| [Feb. 8th, 2010|07:43 pm] |
Despite himself, Hiruzen's lips twitched. He smothered the slip with a generous draw of whiskey, putting out flames of horrified amusement with flames of alcohol -- the good stuff, as always, because Arakaki was a good man -- and considered this latest catastrophe. The likely consequences.
"It has a certain equanimity about it, you must admit," he murmured, watching Arakaki's black brows sweep up like mantling hawk wings. "As desperate plans go. This might actually be the lever we need. Iwagakure's latest representative has been stonewalling me since last Thursday."
Arakaki's mouth opened, hesitated, then closed. He swirled the liquor in his glass again but didn't drink, frowning, fingers tapping against the fine-cut crystal. Pakkun watched him silently, with the kind of hopeless, anxious faith so common in dogs. Arakaki's dark eyes flicked to the folders.
Hiruzen followed his gaze. The uppermost belonged to Shiranui Genma, the one beneath it was Kakashi's. Layered below them were half a dozen files devoted entirely to Iwagakure, its current political situation, and the fragile treaty existing between the Village of Stone and Konoha. And in those folders, Hiruzen knew, were a thousand accounts of wartime torture. Deaths inflicted on both sides. Atrocities committed in the aftermath.
X-ray films of Genma's shattered hands, broken by Iwagakure interrogators. Delicately scripted letters from the Uchiha clan demanding the removal of Kakashi's Sharingan eye, achieved in Stone from a thirteen-year-old chuunin.
Hiruzen could not think of two agents he would have liked less to end up in that particular stretch of enemy territory.
"I presume you have a retrieval team already prepared and ready to go," he said, without insulting Arakaki's intelligence by making that a question. "Send Shida's latest prodigy with them -- he'll have training in Iwagakure's techniques, if they've been foolish enough to employ them. The medics will need that information. And at least two S-class diplomats: Sugimoto Miho and Fujita Kenshi, I think."
He reached for documents, shuffling files and alcohol aside as a pen appeared back in one hand, and a fresh sheet of parchment in the other. Arakaki moved the Go board aside. Pakkun flopped limply across the seat of his chair with something that looked entirely too much like relief. Hiruzen gave him a gentle smile.
"You didn't think we'd leave them there, did you?"
Pakkun swallowed hard. "The kid said you wouldn't..." he began rawly, and broke off short. But I didn't believe him.
Arakaki was entirely expressionless, but there was an endless depth of lost agents, broken men, shattered women, and secret blood spilled for the sake of Konoha reflected in his eyes. The hard line of his mouth was bone-white.
Some day, Hiruzen knew, there would be a soul-deep reckoning for all the soldiers Arakaki had sent out to die. And Hiruzen would be equally accountable, and equally scorched.
But not today.
"Sit, Hisoka," he said, not without kindness, and pressed the seal beneath his desk that would summon an instant courier. Beneath his hands, a diplomatically worded demand was taking shape, caught in official kanji and soon sealed beneath hot red wax. But the bladed edge still lurked underneath, and Hiruzen smiled with grim satisfaction. "Join me in a game of Go." |
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