| [Sep. 24th, 2013|09:59 pm] |
One green-brown eye cracked open and peered at him. “Urgh,” Katsuko said, then tucked her face down against his chest and, as far as he could tell, passed out.
Well, that worked, too.
He carried her back to the other room, where the doctor and her assistant had finished stitching and binding Genma’s belly-wound, and had moved onto his shoulders. Genma’s masked head twitched as he spotted Kakashi, and his eyes widened at Katsuko. “Is she—”
“Asleep,” Kakashi said quickly. “I think she’s just tired.”
Genma nodded once, fractional but there—maybe he was starting to get some voluntary movement at last. “You holding up?” he rasped.
“I’m holding her up,” Kakashi said, and found himself with a complete lack of spare beds to put Katsuko down on. Genma took one, the silent civilians took two, and Ryouma was flat unconscious in the last one. Though—Ryouma and Katsuko had been plenty comfy together in their shared tent-blanket-thing, and he was unlikely to kick her now.
Mutual warmth wouldn’t hurt them, either.
It took a little wrangling to kick one corner of the blanket back and lower Katsuko carefully down, laying her out next to Ryouma on the narrow bed. Despite being shorter and fine-boned, she was still a fully-grown shinobi and had all the muscle that implied. Kakashi’s arms ached, though that was possibly because he’d also used them to climb a mountain and fight a monster earlier.
He straightened her out on her back, folding her right arm across her chest, where it wouldn’t jar that collarbone. Then, as an afterthought, wedged a pillow between her and Ryouma, just in case Ryouma decided to roll over and smother her. That done, he laid a careful henge mask over her face, hiding pale, slightly pinched features behind a smooth replica of her lost rat mask, and drew the blankets back up again.
Ryouma didn’t stir. Katsuko grabbed the edge of the blanket with her good hand and pulled it higher, tucking her face down. They each had about three inches between them and the edges of the bed, but if they didn’t move much they’d be okay.
When Kakashi straightened, the room did a very gentle waltz around the corners of his vision, but settled when he blinked hard.
Ryouma, done.
Katsuko, almost done.
Genma—in progress.
The doctor stiffened when Kakashi moved over to her, but her hands stayed steady on Genma’s stinger-punctured shoulder. “How are your teammates?” she asked.
“One’s drained. The other still needs her collarbone fixed,” Kakashi said. “And her shoulder looked at.”
When he got home, he was having words with the Quartermaster. Almost every single member of Team Six had shoulder injuries.
“How’s Tanuki doing?” he asked.
“This one?” said the doctor. “He’ll be a lot better off once I get whatever’s in this puncture out of him.”
Demon venom, Kakashi almost said, but it was probably better she didn’t actually know. She wasn’t likely to have an anti-venom anyway. The lieutenant could tell her, if he wanted.
Genma made an irritated sound. “There's something in there? Take a knife and dig it out.”
“Patience,” the doctor said, fishing about with what looked like a set of steel forceps. They scraped against something Kakashi sincerely hoped wasn’t bone, and a thin trickle of pinkish fluid oozed out of the hole—diluted blood. The doctor scowled and dug deeper.
The painted ANBU mask hid any expression, but there were tendons jumping in Genma’s bare arms, and his flushed skin seemed more sweat-sheened than it had been.
Kakashi frowned. “Have you given him something for pain?” |
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