| Trouble Round My Door | [Feb. 6th, 2015|10:24 pm] |
[Takes place the morning of May 13, Yondaime Year 5, two days after Sound the Bells and one day after When Your World Starts Crashing Down and Pour Me Something Stronger]
Team Lead Shirotani blew into the Fire Country division office like the cold north wind, strewing paperwork and assignments in his wake. "Pre-mission briefing in 20 minutes in room H70. Hiyashi, I want you on it. Yamanaka, do you have that report yet?"
"On your desk, Shirotani-kakarichou." Yamanaka Susuki never looked up from her typewriter, manicured fingers rattling across the keys.
"Well done." Shirotani paused briefly by his desk, to set his coffee down on top of a teetering stack of paperwork and pick up another file. "Who's got this morning free?"
Kurenai exchanged wary glances with Tomo and Hide, across the aisle. "Why do you ask?"
"I'll catch you out one of these days, Yuuhi," Shirotani sighed. He held the file up. "I got word this morning that Hatake Kakashi's been cleared for debriefing. Volunteers? Victims?"
"Not me," Tomo said, instantly. "Last time I debriefed him, he Sharinganed me."
Susuki stopped typing. "He what?"
Tomo swirled a hand vaguely in front of one eye. "He got tired of answering questions, or something. Ten minutes in, he pulled his hitai'ate up and dumped all the memories of his mission straight into my head. Gave me a two-day migraine." He added thoughtfully, "Did give me some details I doubt he'd have remembered to bring up on his own, though…"
Shirotani waved the file dismissively. "Hatake's Sharingan is common knowledge. You could have dodged."
Hide coughed into his fist. Kurenai hid her smile behind a folder at the idea of Nagano Tomo—greying, rotund, and comfortably secure as a genin for the last thirty years—dodging Sharingan no Kakashi. Intel analysts were frequently recruited from the ranks of field agents, but Tomo's last day in the field had come before the last war, when one of Director Oita's predecessors had discovered a teenage genin's astonishing skill at drawing accurate maps of places he knew only from another ninja's sketchy verbal report. A genius, certainly, but she'd seen him trip over Riei's chair on his way to the coffeepot this morning.
"Anyway," Tomo concluded, obviously deciding not to take that gambit, "I'm busy." He rolled another sheet of paper into his typewriter and began determinedly pecking away.
Kurenai said, "I'll do it."
Hide cast her a look of intense gratitude. Kurenai made a mental note to remind him that he owed her a favor, later. No need to tell him she'd been hoping for a chance to talk to Kakashi ever since she'd heard from Namiashi about Iebara Shigematsu's death.
She pushed her chair back and stood to receive the file from Shirotani. "What's the focus of the debriefing? The encounter with the Mist nin? Or are we still…" She hesitated. "Is the investigation into Namiashi-taichou still ongoing?"
"It's ongoing," Shirotani said briefly. "He'll be meeting with Matsumoto today. Hatake didn't observe the incident in question, so I doubt he'll have much to offer. Glean what you can, but focus your attention on Iebara and his jutsu."
"There's no baseline info from Iebara's captain yet, I assume."
Shirotani twitched his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. "She's still receiving medical care, and not talkative. Given the tenuous situation with Water Country now, T&I will be treating her with kid gloves. I doubt we'll get any better information from her than what Hatake can provide."
Meaning, what Kurenai could coax out of him.
Well, they'd been—not friends, not for years, but classmates, acquaintances, friends-of-a-friend. Rin had been a common linchpin in a relationship grown stiff and awkward since their childhood days, until that had gone wrong too. Kurenai didn't regret choosing Rin's side in that disaster, but she hadn't quite been able to forgive Kakashi as readily as Rin had, after. Too bad she couldn't invite Rin to sit in on this debriefing, and smooth things over with her wry good humor.
"Understood, Shirotani-kakarichou." She reached for her notepad, for a clipboard. Shirotani sketched a nod at her and turned to Hide. She could hear the evil smile in his voice.
"Since Hatake's taken care of, I've got another assignment for you. Yuuhi got a brief statement from Ueno already, but we still need a full report…"
Hide was broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and twenty years younger than Tomo. Kurenai grinned at him. "Good luck."
She made her way back to the hospital in warm morning sunlight, through the bustle of Konoha's awakening day. The grandmother with her pushcart of narcissus and iris and lilies of the valley was still keeping shop on the street across from the hospital's main doors, but Kurenai didn't stop today. The time for bringing Kakashi flowers was long past.
The receptionist at the front desk directed her to the third floor, intensive chakra injuries ward, room 17. Kurenai tapped at the door before she slid it open.
There was only one bed in the room, parallel to the long window. Kakashi lay on his back with the thin bedsheet puddled around his waist and a glossy magazine tented over his nose. His left eye was bandaged, and his standard-issue hospital pyjamas pulled blue shadows into his clean, rain-grey hair. His exposed skin, hands and forehead and the thin sliver of collarbone bared between pyjama and magazine, was scribbled with black healing seals melting slowly in. He must be dozing after a round in the hospital's chakra circles, and for a moment she hated to wake him.
She closed the door, skirted the bed, took a seat in the visitor's chair beneath the window. The slow blips of his chakra and heart monitors did not alter.
"Hatake," she said. "Kakashi." |
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