"The Fourth Great Shinobi War is over, and we've officially set the foundation for the Shinobi Alliance. With any luck, this means we can put war behind us and focus on building more bonds with the cooperating lands. So…" Kakashi leaned back in his chair, taking off the Hokage hat. "What's next?"

There was always something else to be done. That was the first thing the two remaining Counsellors drilled into his head when he became Sixth Hokage.

Homura pulled a chair out for Koharu. Once she sat down, he did the same. They had seen every Hokage take the seat in their lifetime. They studied under the First and Second, had been teammates with the Third, and served as advisors for the Fourth, Fifth…and now the Sixth.

"This next discussion won't be as pleasant," Homura remarked, "but it needs to be addressed."

Koharu hissed in a deep breath. Kakashi couldn't tell if it was from the aches and pains of old age or from some sort of guilt. With these two, he never could tell.

"Cooperating with other leaders to solve worldwide problems is easy, Kakashi."

At least they acknowledged his hatred for honorifics. Even Shizune and his childhood friends addressed him as Lord Hokage these days, much to his annoyance.

"Now comes the hard part of being Hokage. We're in peace time, and there's no sign of another war on the horizon. With that in mind, some of the things we created to prepare for war are no longer needed."

'Just come out and say it already, Homura. Whatever it is…'

"Now we'll need to figure out what must be done with some of our own people: people who never officially existed, to be more precise."

He wasn't dense like one of his students, or gullible like another one. "You're talking about the Foundation."

Homura and Koharu both nodded their heads in confirmation.

Kakashi heard the click of an opening door. A man in full ANBU garb came in, still hiding his face behind a cracked and repaired mask modeled after a wild boar. Instead of saying anything, the man leaned against the wall and listened patiently.

Kakashi had been expecting him, so he said nothing about his arrival. The Counsellors still had the floor.

"Simply disbanding it won't solve anything," Koharu insisted. "And those people…"

'Those people?' Kakashi thought, feeling a bit of anger in his heart. 'They're Konoha shinobi, too. They always have been.'

"They don't serve any purpose anymore," she continued. "I'm also hesitant to reintegrate them with the rest of our villagers. Most of them went into that program as very young children. Breaking an entire lifetime of habits may be more than Haruno Sakura's therapy program can handle."

"Besides," Homura chimed in. "Isn't her focus more on children? Most ex-Foundation members are adolescents and young adults. By that point, a personality—or lack thereof—is set. Nothing short of full reconditioning by the Torture and Interrogation Force could break an entire lifetime worth of indoctrination."

The other part didn't need to be said aloud because they all knew. Very, very few of them made it to a ripe old age. Once Foundation members began to slow down from age or injury, Danzō conveniently managed to assign them to missions they had no hope of surviving. They'd accept it without hesitation, die sometime during the resolution, and vanish into nothing. Not even a corpse would be left behind.

Some of the diehards in the mainstream ANBU were the same way.

The old man continued, stretching his hands until his swollen knuckles popped. "They're brainwashed beyond repair, Kakashi. They may have followed orders from both Tsunade and yourself once Danzō died, but that was in a time of crisis and they were all told to think of the village's security first and foremost. War was on the horizon. Now, in peace time—"

They heard a huff of air come from the masked man: like a forced, sarcastic laugh. When he realized all three sets of eyes were on him, he faked a couple of coughs and reached in his pocket for an inhaler.

"In peace time," Kakashi interjected, "Yamato graciously accepted a post to spy and monitor Orochimaru's actions, just to make sure we receive no further nasty surprises in Otogakure."

No more missing men, women, and children. No more traumatized children leaving their friends behind for abstract things like power. No more dead Hokages. That sort of thing.

"And," he added, "Sai has really come into his own lately, too. He investigated the Land of Silence for us and gained all kinds of valuable intel on Gengo. We wouldn't even know how to properly restrain him in the Blood Prison had it not been for what he provided us."

"You're conveniently forgetting that everyone else on Sai's squad died under torture during that mission and he switched to Gengo's side. He nearly killed Nara Shikamaru on that mission."

"Sai was under a genjutsu, Counsellor. Every Konoha shinobi we sent out there aside from Shikamaru fell for the same thing, even Ro and Soka. They're elite ANBU. My ANBU."

He noted that the masked man's posture changed a bit upon hearing those two names, not that Kakashi was surprised. He'd recently taken over as the head of ANBU operations after another recent incident was laid to rest. That incident was another thing Kakashi hoped the Counsellors took into consideration regarding the subject of Sai.

"Alright," Kakashi continued. "If we don't want to praise Sai for his actions in the Land of Silence, that's fine by me. Let's talk about something he did right before he accepted that mission. Tsumiki Kido, our former head of ANBU, strong-armed the Daimyo—and you, too, Counsellor Homura. Don't think I've forgotten—into cutting the therapy program's budget in half and earmarking those finances for ANBU instead.

"He used that money to conduct unethical experiments on people, including children. He impersonated one of our finest shinobi, abducted and intended to murder another, and planned on selling his research information to enemy nations. It wasn't only Ino and Sakura who brought that man down. Sai was also on that team."

"Except…" Koharu interjected. "Kakashi? Wasn't Kido from the Foundation, too?"

Another forced cough-laugh came from their fourth party. "Permission to speak?"

'Oh, please do,' Kakashi thought. "Granted."

The mask was slowly taken off by a sinewy, scarred-up arm. Beneath it was the face of a man just past the age of fifty. Once the mask was completely off, he reached in his pocket for a case and put a pair of horn-rimmed glasses over his unfriendly brown eyes.

If he wasn't so badly roughed up from a lifetime of doing the village's dirty work, perhaps he would have been considered handsome. But his face was sharp and harsh, like he constantly smelled something bad but didn't have the nerve to say anything about it.

But he did have that nerve. It was one of many reasons why Kakashi promoted him to Kido's old job as head of ANBU.

"I'm amazed at how this village has completely changed their opinion of the Foundation. When I was young, I recall two people in this room deeming it necessary enough to encourage the Third Hokage to sign the proposal. What changed?"

"Times changed," Homura argued. "That and both Lord Third and Shimura Danzō are dead. At one time, that program was put in place so the Hokage could have plausible deniability when certain missions were performed. It was all for the village, and to keep up with enemies like Kumogakure, Iwagakure, and Kirigakure. Considering those lands are now our allies, the program is moot."

"So…what, then?" The man moved out of his chair with the flexibility of a cat and pulled something out of his pocket: a tiny black pill. "How about this?"

Kakashi knew what the pill was. Judging from the way both Counsellors recoiled when they saw what the man offered, they knew too.

During Kakashi's time in ANBU, every operative carried a cyanide pill on their person, just in case a critical mission was about to be compromised or there was no hope of survival. Neither Sai nor Yamato could tell him what sort of things transpired under Danzō, but it seemed the sort of thing he'd assign to his own people.

And Mikuro just confirmed it.

"Just give the order," he hissed. "If they heard it from a Counsellor or the Hokage, they'd do it. They wouldn't even hesitate. They'll swallow their pills and leave this world in unison. But that creates a problem of a different kind, doesn't it?"

One of Mikuro's hands twitched as he spoke. "They'll still need to be disposed of, right? You could order them to dig a mass grave and throw their bodies in the hole for faster, neater cleanup. It certainly beats sending somebody to the aftermath and having him tidy up the mess all by himself."

He had experience in that. They'd used Mikuro for that very thing before, but it hadn't been for the Foundation. Kakashi knew he was using this morbid hyperbole to make a point. Not a single thing he said was meant to be taken as a true suggestion, but it still hurt to hear it. He just hoped it was enough.

"But even with that, it's not like they can bury themselves. And for the ones who managed to create an identity for themselves, what will you tell the friends they made during the Fourth Great Shinobi War? If you choose to spare those and not the others, what will you tell them?"

"Mikuro," Koharu sighed, rubbing her temples. "You're being unreasonable. Nobody's talking about disposing of an entire group of people, just because they're dangerous."

'But there's a precedent,' Kakashi realized. 'Does she even realize how hypocritical her words sound?'

"I'd certainly hope not. They've given their lives to keep this village safe for nearly two generations." Mikuro stood up, brushing himself off. "If the village wants to turn their back on them and wash their hands of the whole thing, then maybe Danzō had it wrong. Maybe this place isn't worth saving after all."

"You're out of line, sir! You're—"

"Kakashi?" He was already heading for the door. "Let's postpone our meeting until after your council comes up with a real solution."

"Agreed." But Kakashi already had ideas, ideas that he felt one of his former students would be all too happy to accept.