Hey here's this!

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Sakura and Chouji walked as quickly as they dared, but it was still slow going to move Genma without jostling him. When they finally did get him back to camp, Ino was already catching up to them since she hadn't been slowed by such careful steps. Sakura immediately dove into the full med-kit that Ino had brought with her, finding a tightly-rolled gurney cloth and positioning it underneath his bedroll in case they needed to move him again.

"Okay," Sakura said. "Let's put him here." She grabbed his collar and vest hem as before, and Ino immediately moved to take his legs for the transfer.

"I think this should earn me an extra pillow," Genma gritted out between clenched teeth, stifled a grunt as the two kunoichi lifted him from Chouji's enormous palm to shift him back to the ground. Sakura settled on her knees on one side, and Ino mirrored her on his other side. She took a moment to note that the other two captives were right where they had left them, both now watching the happenings intently but out of hearing distance if the team spoke at low volume.

"Sure, made out of all the sticks we can find," Sakura teased back, though the worry on her face contrasted sharply with her tone. She spend a moment checking the wounds again, but nothing had changed, so she gestured to Ino that they needed better access.

"I found out what she did to him," Ino said as she and Sakura began working his vest off of him as quickly and gently as possible. "It's scorpions."

"Scorpions?" asked Chouji, whose hand had now shrunk back to its normal, slightly pudgy size.

"How is that possible?" Sakura asked. "Scorpions don't incapacitate that fast."

Genma grunted as Sakura had to shift his shoulder a bit to edge the flack vest off, giving Ino some slack in the fabric to do her side more gently.

"She talked like it might be a Bloodline Limit or something along those lines. She said she's the only one who can extract her 'babies', which would seem to mean that they can be extracted."

"THEY?" Genma ground out again. "Not enough that she put 'a baby' in me...'"

Sakura frowned, feeling the visible side of Genma's face with the backs of her fingers. "I'm glad you're still feeling good enough to crack jokes," she muttered.

"What's their purpose? Did she say what they do?" Chouji asked, fidgeting with a leaf on the ground with one hand and absently - probably habitually - patting his pockets to find a calming snack.

Ino shook her head, also staring at Genma. He was starting to sweat. "She described intense pain that increases over 24 hours, and she said that if we let her go she would extract them."

"So she's made him into a hostage," Sakura summarized, deepening her frown.

Genma's fingertips scraped the ground where he was opening and closing his hands. "24 hours," he breathed. "That's not so long."

Ino looked at him, then at Sakura. She silently shook her head, signaling that no, they couldn't just wait for the time to pass, and Sakura's lips pressed themselves into a hard line.

"Okay. I take it Kakashi and Shikamaru are working on a solution from their end, right?"

Ino nodded, sharing a glance with Chouji. "Good thing they're both on it," Chouji said.

"I guess this means I can't stay too pissy at him for..." she trailed off and glanced down at Genma, who was watching her from the corner of his eye despite the wince currently locked on his face. She looked back at Chouji. "For... you know."

Chouji also nodded. "Yeah."

"Let's assume they're going to find a perfect solution," Sakura ordered. "But just in case that takes longer than they expect, let's figure out whatever we can on our end, and see if we can do anything about the pain."

"Fuck's sake, yes please," Genma ground out from the ground.

With his heavy vest out of the way, Sakura and Ino began to gently pull the lighter material of his shirt away from the two tiny wounds in his back. They were small, only about the width of Ino's thumb, with one being just below Genma's right shoulderblade and the other being near his lowest rib on the left side. Once they'd visually figured out all they could about it, which wasn't much, Sakura moved her hand over the puncture below his right shoulder blade and her hand began to glow a faint green color.

Genma instantly screamed.

Sakura jumped away, jerking her hand back toward herself, and Genma panted.

"Whaa.. Wha...was...that?" he whispered in time with his hard exhales.

"That was a sensory jutsu, which has always been totally harmless," Ino answered, while Sakura stared back and forth between her hand and the tiny wound she had been trying to analyze.

"Didn't...feel...harmless," he panted.

Sakura returned to Genma's side, both hands safely non-glowing.

Ino asked, "Can you try to describe where it hurt, or what it felt like?"

"It hurt" pant "like" pant "burning," pant "I guess." Pant pant. Inside, not...not on the surface. It all...still...fucking hurts, all over!"

Sakura and Ino looked at each other, then Ino continued.

"Okay. We need to test a theory then." She lightly placed two fingertips on his back, several inches away from either of the puncture wounds.

Genma's fingertips scraped where his hands rested on the ground, but relaxed again when nothing happened. "Doesn't hurt any worse than before."

"Good." Sakura breathed a sigh of relief, then touched his forearm nearest to her. "Then...old school. No jutsu until we figure out what's happening here."

Ino thought she heard a prolonged "ffffffffffff" sound.

She nodded. "I have one more idea to try though."

Genma's "fffffffff" got a bit louder. "Is this going to hurt like that again?"

"I hope not, and I don't think so."

Sakura's eyebrows lifted. "You're going to try your fingertip technique. That's a good idea."

"Yeah." Ino looked down to Genma. "The sensory technique a moment ago pushes foreign chakra into your system to sense what's wrong. This one I have doesn't do that; I just mould my own chakra within my own hands, to enhance the sensitivity. I think that *should* make the difference."

Genma's eyes had closed at some point, and after a few seconds, he just nodded slightly without opening them.

"Ino's a sensory-type, so her sensory-jutsus are usually more sensitive than the rest of us," Chouji offered, still habitually mindlessly patting his own pockets and occasionally glancing at the chuunin and the scientist to make sure nothing had changed from them.

Ino brought her hands together in seal, then after she felt her own flare of chakra move toward the nerve endings in her fingertips, she looked at Sakura, who gave her a supportive nod. Then Ino moved her hands slowly to hover over Genma's back, and when he didn't react, brought her fingertips to lightly touch the exposed skin near the second wound in his lower back.

He tensed at her touch, but didn't show any further reaction. After a few seconds, he relaxed again as much as the continuous discomfort allowed.

"Can you feel anything different?" Sakura asked him as Ino looked between her hands and his face.

The relief was audible even in his strained voice. "Just the steady agony. Nothing different."

Ino flattened her hands against his back the rest of the way, forming a sort of frame with her thumbs and forefingers around the wound. She closed her eyes after a minute, and silence reigned for several moments as she gradually expanded her hands' coverage area.

As soon as she placed her hands palm down, her hand - to her mind at least - seemed to almost melt to his skin. There was no heat, but the beauty of this technique was that she could essentially turn up the volume on her own nerve endings within her own hands. She used each millimeter of her fingertips, fingers, and palms to listen for anything out of the ordinary.

She felt the expected rise and fall of breathing and the normal contraction of muscle tissue that went with it, though noticeably faster than normal. Also to be expected in the current situation. She tuned her listening to find the blood vessels, and found them. Again, functioning as normal, if a little fast and hard. As she expended her hands, she paid special attention to where the spine ran, and the edge of muscle groups, and major blood vessels, and chakra pathways.

There was something odd about his chakra pathways. Every other system in his body seemed to be going noticeably faster than normal, but not his flow of chakra. It was exactly the regular pace, which pointed to something a little...off.

She found the largest pathway and shifted her hands so that only her fingertips could touch it. Anything sensed from the rest of her hands would be distracting now. She followed it slowly up his back, then when she didn't find anything, she traced the same line back down. When her route brought her near one of the wounds, she skipped over it and continued down his back along the pathway. There was...something...a few inches below it. Whatever it is, it's not stopping the chakra. Is that usually there? She used her other hand to find the same pathway mirrored on the opposite side of his back and traced it. Also slow, but...hmm. That thing, whatever it is, doesn't seem to exist on the uninjured side.

Ino moved her hands to the other wound. Her eyebrows drew closer and closer together as the time passed by. She also traced a couple of different lines on his back, which she guessed Sakura would recognize as other chakra pathways - one of which was also interrupted by the other puncture. There were also a couple of much smaller tiny bumps along the lesser chakra pathways.

Eventually, she paused and drew her hands up away from his back, bringing two fingertips to gently to rest at a certain point along the first major chakra lines she'd traced a moment ago, a few inches from the visible wound, but right where she'd noticed the first bump.

"Does this hurt?"

"About like everywhere else."

She put the lightest possible amount pressure on the spot, and Genma hissed air in through his teeth. "Ssss, okay that's tender."

Ino immediately let off the pressure, then moved her fingers to another spot a few inches over - not on a chakra line. She pressed again. "How about here?"

"Just the standard agony there."

She moved again. "And here?" on one of the tiny bumps.

"A little tender."

Sakura stared at the chakra lines Ino had traced before, and at the location where Ino currently had her fingers resting on a minor chakra line. Ino looked at her meaningfully, then gestured for her hand. She positioned two of Sakura's fingertips on the first tender spot she had found.

"Can you feel that?" she asked.

Sakura closed her eyes and focused, and after a few seconds, her eyes snapped open and locked on Ino's. "Yeah. You think...?"

"...yeah, I do." Ino swallowed and glanced down at Genma, who now had his eyes closed again. His hair was sticking to his face from the perspiration. "I think it's one of her scorpions." She moved Sakura's fingers to the last spot she had checked for pain. "And another here."

Sakura felt for a moment, frowning. "This one...I can barely tell it's there even focusing on it. How did you notice it?"

"I noticed the movement first, then I started following the lines."

Sakura's eyes widened. "Then...oh."

"That's what I'm thinking too."

"Anyone care to educate the suffering?"

Sakura and Ino looked at each other, and Sakura took the lead. "She hit you with scorpions. And we've established that physical damage isn't the biggest problem they cause. These seem to be some kind of chakra-sensitive scorpions, which explains why my sensory jutsu caused you so much pain a moment ago and why they're specifically following your chakra paths. It's possible they sting when they encounter high concentrations of chakra, such as at the key tenketsu points or outside jutsus."

"Following...as in, moving and crawling?" Chouji asked.

"Delightful," Genma muttered, then tensed again and stifled a groan as another wave of pain flowed through him.

Ino nodded. "It seems that way, yeah."

"If what we know about scorpions in general is also true for these, then they're probably stinging. That'll be why you feel pain all over, instead of isolated to the wounds," Sakura continued. "They're mostly likely spreading their poison through your chakra system, which also explains why she said the pain will only get worse over the next day or so."

"So earlier when you said 24 hour hours..." Genma muttered his question, trailing off as he arrived at the answer himself.

"I can tell you what she said would happen, but it's possible she's bluffing," Ino added.

"Tell me."

"She said they'd kill you by this time tomorrow."

A moment passed, then another. Finally Genma spoke again, voice still pained but with some resignation now as well. "That's what tends to work best in a hostage situation. You mentioned doing something for the pain?"

Sakura nodded. "We can try local anasthetics, but I'm concerned that anything stronger would cause bigger problems. It seems like from what Ino got from her, unconsciousness is what comes just before the scorpions finally succeed. So I'm not comfortable giving you any kind of general anasthetic or sedative."

Genma hissed again as another wave of pain hit, then passed. "Shit," he panted after a moment.

"I think we should cut one out," Ino said eventually.

"Fuck, cut 'em both out," Genma muttered.

Ino shook her head. "Sorry to tell you more bad news, but it seems like there are more than two. We don't know how many there actually are, but it seems some are larger and some are smaller. If we can get one out, then we'll have a much better idea what we're dealing with and how to think about extracting the rest."

"And dealing with their poison," Sakura added, then seemed to make a decision. "Ino, I can feel them if you point them out, but I can't find them like you can with your jutsu. It's better for you to do it. I'll assist."

Ino looked at Chouji and swallowed, then down at Genma again. If Sakura thinks it's better for me to do it, then I will. But...what about...? She looked back to Sakura.

"Hai."

"Chouji," Sakura continued, standing up now. "Go inform Kakashi and Shikamaru what we've learned and that we're going to try to pull one out the hard way."

Chouji was on his feet in a flash, glad to finally be able to do something helpful. "Sure."

As soon as he set off trotting toward the riverbank, Sakura looked at Ino, and it was a friend's shared glance more than a workmate's. Sakura's face had sympathy written on it, and she gestured down to Genma, whose face was turned away from her, then back to Ino. You okay? she mouthed, implying the whole uncomfortable current situation between the blonde and the Jonin.

Ino took a deep breath. Was she okay? Not really. Especially now that she knew he didn't hold her in particularly high esteem and now that she was to be the one taking the lead on an extremely experimental procedure that could potentially backfire very badly on him. But that's not the point right now, she reminded herself. The point is, this is necessary, and it's his duty as an injured shinobi to submit to what the ranking medical officer believes is best. And Sakura believes this is best, and I can do this. I will.

Sakura watched Ino closely for the few seconds it took Ino to pull herself together, until finally she nodded and mouthed back, I'm okay. Sakura nodded understanding, then looked at Genma's prone form again.

"I'll set up," she announced. Then she gave Ino another meaningful look and a gesture toward Genma, and Ino got the message loud and clear: Clear the air with him if you need to. Then Sakura headed toward the other side of camp where the large medical pack was and started rummaging through it.

Ino looked at Genma, then reached into her own small kit a few feet away. She pulled out a clean cloth and dampened it with water from her canteen, then hesitantly brushed it across the side of Genma's face that she could see.

His only response was something a little bit similar to a sigh, but he kept his eyes closed against the torment of the tiny creatures wreaking havoc on his system.

"This is the best option," she said softly.

"I know."

She placed the cloth against his forehead. "Are... are you alright with it? With me taking the lead?"

Genma opened one of his eyes to study her briefly, and she struggled to hold his gaze. "This is the best option, remember?" Even in his current state, he still managed to quirk one eyebrow at her. It looked odd without a senbon to follow the motion.

"Yeah," she answered.

He closed his eye again. "You'll do fine. You guys will figure something out."

Ino felt herslef relax a little. His voice was surprisingly not scathing as she'd half expected - just matter of fact. He isn't going to hold what happened earlier against me. At least, not right now. "Definitely."

Then she lapsed into silence while she waited for Sakura to finish gathering what they'd need from the larger kit, and she started counting the time between the apparent waves of torture washing over the jonin.

Next up: Back to the riverbank! (Already mostly written, just needs some polishing.)