“He likes a ranged fight?” Genma asked. “That’s interesting. Not that I’m planning to fight him.” He winked at Katsuko and was deeply pleased when she blinked, then waggled her eyebrows right back at him. It always made for a better mission when your backup wasn’t too uptight.

She was less hard-edged than Genma had expected from Hajime’s description, with shaggy, chin-length dark hair framing brightly-alive brown eyes in a pale, almost elfin face. She looked all lean muscle and sharp reflexes, with her ANBU uniform regulation crisp but not quite new enough to mark her as a rookie. (But then if you judged an agent’s greenness by the state of his black-and-whites, Genma looked like a raw recruit, with every stitch on him only a few months old.)

She had a pair of swords — short and long — sheathed at her hip in plain black, but their hilts made them look more than standard-issue. Kenjutsu user, Hajime had said, so they were probably family heirlooms or battlefield prizes, or both.

“I take it you never got up close and personal with him, seeing as he’s still alive for me to seduce?” he asked.

She shrugged sheepishly, as if it were an embarrassment to her that she’d let Tsuda live. "No. Bastard ran away after I punched him in the face with my kodachi. Sorry about that."

“You punched him in the face with a kodachi and it didn’t kill him?” Hajime asked, incredulous.

Katsuko made a motion in the air as if she were grabbing a short sword.

“With the hilt,” Genma said, translating her pantomime.

Their briefer cleared her throat and tapped a folder on the edge of the desk.

“Right, so what’s the plan? Am I going in civvies?” Genma asked. “If he’s a jounin he’ll detect a henge.”

“No henge,” Hajime agreed.

“Civvies,” their briefer said.

“What’s our cover for getting onto the estate?”

“You’re delivering some important documents from the Grain Traders Council in Grass Country. You both look like you could be from Grass, so that’s what we’re going with, because you’re clearly not from Wind.” She looked directly at Genma. “You’ll need to be sure to catch Tsuda’s eye while you’re there.”

“Oh don’t worry about that part,” Genma said. He stretched back in his chair and flexed his spine. “He’ll notice me.”