Katsuko hurt everywhere. She’d mostly been able to ignore her bandaged shoulder, but now it was just one more annoying note in the symphony of aches caused by her wounds. At least the mask hid any pained grimaces she made. The blood streaked over her armor and skin hadn’t dried yet; she probably should be worried about demon ichor coming into contact with her open cuts, but that was a concern for after she’d blown up the mountain.

Well, not the whole mountain. Just the relevant parts of the mountain.

She slapped the last explosion tag from her emergency stash on the rocks above the tunnel entrance and stood up, pressing her palms to the small of her back as she stretched. The flicker of chakra caught her attention, and she turned to see Raidou and Ryouma coming out of the trees. She leapt down to the ground and met them halfway.

“Tags primed and ready to go,” Katsuko told Raidou.

Raidou nodded, crescent moon mask wet with rain. “Good job. Any sign of more critters?”

Katsuko shook her head. “None near the entrances.”

Ryouma stared down into the dark mouth of the cave. “How about lower down?” he asked, doubtfully. “I can’t sense anything. Not even Hound and the lieutenant. How deep does this mine go?”

“Tanuki has the map,” Raidou said, after a contemplative silence.

Katsuko coughed. “They’re still too deep into the mine for radio contact, right?”

Raidou tapped his throat-mic and hailed their two missing members, receiving only static in return. “Yep.” He looked into the darkness again. “Guess we wait.”

Ryouma sighed heavily. “Hate waiting,” he muttered. "Might as well do some wound-care now. Keep the lieutenant from yelling at us later.”

“Can’t have that,” Katsuko said dryly, but pitched in to help when Ryouma started bandaging his injured thigh. He returned the favor with the slice on her arm, tying off the bandages at her shoulder.

After another contemplative second staring at the mine entrance, Ryouma brightened up and started digging in his belt pouch. “Rat bars?”

Katsuko had her own rat bars, but food tasted better when you took it from someone else. “I’ll have one,” she said.

“Chocolate, right?” Ryouma dug a bar out of his stash and flipped it to her. “Captain, you’ve got Coconut or Peanut Butter Fudge.”

“Coconut,” Raidou said. “You can keep the sugar coma.”

Ryouma shoved his mask back and grinned, teeth white against his skin. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Katsuko eyed them both and took a thoughtful bite out of her rat bar. A glance over her shoulder revealed that the mine entrance was still dark and empty. It had been hard enough fighting the demons out in the open, with room to dodge and clear lines of retreat. The demons were deadly at close range, and the narrow, twisted tunnels of the mine were their home territory.

How long had it been since Hatake and Shiranui descended?

She crammed the rest of the rat bar into her mouth and chewed. “How long have Hound and Tanuki been down there?”

“Just under an hour,” Raidou said immediately. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, restless. “We’ll give ‘em ten more minutes.”

Ten more minutes to emerge from the mountains with more than a dozen villagers, or what was left of the villagers. She still couldn’t sense Hatake’s and Shiranui’s signatures. Katsuko stared into the darkness of the mine and had to remind herself to blink.