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Rest for the Wicked [Aug. 22nd, 2014|09:30 pm]
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[tousaki_ryouma]
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[User Picture]From: [info]tousaki_ryouma
2014-08-23 05:20 am (UTC)

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And yet he hadn't.

Because he was the lieutenant, and thought about his duty before himself? Or was it sheer iron self-control, that kept him from giving way to either blood-thirst or compassion?

Ryouma took another sip. "You ever done anything you really regret?"

A crease drew down between Genma's brows. He reached up to rub it, winced as he brushed the bandage over his nose, and dropped his hand again. "On a mission, or ever? Because the answer is yes, to both." He turned the tea mug in his hands. "The worst one was giving up on a guy I maybe could have saved. He was gasping and blue with a lung injury, and I was barely trained. I was scared to try to heal him, because if you do it wrong in the chest, you can kill your patient."

His fingers tapped a rough, broken tattoo against the tin curve of the mug. He sighed. "In the end he died because I didn't try. I bandaged him and ran him back to an aid station, and it was too late. He died on my back."

"So your worst regret is not that you did something wrong, but that you didn't do enough right." Ryouma chewed the inside of his cheek. "And you deal with that by being kind of scarily conscientious now."

Genma chuckled tiredly. "Is that how you see me? I guess maybe." He grew somber, spinning the mug between his palms so that liquid swirled and sloshed up the sides. "I've done things wrong that I regretted, too, though. I've screwed up in the field, misread a trail, missed a trap I should have seen. Had to kill a witness to an assassination who I never should have let get that close in the first place."

He looked up from the tea. "Practically every mission in ANBU, we have almost no margin. That's why we get the missions, and not the regular service. We all have things that eat at us. From what I've seen, you're not making mistakes. Unless I missed something?"

Ryouma shook his head. His throat was tight and raw. A mouthful of coffee helped, a little.

"I did it right," he said. "The mission, at least. The fight with the Kiri team, I could've done better—if I'd reacted faster in the first place, Iebara never would've cut me, and maybe I should've gone for Fukuda's throat and not her arm—but a fight's always like that. You can't second-guess yourself there. But the mission, I hit every mark spot on, I followed orders exactly, I didn't hesitate when it counted."

He looked down at his hand, the raw red scratches across the back of his fingers, and said softly, "I watched the mother's face while she died. I thought I owed her that. But the girl—"

Grown killers who'd rather face a battlefield than look dying little girls in the eye, Katsuko had said.

And Genma had killed that girl's brother.

He rubbed his hand over his face, and tossed the rest of the coffee back. "It was the mission. And we did it. So. We pull ourselves together, and we go on, and Katsu takes me out to get drunk and laid when we get back home. That's the ANBU way, right?"