"We were lucky."

"Heh?"

Near the door, the woman looked up in surprise as the uncomfortable silence that had been stretching out between them was finally broken. She had been wanting to say something to break it for some time now, but had suddenly found herself unwilling to.

Strange, that.

She couldn't recall ever having felt uneasy about their silences. Asuma was a contemplative man by nature, which was why he had taken such a strong liking to Shikamaru after receiving him with his assigned students. It was probably also why the third had assigned Shikamaru to him as well.

"This morning."

"Oh."

/Lucky, huh?/

"I suppose you're right. Ever since then... They no longer place any emphasis on combative tactics against the Sharingan in the Academy. And since the jounin and chuunin never encounter any... We've all forgotten the rules. For once Gai's ridiculous obsessions turned out to be an invaluable asset."

"Heh. Don't tell him that. He'll be insufferable."

"I suppose he will..."

The silence trailed on after that, and she sighed mentally. Asuma's gaze was constantly going between the photo on Kakashi's night stand and the man lying prone in the bed as though he couldn't make sense between the two.

The third child was Kakashi, and the first child she recognized... but the one in the middle... Was this the Obito they had mentioned before?

Kakashi had said he was buying an offering, which meant whoever he was, Obito was dead. And Asuma either was close enough to Kakashi to know about this, or had known Obito as well and so understood the loss even more.

It was always discouraging to be on the outside. But that was the perpetual life of a female ninja. No matter how a woman trained, her body would always be weaker than a man's, which meant she had to specialize in genjutsu really in order to make it. And it was the fate of a genjutsu specialist to always be struggling to master newer, more complex techniques because once you hit an opponent who could counter the ones you had, you lost.

It was the way of the female ninja: always fighting and striving to keep your footing inside a very elite men's club that regarded strength as the greatest asset of a ninja.

She'd certainly lost hold of that footing today, using the technique that she had on a Sharingan user. And worse still: letting him watch her use that technique so that he could copy it. She should have used a better cloak technique first to hide herself and then perform the seals for the capture technique.

But...

"No offense, Kurenai..."

Startled, her crimson eyes darted over to the desk where Asuma had been sitting, as he rose and stretched his arms out, popping each of his shoulders before he continued.

"But now that Gai's left as well and the Anbu are making certain Itachi doesn't make it back into Konoha, I really need to get Kakashi out of the rest of those wet clothes before he ends up with a case of pneumonia."

"Of course."

She didn't comment on how strange it was that neither Gai nor Asuma had considered taking Kakashi to the medical facilities instead of back to his room, or that neither of them had made a move to remove his shozoko after they arrived here... It was just another one of those men's club things which she wasn't supposed to know about, and which asking about would only keep her further away from.

She just stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

Asuma watched the closed door for several moments longer, before crushing his cigarette against the windowsill and walking over to the bed where his comrade lay motionless.

"You almost had it there, didn't you..."

Kakashi didn't answer, which was answer enough.

It was painful, to stand here and look down at his friend whom he'd always admired and aspired to, and see something completely foreign to him. He couldn't recall ever having actually seen Kakashi lose, and he - along with everyone else - had certainly heard the stories circulated by his former Anbu comrades about Kakashi's genius.

A genius who hadn't had a finger laid on him, and yet was neither well, nor suffering: just lying here in a slumber that did not seem all that restful.

So this was the aftereffect of the psychological attacks of a Sharingan user.

It made him almost afraid of what Sasuke might become.

"I know you hate this, which was why I waited until we were alone. But now you'll just have to deal with it." He murmured softly as he pulled the blankets back and sat down on the side of the bed, revealing the lean, black-clad body that lay beneath them.