Morning had come far too quickly and the bliss of slumber was stripped from him by a piercing beep. From his prone position, an arm reluctantly pulled from beneath his pillow and fell palm-down, turning it off. The celestial bodies of a force far more divine than he could imagine aligned in such magnificent perfection to thread a beam of light through the hair's breadth of distance separating his curtains, and land directly on his eyes.

With a groan and a great deal of perseverance, he managed to lift himself from the bed. His gaze trailed to his left and he stared at the empty spot beside him. A slow exhale left his lips and scarred digits ran down his face and dug into the corners of his eyes, rubbing out the sleep from within.

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge, bare feet hitting the rug. He stood and sleepily trudged to the vanity mirror. Lifeless black eyes stared at the bags that had grown prominent beneath them, painting his sagged freckled countenance with the indication of sleepless nights. His gaze trailed down his bare torso and stared at the jagged scars that marred his skin. They were ugly reminders of mistakes, failures, and memories that he'd rather forget, but fate was not so kind, and he was forced to wear A long breath escaped through clenched teeth as he grabbed a pair of black slacks, a black three-quarter sleeved undershirt to match, and the embroidered Jōnin vest that denoted his numerical position in the village leadership's hierarchy, lucky thirteen.

Takao didn't bother with breakfast, lately he'd lost all semblance of an appetite in the morning and skipped the meal. Instead, he dressed himself in his bathroom after a lengthy, scalding hot shower, fed his household pets, and locked the front door of his house on the way out. The trip to the administration building was as bland as it always was, sans the few pleasantries he paid to familiar faces along the way. A brief stop at his favourite along-the-way coffee shop left him with a piping hot mug of his liquid energy to get him through the morning.

Likewise, when he entered the administration building, his journey toward his office was largely uneventful as well, sans a brief meeting with his assistant who said that a dark-haired teenager had come looking for him. With only a vague idea of who it was, Takao sucked in a breath and took a long drink from his mug. He hadn't expected his day to start so soon but such was his luck. As he trudged closer to his office, he had arrived just in time to hear Kisei knock and request entry.

"I can if you move aside." Takao said, voice deep from onset grogginess, from behind a mug of boiling hot coffee held at his lips, and only tilted once he was through speaking.

He took a slow sip while bottomless pools of dull obsidian glanced over Kisei. Taking a slow step to the side, he reached for the door around Kisei if he didn't move, and if he did, then he merely approached the door and opened it. Regardless, he would gesture inside, allowing Kisei to enter first before he followed.

The room was clean, devoid of the usual clutter of paperwork that plagued the penthouse office. He had begun to use clones to tackle the insurmountable task of keeping up with the administration of the village, but the rings under his eyes showed that the sleepless nights that the clones endured had just as much an effect on him as if he'd done it all himself.

He set the mug down on the desk mat and lowered himself to sit in his chair. He propped his back up against it, using it as a bastion of proper posture amidst his overwhelming desire to return to sleep, and leveled his gaze with Kisei.

"What can I do for you?" He said, a professional cadence forced despite his natural monotone. Scarred digits lightly danced across the handle of his mug, teasing himself with the thought of another drink.

Kisei presented a broad spectrum of options for him to choose to be helped in, however, most things had been done the night prior. There was sure to be a new swathe of busy work to preoccupy him to the brink of insanity, but this early in the morning, most people hadn't bothered with their problems just yet.

"My assistant." Takao repeated groggily, gingerly sipping from his drink as tired eyes blinked without a semblance of urgency. He reclined once more against the back of his chair and cast his gaze down into the dark liquid contents of his drink, staring at his distorted reflection amidst the ripples. Dark pools caught sight of the bags beneath his eyes and the especially tired expression that he wore, though it was hardly anything new to him. He sighed.

"Do I really look that helpless?.." It was a rhetorical question meant more for his own inward consideration but spoken aloud for Kisei to hear. A few individuals had approached to express their desire for the position and he'd never thought it to be an especially sought after seat. The only reasonable explanation was that he looked so helpless that they couldn't stand to see him bumble his way through the facets of administration he was utterly clueless about. Perhaps Kisei saw him in the same light, incapable of maintaining the upkeep required for the village to operate. Maybe he wasn't wrong to think so either, Takao himself hardly thought that his current momentum had any semblance of longevity.

Sucking in a breath, Takao's gaze shifted from his drink to the desk. A few papers remained, some scrolls sat untouched in their stand, but nothing had arisen yet that required his attention. He exhaled, sipped at scalding coffee then set his drink down, and finally clicked his tongue.

"I appreciate the offer, but I'm caught up today, for the most part." For now, anyway, but he left that much out. There was always more work to be had.

"Sorry to waste your time. Was there anything else you needed?"

Takao's gaze leveled with Kisei as he spoke and his expression remained wholly unchanged, unreadable and unresponsive to what he heard. He sat perfectly still, eyebrows tilted downward as pools of lifeless obsidian bore habitual daggers into Kisei's countenance.

At first, he tested a silence between them, staring Kisei down with a growing, glowering intensity. Then, his breath escaped through his nostrils and he released the tension held in his body. Takao sank into the back of the chair before he spoke again.

"I thought I'd escaped the Academy when I took up the mantle again, but it seems like no matter what I do, I always end up back there." He spoke with even cadence in his monotone what was an attempt at humour, but he was not so transparent in his attempt.

"As for a monster in the lake..." He repeated in perfect monotone.

"I was a member of the interrogations division of the ANBU for nearly ten years while I taught in the academy." Takao said, seemingly unrelated to the conversation at hand, but quickly brought back to relevancy when he continued. His eyebrows furrowed just slightly, his done dug into a deeper bass, and his head tilted.

"That means I'm good at seeing through lies." His right hand shifted on the arm of his chair and he leaned his head onto his hand, his unwavering gaze not once faltering from Kisei for even a second. He knew that he wasn't easily approachable or easily spoken to, despite his best efforts, so perhaps that was the reason. Or perhaps there was something else, but assumptions were meaningless in the pursuit of the truth.

"I would have hoped that our stations demanded enough respect that we might have a mutual honesty between us. Is there a particular reason that this might not be the case?"

Making others uncomfortable in his presence wasn't something he particularly took joy in, but he did find it entertaining, at least to a certain degree. He understood that there was an air to him that intimidated others, at least to some degree on occassion, be it his name or his title or his face. He held an even expression that didn't change as Kisei spoke, even as praises he disagreed with were sang.

"The responsibility of being the Hokage isn't a rank or a job I get a break from," Takao said as he slowly rose from the desk. "It's not a mask or a uniform I take off when I go home." There was more meaning to that than what was immediately apparent on the surface, but he didn't linger.

"Everybody's safety is my responsibility. My place in the village is to defend it, day and night, until I'm dead. I've made enemies that threaten that safety, so being a little tired is a small price to pay as penance." Takao spoke with conviction, a tone in his voice that spoke words with such concrete certainty that it might seem nothing would change his mind. He was stubborn, for better or for worse.

Heavy boots thudded against the office floorboards, carrying his six-foot-three frame in Kisei's direction. Just as he was about to pass him, he stopped, and lifted his hand, lightly tapping Kisei on the shoulder with the back of his fist.

"No need to apologize," Although Takao's tone lingered in its bland monotone, his words were spoken a bit softer. "Dinner sounds nice. I know a place, my treat." His hand dropped, found a comfortable place within the pockets of his trousers, and he continued on toward the door. He turned, looked to Kisei again, and made a subtle gesture with his head.

"Coming?"