Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 47 – Status
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 5,877
Summary: AU. Sakura gives up on Kakashi as a teacher after Team 7 falls apart. Too bad fate, enemy ninja, and sheer bad luck have other plans.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 47 of ? Unbeta'd.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Hinata asks.

Tenten jerks and then yelps, having hit her head on the underside of her bed. As she wriggles out from beneath it (it used to be way easier to get under there) she hears Hinata apologize.

She rubs her head as she sits back on her heels feeling grimy and dusty—clearly, she needs to step up her sweeping under there—but, easily, she finds a smile for Hinata.

"It's fine," she says, "come in, don't worry about it."

"I didn't mean to startle you," Hinata says.

"I said don't worry about it," Tenten insists, getting up and grabbing her desk chair for Hinata to sit on. "What kind of ninja would I be if I couldn't even handle a bump to my noggin?"

Hinata doesn't answer her, just laughs softly.

"Anyway," Tenten says, blowing out a breath and watching a piece of hair that's come loose from her buns dance from the force of it. "I was looking for a box of knickknacks. Mom put them away and now, with Sakura moving in for a bit, she wants them back out so we can decorate the guest room. Make it look nice, you know? Give it some personality."

Hinata studies her. "Sakura-san's moving in?"

"Yeah," Tenten says. "She'll need more support than her parents can give her to recuperate. Her parents are civilians, you know? And they're… they seem to be…"

Tenten hesitates. She doesn't really know.

Then she shrugs. If she's wrong, well, she'll apologize later. "I don't really know, and I've never met them, but they seem to be civilians, if you know what I mean?"

It's a clumsy, awkward way to put it, but the gulf between the two halves of Konoha is just as weird and clumsy at times. They're all part of the village and yet… there's civilians and then there's civilians and Sakura's parents seem to be the latter sort.

"Ah," Hinata says. There's a wealth of understanding in her voice. "Does this mean she'll be released soon?"

Tenten wiggles one hand back and forth. "Maybe," she allows. "Tsunade-sama is taking it day-by-day, from the sounds of it. Sakura's better today than she was yesterday. Ino's hanging out with her."

"And you were hanging out with Ino?" Hinata asks.

"Something like that," Tenten admits. "Wound up playing cards with Tsunade-sama for candy. I'm not sure anyone really won, in the end, but we all got candy and that was the true point of it, I guess."

Hinata smiles. "You had fun?"

"I did," Tenten admits, and hesitates a moment before deciding that, no, she's not ready to look at all the complicated feelings she had about having been around her hero, Tsunade-sama, who'd turned out to be all too human. She's not ready to share those feelings. "It would've been great if you were there. You should come next time. I know Sakura and Ino wouldn't mind your company."

"I might have come this time," Hinata observes, gentle amusement written all over her face. "But I didn't know there was a meeting."

Tenten laughs as she takes a seat on the corner of her bed, one down by the foot of it, not wanting to get anywhere near her pillow while she's so dusty and gross. "I didn't know it was happening either before it did," she explains. "Ino caught me while she was out shopping and I got dragged along for the ride."

Of course, she hadn't put up much of a fight about being dragged along for the ride either.

"But next time I'll tell Ino to grab you too," Tenten decides, then shakes her head. "But—look at me, just talking about my day. What about you? What brings you here?"

"I'd wondered if you might be available for training," Hinata says and Tenten takes some quiet delight in how easily and confident Hinata sounds about just having shown up. It means she's comfortable here and that, Tenten knows, doesn't come easily to Hinata. "But if you're busy…"

Tenten perks up. Training! She always enjoys training! Except—

"I can come training," she says, though then she trails off as she does give her friend a long look to make sure that, yeah, okay, it really is just training that Hinata's come seeking. Hinata might not always say what's going on with her family—in fact, she rarely does—but sometimes she needs comfort more than training.

Today, though, Hinata seems genuinely happy and so Tenten chooses to take her at face value.

"But?" Hinata prompts. "What is your condition?"

Tenten grins at her. "But only once I find the stuff my mom's looking for. Did you want to help search for the box? Getting you to help would be almost like cheating."

"It's not cheating," Hinata says with a grave sort of dignity, the sort that's completely undermined by the laughter dancing in her eyes. "It's utilizing all of the tools at our disposal, as good shinobi do."

"That, then," Tenten declares. "And while we're doing that, you can tell me how your team's going since you reformed. Are you going out on a mission soon or does Kurenai-sensei intend to keep you all in training for a while longer?"

Hinata's Byakugan flares to life with less concentration, Tenten knows, than it had taken her even three months ago. Hinata is quick to praise the progress of others but slow to recognize her own.

It's practically criminal, as far as Tenten is concerned, but she also knows that her opinion isn't wanted on the evils of the Head of the Hyuuga Clan and his deficiencies in how he treats both Hinata and Neji.

"The box isn't under your bed," Hinata murmurs. "How big is this box, do you think?"

"Should be about the size of a shoe box," Tenten says. "Maybe a little larger?"

Hinata nods. "Training's going well," she adds. "Kurenai-sensei is keeping us mostly in the village for the moment—in consideration for the healing we've recently done, in part, but primarily because there's plenty for us to do in the village to aid in the reconstruction."

Tenten ignores the stab of envy at that. She's hates the way she's been at loose ends, but that doesn't give her the right to—

"Ah," Hinata says. "The box, or one that may be it, seems to be in the attic."

"The attic?" Tenten asks, glancing up as Hinata dismisses her Byakugan. "Well, alright. Mom didn't think it would be, but she's been wrong before."

"Don't let her hear you say that," Hinata says, smiling.

"Why not?" Tenten asks lightly. "Mom will just smack me upside the head with a paper fan and tell me to go get it anyway and something something about not doubting the wisdom of my elders."

Hinata laughs softly. "I envy you that," she says.

And, well, what is Tenten supposed to say to that?

"Well, hey, you know you're always welcome over here," she says, bouncing up and leading them out of her bedroom. "Especially with Sakura coming to stay with us. It'll be a girl party. My parents will love it. All we need to do is get Ino to stay over too and just imagine the amount of nonsense we can come up with…"

It's not easy for Tenten to chatter under most circumstances but she doesn't keep it up for long, just long enough for them to get the trapdoor in the ceiling open and to jump up into the attic. There's a ladder but she ignores it and Hinata follows her lead.

The attic is dark, dusty, and filled with boxes. Tenten lights the lamp they keep by the trapdoor and surveys the—

"It's not really a mess," she decides. "It actually looks quite organized. That's definitely my dad's fault."

"Is a person really at fault for being organized?" Hinata wonders.

"Probably not," Tenten admits. "But he's not here so I can say it anyway. Which direction are we aiming in?"

Hinata gets them going in the right direction, lifting and shoving boxes out of the way, and as they do that, in the half-dark of the room, Tenten figures that here is about as good a place as any for her to ask.

"Hey," she says, "have you heard about what Shikamaru did?"

Hinata's pale eyes seem almost to glitter from the light of the lantern as she looks up. "Yes," she says, after a moment. "One of my cousins heard and brought it to the Clan's attention last night. My father had… opinions… on it."

Neji, Tenten knows, is Hinata's closest cousin, their fathers having been twins, but the Hyuuga Clan refers to the general sprawl of their family and their tangled connections within as 'cousins' almost exclusively.

Both, she figures, to protect the Clan from having any one of them in particular be singled out, but also to make it easier for outsiders to understand.

"I'm not asking about your father's opinion," Tenten says carefully, keeping her voice from light and free from judgement. "But I was wondering what yours is."

"You are not usually one for political gossip," Hinata observes.

"No," Tenten agrees, making a face. "I'm too stupid for it. But, well, Ino's a friend and I was there when it happened."

"You're not stupid," Hinata says, rather fiercely.

"For politics?" Tenten says, with a laugh. "I really am. I would much rather have you and Neji do my thinking for things like that. I'm good at math and remembering history. Active politics is… it's too messy."

Hinata makes a discontented noise. "Tenten…"

"Hey," she says, "don't worry about it. No one's told me I'm bad at it or anything. It's not like—it's not like it is…"

"For me?" Hinata finishes, her eyes lowered in a mien that might seem almost demure but that Tenten knows is a shield as much as Hinata's over-sized jacket is.

"Yeah," Tenten says, since beating around that bush would be an exercise in futility at this point. "Sorry."

Hinata waves that off with the shrug of one shoulder. A silent 'well, it's true after all…'.

"So," Tenten says, "what do you think?"

"It's… it's not good," Hinata says. "It looks poorly on the Nara Clan as a whole—my father was pleased enough to openly speculate at being able to use it against Nara Shikaku at the next council meeting, as a way to bring his judgement into doubt—but it is especially grim for Shikamaru. H-He's a Chuunin."

Tenten nods slowly. "He's younger than me," she points out.

Hinata leans against a box that's taller than she is. "His age doesn't matter," she says. "Because he's a Chuunin. It… it means that he's expected to have judgement more trustworthy than a Genin would. To be able to lead by example."

"No one can be perfect, though," Tenten says, shifting another box. "Even the Jounin fight amongst each other. We're all people before we're our ranks."

Hinata doesn't say anything to that, but it's a very loud silence.

Loud enough that, after a few moments, Tenten heaves a huge sigh. "Okay," she says, "tell me what I said wrong."

"In… in a perfect world, perhaps you'd be right," Hinata says, frowning. "But your argument, as cemented in this world…

"It's naïve."

Tenten grimaces. That's an unrelenting, rainy day sort of view if she's ever heard one and, unless she misses her guess, there's more incoming.

"We are all people before we're our ranks," she insists.

"Yes," Hinata says, her voice soft but there's steel underneath it. "But we are more our rank and station than we are a person to the people who don't know us. That matters. Shikamaru-kun, a Chuunin, lost his temper in a relatively public place and yelled at someone who is both allied closely with his Clan and who also outranks him in every sense of the word.

"Even those who know both Yamanaka-san and Shikamaru-kun are taken aback by it. For those who do not know them personally, the facts of their ranks and stations are what leave an impact. To them, it's the fact that a Chuunin Clan Heir lost their temper in public and yelled at a Jounin Clan Head of an Allied Clan. The circumstances around it don't matter, not to those who don't know them personally."

"I guess so," Tenten says, because she gets it but, also, she doesn't. Mostly because she doesn't want to. She's spent too much time around Neji, has seen enough of the shit end of the stick about how things work in Clans, and all of this… it's true but it also leaves her with a bad taste in her mouth. "I wish Ino could just beat him up and have that fix everything. Would that fix everything?"

To her surprise, Hinata actually considers this thoughtfully. "Perhaps," she says, "though it would have to be done carefully."

Tenten smiles a little. "I'm sure Ino could beat him up very, very carefully."

Hinata just shakes her head. "Wh-when you get like this, Tenten," she says, "you do not make it easy."

"I know," she says, "but you love me anyway. And I am listening. I just wish it was simpler, I guess. I want to help Ino but I don't know what to do, you know?"

"Right now," Hinata says, "I think it's best if you just… follow her lead. You said you don't want to do the hard thinking anyway… right?"

"I should throw something at you," Tenten says, knowing she's one of the handful of people who Hinata expresses her actual opinions to. "But, yeah, alright, I'll let Ino do the thinking for now. It's her family that's involved anyway."

She thinks about mentioning the I.O.U. she's got but, really—

Maybe I'll mention it to Ino first. See what she thinks. If it would be useful at all.

"So, since I'm just a lowly Genin," Tenten says, "and you're my superior in status—"

Hinata splutters.

"—no, no, don't even deny that," Tenten says. "Now, let's move these last few boxes and see if we can't unearth what my mom wants and, while we do that, you can explain to me, in little words, how Ino beating Shikamaru up might not solve the problem."

Truthfully, she could probably figure it out on her own, but the whole point of asking Hinata is to ask Hinata and hear what she has to say.

And when it comes to politics, I'd really rather follow someone's lead. I'm terrible at politics because I think they're terrible. It's a self-perpetuating vicious cycle.

Hinata sighs, softly, but she's laughing quietly too, even as she patiently starts walking through the reasons why, however satisfying, beating Shikamaru up might not be the best idea.

But, oh, it's a tempting one and I'm not even involved, except very tangentially.

Kurenai glances up at the building Asuma lives in and wonders, not for the first time, if she ought to just keep walking on instead of turning and entering the foyer and climbing the stairs up to where his apartment is.

He'd let her in, if she came up. She knows this. Which means that, effectively, the decision is in her hands.

For now, she puts off the decision, taking a seat on a nearby bench and watching both the street and his building with about the same level of scrutiny.

She's conflicted.

I don't like that I haven't seen him around the last little while.

Some of that is, with the reformation of Team Eight, she's been busy. Training teenagers is a lot of work, no matter how much she cares about her team and is cared for in return. They take a lot of time and it's time she's willing to give, always, because if she doesn't do her best then how can she expect them to do their best?

But—had she wanted to, she'd have found the time for this. It's been easier to not.

Some of that is… I don't know what to say.

Kurenai has always found silence to be a refuge in moments like this. She's an illusionist, a conjurer, at heart. A spinner of make-believe stories and fantasies woven out of strands of imagination. Chakra makes them almost tangible, sinks them deep into other peoples' minds with pretty little hooks that the unwary invite in.

But all of this is so thoroughly grounded in both reality and, between Asuma himself, and her team, she cannot forget what's going on and, the longer it goes without answers or action, the less she knows what to say and the more she feels she must say something.

Weeks ago, she had told him that people were talking about him. He'd agreed.

Between them, that night, they had let silence settle and if it had been just that, Kurenai thinks that it might have been alright, between them, to move on from it.

Asuma doesn't like talking about his feelings. She doesn't like talking about hers. They're well suited for each other in that—and in other ways, though they've not defined their relationship as anything in particular yet.

(Another conversation they've put off, held it at bay with the understanding of mutual silence.)

In her silences, though, Kurenai listens. She hears what people say and, sometimes more importantly, what they don't say and there's a great deal going on, verbally and non-verbally, and none of it is simple or comfortable.

So far, she's managed to avoid giving her opinion, demurring that it really has nothing to do with her team and that, if pressed, admitting that Hinata has expressed her preference for remaining on Team Eight.

If it was just that, it would be a safe enough distance. Something to watch and consider and weigh circumstances to.

She counts the windows up and then across, until she's looking at his windows, at the curtains he'd hung one sultry summer's night last year when she stayed over to help and then for more.

Kurenai knows she could walk away.

Very few people know she and Asuma are anything other than friends. They've never put a label on it.

And, the thing is, maybe I should just walk away. For the sake of my team and maintaining neutrality. Mostly, though, for myself.

Usually… Kurenai prefers the silence.

That's why it's so unsettling, now, to wonder when he'll speak up.

Actions speak loudly, usually more loudly than silence since most people don't listen to it properly, but in this case… in this case… the silence is speaking louder and louder every single day it goes on.

Kurenai breathes in slowly and, then, breathes out just as slowly. As she reaches the end of that breath, she stands up and makes her way over to Asuma's building. Her pace is leisurely, unruffled. The quickest way to attract attention is to draw it to her and she doesn't want that.

The inside of Asuma's apartment block is a maze of white walls, in good repair and, if she focuses, Kurenai can feel the brush of chakra wards rubbing against her senses—this is not an inexpensive building.

Better security than my place has, she acknowledges. Though mine isn't exactly cheap either.

She'll take her windows over his increased security.

There are no elevators in his building and the stairs are long, folding back and forth upon each other. She takes them absently, paying just enough attention to make sure she's out of the way when a harried mother escorts two squabbling kids, who look barely old enough to have started at the Academy, past her as they head down the stairs, but no more than that.

Then, at Asuma's door, Kurenai stands outside of it for a long moment. However, having come this far, further stalling would be intolerable. She presses her right hand flat against the door, sending a small pulse of chakra to his personal wards to let them know she's a recognized visitor, then she knocks. Once.

The door swings open and—

"Hey," he says, lips around a cigarette, his eyes tired and hair dishevelled.

"Hey, stranger," she says, and Kurenai smiles at the sight of him. Her thoughts are conflicted about what to do but her heart is glad to see him.

"Come on in," Asuma says, stepping back, allowing her entrance.

She deliberately brushes him with her shoulder as she passes by, the lightest of feather touches, and as he shuts the door behind her, Kurenai knows he's smiling.

If only just a little.

Her eyebrows raise as she takes in the state of his living room. It's not always the cleanest place, though never filthy, and she feels he could use a few more plants to brighten it up, but this–

"Were you aware that a filing cabinet has spilled its contents all over your—" she pauses for impact "—everything?"

There is paper everywhere.

He comes up behind her, looking over her shoulder, and she leans against him.

"The filing cabinet might have brought friends," she murmurs, glancing up to catch his smile.

"It does look like that," Asuma concedes, then leans to give her a quick kiss before he pulls back. "I've been busy."

She's glad to hear it. To know that his silence has, in part, an explanation that's not rooted in shame or wounded pride. Something a little more solid than that. Defensible. It would be foolish—and she tries hard not to be—to not let this reason of his serve as a full excuse.

It can't.

If it is, then she'll have betrayed her own principles and allowed (what might, eventually, be) love to cloud her reason.

For now, it serves to ease the worst of the doubts and she permits that, allows him that bit of extra grace. What has he been doing?

"What are you working on?" Kurenai asks curiously, keeping her voice light. From where she stands, she can't make out the cramped, tiny writing. His writing, of course, though she can see the shapes of the forms and knows that they're—

"Mission reports?"

Asuma sighs, stepping past her, carefully not disturbing the papers, and gestures for her to come with. He clears her a spot on his couch, next to the only clear space left—his, she presumes—and rolls his shoulders back, stretching his neck.

"Did you want anything to drink?" he asks. "Tea? Water? I've got something harder, if you want that."

"Is this a conversation that will require liquid reinforcement?" she wonders.

"Is it?" he asks.

Kurenai smiles faintly. He's got her there.

"It may be," she admits. "We'll have to compare notes."

"Tea it is, then," he says. "And we can break out the harder shit afterwards. We'll need it then. For now, tea will get us raring to go."

She smothers a laugh and leans back against the cushions, reaching for one of the mission reports that have been set aside.

"Are any of these classified?" she calls as he disappears into the kitchen. Given that he hasn't made any effort to put them away, her inclination is to say no, but…

Plausible deniability is everything.

"Not for you," he says. "Some aren't for the eyes of anyone Chuunin and below but that's the worst of it."

"Even better," Kurenai murmurs, scanning the first of them. To her surprise, it's just a D-rank mission report, and not even of Team Ten. "Why are you reading about Team Seven from before the last Chuunin Exams?"

He doesn't answer her right then and Kurenai goes back to her reading. It's… it's a disaster of a mission, to put it lightly, and she cringes at the way Team Seven had floundered, kicking and screaming, through the simple steps of delivering groceries and weeding a garden.

Another mission report details, excruciatingly, their first attempt at locating a lost cat and returning it to its owner.

And a third one…

She is halfway through the fifth mission report (a depressingly disastrous showing of babysitting twin two year olds) when Asuma offers her a cup of tea, made just the way she likes it. Kurenai sets aside the mission report gladly to take it.

"Find anything interesting?" he asks.

Kurenai considers that, then says, "I cannot believe he took them out of the village like that."

There had been that one C-rank mission, hadn't there? She'd heard the rumours…

"My old man probably wanted them out of the village," Asuma says as he takes a seat next to her. "For a while there they were costing the village more in reparations and repair fees than their paycheques were worth."

She laughs. "Why are you reading these?" she asks. "This is tedium with a coating of schadenfreude."

"It is, rather," Asuma says, with a laugh of his own. "But there's something interesting in them."

"Are you going to make me guess?"

"You might pour your tea on me if I make you read the rest of them," he says.

"You're safe until I stand up," Kurenai says, smirking. "I don't want to burn myself."

He shakes his head. "In those reports," he says, "what was Kakashi mentioned as doing?"

Kurenai's eyes narrow. "I—"

She's just read them and yet…

Asuma opens his mouth to speak but, frowning, she holds up one hand and reaches for the report she'd been reading, reviewing it with more critical concentration than she'd first granted it.

"Whose handwriting is this?" she asks, reading it over for a third time.

With a glance, Asuma snorts. "That's Haruno's," he says. "Uchiha has a lighter touch with a pen and favoured longer horizontal lines in his kanji. Hers looks like it was copied from a government proclamation. So far as I've seen, Uzumaki didn't write reports ever."

"Kakashi isn't even mentioned in this one," she murmurs in disbelief, rereading it again. "Except for the sign off on it—did he even read this?—there's no indication he was even there. It was babysitting but it was a mission."

Asuma hums his agreement.

"Is he mentioned in any of these?" she asks, gesturing at the mess of papers spread about. "These can't all be mission reports."

"They're not," he says, though he doesn't elaborate on what else there is, "and he's mentioned sometimes. It's… when he's present, it seems he was quite present and active, but otherwise… well…"

Kurenai listens to the words in the trailed off silence but understanding eludes her.

"Is this to prove he was a poor teacher?" she asks slowly. "What is this for, Asuma?"

"I'd requested a copy of Ino's transfer request," Asuma says, after a long moment of staring at the ceiling. Now, he glances at her and Kurenai nods slowly, willing him to continue. "I… I wanted to see what she had to say."

Kurenai holds back on the urge to ask the obvious question and waits.

"There were a lot of interesting things about it," he murmurs. "But, for the purposes of this conversation, the one I'm talking about is how nearly everything to do with Hatake Kakashi had been redacted. A near total blackout specifically concerning him. These mission reports are the sum total of the ones I can access and, as you can see…"

"He's only involved tangentially in most of them," Kurenai muses. "That is interesting. Hinata and I took dinner yesterday with Tenten, from Gai's team. She referred to Kakashi as 'Hatake-sensei' and, when I asked Hinata later, so did she."

Which is… unusual.

Asuma narrows his eyes. "Team Seven referred to him as Kakashi-sensei back during the Chuunin Exams."

"Yes," she says. "I remember that as well."

So why, now, is he 'Hatake-sensei' instead? She also has her notes from when Shino and Kiba had both originally noticed a difference. They had concurred that he was Hatake Kakashi but also that… something had changed.

Kurenai breathes out slowly as Asuma gets up, setting his tea to the side, and rummages through one set of papers.

She wants to know what it will say. She wants to unravel the mystery of 'Hatake-sensei'. She's very glad to know that Asuma had been pursuing a mystery, rather than just sulking, but…

"Asuma," she says, "have you heard that Ino has returned to the village?"

"No, I've been busy," he says, a half-smile on his face that fades when he catches sight of her expression. "What's wrong? Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Kurenai says. "A minor case of chakra exhaustion, that's all. She spent a night at the hospital but only because she was already sleeping when Haruno was brought in."

"And Haruno?" he asks immediately.

"Haruno was injured and will be in the hospital for a few days," Kurenai says. "I haven't yet heard what happened, although Tenten mentioned Ino was ascribing it to 'Team Seven's bad luck'."

He snorts. "That sounds like her. I'm glad she's okay, but what—"

"Shikamaru yelled at Ino's father while Ino was asleep in the hospital," Kurenai says, hating to interrupt but also needing to just tell him. "To be more precise, Shikamaru yelled at the Yamanaka Clan Head, in the hospital room Haruno and Ino were sharing, while other people were around."

"He—what?!"

"Tenten was there," Kurenai says, a tinge of apology in her words. It's a feeble attempt. None of that, at least, was his fault. But…

It all falls back on them, Shikamaru's parents and Asuma both, as the ones with the most influence over him.

"And the door was open," she finishes.

"Fuck," Asuma mutters vehemently. "When did this—"

Kurenai hesitates, not quite sure of the exact timing of it. "Recently," she says. "Something like… late the day before yesterday or early yesterday morning? I do know that Yamanaka Inoichi marched Shikamaru right over to the Nara Clan compound. No one has seen him since, so far as I'm aware."

"And no one told me," he says grimly. "No one except you."

She has no response for that. He knows what it means as well as she does.

"I think that the mystery of Hatake-sensei is important to solve," Kurenai says, keeping her voice even and earnest. "But, right now, Asuma—you've got more important things to be dealing with. Even though Ino's left your team, Chouji and Shikamaru remain and it's obvious that, though Shikamaru's a Chuunin, you've still got work to do with him. He needs your support."

"So get off my ass, huh?" He looks at the mess of a papers for a long moment. "… Do you think I can fix this?"

He's not a toddler so Kurenai won't insult him with a platitude of him being able to do anything he sets his mind to. The real world doesn't act like that. The days and nights, over and over, they don't operate on anything so kind as fairness, effort or hard work.

Sometimes things break and, after the fact, there's no fixing them.

"I don't know," she says, looking up at him. "But whether or not you're ready to try, I think you've run out of time to waste. What are you going to do about it?"

He thinks about it, turns the problem over in his head so clearly that she can nearly see the way his thoughts move.

"I'm going to have a cigarette," he says abruptly, like he's made up his mind. "A shower. Then I'll see about getting my shit together to deal with what's left of my team.

"And thanks," he adds.

"What do you mean all evidence disappeared?"

Kakashi does not smile at the way Tsunade-sama's expression changes as he and Yamanaka Inoichi tell her about the latest development regarding the Hatake estate. If he'd been in a better mood then, yes, he would have though because her expression is priceless.

But he's not in a better mood.

He grimaces. "It was as if we'd never been there, Tsunade-sama," he explains. "The state of the courtyard was as if it had been untouched for years. Not simply cleaned."

It's a conundrum that he can't figure out. The estate is warded and sealed with blood-his blood. This shouldn't be able to happen. The entire attack shouldn't have been able to happen.

Yet, it did.

Yamanaka Inoichi confirms that his memories, and Sakura's, concur with what Ino said had happened. The physical evidence, including Sakura's continued hospitalization, also confirms their stories. Kakashi frowns slightly at Yamanaka Inoichi's wording.

Shouldn't he be able to confirm his own daughter's memories?

He's never known any Yamanaka truly well but he does know they're usually all up in each other's business.

The one comfort is that Yamanaka Inoichi says that, given everything, his opinion is that, while something is obviously occurring, he, Kakashi, is not the one doing it.

I'll ask Ino about it, Kakashi decides, feeling that he's had quite enough of Inoichi's company for today, and, to his surprise, missing his particular Yamanaka. It's almost time for supper by now. I'll buy take-out and bring it to the girls. They'll appreciate that.

And so will he.

"I'll agree to that," Tsunade-sama says. "Though I'd like to drink the rest of it away."

Instead, though, she unwraps a candy and eats that.

"How likely is it that this is a manifestation of the consequences of the Hatake Kakashis' being swapped from their original places in time?" she asks slowly, like she can't quite believe that it is a question she has to ask.

"A question better for the theorists, I believe," Inoichi says, after a beat. "Though, if this is a consequence of that—it becomes a question of 'has anything else strange been occurring in the village?' and 'will anything strange begin occurring?'"

"So far, it's been confined to the Hatake estate," Kakashi says. "As far as I'm aware."

Tsunade-sama nods. "While you were away, the village carried on without incident. I'll take the question to the theorists and researchers, let them deal with it. In the meantime… both of you are dismissed. Yamanaka-san, Morino was looking for you earlier. Hatake, you can resume training with Yamanaka-kun beginning tomorrow. Haruno-kun may be included in any lectures, so long as they take place at the hospital—she'll be able to stay awake for them as we're weaning her off some of her medications, but no chakra exercises. Her chakra's still tied up in healing."

"The exemption to regular visiting hours—," Kakashi begins.

She cuts him off with a wave of one hand, her eyes softening. "Yes, that's still in place."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," he says, with a bow. By the time he's straightened up, Yamanaka Inoichi has already disappeared.

He has one more question.

"If I may," he says, "do you know if Maito Gai is in the village at this time?"

"Maito's out on a mission. I believe he's due back in the next few days," Tsunade-sama says, and leans forward to write on a piece of scrap paper that she then hands to him. "Take that to the Missions Desk, the Chuunin there will be able to confirm his estimated time of return."

He bows again, deeper. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."