Chihiro nods.

Then training! Naruto is enthused and apparently fully recovered chakra-wise. (Also camouflage techniques have so much potential...)

After training, Naruto sort of awkwardly hovers until Chihiro's wandered off to her thing, then to Kakashi-sensei (and Sasuke who is a professional worry-wort), he says, "Sensei! There's a thing I'd like to show you. In that shrine I found." The one other people can't get into (he tested with Sasuke a while back to make sure; Sasuke's attempt to teleport past the boundary ended with the other boy being flung into a tree).

"That's not suspicious at all. Lead on then, as I'm sure this will result in nothing but relaxing conversation and perhaps a pleasant memory of time spent with adorable children."

He sticks his tongue out at his sensei.

And onwards to the shrine! Kakashi-sensei gets the same explanation about the shrine's edges for some reason not liking people who aren't presently touching Naruto - and really not liking Sasuke, though maybe that only started after Sasuke started testing the wards... Anyways! It's fine once you're past the barrier. He rambles about fixing the shrines, and spirits, and assorted little things, until they're at a point they've confirmed it's really hard to spy on from outside (they can't at all but they're not gonna underestimate shinobi), when Naruto abruptly says, "Chihiro has a seal on her."

"That's... not unexpected."

"It keeps her from talking about stuff. She didn't want me telling anyone, because she might get in trouble, but she doesn't want it on her. And - " He makes a frustrated noise. "So I tried to learn how to remove it, but I just - can't figure out sealing, even the little things, and stuff keeps happening..."

"...A seal like that would have been put in place with village security in mind. Removing it would attract attention."

He frowns, deeply - "Putting a seal on her she doesn't like is wrong. How do I un-attract attention? How often would someone be checking it's there, anyways? It's, like, way in the back of her mouth."

Kakashi sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

"The man who put that seal on Chihiro is named Shimura Danzo. He's one of the elders of the village, a contemporary of the Third. He runs a division of Anbu called ROOT according to his conception of the sort of protector the village needs. If Anbu is black ops, ROOT is dead ops. You're not recruited into it, you're born into it, or near enough. He probably has safeguards incorporated in the seal that will alert him if it's tampered with or damaged, and I'm not sure I can stop him from getting answers to the questions he'll have."

"...Oh."

"If arcana interacts with fuinjutsu at all, I'll be able to do something eventually - removing a curse outright would be third level healing, altering it subtly... Definitely by the time I reach sixth level spells." Which... He's been accelerating. Maybe it won't take too long to get up to his prior height - to get past it even, he knows the sixth-level cap for everyone but the Empress was artificial.

That is not a nice look on Naruto's face.

"It'll change when I'm Hokage, too."

"I want to be able to tell you that it'll work out fine and you won't have to worry about it. But you met Orochimaru last week. The world's not always pretty, and very few things come for free."

"Well, I'll work harder and harder then."

"And I'll support him. Every step."

He is, meanwhile, contemplating how stupid it'd be to reform a remove curse spell into a ritual - you can cram significantly larger effects into a specific leveled spell if you're willing to spend an hour chanting, and Sugira in his last life has ever reached into the raw code of reality and dragged his fingers through it. Carefully. Plot armor can't save him from every dumb decision.

"And people say the younger generation has no motivation."

"Nothing for it but to become the youngest Kage ever."

"You have, let's see... twelve years?" Kakashi seems to lose focus for a moment, looking blankly into the distance. He shakes himself out of it. "Twelve years before you lose your chance at the record."

"Won't take me nearly that long." And as long as he's been alive feels like a horribly, horrifically long time to leave Chihiro with that seal on her, to leave Danzo up to his own devices...

"You know, I almost believe that."

"You better. You get to be one of my advisors."

"Oh. Wonderful."

He snickers a bit. "You'll be great at it."

Then, serious again: "That also makes passing this exam way more important."

"Best to focus on your training for now, then."

"Yeah. We were thinking - it can wait until tomorrow, but... An area of effect or long range wind technique might be good against Neji?"

They can also start heading out now that conspiracy talk is over?