Warnings: references to canon traumas, displays of canon rages by children in traumatic situations, references to village-wide exterminations, semi-graphic severe injury (temporary)

The next day goes… fine. The fourth day is also fine. Kanna acts almost normal, most of the time, and Kakashi sees the probably-a-Jinchuuriki kid watching them a few times. Stalking. Fixation. Whatever he calls it, it's bad.

Kakashi tries to just focus on his job instead. Negotiations are ramping up, and Chōza is good at what he does, but Suna is suspicious.

It's the middle of the night after the fifth day that there is an explosion, and screaming, and just a tinge of that oppressive rage that Kakashi remembers from nine years ago.

This isn't as intense, and it's more madness than anger, almost directionless in its pain, but it's still…

Kakashi's out the window before their Suna guards can stop him, because the killing intent is barreling their way and Kanna is going out to meet it like a dumbass.

They land on a rooftop, and a Suna ANBU lands next to them. He's already rounding on them to tell them to get back inside, before they even take an extra step. He is interrupted, primarily because there is a ten-at-best child screaming his head off about his mother, blood, and killing everyone.

"YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU," the kid screams, spotting Kanna.

"Wow, haven't gotten a response that bad since—" Kanna cuts off the comment in order to dodge a spear of sand, and Kakashi is grateful for that. He does not want to explain to Sakura how he let her wife get injured by someone who barely comes up to his hip, especially not because the wife was too busy quipping to dodge.

The screaming is wordless and pained and angry, and when there are words, Kakashi ignores them. The kid's head is entirely too messed up for anyone to help easily, and it's not the kind of messed up that Kakashi has experience with. This is something else.

Kanna is talking to one of the Suna shinobi, looking annoyed and even a little angry, and Kakashi's too far away to hear what she's saying. There's just too much property damage going on. He doesn't think anyone's dead yet, but he's not willing to stake any money on it. All the blood he can smell is old, but he's not exactly used to flying, mind-controlled sand. Fresh blood could be hidden in a way that covers scent. It's definitely possible.

Kanna either gets everything she needed from the shinobi or just gives up, because she starts walking directly towards the kid, crosses her arms, and lets loose her chakra chains.

Kakashi wonders how the hell he's supposed to report this to the Hokage, and then reminds himself that it's not his job. Kanna and Tenzō were tapped for Baby Jinchuuriki duty, and Chōza is the commanding officer. Kakashi doesn't have to deal with the fallout from this. This thought is comforting, but only barely.

The chains whirl, creating a series of criss-crossing circles around the child. They plow through some clouds of sand and dodge around others, forming a large, loose sphere around the kid and most of the sand.

Kakashi feels the arrival of the Kazekage before he sees him. The man puts a hand on Kakashi's shoulder and squeezes roughly, and Kakashi does not wince. He does not throw the Kazekage off. It's still a diplomatic mission, even if the whole thing has gone to hell in a handbasket.

"What is she doing to my son?" Rasa demands.

"She's an Uzumaki," Kakashi says, and hopes that this is enough. "Taking down bijuu and Jinchuuriki with minimal loss of life is kind of their thing?"

Among many other things, but the first Jinchuuriki was Uzumaki Mito. That's not exactly a secret, even to the international community. Hopefully the Kazekage makes the connection himself, because Kakashi doesn't have time for a history lesson.

A shield shimmers up between the links of the chains, and then all the sand outside of it just… drops.

The Kazekage's hand tightens further. Kakashi's shoulder starts to hurt.

The kid is screaming, still, and there's a panic to it. Being caged like that can't be fun, and the kid is—

"What's his name?" Kakashi asks.

"You don't know?" Rasa scoffs.

"Nobody told me," Kakashi says, because it's true. "And I never thought I'd need to know, so I didn't ask."

"Gaara," Rasa tells him, through gritted teeth. "His name is Gaara."

Kanna walks closer to the kid, tightening the sphere down until it's maybe two meters across. She stops when they're in the middle of a park instead of on two entirely different buildings over a block away from each other. She sits down, legs crossed, and drops her chin onto her fist.

The kid watches her, sand whirling, eyes wide. He is, for a moment, quiet.

"I can do this all night," Kanna tells him.

The kid starts screaming again, sand bludgeoning the walls of the cage to no effect. Kanna sighs, and that's the point where the Kazekage tightens his grip further—seriously, ow—and uses a shunshin to get them down to Kanna.

"Hello, Kazekage-sama," she says. She does not stand, and barely glances over to them. "I suppose you heard the commotion?"

"What are you doing?" Rasa demands. "You cannot interfere with a foreign village's Jinchuuriki!"

"He attacked," Kanna said flatly. "I defended, and now I'm preventing further property damage. I'm not interfering with… honestly, this is just a time-out."

Kakashi does not laugh at this. He wants to. He does not.

"A time-out," Rasa repeats. His voice gains a tiny additional tremor of rage. "A time-out."

Kanna shrugs. "I mean… he's a kid. And not my kid. I don't discipline kids that aren't mine. I just redirect the damage and then get whatever authority figure does. A teacher or a parent, usually."

"What are those chains doing to him?" Rasa asks, stepping forward. The fury in his voice is still there. He's not happy with Kanna for getting involved. It's not her place, as a Konoha nin.

"Containing him," Kanna says mildly. "A truly powerful Uzumaki could capture entire bijuu with their chains, as Mito did to the Kyuubi… but I'm not that strong. I'm also not fighting a bijuu. I'm fighting a nine-year-old."

"To be fair," Kakashi says, "Nine-year-olds can be deadly."

Kanna snaps her glare to him for a moment. "Not the time."

"I'm just saying," he sighs. "When I was nine—"

"This isn't about you, Kakashi," Kanna says. "Butt out."

Fair enough.

Kanna looks up at the still-raging Gaara, and then raises her voice just enough to reach the distant, gathered shinobi. "Can someone get this kid a hot chocolate or something?"

Kanna, no.

"A hot chocolate?" Rasa demands.

"I mean, that's what I do with my kids," Kanna says, unperturbed. "After a nightmare or something?"

Rasa doesn't answer, and Kanna carefully asks, "Does… does Suna do hot chocolate?"

"I'm assuming you don't mean melted chocolate."

"No."

"Then, no, we do not."

"Huh."

Kakashi waits, but neither of them speak again. He takes a few careful steps away from Rasa. A Suna Jounin a few years older than him shows up in the space between them, and while Kakashi can smell the anxiety coming off him, it's not visible. Impressive, really. Chōza and Tenzō also show up, but they hang back. Kanna and Kakashi are enough, if only for the moment.

"Kazekage-sama," the Jounin greets. "Your orders?"

Rasa meets the Jounin's eyes, and then looks past to Kakashi. "So, what is this 'hot chocolate' that Konoha apparently gives young children?"

It's a very aggressive way to ask about children's drinks. Kakashi does not point this out. He just explains, "Hot milk with sugar and chocolate shavings mixed in for flavor. It's a winter drink from further north, and your nights are cold enough that I think it's probably a fine drink to have."

Rasa's eyes slide back to the Jounin. "Apparently, that."

The Jounin only hesitates a moment before disappearing, but disappear he does.

Kakashi takes a look at the kid that's still howling and throwing sand around the little prison like it's going out of fashion, and then realizes that Rasa's glaring at him.

He tries to smile at the Kazekage. Really, he tries.

"So, this happen often?" Kakashi asks brightly, because he's clearly a font of wise decisions.

"Yes," Rasa says, voice flat.

"Cool, cool," Kakashi says. "I'm going to shut up now."

He turns away and does not meet Rasa's eyes again.

Kanna's still sitting on the ground. Kakashi vaguely notes that the back of her shirt is completely torn through by the chains. That's unfortunate.

"You done yet?" she calls out to the kid.

The kid is not done. Not in the slightest.

"Does she know what she's doing?" Rasa asks, strained.

"Hm?" Kakashi asks, glancing over. "In terms of, like, Jinchuuriki-wrangling?"

"And in terms of children," Rasa grits out. "I have never seen this technique before. For all I know, he's in agony."

"Then why haven't you stopped her?" Kakashi asks.

Rasa shoots him a spiteful glare. "Because this is the first time anyone has managed to stop Gaara before he killed someone."

Lovely.

"She has kids," Kakashi says instead. "Adopted, with severe traumas. She knows how to work around… stuff like this."

It's not necessarily true—none of Kanna's kids are this degree of homicidal or prone to rage—but Kakashi trusts her to know what she's doing.

"And she wouldn't hurt a kid," Kakashi adds. "It's a big thing with her."

Probably. They haven't exactly discussed it.

Kakashi decides that maybe it's time to get a sitrep. He ambles forward as casually as he can, and crouches down next to Kanna. The Kazekage follows. Kakashi does his best to ignore him. "So, what's the plan for after the kid calms down?"

Kanna shrugs. "His seal is, like, total trash."

Rasa makes a noise of outrage, and Kakashi can hear Chōza groan a few meters away.

"Kanna-chan, remember what Hokage-sama said about not causing an international incident?"

Kanna looks up at him and wrinkles her nose in irritation. "Yeah, well, I'm not wrong. The seal is letting out way too much uncontrolled bijuu chakra, probably letting Shukaku influence the kid going by all the screaming, and I can feel the random spikes. The mix isn't even, just… Ugh. Makes my skin crawl."

"Kanna. Please. Please stop insulting what I'm guessing are Suna's best seal masters," Kakashi says. "I am begging."

"Then beg," Kanna tells him. She sighs after a moment, and looks past him to the Kazekage. "Look, I don't want to be a dick about this, but the seal on your son is really bad, and from what you were saying earlier, stuff like tonight isn't exactly uncommon. I know Jinchuuriki seals, probably top five on the continent, and I can take a look. I won't if you say not to, but my wife would probably murder me if I didn't at least offer, given how much pain Gaara's in."

Rasa glares at her, but Kakashi's not too put off by that in particular. Rasa glares at a lot of things. "And why is that?"

"Because she's a bleeding heart and loves kids," Kanna says without hesitation. "She cried at the last 'Chihiro and the Pony Summons' movie."

Rasa's eyebrows furrow. Kakashi doesn't ask the question that's probably on both their minds, which is 'why?'

The Jounin from earlier returns with a tray of paper cups from an unknown place. Kakashi can smell the drink from here, and it's not perfect, but the slightly-too-much quantities of sugar might actually appeal to someone under the age of ten.

Kanna looks up and to the side, tilts her head, and says, "Huh. I didn't think you'd actually do it."

She lurches to her feet, not even pretending to be graceful, and grabs two of the hot chocolates.

There's two more in the tray. The Suna nin hesitates, and then wordlessly offers one of the remaining ones to the Kazekage.

Rasa takes it, and then looks at Kakashi and indicates the last cup.

"I don't take off my mask until at least the third date," Kakashi says, smiling as hard as he can with his visible eye, and internally cursing himself for answering on instinct with a fallback line instead of, y'know, actually thinking.

The Jounin gapes at him, but the Kazekage looks more taken aback than anything. It could be worse, Kakashi reminds himself. There could be attempted murder happening right now.

"For fuck's sake, Kakashi, would it kill you to not be a dickhead for five minutes?" Genma's voice floats over to him, and Kakashi finds himself with an arm slung over his shoulders. Genma's three years older than him but exactly the same height, and slinging an arm over Kakashi's shoulder only works because Kakashi's slouching. "Seriously, the Kazekage?"

"It's a stressful situation," Kakashi defends. He's grateful that Genma's here, honestly, because Genma is actually good at all that diplomacy stuff.

They don't get to banter more and maybe try to fix what Kakashi's done, because Kanna has the kid on the ground, prison shrinking and changing, until there's only a chain wrapped around the kid, and all the sand is on the ground.

Gaara can't use chakra right now. He backs away from Kanna, terror in his eyes. The terror does not abate when he looks to his father.

Kanna says something that Kakashi can't here, and then holds out one of the hot chocolates. She takes a sip from her own, says something else, and then sits down again.

Gaara hesitates, and takes the hot chocolate. He retreats a few steps, the cup too large in his little hands, and watches Kanna warily. The chain glows yellow around his waist, deceptively slim.

He takes a sip of the hot chocolate.

Rasa moves to step forward, and Kakashi holds an arm out because Gaara's eyes are immediately on them.

"Maa, maybe let Kanna do her thing," Kakashi says, tone light in a way he absolutely does not feel. "I think too many people crowding the kid might not be the best idea."

Genma sighs, because Kakashi is right even though it's not diplomatically sound, and pushes Kakashi's arm down.

Kanna keeps talking to the kid, and her voice is so low that even Kakashi can't hear. Some of the Suna nin might—wind nature is more common here, and there are probably a few techniques that help with eavesdropping—but with the Kazekage making the choice to stay back for the time being, nobody interferes.

(Kakashi is surprised that worked, honestly. He's incredibly happy that nobody's tried to rip off his arm for the level of disrespect he just showed the Kazekage.)

(Seriously, jokes about his own deadly childhood? Third date? Arm in front of the Kazekage? What was he thinking?)

Gaara keeps sipping the hot chocolate, at least, and keeping his eyes on Kanna. His lips move sometimes, answering questions none of them can hear, and at one point he starts crying. Kanna scoots closer and takes his hand, and Kakashi doesn't imagine that he hears at least one person gasping.

Kanna gets to her feet, grabs the kid, and settles him on her hip like he's a toddler instead of a nine-year-old. She still has a hot chocolate in her other hand. Gaara is holding onto his own with both hands. It's cute.

"Impressive," Genma calls out, when she's walked most of the way back.

She quirks a brow at him, and shrugs. "I've been the traumatized, angry little shit myself. I was a bit older and didn't have a demon in my head, but hey, shit happens."

Rasa eyes her. "You knew."

"I'm a sensor," Kanna says flatly. "And I'm really good at it. It's—listen, there are Jinchuuriki with seals good enough to hide what they are from me, but Gaara here is stuck with something that was… I'm guessing modified off of an existing seal, and nobody anticipated the side-effects of the modification?"

Rasa's face grows stonier. He doesn't answer.

With Kanna, though, he doesn't need to.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Kanna says. "I… would really appreciate the opportunity to look at his seal and see about fixing it. I'll work with whoever usually does your sealing, so you know I'm not trying to sneak something in under your nose."

There's something that looks a lot like anger in Rasa's eyes, but all he says is, "We can discuss it in the morning."

"Agreed," Kanna says. She looks down at Gaara and asks him, "Think you can hold out on your own until tomorrow?"

Gaara nods mutely, and she lets him down. She removes the chain from around his waist, and his chakra spikes, but the spike is gone as soon as it comes. He looks to his father, and hesitates, and then goes to stand before the Jounin that brought the hot chocolates.

"Hello, Baki-sensei," he says quietly.

Rasa is unmoving. "Take him home."

"At once, Kazekage-sama."

They both disappear, and Kakashi tunes out for what comes after. Negotiations will take place tomorrow. Jinchuuriki seals are serious business, and something Kakashi will only be tangentially involved in.

They make it back to the hotel as a group, congregating in the common room they have to their suite, and Kanna slaps a privacy seal on the wall the second the door is closed.

She grins and goes up to Tenzō, one hand up high. "Liiiiiiine~"

Tenzō winces. "That was terrible."

"Bitch please, that went great," Kanna says. Her eyes glint with victory. "He's going to bend. Maybe not immediately, but he's already leaning towards an agreement. Akimichi-taichou, you can take care of the rest?"

Chōza shakes his head. "I can, but please stop antagonizing the people we need to work with for this. Kakashi, I can't believe I have to say this, but the same thing goes for you."

Yeah, that's fair. Kakashi hasn't exactly been on his best behavior tonight. He's actually been quite the fuck-up.

"And look, I was right, you didn't even need to do anything," Kanna coos, sitting down next to Tenzō and tilting her head towards him. "I told you there was nothing to worry about."

"Kakashi-senpai, I'm being bullied," Tenzō says, looking directly at him. "Help."

Kakashi hides behind his book and emphatically does not help.

Kanna stands up from Tenzō, practically cackling, and goes to her own room. "See you all tomorrow. I need to sleep before fixing a Jinchuuriki seal."

Oh yeah. Sleep. That's a thing.

#

The minuscule woman that they introduce as Suna's premier Seal Master and Kanna's coworker for the foreseeable future is…

Well, she tries to kill Kakashi on sight.

He dodges, obviously, but still. Rude.

It takes a few minutes to convince the elderly woman that Kakashi is, for one thing, not his father, and for another thing, here for completely sensible and definitely legal reasons. Kakashi isn't sure if elder Chiyo is senile, holding a grudge that she's keen on fulfilling against Kakashi because of some 'sins of the father' stuff, or just fucking with them.

He hopes it's the last one.

It doesn't matter in the long run, because Kanna and Chiyo get bundled off to meet with Gaara and assess his seal, and Rasa's negotiation is more aggressive than it was the day before. Kimiko's twitchy, and Tenzō is outwardly normal in the way that Kakashi knows means he hasn't slept at all. Chōza is a goddamn professional and his presence is a balm to Kakashi's soul.

There are no explosions. There is no screaming.

Three days pass, and on the fourth day, Kanna and Chiyo adjust Gaara's seal.

(The night ends with Kanna slinging an arm around Tenzō's shoulders and cooing, "Sinker~!" until he threatens to grow invisible hallucinogenic moss on her food the next time they eat together.)

They're kicked out the next day, and told that if anything happens to Gaara because of Kanna's modifications, there'll be a war on the horizon. Gaara hugs Kanna goodbye, and tells her to thank someone called 'Kurama' as well, and Kakashi pretends he's not listening because whatever is going on there is not his business.

Konoha can feel free to send another diplomatic team in six weeks, according to Baki. If anyone shows up any earlier, they'll be turned away at the gates as annoyances. Rasa does not say a single word to dispute this.

It's almost anticlimactic, except the trip home is somehow more eventful than the entire Jinchuuriki situation.

Because of course it is.

#

Kanna's gait stutters halfway through the Land of Rivers, and then she stops dead.

Her eyes are distant, wide and empty, and Kakashi's heart skips a beat because no, they're almost home, they already had a clusterfuck happen on this mission, come one. Kanna turns to face the north, slaps her hands together, and delves into the Mind's Eye of the Kagura technique. The rest of the team circles around her for the moments she spends on sensing, tense and ready for whatever comes up.

Kanna's hands drop, and the expression she wears is—there's no word for it as good as devastated, for the moment before she covers it up. She turns to face Chōza, and says, "Some of Orochimaru's underlings are moving into a base about half a day's travel north-northeast of us."

Oh shit.

"Is Orochimaru with them?" Chōza asks.

"No," Kanna says. She hesitates, and then says. "I felt three signatures I would place as A-rank. Most of his people appear to be genin level at most, and it's… I believe most of them are children or teenagers."

"How do you know they're Orochimaru's?" Kimiko asks, and—yeah, that's a good question.

"I…" Kanna swallows, and it's odd and uncomfortable and Kakashi does not like seeing Kanna look haunted. "Before I came to Konoha, a close friend of mine made me promise to save a child since he couldn't do it. I have reason to believe the child was stolen by Orochimaru before I could reach him, and I haven't had the opportunity to seek him out yet. I didn't anticipate Orochimaru moving anyone to the Land of Rivers, but I can sense the child with them."

Goddammit, Kanna.

"Is this another 'my wife would kill me' moment?" Tenzō asks in a way that sounds half-joking, but falls entirely flat.

"No," Kanna snaps. "This is on me. This one is all on me. Juugo is—I can't leave him. I refuse to leave him, and while I recognize that going straight back to Konoha is important, I request your support in asking Hokage-sama to send me back out as soon as is feasible instead of waiting the week of discussion following negotiations."

Chōza frowns deeply. "Why did Orochimaru take this specific child?"

"Kekkei Genkai," Kanna says, face twisting into what can politely be called a grimace. "Uncontrolled, and incredibly powerful. To my understanding, there's a very good chance he's attempting to reverse-engineer the enzymes involved to induce a mimicry of it in his followers, though he's telling the kid that he's looking for a 'cure' to keep it under control."

Charming.

There's a moment where Chōza looks around, meets Genma's eyes, and has some kind of silent conversation. Kakashi thinks he knows what it's about.

"Sarutobi, Miyamoto, return to Konoha as fast as possible and inform them of the situation. The rest of you are Tokubetsu or above, and as Kanna said, there are only three signatures in there that are Jounin-level. Given that Kanna recently demonstrated the ability to nonviolently restrain an unstable Jinchuuriki, and these are apparently mostly children, we will be attempting to subdue where possible."

Kanna gapes at him. "Wait, seriously?"

"You forget," Chōza says, with a grim smile of his own. "I have a child of my own, and I was a shinobi while Orochimaru was still a respected Jounin, and hadn't shown his true colors. Does anyone have any objections to this plan?"

Plenty, actually. "Should we not attempt reconnaissance first?"

"How many people?" Chōza asks Kanna.

"Roundabout three hundred," she says, and those odds are not great. "Maybe a quarter appear to be non-combatants, however. I would guess… experimental subjects."

Kakashi takes a look at Tenzō and figures there are nightmares in his future. Yeah, Kakashi's going to handle that. It's unlikely anyone else will, unless Tenzō runs off to get drunk with Anko again.

"You'll have a better idea of combat capabilities once we're closer?" Chōza asks.

"I could do it now, but it would take a few minutes," Kanna says. "It'll be faster once we're closer, and maybe a bit more detail on chakra types and ages than from this far out."

Chōza nods. "I want to take care of this as fast as possible. Allowing Orochimaru to gain a foothold so close to Konoha is not an option. Miyamoto, Sarutobi, ask Hokage-sama to send a full ANBU squad if possible. I believe we can restrain any captives with the skills on this team, but the transport will be a problem if there are truly that many."

Kanna's irritation at the implied doubt of her skills is palpable, but she tamps it down and turns to the north, fairly vibrating with anticipation.

Kakashi steps up next to Tenzō and knocks their shoulders together. The look he gets back is… a little ill. That's entirely valid.

#

For all that Kanna is technically trained as a medic, she's more of a frontline fighter than half the team. Watanabe, at least, hangs back in case of injuries to the team since she actually is a medic, but Kanna dives forward and takes out baby ninja after baby ninja, pressing seals to foreheads and quietly, painlessly, safely knocks them out. It's a major pro to working with a seal master, and the team adjusts to fighting the actual Chuunin-and-up while Kanna and her clones work to take care of the little things.

It's not particularly fast, but it's methodical and safer. There are few injuries, if any, until one of the A-rank chakra signatures shows up and stabs Genma through the shoulder.

Kakashi is immediately on the situation, and Watanabe heals Genma. There is no poison, and it's the work of less than a minute to neutralize the threat.

Taking down one of Orochimaru's hideouts should not be this easy, but Kakashi doesn't question it more than that. They'd sent way more powerful people than the average for diplomatic purposes, and Orochimaru is scrounging children and nukenin to fill his ranks, and while it works in the long run, it's not enough to really defend the place. The truly powerful nukenin aren't going to be willing to bow to Orochimaru's whims, are independent and uninterested in collaboration. No, Orochimaru's little organization might be a threat in a few years, but right now it's just children and scraps.

Kakashi has just finished with the A-ranker when a door explodes at the end of the hall, and a screaming blur heads straight for them. Chakra doesn't fill the air, but killing intent does, and it's far more powerful than anyone so far has displayed.

When they had been in Suna, Gaara had screamed his desire to kill everyone through his pain.

This one… this one laughs. He crows about how he's going to rip them to shreds to satisfy his bloodlust.

Kanna darts forward, abandoning them, and lands in front of the boy. Kakashi doesn't think he's any older than fourteen, maybe fifteen, but any contemplation of the boy's age ends up being useless, on account of the boy blasting Kanna's arm off.

Kakashi doesn't freeze in horror, but that's mostly because someone's trying to stab him, and they're faster than the average.

Kanna's arm is gone, and her shoulder and part of her torso and Kakashi wants to be sick. He's not the only one, either, but there are more people than ever in the heart of this underground complex, and they don't have time to worry. Watanabe slips around attacks and heads for Kanna, eyes wide and probably already wondering how she'd explain failing to save a comrade to the Hokage, but it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because Kanna rips the sleeve off her other arm off with her teeth, bites into her forearm, and grows the other one back.

It takes seconds.

Watanabe isn't even halfway across the room.

"Okay," Kanna says, voice ringing out over the room. "Let's try that again."

The teenager screams in rage, and tries to chop through Kanna with an arm that's suddenly an ax instead of a laser cannon, and Kanna just brings out the chains. It works on him about as well as it did on the actual, literal demon container, and when Kanna puts her hands on her hips and turns around, restraining the kid with basically zero effort, it's exactly the kind of show of power they needed on their side to get this to end.

"Now, seeing as I just took the Twin Scales out of play, can the rest of you just surrender?"

It works.

Kanna's demeanor changes entirely after that. She goes around helping seal anyone that isn't in Tenzō's special Mokuton handcuffs or Genma's own prisoner seals, and the enraged teenager floats behind her in the cage of chains. She functions in a way that makes her seem almost like one of them instead of one of Konoha's, like she's more at home in these dark and dripping halls of horror than she is in her own labs back in the village.

Chōza approaches her halfway through and asks, "Is that the child you were looking for?"

Kanna looks over her shoulder, pained, and says, "Yeah."

"Uncontrolled kekkei genkai, you said."

Kanna breathes in sharply. "Yeah. I'm—I'm going to ask Hokage-sama to send Jiraiya. I'm going to need help with this one."

Kakashi tries not to think about what, exactly, is going on.

Looking at where Kanna tries to talk to Juugo down from his rage feels like an intrusion, like watching something he was never supposed to see.

#

When Juugo calms down, he's a sweetheart.

It's ridiculous, almost. Kanna explains to them in soft tones that Juugo's clan has a kekkei genkai that causes them to absorb chakra until it boils over and sends them into frenzied rages. She has plans for temporary solutions in Konoha, but she'll need Jiraiya for something permanent. Juugo doesn't want to fly into uncontrolled murder sprees, was hiding in caves in the mountains to isolate himself from people for years. Orochimaru promised him a solution, and Juugo grabbed for it with both hands.

The child is twelve. He's been with Orochimaru for the better part of four years.

Kakashi's stomach turns.

They wait for ANBU, make their reports and start the process of prisoner transfer across several hundred kilometers. Juugo clings to Kanna's side, watches the rest of them curiously, and tells Tenzō that he seems nice. Tenzō is confused and a little scared until Kanna laughs and ruffles Juugo's hair and tells Tenzō that it's because Mokuton is the closest of human techniques to natural chakra.

She asks Kakashi if he can summon the pack, or at least one or two of them. Juugo doesn't hurt animals.

Every conversation about the new kid is weird and twisted and painful, and Kakashi thinks that's the theme with the children that the Uzumakis are collecting. Juugo asks Kanna if he's going to see his friend Kimimaro again, why she can help him if Orochimaru couldn't, if he'll really be kept far away enough from people to not hurt anyone again. He adores her from the second he calms down, because she stopped him. She kept people safe from him. She's a guardian angel.

Kanna hugs him to her once, burying his head against her abdomen, and Kakashi could swear she's about to cry.

He doesn't know who the dead friend that made her promise this is. She tells Juugo the same thing she told everyone else, but doesn't clarify beyond saying that the friend was a member of Juugo's clan and knew Juugo was still alive even if the rest of the clan wasn't, and asked her to save him. She doesn't say if it was a brother, an uncle, a cousin. She doesn't clarify, but Kakashi doesn't ever suspect her of lying. The pain on her face isn't fake. Whoever this man was, he was as close to Kanna as a brother.

Kakashi isn't meant to hear it, when Tenzō goes over to her the night before Konoha and asks, "You used to work for Orochimaru, didn't you?"

Kanna's face twists the same way it always does when someone asks her something about the life she lived before Konoha. "Someone very much like him. I was… recruited in a way that made it hard to say no."

Tenzō waits for her to elaborate.

She sighs. "I was a medic. Fourteen. Could barely fight at a genin level. The man who recruited me slaughtered the entire village I was working in and told me he had a place for me. I was a prison warden, and an occasional experimental subject. I left two years later."

There's more to the story, so much more, but Tenzō doesn't press. He nods, and says, "If you need to talk about it…" and leaves.

Kanna keeps Juugo tucked up to her side when he isn't in a rage, combing her fingers through his hair and watching the horizon with empty eyes.

Kakashi has no idea how she's planning to explain yet another sibling to the kids.

A/N: This just in, Kanna's main function on this trip is "restraining overpowered young boys who keep trying to kill her and also everyone ever."