InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Like the first time?"

fallen_ginta (fallen_ginta) wrote in fallen_leaves,
@ 2009-04-06 22:44:00

Entry tags:

ginta, ibiki, kuromaru, tsume

Wild Dog in a Nest of Vipers [closed to Ginta, Tsume, & Ibiki]
[Takes place Saturday, March 22, three days after Don't Wanna Fight This War, and two days after Picking Up the Pieces]

Ginta was just on his way out his door when he ran into Tsume and Kuromaru. That wasn't unusual--they were neighbors. But seeing them in the company of Abe Jimon was. He knew the man more by reputation than direct experience. Officially he was one of Intel's debriefers, but rumor held that he worked Internal Ops, handling the sort of debriefings that followed mission failures, agent deaths, suspicions of treachery...

"Hey Tsume, Kuromaru," he said casually. "What's up?" He nodded a half-bow to Abe, who returned it with stiff-necked formality. "You coming in or going out?"

Tsume gave their escort a sharp-eyed glance. "Going out, apparently," she said. Her voice held nothing more alarming than irritation. Kuromaru, at her side, evinced a distinctly doggy version of the same sentiment, shaking his ruff and grumbling something so low it sounded like a growl.

"That good, huh?" Ginta asked. He gave Abe a cool look. "Something going on a friend ought to be concerned about?"

"Not at all, Sakamoto-san," Abe replied smoothly. "It just happens that I was delivering a request to Inuzuka-san to go over some details of her latest mission. Since she happened to be in, we agreed that there was no time like the present." His smile made Ginta itch.

Tsume snorted and raised an eyebrow. "Apparently the morons thought of more questions--weeks after the fact. Leave it to Intel, huh?" Her eyes darted to Abe again, half-suspicious, half-annoyed.

"Yeah," Kuromaru added, "you'd think one debriefing would be enough."

"This won't take long," Abe interrupted. "Of course we try to be respectful of agents' time, but occasionally there are questions that need clarification, as new facts come to light. I'm sure you understand."

"Oh, I'm sure we do," Ginta said. He gave Tsume a shrug. "Look me up when you're through? I should be around. If I'm not up here, I'm probably down in the map room." Which was conveniently close to Intel's debriefing rooms. "I had a little one-off mission earlier this week and nearly killed myself falling into an unmarked well. Figured I'd be a good little doobie and make sure the maps guys know about it, before they route anyone else that way."

Tsume chuckled. "Nice of you," she said. "We'll come find you when we're done."

"We appreciate your cooperation, Inuzuka-san," Abe said. "I am sorry for the inconvenience." He turned to go. "Always a pleasure to speak to you, Sakamoto-san."

"Oh, always," Ginta agreed.

Kuromaru gave Abe another mistrustful glance, as he and Tsume set off with him.

Ginta stood in the hall for several moments after they had disappeared behind closing elevator doors. "I smell a rat," he told the empty hall. "And it's not one of Genma's." He let himself back into his apartment, grabbed a map and a couple of folders to use as a pretext for his own visit to Intel, and took the stairs down to the basement.

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fallen_tsume
2009-04-07 01:16 am UTC (link)

Forty-five minutes later, Tsume stalked around the conference table, shoving chairs out of her way and glaring at Jimon to move. "What exactly are you implying?"

Nothing. That was the problem. He kept asking her the same questions in different ways, with carefully neutral intonations, as if she might give him new answers. As if she might slip up.

"Inuzuka-san," Jimon began, still in her way. "We aren't implying any--"

"I haven't done anything wrong! The Intel was bad! You wanna figure out what went sour, look to your own crotchbitten section!" Beside her, Kuromaru began to growl, hackles rising.

"No one thinks you did anything wrong. Now if you could just sit down?" He motioned to the chair nearest her.

He wanted her to sit? To sit? She'd been here for nearly an hour, answering the same questions and being told everything was fine when something was not, and he wanted her to sit down?

With a snarl, she picked up the chair and flung it at him. It felt great to watch him dodge. Kuromaru shot around him, scrabbling at the door, ear flat in anger. "Listen to me, you moon-faced, bee-stung pup. You want to ask me something, ask me. But enough with the verbal dancing."

Jimon cleared his throat. "Perhaps another agent would be best."

"No more agents!" Tsume shouted. "When you people figure out what you want to ask me without implying whatever it is you're not implying, you can find me again!"

The door swung open under Kuromaru's weight and Tsume spun, stalking after him. No one tried to stop her. Her footsteps echoed in the hallways, and the few faces there didn't meet her gaze. It was just as well; she might have ripped their throats out.

She reached the end of the corridor, grabbed the door to the staircase, yanked it open--

And felt cold. All along her back, down her arms and legs. Cold and stiff, as if she'd been sitting for hours. Her legs jerked with a walking stride for half a breath, while the world came crashing in.

She didn't go anywhere. She was sitting, and it was cold.

Her mind, working overtime with anger, forced frozen lungs to suck in air as if she'd been storming away, but she wasn't storming anywhere she was sitting, staring across a plain gray table at a monster of a man with scars across his face, while her reflection beyond him stared back at her with wide eyes and blown pupils.

Sitting, not striding out of the debriefing rooms, not flushed with ire, not warm and ready to move from a screaming match with Jimon. Sitting.

The moments between then and now were a blank, and for a horrible long second she thought she was still on that mission with Ryouma--that's what they'd been asking about, right?--and she'd been caught and he'd been caught and Kuromaru wasn't here and when she sent her chakra down the lines it didn't move because he was dead he was dead--

She spun up and out of her chair, stumbling when cold-stiffened muscles didn't move like her memory told her they would. She slammed herself across the room and against the wall, pressed as if it could hold her up, as far from mirror and man as she could get. Genjutsu. She'd been genjutsu'd. But when--? She looked down at her hands, but if she'd ever thrown the chair the marks were long gone. If she'd ever gotten home--

Her gaze snapped up, raking the face of the man before her. But there--there. Leaf hitai-ate. Her breath shuddered out of her chest, and she leaned back against the wall. Still crouched, hands still curled into claws against the concrete.

The room was bare, except for the table and two chairs, only one now occupied. The mirror behind the agent was viewing glass. Interrogation room. Any blood left in her face drained out. Her lips pulled off her teeth in an utterly impotent gesture, even as she tried, and failed, to steady her breathing. "Where's Kuromaru?" Her voice shook.

Dead, he's dead, and we never escaped, a sinister little voice in the back of her mind whispered. All a genjutsu. The hitai-ate's a fake.

She searched the room again, though it did no good. Tried to reach her chakra, and felt nothing. Her breath came quicker, claws scratching as if they could grip the wall.