Tsume's eyebrows rose. Combat specialist? Who coughed? Huh. "Back up. Right." She grinned down at him, sitting on the seat of the bench beside her feet. "You must be good, to be in ANBU. And not dead. Katana aren't exactly subtle." It was easier to kill an opponent with a weapon and fighting style that made them obvious.

She flashed another assessing glance over him. Still rangey and gangly, not too tall. He couldn't be eighteen. Maybe fifteen. Sixteen. He still had that fresh, untempered look that many young ninja had--now that they were out of the war, there weren't so many fires to harden them. He didn't have that shadow in his eyes, the chiseled look to his face. He was still cute, with the promise of someday being attractive.

How much of a katana specialist could a person be, when they were that new? "Your family into katana?" she asked, stealing a bite of one of Kuromaru's okonomiyaki. He whined and gave her a reproving look. "Or is this something you learned on your own?"