If Kakashi hadn't been well-versed in operating on negative amounts of sleep, he wouldn't have been able to keep up. The situation danced around him, shifting fluidly as points of attention demanded his focus.

The man had clan tattoos.

Those could be faked.

Tsume looked dead.

She was still breathing.

Kakashi couldn't smell a lie.

He could barely smell anything.

Then the man's--Yasuo's--chakra ebbed down, coiling in on itself in submission. More than submission; the energy equivalent of a wounded child. Wounded Pack--just like Tsume's Pack-feeling, without the alpha.

Kakashi hesitated.

Then Tsume woke up and yelled at him.

He didn't blink in surprise--he couldn't afford to look away--but his chakra flickered. "How is this my fault?" he demanded, as Shouma bristled like a timberwolf. He glared at Yasuo. "Why the hell did you bring her? She's injured!"

The heavy bandage wrapped around Tsume's head was stark white, brighter under the hospital's fluorescent lighting. It made the shadows under her eyes look purple. Her skin stretched tight over fine bones, waxy and translucent.

One small, clear thought trickled through Kakashi's head: Ryouma was going to freak.

Again.

"Take her back," he growled, dark and furious. Ryouma was behind him; he couldn't see yet. And Kakashi wasn't going to let him. "Now."