What ever had happened on that mission, it clearly wasn't over. Not by a long shot. There had been three sentries in the room, now there were five. Two flanking Genma, taking him by the arms, holding him up in place of the crutches he'd knocked aside. Restraining him with a steady flow of chakra that easily overpowered his drained flicker.

Two more flanked Kakashi, who was also on his feet. Holding him in place, lest he make a lunge for his teammate. The fifth stood at Kimiho's side, sturdy, calm. In command.

These sorts of debriefings always went one of two ways: either the survivors clung to each other like frightened children, or they did this. Turned on each other in their rage and their grief. Violent men pushed pass the point of tolerance. Kimiho turned to the sentry commander at her side and nodded. She had finished her interview, but she still had a job to do. They both did. They all did.

"Hatake-san, Shiranui-san," she said, looking from one to the other. "My finding is that the actions taken on this mission were justifiable. There was no way to achieve a satisfactory outcome beyond your own survival. You will," she said, and her voice took on a steely tone, "stand down. Immediately. Or be confined on a psychiatric hold."

It was no idle threat. And it would hurt them, to have that in their records. It wouldn't be the first such hold for either man, she knew. Perhaps it had been too soon to send Shiranui out. Perhaps Hatake's antisocial bent had grown pathological since his last evaluation. She would make a recommendation that he be assigned exclusively solo missions for several months at least.

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Kakashi leashed his chakra back, pulling it once more into exhausted pathways. It flooded back from his hands, released now that he hadn't called on it for a jutsu, and threaded back through his body, settling down to a tired pulse. The sentries didn't let go.

The woman was threatening them. He tilted his head slightly, sliding her a look. She was, technically, a senior agent. An Intel personnel assigned to review their case and determine just how much they'd messed up by bringing back dogtags instead of people. She had her own story, her own mistakes. Her own dead people that meant she was the best person to get them to talk. To stop them killing each other.

He still hated her. She might have been a senior agent, but she wasn't the Hokage. ANBU swore an oath of loyalty when they joined, and 'senior agents' wasn't on it. Honor, village, Hokage, teammates.

It didn't list summons.

His mouth fractured into a raw smile. Genma hadn't broken the rules, but Kakashi had still lost anyway. He looked back at Genma, held between his own guards, and tried to remember what detachment felt like. What numbness was. He still couldn't catch a full breath.

Could have saved him, Genma had said. Whispered. Looked at Kakashi's face and lied to him while they both still had blood on their hands. On their swords. He'd granted one mercy stroke and refused the other. Instead he'd kept his fingers around Nobuki's failing heart just long enough to make his death truly agonizing, while Kakashi's dog had paid for doing his job right. While he'd bled out in a hot rush of red that hadn't stopped no matter how hard Kakashi had tightened his grip. While he'd died pointlessly, needlessly, because Genma had made the wrong choice and family didn't mean the same as people.

"If you could have saved him," he said, granting himself words as the only weapon he'd use against a teammate, "then you would have. You failed. Arihiro paid for it." His chakra rippled again. The sentries' hold tightened. "If you ever get the nerve to defect, Shiranui, you better run a whole lot further than Stone. You owe me a life, and I don't mind it being yours."

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