Please leave a comment or PM if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns, or just compliments. For the sake of this work, the elemental balance will go earth}lightning}water}fire}wind. Thanks to SmallFountainPen for betaing chapters 57-73. Thanks to SoaringJe for betaing chapters 116, 117.


Kushina and Kakashi stared at the wall.

Their expressions – though both were facing forward so neither could see – were exactly identical:

Sheer bewilderment, mixed with increasing levels of panic.

And to think they'd both thought this was a good idea.

It was, actually, abstractly a good idea.

Minato was overworked, exhausted. Could barely spend any time sleeping, much less with his girlfriend. He did manage to eke out some time to spend with his students, but despite acting as Kakashi's father he'd been able to carve out so little time to act as such that the dinner four days ago was the first non-training time they'd spent together in a month.

Offering to help with his paperwork load, then, seemed a perfectly reasonable course of action.

And Minato had actually laughed, agreed – pointed out that if either of them were captured the paperwork wouldn't exactly be the first on the kidnappers' minds.

He'd thanked them, heartfelt and far too teary-eyed, and asked them to come today, after everyone who would need to be had time to be informed of the change.

And Kushina and Kakashi had felt ready, eager to buy back time with their loved one.

Until they'd come to comprehend the sheer size of it.

The wall didn't help much there, of course.

Hundreds of tiny boxes, each just large enough for a scroll, held one storage seal each. ANBU – those not yet trained enough to take outside missions, but with sufficient trust to handle internal documents internally – as well as the various bureaucrats who worked in the Administrative Building flitted in and out of the room, the papers they carried vanishing into storage seals that would, as Minato finished the latest of the never-ending tide, then be taken to him in order of importance with the previously examined storage seal now in its place.

There was clearly a purpose to the hundreds of seals.

Each clearly meant something.

Neither jinchuriki had any idea what.

They stared, and the picture in front of them refused to resolve itself.

So Kushina decided to take matters into her own hands.

The ANBU, a crocodile-like mask concealing their face, squeaked when Kushina's chakra-chains whipped out, snagged them.

A new recruit, then.

All the better.

"You. Explain the system."

The crocodile – alligator, maybe? – swallowed, then gestured to the upper right of the wall and began rattling off descriptions of each organizer in a clear display of rote memory.

Kushina and Kakashi listened intently.

They weren't going to screw this up.

.

The wedding was being held just as the seasons changed, primarily to have it as early as possible with minimal risk of a heat wave – a Daimyo's wedding always had plenty of guests, and Wind's last one had actual deaths over the course of the week due to the sheer constancy of the heat, despite the preparations that had been made to try to prevent such incidents.

It wasn't a surprise, really, that the Daimyo was eager to avoid a similar occurrence.

Shin, Sakura knew, would be involved with some of the official ceremonies, but relatively few. She, Juro, and Ibiki would be involved in none.

Of the official ceremonies, anyway.

They were still powerful enough to be invited to a great many of the related observances, formalities, and rites that were being held in connection to the wedding itself.

They arrived a good two weeks before – as expected, and with all of the other Konoha visitors except Minato, who as a military leader would be permitted to arrive merely a week before – and had quickly set up in Shin's quarters.

They were settled, now. They'd been there for several days, already, been to far too many teas and formal introductions and so on and so forth, and now Sakura was selecting an obi for yet another.

At least this one promised to be less formal – it was a sort of party being held by the Minister of Transportation, who had (after meeting with her two days before, getting her permission in a roundabout way) apparently invited a great many bureaucrats from a great many Ministries to talk with her about Research, about technology.

This night, at least, promised to be somewhat interesting… but it was still surrounding herself with a great many samurai, who grew up with a very different idea of social customs, of gender norms, of life.

(There had been no less than forty two times, already, when she hadn't been given due respect due to her gender. Each time the backlash had been rather remarkable, and never by her – Sakura's high rank meant no samurai could get away with such a slight, and whoever happened to be around them then (shinobi, for obvious reasons, as well as other nobility and bureaucrats, to further themselves through the missteps of others) made absolutely sure the erring speaker knew it.)

"How about this one?" Sakura said, holding out an obi for inspection.

Ibiki wrinkled his nose – he didn't like pastels – but Asuma nodded in approval. Ibiki's friend was staying with them tonight, had been staying with them for the past two days as well – he joined his parents for many of the daytime activities, but children were never invited to any of the events that happened after dinner and his parents had full schedules until well past midnight; sticking Asuma in the middle of the shinobi complex usually ensured that there was some sort of visible adult watcher to keep an eye on him.

Tonight that was Juro, but Juro wasn't back from his dinner with the Daimyo's personal physician.

"I think it matches your kimono pretty well. Are you sure your kimono is formal enough?" Asuma asked, gesturing to several of the other options she'd laid out.

Sakura hummed. "Yes, this is a far more laid-back event than any of your parents'." Not that that was saying much – a Hokage, even a former one, was only invited to the sort of Capital events that only the most elite of Fire nobility.

Ibiki groaned. "When am I going to be allowed to go to anything? It's boring just staying her all day!"

Asuma, laying on the futon near Ibiki, rolled over enough to shove his friend. "It's boring to go to the parties, I keep telling you! Stop asking!"

"I think Shin's taking you to something tomorrow, but he didn't have time to tell me what. Ask him in the morning – but do not wake him up."

"I know, I know…" Ibiki said. "You make one mistake…" he added, under his breath.

Asuma snickered.

Sakura disappeared to her room. She hoped Juro would be home, soon; she knew the physician had something tonight, so they hadn't expected their events to overlap, but it would be unfortunate to leave the boys with only the ANBU for company – Ibiki really had been more or less stuck in just a few rooms.

She'd just finished getting ready – she hated makeup, but it was expected in the Capital – when Juro came in.

"Got something for you two!"

"Dessert!"

"Look at me, breadwinner – literally!"

"You won the cake?" Sakura said.

"Kind of, kind of." Juro said, snickering. He was being obvious enough that he clearly wanted Ibiki to pull the information out of him, so she left him to it – she'd get the story through the grapevine sooner or later.

"I'm taking off, then."

"Enjoy!"

Sakura made a face – the Capital was still the Capital – then disappeared.

,

Sakura was drunk.

She didn't get drunk that often – didn't enjoy the feeling, definitely didn't enjoy the aftereffects – but she'd shown up and seen many, many faces of fear, of various scholars and bureaucrats too afraid to make a misstep to ask a single question.

Ensuring that she was visibly drunk didn't actually stop that risk, not at all, but it was all about appearances, and Sakura appeared much less intimidating when she was drinking alongside them.

"The… Daimyo," a bureaucrat sitting to her left whom Sakura had never gotten the name of slurred, "is for it, but I can't… um…"

He trailed off, having forgotten his point.

Sakura hadn't, though; she'd had practice keeping control while inebriated, and could still recall the beginning of his argument, when he'd explained the difficulty in getting various nobles involved on the continued technological progress. For them, after all, the progress seemed entirely negative – the laborers under them were more able to leave, social progress was greater than ever, the less entrenched, newer nobility had used the technology to bolster their positions…

"How bad…" Sakura said, carefully remembering not to over enunciate. "…is the political… strife?"

Another bureaucrat, Lee or something, snorted. He was young, barely old enough to even be considered a member of the ministry at all, but his father was some sort of important noble and he had more than a few brain cells to run together so he'd found himself shooting up quickly, much to his own fear; the higher you were, the further you could fall.

"It's bad," Lee said. He took another swig. "Really bad. Lots and lots… of arguing."

"No… nothing against the Daimyo?" She couldn't use the word 'treason.' That would cause everyone to sober up really quick. The question reworded, thankfully, seemed to slip under their danger senses.

"No, no," Lee said. "Daimyo's… Daimyo. Konoha's too powerful anyway, supports Daimyo. No one goes against… um, him. Um, the Daimyo. Just infighting, between the nobles. Talks about… maybe skirmishes."

"The Daimyo has banned those." Sakura said.

The bureaucrat to Sakura's left rolled his shoulders. "Yeah, yeah… but there's… you make sure someone gets a position, you make sure someone else doesn't. It's all politics. Factions. The liberals… against the conservatives."

"I think," a ministerial secretary began, leaning forward as he poured himself another drink. "I think, that the Daimyo… that this works, for him. Um, because… they're not getting along, but since… since Konoha, the samurai have become less important, still important, but… less. So instead of, um, using them in peacetime – they all get distracted by… by the politics."

Sakura shifted.

This all aligned with what Shin had implied, but it was also – too political. If they went any further, then someone – probably not her, but still someone – would be paying for it.

"I bet every noble is using the telegraphs." Sakura said.

Lee laughed. "The telegraphs! They're lovely! All the rapid communication you- you could possibly want, and, and, and, and then, um, everything gets checked—That used to be my job, you know. Sitting in this tiny cramped room and translating the messages and passing on summaries to… to whoever the message is for… and." Lee froze, realizing that he was speaking too freely.

Sakura coughed, poured herself another glass. She'd burn this one off, with her chakra – she didn't want to get any drunker. "Have you heard what we've just come up with?"

"Come up with?" Someone asked.

Sakura grinned, then gulped down a few mouthfuls of flavored sake. "We can… we can make these films, now, of people's… words, and what they're saying, and what they look like. Like, many many pictures, taken very quickly together. Will be too expensive, for years at least, to make many… but we're trying to make cheaper models. Um, for more people to use."

The ministerial secretary rubbed his head, picking at the nut bowl in the middle of the table. "That—oh, I'd love to see that. Is the Daimyo being sent a model?"

"Yes. Should be ready… one, two weeks?" Hard to tell. Not particularly important, either; with the Daimyo's honeymoon, it would take some time for any official reply to be given.

The ministerial secretary's – Sakura vaguely thought he had something to do with minerals – eyes glinted. "Bet it uses a lot of metal."

Sakura smiled. "It does."

"You guys come up with… so much." The bureaucrat to her left said. And then he collapsed.

The others at the tables looked at him for a few seconds, trying to parse what had happened.

Sakura's hand snaked out, found his neck. "Fine, just drunk."

"Oh, no," Lee groaned. "He's going to—here, give him to me."

The younger man managed to shake the older awake, and the two had almost managed to stumble out of the room before the elder began retching.

Sakura wrinkled her nose.

"A night, gentlemen?"

Vague noises of agreement – the other tables showed similar levels of inebriation, of people just at the end of how much they were comfortable consuming in the night.

Sakura wasn't able to completely burn off the liquor as she left (she only knew how to destroy what was in her stomach, and much of it had already moved on) but by the time she arrived back at the quarters – it had to be nearly two, now, completely black if not for the lamps – she'd managed to sober up enough to fish out and swallow a few servings of onigiri before bed.

She'd talk to Shin the next day – if the bureaucrats were speaking as freely as they did, then she and the rest of Konoha needed to take a step back and rethink their plans.

.

The next morning Shin, Juro, and Sakura sat together.

Stewing.

None were happy with what they had put together.

None of it even remotely contradicted what Shin had learned alone, but several elements had been… emphasized, so to speak.

"What should we do?" Juro said.

Something must be done.

That was clear enough.

Change, even positive change, always had its detractors, and enough people were being personally hurt (people, specifically, that had entitlement. Connections. Power.) that—

"We have, four groups. I think. That must be mollified." Shin said. He sipped his tea, glanced to where the boys were still sleeping. "The ordinary civilians, the allies of Fire, the acting samurai, and the nobility. In ascending order of difficulty."

Sakura hummed. "We are about to release a public version of the radio, with the Daimyo and Konoha concurrently running an office to 'sell' radio waves. That should spread communication, for better or worse."

"Lots of new opportunities for average civilians, too, and those that are uninterested in taking advantage of the changes are, well, doomed to lose power over time."

"So dismiss the civilians, for now… it's not as if they have much power individually, anyway." Juro said. That was true enough – while they could revolt, a revolt was almost always doomed to failure unless it was sufficiently backed by some portion of the nobility, the acting samurai, or the shinobi.

"Suna is doing well, since the reintroduction of the river." Sakura said. "They are enjoying the radio, as well, and we are putting out railroads for increased connectivity… upsets some of the merchants of that route, though."

"Not important enough to deal with now," Shin dismissed. "Not with—"

Not with the greater dangers.

"Active samurai." Juro said, listing the next largest of the concerns.

The samurai hadn't been… thrilled with the ninja for some time. Had never been thrilled with shinobi, actually; had hated the different culture and danger in the Warring State's period, and hated them all the more now that Konoha was being run efficiently enough to be actively supported by the Daimyo.

There were frequent clashes, but they had so far managed to stay nonviolent. Arguments about who was in charge of border crossings, of ship travel to Uzu. Arguments about just about everything else too – but always arguments that were cloaked in courtesy, in social graces.

There was every chance, however, that this wouldn't remain the case.

And then there was the greatest worry, and the only reason the samurai were under control – every samurai was a member of the samurai class, which included every noble family, even those who for one reason or another had lost their land in the past centuries.

Those that still had land, those who therefore still had power, seemingly had no interest in doing anything that might disrupt their powerbase – the Daimyo family's centuries-long consolidation of what was now known as Fire may have individually weakened the landlords, but it also meant they had significantly less to worry about in terms of the threats of other nations; it had been one hundred seventy three years, now, since the last war that was started by the Daimyo, through the samurai, and not the shinobi.

(This was, of course, deeply misleading, particularly in regard to the Warring Clans Era – it had been very common for Daimyo or even nobility to hire shinobi to expand their territory without using their 'official' samurai forces; was still very common for shinobi to 'start' the wars, keeping the samurai back until the enemy was thoroughly assessed. Nobility continued to use shinobi to expand their power too, except now they did it by paying exorbitantly for assassinations, for 'mishaps' in storerooms, for rumor mongering. They weren't allowed to hire shinobi to fight other samurai or nobility openly, anymore, but they'd not once been banned from hiring shinobi – so they just relied on the quieter skills.)

But there were those without land, desperate to get some back.

There were those that believed they deserved more.

There were those that, for better or worse, thought other nobles (or, more often, Konoha) was profiting when it should be them.

If enough nobles continued to go down this path…

If enough began to feel as if the Daimyo's control was more harmful than helpful…

If enough had the loyalty of their samurai behind them…

The 'job' of keeping the nobility in line really went to the Daimyo, as their conqueror, but Konoha wanted peace.

And if the nobility were to continue boiling in anger, in rage, then there was every chance Fire might splinter.

"Has it been this bad before?" Sakura asked.

Shin sipped his tea, nodded. Hesitated. "Under different Daimyo."

Different as in literally different – the ancestors, rather than their current ruler – but also different in a different sense.

The Daimyo wasn't disliked, exactly, but he was old. Infirm, really – the consensus was only a few years until his successor took over.

And that was the real problem. Their current Daimyo was old, struggled to wield the political power he was once master of, but his heir showed no sign of being nearly as adept, as naturally prepared to handle the throne.

The question remained: what to do?