Ryouma broke the silence first.

“Except it wasn’t like this six months ago,” he said, voice low and intense, with all the weight of leashed horror behind it. “Her chakra went unstable again three months ago, Kakashi. It’s burning her up. Can you see what’s wrong with it?”

“You’ve seen medics,” Kakashi said slowly, looking at Katsuko; it wasn’t a question. “What about the Hyuuga?”

She shrugged one angular shoulder. “About the only thing they can do is help me work on my control.”

Control wouldn’t stem a tide, or stop a dam from breaking. Control was for something controllable. Katsuko felt like she had a force of nature trapped inside her skin, and no safe way to vent it.

“The Hokage?” Kakashi began, then cut himself short. “Busy with Iwa.”

Katsuko’s smile was very dry. “I have an appointment next month.”

Of course she did. Kakashi kept his lip from curling.

He stood and walked to her side of the table, crouching down an arm’s-length away, careful to telegraph his movements. He lifted a hand level with her stomach and glanced at her. “Can I see?”

She gave him a flat look. “I get your share of bacon in return.”

Kakashi snorted. “Deal.” He leaned closer, putting his weight on one knee, and hooked the hem of her tee-shirt up to the thick, bizarrely lurid pink band of her bra strap, baring her stomach and lower ribcage. Lean muscles flexed as she inhaled. Exhaled.

There were six scars.

More than that, really; she was a ninja. But six that caught his attention and kept it. A thin straight line razoring up the middle of her chest, disappearing under her bra; four deeply scored parallel lines raking her ribcage, like scaled down kyuubi claws; a raised, badly healed crescent that curved from hipbone to hipbone, just above the waistband of her low-slung jeans.

If I was pregnant, she’d said

Kakashi hid a wince. Could she even get pregnant?

He slid his hitai-ate up again, opening Obito’s eye, and after a second glance to ensure he still had permission, touched his fingertips gently above that last scar. It was the closest to her navel, where she thought the seal was. The sharingan showed him a double-layered world made almost blind by blazing chakra. Overloaded coils thrummed and shuddered, easily three times the size they should be. It was like looking into the centre of a furnace and trying to make out details. Beneath his touch, her pathways ached.

If there was a seal in there, he couldn’t see it.

“Hold your shirt,” he said distantly, catching Katsuko’s hand and wrapping her fingers around the hem.

“Hatake, you hound dog,” she said, with an edgy little smile. “You didn’t even buy me a drink first.”

“He didn’t buy me a drink ever,” Ryouma murmured, leaning against the wall between the kitchen and the living room, watching intently.

Kakashi ignored them both, going first to his bookcase, where he grabbed a scroll that had once been Minato’s, then to his desk, taking ink and a brush from one of the drawers. When he settled back down by Katsuko, her eyes darted to the things he’d gathered and her face tightened, but she nodded when he looked at her.

“This won’t hurt,” he promised. “I’m not changing anything. I just need to get a better look.”

It was a little telling that she just stared somewhere around the level of his collarbones, and said nothing. The sizzle of cooking bacon was suddenly loud and intrusive.

Kakashi flattened the scroll onto the table, let the sharingan eye memorize the shape of the fourth illustrated seal, and set to work painting it around her navel. Ink glistened on pale, scar-cut skin, blossoming out like a tattoo made of intricate characters. Beneath them, Katsuko’s overwhelming chakra rippled.

She caught her breath.

Kakashi set the brush down. “This next bit might feel a little weird,” he said. “Grab me if you have to. Just don’t break anything.”

He shaped three quick seals and pushed a bare thread of patterned chakra into the design, which turned blood red.

Then it changed.