Thirteen. He'd been using Speed on missions since he was thirteen.

Katsuko couldn't understand anyone who voluntarily put drugs into their systems, not after what happened to her in the labs. To willingly put chemicals into your body, to alter your system and put yourself at the mercy of the high--

It was absolutely baffling. She'd led a team of chuunin on a heavy combat mission, once, in that short space of time between her jounin exam and her enlistment in ANBU. Two boys and a little Nara girl. Heavy users, all three of them, soldier pills and meth and...


She'd asked the Nara girl, once, during the long empty hours before the actual fighting began, why in the world someone would willingly do that to themselves. The Nara girl had laughed before she'd realized Katsuko had was serious.

"Well, I dunno, Captain", she'd drawled awkwardly, looking at Katsuko in puzzled condescenscion. "It's partly because the high gives us the extra edge, y'know, adrenaline n' all that. But...it takes away the fear, too. Suddenly, you're not scared of dying. Y'just need to move. Death isn't important."

An hour later the Nara girl was dead, her torso blown clean away when she threw herself in between her teammates and an explosion note.

Katsuko sighed and massaged her temples, throwing herself back into the chair. "Godsdamnit, Ryuichi. i was worried about you."

Things used to be simple. She glared at him. "I'm not your caretaker or the damned military police. The Speed will work for you until the day it doesn't, and you die of an overdose. Dammit, it's like watching a house on fire and not being able to do anything about it. I mean--Fuck."

Ranting about a morally ambiguous issue on less than five hours of sleep grated on her nerves. Her patience was literally wearing thin, a tight painful knot in her chest that made it hard to breathe.