"Shut up," Ryouma ordered the rat. It grinned at him, baring teeth that wouldn't even break skin, and wagged its plumed tail. Then it bounced in the nest of clean shirts it had built for itself at the foot of his bed, and yapped again.

Ryouma yanked a tee-shirt over his head and considered throwing a crutch at it. Even if he hit the little beast, though, he doubted it'd have any effect other than provoking frenzied noise. In the fifteen or so hours since Kakashi had given him the hairy little excuse for a watchdog, he'd tripped over it three times and stepped on it twice. Apparently, it was made of rubber.

The rat's yapping rose half an octave. It danced in place, waiting for the half-second it took him to trip over a pair of discarded jeans and nearly lose his crutches again, and then streaked like a little bolt of furry lightning for the door. Someone down the hall shouted a sleepy threat.

"You're dead," Ryouma promised the rat.

It perked those enormous, ridiculous ears at him, and laughed.

At least it danced out of the way when he finally made it to the door. Wrestling with the knob took another few seconds; he couldn't quite get his balance right, and the crutches cut into his armpits, and he nearly fell over when the door opened at last. The rat slipped out past his foot and launched itself at the ankles of the woman who stood there.

"Step on it. Please," he said, and then registered who it was.

Tsume was drowning in an over-large black tee-shirt and ragged plaid pajama pants, but somehow he didn't think only the size of the clothes made her look so small. Discreet white bandages still hid her right temple and left ear: not nearly the mummy-like swathings she'd borne when they first woke up, but not nearly healed yet, either. The sharp edge of a collarbone cut through the wide collar of her tee-shirt, and her thin, fine-boned hands picked at its hem. They paused as she stared down at the fluffy rat swarming over her ankles.

"It's been holding me hostage," Ryouma said. "It's somehow managed to convince Kakashi it's a dog, and it has evil rat plans to kill me in my sleep. Can you go alpha at it and make it go away?"