| [Nov. 2nd, 2013|03:20 am] |
Of the three of them, Genma was the only one who still had an intact mask. And none of their uniforms were pretty—broken armor over blood-stained, sweaty blacks. "Jounin blues?" he suggested. "I know we’ve all got a set here."
Any ANBU who didn’t keep a spare uniform in his office—preferably one a little too big to accommodate bandages—was either arrogant or a fool.
Katsuko’s answer was to roll across the room on her chair, open the locker she shared with Ryouma and Kakashi, and extract her uniform. She had to stand up to reach it, but as soon as it was in her hand, she sat down again and chair-surfed back across the room. Abandoning her chariot at the bathroom, she left the men to change without her.
"I’d never have figured her for modest," Genma said. He got slowly to his feet, groaning at the way every joint had stiffened while he’d been writing reports, and opened his own locker.
"She’ll surprise you," Raidou said. A tired smile hooked the corners of his mouth. He opened his own locker and stared at his uniform with a look that suggested it had personally offended him at some point in the past. "Screw it," he muttered, pushing it to the back, and pulling out a pair of faded jeans and a soft-looking t-shirt in its stead.
"Civies. That’s smart," Genma said. "I should leave a set here." He’d managed to get his uniform off and was standing in front of his open locker in nothing but bandages and underwear when Katsuko came out of the bathroom refastening her sling.
She clapped a hand over her eyes and did a dramatic about-face.
"Sorry," Genma said. He wrestled himself into uniform pants and shrugged a loose blue turtleneck over his bandaged torso. His hitai-ate, belt, and thigh holster went on next, but he skipped the leg wraps, slipping bare feet into a pair of sandals.
Raidou looked almost healthy dressed in his civies, if you ignored the dark bruises mottling his arms and the red, flaking skin around his eyes.
"We’re clothed, you can come out," Genma called.
When she emerged, she narrowed her eyes at Raidou. "I thought you said jounin blues."
"He said jounin blues," Raidou told her, evidently happy to toss his lieutenant onto that mine alone.
Genma just shrugged. "I am in jounin blues. You can write the captain up for being out of uniform on duty if you want, but I’ve done enough paperwork today."
Katsuko shrugged her uninjured shoulder. "Eh," she said.
"Duty ended when Intel kicked me out. This is my precious free time, and it's draining away." Raidou took a deep, chest expanding breath and swung his locker shut. "Chop, chop, kids."
"So now I’m a kid, too?" Genma said, amused. "Demoted after my first mission."
"Welcome to the club," Katsuko said. "At least you weren’t fired. He fired me before."
Raidou snorted quietly.
"Do I want to know?" Genma asked. "No, save it. You can tell me when we’ve all been given painkillers."
He shut his own locker and glanced at the desk where the reports had been. Should have kept copies of his medical reports to take to the hospital with them, he thought. Once again, hindsight was doing him no favors.
Raidou led the way out of the building. There was nothing particularly remarkable about three injured but ambulatory ANBU limping through the halls of HQ, but they got a few curious glances anyway, from colleagues wondering if they’d seen action the capital or were just back from an ordinary mission. As they rounded a corner, Yamada Nobuhiro, one of Genma’s former teammates, popped out of a doorway with an armload full of folders. He flicked a questioning eyebrow. "Hikouto?"
Genma shook his head. "Mission. Tell you later," he said.
Raidou didn’t seem particularly concerned with the minor security breach that might imply. They were all ANBU, all bound by the same secrecy, after all. Genma took it as a good sign his captain trusted him.
They took an easy pace down the steps behind the stone faces of the four Hokage. As the least healed among them, Genma had a sneaking suspicion his teammates were making allowances for him, but Raidou’s bruises were hardly insignificant, and Katsuko’s careful posture said her shoulders and collarbone were far from comfortable, even with the sling. |
|