They have lunch. Tsunade and Uzumaki Kushina excuse themselves. Tsunade because her work at the hospital waits for no one; and the Uzumaki because, jinchūriki or not, she is a very a capable jōnin. She likely had a mission she was meant to report to before this whole fiasco began.
They eat in silence. He thinks about what he needs to impress upon his student to ensure she does not get herself killed—or worse. But he does not imagine any worst-case scenarios—that is likely what caused the situation in the first place.
They finish eating.
"Honōka-kun, how is your sensor ability functioning right now?"
"There are no problems. Why do you ask?"
"Are we the only presences within two hundred meters?"
"Yes."
"Three hundred meters?"
"Just us and normal animals."
"Define normal."
"Animals that are not emotionally invested in listening to humans talk or are suspiciously non-emotional."
That she views anyone 'non-emotional' as suspect is both a relief and yet another concern. Why is being non-emotional suspicious to her? Did Danzō and his Root agent leave such a lasting impression on her? Or…
Her eyes flick up and down, twice. She wants to respond to his unasked question but is hesitant.
"Have you encountered many suspiciously non-emotional persons or animals?"
She nods—holding up four fingers. That's at least three too many for his liking.
"What do you do when you encounter such individuals?"
"Ignore them, mostly. I went to Tsunade-san once, when it felt like they were trying to get closer."
He grits his teeth.
"If you ever feel that you are being tailed, immediately find a reason to go to either Tsunade or Sarutobi-sensei."
She looks at him, and he can almost feel her asking him why she cannot go to him for such a thing.
"If you cannot, or you feel like they may attempt to make contact, erase your presence immediately and hide in any way that you can."
"Orochimaru-san… is there something you're not telling me…?" About Honōka, he means. Minato doesn't know about Root, and Orochimaru cannot tell him.
"He's talking about the child snatchers."
Three sets of eyes snap to attention, and Orochimaru wonders how the boy came to that conclusion.
"Kakashi, what on earth are you talking about?" Minato asks, no doubt quite alarmed. "Child snatchers—in the village? From where? Iwa? Kumo?"
Kakashi shakes his head. He points to the ground, and Orochimaru feels a chill go down his spine. He is uncannily spot on. And eerily good at being intimidating for his age.
"Genma told me about them. Apparently, the really skilled kids from the orphanage get recruited early sometimes, but you never see them at the Academy or on squads later. And sometimes, a student in the genin apartments will 'die' under unusual circumstances. It happens often enough that it's basically considered fact amongst the older genin at the apartments."
Honōka gulps. She must be familiar with the information.
"That's why Genma says it's good to play pranks or slack off sometimes, isn't it?" she asks. "I thought he meant it was like, good for the soul, or something."
Minato facepalms. "And that's why you suddenly started playing pranks on everyone, including Sandaime-sama?"
"At first, yeah. Now I do it because it's fun. We should all work together sometime and do something crazy."
Not on his life. He has a reputation to uphold, and too much at stake to risk Sarutobi-sensei cutting his budget over a prank on his person.
"Wait, just, everyone back up for a second!" Minato exclaims. "You're telling me there are kids going missing from the orphanages and from the genin apartments and nobody is doing anything about it? Hasn't anyone told Sandaime-sama or the council, or their Academy teachers?!"
Kakashi shrugs. "Like I said—they all 'died' under suspicious circumstances. Suspicious or not, they're dead in the end."
"Except they're probably not!" Minato shouts.
Honōka and Kakashi shush Minato, and Minato turns his pleading eyes on him.
"Orochimaru-san, we have to do something about this!"
He considers. How can he respond to Minato without actually saying anything? Hand signs are out—anything that conveys a message is out. Then an idea hits him and he almost scowls. Honōka's infuriating gestures are worth something after all.
He mimes his hands being tied. Take it how you will, Minato. Take it how you will.
Minato pales, is possibly even a little green. Orochimaru considers that a success.
"Oh."
They sit in silence—until Honōka sticks out her tongue, puffs up her cheeks, and blows an obnoxiously loud raspberry.
"Honōka," Kakashi complains, "we're supposed to be seriously contemplating our next move!"
"I can't do serious anymore today. I might seriously start crying again."
"Very well." Orochimaru is loath to do it, but he doubts his student will be able to focus on anything else today either way. "An early dismissal is in order."
"Ice cream?" she entreats him, lip quivering. "Shaved ice?"
He pats her on the head.
"You can have both."
He arrives at Training Ground Three roughly twenty minutes early the next day, intending to search the grounds for paper bugs. Minato has the same idea.
"Well?"
"Only one—on the Memorial Stone."
"Leave it. We hardly pay the stone any mind anyhow."
Minato nods. He opens his mouth, no doubt to ask questions he cannot answer.
"I cannot, Minato."
A long sigh.
"Why not?"
He doesn't answer him. Another sigh.
"Just answer me this? Honōka-chan… you actually care what happens to her, right? She's not some experiment or passing interest?"
He glares at Minato, who firmly stands his ground.
"Honōka-kun is a shackle that Sarutobi-sensei saw fit to attach to me."
"Orochimaru-san—"
"Despite this, I am… thankful… for her presence in my life."
"…?" Minato stares at him, mouth agape. The expression doesn't suit his face.
"Any more questions, Minato, or will that be all?"
He shakes his head slowly and closes his mouth.
Then they wait for their students to show up in nearly amiable silence. A major improvement from their usual glacial avoidance.
Kakashi shows up at exactly nine hundred.
At nine hundred and five, he issues his customary 'I am waiting on you' warning. He still isn't entirely sure how or why it works, but it does.
Or it usually does. He shifts slightly.
"Oh, I saw Honōka with Madara at that manjū place she likes. Ichiman? Ichiban Manjū."
He nods Kakashi's way. He is the usual level of observant you expect from a child genius. Impressive for his age, but not unusual or strange like Honōka is.
Another ten minutes pass and his student finally appears, hauling that god awful beast she calls Madara. It's looking like its usual currish self; mismatched eyes and infuriatingly asymmetrical facial markings as insulting to the eye as ever.
"S-sorry I'm late, M-madara really hates shunshin, you know?"
He freezes. Minato and Kakashi tense. The impostor stops.
He, Minato, and Kakashi all know Honōka's chakra signature well enough by now that they should recognize any unusual discrepancies at this distance. He and Minato are also familiar enough with the feline beast known as Madara to recognize its signature as well.
And… it feels like Honōka and it feels like Madara. Yet, whoever is disguised as his student is doing an atrocious job of pretending to be her. He loosens a senbon in his sleeve, ready to throw.
"Obito! I do not stutter like that!" Madara complains in Honōka's voice.
"You do to!"
"Only sometimes!"
Kakashi snorts, tension visibly releasing. "Honōka, what jutsu did you break this time?"
Honōka-as-Madara kicks her back paws off Obito-as-Honōka and springs away. The transformation fails and the Uchiha boy is revealed, wearing what appears to be his bed clothes. His chakra signature no longer mimics his student's.
"I didn't break anything! I finally figured out how to manipulate chakra signatures!"
Minato groans and scrubs his face. "And you immediately decided you would prank us with it? It's not funny, Honōka-chan. I nearly had a heart attack!"
"Can I go now?" the boy, Obito, asks. "I already slept in—Rin's going to kill me if I miss practice again."
"Oh, so you're actually learning tai chi now?" even as a cat, she looks smug.
"S-shut up, Honōka! You beat me, and a loss is a loss. Don't sound so happy about it…"
She transforms back into herself—or rather, becomes herself once more. He does not think what she does can be considered a classical Henge no Jutsu.
"You can go. Thanks for helping me out! We should work on your acting skills, though. Sensei almost threw a senbon between your eyes."
The boy grumbles, stomping away without another word. Honōka cheerfully waves at him. He's not entirely sure whether their relationship is good—or bad.
With the boy gone, Kakashi turns to him and asks, deadpan, "So, what did she break?"
A rock passes between them that neither he nor Kakashi react to. She never hits what, or who, she aims for.
"Ow, Honōka-chan! What'd I do?"
Case in point.
"Sorry, Minato-sensei. I was aiming for Kakashi, but my hand slipped." She resumes glaring at Kakashi. "And, like I said, I didn't break anything."
He takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly, through the nose. She does not know that what she does on a whim spits in the face of modern ninjutsu theory. Perhaps, it is her civilian background that lets her so unerringly challenge what is considered law to born shinobi.
She is an unorthodox prodigy.
"Where to begin," he muses. "First, you have mastered mimicking chakra signature of other people and creatures. How would you describe your technique?"
"I couldn't change the way I sounded, so I muted it and started from scratch."
Minato sits down and sighs. He raises his hand.
"Can I ask questions?"
"Sure!" Honōka chirps. "I'd be happy to answer."
"You 'muted' your chakra signature—Shōkyo?"
She grins. It would be mildly unsettling if not for the current lack of a front tooth.
"Nope! I got this idea from meeting Kushina-san and Tenko-sama."
"Oh, gods…" Minato murmurs quietly. "Clarification, please?"
"So, I looked at Kushina-san's chakra and it was really big and nice, and her lower dantian was like, really perfect, so I looked at that too. That's when I fell into Tenko-sama's… lair? No. I think it was more like a… cage. Anyway! I couldn't sense Tenko-sama at all until that happened."
Minato's hand creeps up again.
"Yes, Minato-san?"
"I'm sorry. I think I may have heard you use this term before, but what is the lower dantian?"
"Eh? It's like a void? All your chakra spins around it so it's pretty cool."
"And Kushina's was perfect? What makes it perfect? And where is it located?"
"Perfect, like, round. Kushina's was nearly a perfect circle. Most people have, like, an oval or a wobbly egg shape. It's located just below and a bit behind the belly button."
"Isn't that the seventh gate?"
Honōka shrugs. "I think you and I are probably not thinking of the same seventh gate, but sure."
Minato sighs.
"So, Tenko-sama was inside Kushina-sama's, er, san's, lower dantian and it got me thinking last night."
"A truly terrifying thing, that." He snipes, mouth twitching.
"Sensei! I'm trying to explain something here!"
Kakashi takes a seat next to Minato and gestures for her to continue while rolling his eyes.
"Like I was saying—it got me thinking: why not put my chakra signature there? I'm pretty sure it's where I make my weight disappear to! So I tried it, and it was like, woah! Total silence."
Minato drops his face into his hands.
"Honōka-chan, I'm sorry. That makes no sense, and I think it might actually be impossible. You can't just make your chakra disappear—I'm pretty sure it would kill you if you tried. You must be doing something else."
Honōka scowls at him.
"You're missing the obvious conclusion! I didn't actually make it disappear—I put it in a blind spot!"
Now they are getting somewhere. He crosses his arms and prepares to catch any further leaps in logic.
"Wait… a blind spot?" Minato asks.
Minato is now sitting cross-legged, one elbow on his knee and the attached hand on top of his head. He's tempted to tell him not to hurt himself, what with how contorted he looks.
"Yeah. I thought the lower dantian was like a vortex with an empty center—void. But it's not a void at all, it only looks like it."
"So, what is it actually?" Kakashi asks.
"Hm, I don't really know?"
Their exasperation must pique in concert because she quickly holds up her hands, placatingly.
"I have a theory!" she says, shushing them.
"Oh, good. I was worried for a moment there." Minato says, completely serious. He wouldn't know sarcasm if it held him at knifepoint.
"The lower dantian can't be seen from any angle or with any method. Because it is a nexus to a higher plane of existence."
Kakashi snorts. "Honōka, be serious!"
Minato is now pulling his hair.
"Kakashi, she is being serious. And the frustrating part is, she might be onto something. Trust me, I specialize in space-time ninjutsu, I would know."
"So, you could not figure out how to manipulate your chakra signature and banished it to an alternative and nearly imperceptible space. What does that accomplish? Surely you cannot mold chakra while it is separate from your body?" He feels like telling her that there is a much simpler way of doing it—but expects she would still prefer whatever new insanity she has just come up with.
"It's not actually separate—it's just behind a door. Of course, whenever I want to use any emissive techniques, like the Water Bullet Technique, it'll become apparent that chakra is flowing from somewhere. But, I can transform silently now—and if I want to mimic the chakra signature of another person or a small animal, I just let the right amount of chakra out and it sounds like what I want without everything else mucking it up."
"What about Obito?" Kakashi asks. "Did you teach him how to do it too?"
"What? No?" Honōka says. "I just shoved the noisy parts of his chakra signature inside his nexus until he sounded like me."
Minato winces. Orochimaru imagines the method she describes feels just as rough as it sounds.
"I think I need to be in direct contact to work that trick, but I'm open to experimenting if anyone wants to volunteer?"
Here, she makes little grabby hands at Minato and Kakashi, who both fling themselves away from her.
"Nope! I'm good, we're good—right Kakashi?"
"I'd rather disarm live explosive tags...!"
Honōka pouts.
"Oh gods, Orochimaru-san is smiling. Kakashi—laps? I think we should run!"