“How do you manage chaos, sir?” he asked. Besides torturing other people.

“Me personally? Seeing as I head a department and raised a child, I’d say by turning chaos to my own ends. Or were you asking for advice?”

“Both, I guess,” Raidou said, but he was already reconsidering. Shibata ran in entirely different circles, and he was never without control. The entire point of his career was to strip control from others — like this meeting, for example.

Then again, Shibata had clearly worked on battlefields once, and kept enough sanity to survive from then until now.

The head of T&I picked up his sheaf of papers, and for the first time made a note. From Raidou’s upside-down view, it looked like a checkmark and a clock face, and… a smile? Shibata’s eye flicked up, catching Raidou short. “You’re a brave man, Namiashi Raidou. I can see why they made you captain.”

“Can you see them keeping me as one?” Raidou asked.

Shibata regarded him for a long moment, and Raidou offered a brief, distracted sliver of gratitude that Kakashi had taught him how to cope with a one-eyed gaze like an iron spike. Then Shibata said, “It’s within the realm of possibility,” and Raidou almost doesn’t hear the rest because the air had drained out of the room. “The decision isn’t mine to make, but my recommendation will certainly carry some weight.”

Raidou didn’t bother playing coy. Shibata didn’t seem like a man who’d appreciate it. “You’ll advocate for my case?” he said.

“If it were my decision, before you could be reinstated I’d insist on several weeks of intensive genjutsu work with a specialist in my department, and at least a few sessions with a trauma management counsellor. I suspect you could benefit from learning trauma management techniques for your own symptoms, and your subordinates.”

Raidou glanced at PTSD and Combat: Coping in the Aftermath, and felt his mouth tighten.

“I’ve done genjutsu work, sir,” he said. We just talked about this. “It doesn’t stick.”

“Then clearly, you haven’t worked with the right teacher,” Shibata said calmly.

Raidou clamped his teeth on a reply. If Shibata wanted to take his corner, Raidou didn’t intend to talk the man out of it.

“Yes, sir.” He picked up his tea and drank it; it had grown cool.

Shibata gave him a look that actually made Raidou believe the man was a parent, as well as a professional sociopath. It said, Your shields are made of glass, kid, and I see right through them.

“You do know what department you came to today, don't you?” Shibata said. “I'm fairly certain the genjutsu specialists we have here could make your friend Omashi-taichou weep for his mother.”

Raidou had met Omashi's mother once and was pretty sure even Omashi wouldn't dare weep for her, unless he wanted to get smacked with the hickory stick she carried to beat her way through crowds and educate children. He was also sure that wasn't the point.

Maybe Shibata’s people were that good. Maybe in three weeks he’d be walking, eating, and breathing genjutsu, and he wouldn’t have to stab himself in the leg just to break one.

Maybe Shibata nursed orphaned baby birds on weekends.

“I’ll take whatever talent you can throw at me, sir,” Raidou said. And try not to make them cry.

“Good,” Shibata said. He held his silence for a moment, and then the mostly intact side of his mouth lifted at the corner. “Don’t look so discouraged. I’ve yet to find a well-forged weapon so dull it couldn’t be sharpened.”

The head of T&I just gave me a pep-talk.

That was so outside the realm of common sense it was actually a little warming. Sagara-sama was disappointed in him, but Shibata thought he could mend. A well-forged blade. Something salvageable.

Cautiously, Raidou said, “Thank you, sir.” He cleared his throat and reached for a safe subject. “Can I ask — is there any news about Fukuda?”