their mission, by all rights, should be simple. they were traveling together with the intent of taking out a bandit camp suspected of harboring one of konoha's missing nin. kakashi had idly mused what it might look like when they get there, how many men would certainly have to die. surely he had all of the answers, he definitely acted like he did.
it had been a... difficult adjustment for kakashi. missions in the anbu had always been different. violence & death, eliminating threats before they could be known, inherently dirtier than the tasks he had been assigned in his new position. truthfully, he hadn't yet removed himself from those habits of brutality. as a jonin, they were seen. their faces were known to one another, no code names & only the masks they chose. there was a person attached to the acts of violence expected of them in this world.
he thinks that genma doesn't like him, though kakashi assumes this about most people. ( he knows genma's position is special, different than his. he wonders what sort of woman she was, what she had done to survive thus far? they had fought the same war, come out on the other side. how did she get here? he would never have the courage to ask. ) they had crossed paths a handful of times in the past, it was hard not to with gai in the middle of them. but kakashi could hardly muster pleasantries for gai, let alone his teammates. so kakashi had treated her with the cold edge he'd offered too many in the village. the very same cold edge he was struggling to shake now.
“ believe it or not, i do, ”kakashi muses casually, though there is a firm challenge lyingunder his words. a raised brow, a cool gaze. a part of him wishes that things were different & the other part of him knows they aren't. they howl in the back of his head, asking why he was so quick to taste death, " alright, then. what do you suggest we do when we get there? "
Genma's gaze is shrewd-- some might read judgmental. She eyes first Kakashi, and then the little hastily drawn map of the camp in the dirt at their feet, apparently unbothered by the challenge in his gaze. Her senbon clacks against her teeth when she crouches, tracing her finger along a square on the south side of the camp.
He outranks her, and he's no fool, but he's also much more powerful than her, and perhaps used to making a statement with the violence he enacts. She has no doubt his plan would work, but she isn't certain they would escape unscathed, and--
"Did you count how many civilians are staying in this camp?" She asks, absently. In any war, and in any crew of bandits, they had the whores and the washer women and the children that eked out existence on the edges of humanity's violence, washing clothes and cooking and satisfying man's other base urges. "I counted seven women, two kids, an infant," her voice remains flat, as if she were observing the color of the sky, or counting those already dead. She tells him, because she isn't sure if he'd counted them. "I doubt they would fight at all, but they will likely not survive a frontal assault," she pauses, and then tacks on a polite: "Sir."
Genma was no stranger to violence, aggressor or victim, and had been often and loudly accused of a lack of honor. She doesn't think Kakashi is really the type to care about that, but she tries not to judge too much based on reputation, and so she hesitates just a moment before she proposes: "We should poison their alcohol." Her finger taps the map. "Add sedatives to it, rather. They drink every night. We could take out the guards at a distance and just kill them all in their sleep-- anyone that doesn't drink enough of it will be easier to eliminate without a numbers advantage."
She considers herself one of the squishy ones, as far as shinobi go. Pitched battle isn't her strong suit, the way it is with Gai or even Copy-nin Kakashi, and she'd rather avoid a huge, messy ninjutsu battle when a simpler option is available. That is how she survived the Great War, and how she's managed to survive since.
"There's a ton of valerian growing around here," she flicks her index finger to the side of the clearing, where its pretty pink-white flowers are glowing happily in the morning sun. "I can make a pretty powerful sedative if you give me a day, mix it with some of the stock I have on me," she keeps her tone light-- not every leader appreciates any amount of correction, and she's still taking his measure too. "If we aren't in a rush, what's an extra day?"
