When Genma heard that Haruichi was back in ANBU, he went looking for him pretty much immediately. When he heard, upon arriving at the medic's office to find a nurse but no medic, that Haruichi was having his fitness for mission duty tested by the director of ANBU operations himself, he wasted no time in heading for the dojo. The news had some fairly stunning implications.

One, Haruichi was not only not dead, he was in fact, evidently in fighting form.

Two, Arakaki and the powers that be had finally decided to add another fully trained medic to the field-operatives' ranks, which the field-medics like Genma--who for the most part were, like Genma, Hunters or Intel Operatives who had additional training in first aid and field medicine--had been petitioning their senior officers for for months.

Three, Arakaki either thought Haruichi had spectacular promise, or he had an axe to grind. And if it was the latter, Genma feared for Haruichi's health.

It wasn't that Arakaki was a cruel man. Not at all. It was just that he was an old-school war hawk. A by-the-book officer, who took his responsibility managing Konoha's Black Ops regiment very seriously. He wasn't a cruel man, no, that would be his counterpart, Shida Akumaru, the director of Torture and Interrogation, but he could be a hard man. If he was trying to prove a point, he was like a pit bull in his tenacity. Unrelenting. Unsympathetic. It was that diamond hardness that made him capable of leading ANBU's field operations, but it was also a little terrifying.

What Genma found was at least as surprising as the news that Haruichi was back had been. Arakaki was dressed in a gi, had one leg bandaged and showing fresh blood, and was standing grimly in one corner, arms folded, eyes glittering dangerously, looking at the pair of men on the mats.

Haruichi was pinned, flat on his stomach, with his arms wrenched up incapacitatingly hard. His shortish hair was in wild disarray, his face pale and bruised, with high spots of color in his cheeks, and his eyes were in activated byakugan. He looked deeply pissed off.

And Raidou was there. Straddling Haruichi, pinning him, looking like he hadn't taken a single blow himself in this spar, also looking deeply pissed off, and committing what seemed like a seriously career-limiting move, mouthing off to Arakaki.

Well, Genma wasn't willing to see Haruichi killed, which evidently from Raidou's comment was what he thought Arakaki was driving at. And he wasn't willing to see Raidou exiled to some crappy border patrol post. So he had to step in.

"Er..." He entered the room with enough stealth to not look a fool in front of Arakaki, and enough noise to make sure they all knew he was there. "I'm sure what Raidou meant was to ask if you'd seen enough of Haruichi-sensei's sparring capabilities to have an understanding of his strengths and weaknesses."

"Shiranui," Arakaki said, turning to look up at the newcomer. He wasn't a tall man, something that always surprised the new ANBU recruits. He was such an imposing figure that it was hard to believe he barely topped 5'9". "Interesting to see an assassin attempt diplomacy."

"Sir," Genma said, and glanced at Raidou. Cool your jets, idiot, he thought furiously at his friend.

Arakaki recrossed his arms and turned to gaze at the frozen tableau on the mats once more. Then he took a deep sniff of a breath that conveyed a subtle disgust with everything he saw. "Yes. I've seen enough. Hyuuga is pathetically weak on defense, no matter how offensive he may be. He will not be assigned field missions until he improves." He turned to leave, brushing past Genma on his way to the door. "You've certainly stuck your neck out for your friends, Shiranui. I hope they're the sort who would do the same for you. Hyuuga," he added, raising his voice. "I suggest you find someone to teach you how to block and dodge. Your retest will be in two weeks." And with that, he left.

Genma stared a moment more in stunned silence, before crossing over to Raidou and Haruichi. "OK, what the fuck was that all about?"

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Good question, thought Raidou, after a moment to take in the fact they'd all apparently gotten out alive. Mostly I seem to have lost my mind. He turned to give Genma a look, expression shocked enough to be completely blank. "Tell me I didn't just say that to Arakaki?"

Forget Haruichi selling his organs on the black market, Arakaki would have him too busy running cannon-fodder missions for the Hyuuga to get near him. Or rookie missions. Raidou winced. He hated running rookie missions; they always went belly up in some spectacular fashion.

Speaking of which...

Raidou let go of Haruichi's wrists and pushed himself to one side, turning his pin to a crouch as he kneeled next to the medic-turned-punching-bag. The spar hadn't lasted particularly long, but Haruichi had taken some fairly decent hits -- mostly from the wall and the floor, but at least two from Raidou's own fists. Only Arakaki knew how many blows he'd scored, Raidou rather doubted Haruichi had been taking the time to count.

Well, unless he had plans to find some way to make a return on each hit, but that spoke of a serious death wish even Haruichi probably didn't have.

Come over here and say that you giraffe-limbed bastard!

Probably.

Raidou put a hand on the medic's shoulder and turned him neatly on his back. The fact that he was still conscious made for a good start, though Hyuuga eyes made it a serious problem if you wanted to check pupil dilation. Raidou weighed the chances of Haruichi being concussed and decided they were fairly positive.

Definitely going to the special hell.

"You still with us, kid?" Raidou asked, as he ran a quick hand down each of Haruichi's limbs, looking him over for broken bones.

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There was no way to snap at Raidou that he was not a kid without it sounding ruefully petulant, so Haruichi managed to restrain himself. "I'm fine," he hissed through clenched back teeth, blinking back his enhanced vision painfully and willing himself to move. The ringing in his head had died down enough to let him concentrate on the sounds around him by this point, which meant that as he stubbornly propped himself up to sitting and knocked Raidou's hands away he got something of a surprise to find himself looking up at Genma.

Oh gods give him strength, this was just unneccessary. He'd learned his lesson! Next time he'd just bite Arakaki straight out, or jyuuken him in the kidneys no matter what he said - he didn't need it hammered home with the appearance of one Shiranui Genma.

Best act like the room didn't seem to be slowly swaying to the left, or as if he could actually feel the bruises smacked all over him. Haruichi was very good at ignoring such things.

"It is entirely your fault this happened," he declared stridently, the effect somewhat corrupted by the way his eyes were drifting in and out of focus... and by how when he pointed at where he thought Genma was he was actually pointing half a foot to the left.

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Genma shot a hand out to steady Haruichi, catching him by the shoulder, and glancing behind him to see who, exactly, Haruichi was accusing of having caused his current predicament. "Whose fault?"

There was no-one there. In fact the only person Haruichi could possibly meant was...

"Mine? How is this my fault?" He pressed a cautious hand to Haruichi's skull and frowned. "I don't know if you've got a skull fracture or just a nice little goose egg here, Sensei, but you're definitely concussed."

He gave Raidou a look that conveyed a combination of puzzlement and disappointed annoyance. "Why the hell did you just beat the shit out of Haruichi? He's hardly in your league. And what the hell was going on with Arakaki?"

There had to be some answer in there, somewhere. Haruichi was an annoying bastard at times, but you just didn't beat up on medics no matter how much they pissed you off. They were the ones who were going to piece you back together after your next injury, give you an injection for that "rash" you caught on your mission to Rain, and certify you fit to take your next mission, after all.

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If looks could kill Raidou would have been a charred carbon smear three times already just in the last hour. Four if you counted the glare Touji had given him before he'd made the man chew mat. He permitted himself the luxury of a very small sigh and put a hand on Haruichi's other shoulder to help steady the swaying medic, holding up his spare hand to ward of Genma's soon-to-be-wrath. "Firstly, I didn't beat the shit out of him. I landed... three, maybe four blows--if you don't count the pin--and one of those he dodged into." Which was a memory Raidou was probably going to treasure when this was all over and done with. It wasn't nice, but it was definitely comedy gold. "Most of his bruises are Arakaki's work, which brings me to my second point. I think medic-for-brains here said something or hacked someone off enough to get the captain's full thundery outrage on his ass in the shape of a training exercise. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

He was not going to tell Genma about Touji. And Haruichi was definitely not. Not if he wanted to make it to hospital with all his currently unbroken limbs still attached, anyway.

Raidou considered that and relented. He'd just drop Haruichi on his head, which would possibly have the pleasant side effect of knocking some sense into his skull.

He regarded the Hyuuga in question for a short moment, and then slid that spare hand carefully under Haruichi's knees. It was the work of a single easy movement to get to his feet and shift Haruichi into a simple cradle hold. Compared to Raidou he weighed the bare edge of nothing. "You need to eat more, kid," Raidou told him, with a little 'c'mon' jerk of his head at Genma. "Let's get you checked out before you bleed to death on the inside and get us all in trouble. Hate to see you kick it on your first day back."

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Proud, prickly-tempered bastard that he was, Haruichi did not approve in the slightest of being talked over and being carted around like a sack of flour, nor did he approve of the way his brain felt like it was trying to crawl out of his skull and seek out pastures new. Didn't it realize he was in ANBU now? This was the pasture new, the future prospect, and his purpose and function for the next however many years. There was no getting out, he had a job to do and people who needed him to do it. Even if they pissed him off so almightily that he genuinely considered whacking Raidou in the jaw and was only dissuaded by the fact he couldn't even work out if his hands were still connected to his wrists.

"I'm not going to bleed to death," Haruichi snapped muzzily, squinting his eyes shut against the swirling sensation in his head as Raidou walked... somewhere. "I've got work to do. One of you's bound to wander in bleeding all over the carpet, bereftly wailing for someone to make the boo-boos go away... erh." An involuntary wince of pain as one of his ribs finally decided to be pissed with him for getting it stomped on.

"Got work to do..." Haruichi murmurred stubbornly, more to himself than anything else. "...I only got here an hour ago."

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"If it's only been an hour and you already pissed off Arakaki enough he did this to you.." Genma shook his head with a chuckle. "I guess that's how we know it's really you, and not some badly made attempt at infiltrating ANBU HQ."

Genma reached a hand out and touched Haruichi's belly. Still soft, that was a good sign. Probably no internal bleeding then. "He's actually right, Rai, he's probably not gonna bleed to death internally. It's the clot that's forming in his brain from the head injury that will kill him if we let him go back to being a doctor instead of taking him over to be a patient."

He took his hand back and gave Haruichi a slightly apologetic smile. "Sorry sensei, but we prefer you alive, even if you are a pain in the ass. Your work will just have to wait. We'll take our life-threatening injuries to Kanae-sensei until you're back on your feet."

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Raidou rolled his eyes and adjusted his hold slightly. "His brain would be inside his head, correct? Which counts as internal. Which means if he dies of blood loss, or a blood clot, or any sort of intracranial bodily fluid activity, that counts as internal bleeding."

Medics made things so complicated for no good reason.

"But you're not allowed to die," he added, talking in the firm tone of one who would Make That Happen if he had to. "Not until you make it to lunch, at least. Dying in your first hour would really just rank as pathetic." He picked up the pace slightly, keeping Haruichi as steady as humanly possible, and added as an afterthought, "Kid."

Getting someone angry was generally a surefire way of keeping them awake, even through a concussion. And Haruichi was the type to crawl through a mile of broken glass before he'd lie down and take an insult... lying down.

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"That's it," Haruichi muttered, cracking open his white eyes and glaring at Raidou's collar with all the vindictiveness he could muster. "I am not a kid, Namiashi. Forget that again and one day when I'm stuffing your organs back in I'll forget about the surgical niceties and just jam your kidney up your nose."

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"There's the sugarplum we all know and love," said Raidou, perfectly deadpan. "You have such beautiful sweet talk, kiddo. It brings a delighted tear to my eye."

His shirt was quite probably quailing in terror, but Raidou was made of sterner stuff. One half-dead Hyuuga did not a threat make.

"So is it just my kidney you have plans for, or do the rest of my insides get to play, too?"

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"You should probably stop now, Rai, before he jyuukens your spleen. I wouldn't put him past it, even concussed."

Genma put a restraining hand on Haruichi's arm. "Don't do it, Sensei, or I'll have to hurt you. And I really don't want to do that."

Friendships, like everything else in life, had priorities, after all. Actually the last time he'd seen Haruichi, Genma and Raidou hadn't even known each other. That was kind of a shock to realize. In six short months Raidou had managed to crowd out every other friendship Genma had. Almost like a new lover would. He looked up at his strong-jawed friend and blinked.

There was something there that bore a little thought. Maybe a lot of it.

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Haruichi hissed like a snake in a basket... which had just been poked with a stick. Genma intervened with his cursed diplomacy before Haruichi could assure Raidou that oh yes, he could rest assured his medic was writing up a veritable dancecard for the rest of his organs. So the medic instead made a valiant attempt at whacking Raidou in his smug maw. Which might have worked, had he even the slightest idea of which way was up. And his elbow hadn't mutinied.

"Screw it. I don't have the motor-skills to smack him right now." He settled for propping his arm up, wavering alarmingly in the air but hand more or less parallel to target. "Genma, go and bash his face into my palm."

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