Tsume glanced down at the two pills settled in a callused palm, not quite seeing them.

If he was tingling--

It couldn't mean anything. Just because it was their first day really using their chakra, pushing harder than they had before. Just because moving chakra could cause any rot that was left from Ryouma's jutsu to blossom. Just because--

Solider pills. She took one, cracking it between her back molars, eyes skidding back to Kuromaru. Carefully, consciously, she did as much as she could to pinch off their pathways, using the chemical energy to push back any chakra flowing between them. Splitting energy like that, keeping the chemical chakra in her own body and out of the other half of their pathways, started a headache almost instantly.

A worse one than she already had.

"Where does it tickle?" she asked quietly.

He rubbed his face on his foreleg, twisting his head to rub the other side--and his missing ear--on his other leg. "In my head." Then, as if he'd scented her distress--probably had--he straightened up. "It's just a tingle. It doesn't hurt."

"It's not pain?" she pressed. "Because Katsuko just said if the pathways are scarred--"

His ear swivled back in annoyance. "It's not pain. It's just a tickle. Probably nothing."

But maybe something.

Her hands were shaking, now, with unused false energy. She put them in her pockets. "If you're sure it's not because of your exersises," Tsume said softly, glancing at Katsuko, "then we should probably wrap this up." Then she looked at Kuromaru. "We should get you back to the hospital."

He whined and lay down, ear flopping sideways. "I don't think it's anything," he mumbled unhappily. He didn't seem to notice when he lifted a forepaw and dragged at his missing eye.