| [Feb. 7th, 2015|05:49 am] |
There was. Kurenai filled another three pages of notes with small details that needed clarification, observations on Mist's fighting style and team structure, pointless speculation about Iebara's motives for the senseless attack. Kakashi had no more idea why Iebara would sabotage a potentially beneficial situation than anyone else on his team did.
There was, of course, the prestige that came from killing Sharingan no Kakashi, the White Fang's son and the Yondaime Hokage's protégé. According to the Water Country Division, Mist's Bingo Book had a small bounty on Kakashi as well. Only a couple of million ryo, surely not enough to tempt a sensible man into danger — but the Phantom Terror of Mist would never have made his own reputation if he'd been a sensible man.
("Bloodthirsty and batshit crazy," Tousaki had opined, recorded verbatim in Riei's notes. Kakashi seemed to agree.)
With little more information of value to glean, Kurenai let the conversation meander. Intel didn't always order in-person debriefings after missions, even ANBU missions. Written reports were standard, except for those missions deemed traumatic enough to merit a review of the agent's mental state in the bloody aftermath. She hadn't had the time, two days ago, for anything more than the most cursory of observations — but Shiranui had already met with Momoe yesterday for a far more thorough interrogation, and Katsuko would have her own encounter with Hide this afternoon.
Namiashi, of course, was slated for expert review.
Maybe they all should have been. But that was a decision far above her paygrade, and T&I didn't have the manpower for thorough psychological assessments of every agent after every mission anyway. They just had to catch what they could, and hope nothing too dangerous slipped through the cracks.
So they talked about the 20 million ryou Kakashi and his teammates had collected from Tsuto Takayoshi's vaults, and the likelihood that Team Six would see even a fraction of that in mission bonus; about the tension in Hikouto, where many of the nobility had retired to their country estate and their own loyal guards, while just as many country nobility had crowded into the city to assure the daimyo of their most loyal support; about the tendency of steel blades to deform under chakra-heat, and the expense and trouble of acquiring custom-made blades with alloys that could withstand or even conduct channeled chakra.
Kakashi didn't ask about Namiashi.
With prompting, though, he reluctantly divulged a little about his other teammates — about Shiranui's steady command of their divided team in Ibaragashi, about Katsuko's bedrock strength in his fragmented memories of the aftermath. "She's worried," he said, "but she's got a handle on it."
Kurenai had seen that worry, and shared it. But there was nothing she could do, other than to hope Hide would be as gentle as duty allowed. |
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