Time stopped for no one.
Things were not perfect, far from it. But they were here and alive.
And just like that, six months passed.
Konoha.
Toru dabbed at his eyes and sniffled.
Next to him, Shisui hid his amusement.
Their relationship was... awkward at times, and they hadn't seen much of each other in the last months, but... It was fine.
He could find it in himself to try.
They would be fine, or Toru hoped so, at least.
"Allergies, again…?" He asked.
"...Yeah." Toru nodded. "You know it's the season. Konoha's terrible for that. No wonder I never come here."
There were a few other reasons, of course.
"…It wouldn't have anything to do with the event, right?" Shisui deadpanned.
"Of course not." Toru scoffed. "It's just good ol' Sasuke and Hinata."
Considering the number of times he had called Hinata Sasuke's wife, he had almost forgotten they weren't actually married. Today, it was impossible to forget.
The only person that looked more emotional than Toru… was not Mikoto.
Instead, it was Itachi. Out of all people…
The Hokage was weeping openly, with the brightest smile Toru could remember seeing on his face. For some reason, it looked dignified on him.
Instead of just goofy, which was how it looked when Toru did it.
Toru did not send him a jealous glare. He just noticed how many Konoha women looked at their leader with swooning expressions in their eyes. Because he was observant. That handsome bastard Itachi—
Akemi, next to him, stomped on his foot. He howled, but cut himself off when people started to glare at him.
Why?! He mouthed to her, instead.
You know exactly why. She mouthed back.
Next to Shisui, Anko hid a chuckle. Toru glared at her, instead.
There was no describing how strange it had felt, learning that these two had somehow gotten in an actual relationship. Then again, Anko never really had made sense to Toru.
Hanabi and Ino were here as well. Hanabi, because she had been invited right away; Ino, because everyone else had been.
Their expressions.
Toru sobered up.
They didn't look as cheery as most people were, and it was pretty obvious to Toru that they were thinking about someone else.
The fight was over and so was the war. But they had lost people they cared about.
Hidden behind Toru's eyepatch, the Rinnegan probably shone bright, as it always did, the annoying thing. A stark reminder of the events that happened, months ago. Not that it was possible to forget about them in the first place.
He mostly had been chosen because he was already missing an eye, had decent chakra reserves and was Uchiha, really.
Toru didn't know what to make of it, really.
And the secrets the eye held…
Bringing the dead back to life.
If — No. When.
When they finally figured out how to use the Rinne Tensei without Toru dying in the process…
Then he could fix things.
Well, no.
Things would still be complicated. Perhaps even more so.
Even if this sort of harebrained scheme actually worked.
(Which he was highly doubtful about.)
What came afterward...? Naruto was too high-profile to be ignored. And people would learn about it.
What happened after...?
Immortality for everyone, then…? Yeah, right… That was a complicated issue. More than a little.
Where did you draw the line…? What did you do once there simply was no more room…? Did you tell immortal people they couldn't have kids… or that they had to renounce being immortal in order to do so…? What if they changed their mind about either issue…?
Toru didn't have an answer.
His thoughts were a bit morbid... quite often now. He didn't see it as such, though.
He had begun daydreaming a few more convoluted plans, but still wasn't sure if any of them were actually workable or not.
Things that sounded absurd on the paper.
Something like… let's say… sharing one Rinnegan eye between two people that could use the Rinne Tensei; people who had a strong enough life force.
One to use the jutsu.
One to resurrect the other, as well as the other people who died recently…?
Looping endlessly.
It would just take years and years to set everything up. But if he only managed to get Shisui on board...
But then again...
How did you even manage everything that followed…?
Was there a limit…? Was there some sort of God that would come to tell them to fuck off at some point…?
Was life, death… just something that simple, something fixable... to the people with the right eyes…?
Because the Rinnegan was connected to Life and Death, he was sure of it. And something about the King of Hell made him feel a bit wary.
Gods, he was doing it again. Sasuke was getting married.
Toru didn't remember anything about the afterlife. Maybe it was a good thing, too, considering how morbidly curious he now was about the whole thing.
The ceremony was a big event, of course.
It was not every day that a Clan Head married the Heiress of another clan. Especially not when they were of the Uchiha and the Hyuga.
Hanabi's father had tried to talk her into coming back into the fold.
Of course he would.
Several times, now.
The first time had left her bemused, and shaking her head. The subsequent times had just left her with a vague sense of irritation.
Now that Hinata was to become part of the Uchiha clan, he was in need of someone to take the lead of the clan.
Now, after all the bad blood…
Now, after branding her…
Now, he came back…?
Maybe Hanabi had gone a bit overboard in her latest rebuke — even for her standards. It was still his elder daughter's wedding day.
She could see that Hiashi was limping today, his stoic face contorted in pain.
Serves him right. Ino echoed through the bond. The nerve on that guy.
Hanabi snorted. At least someone had her back. Neither of them were particularly welcome here, it felt.
It would be much more manageable with Naruto and Sakura around, — Karin too of course, but that was because she was Karin — as they would understand the feeling exactly. And Naruto's presence simply tended to make people want to avoid potentially pissing him off.
Well…
Hinata looked radiant, at least. And she guessed Sasuke cleaned up half-decently, too.
Nobody dared to say anything about the fact that she was very pregnant. The groom was Uchiha Sasuke, after all.
There was no reason to be bawling like a baby, like Toru was… or stoically weeping, like Itachi was, but it was a pretty emotional affair.
Hanabi wasn't so sure what to make of these things, honestly. Now that they were not really focused on killing another world-ending threat, — although that depended on how problematic Ōnoki was going to be in the coming months — Hanabi found herself a little bit lost.
The sealing arts were pretty fascinating, though, and she could understand why Naruto and Karin had been so into them.
And using Shadow Clones to bring herself up to speed, things were going fast.
What she couldn't understand, though, was why he had had so much trouble with the Hiraishin jutsu - according to Ino, at least. There was nothing quite so complicated about it to Hanabi, once she knew what she was doing. At least not in theory. It was closer to Ninjutsu than Fuinjutsu, too.
Maybe Naruto simply didn't have the kind of control required for it, it was hard to tell.
No matter what it was, though, she would soon be able to make use of it. Without finding herself displaced in time. Well, she thought so, at least.
It would be pretty useful, that one. Especially when combined with the chakra rods.
And with her seeing-arrows, she, Ino and Anko could… watch over the villages, in case something happened.
With the Byakugan and a vision point high up in the sky, there was not much that Hanabi could not find out, if she had the patience for it. It especially helped with Ōnoki, who was definitely plotting something nefarious. Maybe he would need a little reminder of who was in charge, soon.
Once he went too far with it.
Ino didn't particularly like using her reputation. Which was a shame, because Ino of the Soul Harvest was an incredible name. Better than Thousand Eyes Hanabi, by far. Well, every country had their own nicknames for shinobi.
At least Hanabi's didn't really give her powers away. She had gotten the name for her summons, not her seeing-arrows, but the point still stood.
(For a long few weeks, Hanabi had held the foolish hope that perhaps Naruto had survived the same way again, using the Hiraishin. But Ino was sure that he was dead, this time. The bond didn't lie.)
(She missed him. She really did.)
(And she missed her friends.)
Ah.
There she went again.
Hinata was getting married. And when it came to the marriage itself…
It was considered highly unusual, but Hanabi had trouble seeing it.
Hinata basically left a clan of emotionally-repressed people with an obsession over their eyes… for a clan of emotionally-repressed people with an obsession over their eyes.
Same thing, really.
Well, if she was happy, Hanabi was happy for her.
The wedding was an unpleasant reminder of things Ino could not have.
Without her mother and her friends around, she wasn't sure how she would have pulled through, really. For all her faults, — and there were many — Yamanaka Noriko cared about her family. And that even included Sakura's parents, who had seemed destroyed by her untimely demise.
Ino would live on.
And maybe... Just maybe... If she was lucky, Naruto would reincarnate at some point during her lifetime, hopefully before she became a wrinkled little thing.
A wedding, though…? That, Ino would not have.
Well, considering how unusual their relationship had been, she had trouble picturing how a marriage would even have worked, in the end.
Had she married Naruto, it would have been unfair to Karin. Karin marrying him would have been unfair to her. And where would Forehead and Hanabi fit in the equation…? Neither seemed to care much about labels, but… Marrying each other instead of just marrying him, maybe?
Ridiculous.
Ino snorted. Pretty sadly though. It sounded more like a sniffle, really.
Maybe some stupid, naive dreams were made to remain stupid, naive dreams.
It wasn't like Naruto had ever gotten her earrings, anyway. That asshole.
There was longing. Bitter longing.
But it wouldn't change anything.
Ino felt Hanabi reach for her hand, joining their fingers together. She grasped it. They still had each other.
Anko thought it was a pretty nice wedding, really.
A bit too stiff, a bit too stuffy, so Kurenai would have loved it. She had been a bit of a romantic — and a prude, too.
The opportunity to tease Toru about his blubbering was also simply too good to pass up, of course.
Shisui was hiding his own feelings on the matter a bit better, but he was feeling very emotional as well, this much was obvious.
It was a true shame the others weren't here to see it.
Not Sensei of course, because there was no way he would have come to this sort of thing.
Once Uchiha Sasuke and Uchiha Hinata left, Ino and Anko left as well.
Toru stayed behind a little bit longer.
And so did Hanabi, because she had a few chakra receivers to give to the Hyūga branch members. To all those who weren't loyal enough to the Main House to stay enslaved to it.
She would summon all of them to Umi two days later, because Hanabi — despite what some half-blind people said — was very kind, thank you very much. She was not going to ruin her elder sister's birthday by letting their father have a stroke in the middle of it.
Not that Hinata had disagreed with the plan, far from it.
There would be some bitching from Konoha, undoubtedly, but Itachi would smooth it over. Peace was what he wanted, after all.
If Ino cried herself to sleep that night, none of her two more recent roommates — who had decided to move over there in order not to leave her alone in a place full of ghosts — mentioned anything about it.
Well, in Toru's case, it may have been the seals preventing the sounds from carrying over, too.
But Hanabi and her were sharing a bed pretty often, so there was no hiding it.
Hanabi held her close.
The next day. Umi.
"Let's get right to it." Anko called, once all of them were gathered. "How are things going, overall…?"
"Pretty chaotically." Ino said, burying her own irritation at the situation. "Suna's getting a bit antsy, likely because Iwa's fanning the flames."
It had started simply enough. Suna had also been pissed about the fact Umi didn't manage to deliver Sasori's body to them, months ago. But considering what had happened, up in Uzushio… They didn't dare say too much about it.
Iwa had refused and refused the new border layouts, which came as no surprise to… anyone, really. Ōnoki had been whispering his poison in Chigusa's ear for a while now.
Offering the promise of more, of things that "Umi's tyranny" could not offer Suna.
…Things they could not offer because Ōnoki was hoarding resources and land like a dragon. Had Sakura been alive, they would have assassinated him already.
Doing so now would make it obvious who had done it, though. And the man expected something like this to happen. So he had taken measures to avoid getting himself killed.
If Anko was caught doing the job herself… Well, peace would likely be much more difficult to maintain. Ino would have to get too close to do it, too.
If Naruto had still been alive, they could have leveraged his name and reputation to simply force Ōnoki to accept the terms. With him gone, the man seemed twice as spiteful.
Hanabi… could kill him from afar. The only problem was that Ōnoki was notoriously paranoid about this sort of thing, since the Third War. And well... killing the man with a bow over such a long distance would be a clear indication of who had done it.
Toru… was not too big on doing it, if it could be avoided. Ever since the war, he seemed to be a bit more hesitant about killing, which Anko could understand. If it truly became necessary, he would do it though… and he could be subtle.
Ōnoki's efforts at sabotaging… everything… were pretty effective. He had had a long time to learn, after all.
And the fact that Ōnoki suspected that Anko had been the one to kill his granddaughter made negotiations a bit more annoying than they had to be. This part, at least, was understandable.
"How bad is it…?" Anko asked.
"Pretty bad." Hanabi nodded. "He's been spurring smaller villages on, as well, in an effort to get their Lands' approval - Kishiri, Ugso, Kaigo and Kanamiosumi."
"Of course." Anko sighed. "And the others?"
She didn't know who to curse, for… all this. Sensei, for delegating most of the work to Naruto… Or Naruto, for delegating most of the work to her.
Maybe I could train Mai to do it… Anko mused.
Ino and Hanabi alternated, going over the rest of the report. They were as tired of it as she was.
The Land of Canyons didn't experience the same level of confusion experienced by Wind, but the situation was complicated as well, because they were in between Fire and Earth. Combined with a lack of a real ninja village, they relied entirely on troops provided by the Alliance. With Iwa acting like… Iwa, basically, that could become a problem in the future. The last thing Umi wanted was a proxy war.
Things in Rain were… going pretty badly. Terribly, even. With Nagato having made them loyal to him only, and the new leaders following in his footsteps, they refused any kind of foreign intervention, especially from the people they saw as the man/god's killers. For those who actually believed he was dead.
Fire was stable, and enjoyed an economic boom.
Just like Umi was, really, despite its much lower population. Anko was really making something incredible out of it. She could be a bit too... goal-oriented, so Ino made sure to steer the ship.
Water and Lightning were both recovering from the havoc that had been wrought upon them, and their recent economic alliance proved to be a boon for both.
Hot Water was keeping its opinion about either of its neighbors to itself, despite the fact that its southern part had been all but ravaged from the aforementioned countries' conflicts. The promise that things would change for smaller Nations and Villages likely kept them going. Which would be easier to manage if less people like Ōnoki did their best to prevent things from actually going toward a productive direction, for a change.
Surprisingly enough, the public opinion about Umi was… pretty favorable. Great, even.
Considering how they had been viewed, just months ago, this was a big step forward. The newspapers, which even now, tried to be as impartial as… well as Village's newspapers could be, had helped smooth the transition from negative to neutral, over time.
And then, from neutral to positive, once time smoothed over their rougher edges. Propaganda always helped, and with Toru and Hanabi around... they got pretty good at it. Considering how full of shit the competition was, it wasn't that hard of a game.
As far as Villages went, their hands were relatively clean, which was a terrible thing to think about. Murders and assassinations were the lifeblood of shinobi, after all.
That they committed the same actions in order to not have to do so anymore in the future was just irony.
Or delusion, depending on the person you asked.
But they could live with that.
There was one hard truth to swallow.
With the system being set up the way it was… there was nothing they could do to stop war, bloodshed... Not for a long time, at least.
And surprisingly enough, ninja were not the root of the problem.
Taking away all the ninja, the problem still remained…
The problem being, of course…
People.
Because the Ninja system didn't make people the way they were. It was the opposite, something that became all too easy to overlook.
People made the ninja system the way it was.
And you couldn't really change humans.
Which was why Nagato… Madara and Obito had decided to take free will out of the equation.
Ninja... humans fought battles, fought wars for a great many reasons.
If there were no ninja… there would be artillery again.
The root cause, being…
"This other has something I want."
Land, resources, technologies.
Removing chakra would even the playing field for a little while… and then people would be back to throwing bombs at each other, building them bigger and bigger. Deadlier and deadlier.
So ninja were not the thing to get rid of.
And getting rid of people was… a pretty inefficient way to deal with the problem.
So the only solution… was to make sure there was no Other that people could blame and envy.
Expanding the domain they controlled until the united people had everything they wanted or ever wished for.
Too bad Naruto wasn't around to bully the rest of the world into falling in line… because some people definitely didn't get the memo.
Economic prosperity, and making sure that wars would simply be too costly.
That was the only way.