They came at him at all angles tonight. Only an hour before, the heart of the Yamanaka den was occupied by as many men and women as were eagerly willing to do what they could for the Man Who Never Slept. Osamu continued to rest upon the large pillows, sprawled out like a stranded starfish after high tide, and stared listlessly at the lanterns.

Poppies cried and their tears made his Great Endeavor that much easier to stomach. The village would weep even more than the flowers if they realized how many secrets he and his fellow mind-readers already unearthed. Smothered bastard children crawled from their graves to haunt their parents. Murdered spouses longed for retribution. Mistresses and beauties broken in back alleys threatened to tell all. Long deceased parents voiced their disappointments with enough vitriol to make some of the weaker-willed jump to their deaths from the Hokage Mountain like proverbial lemmings.

But if they had nothing to hide, they were safe. The good and the just and those who simply had enough common human decency to behave could rest well at night. The others remained oblivious that the onslaught of bad dreams came from a mental mass attack from the whole of the Yamanaka Clan in one calculated joint effort.

The carpet and the velvety fabric of the cushions seduced Osamu's titillated skin, as did the silk of his yukata. Fine blonde body hair stood up in arousal. "What do you have for me…?" he murmured, opening his mind to meld with those of his extended blood.

Shimura Zocho is a philanderer. He has enough mistresses to invite them over for tea and use two full sets. Most are young enough to be his daughters and, were they to discover each other, would kill one another on sight. It's a ventured guess.

The fragrant smoke left his lips and nostrils as he exhaled, taking in the intoxicant at its finest. "Unless you have names, none of this is news. Who are they?" None of the names were of importance. If infidelity was the only thing they could throw on that man, they had nothing. It would far from endear him with the voters, but if the rumors about the wife were true, she already knew. This would get them nowhere because the man carried no shame. "It's no matter. Move to the next one."

There he sat, large and wild-looking as he took another drag from his opium pipe. Osamu's legs were as sturdy as tree trunks: raw muscle behind gnarled and scarred skin. Few men managed to reach such stature in life. Fewer still managed to keep their "lost boy" eyes well into middle age: full of imagination and dread. Yanagi told him for years his fingernails were too long and that he needed to groom himself more regularly or risk looking like some sort of mountain hag.

What did he care? He'd never wed and he'd never sire any children. Children would grow old, grow resentful, and slit your throat in your sleep…just as he'd done to Tezuka-oji before the village was founded.

Tezuka-oji deserved it, though. For all the hell he put his niece and nephew through, treating them like toys until they were old enough to be dangerous, he deserved what happened to him.

The Senju family was the best thing to ever happen to brother and sister both. Truthfully, he and Yanagi saw Hashirama and Tobirama as liberators. They weren't without consciences. Osamu knew this was a terrible thing they'd agreed to do, but it was a small price to pay to help the right man become Hokage.

Shimura Daichi bought a teenage girl on the black market to scrap for parts. He fantasizes about a future where internal warlords can build private armies and he has every intention of passing along this notion to his son.

Every sigh of pleasure and disappointment were simultaneously addressed to nobody and everybody. Their minds may have merged, but Osamu alone occupied this space. They arrived at two in the morning, all with orders to give their findings by the most powerful nocturnal hour to him and him alone.

They came to him like mother birds all competing to feed a lone ravenous hatchling. His brain demanded all they could throw at it. In the right hands, the governance and surveillance of the village could solidify their permanence to the village and upgrade their status from a secondary clan to one of the great noble clans.

"Mito…"

His voice came out as a whisper: a verbal caress. The name alone brought goosebumps on his skin because in this feverish delirium, Osamu feared his voice had grown to sound every bit as coarse and lewd as his late uncle's. At least he didn't feel fingers on his shoulders moving to loosen his yukata or a pair of teeth biting the soft part of his neck. He rested alone, but he refused to sleep. Until he felt truly safe, he'd never sleep again.

"Tell me about Mito…"

We're afraid.

"Why?" Osamu laughed, feeling an unwelcome tickle in the back of his sore throat. He could see his breath in that cold room. "She's only a woman."

You're wrong about that. Whenever we pry into her dreams, the Kyūbi waits for us. Touko and Mitsuya both went mad this week trying to read her. Please spare us and give us permission to relent on her behalf.

"If you're scared of the mother, go after the children. She has three of them."

Osamu felt the veins on the sides of his head pound and throb as though his brain were on the verge of orgasm. That same pounding sensation turned his face flush and his breath short. He panted like a stallion as further filth from the depths of Konoha seeped into his mind.

Inuzuka Okami's son lusted after Osamu's cute little cousin. Shimura Daichi humored himself with fantasies of marrying the Shodaime's widow but had enough decency to keep such notions to himself. Sarutobi Sasuke dreamed about being Nidaime and letting his twelve-year-old son play with the hat. The Uchiha heiress might be a lesbian.

It was like forcing these people to expose their souls before him and why would he settle for a tangible arousal when he could have it all on the psychological level? Gods! If he'd had this much control over his kekkei genkai and led his family even ten years sooner…the things he could have learned about his fellow pioneers…

It became harder and harder to breathe as he grabbed the fabric of the pillows. More information rammed itself into his mind and he felt himself go into a tizzy. Mental paroxysm after paroxysm paired with the opiates made him feel well above human. He felt like a god–and a licentious one at that.

The whole of this world stood naked before him and he could laugh it off until the cold air played its cruel tricks again, leaving him coughing and hacking. That was until he heard the bewildered murmurs and sniffling from his sister.

Goddamn it.

"Why are you awake?" Osamu groaned, flopping over to see his sister in the corner of the room. "Couldn't sleep?" Up close, he noticed her eyes were wet. Light reflected off her tear-stained cheeks, making her face glisten. She trembled like a wet dog. "Yanagi…?"

"How can I sleep?" She may have been in her thirties by this point, but he still heard the same scared girl from his youth. When she got like this, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. Their uncle was dead by their hands and long gone. No one else would ever dare harm her, considering whose sister she was.

But Yanagi's outburst put a cap on Osamu's nocturnal psychic voyeurism. With his sister out of sorts, he felt the need to drop everything and console her. However, considering how doped to the gills he was, Osamu's idea of helping involved offering to share the pipe…which Yanagi swatted out of his hand. "The hell, woman?"

"I saw something I can't un-see. You wanted dirt on the Uchiha candidate, right?"

Osamu's slate-colored eyes went wide at that. "What on earth did you find?"

…

Everyone around her was fatigued. Kazusa didn't understand why. She'd slept like a goddess as of late. Her nights were plagued with nightmares for weeks after her father went AWOL, but this one felt more pleasant.

It started out more pleasant, anyway.

She and Naho waded in the lake sporting nothing but white linen. As the water soaked into the cloth, she could see Naho's nymph-like form and the rose-colored scars across her chest. Even with her high-collared top, everything may as well have been bare for the sheer visibility brought on by the water.

She could bask in Naho's radiance all day, soaking it up like a flower in the sun. Although Naho wore it tightly in a bun most of the time, her hair naturally went to the end of her shoulder blades in the same serpentine coil-curls her father and two of her brothers had. This wilder side to her was Kazusa's alone to behold until marriage. She'd miss it so.

"I have a secret," Naho cooed coquettishly, beckoning Kazusa to follow her further into the lake. Her dark eyes turned scarlet and that old echo of envy flickered in the back of Kazusa's mind. Naho activated her sharingan at twelve. Kazusa only just activated hers a year ago. "It involves my eyes. Kazusa, my eyes. They're up here."

The closer she approached, the redder Naho's scarred chest became. It matched her sharingan and spread out like an anemone, producing nine scarlet tendrils. Somewhere nearby, the fragrance of chrysanthemums tickled Kazusa's senses.

"Up here," Naho repeated in a softer tone, much like an echo. Aside from the scar, her flesh was creamy white and flawless. It needed more color and a pair of eager lips applied to the skin could bring out more rosiness. "Don't you want to know what I'm keeping from you?"

"Yes…"

"Then you'll have to catch me."

With every stride Kazusa took toward Naho, Naho moved deeper into the lake until something from the aquatic netherworld reached for her legs and pulled her down. Naho outstretched her arms for Kazusa to come help her, but the nine crimson appendages from her chest scar pushed the Uchiha heiress further away.

Kazusa struggled and tried to save her best friend, but felt a pair of hands pull her back. She turned to see who kept her from going after Naho: Tenjin.

"Let her go," Tenjin demanded. "She isn't yours to have."

"But the secret–" Kazusa watched as the bottom of the lake glowed blue. The water began to boil, steam wafted up, and she realized her own body was turning scarlet from scalds. "WHY AREN'T YOU PULLING ME OUT?!"

"You'll doom us all; that's why," he informed her. "You'll kill every last one of my children rather than see one lead."

"NO!"

"You'd sooner give the Nidaime seat to the thing in the lake. Join her, then. Stay."

A large incarnadine creature tore itself free from the bowels of the lake, launched itself into the sky with its nine wings, and let loose a shriek so human that–

Kazusa awoke to her own screams, finding nothing but the confines of her empty house and unoccupied bed around her. One of her four cats had been at the foot of the bed until she startled him. Now he simply stared at her with judgmental yellow eyes from the corner of the room.

She threw the covers off to check her legs for injuries. None. So why did her heart feel like a hummingbird's?

Kazusa staggered to her bathroom to splash her face with cold water and put on the least dirty ensemble in her laundry hamper. Everyone around her looked so exhausted these days. Surely they had bad dreams, too.

But why?

…

"Where should our rally point be for tomorrow's mission?" With their sensei preoccupied, Danzō appointed himself as de facto leader of his squad. Kagami (peacemaker that he was) chose to play along, but sometimes Torifu gave Danzō lip for it. This was why he'd try to satiate the Akimichi by leaving some of the choices up to him.

"North Gate," Torifu decided without skipping a beat. "We're delivering a head to Osamu-dono tomorrow. That's the most direct route to the Yamanaka estate." And apparently, heads had rapid expiration dates once they were separated from their bodies. "We spend as little time with that man as humanly possible."

"I thought your clan was on good terms with those people." Kagami noted how tense his teammate was and wanted to express concern. Still, Danzō bit back the urge to snicker over hearing Kagami say those people.

"We are. That doesn't mean we like their clan head very much. Osamu's a psychopath." The others were fine, he supposed. The clan head's sister appeared gracious and courteous enough, but Osamu was unpredictable and oftentimes hostile.

But Hiruzen's team wasn't picked to do this special delivery. Wait until he had an opportunity to tell his parents! "See you tomorrow, then. Here's my stop." Danzō could see his house on the outskirts of the district. His father appeared to be going through the mail.

"Do you want us to walk you in?" Kagami offered. Danzō huffed, grumbling something about how only babies still did that, and deserted his teammates to catch up with his father.

He had every reason to be proud of Shimura Daichi. This great and magnificent man fought alongside the Senju brothers time and again and played a major role in the village's homeland defense. The borders were only breached once during his tenure and he personally executed the squad leader.

With Hashirama gone, people were in a fit of panic and wanted to believe their next Hokage would be capable of defending the village. Daichi could. Honestly, any Shimura over the age of thirty could…but a boy could justify having a little pride in his war hero father, couldn't he?

Daichi's arms appeared to be shaking as he read over one of his messages. "I'm home," Danzō called out, but Daichi didn't seem to hear him. A bit closer and he noticed Daichi's lips were pursed. He only did that when he tried to stifle a laugh. "What is it?"

"See for yourself."

Daichi surrendered the note to his son, but Danzō saw no cause for a laugh. As soon as his brown eyes read over the words, the boy's heart skipped a beat. "This is a death threat. How can you–"

"I've received them quite regularly since I announced my candidacy," Daichi confessed. He threw the paper to the ground and spat on it, stomping the note into the smooth stone courtyard. "Not once has anyone signed a note. If they don't have the guts to own up to their thoughts, they're nothing to fear."

'I wish I could agree with you, but I don't.' Death threats were a serious thing, especially anonymous ones. It meant they could have come from anyone, even somebody inside the clan. Didn't Daichi see that? "You really aren't worried?" Daichi let loose a low grunt of annoyance and moved past his child. 'He truly is unafraid.'

…but he wasn't. It became apparent that night and every night afterward.

Around three in the morning, Danzō awoke to a scream so shrill he couldn't tell if it came from his mother or father. Then came another one. Such noises were only made by the tortured and the dying, and the source resided in his house.

Without hesitating, he got out of bed, reached for the first available weapon, and stealthily moved nearer the noise. Several of the floors in the Shimura compound were nightingale floors: chirping upon contact for those who didn't know how to walk them.

'They weren't empty words, were they?! Somebody came for my father!' The thought alone made Danzō's heart beat faster. Some of his friends didn't have good relationships with their families, but he at least admired his. Both his parents were good and honorable people. He had every right to respect them. And to think some coward too afraid to write his name on a piece of paper worked up the nerve to–

Another scream, this one lower than the last.

Danzō's hands quaked, causing the weapon to rattle. A shuriken flew past him, grazing his cheek. He stood in place, unable to move any further.

Shimura Daichi wasn't tall, nor was he overly bulky. He did, however, carry himself in such a way that people tended to mentally picture him as far larger. The man moved closer in trance-like motions. Ghosts moved like that. Yokai moved like that. Normal people didn't. "You sent them," he muttered.

'He's asleep…'

"Didn't you, Danzō?"

Daichi continued to stare at him with glazed-over eyes. "Come here," he demanded. "Let me get a good look at you." No. He had a sharp object in his hand. "Come here."

…by the time Daichi awoke that morning, he appeared more tired than ever before. The slightest irregular noise made him tense up and twitch. Danzō ended up as a no-show for the mission after receiving an order from Daichi to help him refortify the house. Windows were boarded shut, all doors (save one) were locked indefinitely. The house had a password.

He had no idea where his child got that nasty gash on his chin or why he refused to come when called.

…

By mid-morning, Kazusa gathered some of her comrades together to talk about the dreams. The observation post at the Hokage Mountain seemed as good a place as any to meet. She wanted an obvious rally point so no one could pull an excuse and duck out. If they found fellow fatigued, the others could come as well. The point was to talk and compare symptoms.

Kariudo staggered in like a drunkard, having to support himself on his beloved dog just to stay upright. "Did I keep you waiting long?" When Kazusa shook her head, the Inuzuka heir sighed in relief and took a seat. He felt he could conserve more energy if he sat. "Who else is coming? Tochiko, I presume?"

Ugh. Nara Tochiko: their third teammate. Neither Kazusa nor Kariudo cared much for her, but they were at least civil enough to work together. "I want to check in and see if she's okay. Is that so bad?"

"Nah. It's thoughtful." Kariudo reached for a big stick and threw it, at least giving his dog something to do. "Ha…at least one of us isn't worn out and run down."

"But don't you always look that way, Kariudo?" Naho teased as she joined the party alongside Yamanaka Hanako. "Every time I see you, you look like the wild man of the woods."

"…and smell like it, too," Hanako chimed in, pinching her nose. "Ever heard of a bath, Kariudo? You should try one sometime."

"Not unless you join me, Yamanaka-chan." And this was at least enough to merit a laugh from Kazusa. She and her friends may have been exhausted, but at least they could still joke around.

Five minutes later, Tochiko joined the party along with several other Genin, Chūnin, and Tokubetsu Jōnin within eight years of their age. The whole crowd totaled at nearly four dozen at its peak.

She'd asked the others to spread the word and anyone who felt tired should come up here to talk about it. Hanako's yawn spread like contagion and several participants kept blinking slowly in an attempt to stay awake.

"We're all tired. I wanted everyone to come here to see if you're tired for the same reason I'm tired. Is it bad dreams?" They stared at each other in disbelief, wondering how on earth she could know something like that. "I wish to discuss these, if only to see if it's the same dream."

Hanako shook her head. "I don't think that's such a good idea. What if the dreams are personal?"

"There was a red monster in mine with nine appendages," Kazusa confessed. "I thought it was tendrils or tentacles at first, but they turned into wings. It flew across the sky and screamed like a woman. Only louder. Much louder."

"I had something similar." Tochiko stood up, swaying like a tree before a heavy wind. She steadied herself on the rail. "So did my parents."

"My dreams involved a dragon burning my clan's woods," Kariudo admitted. "It had twelve sharingan, two byakugan, smelled like gunpowder, and howled like a wolf." He kept trying to find his mother in those dreams, but he couldn't shake the dragon. By the time he finally found his mother, she'd barricaded herself at the Hyūga compound and refused to help him. "I always get burned."

"Did your dragon breathe blue flames, too?" a Hyūga boy inquired. Naho scowled.

"No. Why would it?"

"Oh, no reason."

"I have a secret."

It echoed in Kazusa's mind. She felt ill on top of fatigued. In the crowd, she also noticed Mito's youngest son. Whatever he'd seen in his dreams, the bags under his eyes were the darkest. "Hey…what did you see?"

The boy didn't want to talk. All he did was do his best to stifle the tears that threatened to come out of his eyes and curled closer to Shimura Danzō…who then proceeded to swat at him and tell him he was too old to cry like that.

"I saw my father's death," Danzō advertised. "I saw a future where my clan split in two and faded into obscurity. I saw myself as Hokage, only to be killed by someone from your clan, Kazusa-san." Not that he believed any of these things would happen. "But I don't believe in prophetic dreams. Do you, Hiruzen?"

"You still plan on running, I hope." The woman asking him that question didn't even belong to the Sarutobi Clan. She simply owned a fabric store Sasuke's wife liked to frequent. Today, she offered an entire ream of periwinkle linen as a gift. "Please continue. The whole village loves you."

People stopped Sarutobi Sasuke on the street all the time. They'd done so even when the First Hokage was still alive. Konohagakure considered him a great hero, one of their finest. When the Sarutobi Clan joined under the banner, the two initial founders both were relieved, perhaps even overjoyed, because it meant they'd gained this man as an ally. The Sarutobi family remained in good graces within these borders since day one, never causing any issue or trouble.

Senju Tobirama's stern disposition and standoffish demeanor rubbed several people the wrong way, but so did most of the other candidates. Nominating Tobirama-sensei or Mito would create a hierarchy and make it harder for anyone outside the Senju line to become Hokage in the future.

Then there were people like Shimura Daichi and Uchiha Kaizen with platforms so different from what the village already stood for that Konoha could suffer from whiplash under an adjustment period. Daichi would mean a martial dictatorship. Kaizen…no one knew what Kaizen stood for yet. It could be anything.

Hiruzen didn't know his father's politics beyond the fact he was a minimalist. Just enough government to keep things in working order would suffice. From there, let the clans do as they wish among themselves. Their differences weren't so great that they couldn't band together where it counted. Stripping them of their banners could lead to civil war.

Sasuke wouldn't change things as Hokage, but he was a safe choice, not to mention a beloved one. He'd do right by the village and that's what mattered most.

'You say you want him to lead,' Hiruzen thought, 'but you don't see how he sleeps.' As he thanked the store owner for the cloth, Hiruzen watched his father's response. All Sasuke did was politely bow and wish the woman a productive day.

He'd spent his whole life seeing his father as a hero and somebody worthy of his admiration. As of late, all Hiruzen could see were the dark circles under Sasuke's eyes and the way he slowly blinked, doing his best to keep awake. He witnessed how the man staggered, almost like a drunk, but he hadn't touched alcohol since he became a father.

It made no sense to him. Sasuke wasn't old and he normally had enough energy for the both of them. Rest was clearly the best thing for him, but Hiruzen noted something else, too. His father masked it so well, but he very clearly saw fear in those eyes.

…

"I've prescribed this remedy to help you through the bad dreams, husband. I urge you to ere on the side of caution with the dosage. This could kill you if you take it for too long." And didn't their son still need his father? Didn't the village still need him?

At this point, Sarutobi Sasuke was convinced he'd be willing to pay such a price if it meant the bad dreams stopped. In some dreams, he became Hokage. As soon as the hat was placed upon his head, a crow with milk-white eyes flew at him with the intent of pecking out his tongue. The more he ran from it, the more of its nasty little friends joined the chase.

Other nights, he dreamed of his son going on a mission with his team. Koharu and Homura waved goodbye outside the Sarutobi compound, promising Tobirama-sensei would take good care of everyone. A low laugh came out of the background. As Sasuke turned to find the source of the laughter, a wolf pack lunged at the team and mauled Tobirama into an unidentifiable pile of meat and gore. The other two children had enough sense to run, but Hiruzen…Hiruzen always stayed behind, thinking he could save his sensei…

He saw his son die at least eight times, each time more brutally than the last.

"I've lived through over a dozen wars. I don't think something as harmless as a few plant leaves and roots are going to kill me."

Harmless. Right. Hiruzen disapprovingly observed as his father ground this herbal medley up and mixed it into everything he drank. He'd asked Sasuke a few times about the toxicity of the medication. After all, his mother said the plant could turn poisonous.

"I'll be alright," Sasuke assured him. "There's never a need to–what are you doing? Put that down!"

This was typical for him. It wasn't the first time Sasuke lied about being fine. The only way to get the truth out of him involved trying to swallow the bitter herbs for himself. The fact Sasuke tried to stop him proved to Hiruzen his father had no intention of taking care of himself, just stopping those damned dreams.

Others had come by to check on the family. Tobirama-sensei asked his father to stand strong and power through this. "He knows something," Hiruzen heard his mother murmur once the man departed. Sasuke responded that she sounded overly suspicious. Tobirama was a dear friend.

"Are the dreams that bad?" Hiruzen finally worked up the nerve to ask. "I hear you talk in your sleep sometimes."

"It's–"

"No. You can't tell me it's fine again. I know it's not. It can't be fine if you're willingly swallowing poison! This is going to kill you!" Didn't Sasuke want to survive? Wasn't he a brave man? Couldn't he power through this like everything else in life?

And yet all this great, strong man could do was slump over with a glazed and groggy look in his eyes.

"Maybe you shouldn't be Nidaime," Hiruzen proposed. "You're in no condition." He saw it on his father's face: he planned to do this for him. 'No one ever asked you to.' Didn't he understand that it meant more just to keep him around than to see his face carved on the mountain next to Hashirama? "Don't–"

But he did. Sasuke placed his lips to the cup of tainted tea and sipped, feeling his mind go blank. As everything turned numb, as the horrible dreams both sleeping and waking dissipated like steam at a hot spring, he felt weightless.

"What if the dreams mean something? What if–"

"Ssssssh…son, I don't need to hear it." Just thinking about it made Sasuke double the dosage and take another sip…even though the whites of his eyes had already turned bloodshot and his lips the color of a bruise…

"Just let me sleep."

Go figure. If Danzō went someplace, Sarutobi Sasuke's son would, too. They were inseparable. Kazusa honestly suspected these two were about as close to each other as she was with Naho, not that she terribly much cared. Kagami did, though, and Kagami loved to gossip when he came home from his missions.

Hiruzen stifled a yawn and apologized as soon as he saw several others do the same. "No, but apparently my father does. He's drugging himself at night to stop the dreams."

Danzō rolled his eyes and then proceeded to rub them. "We aren't living in the end of days, people. Isn't it obvious someone's playing a trick on us?"

"What's that rude little boy insinuating?" Naho whispered in Kazusa's ear.

But Kazusa carried the same suspicion in her heart. Somebody had to be playing the queen mother of dirty tricks with these bad dreams, but to what end? 'Is someone trying to change the way we vote for our new Hokage through scare tactics?'

Danzō wasn't apparently finished. "There's only one clan in the village that could do something this heinous. They're–"

"There's way more of you than there are of us," Hanako interjected. "There's no way. I have the bad dreams, too!"

'You're lying, Hanako,' Kazusa noted. 'You may have yawned earlier, but your face and body don't lie as well as your mouth does.'

…

It broke Mito's heart to hear her youngest cry like this. The little boy had been a colicky baby and bawled with an impressively loud pair of lungs a few years ago. It seemed growing old enough to attend Academy hadn't quelled that. Mito had handled many screaming children over the years.

Hashirama had adored his little prince. That boy bonded with him even more tightly than his older siblings had. This child was his merry mischief-maker: filching money out of Mito's purse and stealing his sister's maneki neko bank because he wanted to wave a fat wad of ryo and Land of Fire bank notes in his hand just like his father.

Mito would chase him down the hall until he exhausted himself, reaching out with chubby greedy arms until Mito conceded to hoist him up and spin him around until he squealed in glee.

It's the Uzumaki stamina, Hashirama used to joke with Mito. She'd retort that the little boy had a Senju personality. They'd laugh about that child every time they finished being doting parents and saw the expression of exhausted dread on their elder children's faces.

They were assholes for constantly leaving their little one in Morirama's care, Mito realized. She and Hashirama both gave their youngest all the sugar and candy he wanted, riled him up until he practically bounced off the walls, and then greeted their eldest with guilty grins when it was time for them to attend a public function.

Her son reached decibels far louder than most humans could muster when he wailed. Watching him whimper and thrash around in his sleep wasn't normal.

Upstairs, she heard her youngest daughter shrieking in her sleep for her father. Her eldest swore in his sleep, too: accusing some very important men in the village of murdering Hashirama, which wasn't even remotely true. Her eldest son's teammates caught the killer. Mito saw.

Her eldest sat across from her in the parlor, eying her warily. "Something's on your mind, Morirama. Want to tell me what it is?"

"You're well-rested," Morirama observed. "The rest of the village is about to collapse from these bad dreams, but you're fine. Are you–"

"You know what I am capable of, dear. I am powerful and capable of great things, but tampering with people's dreams isn't something the kitsune within me can do. Perhaps the tailed beast has kept me safe."

It gave her further cause to suspect human intervention. As she heard the cries of her younger children from another room, Mito winced. "That Yamanaka wife of yours, on the other hand…"