The world swirled back in a frozen tableau of two dead shinobi, Ginta hanging desperately from a tree, and a ninja built like a whip crouched over Hoshika's fallen body, yanking the knife free from her back. Blood slid off the blade.

High in his tree, hands and shoulder drenched in bright red, Ginta screamed.

Kakashi made his own noise, harsher and deeper and lost in the furious wind of movement; he lunged forwards, swept beneath the ninja's startled attack, and came up inside his guard. A desperate fist grabbed for his throat, but the white-blistered blade was already leaping up, shearing through armour and cloth and flesh.

He disengaged the strike before he killed the man, and whipped away, slicing through genjutsu-frozen clones. The ninja spun around, choking on a cry, hand pressed against his side, and staggered when Shouma slammed against his shoulder. The dog was away and gone before a blow could catch him, teeth sinking into Hoshika's ruff as he hauled her out of range.

Kakashi ducked in, past a flashing knife strike, sliced a smoking gash across the back of the ninja's thigh, and flickered away again. Past a corpse with its throat torn out, and a crumpled woman missing one eye and half her bone structure, and up into the lower branches of the tree that held Ginta. Ginta was already hauling himself up, arms shaking badly, onto the limb bearing his weight. Despite the blood, he didn't seem badly injured in any way Kakashi hadn't already seen.

Even in the midst of open warfare, there was time for one breath of relief.

Down in the centre of the jutsu-stricken, still-burning clearing, the enemy ninja swore viciously and slammed his hands together. The air grew heavy and gleamed, forming blades of water drawn from mist and fog and up from the evening-damp earth. They splayed out in a violent, glittering fan, then threw themselves at Ginta.

Kakashi wrenched up a shield of dirt and rock, twined through with chakra, and took the impact. Silvery knives exploded like a shatter of stars. He leapt straight over his creation, twisted around a spray of shuriken, and slammed his glowing tanto through the man's shoulder. It wasn't his father's blade--that was eight years broken--or a fistful of raw blue energy, but it did the job just fine. The ninja screamed, falling backwards as Kakashi scythed his legs out from under him, and screamed louder when the blade ripped free straight through his collarbone.

Kakashi wanted the man alive. But he didn't mind hurting him first.

He pinned the ninja to the dirt by slamming the tanto through his other shoulder, effectively disabling both arms, and kiwarimi'd back to Ginta. It was the work of five hurried seconds to gather the smaller ninja off his branch, get him back down to the writhing enemy ninja, stake the man down with two more kunai shoved straight through the meat of his calves, and arm Ginta with a blade.

"Question him."

Two more seconds and a lifetime to slay the remaining clones and reach Hoshika's side.