"What the hell happened?" Ryouma burst out, before either of the others could speak. "Katsu told us the port was destroyed and she couldn't tell us anything more. And you said there was collateral damage, but— Did he get caught in a genjutsu? Did someone mind-control him? He was normal afterward. He—"

He'd pulled Ryouma back from the brink, and never betrayed any sign that he might have crossed over it himself.

Ryouma's hands fisted over his knees. His voice rasped in his throat. "He didn't tell me anything."

Katsuko had pushed her food aside. She leaned her good arm on the table and met Ryouma's gaze, clear-eyed and calm. "There was genjutsu," she said. "I helped him break out of it. The genjutsu user fled with the targets down to the docks. Taichou and I followed." She glanced across the table at Genma, and opened her good hand slightly. "As for the rest, it's not my place to tell."

Kakashi said quietly, "Taichou's not here to talk for himself."

Genma took a measured sip of iced tea. His glass chinked gently against the table, settling exactly into its own ring of condensation. "The first time I met with Taichou," he said, "when we were putting this team together, he told me genjutsu wasn't his strong suit. When we were in the bunker he told me genjutsu had played a part in what happened at Tsurugahama. And I read his mission report this morning."

He took a breath and looked up from his glass, barley-brown eyes fixing on each of them in turn. "This goes no further than this team. What I'm about to discuss with you is mission-classified. Understood?"

Katsuko sighed softly. Her shoulders loosened, as if a weight had slid off. Kakashi glanced sidelong at her, and then nodded. "Understood."

Ryouma wasn't sure he trusted his voice. Raidou'd told him, in that silent bunker, I killed a baby tonight. And that was it, but that was enough. He'd known there was more, but Raidou'd warned him off, and he hadn't pushed for it. He'd thought—

Doesn't matter what you thought, he told himself savagely, and said, "Understood."

Genma drew another slow breath. "Namiashi-taichou, who has a vulnerability to genjutsu, was subject to two strong ones in succession. He broke himself out of the first, but required Ueno's assistance to disengage from the second. When he attacked those Mist ninja, he was in a dissociated state." He looked from Kakashi to Ryouma, and added gently, "In plain terms, he wasn't thinking rationally. He wasn't in control."

He'd broken on the battlefield.

Ryouma had heard of an Inuzuka, once, who lost her dogs and then her mind. She'd torn the enemy apart with her teeth, and then turned on her teammates. They'd put her down like the mad dog she'd become. He'd been young enough when he heard the story that he'd had nightmares of it for weeks nights running — the feral golden eyes, the fang-distended snarl, the four-legged thing chasing him through dark woods with inhuman grace. For one stomach-wrenching moment he saw Raidou's smile mauled by madness, and then he thrust it away.

Raidou'd kept his temper with the Kiri nin prisoner. He'd coaxed Ryouma back to steadiness, and badgered him into eating, and promised not to kick him off the team. He'd hugged him, damnit.

Madmen didn't do that. But Raidou did. Whatever he'd done in Tsurugahama, whoever he'd been, he'd come back to himself afterward.