"Depends on if you count mush as a solid," Genma said, leaping for the safe topic when Haruichi offered it. "I'm on the thick porridges and custards diet at the moment. I'd kind of kill for curry, or sukiyaki, or really anything I could chew. Of course Rai's on mush still, too. He lost a couple of molars, and it's still healing. Wouldn't want to taunt him eating something he can't."

His tongue ran along his teeth, stopping at the gap that had saved him and Raidou, at least in part. "I lost a tooth, too. My fake." He reached up with his right hand to pull his lip down, showing Haruichi the space where a bicuspid had once stood. "It was the one I had rigged with cytotoxic spores. You never liked it, I know. But if I hadn't had it, and used it..."

Another jolt from the machine, and a short, chesty cough interrupted him, but Haruichi's deepening scowl got him talking again. "I guess even with my immunity it did a little damage, but when you consider how potent that stuff is, I got off easy. Cough's just about gone, really. I think my last chest x-ray was clear. And Rai didn't inhale any at all."

He hunched his shoulders, an almost involuntary reaction to what the machine was doing. To the look Haruichi was still giving him.

"It bought us the room to fight back. To get away," he continued, low and serious. It was suddenly important, somehow, that Haruichi understand this. "As soon as I'm well enough to see the dentist, I'll get another one just like it."