Kohana stared at the waves as they lapped the shore.
She liked living in Uzu, mostly. The sound of the sea was nice, and there was always something to do and someone to help.
The worry over the danger of an attack—
Well, that was less pleasant.
But they had sensing seals, now, posted all the way inland and far out to sea, and the seals checked for any possible gas attack, sent out alerts fast enough for people to put on masks, get in bunkers—
They'd only had to do that once since the start of the war.
Inoichi had been surprised by that, expected more; Kohana had just been happy that the defenses worked exactly as planned.
There were plenty of samurai and shinobi here, too, and as Kiri continued to focus on the mainland's east coast, Uzu became a key stopping point for ships in the southern seas to turn around, and head west once more.
All the more reason for them to be a target, Inoichi had warned.
And yet—
Besides the one gas attack, besides the intermittent poking by Kiri forces—
They'd not been targeted.
Not like the mainland.
Kohana had no background in politics, in military tactics.
She didn't know the whys.
But she was one of the highest-ranking Yamanaka on the island, now, and so she saw first-hand the results.
Immigrants.
So, so many immigrants.
Immigrants from Fire's east coast were the most common, followed by immigrants from the many smaller nations that Kiri was also raiding.
There was also a surprisingly large number of immigrants from the north – from the border nations between Kumo, who hadn't taken Kumo's blood testing very well, who were worried about their futures.
And there were immigrants from so far west that Kohana had never met anyone from there before—Immigrants from the Land of Rice, and the Land of Dragons.
Not many, admittedly.
And the immigrants only moved to the shinobi-controlled side of Uzu.
But—
They'd come.
Fishers and merchants, people driven out by the apparent explosion of sea trade and fisheries on the far west of the continent.
Here—
People did fish, even commercially, but not in nearly so great a number.
The risk of pirates had, historically, been too high.
But now Fire's samurai were patrolling anyway, keeping Kiri forces and all other malicious actors far from Uzu—
And so fishing had exploded.
And now, now she had a letter from Sakura.
And her sister had written about the resource shortage.
Inoichi had mentioned the shortage, but it wasn't his area of expertise; he'd assumed someone would deal with it, and Kohana had done the same.
Except apparently they were running out of buyers, of options.
Sakura already knew that Uzu proper was giving all it could, but she'd written Kohana anyway out of desperation.
Out of the foolish sort of hope only family could engender.
And Kohana wasn't about to let her down.
She looked out over the endless waves, and she considered.
The southern route was disused compared to more north-south routes because most of the continent's southern shoreline… sucked.
Mainland Fire was okay, mostly, had a number of ports—
But Wind, for all that it had two or three ports, didn't have arable land anywhere near the shore. And Wind was large—very large—and merchants were leery of going that long without a port to stop in at, do repairs at, get food at.
Except.
Except the immigrants from the Lands of Rice and Dragons, they'd talked about the whaling vessels that might spend months out at sea, going so far from any shore that they might not see any birds at all for days at a time.
So it was clearly possible.
And if it were possible—
The Land of Iron (made up of some of the most mineral-rich mountains on the continent) was currently really the best option for Fire, even though Iron bordered only Earth and everything had to be delivered through the notoriously stormy Isihi-ka bay, because Sabaku Sea to the continent's south was just that barren.
If that didn't matter—if merchants from the Land of Dragons (who were so metal-flush, they made artwork out of iron) could get through the Sea—
Kohana whipped around.
It seemed as if Konoha had little time, so Kohana needed to meet with those Land of Dragons migrants today.
.
Wooden faces.
That's all they were.
Everyone around them—
Oh, they weren't actually wooden, like the type used in plays, carefully carved with exaggerated features so even those sitting far away could follow along.
But they were exactly as one-dimensional.
Sadao struggled not to shudder every time he saw them.
They gave him a break from his thoughts, it was true, but was it worth it?
(Yes, he knew. Yes it was.
He could still hear Sensei's voice ringing out—
The list of Sakura's accomplishments—
The list of her own—
Her description, far too detailed, of her brother's death.
Of her fiancé's death.
Of Mito's death.
Of Orochimaru's betrayal.
On and on and on it had gone; and every time he thought she might stop, she had not.
She had not even gone in chronological order—had carefully removed any chance that he might feel near the end.
And then she'd repeated her accomplishments.
Slowly.
And she'd stared at him, right in the eye, and dared him to tell her that her failures mattered more than her successes.
And—)
Sadao had known from the beginning that visiting the Land of Iron was an exercise in futility, everyone had.
But this was nothing like what he'd expected.
He'd expected outright hostility.
He'd expected the behavior of civilians who couldn't understand shinobi superiority.
He'd expected—
Fear.
Behind the masks, Sadao was still sure there was fear.
But the masks, the wooden smiles that just so happened to be made of their wearer's own skin, betrayed no fright at all.
Only disinterest, bland politeness was perceptible.
Sadao had wondered why the Land of Earth hadn't taken over Iron.
His father had always instilled in him that that was how the strong kept power, grew stronger.
They subsumed the weak.
Destroyed the weak.
Used the weak, and then threw them away, having taken what little power the weak had for themselves.
And his father was a powerful man.
(Was he? Was he really? He was a jounin, true enough, but so were Sensei and Head Yamanaka, and he respected neither of them.
Sadao may not have known what Head Yamanaka invented, but he'd seen—benefited—from those inventions many times throughout his life.
Sadao may not have known what Sensei did, but the results—once pointed out—were too obvious to deny.
His father…
Ran missions.
Sadao had always considered that important, considered that a sign of his father's strength.
But—
Every ninja ran missions.
If, tomorrow, the Hokage should die, Sadao wondered how many other shinobi would be considered before his father.
One hundred?
Two hundred?
Three?
And yet, his father was still worth something to him.
The thoughts roiled within Sadao, left him restless and tired.
But the only break he got was dealing with Iron's diplomacy, and that was no break at all.)
They'd piqued the man's interest with the offer of Tsunade's services, but that had been on day two.
They were a week in, now, with no results.
The man had no power.
No one they were allowed near had power.
(And yet they had a purpose. And yet their purpose was one of the ways that Iron had, so far, avoided being subsumed into Earth.
Earth was more powerful, but Iron couldn't be taken over, not really.
Sadao hadn't understood what Sensei had meant when she said that, but that had been when they were still in Fire.
Now…
Now he was beginning to see more than he ever had before.
He wasn't sure if he liked it.
(Madara. One of the Uchiha's most famous ancestors.
A madman.
And yet that hadn't stopped him from being powerful.
Were weakness and power not simply inverses of one another?
Were there multiple types of each, a far more complex picture than Sadao had ever bothered with before?)
Ibiki was busy with his insects.
Misaki was busy with her dead fish.
Sadao—
Sadao was busy with his thoughts, but he desperately wished anything else was the case.
If he asked nicely enough, would Sensei let him go back to living in his safe little bubble?