Hallo my loves! Thank you for the reviews, they were a treasure to read. School has started up so I think we may have to go back to the more-like-once-a-month updates than the two-weeks-ish updates but we will see, yeah? But for now we have fanfiction, so all is well. This particular chapter has undergone so much tweaking in my head since I first dreamed it up like a year ago, but I am happy with it for the most part. I don't like the switching points of view, but even I'm not long-winded enough to make each point of view into a chapter-length entry. And if I did this story would start to approach epic-levels of length and drawn-out-ness. But that's just me.

Here are you funfacts, because they are fun :)

Funfact: Emperors during this time served tenures of a decade or so, becoming emperor in their mid-teens and then retiring in their late twenties, early thirties, and then just kinda hung out for the rest of their lives. There was a great deal of power-play to get daughters and second sons married into the imperial family, especially in the 17th century with the Tokugawa. Wikipedia is down so I can't double-check my facts super-fast, but I think Ieyasu was the grandfather, uncle, and great-grandfather to an emperor.

Funfact: While you can't make me put a beard on Kakashi, you cannot stop me from putting one on Iruka. There. And I'm only being consistent, if you'll remember Sarutobi's nearly-first-words to Kakashi waaaay back in like chapter 7. Yes. And no, you still can't make me put a beard on Kakashi, you just can't!

Funfact: The shogun's castle was actually heavily defended during the fire, but it was at the cost of basically everyone else's homes. And the darn thing STILL caught fire! Just not burned-down-to-ashes caught fire. It was, however, enough of a reason for the shogun at the time to decide he wanted a different castle, a new castle. A black castle. Because black castles are awesome. Ask anyone.

SubFunfact: Castles seem to have been built in usually white or black, and for this story I am choosing that the original castle was a white one. What kind of pansy wants to live in a white castle? Not Ietsuna!

Funfact: People coming to visit you or had messages for you would stand outside your door loudly announcing their presence until you answered the door. They only pounded on it/knocked when they thought you weren't coming or had died or something.

Funfact: Litter-bearers did this too, as well as doing it during sankin kotai (the ritual, super expensive trip daimyo had to make to Edo every other year). The former was so that no one got run down in the street too badly, and so that they all knew where they were going, if they were turning, etc. The latter was so that everyone in the street could find somewhere else to be rather than throw themselves bodily to the ground.

Funfact: You were supposed to dress up when you met with higher-ranking people, especially if they were a lord. Exceptions were probably made sometimes.

And without further ado,

Enjoy!

It was the first morning in a long time that anyone was able to smile during breakfast. Naruto was trying to tell jokes to Kanna, and failing rather terribly at it. He couldn't quite get the punch-lines right, despite Kanna's help and guidance, so the amusement mostly came from his ineptitude. Outside on the street the distant yells of litter-bearers could be faintly heard, coming closer along the road. Inoue's family lived on a larger street, with a lot of traffic between the estates outside of Edo and the aristocratic compounds within it, so the sound was ignored for the most part.

Inoue and his children were finishing their food, while Kakashi tried to convince himself to eat. He wasn't looking forward to his day of searching the city, going through elite neighborhoods and asking the nobles he found there if they'd seen the Sarutobi heir, Umino Iruka and his wife.

Until he found either them or discovered the fact that they were dead, he was to remain in Edo. Right as he finished sipping the last of his weak miso (anything other than Sakura's miso was a poor imitation), a courier announced his presence outside, loudly for the entire street to hear. With a look rather than a word, Inoue's sons grabbed Naruto and stopped up his shout, dragging him back to the ruined back end of the house. Kanna's hands shot across the table to hide the extra setting, while Kakashi and Inoue shuffled their bowls around the table so that the gap the foreigner had left wasn't so prominent.

The courier announced himself once again, tapping hesitantly at the shoji.

"We are coming, we hear you," Inoue called, getting up. Kakashi's heart pounded a bit louder as Naruto struggled against his sudden detainment, knocking into the wall a few times. Kanna ducked her head and he thought he heard her utter a curse. The sound from the back of the house stopped after a garbled argument of some sort. One of the brothers came out and sat down stiffly at the table, his shoulders rigid.

"Hatake-sama, the message is for you."

The man outside was a personal courier, for an elite. Kakashi's stomach clenched around the meal he'd just barely finished.

"Hatake-sama, my lord requests your presence at the castle immediately," the man said with a small bow. Behind him, three dozen steps away, the litter-bearers set down their burden. They had the insignia of Shogun Ietsuna emblazoned on their clothing. The courier's clothes carried the same sign. Looking between the two, Kakashi wondered just what he'd done. Lord Gama's face floated up in his mind, and were he a lesser man Kakashi's shoulders would have sank. That man was probably the cause of this.

"I am not dressed properly to meet with a lord, I—"

"My lord is well aware of your station, and is understanding of it. He has ordered you brought to him in whatever manner I find you," the man glanced once at Kakashi, "and I find you dressed in clean clothing, your hair…attempted at, and your feet are soon-to-be-sandaled." Kakashi hesitated for barely a second longer before realizing that this man, despite not being his equal, was allowed to order him around. That he also probably had been given allowance to seize Kakashi if he were disinterested.

He was halfway tempted to make these people actually take him by force. But Naruto's plight of just minutes ago chastised him. Kakashi nodded once and went to get his sandals.

Kakashi hadn't travelled by litter for twenty years—he had occasionally traveled in one with Uchiwa Fugaku, on that trip so long ago to Edo. His apprenticeship to the Uchiwa lord was a point of pride for his father and himself—despite the Uchiwa family's unfortunate choice to practice that banned foreign religion, they had been good people. And he had learned the finer graces of higher-ranked samurai, something which Sakumo had always spoke of as a useful quality.

The bouncing wasn't easily ignored, however, and he sat ill at ease with himself. Kakashi didn't like this, it was something reserved for those in higher places in life than him. He was a poor nobody from the north, and he knew it. He had no choice, however.

Since he had little else to do he pulled Sakura's letter out from between the pages of his book. Her writing was beautiful, and it contained the most wonderful news. He felt so often that he was living some sort of myth, a legend of prosperity and happiness. He leaned back a little onto the wooden backrest, holding the paper to his chest as he closed his eyes to minimize the discomfort he felt from traveling on a litter sent by the shogun—unlikely—or sent by the shogun's advisor, Lord Gama. Quite likely.

They slowed as they approached the gates, just enough for the courier to flash their identification—Kakashi's eyes opened too late to see it, but the guards at the gate paled and waved them through. Most definitely Lord Gama had been the one to send for him.

The castle had been damaged slightly by the fire, he'd heard. Coming into the grounds, however, he could see where the fire had torn through gardens and the homes of high-ranking retainers. The ghostly image of flames licked at the white facades of the castle walls, and in some places the flames had claimed an entire wall or more. The people he saw there were less haggard than the peasants and lower-ranked samurai in the rest of the city, but there was a certain haunted look to them that was almost worse to see.

"Hatake-sama, we should arrive soon," the courier jogged easily alongside the litter, his breath saved until now as they travelled slower on the thoroughfares within the castle.

"Why did your master send for me with such urgency?"

"He did not say, Hatake-sama, merely that you should be much pleased with your visit here." They came to a stop shortly after that, and Kakashi put Sakura's letter back in his book and tucked them both away. The litter-bearers let him off, and then scurried away after a look from the courier. Kakashi, who had already formed the impression that the courier was not all that he appeared, squinted his eye minutely at his companion.

They paused at the steps, taking off their sandals, before going in. The building was fairly intact on the outside, and the interiors appeared undamaged—this had been the most heavily defended part of the castle, it would seem. Kakashi allowed himself to be led down several corridors, not bothering to remember his way out—strangers were not allowed to wander by themselves this deep within any castle, let alone this castle. He felt assured of an escort out.

Whisking past hallways as they were, coupled with a desire not to seem overly curious, Kakashi couldn't have expected it.

Tenzou was worried. Sakura had been ill for more than a week now, and had only grown worse. Her coughing kept him awake late into the night, as much as she tried to hide it initially. It sounded like she was trying to cough something up, but just couldn't. He hoped it wasn't what he thought it was. The young woman was barely sleeping now, and was worryingly dizzy sometimes because of fever. Tenzou thought back, trying to determine what had caused her illness. They'd had so many faces in and out of this house recently that it was hard to put his finger on it, but finally he'd decided on the culprit.

It had been the little boy, the first one. The boy who coughed.

Tenzou lay on his side in the hallway next to Sakura's room—because Kakashi would kill him with his bare hands if he found Tenzou had been remiss in looking after the girl—and listened to Pakkun snuffle and whine while Sakura coughed. A few times last night and once so far this evening, he had heard her crying. She just couldn't stop coughing, and complained of a tight, heavy feeling in her chest.

He didn't worry so much for the unborn child, because it was not the source of his master's recent happiness and prosperity. Sakura was. Kakashi would of course mourn if his wife miscarried because of this illness—but he would recover from it. He would self-destruct if the pink-haired young woman were to pass away suddenly. Especially if he had been away.

Ume had suggested that Sakura stay in a separate room, with the screen shut, whenever Kurenai visited. Sakura's mother did not want to prevent Kurenai human contact with her friends, but neither did she want to be responsible for the Sarutobi woman catching whatever it was that plagued Sakura. Ume aired out the entire house before Kurenai came over, and often kept a screen or two open to the outside air—it was spring, after all. Despite the hopeful atmosphere of both her household and the environment, Sakura continued to worsen. Ume had taken away the commissions Sakura had been working on, preferring to finish them for her and to let Sakura rest.

The treatment of and how they talked about her sickness was a crisis of conscience for Tenzou. He lay awake each night listening to the pink haired woman cough in the darkness of her room. She had only the family dog as a companion most of the time. It was agony, not being able to do anything for her, and everyone was against informing Kakashi.

However tonight he couldn't take it anymore. He decided that if Sakura had not improved within two or three days he was going to write to Kakashi. Sarutobi-sama would have to send another man to look for Iruka and Anko, because there was no way that Tenzou would allow his master's wife to perhaps die while he was away.

His knees hit the burnished wood floor just about the same time as two strong arms wrapped themselves around his body, the momentum of the other body carrying them both to the ground. Kakashi, having been grabbed from behind was barely able to even try to break their fall, and since the other person landed on him he was completely winded. He couldn't fight them as they scrabbled to turn him on his back and Kakashi marveled, for a brief half second, at how fast Lord Gama had found out about his "demon" wife. This was obviously—

"Kakashi!" Somewhere in his breathless mind, Kakashi heard first Obito and then Shisui and then his eyes finally focused on the face above his.

"Iruka!" his cry was a bit of a gasp, since Iruka was practically sitting on him with his hands pressed down on Kakashi's chest. He could barely breathe. Kakashi's escort paused, with what was not an indulgent smile on his face. And then his dazed brain swung back towards the man who was accidentally suffocating him. Kakashi had the sudden, strong desire to get back at someone for their prank.

He was fairly sure it was Lord Gama who should be on the receiving end of it, too.

"Jiraiya-sama said that he had run into someone I knew! Did my father send you? I hope he hasn't been too worried, I have been helping Jiraiya-sama get things in order. On the first day of the fire he took us in, saying the last place in the city that would ever burn would be the castle and he was right! Although now I owe him a favor, as I begged that he release prisoners from the jai—"

"I believe that Hatake-san would appreciate very much for this," the pause was meditative as well as teasing, "conversation to take place with both of you standing. He is turning alarmingly red, Iruka-san," Gama's voice boomed across the hallway. Kakashi turned dizzy eyes towards it, seeing the fuzzy outline of Iruka's wife, Anko, standing next to the tall old man. Ah. Now he knew who was really the culprit—of course she would do this to him.

Meanwhile, Iruka was trying to get up without kneeling or stepping on him. When they finally extricated themselves from their mess, Kakashi still felt dizzy. He had been here for two and a half weeks, losing hope by the day and then this miracle of a practical joke. He couldn't be the least upset, this was perfect.

"I knew instantly who you were here for when you said you were from Fujimi," Gama said as Kakashi patted Iruka's cheeks and shoulders to make sure he was real. He heard Sarutobi's words from a year ago in his mind as he took in Iruka's bearded face—with illegitimate sons it was sometimes a bit difficult to truly be sure of their parentage, but not so with Iruka. No one Kakashi had ever met had such thick facial hair which grew in such a distinctive pattern. If Sarutobi had ever had doubts about Iruka, those would have been quickly dispelled once that coarse beard took root.

"It took us two days to plan out what we were going to do," Anko said. She was worse of a trickster than Kakashi had ever been—marrying her had been running from a burning house into a forest fire.

"And we plan on leaving Edo for Fujimi within the week," Iruka finished, his eyes bright with hope and happiness. And of course he would be happy—his father had sent one of his best friends to search for him, and now he had been found. Kakashi crinkled his own eyes in happiness as well, because this meant he could go home to his farm and his family. He was also relieved that he would bring no bad news with him.

The castle was silent. His men reported to him every third hour that the shogun was still safe—Ietsuna was so young compared those he was expected to oversee, it was best that no one got any funny ideas. The boy had survived his childhood ascension to the position, and Jiraiya intended the boy to keep it. It was easier to run things when people weren't looking too hard at him.

He was sitting outside in his favorite courtyard, drinking sake. It was good sake, made in Kyoto—his men there said the emperor enjoyed it from time to time, and it pleased him to drink sake normally reserved only for the imperial family. It showed the places people had in the world. The small wooden cup he sipped from was his favorite, a good little square one. One of his friends in the north had had a set carved out of single blocks of wood, beautiful work. Years and years ago now.

It was a clear night, allowing weak moonlight to filter down to the rooftops. The night air was dense and woody. Woody in that recently-cleared smoke way because the city still stank of charred buildings and roasted flesh. He hadn't seen anything like it for decades, and even then it had been during the last rebellion—twenty years ago at least.

One of his men appeared out of the darkness of the rooftops surrounding his courtyard, silently flipping himself under the eave and down to the porch. Jiraiya's eyes flicked towards the man's movements, not his head—it was quite difficult to know if one had been spotted if no sign of acknowledgment was made. Turning his head even slightly towards the man would have given away his awareness, and Jiraiya was far better disciplined than that.

It was why Iemitsu had entrusted him with the care of Ietsuna, after-all.

"My lord," the younger man asked, a formality.

"Speak, son," Jiraiya said while he finished the rest of his current cup of sake. Really it was quite good, and he could see why the emperor enjoyed it. Although if an emperor was old enough to know what kind of sake he enjoyed, he had been emperor for quite long enough—the young man would have to retire soon.

"Orochimaru-sama has started to make preparations to leave Kyoto as of five days ago. He will have begun his journey here by yesterday at the latest. Your son says that Orochimaru-sama's intention is to appeal various charges against certain members of the Uchiwa clan when they come to trial in a few months." Jiraiya flipped over one of his little wooden cups and poured some still-steaming sake into both it and his own, indicating with a wink that his informant should have some.

As the other man lifted the cup to his lips and sipped just a moment after Jiraiya himself did, his eyes never stopped moving around the courtyard. There were at least five men hidden at various places in the shadows. Not because he felt insecure, but because he needed his top people to know many of the things he knew—Jiraiya never liked to leave his men uninformed. There was something to be said for blind trust, but he preferred mutual trust.

"You may tell your half-brother he has my thanks. Do you have any letters I ought to look at?"

"One, from your son in the north."

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