Genma’s hands wound deep in her hair. They were very steady, no tremor at all. She could feel the tension, though, in the tug against her scalp.

“I’m impressed you got as far as their den,” Himself admitted, pouring himself another cup of sake. “They usually don’t let anyone in. Even Tokage-san is more welcoming, and he’s cold-blooded.” He waved a slice of melon at the shinobi, beckoning them toward the bath. “I assume they threatened to kill you. And that’s when you ‘bargained’ with them? Did they make Hatake break his contract?”

Genma’s hands eased free of Kurenai’s hair. The whole mass stayed in its piled knot, baring her neck and shoulders. He was still breathing evenly, an iron control.

Raidou took them both by the elbow, and pushed them gently toward the water.

Kurenai stepped down into the pool, savoring the rising heat as it lapped over legs and belly, to just under her breasts. The bottom was pebbled for grip and waist-deep even on Himself; smaller tanuki must float like otters.

She found a seat on a ledge on the other side of the oblong pool, where she could submerge up to her shoulders, and said, “We told the wolf-gods we needed their help in finding our missing friend. The female wolf-god asked Tousaki to let her bite off his hand. He’d pled the most for their help. He agreed.”

Genma’s mouth shaped a soundless word. He stood immobile, just within arm’s reach, Raidou’s hand still locked on his elbow; the gentle lantern light gilded the frozen mask of his face. His voice came finally, cracked. “He did what?”

“He seemed to have both hands at dinner,” Himself pointed out.

“She wanted the sacrifice,” Kurenai said, “not the flesh. I think. She bit down, but left him barely scratched. And she agreed to help us. The grey wolf — healed Namiashi-taichou, in their own fashion. And then the black wolf ripped open the fabric of worlds, and sent us here.”

“She probably just wanted to watch him wet himself in terror,” Himself said irritably. “And that grey one is just as bad. Worse, actually. They feed on fear, you know. Feh. Wolves!” He washed the taste of the word from his mouth with a swig of sake. “Ripping holes in my sky without so much as a by your leave!”

It was so much the crotchety temper of a feuding neighbor, irate over some improperly pruned trees, that Kurenai almost smiled. Genma seemed halfway reassured; he let Raidou tug him down the rest of the way into the bath, onto the ledge near Kurenai. When Raidou’s hand dropped, though, Genma caught it. “This ‘healing’ the wolf did on you — how bad was it? Kikyou-chan was trying to be gentle with me, and I damn near blacked out. If they were trying to make it hurt…”

Raidou squeezed his hand. “I'm okay. It was quick. And, uh, interesting, in a let's-never-do-that-again way. Honestly, I think it was worse for Kurenai watching.”

Heartstopping, horrifying, a terror as blinding as any since the Fox or the war—

“When we stop by Tanigawa again,” she said thinly, “I have some ideas for genjutsu.”

Raidou propped his free right arm up on the edge of the bathing pool. His hand settled on the nape of Kurenai’s neck: the same sort of solid, grounding touch she’d seen Team Six offer among themselves before. He said, “Make it more painful for Nomiya.”