Yuugao: B Side
She doesn't need to say anything to him, because she gets the feeling that he knows anyways. Maybe not the specifics, it would be remarkable if he knew the specifics, but she's got that air despite better efforts. The involuntary tensing of her shoulders when he entered the room, the way her hand drifted to the handle of her katana. How her masked face never left his partially covered one. He knows. There is leaf blood on his hands and eventually there is a price to pay.
"And Squad A will accompany Baki's team in securing the west border of Suna," comes the clear voice of an ANBU strategist, but she can't hear him over the blood rushing through her ears. This is supposed to be a meeting to protect both villages from the beginning onslaughts of the next shinobi war, but there are different agendas that she knows she will have to meet and the anticipation is killing her slowly.
He knows, and she doesn't need to whisper the name because it probably wouldn't make a difference to him. He is a shinobi, and shinobi learn in the beginning not to remember every name. And she doesn't need to draw her blade, because he somehow knows that the message is there, even if she is currently bound by duty not to act on it. She is loyal to her Hokage and her village, and now her village is allied with him and she cannot move on her better intentions because of honor and the love of a memory.
But she is sure that he also knows the moment Suna breaks the treaty, or the second he renders himself useless to either village, there will be an unfortunate accident. And he will not fault her for it, just like when it's over with she will not fault him for that death and that name on the memorial. Yet she will not allow herself to forget, and will not let him hide behind red tape forever.
Some things cannot be tolerated.