Kotetsu scowled at Hayate, the little smug shit, and scribbled his name down. The desk nin made a face at his handwriting, and Kotetsu shifted just a little. "So hey, Frog-boy," he said, because it served him right for the stupid snowball, "You're writing the mission report?"

It wasn't a question, because already the desk chuunin was giving the returned form a look of utter horror. Kotetsu didn't quite smirk, and glanced away to the rest of the lobby. No one wanted to read a mission report written in that sort of handwriting. It was a trick Kotetsu'd used to get out of writing reports for his genin team, and it seemed to work just as well now with ANBU.

Hayate echoed the chuunin's horrified stare. Kotetsu's handwriting was atrocious. Barely legible. Especially when compared to Hayate's own precise hand, plain but clear. Hayate gave Kotetsu a brief glance and wondered if the other teenager just couldn't write well or wouldn't. He didn't think Kotetsu had graduated the Academy with handwriting like that, not on the essay portions of the final tests.

"Frog-boy." That slid Hayate's smile right off his face, before he put it carefully back up. He was chilled from the snow and running on only a few hour's sleep, and it showed. His control was slipping. He could usually keep smiling even when he was irritated. Some ninja had a neutral poker-face for a mask. Hayate had found a polite smile worked just as well.

"If we're not going to do it twice I suppose I'll have to," Hayate answered, softly. The annoying itch of a cough was caught in the back of his throat.

"Yeah, thanks. I could help," Kotetsu offered, and tried not to grin like a maniac from getting out of doing it. He didn't like writing things if he didn't have to. It made his eyes hurt, and then he had to wear his stupid reading glasses and that just pinched. But he got a bigger kick out of wriggling out of it this way than just saying, 'My glasses hurt my nose'. That just put the wind out of any sort of image a guy'd want to build.

He scuffed his sandals and tried to rub the snow into the carpet. Snow was melting and trickling down his collar, and he resisted the urge to bounce in place as Hayate slowly got the materials and the forms to fill out the report in. He was tired, coupled with the cold it made him bouncy. Not in the active sense, but his mind kept flitting around, and his body wanted to follow suit. He supposed a good night's rest would do it, but first, the mission report, then the debrief, and then he could crash on his bed. Maybe. Or if Hayate was too late with report they could crash first then do the debrief.

He could always hope.

Hayate shuffled the papers together, politely thanked the chuunin, and set off for his apartment. He could write the report just as well in dry clothes as he could in his damp clothes and armor. He fully intended to do so.

"No, it's okay," he called back to Kotetsu, and not particularly caring if the other teenager insisted or not. He didn't. But Hayate did backtrack and get the signatures he needed from Kotetsu, and the vial of poison, before he left Kotetsu to his own devices.

Hayate took care of his damp armor and weapons before he wrote out the report and delivered it to the right office. That done, he headed back to his apartment, intent on getting himself a hot shower and a good nap.

Sadly, he only got one of those things. He had just gotten back from his shower when there came an irate pounding on the door. Answering it revealed an Intel agent who told him to collect his partner and get down to debriefing room four, preferably within the next twenty minutes. Hayate thought very longingly of his bed, smiled a polite smile, and assured the Intel agent they would be there within ten minutes at the most.

And then he finished getting dressed, poked a handful of honey-candies into his pocket, and went to fetch Kotetsu.

At least he'd thought to ask the agent for Kotetsu's room number.

Kotetsu was not pleased to be woken up by the insistently polite rap on his door. He'd shed his armour, judged it too much effort to even go and get a shower, and was curled up under his bed because one, it was warmer in that confined space and two, he hadn't wanted to clean up his sheets when he woke up again. It was easier to clean parquet then to wash his sheets - there was a mop in the tiny utility cupboard next to his half-shower, while the laundry facilities were all the way outside.

So he was just half asleep, just gotten comfortable and exhausted enough not to mind the hard floor and elbow-as-pillow, when the knock made him jerk and hit his head against the bottom of his bedframe.

"Ow!" He blinked at the wooden slats in front of his face and hoped it was a dream. He was much too tired to even try and think of a better curse than 'Fuckdammit', and that was lame enough already.

Another knock, and Kotetsu dragged himself out from under the bed, limped to his door.

"'m too tired," he half snarled, and he just knew looked like a ruffled, rumpled bear. Bugbear. Something. "Wat d'y wan'?"

From the slur in Kotetsu's voice and the look of him, he'd been asleep already. Hayate didn't bother to smile. He just sighed. "Mission debrief. C'mon." His voice hung, and he turned away to cough. It was ragged and nasty and made him feel even more worn out.

He eyed Kotetsu with only a smidgen of sympathy--if he had to be up, well, so did Kotetsu.

"Come on," he repeated, and trudged back towards the stairs, fishing a piece of candy from his pocket as he went. He glanced back as he unwrapped it to make sure Kotetsu was following.

.... Mission debrief. Gods, that was fast. Or slow. Or something. Without injuries to take care of, debriefing was quick and dirty, but he had thought he'd have some time to sleep.

Muttering dire imprecations at stupid people who woke up other tired shinobi for debriefings that could wait, he slumped half a step behind Hayate, all but listing forward onto him. "'m tired," he grumbled fractitiously.

Hayate listened to Kotetsu grumble and kept his peace. Down the stairs, two flights, down into the basement and the debriefing rooms.

It was always chillier down here--which made sense, they were underground. Sense or no, Hayate didn't like it. His hair was still wet, which meant it was cold, and the chill in the air went straight through him. By the time he and Kotetsu settled down into the chairs in the room--an agent was already there, eying them across the desk--he had the little muscle flutters that threatened to turn into real shivers. As it was no warmer in the tiny room than it had been out in the halls.....

Hayate sat straight, but he immediately folded his hands and tucked them between his knees, in hopes of getting them at least a little warmer.

The agent, a young man, gave them a bland look and shuffled the papers on his desk. Hayate pressed a tiny polite smile up, and clacked his candy against his teeth, absently, waiting.

It was cold down here. And he with his wet head. Brrr.

Kotetsu took a seat next to Hayate, and stifled a yawn. He didn't bother making himself look any more presentable - it was late, he was tired, this was unreasonable. He was in no mood to be very diplomatic, which he rarely was, in the normal run of things.

"I'll just get started then," the intel agent said, eyeing them both, and tapped the papers in front of him with neat little movements. "Hagane Kotetsu, Gekkou Hayate?"

Like people would come to a debriefing 'cause they just felt like it. "Who else?" Kotetsu muttered, snarl softened by sleepiness. Why were the chairs so uncomfortable? He slumped.

Hayate's soft, "Yes," came right on the heels of Kotetsu's mumbled answer. Hayate spared the other teenager a glance. He was slumped in his chair and still looked half-asleep. Hayate had no idea how he could be half-asleep even now. Wasn't he cold? Hayate was. He was freezing. And if he didn't start working a bit of chakra now, he'd be shivering visibly.

The Intel agent nodded, and Hayate heard the quiet click as the recording device was turned on. All ANBU debriefs were recorded, in at least three different media: paper, audio, and video. The agent gave his name and number as well as theirs. Hayate noted the name and face--Tendo Kenta.

"Any comments you'd like to make before we begin?" Kenta asked, giving them only a moment before he plowed on. Hayate knew it was near then end of the shift. The man was probably as impatient as they were to just get done with this.

"It says here you were uncertain of your ability to meet your client's demands. In that case, why didn't you refuse?"

Hayate blinked, startled. "What? That was an option...? ....aw, curses." He could see the direction things would go from here. Mostly downhill.

Kotetsu jerked. "We could have refused?" Suddenly he was wide-awake, upright in his chair. "You never said anything like that!"     

ANBU orientation had not covered that. He'd been under the impression that despite the high-flung words of serving Konoha, duty, and the Hokage, the underlying assumption was that ANBU did not have the option to refuse missions. Sure, Ryuichi'd mentioned it, but Ryuichi mentioned a lot of things and Kotetsu had learnt not to pay much attention to him unless they were really serious.

"Oh man." They could have refused. And then he wouldn't have gotten bitten by the dog, broken the girl's wrist, and then messed the mission up fucking bad.

It stood to reason that refusing ANBU missions was a viable option. After all, any ninja from genin to jounin could turn down a mission at the desks. Hayate bit the inside of his lip and felt stupid. And cold. And sleepy. And irritated. He flinched a little at Kotetsu's outburst.

Kenta greeted Kotetsu's exclaimation with a raised eyebrow and pursed lips. "Well," he said crisply into the following silence. "I think that answers that question. Yes. It says in your contract that you can refuse any mission you feel is beyong your capabilities. Within reason, of course."

"Within reason" meaning the higher-ups wouldn't let you do it too often. Missions were assigned for reasons, after all.

As for the contract....Hayate didn't imagine many agents read it all the way through. It was five pages of small print, written in a formal style and riddled with legal-ese. Hayate had gotten through the first page and found it condensed down into "Signing this you hereby agree to sell your soul to Enma King of Hell work solely for the Sandaime, who is not responsible for injury or death on your part and cannot be sued for money and a funeral at the village's expense will be provided should you die if they can find enough of you to have a funeral with." After that he'd just skimmed.

"Continuing," Kenta sighed, looking back down at the papers, "You patrolled the grounds around the Lady Kyoko's quarters. Why? Shouldn't you have stood guard on her, with threats of assassination?"

"Because it wasn't her that was getting it?" Kotetsu answered without thinking, still more than sore over the fact that he could have turned down this mission.

But within reason. At the time, he had no reason to turn it down. And it was more that stupid to just turn it down in the middle. It'd score them a black mark and all that sort of shit and he still could have turned it down.

He was tired. He wasn't thinking straight. 

"'sides, he said it was for assassination threats on the scroll but in private he said it was to frame someone. The boy." Kotetsu was fairly sure of that, and when that had happened, that was when the 'I don't think we are the right ones for this' feeling set in.

"Didn't you write that down?" he asked Hayate.

"I did," Hayate answered. He twisted a little loop of chakra 'round his fingers, to burn away the shivers that had started to break from his control. "And the guards of the estate confirmed that. There was no actual, overt assassination threat."

He paused to clear his throat. His candy was gone and his throat was beginning to rasp. He freed a hand from between his legs and fished another piece out of his pocket.

"And the Lady Kyoko did not move from the estate while we were there. Patrolling the grounds was an acceptable course of action." He was aware his words were getting defensive, his tone more clipped. His voice was quiet as ever--raising it irritated his throat, and it was long habit to speak softly, even when upset.

He paused, and opened the candy one-handed, fighting the sticky sweet free of the crinkly wrapper.

Kenta waited a moment, 'till it was clear Hayate had no intention of continuing. "Very well. Hagane, it says in the report you left your post the night of the attack. Explain yourself."

 "There was fighting," Kotetsu said, and was suddenly aware that what had made complete sense in the dark, the shadows, layered on with traps and thin moonlight made for very poor decisions when considered in writing under flourescent lights.

Kotetsu stared at the plastic overlay of the table, and his tired eyes made patterns out of nothing. "I heard fighting, and I had to..." see what was happening. See if Hayate needed help. See....

Sometimes things made sense in the quick time-flicker of a moment, on the spur of a thought, and in the end it still worked out alright, didn't it? But when it was laid out in the form of a report, at the end of an Intel agent's piercing gaze, what sense it had then formed little substance now.

He took a deep breath, and tried to emulate Hayate's clipped, precise tone. "We were not sure of what to expect, and no one was expected to come in at the time - except for the target the client wanted us to frame. And... I did the traps. I'd know if one sprung, and there was almost no way for someone to approach from where I was without alerting me."

Except the girl had, just earlier than he'd expected, or maybe getting rid of the men had taken too long and he was too tired to think about this.

Though Kenta looked impassive, Hayate noted the minute nod he gave Kotetsu's answer. Yes, Kotetsu had abandoned his post, which was generally frowned upon. Ninja needed to follow orders. But there were worse reasons for deserting stations than providing backup for a comrade against an unknown threat.

It still did not look good.

Hayate clacked his candy against his teeth and felt his smile turning thin and brittle with irritation. They'd done the best they could. True, they'd made mistakes. He'd been so focused on a job he'd felt was out of his skillset, he'd neglected to think about what he could do. It had been a mistake. One that, had they been so less lucky, could have killed them.

But they were alive, they'd done their job, and in the end wasn't that all that mattered? What was done was done and couldn't be changed. It was useless to pick apart or justify his and Kotetsu's actions because it was done. Over and past. Useless to rehash it. And rather maddening to be forced to dissect and discuss what was done.

"Gekkou. You threw the kunai that killed Ono Okita. Why?"

Hayate took a moment to be completely still and remember to be polite before he answered. His polite smile had turned thin enough to be sharp, sharp enough to show exactly how false that little straight smile was.

Kotetsu was more then vibrating with tension - they were questioning them, asking about their reasoning behind doing stupid things on a stupid mission they should have, could have turned down for someone else who would have been much better suited to it. He didn't know if he was going to be angry about it - too tired - but it was done. They'd done what they were supposed to do, and while it wouldn't have been as good as if some of the vets had done it - or hell, just some of the more experienced regular chuunin who specialised in this sort of thing - it was done.

And then the intel agent asked about the dead boy. 

Kotetsu stilled. They had to ask about that? That was what they had had to do!

And later he'd ask about Kotetsu's breaking the girl's wrist.

Kotetsu muffled a soft groan and fisted his hands on his pants.

"He had drawn a weapon. It was a threat. And he proved easier to deal with once dead." Most people did. Hayate's voice was soft, and he was still smiling, but his tone was short and his dark eyes hard.

"Was it necessary to kill him?" Kenta returned, his tone brisk and professional. "He could have been framed without his death."

"I don't see how it's a pertinent question," was what Hayate nearly said. Instead he dropped his voice a notch, and dropped his smile entirely. "Perhaps. Had we time and more skilled agents, perhaps. As it stands, the daimyou had specifically asked us to assassinate him and frame him."

He wasn't so cold or tired now, because he was angry--at himself, at the Intel agent, at the stupid mission.

His piece of candy was a thin wafer of sugar. It crunched nicely between his teeth.

Kenta glanced down to his papers again. "You found a vial of an unknown substance on Okita's person. You may be interested to know it was tincture containing a lethal dose of digitalis." He glanced up at them both. "How many vials were there? You report just the one. Are you sure there were not more?"

The crunch startled Kotetsu - for half a second his brain thought it was something breaking, but then he glanced to Hayate and realised from the slight tightness of his jaw, it was just the honey-candy he sucked on constantly.

And Hayate wasn't smiling anymore. It struck him as a chill, because it looked like, for a brief moment, Hayate was a killer. It jarred with the vision he had of a rather pissed off kid from the time of the Academy - the juxtaposition strange and unsettling.

But then, they were all ninja, and all of them killers.

"Digitalis?" What the hell was that? He had to wrack his brain and still came up blank, even though it sounded damn familiar.

Everything sounded familiar, suddenly, and he couldn't figure out why.

He was too tired.

"Only that one," Kotetsu muttered. "'m sure."

Digitalis. That...rang oddly. Touched off something that settled uneasily at the back of Hayate's mind, poised on the far edge of memory. It was-wasn't important and stayed unhappily vague behind his irritation.

"Just one." He backed up Koetsu's answer evenly.

Kenta said nothing more, face impassive, and moved on to the next question. It rang sharp in the chill air and made Kotetsu visibly flinch.

"Hagane. The report says that you broke the Lady Kyoko's right wrist. How?"

An unspoken "why" ran after that last question mark. Hayate, unsmiling, bit the inside of his lip deliberately, just enough to pinch. He had written why and how it had happened. And it was done--no use dragging it back up.

The question was given neutrally, but it still somehow felt like an attack on his mission partner.

Kotetsu's fingernails bit into his palms, and they'd probably leave little white crescent marks. He felt light-headed, like the room was just about ready to tilt out of focus, and then he realised it was because he'd stopped breathing.

Idiot.

He forced himself to exhale - ragged, this was bad - and tempered his voice to match Hayate's even-ness.

"By grabbing her hand the wrong way - too strong, forgot she was civilian, I had to get her - the pin - out of her hand, she was gonna commit suicide."

How, how, not why, just answer the question, and try not to get pissed off, or react too much, she was alive now.

Kotetsu looked and sounded worn out. His gaze was fixed on the desk, and he did not look at either of the room's other occupants as he answered. Hayate bit harder on his lip, gaze switching from the subdued teenager to the Intel agent. Kotetsu...was not subdued. He bounced. He smiled. He was cheerful, and though Hayate didn't know him that well it made him uneasy to see the other teenager like that.

Kenta raised a slow eyebrow. "Indeed. Then it may interest you to know that the lady Kyoko attempted suicide a second time, scant hours after you left the estate. With a tincture of digitalis, almost identical in dosage to the one you removed from Ono Okita's corpse. The Daimyou implicated that you had carelessly left some poison behind--or gave it to his daughter. He was...displeased."

That was an understatement if he'd ever heard one. Hayate sat still, anger overturned by shock. He picked through Kenta's wording, trying to find the phrasing that would tell him the girl was dead. He didn't think so....but....

"Attempted. Did she succeed?" That was probably the wrong question to ask, he realized too late.

Suicide. With digitalis. Why did that sound so familiar? The something that was-wasn't important hovered closer, but still just out of reach.

"She's still alive," Kenta said dryly, other eyebrow raising just as slowly as the first. "May I ask why you thought that was an appropriate question to ask?"

"Because we didn't do it! We gave the stupid poison in to analyse!" Kotetsu snapped his head up, glaring. What a completely bone-headed thing to suggest! As irritating as the girl had been - she hadn't been around that much, just enough to complicate things - and as annoying as her dog had been, Kotetsu was not that vindictive as to actually hope she'd died.

Or rather, he might think about it in his head, but he wouldn't do it.

"If she did it, she had it herself!"

Why was that so familiar? It ached and itched in his brain but he couldn't think why.

Kenta actually cracked a wry smile, and leaned back in his chair. "So you did. Our informant assured us that the lady Kyoko had gotten it on her own. It appears the Daimyou's accusations are unfounded. Thank you for your co-operation. You may go. I conclude this debriefing at eleven-hundred hours."

Hayate blinked, shook his head, and set up a tiny polite smile. It was thin but held, as he got to his feet. Beside him, Kotetsu looked just as bewildered as he felt--but neither were going to linger down here given the choice. They beat a prompt retreat out of the debriefing room.

Hayate dropped his smile again. He was too tired to make the effort. He glanced at Kotetsu, walking beside him.

"Hey. Was it just me, or did that sound wierdly familiar? The suicide with digitalis, I mean."

"Oh good, it's not just me." Because he was tired, and when he was tired things just made a sort of weird sense that didn't hold up when he was properly awake. He looked at Hayate, cocking his head. Hayate wasn't smiling, just looked as tired as Kotetsu felt. "I don't know. What's digitalis? I'm not good with poisons. But what's weird is... guy gets knifed, girl gets poison... parental opposition? Feels too damn familiar."

He was on the right track, he knew it, just.. just... what was it?

"Digitalis...um, also foxglove...." Hayate answered, absently. He was no expert in poisons, but it was a fairly elementary poison. Well-known, if not well-used, because it made for a messy death if dosed improperly. He reached a hand up and ran it through his wet hair--hair that was starting to curl slightly. He winced. "And it does sound..."

He stopped dead in his tracks as it hit him. "Curses," he said, soft and clear. Surely it wouldn't be so stupid a reason, but it fit and.....

Kotetsu had stopped to look at him, curious and tired.

"The play," Hayate told him. "Curses, the play."

"Aw no." Kotetsu stared at him for a moment, the stupid plotline of the street play running through his head. "Rin and Jin? You can't be serious."

But it had to be. Star-crossed lovers, parental disapproval, poison and a knife? "Foxglove? That thing was foxglove?"

Because Rin died with foxglove when her boyfriend got stabbed in the gut. It had been romantic, if you hadn't thought too much about it.

"Are they that stupid?"

"Rin and Jin is a very popular play."

And supposedly romantic. Hayate had found the whole plot ridiculous, more comedy than romance. And then the entire committing-suicide-together scene in the last act had been completely unrealistic, especially to a ninja who dealt with death and murder for a living.

"It fits, curse it all." Hayate shook his head, and shivered outright. He wrapped his arms around himself, tucking his fingertips beneath the waistband of his jeans. "And I know you've heard of copycat suicides."

It was a topic well-discussed in the shinobi community. A well-publicized murder or suicide was likely to be imitated among the populace. Especially if the victim had been a very visible or important figure in the community. The phenomenon was studied closely by ninja, for job security as well as morbid interest. After all, when a murder was committed and a shinobi signature left, it was to their best interest such things were not widely repeated.

"Yeah," Kotetsu shoved a hand through his hair and tugged. The world didn't get any less stupid the more he thought about it. But then, maybe he was just tired. "Do we go tell Kenta?" Hey, the girl tried to kill herself because she wanted to imitate this kinda romantic play from the streets, only now it seems really stupid because I got involved in it somehow?

"Funny how stupid the plays seem when it's real, and when there are ninja involved."

Maybe the Intel guy'd laugh at them. He probably would - Kotetsu was too tired to think straight much, but Hayate thought so too...

"Let's go tell him then we can go to bed." Better to tell them and get laughed for it now, then for Kotetsu not to tell and find out later it'd been an important clue.

Maybe he should lay off the detective plays too.

Hayate nodded to Kotetsu's suggestion, and shivered again. It was ridiculous how cold he was...but his head was wet. He could remember his aunt's stern warnings: "Don't you go out there with that wet head, you'll catch your death of cold!" She'd say the same thing now, he bet.

He turned and shuffled back in the direction they had come. Kotetsu fell into stride beside him, which Hayate thought only a little odd--only one of them needed to talk to Kenta. And when they reached the debriefing room again, Kotetsu paused outside the door. Hayate got as far as the threshold, and hesitated when the Intel agent looked up with a single raised eyebrow. Hayate dragged up a polite smile that felt far to thin to be really convincing.

"Yes?" Kenta asked, tone suggesting they were interrupting something important.

"Um, we thought...this all sounded like a copycat crime, a double-suicide based on a popular street play," Hayate managed, after a bad moment when he didn't think his voice would come out any louder than a whisper.

"Rin and Jin? Yes. We considered that already." Kenta smirked a little. "But very clever of you. Now, don't make me dismiss you twice."

As he turned to go again, Hayate clearly heard a snort of, "Hunters!" from the agent.

Hayate wondered why he had bothered to smile at all.

Kotetsu resisted the urge to make a face at the Intel agent, but the most important thing was beating a hasty retreat out of there before they could find something else to complain about.

"So," Kotetsu said when they were safely out of any Intel agent's paperwork range, "we're done, right?" He tried not to sound too terribly hopeful, because he desperately wanted to get back to sleeping under his bed. If he got kept up any longer, he'd either start snoozing against the wall or his body cycle'd decide that it was time to be awake and then he'd never get to sleep today. 

"Likely," Hayate rasped, barely getting it out before a shiver nearly made him bite his tongue. He winced, and cleared his throat. Ugh, he wanted to cough. He glanced at Kotetsu as they marched up the stairs, heading for warmer climates at last.

"Aren't you cold?" he managed, and that was all. He coughed, turning away from Kotetsu and untucking one arm to cover his mouth with a hand.

If Hayate hadn't mentioned it, Kotetsu could have quite blissfully gone his way and curled up under his bed again and fallen asleep. Maybe the next day he would have gone stiff with cold, but at least he would have been asleep.

Instead, Hayate's words made a shiver shake him by the spine, and he grumbled, wrapping his hands under his arms. "N-now I am."

Hayate nearly laughed. That was an unexpected response. Instead he gave Kotetsu a tired but genuine smile--crooked up to right and just wide enough to show a dimple in his cheek. "Makes two of us," he rasped, and cleared his throat.

He was very, very glad he lived on the first floor. His room was much closer than Kotetsu's, and he had the added bonus of fewer stairs to climb. He paused at his door and tossed a second little smile to Kotetsu. "Well, good night," he offered, barely waiting to hear a reply before he slipped into his apartment.

It was a grand relief to burrow under the myriad of blankets and make a nest. He was cold, but too tired to think about it. He was out like a light before three minutes had gone.

"Yeah, you too. Morning. Whatever." It was barely midnight, really, but Kotetsu felt like that qualified. He was up too late in any case.

Hayate was cute though, when he smiled. Like, a real smile. Was it a real smile? When he smiled like that anyway. Kotetsu leaned against the stairwell wall and yawned. Gods, his brain wasn't making sense anymore.

Tomorrow, he'd think about this entire fiasco. Once he got some proper sleep.