“Orochimaru?” said Minato, almost inaudibly. “Are you sure?”

“No,” said Kakashi, frustrated. “It was just a feeling.”

The Tanuki hovered at his back, uncomfortably close. Kakashi twitched an irritated look at him.

Minato followed his gaze. “Stand down, Shiranui.”

Tanuki—Shiranui—tapped his right hand to his scarlet spiral tattoo, sketching the ANBU salute. “Sir, Kakashi-san is suffering from unknown poison. If we find you some chairs, would you consider having this meeting seated?”

Minato dropped down to sit cross-legged on the floor. Sagara, ANBU’s commander, glanced down at him from behind her mask and remained standing.

“It’s fine,” said Kakashi, but at Minato’s pointed look he settled into an impatient crouch. Shiranui stepped back out of immediate range, folding his arms.

A flicker-shot of expressions sped over Minato’s face, rueful pride and exasperation — he liked to complain about hovering guards in his office, but he never got rid of them — then he returned to Kakashi. “Just a feeling?” he echoed, very low. “Did he say anything before you put your hand through his lungs?”

Given that Minato had made a career out of shredding enemy ninja liked bagged lettuce, Kakashi didn’t think he had much room to criticize.

“He said he wanted my eye, but Tousaki’s hands would do instead. He called it grocery shopping for research, and he said ‘we’, not ‘I’,” Kakashi said. “When I asked him who he was working for—”

It was easier to show them.

Kakashi pulled up his hitai-ate, unfolded the memory, and spun it into a genjutsu for Minato and Sagara. He gave them image and sound, but nothing more visceral — just the cave, Ryouma under the blade, the falling wall, and the blue-light crash into Akiyama’s dying joke. He broke the illusion before he got to the part where he noticed the scalpel.

Sagara let out a short, hard breath and looked to Minato.

Minato sat back, lips thinning. “Dammit. Jiraiya's last report had the snake in western Earth Country, but it's not impossible for him to have recruited someone.” Apparently everyone in this room had enough security clearance to hear this conversation, because Minato had just killed any attempt at subtlety. “Why here, though? Why now?" He leapt to his feet, paced the length of the room, turned, and fixed Kakashi with a blue ice stare. "He wanted your eye. Did you run into him before he attacked Tousaki?"

“Once,” said Kakashi.

Minato whirled on the squirrel-masked ANBU, but Sagara beat him to it. "Are any candidates missing?" she demanded.

“All sixteen remaining candidates are present and accounted for,” Squirrel said calmly. “I have agents with eyes on everyone.”

That explained the extra chakra signatures in the field, and the lack of other agents in this room.

“So he tried Kakashi, then went for Tousaki." Minato looked at Ryouma. “Your jutsu isn't linked to a bloodline limit, is it?”

Kakashi turned. Ryouma was leaning against the crescent moon ANBU’s shoulder, dark head hanging low, breathing hard as the Hyuuga medic attended to his wrist. He struggled to sit upright under Minato’s attention.

“Nossir. Hokage-sama,” said Ryouma, clearly not a man at ease. “If he’d carved off my hands, he’d just get meat and chakra scars. I—” He hesitated; Minato waited. “I think I was just bait, most likely. He threatened me to get Kakashi to stand down.” Ryouma’s mouth twisted bleakly. “And he got me in the first place telling me Kakashi’d been injured. Guess that’s where makin’ nice at the ANBU trials gets you.” There was silence after that. Belatedly, Ryouma tacked on, “Sir.”