One step. The festive reds of the caravan came into view between faded tree trunks lining the road, their bark eroded by the heaviest exposure to wind, each lot illuminated by their personal lanterns dangling from any protruding outer edge, creating an indecipherable constellation. Another step. It was even quieter than she left it. Parked, sleeping, and finished with its looting. Another. Stupid bushes were relentless in their poking and prodding of raw limbs. Step. A number of animals watched her movements with cautious separation. She thought they might be offering their sympathy, which she could justly accept. She had done her best.

Part of her wanted to return to the battlefield and search under every stone for whatever there was to be found. She wanted to find those that ran off, and wait for the man and woman to awaken, to grill them until she knew their life stories better than her own. She wanted to read their soiled maps and analyze the make of their weapons and track their footprints back to their lair. There was probably a lair.

It was a stupid thought, this much she knew, but the way they went about their robbery was sloppy. Too many points of failure. Had it been planned by her, it would have been studied by scholars for years to come. Less broken communication and split forces, more preparing for contingencies; a team of pickpockets, not burglars, at any rate. Being robbed was a lot like genjutsu: it worked better when the target was oblivious to the crime. Sometimes she wondered if she was too much of a nerd, conflating her life as a ninja with that of the romanticized heroism and villainy she dreamt.

Sarada straightened up as much as her aching limbs allowed, spitting to replace iron with sharp, grassy notes as she inhaled. The desire to appear composed to the unconscious masses nagged at her. Travelers laid next to apron-sporting merchants as though they were a bunch of drinking buddies with terrible judgment out on the town. She spotted a blocky object down the trail resembling a statue. Moving closer, it was an oversized merchant's scale with a solid metal base. The thing must have weighed as much as a dozen men. On the raised end of the scale was a stack of coins, and on the lowered end, a single feather.

As she reached its vicinity, a rustling stung at her ears from between carts not far away. She turned to find an awaiting Sasuke rummaging through the coat lining of an out-of-commision thief. Hopefully her best had been enough. Hopefully he would not have preferred a different candidate - or no one, for that matter.

"Sarada!" he called over.

Sasuke gave up his search and jogged to her side. He knelt as her knees wobbled and she caught herself halfway to the ground, his arm sturdying her back. Despite her damaged state, her father seemed the vulnerable one.

"Papa," she greeted, with twice the usual effort to project in the confident manner she preferred. For the time being, in her quiet company, it was real confidence - two entrenched pillars of unyielding stone that none would be foolish enough not to go around. She had no chance against the smile that wormed its way onto her face. "I won."

The smile was airborne, infecting Sasuke as well.

"You did. You did an incredible job."

He helped her slink to the ground against wooden wheel spokes. They shared his night sky mantle, at home under its namesake, and after taking in her condition he began the process of bandaging over her burned leggings.

She tilted her head to one side and accepted water from his offered canteen.

"You're just saying that. I might have been a mess."

"Then it would be a first."

Sarada watched the length of bandage slowly cover more and more area, letting herself be hypnotized by the snakelike pattern. Unravel the roll, set it down, cross over from behind and pull it taut around the front.

Sasuke went on, nodding without looking to a crow cleaning itself atop an adjacent cart. "Besides, he was insistent that I see."

"Wait, you were watching?"

"He was watching. He showed me what he saw, from some time in the middle of your fight onward."

"Oh, I see," Sarada deflated a little.

"Trust me when I say that they're on your side. More than mine."

She was not sure exactly what all those two's exchange entailed, but still had a good enough guess. Learning about a potential new skill, however, always lightened her mood. "You have to teach me that! It would be useful to see when people are lying."

Sasuke nearly choked on newfound laughter.

"All right, Officer Uchiha. I'll add it to our list." He smoothed over his bandage progress, flattening the few offending wrinkles. "How are you feeling?"

"Other than my legs, I'm fine. Just exhausted." Sarada brushed away a knot of matted hair that clung to her forehead. What was once stabbing pain had dulled to an aching tingle. "I could've done better with more scouting, but I wanted to get back as soon as I could. Oh, right! There were five of them, and they said something about wanting to return to a village. And someone named 'Koge.' Also they thought I was a tracker. Do you think they meant from the village we're headed to? Their maps are probably destroyed; speaking of destroyed, I hope the stolen items are safe." She clutched her arm with a sheepish chuckle. "Sorry, I sort of forgot about them in the moment. I lost my weapon pouch too, not that it matters. How are-"

"Sarada," Sasuke interjected with a great pause, letting the quiet massage her mind's strained muscles, "Let's take some deep breaths."

"Right," she whispered. Her bravado was on thin ice, and her father's grounding voice was piling on weight. Each breath came easier than the last, and her residual adrenaline quickly dissipated until it was dormant. Without excess energy, her thoughts wrestled free of their murky fog. "Two of them ran off. Should we look for them?"

Sasuke considered their options, but ultimately shook his head.

"What's important is protecting the travelers," he insisted as he stowed the remaining bandage and water, "The rest will be picked up by Shimmerstone shinobi. I sent an anonymous message on ahead."

"A message to the place we're going? You didn't want anyone to know that you're here. Won't they be suspicious about ninja being in the caravan? What are they going to think happened?"

Sasuke stood, and Sarada took his hand to pull herself up, the other on his wrist to balance her weight.

"If we're lucky, internal conflict among the thieves." He shrugged. "If we're not, shinobi."

"The mission- will it be over if someone recognizes you?"

"It might be. Though the caravan is too large for them to interrogate." Sasuke nudged the ankle of a nearby robber. "The unconscious mind can be perceptive. We'll go over details later."

Sarada nodded, and her eye again caught on the giant scale digging into the dirt paces away. On stiff legs, she shuffled its way. The ambient chittering of forest animals was slowly returning as the evening distanced itself from the melee.

"So what is this? They were carrying this thing around with them?"

"One of them summoned it," Sasuke said as he joined her inspection, "It's what I was waiting for. To see if they leave a calling card."

Sarada leaned forward for a closer look. On its front, the scale's producer was engraved as 'River Fork Mineral Processing,' and crudely carved along the writing were lines crossing the name out. She picked up the feather by its quill and the scale rebalanced, either entirely equal or so marginally on the side of the coins that they could not be measured. Lifting one of the coins, she found that it was as solid as any other, but almost entirely weightless. It was a currency she did not recognize, decorated with a star in the center.

"This seems pretty elaborate for a calling card. What do you think it means?"

"I'm not sure. It can't be anything too obscure, or else it wouldn't mean anything to people."

Sarada held the coin up to the moonlight, then placed it back on the small pile. Her free hands formed a pedestal on which to rest her chin and think, and her mind wandered from scenario to scenario.

"Those people were talking about businesses investing money. I'll bet there's a connection somewhere."

At Sarada's curiosity, Sasuke's eyes creased in esteem. He would not have bothered sharing these particular thoughts with a good number of partners past, but that wall served no purpose here. Why he had it up in the first place, he did not know. He often found his assumptions were baseless in hindsight.

"I think you're right," he returned. "Their level of preparation goes beyond common thievery; beyond what was even necessary. They had resources. And leaving this," he gestured lazily in the scale's direction, "thing, here. It doesn't serve any practical purpose."

Sarada watched as he too inspected the feather, and she smiled as he rolled it between two fingers to examine each side.

"So you think there's more to it, then."

Sasuke turned away from the scale, his wrinkles smoothing at the inquiry, and Sarada relished having a co-conspirator interested in the unknown at hand.

"Hopefully we'll be able to hear news about the village's investigation before we leave." He let his hopes lay bare before concluding. "Or perhaps we'll find out more ourselves."

"Don't get your hopes up," Sarada goaded. "Hey Papa, should we ask around? They might be known around here… Hmm." She surveyed their surroundings. Being stopped in the middle of the road was an anomaly for the group. Hardly anyone was packed for the night either. Dismissing the incident as a collective drunken stupor would be a hard sell. "What's the caravan going to think happened?"

Sasuke set his feather down and withdrew a small scroll from his bag. He let it unravel from the top of the scale to the bottom. Seals sprawled out in black on beige, and Sasuke pressed his palm against the center, causing the entire roll to adhere to the object's contours.

"Stand on the other side for a moment."

She walked around to the edge of the road to face him across the scale, feeling the miniscule prickle of chakra that radiated from the writing.

"Put your hand on your side and push."

Together, they pressed inward on the metal, eventually forcing something to give way. The scale gradually shrunk and compressed under their collective pressure before falling to the ground with a thunk. Sasuke picked up the trinket and stowed it in place of the scroll.

"It's for the best if we don't confront anyone about it. We can feign ignorance with the rest of them."

Sarada agreed. She squeezed up and down her leg to massage away the numbness and tightness that wrestled for control.

"We should at least return their belongings. Whatever's left, that is."

"I will, tonight. It will be hours before anyone's awake."

Sarada still shook continuously, but her shaking's magnitude had diminished greatly since her arrival. Less nerves, more fatigue. Sasuke beckoned her to walk with him.

On their way, the two avoided a cascade of fallen fruits from a stall that was tipped over from its owner leaning against it, and they each tapped a few runaways into the larger pile as they went past.

"Why weren't you affected?" Sarada started. "I definitely saw you drink it."

"It takes a lot to get me drunk," he claimed. "Not as much as when I was younger. A lot, nonetheless."

It sounded like there was more to it. She would definitely ask her mother later.

Sasuke ducked under a tilted clothes line hung with painted robes, and Sarada noticed his sheath bob with him, before following under the line herself.

"Am I crazy, or did you not have your sword with you when we left?"

"Hmm? Oh," Sasuke made a face reminiscent of his all too often crushing family game night losses. "No. I didn't."

"So," he pivoted, "how did you feel? Fighting, that is. Anything you want to talk through?"

"It was… a little scary. It's hard not to doubt myself, but I could handle it; I knew I could."

She rubbed her eyes under her hiked up glasses, alleviating the phantom sting of aerosols. From day one her mother had instilled in her the importance of protecting her vision. It was the type of parental oversight she assumed all children endured, until the day she joined her mother at the hospital where she was treating two brothers who had both lost a sun-staring contest. Now she just felt like she had been careless with soap while washing her hair.

"I got the feeling you knew it too." As they walked, she swayed away before bumping into him to accentuate her point. "You shouldn't make your daughter worry over nothing, you know. What if she had died? From worrying? Then you'd be down one child and have to start all over. And I doubt they'd turn out as well as the first."

"I'll keep… all of that, in mind. For what it's worth, I would never ask you to do something I thought you couldn't handle."

"Yeah. I know," she smiled with ease back at him.

"I believe I've watched you fight more than anyone else."

It was true. Sarada had received far more tutelage from him in the past year than she could have ever hoped.

"Well, maybe this sounds stupid-"

"Whatever it is, it's not stupid," Sasuke interjected.

"It's nerve wracking to do things for the first time, especially if I haven't planned things out yet, and sometimes I freeze up."

"Having your team to lean on makes it easier," he affirmed as they each stepped wide over a pair of napping bodies that laid head to head across the only available opening. "There's nothing wrong with that. From now on we work together."

"You can't know that things will work out that way," Sarada griped.

"I promise," Sasuke said.

He gingerly tostled her unsecured hair and she squealed, recoiling down.

"Ah! Don't touch, don't touch! It feels all greasy."

She arranged what bangs would follow her orders back into more tolerable resting places.

"Just to double check, this all has nothing to do with your mission, right?"

"No."

"Okay."

She paused. Sasuke sighed as good-naturedly as his sighs got.

"There's a flower that only grows in the Land of Snow. We are bringing one back to the Leaf."

"A flower? In the snow?" she asked, squinting through her skepticism.

"That's right. For a medicine in which Konoha is in short supply."

"Is that… Snow Lily extract? I've heard Mama mention it before. It's used to wake people from comas."

Sasuke nodded, and the two arrived at their preferred wagon, climbing aboard. The benches were mostly empty and Sarada selected a seat near the front. Sasuke draped his cloak over her shoulders.

"Do you need anything before I go?"

"Wait, go? I'm going to help clean everything up."

"I'm going to clean up. You're going to get some sleep."

Sarada pulled the cloak down to her waist, ready to protest, but Sasuke was prepared for the rebellion.

"I just took a nap. Now it's your turn."

The mission component of their travels did not fully feel like a mission to Sarada. She was used to rotating watches at night, even if Mitsuki usually took two watch duties for the team.

"I can't let you do everything for the both of us."

"Don't worry, you won't," he assured, "Next time, you have the night shift."

Wheels wound to a halt as the caravan heads converged on the gate. Trees had been fully cleared for ten minutes of travel, and at ground level the wall enclosing the city soared above the separating carts, unobstructed and wrapping around out of sight, its lofty, dark brown logs - full trees really - roped together with cable cords. Shimmerstone Village. The name made sense as Sarada craned her neck higher, above the endless lumber to the much more impressive architecture beyond. Stones rose out of the border, forming buildings that seemed to stack on one another, segregated into distinct tiers by rooftop ridges, rising higher and higher as they proceeded inward. Shimmering was putting it generously, however. A bit of embellished marketing she supposed. The late morning sun let light catch on fragments of distant buildings and reflected sporadically over the flaxy, sandy colors, perhaps owing to some mineral natural to the type of stone, obscured only by a layer of floating dust that circumnavigated the curves of the town and thickened as they closed in.

The travelers were alive with chatter. What exchanges Sarada had tuned in to early in the day suggested that most had willingly chalked up the night's festivities to a drunken stupor. At the gate, some were attempting to hawk the goods the guards were rifling through, even as they were overwhelmed with volume in their elaborate, three-stage intake system. Security was clearly on the town's mind, and each individual was handed a slip of paper before being let into the awaiting plaza. Halfway through the process, heavily armored personnel stalked the newcomers with hounds in a blatant show of force. Sasuke and Sarada arrived to have their bags inspected without a word, having concealed their pointy things, and received slips of their own, each with consecutive six digit numbers.

On the inside, roads diverged in every direction, with most climbing steeply up to higher levels, and a wide central road proceeding through the center, eventually burrowing under buildings above until it was entirely engulfed by the higher levels. Having the opportunity to visit foreign territories was always exciting, but Sarada would have preferred to explore without any overshadowing burden, though she would still savor her available time. The touring crowd scrambled to get away from the packed gate, and Sasuke repositioned to her left.

"This city is amazing," Sarada commented with starry eyes adrift, nearly bumping into a rock pillar distinguishing two roads. "It's like a stone ant hill."

"The last account I heard put it at two or three stories tall. It seems they've been busy," Sasuke stated. "Where to?"

"We've been walking for days. Let's not climb up if we don't have to."

They took off along the main road far enough as to be covered overhead by buildings that rested on a sort of cavernous, stone bowl for support. As a consequence of the canopy, the dust all but vanished beneath the dim shop lights and burning neon signs, though the crowd was somehow denser than before. Many wore wide hats and every sort of face covering, and baggy, flowing browns to hide the day's grime. Between the raucous laughter and conversations that echoed a hundred times over in the enclosed thoroughfare, at odds with the serious nature of the town guard that could now scarcely be seen, Sarada could barely hear her father's voice a step away.

"Did you want to get anything?" he asked, pointing to a mural of advertisements covering a bulletin board in front of them.

Sasuke grunted, amused by something he read before perusing a line of wind instruments, and Sarada leaned to look over the listings. Dozens of signs for food, many styles of which she had never heard of, and dozens more for clothes, though the pervasive style was a decade old by Konoha's standards. Some help wanted offers dotted the fringes, along with miscellaneous services. A particularly colorful sign caught her eye and ushered out her own grunt: 'Wartime Weapons,' which featured an anthropomorphic bow and arrow mascot, under which the tagline read 'Don't Wait To Be Robbed! Strike First!'

When Sasuke asked if she wanted anything, she naturally heard him ask if she needed anything, the answer to which was almost always no, and after perusing the local shops, that much held true. Not to mention that she had no money. She shook her head.

Sasuke gave no hints about his opinion of her answer, but withdrew a modest, lumpy sack full of coins from his belongings and waited for her to hold out her hand to take it.

"Let's meet back here in thirty minutes," he instructed.

"But-"

"I want you to have whatever you need," Sasuke cut her short, though forgot to qualify his intent until a moment later, "For the mission."

"For the mission," Sarada repeated with a grin, immediately peeling away to slink into the crowd. "I'm on it."

One shopping trip later, the tourists found one another in front of advertising for businesses they had now visited in person. The only thing Sasuke had acquired in the interim appeared to be the new set of clothes he was wearing. Sarada was impressed that he had stepped out of his comfort zone to fit in; a very loose, albeit thicker dark brown shirt with similarly loose, light brown pants tucked into his boots. Her respect was short-lived, however, as a fluctuating shadow filled with light, revealing his clothes to actually be shades of blue, only reversed from his previous outfit. Still, she wasn't one to criticize others for fashion choices, as she had replaced her singed leggings nearly thread for thread.

"How do I look?" he greeted.

"Definitely not like you're not on a secret mission."

"Good."

"I got some new weapons to replace the ones I lost. It doesn't make much sense that you can't bring them into the city but can buy them here."

Sasuke nodded.

"I asked around about inns, and it seems we'll have to go up to find anything with rooms available."

At the thought of climbing Sarada heaved in and out enough to stir the thin debris that collected on the cobblestone.

"Oh, hey, before we go, close your eyes."

Sasuke's brow quirked up before giving in to his daughter's eager stare. He felt plastic against his face.

"Okay, you can look."

"Sunglasses?"

Sarada affirmed with a tilting head and ear-to-ear smirk under her own pair of tinted lenses.

"How did neither of us think of it sooner? We can use our you-know-what any time now!"

"What about your glasses?"

"I only need those when I'm not using it, so everything works out."

"Hmm… that's… actually a pretty good idea."

The inn was a glistening, sun-baked stone building that sloped a few degrees too much like everything high up in the city, its floor crumbling to erosion and walking-weight, the dislodged particles drifting through what lay beneath its foundation and into streets unseen. Pale residences battled for space door to door on the top levels, never two the same height. Only a minute into their stroll up a path had cleared away most of their fellow tourists, replaced by a smattering of whom were surely laborers breaking, somehow dustier than ever despite the open air. The sky was blinding, but they had regrettably put away their new glasses, intending to reserve them for when it mattered most.

Inside, daylight lanterns bathed otherwise dim, tapestry-laden walls and willow banisters in a sea of timid, greenish blues, reminiscent of a chapel, or a hospital corridor - or rather an ocean. Much like the inn's name, 'The Ocean,' the expansive business was awash in sound from its patrons' constant motion, about four of five being men, loudly drawling over one another to the tune of meals at tables arranged in the lobby doubling as a dining space, and much like a hospital the area was clean, notably far more sanitary than the transactional market streets from before, despite both overburdening their capacity. The customers cleaned away their own mess here in their home. Doubly so, unlike the commercial district there did not appear to be any security, as the lounging, musclebound clientele, many sporting tan masks and relaxed, concealing clothing, was doubtless willing if reluctant to defend their lounge.

Still, it was busy, and Sasuke had approached the heavily staffed counter to inquire about rooms, glass bottles that lined the cabinets rattling, bounded by kitchen doors on both sides that never ceasing their swinging. None were available, but they were welcomed to a cubicle table tucked away to wait until noon when some would open up. He had not attempted to order food that would doubtless take ages, and instead settled for tea and patience.

"It's the guy in red. With the necklaces."

"No," Sasuke answered, never looking up from the potted plant he had seized from their neighboring windowsill that the sun was far from reaching and his unfurling of its fatally tangled stems.

"It has to be him," Sarada disputed, finishing her analysis of those around them. She sipped her tea, curled into her newly purchased blanket in a manner Sasuke thought looked uncomfortable, immune to the frigid breeze that dominated at their elevation, before returning to her open book on local history. "Uncle Kiba told me how cat people shouldn't wear jewelry like that. They can choke on it."

Sasuke reclined in his booth across from her.

"You call him Uncle Kiba?"

"I… guess I do. He's always so nice. Aren't you and Mama good friends with him?"

"Your mother is, but she's friends with everyone. Calling us friends is… generous. You don't have to call him that."

"Wouldn't it be a bit weird if I stopped now?"

"He won't notice. Or think anything of it. Kids change the way they address people as they get older."

Sarada transitioned to flipping through pages with head on fist flat on the table, only glancing at the archival pictures of trivial landmarks: the city's first well, a local species of rabbit, two haughty men shaking hands over a deal.

Sarada hummed. "You think so, Sasuke?"

Sasuke rolled his eye up from his botany to his daughter failing at nonchalance.

"I'm not sure you want to play that game, my little lightning strike."

Sarada sputtered between laughing and shushing with a finger over her lips.

"That's so stupid," she whispered. "You're right though. It feels weird to say your name, even if everyone around me says it-"

The ten-fold group behind Sasuke was uproarious, lost in some joke neither of them had caught and louder than the already overbearing ambience of the inn. Their table overflowed with food and drinks, and documents that spilled out of folders.

"Wait, wait, you're just deflecting," Sarada directed them back on track to the current round of their game. "It's really not the guy in red? You said the person was allergic to cats."

Sasuke nodded.

"He stood by the man in the striped brown shirt at the counter when he came in, and that man's shirt is covered in cat hair."

"I still don't see how only one person here can be allergic to cats," Sarada huffed. "It's the bartender, isn't it? The woman."

Sasuke nodded again.

"Ugh, dang it!" Sarada exclaimed. "She was my first guess."

Sasuke deposited the inn's now tended plant back at the window and savored his tea.

"Have you learned anything?" he asked, eyeing the page Sarada was starting in her book. Reading was not a sprint, as Sarada had once deadpanned at him after the third time in a day he had so transparently taken an interest in what she was reading, so he had self-imposed a half hour buffer. Some lessons were trials by fire.

"Apparently there used to be a river running down the middle of the town, but their masons thought shimmerstone might be at the bottom, so they diverted it away." Sarada quipped, "A real clever name they came up with for a shiny rock."

"Anything about our mystery visitors?"

"No, nothing yet. It's mostly stuff about businesses, how there's more than a hundred new ones each year." Sarada underlined with a finger as she read, "Oh hey, there's a festival tonight. It's held each year for the caravan. Music, food, games, and… they flood part of the village for some reason."

Sasuke contemplated, glossing over what he could learn later, the sharp lines of his face playing the character. "Maybe I'll go dancing."

Sarada's eyes doubled in size. "You can dance?!"

"Naturally. It was a skill expected of any clan years ago, though I personally didn't need an excuse."

"So Auntie Hinata's 'no dancing at parties' rule…"

"She knows Naruto is sensitive about being terrible at it, not wanting your mother and I to show them up."

Her father could be especially difficult to read, but the visions she was receiving of her parents together pushed her to trust his words, unsure as she was about how to process them.

At the same time, the adjacent table slammed mugs against the tabletop, cheering on something unanimously. Sasuke and Sarada each had to join in chuckling at their enthusiasm, as well as their skill at consuming the conversations around them.

"Speaking of your mother, she told me you wanted to enter us in a tournament," Sasuke stated, leaving off open-ended.

"Oh," Sarada remarked, nose down. "You don't have to. If you don't want."

"I do. Now tell me about it."

Sarada let up on the dent she had been forming in the pages of her book with her hands.

"It'll be in a few months. Families enter together, and fight together family against family. It's just for fun."

Sasuke cast a sidelong glance her way.

"You don't think it's unfair of me to join?" he asked.

"Uncle Naruto's joining."

He slowly nodded. They both knew that was all he needed to hear.

"Besides," she continued, "People without families can join together, and there are plenty of other strong shinobi participating like, umm… Inojin's parents."

Sasuke raised a brow.

"Sure."

"What about Shikadai's family?" she tried.

"Deadly."

"You're not taking them seriously!"

Sasuke sighed, letting his cup warm his hand.

"I have nothing bad to say about any of your friends or their parents-" he caught himself before expanding on his feelings, "Most of them, anyway. Nevermind."

"Hmmm?" Sarada squinted through her smile with chin over supporting hand. "Who do-"

A man with a torso like a slab of brick, who surely gave great hugs, in a blue jacket and white shirt accosted the table behind with an open hand on wood, further scattering papers into a chaotic overlap. His frayed gray hair whipped to one side from the sudden motion, and the hand rose to accuse a much younger, skinny man across from him with a lone finger.

"You're gonna' complain? After leaving us out to dry?" the old man checked, his voice a distant avalanche riding the airwaves for hours, enunciating loudly and slowly, keen on his message being received.

"Hey, you went back to the blue too!" the young man retorted, his words clamoring over themselves, as though if he spoke fast enough the rest might miss his meaning and assume the best.

"I did. Because I knew you would give to the first doubt that entered your mind! Keep this up and you'll be promoted to customer."

"Maybe…" the skinny man said, lowering his head and voice.

"Well? Spit it out."

"Maybe the company could afford to pay us more if they didn't have to worry about strikes!"

In no time, the other eight men seated around the dining area groaned in near perfect unison. One of the men held his hand out for another to begrudgingly exchange a handful of coins.

The man's face was blood rushed, and he rose with two hands on the table to defend himself.

"I know what you are thinking but it's wrong! Fujiwara Froth isn't against striking because they're afraid of giving up money, they're afraid of it hurting productivity!"

The groans turned to hearty laughter. The older man only listened.

He continued, "If we keep this up, they might not even be able to stay afloat!"

If the workers were laughing before, they were nothing short of howling now, their faded jackets flapping in part. Deciding to give up his cause, the man sat back down. His partner in conversation smiled his way, tolerant with purpose the others deferred to him. He took the young man's dry glass and filled it with their communal pitcher before sliding it back to him.

"Strikes are all we got, friend, and they only work when we don't. All of us."

The young man sighed, "I know- I know. But I still don't want to be the enemy for this. I'm just trying to get by, you know, same as everyone else."

The first man nodded along to every word.

"That's right. We're all together in it."

A third man chimed in, "It's the damn deserters that're to blame. Can't stay honest like the rest of us."

Sarada's ears perked as reserved agreement crossed the table from all parties present.

"The registry was the best thing they did for us. Doesn't hurt me one bit. Wish the council would do more than they already are," he advocated, "When they gonna' fire it up? …Fire it up! We got plenty of soldiers, just gotta' use them."

The first man grunted and folded his arms, while the second worked up enough courage to contribute again.

"It could be the stone spirit, drawn to all the hateful energy in the dig."

"This is why you're always the butt of the joke," the old man counseled.

Under his breath, the young man muttered his warnings. "When the conflict draws out the spirit, you better hope it takes our side."

The old man, stretching to reach a thin pile of parchment, stood too quickly for his chair, knocking into Sasuke. He bumped their table and spilled his drink, also sliding Sarada's book onto the floor.

"Hmm?" the man probed as he turned around to see the aftermath of his carelessness.

Sarada rearranged herself to lean under the table and retrieve her text, and Sasuke reached just under the table as well to hover his hand between her head and the painful wood above. The man kept his chin up as he watched it unfold, and watched still while Sarada cleaned the spill without so much as a comment. He assumed that she was leaving the inevitable confrontation up to her father, but that confrontation never came, and she seemed content with that. The father was unsettlingly tolerant, like a parent more curious than angry about their child's mischief, favoring the listener over the speaker in the long term. A covered eye and a lacking arm gave the man enough pause to guess at classifying the pair.

"Ho! I'm an oaf, you'll have to forgive me. I've ruined your conversation, haven't I? I can see it in the air."

A bit more than a conversation, Sarada thought.

"Get them a new one, will you?" he commanded, waving at the skinny man to get out of his seat. When the other had fumbled his way into the crowd and out of sight and the rest of the men had found their drinks and new discourse amongst themselves, the oaf sat straddling his chair to greet Sasuke.

"With the caravan, aren't you?"

Sarada noticed that the elder shinobi's hand rested palm-down between them, never moving, never suggesting a threat.

"It's our fifth year," Sasuke confirmed. "How did you know?"

"Never seen you two around here is all," the old man divulged, using two fingers close to his face to point at the both of them. His tone was slippery and flat. It was a greased up wall that did not want to be scaled. Circling his hand around the room, "I know all the birds in the park by name."

Sasuke said nothing, and the man did not press him further to give up his name.

"I'm Makoto. Some people call me School, but don't worry about those people. Say, maybe you can help us decide. You had to have overhead," Makoto said as his entire chest shook with his own amusement, "What do you think, as an outsider? What do you do when those at the top of the food chain are unfair to the rest?"

Sasuke answered without hesitation, as though he had formed the words in his mind's eye eons ago, "You have to make it right."

The few others from Makoto's table who had casually listened in to the introduction cheered, raising their mugs his way. Makoto nodded from floor to ceiling.

"That's exactly right." Redirecting his attention to Sarada he asserted, "Your pops here is a role model."

It was the talk of her father rather than her being addressed that made Sarada conscious of herself. She realized that she was mimicking her father's posture and moved her hand to her lap, smiling politely at the familial compliment. Her hand moved of its own accord back onto the table, however. What insight random strangers gained about her habits was of no concern, especially when her concern was already so often busied by her peers.

"So, what do you think? You think we should strike?"

Sarada looked to her father who had no help to offer, but was rather as invested in hearing her answer as the other man. That was a stupid thing to do. She should have trusted her gut and answered of her own accord. Not having all the details had not stopped Sasuke, and it was one mission of many to prove her reliability at every turn.

"I guess," she decided. "If you're really being treated unfairly." Pushing her wrapped blanket lower and out of sight from the others, she hesitantly frowned, her chin down. Her skepticism wrote itself into a question of her own. "But why is your company treating you badly? You work for them. Don't they want you to be happy, even to help themselves?"

Makoto slapped the top of his backrest and stomped one boot in time. "Ha! We'd all be better off with you in charge!"

A tapestry of unanswered threads tugged at their stitching, and Sarada leapt on her burgeoning good will to mend the most accessible ones. They were planning on asking around in Shimmerstone about the robbery, and the unassuming daughter definitely had a better shot of extracting information from local residents than the battle-scarred father. This was her angle alone to abuse.

"I heard you guys mention deserters. What was that about?"

"Ahh, just a bunch of well-intentioned idiots making our lives hard. We're in the mineral processing business, you see. A quarter of the city is, in one way or another. No one's paid what they're worth. That's something we all got in common. Striking's real tough when a week out of work sends you belly up, and some of 'em had it - just up and left."

The man's eyes lit up, his own words reminding him of the day's news. He spun the chair around to lean forward toward Sasuke more closely than Sarada knew he tolerated out of strangers.

"You were in the scuffle, weren't you? I'm slow today, see. It's all bad news, day in day out. Tell me about it, won't you? They must not've roughed you up too hurtful if you found your way here."

"We don't know what happened either," Sarada said. "We slept through it."

Makoto looked to Sasuke, slack jawed with disappointment, and Sasuke's testimony was a nod. He veered into belly laughs.

"Well it's a good thing! It happens too often, and usually with a brutal beating. A fear tactic, people say. Keeps people from trying something stupid. Last night's just word of mouth as of now, but I'm sure it'll end up plastered all over the news, as it always does." He sighed and slotted his hands into jacket pockets, memories of bridges burned and opportunities lost plastered all over his despondence. "I could sympathize with the lot of them - root for them, even - if it weren't for that damned fist-first attitude of theirs. They leave recruitment messages all over, you can't miss 'em. Bright red paint on a wall, ugly as my mug. Makes me real glum thinking about the lives they ruin when we could've worked together, getting what we're owed the only way that works."

With a rattle of metal on metal, the younger man who left to collect tea returned with a platter containing Sasuke's replacement, with one for Sarada for good measure, accompanied by a host of dishes: vegetables and rice, something steaming in a bowl Sarada could not identify, something fried and glazed, and something sticky and sweet looking. Rather than place the platter on their table, the man insisted on handing it to Sasuke. It would have been rude, considering, even though Sasuke was not one to suffer insults, but when Sasuke accepted the gift he felt paper beneath the metal.

"Anyone can enter, but they have to register with the village when they leave," Makoto explained as the other man returned to his seat, and Sasuke slid enough of the paper out from under the tray to read a few lines like a practiced card player. They were registration forms, already filled out with the names of two people he would never know.

"Also," he delivered with two hard syllables, turning back to his own table, "only a first-timer stays adrift at sea long enough to find The Ocean."

Sasuke peeled the forms off the table and into the fold of his shirt and began setting out their gifted meal.

"I see why your men look up to you."

"Not my men. Like I said, we're all in the same boat," he clarified, wiggling his finger in the air with his back still turned, now focused on reviewing a document of his own, "But everything's better when you have people to turn to for help."

Sarada and Sasuke could practically hear the wink in his tone, insinuating some give and take with not even a hint as to its nature.

Returning them to their privacy, Makoto urged, "Stay safe, and don't step on cracks."

An hour later, and with bellies and bags full, the two had checked into a room and were back on the coarse lanes of the upper city. The midday sun was long past its prime, setting each day earlier than the last, and shadows slipping through the spaces between buildings made narrow lines that served as natural distance markers in place of street lights and utility poles; electricity seemed to vanish the moment they broke free of the recirculated air below. Sarada understood what their new friend had meant by steering clear of cracks. Not so much cracks as holes, large enough to get a foot stuck, and extending down into the blackness. It was strange to see in their era of relative prosperity. The Leaf was no architectural marvel, but it never claimed to be. For a city that named itself after a stone, their stonework could use some work.

"Do you think he knew we were shinobi?" Sarada asked, walking with one arm hooked by the other behind her back. The street was mostly clear, the nearest occupant a hundred paces away relaxing with a pipe in a residential balcony. "He seemed like he knew something wasn't right."

"He may have guessed so, but he only knew for sure that we were trying to stay hidden."

Sarada puffed and sighed. "Well, at least that explains the attack. A bunch of disgruntled employees. It's strange though, isn't it? They have a reputation for being violent, but they didn't hurt anyone. It doesn't make sense to try to recruit right after beating people up."

Sasuke followed her out of the corner of his eye.

"It's possible we stopped them before they had the chance."

Sarada let the tiniest of grins loose, still as pleased as could be to have kept up with him on her side of the combat.

"Though it begs the question," he said, rolling a requisitioned featherweight coin between mythical fingers, "Those people are supposedly poor. Where did they get the money to hire shinobi?"