When Rei swirled back into awareness, it was like she'd hung upside down from a tree for hours. Her head throbbed, she was too dizzy to open her eyes for more than a second, and her limbs trembled spasmodically. Her blood roared in her ears, and the first voice she was able to pick out from the din was undeniably Utakata's. "I'm pretty sure two days was too long."

Kisame responded gravelly. "She looks fine."

Then, from Mangetsu, "You're awfully flippant about something that could have killed her."

"These days, everything could kill her. Hiding her to get her out of the village was the best course of action."

Rei could feel her fingers trembling as she lifted them to her temple, trying to quell the earthquake going on in her brain. "Where are we?" she croaked.

A pause from the men gave Rei a moment to survey what she could with her limited sensory perceptions. Beyond the sounds of their breathing, she could hear quietly rushing water and the creaking of trees, heavy with snow. There was no scent of the village, no cooking food or industry that she could detect. She peeked her eyes open.

"For lack of a better phrase," Mangetsu said, figure blurry as he went through the motions of a kenjutsu stance with his massive sword. "We are camping in the woods."

"We're fugitives," Utakata said as he helped Rei into a sitting position. "The whole organization."

Memories of the last time she'd been conscious were coming back to Rei in pieces, like a shattered mirror being gradually fitted back together to form a clear image. "Kohana? Koichi?"

"There's no way for us to know." Mangetsu exhaled slowly, bringing his sword back around in the finishing pose of the lowered stance before setting it aside, leaning it on a nearby tree trunk. "We've barely stopped moving."

Rei made to stand, pushing herself to her knees, wobbly in every movement. "What are you doing?" Utakata asked.

Narrowing her eyes at her squadmate, Rei said testily, "I'm going to relieve myself, if you must know."

"I'll go with you." He gripped her bicep firmly, steadying her.

She yanked out of his grip, stumbling to the side. "Are you out of your mind?"

Mangetsu snickered. Kisame, who was distractedly examining a map stretched out on a piece of canvas, acknowledged none of them. "We can't go out on our own, Rei. It's not safe."

"Get this." Rei's head was pounding, her limbs were still shaky, and her bladder was screaming. "I'd literally rather die than have you come with me to use the bathroom in the woods." She whirled away with all the dignity she could muster. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Stay in earshot," Mangetsu warned.

She ignored him, tramping through the snowy underbrush until she found a sufficiently shielded place to relieve herself. She'd begun shivering as she finished. If she'd known she'd be traveling across the country, she'd have dressed more warmly when she'd left the safehouse, apparently two days ago now. The sun was going down and the wind was rising, biting any bit of exposed skin. When she found her companions again, Utakata was staring off into the distance, tapping his foot impatiently.

"I was about to come looking for you."

"I would have knocked you flat on your butt." Vision clear now, Rei took in the little shelter they had for the night. There was no fire, but there was a small canvas tent that was barely big enough for all of them. She hugged herself, annoyed that she could see her breath in the air before her.

"Come here," Kisame murmured absently, still peering at the map. "Let's make a plan for the morning before we lose all of the light." They gathered around the canvas, a map of the Land of Water and the surrounding islands. "We're somewhere around here," Kisame indicated, stabbing at a western portion of the mainland, about an inch from the coast. "There's a port here." A star drawn in faint pencil lines had been marked where Kisame pointed next. "We can get passage to the Land of Fire easily."

"Not if Lord Fourth has put out a notice for our arrests," Mangetsu muttered.

"Are you sure you're a Shinobi?" Kisame quipped. "Sneaking onto a boat is a challenge for Genin."

Unhurt by the insult, Mangetsu reached into the pouch on his waist and withdrew a handful of food pills. "Eat up. It's all we get until we're out of the country."

Mangetsu took the first watch, which meant that Kisame, Utakata, and Rei were to share the tent. And it was weird. The men insisted on sleeping on the sides, which meant Rei was stuck in the middle. She couldn't stand the idea of breathing on either of their faces all night long, so she grabbed the flat pillow and tossed it to the other end of the tent. She'd sleep with her head next to their feet.

Once they were all in the tent, trying to find semi-comfortable positions, Kisame made to shuck off his flak jacket. Rei watched with wide eyes, feeling her breath come more quickly, completely against her will. She forcibly released the death-grip she'd had on the fleece of her blanket, breathing away the instinctual terror that was still screaming in her chest. She was overreacting. They weren't going to touch her.

These were her friends. Kind of. Utakata was her friend. She clamped her eyes shut, bracing her jaw, forcing herself to breathe slowly. Calm. She slid beneath her blankets, completely aware of every piece of dirt on her clothing, of every pocket and button and strap that pressed against her as she stretched out.

It was surprisingly warm inside the tent, and even though she'd been Sealed into oblivion for two days, Rei was exhausted. She only woke when Utakata finished his own watch and shook her awake. "Hey. We need to get moving." She scrambled out of the tent before either of the others could even sit up.

They allowed themselves five minutes to eat yet another round of food pills and splash their faces before Kisame handed the map to Mangetsu, who took it and tucked it away in his belt. "Get there by midday so you can depart on the evening barge. Kazan assured me that your contact will be in place at the Onkawari Tea House. The vessel is in scroll F-5932."

They exchanged a formal nod and Kisame bounded away, back in the direction of the village.

"So, we're on our own now?" Utakata asked.

Mangetsu's shoulders seemed to tighten for a moment. "It's better for him to return. He has the puppet-master's trust. And he has a reputation for being willing to kill his comrades. He's going to be needed."

There was no need to speak their thoughts. But Rei couldn't contain her voice.

"Wait, he's going to…?" She didn't realize how shrilly she'd spoken until Utakata stepped up behind her and slapped a hand over her mouth.

"Just because we aren't taking special pains to be silent doesn't mean we should scream," Mangetsu said. He turned his back to them and began unhooking the canvas of the tent. "When we signed on for this ideal, we all knew that this moment was not only a possibility, but an inevitability. This is Kisame's part to play. This is Kohana's part to play." He shook the canvas fiercely, freeing it of snow, before wrapping it and Sealing it in a scroll. When Mangetsu turned back to them, Utakata let his hand fall from Rei's mouth. "You have roles, too. And right now, that includes staying alive so that we can find the Six-Tails."

Rei's heart thundered and blue and red spots flooded her vision. Her mouth took on the texture of sandpaper. Utakata supported her for the fifteen seconds that she felt her legs tremor, then she broke away to kick snow around the campsite to shield their presence.

"Don't bother." Mangetsu pointed up at the trees overhead and fired a round of water bullets from his fingertip, all of which struck the heavy branches and relieved them of their snow. The only thing they would be leaving behind was their footprints.

Their journey to the port was quite nearly silent, the only words coming from Rei when she felt the telling cramps strike her deep in her abdomen. "I need to stop for a minute."

"We're only an hour from Kakase Niyo." Mangetsu didn't slow even a pace, but a completely expected internal stab forced Rei to stutter her steps. "Are you sure you can't wait?"

Embarrassment colored her cheeks, though Rei was sure that neither of the men would be able to tell the difference. All of their faces were raw and chapped from the freezing wind. "Hurry," Utakata said, pulling the collar of his jacket a little higher on his neck. "I don't like the way the sky looks."

Snow was beginning to fall around them in peaceful drifts, but Utakata was right. The clouds overhead were the color of the village slush, and the gusts of wind tugging on their hair were becoming more frequent and agitated. "Don't follow me," Rei said as she turned her back on them, hoping the unspoken 'I might be a few minutes' didn't need to be verbalized. This was embarrassing enough as it was.

For not the first time today, Rei wished that her gloves weren't fingerless. She had to rely solely on her eyes to tell her what her hands were doing as she grabbed a scroll from her waist pouch and unrolled it on the ground. On the bright side, she felt only the barest pinch as she pricked her thumb on a kunai and swiped the small red smear over the parchment.

She looked back over her shoulder to make sure that Utakata really hadn't followed her when the two tampons and wet wipes appeared in the center of the parchment. As she turned and picked up her necessities and made to re-roll the scroll, a rush of warmth started in her stomach and rose to her eyes, where tears suddenly began to overflow. She didn't shake and she didn't sob, but her breath hitched a single time in her chest.

After you get caught unprepared one time, you'll never let it happen again. You may run out of kunai or smoke bombs, but anything can be a weapon if you're creative enough. However, you should always have sanitary supplies, no matter what.

Kohana had laughed. She had laughed, and then she had helped Rei pack a scroll with all kinds of feminine necessities. Where was Kohana now? In prison? Being interrogated? Tortured, even? An intrusive image of Kisame being the one to behead Kohana wiggled its way into Rei's mind, and she bit down hard on her bottom lip.

Not now. Now I have to deal with my cycle in the snow before Utakata gets here with his stupid protective self.

Her timing was pretty remarkable. She was just zipping her pants back up when she heard her squadmate's voice, ridiculously close. "Rei, are you alright?" He wasn't even shouting, just projecting his voice a little. He was probably ten feet away. "You've been gone a while."

She fumbled with her zipper, turning instinctively away. "Hang on! Don't come any closer!" Her face flamed anew, her voice panicky.

The nearly silent sound of crunching footsteps halted abruptly. "Sorry."

Rei dropped to her knees before the scroll, willing the leftover tampon and soiled wipes back into the scroll with the smallest wisp of colorless smoke. The snow seeped through her pants and shocked her knees. She was already filthy and travel-worn, so she guessed she didn't mind the fresh dampness now. "You've got surveillance Jutsu; you could've just sent a freaking bubble." She was just realizing that sending a bubble her way would have given him full view of what she was doing when he said, "A bubble wasn't going to be able to do much if you were in trouble."

Shoving the scroll back into her pouch, Rei huffed and stepped forward. She saw Utakata on the other side of some snow-coated bushes and brushed past him, jostling his shoulder. His statement had pleased her. He didn't need to know that.