Early Is On Time

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. ― Mother Teresa

Yamanaka Inoichi is, technically speaking, not supposed to still be sticking his nose in anything important, which information about anything happening to Nara Shikako certainly would be, so he'll show up eventually... but it would be a waste of resources to jump immediately to pulling in a Yamanaka before trying to confirm Aoba's claims by more mundane means first.

So for now: Morino Ibiki, who generally prefers to do his interrogations without any mind arts.

"Have you considered that you're just crazy?" Ibiki asks.

They're in the depths of T&I, now, in a windowless room that could double for any break room in Konoha. It's to set Aoba at ease, which is unnecessary because Aoba is plenty comfortable with Ibiki, at least in this context: he hasn't done anything wrong, Ibiki is trustworthy, and Aoba has valuable information. Tsunade-sama is probably watching from the next room over... or maybe not. She might be too busy for that — it depends on what's going on at the hospital — but it doesn't really matter.

"The thought occurred to me, but there are too many details. And I was right about where Shikako is and what she's doing."

Ibiki leans forward a little. "You speak of her with a very familiar tone."

"She's — she was — will be? — my kohai. In Intel."

Aoba watches the tell-tale pull of skin that signify Ibiki's eyebrows climb his forehead a little, disappearing even further under his bandana. Almost surely a manufactured expression.

"You don't do that," Ibiki points out. "You're busy. Everyone knows you're busy."

That's true, of course. Aoba prefers to leave mentoring to people with more time on their hands; Shiho would have been a fine senpai for Shikako and it would have saved Aoba a lot of time and stress.

"Tsunade-sama wanted to be very sure she learned all aspects of the department during her three month rotation," Aoba explains.

Ibiki's expression does not get more credulous, which is basically a frank demand for Aoba to actually answer his question.

"Also..." Aoba sighs. "Also, look, you owe at least one favor to Hatake Kakashi, right?"

That gets a real emotional response; an annoyed scowl. "No," Ibiki says, in exactly the tone of voice someone who owes Kakashi more than one favor would use.

"Okay, sure," Aoba says, because he's not going to annoy Ibiki when this is technically an interrogation. Maybe later, though. "The point is, Kakashi started calling those favors in. He asked me to mentor her personally and not just give her the tour and shove her off on someone else."

Ibiki is silent for a moment. Kakashi calling favors in instead of just bullying people into doing what he wants is, much like Aoba not stopping to ask for gossip, a very bad sign. It's on the tip of his tongue to add that Kakashi was village bound, that he spent a lot of time in the hospital, that people were sure for awhile that he was dying of something... but that's not really an urgent problem. Shikako and a few of her other friends did something that involved a lot of medical textbooks on their end and a lot of yelling from Tsunade and then Kakashi was back to his usual annoying habits.

And it's better to let Ibiki lead the conversation, anyway, and he's clearly ready to switch tracks.

"If the mission Shikako is on right now was so classified, how do you know so much about it?"

Aoba explains about doing his research on her: her academy scores, her scores from the first chūnin Exam, seeing footage from her second, and looking into her mission history. He tells Ibiki about seeing the scar on her back and looking into her medical records and then... then he pauses.

"There's something else. Tell me, Aoba."

Aoba's hands clench and unclench. "I think she died," he says, softer than he meant to. It's just that he can't talk about his kohai's death with no emotion. "There weren't enough details, there basically weren't any details... but she was dying before I came back. The mission went really bad." Without him realizing it, his hand has strayed up to his neck. He adds, "I was dying, too," and then realizes his hand is on his throat and he can feel his pulse fluttering with suppressed panic and lets his hand drop.

Ibiki's gaze lingers on Aoba's throat, but he doesn't ask. Not yet.

Instead they go over things Aoba knows will happen in the next few days, everything he's already told Tsunade. Ibiki takes idle notes that Aoba knows he doesn't really need; not only is there surely someone in the next room over taking detailed notes for him, but Ibiki has probably never forgotten anything in his entire life.

Like with Tsunade, he starts with the things that are easy to check: the contents of two coded messages he knows will come in that day; the results of a mission that will be successful except for the sprained ankle, and how the team will come home with one member in piggy back around five; that Shiho will find someone has eaten her lunch from the breakroom; that Ichiraku will discover its usual Tuesday shipment is short on pickled ginger.

Then: Namiashi Raidō and his girlfriend will have a public break up tonight, but they'll get back together by Saturday, the 21st. Gekkō Hayate is having a bad week for his cough, but if Tsunade-sama doesn't miss her appointment with him in the next few days, she'll change his treatment somehow and things will actually get better.

He tells Ibiki about the trapmaster, too. The bombs, eating his lunch at Ichiraku, the forged letter he gave the foreman — Aoba got Shikako to tell him all about their investigation, after it was over, and he knows a fair amount about the investigation from other sources as well.

Aoba has a very, very good memory for information, details, and gossip; it's the reason he went into Intel. Needing to contain it to a three day period that happened almost a year ago to him is a little bit of a strain... but not impossible.

Eventually it slips into about the time for dinner. Aoba last remembers eating with Shikako in Hot Springs, talking about fake plans for a book about local ghost stories. This body probably last ate sometime around mid-morning. But when Ibiki offers to bring dinner back for him, he says, "No, thanks."

He's not hungry — and Holding-Door Mind Transmission is hell on the stomach in the best circumstances, which this situation definitely is not. He'd rather sit alone for awhile and try not to think about anything.

"Sore throat?" Inoichi asks when he comes in, eyes on Aoba's hand.

Aoba's lips twitch down a little and he pulls his hand away from his throat like he didn't realize they were there. "Sure," he says, in a way that means no.

"We're going to use the MRA," Inoichi says, brushing this curiosity aside. Ibiki had mentioned Aoba touching his throat, too, but it's not relevant at the moment; nothing is relevant except making sure that Shikaku's children are safe and that Yamashiro Aoba hasn't lost his mind.

(They've checked several of his predictions and all of them have been true — but you can never be too sure.)

Aoba nods, stands, and follows Inoichi even deeper into the building, to the large room that holds the Mind Reading Amplification machine, a contraption of metal and sealwork shaped like a half-circle that the Nidime created in conjunction with Inoichi's grandfather. Tsunade is leaning against the back wall, talking to Shizune. Ibiki is standing at his place by the MRA already, at the right assistance node. At the left assistance node is one of Inoichi's third cousins, Santa, a jōnin just recently back from the front.

They'd wanted Namiashi Raidō for this, but Aoba's prediction that he and his girlfriend would break up tonight had been unfortunately accurate. Even if they used Tsunade-sama's sobering jutsu to fix his intoxication, he'd be in no state for any of the mind arts.

Santa is no less skilled — he's a Yamanaka; he's better at the technique they're about to do — but Namiashi's clearance is higher. Inoichi is sure of Santa's loyalty and discretion, of course, but Tsunade was less than pleased because she had been planning on having Santa be their third. Instead, Shizune will have to take the third node, despite neither Inoichi or Tsunade being entirely comfortable with her inclusion.

"We can't wait," Tsunade is saying to Shizune while Inoichi settles Aoba into the MRA. "And there's no one else with the clearance. With the device..."

"It's only a supporting role," Shizune agrees. "I'll be fine." Inoichi can hear, in her firm, decisive tone, that she probably has just as many regrets about this being necessary as Tsunade has.

It's not that Katō Shizune can't use Holding-Door Mind Transmission or that she's untrustworthy. She's incredibly skilled at mental and spiritual manipulations of all kinds, like all the Katō were, but she didn't have the chance to learn her clan's bloodline limit techniques before Katō Dan's death. Predisposed already to out-of-body experiences, Shizune's first attempt to learn Holding-Door Mind Transmission threw her first through all of the memories she was trying to access and then out of her body completely. It took two Yamanaka elders and two Nara elders a week to drag her back into her own body.

This could put Shizune out of commission for days. But the seal needs someone at all three nodes and they need to do it now.

Shizune takes her place at the center node. Inoichi snaps the restraints closed around Aoba and politely ignores his uncomfortable shiver at the press of cold metal against him; no ninja worth their salt would be happy with the way the MRA practically engulfs the subject of the mindscan, although having every part of the subject but the head restrained is as much a safety precaution for the subject as it is a security feature; some people thrash or shake under the Holding-Door Mind Transmission and they don't want Aoba to hurt himself.

Otherwise they'd leave the restraints off. They all trust Aoba.

Inoichi faces Aoba and, behind Aoba, standing at the three nodes, Ibiki, Shizune, and Santa. Tsunade-sama is behind Inoichi, watching. Inoichi performs the hand seals at the same time as his assistants and and lays a hand on Aoba's forehead as they each touch their node.

Aoba's mind is dense and tightly knit. Establishing a baseline is important. Inoichi looks at his most recent memory, of entering the room and being restrained.

Aoba was thinking of Inoichi, looking at the Mind Reading Amplification machine, thinking about his first time seeing it, standing at the center node and the feeling of Inoichi's mind and chakra brushing up against his in the technique. He was wondering how this would compare to that, and how it would feel different from the usual Holding-Door Mind Transmission. Aoba was noting that he'd never spoken to Yamanaka Santa before. Aoba was worrying about Shizune.

Inoichi's hand had been coming at him and he had been thinking how grateful he was that Tsunade-sama and Inoichi and Ibiki would all be working together to keep Shikako safe.

There's no time for analysis in the middle of the technique, just the rush of memory and thought. For Inoichi, memories are like sequential animation painted on glass, translucent, one on top of the other and all of them interlinked by emotion and association. Only clear focus and tight control keeps them flickering quickly from one to the next without blurring them all into a kind of unrecognizable mud.

The interview gave them a good place to start, but it will be no use going backwards from the present. Scenes flick by and Inoichi catalogues them: Aoba waiting in the Hokage's outer office to see her; Aoba, earlier that afternoon, in his apartment, looking at a kitchen table full of Shiranui Genma's houseplants; immediately before that, upside down, hot liquid cooling on his neck, dripping off his chin; and before that traveling with Shikako, being assigned a mission — Inoichi goes back and back and back.

Some things stand out to Inoichi, although he isn't looking through the memories so much as registering them as they fly by: The Nara twins release a storage seal that turns every department into a panicked mess while they reorganized — Inoichi catches a flash of Aoba asking why and Shikako leans over a little and explains, "He called Shika stupid." Ino, her eyes still tainted from her tangle with Orochimaru, comes back a chūnin from the Grass exams and so do the rest of her agemates. A scene with Tsunade, eyes serious, asking Aoba to look into a chūnin named Sai. Aoba exiting a file room in the tower and two chūnin are gossiping: "She dropped dead right there, the Nara princess, on the floor of Tsunade-sama's office!"

There's no doubt about the way time has passed for Aoba. Eleven subjective months in Aoba's past, he's in his apartment. Genma's houseplants are on the table again/still. On his plate for that day, besides his regular duties, were plans to solidify the explanation about the illusionary lightning strike on the administrative tower being a drill for an attack by Cloud.

Inoichi begins crawling forward through Aoba's memories carefully, looking at most of them only long enough to get an idea of what the content is before sliding it off to one of his three assistants to view. By necessity, Shizune gets the least-relevant seeming memories: Aoba at the market making small talk, Aoba in the break room listening to Shiho have a miniature and non-threatening emotional breakdown about someone eating her lunch. Likely she'll pick up a good deal of information from them — Aoba is very observant and very well connected — but it's less likely that any of it will be relevant in the next 72 hours.

The first memory Inoichi looks at in full is the memory of Aoba overhearing the chūnin gossiping about Shikako's apparent death.

Ebisawa Michio and Nobira Ennosuke lean against a wall outside the record room Aoba has been buried in for hours. Ebisawa is assigned to front end of the mission desk, handing out information and making payments. Nobira works in client finances and negotiation. They're both about a decade younger than Aoba, and received their promotions through mostly administrative work in the genin corps. Likely neither of them will ever stop riding a desk, but administrative ninja are important and always have the best gossip.

"She dropped dead right there, the Nara princess, on the floor of Tsunade-sama's office!" Ebisawa is saying, punctuating this statement by slapping the back of one hand against the palm of the other, as if to illustrate exactly how dead 'she' had dropped.

Aoba considers this gesture to be kind of gross, but opens with a friendly-but-concerned, "Who?" rather than try and correct Ebisawa. Information is more important.

Nobira and Ebisawa straighten up a little, although neither they nor Aoba seem to note it — people tend to respect Aoba somewhat unconsciously, which is one of the reasons he's so good at gathering and disseminating gossip.

"Nara Shikaku's daughter. Heart stopped and everything," Nobira says. "She and her team came here instead of the hospital and Tsunade-sama — I hear she had to perform surgery right there in her office, on her desk, to bring her back."

Aoba... doubts this. At the very least, surely Tsunade-sama wouldn't bother moving from the floor to the desk if it was that urgent. But the image of the Godaime sweeping her papers and sake off her desk and saving the life of their Jōnin Commander's daughter is a good one, and he won't be looking that gift horse in the mouth. Tsunade-sama has been gone from the village for a long time and needs all the good PR she can get.

"Why didn't they go to the hospital?" Aoba asks. "Isn't Nara Shikako a genin? She can't have had information so important she couldn't give her report in the hospital."

Nobira shrugs. Ebisawa says, "Well, they weren't here looking for Tsunade-sama, she came in after the genin. They were meeting with Councilman Shimura."

Aoba's eyebrows climb, purposefully but not entirely disingenuous. "Councilman Shimura was in Hokage-sama's office without her? That's... irregular."

They both nod. Ebisawa offers what Aoba believes to be the understatement of the century: "Tsunade-sama wasn't happy."

Aoba gathers a little more information from them, like when this happened and who they heard about it from. Then he passes the information he's collected from the record room off to Shiho — he spent the morning up to his elbows in card catalogues for a reason, after all, and all of the mortal danger is either over or being treated by Tsunade-sama in the hospital already. After that... Aoba waves off Shiho's continued complaints about her stolen lunch from several days ago and moves on to investigate more, which mostly looks like slacking off to gossip.

The folks in the Hokage's outer office give him a better idea of when and how things occurred. Tsunade-sama broke two doors on her way through the building to find Shikako, trailed by a young pink-haired genin — Haruno Sakura, Aoba's memory supplies, although Inoichi would have known anyway.

Shikako's sudden medical emergency kept Tsunade-sama from asking Shimura Danzō or the other elders any questions about what, exactly, they had been doing. Aoba raises his eyebrows incredulously a lot, and most of it isn't even feigned. Everyone knows that Councilman Danzō sticks his nose in... well, everything. But this is far beyond his usual old warhawk games. To Aoba... this feels like some kind of powerplay.

He drifts through the market. One woman, buying oranges, tells another about Nara Shikako dying in the Hokage's office. Aoba goes over and inserts himself into the conversation — "Don't worry, it seems like Tsunade-sama got there in time," Aoba says to the shopkeeper and her customer. "She wouldn't rush a corpse to the hospital."

"I can't believe that they didn't go straight to the hospital!" the shopkeeper gripes. "Her brother wanted to, you know, he complained and complained at the gates, that news is all up and down the market."

"Well if she was hurt they should have been allowed to just go to the hospital," says her customer. "We need our ninja in good working order!"

Aoba buys a couple oranges and promises to stop back and tell the shopkeep if he learns anything else he's allowed to share. He heads for the gates.

Kotetsu and Izumo, blessedly, are on break. Aoba throws an orange at the both of them and then passes along most of his collected gossip about Nara Shikako. There's a pause while the two of them look at each other, doing that thing where they have a whole conversation with just some barely-perceptible facial expressions.

Izumo then turns to Aoba and says, "Yesterday when news of that lightshow thing in Wind hit, we also got orders to divert that genin team to the Hokage's office when they checked in."

"'Regardless of their condition,'" Kotetsu quotes. "Which... you know... is against regulation. And stupid."

"Who would even order that? Not Tsunade-sama."

"Someone who doesn't know what our Jōnin Commander is like when he's mad, I guess," Kotetsu says with a kind of vicious grin. "Heads are probably already rolling and we just haven't figured out how yet."

Izumo says, "It was just in the regular notices for the day, like a normal thing. Guess you're right that it can't have been Tsunade-sama, though. She would never."

There's a brief pause where Aoba and the other two all consider exactly how much Tsunade-sama would never in a million years order someone to avoid medical attention.

"We weren't on shift when they came in, but you could check the logbook if you want," Izumo offers. As he does this he finishes up his orange and then performs a small chakra trick with what Aoba is sure is water-natured chakra to clean his hands.

"Yeah, our break's up, c'mon," says Kotetsu. He holds both of his hands out — he's done with his orange as well — and Izumo cleans his hands for him, then waves at Aoba to follow him.

The logbook is where people sign in and out. There's a logbook for Konoha ninja, a logbook for civilian citizens, a logbook for merchants and other civilian visitors, and a logbook for foreign ninja and visiting dignitaries (foreign nin and politicians being of about the same level of risk, all things considered). The only people who enter and leave the village with no written record are people on special assignment — so mostly just ANBU.

For civilians, merchants, and threats, the logbooks have spaces where the people signing in have to provide their reason for coming and going. The book for Konoha ninja only records the date and time of departures and arrivals — the mission desk is charged with keeping track of who's where and why — but there's space for the ninja on gate duty to make notations about the condition of returning teams.

Kotetsu and Izumo take their places and start doing their jobs again, checking in a long string of merchants, and Aoba lurks behind them with the logbook, eyes scanning the last page until he finds Nara Shikako's team. It has the time and date, and all three members of the team — Nara Shikako, Nara Shikamaru, and Uzumaki Naruto — have signed back in. There are two notes from the chūnin who signed them in.

The first says: Orders to report to Hokage's office given; Nara Shikamaru claims they need medical assistance first; no visible injuries.

The second says: Chūnin escort arrived and diverted team to Hokage-sama's office.

Aoba finds out who was on duty — Sotatsu, chūnin, terrible at cards — and tracks him down at his apartment to find out who the chūnin escort was.

"I didn't recognize him, but he was pretty young, so maybe he was recently promoted," Sotatsu says with a shrug, but takes a break from cooking to describe the chūnin using standardized facial-feature rubric used in mission reports: skin tone, shade four; facial structure, type one; eye shape, type four; eye color, black; eyebrows, dark; hair texture, type two; hair color, brown. Outfit consisting of standard chūnin blues, standard Konoha forehead protector worn on the forehead facing forward, equipped with a single kunai pouch and a standard tanto.

"Anything else stick out?"

Sotatsu says no, but then he offers, 'Well, he was rude as fuck, I guess? Like, not very emotive, but you think he'd be sympathetic about genin — well, Uzumaki's a chūnin now, I guess — wanting to get medical attention before reporting in, you know? Instead he just seemed offended they were questioning orders."

"Huh," Aoba says. He thanks Sotatsu and passes on some of his gossip about what happened after Shikako and her team got to the tower ("Shit, I guess they really should have gone to the hospital," Sotatsu says.) and then Aoba leaves him to his meal.

Aoba doesn't know Sotatsu well enough to say how accurate his description is, although Aoba is leaning towards 'bad' because he's made it his business to match faces to names and the chūnin Sotatsu has described isn't familiar at all. Of course, it's always possible that, by pure coincidence, Aoba has never met this chūnin or even heard enough about him to have looked his photo up in the archives. It's possible.

There are various mind arts that would let Aoba view the guy the way Sotatsu saw him, but Aoba also definitely doesn't know Sotatsu well enough to feel comfortable asking him to share a memory of the guy. He also doesn't think that trying to corner Uzumaki Naruto or Nara Shikamaru and convince them to let him take a look is a very good idea: Tsunade-sama is fond of the Uzumaki kid and now would be a very poor time to piss any of the Nara off.

Aoba probably won't find out unless someone higher up decides it's worth a warrant.

He writes up everything he's learned from gossip and witnesses, encases it in a bland folder, and goes to the Yamanaka flower shop. His first choice would be going straight to the Hokage, but she's likely still in surgery. His second choice would be going straight to Nara Shikaku, but as Jōnin Commander he's out at the border dealing with the most recent incident with Cloud. Therefore: Yamanaka Inoichi.

Ino is behind the counter and offers a cheery smile when Aoba comes in. Aoba does his best to smile back. She's still got snake-like slits for pupils from her tangle with Oto ninja. She's still on leave from missions. Aoba has heard almost nothing about her treatment and recovery and hasn't bothered to ask around about it; something Inoichi wants to stay private will be private.

"Looking for my dad?" she asks, nodding to the folder in his hand. She avoids full eye contact with him, although Aoba is careful not to look away from her eyes.

"You got me," Aoba says with a nod. "Hey, uh, you must not have heard — Nara Shikako and her team are back and she's at the hospital getting treated by Tsunade-sama. She dropped during their debrief."

"Oh," Ino says, her smile dropping off. "Thank you for letting me know. I'll go get daddy." She sets the vase of flowers she was about to move back down, takes her apron off, and disappears into the back of the store.

Ino doesn't reappear, but eventually Inoichi — the Inoichi of Aoba's remembered past — emerges from the back room. "Aoba," he says. "Is that work for me? I swear I retired."

"No, it's about Shikako. Ino told you?" Inoichi nods, and Aoba hands the file over, explaining, "They were diverted from the hospital on someone's orders."

"If this is an official report, then you shouldn't be giving it to me," Inoichi says. He opens the folder and starts reading anyway, though.

"I just got curious and started asking around," Aoba says with a shrug. "Tsunade-sama is probably still in surgery, but I didn't want to wait to hand it off to someone who could use the information."

Inoichi makes a vague noise of agreement — understanding, of course, that Aoba wanted to deliver the information straight to someone who would use it — and when he's finished reading he asks, "You didn't recognize the chūnin from the description?"

Aoba shrugs. "Sotatsu-san might just be bad at descriptions. But if he's not..."

Inoichi's lips purse. "Let me find someone to watch the shop and then we can go to the hospital together. It sounds like we'll want to coordinate with Hokage-sama on this."

It's strange for Inoichi, seeing himself do things he knows he's never done on a day that hasn't happened yet and seeing it through Aoba's recollections as they both carefully don't publicly discuss the possibility of some kind of plot to undermine their new Hokage. They wait for her to to be done with Shikako's surgery and then return to her office to talk business while everyone waits for Shikako to wake up.

Tsunade signs a warrant for Aoba to view Sotatsu's memory of the chūnin who diverted Shikako and her team. They're pretty sure it's Danzō — who else would it be, considering who Tsunade-sama found in her office with the kids? — but it's important to know who exactly was involved — it's important to know who supports Danzō, and whether or not Aoba recognizes them.

He doesn't. Aoba even takes the extra step of going through ID photos of people who are about the right age, in case he's just never met the guy, but no dice. When he draws a sketch for Tsunade-sama she frowns. He's not one of the rare ninja who are so deep in ANBU that only the Hokage has met them.

By the time Inoichi has seen what seems to be the complete aftermath of the mission Shikako is currently on, including the spectacular political fallout for Danzō, he can sense that the chakra levels of his three helpers are becoming low, just like his own. They knew going into this that it would take multiple sessions across a long amount of time to see everything they might want to know from Aoba. Inoichi disengages the Holding-Door Mind Transmission, powering the seal down when he feels the others disengage.

The very first thing he does is look at Shizune, who looks back. She blinks a little too slowly, like someone waking up from a strong genjutsu attack, but she nods at him.

Inoichi looks back down at Aoba, who's looking up at him with slightly glassy eyes. The disorientation that comes after such a long session that dives so far back in the memory isn't usually Inoichi's problem because usually he's using this technique to dig information out of an uncooperative enemy. Aoba is neither of those things.

"Aoba, what is your registration number?"

There's a pause, and Aoba swallows hard, but he says, "09744."

"And who am I?"

No pause: "Yamanaka Inoichi."

"Aoba, what day is it?"

"July 29th," Aoba says, and although Inoichi can't see Aoba's whole body he can tell just from the way Aoba's head moves that his whole body has shuddered. Suddenly he says, "Shikako! Shikako, they got her, too, I—"

"Aoba, Shikako is fine. Look at me. She's okay. It's August 17th, 61 years after founding. Nara Shikako is a genin."

Inoichi holds Aoba's gaze while Ibiki works on freeing him from the Mind Reading Amplification machine. Inoichi leads him through a breathing exercise, and repeats the date. He repeats that Shikako is safe and that so is Aoba.

When he's free, Tsunade-sama steps away from checking Shizune over and touches a blue-green hand to Aoba's head. When she pulls away Aoba's breathing has steadied and he's looking around the room with clear eyes.

"Did you get what you need for Shikako?" Aoba asks.

Tsunade-sama looks at Inoichi.

"Yes," Inoichi says. "We saw your whole investigation. We'll take care of it."

Aoba looks satisfied. "Great. Can I go home and pass out?"

"Yes," Tsunade-sama says. "You're relieved from your duties for the rest of the week. Come to the hospital tomorrow for a full physical check up. This technique puts some strain on your brain and spirit, and I want to be sure we won't exacerbate any existing problems by continuing to use it."

Late at night near the northeastern border of Land of Fire, a Konoha messenger hawk comes to the command outpost. Kakashi watches it aim for the base's aviary from his position half way up a tree. He uncovers Obito's Sharingan to watch the way it wings and flutters into the hands of the waiting on-duty chūnin. From the way it flies, it appears to be Konoha's fastest messenger bird that can also fly at night. It was probably released earlier that evening.

Kakashi re-covers Obito's eye and returns to pretending to read his book by the full, bright moon hanging over them, although in truth he's thinking about other things. His students, mostly, and how much he'd rather be spending his time training them than playing chicken with Cloud. He doesn't have much time left to be their sensei, and knowing that they're out on missions without him is driving him crazy.

The chūnin from the aviary shows up minutes later, holding a tightly-rolled message sealed with the Hokage's seal. Kakashi is off duty, but that doesn't really mean anything when you reach the level Kakashi is at; orders are orders. He takes the message and shooes away the chūnin.

Hatake, the encrypted note starts — calling him by his last name, Kakashi has discovered, is Tsunade's code for 'I'm pissed about practically everything right now.' The note continues:

Separate instructions will follow for everyone else out there with you.

You are relieved of your post immediately. You are to proceed directly towards Northern Wind and attempt to rendezvous with the twins and the brat. They will likely be on their way back from the Dead Wastes by the time you get there, somewhere in the northern half of Land of Rivers.

They are most likely safe and uninjured, but intel suggests Shikako might have chakra exhaustion. If she does, proceed directly to Konoha's hospital and do not let her attempt to exert herself.

For most people, the 'immediately' part of this note would have meant "let everyone know, get your things, and then leave." For Kakashi — who never leaves anything behind anywhere on a mission that he can't just abandon there if the need arises, who is absolutely the highest ranking person at the border besides Nara Shikaku, and who would not stop even for death when it comes to protecting his genin — it means "haul ass in the direction of the kids the very minute you finish reading this." In fact, 'haul ass' is probably exactly how Tsunade would have phrased it, if she'd given the order in person.

And, like many orders Kakashi has gotten since Minato-sensei died, this order is given to him because it's exactly what he'd do anyway, given the information at hand. If the orders from Tsunade had just been a general update on the kids — no worries, they're probably safe and uninjured, stay where you are — Kakashi would almost certainly be legging it straight to River anyway. Shikaku certainly wouldn't be able to keep him at the border (not that he'd want to, in this case) and Konoha can't afford to mark him a missing-nin unless Kakashi really goes over the line.

Kakashi tucks away the book he wasn't reading and the note from Tsunade that he'll have to destroy later. He flips through a small handful of seals and Pakkun appears in a small poof of chakra smoke.

"Yo, boss," Pakkun says, raising his paw in greeting. "Sniffing someone out?"

"Not this time," Kakashi says. "I've got new orders and I have to leave. Nara Shikaku is around here somewhere and I don't have time to find him and tell him."

"This is a waste of my talents," Pakkun tells him flatly, but he still straightens up a little and listens to Kakashi's instructions. Since Shikako became his cute little genin, Kakashi has made more of an effort to stay in Shikaku's good graces. It wouldn't do to have his favorite Nara taken away from him.

When that's done, Kakashi sets out across the Land of Fire towards Wind and pushes himself hard. Tsunade wouldn't be sending him after his students if she really thought that they were fine.

Something moves in the hall and Shikaku looks up from the reports he's looking over. A dog wearing a blue vest and a Konoha hitai-ate darts into the room. It's a pug — one of Kakashi's dogs — and it leaps in one smooth bound up onto the only clear space on Shikaku's desk, narrowly missing upsetting his coffee.

"Yo," says the pug, dropping to sit on its hind legs and raising a paw in greeting. "You're down one ninja. Kakashi got a hawk reassigning him."

Shikaku's eyebrows lift. "Reassigning him to where?" There shouldn't be anywhere else for Sharingan no Kakashi to be assigned.

"Something about the pups," says the pug. "Apparently they're almost definitely fine, but simultaneously need an escort home from their teacher."

"Sasuke isn't allowed out of the village."

"Right, my bad, it's your other kid that's with them filling out the team this time, apparently. That seems like information it's okay to share with you."

He thanks the pug and the pug disappears in a puff of smoke. He didn't know that Shikako and Shikamaru had been assigned a mission together. He never knows when Shikako is being assigned a mission, anymore; Tsunade-sama has been taking information security where Team 7 is concerned to new heights, so Shikaku rarely hears that Shikako has left for a mission before his wife does even when he's in Konoha.

Since his students are in trouble, Hatake is probably well away from the border by now. Shikaku can't follow, but in truth he doesn't feel the need to. There's no one who could do a better job of finding and taking care of Shikako and Shikamaru than Hatake Kakashi, and although the uncertainty of not knowing for sure puts ice in Shikaku's veins, logically he knows that if they can be saved and the mission salvaged, Kakashi will do it. And if he has to choose between the mission and the kids, it won't even be a choice at all.

Kakashi would damn the whole world to save his students.