Raidou was not Sakamoto Ginta's friend. He knew the kid, sure, in a nod-amicable-greetings-in-the-hallway kind of way, but not much beyond that. They'd never run a mission together, or done more than acknowledge that they had Genma in common -- and really not even that.

Manipulative little shit.

Who dropped off an important-looking scroll with a buddy and told them not to open it because they were such good friends? Seriously. Bastard.

"He is aware that you're a ninja, right?" Raidou asked, deadpan. "Trained to lie, steal, cheat, and generally be a moral cul-de-sac? Because clandestine messages from injured shinobi in mission gear does not inspire mutual trust in me." Off Genma's slightly frazzled look, he added, "I'm just saying."

"Yeah," Genma agreed reluctantly. "I know. So maybe he wants me to open it. He's obviously about to do something stupid."

He looked down at the scroll in his hand, fingers hesitating on the heavy paper.

Raidou raked a hand through his own hair. "Look at it this way: if it's a laundry list of Arakaki's personal faults, you can reseal it and no harm done. But if it's... I don't know, a hit-list of Suna council members he's about to knock off, at least we'll have some warning."

"You think he's breaking?" Genma said, brow furrowed, which told Raidou exactly how worried he was; Genma only got hyper-literal when his thoughts were gyroscoping around potential catastrophe. "Ginta's not the kind of guy to go mission suicide or anything, especially after what he just came back from. But… I guess if he were gonna break, he'd go supernova. And he's squirrelly enough he might actually send Arakaki a note explaining it all… "

He hesitated. Raidou stayed silent.

"Fuck," Genma finished. "Yeah. I better open it." He wedged the scroll between his splinted arm and his ribcage, using his unbound hand to poke the seal with a senbon. "I don't think it's trapped or anything, but you should probably stand back."

... right.

Under pretense of moving to one side, Raidou stepped in close and popped the scroll out of Genma's hold. Before Genma had the chance to jab him with the senbon, he flicked the seal open and offered the scroll back.

"What?" he said. "It's not like I can get any more scarred. You could've blown a thumb off."

Genma gave him a narrow-eyed look of mingled irritation, annoyance, and something almost like affection. "Or next time we could make a clone to do it."

"Clones are less romantic." Raidou twitched the scroll. "Seriously, read the thing. I'm dying to know what it says."