Warnings: references to off-screen sexual elements, poisoning, paranoia, conspiracy, canon-typical threats of violence, references to eye-related medical acts

The hospital is an anxiety-inducing place at the best of times.

Nobody, especially shinobi, really has exclusively great memories at the hospital. There are some memories that can qualify, especially childbirths, and he's sure a bunch of the medics have ambivalently normal memories of their jobs, and probably admin are okay, and sure a bunch of people probably have great memories of relief to be healed or cured, but. Like. Generally it's just an anxious place.

Kakashi's spent a lot of time in a bed. He's spent as much time at someone else's bedside. Kakashi's learned to spend as little time as possible inside the hospital, because it smells like death and terror and a whole lot of stuff that he is definitely not okay with. He'll meet Sakura at the door when they do lunch, or he'll go inside for a few hours if he needs to do a physical or visit an injured comrade or get his own issues fixed up, and Kakashi's figured that if he just goes straight to Sakura, he can cut down on that time significantly.

So when Kakashi gets poisoned on a mission, his first thought upon getting back to the village is Not Safe.

His brain does not have the coherency to tell him what, exactly, isn't safe, except maybe everything?

Gai is safe. Kakashi's apartment is Safe. His dogs are Safe. The Uzumaki house is safe, and maybe Kurenai, and probably Tenzō's house if he's home. The gates to the village are Not Safe, so Kakashi sneaks over the wall instead of checking in with the guard.

Kakashi is bleeding out, so he has to pause and lean against said wall to catch his breath and make sure his guts aren't spilling out. This is, to his mind, normal.

The hospital is Not Safe.

Kakashi doesn't have the brainpower to realize this is wrong. Kakashi just thinks about going to the hospital and immediately panics, because what if there are medics that are still loyal to Danzō? Or spies? What if one of them tries to kill him instead of helping him and he's too out of it to notice? Then he won't be able to protect Konoha and Naruto and it won't even be because he died on a mission to protect a teammate, it's going to be because he did something stupid and went to the hospital.

Oh hell. The Hokage Tower is also full of spies, probably.

Later, Kakashi will look back on this train of thought and tell himself that, while ostensibly true, he'd normally have been able to rationalize that he's reported to the Hokage and been treated at the hospital often enough to consider these risks negligible in the face of his impending, if slow, exsanguination.

Unfortunately, Kakashi is bleeding out and full of a poison that, among many other fun effects, greatly increases his paranoia. Kakashi is ANBU, which means his paranoia is already screaming at him at all times, so this is not something anyone would call optimal. No poison is optimal, of course, but as far as cognitive effects go, 'increased paranoia' is kind of terrible for a shinobi.

Kakashi decides that the best course of action is to find a safe place to recuperate, and the only medics that aren't making his brain panic live together.

So Kakashi heads for the Uzumaki house.

He sneaks through the village, every nerve ending blaring an alarm, every sound too loud and every light too bright. He thinks himself lucky that nobody smells the blood he's dripping all over the place, and hardly notices that his vision is starting to spot. This is mostly because he is very suddenly convinced that someone has indeed smelled his blood and is tracking him and that someone is probably Root.

Poison, for the record, is not a very pleasant experience, whether paralytic or psychoactive or just the good old standby of 'shutting down all your organs in increasingly horrifying ways.'

Kakashi crawls in through an open kitchen window, the wards quietly letting him in as a Trusted Friend. He misses the counter with his good arm, because he managed to forget that this window is right above the sink, and manages to knock over a handful of dishes drying on the rack with a wildly flailing leg.

He lays on the ground for a moment, dazed, and struggles to his feet just as a handful of chakra signatures show up. The back of his mind wars against itself as to whether the people in question are enemies or not, because he can't trust anyone right now, there's definitely a whole bunch of people who want him for his bounty, or his Sharingan, or his body, and he's not sure if—oh. Pink.

Pink is safe, right?

"Kakashi, what the hell?" Sakura bites out, hands already green and running over him. "Literally why?"

Kanna's voice echoes vaguely in the background. "Karin, go back to bed, it's fine."

"But—"

"Bed. Now."

Sakura's swearing under her breath, more rude words and phrases than Kakashi's ever heard come out of her mouth before, and she's asking Kanna for things like bowls of clean water and bandages. Kakashi's still halfway convinced that this isn't a good thing—what if they're imposters?—but he's also not entirely conscious and can't escape anymore, so there's that.

"Well, at least I figured out why he came here," Sakura mutters. "Kanna, can you help me get him to the couch? I don't want to stop healing but we really need to get him off the floor. Lay down a towel or something."

"Of all the things to interrupt date night—"

"Kanna!"

"What? It's true."

"Maybe save it for when he's not dying on the linoleum."

"Sakura, babe, he's got you. He's going to be fine."

"Still, though."

Sakura gets the poison out of his system before he passes out, and Kakashi flushes with embarrassment once he starts to realize what he's done.

"Well," Sakura says brightly, "I'm glad you trusted us, at least!"

Kanna glares at him, and when Kakashi registers the messy hair and very new bruises on Sakura's neck, he realizes what, exactly, he interrupted.

"I'll try not to let it happen again?" Kakashi offers. "Um. I don't think I—"

"It was the poison, I know," Sakura dismisses easily. "I recognized the one they used. The paranoia is… hard to get past."

That's an understatement.

"Besides," Sakura says, brightening up. "I was definitely the best option for patching up that gut wound."

Kanna pouts and comes over to Kakashi's head. Before he can question it, she lifts up his torso, sits down, and drops his head on her lap.

"Ow," Kakashi says, because despite Sakura's ongoing healing, he's still injured. Sudden movements are a no-no.

"Shut up," Kanna huffs, digging her fingers into Kakashi's hair and, for some fucking reason, starting to massage his scalp. "I'm not getting back to sleep—"

"That's not what we were doing and he obviously noticed."

"—anyway," Kanna finishes, with a spike of chakra that Sakura just rolls her eyes at. "Can we not talk about it? In front of him? Like, for the sake of my dignity?"

"What dignity?" Sakura asks. Kakashi's vaguely sure she's working on a scratched rib.

"Rude," Kanna accuses, but Kakashi's kind of distracted by the fact that she's moved to stroking his head like a dog. Or a cat? Kanna seems like a cat person.

"You knew that when you married me," Sakura sniffs.

Kakashi ends up falling asleep, possibly passing out, before he can process Kanna's response.

#

Kakashi is aware, for many reasons, that Kanna is an expert in fuuinjutsu, and quickly approaching Seal Master status. She's too clever by half, creative in her own way, and more than willing to sit down and work out the numbers for hours. Uzumaki Kanna is not a textbook Uzumaki, but she exemplifies the parts that matter, for all that they're hidden under a burning resentment and biting wit.

Kanna is mean. She's unpleasant. She's rude. She's irreverent. She's short-tempered and secretive and all too fond of oversharing her traumas just enough to get people to leave her the fuck alone.

Despite this, Kakashi considers her a friend, because that acerbic personality is fun to jab back and forth with, and she pokes him for babysitting help often enough that exposure has dulled her rough edges.

(Uzumaki Sakura is, for all her pleasant kindness, far harder to read, and Kakashi is still coming to terms with that.)

This is all to say, of course, that Kakashi isn't actually that surprised when he comes by the Uzumaki house one afternoon and finds a new adult, with hair that's closer to Kushina's scarlet than Kanna and Karin's hot pink, and a deep frown that immediately says 'I'm even grumpier than Kanna, and if you try to test me on that, I'll prove it.' The man in question is sitting at the kitchen island, glaring down at some yakitori, and poking it with a fork instead of chopsticks for some unfathomable reason.

"Well, this is unexpected," Kakashi says. An idle thought pops into his head, and while it's not likely, it's just possible enough that it works for a joke. "Kanna-chan, have you been playing mad scientist again?"

"Eat shit and die," she responds, and there isn't even any heat in her words. Progress!

"Yes, fuck you," Kakashi answers cheerily, and takes a seat next to the mystery guest. "I'm guessing you're an Uzumaki she found out in the barren wilderness?"

The man bares his teeth in an approximation of a grin. "You could say that."

"But should I?" Kakashi presses.

"Introduce yourself, asshole," Kanna calls over at him. She's focused on a cookbook, now that Kakashi bothers to look. "Both of you."

Are they both the asshole in this scenario? Probably. Kakashi shrugs and inclines his head in a half-hearted approximation of a bow. "Hatake Kakashi, pleased to meet you."

The man eyes him carefully, and then grunts. "Uzumaki Kurama. I'll be sticking around for a bit."

"If you behave," Kanna says.

Kurama snarls wordlessly at her, acting more like a feral animal than a person. He looks older than Kanna and Kakashi by a decade or more, which is saying quite a bit when the man is an Uzumaki and slow to age. Kakashi notes the deep tan to his skin, and orange eyes that border on gold and don't look quiet hu—ah. Slit pupils. That would do it. The Uzumaki parent mixed with another clan, or a particularly isolated village. Maybe even a samurai that somehow got hold of a particular summons contract for long enough that the family started showing traits.

The man is covered in scars, too, the kind that show he's been around the block enough times that dozens of others would have died.

Kakashi thinks this man was probably old enough to be a shinobi back when Uzushio fell, if only a genin.

Feral might really be the right word.

"Any idea how you two are related?" Kakashi asks lightly.

"We think he's close to Kushina's branch than mine," Kanna says. She doesn't look up from the cookbook, and her tone is… light. Falsely so. "You can see it in the face, yeah?"

Kurama's lip curls in distaste, but Kakashi can see it. The jawline is wider than Kanna or Karin's, the nose flatter, the eyes set lower and with a stronger brow. Kurama looks closer to Naruto than anything, and—yeah. Kushina's face plus testosterone would get something approaching Kurama, probably.

"Makes sense," Kakashi says. "Where'd she find you?"

Kurama does that thing with his mouth again, baring his teeth in what Kakashi thinks is supposed to be a grin but doesn't quite make it. "The Uzumaki Temple of Masks."

"That…" Kakashi trails off, frowning. "That's just outside Konoha."

"You think it's the only one?" Kurama asks, pressing forward with that same not-grin, and Kakashi leans back.

Er.

"Well, I'm not going to challenge the expert," Kakashi says, which is the most diplomatic answer he can think of. "So… I'm guessing you're not a civilian?"

Kurama's face twitches, and he growls under his breath. "I'm… on parole."

On parole.

On—on parole?

"What did you do?" Kakashi asks, because he'd know if this man was a nukenin, and Kakashi hasn't heard of any recent Incidents-With-A-Capital-I that could have resulted in him having a criminal record that Konoha cares about.

"It's classified," Kanna says, before Kurama can get a word out. "He knows what he did, and that's all that matters."

"I didn't do jackshit and you know it," Kurama snaps.

Kanna finally looks up from her futzing about at the counter and raises a brow. "Uh-huh."

"I didn't!"

"I'm not saying there weren't a whole lot of mitigating circumstances, but…" Kanna trails off. "You know what, no, we already had this conversation, I'm not hashing it out again in front of Hatake."

Kurama snarls at her again, baring actual literal fangs, sharper than Kakashi's own, and Kakashi wonders if maybe biting is just a thing with the Uzumaki that happened to skip Kushina.

"Anyway," Kanna huffs. "He can't go anywhere except the house without me for the foreseeable future."

"Not even with Sakura?" Kakashi prods.

"Nope," Kanna says, and there's an air of smugness. "Frankly, we're lucky we managed even this much."

"Witch," Kurama grumbles.

"Yeah, you got the first letter wrong there," Kanna drawls.

Kakashi looks between them for a moment, and then decides to take the risk, "Maa, he's grumpier than you are, Kanna-chan!"

Kanna snorts, but Kurama actually takes a swipe at Kakashi, and his fingers are tipped with claws. The motion is slow and uncoordinated, but there's an odd sort of power behind it. It's easy to dodge, no chance of it connecting, but if it had connected, then Kakashi is rather sure it would have left more than just a bruise, even as half-assed as it was.

Weird.

"So," Kakashi says, and finally remembers where he's heard the name before. "When Gaara-kun asked Kanna-chan to thank someone called Kurama for their help…"

"Ugh," Kurama scoffs. "Yeah. That was me. Shit happened."

"Did it, now."

"Yeah, wanna make something of it?" Kurama demands.

"I've got chains," Kanna sing-songs, and Kurama immediately settles down. "Seriously, stop picking fights."

"It's in my nature."

"Bullshit," Kanna snorts.

Kakashi hums, wondering if he can sneak a glass of water or if Kanna will tell him to leave the cupboards alone. "I suppose if I ask how Kurama was involved when we never saw him—"

"Classified," Kanna says.

"Figured," Kakashi sighs. "Kanna-chan, you keep so many secrets, right out in the open. It makes me worry."

"I keep the small, baby-sized secrets out in the open," Kanna tells him. "The big, grown-up secrets are eight levels of Hell No."

"Grown-up secrets as in—"

"No," Kanna says. "If you insinuate that again, I'm throwing an egg at you."

Kakashi wonders about that for a moment, and then looks out the window at the chicken coop they'd gotten a few weeks ago for Juugo's preferred hobby of 'talking to birds, who apparently talk back.'

Kanna had told Juugo that unfertilized eggs were basically just chicken periods, and while it was gross to think about, collecting the eggs was no more harmful than, like, collecting menstrual blood. Kakashi hadn't quite gagged at that, but it was like… not a fun way to explain things. Technically correct! But gross.

Juugo had explained very carefully to his new pet chickens that without a rooster around, their eggs wouldn't hatch, so could the humans have them instead? The chickens had agreed in exchange for superior nesting materials and occasional gourmet feed.

Kakashi wondered how many people in the Elemental Nations had negotiated pay rates with their livestock. Probably not many. Whatever. It kept Juugo happy and kept eggs on the table, at a rate that apparently meant Kanna had enough eggs to spare one on throwing it at Kakashi's head.

(Kakashi doesn't ask about where Kurama came from or why he's here, after that first conversation. The man disappears sometimes, but neither Kanna nor Sakura are ever worried by it. They always tell him it's all under control, and the Hokage just sighs and tells Kakashi not to worry about it.)

(Kakashi finds out that while Kurama tolerates the rest of the family and a handful of others, the only person he actually likes is Naruto. Kakashi wonders if the relation is perhaps closer than theorized, but…)

(Well, there's only so much he can guess at before it becomes a moot point.)

#

"I wonder when he's going to run out of patience."

Kakashi looks up from his drink to meet Genma's eyes. He blinks. "Hm?"

Genma shrugs, the kind of easy motion of a man who's returning from an easier-than-expected mission and has absolutely no worries about his safety. Kakashi was on that mission, so he entirely gets that, and it's why he agreed to go out for drinks in the first place.

"Hokage-sama," Genma clarifies. "He's putting up with way more than I expected from the Uzumaki ladies. Mostly Kanna. Sometimes there are meetings and he asks for ANBU to wait outside the privacy seals, but we can still hear the shouting, even if we can't understand it."

"Should you be telling me this?"

Genma shrugs. "Anyone who walks past the doors can hear it. Not exactly a secret."

Fair enough. "If Hokage-sama has started yelling at them, I rather imagine that he's already run out of patience."

"Ah, that's the rub," Genma says. "The one yelling is Kanna."

Kakashi blinks at that. "Uh."

"Yeah."

"I know she doesn't exactly bother with niceties, but yelling at the Hokage seems a little…"

"Yeah."

"…unwise," Kakashi decides.

"Yep," Genma says. He takes a sip of the swill from Kusa, and lets his eyes drift over the dingy bar they decided to go to for the night. "Sometimes I wonder what the hell makes them so indispensable, and then I remember that wondering that about an Uzumaki probably isn't good for my health."

Kakashi snorts because, well, yeah. He has the same approach sometimes. "Sakura's the best surgeon at the hospital and trained by Tsunade herself. That's a pretty strong argument, I think."

"Yeah, but Kanna's the one causing all the trouble," Genma groans. "Gah, I really shouldn't be thinking about this. Those girls got Danzō black-bagged. I still can't figure out how they got that influence."

"It wasn't influence, just… evidence," Kakashi says. Saying more might not be, well, legal. "I was there."

Genma grimaces, but nods. "Still, yelling at the Hokage the way she does is—nobody gets away with that except the Sannin and his old teammates. It's only happened twice, but like hell is that normal, right?"

He's not wrong.

Kakashi doesn't actually know what to say to that.

"Maybe it's for Naruto's sake," Kakashi says, though the excuse is weak to his own ears. "Granted, if it was just that, she'd have probably gotten at least some cuts in funding by now…"

There's a possible balancing act, there, but Kakashi's pretty sure that Kanna isn't the type to threaten to reveal Naruto's parentage to the world just to get her way. It's got to be something important, because Kakashi's seen her try to compromise when for even moderately important things, like saving Juugo. She's clever in how she goes about her goals, but Kakashi's pretty sure she's not bullying anyone other than her actual direct subordinates, and that's usually about things like lab safety.

"Maybe it's like Orochimaru," Genma mutters, and Kakashi shoots him a look.

"Careful," is all he says.

"Not like that," Genma sighs, waving Kakashi's tension off with one tired hand. "I meant that maybe her research is more vital or complicated than anyone else can manage. It would make sense, probably, but I can't think of anything that's come out of her work yet that would count."

Kakashi wonders about that.

"You've got an idea," Genma says.

"It's not one I'm happy with," Kakashi says. "I don't—I hate it, alright?"

"Spit it out."

"…Danzō's research, especially the parts that came from Orochimaru, had to go somewhere," Kakashi mumbles. "If Hokage-sama thought any of it was worth salvaging…"

Genma flinches. "Yeah. That's—yeah, okay, I can see why that idea fucks you up."

That's good, because Kakashi doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

"So," Genma says, sly and obnoxious. "Did you hear that Asuma's coming back?"

Kakashi grins.

#

Sakura doesn't… get angry.

Not in front of the kids.

Not in public either, usually.

Kanna's joked a few times that Sakura's temper has a longer fuse and burns all the hotter for it, but only because she cut the line herself.

Kakashi hasn't seen evidence of it yet, but he believes her.

Still, a school day that coincides with Sakura's off-time usually means sitting down with some tea and talking about nothing for a few hours.

It doesn't mean hissed cursing and general agitation from the second Kakashi steps past the wards.

It's not a comfortable vibe, really. He's glad the kids aren't here. Especially Karin and Juugo.

Kakashi isn't even that good of a sensor.

"Hey asshole," Kurama greets. The man is sitting next to Sakura at the counter, and he looks incredibly bored. "Feel like helping us fuck with the laws of space-time?"

"Shut up," Sakura hisses.

Kakashi blinks at her. He's pretty sure she doesn't notice. "Um. Is it too late to leave?"

"Yes," Kurama says, like the dick he is. "The hell are you even doing here?"

There is a cast on Kakashi's leg. He gestures at it. "I can't exactly train right now. Doctor's orders."

Kurama looks at Sakura for a moment, because she is in fact the doctor in question, and then shrugs. "Whatever."

"Shut uuuuuup," Sakura whines. "Oh my god, how does she even work like this?"

"Her handwriting's better than yours," Kurama goads.

"I'm a medic, I'm allowed to have bad handwriting," Sakura snaps. She's still glaring at the pages on the kitchen island like it's going to make them make sense somehow. "Holy smokes, what does this page even do?"

Kakashi trundles over, looks past her shoulder, and says, "huh."

"Wild, right?" Kurama asks, with a grin that is surprisingly bloodthirsty for a bunch of complicated seal work that, as far as Kakashi can tell, have nothing to do with injuring people.

"Why can't you just ask Kanna?" Kakashi asks, taking a seat on the remaining stool.

"She's out on a mission," Sakura moans. "Classified, but an S-rank team thing."

Kurama catches Kakashi's eye where Sakura can't see it and mouths, 'more kids.'

Kakashi stares at him, and then looks down at Sakura.

"Whatever he said, he's lying," Sakura informs Kakashi. "Ignore him, he's—"

"Right here," Kurama interrupts.

"Ugh," Sakura groans. "I know medical seals and I know some of the time-space stuff but this is ridiculous."

Kakashi looks over it all. "I mean, maybe another set of eyes could help? Is there a reason this can't wait until Kanna gets back?"

Sakura winces. "Kind of. We're on a time-crunch, and the Hokage's getting antsy the longer we take to get it done, because he can't make some moves to forward international policy until we can take care of this thing. Kanna was hoping I could do what you suggested and be another set of eyes myself, except I can't untangle any of this. Time-space is one of her specialties, and I've only got a passing knowledge on it."

Kakashi makes a noise and pulls the pages over. He sort of gets it. "And Jiraiya?"

"She's got her own copy of it all with her," Sakura says. "They're planning to meet up on her way back."

He makes an acknowledging noise and keeps flipping through the pages. "It's… wait, are these chakra-sealing elements? Why do you need those?"

"A very specific, very dangerous enemy," Sakura says. She sits up and cracks her back. "Okay, so. The enemy in question can teleport and phase through things with some kind of time-space technique using a kekkei genkai. We need to basically back him into a corner using the time-space fuuinjutsu so he can't escape using the kekkei genkai, hopefully sort of… locking him into place, and then activating the chakra limitations so they affect him but not the other people in the trap."

"So you're looking to do the impossible," Kakashi surmises. "And Kanna specializes in time-space, you said?"

Sakura wiggles a hand. "It was one of the first subjects she pushed to a Master level. I only really know medical seals at that level, but she's got… time-space, warding, bio-chem, and Jinchuuriki."

Living up to the Uzumaki legacy.

"And Kurama?" Kakashi asks, just because there's one more person in the room.

"I'm… intuitive," the man says, and he grimaces in a way that looks painful. "I don't know the math behind sealing, I just know how things fit together. That works for the chakra sealing, but it's not going to help with the time-space. Those are almost always math to the core."

Chakra-sealing, even for an entire room, isn't actually the most difficult thing in the world. It gets harder the more powerful the trapped individual is—it's part of why handling Juugo took so long—but it's not the most difficult branch of sealing if you know who your sealing. Adjustments have to be made for things like chakra type and extant seals on their person, and various other little wiggly bits, but it can be done.

Time-space fuuinjutsu is a nightmare, and there's a reason Kakashi never even tried to inherit the Hiraishin from his teacher.

Still. Kakashi doesn't have anything better to do, really, so he might as well take a look at this.

"How long have you been working on this?" Kakashi asks, flipping through a few more papers.

"Kanna-chan's been working on it since before we came to Konoha," Sakura says. "Probably two years now? She'd work on something to keep Kurama here with us whenever she got stuck on the time-space thing, but she finished that a few weeks ago, so… now we're just mucking about with this."

"And the Zetsu thing," Kurama says.

"And the Zetsu thing," Sakura sighs.

Kakashi processes that for a moment, and then looks up. "Wait."

"Hm?" Sakura asks, blinking at him with flat black eyes.

"Why would you need a seal to keep Kurama here?" Kakashi asks. "You're not—you're not a ghost from Uzushio or something, right? Because I know there were rumors about Senju Tobirama bringing back the dead with fuuinjutsu, but—"

"I'm not a ghost," Kurama says flatly. "Of all the things to ask, why that?"

"Well, what else could it be?" Kakashi asks.

"Classified," Sakura says, which is patently unfair.

He ignores them both for a few minutes, just paging through Kanna's notes and theories and thumbnails, sketched out in pencil for safety's sake. Kakashi pages through everything a few times before reordering it in a way that he hopes will make it all make more sense. He starts from the top, gets halfway, and then starts over.

"Hellish, isn't it?" Kurama asks, with a too-white, too-wide grin.

"I thought I left calculus behind years ago," Kakashi admits. "I'm still trying to figure out how the fractals figure in. She's got them on at least three pages but I can't figure out why."

"Rerouting," Kurama says.

Kakashi looks up, and blinks, and Kurama shrugs.

"One of the options she was considering was making it so that if he tried to teleport out, he'd just teleport back in again instead. If we can't turn the teleporting out and phasing into something that feels like running into a brick wall, than we can turn it into a door that opens back up into the exact same room you started in. From what she said, the fractals are… related to approaching a limit, graphically."

Oh. That actually makes some degree of sense. Sakura looks annoyed, in the way that only someone who's used to working with squishy and ambiguously defined things can be.

Kakashi flips through again, and starts asking for clarification whenever he gets stuck on something. The fact that there are different branches of theories for options instead of a million things that are all supposed to factor into the same, singular seal makes things easier.

Sakura's leg starts bouncing after a certain point.

She bites her lip.

She finally turns to Kakashi and asks, "Can I have a sample of your aqueous humor?"

"My—no!"

Kurama pinches the bridge of his nose and looks like he's about eighty miles past 'done.'

Sakura just winces. "Sorry. I'm—there's a reason. I promise. I could probably make do with a few cells, and we could… maybe get that just with tears, but I'd be leery of that route since it would involve contamination with your own DNA when what we really need is the Sharingan, but—"

"Stop," Kakashi says, and Sakura's mouth snaps shut. "You want. A cell sample. Of my Sharingan."

"…if it's no trouble," Sakura says, and her voice is almost meek.

Kakashi looks past her. "Do you know what this is about?"

"Yep," Kurama says. "Honestly, we could probably skip this if we just went with sealing the asshole for eternity instead of trying to talk to him—"

Sakura's hand snaps out, grabbing Kurama's jaw and tensing. She doesn't even look up from where her eyes are still focused on a spot on the floor, somewhere past Kakashi's left knee. "You know why we can't do that."

"Let go of—"

"You know we can't do that."

"If you don't—"

"And what would Naruto say?"

"Alright!" Kurama shouts, and Sakura lets go of him. "Dammit, I thought you were supposed to be playing nice."

Sakura glares at him, holds up a hand, and pretends to squeeze something. "Thump-a-thump."

Another grimace. "I remember, alright. I'm not saying you—"

"Then stop suggesting I'm not taking it seriously," Sakura hisses. "He's useful. There are ways. There's a plan. We talk, because everything will be easier if we can get him on our side. Eternal sealing is for Zetsu. That's. It."

Kurama glares at her. "Hidan."

"And Hidan, if he doesn't get himself destroyed some other way."

They glare at each other for a few long, unbroken moments that Kakashi feels should probably have been broken by someone. Not him, preferably, but there is no other 'someone' around.

"I feel like I'm missing a lot of context," he says, and both parties deflate. "I have no idea who 'he' is. Or Zetsu. Or Hidan. None of these names mean anything to me."

"It doesn't—it doesn't matter," Sakura sighs. "We just need to figure out the seal. Or at least something we can give Kanna to work off of."

Kakashi looks to Kurama to see if he has anything to say.

The man meets his eyes, calculating without even hiding it, and then says, "Zetsu's my uncle. Not on the Uzumaki side. He's completely insane—"

"Not clinically," Sakura interjects.

"—and completely evil," Kurama finishes, ignoring Sakura entirely. "Whatever the worst villain you can think of is, Zetsu's worse."

Kakashi blinks slowly, because he's met plenty of horrifying people, and heard of even more.

Sakura shakes her head. "He's right. Zetsu's after global annihilation, and he's almost got the power to make it happen. Ten, maybe fifteen years. Probably less."

Oh. That's. Uh.

Well, shit.

"Be careful where you throw that name around, Hatake," Kurama grumbles, and he looks half-asleep until Kakashi parses the tension in his shoulders and the curl to his lip. "He has a habit of knowing when people are talking about him, and there are very few people who are supposed to know he even exists."

Sakura does not dispute this.

"Right!" Kakashi eye-smiles at them. "Well, then let's figure out this nightmare of a seal to see if we can get that unnamed 'he' on our side like you said."

#

Kanna does not come home with one new kid.

She comes home with several dozen.

(Turns out most of Orochimaru's bases are stuffed to the brim with children.)

(Kakashi can't say he's actually surprised. At least a lot of these ones were just local kids that were kidnapped or bribed. There are treaties Kakashi isn't meant to know about that end up meaning that some of those kids, especially the bribed ones, are getting moved right over to Yugakure, the nearest of the hidden villages. Yugakure is pretty much a pacifist country these days, and any kid that just wants a job and didn't know what they were getting into can go protect roads for tourists or whatever.)

(Unfortunately, some of these teenagers are rather loyal to Orochimaru.)

(Violently so.)

A/N: I'm not saying most of the Kurama visuals were stolen from blackkat, but I'm not saying there wasn't SOME influence, you know?

Also, I've been dying to get the Castlevania reference in there, so.