Katsuko laid a good fire: Ryouma had to give her points for that. She had a steady blaze going before he'd finished plucking the first pheasant, and after a moment of building the wood up around it to her satisfaction she gave a pleased grunt and settled back on her heels. The young fire beat a welcome warmth against Ryouma's side, burning off the chill of his spring-fed scrubbing.

He held up the half-plucked pheasant. "Find me a couple of green sticks, will you? About as long as my arm. Figure we might as well stew the rabbits, and save these for roasting." Cold pheasant wouldn't be a bad breakfast, and it would save them time in the morning.

"Rabbits and pheasants," Katsuko said, leaning back on her hands like an acrobat. "You guys are spoiling me." She pushed herself upright, glanced dismissively at the pile of dry branches she'd collected for firewood, and strode over to the nearest tree and straight up into its branches.

Her chakra-bright steps left cracked prints in the rugged bark.

Ryouma glanced toward Kakashi, but he was intent on stripping the skin off a rabbit. One skinny, naked carcass already lay on the rock, with a neat pile of entrails stacked beside the severed head. Well, rabbits skinned easier than pheasants plucked. Ryouma bent his head again, and concentrated on not tearing the thin, loose skin over the breast.

Leaves rustled. Katsuko swung out of the tree, somersaulted in the air, and landed in a crouch beside the fire with a handful of straight, whippy branches clutched like a sheaf of spears in her hand.

Kakashi's head tilted, but he didn't look around. "While you're running errands, can you get the mushrooms and ferns from Shiranui?"

"Since you asked so nicely," Katsuko said cheerfully, and laid the sticks on the edge of Ryouma's rock. She hunkered down again, fingers slipping together in the seals for the kage bunshin no jutsu. Ozone tickled Ryouma's sinuses. He sneezed into his shoulder. When he looked up again, there were four slim, wild-haired women in ANBU armor heading towards the rock where Raidou and Genma had laid out their maps. A fifth settled into a crouch on the other side of the fire, slipping a kunai out of her thigh-holster. The original Katsuko cracked her knuckles, picked up the green sticks, and tossed them over for her clone to trim and sharpen.

"Huh," Ryouma said. He tried, experimentally, to reach out with his chakra-sense. His range and sensitivity weren't anything to boast of, but he should have felt some diminution of her chakra from splitting it into so many shadow clones. If the forest-fire inside her had dimmed at all, though, he couldn't tell. "How many mushrooms did Shiranui collect?"

"I'm delegating," Katsuko said brightly. She thumped down from her crouch and stretched out on the wiry grass, pillowing her head on her hands. Across the clearing, her clones seemed to be negotiating with Genma, while Raidou's head tipped into his palm.

Kakashi glanced over his shoulder. "You can't do less than five, can you?"

"Not even on a good day, babe." Katsuko winked. "How're those rabbits coming along?"