"So he told you about the Mangekyo sharingan, and that it was involved in the attack?"

She sighs slightly.

"A lot of elders aren't going to be happy about that knowledge getting spread, but we can't exactly put the egg back in the shell, so they'll just have to deal. Do you know how the Sharingan changes look over time? When we first awaken it, it's usually just one tomoe circling the pupil, but over time a second or third one appear, and its abilities get stronger alongside the change. For most people, once you've gotten to three that's the end of it, but occasionally you'll get someone desperate enough to try for more. If a fellow Uchiha someone is close to dies and they're at fault, our eyes can evolve one last time and grant even more power. The full details aren't known, since we haven't had anyone in the clan with a pair since the second war, but Madara had a pair that we believe gave him the ability to control the Bijuu. 

"As for the other bits, I'm not sure who they could have meant by Indra. It's not the most common Uchiha name, but there are still dozens of people it could have been even if it's one of the ones we know about, and I haven't heard any stories about one of them being associated with a curse."

She nods.  "It's not like I'm going to spread it around even if I do now know it.  What weakens one shinobi of Konoha weakens all shinobi of Konoha.  ...Though now I'm wondering where on earth eyes like that could even have come from, since most of the time you wouldn't have two Uchiha on the same team...  And it's not very likely that Madara's eyes have survived this long; I suppose I could ask the Kyuubi if they'd know if the eyes in question were Madara's.  ...Are you sure about that 'death of a fellow Uchiha' thing?  I wouldn't put it past the capabilities of the Sharingan to somehow know that on sight, but at the same time, it feels...  Absurdly finicky.  Too finicky to be real.  And strangely distant from what I know the Sharingan can do; knowing a doujutsu on-sight feels more like a Byakugan thing.  ...Not that I intend to go prying into clan secrets, if you're, eh, fudging the truth a little bit, but it seems odd to me that eyes with that specific set of conditions could have activated since then as they likely must have.  It's not like Konoha pairs Uchiha with Uchiha most of the time, ne?"

"That's what all the records say. I expect it would work even if someone wasn't acknowledged as part of the clan for some reason, though, and they don't need to have activated their own sharingan. As for transplanting the Sharingan... the only one I know who has successfully had it done is Hatake Kakashi, but that's enough to show it's not impossible in principle, and we've had to work very hard to keep other people from getting a chance to try. I'd certainly rather believe that than some Uchiha gone rogue or raised outside of Konoha, but it still leaves the problem that has stymied all of us since then of where they would have gotten it."

"...Well, presumably, from an Uchiha.  But that's obvious.  The question is which Uchiha have been in a situation that went horribly wrong enough to maybe make their eyes do the thing.

"...Which leaves an immediate line of question of what happened to the eye that Hatake Kakashi didn't get transplanted.  Since, uh, normally you have to take eyes like a Sharingan from their bearer's cold dead skull, and all."

"According to the reports, it was crushed under fallen rocks with the rest of him. But even if it wasn't, that wouldn't explain it; Obito's eyes weren't even fully evolved, much less Mangekyo, and there weren't any other Uchiha that died at the right time to change that."

"...Okay, but what if the eye transplant counted?  Leaving aside how much I'm still wondering if that even matters...  I haven't badgered the other conditions out of the Kyuubi yet, they didn't seem relevant, but - can you say, for sure, that they couldn't have been met?  ...Wait a minute, how...  Sorry, I just suddenly became viscerally aware of how old the Kyuubi must be, because he said, and I quote, 'There are no shortage of such fools to have come from that accursed people', about that particular Sharingan, and here we are with Mangekyo Sharingan being...  What, once or twice in a generation at best?"

"I think I'm misunderstanding something, because I'm not sure what you think the eye transfer has to do with it? As for the Bijuu, our clan records say they've been around for at least a millennia by now."

"If Obito thought his teammates were dying, and he was at fault.  ...Or, for that matter, if Kakashi did, though for all I know that would only evolve the one eyeball since it's the only one that was his at the time..."

"...Anyway, did they actually find the body, afterwards?  Surely earth jutsu would allow one to check..."

"The mission in question was deep in enemy territory and they had to flee in a hurry, but the medic on their team confirmed it was damaged beyond use. As for a possible evolution, we had the opportunity to examine Kakashi's eye very thoroughly after he returned from that mission, and we wouldn't have missed it being a Mangekyo sharingan."

She'll leave unsaid how many in the clan had been looking for an excuse to pluck it from his socket; it's probably obvious enough if someone thinks about it but that doesn't make it a pleasant thing to discuss.

It really is, judging by the reflexive grimace.

"...Didn't both of Kakashi's teammates die on that mission?  ...Let alone the question of whether one has to know about the Mangekyo to activate it; I'm getting less convinced there's something here as time goes on, but I'm still confused."

"No, while Hatake Kakashi has had... rather unfortunate luck with his teammates, I believe the other member of his squad perished months later in an entirely different front of the third war."

"...Kami preserve, that poor man.  Two tragedies are so much worse than one.  ...I guess the end result is that she's still not around to ask if she actually saw the body, though.  ...I'm going to go ask Kyuubi-sama a question about whether he believes he'd recognize the person who went after him.  And then I want to...  At least look into eliminating some suspects, if that turns out alright."

And so she does, casting her attention inward.  "...Hello, Kyuubi-san.  Have you been paying attention to the discussion so far?"

"Despite my better judgment."

She doesn't let it show, beyond a small nod of acknowledgement, but somehow, she finds this self-deprecatingly amusing.

"...Would you be willing to look through some pictures, or something, to see if your assailant was one of them?  Or help me produce a sketch, for that matter."

"He was wearing concealing robes and a full facial mask that covered everything besides his Sharingan. I wouldn't have the slightest issue recognizing his spirit, but any human can put on such a disguise."

"...Hm."  Now how is she going to salvage something from this?  "...Every human can put on a robe and mask.  But not every human can put on every robe and mask, to say nothing of what the robe and mask might mean.  That they did that instead of hengeing...  Even just knowing their build and height and maybe skin color, those things could help.  They'd narrow things down, if not prove anything in particular yet.  ...I don't know if there are - identifying details, to a Sharingan, either, but if anyone would know..."  She carefully avoids directly saying that Mikoto is one of the people who might.  "...I still want to try.  ...Are there...any things that might carry or leave spiritual traces, that we could check, for that matter?"  She's going to get something from this if there's anything to be had at all, dammit.

Fine, he can sketch the masked man's Mangekyo pattern. He could do more detail by sharing his memories, but he only got a good look for about a second and the seal absolutely forbids it besides.

...It does?  Even if she asks it pretty please?  She'd like to be able to communicate at the speed of thought instead of having to push herself in here!  C'mon, at least let him use ninshu?  It's really important!  Even if she has to strictly delimit it!

And she's going to see if she can get how tall the man was and how far apart his eyes were and if he had noticeable affinities and all that stuff out of those few seconds of memory, if she can.  She kind of expects Kyūbi-san's memory to be - pretty good, maybe too good even.  (She can just imagine the things a perfect memory of something horrible could do to someone.)  It's got to be really good, or he wouldn't have so much of it.  ...Kami, she kind of can't believe she's speaking to someone who very probably knew the Sage.

And did the robes have any patterns on them?  Were they made out of a particular sort of fabric that Kyūbi-san could tell?  What sort of material was the mask, what did it depict?  Did it look like it was professionally made, or sloppy?

"...Sorry I'm bothering you with all these questions.  I don't want to keep poking these memories; they...sound really painful.  Genjutsu used for such purposes as these are utterly terrifying.  It's just...

"Important that we do what we can, to track this guy down and stop him.

"And every detail about this man is -

"One more stroke in the character, no matter how small.  One more thread to pull on?  For all I know there's one specific guy who makes masks like this one and we can find him in customer records.  ...I mean probably not, but I'd feel like such an idiot if it was so and I missed it."

...At least the pattern of the Mangekyo is actually pretty easy to draw for herself when it's described; her practice for fuinjutsu holds her in good stead.

(The block on sharing memories is one of the stricter locks in the seal, and doesn't come apart just because Naruto wants it to. Minato Namikaze may have been breaking entirely new ground on jinchuriki seals, but the consequences of giving a bijuu unfiltered access to their jailer's mind is the kind of mistake that ends up in horror stories.)

"Hmm. I don't recognize the design - not that I would necessarily expect to, but it means it's definitely not Madara's and isn't someone on the inside pulling a fast one with Kagami or Naka's eyes before they burned either. The spiral mask doesn't really look distinctive enough to narrow it down, but I can put some feelers out in case."

"...That's weird.  Whose eyes could it be?  I mean, I'm still vaguely suspicious of Obito's not-entirely-confirmed death, but he only would have had the one left...

"...Unless Orochimaru or whoever it was who threw him to the wolves - I just do not think that even the Sannin can create huge experimental complexes on their own while they're all busy being the Sannin - had the ability to create viable Sharingan that someone who'd met the right conditions could activate, but, uh, I'd think we'd all have heard about that by now, ne?  That's the kind of information that becomes as badly kept a secret as the identity of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki in no time flat."  ...She can't keep herself from laughing, but it's to hide the worry.

"...At least, knowing this, we can prove that most Uchiha were completely incapable of being whoever this was."

"Yes, as long as you don't expect them to agree in public. Getting the elders to say something is beyond the power of the sharingan is an... unfortunately difficult task, even when they didn't do it and don't want to be accused of doing it."

"Pffh.  Ha.  Oh dear.  I don't think we need them to say that, as much as we need them to agree that the Sharingan that did this particular thing is confirmably not in the possession of an Uchiha loyal to Konoha and they are just as concerned about that fact as everyone else ought to be.  Because they really ought to be.  Someone weaponizing the Bijuu...  That's really bad."