The upper trail had signs of old ice and recent sheep, but not much more. Kakashi followed it for the better part of a mile, moving at an easy trot just to keep his muscles warm, and found what looked like a kunoichi sandal-print just before Pakkun came flying up the trail.

Kakashi caught the little dog by the scruff, reflexively protecting the faded mark. "What d'you think?" he murmured. "About a week old?"

Pakkun inhaled. "Nine days, or thereabouts. Smells like the little red-headed medic, what's her name? Aoi-something or other. The one that likes to trail around Kanae-sensei."

Kakashi shrugged.

"Someone needs to teach her to walk softer," Pakkun said scornfully. He shook his anvil-shaped head. "The glitter-bug wants you. He's all convinced your rookie took the bluffs trail."

"He's probably right," Kakashi said distantly, eyes on the track that led straight up to the mountains. "That fresh ice up there -- you see the slant of it?"

"Heavy winds," Pakkun said.

"Yeah," Kakashi agreed. "If Ryouma went that way, he'd have been blown straight off the trail. Or frozen to death--"

"Or gotten avalanched," Pakkun put in. "Where there's new ice, there's fresh snow. And we're not the first rescue team, so little miss heavy-foot would've found the body."

Kakashi didn't wince. "Exactly." He released Pakkun, turning to run back down the trail. Pakkun followed at his heels.

"I don't like your mission partner," the pug complained, when they were halfway back. He sniffed heavily. "It's not right, keeping us in the dark."

"Mm," Kakashi said, because if he agreed he'd get angry again, and then he'd have to fight the urge to kill Ginta with a rock. "He's afraid I'll leave him behind."

"Is he right?"

"Yes."

They ran in silence after that. Kakashi could feel the chakra-connections to his other dogs; they were already near Ginta, anxious and ready to hunt. Ginta's chakra felt calm, in the strapped-down way of a man keeping himself tightly under control. The new roiling brightness of it said he'd already taken a soldier pill.

When they were just within earshot, Pakkun spoke up again, measuring out blunt canine words like an accidental gut-shot. "D'you think the rookie's dead?"

Kakashi felt his breath stutter; saw Ginta's restrained flinch.

Probably.