Kakashi felt his eyebrows arch. A half-dozen responses flicked by in the time it took for him to canvas for enemy chakra, just in case Genma wasn't being insane, then he settled on, "What earthquake?"

"Just now, maybe..." Genma checked his watch. "Maybe ten minutes ago? It was a little one, but I definitely felt it."

"I didn't feel anything," Kakashi said. "Didn't sense anything, either. Are you sure--"

"Yes," Genma cut him off with a scowl. "It was like an earth ju--stu. It-- wasn't one, though."

Kakashi resisted the urge to rub his temples. "There aren't any other ninja around; I checked. And there definitely wasn't an earthquake, because I would have felt it. So either you stood on a gopher hole, or -- what is with you and the stutter?"

"There was," snapped Genma, ignoring Kakashi's question entirely. "I felt it. Right-- when I finished eating."

Genma's face looked paler, Kakashi noted, with muted alarm that was getting difficult to ignore. Genma was breathing harder, too; far too hard for a ninja trained in breath-control. And this was going nowhere good, Kakashi knew, with all the sinking certainty of a coming lightning strike.

"Shiranui," he said. "Focus. What's with the stutter?"

"What stutter?" Genma demanded furiously.

And there it was, Kakashi thought wearily. Sometimes I hate being right. He tossed his empty, cleaned rice-bowl onto the waiting packs with a flick of his wrist, and freed a notched, blood-stained scroll from the recesses of his armour. Held it in one hand, like security in his fingers.

"Sit down," he told Genma, "right now. I screwed up the jutsu. There's something wrong with your brain."