Ugh. She was not looking forward to this. Never had she imagined in her life as an urban planner that her job would make her have to work with her older brother. But, here she was. A sunny Konoha afternoon she was meant to spend in the dreary Intelligence office deep beneath the ground with a bunch of stuffy elders and one really uptight, shitty chunin.

It was Kimura who was running the projector, casting her overhead schematics on to the wall. They were Yasahashi's first pass at the design prompt. Her brother didn't say anything about the slides, except for a shrug and careless gesture of the hand that surely read as completely inoffensive to everyone except his younger sister.

The elders looked at the designs and their remarks.

One of them, a man named Danzo remarked, "I don't like the length of the primary escape tunnel. Also, the entrance to the 4th sector is too close to that exposed area."

Yasahashi jotted down the note on her clipboard.

Her brother looked to her. He waited for her to realize he was looking at her, then said "Did you get that?"

She narrowed her eyes, but nodded. "Yes, thank you Elder Danzo. The area you are referring to has an issue. In that section, there is a severe lack of movable earth between the bedrock and the surface, making it's above ground usage only suitable for low weight structures, hence the park space."

"Is there an alternative solution?" asked another council member.

The Hokage piped up next, "I think these plans are excellently rendered, Koizuma. You're doing Professor Ayame proud."

She nodded in thanks.

"I did like his pass back when he was on the project," The hokage then added in, "he had a very smart way of concealing the entrances. Please reference his files in the intelligence department and you will see how he might solve this problem."

Yasa nodded, "I can ask him-"

"-You will not speak to him about this project." A councilwoman responded, cutting her off. "Please only reference his existing plans."

Yasahashi squinted in confusion at the councilwoman's tone. It could be hard to understand her professor's plans without him explaining his thought processes. Did they really just expect her to reverse engineer what he'd done?

The third council elder cleared his throat and gave some more feedback. The more he spoke, the more it became evident that he didn't have any clear constructive criticism, but just seemed to be against the concept of the whole project. Soon a debate began between the councilmembers. It was evident that they had been arguing about this for some time.

"I can understand your concern in having such direct routes made available underneath the village," The councilwoman said in exasperation, "It could leave us vulnerable if left accessible to our enemies. However, as only the elite will be allowed access and knowledge of them, I believe they would prove to be an excellent defense measure in difficult times."

"May I remind you, councilwoman, that not only will the elite have knowledge of these tunnels, but also construction workers, ground dwelling animals, and of course the designers of the tunnels, one of which is an outsider to the village."

Danzo piped in, "None of this will be a problem if we simply take strict security measures."

The Hokage nodded, "Perhaps the Yamanaka clan may be of assistance."

"Verbal seals may also be employed if necessary," Danzo added, though the Hokage looked at him in disapproval.

They broke off for a brief lunch. Yasahashi was grateful for it, as her stomach was beginning to growl greatly. Her lunch was small, because she was planning on eating a lot that night when she went out with Kaeda and Kohaku. But she scarfed down the rice and nori she had packed.

No one was allowed to leave the intelligence room until the briefing had been completed, and so she decided to hide in the shadows and eat in peace. She didn't feel too weird about it, other intelligence ninja were eating from bags of potato chips and bentos their families had packed them. Even the Hokage had a small salad that he picked through, eating only the olives and raisins.

Her brother was talking to another intelligence officer and walking around the large room. They veered by her in earshot.

"That foreign urban planning guy… Yeah he's a real piece of work." Kimura said, "-Can't believe they let him teach in Konoha, let alone work on this project. I wouldn't be surprised if they execute the guy." He glanced at his sister with a cruel side eye, then kept talking, "Having a foreigner know all that information… It's a huge security risk."

His companion nodded, "I was wondering about that too, Kimura. So, I guess it's good that he's off the project.

Yasahashi's blood boiled.

She wasn't quite sure why her professor had been taken off of the project and replaced by her and Takamaru (Takamaru had only briefly been on the project and wasn't involved in this meeting, as they had chosen her plans over his). She had always just assumed that the man had better things to do. That, perhaps his genius was needed somewhere else, and that teaching at the science academy in addition had left his availability scattered. Never once in her mind had she guessed that he might have been purposely removed from the project for being an outsider.

She finished her lunch aggressively, and glared at her brother when the meeting resumed. She wasn't going to let him win. She wasn't going to let him keep undermining her.


Waking up the next morning was rough. She had a headache, probably from the mold in Hifumi's house. She took a cold shower and got out the door, not bothering to pick up Professor Ayame's plans from off the ground.

As she was walking bleary eyed through the Konoha streets, she took a wrong turn and ended up in a neighborhood she hadn't worked on. It was one of Tanaka's accomplishments. She used to check his plans for this district for reference when she first started at the Urban Planning Department, copying his terminology and professionalism. It was a quiet street. Only well off jonin and chunin lived here.

She heard a voice she recognized and her sober mind slapped her awake as she saw her student, Hifumi, jumping out a window and yelling angrily behind him at someone inside. There was a sound of glass breaking as someone threw a bottle at the 10 year old and it hit the ground by his feet. He yelped.

An adult woman came out of the front door and chased after him, "Get back here, you little f*****!"

"Leave me alone, you old bitch!" Hifumi threw a ninja star at the woman and she repelled it. The boy ran past Yasahashi and made eye contact with her. His face started in panic as he recognized her and he stumbled over some trash cans and into an alleyway. Yasahashi looked at the woman with narrow eyes, but she didn't seem to notice her.

"What am I going to do with that little brat?" the woman mumbled to herself. She went back into the house and slammed the door.

Yasahashi stared down the alleyway where Hifumi had vanished. She looked for him, and found him in the park a couple blocks over, holding his calf on a park bench. It was bleeding pretty bad from the glass cuts and his face looked red from another impact.

"Let me see," she said, grabbing his attention away from his injuries. He looked up at her with forced toughness.

The boy made fun of her face and threw around an endless barrage of slurs and insults. But, when he saw that that wasn't working, he grew quiet and let her look at his leg.

"Let's go to the nurse at school," Yasahashi said.

"No!" Hifumi said, "I hate it there."

"Well you can't go back home."

"You think I don't know that?" He whispered. Yasahashi looked at the boy with seriousness.

"How long has she been treating you like this?"

He rolled his eyes.

"This is serious, Hifumi."

His eyes welled up and his face turned beet red.

"Don't tell anyone!"

"Relax, I won't."

A breeze blew through the cherry blossoms.

Yasahashi looked up at the trees. This was a park that had once been a storage facility during the war, and had been destroyed by the nine tails. Professor Ayame wanted to make it into a green space. He loved green spaces.

'Parks are a free place where the youth can go to grow and relax.'

She looked at her watch. She would be late to school if they waited any longer. But, she knew she wasn't going to be able to get Hifumi to go with her to school.

"Well," Yasahashi thought, "If you won't go to school, and you can't go home… There's another place I can take you. No one you know will be there, probably."

Hifumi looked up at her hesitantly, his indignant eyes showing a hint of interest.

She took him to her mother's gym.

Miiyako Koizuma didn't question her daughter's request for her to look after the boy for the day. The wizened ninja woman only nodded her head as Yasahashi took Hifumi to the locker room and used the first aid kit to clean up his wounds.

"Do what my mom says and chill out," she told Hifumi. "You might even learn something if you pay attention in her class."

Hifumi said nothing, but crossed his brow and nodded. She left him and hurried to school. She was 45 minutes late when she arrived. Daikoku and Iruka met her in the hallways,

"Oh, Koizuma! There you are, we were starting to get worried," Daikoku said. He noticed the bags under her eyes, "You, feeling okay Yasahashi-san?"

"Sorry, I ran into some trouble this morning. I have a report to file about it, I'll tell you later," she said, brushing past the two teachers and into her classroom. It was pretty hellish in there, but she started writing on the board as soon as she came in, resuming the lesson plan she'd left off from the previous day.

The day went by smoothly. Though, Chiyo hadn't done her homework again. Yasahashi sighed. That girl was going to fail and there was nothing she could do about it. She was being left behind by the ninja world and not even math could give her a place to thrive.

She told Iruka about her morning that evening after school let out, and he showed her the form she had to fill out in order to report the domestic abuse. She stayed late filling it out. Iruka bid her farewell, worriedly. He paused at the exit of the office and sait one last thing.

"I was thinking about what you said the other day," is what he said.

"Hm?" Yasahashi sighed.

"The ones who sink and get left behind by the ninja world- what happens to them?" Iruka paused.

Yasahashi's pen stopped after she finished a sentence on the form, 'He needs help,' was the sentence.

"I think we should do something about it." Iruka said.

Yashashi nodded and made a noise of agreement and Iruka left her to complete the form in the dim office.

Hifumi had left her mothers gym by the time Yasahashi made it over there. She met her mother in the dim locker room as she was changing out of her gi. The woman was brushing her long, gray hair hair.

"He said he was going to go back to his Aunt's." Miyako said. "I told him he was welcome to stay at my home if he wished. That offer is still open."

Yasahashi nodded in appreciation. She was supposed to leave then, but she didn't. She stood in her mothers presence in the locker room longer than necessary. The old woman noticed and stopped brushing her hair. She looked at her daughter in question of what it was that kept her.

Yasahashi breathed, "I think I killed that boys parents," she said. Tears dripped from her chin onto the tile floor.

Her mother stared at her face. "You're not a killer, Yasahashi," she said. Her words felt like an embrace.

"You don't understand, mom. I think I unintentionally…" Her voice trembled and she cut herself off.

"Yasahashi." Her mother's voice was severe, "Hold your head high." she commanded.

She did so, though tears did not stop.

"You are not a killer," her mother repeated.

'You make this, you kill someone.'

Professor Ayame's words flashed through her mind. She had been mad when he told her that. Not because she knew she was wrong and he was right, but because… she didn't mean to. She didn't want to kill someone. She wasn't like Kimura or her mom, or the other ninja who killed people every day. Her mother was right. She wasn't a killer.

Atleast not on purpose.

She walked through the park on her way home that night.

She stopped near three trees they'd planted during the ninetails restoration. She looked past them at a patch of tall grass and rubble. She'd built that. Beyond the patch there was an entrance to those secret tunnels from Project Snakes Nest she'd designed.

She remembered when she was working on the plans, it felt serendipitous that Professor Ayame had put this park here. A tunnel beneath this area meant no other structure could rest above it. She didn't have to knock any buildings down, and she didn't have to destroy anyone's homes or businesses. Instead, it was already a well loved park that she, her professor, and her classmates had all created together. It made her job easy. But, there was no way he could have known about that so many years before the project's inception, could he?

A thought occurred to her. It hit her like an explosion.

She returned to the site of Hifumi's old house. This time she didn't look on the second floor, but crept down the decaying wooden steps into the basement and took a look at the the foundations.

The problem wasn't with the roof.

Part of the foundation had collapsed. The basement walls were cracked. Rats scuttled along the edges towards the Northwest corner. She shone her flashlight after them, catching the small creatures fleeing into a descending tunnel. She approached the gap and squatted down and shined the light into it, uncovering a larger expanse.

It was an underground tunnel. She felt a tickle in her throat and coughed, then reeled herself back from the significant discovery: Hifumi's house had an underground tunnel beneath it, but it wasn't one she had designed.


Kakashi's Prius here, beep beep beep. Kakashi lost his keys for a bit, so I've just been hanging out here in the garage. Turns out the keys were just in the refrigerator. So bizarre.