Published: 4/13/2015
Akihiko: Reticence
"Taicho! Taicho!"
Akihiko blinks blearily and looks up from his spot on the couch, sitting up and wrestling his blanket aside. As the door-banging continues, Kamoku stomps past irately, looking supremely pissed in his sleep-crumpled t-shirt-and-boxer-shorts ensemble.
"What the fuck do you want, asshat?" the brown-haired man spits as he yanks open the door, leaking killing intent like an open faucet. Akihiko has the vague thought that if he ever believed seeing an ANBU captain in his underwear would make him any less scary, he believes no more.
"Taicho—" Akito's face is grim as he braces himself against his unit captain's rage.
"I have to leave on a mission with the brat in three hours," Kamoku informs icily. "You're wasting the only sleep we're going to get for the next two days. Make it good or I'll make you regret it."
At this point, Akito would usually begin stuttering and waving his hands, but his steely gaze does not waver. Akihiko finds himself jumping off of the couch and scurrying to Kamoku's side.
"It's Kagerou," Akito says. Akihiko waits for the rest of the news, but nothing is forthcoming; apparently, this is all Kamoku needs, because he's off and down the hallway in a heartbeat, overflowing purpose in his every stride. Neither man protests when Akihiko darts after them.
They cross half of ANBU Base 1 before Kamoku finally stops and opens a door, bothering neither to knock or announce himself. Akihiko feels a small swelling of admiration at the man's unflinching boldness and finds himself grinning ever so slightly.
Once he sees what's going on inside, though, the faint smile immediately wipes itself off his face. Kamoku comes to stop in the center of the room, where a black-haired man is sitting in seiza with a tanto pointed at his belly.
"What are you doing, Keisuke?" Kamoku asks calmly, bending his knees and settling into seiza as well, situating himself across from the man. Akihiko fights to keep the shock from his face; Kamoku always uses codenames on base, off-duty or not.
Akito puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a warning squeeze, saying in his iron grip what he would not speak aloud: do not interrupt them.
"What does it look like?" Kagerou asks darkly, looking up and fixing Kamoku with a glare that burns like a black sun. "You're not an idiot. Use your eyes."
"It looks to me like you're about to do something ridiculous," Kamoku snorts, lifting a hand off his knee and pointing to the dagger. "How stupid are you? You should know by now that the sharp end points out, not in."
Kagerou exhales sharply. "I'm not in the mood for your smartass comments, Yuuta."
"I'm not in the mood for your dumbass excuses," Kamoku retorts. "Be straight with me this time. What are you doing?"
"You don't need me to explain what seppuku is." Kagerou scowls venomously.
"No, by all means, please." His reply is a blithe wave of the hand. "Come, tell me all about it."
"Will you shut up? I'm trying to get something done here," Kagerou snarls, looking like he would dearly love to take the tanto he was about to disembowel himself with and shove it down Kamoku's throat instead. Kamoku cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms.
"I'm not stopping you," he says. He adopts an expectant look, prompting Kagerou glower. "...Well? I'm waiting. Go on, if you want to die so badly, go and cut your stomach open. We don't need your sorry ass around here if you're going to take the coward's way out."
"Do you even know what seppuku is?" Kagerou almost throws his knife down. "I'm not doing this because I want to. I have to."
Kamoku looks unimpressed. "I don't see anyone pointing a sword at your throat," he observes, making a show of inspecting the air around Kagerou's head. "Doesn't look like you're about to face capture, either. Not dying to keep information or anything."
"Shut up, Yuuta!" Kagerou does throw his tanto then, though it's at Kamoku's face rather than the floor. "Don't you understand?" he demands, standing even as Kamoku avoids it easily, lazily tilting his head to the left. "I've failed. They're dead. The mission failed and my squad is dead. I don't have a choice! If I don't do this and go on living like nothing happened, how can I ever lift my head again? The only honorable choice left is death!"
As Kagerou hovers over him, chest heaving, Kamoku calmly rises. After getting to his feet, he strolls across the room and goes to the wall where the dagger is wedged. Easily, he pries it out and returns it to Kagerou's hand.
"I never knew you liked playing samurai make-believe," he says lightly, brushing the front of his shirt off nonchalantly. "Well, I'll leave you to it. Rengoku," he suddenly addresses Akihiko, who jumps. "We've got work tomorrow. Let's go back to bed while we still can; real ninja don't have time to play around."
"Um, yes sir." Akihiko quickly inclines his head.
"Are you saying," Kagerou asks lowly as Kamoku makes to walk away, ignoring Akihiko rather completely, "that I am not a ninja? That I am not a shinobi of Konoha?"
"Ninjas don't entertain delusions of things like honor," Kamoku throws over his shoulder. He takes his tagalongs and turns them by the shoulders before shoving them out into the hallway. "They do their jobs. Whoever heard of something as stupid as a hoe breaking off its handle because it wants to make up for not ploughing the dirt?"
He shuts the door before Akihiko can catch Kagerou's answer.
As they depart a few hours later, they come across Akito sitting in the mess hall with a cold cup of tea, still in his nightclothes. He looks up when he sees the pattern on Kamoku's mask.
"You should get to bed," the ANBU captain tells his subordinate, who shrugs and swishes the liquid in his cup.
"We looked in on Kagerou a little after you left," Akito says in reply, ignoring his suggestion. "We brought him to the MedCenter… but it took a while before they decided to call it. I got out about an hour ago."
Kamoku goes silent, and after the moment of realization passes, Akihiko finds himself suddenly feeling agitated. He turns to his mentor and anxiously waits for his response. Somehow, he knows he will learn a valuable lesson about ANBU life in his reaction.
"...Let's go, Rengoku," Kamoku says, turning away.
A/N: I'd say Akihiko's still eleven when this happens. Much before we see him in the Kyuubi attack, for sure.
Sorry to those of you who were looking forward to seeing more of Akihiko after his cameo in the hospital. It's gonna be a while before we really interact with him again. I've a lot of sidestories like these saved up to tide you over until we do, though.