Ninja mercy was an interesting concept. Sometimes it was better to put someone down quick and dirty than it was to let them run two days worth of distance on an injured leg. Especially when that someone's slow pace could get everyone else killed. Genma struggled, Raidou hit him in the one obvious weak spot that wasn't a hand.

Genma screaming, he didn't quite expect.

For a moment Raidou stilled, frozen by the sound he was supposed to protect against, not cause, then he jerked his arm up and choked the noise away.

"Stop," he snapped firmly, speaking right into Genma's ear. "Think, you moron. Or are you trying to bring every enemy right down on our heads?" He didn't know if there was anyone nearby, but he didn't exactly want to find out, either. "You're an ANBU, remember? Don't make me knock you out."

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The choke-hold was enough to stop Genma's breath, and that was enough to stop his struggles. Pain was a surprising thing when it mixed with adrenaline. You could run for miles on a shattered ankle, feeling only a mild ache when your fight or flight system overrode the pain. Or something relatively minor--like a fist to a dog bite on the thigh--could incapacitate you, because you'd drained yourself down to nothing fighting and fleeing already, and your nervous system had nothing more to give to gate the pain.

Genma clawed at Raidou's arm, gagging and gasping as the air was choked out of him. His eyes showed whites all around, teeth bared, but it was his leg that had most of his attention, throbbing with a sick insistence that dragged his awareness down to a few cubic centimeters of macerated flesh.

He stopped fighting, sagging in Raidou's grasp. A part of himself stood outside it, watching the situation with alarm. Wolf-Tsume circled warily, ears still flat against her head, and Kuromaru stared disdainfully. The worst of it was Raidou, though. Raidou having to restrain the man who was supposed to be leading this mission. The shame alone could have choked Genma, even without Raidou's forearm crushing his larynx.

"Let me go," he rasped. "Just let me go."

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Sometimes mercy was a cold thing. "Not yet," said Raidou, locking down the impulse to do as Genma asked. He eased up a fraction, making sure his friend could breathe, and carried him to Kuromaru. The dog was standing, head thrown back, ears pricked up. On his hind legs, Raidou was fairly certain Kuromaru would stand taller than any of them. He was easily strong enough to carry Genma.

"Stay still," Raidou told him, and shifted his grip to settle Genma down onto the summon's broad back. He didn't let go, even when Genma's weight rested in the slight dip behind Kuromaru's sharp shoulders. "Will you stay? Or do I really have to knock you out and lash you down? Because I don't want to do that, but I will."

Raidou wanted to go home, the desire was almost overwhelming. He was done fighting the people he shouldn't have to.

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Kuromaru braced, tensing the muscles along his spine and spreading his legs a little more to remain as study as he could. He was just barely tall enough that the ninja's feet didn't touch the ground on either side of his body even with his legs hanging; that would make running easier, anyway.

Neither ninja smelled happy. His entire temporary pack was falling apart, and he seemed to be the only one stable. Unstable animals tended to fight. Hard to break one up with a man strapped to your back.

He could do it. He'd just rather not. "It's easier to run with strapped dead weight, or conscious unstrapped weight," he growled, feeling the vibrations run through the man's bones and reverberate back. He could carry Genma. He could protect them all. He could break up fights. He just wished humans weren't quite so fragile, really. Near the boulder, Tsume sat in wolf form watching them all with pale, inhuman eyes.

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"I'll cooperate," Genma said in a low, nearly toneless voice. He stared at his bandaged leg, at the blood drying at the edges to a deep burgundy, still fresh scarlet in the center of the stain that shouldn't have been so wide. "Since you bit me, you can carry me. It's only fair," he said, mustering up a combination of stoicism and bravado he didn't really feel.

He wondered if somehow Kuromaru's bite and his and Raidou's repeated assaults on the injured area had managed to break open one of the smaller superficial arteries. The femoral artery was out of the question, too deeply buried, and if it had been hit he'd have been faint with much more severe blood loss than this, or possibly dead already, but something was keeping this wound bleeding despite a fairly tight bandage and a decent span of time since the injury occurred.

Kuromaru shifted under him in a way entirely unlike the motion of a horse or Hoshi, his largest rat, and Genma swayed, grabbing a handful of black fur on Kuromaru's ruff for balance. Gripping with his thighs just made the wound burn and the stain grow.

Raidou was right. He needed to rebandage it. "Rai," he said softly. "Grab me out a compression bandage."

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