Fic: Speaking for the Voiceless
At least I accomplished this: it's a standalone thread for Spiral, but I believe it works as a short story, too:
Speaking for the Voiceless
After he was released from the hospital for the second time that summer, it took a couple of weeks for Genma to be well enough to do it, but he had a mission to accomplish. Once he was back on his feet, eating normally (and gaining some weight again at last), and enjoying the return of his energy with his growing health, he headed out to tackle the task head on. It wasn't an assigned mission, he wasn't cleared for active duty yet, and and he certainly wouldn't be paid for it, but it was definitely a mission for ANBU.
Raidou was fond of saying that ANBU were the ones who protected those who couldn't protect themselves. The arms for the armless, the voices for the voiceless. They were the strength of their village, their nation, their whole society. And most importantly of all they were that strength for each other. An ANBU never left a comrade to suffer. An ANBU protected his own. Because, like the proverb said, a single broken link in the chain mail would let the arrow in and kill the king.
Time and again Raidou and Genma had been that strength for each other. More often than not it was Raidou's strength compensating for his own weakness, Genma thought with chagrin. And now, when it was Raidou who needed protection, he'd been left without. While Genma had to admit he deserved a measure of the blame, there was someone else, he decided, who deserved it even more squarely. By the time he'd gotten the whole story out of Raidou, and recovered enough himself to deal with it, the event was several weeks in the past, but every time Genma thought about it, he seethed.
Telling Raidou how angry he was had done no good-it just pissed his friend off and made him defensive-and it wasn't what Genma wanted, anyway. Truth be told, he didn't really know what it was he did want when he dressed in a freshly laundered ANBU uniform, combed his hair, pulled on his weapons and mask, and set out for the slightly decaying little residential neighborhood on the western edge of the village where Namiashi Kentarou kept shop. The area housed a number of shinobi, but the sight of an ANBU in full regalia striding with purpose along their quiet streets was unusual, and the people he passed gave Genma discreet stares and a wide berth.
The little store was empty when Genma arrived, and for that he was glad. He pushed the door shut behind himself with a tinkle of bells and flipped the door sign from "open" to "closed", then made his way through crowded shelves of batteries and bread, instant ramen, little cans of machine oil, condoms and cold medicine, and of course cigarettes and booze, whetstones and bandages, because this was a store that served shinobi. A baritone voice called, "Be right with you," from a back room, but before the proprietor could get there, Genma was in the little curtained doorway, standing straight, gloved and armoured arms crossed across his chest, cougar mask smiling menacingly down at the broad-shouldered man in the wheelchair.
"Namiashi-san," he said, and he could see the look of alarm that crossed the man's face. It was an expression maybe too easy for Genma to read, because under the greying brush of hair and the age and weather lines etched into the tan skin, Namiashi Kentarou's features were almost as familiar to Genma as his own-in short, he looked like an older, somewhat more hawkish version of his son.
"ANBU-san," Kentarou said, and straightened in his chair. Genma could see the thoughts behind his friend's father's expressive brown eyes. He's waiting for me to tell him Raidou is dead, Genma thought, and for a moment he was glad he could distress the older man. But the feeling ebbed as Genma considered his purpose here. He pushed the mask off his face and looked Kentarou in the eye, an aggressive move, but a personal one.
"We need to talk about Raidou," he said, and his voice was cold. "He's fine," Genma added, when he saw the alarm deepen on the older Namiashi's face, "but you and I, we need to talk."
"Genma?" Kentarou said, evidently surprised to see his son's friend like this. "Alright, come sit with me and we'll have a cup of tea." His eyes flicked to the shut door and the closed sign, but he didn't say anything. Presumably, if Genma had a reason to show up in full spook gear with an aura bristling with menace, he had reason to shut Kentarou's store down while he explained himself.
Genma followed the other man back to a little table and chairs he had set up in the back room. The table was littered with magazines, an ashtray with a few butts in it, and some scraps of paper bearing Kentarou's distinctive writing. There was a cup half-full of green tea there, at a place conspicuously missing a chair. The place Kentarou wheeled himself to, after fetching another cup of tea for his visitor.
"Sit down, son," he said, and he used the tone of voice he might with his own child or one of the genin he had coached back when he'd been a jounin-sensei.
Genma sniffed, then did as told, stiffly and tightly controlled. He levelled a cool stare at his friend's father, thinking about how he was going to say what he'd come to say.
"Namiashi-san," Genma started, but Kentarou interrupted him. "Genma, whatever it is you're here to say to me is obviously important, so please, do me the honor of drinking tea with me."
Genma gave Kentarou another cool look, then a brief nod, and picked up his tea. After several silent moments, with both men appraising each other, he set the cup down, took a slow breath, and looked at Kentarou. "Namiashi-san, Raidou-your son-deserves far better than he's gotten from his family recently." Genma's tone was low and even, and just ever so slightly deadly.
Kentarou matched Genma's steely look with one of his own. "I don't know why you would come to that conclusion, but please, explain yourself," he said.
Genma's hands were clenched into tight fists as he spoke, but otherwise he sat cool as marble. "Three weeks ago I found my best friend puking up his dinner after less than an hour in his family's company, and the next day he was even worse, lost in a flashback and clawing at his face, in part because you and his grandmother had sprung some stupid surprise blind date on him, and Grandma'am had a fit over Raidou's scars."
Kentarou didn't answer. He sat and listened, watching with the cold eyes of an experienced jounin, as Genma outlined his accusations.
"You knew what he looked like," Genma continued. "You knew his grandmother would react badly, and you should have known that would hurt him." Genma's stomach was in knots as he levelled the charges against the older Namiashi.
"And yet," he went on, "you let her spring it on him. And now I hear she had a heart attack, and is blaming that on Raidou, too?" The tension crept into Genma's voice now. "Raidou certainly thinks so. What kind of father sets his son up like that, to believe he's killing his own grandmother? To believe her crap about his ruined looks? You know those scars are something for him to be proud of, not ashamed of. You know how close he came to death."
Genma's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. An intense, frightening whisper, underlain with violence. His hands shook ever so slightly, but the tension in his body remained tightly controlled. A dangerous, threatening presence, but one not yet fully unleashed.
"How could you do this to Raidou?"
"Is that all you came to say?" Kentarou asked, meeting Genma's challenging gaze with a controlled menace of his own. He didn't wait for an answer. "It may have escaped your notice, but my son is a grown man. I believe he can and does make his own decisions about how he interacts with his grandmother. It was his choice not to tell her about his injuries until that night."
"Don't act like you had no part in that," Genma snarled. "He may be grown, but he still relies on you. You let him down. And she..." Genma stopped to take a steadying breath, eyes fierce and full of malice. "She has her demon claws in him so tight it's almost pathetic. I used to have the highest respect for Okamoto-san, but not anymore. She's an over-dramatic, self-centered old bitch who thinks nothing of driving her own grandchild, her only grandchild, as she so often reminds him, to despair over her stupid, antiquated ideas of propagating her family line."
Kentarou started to say something more, but Genma stood, pacing around the table towards the older man. "Look at yourself," he said. "You call yourself a Leaf ninja? Okamoto-san may be a civilian, but you are not. You know what it's like. You have a responsibility to Raidou, to me, and to the fucking Hokage himself, not to let things like this happen."
Genma's vitriol was bitter, and it sprang from a deep source. He was furious at Kentarou for letting Raidou walk into that trap, just as he was furious at himself for having let Raidou get hurt in the first place, and then again only a scant few months later. It wasn't a rational fury-no sane person could have found a way for Raidou's scars to have been Genma's fault-but his rage at the unfairness of it all-Takeshi's death, Raidou's scars, Ono's betrayal, the fiasco that was Heigen-had seethed in Genma without outlet for months. Kentarou was just the lightning rod, but he was getting the full brunt of Genma's wrath.
Kentarou, for his part, was no stranger to tantrums. He'd raised Raidou, after all, and his son's temper had been, and still was, an issue at times, as the situation with his grandmother had so explosively highlighted. He pushed his chair back from the table a little, to better face Genma, who was now pacing in fury in the little space that served as a kitchen. When the fierce young man in the black and bone uniform seemed disinclined to continue speaking, Kentarou cleared his throat. Genma stopped pacing and spun on his heel to face Kentarou, glaring down at him.
"You are right," the elder Namiashi said, and his look was compelling. "I am a shinobi, and I have a responsibility to this village, just as you and Raidou do." He paused and looked Genma directly in the eye. "But beyond that, I have an even greater responsibility to my son, to help him become a man."
Genma opened his mouth, then closed it, caught off guard by Kentarou's words.
"Sit down and face me man to man, please," Kentarou continued. "I gave my ability to stand up to this village, so now you can do me the courtesy of showing me some respect, and sitting at my eye level. Especially if you are going to accuse me of failing in my duties to my Hokage."
Genma blinked, then sat, with a slightly shaken look on his face. It was true, whatever he had to say to Kentarou, the older Namiashi had sacrificed more for Konoha than Genma was giving him credit for. He was an honored veteran, a sensei, and his friend's father. He owed him that respect.
"If you think I didn't try to get Raidou to confront his grandmother before that night, you are badly mistaken," Kentarou said, once Genma was seated. "But as I said, it is my responsibility to see that my son becomes a man. And being a man means taking on responsibilities of your own. It was his place, and his alone, to face his grandmother. If he had to learn the bitter lesson that hiding from the things you dread does not make them easier, then there was nothing I could, nor should I have done, to prevent it."
"I..." Genma started, and stared down at his gloved hands. It hurt in his chest, all of a sudden, listening to Kentarou.
"Do you think I want to see my son in pain like that? Do you think I enjoy his grandmother's behavior? Or seeing how much she hurt him?" Kentarou stopped and sighed, and leaned forward to put a hand on Genma's hunched shoulder. "Genma, son, let me tell you this: the pain of losing my legs, of losing my wife, of all the losses I've ever faced, is nothing to the pain I would feel if I lost my son. And as his father, the only thing I can do is watch him walk into the minefield and learn to avoid the explosions for himself. I cannot learn his lessons for him, and neither can you, no matter how much you love him."
Genma swallowed dryly, as all the rage and fear and fury inside him knotted under his breastbone into something that threatened to choke him. He took a shaky breath and shrugged roughly at Kentarou's hand on his shoulder, bringing one black gloved hand up to hide his face from the other man. His other hand clenched into a fist again, and when Kentarou didn't back off, he pulled roughly upright, eyes blazing.
"You think that's good enough?" His anger rekindled in an instant, as images of names etched on the hero's stone, and Raidou's death-white face half-mummified in bandages flew through his mind's eye. "That's nice, Namiashi-san. And in a nice world where everyone gets the luxury to have their biggest challenges be harpies in their families who try to put them down, I'm sure that'd work just fine. But this is not that world. Maybe you're in some kind of happy fantasyland where all Raidou has to do is play the obedient grandson and everything's alright, and maybe if he'd been hurt in some kind of fucked up roofing accident it would be. But it was a fucking ANBU mission, and Shimino Takeshi died and Raidou nearly died, and you can't... You can't..." He choked off into helpless fury, glaring with tear-bright eyes at the older man.
Kentarou sighed and pushed a hand through his greying hair, then reached across the table to pull a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray closer to himself. He shook two slim white cylinders out and offered one to Genma, but the younger man bristled sharply, his whole body conveying his disgust. Kentarou ignored it, and calmly lit his, then puffed in silence for a moment as hazy blue smoke drifted up to the lamp over the table.
"Genma," Kentarou said after several long, tension-filled moments, "no-one, least of all me, takes what Raidou and you and your comrades have been through lightly."
The only sign Genma was listening was a slight twitch of his tightly held shoulders.
"Perhaps I should have done as you say," Kentarou continued, smoking his cigarette calmly. "Perhaps I should have intervened, and spoken to his grandmother. Warned her that Raidou had been disfigured on a mission. Buffered the blow, so to speak. But how would Raidou have taken that? You know my son better than anyone, so you know that Raidou's the kind of man who does things for himself. Think, Genma, how is he going to react when he finds out you came to me? How would he have felt if I had gone behind his back to his grandmother?"
Genma looked up at last, glaring at Kentarou, but the older man's words were having their effect. Raidou... Raidou would be furious with him for this. This was as much of a betrayal of his friend as he could possibly have committed, and yet...
Even though what Kentarou said was true, there was something still there, still eating at Genma. It wasn't just a matter of Raidou wanting or needing to do this for himself, on his own. He couldn't do it. Couldn't his father get that? And that was why Genma was here.
"You think... you think Raidou can deal with this on his own?" Genma asked, and his voice was cold with outraged incredulity. "You think he just needs to buck up and face his troubles like a man? Do you want to know how he deals with it? Do you?" He didn't wait for an answer from Kentarou, but leaned forward until he was inches from his friend's father.
"He can't look in mirrors. He avoids them like crazy, but every reflective surface we pass, he stares at himself and then he flinches like he's been hit. He used to go out with me. Used to pick up women, had no worries about it. Now he thinks he's deformed and hideous. And I was willing to let him work on that on his own. Figure out on his own that he was wrong and that was a bunch of crap. But three weeks ago I found him lying naked under an ice cold shower, with his face half clawed off by his own damn hands, raving about his mission, and do you know what set it off? Do you?"
Kentarou paled, looking back at the furious young man, waiting with evident dread for words he could already guess.
"His fucking grandmother and her fucking party, that's what?" Genma hissed. "He nearly had a break the night after you and she sprang that crap on him. Nearly. He was sick-puking up his dinner, staring at his face in the water. And the next fucking day..." Genma paused, panting as if he'd been running. "The next day, he had an interview with the bastards down in T&I about whether or not he was maybe trying to kill himself. About whether maybe his face was a sign he was unfit for duty. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is? Do you?"
The older man's cigarette burned quietly to ash between his fingers while he stared, transfixed, at his son's raging friend.
"So after that," Genma continued, "he still held it together. Cause Raidou is strong no matter what those bastards might say. He held it together long enough to get himself up to the fucking showers, and that's where I found him." His voice broke, a strangled sound halfway between a whisper and a cry. "I thought he was dead."
There was a deathly silence in the room when Genma finally finished speaking. The only sounds were his own ragged breathing, Kentarou's soft breaths, and the squeak of his wheelchair as he leaned forwards to reach out to his son's friend again.
"I didn't know, Genma," he said, and his voice held just the hint of a tremor. "I didn't know. You're probably right, I should have known, but I didn't. I didn't know until that night how hard Raidou was taking it. I didn't know any of what you say about his superior's suspicions, although, when I think about it, it is clearly something I should have seen." He paused and gripped Genma's shoulder hard, shaking him until the younger man looked up at him.
"He's not, right? I trust you on this. Tell me my son isn't trying to do what they say."
"Of course he's not!" Genma fumed, staring back at warm brown eyes so much like his best friend's it hurt to look at them. "Raidou's not... he's not like that! He wouldn't do that!" The maelstrom finally burst in Genma's chest, and he crumbled, tears finally spilling from angry, frightened eyes.
"He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't," he insisted, as if repetition could convince him of what logic couldn't. "If one of us was gonna do something stupid like that, it'd be me, not him."
"Genma," Kentarou said, and moved closer, pulling the slender, shaking, hunched up boy in front of him against his chest. A boy who had had to be a man long before he was ready, just like his son. "Genma, don't you ever do that either. Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to my son."
Genma took a shaky, sniffling breath and shrugged his shoulders, trying to get some semblance of control of himself back. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean... I sat with Raidou when you boys came back from your last mission. Raidou might never say it, but to me he doesn't have to. He needs you as much as you need him."
"I..." Genma started, but couldn't find the words to fit his thoughts.
"That's why you're here, isn't it?" Kentarou asked gently. "Because you need him. Because you want to protect him."
"I... I..." Genma stuttered again, but Kentarou shushed him.
"You keep protecting each other. You boys... you'll make it. I trust you. Both of you. You'll keep each other from breaking."
Breaking. What did it mean to be broken, really? Genma wondered. Was he broken, crying here in his friend's father's arms? Was Raidou broken, with his scarred face and ravaged confidence? Was Kentarou, legless and retired, broken?
"You keep each other strong," Kentarou continued. "You're strong, Genma. It took strength for you to come here today." He sat back and let Genma sit up, offering the cigarette again. This time Genma took it, with a slightly shaky hand, and lit it with a match from the book sitting next to the ashtray.
There was another long, quiet moment, while both men smoked their cigarettes and drank their tea. Then Genma wiped one gloved hand across his eyes, brushing his hair back, and raised his face to Kentarou. "Sorry," he started, but Kentarou waved him off.
"You got nothing to be sorry about, son," the older man said, and refilled Genma's tea.
Speaking for the Voiceless
After he was released from the hospital for the second time that summer, it took a couple of weeks for Genma to be well enough to do it, but he had a mission to accomplish. Once he was back on his feet, eating normally (and gaining some weight again at last), and enjoying the return of his energy with his growing health, he headed out to tackle the task head on. It wasn't an assigned mission, he wasn't cleared for active duty yet, and and he certainly wouldn't be paid for it, but it was definitely a mission for ANBU.
Raidou was fond of saying that ANBU were the ones who protected those who couldn't protect themselves. The arms for the armless, the voices for the voiceless. They were the strength of their village, their nation, their whole society. And most importantly of all they were that strength for each other. An ANBU never left a comrade to suffer. An ANBU protected his own. Because, like the proverb said, a single broken link in the chain mail would let the arrow in and kill the king.
Time and again Raidou and Genma had been that strength for each other. More often than not it was Raidou's strength compensating for his own weakness, Genma thought with chagrin. And now, when it was Raidou who needed protection, he'd been left without. While Genma had to admit he deserved a measure of the blame, there was someone else, he decided, who deserved it even more squarely. By the time he'd gotten the whole story out of Raidou, and recovered enough himself to deal with it, the event was several weeks in the past, but every time Genma thought about it, he seethed.
Telling Raidou how angry he was had done no good-it just pissed his friend off and made him defensive-and it wasn't what Genma wanted, anyway. Truth be told, he didn't really know what it was he did want when he dressed in a freshly laundered ANBU uniform, combed his hair, pulled on his weapons and mask, and set out for the slightly decaying little residential neighborhood on the western edge of the village where Namiashi Kentarou kept shop. The area housed a number of shinobi, but the sight of an ANBU in full regalia striding with purpose along their quiet streets was unusual, and the people he passed gave Genma discreet stares and a wide berth.
The little store was empty when Genma arrived, and for that he was glad. He pushed the door shut behind himself with a tinkle of bells and flipped the door sign from "open" to "closed", then made his way through crowded shelves of batteries and bread, instant ramen, little cans of machine oil, condoms and cold medicine, and of course cigarettes and booze, whetstones and bandages, because this was a store that served shinobi. A baritone voice called, "Be right with you," from a back room, but before the proprietor could get there, Genma was in the little curtained doorway, standing straight, gloved and armoured arms crossed across his chest, cougar mask smiling menacingly down at the broad-shouldered man in the wheelchair.
"Namiashi-san," he said, and he could see the look of alarm that crossed the man's face. It was an expression maybe too easy for Genma to read, because under the greying brush of hair and the age and weather lines etched into the tan skin, Namiashi Kentarou's features were almost as familiar to Genma as his own-in short, he looked like an older, somewhat more hawkish version of his son.
"ANBU-san," Kentarou said, and straightened in his chair. Genma could see the thoughts behind his friend's father's expressive brown eyes. He's waiting for me to tell him Raidou is dead, Genma thought, and for a moment he was glad he could distress the older man. But the feeling ebbed as Genma considered his purpose here. He pushed the mask off his face and looked Kentarou in the eye, an aggressive move, but a personal one.
"We need to talk about Raidou," he said, and his voice was cold. "He's fine," Genma added, when he saw the alarm deepen on the older Namiashi's face, "but you and I, we need to talk."
"Genma?" Kentarou said, evidently surprised to see his son's friend like this. "Alright, come sit with me and we'll have a cup of tea." His eyes flicked to the shut door and the closed sign, but he didn't say anything. Presumably, if Genma had a reason to show up in full spook gear with an aura bristling with menace, he had reason to shut Kentarou's store down while he explained himself.
Genma followed the other man back to a little table and chairs he had set up in the back room. The table was littered with magazines, an ashtray with a few butts in it, and some scraps of paper bearing Kentarou's distinctive writing. There was a cup half-full of green tea there, at a place conspicuously missing a chair. The place Kentarou wheeled himself to, after fetching another cup of tea for his visitor.
"Sit down, son," he said, and he used the tone of voice he might with his own child or one of the genin he had coached back when he'd been a jounin-sensei.
Genma sniffed, then did as told, stiffly and tightly controlled. He levelled a cool stare at his friend's father, thinking about how he was going to say what he'd come to say.
"Namiashi-san," Genma started, but Kentarou interrupted him. "Genma, whatever it is you're here to say to me is obviously important, so please, do me the honor of drinking tea with me."
Genma gave Kentarou another cool look, then a brief nod, and picked up his tea. After several silent moments, with both men appraising each other, he set the cup down, took a slow breath, and looked at Kentarou. "Namiashi-san, Raidou-your son-deserves far better than he's gotten from his family recently." Genma's tone was low and even, and just ever so slightly deadly.
Kentarou matched Genma's steely look with one of his own. "I don't know why you would come to that conclusion, but please, explain yourself," he said.
Genma's hands were clenched into tight fists as he spoke, but otherwise he sat cool as marble. "Three weeks ago I found my best friend puking up his dinner after less than an hour in his family's company, and the next day he was even worse, lost in a flashback and clawing at his face, in part because you and his grandmother had sprung some stupid surprise blind date on him, and Grandma'am had a fit over Raidou's scars."
Kentarou didn't answer. He sat and listened, watching with the cold eyes of an experienced jounin, as Genma outlined his accusations.
"You knew what he looked like," Genma continued. "You knew his grandmother would react badly, and you should have known that would hurt him." Genma's stomach was in knots as he levelled the charges against the older Namiashi.
"And yet," he went on, "you let her spring it on him. And now I hear she had a heart attack, and is blaming that on Raidou, too?" The tension crept into Genma's voice now. "Raidou certainly thinks so. What kind of father sets his son up like that, to believe he's killing his own grandmother? To believe her crap about his ruined looks? You know those scars are something for him to be proud of, not ashamed of. You know how close he came to death."
Genma's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. An intense, frightening whisper, underlain with violence. His hands shook ever so slightly, but the tension in his body remained tightly controlled. A dangerous, threatening presence, but one not yet fully unleashed.
"How could you do this to Raidou?"
"Is that all you came to say?" Kentarou asked, meeting Genma's challenging gaze with a controlled menace of his own. He didn't wait for an answer. "It may have escaped your notice, but my son is a grown man. I believe he can and does make his own decisions about how he interacts with his grandmother. It was his choice not to tell her about his injuries until that night."
"Don't act like you had no part in that," Genma snarled. "He may be grown, but he still relies on you. You let him down. And she..." Genma stopped to take a steadying breath, eyes fierce and full of malice. "She has her demon claws in him so tight it's almost pathetic. I used to have the highest respect for Okamoto-san, but not anymore. She's an over-dramatic, self-centered old bitch who thinks nothing of driving her own grandchild, her only grandchild, as she so often reminds him, to despair over her stupid, antiquated ideas of propagating her family line."
Kentarou started to say something more, but Genma stood, pacing around the table towards the older man. "Look at yourself," he said. "You call yourself a Leaf ninja? Okamoto-san may be a civilian, but you are not. You know what it's like. You have a responsibility to Raidou, to me, and to the fucking Hokage himself, not to let things like this happen."
Genma's vitriol was bitter, and it sprang from a deep source. He was furious at Kentarou for letting Raidou walk into that trap, just as he was furious at himself for having let Raidou get hurt in the first place, and then again only a scant few months later. It wasn't a rational fury-no sane person could have found a way for Raidou's scars to have been Genma's fault-but his rage at the unfairness of it all-Takeshi's death, Raidou's scars, Ono's betrayal, the fiasco that was Heigen-had seethed in Genma without outlet for months. Kentarou was just the lightning rod, but he was getting the full brunt of Genma's wrath.
Kentarou, for his part, was no stranger to tantrums. He'd raised Raidou, after all, and his son's temper had been, and still was, an issue at times, as the situation with his grandmother had so explosively highlighted. He pushed his chair back from the table a little, to better face Genma, who was now pacing in fury in the little space that served as a kitchen. When the fierce young man in the black and bone uniform seemed disinclined to continue speaking, Kentarou cleared his throat. Genma stopped pacing and spun on his heel to face Kentarou, glaring down at him.
"You are right," the elder Namiashi said, and his look was compelling. "I am a shinobi, and I have a responsibility to this village, just as you and Raidou do." He paused and looked Genma directly in the eye. "But beyond that, I have an even greater responsibility to my son, to help him become a man."
Genma opened his mouth, then closed it, caught off guard by Kentarou's words.
"Sit down and face me man to man, please," Kentarou continued. "I gave my ability to stand up to this village, so now you can do me the courtesy of showing me some respect, and sitting at my eye level. Especially if you are going to accuse me of failing in my duties to my Hokage."
Genma blinked, then sat, with a slightly shaken look on his face. It was true, whatever he had to say to Kentarou, the older Namiashi had sacrificed more for Konoha than Genma was giving him credit for. He was an honored veteran, a sensei, and his friend's father. He owed him that respect.
"If you think I didn't try to get Raidou to confront his grandmother before that night, you are badly mistaken," Kentarou said, once Genma was seated. "But as I said, it is my responsibility to see that my son becomes a man. And being a man means taking on responsibilities of your own. It was his place, and his alone, to face his grandmother. If he had to learn the bitter lesson that hiding from the things you dread does not make them easier, then there was nothing I could, nor should I have done, to prevent it."
"I..." Genma started, and stared down at his gloved hands. It hurt in his chest, all of a sudden, listening to Kentarou.
"Do you think I want to see my son in pain like that? Do you think I enjoy his grandmother's behavior? Or seeing how much she hurt him?" Kentarou stopped and sighed, and leaned forward to put a hand on Genma's hunched shoulder. "Genma, son, let me tell you this: the pain of losing my legs, of losing my wife, of all the losses I've ever faced, is nothing to the pain I would feel if I lost my son. And as his father, the only thing I can do is watch him walk into the minefield and learn to avoid the explosions for himself. I cannot learn his lessons for him, and neither can you, no matter how much you love him."
Genma swallowed dryly, as all the rage and fear and fury inside him knotted under his breastbone into something that threatened to choke him. He took a shaky breath and shrugged roughly at Kentarou's hand on his shoulder, bringing one black gloved hand up to hide his face from the other man. His other hand clenched into a fist again, and when Kentarou didn't back off, he pulled roughly upright, eyes blazing.
"You think that's good enough?" His anger rekindled in an instant, as images of names etched on the hero's stone, and Raidou's death-white face half-mummified in bandages flew through his mind's eye. "That's nice, Namiashi-san. And in a nice world where everyone gets the luxury to have their biggest challenges be harpies in their families who try to put them down, I'm sure that'd work just fine. But this is not that world. Maybe you're in some kind of happy fantasyland where all Raidou has to do is play the obedient grandson and everything's alright, and maybe if he'd been hurt in some kind of fucked up roofing accident it would be. But it was a fucking ANBU mission, and Shimino Takeshi died and Raidou nearly died, and you can't... You can't..." He choked off into helpless fury, glaring with tear-bright eyes at the older man.
Kentarou sighed and pushed a hand through his greying hair, then reached across the table to pull a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray closer to himself. He shook two slim white cylinders out and offered one to Genma, but the younger man bristled sharply, his whole body conveying his disgust. Kentarou ignored it, and calmly lit his, then puffed in silence for a moment as hazy blue smoke drifted up to the lamp over the table.
"Genma," Kentarou said after several long, tension-filled moments, "no-one, least of all me, takes what Raidou and you and your comrades have been through lightly."
The only sign Genma was listening was a slight twitch of his tightly held shoulders.
"Perhaps I should have done as you say," Kentarou continued, smoking his cigarette calmly. "Perhaps I should have intervened, and spoken to his grandmother. Warned her that Raidou had been disfigured on a mission. Buffered the blow, so to speak. But how would Raidou have taken that? You know my son better than anyone, so you know that Raidou's the kind of man who does things for himself. Think, Genma, how is he going to react when he finds out you came to me? How would he have felt if I had gone behind his back to his grandmother?"
Genma looked up at last, glaring at Kentarou, but the older man's words were having their effect. Raidou... Raidou would be furious with him for this. This was as much of a betrayal of his friend as he could possibly have committed, and yet...
Even though what Kentarou said was true, there was something still there, still eating at Genma. It wasn't just a matter of Raidou wanting or needing to do this for himself, on his own. He couldn't do it. Couldn't his father get that? And that was why Genma was here.
"You think... you think Raidou can deal with this on his own?" Genma asked, and his voice was cold with outraged incredulity. "You think he just needs to buck up and face his troubles like a man? Do you want to know how he deals with it? Do you?" He didn't wait for an answer from Kentarou, but leaned forward until he was inches from his friend's father.
"He can't look in mirrors. He avoids them like crazy, but every reflective surface we pass, he stares at himself and then he flinches like he's been hit. He used to go out with me. Used to pick up women, had no worries about it. Now he thinks he's deformed and hideous. And I was willing to let him work on that on his own. Figure out on his own that he was wrong and that was a bunch of crap. But three weeks ago I found him lying naked under an ice cold shower, with his face half clawed off by his own damn hands, raving about his mission, and do you know what set it off? Do you?"
Kentarou paled, looking back at the furious young man, waiting with evident dread for words he could already guess.
"His fucking grandmother and her fucking party, that's what?" Genma hissed. "He nearly had a break the night after you and she sprang that crap on him. Nearly. He was sick-puking up his dinner, staring at his face in the water. And the next fucking day..." Genma paused, panting as if he'd been running. "The next day, he had an interview with the bastards down in T&I about whether or not he was maybe trying to kill himself. About whether maybe his face was a sign he was unfit for duty. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is? Do you?"
The older man's cigarette burned quietly to ash between his fingers while he stared, transfixed, at his son's raging friend.
"So after that," Genma continued, "he still held it together. Cause Raidou is strong no matter what those bastards might say. He held it together long enough to get himself up to the fucking showers, and that's where I found him." His voice broke, a strangled sound halfway between a whisper and a cry. "I thought he was dead."
There was a deathly silence in the room when Genma finally finished speaking. The only sounds were his own ragged breathing, Kentarou's soft breaths, and the squeak of his wheelchair as he leaned forwards to reach out to his son's friend again.
"I didn't know, Genma," he said, and his voice held just the hint of a tremor. "I didn't know. You're probably right, I should have known, but I didn't. I didn't know until that night how hard Raidou was taking it. I didn't know any of what you say about his superior's suspicions, although, when I think about it, it is clearly something I should have seen." He paused and gripped Genma's shoulder hard, shaking him until the younger man looked up at him.
"He's not, right? I trust you on this. Tell me my son isn't trying to do what they say."
"Of course he's not!" Genma fumed, staring back at warm brown eyes so much like his best friend's it hurt to look at them. "Raidou's not... he's not like that! He wouldn't do that!" The maelstrom finally burst in Genma's chest, and he crumbled, tears finally spilling from angry, frightened eyes.
"He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't," he insisted, as if repetition could convince him of what logic couldn't. "If one of us was gonna do something stupid like that, it'd be me, not him."
"Genma," Kentarou said, and moved closer, pulling the slender, shaking, hunched up boy in front of him against his chest. A boy who had had to be a man long before he was ready, just like his son. "Genma, don't you ever do that either. Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to my son."
Genma took a shaky, sniffling breath and shrugged his shoulders, trying to get some semblance of control of himself back. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean... I sat with Raidou when you boys came back from your last mission. Raidou might never say it, but to me he doesn't have to. He needs you as much as you need him."
"I..." Genma started, but couldn't find the words to fit his thoughts.
"That's why you're here, isn't it?" Kentarou asked gently. "Because you need him. Because you want to protect him."
"I... I..." Genma stuttered again, but Kentarou shushed him.
"You keep protecting each other. You boys... you'll make it. I trust you. Both of you. You'll keep each other from breaking."
Breaking. What did it mean to be broken, really? Genma wondered. Was he broken, crying here in his friend's father's arms? Was Raidou broken, with his scarred face and ravaged confidence? Was Kentarou, legless and retired, broken?
"You keep each other strong," Kentarou continued. "You're strong, Genma. It took strength for you to come here today." He sat back and let Genma sit up, offering the cigarette again. This time Genma took it, with a slightly shaky hand, and lit it with a match from the book sitting next to the ashtray.
There was another long, quiet moment, while both men smoked their cigarettes and drank their tea. Then Genma wiped one gloved hand across his eyes, brushing his hair back, and raised his face to Kentarou. "Sorry," he started, but Kentarou waved him off.
"You got nothing to be sorry about, son," the older man said, and refilled Genma's tea.