Ryouma had been gone four days. Which meant nothing. He was on a mission, and missions took you away. That was sort of the point. Ryouma was a decent ninja; he could be trusted to look after himself for four days.

Kakashi told himself that firmly, and turned a page in his book. Moonlight gilded the paper silver, lighting up the neatly printed characters in sable black. He looked at them and realized he had no idea what he was reading. He scowled and flipped the page back.

Above his head, sprawled out on the rooftop, Pakkun stretched and made a sleepy sound. "Kid, can we go inside now? Or do you want to stay out here and smell depressed? Because it's not done being winter and I only have so much fur."

"I can banish you," Kakashi offered mildly, without moving. If he lifted his head he could see Konoha's gates from here--the first point of call for any returning shinobi.

"Yeah, but then you'd smell depressed all on your lonesome. And I'm just not that mean," Pakkun sighed, and rolled over to lave his tongue up the side of Kakashi's masked cheek.

Kakashi pulled a vague face and leaned away, but a hand drifted up to to scratch between the pug's ears. "I'm not depressed--" he paused, stiffening.

Pakkun's head shot up, ears pinning back. "What the hell is that?"

Kakashi pulled his chakra tight, locking it down before it could even brush against the disintegrating coils of the distant, approaching figure. The healthy patterns of two chuunin flanked it. "It's not good," he said quietly, and shoved his book into his pocket. "C'mon."

"Ah hell," Pakkun rumbled, as Kakashi picked him up and translocated away.

The clone was talking before it'd stopped running, slamming against the front desk of the ANBU headquarters and speeding through protocol. The chuunin took hurried notes, looking flustered.

"Two man mission, Tousaki Ryouma and Inuzuka Tsume. Inuzuka Kuromaru's down, Tousaki Ryouma down and captured, Inuzuka Tsume in pursuit. Need back-up and a medic. Now!"

"We're getting a team," the chuunin soothed, moving fast and efficiently, already checking the lists for who was there, who could go.

Hyuuga Haruichi, as their field medic, would of course go. They'd have to send someone for him; his apartment wasn't here, but it wasn't far.

"How many aggressors?"

The clone had to focus. "Three known. All higher level chuunin, possibly all jounin."

"How far out?"

"Twelve-hour run."

The chuunin's lips thinned. Those weren't good odds. Even the clone knew that those odds meant that they could very well be dead. Only the fact that it was still functioning suggested otherwise.

Kakashi melted out of the shadows. "I can do it in six."

The chuunin proved her rank by twitching with surprise. "Hatake-sa--"

He interrupted, "The co-ordinates?" His gaze flickered to the clone, nostrils flaring behind his mask.

The chuunin tapped a seal behind her desk, unlocking a cabinet. Rows of files stood in ordered lines, organized by a complex system. All of them active, detailing ninja and their current missions. She selected one and locked the cabinet again. "The mission brief is here, but--" she hesitated, "but no one can cover that distance in six hours."

Kakashi took the folder without looking at her. "I can." The stench of decay billowed from the clone, curling through the air in putrid ripples. Its chakra was rotted; twisted in a way that would kill a normal person. He didn't want to see what lay behind its mask. The mission brief felt heavy in his hand.

Ryouma. And Tsume, the woman he liked.

Kakashi ignored the way his stomach twisted. "I'll leave Pakkun." The pug settled by his ankles, ears folded down unhappily. "Send Haruichi after me. If we aren't back within thirty-six hours, send another team."

The chuunin nodded, still scribbling notes.

Kakashi focused on the clone; something black slithered down its neck and streaked the white of its armour. "Do you know their exact location?"

The clone looked up at Sharingan no Kakashi, flowing with the change of power. The chuunin wasn't in charge here, not anymore. "I know the exact location where they were ambushed. There's a waterfall half a kilometer west of there where Tsume and Kuromaru... regrouped. Tsume was there twelve hours ago. She left to track Ryouma. I don't know where they are now."

The clone paused, then added, "With luck they're on their way back." But it didn't really believe that.

"With luck," Kakashi echoed, the words sounded hollow even to him. He slipped the location map free from the mission folder, and made the clone mark both the ambush spot and the waterfall on it. He knew the general area; that had to be good enough. He shoved the folder into his jounin jacket--there were other copies for Haruichi and Intel, but he needed this one--and looked at the chuunin. "Be quick."

His hands formed the seals for another translocation, but he paused before chakra completed the jutsu. The crux of any successful rescue was information. He needed to know as much as he could.

"Attack me," he told the clone softly, "and I will end you." His hand flashed up and pulled its mask free.

"Oh, my god," whispered the chuunin faintly. A pen dropped.

Blood-streaked bone glistened through a rotted net of flesh. Eyelids flaked away with every blink. Kakashi could see wisdom teeth, gleaming faintly though wet holes where skin should have been. The very edge of a clan tattoo curved beneath one untouched eye.

Ryouma's jutsu.

"Be very quick," Kakashi said finally, and set the mask face down on the mission desk. Porcelain clinked. Chakra flashed. He vanished.

Pakkun coughed as smoke twisted around him. Beneath the sound of the chuunin snapping orders, and the splash of melted flesh hitting the floor, he mumbled, "Luck, kid. Don't get dead."

"He can't get dead," the clone said softly. It picked its mask back up, staring into the hollowed insides. "If he dies, we won't last."

With a breath, it settled ceramic over the ruin of its face. "I think I'd better talk to Haruichi."

Kakashi ran.

The moon was only partway risen when he cut his way free from Konoha, bound in the black and bone of ANBU's armour. His sword hung lightly between the guarded wings of his shoulderblades, sheathed point tapping the back of one thigh with every long step. Ceramic guards sleeved his forearms, ready to provide a better protection than solid steel. Bandages wrapped both thighs--he wasn't optimistic enough to hope they wouldn't be needed. Beneath the wolf mask that shrouded his face, one grey eye focused on the dark horizon.

First there was forest.

Trees blurred away beneath him. Chakra limned his feet with the barest edge; just enough to stick to each branch he leapt for. Breath pulled easily through two masks, slipping under ceramic and through cloth, hitting lungs that were used to the effort he demanded of them.

The moon rose. Miles bled away.

As he ran, he thought. The contents of the mission brief swirled through his head, written into memory by a glance with the sharingan. He couldn't move at these speeds and read, not without getting up-close and personal with a piece of landscape he wouldn't be able to dodge in time. Reflexes had a limit.

The mission had been a B-rank, but really it shouldn't have even counted for that. A group of maybe fifteen bandits with a few possible chuunin barely ranked one jounin's attention. It certainly shouldn't have required two ANBU.

But Ryouma had been specifically requested.

And now something had gone wrong.

If that wasn't a trap, Kakashi would eat his sword. Three high level chuunin, the clone had said. Maybe jounin. Three. Against a veteran Inuzuka, her familiar, and Ryouma. Two ninja who never went without weapons, and a man who could kill with a single touch.

A man who'd touched him with careful fingers and a lazy smile.

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. The forest ran out, breaking into open land. He hit the ground hard enough to shatter a trench through the dirt, and threw himself forward. Scrubby plants whipped by, coloured monochrome in the night. Deer shot away from the predator that appeared in their midst. He swept through, breaking settled herds apart. Sleeping birds scattered, taking flight. Kakashi ignored them all.

Tsume's clone had been wrecked; face blistered away by a jutsu he knew Ryouma would never turn on a teammate. Not even under torture.

When the ground flattened out, he ran faster. Chakra flares curled away in the wind. The co-ordinates played through his head, rattling out a morse code meaning.

One-hundred and eighty miles.

Running alone wouldn't get him there in six hours.

When he hit his first stitch, he moved his hands through seals, wrenching energy in a pattern every decent ninja could manage. The world twisted in a burst of smoke as he translocated. Five miles fell away.

He didn't break stride.

Two translocations every hour gained him fifty miles; more than that would put him in the ground. After the first ninety minutes he cracked a soldier pill between his teeth and pushed himself faster.

Every so often, when he could, he bought himself extra time.

Minato's body flicker wasn't a bloodline limit, it was just damn hard. Kakashi used it anyway and almost ripped his bones free. It was worth it. Miles ate themselves in a dizzy spin of blurred vision. A river cut across the landscape, jagged rocks lifted from whitewash spray. He didn't bother stopping.

By the third hour, he hit mountains.

By the fourth, he hit plains.

The moon rose higher and crested its apex. Dark countryside slipped away beneath his feet. Chakra-lined muscles flexed beneath armour, driving him forwards. Breath hissed between his teeth, harsher than he would've liked, but not ragged enough to burn. Tucked into his armour, sealed scrolls carried everything he needed without weighing him down.

By the fifth hour, he hit a wall.

Two minutes and another soldier pill later, he broke through it. Chakra lashed the ground as he forced a jutsu and gained another five miles. The very edge of dawn lifted glimmering fingers on the horizon.

And then familiar scent seared a message across his brain.

Ryouma. Tsume. The heavy musk of an alpha dog.

They'd been here.

Kakashi dug his heels in and ran faster.

Anger lent power behind the lightning strikes. They hit the ground, nearly exploding in front of the silver blur with tightly leashed chakra, and scattered to frame a cage of electricity.

That was a jounin. Shiki cursed, hidden in the low trees where his prey had gone to ground. Somewhere around here--somewhere--was the jutsu he'd seen wipe out an entire squad with a touch. The jutsu he needed to build an entire hidden village, and he wasn't going to let it go. Wasn't going to let a rescue party burst in and ruin everything, when it was all so close.

This jounin had run for hours upon hours, burning off chakra with every step. Shiki was no fool; he'd been tracking the little flares of chakra for fifteen minutes. No one moved that fast.

It was because of that stupid dog-woman. It had to be. Tousaki-kun hadn't gotten off a call for help before they'd had him bound. But she'd killed Takeo (and the rest, his mind whispered, but that great black creature was gone now), and done who knew what other damage between leaving there and coming after her teammate. Obviously, she'd sent for help.

And help had arrived.

Not all ninja were this loyal. He wanted that jutsu, and from the way Tousaki had reacted when the woman had burst in...

He hadn't been able to find Tousaki-kun or the dog-woman. But maybe he could keep this one.

Suddenly, Shiki was very glad the kunoichi had sent for back up.

Lightning.

Kakashi threw himself sideways as energy split the dark and lashed the ground at his feet, shattering rock and throwing clumps of fried earth skyward. The scorch of ozone and burning grass obliterated every other scent, wiping out the trail.

He kawarimi'd, wrenching away from the sudden threat. An outcrop of rock gave him a moment's shelter. Chakra tickled his senses, announcing a jounin-level fighter.

Who used lightning.

Some part of Kakashi that didn't particularly care about common sense twitched with annoyance. Lightning was his thing.

The rest of him was a little more focused. He crouched, breathing hard, shielded by the rock, and let his mind run. An aggressive jounin this close to where Tsume's clone had said she'd gone to ground was nothing but bad news.

On the other hand, an enemy jounin--if he was involved--could be all kinds of useful. By this point, Kakashi had no qualms about ripping a man apart to find his teammates.

He broke his chakra into three clones and threw himself back over the rocks, sword drawn. A flash of white hair and dark skin met his gaze, then the world blurred into motion.

The man was fast. But Shiki had expected that. He kawarimi'd out of the way, leaving behind an exploding tag. With any sort of luck, the man's speed would work against him.

He was halfway through a seal before he even reappeared. "Tousaki-kun! We've got another friend out here for you! Want another shot at killing one?" The lightning ball crackled out with a snap of superheated air and a rending of ozone.

He didn't know if Tousaki was close enough to hear or not. It didn't really matter. If he could, wonderful. If not, rage led people to make stupid mistakes. Maybe this ninja was friends with the boy.

He didn't bother with clones. Waste of chakra. Instead, as he released the lightning ball to shatter the sky and dive earthward with multiple spires of energy, he called up a water jutsu.

The man was fast. It wouldn't matter, if he couldn't outrun a geyser. They shot up at intervals, steaming and hissing with underground pressure. Shiki raised his arms and felt the energy sour through him as they ran together, crashing into a wall and sweeping a path twenty feet wide out of the forest.

Let the man dodge everything at high speeds.

Sometimes anger was a bad thing. Sometimes it was the worst thing.

Sometimes it was all you needed to gain focus.

The jounin sing-songed Ryouma's name, slapped a -kun on the end, and made him a murderer. Made Tsume dead. Kakashi felt something rip though him. Chakra twisted and spilled into his palms, lighting his fingers with a sickly glow. It burned down the blade of his sword, heating the steel like a brand. Lightning danced around him, wiping his clones out of existence; one blasted away when a tag exploded. Boiling water tore the ground apart.

And that man knew Ryouma's name.

Spoke to him like he was alive; like he was close.

Beneath his mask, Kakashi smiled.

Then he cut through a geyser.

There--the man was there, coming at him like a vengeful god, face masked white, sleek muscles bunching.

Shiki smiled.

Apparently Tousaki and this one were friends.

He nearly sang through the seals, watching as geysers twisted and boiled, streaming after the man with the sword. "Tousaki-kun was very helpful to us. We appreciated his cooperation." He danced back as water spilled across the ground, giving them an inch of liquid to splash through.

Lightning crackled, and he waited for the ninja to come closer.

"He lasted through the first hour. After that, though, he was more than willing to talk. You take away a man's testicles..." They'd done no such thing. But if it made this ninja angry, or made Tousaki come out--all of that was for the good.

Lightning slithered through the water spouts and around them, slowing the shinobi's progress as he ducked. Shiki waited for him to step into the bog. Even jounin made mistakes, sometimes.

Kakashi was not that stupid.

He skidded to a halt at the edge of the quagmire, heated blade slicing sideways to destroy a lashing tendril of water before it took his head off. Lightning crackled everywhere, licking close to his skin with electric fire. He twisted aside.

The jounin was taunting him. Kakashi wasn't near enough to scent a lie--couldn't tell what was truth. His fingers went numb as they clenched around the hilt of his katana.

If it wasn't a lie, he'd feed that man his own skin.

Water rippled in front of him, darting arrows of light as pure skyfire played around them. It moved like a living creature, rippling and bulging across the sodden earth. One touch would grant him an instant painful death.

Water and lightning. That bastard was using his own elements against him. Kakashi twisted again, flickering around a stabbing fork of energy that snatched at his legs. He ripped his chakra back from his sword and sheathed it. It wasn't enough. There was no time.

He needed to be faster.

He needed to see clearer.

One hand flashed up, slipping under his mask to lift his hitai-ate clear. The other snatched three shuriken from a holster and skimmed them across the shallow lake, forcing the jounin to dodge. Kakashi blinked once, and the world spun into monochrome and blue. Behind his mask, Obito's eye burned.

"You like to play with lightning," he said, drawling over the thunder-break circling around them. "Then you should try mine."

His hands flew through seals, moving as fast as the Yellow Flash--he'd learned a lot before his teacher had died. Maybe enough. The speed of the body flicker hammered into him, tearing adrenaline through his cells. Breath hissed in his lungs, enough to saturate them with oxygen. Chakra spilled through his coils, spiralling down as he focused it.

Three more seals.

Dog, Ox and Rabbit blurred together, and birdsong danced with blue light in the palm of Kakashi's hand. The echo of it glittered across the water. He paused for an instant, savouring the feeling of pure chakra crackling over his lifeline, even as his own energy turned against him and began to burn. Then he moved.

Lightning arched up as Kakashi cut across the man-made lake. The chidori blazed and tore a trench through rock and earth, throwing up seared black chunks as water exploded into steam. The jounin moved--

And lightning lashed down.

Kakashi didn't stop. His hand wrenched up and punched forwards, slamming chakra through raw elctricity. Resistance met his fingers, heat licking under short nails, then it simply--broke. The air shrieked; sheared fine and blasted away. He lunged, and blue-white fire slammed into the jounin, cradled in the blistering cage of Kakashi's hand.

There was no time to scream.

Flesh melted away. The chidori cleaved through blood and bone, and tore the man's arm off at the shoulder.

No one moved that fast. Except the man in silver and black did, soaring over the water faster than the lightning.

Too fast for Shiki's gaze to follow.

The world went white as pain shattered through him. He took a breath eons later, forming chakra to stop the flow of blood, struggling to block the pain enough to fight again.

The battle was lost. He tried anyway.

A kunai found its way to his palm, swinging around to strike at the man who moved like liquid lightning. There was no jutsu to make it better. Nothing he could do one-handed. Around them, the water splashed to the ground lifelessly, leaving an echoing silence broken only by the heavy breathing of grappling bodies.

Kakashi caught the kunai on the tough ceramic of his armguard, feeling the shock of impact ricochet through his arm up to the shoulder. Bone hummed. That was pretty impressive for a man missing one arm. He slapped his wrist up, grabbing and twisting to knock the kunai from the jounin's grip. It skittered into the dying lake and sank beneath the surface.

The jounin threw his weight sideways, breaking against Kakashi's hold. The copy-nin dropped, snapping the man's arm down, and kicked his feet out from under him.

They hit the sodden ground in a bloody tangle. Chakra flashed, muscles flexed, and Kakashi smashed his fist against the charred twist of bone spiking out from a former shoulder.

Fragments splintered away. A raw scream howled up. Blood splashed over his hand.

He locked one arm around the jounin's remaining wrist and wrenched it sideways, dislocating his shoulder. Another scream poured out of shuddering lungs. Kakashi yanked a knee up and jammed it into the man's gut, knocking the breath out of him.

"Shut up," he growled into the sudden silence, killing intent swirling dark enough to sour the air. "Or I'll snap your hand off and gag you with it."

Pain radiated through his body, speeding his heart and clamping a vise around his lungs. It was too much. Black spots whirled in front of his eyes, and he stopped struggling. It wasn't possible to struggle, anyway, not against the iron grip on his only remaining arm.

It wouldn't last long. He'd bleed out soon. He wouldn't be tortured before then. Shiki released the chakra forcing his shoulder to clot, and sticky hot liquid poured down from arteries, pulsing with the beat of his heart. He wouldn't be taken captive.

"Oh no you don't, you bastard," Kakashi snapped, as blood spilled bright and hot over sickly grass. "Not until I tell you to." He pulled one hand free, shifting his weight to make sure the jounin was still properly pinned, and tugged a kunai free from its holster.

Chakra slid down the blade, spilling into metal until it blistered the colour of a solar flare. Shadows fled. The scent of fired steel drifted up, catching in gentle eddies as the wind curled around them.

"You're staying alive until you've earned the right to die," Kakashi snarled, voice gravelling down in his chest. He dragged the jounin onto his front, shoved his face sideways into the red dirt, and slapped the kunai over the blackened wound of his ruined shoulder. The stench of sweet burning pork wiped everything else away.

He screamed. There was nothing else to do, nothing that could force its way past his mind, past the agony searing through his shoulder. His heels scrabbled against the ground, trying to get traction, to throw the other jounin off. It didn't work. Nothing worked. Shiki screamed again.

He took a breath and spat defiance into a white-masked face. "That's right, shinobi. Keep me alive while your friends die from injuries. That's true loyalty."

Kakashi twitched the steaming blade sideways, shearing off the broken tip of humerus with a neat flick of his wrist. It rolled away like a crumbling coin, spinning in the blood-stained grass for a moment. "I didn't say you could talk yet," he said simply, and pressed the glowing kunai over the last bleeding artery. Plasma fried against the blade. The flow of dark red slowed, then ceased.

Kakashi nodded, then reached it down and slashed white chakra through both of the jounin's hamstrings, severing them neatly. Wounds opened like the lips of a purse, searing clean before they ever had a chance to bleed. The man's feet flopped like dead fish, nerves twitching spasmodically.

"Right," muttered Kakashi, and pulled his chakra back. Metal plinked faintly as it cooled, jangling like a set of keys. He stabbed the kunai into the dirt with a tiny hiss of smoke. "That should do it. Now tell me where my teammates are before I do something really painful."

Shiki twitched and shuddered, reaching for unconscious that wouldn't quite come. He swallowed bile. "Go to hell." Spittle dribbled down his face, skin numb as he slid into shock. "I hope they're dead."

Ten more minutes. Ten more minutes and he could have found them. He shook and scratched for oblivion, but it didn't come.

They.

That meant at least two were possibly still alive; one of them Ryouma. Kakashi smiled tightly behind his mask, painful hope cutting under his breastbone. This man didn't know. Which meant Ryouma had escaped--and Tsume had probably been the one to break him out. The clone had said Kuromaru should still be in the cave.

They might all still be alive.

So the cave, then. If her partner was there, that's where Tsume would go.

Kakashi head jerked up like a hunting hound's, eyes narrowing as he scythed a look around the shadowed landscape. He couldn't smell anything over the copper mess of blood and the reek of terror and pain, but he could hear the distant thunder of a waterfall. Co-ordinates sparked in his head.

There. He'd start there.

"C'mon, sunshine," Kakashi said, and slid easily to his feet. He stripped the jounin of his weapons and scrolls--pocketing any he found useful--and snapped the man's remaining elbow with an economic twist, effectively disarming him in every way possible. "Still a little ways to go."

He tossed the half-corpse over his shoulder, ignoring the burbled protest, and took to his heels. The sharingan spun behind his mask, uncovered and wary for another enemy.

Tsume called on more chakra and sprinted through the darkness, trying to keep track of the two jounin who fought like lightning and shadows. Her attention was split between them and the hiding spot she and Ryouma had found, not far away, and muddled by the agonizing pain spilling through her face.

They hadn't run far before the white-haired jounin had attacked. He'd gone after the genjutsu first, fighting with it for nearly twenty minutes before realizing his mistake. It gave her time to stash Kuromaru and Ryouma somewhere safe, to set traps and more genjutsu--simple things that would hide the traps and not much else. She couldn't manage much else, and she hadn't been sure it would be enough. Even as she'd left her teammates, charging Ryouma with guarding her unconscious familiar before darting into the night to distract and divert... she hadn't been sure it would be enough.

They needed more than she could provide. The run back to the waterfall had kept Ryouma warm, but a dunk underneath and a sprint through the night had chilled him again. He didn't have clothes, and he couldn't effectively share body heat with Kuromaru; not as badly hurt as he was. They were sheltered as best she could manage, where warmth would fill their den and help keep him from hypothermia, and she'd twisted chakra into a heating jutsu. But it wouldn't last all night.

And it wouldn't matter at all, if her traps didn't hold. If the jounin found them. If she couldn't hold him off.

And then a whip of silver lightning had arrived, just when the dark-skinned man had narrowed down where they were to a bare half mile of ravine and scrub. There weren't many places to hide three adults. She'd braced for a fight.

And hadn't needed to try.

Now she slipped along through the darkness, watching the way the man in silver moved, watching the battle. Watching Shiki get taken down.

She did three kai's before she was sure it wasn't a genjutsu. She didn't know how they would genjutsu Kakashi in, but at this point she wasn't taking any chances. But if it was Hatake, and his nose was as good as they said--

She sprinted, using the last of the energy from a soldier pill before snapping into another one. Even so she could barely keep moving fast enough to be of any use. She didn't have to get close, though. Just get downwind.

Once there she stopped, breathing hard and trembling, crouching in the branches of a scrubby tree and waiting to see if he would catch her scent. Maybe his nose wasn't that good. Maybe he wasn't paying attention. Maybe there were too many other scents. Maybe he couldn't sniff out the way she reeked--sweat and panic and fight and rot--under the scorch of Shiki's burned skin.

Maybe it wasn't him.

She hoped he was that good. That he was paying attention. That there weren't too many other scents. That Shiki didn't overpower everything else.

That it was him.

And if this was another trap...

She gripped a kunai and tried to remember how many solider pills she had left.

The rumble of the waterfall got louder, filling Kakashi's sensitive ears until it became nothing but white noise. The man pitched over his shoulder groaned, twitching every so often. Kakashi held him there mostly with chakra, leaving his hands free as he ran. The scent of cooked flesh overwhelmed almost everything, seeping under one mask to cling to the cloth of the other. He wished he could afford to just shut off his nose.

But he needed every sense.

Nothing attacked them. He took the risk of flashing out his chakra once, feeling for other patterns. Nothing struck a warning. He picked up speed, ignoring the whimper that curled over the back of his neck. Flakes of charred skin and cooked flesh littered the ground behind them, providing a broad trail for anyone that cared to look. Kakashi winced and kiwarimi'd once, breaking it--

Movement flickered.

His head snapped around, both eyes widening as he landed, searching. He almost dismissed it after a moment, failing to see a chakra pattern strong enough to be anything but wildlife, but something caught his attention.

A twist of decay. In a pattern too ordered to be anything but a ninja.

Tsume?

If it was, then she'd understand...

Kakashi spun with a lilting howl--Konoha--and darted towards the distant figure. One hand drifted near a kunai, just in case.

Tsume dropped out of her tree, leaving cover as soon as it was clear he knew where she was. That was good. That was great. It meant he could smell her. The howl wasn't something just anyone knew. Only a dog-pack clan had that quality to their voice, that ability to dance between the knife blade of notes and emotion that made all the difference between one meaning and the next.

His speed made her nervous. Running fast, streaking through moonlight and shadow with Ryouma's torturer over his shoulder. Fast enough that it didn't give her chance to get a sniff of him, any sort of certainty that he was who he said.

Logic told her he had to be. He'd smelled. He'd howled.

She still pushed chemical chakra into her muscles and moved, sliding sideways rather than away, letting the starlight catch the blade of her kunai for a moment in fair warning. She ended up tucked under another overgrown bush, using it as shelter. Keeping him from getting a better look at her.

He didn't need to know how many weapons she had or how badly she was injured until she was certain he was who he said. They already knew these ninja were good at traps. They'd taken a great deal of care in setting the earlier one to catch Ryouma. She wasn't going to deliver him into their hands again.

Metal flashed. The person holding it barely had enough chakra to light a sneeze. Kakashi caught the warning with a jolt of understanding and skidded to a halt just within range. He dropped his jounin burden carelessly to one side, ignoring the man's choked cry that cut off with sudden unconsciousness, and considered for a moment.

The armour and mask matched Tsume's. The height was probably right--he couldn't tell accurately with her crouch--and the build seemed like her's. Her hair was about the same; a little more matted with blood and sweat then he remembered, but still a wild tangle of brown. The sliding fear in her scent cut under the blood-reek and tickled his nose.

Probably Tsume, but he still had to be sure.

He held up one hand, purposefully canted sideways into a nonchalant slouch, and ripped a length of bandage free from his leg. It had soaked up enough of his scent during the run to make it an accurate measure. He wrapped it around one of the jounin's scrolls, and tossed it lightly at the woman's feet. Then he leaned back on his heels.

"Inuzuka Tsume visited me once," he said, raising his voice a little to be clear. "Before she left she helped me out with a jutsu. You know what it was?"