Tsume flung herself out over the creek, grabbing hold of a branch just before she would have taken a dive. Her gaze swept across the water, ears and nose working to pinpoint where the scream had come from.

Hana’s scream.

Children splashed for shore under the direction of snarling canines, Kuromaru dragging Kiba out with his teeth around the boy’s skinny arm. Yasuo was downriver, almost around the bend, chakra surging as he water-ran with difficulty over the choppy waves.

On foot, Tsume cut across land toward the twist in the creek. She leaped logs, ducked under branches that whipped at her face, poured chakra into her muscles to go faster. A canine outpaced her, burning chakra -- she couldn’t see its familiar -- then another.

Then the cliff was there, and she poured chakra into her feet to stop before she overshot the ledge.

Dirt and rocks fell into the whitewater beneath her and were swept away. Yasuo had dropped into the river, unable to run on foam, and swam onward.

And there, in the middle of the torrent, swam Ibiki and Hana. Hana clung to him, gasping for air, face white. Ibiki struck forward, but even from this distance Tsume could see something was wrong; he struggled, surged up, sank below the water and came up again ten feet downstream -- but five feet closer to shore.