| [Oct. 1st, 2015|01:57 am] |
Ryouma cleared his throat. "So he's doing genjutsu training. Can we help? The four of us aren't such slouches ourselves."
Genma was already shaking his head. "We can help by not screwing up while he's away. He's getting private coaching from Yuuhi Benihime-sama, so…" He waited for the widening recognition in Ryouma's eyes, Katsuko's impressed little Ooh breath, Kakashi's flick of surprised brow. "So I'm pretty sure he's in good hands."
Katsuko said, "He's going to die."
"He—" Kakashi paused. "No, actually he might die."
Ryouma hadn't even known the Crimson Eye of Konoha was still alive. "Isn't Yuuhi-sama ancient by now?" he asked. "She's gotta be at least sixty."
"Apparently some people survive past thirty," Kakashi said, in a voice laced heavily with irony. "It has to do with this thing called 'skill.'"
Ryouma pointed at him. "Which of the two of us nearly died most recently?"
"Same guy who took down an S-class Bingo Book target," Kakashi shot back.
"This meeting just started and I'm tired already," Genma said. "Can we go back to the part where we were all happy that there was good news?"
"Sorry, lieutenant." Ryouma sat back guiltily. It'd felt good, on some level, to snipe with Kakashi again — trading the banter back and forth, comfortable as chuunin playing the knife-toss game. But they'd come here for more than bickering. He nabbed a sesame-sprinkled onigiri and tried to sit quietly and look attentive.
"Is there more good news?" Kakashi asked. There was a sliver of hope in the way he looked up at Genma. Katsuko sat still, a senbei crumbled on her plate, watchful and waiting.
Genma shrugged. "We're getting our interim captain tomorrow. Meet at 0900 at our office. If you aren't on time, you'd better have been readmitted to the hospital." He glanced pointedly at Kakashi. "Ueno, Hatake and I are all on medical leave for the next week at least, so it will just be a get-acquainted meeting. Tousaki, you'll probably get Wall duty and maybe Palace Guard rotations while the rest of us heal up."
He paused to spear a pickle with his senbon. "Also I have your first month evals done."
"I'm not sure any of that counted as good news," Ryouma said. Well, guard duty wasn't terrible, and it would at least give him something to do besides laundry and working out. The interim captain he could do nothing about; it wasn't worth stressing over. But the evals… "I didn't realize you were grading us." |
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