that slowed her just enough to drop down to the next in a more controlled fall.

The pregnant silver dog, Saishou, hit the branch beside her, scrabbled for purchase, and kept her feet. A moment later, grey-muzzled Yori bounced off a branch above them and landed heavily on his side. He yelped, struggled to his feet, and limped to the edge of the branch to look down.

Kurenai joined him, carefully. The tree limbs here were broad and straight, deceptively like the chakra-grown forests around Konoha. The light was right, too, and shadows fell where they should, dappled through the gaping holes in the canopy above her.

Raidou was catching his breath several branches below, with Pakkun perched beside him. Kakashi and Ryouma had landed in the next tree over. Ryouma had his back against the solid tree bole and his lap already full of anxious golden shepherd. Kakashi, releasing his wrist at last, stood looking up toward the sky.