Ryouma didn’t look happy at the intrusion. Mostly he looked leaden.

“What’s wrong, Ryouma?” Genma said, pitching his voice low enough that it wouldn’t carry.

Ryouma hunched over his pack, punching it into a pillow shape before he lay down curled on his side with his back to Genma. “Just tired,” he said at last. “Do better in the morning.”

So would Genma, probably. If he was ever going to screw it up with Ryouma, forcing him to talk when they were both teetering with exhaustion would be a good way to start. He sighed heavily, and put a hand on Ryouma’s granite-tight shoulder. “Whatever it is, if you decide you can talk about it, you can talk to me.” He sucked his lower lip over his teeth, hesitating, then added, “We won’t let Nomiya do anything to his wife or kids. We’ll — I’ll make sure he knows he’s being watched from here on out.”

Almost inaudibly, Ryouma muttered, “S’what he already did. And we can’t do anything about it.” His shoulders shuddered once, and he curled himself even tighter, shoving his head into his makeshift pillow with ferocity. “S’okay,” he said tightly. “I’ll keep my cool.”

For a man who made his living creating corpses, Ryouma had some startlingly deep holes in his foundation. What had set him off on the Tsuto mission? Killing the wife and daughter. There had been dead children on their first mission, too, but those little girls had been victims of demons, not other humans.

This was far too big a problem to fix right here and now.

There was more than enough evidence to conclude Nomiya had beaten and maybe murdered his family, or driven the wife to suicide. That was another nasty possibility that Genma hadn’t focused on yet, but he knew it happened. Trapped and desperate, she could have taken her children over the falls with her, with a prayer for a better life in their next incarnations.

Harsh possibilities, but not any worse than the other horrors ANBU missions presented on a regular basis. Genma found himself seesawing again, on Ryouma’s fitness for the role he was in. If only he could read, maybe he’d make a good jounin-sensei. Or if medical training paid off, and Ryouma turned out to have a real aptitude, maybe he could become one of the regular medical corps.

But no matter what he needed, they couldn’t solve Ryouma’s problems while they were on a mission.

“I know you will,” Genma said. He gave Ryouma’s shoulder a squeeze. “Try to get some rest. I’ll give you last watch, so you can sleep through the night.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant.” Ryouma’s voice sounded thin and scratchy. “Get some food before your watch.”

When Genma re-emerged, Kakashi looked up from the mug he was warming over the fire. “How’d that go?”

“How do things like that ever go?” Genma said. He sighed and crouched next to the fire to pick up his cooled food pouch. Seasoned rice with vegetables and chicken released a mouth-watering fragrance when he pried the edges of the foil apart.

“He’s unhappy with the direction this mission has taken. I can’t blame him for not liking it, but—” He weighed his request. Kakashi was a rookie, too, Ryouma’s peer. But they all were. All battle-hardened, experienced jounin and special jounin. Being a rookie in ANBU wasn’t the same as being new at the shinobi life. “Keep an eye on him. And send up a flag before things go sour, if you think they’re heading that way.”

Kakashi regarded Genma for a thoughtful moment, before he said, “What if I agree with him?”

Fatigue was bludgeoning his good judgment, and his patience. Genma gave Kakashi a flat look back. “What if I agree with him? What if we all do? That doesn’t matter. We have a mission to focus on. We can have feelings about it when it’s over.”

Kakashi’s eye sharpened, and he tapped his fingers to his tattoo in a crisp salute. “Lieutenant.” Taking two tin mugs of tea with him, he ducked into the tent after Ryouma.