"He sure as hell will," Ryouma said savagely. The old lady stared up at him coldly. Already he could feel her pale gaze labeling him, dismissing him: Violent hoodlum. Worthless. She'd been barely humoring her grandson by summoning him, and she was clearly regretting it now.

Ryouma'd spent his entire life thumbing his nose at the well-fed villagers who saw him only as gutter trash. Tight muscles trembled with the desire to do it now. You want to see assault? You want to see how violent I can be? Careful what you wish for, lady...

But she was only wishing for Kakashi and her grandson to be safe. And Ryouma, who was supposed to be the one lying bruised and unconscious in that hospital bed, couldn't argue with that.

He shoved his hands into the deep, loose pockets of his borrowed scrubs. Ginta's grandmother glared up at him like a tiny, kimono-clad lioness; to get to the door he'd have to pick her up and move her out of his way. And his chances of seeing Ginta would die a quick and painful death, if she didn't scream bloody murder and get him thrown out of the hospital altogether. Once upon a time he'd been a master at charming old ladies into giving him rice balls, leftovers, a grandson's hand-me-down sandals. He was too tall now, too tattooed, to look like anything but a threat. If he tried flirting with her, she'd probably just clobber him with an IV pole.

Of course, she was Ginta's grandmother. She might flirt back.

He didn't try it. Instead he rolled his shoulders in a futile attempt to work out the knots, pulled his hands out of his pockets again, and summoned up a shadow clone.

Somewhere, an alarm went off. Ryouma's clone cursed mildly as it extricated itself from the tangle of cords where it had landed. Chihiro stiffened even more, glancing sharply between Ryouma and the clone. One of the nurses who had helped Ryouma wash his hands poked her head around the door, sighed, and padded over to press a button. "No jutsu in ICU," she said reprovingly. "Tousaki-kun, you're losing your pants."

Ryouma's clone hiked up its too-big scrubs and scraped together a disarming grin. "I'm just here to keep a look-out. I'll be good. Look, I'll even keep my clothes on!"

The nurse laughed, shook her head, and patted Ryouma's shoulder as she headed out. Her fingers were warm. Ryouma's hand dropped down to graze over a bare slice of Kakashi's upper arm, and found his bruise-darkened skin cold as fear. He tugged the sheet up again, and then the blanket that lay folded at the foot of the bed. The clone dragged a tall yellow-vinyl recliner a little closer and settled down comfortably to watch. "I'll pop when he wakes up," it assured Ryouma. "Stick around."

"I'll be back," Ryouma promised. He didn't have to say it; the clone knew, engraved in its jutsu- and smoke-born bones, that he'd be there when Kakashi woke. It nodded anyway and then forgot the world to focus on Kakashi.

Ryouma turned back to the tiny, rigid woman in the center of the room. "I don't reckon Ginta ever told you," he said quietly, "what happened the last time he was in Lightning Country. Who got him out. I'll kick his ass for bein' an idiot, if he was one, but I've saved his life more times'n Kakashi has. And I didn't come just for Kakashi."