It took a moment, and then every single one of them let out a held breath. Genma sagged his weight onto his crutches, Katsuko’s shoulders dropped, Ryouma gained color and lost the iron-corset posture, and Kakashi… Actually Kakashi didn’t look much different. But then he hadn’t seemed to fully grasp what having Kuroda as an interim captain meant for Team Six.

“Let’s sit down.” Genma liberated a senbon from the pencil cup on his desk and stuck it between his teeth before he crutched around his desk and claimed a spot he usually ceded to the other three on the couch. “Ueno, lock the door, please?”

Katsuko wasted no time flicking the lock.

Kakashi looked a little lost for a moment, then perched on the nearest desk — his own, as it turned out — and watched the rest of them.

There was a faint whump as Katsuko took a seat at the opposite end of the couch. She stared at her own feet for a moment before asking, hollow-voiced, “What the hell?”

“Guess HQ didn't believe Lieutenant's reports about us doing good,” Ryouma said, still staring at the door. “Or is this supposed to be a punishment for the vice commander, instead of us? He didn't look any too happy either.”

“This is my third year in ANBU and I have never once seen the vice-commander look happy,” Genma said. “But if I had to guess, this is further evaluation to see if Namiashi-taichou is a good captain. To see if he’s crafted a good team.” He sighed and rubbed at an itch he couldn’t reach through the bandages on his thigh. “Kuroda-sa— Kuroda-taichou gets to throw his weight around and we have to toe the line; he’s probably as happy as a pig in mud.”

“And I get to be his one-armed personal assistant,” Katsuko said, sounding even more leaden.

“You’re still on medical leave,” Genma said. “I’m sure we could talk Toshiro-sensei or your doctor at the chakra clinic into giving you restrictions from any work or training for at least another week.” Which would be gaming the system, but it wasn’t like Kuroda was going to play fair. “And then you can think of it as a deep-cover espionage situation. If you’re with him as an assistant, you’ll have advance warning for the rest of us.”

Kakashi offered a helpful, “If you're looking to go command, you'll have to deal with him eventually.”

Katsuko made a noncommittal noise, still staring into the middle distance, evidently contemplating a bleak and joyless future.

Kakashi wasn’t wrong. But as a lieutenant Genma didn’t have that much contact with the vice-commander. Although he also hadn’t been a lieutenant for long, even including that four month stint as lieutenant under Hajime.