(A/N) Aftermath. This should be fun. Can anyone believe I actually almost forgot that Hiruzen was dead?
Gaara was very confused to be waking up. Mostly because he wasn't really supposed to sleep in the first place, and also because he wasn't tired. Or dead. And there wasn't a voice in his head.
"Good morning sleepy-head!" Ah, a red-head obviously an Uzumaki. This wasn't dangerous at all. "We're almost done adjusting your seal, so you should be a bit out for a little while, but then after wards you can sleep without fear of anything!"
"Oh and you've been asleep for like an entire week," another Uzumaki popped into his vision range, grinning at him, which was a novel concept in and of itself. "You must've really needed a nap."
"I haven't slept in many years," Gaara informed her solemnly, although talking drew attention to the fact his throat felt like it was full of sand.
"Dear oceans child, you need water." The first Uzumaki disappeared from his vision and came back with a bottle thing. "Here, it has a straw so you don't have to sit up if you don't want to."
Gaara stubbornly sat up anyway, he wasn't weak….why was his head spinning and where did his vision go?
"Oh boy he sat up too fast," the second Uzumaki sighed disappointedly.
His vision cleared a moment later, and a presumably hospital room came into view. Since it was painted blue with various random creatures running around. Like literally running around. Gaara decided not to question it.
"Oh yeah! You've been kidnapped, and now Uzushio's keeping you! You'll be placed with a jounin specializing in water ninjutsu and when you prove yourself trustworthy and properly stable we'll either place you with a proper family, or you can do whatever!"
Gaara suspected he didn't have a choice in this matter. He also couldn't feel Mother, which was troubling. His best bet was playing along. Then maybe killing later.
Orochimaru utterly refused to be the next Hokage. He wasn't particularly fond of this village, and all his experiments were elsewhere and a fair amount couldn't be moved. He wasn't about to give up his basically freedom by saddling himself with the hat. Just...no.
He might've wanted it at some point in the past, but he was long past that. Now he was not onboard with this.
"No. I have experiments to attend to, and I am unwilling to leave behind my free travels between them and Uzushio." Plus he absolutely had to be there while they were working on rehabilitating Gaara, that sand of his was absolutely fascinating and he really really needed to know if the kid could control other kinds of sand or dust and how strong they could make it. And assist with Tamako and her need for a prosthetic.
"Well it can't be Jiraiya," Tsunade shot back, shaking her head. "I'm not letting him anywhere near the hat for the safety of the Kunoichi and what not."
"You're the one staying here to work on the hospital," Jiraiya said, sulking in the corner.
"I'm going to have my hands beyond full by just the hospital," Tsunade snapped. "I can't add Hokage duties on top of that."
Shisui, who was hanging around because he was going back to Uzushio with Orochimaru preferably sooner rather than later, spoke up. "You could like, share the hat. Find a third person to be like the primary figure head, Tsunade handles in village messes along with the hospital, and Orochimaru does external village politics whenever it's needed and does all the diplomatic trips. Leaves him free to wander, and leaves Tsunade the time to do the hospital things."
"When did he become the voice of reason?" Orochimaru demanded.
"Excuse you! I can be the voice of reason!" Shisui said, clearly offended. "I have good ideas!"
"Very rarely," Orochimaru sniped, shaking his head and remembering the multitude of bad ideas the Uzumaki had made.
He made an offended noise, but Tsunade cut in. "And who would this third person be? Everyone's kind of busy?"
"Do Shibi," Shisui said, making it sound like it was obvious. "The Aburame don't do any of the really big factors of Konoha, and it'll bring positive attention to the clan. We don't want another Uchiha situation."
"He is level-headed and sensible," Orochimaru mused, approving of the suggestion. Gah, he cannot believe he was approving one of Shisui's ideas.
"Yeah, sure, whatever. He can have the hat and we can remember to delegate," Tsunade huffed. "Shoo Jiraiya, don't you have like better things to do?"
"Well even if he doesn't, I do," Orochimaru replied, wrinkling his nose at the room in general and leaving. Shisui trailed after him, unfortunately, since they were leaving for Uzushio at the same time. Unfortunately.
Tenten was mildly sad that there was not any more destruction to be done, since her and Fuji had already done quite enough of that(according to the rest of Konoha, not according to them) But she was moving past it! She had a way to contact Fuji, and they could trade better explosive seals! She was roped into reconstructing most of the village though, which, fair. She did definitely help destroy it.
Plus everyone was helping get things rebuilt. The civilians had almost no casualties, although there were a fair amount of injuries, so there was a lot to do.
Most of the genin had been injured in some way, although not severely for most of them. Neji was slightly traumatized and refused to let her go behind him or out of his line of sight in general. Tenten hadn't the faintest idea why.
At least he had some fear for her in him, it was about time.
While everyone was figuring out what to do about the Hokage situation, Kurenai had other things to worry about. Primarily making sure all of her children coped alright with the invasion in general. And helping clean up.
Hinata was having regular nightmares and so slept over with Kurenai a lot to help mitigate them. The hard work of rebuilding the village also helped with that because often the genin were so exhausted they passed out and didn't dream. The trouble would come later when it slowed down.
Ino was mostly alright, but she was a Yamanaka and they were pretty good at having relatively good coping mechanisms. Good coping mechanisms for shinobi anyway. Which wasn't a high bar.
Choji was similarly alright, although it seemed like Kurenai's hard work to get him over his crush had entirely failed. That was slightly annoying, but she could work on it. This would be fine.
The other jounin didn't seem to realize the need to keep their children mostly alright, so Kurenai went around and made double sure all of the genin knew her house was always open if they needed something. Even Tenten, who seemed completely unbothered by everything. She was probably related to the Uzumaki in some way, there was no way she wasn't since she had the same brand of crazy.
Personally, since Kurenai couldn't resist a little bit of shipping worth her life, she thought it'd be equal parts adorable and horrifying if Tenten and the cute little Uzumaki kid she'd hung out with got together. At least Uzushio knew how to handle their brand of crazy.
Shino was rather proud when his father accepted about one third of the hat. He would hold the hat itself and be the primary person at the head of Konoha, with Tsunade and Orochimaru to back him and Konoha up. Orochimaru out in the field and Tsunade in the village with her hospital.
There were, of course, some necessary changes to be done, primarily establishing some more desk bound shinobi(and those getting punished for something) to handle most of the paperwork so that only the most important things made it to the top for his father to oversee. He set up weekly reports of the paperwork to double check that, and, likely the best part, he demanded Torune back from Danzo.
So Shino had his cousin back, ROOT was disbanded properly, everyone dispatched back to their clans or straight to the Yamanaka compound for therapy.
Danzo was on trial for his crimes, and Tsunade was making sure to back his father publicly. Although most people seemed just fine with this.
The thing Shino had heard his father say most often as a proper saying was 'rebuild the village's infrastructure and its core beurocratic structure.' Which made some sense, although Shino suspected it made more sense to those who'd dealt more with the diplomatic stuff.
Even if Chuunin promotions had been put off for the moment because of all the adjustments, the village was feeling better by the day. More parts were rebuilt as the genin and chuunin worked tirelessly to build alongside civilians who knew what they were doing. Unattached Jounin and ANBU ran mission after mission to keep funds coming into the village.
Everyone was working themselves to the bone with the knowledge that once it was done, they could rest and the village would be better.
Building codes were also updated, since so many homes and apartments had been destroyed. A lot of important items and heirlooms had been protected in the remains by Uzumaki protection seals, so sale of those spiked massively as people sought to protect their belongings.
Craftsmen were working overtime to make everything the village needed to rebuild, and the village was livlier then before.
Perhaps the invasion had been, well, not entirely a good thing, but a new start. A destruction of the old to bring in the new. The village would be safer and better built.
Shino was exhausted, yes, but excited to see how well the village would thrive.
(A/N) And here we are. The end. A nice ending spot, hm? This has been one long trip. Please ignore everything before the Chuunin exams lol. I might rewrite this some time, we'll see honestly, but if I do there'll be a lot of changes. All of them will be for the better I think.