Genma clambered to his knees, shivering and coughing. He spat a mouthful of stream water, nodded a thanks to Rina, and reached a hand out to steady her. "You're okay?" He could feel how low her chakra had dipped, how shaky she was. A glance at the trees told him nothing helpful. The storm still rumbled close by, and a heavy mist-like fog was settling in around them, shading the early evening twilight into ghostly ash. It made Rina's pale face look frighteningly grey.

"Can you make it over there if I help?" he asked, shrugging one arm under hers and lifting. He tipped his chin towards the edge of the stream, a bend in the bank where the pallid branches of a dead tree, stripped of bark on its trip downstream, rose like bones from a graveyard.

She nodded warily, and let him take her weight, but only long enough to traverse the rough surface of the rushing water. As soon as her sandal touched sand, she tried to lurch away.

"Hang on," Genma told her. He kept a hold of her wrist, slung over his own much taller shoulder. "You're not steady." Neither was he. But he was steadier than she was. He could count on his own chakra, still strong, still buoyed by the chakra pill he'd taken during their oh-so-abbreviated rest. She probably needed another one. Definitely needed another one. And they needed to get out of there.

He snaked aching fingers into his medkit and produced the vial of soldier pills, handing one to her. "Take this. And then hold on to me," he instructed. "We're not nearly far enough away from those bastards."