Tsume grabbed a slender wrist and pulled the clawed hand away, trusting the mastiff she rode and the clone running beside her to keep them on. "No, pup," she crooned, tightening her grip when he struggled.

Kuromaru arched, trying to push her away, mouth opening soundlessly beneath bandages that had gone yellow with the liquid seeping through.

"No, Kuromaru," Tsume said a little more firmly, wrapping an arm around his waist and tightening her other hand on his wrist.

"Can't see," the man whimpered, nearly snaking out of her arms. "Can't see. Hurts--" He got a hand free and began to tear at bandages, blood springing up.

She couldn't hold him on a running dog. Don't touch your chakra, Kakashi had said, and it was sound advice. But how she was supposed to stay on a moving animal while holding another one still, she didn't know.

She reached up, grabbing him by the neck and digging claws into his throat. "No, Kuromaru."

His single eye flashed. Lips pulled off his teeth and he twisted, more trapped dog than thinking predator. She didn't have enough strength anymore to pull up alpha, and wasn't sure he'd listen if she did. Don't touch your chakra. It lay low in her pathways, drained too far.

Ryouma's dog had faltered, she realized distantly. Kuromaru wrenched, arm cracking back into her mask. It slammed into her face, and the world blazed with agony that had been slowly growing under the surface. She rocked away, crashing into the clone, throat closing as her eyes saw black and white spots. Something wet ran down the burns under her mask. She tried not to feel it, tried not to scream.

Kuromaru was running, tearing again at bandages. The clone steadied Tsume. She couldn't call her familiar; he was too gone with fear and pain.

Was this what dying of gangrene was going to be like? It still lurked, there in the pathway webbing. Sliding again, away from her. Back toward Kuromaru as he pulled, using chakra to strengthen his muscles.

She couldn't catch him. Ryouma's dog had stopped, the clone holding the man in place. Two other dogs--shepherds--were flanking Kuromaru, but hadn't stepped in. They weren't stopping him. He smelled like burned flesh and rot.

Tsume threw her head back and howled. "Kakashi!"

Kakashi was already moving.

Everything had gone wrong at once; Ryouma's scent spiked through with pain, Kuromaru throwing himself awake, Tsume taking a hit that scraped the air raw with agony. The dogs were sneezing with the wreck of scents. And Kuromaru was running.

Kakashi spun on his heel, sharingan twisting as it took in everything, feeding him the patterns of motion. The curve of the future. Ryouma was falling--the clone hauling him back. Tsume howling, locked in place. The mastiffs holding still.

And Kuromaru breaking lose, guarded each side by a shepherd.

Kakashi wrenched his chakra into a tight hard knot, and threw himself after the familiar. He couldn't reach Minato's speed anymore, but he could outrun a man unused to fleeing on two legs--a man half-blinded and reeling as he struggled not to fall.

Kakashi closed in. Shouma darted right, long body hitting Kuromaru at the knees. The Inuzuka pitched sideways, staggering with a throttled shriek. Hoshika lunged out of the way, and Kakashi ducked low, catching the man who wasn't a man before he hit the ground.


Teeth snapped at him, claws flashing with wild panic. Kakashi jerked to one side and dug his fingers into the base of Kuromaru's skull, striking with chakra.

He went limp.

Kakashi took the time for one breath, then snapped at the dogs standing either side of him. "Go. Guard!" They turned and fled back to the stranded group. He rose to his feet, dragging the slender man with him, and turned back, too.

Ryouma was hurting. Tsume was hurting--dying, a nasty voice whispered, but he couldn't think about that. He threw Kuromaru carefully over his shoulder, ignoring the limp flap of dead-weight limbs, and streaked back.

The clones, at least, were being useful.

Ryouma had never heard that wailing edge of utter helplessness in Tsume's voice, and he'd gladly die before hearing it again. But Kakashi answered, a silver flicker in the cold morning sunlight. The clone behind Ryouma tightened its new grip on his right shoulder and left hip, as if it expected him to struggle off and follow in Kuromaru's tracks. Baiji rumbled unhappily.

"Not a fool," Ryouma hissed. He hadn't tried to fall off, and he didn't plan to run. More pain had begun to awaken, needles of agony jabbing up his fingers to his wrists, dull heat building in side and thigh and palm. Infection, probably. The antiobiotic cream couldn't have got everything, anymore than Ryouma's poor attempt at cauterization had.

He couldn't watch Kakashi carry Kuromaru's limp body back to Tsume, or the awkward mechanics as they tried to sling the small man over other mastiff's back. There was too much of death in the boneless way Kuromaru's head bobbed, too much of grief in Tsume's shoulders as she took him. Ryouma fastened his gaze on the mountain-ripped horizon instead, and tried to calculate how far they had left to run. How fast their chances of survival were sinking.

When he saw the tiny black-and-bone figure streaking down the foothills, he was certain he'd slipped into fever-dreams. "No fi'ld hos'ital unit?" he rasped at the clone. "'f I'm dreamin' back-up, I wan' som'in better."

"That is our field unit," the clone assured him. Its hand closed comfortingly on his shoulder as it raised its voice. "Hyuuga Haruichi's coming in!"

Even in the midst of everything, Kakashi still spared a blank second to look at the clone and wonder whose voice it was imitating--because it definitely wasn't his. Then his ears registered words almost too good to be real.

Haruichi.

He didn't groan thankfully, instead he made sure Tsume's hands were tight around Kuromaru's limp body, that the familiar was balanced once more across Kaori's broad shoulders, and tried not to breathe in the death-scent that swirled around them both. When that was done, he stepped back. To his side, the clone bearing the unconscious jounin stiffened to attention.

Kakashi twitched his chakra, and didn't particularly mind when the man's battered body smacked down in the dirt. The clone took off like a hunting hound, arrowing straight for the distant figure heading towards them. If he blinked hard, Kakashi could almost make out the tiny brown blur of Pakkun running in front.

Then he got moving again, snapping medic-kits out of their scrolls, and canteens out of sealed paper. The clone would tell Haruichi everything he needed to know--and everything Ryouma didn't. Kakashi just had to keep everyone alive until the medic got here.

Five minutes. A few hundred heartbeats.

It was probably doable.

Given the scene they were making Haruichi hadn't had any trouble spotting the party far before they'd first noticed him. It had given him the space to start being thankful he'd brought an entire backpack full of medical supplies and stuffed it full to the brim the second he heard the agents' names.

It also gave him time to get that quietly, persistantly sickening feeling that came with knowing that there were apparently five of them and one of him. That he only had two hands.

Haruichi siphoned that feeling out of his thoughts the moment his byakugan-wide eyes spotted one of Kakashi's clones racing over dead leaves towards him. The medic didn't slow, hearing a skitter of leaves and dry dirt as the look-a-like pivoted on its heel and bolted to keep up with him and Pakkun. Kakashi's shape started rattling off details of the injuries ahead and Haruichi's mind split down lines of planning with each new detail added to this march of the damned he'd been sent to intercept.

Priority would have to wait until he could see with his own eyes. Some field treatments had been distributed. The Inuzuka pair would be the most trouble. Tousaki sounded like a disaster. They had a prisoner - that was the fifth. No pursuers.

One gloved hand flipped behind him to touch the large scroll he'd strapped to the bottom of his pack at the last minute. The ends were capped in sterile blue wax, the seal was one belonging to the fuuinjutsu medical experts. The thing was experimental if anything and using it was meant to be an utter last resort in the field, even though that was what it was designed for.

Haruichi supposed there was a first time for everything and at least he'd read the manual.

The clone had just finished telling him that Tousaki had no idea he'd tagged the Inuzuka with that ghastly jutsu of his when Haruichi got to within earshot of the ninja and ninken he was here to rescue. Haruichi didn't need to be told the rest. Set on saving what chakra he could, he cancelled his byakugan for the final sprint and arrived on the scene in silence and swiftness like any decent ANBU.

He looked from one ANBU to another, white eyes fierce and fast behind his mask as he took in his first look at the scene. Shallowly breathed the sickness and disease like a plague in the air. It took half a second, and he made his initial assessment.

This was very bad. Somebody was going to die.

"I can't leave you people unsupervised for five minutes, can I?" he declared, deciding the flat dirt-scrub they were in was good enough for playing at being a surgical team and shucking the backpack from his shoulders. He saw canteens and medical kits scattering the area around them and supposed Kakashi had learned something from the last time.

Tousaki was up first, irregardless of whether his injuries were worse or worsening fastest, the fact was that if he realised what was going on with the Inuzuka he'd likely have a panic attack or somesuch and then they'd all be screwed. Haruichi dove into his pack, hauling out a flat, soft mat and slapping the stretcher rods against the sides so it'd make a guerney when it had to.

"Kakashi, help me get Ryouma over here," he called, voice level and not betraying any of the thoughts racing behind his eyes. His hand went to Ryouma's neck to take his shuddering pulse, and his masked face lifted to look to Inuzuka Kuromaru and Tsume. "Hold on, you two - you're next."

Tsume shifted her grip on Kuromaru, letting Kaori help as much as possible. It was alarming, to know help was on the way, to see it with her eyes, and be unable to smell it over burned flesh. It was more like genjutsu than reality. The urge to throw a kai made her hands twitch. Don't touch your chakra. No matter what happens.

She couldn't smell him. Tsume's grip tightened and relaxed on her familiar, limp in her arms.

Pakkun was there. She remembered him, remembered his scent, fur against her chest as she'd tucked his cold little body against hers to keep him warm and dry from the snow. Would a genjutsu of a medic have a dog?

Her chakra swirled, painful and sluggish through raw channels. Kakashi was responding to the medic normally. Doing what was asked. What had he said? He could see through genjutsu. And he was helping the Hyuuga. She buried the urge to kai and watched silently as they started on Ryouma.

Starting with Ryouma was good. She knew what had been done to him, what sorts of danger they were courting. And if the Hyuuga was starting with him even after Kakashi's clone had told it about the rot, then it was likely because he was in the worst shape. It meant the rot couldn't be that bad, didn't it? Meant she wasn't going to have her face eaten off. A good sign.

She petted Kuromaru's hair, his back, even if he couldn't feel it. They'd be all right. Her hands shook. Her heartbeat throbbed in her face. But the rot couldn't be that bad. They'd started with Ryouma.

Ryouma didn't want them to start with him. "See K'ro," he argued, as the medic's gloved fingers slid against his throat. "Got 'is head. 'm okay." The lie tasted like salt and copper on his tongue. He wasn't okay. Might never really see the far side of okay again.

Kuromaru was worse. One eye would never see again at all. And if Ryouma hadn't caught all the rot--if infected chakra still lurked beneath cauterized flesh--

"'kashi got me," he panted, as medic and clone manhandled him off Baiji's back. He caught a glimpse of another Kakashi--the real one? There were too many to tell--kneeling to greet a small brown pug with a gentle hand stroking the dog's ears. Kakashi loved his dogs. Tsume lived for hers.

He stumbled over a pole on the ground, pitched nearly to his knees before he recognized a stretcher. The clone caught him with a strong hand locked around his biceps.

The left one.

Ryouma's world went white. He didn't fight when the clone lowered him gently to the stretcher; he could barely breathe. But when Haruichi leaned over him, he managed just the strength to grab the medic's wrist with three whole fingers and one acid-eaten one.

"K'ro first. Won' kill me t'wait."

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"Yes it will, now stop talking, moving and being annoying until I give you permission," Haruichi replied, tone brokering no nonsense as he gently detached Ryouma's seared hand from his wrist. Off came the gloves, up went the mask, both were dropped to the side where Haruichi knelt. His eyes were already swollen white, chasing surface evidence of injuries through the bigger man's muscles, veins, chakra paths and bones - finding sources of problems while his mind raced to find solutions.

The visual evidence of the torture Ryouma had endured was even worse to behold with Haruichi's vision and anatomical knowledge. Under the shirt and few bandages so much skin was missing, acid-eaten or scored with wounds that Haruichi knew immediately what the first priority was. People were idiots sometimes: human skin was perhaps the most important of all organs in the body - if you damaged enough of it not only did your body start to suffocate through lack of pourous exchange but you also went into the kind of shock that you'd endure if somebody scooped out half your intestines. Ryouma's skin had been chemically burned, sliced to ribbons and removed in significant sections. He was going to be dead of shock, infection and electrolyte imbalances in that order and inside of fifteen minutes unless Haruichi did something to repair such massive damage and did it now.

"Ryouma, hold on." Haruichi's urgency was toned down as low as he could get it, and he quickly injected an opiate painkiller into the man's thigh (the un-stabbed one) to make sure he wouldn't be writhing about in pain for this next part.

Two seconds later, Haruichi had the blue-capped scroll in his hands. Right. Had read the manual. Had seen the demonstration. Had the skills. How did he open the freaking thing? Ah, yes, right.

Nimble hands cracked the center seal, and two kunai pinned down the blank corners - crunching thick white paper into dry dirt. Haruichi pushed, and suddenly a wide strip of white was layered over the dark plains floor. Not just white either: the borders around the edge of the paper were black and seemingly thick and solid brushstrokes, and placed every five inches down the mid-line were dark green swirls mimicking the shape of chakra centers.

"Kakashi, pin the other ends and help me get him onto this." It was an ugly business, moving the poor man again, but it had to be done. Uglier still was the work of quickly but gingerly stripping away the layers of clothing and field bandages until Ryouma was left in his underwear, on a piece of paper, in the middle of nowhere during February winter.

Not that he'd be caring about that for much longer at this rate. "Kakashi, need fire jutsu near him to keep him warm. This is going to take some time. And Ryouma, do not move while I do this." With that warning in place, Haruichi bit into the balls of his thumbs, focussed his eyes, reached into his mind for the seals he'd need and the solution to the task at hand... then he pressed the two bloody digits down onto the paper next to Ryouma's shoulder.

He'd seen the condensed and directed chakra of seal-lined healing rooms being used to heal holes punched through a chuunin woman's shoulder and thigh - there had to be enough here to repair Ryouma's skin. It was just up to him to draw it out and apply it. Which was what began to happen as the solid black borders of the paper suddenly shivered like roused snakes, individual inked charms shifting and separating from their stacked ranks to slide over the paper and onto Ryouma's skin.

They took with them the means to heal him, but as Haruichi sat there - cross legged, eyelids slipping down, entirely still as he pressed his fingertips to the parchment - you'd be excused for believing that there was nothing happening but a novel calligraphy stunt. That is, until Ryouma, Haruichi and everything around them for five inches was suddenly enveloped in a bright green light.

Right. Found the on-switch. Time to get going.

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That was enough of a chakra signal to bring any nearby enemies screaming down on their heads. Kakashi tensed like a wire and summoned three more clones before he could stop himself, flinging them out to circle around the whole ragged group. The two German Shepherds slipped to the sides, noses up and ears pricked as they kept watch. Bajii and Kaori moved in close, flanking Tsume and Kuromaru with two solid walls of fur and flesh and chakra. Pakkun settled by his ankles.

Then he could focus on Ryouma.

And Haruichi, who wanted him to summon fire next to open wounds.

Kakashi's expression shivered for a moment beneath his mask, neutrality breaking away as he looked through healing green light and saw nothing but death. Tsume was just a corpse that hadn't dropped yet. Kuromaru was worse. And Ryouma--

Kakashi couldn't see a part of him that was whole.

"Kid," murmured Pakkun, snapping him out of it. "Heat. Move your ass."

Kakashi twitched and hissed something ugly to himself, and dropped down into a crouch by Ryouma's bare shoulder. "Just hang on and keep breathing," he muttered, hands flashing through seals. Raw fire would do too much damage, but all Haruichi wanted was heat. He could summon heat. Chakra pulled through his bones, trailing liquid sparks. He shifted, concentrating, and then held both hands up.

Warm air shimmered out. A quick mental twist wrapped a blanket of it around Ryouma and the medic both, then Kakashi simply sat--hands out, fingers splayed, while his clones guarded and his dogs watched and his chakra melted into a stolen Suna jutsu.

On fully activating the seals in the scroll Haruichi realised two things in set order: firstly, there was a reason two people were the set minimum required for using one of these things and secondly, that was because the volume of chakra laced into each inked charm and the very pulp of the paper was enough to drown him if he didn't move ahead of this extremely steep learning curve. His eyes and thoughts chased chakra - Ryouma's, his own and the scroll's - faster than he'd known he could as he coralled, guided and infused it into Ryouma's wounds and the gaps in his anatomy.

The green light focused to laser-like intensity over nearly every injury Ryouma had. Every blade wound was suddenly soaked in brilliant green - shining out as though it leaked from the injuries themselves on his torso, his leg, his hand... The chemical burns shimmered like mirages, vivid healing chakra ghosting over the wounded skin on his chest, his shoulder, his arm and even his tongue... Flayed and scored skin - or lack thereof - vanished beneath matching pools of pure brightness that swirled once on his chest....

Haruichi's eyes closed fully, this was moving so fast! There wasn't time for reconstructive attempts even if he'd known how to make them...

Screw it, nipples were defunct on men anyway. Tousaki could kill him later. That was the point.

The Hyuuga searched his memory, brought the key seal to the front of his mind and simultaneously to rest over Ryouma's chakra core above his navel. The black swirl rested there, humming with intent, and after triple checking everything one more time - and knowing there was no way to hold it back any longer - Haruichi flicked his chakra against it and watched it dissolve into bright green sparks in his mind's eye.

And then, miraculously, achingly slowly, Ryouma's wounds regenerated themselves. Muscles wove, skin rose and seamed scarless on his body, burns were dissolved like kitchen stains to leave clear skin beneath and most importantly of all - across Ryouma's chest brand new skin began to creep over the gaps in a ceaseless march to meet the other lip of new skin and flesh helping close the wound.

Haruichi guiding it and holding his breath the entire time, as beads of sweat trickled fast down his pale and quiet face.

Tsume slid off Kaori's back, taking her familiar's unconscious body with her and using the dog as a buffer to the bright light emanating from Ryouma. She could feel the charka like a silken blade, powerful when guided correctly and simply dangerous when not.

She didn't know if Ryouma was healing, couldn't see anything beyond the glow and the watering of her eyes behind her mask. If the Hyuuga could manage that, though, and Ryouma was worse off than she and Kuromaru... surely they'd be all right. She held her human-pup sprawled across her lap, his face tucked against her shoulder while she leaned back against the hard flank of a dog.

Her hands shook. She could smell the pain coming from Ryouma, though he remained silent. Whatever was happening wasn't easy on anyone--sweat poured off the Hyuuga, warming his scent and making him a beacon. The twin smells assailed her, sour lime and bitter sage as the Hyuuga threw himself into the healing, the sting of bile and sickly sweet odor of pain as Ryouma rode through whatever they asked of him.

Help was here. Her face throbbed, the burned edge of her ear hidden by hair. Every lock that shifted over it sent flares of agony through her skull. The blue dust had numbed Kakashi's cauterizing job, but now it had worn off. Her stomach twisted, muscles knotting.

Her hands clenched on Kuromaru, claws tearing the black material of his ANBU turtleneck. She took a breath and forced herself to relax, focusing on anything but her skin burned and seared against her head.

Chakra fluctuated behind her. The breeze caught blood and burned flesh and worry, and it was all too much on her knotted stomach. Tsume yanked her mask aside and retched into the dirt, spots dancing in front of her eyes as it caused her face to split. Something wet trickled down over-sensitive flesh, a single drop of blood or fluid. She retched again, then breathed carefully, pushing upright and pulling her mask down.

She buried her face in Kuromaru's skin, below the bandages where they'd amputated his ear, and focused on his scent alone.

Ryouma was going to be all right. And they'd all get home okay. Help was here.

Maintaining one jutsu and watching another was about as easy as juggling cross-eyed, but Kakashi managed it. Hot air swirled around his shoulders, folding out until it swept over Haruichi and wrapped down his arms to blanket Ryouma in desert warmth. Green light flickered, dancing over the injured ninja's prone body, leaving wholeness in its wake. Kakashi blinked, eyes widening, and watched as skin melted up like candlewax.

Later, when he had the mental energy spare to think about it, he'd want to remember this jutu. Maybe see if he could pare the seals down and work it himself--save some future scars. Some future people. Obito's sharingan spun and locked the pattern away, painting the seals across the inside of his skull. He watched as muscle disappeared, blood spilled away, wounds closed and faded. Raw lines shimmered up and eased back into new skin. It was almost flawless.

And Ryouma smelled like someone was flaying him alive.

Kakashi breathed through his mouth and tried not to drink pain. His finger twitched, hands aching to reach out and reassure, but touching any kind of jutsu ranked as seven kinds of stupid. He could just watch.

And listen to Tsume throw up.

"Hang on," he rasped, and didn't know who he was talking to. "Just--hang on."

Ryouma hung on. He wasn't really aware of doing it; he wasn't aware of much beyond green fire and pain. A fingertip of light slipped between his lips and blazed like hellfire on his tongue; he choked, unable even to scream. When Yuuko's loving hands sliced strips of skin away from muscle, her caresses hadn't hurt so much as the incandescent agony of new nerves knitting themselves out of chakra and nothing. His own chakra was ripped away, seared through his pathways to twist into new shapes and build new flesh. There was too little of it, and too much to heal.

He never felt his back arch, his muscles spasm, his head crack against the scroll-covered ground with the violence of his seizure. His fingers were slipping; pain gnawed through his grasp on the world. Darkness curled around him, warm and welcoming.

He'd fought too hard. He had nothing left to give.

Even before his seizures ended, Ryouma was already gone.

Bloody buggering hell, this was getting harder with every half a second; too much power that was too difficult to control. Drips of clear sweat skittered to Haruichi's eyelashes, flinching off to dissolve on the hot air of Kakashi's jutsu as he squeezed his eyes shut tighter - the strongest outward sign of the stress mounting on him.

It was - as ever - nothing compared to what the patient was going through, but unless Haruichi kept every thread of energy spooling from the stored chakra in the scroll under control Ryouma was going to fry like an ant on a stove. Whatever was forcing his body to contort and shake under the green light, then sprawl still, was nowhere near as dangerous as what could happen if his medic lost concentration and--

--suddenly it was done. White eyes opened in surprise, looking down at Ryouma's healed body, breathing still.

And Haruichi had a millisecond to note even the patient's fingernails had started to grow back before the excess chakra from the scroll backlashed in search of something else to work on.

Off-switch, off-switch, off-switch!

There wasn't one. Experimental meant experimental. Haruichi hissed and snapped his fingers around to grasp the scroll's sides, bloody fingerprints smearing on the fibres and ink, yanking it hard as he could out from under Ryouma's body and flinging it as far away from them as he could.

It promptly exploded in a flare of green-white chakra that would've flash-blinded Haruichi if he hadn't automatically ducked down to shield Ryouma's head and chest.

Haruichi realised they were fine, blinked, then sat up - hand going automatically to Ryouma's neck and finding a weak but regular pulse. His eyes went to Kakashi, who was understandably staring and had a look of utter startlement.

"He's fine," Haruichi breathed, checking Ryouma one more time and getting up to his feet with a snap of vertigo that nearly floored him again. "And I am going to slaughter the medical unit in R & D when we get home. Get him dressed and on the stretcher, could you? Inuzuka-san! You're next!"

Kakashi hadn't looked away. He blinked vision-eating blotches from both eyes, jerking back from his half crouch over Ryouma as his clones circled and his dogs startled. The explosion had left a scorched crater blasted in the ground. Smoke plumed up.

"Mo--er f--ck, --id!" yowled Pakkun, as Kakashi's sensitive hearing tried to restore itself. He twisted to look over his shoulder, checking the dogs had closed in to protect Tsume and Kuromaru, and then looked back, ghosting pale as Haruichi checked Ryouma's pulse. Ryouma who'd seized and convulsed and gone horribly still--

He's fine.

Kakashi blew out a breath, long and slow, and snapped his hold on the heating jutsu. His fingers trembled; he blamed it on the cold and called a clone over, forcing it to bring clothes from a scroll he'd opened. It was better to get Ryouma into something clean than dress him back into the blood-stained, mud-streaked rags of his former uniform and borrowed shirt.

"Help me," Kakashi muttered at the clone, and crouched forward to haul Ryouma's limp body up. Between them they manhandled boneless limbs into a shirt and pants, hiding baby-smooth skin the sharingan kept flickering red wounds over. Kakashi blinked the memory trace away, forcing himself to look at what was actually there. New skin. Whole skin. Healed skin. The clone brought over a blanket, they wrapped Ryouma up, and laid him gently down on the stretcher.

For a half-heartbeat, Kakashi's hand paused, hovering carefully over a sweat-slick forehead. Ryouma was grey with exhaustion, but for the first time his face looked peaceful. Kakashi touched the skin above his eyebrow, tracing the line of a not-quite-healed scar--from their second mission, he remembered with an internal twist--and yanked his hand back.

Tsume now.

"Hell of a jutsu, sensei," he muttered to Haruichi as he rose up and stood next to him. "Try not to blow a hole in the world this time?" He crouched down beside Tsume, nose wrinkling with the sour-bile smell of vomit. Her face was buried in Kuromaru's neck. Lines of chakra blurred between them, blistered dark with the flow of rot. The scent of pain was almost physical. He touched her shoulder carefully. "Tsume?"

The addition of fingers brushing gently over her skin was another sensation, almost too much. She swallowed hard, refusing to retch again, and lifted her head. It took more of a twist with her mask on to see Ryouma, laying still and pale, wrapped in a blanket. She couldn't smell if he were alive or dead. "Coyot?" she croaked through a voice gone hoarse with stomach acid. No one was panicking. That had to be a good sign.

Or a sign everything was over, and it didn't matter anymore.

Tsume turned to stare at Kakashi, pale eyes locked on mismatched ones. "He's okay, right?"

"He's fine," Kakashi said firmly, using Haruichi's words to reassure himself as much as Tsume. "He's just out. Haruichi fixed everything, so he'll be fine." He would be. Kakashi blinked away another red-vision dance of torn skin, and forced himself to focus on Tsume. "So now we're dealing with you."

She reeked of pain. To his left, Haruichi was a cacophony of worry and and a sour twist that edged far too close to queasiness for Kakashi's liking. They needed the medic; he didn't have time to be sick.

Focus on Tsume. Kakashi squared his shoulders, lifted his head, and shoved alpha back into his body language. Something that said protector. That said listen to me. His chakra swirled and organized itself under his skin, drawing in tight. "Ryouma can't see now," he said, meeting Tsume's dizzy gaze, "so take off your mask."

Take off her mask. It was a simple thing, really. Lift a hand, settle it across the painted muzzle, and pull. Carefully, of course. Try not to touch the burned skin. The very thought of that excess pain made her ill. She shuddered, hands tightening on the body in front of her.

Take off her mask. Expose her face to the chill February air. Let the skin try to contract around seared flesh. Just for a moment. Just until the medic got to work.

Take off her mask. Show the world what had been ruined. Scent the reactions of those around her, even if they were good enough not to show them. Admit to what had happened. Stop hiding behind white ceramic for the first time in well over twelve hours.

Take off her mask. Her hands shook. Kakashi's chakra edged at hers, purposeful and strong. Filled with the quiet power of alpha and all the things it entailed. Hers shifted and slid in response, coiling down her center, spiraling out to brush against his. His was not as feral, but just as firm.

Take off her mask. She couldn't breathe right. Air gulped into her body one moment, shuddered out her lungs the next, left her muscles quivering and her eyes darting from place to place.

She lifted a hand and grasped, thumb on the edge of the chin, fingers against the swell of the cat-nose. She'd already pulled it off to vomit. This was no different. Carefully, all too aware of eyes on her and the subtle breeze feathering her hair, she took off her mask and held it, unable to quite set it aside, in one shaking hand.

While Kakashi settled Tsume down somewhat, Haruichi had been forcing down his own dizziness and readying preparations from his medical kit for what was underneath the Inuzuka woman's mask. He could smell the ruining flesh with his very simple nose, never mind the unique impression he'd gotten of it with his byakugan when he approached the camp.

He'd be needing the byakugan again if he was going to keep these two in one piece (so to speak), because he had no idea how to counteract that vile jutsu of Tousaki's. Once again it was going to be pragmatism and invention that would get the job done. That and luck.

Haruichi didn't think anybody in this unit had been lucky for quite some time. He was just going to have to set a trend. What else was new? All that mattered now was that what he came up with worked, or else that sense of dread that had pushed him since arriving here was going to be justified over two Inuzuka corpses.

His eyes shifted from the unconscious human-shaped dog and the bloodied, scraggle-bandaged wreck of his false face, to Tsume - who had just pulled of her mask to reveal a vision of unnatural biological horror eating her face down to the bone.

"Tsk," Haruichi murmured, detached from what he was seeing as any medic had to be. It would get to him later, it always did, but now was what mattered. Now he had a plan for treatment.

Though it was going to rather depend on whether or not Tsume would resist the treatment. Psychology of the agents was supposed to help him with this sort of thing, but Inuzuka and Hyuuga had issues at the best of times and no amount of insight into Tsume or Kuromaru was going to change the wall this course of action was going to hit.

He'd have to make sure they were both patched up best they could be so that when they reached it they were in decent enough shape not to die if he had Kakashi knock Tsume out. To that end, he looked into Tsume's pained blue eyes and kept his voice as level as possible.

"I'm going to inject you with painkillers and get you to swallow a blood pill, then I'm going to do the same to Kuromaru less the blood pill. First I'm going to patch up your knocks and scrapes, then we're going to settle this business with the rot-jutsu, so stay calm and let me know if I miss any cuts, breaks or whatnot, and do not use your chakra. Do you understand, Tsume-san?"

Her hand was still gripping her mask, the edges biting into calluses. She nodded once, stiff and jerky, not quite trusting her voice. Then she had to speak, to tell him what she could. She cleared her throat twice, feeling skin twist and pull as her jaw moved. "'Cept for the--" she couldn't say 'rot.' "--jutsu, s'not too bad. Mostly scrapes." She took the blood pill when he fished it out and handed it to her. Black-faced wolf knew what he'd have to do, and too much blood in this instance was better than not enough.

The taste spread through her mouth, iron and slick. She swallowed it down, anchoring her chakra as still as possible. There was some ebb and flow--would be until the day she died--but she didn't have to draw on it. And why people kept telling her that, she'd never know. Did she look like a newly made genin?

Anger was easier than fear, easier than the sick anxiety that swirled in her gut. She clung to it like a lifeline and forced her mind back to the first fight. "Took some skin--" and muscle, but not much and he'd see that, "--off my shoulder. Glued a hole in my bicep." That probably wasn't the smartest of things. She'd been yelled at before for sealing in infection but, well, she wasn't feverish. Not that she could tell, anyway. She'd been truthful when she'd said the Inuzuka immune system was better than most. Or at least different than most.

"Mostly shallow scrapes, though. Couple from the last fight, going to get--" her eyes flicked toward Ryouma, unconscious on the gurney. "Nothing bad. Lots of bruises. Nothing broken, no internal damage, don't think." Talking hurt. Moving her jaw meant the skin of her face, meant pulling on the rot and the seared flesh. More liquid dripped down along her cheekbone, and a shudder rose to meet it.

She hoped the Hyuuga was worth his medic status. Then she took a breath and added, "Kuormaru's got a cut on his stomach, not too deep. Something torn in his hip." Her smile twisted wryly, and vanished when it spiked a cascade of pain through her nerves. "We didn't do too bad, really." Her laugh was rough. "Or we got our tails bitten too fast to get hurt. Maybe a bit of both."

But the ninja who'd caused this were dead now, everyone but the white-haired shinobi, and he'd be wishing he were dead soon enough. She'd killed most of them, all but the one Ryouma had taken down. It gave her a savage satisfaction. If she died, at least she'd sent others to hell first.

Haruichi had tuned out after the first few words. He wasn't sure if it was a sign of exhaustion, distraction or a knock to the head that had Tsume listing injuries when Haruichi had byakugan eyes that could see all of it and she really must have noticed. It didn't matter though, at least he knew through her recitations that she was still aware and not yet brain-damaged nor debilitatingly traumatized - though he doubted talking was making her feel any better.

Instead of politely listening, he was forming a complicated string of seals and improvising more of them than he'd care to admit. Sterilizaton was going to be the first order of business. He had to manipulate the chakra around his tenketsu to stave off the infectious nature of the jutsu infesting Tsume and Kuromaru. After thirty seconds of lighting-quick seals, Haruichi's still-bloody fingertips paused in a tiger seal and glimmered with white light.

He activated his byakugan and started with the dog's sliced stomach - flared eyes seeing past the human form Kuromaru took to the distinctly canine chakra paths supporting him. The cut was ugly, but not difficult, and after a minute it was Tsume's turn - hands to her wounded shouder, crusted and smeared with blood. While his attention lingered there, on the delicate work of fixing so many layers of biology to a reasonable degree, Haruichi spoke.

"Kakashi, remove her armour," his voice sounded oddly distant even to himself. Putting his healing chakra so close to the rot jutsu's influence was taking a lot of concentration. "Tsume-san, this is only going to take a few more minutes - I'm sorry it wouldn't have been possible to use that scroll on you as well, even if it hadn't exploded."

Haruichi did not often apologize, most especially for things outwith his control. It was a sign of his concern that the Inuzukas' injuries were going to prove beyond his ability to correct, and as soon as he'd said it Haruichi hoped it was a sign only he would have known to read for what it was.

His hands moved to her jaw, working away at deep subcutaneous bruising and burst traceries of vessels and his eyes steadily did not stray near hers.

With a competent medic around, Kakashi should have relaxed. But Haruichi reeked of enough stress to floor a full chuunin squad, and he was being nice. Which meant someone was going to die.

But Kakashi knew that already, so he shoved the thought aside and focused on what could be done. Haruichi was spinning chakra like an artist, blurring through seals Kakashi could barely follow, let alone imitate. Energy shimmered and molded around them as the medic worked, shielding himself against the rot as he did so. The copy-nin kept a sharp eye on the ebb and flow of putrescence, but none of it seemed to be sticking to Haruichi.

So he could beat it back. Hope bit Kakashi hard, sinking teeth behind his ribs. He shook it off and concentrated on the task he'd been given. Tsume's armour fell away beneath his fingers; he set it aside carefully, laying her mask and arm-guards inside the hollow plate of her chestpiece. They were very small.

His gaze kept skidding up to her face. It still wasn't as bad as the clone's; she had skin left. Black lines rippled out from under a patchwork of blade-burns. Shiny wounds oozed pale lympth, trickling straw-coloured liquid down the arch of her cheekbone. Raw flesh glistened an ugly mix of black and red; rot and burn. One was Ryouma's fault, one was his.

Kakashi shoved that aside, too.

He dropped his hand, letting his fingers slip around Tsume's wrist. Blood beat the quick flutter of pain and fear beneath his touch. He held still, attention torn between medic and Inuzuka, Ryouma and dogs, clones and chakra flow, and hoped Haruichi really could summon a miracle.

The injected painkiller slipped into her system, strong enough to dull the shattered firing of her nerves despite her resistance to drugs. It was barely any tension that leaked out of her muscles, though, as the edge of sour anxiety snuck past the odor of charred flesh.

The medic wasn't happy, and it didn't have to do with her shoulder or the heavy bruising on her jaw. And if Kakashi looked at her face one more time, she was going to snarl at him. Her stomach twisted with nausea, and their twin scents of worry weren't helping.

They were going to be fine. She'd had to set Kuromaru aside, lay him down next to Kaori with Kakashi's help, before he stripped her of her armor. Now she watched her familiar out of the corner of her eye.

The Hyuuga hadn't bothered to unwrap the bandages and look at his face. That probably wasn't a good sign.

They were going to be fine.

The Hyuuga was staring at her jaw, eyes down. She kept her chin tucked to protect her throat, even though nothing in his chakra or body language suggested a fight. Even though him keeping his gaze down was submissive--somehow, she doubted that was why he'd done it.

Instinct battered at her, riding hard on hours of pain and fighting ninja, fighting to run, fighting to keep this little pack going. Fighting to hang on until they got somewhere with help. The fight hadn't quite gone out of her yet.

Sour anxiety crept farther past the burned meat odor she'd been living with. And the Hyuuga hadn't bothered to look at Kuromaru's face.

Kakashi's gaze flicked up to her cheekbone. A growl purred out of her throat, bound with resolve and edged with desperation. "I am not dying out here." And he could stop thinking it, because she'd rip his crotchrot-- bloodticked throat out if he didn't. She felt her chakra rise, pressing against his like a hand to his chest, pushing back. Demanding that he give her space.

She clamped down on her pathways before it got very far, feeling rot slide and shift in the energy between her and Kuromaru.

Don't touch your chakra. No matter what happens.

Do not use your chakra. Do you understand, Tsume-san?

On some levels, it was a bit like asking someone to control their heartbeat. Don't exert her chakra? That made her twitch, but it wasn't hard. She suspected they meant more than that.

She took a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. Focused on the warmth of Kakashi's hand around her wrist, light as a bird, strong as a lightning strike. Focused on the delicate touch of the Hyuuga's graceful fingers, spreading heat and healing everywhere he touched. Focused on reaching out to Kuromaru, finding flesh instead of fur, rubbing her fingertips over his blessedly unconscious form. Focused on the fact that if they were going to die out here, at least he wouldn't feel it.

She was not going to die out here, and she was not going to let anything--not even their scents--convince her otherwise.

She focused on being called Tsume-san by a Hyuuga, and how very surreal the world could be, sometimes.

It was as much as Haruichi could do to keep from saying that of course she wasn't going to die here. He held his tongue though, because he wasn't sure and he didn't make promises he couldn't keep. He could only do his best.

A moment later Haruichi had done just that, finishing stabilizing her ribs until she could be properly treated in a hospital. He lifted his fingers, still glimmering white under the green of healing chakra. The light on them died when he shook them slightly and leaned back to rest on his booted heels as he looked from Tsume to the shape-shifted dog behind her. His eyes flared unnatural white and he looked again.

Beneath the bandages covering Kuromaru's face the same micro-fine threading of disruptive chakra, tainted and carrying a vicious and subtle colour, was working against his body as Haruichi had plainly seen was afflicting Tsume. In Kuromaru the infectious insipience was far further progressed, and Haruichi had known that removing the bandages unnecessarily from the animal's head would do nothing more than let glots of rotting flesh drop to the ground. It was knowledge only further affirmed by what he could see now - those same tiny threads spreading along interconnecting lines of chakra like the roots of a pallid fungus. The kind of fungus that helped to rot away a corpse deprived of a cremation.

There was a way to stop it. To contain it, and keep Tsume and Kuromaru's inter-connected chakra from feeding it to new and bloated strength. Haruichi had known as soon as he'd seen it. He'd known there was a way he, and only he, could make sure she and the dog got back to Konoha in a state worth saving.

She was not going to like it. Thank the gods the dog was unconscious. Holding one of them down was going to be hard enough.

Haruichi's eyes did not revert to normal, but he did meet Tsume's gaze now. Unseen by her a syrnge of sedative was resting within hand's reach. "Tsume-san, I can stabilize both of you and halt the spread of the rotting jutsu. I'm going to disconnect the chakra paths between you and Kuromaru and use the jyuuken to suppress both of your chakra cores. It won't physically hurt you, and I can undo it later. Get ready, alright?"

That last bit was as much for Kakashi to act on as it was for Tsume.

She'd seen Inuzuka with bonds shattered by the death of a familiar. She'd seen them fall into comas and slip away. Seen her own mother slide deeper and deeper into catatonia. And beyond what she'd seen, something primal and instinctive rose up along her spine, fear and anger combined.

He was going to tear out her soul.

She'd rather be dead.

She recoiled, already growling. "The rot will still be there. Or it'll snap back to one--you'll kill us both--" Kakashi's hand tightened on her wrist. Trapped. She snarled and twisted, feet scrabbling in leaf mold. She flung herself at him without thinking first, responding with fight and predator to whatever held her down.

She couldn't see his face behind the black cloth mask, but she could still tell where his throat was.

Instinct saved Kakashi from Inuzuka teeth in the jugular. He wrenched away and slammed his free hand up, palm-heel cracking into Tsume's nose with a nasty sound and a gush of bright blood. Bone didn't break under the blow--he was careful to pull it that much--but it did make her reel back, and that was all the time he needed.

Gentleness wouldn't help. Speed would save lives--maybe. He used the grip on her wrist to rip Tsume's arm sideways, launching off his heels with a twist that yanked the limb around behind her. He shoved the hand up between her shoulderblades, ducked the claws that tried to tear his face open as she struck back, and used his weight to slam her into the ground. He landed on top of her, pinning a knee in the small of her back.

"Stop." Kakashi's chakra hammered out as fast as he could make it. Alpha roared through it, unstoppable as a chidori. She couldn't win. If she won, she would die. "Stop, or I'll break your arm in half. Do you want to kill Kuromaru?"

She couldn't move. She couldn't move, and alpha snarled above her, threat and promise, danger and protection, demand and the strength to tear her apart if she refused. But he wasn't going for her throat. She screamed, a cry full of rage and fear and frustration, and twisted as her shoulder protested and tendons popped.

She couldn't get out from under Kakashi.

"It will kill him," she snarled, free hand raking claws through the dirt, looking for purchase. "You stupid morons--it will kill him, the rot is there it'll just snap back and we'll both die--you don't live with half a chakra system!" They didn't understand. She didn't understand. It was all happening too fast, instincts running on high and blinding logic, logic catching up just enough to fuel the fear. Fear fed the primal need to escape and survive and they were going to kill her. She kicked at Haruichi to keep him back, teeth snapping around at any part of Kakashi she might be able to reach, pulling up her own alpha, flavored with cornered wolf. She had nothing left to lose.

It wasn't enough. She wasn't stopping. Kakashi snarled. They didn't have time for this. He snapped her arm up higher, pushing the joints to their limit. His knee dug into her spine, forcing Tsume down. Her free hand ripped up ragged clots of earth as she writhed. Her voice tore up the air as she screamed.

Any second she would pull on her chakra, and the rot would eat her alive.

The dogs shifted as Kakashi's own chakra howled out, enough to dig blue-white fangs into the dirt. Pure energy burned the ground clean. "Stop!," he roared, breaking his voice into a wolf's bark--louder than a dog could manage.

It didn't work. She didn't stop. Chakra rippled under her skin. Blackness shifted--

Kakashi grated out a sound of pure frustration and yanked his mask down. For a half-second, Tsume's head jerked to the side, baring her neck. He braced himself, lunged down, and sank his teeth into her throat.

Pain slivered past the drugs the Hyuuga had given her. And then teeth sank into her skin, over her jugular and windpipe, biting into flesh. She screamed and jackknifed, one last scrabble of legs even as she realized she could not win. She went limp before the jaws closed, before the other alpha tore her throat out rather than let her fight.

Limp and shuddering, instinct whispered a lullaby in her ear that if he was stronger, he could protect her better than she could. It was time to let him. But terror hadn't let her go yet. Her muscles stood rigid even as her chakra ebbed low. Her breath came ragged and fast, sobbing out of her lungs in short, staccato bursts. She kept her chin up, throat exposed, and lay still.

They were going to tear her chakra system in half. They were going to kill her, before the rot ever did--her or her familiar.

Memory surfaced, her team leader insisting they leave Kuromaru. He was just a dog. The people were more important.

She'd gone back for him then, risked charges and capture. Had been captured. And held. And raped, and hurt, before they'd gotten free. He wasn't just a dog. The people weren't more important.

Decaying leaves smeared with her blood twitched as she keened, free hand clawing into the dirt purposelessly. "Don't--don't let him die." She closed her eyes, blocking out the world. "Don't do that."

All the fight went out of her. Kakashi kept his grip for a moment, tasting copper and sickness as blood washed over his tongue. Then Tsume's scent twined through with defeat; submission that dissolved into fear. Her muscles went lax. The snarl became a sob. Kakashi winced, pulled back, and spat. Red trickled down the side of his mouth. He hoped it couldn't carry the rot, but it was too late to worry about that now.

Tsume was crying. Raw heaving breaths shook her small ribcage, catching in the back of a throat wrecked by screams. Tears stayed beneath closed lids.

Kakashi didn't let go.

He glanced up, nodding at Haruichi's scowl, and eased his knee from her back. One hand stayed firmly around a fine-boned wrist, keeping her arm in place. Keeping her still. Forcing her down. Around them, the dogs whimpered. Kuromaru remained silent.

Don't let him die.

Kakashi pulled his mask back up, and leaned forward again, putting his mouth next to her ear. "We--" she'd smell any kind of lie. He hesitated, and then dropped his voice, trying to find a key that registered as firm but soothing. Alpha, but understanding. "Not without a fight."

Haruichi had grabbed both of Tsume's legs to pin them, but he'd had to leave the rest of that insanity to Kakashi. The way only two ways he'd had to subdue her were the jyuuken and the needle, neither could be used once Kakashi was in the way. Though he rather wished he had just shot her full of sedatives and never mentioned a word of what the treatment was going to be - served him right for being foolish enough to think medical ethics applied.

"Never a dull bloody moment with you people, is there?" Haruichi hissed, taking advantage of the relative stillness to inject the full dose of sedative into Tsume's arm. "Can't do anything the easy way and what's more," and this was directed right at Tsume as she began to fade out. "Won't trust your medic. I could have saved you by killing Kuromaru ten minutes ago, Tsume-san. What on earth do you think stopped me?"

He never got an answer. He didn't want one. Tsume went still, Haruichi's hands went to fix her nose and neck - carefully lit white then green. Once again he couldn't have been more right about his triage instincts, at least he was getting good at this. By the time it was done, she was completely unconscious, and Haruichi decided he'd best be able to make good on the fact he was a Hyuuga.

"Kakashi, make sure you keep your Sharingan covered while I do this," Haruichi said, extending and angling his slim pale fingers as they lit with delicate blue light. "Any extraneous chakra will interfere with my accuracy."

He looked through the two of them, laying side by side, the brilliant uniqueness of their connected and circular chakra paths. It was beautiful, even as it killed them, but he'd still take it to pieces.

Start with the smaller paths. Move faster than the tendrils of rot chakra. Break them in order and remember it, or else he'd never be able to re-string them. Over a hundred interweaving lines of life energy, dozens of them infested with danger to all three of them. Haruichi timed each jyuuken strike with his heartbeat and got to work, fingers stabbing down into the air, onto skin, into chakra - like a virtuoso on a piano. Except if he put a finger wrong it wouldn't be a song he'd ruined.

Kakashi closed his sharingan quickly, shaking his head as tears streaked a hot line down the left side of his face. It was a relief to let the eye rest for a moment--he'd been burning chakra fast enough to hurt. But soldier pills would keep him going until they got home, and that was all that mattered.

Tsume went boneless beneath his grip, eyelids sliding closed with a finality that seemed ominous. He shook off the pinch of alarm and watched as Haruichi began his work. The medic's delicate hands blurred as they sliced through the air, striking like a knife--and doing far more damage. Healing damage, Kakashi snarled at himself, and tried not to feel the snap of breaking bonds rasp against his own chakra.

Tsume was unconscious. Ryouma was unconscious. Kuromaru was beyond that. None of them hurt anymore.

He didn't let go.

When Haruichi finally paused, Kakashi looked up, studying the Hyuuga's pale face with one tired grey eye. "Now what?" He coughed and cleared his throat, ignoring the flush of blood against his teeth. "Can you fix them here? Or if we get them home fast enough...?"

Haruichi didn't smell hopeful.

Haruichi sat still, ignoring Kakashi - not even hearing him, and staring at what he'd done. One hundred and twenty-three perfect points of disconnection were laid out before him, and each body had their core tenketsu points sealed off the biological equivalent of air-tight. He'd broken that loop, and he'd meant to. Anaerobic sterilization, or something close enough to it, was the idea he'd been shooting for and it seemed to have worked. Now Tousaki's rot-jutsu didn't have chakra to feed off of like it had before. Its progress had been largely halted, and it most certainly didn't have the scope for furthering its damage.

Naturally, it had already done enough to kill both of them before he'd managed to perform this extraordinarily severe form of triage, but faced with that fact Haruichi did what he had always done when staring quietly at a critically injured ANBU. Told the various powers of the universe possibly interested in claiming anybody's mortal soul that they could back the fuck off, he had a job to do.

He closed his eyes, tiredly drew back the blood and chakra around and in his eyes, and then finally looked at Kakashi. "If we get them back inside of nine hours there's a chance. Get them on stretchers or strapped to dogs or something, I'm going to check that multiple amputee over there and then we have got to move." Haruichi's eyes focussed properly on Kakashi's face, catching on the edge of his mask. "You're alright, aren't you?"

"I'm fine," Kakashi said, shorter than he meant to. "No injuries." He glanced at himself and caught sight of his right palm, still sporting a blistered chidori burn. He'd forgotten about it. He closed his fist and ignored it now. "And you don't need to worry about him," he added, nodding at the still-unconscious jounin. "He can survive on his own until we get home, the others will need whatever energy you've got left."

Which wasn't much. Kakashi let his chakra seep out and brush the edges of Haruichi's own--low, ragged threads met his touch. The medic was worn out. Kakashi changed his mindset, including Haruichi in his makeshift pack, and refocused. He had a time limit to work with. He could get everyone back in nine hours. He could. "Get on Baiji," he said, gesturing at the mastiff behind Haruichi. "Rest up a bit. Don't argue."

Clones were already gathering in. He released his hold on Tsume's limp wrist, and turned her carefully on her side. Then he got to his feet, glancing sideways. The jounin could go on Kaori. Tsume and Kuromaru needed to be stretchered. Ryouma was already on a gurney...

So they just needed to get moving.

"On your feet, Haruichi," he ordered the medic, and twisted his chakra. The dogs gathered close. Clones leapt into action.

Pakkun settled by his feet. "Thanks, medic-brat," he growled quietly. Kakashi was too busy to echo the sentiment.

White eyes narrowed at Kakashi's dismissal of the prisoner as well as at the suggestion that he ride a dog back to Konoha. He'd already passed out and been rescued by genin in his last triumphant return with Hatake, this was somehow just not on.

Not that such considerations were at the forefront of his mind right then. Haruichi reached around for his gloves, pulling them on along with his mask, and getting up to his feet.

He heard Pakkun's grunt of gratitude and nodded to him, which proved to be a mistake as he very nearly fell back down again. Vertigo ran from his stomach to his spine and he allowed himself to grimace sharply behind his mask. Erh, and Haruichi didn't even have the wherewithal to self-diagnose whatever that had been. Instead he took the three steps it took to get close enough to reach down and take a pulse, see up close how stable the white-haired enemy ninja was.

The huge brown dog padded over and gave him a hearty nudge, probably a none-too-subtle cue to saddle up or whatnot. Haruichi ignored it best you could ignore something like that and injected a syringe of diluted blood pill and soldier pill solution into the man's neck. Enough to keep his body from giving up. It was all he could do, and so he did it.

Then the huge dog butted him in the side again, and Haruichi hissed air between his teeth in agitation as he stepped around and settled to sit on his broad furry back. The dizziness of using too many different jutsu in too short a space of time, of concentrating so hard without having a moment to re-orientate, swelled back up and Haruichi just leaned forward, his masked forehead pressing into the thick ripples of skin at the back of the dog's neck.

But it wasn't without a certain amount of relief, and that was what he held onto. Nobody was dead yet. They just had to hurry.

Haruichi was on the dog. Kakashi spun on his heel, scything a double-vision glance over the whole group. Clones had both Inuzuka and Ryouma on stretchers, held neatly between the solid protection of Baiji and Kaori--the latter now with the jounin's deadweight tied across her shoulders. Hoshika and Shouma fell back, providing a rear-guard. Kakashi palmed a soldier pill from his belt, cracked it between his molars, and headed for the front of the whole mess, Pakkun at his heels.

"Nine hours, kid," muttered the pug. "Think we can do it?"

Kakashi fixed his gaze on the horizon, breathing through the burn of false chakra. "I made it here in six."

"That's not what I asked."

A low howl cut up through the sun-lit air. Clones moved. Dogs stretched out and ran, heavy muscles bunching beneath fur. Kakashi flicked a glance over one shoulder to make sure Haruichi was hanging on, then he yanked his ANBU mask back into place. "We'll do it. Or that jounin's losing another limb."

Pakkun's barking laugh had nothing like humour in it. Kakashi gathered his chakra and poured on speed, arrowing straight for home.