| [Nov. 16th, 2016|09:23 pm] |
Kakashi said quietly, "I can handle the baby."
Usually, those words meant something more like blood and broken necks. But Ryouma thought of the small blond whirlwind who'd visited the barracks after the Hayama mission, the gentleness in Kakashi's voice and hands, the softness in his eye as he watched the Hokage's son. He'd looked after Naruto since the kid was born, he'd said.
Maybe he could look after a Water Country infant, too.
Genma licked sauce off his senbon. "Are we inserting the Intel agents as covert operatives in Kiri?"
"No, just preliminary intelligence gathering and mapping." Raidou shuffled the sea chart back to the top of the pile. "We're on too short a timeline for Intel to safely plant someone."
"You said a ship?" Kakashi asked, resettling his mask over his nose. His lunch box was empty, and Ryouma still hadn't actually seen him eat.
"We've got a junk departing from Ofunato Port in two days at 0400," Raidou said. "They're cutting close enough to Water Country's Torishima Island for us to disembark and climb up through these cliffs." He indicated a spot on the green coastline of a southwestern island, and added dryly, "I've made assurances that the ship and Ofunato Port will remain intact."
Genma buttoned his lips down, repressing a smile. "I don't suppose the sister is expecting us. How heavily protected do we expect her to be?"
"At least as heavily as we protect Konoha citizens," Raidou said. "Multiplied by a factor of nasty, since it's Kiri. The sister isn't expecting us, which is one reason why we're taking Fukuda."
Ryouma fiddled with the last slice of chicken katsu in his tray. "With the ship, and getting into Kirigakure and all— Are we doing this Shadow-in-the-Night style, or just civvie undercover?" Slipping a force of twelve shinobi—not counting a one-armed hostage—into a hostile village wasn't likely to be easy, either way.
"Undercover, possibly as a religious pilgrimage. Bring basic civvies for now, and sealed armor. You'll get patches to cover the tattoos. Hatake, you're gonna need to dye your hair." Raidou cast a swift eye over Genma and Ryouma, and judged them acceptable with a brief nod. "And no kunai on this one; we're not taking anything with an obvious Konoha shape or symbol."
"What about Kiri-style kunai?" Genma asked. "Do civilians ever get their hands on them, or would that still be a giveaway?"
"Not worth the risk," Raidou decided. "Stick with generic blades, wires, senbon. Whatever's easily concealed and anonymous."
Meaning a stop at Craftsmen's Street lay in Ryouma's future, crammed in with all their other preparations. All his current blades were too distinctively Konoha-issue to pass more than a cursory inspection, and pulling a jutsu on someone would give him away even faster than pulling a knife.
For the eightieth time in the last three weeks, he missed Katsuko. She'd have had something to lend him.
Raidou pushed back from the desk. "That oughta cover the basics. Further comments and concerns can go in my inbox." He kicked the trash can by his desk cheerfully. "Now scat."
"But be at the rendezvous at least 20 minutes before you think you need to be," Genma warned, holding up a hand. "Maybe a half hour. I'd prefer not to give Kuroda any more excuses to be a dick than he already comes up with on his own."
If they ran out of anything on this mission, Ryouma suspected, it was more likely to be senbon or unmarked knives than excuses for Kuroda to be a dick.
But they had Raidou back in command of Team Six. Ryouma's knee was whole and sturdy, and Genma's limp was gone, and Kakashi's chakra was brimming full. Even without Katsuko, even with Kuroda, they could make this mission work.
As long as he didn't kill Fukuda on the way. |
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