"So, what have you got to report?" Obito asked, idly popping his neck.

"The subject is... cagey." Torune stated slowly, thoughtfully. "Unexpectedly so, even given what was in the briefing. When conversing with us, he keeps the topics strictly related to work and actively fights deviation thereof."

Obito rubbed at his chin, scowling. "I'd hoped you would be able to get closer to him, given the similarities in your ages and his reaction to various girls he hangs out with."

Sai frowned. "Perhaps it is because we do not have breasts or vaginas?"

Obito had never been so happy that he wasn't drinking anything at that exact moment. Closing his eyes briefly, he sighed. While he hadn't exactly spelled it out, he'd hoped that sending Torune and Sai in would trigger whatever 'helping people thing' Kotaro had that itched at him. Superficially, at least, the two made a very good example of people who needed social skills, friends, and tutoring in a new set of skills to help them through a difficult time in their lives.

It certainly helped that the incident which precipitated the two being temporarily retired from active duty hadn't been entirely fabricated. Obito had just been grateful to stumble across that bit of gossip and been able to pull the two for a special assignment that would double as political appeasement. Perfect cover, perfect excuses, perfect candidates for the mission...

"Except it's not working." He grumbled to himself irritably, tapping a foot.

"Pardon, Commander?" Torune asked, cocking his head slightly.

"Nothing to worry about," Obito waved the boy off and crushed the displeasure as the two returned to standing perfectly at attention. If he was perfectly honest... he'd also been hoping that Kotaro would manage to undo some of the damage that had been done to the two Konoha shinobi during their time under Danzo's thumb. Sai and Torune weren't the worst cases being returned to the general forces, but they were some of the youngest remaining former Root agents.

"What's the progress on the other parts of your assignments?" Obito probed, instead of dwelling on the unhappy history of the two shinobi under his current command.

"We are both making adequate progress on learning blacksmithing skills." Sai stated. "Regardless of the subject's dislike for us, he has proven a competent instructor in matters within his expertise."

"I concur." Torune nodded. "Our experiences with the subject bear out every assertion that he is an unparalleled prodigy as regards metallurgical crafting."

"Well, it's nice to know that, at least." Obito sarcastically stated as he frowned, trying to remind himself that former Root members tended to restate the obvious due to their general lack of understanding in regards to how people other than themselves thought. Of the hellish training they endured, this side effect wasn't the most prominent, but it was potentially the most irritating.

"Ah..." Sai began, and Obito blinked as the boy looked slightly unsure of himself as he looked to Torune for some level of assurance. That made Obito focus more tightly. It was more than a little unusual for ninja who had been so thoroughly 'trained' to show any form of humanity, much less a lack of ability to make a decision. If they were unsure of something, they almost always asked for orders. "I have noticed something in regards to the subject's movements and my own mission records that could be considered noteworthy."

"Explain." Obito ordered.

"One week previously, Master Sagara and Senior Apprentice Kotaro ordered me to remove the contents of the storage cellar in the new building acquired during the expansion of the business. A day after accomplishing the task, I noticed that I could no longer locate the door located in the floor of the rear of the building. I have referred to my mission notes several times as well as the diagrams of the buildings included in the briefing as well as attempting non-invasive anti-genjutsu measures, but have not succeeded in revealing the concealed door."

Obito blinked, leaning back. "Huh." He tapped his fingers on the desk in front of him, contemplating the revelation. "I'll tag a Hyuuga for a general search of the surrounding blocks and we'll see what's up with that."

Torune cleared his throat and the Uchiha looked at him before nodding.

"It would be remiss of me not to call attention to the fact that the subject has been working extensively with the Kurama clan. If he has worked out a method to mimic or duplicate their techniques, we may need to consider a deeper level of penetration." The Aburame stated bluntly.

Obito groaned slightly and massaged his face.

Why had they wanted the kid to get into fuuinjutsu again?

"If he's taking precautions like this, it's obvious that he doesn't trust you." Obito surmised, speaking out loud as he put together details before looking at Torune. "You said you went into his room and commented on the mechanism he was constructing?"

The Aburame nodded. "As your cousin, the jinchuuriki, and the orphan girl had been within the room during his convalescence and I saw no evidence that it had been moved, I judged it a safe topic of conversation to attempt to get him to open up given the subject has proven unnaturally adept at detecting my insects. I had hoped to pursue a dialogue instead of continuing failed surveillance efforts with excuses of lapses in my control when caught out. Was I in error?"

Obito grimaced again. "It's hard to know what will set some people off and things like that vary between different individuals across family, friends, and acquaintances. Kotaro likely would not have reacted in this manner if your relationship was that of closer friends." The more senior ninja paused. "It also isn't a failure on your part for not being able to befriend Kotaro."

Because, Obito knew, they would consider it a failure of a mission objective if he didn't explicitly state otherwise.

Any failure in the line of duty, Root protocol demanded, was to be placed squarely on the shoulders of the agents in the field and their lack of capability.

In this instance, though, Obito felt he'd made the wrong judgment call. Kotaro vacillated between moods based on the people around him, much like everyone did. You acted differently when around friends than around family than around coworkers, albeit with some overlap. He'd noticed the boy had some rather extreme swings against people he had otherwise never interacted with, though. Which was decidedly odd, but...

Obito pursed his lips thoughtfully. They didn't exactly know the real limitations of whatever bloodline limit the boy had other than the fact that it dealt with knowledge and skills.

He'd acted reserved and cautious around Obito himself, but had been unflinching and open to Itachi. Likewise, Lady Kushina had reported a certain amount of humor in their interactions, which he'd only seen with Sagara after several months. Likewise, a few circumspect questions had determined that Kotaro had opened up to Gai almost immediately in direct contrast to the jounin's usually off-putting behavior. As decent a person as he was under the eyebrows and jumpsuit, Obito himself was often unsettled by his appearance and mannerisms.

Little Kota, though, had apparently just shrugged and told the man up front what it had taken him months to draw out.

Obito narrowed his eyes as he stared at the two former Root ninja.

Could Kotaro know?

If the boy did, then that would complicate things substantially. Obito considered what his own reaction would be to learning that two Root-trained shinobi had been assigned to live with and report on his daily movements. Although if he did know it was something of a miracle that he was still as calm as he was.

The more important question, though, was how to deal with this mess. A lot of it was guesswork and assumptions on his own part, but the Hokage had given him a fairly free hand in dealing with things and this explanation felt right. Even if whatever bloodline these 'dreamers' possessed was traditionally associated with technology, the fact that Kota was creating things like sword styles and martial arts meant that it wasn't truly limited as the Hokage had believed before becoming aware of the boy. Or, perhaps, Kota's variant of the bloodline simply had different limitations.

Maybe I can nudge him in the right direction? Test his ability to gather information with his bloodline?

The thought swirled nebulously as something resembling a plan formed. Satsuki... or perhaps Naruko... he'd use one of them and allow them to 'overhear' a conversation regarding the former head of Root and how he was giving the two poorly-trained shinobi a second chance by sending them to Kota. Possibly include a tidbit about Danzo's death. No, he'd feed Kota the information through one of his friends and see what happened first. After that, if he needed to, he'd leak the cover story around the old councilor's death. Sarutobi had set a very generous time scale and he didn't want to rush things given how delicate the situation was.

"Continue the mission using the current guidelines." Obito finally stated with a nod. "I'll expect another report in a week after I've done some work behind the scenes myself."

...I wonder if I could get the kid to a casino or something? Just... as an experiment or something.

I looked everything over, turning to the set of sliding rice-paper doors that we'd left open in order to call over to Yakumo. "How does it look?"

Some ten meters away, she spoke up as she replied to allow her voice to carry. "I think it's good! But I want you to check the seals again!"

I shrugged and was about to push my feet into slippers to cross the distance before I paused, shrugged, and activated one of the seals I'd implanted on the base of my feet. My body instantly flung itself across the distance and I landed cleanly in a crouch, easily clearing the garden between the residential and reception wings of the Kurama manor.

"It's still so cool you know how to do that!" Naruko gushed as I stepped into the room, grinning widely as she bounced in place. "You haveta' teach me!"

"When you master the basic exercises I gave you," I replied as I stepped past her and up to the large canvas Yakumo had just finished painting. Upon it was depicted the room I'd just left, from the perspective of one looking in from the wall I'd been studying, if that wall had a window to look through from beyond it at least. "Now let's see..."

I sneaked my hand behind the frame and onto the thin bars of specialty alloy I really needed to get around to naming at some point before pushing a tiny impulse of energy through the complex array I'd had to acid-etch into the material.

Even the highest-quality inks, as it turned out, had a certain 'carrying capacity' in regards to chakra effects. That was a bit puzzling given Naruko's own seal, but I had my suspicions on how exactly her father had pulled that trick, especially considering his teleportation trick. If my guess was right, the man undoubtedly deserved every gram of praise he'd earned as a genius.

...although the fact that it's on human skin probably plays a role too, possibly reinforcing it? After all, my own-no, no. Time for that later, focus now.

The chakra 'ping' through the system came back around to me clean and undistorted, giving me confidence that the seals hadn't been damaged or warped by Yakumo's careful layering of her own chakra-laden paints on it. Still, I took my time to more carefully inspect everything than a simple cursory glance.

"Do you think this one is going to work?" Yakumo asked, a measure of anxious excitement in her voice.

I shrugged. "The last three haven't imploded on themselves and I made the gate out of metal this time so it won't catch fire or shatter when we activate it."

"Hopefully." Satsuki snarked from the background, safely positioned near a window in case of a dire need for an emergency exit.

"Hopefully." I nodded, before removing an empty chakra 'battery' tag from my waist pouch and handing it to Yakumo. "Here, fill this, please."

She nodded, taking the slip of paper and pouring energy into it as it hummed under our collective metaphysical senses. When it was full, she handed it back to me and I nodded. "Alright, I'll signal you when I'm ready."

Another quick application of the body flicker and I was standing back in the original room.

"Ready!" I called out.

"Ready!" Yakumo cried back.

"Three!" I shouted. "Two!" Yakumo's voice rang out with me. "One!" We both cried in unison. "Go!"

As I set the tag against the large canvas of the painted image of Yakumo's room I imagined Yakumo doing much the same with her own hand, pushing chakra into the latent complex illusion she'd left sitting in the artwork. Instantly, I felt the jutsu come to life, energy snapping into place as my senses were forced to recognize a different reality than the one I knew to be true on an empirical level. Again, I fought to trace the feeling back to its source, but the murky depths of my own chakra network prevented me from properly grasping at wherever it was coming from.

The Kurama illusions were simply on an entirely different level than normal genjutsu.

"Holy shit!" Naruko stated as she leaned into the frame, looking as though she was about to step forward-

"Don't!" I called out holding up my hands with as serious a look as I could manage. "We have no idea how stable this thing is. I want it thoroughly tested before anyone or anything someone cares about goes through."

Naruko swallowed, looking at where she'd been about to step and nodded as she retreated.

"Amazing." Yakumo breathed, her victorious grin stretching from ear to ear. "We did it! We actually did it!"

I felt like I should send Kurenai a token of my gratitude, even if she probably wouldn't take it in the spirit it would be given in. She had been the one to put the idea in my brain when she'd talked about how a shinobi couldn't function on genjutsu alone, as opposed to taijutsu. One of the basic limitations, I'd thought at the time, was that someone without suitable endurance and stamina simply couldn't keep up with a fast-moving troupe of ninja.

She probably hadn't meant the statement as a challenge.