Ginta had spent the entire time Tsume was being 'interviewed', down in Intel's territory--most of it in the map room. It was a good place to wait because anyone coming out of the briefing rooms had to pass by. He'd waited a long time, much longer than he'd liked. When he'd run out of excuses for loitering and was just deciding to go flirt with Hideyuki in Forgeries, he saw Jimon walk by, looking grim.

That was so not a good sign. Enough of one that after making a short circuit of the debriefing rooms and not finding any sign of Tsume or Kuromaru, he headed down to subbasement one. If they hadn't gone up--which they hadn't or he'd have seen them--they must have gone down.

Of course he didn't get far. And didn't learn much. T&I was as closed-off of a domain as there was in ANBU, and Ginta had no obvious business there. He asked to check on the transcript of an interrogation carried out on a prisoner he'd been part of bringing in, hoping they'd wave him to some room in the back. Instead the efficient ninja manning the front desk brought him the file and waited while Ginta read it.

Short of treasonous assault on a fellow shinobi, there was no getting past those locked double doors and into the interrogation rooms.

After a half hour of perusing the document with no sign of either Inuzuka, and a waning confidence that they were really down here at all, he headed back up the stairs to Forgeries. Hideyuki was in a good mood, which helped pass the time, but he kicked Ginta out after another half hour, telling him he had a deadline.

Ginta hit the stairwell again, this time heading up. He'd go to his apartment, he decided, and wait. If they weren't back by supper time, he'd launch a formal inquiry. It'd be a pain and would piss people off, and probably get him in trouble--especially of it turned out Tsume and Kuromaru were just fine--but there was something about the whole situation that just reeked of wrongness.

Once he got onto the third floor, his half-baked plans evaporated: he could hear voices coming from Tsume's open door. He got to it just in time to hear Kuromaru's suggestion that they get Ryouma to help with Botan--whoever she was--and to hear the comment about Ryouma being alpha--when had that happened? Could an out-clanner be an alpha?--waited a moment while Tsume banged around in her kitchen, then pushed the door open and leaned in.

"Who's this Botan chick? She the reason you got the special escort to Intel? Can I come in?"

Tsume whipped around, stalking toward Ginta. Every muscle drew taut against her skin. "Botan is another alpha."

"I'm gonna rip his face off," Kuromaru growled.

Tsume ignored him, continuing to advance on the hapless man standing in her doorway. "He just had me turned into Intel on trumped up allegations of blackmailing a councilmember." She reached Ginta, glaring up at him as if he'd had something to do with it. Poking one curved nail in his chest, she snarled, "I was trying to help my crotchbitten clan! He's been planning this for--" She didn't know how long. Tsume wheeled around, stepping into the hall and glaring down it as if she could see right into the subbasement. "Had me locked up in a bloodticked interrogation room so some sick pervert could--"

Get off on scaring her. Her stomach curdled, a long shiver running down the length of her body. She couldn't make the words come.

Kuromaru leaped to her rescue, shoving past Ginta to stand in the hall between her and the stairs. His hackles rose, golden eyes gleaming with large, dark pupils. "I'll rip his face off, too!" His ear flicked back hesitantly, stance relaxing just a bit. "What'd he smell like again?"

Tsume paused. Morino smelled like the room just around the corner. She slid into her doorway, refusing to meet Ginta's gaze. "Nothing, Kuro."

Kuromaru thought about that for a long moment. "I'm gonna get Ryouma," he said, and trotted determinedly away.

Tsume rubbed her eyes, her chest, and finally her stomach. "Sorry, Ginta. Not the best moment of my life, there." Despite the fact that she really meant it, she couldn't make her voice all that apologetic; there was still too much fear and anger swirling in her blood.

Locked up in an interrogation room so some sick pervert could... What? She had been down in the subbasement. And Ginta had sat in on enough interrogations to know how they usually went. But Tsume and Kuromaru were here, not drugged to the gills in the hospital, and not imprisoned. False charges, Tsume had said, so they'd managed to figure out she was innocent before the interrogation went too far.

Ginta backed up a step, but reached out and put his hand on Tsume's arm. "You know what I think? I think any guy named Boton is obviously gonna be trouble. Probably got a bug up his butt over having a girl's name."

She was so tense she was almost shaking, overdrawn on adrenaline. ... some pervert... Ginta pursed his lips. "What you need now," he told her slowly, "is a drink. Something good. I have shouchu in my fridge, or we could go out."

He glanced towards the door. If Ryouma was coming... well, maybe this would be awkward. Or not. He had no idea, really.

She turned and looked at Ginta as if seeing him for the first time. Slender, with pale hair and skin, light blue eyes and a mouth that smiled easily. It wasn't smiling now. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Her teeth were sore from clenching. "We could start with the shouchu, and then go out."

"Bad news," Kuromaru announced morosely from the hall. "Ryouma's not in his room."

"We'll manage without him," Tsume muttered. It was good, anyway; Ryouma didn't like drinking, and she had no plans to stay sober for any longer than necessary. Glancing around, she snatched up her wallet and stuffed it in her pants pocket. "Let's get out of here."

"To go rip Botan's face off?" Kuromaru asked hopefully.

"Later." When he got released. Ohhh, there would be so much face-ripping.

"Shouchu it is then," Ginta agreed. "I think I have some snacks, too, so we can, you know, pace ourselves." Because getting plastered on an empty stomach was something to be avoided. Actually Ginta planned on pacing himself so completely that he didn't get drunk. Someone needed to make sure they were safe, after all. Although there was every chance Tsume could do that even while completely hammered.

"They didn't give you any drugs or anything that you're aware of, right? While you were being questioned? I have to imagine they'd tell you if alcohol was gonna be lethal, cause frankly anyone they let go probably needs a stiff drink after. I had an interrogation resistance class down there last year, and I was definitely hitting the bottle afterwards."

He let Tsume precede him out the door, since she was closer to it, then followed her into the hall and keyed open his own lock. A few quick handseals and the chakra seals dissolved.

"Come on in, make yourselves at home." He held the door open and bowed.

Tsume walked in, flinging herself down on the bed. Kuromaru marched after her, but stopped mid-step. He gave Ginta a suspicious look. "You decorated your apartment like the time you snuck into ours..."

Tsume stared at her familiar, then up at Ginta.

Kuromaru kept talking. "You're a very strange man, Ginta." He leaned toward Tsume and said, in what he doubtlessly thought was a whisper, "Be careful. If you eat his food, he gets all upset."

"OK, see actually what happened that time is you were stoned on pain pills and Tsume was out getting in a bar fight," Ginta said with a grin. He looked over at Tsume. "That's what Genma told me, anyway, that he had to bail you and Raidou out of the drunk tank the next morning."

He got down two glasses and the bottle of shouchu, put them on a tray, and added a bowl of wasabi-coated nuts and rice crackers.

"Anyway, you were messed up and you thought my apartment was your apartment, and you ate my dinner, and then later we went back to your apartment and I strained my back lifting you into bed. Remember?"

"Mm hm," Kuromaru said noncommittally. Then he leaned toward Tsume and almost-whispered again, "Just humor him."

Tsume snorted and took the bottle and one of the glasses, filling it--never mind propriety--and chugging it back. She set the glass down and refilled it, watching liquid splash. "No drugs. None other than the usual--chakra inhibitors, and then a stimulant to get mine working again." She scowled, then felt Kuromaru nudge her elbow. She almost spilled the shouchu.

Being locked in a room with a man getting off on her fear, knowing she couldn't do anything--

She'd planned on filling a glass for Ginta, too, but instead she knocked back the second, bottle still in her other hand, and then turned to putting alcohol in both cups. "You would think, if they were going to check evidence anyway, they'd do that first." Rather than scaring the rocks out of their agents and setting up women with psychos. Her grip tightened on both glass and bottle. Had they known what they were doing? If she weren't Inuzuka, she wouldn't have even noticed his arousal. They had to have known what they were doing.

"I'll rip their faces off," Kuromaru promised.

Only then did she realize she was still glaring at the little tray. Tsume set the bottle down and picked up her drink, holding it in both hands and watching it determinedly.

"That good, huh?" Ginta asked, and took the glass she'd poured for him. He set the tray carefully on the bed next to Tsume, then sat beside her, with the tray between them. "They gave me that stuff, too, in the training. The chakra stuff. I kept expecting it to give me a hangover or something, but there was nothing. It was like they just pulled a switch and my chakra was unusable, then they gave me the antidote stuff and it turned back on. My pathways felt a little raw the next few days, whenever I did anything more than genin level, but that was about it."

He sipped his shouchu and kept an eye on Tsume, pouring for her when her glass was empty again. "Here, have some of these," he said, pushing the bowl of nuts towards her. "They're really awesome. Peanuts and peas and soy nuts and stuff, and they have wasabi powder. They go great with booze."

They'd done something to her, that much was clear. Something she couldn't even think about yet. "Were you with her?" he asked Kuromaru. "You might want to hold off on any face ripping until things have calmed down a little."

"Of course I wasn't," Kuromaru said sharply, sniffing with great disdain. "I wouldn't have let them upset her."

Tsume patted at his head, slouching back against Ginta's pillows. The alcohol was already starting to work, making her warm for the first time since she'd woken from the genjutsu. She ignored the food completely. "Luckily, I can't do anything other than genin jutsu for a while, anyway."

"And I'm gonna rip peoples' faces as soon as I find them," Kuromaru said as if Tsume hadn't spoken at all.

Tsume rolled her eyes and sipped her drink.

"You can only do genin-level jutsu? Why? Is it still from getting hurt on your mission?" In point of fact, Ginta had been trying very hard not to notice that Kuromaru was missing an ear and an eye, and that Tsume looked pale and tired. He figured everyone around them probably stared and asked dumb questions, and it was obvious that the damage was bad but healing. If she wanted to talk about it, she would.

Besides, there were more pressing things to worry about, like what the hell Intel had done to her, and why. They wouldn't go after one of their own without strong evidence, would they? Was the Hokage involved? Although this was Shida Akumaru's domain they were talking about: if any Leaf shinobi was prone to acting independently, it was him. Sick, scary, ugly man, Ginta's grandfather had said of T&I's director, when Shida had risen to the position. And absolutely one of the Hokage's most loyal, most valuable, most key supports. He had a free hand because he'd earned it.

It brought him around to the question again. Why Tsume? She couldn't be the real target, could she? "Which Council member did they think you were blackmailing? Honda? He's crooked as they come, but I don't think anyone actually wants him off the Council. Who would they be trying to frame? Maybe Tanabe?"

Tsume rubbed her face. "Do you always ask questions on top of questions?"

"He does," Kuromaru said with weary solemnity.

Tsume snickered. "Haruichi still has us under medical restrictions on jutsu from that mission a while ago, yeah." Hard to believe they'd returned over three weeks before--even if they'd spent a great deal of time afterward in the hospital. "And they thought I was blackmailing Matsudaira." She scowled. "He's pretty honest, too. Another alpha in my clan was trying to frame me--I assume get me out of the way so he could be the Alpha."

"I'm gonna rip Botan's face off," Kuromaru grumbled, nosing at the tray. He managed to get a wasabi peanut and munched it cautiously.

"I'm gonna help you," Tsume added. She took another long drink, pleased to notice that it no longer made her sinuses choke. Now it just felt warm. Warm was nice. "Where does he get off sneaking around like that? I'm gonna crush his bloodticked windpipe."

"I'm gonna help you," Kuromaru growled, and lapped up another peanut.

"And then they sic that--that--sicko on me." She shuddered, taking another gulp. "Probably did it on purpose, too, 'cause they knew I'd smell it..."

"Yeah." Kuromaru looked blackly at the tray. Then his ear flicked, and he looked up. "Smell what?"

She eyed him. "Nothing." And took another drink.

Ginta refilled his own glass, his second drink to her... fifth? It was a good thing he'd used little shot glasses for this. What scent would Intel use against her? Inuzuka could smell lies, as Kuromaru had taken pains to point out to him the night of his drugged visit, but lies were hardly a weapon. If anything, her scenting a lie ought to have made her less susceptible to interrogation. So it was something else.

She'd called her interrogator a sicko. A pervert. There were rumors. Shida's protege was, they said, well-suited to his work.

"The guy you talked to... I'm assuming not Shida, since everyone knows him on sight, right? So the guy you talked to, was he insanely tall, with a scar across his face?" Ginta swiped two fingers over his own face, marking imaginary lines from temple to chin.

He wondered if he ought to go try and find Genma, in case Tsume needed a medic. A medic who was also an Eros guy and would understand. But Genma was still pretty beat up from his latest mission, and surely they wouldn't have let it progress beyond threats. Surely. Not and let her go again.

Of course ANBU's hierarchy had shown a remarkable willingness to let agents come to harm at the hands of other agents in the past, Ginta thought. Himself. Kakashi. Gou Sadao. He downed his shot in a gulp and poured himself another.

Tsume slugged back another shot, then spent a moment contemplating the way alcohol evaporated off the bottom of the glass. "Lives across the elevator," she muttered bitterly. She knew all the scents here.

She wondered if the sadist understood that. Her lips twitched upward at one corner. She knew where to find him.

But he was on her floor. She scowled.

Kuromaru looked from Tsume to Ginta and back again, befuddled. "So... I can rip his face off?"

Tsume cuffed at him, but he dodged effortlessly. "No," she growled. "It means he's part of our Pack."

Kuromaru's ear flicked back. "But he made you smell scared. I can make him pee himself, right?"

"I didn't smell scared," she yelped, lifting her glass to drink and cover her alarm. It was empty. She held it out, frowning meaningfully at Ginta.

"He's Shida's special project." Ginta poured for Tsume, watching her carefully. "There's a lot of talk about him. A very, very effective interrogator in the making, they say." They said a lot more than that. They also said he was actually a decent guy, kind of quiet, a real hard-ass about rules and regulations, but decent, as long as you weren't the one he was interrogating.

"I've run into him in the showers once or twice."

Tsume had been scared. Kuromaru couldn't lie.

"He's a big guy..." Ginta grinned. "When he has his clothes on. You know what they say about big guys, right? All that energy went into growing bones instead of a boner."

She couldn't keep being afraid of him if she imagined him with a tiny dick, right?

Big guy. She knew that. Her smile was a little sickly, and she took the bottle from Ginta to pour her own drink. "Yeah, well, everything's relative. Small on him isn't small to--" She paused, gaze raking her fellow ninja. Her smile firmed up a little. "To us."

Ginta was taller than Tsume, but not by much. Short by men's standards. Tiny. She related.

Throwing back the shot, she poured another. The bottle was distinctly lighter. Kuromaru had stopped lapping up peanuts, watching her with concern. "What?" she growled at him.

Skin and muscle rippled up his back and shoulders, the closest he could come to a shrug. "I'm not afraid of Shida. I'll still rip the guy's face off. Ryouma will help."

Tsume snorted and chugged, almost at the same time. "Leave him be. Nothing happened. Nothing would have happened. Just a rotten technique to use. Especially," she added darkly, "on an Inuzuka." She reached out and topped up Ginta's glass, too, then clacked hers against his, liquid sloshing. "To tiny dicks."

After a beat, Kuromaru added in a mutter, "Mine isn't tiny." Tsume nearly coughed up her shouchu.

Ginta knocked back his shot, grinned and looked pointedly at Kuromaru. "Nope, I guess yours isn't. Mine either. It's the big giant guys who have little dicks. Only maybe that's not the same for dogs, since little dogs ought to have little dicks. But you're a big dog, so it's okay."

Kuromaru looked very uncertain about that, and sat down, trying awkwardly to cross his hind legs. "Yeeaaah. That's right," he said, glancing at Tsume as if he expected her to back him up. "Us big giant dogs still have big giant dicks. Mine is big. And giant." He gave Ginta a pointed stare.

Ginta giggled. "Is that supposed to scare me off or entice me? I know a couple of tall guys who are well hung, so you can't always generalize, but..." He laughed, poured for them both again, and raised his glass. "To tiny dicks. Unless they're on yourself or guys you like, then to fantastic ones."

Tsume snorted while Kuromaru's hind leg bobbed in the air. Canines weren't made to cross their back legs. She lifted her glass, clinking it against Ginta's without commenting on his toast--as far as she was concerned, a fantastic dick was one that didn't exist. She tried not to think about it, certainly not about the tall men she knew and the pain a supposedly fantastic dick could cause, focusing instead on the way the shouchu warmed her throat and stomach, spreading fuzziness through her mind.

She couldn't believe that flea-faced tail biter had set her up. Her eyes narrowed on her glass. "I'm gonna kill Botan, I really am."

Kuromaru straightened. "Serves him right, trying to take over the Pack like that. We should make Asuma drop water on him again!"

Tsume laughed. For a moment the sound was broken glass, shards of brittle light, and then it burst out, full and rounded.

Kuromaru leaped to his feet, tail wagging furiously. "And then we could--could--uh--" he hopped upward, landed softly, "put ticks in his pants! Ones with lyme disease!"

It was fascinating how much you could gather about an Inuzuka's mood by the way their canine familiar acted, Ginta thought. When Tsume's laugh changed tone it was like someone had thrown a switch in Kuromaru: he shifted in an eyeblink from wary and on guard, to joyfully suggesting torments for their mutual enemy Botan. Ginta joined in the laughter on general principal (and possibly because the alcohol was doing its work on his own mood.)

"You know Asuma? And he knows Botan? What's the deal with him dropping water on people? Did he use a jutsu? When we were kids, he tried to show me this water jutsu once. Probably shouldn't have done that indoors."

He refilled their glasses again, and eyed the bottle. "We're gonna need to go get more soon. Also I still think you should let someone else kill Botan, if he needs killing. I mean, that way it won't look like revenge, even though it is. Or can you kill him and have it be like, a clan thing?"

Tsume stared at Ginta, her drink untouched. Then, still watching him, she brought it to her lips and tossed it back. Then she stared at him some more.

There was one really important part to his whole entire ramble. Setting her cup aside, she stood, reaching out automatically to put a steadying hand in Kuromaru's ruff. "C'mon, little man. We need to go get more alcohol." She scooped the bottle up, eyed the last traces of liquor, and swallowed that back, too. With a final belch, grimacing at the lingering aftertaste of fear, she dropped the bottle on the bed and lurched toward the door.

"Are we going to get Asuma? Or Ryouma?" Kuromaru asked hopefully.

"Nope! We'll kill Botan later."

"Ginta said we shouldn't." Kuromaru sniffed.

So that's what that babble had been about. Tsume waved a hand dismissively. "It'll be fine. We won't really kill him. We'll make it a Pack matter." She straightened, a bright idea lighting a smile. "Hey! We will make it a Pack matter! And then Kanaye can deal with it!" He was the clan Alpha, after all. "Great idea, Ginta!" she called cheerily.

"Was that my idea? Awesome! I'm always full of good ideas," Ginta agreed, rising with a grace that was completely unsuited to his degree of inebriation. He snatched the empty bottle off his bed, frowning at the drop of shouchu that had fallen from the bottle neck to leave a tiny wet spot on the silk duvet. It would probably be fine, he told himself, smoothing it out. Alcohol would evaporate, and shouchu was colourless. And he could always get it cleaned.

Following Tsume and Kuromaru to the door, he stopped at his dresser to grab his wallet and swipe a hand over his hair. It returned to a disrodered sheaf of straw despite his efforts.

You have the most annoying hair. Ginta heard Kakashi's voice, remembered his black gloved hand pushing stiff blond hair away from Ginta's burned face. There weren't any signs of those burns anymore, they'd healed weeks ago.

"Do I have annoying hair?" he asked, catching up to Tsume at the door.

And damn, he had been really doing well not thinking about Kakashi right up until now.

Tsume glanced back at him, speeding toward the elevator. The sooner they got out of there, the sooner she could get drunk.

Ibiki lived here.

She'd been gone a lot. There was no reason she'd have done more than catch his scent in the elevator. Now all she could think about was meeting him--she'd rip his throat out, and Kuromaru would rip his face off, and Ginta was still looking upward at his own hair.

Tsume blinked. "Looks like hair to me. Why? Does it mouth off?" She grinned, and if it showed her canine teeth, that was just fine.

Ginta locked and sealed his door, and hurried to catch up to Tsume. "It... no. It's just this guy I know says it's annoying." He made another attempt at finger-combing it into something like a style, but it fell resolutely into his face. "It's even stupider when it's shorter. I tried. And it's too stiff to grow long." His frown deepened. "Most guys think I'm cute enough. Actually I kind of thought he liked me. The guy who thinks it's annoying. I mean I thought he liked it. Anyway."

The elevator arrived before he could get too far down that rabbit hole.

"Anyway. I'm not drunk enough yet to be thinking about him."

Tsume stepped into the elevator, leaning back in the corner and letting Ginta punch the buttons. "Your hair looks fine. I mean--cute, yeah." She peered at him, tilting her head as if it would give her a better view. "I can see why guys would like you." He was kinda... delicate. Girly. "I mean, you're... you." She waved a hand, taking in his whole lean frame. "You just need a guy who's better, that's all." That was the sort of thing you were supposed to say, right? She really wasn't sure.

It was a relief when the elevator doors opened and she could escape--girl talk wasn't her strong suit. Tsume shoved out the door and flashed a grin over her shoulder. "Maybe we can find you a guy tonight. And he'll like your hair."

"Wait, are you gonna be my wing man? That's kinda cool. Okay." Gina managed a peppier spring to his walk. This was about Tsume, after all, and Kuromaru, not him and his stupid man problems. He hadn't talked to Kakashi in weeks. And that talk with Ryouma on Wednesday had just convinced him he needed to stay away.

"So are we looking for you, too? I thought we were just gonna get drunk. We're halfway there already, too, I can tell because my chakra in my feet feels weird. Does your chakra feel weird in your feet when you're buzzed?" He paused for breath and to take a couple of dancing steps, feeling drunk chakra.

"We could go to that bar on High Street. It's kind of an ANBU hangout, but that's good, right, if you're feeling edgy? Or we could go to that new place with all the ferns over by the tailors where they have that purple kimono in the window. Do you think I'd look good in purple?"

There was another way to tell Ginta was drunk: his random trains of thought started having more frequent crashes into one another.