| [Oct. 1st, 2015|02:53 am] |
“About the rest of your review,” he said, flicking his eyes over the page again. Away from Ryouma’s off-limits charm. “ANBU is hard service. I know you knew that coming in, but you can’t really know it until you’ve experienced it. For me, being a medic helps me deal with… With everything. Because even when I have a civilian target’s blood on my hands, if those same hands can save my comrades…” He sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair back from his face.
When he looked back at Ryouma, the flirty grin was gone, and so was the heat.
“That’s another reason I think training you as a medic is a good idea. You have the aptitude, and the temperament. And when you have the temperament, killing can be hard on you.”
Ryouma turned his half-empty glass in his hands, staring into the swirling brown liquid like maybe the barley tea had an answer that the rest of his life had failed to provide. “Yeah. Well.” He took a breath and shrugged, carefully casual, before he looked up again. “I'm good at it.”
“I know,” Genma said. “So am I.” And like Ryouma, every time he took a life, it cost him something ineffable but real. “We all are, really. And it always takes a toll. Hatake hides it the best of us, I think, but there’s not an agent in ANBU who hasn’t had to reconcile their skills with their morals. The ones who don’t struggle with it— those are the monsters. Those are the ones we end up having to hunt.”
Ryouma grimaced. “So you've got to keep struggling, is that what you're saying? Because the missions don't stop, and they don't get easier.” Bitterness edged Ryouma’s tone. “Taichou said... You don't get used to it, but you do get better at it.”
His fingers tightened on his glass, reddening the nailbeds and blanching the tips. “It's not like it bothers me all the time,” he continued. “I didn't care about killing those Kiri-nin on Iebara's team then, and I don't care now. But…” He hesitated, eyes darkening. “I felt sorry for Tsuto, a little, when you were killing his son.” His grip on the glass was almost hard enough to crack it; his voice turned vicious. “And then I rotted his belly out anyway.”
“That was the mission,” Genma said.
It wasn’t a good enough answer.
If he was going to try to counsel his troubled teammates, he needed to take a class in trauma psychology. All he could offer was the logic behind the mission. “We needed the information we found in his ledgers. Our orders were to force him to talk; you did that. And then to kill him with jutsu that would make it obvious Konoha meant business. What happened in Hikouto — the attack on the Daimyou — that was a direct result of what Tsuto and his son did. If that coup had been successful — or if the conspirators tried again — we’d be at war now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ryouma said. He let go of the glass at last and flattened his hand on the table, rubbing small circles to push feeling back into his fingers. When he looked at Genma again it was with a shadow of that flashing smile. “It's like you said, though. The difference between knowing something and...understanding it. Believing it.” He shook his head. “It might take a little longer.”
Somehow, by some miracle, it looked like Genma’s words had helped. He said a silent prayer of thanks for mercies granted, and resolved to definitely take that class.
“You’ve only been in ANBU thirty days. Like I said in your review, it’s not unexpected. And we’ve had much harder missions that most rookie teams get at first. If I’m having nightmares, then it’s hardly surprising you are.” He gave Ryouma a wry smile.
“Also — what Taichou told you — that’s true. Sort of. You might not get used to it, but you do get better at remembering why we’re doing what we’re doing. You get better at letting the bad stuff pass through you, or at least at compartmentalizing it until the mission is over. You get better coping strategies. I run — not now, obviously.” Genma waved a hand at his crutches. "I meditate. And I smoke, which I had almost quit, but after the last month…” He spread his hands in mock surrender.
Ryouma gave a surprised snort. “Okay, smoking?” He pointed a finger at Genma’s chest. “No wonder your taijutsu's a little slack. And you're not allowed to criticize my coping strategies ever.” |
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