Ginta twitched, and grabbed Ryouma’s arm, dragging him into an empty conference room. Ryouma’s face darkened, but Ginta held a hand to his lips, then quickly cast one of Intel’s favorite privacy jutsu.

“That’s not a name to just throw around,” he said. “You think we’re hiding something from you?” That conversation about Kuroda with Kurenai and Kakashi, on the windswept bow of the ship the morning after the storm, must have gotten to Ryouma’s ears somehow, and Ginta doubted Kurenai was the leak. “It sounds to me like you’ve gotten a full report from Hatake already.”

“He told me nobody had any blackmail on Kuroda. And he said you and Yuuhi knew all about Kuroda working for some old geezer on the Council to undermine the Hokage.” Ryouma paced away, then whirled around to face Ginta head on. Dangerous challenge flashed in his dark eyes. “How come the officers haven’t done anything about that?”

Well well well. That instability Genma’d mentioned was plausible after all. There seemed to be a vast reservoir of rage lurking just below Ryouma’s pretty surface.

“You mean, ‘why haven’t the officers of ANBU collectively staged a coup to depose an asshole who for the most part doesn’t do real harm to the organization’?” Ginta cocked his head to one side, amused. “I’m really not sure, now that you put it that way. What ever were we thinking?”

Ryouma’s jaws flexed as he ground his teeth together. “Seems to me Kuroda’s caused plenty of issues already on our team. Or do the officers only care about abuse of power when sex is involved?”

Awww, damn. It was almost too easy, and that made it a lot less fun. “You can’t compare a despotic senior officer throwing his weight around to a coercive sexual relationship. It’s a false equivalence.” Ginta smoothed a hand over his hair, acknowledging Ryouma with a sigh. “Look, Tousaki, it’s not that anyone around here likes the vice commander. We know he’s been an ass to Team Six — he’s been an ass to a lot of teams. We all have friends Kuroda has personally tried to fuck over.”

Ryouma was still glowering, but he didn’t interrupt.