It was less that Kakashi sensed the presence beside him and more that he saw a shadow stop beside his own, a fairly respectable distance away, all things considered, but still far closer than most of those who knew him would dare to stand, especially here.

So he didn't turn away from the Memorial Stone, finishing the rest of his conversation with Obito in his head, deciding that if the little Hyuuga wanted to talk, she could wait. To his surprise, wait she did, never once stepping into his field of vision in the ten minutes Kakashi took to finish up, though she also never so much as twitched impatiently, seemingly desperate enough to talk to him to wait him out.

Kakashi sighed, not seeing the point to delay any more, and turned away from the memorial, taking in the girl's tired eyes and sallow face with a single sweeping glance.

"How's Headship?" he asked idly, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he met the Hyuuga's gaze.

"There's a lot that needs to be done." Hinata replied quietly, turning to face him more fully, giving him her full attention.

"Doesn't mean you should sacrifice your sleep for it." Kakashi remarked neutrally, not missing Hinata's frown nor the wordless question in her eyes. "Asuma told me."

"Ah." The Hyuuga breathed, seeming almost embarrassed at the call-out. "It's not- intentional."

Kakashi huffed a quiet laugh at the admission.

"Finally bit off more than you can chew?" he asked bluntly, and though he knew others would have assumed he was teasing, Hinata reared back in affront, seeing the unsubtle probing for what it was.

"I'm delegating." she replied tightly, almost cagily, though Kakashi had heard enough from Shikaku and Jiraiya to know how much the admission must've cost, and decided to let it go.

"That's progress." was all he said in response, and he didn't miss the Hyuuga's double-take at the lack of comment. "What do you want from me, then?"

Because there had to had never sought him out like this, never quite so blatantly, and Kakashi knew the girl well enough at this point to know that her presence at the Memorial Stone was not a coincidence.

The Hyuuga hesitated for only a second before she answered. "There's something I want to ask, but- it's a delicate matter.

Kakashi didn't bother holding back his scoff.

"That hasn't stopped you before." he shot back, thinking back to Tsunade and Shikaku's woes about Hinata's bludgeon-like approach to her problems.

"Unless 'delicate' is the new euphemism for 'treasonous'." he added with a snort, though he stopped short when the Hyuuga winced, dropping eye-contact for the first time since Kakashi had acknowledged her presence. Kakashi felt his dread pool in his stomach, his next words wry but pointed; "Hinata. I was kidding."

Hinata swallowed, her eyes darting to the Memorial Stone before rising to meet Kakashi's once more, and her voice when she spoke was quiet, but the words were damning.

"I'm afraid that- that I am not."

Kakashi stared at the girl for a few seconds, not sure whether he wanted to laugh or Shunshin away.

This was a trap, he realised with a start. It had been a trap from the start. Hinata had known he'd be here. She'd known he'd at least hear her out, too curious for his own good about what Kurenai's little revolutionary was planning this time.

For a split-second, Kakashi hated her. Hated her and the way she embodied the concept of shinobi ruthlessness to a T, exploiting every resource around her for her goals. Then, he sighed.

"What is it?"he demanded flatly, resigning himself to the fact that he'd been outmanoeuvred.

This time, Hinata didn't hesitate, her earlier shyness nowhere to be found when she asked; "Uchiha Itachi was in ANBU, wasn't he?"

Kakashi kept himself very,verystill.

"Why do you think I'd know that?"he asked quietly, the words a warning, but the Hyuuga either didn't hear the impliedleave it be,or chose to ignore it.

"You and Yugao-senpai communicated using ANBU Code." she replied, showing not for the first time that Kakashi hadn't been overreacting when he'd assumed her to be part of the Black Ops. He reckoned he could even pinpoint the exact moment she was referencing, and she'd been ageninthen.

"Why not ask your precious senpai?" he pushed, and Hinata smiled wryly.

"She'd worry." she said, the expression in her eyes fondly exasperated, as if the concept wassilly.

"I will only answer your question," Kakashi began, choosing not to address the Hyuuga's dismissal of Yugao's hypothetical worries and wondering at the same time about the order of people he should notify about whatever was going to come out of Hinata's mouth next, "if you tell mewhyyou want to know."

Hinata hesitated at that, her earlier frown returning as she whispered, "I do not want to implicate you."

Kakashi huffed, though inwardly, he galled at the proof that therewassomething he could be implicatedin. "I can handle myself."

Hinata studied him for a few seconds, then seemingly decided to trust him, because she sighed.

"I am trying to break a code." she revealed quietly, her frown deepening. "And I think- I think there was a mistake with the translation I got."

"A code." Kakashi echoed dryly, mentally flicking through all the contexts in which the Hyuuga could haveacquireda code that required breaking. The picture...wasn't looking good.

"A code that you received partly-broken." he continued, deciding to hazard a guess, and when he received a tiny nod for confirmation, he went for broke. "What was the 'mistake'?"

"The code-breakers translated a kanji as part of a proverb." Hinata revealed, and Kakashi's mind stuck on the fact that the code was heavy duty enough to didn't bode well for whatever the girl was trying to protect him from. "But I- I don't think it was intended as such."

Kakashi went over everything that the girl had said, and squinted between the lines: A kanji in a coded message, and one that could be translated as part of a proverb. On its own, it didn't sound like much, but coupled with the original question that the girl had posed, the connection was almost laughably obvious.

"...You think it was a mask name."he concluded on a sigh, not sure whether he was more relieved or concerned when Hinata nodded. "If you're right, then you should have one in mind already."

He tried not to think about the fact that Hinata hadn't asked about an animal outright; her naming Itachi could have been a coincidence; a way of testing the terrain, of testing Kakashi. If he'd shut her down immediately, he had no doubt that she would have gone to get her information elsewhere. He wasn't sure if that would have been a better or worse solution.

"I do." Hinata confirmed quietly, dropping eye-contact for a split-second as she gathered herself. Then, she took a deep breath and met Kakashi's gaze once more, though nothing could have prepared Kakashi for her next words: "Sparrow and Sable."

Kakashi felt the blood drain from his face and his stomachdrop.

"Where did you get that code."he asked flatly, his tone dead and inflectionless anddangerouseven to his own ears, and he saw the exact moment Hinata decided that his reaction was proof enough.

"I-I can't." she denied, shaking her head and taking a hasty step back, then two. "I'm sorry. Thank you."

And then she disappeared.

Kakashi stared at the place where she'd been standing for a few seconds, his next destination glaringly obvious.

"...Fuck."

"We have a problem." he announced, strolling into Shikaku's office, and no sooner did the doors close behind him did the walls light up with the silencing sealwork.

"Out with it." Shikaku sighed, pushing whatever he'd been working on to the side as he pinned Kakashi with an assessing gaze. Then, seemingly noticing Kakashi's slight shock, he smiled wryly. "You're never so forthcoming about good things. I prefer to be prepared."

Kakashi reasoned that he could see the logic, though it grated at him to have becomepredictable."Hinata got her hands on some pretty interesting code."

"I know." Shikaku replied, relaxing back against his chair, the tension Kakashi hadn't noticed when he'd walked in leaving his shoulders. "I gave her that document."

"I should've known." Kakashi grumbled, then studied Shikaku intently, realising that the man was a littletoorelaxed. So, he pushed. "What was on it?"

"Nonsense, really." the Nara Head dismissed, rolling his neck. "The code-breakers weren't able to pull apart anything useful, which was why I saw no harm in giving her the code."

"You need to fire them." Kakashi replied bluntly, taking two steps into the office and falling into the chair opposite Shikaku's desk. "Do you have a copy?"

Shikaku's earlier calm had vanished, his eyes flinty as they flickered over Kakashi's face.

"She came to you, didn't she." he realised, the words too flat to be the question they were seemingly intended as. "What did she find?"

Kakashi sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he considered how much Shikakuknew."ANBU mask names."

Shikaku stilled.

"Whose." again, too flat to be a question, but Kakashi sympathised. It was a relief to not have to pretend atpeople,to be able to get straight to the heart of the problem with someone he could trust to keep up.

"Itachi's and Shisui's." he revealed just as flatly, and Shikaku sucked in a breath through his teeth then swore quietly.

"Shikaku," Kakashi found himself asking, meeting the man's gaze evenly, unwilling to be brushed off now that he'd revealed the severity of the situation. "What was on those documents."

"She asked me whether Danzo kept records of the missions he assigned to ROOT." Shikaku confessed, and Kakashi let his raised eyebrow speak for itself; Clan Head or no, there was no reason for Hinata to ask about something like that. "Then indirectly asked for the files from around the time of the Massacre."

Kakashi felt his stomach drop.

"If she's right," he began carefully, almost daring Shikaku to tell him he's wrong, "then Danzo was assigning missions to Itachi and Shisui when they were ANBU."

"It's- worse than that." Shikaku revealed haltingly, and Kakashi had never heard the manstutterbefore. "You'd ran away by then, but when you and the Sannin killed Shimura, Tsunade found that he had a whole arm of transplanted Sharingan."

For a moment, Kakashi just stared. "...What?"

"Dozens, according to Tsunade." The Nara added on a sigh, raising a hand to scrub at his face. "She burned it on the spot."

"Anarm?"

"Orochimaru's work, most likely." Shikaku confirmed, though Kakashi had neither needed nor wanted to have his worst gut feeling confirmed.

"But how would Danzo have gotten his hands on-?"

"The document I gave Hinata-" Shikaku cut him off, and if Kakashi didn't know the man better, he'd have thought Shikaku waspanicking,"that document was dated two days before the Massacre."

Kakashi froze. "What are you saying?"

"Nothing yet." Shikaku replied, and his sigh was weighted with frustration. "But we need to find someone from ROOT who knows that code. I should've caught the mask names."

"Even you don't know everything." Kakashi denied, because the Ino-Shika-Cho had made a name for themselves – a name that evencivilianstrusted – by staying out in the open. No Black Ops for any of them, all missions on-record, traceable, the definition of accountability. It allowed them to navigate circles normal shinobi struggled to gain access to, but it also meant that there were certain things that escaped someone even as far-seeing as Nara Shikaku.

That was where people like Kakashi came in.

"Keep an eye on Hinata." Shikaku instructed, pulling out the documents he'd pushed aside, seemingly deciding that their conversation was over. "She trusts you."

Kakashi wasn't too sure about the trust, but he could admit that he was in a better position than Shikaku now to play babysitter. Still- "You think she'll find something?"

"I think I'd be a fool to assume that she won't." Shikaku corrected, but it was the fact that he didn'tdenyKakashi's question that caught his attention.

Underneath the underneath.

"Youknowshe'll find something." he breathed, studying the Nara. "But you're...letting her."

Because Shikaku had never implied that heregrettedgiving Hinata the document – his only complaint was that he hadn't caught the reference to the masks.

Shikaku smiled wryly, but didn't look up from his file. "If she succeeds, she'll need someone external in her corner."

I f she meant that there was something for Hinata to succeedat.

"The long game." Kakashi realised, but Shikaku showed no sign of having heard him. "The Hyuuga are not part of the trifecta."

"No, they're not." Shikaku agreed, glancing up from the file to shoot Kakashi a look. "But just this morning I received a proposal for the collaboration, on a knowledge-exchange basis, between the Hyuuga medics and the Nara herbalists. I agreed, naturally."

"Naturally." Kakashi echoed, staring at the Nara as if he'd be able to see through his skull and pick apart all the thoughts and plans Shikaku stubbornly refused to voice.

"Remember what I asked you the first time I was in here, asking about her?" He asked absently, deciding that changing tactics might be more fruitful than trying to stare Shikaku into submission. "Changed your mind yet?"

"She's not a genius, Kakashi. Not like you, at least." Shikaku sighed, propping his chin on his hand and meeting Kakashi's gaze evenly. "But her foresight is better than any Sharingan I've ever encountered."

"Better than yours?" Kakashi couldn't resist pushing, but Shikaku didn't so much as twitch, just offered Kakashi another one of those enigmatic half-smiles.

"I suppose we'll find out."

And wasn't that a chilling thought.