| Lay Your Armor Down [Ryouma, Katsuko] | [Nov. 21st, 2009|10:53 am] |
Takes place April 6, the morning after All My Regrets Are Nothing New, a week after Katsuko and Ryuichi's mission in Knife's Edge and No Rest for the Wicked.
Ryouma stopped by the mission office just before breakfast, right after his morning workout and the mission desk shift change. The gangly young chuunin who manned the desk for the morning shift was new--he'd just come in a few weeks ago, after an injured knee took him off active duty for the next month or two--and unlikely to ask questions. In fact he seemed much more interested in the sudoku puzzle in his newspaper than in the reasons Ryouma had spent a week on Personal Leave and now wanted the first mission that would take him out of Konoha. "Things're always slow at the beginning of the week," he said, poking through the open-assignment missions stacked on his desk. "There's a B-rank surveillance out in Mangrove Country, but--"
"I need somethin' with less time to think," Ryouma said. "Team'd be good." Dammit, where were Arata and Hiroyuki when he needed them? "There's not anything up by the Lightning Country border, is there? Near the post that replaced the Dainichi Nyorai Temple Base?"
"Operations there are extremely limited right now," the chuunin said firmly. "But... Hold on a sec." He swiveled his chair around to paw through another basket of sealed scrolls. "You said your name was Tousaki, right? Then you're just in time. Another two days and they'd probably have pulled you off Personal Leave for this one, or assigned someone else. Reiko-san must've been keeping this one back for you. You're good with straightforward assassinations, aren't you?"
"My specialty," Ryouma said. "Who's coming along for the ride?"
"Ueno Katsuko, Agent 010993." The chuunin seized a pen, scribbled a note on another form, and handed the scroll over to Ryouma. "There's no note about a briefing, so the scroll should have all the information you need. Find your partner and head out as soon as you can."
"Hope you gave me someone who can read," Ryouma said, turning the sealed scroll over in his hands. Katsuko. Dammit, he knew that name, just couldn't pull up a face for it. A veteran, maybe? Someone Genma had mentioned? "What's the room number?"
The boy eyed him. "For a headliner in the gossip column, you're kind of unneighborly, aren't you? She's in 315. Good luck." He picked up his pencil again and turned his attention to his sudoku.
Ryouma sprinted for the stairs.
He'd been right. Three fifteen was right next door. And he wasn't unneighborly--he bugged Genma and Raidou all the damn time!--but he was certain he'd never seen anyone going in or out of that door since Sumire had moved out of HQ. He couldn't possibly have missed a girl. All right, so he hadn't yet properly met the new chick who'd moved in on Kakashi and Tsume's hallway, but at least he'd seen her around. She probably could have beat Sayuri in a Miss Konoha pageant. Maybe this Katsuko would be even hotter. He could hope...
He hoped right up until the moment when the door opened under his rapid-fire knocking and he stared down at a slender girl with the barest hint of curves swelling under her green tank-top and loose pajama pants. She blinked back up at him, brown hair tousled, thin lips half-parted, hazel eyes still dazed with sleep.
"You elbowed me in the gut," Ryouma said. As a conversational starter it was slightly better than D'you know how sexy you look when you first wake up?, but only just. He winced and started over again. "Uh, Mission Desk thinks we need to make friends, and the best way to do that is killing people. I'm Ryouma. We met once before." |
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