Ibiki's face was red, his breathing was heavy, and his voice was beginning to crack from the strain of his voice. Sarutobi Asuma was screaming just as loud back.
Their other two team members, Kurenai and Genma, were standing off to the side, tense and anxious and more than a little bit scared, but neither of the arguers cared.
Today's mission was to build a boat that floated, and they'd been given no instructions other than that.
Ibiki wanted to ask an adult for help, had pointed out they'd never been told not to, and that way, they could easily make the best boat in class.
Sarutobi said that was cheating.
They'd been fighting for a full half hour since, noses bright red in the chill of the air as the other children ran around the forest around them.
"I was having fun this morning." Kurenai muttered to Genma. Ibiki had been having fun, too—they'd been doing aerobics, and he'd had a lot of fun somersaulting over and over again—but now Asuma was being an idiot.
"Why not!"
"It's against the rules!"
"No, it isn't!""
And then Sensei was there, and all four of them had been ordered to go inside and wait.
"This is all your fault," Asuma hissed, his voice barely above a whisper as they lined the wall outside the Head's office.
"My fault?!"
Kurenai turned towards them, likely to tell them to hush once more, but before she could, the door swung open.
"Come in."
Head Teacher Shimura was a terrifying presence. Most children actively avoided even being near the man, much less interacting with him.
And now the four of them were staring at him.
He turned to Ibiki first. Of course he did.
"Student Morino."
"Yes, Sensei."
Sensei Shimura stared at him for several seconds, then turned to Asuma.
"Student Sarutobi."
"Yes Sensei."
Another pause.
He turned back to Ibiki. "How have your actions affected others?"
Ibiki frowned, but he knew how to answer that question—he'd gotten similar ones in therapy frequently enough. "I disrupted the class, and particularly my group." He left out that he, personally, blamed Asuma for that—his idea was a good one, and if Asuma hadn't decided to fight about it they'd be ahead of their classmates right now.
Sensei Shimura turned to Asuma. "How have your actions affected others?"
Asuma was clearly unaware of the expected answer. "I stopped Ibiki from breaking the rules."
Another long pause.
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"What were the rules?"
Asuma hesitated, realizing suddenly that he wasn't getting much positive reinforcement. "Um, uh…"
"If you cannot remember them, how could you be enforcing them?" Without waiting for a response, he turned to Ibiki. "What were the rules?"
"Remain in the forest," Ibiki said. "Build a boat that floats. Follow usual classroom rules."
Sensei Shimura nodded, then turned back to Asuma. "What rule were you preventing Ibiki from breaking?"
"He was going to get outside help!"
Another pause. Sensei Shimura clearly wanted them to sweat. "What rule were you preventing Ibiki from breaking?"
Asuma, finally, realized his case was not being sympathized with. "No rule, Sensei."
Sensei Shimura turned towards Ibiki. "Did your response to Asuma's effort help?"
"It did not, Sensei."
Again Sensei turned. "How did your actions affect others?"
Asuma hesitated, then attempted to repeat Ibiki's earlier answer. Ibiki held back a sneer—unjustifiably furious at Asuma for plagiarizing him. "I… disrupted the activity?"
Sensei, at last, turned away from the both of them. Unfortunately, that just set his eyes on Genma. "How have you failed today?"
"I didn't stop them?" Genma said. He looked unsure, worried about giving the wrong answer, but Sensei Shimura just turned to Kurenai.
"How have you failed today?"
"I didn't stop them."
"You have all failed today. You have all made life more difficult for yourselves and your classmates. You will not be participating in today's class. Please practice your handwriting until end of day."
Ibiki held back his snarl until they'd left the Head's office, then jogged ahead, taking the steps as quickly as possible to get away from Asuma. He could hear the other boy stomping behind him, and the pattering feet of their other two team members behind Asuma, but he was furious. He wanted to throw a tantrum, really, to yell and scream and kick, but that wouldn't be taken well.
He'd been happy this morning.
His guardians had come home only two days before, and he'd still been overjoyed to have them back, to have them safe and inside the walls.
And now.
He threw himself into his desk, pulled out the chalkboard and chalk they were using to practice their words, and got started.
He wasn't about to get in more trouble, after all.
After school.
After school he would make Asuma pay.
.
Sakura had only just gotten home, was in the middle of going over the first set of recorded effects of the few economic policies that she'd gotten implemented within Konoha, when an ANBU appeared before her.
"Yamanaka Sakura. Please immediately progress to the Hokage's Office."
Well, that… that's fun.
Sakura proceeded to progress immediately to the Hokage's Office.
Shin and Juro were already there.
That wasn't good.
"Ah… Chinmoku, I believe?"
"Yes, Hokage," Shin said. "That is our epithet."
"First, I would like to apologize from taking you away from your duties. The three of you are all doing work that greatly benefits Konoha, and the country is more than gratified for the efforts you make."
They nodded.
"We are here, unfortunately, about my son and your child."
Great.
"It seems they got into an altercation at school, and after receiving punishment for it alongside their two other teammates they chose to continue the fight off of school grounds."
Marvelous.
"Asuma has suffered a bloody nose, Ibiki a cracked lip. Both have bruising all over their bodies. They are being treated by a colleague of Special Jounin Akimichi as we speak."
The trio nodded. All kept their faces carefully blank—there was, to put it lightly, a whirlwind of feelings they were each experiencing right now, but none would be particularly helpful to show at the moment.
"Following discussions with their teacher, Head Teacher Shimura, and the ANBU who broke them up, I believe both of our children are equally at fault. They will not be split into new groups—it is important for them to overcome this hurdle, so as to work better together in the future—but I will be punishing Asuma myself for his actions. I suggest you do the same with Ibiki."
Shin nodded. "Of course, honored Hokage. This will not be an incident repeated."
"I hope not."
And then they were dismissed.
Sakura had a headache. "I thought he was doing well," She moaned. She really had, too—he'd seemed to take to Minato's words with gusto, and had so far been reported as interacting nicely with all his classmates.
"So did I," Shin said. He pinched his brow, then spoke again. "I'm leaving for the Capital again in two days."
They'd known it was coming, but they hadn't told Ibiki yet.
And now they'd have to tell Ibiki while simultaneously punishing him for attacking a comrade.
Really, truly just wonderful.
Juro grunted, no doubt thinking the same thing. "I'll get a report on his injuries, but from what it sounded like they were all the type that are quickly healed with chakra—he'll be sore tonight, but fine tomorrow."
"Just in time for discipline and then a fun tantrum when Shin leaves."
"The joys of having a kid."
They turned into the hospital, and Sakura sighed. "If he had to blow up on someone, why did it have to be the Hokage's kid?"
Juro grinned. "Well, it's not like you ever cared much about societal status—remember how you used to rant about the Yamanaka heir?"
"Well, I like him now," Sakura said.
"I'd hope so," Shin said. "What with him aiming to be your brother-in-law."
Sakura snorted, and then they were staring at a very surly-looking little boy.
.
Kushina tried to scream, but she couldn't—physically, couldn't.
She was terrified, terrified like she'd never been before. Not when she'd been made to move to an entirely different country, not when she'd been lied next to her dying relative and they'd begun the process to transfer the Kyuubi, not when she'd faced her first enemy or her first jounin enemy.
This was the first time that she was truly incapacitated, truly felt unable to do anything. She writhed, trying desperately to break free, but she seemed to be more or less bathed in rope and she could hear the crinkle of what sounded like dozens of active seals as they somehow kept her from being able to take and use the power inside her—any of it.
It was supposed to be an easy mission; patrolling a section of Fire to keep the forests clear of bandits.
It had been an easy mission, even.
Until now.
Two months in, one month until home, and—
She had no idea where she was.
She couldn't even say for sure who took her—she'd been in the north, but in the center of Fire; both Iwa and Kumo could easily be to blame.
She was helpless, and scared, and for once in her life felt very, very young.
But she was also a sensor, and for whatever reason—perhaps ignorance, perhaps lack of resources—they hadn't been able to completely cut off that ability.
Hours in, likely well past the closest border if they were as smart as they seemed, and—
It was a flicker, at first; a sort of half-imagined surge of chakra too far away to be really noticed.
But she'd noticed.
She'd kept on moving, trying to remove her constraints and get out of the box they'd trapped her in, but she tried harder to feel too, to get an idea of what it was she'd sensed.
Just as she'd convinced herself it was probably nothing, she saw it again.
And then again.
Someone—it must have been a person—just on the edge of her range.
Doubt, horrible doubt, plagued her for a moment. What if it was someone completely unaware of her kidnapping?
Except, she reminded herself, the person was keeping up—gaining, actually—and heading straight to them.
She'd barely calmed when a new thought occurred—what if it was their backup?
She strained, trying desperately to force her sensing to clarify, to become far clearer than it had ever been before.
It didn't work, of course, but the person continued to close the distance.
Deciding to hope, because there was little else to do, she tried to think of who it could be. The person, after all, did not seem to have been detected yet and was following them without issue—almost definitely a sensor, too, given the lack of a dog by their side. Not only that, but the person had to be very good indeed, to outrange her.
It took her an embarrassing amount of time to remember that, while they hadn't managed to close off her sensing completely, the box had—possibly inadvertently—lowered her range.
That increased the pool of possibilities greatly.
It was unfortunate, really, how crude her sensing ability was—others could and did identify individuals with theirs, but she'd only ever been able to manage 'existence' and 'location', and that had taken no small amount of work on its own.
Still, the chakra…
She felt like she knew it, as it got even closer.
She felt like—
The men carrying her in the box suddenly jolted, aware of the shinobi blazing towards them at such a speed that stealth wasn't even an afterthought, at the same time that she became certain of the shinobi's identity.
She roared, trying once more to free herself, and then Minato was upon them.
Ten minutes later the boy (beaten, bruised, electrocuted, and chakra-exhausted) was helping her out of the actual coffin they'd been carrying her in.
"I'm not a princess that needs saving, you know." Kushina said, cheeks blazing—after all, in this situation, she was just that. "I would have figured out a way out of there."
Minato grinned. It was more faint than usual, he really was in bad shape, but it still made his cheeks wrinkle in the same frustratingly attractive way. "I know. You're strong like that."
Kushina nodded firmly, deciding to ignore the half-teasing tone. "I am. And you're… about to pass out. Guess I'm carrying you back."
That caught Minato's attention. He barely had time to get out a "Wait—no—" before she'd slung him onto her back and begun sprinting in the direction he'd clearly come from (he'd broken more than a few saplings in his wake.) "You should be more careful of the forest, you know," She said—but, of course, he'd already fallen unconscious.
.
Kumo.
Kumo had just tried to kidnap their jinchuuriki.
Had just—
Succeeded, really.
Would have, too, if Minato hadn't literally been at the right place at the right time, noticed what was happening, and intervened.
He was in the hospital, now. Kushina was with Orochimaru, being checked up.
And the Hokage…
He'd always hated war.
It always felt like such a waste, such a pointless venture with naught but negative conclusions.
He'd been more amenable in his younger years, convinced himself of some benefits that on occasion outweighed the harms—
But even though Konoha had 'won' every war they'd been in so far, the benefits never seemed to go quite as far after the war was over.
Their most recent war, the Second Great War, Konoha had begun following the destruction of Uzu because Iwa showed every sign of planning to attack. He'd had to be convinced into that one, too; his childhood friends' honeyed words swaying him to believe, despite what past experiences might suggest, that attacking first would end well, would end with the suffering of Uzu repaid upon their torturers in full.
It hadn't happened like that, of course. They could've stayed in the war for years and it still wouldn't have happened like that.
They'd dealt a mighty blow—though Iwa was doing well hiding it, and Konoha had decided not to push the narrative too, Iwa's most powerful shinobi—their Kage—was dead, and there was no one anywhere near suitable to replace him.
The problem was that if they'd kept fighting it would have been functionally impossible to do so again, and the war would have continued with slow attrition and exhaustion until, by luck more than anything else, one side or the other got the better of the other.
Peace… peace after war, that is… it wasn't perfect either; certainly wouldn't punish those who did wrong.
But it also allowed time for people to walk with their heads up, allowed time for children to be children and the elderly to revel in their life accomplishments.
And now, all too soon, it would be over.
The Hokage was all too aware that the second the Daimyo found out what Kumo had attempted he'd demand war. He understood why, even, though he still didn't agree that it would have the desired result.
It was good for morale, he supposed, so there was that.
But the 40th anniversary of Konoha's founding had only been last week and he'd really been hoping, praying, not to see three Great Wars in the same half-century.
It almost made him nostalgic for the Warring Clans era.
Still…
Still…
Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed, adjusting his robes as two ANBU carried out one load of paperwork only to immediately replace it with another.
Still, he wished for a better world. He sighed again, staring down at his young son napping on the couch near him—he'd wanted to make it clear to the boy that he still loved him despite his recent misbehavior—and wishing more than anything for the child to grow up to a far more peaceful, better world than the one he inhabited now.
The actual act of creating such a world, however? That was better suited for a younger man.
It really was time he looked for a successor, actually, and while Namikaze Minato certainly didn't come from a clan and was far younger than any of his prior considerations…
The boy was strong.
He had just made a name for himself.
He'd been apprenticed to Jiraiya, and the Hokage's students regularly sang his praises.
Hiruzen's lips twitched. There would still be much to do before he could even suggest Minato as a candidate, but the boy was young, and the boy had spirit and power in spades.
If making a better world was a young man's game, then it was up to him to make sure the best youth were at the helm.