Long Distance

At a certain point in time after the Fourth Secret War, social change had happened.

Particularly in the big cities, divorce became a part of culture itself.

Statistics reveal that "first marriages" stood a forty-five percent chance of breaking up and "second marriages" a sixty percent chance. But those numbers just confirmed what people already knew: that divorce had increased not only in frequency but also in acceptance.

Sixty years ago, the concept of divorce was considered taboo, and highly discouraged especially within noble families. If there was a problem between the married couple, they had to work it out and stay together. Because that was what love and marriage was supposed to be about.

With more civilian women entering the main work force and beginning careers, dynamics within a household had evolved into one of mutual understanding and decision-making.

Women working outside the home gained a measure of economic freedom. This in turn created less of an incentive to work out marital differences.

The independence produced by increased household income also gave men a loophole to reduce their sense of responsibility and commitment to a marriage.

And the most popular reason: why stay in a difficult or loveless relationship?

Move on, they said. Find whatever it is that will provide happiness. Don't force yourself to suffer needlessly. The Elemental Nations was a big place.

Truly, love and marriage was never the same again.

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It was almost a pity, really.

In the big cities, divorcing couples informed their peers and their children of the impending separation as a team. Explained the new rules. Clarified all of the questions.

Her apprentice and that perpetually tardy jounin had separated from each other before that age of enlightenment.

When she was gone, she was gone.

The poor man had to sit down with their son and break the news to the boy by himself.

And although he would rather not, being the aloof man that he was, even with all of his faults he still cared about her and the family they could have had. He never would have forced her to have this talk if she didn't want to; if he were allowed, he would have taken the entire burden onto his own shoulders.

If the Sannin was asked to pinpoint when the couple's problems began, she would say that it was after her apprentice's parents had become casualties in the Oto-Kumo joint invasion during the chuunin exams. Something fragile within the emerald-eyed woman had broken then.

From there, everything between the married couple had devolved into cold shoulders, heated arguments, and the general inability to communicate with the amount of missions that had piled up in those days.

Many shinobi had died to defend Konoha from the invasion, and both of them had been A-ranked jounin.

They had to take these missions because of their duty, and very rarely saw each other.

As if it was a trick of some higher power, her apprentice had lost one student to death. The other turned out to be a traitor. The third abruptly left with his godfather for a training trip in order to avoid the men in black cloaks, but he was faultless.

The younger medic was simply a victim of circumstances.

Unfortunate circumstances, one after another, that led to the pink-haired doctor attempting to commit suicide on an early winter night.

Her apprentice had already fallen over the edge.

This stunt merely pushed her emotionally wrecked husband over the edge along with her.

It was the last straw.

He was miserable. She was miserable. They were sick of each others' misery. Their beautiful son was suffering from both his parents' self-destruction.

Frankly, she was disappointed in the both of them.

Her apprentice was supposed to be stronger than that. He was supposed to be stronger than that.

But when the entire family entered her office and quietly asked for the divorce papers, even she could tell it was much too late for an intervention.

Love couldn't save this family, in the end. It was still there, underneath the underneath, but it simply wasn't enough.

He had been constantly ribbed for how thin he was getting from his coworkers.

Her emerald eyes had all but lost their shine.

The little boy appeared to have aged against his will, was not the same innocent sweet thing he was years ago. It wouldn't be a surprise if he had developed some kind of resentment or complex for his mother and father. In an environment like the one in his home, the blonde Sannin could only imagine what hell he'd been through.

Yet being a good parent was very hard. There was no real "how-to" when it came down to it.

It was even harder when the world around the couple just kept betraying them over and over.

And that was how life went.

The paperwork was a solemn ritual. Their ten year marriage ended officially with an approval stamp.

And then he'd left her. Or maybe she'd left him.

Who could say? It was complicated.

If only it had ended there, when the paperwork had been completed and processed, maybe it wouldn't have gotten so bad.

But it didn't.

.

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Oh thank the gods for the recent boom in technology. Video conference calls were such an incredible invention.

Much, much more preferable to getting her manicured hand cramped from writing correspondence.

It was also much more convenient, not to mention she got to stare straight at the Godaime Kazekage as she laid the details of the situation all out on the table.

Long story short, that pesky baby brother of the Kazekage had murdered a couple of her citizens.

As if the situation weren't bad enough, said baby brother also happened to be an ambassador from Suna.

The older blonde personally thought the redhead had done her a favor - these citizens had been a constant pain in the ass with all of these ridiculous "civil rights" protests lately and she'd already marked several of them to be dispatched by the ANBU, because they weren't selling "civil rights" at all.

They were also a part of the group who had slandered her apprentice after her divorce, but that was beside the point.

The point being, that the Kazekage's pesky baby brother had unlawfully killed several Konoha citizens unprovoked, thereby breaking the rules of the shinobi alliance which had been agreed upon and signed with blood by all five Kage.

She wasn't excited about the paperwork and bureaucratic bull this was going to generate but rules existed for a reason.

As Hokage, she would have to uphold these rules if only to maintain her position and public facade. Additionally, while these people were certainly douchebags who'd been slated for assassination, they still counted as part of Konoha's area of jurisdiction.

The Godaime Kazekage had grown silent during the older blonde's tirade. After a moment, she asked a single question.

She wanted to know if the investigation turned up a reason for her ambassador's behavior.

The Hokage grinned.

As it turned out, the reason was simple.

He'd done it in retaliation to the words of those civilians.

Those words, which had cast a certain pink-haired apprentice in a negative light.

In other words, he did it for love.

The Sannin went on to describe how the Suna ambassador and her apprentice had been meeting each other quite often, and how the blonde had decided to allow it as she saw no harm in their new-found bond. Her ANBU spies had made it abundantly clear that the way the redhead looked at the pink doctor was one of the deepest of attractions.

She ended the summary with a plea to waive whatever punishment was waiting for him back in Suna. After all, he'd single-handedly done what no one else could do: he'd helped the girl that the Sannin considered a younger sister back onto her feet.

The Kazekage smiled softly.

Apparently she was already planning on doing so. After all, while she and her other brother, the puppet-wielder, had lost their chance to become close to their baby brother a long time ago, they were all still family.

Besides, after many years of dedicated service, she figured that he deserved to be granted dedication in return.

She may not be the best Kazekage, but she could certainly try to be the best leader that she could be.

The video conference call ended on a pleasant note.

But there was still the matter of what to do with the Suna diplomat.

He still needed to receive some form of punishment. Consequences will always have their actions.

And she was not going to just hand over her apprentice so easily, especially after what happened the first time. Her being grateful for how he helped the emerald-eyed doctor had nothing to do with it. It was the principal of the matter.

What to do...

It was after finishing her morning output of paperwork that the solution came to her.

She immediately made a summons for the Copy Ninja.

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Long Distance

The End

TBC...