| [Jul. 12th, 2016|10:10 pm] |
In his next life, Raidou was going to be the kind of ninja paranoid enough to sweep the house and check his relatives before he hopped in the shower. (Well, no, in his next life he was going to be an exorbitantly paid bare-knuckle boxer with a record deal on the side.) But either way, he wasn’t going to be barefoot and wet when his coworkers popped out of the woodwork for tea.
“Uh,” he said, as too many questions bottle-necked his brain.
Ume stood, collecting her mug, and paused to kiss his cheek before she went into the kitchen. “Your mouth’s open, honey.”
Raidou closed his mouth, then opened it to ask, “Who’s dead?” Except Genma didn’t look that pale, so he amended to, “Who’s hospitalized?”
Genma hiked Suki up against his hip, steadying the kitten as she tried to climb up his shirt. “No one. Well, maybe Tousaki, but I can’t think of any reason he wouldn’t be allowed to go home after his procedure. It’s something else.”
He cast a significant look at Ume’s retreating back. Raidou recalibrated his alarm level down a notch to ‘classified’ or at least ‘not for civilians’, and led Genma away from the house. A grassy sweep beneath a low plum tree wasn’t the most secret conference space, but it was out of the kitchen window’s eyeline and away from the neighbors.
“This do?” Raidou asked. “Or do we need to go to HQ?”
“This is good.” Genma set Suki down, started to lower himself to the grass, stopped to pull a scroll from his pocket, and took a seat. Suki immediately reclaimed a spot on his lap. Raidou would have smiled, but something in the set of Genma’s mouth dragged tension right up his spine.
Genma waited until Raidou sat, then said, “There’s no way to soften this. Ueno’s being reassigned, deployed outside Konoha with a diplomatic mission. The order comes from the very top.”
Raidou sat very still.
After a moment, he put his hands together, focused his chakra, and murmured kai. Genma did not dissolve into one of Benihime’s tests. Raidou hadn’t really expected him to, but for half a second he’d hoped.
He laid his hands down. “Why?”
“It’s a family matter.” A slice of lowering afternoon sunlight slipped through the plum tree branches to cut over Genma’s face. It made his skin gold, and the shadows harsher. “You knew her dad was in the diplomatic corps? He requested her specifically as his head of security. Fire Country is reopening diplomatic relations with—” Earth Country, his hand sign finished.
Raidou stared at him. Half a lifetime’s worth of war demanded what?, but he set it aside for Katsuko. “That makes no sense. She hates her father. Her father hates her.”
“I don’t pretend to understand the diplomacy part. That’s above my paygrade.” Genma’s fingers carded gently through Suki’s fur, scattering white hairs across his jeans and dark brown t-shirt. “The rest of the team and I only just found out about her dad last week. Kakashi offered to call in a hit on him, actually. I’d call that growth.” Raidou frowned. Genma refocused. “The whole Ueno family is moving to the embassy together, but she’s only going for the sake of her little brother. He’s losing his sight.”
That, finally, was the missing piece. Raidou groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. Katsuko loved her little brother with equal parts loyalty and guilt. If Makoto asked she’d come running, no matter what she had to give up. Going blind was a strong reason for an artist to ask.
“When do they leave?” Raidou asked. |
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