At the very back of the room, seated among the newest, most junior captains, Raidou blinked. He leaned sideways and whispered to Usagi. “That’s it?”

“Guess so,” she said with a shrug. “You wanted more?”

In his heart of hearts, Raidou might have been nursing a sheltered hope that Minato would ask a question only he would be able to answer, wittily, with crucial information. But Usagi didn’t ever need to know that. Instead he said, “Seriously, whips?”

“Have you seen my rookies?” She stood, stretched in a long, muscled arch, and righted her rabbit ANBU mask from its crooked tilt.

The councilmembers were clustered around Oita like irritated hornets vying for the attention of an unflappable daisy—and Raidou possibly needed coffee, because that was the weirdest thought he’d ever had about the head of Intel. The senior captains had already filed out. Minato was, disappointingly, long gone.

“How are your minions?” Usagi asked, as they trailed out into the hall.

“One’s injured, one’s surly, and one’s Ueno,” Raidou said. “They’re my tiny parade of joy.”

Usagi laughed with the bright, brassy enjoyment of not having his issues. “Mine tried to give me flack the first day. One of ‘em had issues about having a woman in charge, but he changed his tune.”

“What’d you do?”

“Knocked three of his teeth out,” Usagi said. “Now he brings me breakfast rolls every morning.”

“That’ll do it,” Raidou said dryly.

“You should try it sometime.”

He stepped around a scurrying courier hauling an armload of black-bordered files. “I’m actually attempting this system where I use words.”

Usagi snorted. “Words don’t get you bacon.”

“I didn’t say it was a perfect system.”

She lifted her arms up, stretching again, and yawned loudly behind her mask. “So Orochimaru sounds like a bust. You reckon he really tried to infiltrate us with one dumbass recruit, or did someone get his facts wrong?”

Raidou glanced at her sidelong. “I reckon this isn’t hallway conversation.”

“Oh come on, it’s the Hokage’s palace—”

“Which is a throughway for foreign diplomats.”

Usagi made a sound like ppbbbh. “Fine,” she said. “What’s your plan?”

He’d cut training short this morning to attend the meeting, but pushed the team extra hard to make up the difference. Genma’d had his own lieutenant’s briefing to attend, something about supplies and logistics, or Raidou would have just left him in charge. There was time blocked out for wall-duty later, but perhaps that wasn’t needed any longer—though doubtless the new teams would continue to get the short end of that stick. “Figured I’d go talk to the kids,” he said. “Two of them are going to be pretty interested in the news.”

Usagi flicked two fingers across her wrist, and then mimed taking a knife to the shoulder. “Those two?”

“Yours is a subtle nature,” Raidou said.

He could hear the grin in her voice. “I blow shit up for a living. When do I ever need to be subtle?”