Raidou's watch hadn't been with his clothes, but the gathering sunset was a pretty big clue all by itself. He put the light at his back, heading almost due East, and watched his shadow lengthen.

He couldn't run solidly. He sped up and slowed, brushing the edge of normal speed before fading down to a limping jog, catching his breath again, working through pain. Hating every damn hill he had to stagger up, and every steep slope he tried not to fall down. Hating Genma sometimes, when his shoulders burned and his chest split and he didn't dare stop. But that happened when you had to lug the deadweight of your best friend around, and hating him was easier than shaking right through because each rasping breath sounded like a last one.

With every step, he listened for the first warning sign that Sago was getting close. The rest of his focus keyed entirely into the man on his back, breath and weight and warmth, waiting for the first sign of change. When he heard the breaths become groans, the groans become whimpers, he knew they wouldn't make it even halfway home before Genma woke up.

They made it ninety minutes.

Genma finally twitched, chakra flickering like a faint pulse against Raidou's skin, when the sun was almost gone and Raidou had to stop, pulling to a halt in the long green grass, hidden from the West by boulders that sprouted like squat, leafless trees. He caught his balance and stood with his ribcage heaving, muscles trembling, sweat trickling down his bare chest to sting and chill where the wind caught it.

"Lover boy?"

A whimper grated against his ears. He dragged a lungful of cold air and tried again.

"Genma?"

Genma's answer was a barely articulate monosyllable. But he knew that voice. Knew suddenly where he was; when he was. He forced his eyes open again, forced himself to take a deeper breath. Pain crackled through his ribs and he couldn't stop the little cry that came with that hard-earned oxygen.

"Rai," he panted. "Put me--down."

They were outdoors. The earth smelled of recent rain, but the sky was fiery with the rays of a setting sun. Purplish clouds scudded away to the east, ahead of them. There were birds singing in low scrub nearby, and a soft breeze bringing snow-scented air from the north. No sounds of pursuit.

"Need--soldier pills. Morphine. How long s'it been?" Genma had no idea. It had been, he'd estimated, sometime in the late afternoon when Sago'd come in with his table and his pliers. He'd lost his place after that. Was it even the same day?

Raidou was trembling.

"Let me make sure--you're okay."

It was perhaps, Genma thought, the stupidest thing he'd ever said.

"I'm--okay," rasped Raidou, in a voice like crushed glass. What else could he say? I feel like collapsing in ditch and seeing if there really is something to that afterlife bullshit, just didn't have that will of fire.

Though, at this point, he'd happily never think about fire again.

Soldier pills, morphine--Genma had only been awake ten seconds and he was already more focused than his carrier. Breathing like someone had tried to stave his chest in, but focused. Raidou sank into a crouch, wavered when bending forwards made the burns over his ribcage crack, and dropped his weight hastily onto his knees before he fell. The impact made Genma whimper softly.

"Sorry," Raidou muttered, and relaxed his arms for the first time since they'd left the bunker, letting Genma's feet touch down. He braced himself with a hand against the ground. "Think you can--stand?"

"You can let go," Genma said. He staggered back a step, faltered badly when his unstable ankle twisted, sending a bolt up through his bones to jar every other injury into fresh screaming. He raced chakra to his feet instinctively, to root himself to the ground, but his muscles were weak under the double-barreled assault of pain and blood-loss, and he folded at the knees. His right hand shot out to brace himself against Raidou as he fell.

His left he held up and out to the side, in an effort to keep it from coming into contact with anything at all.

Curled forward, forehead pressed against Raidou's broad back, he gasped through clenched teeth, trying to swallow the scream in his throat.

Soldier pills. Morphine, he told himself, waiting for his vision to clear, for the pounding in his ears to recede. And a look at Raidou's burns while there's still sun. There had to be something he could do. At the moment all he could remember was a half-glimpsed, weeping mess on Raidou's left cheek, where the Mist medic's jutsu had failed to heal.

Raidou twisted away, turning quickly to catch him under the arm. Genma forced his head up, meeting his partner's worried gaze with a tight grimace.

"S'okay. Give me--minute."

Genma didn't need a minute, he needed a hospital bed and a team of medics standing by. And to stop telling Raidou to let him go right before he staggered over and ripped something up inside.

"Sit the hell down," said Raidou, already lowering him properly to the ground. Genma didn't resist--he was already on his knees; it barely took more than a nudge to have him sitting back on his rear, braced with the one hand that worked while his other hovered nervously above the grass.

He wasn't the only one. Raidou darted a glance at the darkening horizon, only half able to see it through their shelter of rocks, and fumbled their half-used medi-kit off his belt. Morphine for Genma, soldier pills for them both, and a painkiller Raidou could take without losing the ability to run. Not aspirin--it wasn't strong enough. Codeine, maybe, if they had any.

But Genma first. Even if he couldn't be a medic.

"You need a blood pill, too," Raidou muttered, spreading the kit out between them. He popped the cap off the right bottle and shook out one of the tiny pills, cradling it in his palm before adding a soldier pill. He reached out and slipped them carefully past Genma's lips, following up with a chaser of water from the one canteen he'd been able to salvage. Genma, braced on his only working hand, didn't protest.

Morphine next. Raidou hadn't pre-filled any of the syringes--there'd been no time--but he filled two now, drawing straw-coloured liquid into the plastic needles. One went back in the kit; the other stayed in his hand. "Hold still," he murmured, and reached out to find a vein on the inside of Genma's elbow. "And tell me how your ribs feel."

Speaking without jarring the left side of his face was getting harder and harder. He did it anyway.

Getting the pills down was a matter of swallowing. They felt like rough-hewn wooden blocks passing through Genma's bruised esophagus, but Raidou had given him water quickly enough to ease their way. The chakra booster exploded to life, sending a thrill racing through Genma's nervous system. The blood pill moved more deliberately, diffusing into his veins and arteries. There were too few red cells circulating, too many spilt in that bunker, but the drug compensated, carrying oxygen in place of missing hemoglobin, increasing blood pressure. Alertness sparked in Genma's eyes, color in his cheeks.

He was clothed. Armoured. Bandaged. His tortured hand was swathed in layers of linen, held rigid by an armguard employed as a splint. He struggled to remember what had happened--how they'd gotten out--and found only murky fragments.

Raidou's bare, bandaged torso was a jolting reminder of just how vulnerable they remained. If it got much colder, Genma thought, he'd have to insist Raidou take his vest. After he rebandaged those burns.

Then Raidou injected the morphine. Genma's lips parted and his eyes lost their focus, as the narcotic hit his bloodstream. It washed over him with a wave of heat, a taste of metal salt in his mouth, a swell of nausea that made him hold his breath until it receded. He felt like he was floating, like his head was detached from his body. It was a blessed, miraculous relief, to let his damaged body sink away from his consciousness.

Tell me how your ribs feel.

He mustered his wits, pulled on the artificial surge of new chakra and the mercy of the painkiller to take a deeper breath, sit up a little straighter.

"Feels like I'd have been dead--if you hadn't pushed him--off me." It was still hard to get a whole sentence out in one breath, but it was better. Much better than it had been.

"Which makes no damn sense at all," Raidou growled, half to himself. He glanced up, palming his own solider pill. "You've got a couple busted ribs, kid. They're strapped up; should be enough to hold you until we get home." If there was nothing worse going on inside. But why had Sago gone for Genma? Genma had been down, breathless, hardly conscious. Not even remotely a threat. Raidou had been the one up and running, dealing out as much damage as possible.

Which, granted, hadn't been a lot. But Sago hadn't seemed like the type of man to worry overly about a teammate's death. Why strike for Genma when there was Raidou around, breaking knees?

It didn't make sense. And he didn't like it. But mostly he didn't like the fact that he was grateful for not having taken that blow. With broken ribs slowing him down on top of everything else, they might never have made it out.

Raidou shook the thought off and forced his soldier pill down with a slug from the canteen, trying unsuccessfully to keep the water on the right side of his mouth. He shuddered as it washed over raw gums, squeezing his eyes closed, and took a long slow breath through his nose.

Painkillers. There was codeine. He managed to salvage and swallow three before the urge to retch almost brought them back up again. An automatic jaw clench did nothing to help.

"Okay," he panted, when he finally opened his eyes to meet concerned amber-brown ones. "We need to keep moving. I don't know how long that door will hold."

Is there some reason--you won't take the morphine?" Genma leaned forward, putting a restraining hand on Raidou's arm. He could feel a frantic pulse, a fine tremor in his muscles. Chakra flaring unstably, despite the soldier pills. All the color had vanished from Raidou's face.

The bandage on Raidou's cheek was peeled farther down, showing stomach-turning burns. Genma doubted the long, seared gouges on his chest looked any better.

"You're not in good enough shape. If you get shocky--pass out--whatever. We're screwed."

It was a brutal assessment. It was utterly true.

"You need decent pain control--before we try to move."

"If I can't run, we're dead," said Raidou flatly. Cold air brushed over his cheek, sinking teeth into inflamed flesh. He bore it stiffly, unwilling to flinch with Genma's eyes watching him now for a sign of weakness. Any sign that Raidou couldn't go on without narcotics in his bloodstream, fogging up his head, relaxing his muscles. It hurt more to go without--it hurt everywhere--but if that was the price for staying alive...

He had to get Genma home.

"Codeine'll hold me. And there's definitely no way we can mix the two without knocking me out." He gathered the medi-kit up, fastening it once more to his belt, and slung the canteen next to it, resolving to re-fill it as soon as they found a stream. "C'mon. I'll put up, you shut up. Let's get moving."

He shook off Genma's hand and took him carefully by the arm, turning to offer his back. Maybe thirteen miles down--forty-seven left to run. He could do it. He had to do it.

"No." It was a flat refusal. Raidou turned around with a look of exasperation overlying the pain still evident on his face.

"You're not in good enough shape." Genma paused for breath, letting the set of his jaw speak for him. "You need solid pain control. I can help. Not a narcotic."

The anger in Raidou's eyes softened to cautious waiting. Listening.

"Mayaku senbon," Genma said. "Told you about them--right? Block chakra paths. Block nerves." He was certain Raidou knew about them, because he'd been the one to bore Raidou to tears over coffee, talking about them. Konoha's researchers had been working on the idea in the labs for years. As a field medic and a poisoner, Genma had taken a keen interest in their potential. But they were too dangerous for medical use. Tiny senbon designed to be absorbed by the body, impregnated with neurotoxic and chakra-toxic compounds, they'd been created as tools of death, not healing.

Genma and a few other medics hadn't been willing to let the Hokage's decree that the Mayaku senbon were too dangerous for general medical use stand in their way. This wasn't general use, for one thing. This was a mission-critical life-saving effort. And they were ANBU. Who better to take the risk? Looking at himself, then Raidou, the morbid thought crossed Genma's mind: they were as good as dead anyway, if they didn't try.

"I have six. Sewn inside my medkit." Genma coughed, held his side. "That's enough--to do your whole chest."

Raidou licked dry, split lips and tried to believe what he was hearing. "You want to stick needles--" he broke off, rocking back on his heels. Tried to process. Genma was a medic--his friend. He'd never suggest something pointlessly excruciating. And Raidou did remember hearing about the Maya-whatever senbon. If only because Genma could be an incredible dork about things like brand new weapons and intricate poisons, and Raidou never missed an opportunity to listen and tease him about it. But--

They'd have to peel the bandages off, expose the wounds. Put needles in his scars. There was no way, whatever Genma said, to pretend that wouldn't be agonizing. And needles were barely a step away from claws...

But if it would help--if it took some of the pain away, he'd be able to run faster. Move better. Carry Genma further. Leave Sago far behind.

They were losing time they didn't have.

Raidou looked at his friend, barely more than a shadow against the grass as the sky darkened around them; at the masks hanging from his hip, the bandage on his hand, the determination on his face. Ribs broken, fingers shattered, throat a bruised wreck--Raidou couldn't let him down again.

He wasn't a coward.

"Okay." It was barely more than a whisper. He took a shallow breath. "Okay."

The look on Raidou's face was eerily similar to the haunted, terrorized expression he'd worn when Sago had come close with his glowing rake. Genma felt ill at the prospect he was about to inflict more torture on him. "It's... It'll be okay. They're small. Tiny. They act fast."

Genma gestured at the medkit strapped to Raidou's waist. "Need you to get them out for me. They're sewn into the inside of my black senbon wallet." The one that held only five, poison-tipped needles. Five needles that were gone now, buried in the eye of one of those outlaw Mist ninja. Had that really been only that morning? It seemed a lifetime ago, somehow.

"Just rip out the lining," Genma said, when Raidou held up the case. "Gently. They're fragile."

His hands were shaking again; Raidou tried to pretend it was the cold. He eased off his knees, sitting down cross-legged within easy reach of Genma's right hand, and opened the little black case. It was empty--Genma must have used all his senbon in that first fight--but the lining was only loosely stitched. Raidou grabbed a corner of the flimsy cloth and pulled it away, tearing threads with tiny snaps.

The senbon were as fine as glass, almost translucent, held in place by more slender threads. Each one was about the length of a child's smallest finger, and gleamed in a way that had nothing to do with light. They were hard to see in the gathering dark, set against black leather.

They should not have been scary.

He put the case down on Genma's knee and steeled himself. They act fast. He wasn't a coward. He was going to get them home. He just had to strip off his bandages first. Kids could do that--they were barely more than bandaids.

"Next time Intel comes knocking," he muttered, "I'm leaving my door locked."

Fast or slow; it would hurt either way. They didn't have time. He picked at the edge of tape hanging loose by his collarbone, snatched a breath--and found his wrist trapped in the steel-lined grip of broken-healed fingers.

"Rai," Genma's voice was as gentle as his grasp was firm. "Let me do it. I watched that guy heal you--I have a pretty good idea--where the burn margins are. Don't want you ripping off any scabs." It was going to be excruciating no matter who removed those bandages, if they were stuck fast. But maybe they'd be lucky, for once on this mission...

Mother of Heaven, shine your face on us. Bodhisattva, lend mercy. Amida, Benevolent Enlightened One, guide my hands.

Prayers to gods who might not even be listening, Genma thought bitterly.

He was facing Raidou, looking into a grimly set face with wide, fear-filled eyes. If only he had two functioning hands, he could have cast a jutsu to deaden all sensation before he attempted to remove the bandages. If only he had use of his hand.

He didn't give Raidou any warning, just carefully, quickly, pulled the cloth and tape away.

Raidou almost expected it. He'd been waiting for it, tracking Genma's hand, his face, looking for the telltale muscle flicker that was a precursor to movement--

Genma's expression firmed, his hand moved, and cloth ripped away.

Raidou wasn't ready.

It might have been okay--bearable, even--if it had been done minutes after the bandages had first gone on, when the wounds were half-healed and scabbing over. But a desperate fight, a faster run, and too much movement and sweat and heat trapped beneath linen had softened the scabs, cracked the skin, brought new blood and weeping lymph to the surface, and woven it all through stiffening cloth.

Which tore away.

It took every inch of self-control Raidou had not to lash out and smash Genma's face in. An inch past that not to lurch back and scream. His hands clamped around his knees, fingers bridging as they clenched over raw bone. Aching shoulders drew up. Sweat slid down his back. Agony blazed through the hinge of his jaw as he couldn't help grinding his teeth together.

But he didn't move. And more importantly than that, he didn't lose himself. The gathering roar of battle drew around the corners of his vision, bled into his ears, but it was too important to stay here. To not panic.

To get Genma home.

He took a long shuddering breath, kept his eyes locked on agonized amber-brown, and hung on long enough not to fall completely apart.

In all his many dreams of torture, including the ones that featured Raidou suffering and Genma powerless to stop it, he'd never been the one to actually inflict the pain. As a medic, sometimes you had to hurt someone to make them better. Straightening a dislocated joint, for example, or lancing open an abscess.

This was different. This was too tied up in everything that had just happened on their mission, and everything between the two of them over eight months of increasingly close friendship. Too tied up in snares from the past, reaching up to entangle them separately and together.

Genma met Raidou's eyes, and felt like the worst sort of traitor.

The raw burns over scarred skin looked almost like blade wounds that had festered. Sago's rake had left long furrows of destroyed skin in its wake, tracing over muscle and bone, from shoulder to the apex of Raidou's left nipple. It was obscene. Obscene how the red, blistered rows oozed serous fluid from ruptured skin. How broken capillaries spilled blood over raw flesh.

"Almost there, Rai," he whispered, and picked up the first set of three senbon. In an instant he'd sunk all three into Raidou's skin, marking the corners of a broad triangle: the point of Raidou's left shoulder, the chakra meridian under his left arm, and a spot just shy of his sternum, surrounding the fresh wounds.

The needles seemed to sink of their own volition, burying themselves, so that they disappeared into pink, melted-plastic-looking scars.

On a relative level of hell, having his chest wide open to the cooling night air ranked somewhere near the bottom, especially when a line of sweat ran down his collarbone and touched blistered flesh. But Genma moved fast, and while Raidou focused on nothing but his face, three slight stings barely scraped the edge of awareness. He hitched a breath--

And everything went blessedly, wonderfully numb. Not just the hazy, slippery grasp of drugs where pain always lurked beneath the surface, but truly numb, right down to the bone. Genma couldn't have cut the sensation away any more cleanly if he'd used a scalpel.

Raidou made an inarticulate, glass-throated noise and hunched forwards, trying to rebalance himself without agony to brace against. The pull of skin over his ribcage stopped him from moving too far, but compared to what his chest had been he'd take that pain and dance.

When he finally glanced down, the skin was still a mess, but when he looked up there was nothing to feel. Genma was watching him with tension written all over the pale angles of his face and for a wild second Raidou could have kissed him--if he wasn't fairly certain that grey edge to Genma's lips would kill him stone dead.

"Better," he rasped instead, and sat back up, exposing his ribcage. Braced all over again. It would hurt, but then it wouldn't.

When Raidou started breathing again, Genma did, too. When he saw anguish melt away from Raidou's face, and relief take its place, Genma felt his heart stutter and catch its rhythm. It had been, for the few milliseconds while the forbidden senbon went to work, true terror for Genma. If he'd miscalculated the meridians; if he'd placed the center needle too close to Raidou's beating heart, if shock or fatigue or the meds he'd already taken, or any of a number of factors unique to Namiashi Raidou had reacted badly...

But there was no gasping, dying friend accusing him from the mouth of hell. There was no nightmare. Just the terrible reality of what they had been through already, and what more they had to face to get home. Compared to killing your best friend, it seemed almost inconsequential.

Genma's hand shook for a moment before he grasped the second bandage and stripped it away. The burns here were more numerous, but less severe. The rake had touched more shallowly, or perhaps the living skin had been easier for the Mist-ninja to heal than the thick scars over Raidou's left side.

Three more needles sank in, creating a barrier around heat-flayed flesh. And again there was the gasp, then the sigh, as relief--not just relief, but true freedom from pain--washed over Raidou.

Genma sagged, coughing weakly, cradling his side. Eyes still riveted to Raidou.

"Ok--Fresh bandages--Then we can go."

Raidou took a shallow breath, risked a deeper one, and could have laughed for sheer relief when nothing rippled up from his ribcage and broke him apart. He let himself be giddy for half a second, then got a lock on reality. Euphoria was just as dangerous as pain, and keeping his head had been the whole point of not taking morphine.

Genma was still coughing. Raidou couldn't tell if it was worse now, but it wasn't a good sign.

"Right," he said, and squeezed Genma's knee quickly before pulling open the medi-kit again. Tape, bandages, a dressing--anything he could slap quickly over his chest and be done with. He found some guaze--maybe enough to stretch over his chest--and taped it into place without looking too hard at the damage underneath. It was easy, if kept his eyes on his hands, to pretend that there was almost nothing there.

Bandages wound around his ribs next, not nearly as neatly as Genma could have managed, but good enough to hold for a while. He ignored the way blood and fluid soaked into cloth--he'd worry about it later, whenever the needles wore off. For now his focus needed to be on moving.

The codeine he'd taken was starting to kick in, too, easing strained shoulders, dulling the pain of missing teeth. It couldn't do anything for his face--even morphine couldn't really touch burn-seared nerves for any length of time--but one hurt to ignore was far easier than half a dozen.

"Okay, kid," he said finally, stowing the kit away again, turning to give his back to Genma. "Up you get, and let's see if we can't manage some distance."

In two and a half hours, they'd covered enough ground that the landscape was starting to feel more familiar. The treeless high grasslands of north-western Fire Country always felt alien to Genma, as it did to a lot of Leaf shinobi who, like himself came from the heavily forested center and south of the country. There were some in Konoha's ranks who hailed from the north, and called the rock-strewn landscape home, but Genma was glad to return to the safety of trees.

He was feeling better. Much better, with the addition of soldier and blood pills, and the careful topping off of his pain meds. Raidou seemed much improved, too, able to move without experiencing the agony of his burns. He loped along despite his heavy burden, eating the distance away steadily.

At first Genma had allowed himself to be carried without protest, too weak and miserable to make even the mildest case for himself, but as the moon slipped out from behind clouds, casting long bluish shadows from every new-leafed tree, and his latest dose of morphine hit its peak effectiveness, that changed.

"Rai," he said. "You can put me down. I can run for a bit. Better if you don't tire yourself out too much." He wondered if either of the packs Raidou had recovered from their captors held rations. Even half a rat-bar would give them much-needed fuel.

Tired, Raidou thought dryly, probably wasn't the word for it. But he'd hit the point, now, somewhere between exhaustion and the false high brought on by chakra pills and too much adrenaline, where it was possible to just keep going. As long as he didn't stop, even for a moment, he could keep running.

Thirty-seven miles down, give or take a few hundred metres. Twenty-three left to cover.

And no sign of Sago.

Which, of course, was when Genma decided to be difficult. Raidou pressed his lips together, debating how much further he could get during the up-coming argument, and cleared the distance to the next tree. It was harder to navigate in the thickening forest, with the canopy closing in and obscuring the stars, but he was a Leaf-ninja. Home was that way.

Genma protested again, accompanying his point this time by a thump of one heel against Raidou's right thigh. It'd probably be easier to let him down, see him run himself out, and then pick things up again. Probably be better for both of them if Raidou got the chance to rest his shoulders, which were becoming increasingly stiff as strained muscles knotted together. And better for Genma if he actually worked his lungs a little--took a proper breath instead of the shallow, raspy ones he'd been managing. Shallow obviously felt better against broken ribs, but it weren't doing him much good.

He leapt two more trees, cut sideways, and dropped down to crouch at the base of a spreading oak, flanked by several tall trees. Genma could run, maybe, but he sure wasn't up to branch jumping.

"If you--fall," Raidou panted, releasing his hold, "I'm going--to laugh."

Obviously falling was completely out of the question. Wincing and cursing and hobbling, as he tried to get his feet under himself and a clearer understanding of exactly which parts of his body were going to protest the transition to self-locomotion, were definitely part of Genma's repertoire, however.

His twisted ankle, unsurprisingly, and the stabbed hip on that same side, gave strong complaint. Raidou had bandaged the ankle, which had swollen enough that Genma's shoe barely fit, but the bandages, the high-throated sandal, and a little chakra lent stability. It would serve.

Broken ribs and bruised larynx ached under the onslaught of deeper breaths and increased motion. It was manageable, Genma told himself. The morphine made him a little dizzy, and kicked an ache in his belly up to a nauseated unease, but it also made the pains in his throat, ribs and leg seem remote. Bearable.

His arm though...

His hand...

Every step sent it swinging, sent blood coursing agonizingly through splintered, mangled joints and bones, and torn, bruised flesh. After a half-dozen paces Genma stopped, clutching his bandage-swathed left arm in towards his body with his right.

"We need to--make me a sling. Strap my arm down--so it won't move when I run," he said through grit teeth.

So much for not stopping. Raidou pulled to a quick halt by Genma's side, forcing himself to keep his weight moving from foot to foot, never quite settling. Keeping his blood up, his heart beating, his muscles warmed so they wouldn't cramp. Genma's run had been awkward, ill-balanced, lacking the fluid grace he normally moved with--but that was to be expected from a man with only two decent limbs.

"Sorry," muttered Raidou, casting a glance over that cradled arm. "Should've thought--of that." He wasn't a medic, but some things were just common sense. Genma couldn't have his hand strapped up when he was riding on Raidou's back, but running for himself...

Raidou zipped their first medi-kit open quickly, searching through it. But there were no bandages to be had that weren't already strapped around his ribcage; even the morphine had almost run dry. He zipped it up again and went for the second kit--his kit--and rummaged. He'd re-stocked it at the end of his last mission, there should be something usable...

Soft linen yielded under calloused fingers. He pulled a roll of bandage out, sliced a length off with the razor edge of a kunai, and stepped close to knot a long loop around Genma's throat--but Genma flinched back. Beneath the sleeveless black turtleneck and bone armour, lean muscles tensed.

Raidou stilled and waited a beat, hands held in front, empty but for the fluttering bandage. Then Genma's jaw firmed and he took a limping step forward. Silently, Raidou tied the bandage around his neck, let Genma slip his own arm into the loop, and strapped the limb up as quickly as possible.

"Should do it," he said, stepping back. Drew a breath of night air that made his cheek sting. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah," Genma nodded, a small movement that didn't flex his aching neck more than a few degrees. He looked over at his friend, pale in the moonlight, with his distinctive facial scar mostly hidden by crusted bandages. Hurt as he was, Raidou was still the epitome of strength, Genma thought. "Thanks." For getting me out of there. For carrying me. For enduring what no man should ever have to endure.

He started off at a slow, halting jog, pushing off strongly with his right leg, unsteadily with his left. Struggling to override the body's instinct to limit the weight he bore on the injured side.

Raidou matched his pace, falling in step not in his customary rear-guard position to his left, but side-by-side to Genma's right. To stop me pitching over, Genma thought. Raidou's concern was subtle, and strangely welcome, since it meant having Raidou where he could see him; look over and check that the bandages stayed in place, that no new grimace of pain crossed his face.

Genma stumbled, Raidou's attention riveted onto him, and Genma caught his footing again. Winced and kept going. "Don't worry--Rai--I can go--hours." He hoped. Hoped they both could. Raidou's skeptical frown said he'd believe it when he saw it.

There was no sound of pursuit. No sound but a spring breeze in the treetops, and their own laboured breathing.

"Yukaho--was from there. Near the border," Genma said. Keep talking. Keep alert. And don't let the memory of the woman you failed to save be only of her mangled, defiled corpse.

"Yeah?" Raidou said, half under his rasping breath. In everything that had happened, everything he'd been focused on--Genma, home, not his burns--Yukaho and her kids had been shoved to one side, tucked back into a corner of his mind until he had a moment's peace to spare them. It was something you couldn't do, shouldn't do; the only time to think about teammates who weren't coming back was when you were safe, standing at their funeral.

And he didn't want to remember the kids. Didn't want to think about which ninja had wrenched Akimi's legs apart, for fear it hadn't been one of the ones they'd killed.

He'd have to tell Jiro, he realized suddenly. Leaving out the details, but his brother should know that one of his graduating class was dead. That one of the--many--girls he'd had a crush on wasn't breathing--Raidou shoved the thought aside. Thinking about dead kids was bad enough, but thinking about his brothers on a mission was likely to get him killed. He couldn't afford to be distracted.

"They'll send another--team," he panted quietly, flicking a glance left. Genma's hair, loose without his hitai-ate to hold it back, obscured most of his profile. "Bring them home. Burn that--bunker--to the ground."

Hopefully with Sago still inside.

"Yeah," Genma panted. "Bomb it to hell." It was risky talking about the dead when their corpses still lay unburied on a none-too-distant battlefield. It was a dangerous path to breaking the vaunted Rule Twenty-Five, and a whole host of others. But Genma didn't feel any real emotion, talking about Yukaho. A vague, dissociative numbness, maybe. An echo of memories of other deaths. Other bunkers bombed to smoking ruins.

He swallowed, felt the swelling in his throat suddenly sharp, kicking off a gag reflex that had lain mercifully dormant for hours. He coughed as he ran, splinting his side with his good hand and rigid abdominals. Spat a foul mouthful of poison debris--the oozing slime that had killed Weasel, and even strong immunity couldn't altogether prevent, as the linings of windpipe and lungs eroded under the chemical onslaught.

It was purely physical. Purely the aftermath of the poison and a side effect of the morphine, Genma told himself, that was making him retch and choke.

He swallowed and held his breath, willing the reaction away, footsteps faltering only a little. Turned to catch Raidou's eye. "We should--stop for water--soon."

It was only exhaustion that stopped Raidou from hauling Genma onto his back and running them straight for home, forget water. That cough was nasty. That spitting was nastier. The colour Genma had gone...

It was only exhaustion, Raidou told himself, that was making him worry so much. Broken ribs made breathing hard. Getting strung up made breathing harder. And poison on top of that--

"Baby," he panted, but couldn't manage a grin to take the sting out. Lifting one side of his mouth yanked the other up; after one earlier attempt had almost made him heave, he'd resolved to keep his face straight. "Thought you--could go--for hours?"

Any other day, Genma would have punched him, and Raidou would have laughed. Today there was nothing but silence for three beats, undercut by too-loud footsteps and too-harsh breathing.

Raidou licked dry lips, feeling the crack of a scabbed split. "If we are--where I think we are--there should be a river soon. Twenty minutes--maybe."

He pulled the canteen off his hip anyway, and offered it. There was barely anything left, but a drip when your mouth was bone dry could make the difference between standing and crawling.

Genma swiped the inside of his wrist across his face, brushing back lank strands of hair caked with sweat and mud. It was strange to have armguards without gloves. A glove. He struggled to uncap the canteen one-handed without dropping it, and sucked the last few drops of water gratefully.

While he drank, he watched Raidou. Watched his face for any sign the Mayaku senbon were wearing off, and pain was returning. It was obvious his face was painful, from the way he slurred some words, trying not to move his mouth. And his jaw looked puffy and swollen. Those teeth that had cracked, that the medic had pulled, had to be the reason.

His own jaw ached where he'd cracked his false tooth to release the poison, and the taste of it lingered, a metallic-organic taste, like a bad mushroom. His tongue went to the jagged edges of the broken implant again and again, as if somehow when he checked it he'd find the smooth porcelain restored to its normal place.

"Twenty minutes," he echoed, and handed back the empty bottle, faltering just a little over the uneven ground. Raidou's eyes met his, and Genma could read the tension there, see the shift as Raidou started to move towards him. Genma managed a real grin, panting through his teeth.

"Race ya."

Raidou blinked, started to snort--and Genma leapt ahead. For a flickering second, moonlight rippled over the bone armour molded to the curving line of his lower back, then from somewhere--Raidou had no idea where--Genma dragged up a flash of speed and disappeared into the dark forest, flitting between tree trunks.

"Crazy little--" Raidou jerked his shoulders, trying to ease the ache, and grabbed at his own chakra. Energy, harsh and hot and bright, sank into nerves and bone as he lunged after his mental patient of a teammate and tried to catch up.

Ten seconds saw him drawing level. Fifteen put him slightly ahead. Despite everything, Genma seemed to be moving a little better, drawing on some mad balance between staggering hurts and everything beaten in by a lifetime of training. The morphine probably helped.

The senbon were certainly helping Raidou. His chest was still numb, his ribcage blessedly carved off his map of mental awareness. Even when he stumbled, or moved awkwardly, and knew he'd just made something crack beneath sweat-soaked bandages, pain never registered. With only the constant hot bite of his left cheek to remind him, he could almost pretend he'd never been burned.

One hand snapped out and caught a strand of dark hair flicking back over Genma's right shoulder, tugging just enough to make him start and glare.

"Gonna--owe me--dinner," Raidou promised, eyes dancing, and drew ahead just a little more.

"Not--tofu," Genma gasped, and struggled to keep the new pace he'd set. It was far from his fastest. If he'd been in good form, he'd have easily outstripped Raidou over such a short distance. As it was, Raidou was pulling into a comfortable lead. A few more meters and Genma was calling himself six kinds of idiot, struggling for breath, feeling pain tearing past the morphine to shatter in ankle and hip, chest and belly... Not thinking about his hand.

He was definitely losing this race.

Raidou was slowing, too, though. The gap between them was never a large one, which Genma was sure was by design. If he'd been the faster one, he wouldn't have been willing to let Raidou out of easy sight range either. His friend's head swiveled back several times, checking Genma's position, and as they neared the river, he cut his pace enough that Genma almost caught up.

Evergreens gave way to poplars and cottonwoods as they drew close to the water. The river here was a wide, lazy one, meandering through woods and low hills. A good place to catch catfish in summer, if your mission brought you out this way. Or a good place to camp. Watching Raidou's muscular back, sweat-sheened, scarred, with ribs flaring at every breath, he was suddenly struck by the fact that he had no idea if Raidou liked camping.

He wanted to catch up and ask him, but there was nothing left to give to the race. No reserves to call on. He watched Raidou slow and stop, leaning panting against a white-trunked birch, and limped to a halt beside him. Gasping for air brought the cough back, brought all Genma's attention to his broken ribs and the cool, moisture-laden air that didn't seem to supply quite as much oxygen as he'd have liked.

It was several moments before either of them had breath enough to speak. Genma reached out his hand, resting it on Raidou's unblemished right shoulder. "Not--tofu--'kay?"

"Oh sure," Raidou gasped. "You try to introduce--a little culture--one time--and he never forgets." Maybe choosing plain boiled tofu (served by monks in beautiful surroundings!) hadn't been the most flavourful option for a post-sparring meal, but the look on Genma's face had been worth every ryou. And whichever way you sliced it, that night had sure been a lot better than the one that had started with curry and ended with vomiting...

He shoved the memory aside. Of all times to think about losing his mind and kissing his best friend, now was not it. Even with Genma's uninjured hand sinking cold into the overheated skin capping his right shoulder.

"Water," he said, dragging his mind back and flicking his fingers at the river. Behind his back, Genma sounded like he was trying to breathe through gravel. "And then--you are definitely--getting carried. No arguments."

Genma wasn't actually inclined to argue. He didn't want to admit his weakness, but sometimes there was no alternative. He thought about their last mission together, with Tsume, and his ignominious ride home on Kuromaru's broad back. At this rate he was going to get a rep as the ninja who couldn't walk, he thought with a groan.

He followed Raidou to the water's edge, and carefully knelt down. A squat was unworkable, with his hip and ankle screaming protest, but a one-knee'd crouch got him close to the water's surface, yet was flexible enough he could get to his feet at the slightest hint of danger. Raidou, he noticed, took the same posture, leaning over to fill the canteen in the cold flow of dark river water.

The moon had been out earlier, but now the damp chill they'd felt before was coalescing into fog along the low-lying river bottom. Genma stretched his hand out to scoop up a mouthful of water, and wobbled off balance against Raidou's leg. Before he could fall, Raidou's hand was grabbing for the back of his armour, steadying him.

Genma glanced up at him with a small, "Thanks," and leaned over, splashing icy water into his mouth over and over, rinsing away the taste of poison at last.

The fog grew thicker. Almost a mist. Cold droplets beaded in Genma's hair, ran down Raidou's bare skin. A chill shivered up Genma's spine.

"Rai?" It was a whisper. He straightened, alarmed to find that Raidou's face was hard to see through the growing greyness. A shadow flickered in Genma's peripheral vision, and he reached for a holster that wasn't there, a weapon he didn't have.

With the refilled canteen back on his hip, it took a minute for Raidou to psyche himself up enough to reach for the water again. He stretched out the hand not bracing his friend, trying to work up the nerve to swallow something else that would scrape like shards of acid-etched glass over inflamed gums--and found delicate mist drifting beneath his fingertips. Heard the sudden fear in Genma's voice.

Saw the ghost vanishing into the dark.

Adrenaline smashed into his veins, jerking one hand to the kunai holster strapped to his thigh. The other tightened brutally in Genma's armour, hauling his friend against his side without regard for broken bones. He lunged to his feet.

And half the river roared into the air, shot through with threads of gleaming chakra; it towered above their heads for half a stuttered heartbeat, ripping leaves and limbs from overhanging trees, splattering the dirt with icy trails--and then it plunged.

There was no time to dodge.

Raidou dropped his kunai, wrenched both arms around Genma, and summoned every last scrap of chakra he had just before the wall of water crashed down on them like a tidal wave of roaring concrete.

Fear was a marvelously focusing emotion. Adrenaline spiking could drive all other things to low secondary status. Genma's heart was already racing, preparing for an unseen attack, when Raidou crushed him against his side. His brain focused on that rising torrent of water, on the immensity of the sound, and the shuddering quaking of the gravel along the bank, on their imminent death, and how to evade it, simply didn't register pain. It forgot about his injuries enough that the instinct to cast a protective jutsu came first, and Genma's fingers on both hands tried to shape seals.

Physiology won out. Damaged nerves and collapsed chakra coils sirened as Genma dropped the jutsu uncast. Black sparks cascaded in his field of vision.

Raidou tackled him, knocking him off his feet. There was a sickening sensation of being turned inside out, of the air being forced from his lungs, and broken ribs grating into the delicate flesh they were meant to protect. There was no up, no down, nothing but Raidou's chakra around him, and a consuming agony blooming from within.

Then they were eight kilometers away, collapsing on soft, sandy soil under beech trees. The moon was shining brightly again, in a cloudless sky. In the distance there was a terrible roar. The earth trembled.

Genma lay on his back, face contorted in a silent scream; Raidou crouched over him, already trying to get to his feet.

Sago. Fucking Sago. How had he--when had he--

Raidou jerked his head, feeling flayed from the inside-out, and scrambled to get himself up and off of Genma. Chakra flickered weakly beneath him, stuttering through broken bones and brutalized pathways. What little colour Genma had managed to get back was spilling away; there was nothing in the white-parchment of his face but agony and the half-slits of eyes gone dark and unaware.

There was no time to help him.

"Hold on," Raidou grated, snatching at the ragged edges of his own chakra, tearing it back through muscles that wanted to do nothing but collapse. His chest heaved; water skidded down his back. They were both soaked to the skin. He could feel the cold eating into the left side of his face, sinking needle fangs through blistered, weeping flesh. "Don't you dare pass out on me."

Far too close, the earth rumbled.

If Sago wanted them alive, he planned to capture them in pieces. Raidou darted a desperate glance around, eyes flickering over trees and up at the stars, trying to figure out where the hell they were. Which way the safe house lay.

Twenty-one miles from the river. He'd just won them five more, at the cost of nearly ripping his coils out through his skin. And if that spreading archway of poplars was as familiar as it looked...

"Sixteen," he gasped, and hauled Genma's limp weight up. Threw the lean, shuddering body over his shoulder--chest armour would protect those ribs; it had to--and took off at a staggering run before the first hollow groan reached his ears.

Don't you dare pass out.

Genma tried to hold onto some sliver of awareness, but all his senses were overwhelmed by pain. He skimmed the surface of consciousness, dipping below it into blissful periods of nothingness, rising again to the blinding brightness of screaming nerves in his hand and torso.

It wasn't until they'd stopped in the shelter of thick ferns, and Raidou had injected him with a double dose of their dwindling supply of morphine, that Genma found true consciousness again. He tried to push himself upright, only to find shaking, ice-cold hands pushing him back.

"Is he--on our trail--yet?" Genma asked, and tried to get up again.

A thin vapor hovered over the damp ferns. An answer clearer than Sago himself intruding on their position.

"I can--run now," Genma insisted. Because he had to. Because Raidou was pale and shaking, dangerously low on chakra. His eyes were wide with fear, darting every which way in an effort to find Sago before he found them. Genma's own eyes were just as wild.

Kanon, giver of mercy... He couldn't even complete the prayer. As the mist thickened, all Genma could think was that this was probably going to be the mission that got his and Raidou's names etched forever into black stone.

"Shut up," Raidou snarled, voice scraping down to its lowest register. Genma couldn't run any more than he could fly, and there was no time for an argument. There'd barely been time to stop and slip the needle into his vein, but another minute of nothing but silence broken by breathless whimpers that he could feel against his back would have been enough to shatter him.

There was clarity in Genma's eyes now, almost hidden behind hugely dilated pupils and rising terror, but it was there.

"I'm getting us home," Raidou swore, and didn't let himself stop to think anything else. It didn't matter that he was frozen and drained and scared as hell that the prickling tingle beneath water-logged bandages was the first sign of something much worse. That Sago was five miles behind and closing fast, thickening the air wherever Raidou looked. He'd made a promise; he'd damn well sworn it. And he wasn't giving them up for dead when they'd already made it this far.

"C'mon," he grunted, and wrapped a hand around Genma's upper arm. Caught him under the left side of his ribcage, where armour straps provided a grip, and pulled him up just enough that Raidou could turn and stand, hauling Genma onto his back. "Now hang the fuck on."

Wet ferns swiped at his legs as he took off again, weaving between monolithic tree trunks. There was no time to stop and wipe out the back-trail, and no chakra to get them up to the spreading branches. But it didn't matter. Home was that way, and he'd get them there if he had to crawl.

Raidou rarely swore. Genma was fairly sure he could count on one hand the number of times he'd heard his friend use anything stronger than a deeply felt damn it. The ferocity in Raidou's tone, the angry insistence that he was getting them home, that Genma shut up and hang on, fanned Genma's flagging hope.

Maybe Kanon's mercy was Raidou's courage. She'd given Genma a partner who never ever quit, no matter how impossible the situation seemed.

Genma held on with his good arm around Raidou's chest, trying hard to keep his fingers away from the water-soaked bandages covering Raidou's burns. He bit the inside of his cheek and made no sound when his injured arm was jostled, crushed between his belly and Raidou's back, or when the ache in his broken ribs swelled into something else sharper and lower, deeper inside.

They were going to make it. They were going to make it because they were together. Because Raidou had survived the acid burns that had scarred him the first time, and Genma had escaped from Iwagakure with not only his sanity but his abilities as a ninja intact. Because you didn't come through a refiner's fire like that only to shatter now. They were going to make it--he was going to make it--because to do otherwise would be a betrayal of Raidou's bravery. Genma held on and remembered Raidou's eyes locked on his when Sago's rake tore through his skin. He hadn't abandoned Raidou then. He wouldn't do it now.

Kilometers slipped away under Raidou's feet. The moon rose higher and brighter, crossing apogee and sinking again towards the west, and they even seemed to be outpacing the ground-hugging fog. The longer they ran, though, the more Raidou's breath came in short gasps. When a jostling step made Genma's finger's slip, and Raidou groaned, Genma cringed.

The Mayaku senbon had done all they could.

"Let me give you--morphine now," Genma whispered.

"Can't." The effort to say no almost tore Raidou's throat out, but he did it. If he stopped--if he let Genma anywhere near him with a needle--he'd never get up again. Morphine would destroy the last vestiges of control he had over lead-lined muscles and shaking limbs, and they'd die screaming while his skin felt a little better--until Sago tore it open again.

They passed a milestone marker hidden in the lee of a weathered oak, placed only where Konoha ninja could see and understand the markings carved into granite, and Raidou almost landed on his knees. Eleven miles to go, the symbols said, and it should have been nothing. Should have been the easiest thing in the world. But Genma's weight was tearing at his shoulders, Genma's knee was catching against the right side of his ribcage, and even fear couldn't quench the nauseating agony of ruined flesh sloughing away beneath wet cloth.

He forced himself onwards, breathing deep enough to get as much air as he could without expanding his chest more than he could bear, and thought about nothing but the next step. The one after that. Three brothers at home, a kid to mentor, an Inuzuka he owed his life to, a rookie neighbour he wanted to see become a veteran. Genma on his back. And none of it mattered if he didn't keep running.

He made it halfway to the five-mile marker, staggering and sick but still damn moving, before the fog spilled together and turned the night air solid grey. Before a shadow split away from the trees ahead of them, almost indistinguishable in the mire, and lifted something that crackled and sparked silver through the dark.

"We're not done, Leaf-ninja," said Sago quietly.

Genma froze, heart pounding in his throat. The fog hid everything but the glistening, chakra-charged instrument in Sago's hand. An offensive weapon from his chest, perhaps. A chakra-bladed tanto like the disgraced elder Hatake had carried and passed on to his son, or a katana limned with electric force.

And Raidou was so exhausted Genma had been about to insist they stop despite the risks.

There had to be a way out of this. There had to be an escape. If only he could force that broken hand to form seals. If only they had weapons, he thought desperately. Raidou had the katana and at least one kunai, and the med kits. Genma might have exploding tags in the front flap of his vest, if the Mist ninja hadn't discovered them.

And Sago's voice was rougher than it had been before. There was a tell-tale rasp to his breathing. Maybe the black slime was slowing him down. Maybe there was a chance...

"He inhaled--some of my poison," Genma murmured. "Put me down. Go for his throat."

He let go of Raidou's shoulder enough to press hand signs against his neck. Hidden weapons. Let go.

Raidou had only ever been in three fights were he simply couldn't think. His first as a genin, until his jounin-sensei had whacked him over the back of the head; the battlefield at fourteen, where acid drenched claws had torn away everything; and now. He stared at the gleaming metal in Sago's hand, at the man he'd spent all damn night trying to run away from, at the miles beyond him they still had to go, and felt something start to crack inside.

Enough?

Yes. Too much. Please--

Then Genma's voice cut low on the edge of hearing; his fingers, trembling and icy, but there, sank a plan into sweat-soaked skin, and Raidou knew he couldn't fall yet. Genma was already letting go, throwing his weight down as fast as he could, and Raidou's left hand found the katana still strapped to his hip. Genma's katana.

Home alive, whatever it took.

Sago moved, filling the air with killing intent as he charged through the fog. Raidou twisted sideways, scraping up the last flickering threads of chakra in his pathways, feeling Genma stagger and fall behind him, and unsheathed his sword. Snatched a last breath as he caught his balance and squared up to meet the nightmare. Sago's arm lifted, fog shredding aside, and the glint of sparking silver in his hand snapped into focus.

It was the hammer he'd used on Genma.

Raidou's lips skinned back from his teeth. Fury, dampened down by exhaustion and agony, roared back to life beneath his breastbone, burning fear away. He hefted the sword, fell into the first stance he'd ever learned, and let his focus narrow down to nothing but the metal in his hand and where it needed to go.

Genma's chakra flared behind him, and fire ripped apart a tree to Sago's right the split-moment before he reached Raidou. Sago flinched, twitched a pace sideways mid-run, eyes darting right for one crucial second.

Raidou slammed up and under his guard, felt the hammer smash down on his right shoulderblade with a chakra-laced crack that arced right through him, and drove the katana handle deep into Sago's throat. For a second, just before a punch like a landslide caught him in the sternum and threw him back, as darkness reared up and crashed over his head, the strangled, choking gasp was enough to split a smile over blood-stained lips, no matter how much it hurt.

Raidou was going down, but Sago was going down, too, choking and gagging, struggling for air. If there had been time, if he'd had anything more than bare reserves, Genma would have struck a finishing blow. But there wasn't. The chakra he'd used to detonate those tags was already pushing the limit. And Raidou was falling without any sign he was in control of his body. There wasn't a choice other than flight.

Genma pulled his left arm from its sling just as Raidou crashed into him. There wasn't time to register the pain that juddered through shattered bones. He choked on a cry and wrapped the bandaged arm around Raidou's chest; used his good hand to form seals for a one-handed translocation, drawing chakra not just from his coils, but from strained muscles and beating heart as well, to power a jump that under the best of circumstances was a challenge.

Vapor shimmered. For the instant of translocation, the sensation of falling went on for a seeming eternity, and then they were crashing to earth, to a raked-gravel courtyard on deserted temple grounds. The impact knocked the breath out of Genma, but not his senses.

There were shouts. Running feet. The crunch and rattle of skidding stones.

His grip on Raidou loosened, then tightened again. Raidou was a frighteningly still weight on his chest, with his head lolled back against Genma's shoulder.

Genma raised his head a bare centimeter, and something sparked in his abdomen deep under those cracked ribs, as if an exploding tag had detonated inside him. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He couldn't move.

Raidou wasn't moving.

"Rai."

He had no voice. Raidou's face was next to his. Unburned side pale in waning moonlight. Battered but handsome. Motionless.

"Almost--home--Rai."

There were more urgent voices he didn't recognize. Hands touching him. Pulling at him. Pulling Raidou's unnaturally still body away.

He felt a pair of enormous hands gently cradling his head.

Hang in there, son.

Genma shivered and thought, Why?