The dog. Pakkun, that was. Oh shit. The two of them would've just been dragged under and drowned against the floor in this cavern, but the little dog could've been sucked into one of the smaller tunnels or crevaces that'd drained the water away so quickly.

Oh shit. Haruichi tried to keep his expression level, given that Kakashi had turned and could see his face now; and coughed despite himself, water leaking past his teeth, before speaking. "Hang on," he put his fingers together in their seal to aid his concentration and channel his weakened supply of chakra. The vessels around his eyes swelled, the bloodflow increased so dramatically he felt his heart shudder behind his ribs to keep up, and he caught up with his sight so he could scan the cave.

Favouring optomism, Haruichi angled his head back (his neck protesting viciously around the bruise) to cover his blind spot and scanned the roof in a hemisphere of dark blurs and pale grey shapes. Chakra. The dog had chakra, not human but he could source it with his eyes if he--

"See him," Haruichi murmurred.

It only took a second to be sure, and were it possible, Haruichi's face reddened even further. Twelve feet up the little pug was hanging upside down from the ceiling, looking wet and thoroughly disillusioned with the notion of waterparks but otherwise fine.

And he hadn't fallen off the ceiling. The dog had outperformed him. Haruichi resisted the rising urge to slam his face into his palm and stay that way until the world imploded.

"Nice plan, medic-boy. Next time let's bring an inflatable alligator and have us some real good times," grouched Pakkun, his dangling cape managing to drip water right into Haruichi's eyes even from this distance.

Bite me, you little git, Haruichi thought, but wisely did not say. Not least becaue he had no doubt Pakkun actually would. To add insult to injury, the little beast dropped from the ceiling, executed a perfectly concieved little summersault and dropped soundlessly to the wet stone floor. Scene of ungodly nautical carnage, death certain from on-high, and here was the little flash bastard himself.

"I see where you get it from," Haruichi muttered at Kakashi, crawling past Pakkun to retrieve the medical satchel and the varied paraphenalia attached. Once he had it, he got up to his unsteady feet and started unloading everything they didn't explicitly need. The parts of Kakashi's armour, the glow sticks, half the bandages...

"We've got to get out of here. Your genjutsu ward must have been washed away by that."

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Pakkun snorted and tripped delicately around the medic to tuck himself against Kakashi's neck and lick his nose. "Firstly," announced the pug to mid-air as the copy-nin relaxed, "he taught me how to talk, so I would technically get it all from him. Which makes it your fault," he added in an undertone to Kakashi. "And secondly, I like this getting out of here plan. It has punch. I vote we go with that one."

Kakashi's current viewpoint mostly involved the underside of Pakkun's furry jaw, and the vague sense of a whole lot of mortification happening somewhere to his left. Why Haruichi was embarrassed, he had no idea. He didn't much care, either. As long as Haruichi had the continued ability to be embarrassed, then he probably wasn't about to keel over any time soon.

At that point Kakashi stopped thinking about Haruichi because Pakkun was here and he was alive and everything else could wait for at least eight seconds while he felt relieved. He dragged his one good arm up and wrapped numb fingers around the back of the little dog's neck, sensitive pads slipping through wet fur. "You're not my fault," he mumbled quietly, "You're messed up in your own very special way."

Pakkun's narrow chest puffed out. "And don't you forget it, brat."

Kakashi laughed a raw-throated chuckle, wincing as the sound dragged his voice into a cough. "You have a plan?" he asked Haruichi when he could breathe again. "Or are we winging it and hoping?"

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Well, that was touching. Haruichi only half listened to Pakkun and Kakashi, preoccupied as he was with saving all three of their lives (or getting to it, at least), but it had him think for just a moment that when he got home all he was going to get from his dog was a bite in the leg.

Then he realized he'd just thought of Pika as 'his' dog and actually did bury his face in his hand for just a second. Bloody sentimental canines. He finished emptying what he could and should from the satchel, and yanked out the thermal blanket and some soldier pills. Downing two of the pills dry (he'd swallowed enough water to go with them, he was quite sure) he held one for Kakashi and stuffed the waterproofed pouch containing two more into his pocket.

"Of course I've got a plan. It's fantastic, I formulated it during those two and a half seconds I had before we started to drown," Haruichi scrambled quickly over the rock, looked down at Kakashi and Pakkun and then slid his chipped mask back over his face. The only colour on it, the small green cross under the left eye, was nearly invisible given the weak saturation of chemical light. "I'm going to piggyback you back to Konoha - running faster than I have ever run in my life - and you are going to refrain from indulging in any of your particularly highbrow brand of backchat, lapses into temporary insanity or dying of shock or bloodloss." Haruichi knelt down and wrapped the thermal blanket around Kakashi's torso, the better to keep some heat in - though he had to turn the muted side out. He passed Kakashi the soldier pill, and knowing he couldn't see him, smiled just slightly behind his mask. "I'm not worried though."

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Kakashi let go of Pakkun to take the pill with clumsy fingers, and gave Haruichi's mask a blank look. "That's your plan?" he asked finally, in the hangman's tone of one hoping it was going to be different in the second hearing, but without any real faith it would be. "That's not even a semi-plan, that's a slow way to commit suicide."

"I like it," said Pakkun, oddly cheerful. "Simple, direct, doesn't involve dying in a hole underground... what's not to love? Though asking Hatake-brat not to backchat is like asking the world to spin backwards."

Kakashi took the pill, swallowing it with a wince and a tiny gasp as the surge of chakra kicked him right in the coils. "I don't backchat, I provide much needed colour commentary. There's a subtle difference. And that's still not a plan."

Pakkun snorted. "Unless you can think of anything better, I suggest you put up, shut up, and thank the nice medic for trying to drag your complaining ass back home. If I was him I'd leave you in the... what'd you call it, kid? Crypt."

The copy-nin attempted to shove himself up on his left arm, locking his elbow to brace himself. "That's because you're a wonderful ray of sunshine," he muttered. "Sane people don't dance and sing when they get to watch people kill themselves trying to play hero."

Pakkun's tongue lolled out as he smiled a wide dog-grin, teeth showing. "You can compose him a pretty eulogy when you get home. Now shuddup before I remind him of his threat to slap you."

Kakashi sighed, then he looked up at Haruichi's mask again. "If you die doing this, I'm going to mock you forever and ever."

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Haruichi tipped his masked face at Kakashi, "If I die doing this I'll have used you as a human shield first, so I'm sure you'll do worse than just that," he retorted smoothly, smirking as he reached over and gripped Kakashi's arm to pull him up to his feet. A few more tugs and levers of gangly limbs and scrawny Hyuuga shoulders and Haruichi had Kakashi's weight more or less distribued best he could be. They got to the entranceway, the width of which had been substantially increased by the floodwaters, and Haruichi focussed his Byakugan with the fresh, artificially boosted chakra slipping through his body. Water from his soaking hair flicked into his wide open eye and he blinked. The air was still, all the world seemingly drowned and dripping but nothing more. The smell of water and dirt and stone was strong, but Haruichi barely noticed it - all his attention paid to the visuals of their surroundings.

Chakra and human forms. Chakra and human forms. They'd hide one or the other, not both. They didn't know he was a Hyuuga, they didn't even know he was here. So far as the Mist nins out there were concerned their prey was a sole Konoha nin who'd probably died of his injuries already in some hole or tree-top. So far as Haruichi was concerned they could carry on under that misapprehension, but if they tried to put another scratch on Kakashi he'd have them vomiting a tasteful slush composed of their internal organs.

He sourced four chakra sources, south of their position and moving away in a familiar search pattern. Haruichi shifted and tensed his grip on Kakashi's legs, feeling his torn nail bed swell a new trickle of blood at the movement. The finger stung, but not much more. Adrenaline. Focussed awareness. He couldn't find anybody else. It didn't mean they weren't there.

We're going home. I have to punch Genma. Hoshi's waiting. I want some coffee.

"Home soon," he whispered to Kakashi, and took off into the twilight - silent, swift and leaving nothing, not even muddied tracks, behind.

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Home. Home would be nice.

Kakashi hung off Haruichi's back, acutely aware how much heavier he was than the slight Hyuuga. It probably wasn't a lot--he had at least five inches in height, but a mission that seemed determined to burn up all his resources had probably dropped his weight--but carrying someone that weighed the same as you was hard enough without lugging around extra. And Haruchi had run twelve hours to get here, poured his chakra into healing what he could, and nearly gotten drowned for his troubles.

At least the water had done one decent thing. Without the scent of his own blood clouding up his senses, Kakashi could actually get a better idea of what--or who--were around them. Haruichi was the main thing he could smell, mostly because the man's hair was right next to his nose, and hair gathered scent more than anything else. But beneath that was the lingering trace of Mist-nin, fading now.

They were still close.

Kakashi hooked his unbroken arm across Haruchi's chest, just under the base of his throat, and wrapped his fingers around an armour strap, holding on as best he could. It wasn't much. He closed his eyes without meaning to, wincing as the Hyuuga's swift pace jarred injuries. He knew Haruichi was moving a smoothly as he could, but when your insides didn't flex so much as crunch that didn't mean a whole lot.

Twelve more hours. He had to hold on twelve more hours. Haruichi had to run twelve more hours.

Maybe if they were very lucky he'd pass out halfway.

Kakashi dropped his head onto Haruichi's shoulder, resting his hot forehead against soaked fabric, feeling the ridge of an unbroken bone pressing into his skin. He focused on that. "You still haven't told me why you're back," he murmured, searching for something else to keep himself in the real world.

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Breathing was tiring Haruichi for some reason, the faster he ran the harder it was to keep an even air-flow - his unfamiliarity with the mask and armour coupled with Kakashi's weight pulling on it was the reason. But he kept going, of course, eyes scanning a 360 degree scope around them as he sprang from branch to branch in silence and speed. He had to get them far enough away from the enemy, then he could ease up on the strain of keeping his eyes activated and searching so hard, and he could slow just slightly - enough to ration his remaining energy for the journey home.

Talking hadn't been one of the activities he'd been ready to expend energy on but just the fact that Kakashi was murmuring into his shoulder rather than hanging on his back in silence was evidence enough that he needed to talk or fall unconscious. Until they were out of harm's way Haruichi did not want to be alone in this, so he angled forwards and jumped again, feet skimming a rocky outcrop rather than really gracing it with his weight.

"Because somebody has to be here," he reiterated quietly to Kakashi, catching a suspect flicker out the very farthest corner of his eye and swinging his attention to it. Just a cat. Keep talking. "Sandaime-sama decided you lunatics needed some medical supervision, so here I am." Another deep breath, and still moving fast, a glimpse of Pakkun bounding alongside them above the ground. "Why does it matter?"

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"Can't imagine why he said that," Kakashi managed, trying not to stutter when pain shook him from bones to skin. Haruichi leapt, perfectly graceful, and Kakashi tried not to throw up down the back of his neck. "There's a... a whole hospital just around the corner. Full of m-medics."

Pakkun snorted from the forest floor and ran up the leaning trunk of a tree, little flares of chakra crackling under his paws. He was the only one of Kakashi's pack who could run at tree-top level and keep up with ANBU-level ninja. "Yeah," he growled very quietly, "none of which you let treat you without a fight, brat."

That was an old argument. Kakashi kept his face against Haruichi's shoulder, breathing carefully through his teeth, and ignored the pug. Why did it matter, Haruichi had asked.

Why did it matter?

He inhaled, catching the medic's scent again. It was stressed, threaded with the sour lime smell of tension and unhappiness, but it was Haruichi's. Scent was something people always forgot to change, to hide. You couldn't lie with scent. Haruichi was really here.

Kakashi hadn't missed him when he'd left--he hadn't--because you couldn't miss someone you didn't like. And he didn't like Haruichi. He didn't like anyone, dammit. And he hadn't got used to the Hyuuga medic down in the basement who was always there--always there--when he got dragged in bleeding and hurting and half out of his mind with exhaustion or pain or whatever nasty little jutsu he'd faced down and limped away from. He hadn't been thrown when Haruichi had disappeared. He hadn't. Even if Haruichi was a medic and medics didn't die on missions...

"Didn't think you were coming back," he said, so quietly it was almost inaudible.

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Neither did I, thought Haruichi - for a much different reason than he supposed Kakashi was imagining. He ducked them both beneath a flurry of thorns and leaves and bounced soundlessly to cross a wide gap in the branches once again. Another breath, a little deeper. "Well, wonders never cease and here I am. As I said, somebody has to be. It's important."

His thoughts slipped to Rin-sensei, then. An oddly clear and quiet touch back to the spirit in all the medics he'd grown up around and had known. It was important. Nothing was more important. Tsunade-sama might have lost the plot towards the end there, but she had been right - Konoha's efforts to rescue, heal and support their ninja were what made the village itself. Made it worth fighting for.

"Anyway, this isn't too different from my last first day," he murmured. Which it wasn't. He was wet, his head had been slammed off a hard surface, and he was dragging Kakashi's wounded ass back to safety - though this time he was being nicer about it. Unfortunately it was he who got cracked in the head with a piece of equipment this turn around, but that wasn't particularly important. Haruichi blinked behind his mask, shifting Kakashi's heavier weight as best he could as they took a sharp turn and finally lost the signs of searching enemy nins from his sight. He could feel the strain on his chakra digging deeper, but he didn't pull his vision back yet - not until he absolutely had to. "I'm starting to think dealing with you first time out is Fate's way of hazing me for ANBU service."

They kept moving, Haruichi doing his best to conserve energy in each step, each breath, each use of his eyes until finally there had been no sign of pursuers for half an hour and he simply couldn't make it if he spent the chakra on his Byakugan and not his muscles. A slight pained hiss behind his teeth as he pulled his vision back to three dimensions, binocular in front of him, and kept running. It was the only way. "Kakashi, you still awake?"

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