| No Quiet Man's Descent |
[Apr. 30th, 2014|12:50 am] |
[Takes place May 7 and 8, Yondaime Year 5, following Grow Teeth and Pursue. Warnings: contains graphic violence and potentially triggering content. Please read with an awareness of your own comfort level.]
Day faded into night as Katsuko and Raidou closed in on Tsurugahama Port. The red-tinged sunset cast a bloody light over Raidou’s mask and gave his hair a fiery glow; he looked like a revenant from old legends, a battlefield spirit summoned to mete out retribution.
Katsuko folded the image into the back of her mind, fitting it in with all the other things that weren’t the mission, and reached for the quiet clarity of purpose.
The moon crawled up into the sky and rolled out a ceiling of stars for them to navigate by. Katsuko tracked time until they crested a hill and saw Tsurugahama sprawled out along the ocean in a cavalcade of small lights. They stopped long enough to test that their radio collars were working, hydrate, and choke down a ration bar each; then it was back to running, down from the hills into the winding maze of Tsurugahama streets.
Tsuto Masaaki and his family lived in a gated estate close to the water’s edge, near the shipping warehouses. The house itself was separated from the main gate by a carefully cultivated garden and a koi pond; round lanterns lit the yard like miniature stars. Armored guards patrolled the gate and the perimeter of the garden at regular intervals.
This place looked quiet. Peaceful, even.
( Katsuko wanted to burn it all down. ) |
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| Grow Teeth and Pursue |
[Apr. 23rd, 2014|01:05 pm] |
[Takes place May 5 through 7, Yondaime Year 5, following Diversionary Tactics and Reunions and Ruminations.]
At 1900 exactly, Team Six set out into the gathering blue twilight.
The mission split point was Kaede Ridge, an old strategic hold-over from the last war (and the war before that). It took them just under two days to reach it, moving at a steady wolf-pack pace. The healings had done good work. Raidou felt loose and easy, stiffness erased by a medic’s clever hands. Genma was back to his usual fluidity, loping along with the watermark smoothness of a shinobi in glowing health.
The kids were feeling their oats. Raidou could barely keep track of the rapid-shifting alliances between Kakashi, Katsuko, and Ryouma as they squabbled, challenged, teased, and whetstoned each other’s edges. He only interfered once, when Kakashi looked tempted to commit actual homicide.
They camped twice, cooking, storytelling, and sleeping under starlight, while Katsuko’s clones kept guard.
In the late afternoon of the target day, the ridge came into view. It was dotted with May wildflowers and long grass. At the highest edge, a giant tree had fallen sideways and bleached in the sunlight, broad roots making a pale lattice of dessicated wood. That was the marker.
Raidou called a halt in the sheltered lee of the tree, and Genma broke out a cold late lunch.
Half an hour, maybe, and they’d splinter out towards their separate missions, running to keep pace with the five other ANBU teams arrowing towards their own goals. Raidou should probably say something.
( Nothing profound presented itself. ) |
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| Reunions and Ruminations |
[Apr. 23rd, 2014|12:48 am] |
[Takes place the early morning of May 5, Yondaime Year 5, shortly after Diversionary Tactics.]
The heavy stairwell door swung closed, muting the sounds of the general inpatient floor behind him. Asuma had nearly forgotten just how busy a real shinobi hospital could get. He wasn't entirely sure he missed it. But then, there were a lot of things in Konoha he was finding alien after only a year away.
Like elevators. When the hell had he developed an issue with elevators? The bizarre slap of panic that hit him when his ride went from one passenger to five over the course of two floors had completely blind-sided him. There was nothing inherently dangerous about the situation—just a gaggle of nurses on their way from one station to another. The car was more than big enough to hold all of them. And yet there had been that sudden dump of adrenaline, the sensation of restricted breath, that still hadn't fully subsided.
The stairwell, at least at the moment, was empty. That wouldn't be the case for long, of course; he couldn't be the only shinobi with a distaste of elevators. Blessed quiet and relative isolation could only do so much to calm the nerves, though. A cigarette was what he really needed, but Asuma knew better than to try lighting up in a hospital. That was added stress he did not need right now.
Down the stairs, through the lobby, out the door. Apply red kings liberally; find quiet corner to unwind in until disturbed or nicotine runs out; find new corner/buy new cigarettes; repeat as necessary. It wasn't the most well-thought-out of plans, but it would serve his needs for now. Better than all this talking he was having to do lately.
( He took a breath, stuck his hands in his pockets, and started down the stairs. ) |
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| Diversionary Tactics |
[Mar. 4th, 2014|05:43 pm] |
[Takes place the early morning of May 5, Yondaime Year 5, the day after Shoot the Messenger.]
The first morning of team training started cool and misty and, Raidou was gratified to note, promptly. Kakashi was actually early, which made a first.
And… surprisingly enthused.
Raidou leaned his elbows back on the dew-dappled fence rail, and watched in faint puzzlement as Kakashi hauled Ryouma out onto the field, bullied him through a fast warm-up, and proceeded to hound him viciously around the field, sparring him repeatedly into the dirt.
Sitting on the railing, Katsuko cheered sleepily.
Raidou leaned sideways and muttered to Genma, “Hatake seem a little extra peppy to you?”
Genma didn’t quite meet his eyes. “He seems to have developed a real enthusiasm for sparring of late. Showed up at my door last night with his face out to here.” He brushed two fingers across his left cheek, indicating a pretty sizable ouch.
“I’m not sure which part of that made the least sense,” Raidou said. “He came to your door?”
“Yeah. I was as surprised as you are.” Genma propped his chin on his hands; he was standing behind the fence, leaning slightly over it. Compared to Katsuko’s half-lidded slouch, he looked almost lively. “He came to tell me— Ah, shit, this is probably still not common knowledge. He came to deliver some amazingly good news he had access to because of his relationship with the Hokage.”
That—could be any number of things, but going by the faint curve of Genma’s mouth behind the silver senbon, Raidou had a pretty good guess.
He flicked two ANBU-signs. Teammate followed by home safe?, ending in a curl-fingered question.
Genma’s smile spread, actually showing a flash of white teeth, and his fingers tapped against his arm: Looks safe. That wasn’t quite as definite as all clear, but hopeful. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I was shocked as hell Kakashi actually came to tell me. He wasn’t under orders or anything. It was a spontaneous act.”
( Raidou didn’t even know what to do with that. ) |
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| Shoot the Messenger |
[Jan. 4th, 2014|01:07 am] |
[Takes place the evening of May 4, Yondaime Year 5, a few hours following Breakfast of Champions.]
Kakashi slept until the late afternoon, sprawled comfortably on the couch in a moving sunbeam, until Naruto burst back fresh from school.
“Is he still here?” Naruto demanded.
Kakashi hooked a thumb towards Minato’s room.
Whooping, Naruto charged in like a tiny whirlwind and pounced, rousing his father in a cloud of bed hair and confusion. Despite familiar surroundings, Minato was still operating in a mission frame of mind; he immediately tried to go to the office. It took a combination of emotional manipulation, small boy tears, and Otter—the afternoon ANBU guard—leaving and returning with a message from Sagara that simply said ‘No’ before he could be persuaded to have dinner instead.
Since it was a special day, they ordered take out ramen (Otter taste-tested for poison, while Naruto watched in fascination) and cued up the old favorite movies that Minato rarely had time to watch anymore, since there was only so much Captain Seaweed he could tolerate before declaring mutiny. Naruto settled belly-down on the rug, feet tangled up with his father’s, and drew increasingly incomprehensible pictures with his crayon set. He presented each one to Minato, who declared them all a work of mad genius.
( It was proven fact that Minato had questionable taste (see: opinion on Captain Seaweed, frog motif, his son’s name), but Kakashi didn’t argue with him. ) |
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| Breakfast of Champions |
[Dec. 26th, 2013|10:59 pm] |
[Takes place the morning of May 4, Yondaime Year 5, about an hour after Leading the Lost Ones.]
Naruto woke up too hot. His hair was sticky, all over his head, and his new footie pajamas with the frogs on them were all twisted up around around his belly and too tight. He squirmed, trying to get comfy, and kicked something.
Something said, "Nrgh."
Naruto froze, clutching his blankie. This was his bed. There wasn't supposed to be anybody else in it. Monsters lived under the bed sometimes, but Dad always went under the bed with a kunai and when he came out the monsters were all dead. But Dad wasn't here. What if the monsters got brave, with Dad away, and tried to come up on the bed and eat him?
( A monster that fit under the bed couldn't be very big. ) |
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| Leading the Lost Ones |
[Dec. 26th, 2013|10:04 pm] |
[Takes place in the early morning of May 4, Yondaime Year 5, a few hours after We Started Nothing.]
Minato landed on the red-tiled seal in the corded-off corner of the hospital lobby, staggered, and dropped to one knee. Someone grabbed for his shoulder. He shrugged the hand off. "When I'm facedown, you can grab me," he said sharply. "Not before then."
"Sorry, Hokage-sama," the woman behind him muttered. Her voice was thick with exhaustion, too. Fukui Ayane, he dredged up. ANBU Ferret. Rookie on Fukeda Hajime's team, currently one-half of what was left of ANBU Team Three.
Hajime himself lay on a stretcher on the floor with his face bare of his Squirrel mask and a mess of charred meat where his left hip had been. They'd sedated him for the nightmare jerk between realities from Hikouto to Konoha, like the others too badly injured for Hikouto's medics to heal. He'd brought back eight in total—four unconscious, one walking, Team Three's rookie, one medic, and the Sandaime's son.
( And three bodies, two ANBU and the brave, foolish Intel agent who'd triggered the traitors' trap for them. ) |
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| We Started Nothing |
[Dec. 21st, 2013|11:48 pm] |
[Takes place early in the morning on May 4th, two days after Ain’t We All Just Runaways and one day after The Morning Breaks]
That night, Katsuko dreamt of the Kyuubi’s tails trailing fire in the night sky. The scent of smoke and charred flesh hung thick and cloying, almost enough to drown out the demonic intent that stained the air red. The Kyuubi’s chakra ate up all the light, burning like a small sun in the wreckage.
Hideki-sensei grabbed Katsuko’s shoulders and pushed her back, into the arms of the waiting medics. Soot streaked across his forehead where his hitai-ate should have been; she could see burns on his arms, on his jacket. Beni and Nori hovered behind Hideki-sensei, faces grim above the collars of their chuunin vests.
“Let me go with you,” Katsuko begged, reaching for him. “I can fight, I can help, just don’t leave—”
“You’re still injured,” Hideki-sensei said, catching her hand. His eyes softened. “Go with the medics, Katsuko. Stay safe.” He let her go and turned away, towards the center of Konoha where the Kyuubi raged.
( Katsuko woke up still calling for him, throat tight and eyes burning. ) |
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| Armor Wearing Thin |
[Dec. 18th, 2013|11:43 am] |
[Takes place Yondaime year 5, May 3, in the early afternoon of the day after Ain't We All Just Runaways and Done This Dance Before.]
There were possibly less pleasant places to be on the day after a hard mission than the ANBU Quartermaster's office. Hospital, maybe. The morgue. Meeting someone's parents on what you thought was a second date.
On second thought, you could just walk out on a date. Ryouma doubted anyone had ever successfully walked out on Quartermaster Morita.
"I didn't ruin my gear intentionally," he tried. "And I didn't scratch the naginata! Look, brand-new."
"That's because it's been under your bed for two weeks," Morita snapped. "Don't think I can't see the dust, Tousaki. Did it ever occur to you to look for your mask?"
( 'Since I was dying at the time,' Ryouma said sharply, 'no.' ) |
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| The Morning Breaks |
[Dec. 7th, 2013|09:48 pm] |
Takes place Yondaime Year 5, May 3rd, the morning after As Shadows Grow Long
Katsuko opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling and a comforting warmth pressed against her side. She grumbled and tried to turn over, but the arm draped over her chest like an iron bar stopped her. That woke her up the rest of the way.
Her first thought was one-night stand, but all her clothes were still on and she didn’t smell like sex. Katsuko scrubbed at her eyes and wriggled around until she could get a look at her new friend.
( Whoever she'd been expecting, her squad captain hadn't been it. ) |
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| Done this Dance Before |
[Nov. 16th, 2013|12:32 pm] |
Takes place Yondaime Year 5, May 2, immediately following As Shadows Grow Long
Shiranui Yuuichi was just turning the sign on the bakery door to ‘Sorry, we’re closed’ when he saw a lone ninja approaching. She looked maybe fifteen or sixteen, narrow shouldered in her uniform vest, with a smattering of childhood freckles across her nose that hadn’t yet faded.
“You’re in luck, shinobi-san,” Yuuichi said, holding the door for her. “I was just about to go home for the night. What can I get you? I have some azuki manju that I’d be happy to give you for half-price, since it’s the end of the day.”
She looked confused. “Oh, I’m not— Are you Shiranui Yuuichi-san?”
Yuuichi’s smile faded a little. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Shiranui Genma’s father?”
“Yes.” His smile was altogether gone, replaced by a sudden chill.
There’s only one of them, he told himself, and she’s young. They would have sent two—older and in dress uniform—if it was bad.
( She took a step forward, squaring her shoulders and standing at attention. ) |
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| As Shadows Grow Long |
[Nov. 1st, 2013|11:54 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, May 2, in parallel with Ain't We All Just Runaways]
Genma’s attention was only half on the form he was filling in detailing the medical attention he’d rendered in the field. His pen ticked boxes to count off soldier pills and blood pills administered, the time between doses, the effectiveness of each dose. The side effects he’d seen. The countermeasures he’d taken. It wasn’t until he got to the ‘notes’ section that he had to pause, unable to put words together.
He’d known a Code Broken Link was ominous. He’d known there was nothing good waiting for them in Konoha. But the village was intact, and—other than the bristling presence of guards on the walls, and the scarcity of ANBU in the compound—almost unchanged.
He’d been prepared for something awful. War. Terrorism. Hundreds of civilians dead. Borders insecure.
Orochimaru raising his venomous head at last.
Perhaps even a threat against the Fire Country Daimyou.
In the three days they’d had to contemplate it, as they’d traveled downriver, the idea had crossed his mind, although he hadn’t let himself dwell on the possibility. It was never good practice to imagine your friends in danger, and a threat to the Daimyou was a threat to the Guardian Twelve, was a threat to Asuma.
( He’d never, ever, imagined the Guardian Twelve could stage a coup. ) |
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| Ain't We All Just Runaways |
[Oct. 19th, 2013|01:37 am] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, May 2, three days after The Way Home]
The ANBU were talking.
Naruto heard them when they thought he wasn't listening. They had soft voices and quick gestures but he had good ears, and Turtle-san had taught him some of the hand-signs once. She thought he would forget but he didn't. He didn't forget what the ANBU said now, either, when new masks slipped through the windows at shift-changes or caught up in the hallway on the way to preschool.
They talked about his dad, except they called him Yondaime-sama, and about Sagara-san, who was sometimes Hawk and sometimes Sagara-sama. Sagara-san was in Dad's office today and she'd been there yesterday and the day before, and she'd only come once to Naruto's room, on the first day, to tell him that Dad was gone for a little while and he needed to be good.
No one but Dad and Kakashi-niisan and Rin-neesan could expect Naruto to be good just because they said so, and Kakashi-niisan was gone right now, too. Rin-neesan came by for dinner once and she didn't know where they were, either. Sometimes Rin-neesan lied, though, like when she said this wouldn't hurt a bit and she made you count to three but she stuck the needle in when you were still on two. So he didn't know.
Sagara-san knew where Dad and Kakashi-niisan were, but she wouldn't tell. Turtle-san wouldn't either. Wolf-san got stiff and uncomfortable and told Naruto not to ask questions that they weren't supposed to answer. But Wolf told Turtle, when they thought Naruto was throwing a fit over the bones in his grilled mackerel, that Yondaime-sama was hunting down traitors and they needed every mask they had right now, so it was a good thing that Crescent Moon's squad was coming home.
( Crescent Moon was Kakashi-niisan's captain. ) |
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| The Way Home |
[Sep. 27th, 2013|07:52 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 29, the morning after Suffering Fools]
Nine unbroken hours of sleep wasn't enough to make Ryouma feel anything near human when he woke, but the press of warm fingers against his forehead and the slow trickle of chakra into parched coils went a little way towards helping him feel less murderous. He slit boulder-weighted eyelids open and squinted hazily at the broad palm masking most of his vision. "R'dou?"
"Rise and shine, kiddo," Raidou rasped. He sounded almost as tired as Ryouma felt. His chakra was sluggish, clogged with earth affinity that refused to settle into the low ebb of Ryouma's water and fire.
Not solely Raidou's fault. But even molding borrowed chakra until it melted into his own felt like an insurmountable task now, with the warm bed dragging him down and darkness beckoning behind the backs of his drifting eyelids. "Said I could sleep," he mumbled.
"I did," Raidou agreed. "Now I'm saying you need to wake up."
He cut the chakra flow with a flick of his fingers against Ryouma's forehead, and his hand fell away. Ryouma groaned, rubbed his face against his shoulder, and finally dragged his eyes open again to see Raidou crouching at the side of the bed and reaching for Kakashi's ANBU mask.
Kakashi's head had tipped back against the mattress, and for some reason Ryouma's fingers were laced through his wild grey hair. He stared blankly at them until the edge of Kakashi's ceramic mask nudged his thumb. Raidou was shoving Kakashi's mask back to clear his forehead, but he'd paused to give Ryouma a weighted look from behind the eyeholes of his own henged mask.
( 'He's soft,' Ryouma said, and patted Kakashi's hair to prove it. ) |
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| Suffering Fools |
[Sep. 24th, 2013|07:43 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 28, immediately following When the Reckoning Arrives]
Miles bled by in a waking dream. The litter-carrying clones' gait wasn't smooth enough to sleep, even if Ryouma'd dared. His head ached, a low fuzz of tension under the haze of morphine, and he kept hearing Genma's raw voice rasping, B-brain bleed?
The pain became something to hold on to, jostled back with each long running step, sinking away again in the space between strides. Rain spattered against his face, faded to drizzle, and then pounded down with renewed fury. Someone tried, briefly, to hold an oiled cloak over them, and then gave it up.
"Betcha I can boil the rain to steam," Genma offered.
"Don't," Raidou growled, somewhere behind them. Ryouma snickered, coughed, and curled painfully against Genma's bandaged side. There seemed to be waves of heat rolling off the lieutenant, pulsing with his heart; if Ryouma squinted he thought he could almost see the visible haze of fire chakra burning through veins. It looked like it hurt. His own chakra-charred pathways ached in sympathy.
But the heat was beginning to sink into his shiver-knotted muscles, like sunlight on frosted ground. He tucked his chin down very carefully on Genma's shoulder and tried to press a little closer.
Genma twitched as if he meant to turn his head, but nothing moved. He took a deeper breath instead. "Doing okay, Tousaki? Don't think I can turn the heat up any higher. I'm kinda over the line already."
"I'm fine!" Ryouma tried shifting back against the sloping side of the stretcher. Cold air clawed between them. "Just takin' my chance to cuddle up to the hottest lieutenant in the corps. Sorry, you can turn it down—"
"Don't be an idiot," Genma said, but there was no bite to his voice. "Stay close. You need the heat, and so do I."
( That sounded reasonable. ) |
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| To the Rescue |
[Sep. 23rd, 2013|10:12 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime year 5, April 29, a short time after Take the Heartland]
The message came by radio, garbled and static-broken. The genin who received it had been drowsing at her installation, at the end of a long shift; the transmission had been repeating for some time, she reported, before she startled awake and dragged her headphones on.
She was ashen-faced, trembling, holding the paper with her transcription in shaking hands. "Hokage-sama, I didn't— I didn't know. I'm sorry. I—"
"Just give me the message," Minato said quietly.
The woman swallowed hard, nodded, and looked down. "I caught it midway through the repeat," she said. "...palace guard uniforms. The Palace is burning. The Daimyou's whereabouts are unknown. The Guardian Twelve are in combat. At least six have joined the rebels, or are leading them. Urgent assistance requested. Damn you, send the Hokage!" She flushed, red on white, and said unsteadily, "Then it starts over. Konoha One, this is Fire One. S-Class transmission forthcoming. Repeat, this is an S-class transmission. There is fighting in the Fire Daimyou's Palace—"
"That's enough." Minato kept his voice even. Maybe too flat; Oita Gennosuke, standing by the window, turned to give him a sharp look. Minato ignored him. "Give Oita the transcription," he told the radio operator. "Is the transmission still repeating?"
She shook her head. "It cut out just after I recorded this."
( Fire had reached the radio room, or the rebels had. ) |
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| Take the Heartland |
[Sep. 20th, 2013|11:51 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime year 5, April 28, in the Fire Country capital, Hikouto, at approximately the same time as When the Reckoning Arrives]
The Daimyo’s palace was on fire.
Sirens wailed on all sides of the city, warning of the battle that had spilled onto the streets. Bucket brigades struggled to form effective barriers against the flames sparked by fire and lightning jutsu, hoping to hold out just one second longer until more help could come. The elegant courtyard that led to the steps of the palace was now a shattered ruin, pock-marked and scarred. Great cliffs rose up through the curtain walls, and chasms drained the ponds and streams once stocked with koi. War had passed through here, and left fury in its wake.
Asuma tripped on a broken chunk of statuary and barely avoided catching himself on his face. His whole right arm was numb from the shoulder down, lacerated to the broken bones, oozing fluids from a charring burn he wasn’t looking at too closely. The rest of him was only marginally better. And underneath it all the bone-deep pain of chakra exhaustion, a serpent wound around his lungs and coiled behind his eyes that told him all he needed was sleep.
He wanted to sleep. He couldn’t sleep. He was already asleep and this was a vicious, unending nightmare. He coughed and spat out soot and dust, and kept his eyes away from the blood already clotting between his fingers.
( He couldn't sense Chiriku’s chakra anymore. ) |
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| Interlude |
[Sep. 20th, 2013|11:25 pm] |
[Takes place during When the Reckoning Arrives, while Raidou goes to look for Kakashi and Genma]
“Hey,” Katsuko said, after Raidou vanished up the mountain.
Ryouma was a warm presence at her side. The oilcloth tent wrapped around them rustled as he shifted. “Mm?”
Katsuko wiped rain out of her eyes and tugged their pseudo-blanket over her feet. Her toes felt like little, individual blocks of ice. “It’d probably really suck if the demon-queen had a demon-king, wouldn’t it?”
Ryouma considered this for a moment. “Yeah,” he decided. “We’d be dead. Good thing she was a single mom.”
Even Katsuko’s bones ached. Her collarbone flared up again, a high note of pain amidst the low-grade roar of all her other hurts. She gave up digging in her medkit for a moment and leaned her head against Ryouma’s arm, wadding up the oilcloth to serve as a makeshift barrier between them. He still smelled like all the corpses in the world, but the rain washed some of the stink away.
( 'I'm glad you're not dead', she said. ) |
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| When the Reckoning Arrives |
[Sep. 20th, 2013|06:25 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 28, immediately following Teeth in the Dark]
Genma and Kakashi took up positions on the craggy wall above the auxiliary mine shaft, clinging to slippery rock in the driving rain with the barest threads of chakra. They flattened into crevices, black and gray shadows nearly invisible against the rough limestone. From their vantage point, they saw every feint and strike as Katsuko’s two dozen clones dodged and weaved amongst the roused demons, slapping smoldering chakra tags to glistening, black, armored bodies.
Tags detonated, staggering the demons. Clones slashed apart by flailing demon limbs and tails erupted in a frightening illusion of spurting blood, before they collapsed into vapor. And one by one, Ryouma’s jutsu struck home. Katsuko or her clones would disable a demon, and Ryouma would surge forward, hands glowing with putrid light to liquify it through whatever cracks the discharging tag had left in its shell.
Each time he ran in close it looked like certain death, but Katsuko and her clones were everywhere, providing enough distraction for Ryouma to get in and lay hands directly on the injured demons. Genma counted only three uses of Ryouma’s chakra-heavy version of the rot jutsu that could strike from a distance. Each one of those hits, though, was a spectacular victory, sending one of the larger soldier beasts careening to the ground with a sick slosh of decay.
The stench rising from the battlefield was overwhelming—acrid and acidic, sulfurous, bloody, and under it all, the reek of rotting flesh. Genma fought back a surge of bile in his throat, and at his side, Kakashi’s shoulders shuddered.
( Eight of the demons lay dead near the mine shaft entrance. ) |
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| Teeth in the Dark |
[Sep. 18th, 2013|10:14 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 28, the day after Into the Breach]
Katsuko slept long and deep, and didn’t dream. Her bunshin woke her before dawn, silent sentries in gleaming armor. They faded back to guard the perimeter as Katsuko struggled out of her bedroll.
Genma was already awake and in uniform, poring over the maps by the light of a glowstick. His mask hung at his belt. He glanced at her and nodded, freshly shaven and much more alert than anyone had any right to be at four in the morning. Katsuko gave him a dead-eyed look and a tired attempt at a salute.
Raidou was up and moving, running through kata because both he and the lieutenant were morning people. It was like a disease.
Ryouma, reassuringly, was still asleep, sprawled across his blankets like an ad for skintight tanktops. Katsuko magnanimously decided to leave him be. People who didn’t willingly wake up before the roosters had to stick together.
Kakashi was a blanket-covered lump on the ground. As she watched, he shifted to pull the covers up higher over his head. Conscious, and apparently hating every moment of it. Maybe he and Ryouma could form a club with her, if he and Ryouma didn’t strangle each other first.
“I hate everything,” Katsuko croaked, by way of greeting.
“Exercise will help!” said Raidou, because his soul was one of the things he’d signed away before joining ANBU.
“I’ll help your face,” Katsuko muttered. “Into a tree.”
The extremely offensive level of cheer in Raidou’s voice increased. “That’d count. Five minutes, then I’m turfing everyone out of bed.”
“There’s no light,” Kakashi said. He sounded like Katsuko felt: mutinous, with a side of promised future stabbing.
Genma, because his sense of timing was precise and malicious, chose that moment to enter the conversation. "Since when do ninja need light in order to function? The first kanji in ANBU is ‘darkness’."
Katsuko shuffled over to Ryouma’s sleeping form and crouched down by his head. “Get up,” she said, and poked him in the shoulder. ( 'I need you to help me hide the lieutenant's body.' ) |
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