In the narrow passage outside Hisa’s makeshift cabin, Genma frowned at his list. Of the thirty-three people the demons had taken, nine had come from Hayama village. And of those, they’d found just two who were saveable. The most recently taken from Hayama—four rice-field workers, Fujiyama-san, and Hisa-san—had all been in the chamber Kakashi found, and none of the paddy-workers had survived.

The hallway was still deserted, but to be safe, Genma cast a sound-deadening jutsu around them. “I don’t quite see the pattern,” he said, pointing at names on the list. “We know the victims we found in the outer chamber were taken before the ones you found with Hisa-san and Fujiyama-san, and five of them were still alive. The farm workers were taken eight days before we arrived, and you said one of them was already dead when you got there. You think they gestate faster in men, maybe?”

“Maybe,” said Kakashi said, sounding doubtful. “Or the more chakra you have, the faster they drain you. Unless it's all about the blood supply—more blood, faster growth.”

“Which would explain why it was smaller, older people we found still clinging to life, and the big, young, and presumably healthy were gone or close to gone by the time we got there,” Genma said. “She’s young, but she’s small. Based on the size her belly is now, and the size of the ones we saw in there, I’d guess she has maybe five days until the thing is too big to remove without killing her. What do you think?”

“I think you should kill it now, if you can. Why wait until it gets bigger?”

Genma nodded. “I considered that, but it’s plugged into her chakra system and blood supply. I’m worried about what it would do to her if I managed to kill it and it started to decompose inside her. This isn’t exactly a sterile environment for surgically removing it.”

“Point,” Kakashi said, tipping his head in acknowledgment. “So now what? If chakra speeds it up, you can't keep dosing her on soldier pills.”

“I’m not,” Genma said. “I’ve got her on a dextrose drip now, and I actually was trying some chakra calming on her, to try to slow the thing’s growth.” It hadn’t reacted to the pain control jutsu, but he’d felt its chakra waver in reaction to the dampening jutsu. He reached into one of the pouches on his beltpack and pulled out a small leather case. “Might try using senbon to keep her chakra flow slowed, since I can’t maintain the jutsu for five days without wearing myself out.”

Kakashi nodded and flicked two fingers at his left eye. The lion-dog mask’s eyehole was covered over with a dark patch—presumably a replacement, since Kakashi had used his Sharingan in the caves. “Need an extra eye on that?” he asked. “Or do you want me out of the way?”

“If you can spare the chakra for it, I could use your help,” Genma said. “Can you see chakra paths like a Hyuuga can, or just get a sense of overall flow?”

Kakashi’s masked face tilted down a fraction in hesitation, then flicked back. “Nothing so detailed as a Hyuuga,” he said, “but I can see chakra flow.”

“That will help,” Genma said, “I can sense her chakra, and the demon’s, but that’s nothing like actually seeing it. You can tell me if anything I do makes the thing react.” He slid the senbon case into a pocket and flexed his fingers. Feeling had come back as the demon’s venom had dissipated, but his hands still felt clumsy and stiff. Placing the therapeutic needles would be a challenge. “The jutsu I just cast should hold her for now,” he said. “We can try the senbon in a couple hours, if you’re up for it.”

“Sure,” Kakashi said. He took a step away from the wall. “In that case, I better get back to the other two before Rat sets the deck on fire, or something. Unless you need anything else?”

“Tell me how you’re doing,” said Genma. “Your chakra feels pretty low. How much pain are you having? Have you eaten yet?”

“Uh,” Kakashi answered, with the drawn out hesitation of the guilty caught red-handed. “Any minute now. I’m okay; took some aspirin earlier.”