Ryouma had spent a good chunk of the last three weeks trying to figure out an assault plan, and he still hadn't hit on an approach he thought he'd survive. Half the principle behind being a ninja was taking the enemy unawares, Hitomi-sensei said, but after weeks of cautious feinting, he was pretty sure subterfuge would never get him anywhere. Launching a direct assault was nothing short of suicidal, but it was also probably the only way he'd ever get his opponent to sit up and take notice.

He was vaguely aware that thinking of the only woman he'd ever loved as an "opponent" probably wasn't the best way to go about winning her heart. Then again, Hyuuga Hitomi-sensei wasn't exactly an ordinary woman.

She was, at the moment, a pissed-off kunoichi. "Next time I have leave in Konoha," she snapped, folding up a bit of oiled cloth and shoving it back in her jounin vest, "I swear I'll jyuuken the spleen out of whoever drew this map. How do you misplace an entire river?"

"Pretty easily, with a Water jutsu," Ryouma pointed out. "You could be reading the map wrong, too. Lemme see."

Hitomi drew back, white eyes narrowing coldly. She looked like some avenging goddess, long black hair tangling in the rising wind, sculpted face made even more elegant by angry scorn, slim arms folded across her chest. One manicured fingernail ticked warningly against her biceps. "If you think," she said slowly, "that I'd let even one of your filthy fingers touch my maps, you're even more of an idiot brat than I thought. Which is truly impressive. What kind of water jutsu could reroute a river?"

"You're cheating," Ryouma protested. "No fair turning an argument into a test. C'mon, I washed my hands six times already, just let me look at the map--"

He cut off abruptly as Hitomi-sensei lifted her head. Throbbing veins leapt out under the skin, tracing an intricate pathway from eyesocket to temple, and the milky iris of each eye grew faintly visible. Ryouma's hand edged down for a kunai.

"It's not an enemy," Hitomi said calmly. "Comb your hair, brat."

Ryouma stared at her. "What?"

"Your funeral, then," Hitomi said, with a shrug. She raised her voice. "Good to see you, Namikaze-san."

"Nami--" Ryouma's eyes fled frantically around them, but as usual, whatever Hitomi saw was still invisible to him. He raked at his disheveled hair with his fingers, anyway. "The Yellow Flash? He's here?"

"Present!" said Minato brightly, skidding to a gentle halt in a shower of leaves. He grinned at Hitomi. "Hyuuga-san! You look as radiant and annoyed as ever. I'd kiss your hand, but my delightful former student might take the opportunity to kick my head off."

Somewhere roughly shoulderblade level, Kakashi cursed quietly. Minato patted his back gently and ignored the subvocal threat.

"And this must be your student," he continued, casting an appraising look over the rangy teenager by Hitomi's elbow. Dark, handsome in a young sort of way, with big hands and feet that promised further growth. He already topped his teacher by a few inches.

And Minato by at least one, he worked out with a grin.

He stuck out the hand not being used to keep Kakashi in place. "Tousaki Ryouma, right? Pleased to meet you. I've heard good things--yowch!"

Kakashi jerked around and managed to crack a second elbow into the back of Minato's head. "Put me down. Before I do something worse." Under a layer of red mud, his cheeks flushed delicately green. "Like throw up on you."

Only a boy who'd spent the last year and a half hounding Hitomi's footsteps would have noticed the very slight flush that tinged her wind-reddened cheeks, or the slight edge to the speed with which she released her Byakugan. Ryouma wasn't really sure he could blame her, though. He was pretty certain he was blushing.

Namikaze Minato, Konoha's Yellow Flash--the war-hero everyone said was already being groomed as the next Hokage--knew his name. Had heard good things about him. (Who from? Hitomi wouldn't have complimented him to save her life.) Had offered to shake his hand.

Well, okay, the kid he was hauling over one shoulder had kind of prevented that, but the thought totally counted.

Hitomi swatted him on the back of the head. "Manners, brat."

"Uh...honored in the acquaintance, sir," Ryouma managed. He hissed to his sensei, "Where're yours?"

She thwacked him again. "I apologize for the brat. I think they gave him to me in hopes I'd beat some decorum into him, but it's been slow going. Though it looks like you've had little better luck."

"The trick is to actually beat them," Minato returned cheerfully, and hauled Kakashi carefully off his shoulders. "With a shovel, for preference. Though my teacher preferred a pickaxe. On good days he'd take the rusty nails out."

Kakashi managed to get both feet on the ground. He stood up, swayed, and decided leaning against his former teacher for a second was better than falling completely over. "You are such a liar," he muttered.

Minato ruffled his hair, mindless of the mud and questionable pink-ish splatters that stained his fingers. "I merely furnish the truth in interesting ways, Kakashi-kun. It's a talent of mine."

"I can bite you," Kakashi offered, pulling his head aside. Only a keen observer would note he did it a little slower than necessary.

"Through your mask? I'd pay to see that," said Minato with a grin, and tossed a sealed scroll to Hitomi. "New orders from higher-ups. And I need to ask you a favour regarding my precious blossom here--"

Kakashi jabbed an elbow into his stomach.

"--and your equally interesting student at some later date." Minato steadied Kakashi as the boy wobbled again, and ran over his last sentence. "That is, I need two favours. One now, and one regarding Ryouma-kun in the future."

Hitomi caught the scroll one-handed, sighed, and tucked it away into one of the scroll-pouches on her vest. "I can't believe they have you just running courier duty, so the favors must be something big. Well, I'll do whatever I can."

"Hey!" Ryouma objected. "You can't just volunteer me."

His sensei flicked his earlobe, painfully sharp. "You're a chuunin," she reminded him. "All of us outrank you. Including, I believe, Hatake-kun."

Ryouma stared with a little more interest at the skinny kid leaning against Minato's arm. A brush of filthy grey hair even more untidy than his own; one dark grey eye open, and one, pink and inflamed, closed by a shocking scar a little darker than his pale skin. Tears leaked down the kid's cheek to run into the dirty dark blue mask and crust on his skin. No vest, but that didn't always mean no rank. Without a clear glimpse at his face, the boy's age was impossible to tell; but the slender build and the cracking voice hinted at a young adolescent, at least a couple of years Ryouma's junior.

And a jounin already? Totally unfair.

"Right," he said, grudgingly. He sneaked another glance at the kid, who was staring at nothing but his sensei and, occasionally, his dirty feet. "What's the favor? Favors. Is it quick? There's a storm coming in, and we were supposed to be looking for the nearest safe-house. Until sensei got us lost."

Hitomi hit him again. Ryouma grinned.

Minato laughed. "The first one's easy. I was hoping you two wouldn't mind keeping an eye on Kakashi-kun here--" he kept talking over Kakashi's protests, "--while I head back to the front lines. He has a minor habit of fighting when he should be doing other things. Like sleeping, eating, living--"

Kakashi wrenched himself away. "I do not need a babysitter!"

"Then stop acting like a child." Minato gave him a sharp look, mouth falling into an unhappy line.

Kakashi flushed and broke the staring match first. "I'm fine," he muttered, arms crossing. Thin fingers dug into weary biceps, smearing mud. "And you're not my teacher anymore."

Minato sighed. "True. But I still outrank you, so you will follow orders, Kakashi-kun."

Kakashi said nothing.

Minato dragged a hand through his hair, accidentally wiping mud through it, and turned his attention back to Ryouma. "The second favour is all about you," he said, pulling a smile back over his face. "When we have a free moment, I'd love to get the chance to have a conversation about your jutsu." He held up a quick hand. "No thievery intended, but they sound like something that could be useful." He grinned. "And I like to keep tabs on interesting people. Sound fair?"

For the first time, Kakashi looked up and cast a sharp glance over Ryouma. A flash of red spun under the curtain of his hair for a moment, then he looked away.

Four years ago, a bored shinobi had waded into a street-fight, broken Ryouma's arm, and told him to register at the Academy when it healed. You got something, kid, he'd said. It'd be a shame to waste it. That was all; but for three years in the Academy and the past year and a half of brutal struggle, it'd been enough to go on.

The Yellow Flash's words now would be enough to live on.

"Sounds great," he burst out, before Hitomi could say anything at all. "Nobody's ever--I mean, most people think it's gross, not interesting."

"That's because it is," Hitomi murmured, but her stern face had softened, white eyes gentling. She looked almost...proud? "I'd be happy to lend him to you whenever you like. How long are you assigning Hatake-kun to us? If these orders send me out..." She touched her breast, where the unread orders nestled in the vest scroll-pouch. "I could leave him with the brat in the safe-house. We've had a five-day stint on the front already; we were actually heading back for our rest-period just now."

Minato glanced at the sky, eyes narrowing as he studied distant clouds. "As long as those hold," he said finally. "He'll be fine with your boy, if Ryouma-kun's willing to sit on him occasionally." He flashed a wry smile at both teenagers.

Kakashi glared at him with both eyes.

Minato settled back on his heels slightly, and shook off the feeling of staring down two students at once. He looked at Hitomi again and bowed with a smile. "And I'm desperately sorry to send your fabulous self away at the last moment, but you clearly have no need for beauty sleep."

Kakashi snorted.

Minato flicked him a grin and dropped a hand on his head, ruffling dirty hair briefly before Kakashi could duck away. "Be good. Don't kill anyone on our side."

Kakashi gaped at him, eyes widening. "I would never--"

But Minato was already wincing. "I didn't mean..." he sighed and squeezed Kakashi's thin shoulder. "My foot likes to live in my mouth. Ignore me, kid. And stay safe."

For a moment, Kakashi's fingers caught his and tightened, then he stepped quickly away.

Minato looked at him for a moment, with a smile that was slightly softer, before he turned with all his usual energy and held a hand out to Ryouma. "Second time lucky. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ryouma-kun." His grin broadened again. "Best of luck with Kakashi. Don't take your eyes off him."

"I got experience with kids," Ryouma said confidently. "My teammates are babies--" He stopped, even before Hitomi hit him. "Were," he corrected himself, quietly.

Kenichi wasn't anything, anymore. And whatever Shouri was, wherever she was, she wasn't a child.

Maybe it wouldn't have hurt so much if they'd been his age, instead of two years younger. If they hadn't been so much smaller and so much weaker. If he hadn't been supposed to protect them.

He'd failed with both of them, in different ways, but he wouldn't do it again. "You can count on me, Namikaze-san," he promised, taking the Yellow Flash's hand in a firm grip. If the man noticed the faint smell of rot that still clung to Ryouma's hands, he didn't mention it, firmly cementing his place as Ryouma's hero and god.

For that, he could even be forgiven flirting with Hitomi-sensei.

If Minato had anything to say on the subject of lost teammates and the lessons they left behind, it was drowned in the sudden roll of angry thunder in the distance. His head jerked left, eyes narrowing as he surveyed the threatening clouds that painted the sky in bruise-colours.

Chakra gathered suddenly in a crackling knot of energy. Kakashi took a careful step back, giving his teacher some room.

Minato smiled and nodded at Hitomi. "Be safe." His gaze swept over Ryouma with another nod, and settled on Kakashi. For a moment there was a shared look.

Then he was gone.

Kakashi shaded his eyes with one hand as he watched the liquid-gold blur streak away, headed for the front lines. His narrow shoulders slumped for a moment. Then, with an effort, he straightened up and snapped a wry salute at Hitomi and her student. "Pleasure to meet you. Must be going. Good luck on your mission."

He shoved his hands in his pockets, gathered his own chakra, and darted away.

Hitomi sighed, pulled the scroll back out of its pouch, and slit the seal with a thumbnail. "Go get him, brat," she said, already scanning the regimented lines of black figures marching like little ants down the paper. "And see if you and your bright ideas can find the safe-house." Still holding the scroll in one hand, she reached into her vest with the other and flicked a little square of brightly colored oiled silk at Ryouma. "If you mess up my map, I'll kill you."

"Yes ma'am," Ryouma said, and ran.

For a ninja on the move, age and height and strength were less important factors than freshness, breath, and chakra control. Still, a few extra inches of leg and a few extra pounds of muscle made a lot of difference in springing from branch to branch among Fire Country's towering trees. And the Yellow Flash's kid seemed seriously tired; he hadn't been leaning against his sensei just for show. Ryouma wasn't even breathing hard when he spotted the slim little figure bounding through the thin, light branches seven or so meters above him. He cupped one hand to his mouth. "Hey, kid!"

No response, but the kid started to pick up speed--and to change course, weaving through the trees as if he seriously thought he could get away. Ryouma snorted and kept up. "Guessing your sensei should've made you promise, not me." He tried raising his voice again. "Hey, idiot, this is my mission!"

The rising wind ripped his words away.

"Ex-sensei," muttered Kakashi, under his rasping breath. "And he's not that stupid." He chanced a glance back at the teenager chasing him, and threw himself sideways. One hand slapped a brief hold on a solid oak with a palmful of chakra; he lunged for the next tree.

The chuunin kept perfect step.

Kakashi snarled something nasty under his breath and tried to move faster. His muscles sang a symphony of weary complaint. Behind one half-closed lid, Obito's eye ripped an ugly circle of pain in its borrowed socket. Kakashi faltered momentarily, attention dragged sideways, and almost lost his balance.

He caught a branch at the last second and yanked himself forwards, forcing his legs to move like he wanted. Chakra flickered in tired ripples through his coils. The chuunin was catching up.

"Go away," Kakashi snarled, refusing to look back. He risked dropping one hand for a soldier pill.

"Nope!" Ryouma hollered back cheerfully. The kid was seriously ready to fall out of a tree at any moment; he was wavering, unsteady, losing speed. When Ryouma reached out to sense his chakra, a trick he'd mastered at last a month or two ago, he nearly missed his own step. The kid's energy was frighteningly low. He was probably dancing on the verge of chakra depletion. Not even the soldier pill he'd just reached for would pull him safely back from the brink at this point.

"Damnit!" Ryouma lengthened his own stride, forcing chakra to increase both speed and power. He was only two jumps behind now, then one... "If I really gotta sit on you, I swear I will! Just stop, willya?"

Of course the kid didn't listen. Ryouma gritted his teeth, focused his chakra, and leapt.

He managed to snag one ankle before gravity and momentum combined to tumble them both out of the tree. Another branch rose up fast and painful, knocking the breath out of them both. But at least, Ryouma reflected, they'd stopped.

He kept tight hold on the kid's ankle, though. Namikaze-san hadn't been joking about this kid being a challenge.

Kakashi gasped out a strangled noise that would have been a barbed and devastating insult, if he'd been able to get the air. The table-width tree branch beneath them had stopped their fall very effectively. It had also damaged enough fragile capillaries to begin spreading a bark-pattern bruise over most of Kakashi's front.

Not to mention shatter a few scrolls, he thought unhappily, feeling something grate under his chest.

Autopilot got him moving. He dragged himself up onto his elbows and lunged to his feet.

Or tried to lunge.

The chuunin's solid grip around his ankle brought him back down.

Kakashi landed heavily on his palms, absorbed the shock of impact, and twisted. His free foot lashed down to crush fingers; one hand jerked up, palm-heel aimed at the chuunin's face. Chakra snarled and burned away.

Even exhausted to the point of burn-out, the Hatake kid was still a ninja. Still a jounin, which would have meant a lot more if he weren't small, thin, and shaking like an addict in withdrawal. Ryouma's fingers still went numb where Kakashi's foot smashed them, and he jerked his head back just barely far enough to avoid another broken nose. He gasped with pain, swore, and tackled the kid's knees.

Kakashi twisted like an eel. Ryouma sat on him.

"I," he panted, "told your sensei I'd look after you. And I told my sensei, who'll explode both our livers if I let you get away. Believe me, kid, you don't want Sensei mad at you. She'll..." He struggled to think of anything horrible enough to daunt a boy who lived on the battlefield. Hell, Kakashi didn't look any older than Kenichi had been when Ryouma successfully terrorized him; maybe the same threats would work on him. "She'll watch you in the bath."

The bastard was heavy.

Kakashi gasped, fighting for breath, and forced himself to try for a proper inhale. The chuunin was crushing his lungs. He snarled behind his mask, trying to twist around and get his arms up. His feet up. Anything.

Slipping from nerveless fingers, the chakra pill he hadn't managed to take was lost in the leafmold.

"I--" he whipped his head to one side, teeth snapping, "--am going to make you hurt." His tanto ground an ugly bruise into his back. Kakashi wished he could reach it. "You and your sensei!" Static buzzed in his ears. Sour-metal flooded over his tongue. Numbness dragged through his limbs. His chakra sparked and flickered like a drowned candle.

Kakashi went limp.

The difference between unconscious and dead wasn't one most shinobi spent a good deal of time learning. A kunai in the right place would resolve the difference for anyone, and in the Academy they devoted most of their time to learning where exactly that right place was. Ryouma had a moment of pure, heart-squeezing panic before he realized that Kakashi's sides were still gently rising and falling between his knees. The kid had just passed out.

Elite shinobi, hah. Try idiot shinobi.

Ryouma swung off him, sat down on the edge of the branch with his legs dangling over the abyss--and one eye on the unconscious Kakashi, just in case the kid woke up and got any ideas--and pulled Hitomi's map out of the breast of his battered chuunin vest. The storm was coming on fast; there wasn't much sun left to orient himself by. A few thick drops spattered the oiled silk map as he took a compass reading, plotted his location on the map, and then tried to trace a path to where he was supposed to be.

Hitomi-sensei was right; the river that should have meandered through this forest was completely gone. He wondered what kind of battle that had been, and who had won.

The safe-house should be only about three kilometers away, seven klicks from where he'd left Hitomi, and just outside her Byakugan's range. But she'd be able to follow him easily enough. He packed the map and compass away again, and tried to pick up Kakashi.

Oof. The kid was lighter than he looked. Maybe Namikaze-san was right about him forgetting to eat, in which case he was probably only pretending to be a teenage boy. Hitomi would be able to check for sure.

Hoisting him up into a two-shouldered fireman's carry was actually fairly easy, since Kakashi wasn't awake to protest. Ryouma threaded his right arm behind Kakashi's right knee and grabbed the boy's wrist with the same hand, which kept his left hand free to respond to any attack. It also left Kakashi's left arm and leg dangling down his back, perilously close to his shuriken pouch. If the kid woke up, Ryouma hoped he'd at least yell a threat or something before stabbing his rescuer in the back.

The rain was beginning to fall harder, pounding through the thick foliage in little silver-tipped spears. Ryouma shook his wet hair out of his eyes, shrugged the kid a little higher up on his shoulders, and took off.

Namikaze-san had better be grateful for this.

Kakashi groaned himself awake when some miserable individual took it upon themselves to throw him in a river. A river with rocks in. He cracked one eye open and flinched when pain sharded through his head.

Wrong eye.

He closed his left and tried the right. For a moment, nothing but a blurry watercolour met his vision. He blinked, grunted when something jogged hard under his sternum, and tried to see. He was moving--

Wait, water?

Kakashi jerked up and realized three things at once. One, it was raining. Two, the bastard chuunin was carrying him somewhere. And three, he hurt like hell.

Priorities first.

He dragged a lead-heavy hand up and jabbed the man in the first place he could reach. "Pu' me down."

Ryouma nearly stumbled when the limp weight over his shoulders went suddenly mobile. He did stumble, skidding to his knees in the leafmold and brush of the forest floor, when Kakashi stabbed him in the kidney. "You little bitch!" he howled. "I'm rescuing you!"

Hauling his sorry carcass to the safe-house, instead of leaving him to the dubious mercy of the rain and the forest and the entirely nonexistent mercy of the war, totally counted as rescue. The brat was a comrade, even if he didn't seem to realize it, and he was Ryouma's responsibility. Namikaze-san had given him a mission.

And at the moment, Ryouma didn't care. He dropped his head, dragged the struggling kid off his shoulders, and punched him square in that masked mouth.

If the chuunin hadn't been holding his arm, Kakashi would have had another leaf bruise to add to his general array of foliage-based injuries. Instead he rocked back, legs unsteady beneath him, as pain sharp enough to be completely surprising jolted through his head and made the world dance. Blood burst in his mouth as his lower lip split on sharp canines.

He blinked through a splash of ugly coloured lights, and stared at the teenager holding him up. "You hit me." The complete inanity of that accusation spurred him to catch his balance, if only so he could hit the older ninja back. "You bastard."

Better insult. But not by much.

Kakashi gave up on words and used the chuunin's grip to haul himself up and aim for the guy's throat.

"You hit me first!" Ryouma blocked a punch with his forearm and missed the lightning-fast counterstrike going for his gut. Bent double, gasping, he glared up from under rain-drenched dark hair and reached for the old insults of the street. "And your mother sold herself on the street and your father didn't even pay--"

Kakashi hit him again. Ryouma headbutted him in the chest. "And your sensei pawns you off on whoever's nearest, he likes my jutsu, and--"

"And obviously misjudged your abilities," Hitomi-sensei said coldly. She seized the back of his collar and tossed him on his back with scarcely more effort than she might have used in discarding an empty coffee-cup. Rain slicked her shining black hair to her scalp and drew shimmering fingers down the stern planes of her lovely face. White eyes rimmed with the pulsing veins of her Byakugan glared down with unmitigated scorn at the two boys. "I know my brat has problems with his brain, but I'd have thought you knew how to obey orders, Hatake-kun."

Kakashi heaved a ragged breath through his wet mask, tasting warm metal. "Thinking's a dangerous habit for the unpracticed, sensei," he grated between clenched teeth. The chuunin had insulted his parents. "Any order can be disobeyed when you suspect the mental health of the one giving it."

He threw out spite automatically, using it to hide the way he couldn't quite see straight. The way he couldn't stop thinking about Minato alone on the battlefield; one bright spark against hundreds.

It was a stupid thought. His teacher--ex-teacher, whispered a nasty voice--was a genius. More than a genius. He wouldn't die because Kakashi wasn't there.

He wouldn't.

Kakashi didn't wince as Obito's eye hurt him. Instead he focused on the woman blocking his way, and gathered his last scraps of chakra. "Go teach your idiot a new trick, jounin. I have a place to be."

He feinted left, split off a clone, and threw himself right. The battlefields were less than half a day's run.

Hitomi sighed. "Gods save me from teenage boys." She laced her fingers together, cracked her knuckles, and tossed her hair.

And then there were two Hitomi, and in a swirl of leaves each one stood directly in front of the fleeing Kakashi. Poised, crouched low, with the Byakugan glaring white and one hand beckoning her opponent on.

Kakashi tried to dodge. Hitomi moved faster. Faster than lightning, faster than thought, as her fingertips jabbed shoulders, belly, heart...

One Kakashi vanished. The other stumbled back, panting. Hitomi straightened, raked a stray lock of wet hair out of her eyes, and released the Byakugan and her shadow clone.

"Four of your major tenketsu are sealed," she said crisply. "I'll open them again when you've got enough chakra to use them. If you'd still like to keep your internal organs functioning, you'll learn to behave."

"Meaning, do what she says or die of a burst appendix," Ryouma translated. He shook water out of his hair and brushed the last slimy leaves off the seat of his trousers. "Sensei, I figured out where the safe-house is."

"Two kilometers away," Hitomi said. She shivered and glared up at the sky. "And you couldn't wait to get indoors before you had your little puppy-fight? Gods! Namikaze Minato, you owe me."

"I was gone for an hour," said a warm voice behind Hitomi's elbow. "What damage could he possibly have done in that time?"

Kakashi staggered, knees buckling. Something blurred. A strong hand caught him across the chest before he fell. "Sensei?" He twisted to look up, trying to see through rain and the plastered mess of his own hair.

Minato gave him a wry grin. "Actually, I'm not all that sure I want to know. You realize that running around with enough chakra to almost power a lightbulb is a phenomenally stupid idea, right?"

Kakashi blinked once and grabbed both hands tight around the arm holding him up, fingers digging past wet cloth into warm skin. Familiar scent, as welcome as sunshine, wrapped around him.

"And I don't even mean a big lightbulb," Minato continued, hauling him back to his feet. "You're working at around an ant's calibre. If that. Are you trying to put yourself six feet under? Because I can assure you, there's a whole country of Iwa-nin that'd happily do the job for you."

Kakashi managed to stand up. This time he didn't try and pull away. "You were--" he glared vaguely at everyone, not quite sure who to be angry with first. "You left. And--and he insulted my parents."

Minato's eyebrows swept up. "Gosh," he said, and dropped his free hand on Kakashi's shoulder, letting him lean back to steady himself. Chakra shimmered in his hands, leeching though Kakashi's soaked clothes into his skin. "Well, I hope you kicked his shins."

"Shuddup, sensei."

The rain swept up and thundered down, almost drowning out Minato's laugh. He lifted his head and gave both Hitomi and her student a water-slick smile. "You were saying something about a safe house?"

"Two klicks north-north-west," Ryouma said proudly, pointing in the general direction they'd been heading before Kakashi woke up and went homicidal. "Did you get done already? What were you doing? How come he needed a babysitter for just an hour?" He sneered at Kakashi.

"I can burst your appendix, too," Hitomi reminded him. "With far less risk of paperwork."

"And a lot more effort than it'd take with the kid," he shot back. "I thought you wanted to get out of the rain."

"I'd rather leave you in it," his sensei murmured, but she activated the Byakugan with a shimmer of chakra and a pulse of veins. "North-north-west," she confirmed, with a flicker of surprise and pride. "Maybe you're worth keeping around after all."

Ryouma glowed.

And jumped, as lightning seared down from the sky to stab at a pine tree towering above the rest. The tree blazed for a moment of incandescent splendor. One side slowly peeled away and crashed down, smashing a smaller tree below it. "Safe house," Hitomi decided. She touched the scroll-pouch over her breast, and her white gaze met Minato's blue. "Both of our teams are going to need as much rest as we can get."