“Have some protein.” Genma reached for his belt pack again and hooked out a packet of dried salmon. His fingers cramped and twitched, and the packet fell. “Dammit.” He bent to retrieve it, groaning at the pull on his stitched belly, but Kakashi had already caught it. The look Kakashi gave him as Genma straightened spoke volumes, but neither one of them was moving easily.

“I’m fine,” Genma said. “It’s just taking a little while for the last of the venom to wear off. And I did eat. Also I’m the lieutenant; I get to do the judging.”

“I feel judged,” Kakashi agreed dryly. But he peeled the salmon out of its packaging and quickly made it disappear without ever seeming to lift his mask. Only the bobbing of his Adam’s apple gave any sign he was chewing and swallowing.

Genma’s lips twitched towards a smile behind his mask. He was starting to like oddball-Hatake.

When the salmon was gone, Kakashi turned as if to go, hesitated, turned back. “Lieutenant? Did something happen in Konoha?”

Genma glanced around the empty hallway to be sure none of the civilians was nearby. Footsteps creaked overhead, and a child in one of the larger cabins shrieked happily. The thrum of the riverboat’s engines was loud enough to drown out their conversation at any distance, and Genma’s sound-damper jutsu was still active, but this wasn’t information to risk any civilian overhearing.

“Something happened, but we don’t have any details,” Genma said quietly. “We got a Code Broken Link. Instructions were to handle the situation here as best we could. No reinforcements available.” He leaned against the wall and wished he had a cigarette to smoke—or a senbon to chew—but with his mask on he could do neither. He blew through pursed lips, feeling the breath curl back over his face. “Taichou and I haven’t talked it over much yet, but I figure it probably didn’t happen in Konoha, or we’d have gotten instructions either to abort and return at once, or stay away and regroup with others who were in the field.”

Kakashi’s head ducked down, and Genma could almost see the wheels turning as Kakashi ran through every possible threat Konoha could be facing, and probably every person in Konoha he cared about. With the Hokage at the top of the list, likely, and undoubtedly in the thick of whatever the crisis was. After a moment, he straightened, shoulders squaring. “Do the job we have in front of us, right?”

“Yeah,” Genma said. “If anyone can deal with the threat, whatever it is, it’s Yondaime-sama. We just have to trust our comrades to handle things until we can get there, and make sure we’re in fighting form when we arrive.” Which, given the state they were in now, was going to be a challenge. He hesitated a moment, then reached out and laid a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder. “Rest, eat, and try not to worry.”

Kakashi twitched out from under Genma’s hand, as clamped down and tense as Genma had ever seen him. Clearly the touch had been a step too far. Genma grimaced, annoyed with himself.

“Lieutenant,” Kakashi said, tapping his shoulder in a salute. He turned crisply away.