Minato's eyes snapped open.

He knew it was early—too early—but—

Well, when fuinjutsu muses spoke to you…

You listened.

Kushina groaned, pushing herself up on her elbows as Minato rifled through his desk.

"It is… three. In the morning."

"Yeah, yeah, sorry."

"What… are you doing?"

"Had an idea."

"An idea."

"Yeah."

"That required you to wake us both up at three in the morning?"

"Yeah."

In truth, Minato wasn't really… paying much attention. He had to get the thoughts out, the plan out, before it disappeared.

But now Kushina had sat up outright, was staring at him. "Did you figure out something with my seal?"

"Oh, um. No."

"Then how could this possibly be that important?"

"I think if I get it right it'll knock months off the war."

"Oh. Continue."

When Minato looked up again, Kushina was long gone—likely to a guest bedroom.

Still, he'd gotten his idea out.

Now he just had to actually make it work.

.

So it turned out Aunt Sakura knew a lot about bugs.

He'd kind-of sort-of known that she had a close relationship with an Aburame, but—

Well, it hadn't really affected Ibiki, had it?

Like, he knew Bokuso, but Bokuso and his mom hadn't really been close friends or anything, so.

It just.

Hadn't come up much.

Plus, even after he'd found the fireflies, she'd been busy—well, preparing for this, probably.

And then they'd been on a merchant ship for a time, and it turned out both Sadao and Misaki got seasick, so mostly they just dealt with that.

But now the five of them were progressing very, very slowly across the Land of Iron's countryside, and Aunt Sakura and Sensei had opted not to continue planning while in neutral territory.

Which meant suddenly they were training again.

And while Sensei was focused on Misaki, and Sadao was meditating—Ibiki was told not to ask—Aunt Sakura focused on him.

And bugs.

And chatting with his summons, who just would not stop casually dropping mentions of rampant cannibalism and frequent death and murder and also lifespans of shocking lengths.

Ibiki kind of wished he could join Sadao meditating.

After only three days of slowly losing faith in so-called sapient summons (who were, admittedly, very nice, but who also very clearly had a completely different sense of morality and normalcy), they reached the Capital.

They had not been stopped once.

They'd seen plenty of samurai, sure, but not a single one even attempted to interact with them.

When he'd asked Aunt Sakura about that, rubbing nervously at the side of his jacket, she'd only smiled.

"Lots of ways to show power," she said. "Fearlessness is definitely one of those ways."

.

The byoki could be contained.

The byoki—

Kaito's heart pounded, and he looked around at everyone else as he tried to calm it down.

They'd figured it out.

(Of course, the issue—

The issue—)

Acid started it all.

The byoki didn't like acid.

It almost seemed to hurt it, when the acid was strong enough.

So they'd started killing off just about any piece of byoki they could find.

And now—

The fuinjutsu was almost painfully complex, the work of a dozen Researchers over the course of months, even before the danger of the byoki had really solidified—

Before the byoki killings.

They'd done it.

They'd done it.

Tsunade wasn't even in town—they might even be able to commission enough jars to keep the byoki they hadn't yet destroyed ( a very small minority of what they once had, only still here due to the trouble with finding sufficient acid to make it worth the effort) before she came back—but they'd done it.

"Now comes the hard part," one of the Nara said.

And that was why none of them were actually celebrating.

They'd done the bare minimum, something that had never been an issue before, and—

Well, and now they actually had to figure literally anything else out about the byoki.

Anything.

"I'll send in the order. I'm sure Head Uchiha and the Hokage will prioritize it. All of you… two hours off. Then back to work."

"Hai."

.

Misaki pressed her hands against her shirt nervously, fruitlessly trying to press out wrinkles.

Sensei had told her not to worry.

Based on previous reports, they'd be foisted off on some samurai whose sole job would be to stay with them, nod along as necessary, keep an eye on them, and firmly, frequently, tell them no.

The man would have no power, no way to contact anybody actually in charge—

He would just be there to make them feel heard.

"How will we manage to get past him?" Misaki had asked.

Sensei had shrugged. "Not my job. I'm the bait. Sakura gets to figure out how to actually fish."

Which—

Misaki knew their mission was basically a last gasp.

She'd heard some of the conversations between Sensei and Head Yamanaka—Konoha was already acting as if their mineral resources were out, as if this mission would fail.

But Sensei had also made it clear that, should they achieve the impossible, Misaki would be right beside her.

Would act as her right hand, basically, as Tsunade went around treating people—would hand her what she needed, keep track of patients, and so on.

A lot of pressure.

A lot of pressure over something which might not ever come to pass.

And Misaki—

Misaki—

Everyone watched them, but no one approached.

She could feel their eyes in her sleep, even when she knew there was no possible way anyone could be looking at her.

The boys felt it too; even Sadao stood closer to them than he ever had before.

And what could they do?

Iron was sick and tired of shinobi, of kekkei genkai.

Their entire samurai structure was built around keeping shinobi out.

They had Tsunade—but how could they possibly even convince Iron to give them a chance?

.

Hiruzen slammed his way into his office.

(Normally, a whisper in the back of his mind would remind him it was Minato's office now. Today that voice was silent.)

Minato frowned at him, the ANBU bled out of the walls, let themselves be visible—

But Hiruzen didn't care.

"I told you!" he shouted. "I told you!"

"Hiruzen, I—"

"But you didn't listen! And now I have to bury a son!"

Hiruzen only had the three.

He only had the three.

And he'd told Minato—

Frontline was obviously too dangerous for any of his children—he had made them too much of a target.

They should be kept safe, well away from any danger.

But the boy had thought he knew better, and now—

"I told you!"

"Your son requested frontline," Minato said. Hiruzen hated how placating he was trying to be—how he was trying to make it seem as if there was any chance he'd made the wrong decision. "He had the skills to back up such a position; I had no reason to deny him."

"Yes, you did! I told you to!"

"Hiruzen," Minato sighed.

"He died because of you! Because of you!"

"He died because of the war," Minato said in reply. "Because of Kiri. He died saving his three teammates, giving them time to escape."

"They should have died for him!"

Hiruzen hated the way Minato was watching him.

The way the ANBU were watching him.

He hated that when they were told Biwako had collapsed to the floor, sobbing, and refused to come with him.

"I should never have let you be Hokage!"

"But you have," Minato said. "If you would like to sit, we can have some tea and—"

"I will not have tea with my son's murderer!" Hiruzen shouted.

He wanted—

He wanted to yell, scream, kill.

He wanted to mark his pain onto the world.

Instead, he turned.

Left.

The tiny voice in the back of his head had reared its head, and Hiruzen didn't want to say anything more he might regret.

(He shouldn't have retired.

He'd been tired, so tired, but—

Minato was too young.

Nowhere near old enough to understand what was important.

He shouldn't have retired.)