That was an alarming answer and a troubling question. “I can vouch for Squirrel, who’s manning base,” Genma said. “Crescent Moon is my new captain. I haven’t worked with him long, but I have absolutely no reason not to trust him with my life.” He concentrated on picking up the chakra signatures of the nearby agents. Usagi was closest, with Omashi and Shikaku not much further off. Sato was there, too, with Munenori, and a little further out he could feel Kobayashi closing in.

“Every one of the ANBU working the trials is either a lieutenant or a captain. Of the six closest, I’ve worked directly with four and indirectly with two.” He turned to face Kakashi. “I take it you think we have a breach.”

Kakashi’s eye flicked towards the corpse of the former candidate, then back to Genma, with a look that asked whether Genma was altogether an idiot.

“I wasn’t privy to your conversation with the deceased,” Genma said mildly. “How imminent do you think this threat is?” He could count on one hand the enemies that would rate an S-class distinction, although any enemy planting a spy as a candidate at the ANBU trials was a terrifying thought.

"What's going on?" Raidou asked tensely, looking up from Tousaki. He’d draped the candidate with a blanket and was still bracing him upright.

"Just be ready," Kakashi told them. His attention was clearly elsewhere. If Genma had to guess, it was on the rapidly approaching cluster of chakra signatures that heralded the imminent arrival of the Hokage and Sagara. There was a third chakra signature with them that Genma didn’t recognize, probably a medic.

Genma tapped his earpiece. “Base, this is Tanuki. Say IDs on inbound, our location.”

“Tanuki, you should be seeing Flash, Hawk, and Hyuuga Iori. Confirm?”

There was a muffled pop as air was displaced by incoming bodies. The Hokage was in a jounin’s uniform, minus the showy coat he wore on more public occasions. Sagara flanked him in bone and black, with her sharp eyes hidden behind her hawk mask. The Hyuuga wore a white medic’s hood that matched her moon-pale eyes.

Genma and Raidou both snapped salutes, touching fingertips to inked spirals on their shoulders, and Tousaki struggled to rise. Raidou stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Confirm that, Base,” Genma told Hajime. “We have eyes on all three.”