Hayate was puzzled by the shift in the rhythm of Genma's footsteps, and was already slowing by the time Genma caught up to him. The other man's mask was pushed back, the moonlight casting stark shadows on his face. Hayate noted the hand with the pills, and came to a halt on the next branch, careful to make his landing gentle. Even though it wasn't hurting now, he was afraid of jarring his arm.

Habit made him stop, so he could talk more easily, same as it was habit that pulled his breath so carefully. The jutsu would likely hold for at least another hour, despite the earlier smoke....

Genma ghosted up beside him, and held out the pills again. "Here."

"I'm good." Well, mostly he was, Hayate thought, feeling his heart perform its usual soldier-pill gymnastics: thumpa-thumpa, skip-a-beat, flutter-flutter-catch. He pulled his own mask off, hooking the painted face on his belt, and cleared his throat. "It doesn't hurt."

"It doesn't hurt?" Genma blinked, then reached out to place two fingertips against Hayate's throat, feeling for both pulse and chakra flow. "Your heart rate's erratic," he said, counting beats in his head. But it wasn't the sort of weak, pain-elevated hammering he expected. It felt amped up, surging. Hayate' s chakra, too, was a powerfully coursing flow. The soldier pill, at least, was still doing its work.

"How can it not hurt?" he asked. "Did I give you a higher dose than I took when we left?" The fact that he couldn't remember exactly how much or what kind of medicine he'd taken, or what he'd given Hayate to take, bothered him more than the fact his drugs had worn off so quickly.

"You're sure you're okay?"

"...I don't know the dose...." Hayate offered, slowly. He lifted his chin a bit; Genma's fingers were cold even through his gloves. He couldn't tell if the quiver was his own pulse shaking them or if Genma's hand was trembling.

He frowned a little, unease pawing at him. He was warm enough, from the running, and Genma should be, too.... He took a closer look at the other agent. The bleaching moonlight made it hard to tell, but he thought Genma looked a little pale.

"Are you okay, Genma-san?" It was a fair enough question: they'd both taken wounds. Hayate reached up to put his hand over Genma's, where it still hovered at his neck, just to make sure the man's hands really were that cold.

Genma moved in the space between synapses firing, the moment he felt the heat of Hayate's approaching fingers. Moved like a snake striking, pulling his hand away from Hayate's neck as if he'd touched something burning, jumping back half a meter.

He stood with his left hand cradled in his right against his chest, bristling with tension, eyes darting wild and alert. His gaze caught Hayate and the alarmed look in his eyes.

"Ah... Fuck. Sorry about that. I uh... Just.... Don't like having my hands touched." Damn. He really hoped he wasn't going to have to explain this. "It's no big deal. Sorry." Straightened up, evened out his movements. "Sorry."

Damn, now his belly really hurt. He seriously couldn't remember any kick, though. And his head ached. If he was coming down with something, he was going to seriously, seriously complain to someone. He'd just gotten over that damn cold from that mission in Shimabashi.

Hayate blinked, caught somewhere between alarm and confusion, and eased slowly out of his own defensive recoil. He didn't... What was that? he wondered, and tried to think if he'd done anything threatening. He didn't think he had....

His heart was really pounding now, and for a moment he felt a little dizzy.

Genma's half-explanation and breathless apology stirred the memory of his scarred, crooked hands. Hayate winced at the recollection. "N-no. 'M...I...wasn't thinking. I'm sorry," he answered, softly. He should have realized the older ninja would be wary of his hands, with scars that startling.

There was a moment of silver silence. Uneasy, Hayate ducked his head, looking away from Genma with his cat-amber eyes. The instinctive shift of humbling posture that went with the motion--bowing his shoulders in--pulled at his broken arm. He hissed a startled breath, straightening, flinching at the warning twinge. Medicated as he was, it didn't exactly hurt, but it definitely wasn't pleasant.

"Yeah, um.... Yeah. It's alright," Genma stammered back. "You just... I should have warned you. It's just one of those things..." And now he was digging the hole deeper, and Hayate was...

Hayate was definitely in pain, by the way he gritted his teeth and held his broken arm.

Genma reached for pills and found them already in his hand. He looked at them with a frown.

"You need these? I'm feeling pretty kicked around, so I figured you might be too, since you took a worse beating." He wasn't sure when he'd gotten out the pills now. Had to have been before they stopped. Why had they stopped?

"We should probably keep going if we can. I'm pretty sure there's no-one on our trail yet, but the farther we get the harder it's going to be to tell. And it's getting cold." Moving would be good, would take the chill off. His fingers felt like ice, and ached the way they always did in damp weather. He curled them into fists, and wished he had one of Raidou's hand warmers.

The discomfort faded back under the muzzy blanket of pain-killers, a low-hum sensation that threatened to be an ache as soon as the medication wore off. Hayate shifted his weight uncertainly, testing the strength of the meds; then let his supporting hand drop away when the move didn't aggravate his arm.

Genma made an aborted motion, and frowned down at the pills in his hand. Hayate wasn't sure he liked that look, brief as it was. Genma wiped it away and offered him the pills again.

He shook his head. "No, I'm fine now." He hesitated, biting his lip. Genma was...acting a bit odd, he thought. Unfocused, almost. He tried to pull the scattering observation back, but he was still so jittery from the soldier-pill buzz. His mind had already skipped ahead and caught onto the bizarre comment on the cold. It wasn't exactly cold out here, just brisk and springish.

"Yeah, we should keep going...if you're okay?" He tacked on the question almost timidly.

One the one hand, he didn't think Genma would have suggested moving on if he wasn't all right. On the other hand, the man was acting...kinda off. Not like he had before....but Hayate had known him for all of three days now. Maybe it was okay.

"Yeah. You stay in lead, I'll keep sweeping our trail," Genma said. He tucked his mask back over his face and waited for Hayate to push off before following suit. The second soldier pill and pain pill he'd downed kicked in, sending fresh energy into tired limbs, making him forget his headache and his tender belly, the burn in his bruised shoulder and sliced thigh and the ache of a hundred smaller contusions. In moments they were flying through swaying branches, covering the distance between nowhere and home at a steady, even pace.

They ran another hour; made a course correction at a forked stream, turning more south-westerly. The burning town was far behind them, and there were still no signs of pursuit that Genma could discern. Konoha was far ahead.

It was so damn cold.

Another half hour and even that second pain pill had lost its power. Both the headache and the grinding pain in his gut were back. And Hayate was speeding up. How could he be speeding up? Shouldn't he be feeling that arm by now, Genma thought. If he was hurting, then Hayate had to be hurting, but it was getting hard to keep up with him.

He lept for the next branch and it wasn't there. Genma twisted in the air, throwing himself towards the first hand-hold he could see, shooting chakra into hands that felt dead with cold. His fingers brushed at slippery pine needles long enough to slow his fall. Caught at more, lower down. Missed again.

The ground was rushing up. Hayate was racing away. Desperate hands caught a branch at last and Genma swung around it, hauling himself up to straddle it, leaning against the trunk.

Fuck. He was pretty sure he was about to be sick.

The missed beat of Genma's feet on wood pulled him around in time to catch the tail end of Genma's fall, the almost graceless recovery. With a sharp breath Hayate pushed for speed, landing and skidding a little on Genma's branch in his haste. He dropped to his knees to put himself on level with the man. The careless drop jarred his broken shoulder enough to make him gasp, but concern for his partner thrust the pain down in a heartbeat.

"Genma-san? You--"

He cut off, hand flying out to steady Genma by the shoulder as the other man doubled over, shoving his mask up and out of the way. He cringed as Genma retched, shoulders heaving as he vomited over the side of the branch. The sick scent of bile was like a slap in the face, laced over with a thicker, nastier smell that made Hayate's own throat choke up.

Genma sat a little more upright, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Hayate felt his breath catch as he saw the dark smears across Genma's lips and chin. Blood, oh gods...

For a moment panic shot cold and white down his spine before he shook it away. Genma was pale as the moonlight, his flesh beneath Hayate's fingers both cold and sweaty, breathing labored. They'd been running, so his breathing...Hayate slipped his hand up against Genma's throat, searching for the pulse below Genma's jaw. For a breathless moment he thought he couldn't find it--but no, there, weaker than he'd thought.

"Genma-san?" he asked again, and his voice was a little unsteady.

An itch had begun to burn at the back of his throat. The jutsu was wearing off. Curse it all.

It was funny how the mundane could overwhelm even the most dire. For a long moment all Genma could think about was how utterly embarrassed he was to be reduced to trying not to puke on his dangling foot while Hayate crouched there keeping him from falling. He thought about how much of a cock up it was that after all his efforts to cover their trail, he was leaving a giant stinking signpost for any enemies to hone in on. He thought about how odd it was that he'd missed that branch, and nearly failed his saving catch. He thought about how fucking cold it was.

He thought about how they really needed to get moving again.

Pushing himself upright, wiping foulness away from his mouth with an ineffective swipe of a gloved hand... Trying to focus on anything past the pain in his belly and the echoing throb of his head... Time was skipping in and out on him.

Hayate was there, touching him, fingers pressing against his carotid as he'd done for Hayate back--when had that been? When the moon had been higher and they'd been farther from home.

Hayate's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater.

"Think I'm... sick. Flu," Genma heard himself say, and knew it was a joke. That's blood, not food-poisoning, idiot, he heard a voice in his head. That's shock, not the chill of a fever. You fucked up. You missed something critical.

Was Hayate talking? He could really drop the san. Hadn't he told him that yet? He should tell him that.

"What?"

At least Genma was still focusing, his gaze catching Hayate's. In the moonlight, bright as it was, Hayate couldn't read anything from the gaze, couldn't tell how well Genma was focusing.

"I don't think it's the flu," he managed, distracted enough he didn't notice when his voice cracked. He was trying to fight off the white fog threatening to freeze his thoughts. He couldn't afford to panic, not now, not with the two of them alone in the woods and Genma throwing up blood and oh gods he's the medic...

Stop that! Think! He forced himself to remember what he knew about throwing up blood. It wasn't much. His thoughts skittered and scattered under the soldier-pill buzz, refusing to be ordered.

"Did you take a hit?" he asked. "In the fight."

A hard enough blow might cause internal bleeding....bleeding! That was it, maybe, the reason Genma was so cold, why he was acting oddly. Hayate could have kicked himself for not thinking of it earlier--he knew the symptoms of blood-loss as well as any ninja. Shreds of confidence fell in with the thought: blood-loss, probably shock. He knew about those.

"Those pills you had earlier. Was one of them a blood-pill?"

"No hits," Genma groaned. "Nothing. Shoulder, leg, that was it." But Kannon's sweet tears it hurt now, and blood like that didn't just come from nowhere. His hand found its way to his belly, probing for something, anything, that might indicate a blow he'd somehow forgotten, but by now his whole abdomen was rigid and painful. Free blood in the belly would do that, he thought--he could still remember his student lectures on internal blood loss. On shock. Still remember the warning that the stupidest mistake a field medic could make was to miss a spleen fracture and let a curable ninja bleed to death.

But he hadn't taken a body blow--there was no way he'd injured his spleen. Besides, that didn't make you puke mouthfuls of blood. It didn't make sense, and his head hurt and he was so, so cold...

He let his eyes drift closed, losing himself in the sound of Hayate's voice. Pills. Pills. Blood pills...

"Gave you one," Genma said, and forced heavy lids open to find Hayate's dark eyes, wide and frightened-looking, staring back at him.

Blood pills. He should take one. Maybe that's what Hayate meant?

Icy fingers fumbled at the medkit in his belt pouch, pulling the slim metal vial of light-sensitive tablets free. He held it in his hand a long moment, drifting again in the spaces between too-rapid heartbeats.

The hand on his shoulder tightened, jostling him. Hayate's far-away voice rasped his name, breaking pitch with alarm. Genma took a sharp breath, made a soft, pained sound, and remembered what he was doing again. Pills. He took two, chewing them to make them act faster. They tasted of metal and life and death, and he had to fight to get them down, swallowing against the churning rebellion in his gut.

"Okay..." He pushed himself to think. "Okay. Water. Need volume now. I'll be okay."

A tiny strand of relief uncoiled around Hayate's heart as Genma swallowed the pills. Genma was still thinking, focusing enough to get the cap off his canteen without too much trouble, even if his hands were shaking.

Hayate almost reached out to put his hand over Genma's, to help, but recalled his earlier flinch. Instead he put a steadying hand under Genma's elbow, to keep the man from spilling too much.

As Genma put the cap back on his canteen, Hayate leaned back on his heels and breathed. They would do this. It would be okay. He cleared his throat against the growing tickle of a cough, the memory-taste of ashes. Absently, he rubbed the heel of his hand over his chest, over the butterfly-flutter of his heart. He was watching Genma, trying to plan ahead.

We should keep moving, get closer to home. He might need help, though...I can't do it....ah, a clone. And we can get closer to home and help. He chewed on his already chapped lip, realized what he was doing, and stopped.

"I'm gonna do a clone, and then we'll start moving again, okay?" He tilted his head and caught Genma's eyes, trying to judge if the pills had helped any--and then felt foolish; it took time for pills to work.

Genma glanced at him and nodded. Hayate rocked back on his heels and stood, backing a little on the branch to give himself room. With his broken arm tied at his side, his first instinct to lift his hands for seals was aborted. He had to angle his left arm awkwardly to form the seals, but worked it out.

When he first tugged at his chakra, though, it felt like it was already bound up in a jutsu. Startled, Hayate shut his eyes and traced it out. He'd been unconsciously wrapping tendrils of chakra around his broken arm, for strength and stability. For a moment he couldn't think how to undo it--then he stopped thinking and simply pulled, unraveling the miniature webwork.

Chakra free, the task was simple. He used clones so much in battle he didn't have to think about the jutsu anymore.

The clone ruffled into existence behind him, with a bare wisp of smoke. The pull on his chakra made him realize how long he must have been supporting his broken arm--his chakra levels were much lower than they should have been.

"Well," muttered the clone. "Isn't this a fantastic mess you've got yourself into."

"Shut it," Hayate snapped, and coughed. The cough jolted his arm, which responded with a sharp stab of pain--obviously, the drugs were wearing thin. The reflexive gasp from the pain collided with a cough, and he nearly choked. His clone grabbed him by his good arm and held him steady until he could breathe again. "Ouch," he whimpered.

"It's going to be a long night," his clone sighed, and Hayate didn't have to look to know it was rolling its eyes.

This was why he didn't like using clones outside of battle.... They seemed to lack the usual brain-to-mouth filter. At least, Hayate's clones did--and while it was just repeating what he was thinking, he really would have preferred Genma did not know what was going on in his head.

Hayate's talkative clone was surprising enough to pull Genma's focus outside himself and his aching misery. That and Hayate's pained whimpering. This was going to get them nowhere good at all if they were both out of commission. And he was still the senior agent, and the medic. Hayate was obviously in pain and they'd been running for hours.

"Hayate, pills," he croaked. "You need to stay on top. Don't let them wear off."

Always treat the medic first...

Well he'd done that. He'd taken every pill it made sense to take, given what he knew. Somehow, some way, he'd missed something, and was paying for it now, but he still didn't know what. Maybe the blade that had slashed his leg had been poisoned? He probed at the bandages, finding them much more blood-soaked than he liked or expected, but the cut, when he pulled the wrapping back, though surprisingly bloody, didn't have the bruised, inflamed look of a poisoned wound.

Maybe it really was some kind of flu. It wasn't that far-fetched to think he was simply sick with inconvenient timing, so long as he ignored the taste of curdled blood in the back of his throat. Maybe what he needed was some bicarbonate to settle his stomach. Maybe the light-headedness and shivering cold were due to his having left some artery in his thigh unhealed. He summoned chakra to apply to his leg, and it felt like scraping a bucket along the bottom of a drying well. But chakra was there, supplied by soldier pill and a strong constitution.

He looked up at Hayate again, and his clone, surprised to find them both watching him. "Take a pain pill, Hayate."

He felt better. A little better. Head clearing, heartbeat slowing. They needed to cover up the evidence they'd been there. The evidence of his sickness. Looking down at the darkness below their tree, he could see nothing.

"I'm... I'll be okay. Gonna bury the mess and then we can get going."

"I think you should wait a bit more," Hayate said, softly; he could see that Genma's hands still had a slight tremor.

"You stay put," the clone declared. "The both of you. Let's keep the idiocy to a minimum."

Hayate aimed a kick after the clone as it dropped off the branch, and grit his teeth against the pain and annoyance. He glanced back at Genma. "Right. Pills." He cleared his throat--there is no way I can still taste smoke. He didn't like the way Genma's chakra felt, a little faded and thin--but he sounded better, looked a little perkier.

Going through belt-pouches with one hand was decidedly awkward work. "Is your leg still bleeding, Genma-san?" he asked as he did so, a little worried with how the man had prodded the darkened bandages. "I thought you healed it up."

Pills at last, and though one hand was tied down, it still worked to get the bottle open. The pain medication he carried was not what Genma had given him earlier. Though slightly milder, these wouldn't make him sick or cloud his thinking. He shook a pair out of the bottle and downed them with some water.

The clone came scooting back up the tree, to hover almost politely at his unhurt elbow. "Ready to move out when you are," it reported.

"I didn't heal it all the way, might have missed something," Genma said. His hands hovered over his thigh, glowing green with healing chakra. It pulsed into the wound, sealing edges that had pulled open. "Might be why I crashed."

He retied the bandages more tightly, pushed himself shakily to his feet, and tested his weight on it. It hurt, of course, but that was hardly surprising. And the new pain meds he'd taken were starting to work now, dulling the edges.

"You really got enough chakra to keep a clone around?" If Hayate was hurting he was probably leaking chakra. A clone could be useful, though. They could leave it to trail covering, maybe move faster.

"More to spare than you've got," the clone sniped.

"Shut it," Hayate snarled, and barely swallowed back the cough. He was caught between buoyant relief that Genma was better and annoyance at the cursed clone.

The clone moved a prudent step back. "Fine, grouchy."

Hayate tossed it a quick glare. When he saw Genma's balance waver, though, he stepped closer to his partner and half-extended his hand, before Genma recovered. He bit his lip, debating, then nodded a little.

"Are you sure? I can send the clone for help, and we could stay, if you can't...." he let the thought trail off, uncertain. Genma was looking steadier, and it was always a good idea to be closer to home.

"Right, trying to get rid of me," the clone sighed. "I see how it goes."

Hayate grit his teeth and shut his eyes, trying to find patience. "Is it murder or suicide when you kill your own clone?" he wondered out loud, tone bordering on exasperated.

"Who the heck knows?" chirped the clone. "Besides, it kinda defeats the purpose if you do that. So let's just get moving again."

Hayate sighed, and glanced at Genma, who looked perfectly bewildered. "We can put the clone in the back, sweep the trail?" Hayate let the suggestion end as a question.

"Yeah, s'what I was thinking, too," Genma said. He steadied himself and shifted his packs around a little, checking weapons even though he knew the count. It was pathetically reduced, and he mourned the loss of so much steel at that battle site. There were three kunai remaining, four shuriken, a dozen senbon painted with a nerve agent, three powder-bombs, a roll of exploding tags, garrote wire in his belt, and slim blades in the soles of his shoes. His katana weighed heavy against his back. Hayate was the swordsman, though, Genma's real weapons were his poisons and his ninjutsu. He sincerely hoped there'd be no further need to use any of them.

"Are all your clones this... endowed with personality?" His cheeks pulled in something like a smile. "Clones are weird that way, I guess. Depends on how you cast them."

"Always," Hayate answered, a little embarrassed. He took in Genma's weapons check, and pondered his own--probably not as depleted as Genma's were. He hadn't had any distance to use anything but his katana.

Genma nodded, and they were off again.

Single file made an easier trail to hide. Genma ran point. Hayate was a little uneasy about that--Genma wasn't...he still seemed a little wobbly. But all his limbs were fully functional, so he was the more logical choice. Hayate ran a little closer behind than was required, though. He wasn't likely to forget the silver-limned memory of Genma's near-fall very soon, either. Seeing a comrade go down was one of those things that tended to stick firmly in the brain.

It was easy to fall into a rhythm beneath the moonlight, catch a pace that balanced speed and need for breath. Hayate listened closely to the cadence of footfalls, using them as his guide for Genma's state. He tried not to let them lull him into a mindset of complacency--Genma hadn't said anything before about feeling bad.

Maybe it's mistrust. Maybe it's just caution. I don't know. Every ninja pushed the limits. He did it himself--couldn't count the number of times he'd fought with sprains and bruises and fevers. But he knew when he couldn't push it any further. Everyone misjudges, though. He's the medic...but no-one's perfect.

Miles fled away under branches and shadows. After the first hour Genma's pace slowed, but he hadn't faltered. Hayate was beginning to hope that it was okay now. That they would get home without further incident. He tapped a knuckle across a branch as he passed, warding off any ill luck such a thought would attract.

Not half an hour later, he wished he'd knocked harder.

The skid and slip of shoes on wood warned him, and Hayate made the leap fast, catching at Genma as he slid from the branch. For a bad moment he thought they were both going to fall: his weight was no match for Genma's and the leverage was against him. In the end, chakra and determination won out, and Hayate's clone caught up and helped as well.

Hayate couldn't ask, too busy coughing, jolted out of the rhythm of running, but his clone had no such respiratory problems. "Genma-san? What now?"

"Would you--quit with the fucking--san all the time?" Genma snarled, panting for breath. "I was--fine. Didn't need--" He broke off, doubling up as another violent wave of nausea crushed him. The same thing that had made him falter, made Hayate jump in and nearly get them both killed until the clone intervened. It had come up out of nowhere, like a trap.

Every breath in seemed to make it worse, every motion made him dizzy. He'd been fine, he thought desperately, making good time, managing to ignore the headache, the throbbing in his shoulder and thigh, the stomach cramps that had grown to a steady burn. It was just in the last few moments when he'd suddenly been overwhelmed by faintness, by the edges of his vision swirling grey-gold and his gut sending urgent warnings.

He'd be fine if he could just... just... think straight. Not puke. Not now. Not again. Something was wrong and Hayate was coughing, holding his arm close, wincing at every shake. That was it, focus on Hayate. The queasiness receded, and Genma took a deeper breath.

"Ah..." No. No no no. "Move..."

They were in an old, broad-limbed, silver-barked birch. The moon came out from behind a cloud. Genma clutched at the trunk, heaving, spattering the pale bark with rich red.

Hayate couldn't breathe.

The coughs were relentless, doubling him over with the force. His forehead hit his knees, arms curled and crossed in-between, trying to support the broken arm best he could. Each wracking spasm jolted bright white sparks down his nerves in starbursts from his right shoulder.

He couldn't breathe, throat raw from the earlier smoke and the run. The consciousness of the clone was a bright spark in his fading thoughts. He was hung, stuck in the motion of coughing, but without any air to move. He recognized the sensation of passing out from lack of oxygen, and fear flared through him--if he lost consciousness he was more than likely going to fall off the branch.

As if the fear was the key, the spasm broke and he sucked in a sweet breath. He coughed again, but not as hard now. Everything was tapering off, until he lay in a tight little ball just breathing in that forced, even measure that kept the coughs from starting again, despite a throat raw and the imaginary taste of smoke and ash. He probed after his link with the clone to find out if Genma was alright, even if he was too dizzy to sit up and see for himself.

"Fine, no more -san. Now sit still, he's fine and you're not!" the clone snapped, irritation hot in its tone.

Hayate opened his eyes and uncurled, breathing slowly and carefully. Genma was trying to edge along the branch to him, but it was painfully clear the older shinobi was in no shape to be moving. The stench of blood and bile seared Hayate's throat, and he coughed, cringing.

"C'mon, stupid, get up and stop making the medic worry," growled the clone.

It was the truth, Hayate knew. The sooner he got himself together, the sooner Genma would be still and they could find out what was wrong. He reached for his canteen. A few sips would soothe his throat, and he could talk again, assure Genma that was was alright--because he was, even if his throat was raw with the faded taste of smoke, his chest aching, and his arm throbbing.

The alarming blotchiness receded from Hayate's face as he started breathing again at last. Raspy and asthmatic-sounding, but breathing. Thank gods. Genma sagged with relief, wrapping unsteady arms around the branch, lying against cold bark, unmoving. The clone crouched next to him, with a hand pressed against his back. Keeping me from falling off Genma thought blearily.

He should... they should get to the ground. Hayate looked like he was only a hair's breadth from falling off himself. Genma shivered, cold and dizzy. He should lie on his back, he thought, not his belly, and raise both legs up against a tree trunk or something. Get some blood back into core circulation. And he should try to figure out where he was bleeding from. Why he was crashing for no obviously good reason.

He lifted his head, and felt a hot trickle from his nose. More blood? A nosebleed now, too? And his bandaged and twice-healed leg was still oozing. Warning bells clanged through the fog in his head.

"Hayate--Got a--problem."

"Oh, you think?"

Hayate contemplated strangling the clone. Too bad they just pop, he thought fiercely. No real satisfaction in that. Then he saw the blood on Genma's face as he lifted his head, and all irritation vanished as fear smacked coldly into his gut. For a moment he could only stare. The clone cleared its throat pointedly, and Hayate shook his head. He couldn't afford to freeze up!

"R-right," he rasped, voice a ruined whisper even after the water. He tried to think clearly, instead of letting his thoughts scatter and race. First things first--as wobbly as he felt and Genma looked, they'd probably be safer on the ground.

"Should get down," he managed, before his voice quit.

The clone nodded and picked up the thought. "Genma-sa....Genma, think you can manage climbing? Or should we try a translocation?"

Hayate frowned at the last--he was feeling pretty low on chakra. He couldn't stop his body's instinctive response to stabilize and protect his broken arm. Between that and the clone he was wearing thin. The soldier pill's effects were hours faded. But if Genma couldn't....well, Hayate would do what he had to.

"I can do it," Genma said. Pushing himself up, he sat still on the branch, head swimming. He had chakra for a jutsu, though it was obviously off, obviously draining away with the effort of keeping his brain and body functioning under the onslaught of a dwindling blood supply. He really should take another blood pill, he thought, tasting his own blood on his lips. If he could keep it down. Was it possible he was just vomiting what the last blood pill had given him?

"Can you breathe?" Because that was also a critical question. Asking it bought him a little more time to get his head working, get his balance. Bought him time to contemplate the safest way to get down. He raised hands in seals. A simple translocation. Short distance. A chuunin's skill. He could manage that. "Can you get yourself down?"

He felt his vision tunneling down. A buzz of sound rising in his ears, throbbing in time to his racing heart.

"I'm gonna get myself down."

It was going to be too late. Too late if he didn't cast that jutsu now.

"If I'm--unconscious--" He swayed, blinked, panted a breath. "--at the bottom--" His head fell back, snapped up. "--put my legs up."

The jutsu flared to life, and Genma vanished in a swirl of dissipating vapor.

Hayate didn't bother even looking at the clone. Heart hammering in his chest, he lunged to his feet and went scrambling for the next-lowest branch. Genma had been on the verge of collapse as he'd vanished. Hayate had very little hope the man had manged a decent landing down there, some twenty feet below. He had to breathe, but the clone was keeping up a steady litany of curses as they descended in almost reckless skids down the trunk to save on chakra.

In his haste, Hayate hit the ground too fast and went to his knees, voice breaking out in a little cry as he jarred his broken arm. The clone caught him from behind, wrenched him back to his feet with his good arm. Genma was in a crumpled heap on the forest floor, shadow and bone on the ground. Hayate half-staggered the two steps he needed--his arm was really banging, bright copper-white pain in his senses. He knelt with more care than he'd landed, fingers frantically fumbling after the pulse at Genma's throat.

"He said to prop his legs up! He's still breathing, still alive! Get it together, moron!" The clone was already pushing at Genma, unfolding him.

"Moron yourself," Hayate rasped back, anger crowding out pain and fear. He helped ease Genma onto his back, and the clone knelt to prop Genma's feet up. "Pulse's...still important." He leaned over Genma, and hesitated, eyes catching on a shadow that didn't belong. "...look. His shoulder."

The clone craned its neck to look as Hayate coughed. "Yeah, he took a hit like you did. And?"

"S'bigger." Hayate gingerly spread his palm over the bruising. It was hot beneath his hand, spanning the skin bared between shirt and glove, darker and larger than it had been before. That was understandable...but it shouldn't have gotten that big. Hayate knew that much. It wasn't in proportion to the original redness he remembered back in the hotel.

"Well, yeah, bruises grow...." But the clone sounded uncertain, merely voicing the opposite side because every corner of a debate needed looking at.

Genma stirred and groaned. Hayate's gaze fastened anxiously on the other man's face.