| [Jul. 25th, 2013|05:31 am] |
When Genma lapsed into quiet again, attention returned to the vanishing mango, Raidou took the opportunity to study the other man. He didn’t have a handle, yet, on what kind of lieutenant Genma would be—he didn’t really have a handle on Genma at all. ‘Ninjutsu guy’ still mostly summed it up, with the added subheadings of ‘medic’ and ‘poison user’.
Genma had been steady during the second Trial; he’d maintained his calm, followed Raidou’s lead, managed Kakashi and Ryouma’s injuries effectively. He hadn’t fawned over Yondaime-sama. He’d been watchful on the wall, careful around Katsuko, observant afterwards. He was clearly astute.
And yet, Raidou had no clue what made him tick. There wasn’t an obvious drive there.
At least, not a visible one.
“So,” Raidou said, discarding subtlety. “What do I need to know about you?”
Genma’s eyebrows winged up. “What do you want to know?” he asked. “I assume you got the basics from my file, but I have no idea what goes into those besides my service record and evaluations. If it's got my Academy records, I just want to say I wasn't there, it was a setup, Nobuhiro-sensei had it in for me, and you should talk to Hyuuga Haruhi.”
Nicely evasive answer, but Raidou laughed anyway. “That bad?”
“I was nine,” Genma said, as if that explained everything. Which it did.
“Fair enough,” said Raidou, entertained. “I haven’t read the files yet—I got the word and came straight to you. Figured you’d want to know. Though... I guess this might have been a more productive meeting if I’d done the homework first.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“If you've got some instant ramen or an egg or something, I don't mind waiting while you skim it. Or we could get some takeout.” Genma smiled. “I'm kind of flattered you rushed out to tell me so fast.”
Raidou eyed the files. Genma’s was relatively slim, neatly ordered. Ryouma’s had a more scattered look to it, with a broken spine that suggested someone had done a lot of updating. Kakashi’s was a thick wedge of paperwork; someone had taken the liberty of adding tabs. Katsuko’s, unsurprisingly, had more than twice the amount of medical reports than the rest of the files put together.
“I don’t think a skim is going to do it,” Raidou said. He looked at Genma. “And I want to hear what you think is important about yourself. What are you going to bring to this team?”
Genma leaned back on his chair. “Can we still do that over ramen?”
Food-hound, Raidou added to his list. “Should be something in the cupboard. Help yourself.” |
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