Out in the silent hallway, Kakashi studied the conference room door and wished the first Hokage hadn’t been so meticulous about his sound-proofing.

“D’you think one of them’s dead?” he asked Ryouma.

Ryouma shook his head. “We’d’ve sensed the chakra-flare from a fight. ...Unless the lieutenant took her down with poison or a senbon, I guess.” He considered that. “Nah. Katsuko wouldn’t go down easy.”

If Katsuko went down any way, it’d be explosively. With collateral damage.

Kakashi shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What d’you think they’re saying?”

Ryouma slouched further down the wall. He’d been standing at a carefully calculated lean, shoulders against the plaster, hands in his pockets, one leg kicked up and back. Trying to look casual. “Probably Katsu’s convincing the lieutenant that her pet-names are really a form of team bonding and she should get a raise. How come you’re the only one who gets nicknames, anyway?”

How come you call her ‘Katsu’?, Kakashi thought.

“Because she thinks she’s funny,” he said sourly. “And you’d just enjoy it.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a point.” Ryouma tipped his head back, regarding the ceiling in silent thought. He looked back down. “So… taichou. What do you think?”

There were shadows on the other side of the conference door, illuminated through the paper screen panels. Too diffuse to make out a distinct person, but at least there was still movement in there.

“Which part?” Kakashi asked. “The part where he dissociated a chunk of Tsurugahama Port into the ocean, the part where he's getting remedial genjutsu lessons to make up for it, or the part where he didn't come to tell us any of that himself?"

Ryouma glanced at him, dark-eyed. “Seems like you’re pretty pissed about all of it.”

Genma had told Kakashi, specifically, to help hold the team together. Tousaki’s still fragile from the mission, and Ueno’s obviously going to be hit hard by this. Bitter resentment over Raidou’s imperfections wasn’t going to keep anyone steady, but Ryouma was a grown up ninja — who’d promised he wasn’t having a breakdown — and Katsuko wasn’t in earshot.

Kakashi sighed. “You should be able to trust your captain.”

Ryouma didn’t immediately slap him down for disloyalty. Instead he said bleakly, “I was thinking about Inuzuka Shippo myself.”

It took Kakashi a moment to place the name, and then he remembered. The kunoichi who’d had her dogs cut down in front of her, and gone so far into into red and wrath that killing her enemies wasn’t enough. She’d slaughtered teammates, then kin. Kakashi’s mother had used her name for a teaching moment: never love anything so much it comes between you and Konoha, because the village won’t be enough if you lose it.

“But—” Ryouma continued, pushing himself away from the wall. He paced two steps, and turned. “Namiashi-taichou came back from it. And he brought us back, too. I dunno how much of what happened in the bunker you remember—”

Kakashi shrugged in a way that hopefully conveyed nothing you ever need to ask any follow up questions about..

“Well, taichou looked out for us the whole time. He and Katsu came looking for us when we were late, and he got you swaddled in blankets and hooked up to an IV. He patched up the prisoner, when I’d have cheerfully let her die. And he— talked me back from the edge, when I was pretty close to it.” Ryouma raked a hand through his hair, ruffling the spikes into a shattered black forest, and dragged it down his face. “I don’t know anything about the genjutsu, or… whatever made him snap. But I trust him to deal with it.”

Kakashi opened his mouth to ask why, and the door slid open. Ryouma’s head snapped around. Kakashi inhaled, expecting the sharp scent of tension-stress to fill the hall, but—