Kurenai didn't come home before the morning, Yoshino by her side. Of their two houses, the two women only felt chakra in Kurenai's. They entered it silently, removed their shoes and put on slippers as quietly as they could. In the living-room, they found a scene one didn't see everyday: a pile of teenagers covering an adult, all snoring in concert. Ensui, at the base of this very unstable construction, lazily opened his eyes when he felt them approach. Without leaving his position, sprawled on the ground – how could he even breath with all these bodies over his? – he gestured for them to keep silent, pressing a finger against the shadow of a smile.

Yoshino and Kurenai exchanged an amused look but obeyed his silent command and went into the kitchen so they'd be free to talk in a low voice. The dishes hadn't been done but, at least, they could see that the children had eaten. They were both exhausted after working at the hospital until dawn healing or stabilizing as many wounded as they could. Some amongst the oldest, touchiest shinobi had tried to dissuade them, to redirect their attention to younger but less seriously injured comrades, in vain. Priority rules were priority rules and grumpy old warriors wouldn't make them go around them.

"At least they look okay," Yoshino whispered.

"Yeah. We can't ask for more."

"Hm… Do you know when the list of the dead and missing will be made public? I think they will all need to see it."

"Kakashi said that Shikaku wanted to publish it before noon. The number of casualties could have been worse… But again, it can still go up. A lot of people are in surgery."

"That's for sure… Our kids and their friends have played a big role in handling the invasion."

"And those Sunajin kids too. I heard that Gaara – it's Hitomi's childhood friend, you saw him before the exam, remember? – managed to flip his village forces against Otogakure."

"And Hokage-sama… I talked to one of the nurses who were assisting the surgeons. They say that Tsunade-sama could save him, but he'll have tremors and convulsions for the rest of his life."

In the living room, Hitomi had opened her eyes and listened, a wave of chakra focused in her ears so she wouldn't miss anything of the exchange. She couldn't feel guilty even if she tried. Hiruzen had had his days and clung to the Hokage position as if he was the only one fit for the job. This time, he wouldn't have any say in the matter, he'd have to let Tsunade succeed to him, and at least he'd be alive to see her rise above her peers. It should have been a sensei's only wish.

"Eavesdropping is very rude, young lady," Ensui grumbled next to her ear.

She answered with a cheeky smile, a spark of ruse in her red eyes. She didn't know how she had ended up on the ground, her head on her master's torso and Shikamaru slumped all over her, but all these people around her had at least offered her a dreamless sleep. She had even managed to work a bit on her Library. Blood had run under the Nameless Door when she had closed it. Nothing that worrying, compared to the last time she had had memories to put behind it. Her cage had also been a bit fragilized by the repeated opening and closing of her meridians; a bit of chakra and it was good as new.

"I'd feel guilty about it if you weren't doing the same, shishou."

"Caught red-handed," the man sighed with a relaxed smile. "Be careful, one could say I did a bad job of raising you."

"If one is foolish enough to say such things, give me their names, because their knees need some breaking. No one speaks badly of you without consequences."

He laughed, a faint and low sound in his throat, his hand lost in his apprentice's tangled hair. He watched her escape Shikamaru's embrace, her heart unyielding against the teenage boy's whimper of protest, before he slid away from the mass of asleep children as well. In the same movement, master and student stretched then tiptoed to the kitchen.

Hitomi was greeted by her mother with a kiss on the cheek and a hug before her aunt did the same. She didn't pretend that this attention displeased her, quite the contrary. She was relieved that Kurenai had simply decided to help in the hospital. Of course, she had fought, the girl could see it in the mess of her hair and the burned hem of her fighting dress, but who amongst the Konohajin force has dared stay out of the battle? Even the oldest students from the Academy had pitched in after the invasion was over to help clean the streets in the areas where bodies had already been removed by the ANBU.

"Wake the boys up, sweetheart. You're expected at the Tower for D-ranked missions, a lot of them. You'll help clean the village."

"Okay. Do you want me to get Karin going as well?"

"Karin? It's Naruto's cousin, right?"

"Yeah. She requested citizenship and wardship from the village, as a medic in training."

"Then she'll be sent to the hospital, I suppose, but…"

"Ah, that's the kid with the red hair, right?" Yoshino intervened. "I heard the doctors speak about her. She saved their lives by barricading them in an empty bedroom."

"That's where we found her when we deployed at the hospital," Hitomi confirmed. "Enemies were trying to smash the door open, but she was just behind it and looked ready to fight for the civilians' lives."

"Konoha needs medics and shinobi, now more than ever. Send a message to Shikaku, he'll get to her file as soon as he has five minutes."

"It's weird, having Shikaku-ojisan as our Hokage, even temporarily. Who's doing the Jōnin Commander work until he can go back to his usual duties?"

"No one, sweetheart. The only fitting candidates are all sensei, or they are needed in urgent missions out of the country to gather money so the village can be rebuilt. He does both jobs."

Hitomi frowned, surprised. It had to be a whole shitload of work. Even sharing the Hokage title and duties between Shikaku and Kakashi barely made it more manageable. They both had functions outside of that temporary role. Even if she had heard about it in class and read some more in the archives, the girl hadn't realised how much strength her village had lost in consecutive wars and disasters this past century. Except for Kakashi, Kurenai, Asuma, Gai, Ensui and the clan leaders, who couldn't leave the village often, she didn't know a great many Jōnin. There was Hayate, desperately clinging to life, Genma, famous for his distaste for everything that wasn't field work. The village needed to get its strength back, and quickly, or it would be an easy prey for other powers.

"I have to talk to Jiraiya-sama today!" Hitomi announced as she stood back up. "Do you know where he is, Mom?"

"No. Yoshino, an idea?"

"Hum… Probably around the Torture and Intelligence Department. Ibiki-san has gotten his hands on several Otojin. Jiraiya-sama will want to interrogate them himself, you can be sure of that."

"Okay! I'll wake the others then get going then, thank you!"

Maybe a little bemused, the adults looked at her go. Kurenai realised, with a start, that Hitomi hadn't eaten anything for breakfast and prepared her something she could eat while walking as Yoshino and Ensui exchanged an amused look. Not many people could decide they were going to see Jiraiya, but the teenager didn't doubt for a moment that she would succeed. It was refreshing to watch that kind of unstoppable willpower as it manifested in the young.

After waking her brothers – she left them to deal with Shikamaru, who was a whole battle by himself – Hitomi ran to her room, got dressed and left. The warm sun outside was almost giving the finger to the events of the previous day. The Nara lands looked almost enchanting, a stark contrast to the destruction in the rest of the village. The enemy hadn't managed to force their way in the clan's lands, which were as far as could be from the invasion's starting point. Besides, they were defended by seals powerful enough to make some masters jealous. The legend said that Senju Tobirama himself had drawn them, in exchange for the authorisation to marry the clan leader's daughter. They both died before their wedding date.

Once she was back into the public part of the village, the girl had to take several detours to avoid piles of unstable debris. Several buildings had been entirely razed to the ground, others were still standing against all logic and some, very rare, had come out of it seemingly unscathed. The worst of it had been taken by the roofs, though: it was there that a lot of fights had happened.

Hitomi knew the way to the department like the back of her hand but, after the previous day's battle and the slaughter of prisoners she'd been a part of, she had a hard time walking in that direction. Blood had been washed away from her hands but that didn't make it any more forgettable. She pinched her lips to make her expression unreadable when she walked past the west façade, which was closed shut by planks. The piece of wall she had used as a shield against a volley of shuriken was still in the exact same place in the middle of the road. No one had cleaned it yet.

"Yūhi-san? Have you received a mission here?"

Hitomi spun around, a hand on her sword. She had had to clean Ishi to Senrigan for the better part of an hour last night to scrub away the blood covering the blade, the guard and the red silk wrapped around it. It had seemed so important to her then, just as essential as washing her body from battle dirt.

"Fox-san! Not really. I'm here to see Jiraiya-sama. I'm apparently going on a mission with him soon and I have suggestions to make about logistics. Do you know where he is?"

"Stay here, I'm gonna ask if he can see you now. He should be done with his meeting with Ibiki and the higher-ups."

"Okay, thanks!"

The beam she offered to the ANBU man was fake, borrowed straight from Naruto's repertoire, but it was the best way she knew to show gratefulness. Thanks to him, she didn't have to walk in, to see the consequences of her actions the previous days. Some cells had probably been fixed first, so they would have secured places to keep the captured Otojin and Sunajin. Perhaps Gaara would manage to free his comrades, especially if Baki and Temari applied themselves on the diplomatic side of the situation, but for the men of the Sound, there was no hope to be found. Orochimaru wasn't the kind to trade prisoners. He probably held many Konohajin in his laboratories, but what was even left of those shinobi, broken after years upon years of torture and experimentations between the snake's hands? Despite the sun on her skin, Hitomi shuddered.

"Yo, kid! I heard you were seeking wisdom from Jiraiya the almighty?"

An eyebrow raised, Hitomi turned towards the voice. He was exactly as she had imagined in the Previous World, and then during her readings for the Academy. A daring smile on her lips, she crossed her arms over her chest. "Depends. Is there a book on the way?"

He threw his head back and burst out laughing, as if she had just said the best joke he had ever heard. She wasn't joking, though: Jiraiya was an excellent novelist. She wanted to read more of his work, wanted to know what happened to the characters he had created. "Not yet, kiddo, not yet. But I'll have plenty of inspiration material during our trip." He scratched his chin then, his brow furrowing. "Oh, Yoshino-chan and Kurenai-chan told you, right? I'm taking Naruto and you to seek a very special woman."

"Tsunade-sama, yeah, I know. I'm a being capable of thoughts, you now? I realised immediately that it had to be her, our next Hokage, as soon as I heard about Hiruzen-sama. Not only because she's his only chance of survival – she'd also be a breath of fresh air to the village, a healthy one."

"Ah, I see you understand the situation. That's a clever little head you got here."

"My head is a very normal size, thank you very much."

Jiraiya continued as if she hadn't just interrupted him. "And I heard you were quite good with fūinjutsu."

"It appears so, yeah. I invented two or three little trinkets. I'm learning corporal seals."

"And, say, would you have one of those trinkets that you could show me? It's been ages since I've seen anyone invent a seal."

Probably since Hokage the Fourth, Hitomi mused. She had been lucky enough to read about some of his work, including the Seal of Secrecy carved under Shikaku's desk. It could be activated and deactivated at will and created an unbreakable privacy bubble; it was also keyed to its owner's chakra, so it couldn't be forcibly activated to hide the aggression, threatening or murder of said owner it a way that would leave no witness. A true work of art, if Hitomi was to give her opinion. In silence, the girl handed her communicating notebook to the Hermit, since it was the only seal she never went anywhere without.

"It's a blend of several seals, not really a complete invention from scratch. I was able to make it better since, to use it as the centre of a communication web. There are a dozen other notebooks, all linked to mine, so I can talk to my friends no matter the distance between us."

"I see," the Sannin muttered as his eyes went over the seals written on the inside of the cover. He thoughtfully rubbed his thumb over the ink, which had obviously aged. "Yeah, I remember this now. I ran into Nara Ensui when he was in Sunagakure with those three kids. The youngest had a notebook like this, and your shishou told me you had created them. You had to be around six at that time, right?"

"Something like that," she answered with a faint smile.

The man shook his head with bemusement and gave her the notebook back. "I guess you didn't just run through the whole village to show me this. What do you want?"

As she took back her notebook, Hitomi explained. She told him about her mission in the Land of Waves and the implicit debt between her and Zabuza. He had never declared himself as her vassal, but had acted as such when he had answered her call a month ago and would do it again, she was adamant about it. He considered owing her both his and his protégé's life. The latter was probably even more precious to him that the former. "I'd like them to come with us," she concluded. "If we run into Orochimaru or worse, we'll be glad to have them with us. They're both incredibly strong."

The Sannin didn't answer right away. Hitomi waited for his decision and tried to hide how nervous she felt. She knew he couldn't be only thinking about his former teammate: the rumours about the Akatsuki had to have started to spread by now; Jiraiya, as Spy Master, worked as closely as possible with Uchiha Itachi, infiltrated into the criminal organisation. The deserters had probably started to work on their plan to capture the jinchūriki, even though it would be years before they attacked any of them. She couldn't be a hundred percent sure about any of it, thanks to Kishimoto and his lack of rigour in writing the canon she knew so well, but it would have been weird for the Akatsuki not to start moving. They could profit off Konoha's weakness.

"You're probably right, kid… I wouldn't want you and Naruto harmed because I was too secret about this whole affair. You can invite your allies to meet us a few kilometres away from the village's Gates in five days. We can't leave any earlier than that, you and your brother are needed to clean the village, and I'm needed as well for more… political matters. But let me warn you: you vouch for them. If they betray us, it's going to be your fault.

Hitomi paled and stopped herself from squirming under his hard stare. She knew Haku and Zabuza wouldn't betray her, but even if Jiraiya wasn't exactly threatening her, a knot of anxiety had formed in the pit of her stomach. That was just it: he didn't need threats, because the mere fact of bearing the responsibility for such an event would destroy her. The man saw her discomfort and had a gentle laugh. He patted her hair with delicacy, as if he was afraid to hurt her. After all, she was a lot frailer than Naruto.

"Come on, now, kid, don't be upset, I'm sure nothing like that will happen. You look like you have a good, and yes, normal-sized head on your shoulders. Academy teachers were talking loads about you until you graduated. Have a tendency to bring people together and lead them, now, haven't you?"

"It seemed like a good way to handle the whole Academy thing," she answered with a shrug. "And we did handle it, didn't we? I heard that Iruka-sensei is trying to recreate the whole situation with the current first-year group."

"I heard that too. We'll see if it's going to work as well with them as it did with you. Well, this little chat was nice, but I have to go. Shikaku-sama is waiting for my report, and it's time for you to go get yourself a nice little D-ranked mission. No need to go to the Tower for it, though, the Gates are closer and they built a temporary post there. Seeing the sheer amount of work needed to rebuild the village, there are posts like that one everywhere. See ya! Help Naruto pack, alright?"

"I will!" she promised.

The man waved then disappeared in a swirl of dead leaves. Did all the Shunshin adepts walk around with a stack of leaves in their pockets? She knew Gaara used the sand at his feet or, when there wasn't any, the one in his gourd. The aesthetic element was only an added flourish to the technique: it didn't make it costlier, but a better mastery level was required to use it that way. It was in her plans, though. She couldn't wait to see her enemies' faces when she'd disappear in a puff of glitter.

Izumo was managing the post at the village's entrance – it looked almost empty without his usual teammate, Kotetsu. There was a little queue in front of his desk, mainly composed of a few Genin from the General Forces seeking a new mission. After a bit of wait, Hitomi got her first assignment: cleaning the street in front of the Academy. She thanked the man with a nod then walked away in that direction. She saw Genma running in the opposite direction, probably for a mission outside the village. Konoha wouldn't show any sign of weakness, it had to continue to provide service for as many missions as it had before the invasion, at least for appearances' sake. Besides, the village needed the money, now more than ever.

A Chūnin Hitomi had never seen before waited in front of the Academy. It was a lithe man with long brown hair kept in a braid. When he turned his head to her, she had to suppress a flinch: it was a Hyūga, probably a member of the Bunke. With a tired but genuine smile, he gestured for her to approach. "You're probably going to be the only one sent here. As you see, the Academy itself wasn't damaged, but we can't say as much about the street. Have you done this before?"

"No, Hyūga-san, but I know my way around seals. I can even draw some, if need be."

"Really? Well, here's how it's going to go: you store the debris in the normal seals in that basket. Fill the scrolls to the brim and, when one is full, draw a cross over its fold, like this. As far as weapons go, keep what you want, and the rest goes into the blue scrolls. The bodies go into stasis scrolls, the green ones. One body per scroll and, to show it's filled, you draw a line around it, like this. Then, on the label here, you write a few information: sex, approximated age, civilian or shinobi, supposed village or origin. Understood?"

"Yeah. I'm going to get started right now."

Teenager and adult went their own separate ways and worked on their own chunk of the street without ever exchanging more than a few words at a time. Hitomi found many weapons on her way, most broken or used beyond repair. She shoved them into a blue scroll carelessly and kept the ones she could still use or distribute around her. The debris were the easiest to manage: she didn't have the strength to move them and put them on a scroll sometimes, but she only had to use clones or a bit of craftiness to get around that kind of difficulty.

The first body, strangely, was a shock to her. She had killed so many the previous day that she thought she had lost her sensibility to death, and yet her throat was constricted and her eyes stinged. She knelt slowly in the main room of a destroyed tea shop, brushing hair away from the face of a civilian teenage girl. She was her age, and her features looked peaceful. A blow to the head had killed her. One by one, Hitomi pushed the debris covering her body, then unfolded her first green scroll over the cold, stiff body. A spark of chakra and the girl was done, the smell of her blood still faint in the air.

"Are you done?" the Chūnin asked several hours later.

"I think so." She was shaken to her core, more than she thought possible. The nausea had passed after the first hour or so, but war took a whole new dimension, terrible and icy cold, under her fingertips. There weren't many soldiers amongst the victims, all things considered – in this part of the village anyway. The dead were mostly civilians who hadn't asked for anything and should have been protected by the peace treaty signed after the last war. Alas for them, Orochimaru didn't respect anything but power and immortality. The rest, including the lives of all others around him, didn't matter.

"You did a good job here. You should go to the Tower now. The lists of dead and missing should have been released by Shikaku-sama by now."

Hitomi noticed how the Hyūga man didn't use the appropriate title to speak about her uncle. It was a lack of respect, but she decided to let it go. She didn't have the strength nor the legitimacy to correct an elder – she had had her share of conflict for now. "Thanks. Can I leave the scrolls with you?"

"Yes, I'm going to take them to the people who want them. Go now, you deserve the rest."

She looked away from the man and did as she was told. She mingled in the crowd, finding meagre solace in the way life was back in the core of the village. People were walking down the streets again, wary and tense, as if they feared another catastrophe would hit. Their wide eyes sometimes stopped on the stones and wood remaining where a building had once been standing, but they were chatting, holding hands, living. They were only half aware of the luck they had to be still walking those streets and able to enjoy small blessings. Her face devoid of any expression, Hitomi stepped into the Tower.

She needed to know.