| [Oct. 18th, 2015|11:56 pm] |
Team Six was different. She’d known it since the first week. New ANBU teams didn’t click together like this, as easily as the missing pieces from a puzzle. it wasn’t perfect yet, but she could already see the shape of what they could become.
For Team Six, she’d shoulder whatever promises she needed to and carry their weight as far as she could.
“Do you trust him to lead again?” Kakashi asked, startling her out of her reverie. The question was deceptively simple; she could see the tension hiding behind his controlled mask like a knife balancing on the precipice.
She looked him dead in the eye, holding his gaze. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I trust him,” she said, calm and steady as her heartbeat.
“Why?” Kakashi asked again. Frustration lent an edge to his voice that would have raised her hackles if he hadn’t been so clearly confused. Instead she held his gaze and thought about Hatake Sakumo and the dangerous burden of command.
“Taichou made a mistake,” she said. “It cost innocent lives. He knows that, and he’s going to face it. And then he’s going to do whatever it takes to make sure that it never happens again. His first priority is leading the team, not protecting his pride.”
There was no room to lie to yourself when you were a leader; you needed to know your own flaws as well as you knew your subordinates’. It was, Katsuko realized, something that she would have to do if she decided to follow the officer training course to its intended conclusion. She folded the thought away for later. Kakashi was still watching her, waiting for her to continue.
“Genjutsu is taichou’s weakness.” Katsuko shrugged her good shoulder, matter-of-fact. “So he’s going to train with Benihime-sama until it isn’t.” |
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