In a day's time there couldn't have been more of a difference in how they were treated.
They were taken straight to the throne room, for one, and for another the majority of the hangers-on who made their days in the room had been made to leave.
Those who hadn't—those significant enough to have a say—were quickly joined by several other men, some of whom were clearly the most elite of the Samurai.
And then the messengers were allowed to speak, uninterrupted, until they had nothing else to say.
Iwa had orchestrated a renewed assassination attempt on the Sarutobi. This one had clearly been planned longer, and used more prepared assassins. While several of them had died, none had been caught.
In the meantime, the Sarutobi clan was down to fifteen surviving members, Hokage included.
(Sakura's General was among those killed. She wondered if it had been during the watch that was meant to be hers.)
Iwa'd accomplished the attack by backing their frontline up with Samurai to free more ninja—the assassins had each been backed up by teams, Konoha-style, to make sure they accomplished their goal and were killed before they had a chance to be captured.
It had happened in less than forty-eight hours.
The messengers had only just finished when more came into the room, followed by Sensei himself.
The Daimyo had not ordered them in, but he did not force them to leave; their faces were grim.
Initial estimates, they said, were correct, but did not fully account for the Konoha nin who had died protecting the assassins.
"What do you recommend?" The Daimyo asked.
Sakura remembered his speech from yesterday.
How times change.
"We are suffering right now, honorable Daimyo. This winter is not good for us, or for Suna, and the food shortages are causing significant strife among our troops. That said, in the long term, a drawn-out war will benefit us more than them.
"They are, right now, more powerful than us. Unlike us, however, Iwa cannot sustain prolonged conflict. They do not have the population, or the farming base, to support such a maneuver. In addition, many of their allies to the west are not comfortable with Iwa's more militaristic recent behavior.
"Ideally, your imperial majesty, with additional troops, we will hold the line until our foot shortage is dealt with, then turn inwards. A major problem for Konoha, right now, is supply lines, particularly once Hanzo of Amegakure decided that Konoha was taking too much from his lands and blocked off much of those lands from us."
"You wish to enter another war?"
"No, your imperial majesty. Konohagakure believes it would be best, instead, to shore up reputations with the minor nations between us and Iwa, make it so that the choice between us and them is an easy one. This would also make any future sabotage of our supply lines much more problematic—they would have to hide far more from the locals than they do now."
"So… I send my samurai to hold the line until harvest-time, my shinobi improve supply lines and relations with our neighbors, and then what?"
"And then we wait it out." Sensei said. "We make this war last so long, take so many resources from them, that they never wish to enter another war with us again."
"And what of the other Great Nations?"
"And what of them? Water is so full of internal strife that they're just as happy to focus on themselves as we are to not worry about them. Lightning, while they may become more active at some point, currently show no interest in doing so, and improving relations with our neighbors will also strongly bolster Suna's trade routes, encouraging them to stay in the war."
Talks continued late into the night, and then far into the next day. Eventually, though, it was agreed: the battlefront would get its samurai.
And so, again, team chinmoku packed up.
And so, again, they left.
This time they weren't intercepted; their path between the Capital and Juro's prison was, in fact, clear of any nearby presences at all.
They stopped several hours away from the base anyway.
"We're splitting up again." Juro said.
Sakura looked at him.
They'd been fighting, now, for nearly a full year. Juro was thinner (never a good thing), and any smile lines that had graced his face had, over the months, disappeared. He was quieter than he'd been before, but also more upset—Sakura never would have guessed that it'd be he that erupted in anger first, but now it seemed silly to think it would be anyone else. He wore boots, too, instead of the sandals usually preferred by his clan and most of the rest of Konoha. Sakura always wore boots—she liked the feel better, 'stink' or no—but Juro had stuck with family fashions for the most part. She guessed the change was necessary, though: prison surgery was likely not the cleanest in the world.
As for Shin…
Sakura still got Juro. She still understood him, understood what happened to him, understood what had changed to make the boy who didn't even name his stuffed animals into the teen that, come every nightfall, would reach out and take one of their hands before he fell asleep.
But Shin she didn't get.
It sounded awful, even in her own mind, but it was true. Juro and she both had little they had to hide about what their jobs were—specifics yes, but no generalities. For years, though, Shin had been walking a different path.
Knowing what that path was… knowing what was expected of him…
Sakura had always assumed that once she knew, once she had more of an idea of what he was training for, what his future would hold, she'd always assumed that once she knew they'd fall back into equilibrium.
But they hadn't.
Shin, she thought, had changed the most out of all of them. He wasn't even chinmoku, really; wasn't quiet but loud, wasn't introverted but chatty.
She wondered how he'd taught himself to do that.
She wondered if he'd taught himself at all, or if he'd simply hidden that aspect of himself from them.
She wondered about Arden, and why she'd never even considered telling them about her.
She wondered why she still didn't now.
"Back to the daily grind." She said instead of saying any of that.
"We… we're fine, right?" Juro said. "Still chinmoku?"
Sakura scoffed. "Of course!" She said, far more certain than she felt.
"Chinmoku to the end." Shin grinned. It looked so real. (It felt so fake.)
Juro took a breath, then nodded. "We're family. We're not kids anymore, and that sucks, and that makes everything harder, but we're still family."
They all nodded and, for the first time in a long time, lay side by side to sleep and keep watch.
They split the next morning; Juro to his operating table, Sakura to her lookout, and Shin north.
The Second Second was not in a good mood when she arrived.
Nara Chisei had taken over as General, and they were holding position, but the attack had been very, very deadly.
They might not have been forced back, but only just, and what little morale they had had when she left now seemed fully gone.
Even though it was time for their break, Sasaki Nao wasn't in the tent when she entered; no one was. She went to the main tent, instead, where Sensor Sensei Inuzuka was taking her shift.
"You're back?" She grunted.
Sakura nodded.
"Permanently?"
"Yes Sensei."
"Good. We need ya." She glanced down at Sakura, then rubbed her eyes. "Been pulling twelve-hour shifts. The genin can't be trusted solo yet and Nao…"
"Did he get killed?" Sakura asked. Her throat clogged up. So many dead—why couldn't she (or anyone else) have prevented it?
Sensei Inuzuka, though, didn't answer immediately. Her posture almost dropped and she slumped down to ground level, then leaned heavily against the wall.
"Not… exactly. I mean, that's what we're telling his parents, but… he took his own life, Sakura."
Sakura's ears began to ring.
"A day after the attack."
The ringing got louder.
"Look, I'll add you to the night roster tonight. Konohagakure promised to send two new sensors by evening tomorrow, so you'll take a full twelve-hour shift before that and then I'll work out a schedule for the lot of us. Rest up now, though; half a day of chakra work wipes out anyone, and you haven't exactly got reserves to spare."
Sakura nodded, saluted, then turned and walked back to their tent.
Her ears were still ringing.
Still ringing.
Still ringing.
Nao…
Nao was dead.
Nao was dead.
Aoi was dead.
Sarutobi Kyo was dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
And she couldn't stop any of it.
She didn't sleep before her shift, and barely made it back to her cot at the end of it before she passed out.
Her dreams were filled with names—SasakiNaoYamanakaKaedeAkimichiZoro—were filled with rumors—NaraShinMitokadoSupakuYamanakaAoi—were filled with guilt—SarutobiKyoSarutobiUchihaHyuga—they were filled, filled, filled
and she
and it
it was too much.
It was being strapped to a table in the middle of nowhere without even parents on either side of you to recognize your pain.
Even the good—the NOTDEAD the SAMURAI the RECOGNIZED—did nothing, did less than nothing.
Sasaki Nao had killed himself.
She hadn't even thought he was capable of such a thing.
Dozens of others had been killed just in the time she'd been gone.
Hundreds killed in the total war.
And…
And she had no one.
Chinmoku was off kilter and split across the continent, her family she hadn't heard from, couldn't hear from, didn't get to learn about anything but death about, her work was exhausting, tiring, and not even something she'd ever been remotely interesting…
The two new sensors seemed nice, even if they were old enough that they'd clearly been pulled from retirement.
They were Hyuga, too, a huge boon.
She couldn't bring herself to care.
In truth, Sakura recognized that this was a long time coming.
She'd been barely holding on ever since getting the message that Shin and Sensei might be dead, and even before then she hadn't been good, hadn't been healthy, hadn't been whole.
She was falling apart, from the inside out, and her coping mechanisms seemed entirely gone.
Six days into work again, six days into the despair, she went to bed early.
She closed her eyes.
And, for the first time in nearly a year, she reached for Arden.