They had observed him as he left the academy, as he said good-bye to Sakura, as he stopped, halfway home, chose the street leading away from the village instead.
They followed, keeping their distance and making sure that the wind blew in the right direction, so that it would not carry their scent to him and his ninken.
He stopped briefly at the memorial stone's replacement, stood there for some time before he stuffed his hands back into his pockets and walked on to the training ground.
It was then, that the earth beneath them started to move, and before anyone of them could so much as voice their surprise, two of them were suddenly dragged underground, leaving nothing more than their heads outside. The third stood still, weapons ready, when infront of them – nothing more than a silhoutte against the moonlight, the object of their observance appeared.
"I'm sorry to say this", he said "but had you left this to the boys, I might not have noticed you at all – Tenten."
The girl shot a quick look at Sai and Neji, who seemed to agree with this. She grit her teeth but kept silent.
"Now – care to tell me, what you're up to?"
Kakashi was met with unisone silence, which was only broken when Tenten had set aside the question, why on earth she should be the one to blame for their detection, and instead gathered all her courage and said, in what she hoped was a firm voice:
"We could ask you the same."
"I just", Tenten tried to explain herself "thought it strange, that Pakkun told us to halt our investigation, only to head back to that exact spot with you. So I, uhm, asked Neji to watch..."
To his own surprise, Kakashi felt relief when he heard this. He beckoned them to continue, listened with great interest when Neji described a change in his – that is Kakashi's – chakra, that had occured when Madara took possession of him, though Neji only could define it as something that was different.
After Kakashi and Pakkun were gone, he and Tenten went to investigate the cave on their own, which was where they met Sai (who would only state that he had his own reasons, when asked what he was doing there).
"We couldn't figure out what the circle in the cave is for", Tenten concluded "So we decided to keep an eye on you instead."
She exchanged anxious looks with her two comrades, but Kakashi only raised one impressed eyebrow.
"You monitored me the whole past month?", he asked.
Three heads nodded sheepishly.
"So you know-"
"We know that you let Sakura in on – what ever is going on. We also know that-", but Sai got cut off by two elbows nudging him from either side.
"We also know that there was one more occassion on which your chakra changed, though it was different that time", Neji quickly ended the sentence.
"We didn't", Tenten added "do this because we don't trust you. We just were... kind of worried", she blushed, visible even in the dim light of the moon.
"Hmm", Kakashi scratched his masked chin.
"I would ask you to continue your work", he said slowly "but seeing how easly you got caught off guard, I'm not really sure how much good that would do."