With Uchiha Shuji agreeing to help with her data analysis—he thought the effort might be useful in deciding how to improve his as-yet nonfunctioning machine—and access to basically all the Konoha-specific records she might need, Sakura wasted no time getting what information there was from the Land of Mushrooms and adding that to the pile.

Besides that, she spent two hours a day, every day, in meditation, looking for yet more economic insights, and a further eight hours dedicated solely to the slow and haphazard process of trying to make sense of the half-formed theories in her mind. Combined with family obligations, clan obligations, letters, taijutsu practice, and sleep, Sakura was using every single minute of every single day to do something.

For all that, it felt like one step forward, two back—she was making progress.

Slowly.

So, of course, that's when the next hurdle came into view.

"A retinue?"

"Well, you want your nephew on it, right?"

"Yes, Deputy Head."

"Retinues are usually larger than one person. Who else?"

"Um."

.

Sakura wrote to Sensei, but she held little hope of a response. He'd been sent all the way west again that summer, with Shin in tow, so they would be far out of the reach of messages for at least another couple of months.

So she wrote to Juro too.

Juro, thank everything, was no longer working in the POW complex. He hadn't returned home as they'd initially hoped, which sucked, but he'd been moved while she'd been in the hospital and now worked with the First Third, which had a literal swarm of medics and meant he was actually learning again.

He loved it, apparently.

He was also unlikely to provide her with any quick answers.

Dad was gone, Sayuri—her contract firmly set—would soon be too, and none of her sisters could really provide many suggestions anyway, though they all thought it was nice to give Rento the experience.

So Sakura decided to go with her gut.

Taro was settling in under Orochimaru, none of the other researchers who worked in the relevant fields were particularly interested in working abroad, and Sakura sincerely doubted the Hokage would allow more than two from the same clan into her party.

So she went to Aiko.

Actually seeing her friend was a shock, and before she could help herself, Sakura had come to a complete stop to more easily ogle the paperwork nin. Aiko had a black eye and a burn—mostly healed already through liberal application of cream—slicing up nearly the entire length of her arm.

"What happened to you?!"

Aiko groaned. She was in her last scheduled year at the Academy, Sakura knew, teaching some of the oldest kids to prepare them for next summer's graduation. She had a class of her own, a scrawny genin assistant Inuzuka Daiki (her dog was recovering from a poison attack, so she was reassigned for the month it'd take for him to recover) to help her out, and she was studying for her law exam so that she could officially begin practicing as a junior prosecutor the next summer.

Realistically, she was supposed to be doing quite well.

"You know how the General convinced the Hokage to let him make changes to the Academy?"

"Yes."

"Well, he ran with it. Longer days, harder lessons—just about everyone's behind, and they can't help it! I liked it at first, but the kids just can't keep up. And then there's how we're teaching genin lessons to kids now."

"Which left you burned and bruised because…."

"Because the General, in his oh-so-wise commandments, has gotten us teaching battleline!"

Learning how to fight side by side with not only two or so teammates but dozens of others, all in a row, was a surprisingly difficult skill.

Oh, you could learn the taijutsu stances easily enough—there was a reason every able-bodied Konoha citizen was trained in such—but learning when and where to add in weaponry, ninjutsu, genjutsu, literally any other skill—that was…

Much more difficult.

Aiko sighed. "And trying to teach that when there's only me, and the Inuzuka, watching… I only saw the misaimed fire jutsu out of the corner of my eye, and barely had time to get in front of it before the damned Uchiha let it go. They were told not to use ninjutsu at all, but you know that clan. Screw what helps anyone else; all that matters is that they get ahead."

"And the black eye?"

"I may have said as much to the kid's father." Sakura sucked in air between her teeth. Aiko, more than a little upset still but clearly aware she'd made the wrong choice for her career, shrugged. "Not much I can do about it now. What did you want to talk to me about?"

Sakura hesitated, but Aiko was clearly done ranting for the moment; she'd never liked stewing aloud. "I, um, I've been given a mission."

She explained her new promotion and her new mission, now officially classified as A rank, and her struggles. She was honestly equally unwilling to bemoan her problems aloud, but her therapist made it very clear that "it is good" to talk through your problems wherever possible. Once she'd finished, said all that she needed to say, Sakura sat.

And waited.

She'd known, only a few sentences in, what Aiko's response would be. Now she just had to wait for the other girl to get the words out.

It took seventeen seconds.

"Take me with you!"

Sakura grinned. "Of course."

"It's not just because it'll help my career and get me out of the reach of any Uchiha backlash—I can help you too. Bureaucracy is what I do, after all, and—"

"I already agreed."

"—I can also help set up your retinue. Admittedly, I haven't done that before, but you'll be so busy that—"

"Is there a specific word I'm supposed to use? Yes? Okay? Request granted?"

"—I'm sure I can figure it out with plenty of time to spare. And trust me, this is a great opportunity for me. Gets me out of my current job—"

"Should I just walk away then? Let you come after me after you've finished talking to yourself?"

"—more experience in economics, I mean, this is just—oh. You agreed."

"I did."

Aiko threw herself on Sakura.

.

Sakura dumped a pile of papers in front of her nephew the next day.

"Here."

"This is… a lot, you know."

"Yes." Said Sakura. "And don't forget that there are only a couple weeks left to do anything with it."

Rento groaned.

He'd been thrilled that very morning, when his Sensei had officially given him leave to start working as an assistant to his aunt. She'd worked overtime since Sakura had brought the opportunity up to find positions for his teammates Nara Kayo and Akimichi Kunio, and now that Kayo was firmly positioned with one of her own aunts, receiving additional training in shadow jutsu, and Kunio was sent to the walls—he'd always wanted to be a guard—Rento was finally able to start his own career.

Sakura had known the happiness would only last until they actually got to her desk.

"It's too much!"

"You'll live." Looking around, Sakura grabbed Fuma Erigami's chair—they weren't supposed to be in today—and dragged it beside her nephew.

"Here's where we'll start—"

.

In the end, her retinue was six: herself, her nephew, Aiko, two fighting-focused chuunin, and a rather perceptive genin who was part of Aiko's clan.

Both of the chuunin were Mitokado, which was a further advantage: the Mitokado were a particularly merchant-focused shinobi clan.

"Two and two and two." Rento said.

Sakura glanced at him, then went back to shuffling through his pack. It was the second time he'd brought it over—the first time, the pack had been built fine for living in the woods, but not a city—at least this time, it seemed to have all the necessary accouterment without too.

"What?"

"We're in three pairs of two—Yamanaka, Utatane, Mitokado. Hey, we took the Shimura's place!"

Sakura rolled her eyes. She didn't say it out loud, but she was glad for the lack of that particular clan. She knew Aiko was friends with a great number of them (that her clan triad wasn't as close as Ino-Shika-Cho didn't mean they weren't close), but she'd had mostly negative experiences with those she'd interacted with, and Arden's memories—

She shut that thought process off.

That was something to deal with during meditation, not now.

The latest batch of memories nagged at her, though. They were finally those that seemed to be of Sakura's world, if in cartoon form, of the Land of Waves, and Gato, and a bridge, and close combat fights against deadly enemies.

Still, she didn't have the time to analyze it. They were leaving in an hour, and she'd only just said goodbye to her brother, her niece, and her sisters and packed herself—they still had to finish up Rento's own preparations, get breakfast, and meet with the rest of the retinue.

"Your packing's good enough this time, though you put things in a bit haphazardly. Something to work on. Anything else you need to do before we go?"

"Nah. Said my goodbyes already."

"Let's go."

.

No small distance across the continent, Shin frowned over the documents splayed between him and his Sensei.

"This isn't good."

Sensei Mitokado gave no response, but Shin knew he agreed.

With the new General's push for a harsher attack, for an end to the war, and Earth's own internal struggles, Iwa would be motivated to change targets—to convince Suna it wasn't worth it to keep on battling against them.

Both sides knew that, and already some of Suna's troops were withdrawing from the frontline to guard the country itself against any counterattack.

The problem was that there was just too much to guard—Wind may have been centered on a desert, but that only meant its livable portions were days and days and days away from each other, and its borders endless—too many possible weak points to even hope to defend them all.

Shin' and Sensei's job, then, had been to convince the bordering lands to side with Wind and Fire, to feed them information about enemy movement at least and hopefully even help fight the Shinobi of Earth too.

It wasn't going well.

In total, the Land of Wind had fifteen minor nations of varying sizes along its length.

The Lands of Sand and Fox Fur, both far south and to Wind's left, had already decided firmly that they were too far out of the way to bother with any of the deadly war; they didn't want to draw attention at all, and therefore were refusing to commit to anyone.

The Oil Kingdom—one of the few whose rulers could trace their lineage to the long-dead Emperor of the West—out and out refused to deal with their 'lessers.'

They had mostly survived up until that point through their assumed divine authority and enormous samurai class, and would likely continue to do so well into the future.

The Land of Hell was all but uninhabited, and lived as its own nation mostly because no one had bothered to do anything about the excessively hot country—it was rumored that they didn't even have any drinkable water in the Land, but Sensei didn't believe that they'd be able to support what populous they did have without some kind of local supply. Still, while their silence amounted to the same stance as Fox Fur and Sand, theirs was equally merited—their border with Wind was barely a kilometer wide, completely unfit for moving troops through, and only existed to begin with to encompass a single road and allow them to establish an outpost.

And that dealt with all the bordering lands to the West of Wind.

Somewhat useless in terms of allies, but then they were equally undesirable for Earth.

On the right lay the Lands of Storms and Rivers; they were not lands that Shin and Sensei had traveled to or even communicated with much, but then there was little point. The Land of Storms—for all that their samurai would only work outside of their borders for a steep price—were more aligned with Fire than either Earth or Wind, all three of which they bordered, and they were also fierce and militaristic and would accept no outside soldiers within their own borders. They were relatively secure. The Land of Rivers, on the other hand, was nowhere near Earth and, bordered as it was between Wind and Fire, had historically been more than willing to do anything to continue the peaceful relationship between their Great neighbors. There were rumblings that their new Kage wanted to make a name for himself, but they were rumblings only—and turning to Earth to get that name was political suicide.

To the south of the Land of Wind, taking up a small chunk of the beach and an island, was the Desert Kingdom.

Shin and Sensei did not even try to get in contact with them, and they doubted anyone else had either—they only bordered Wind, and Wind let them live primarily because of the vastly different culture rather than any kind of military power.

And then there were the Lands to the North. From East to West, none were exactly the replies Konoha wanted.

Land of Demons: one of the most religious of the Lands, their priestess had forewarned getting involved in any aspect of the war. They wouldn't let Iwa through, not willingly anyway, but neither would they support Suna, and their military force was small enough that the only thing that would keep Iwa away would be religious superstition—powerful but not reliable, particularly given the range of religions practiced in the north.

Land of Cedar: Best known for a limited quantity of extremely powerful ninjutsu. Hated Iwa with a vengeance for trying to steal their ninjutsu scrolls, but then hated Suna and a half dozen other Lands with a vengeance for the same reason—the scrolls were very popular targets. As yet, Konoha had not made a (discovered) attempt, so their relationship was rather peaceable, but Cedar wasn't exactly about to help anyone in the war, so hopefully their long practice at keeping enemies away from their scrolls would keep Iwa from the land entirely.

Land of Fangs: Huge, glaring weak point. Not only did they have their own ongoing on-again-of-again war with the Land of Claws, but unlike the Land of Claws, they also bordered a relatively populous area of Suna and enough hills to break up any large-scale Wind attacks that Suna might like to respond with. Historically leaned towards Earth, but favored stability—Earth's internal struggles were a slight against them.

Land of Claws: Similar issues to the Land of Fangs, but also crappy soil and very flat. Not great for Iwa's ninjutsu attacks and ideal for Suna's: less of a problem than Fangs. Historically leaned toward Wind, but in recent decades had grown resentful of the lack of aid in their attempts to subsume the Land of Fangs, and the purely defensive aid in their attempts to shield against the Land of Fangs' attempts to subsume them. Current outright vassals of Iwa too, at least on paper.

Land of Keys: Well known for being experts in espionage. Ideal land for Iwa, but they had historically been successful at blackmailing any nation's army to stay far away from their borders. Konoha and Suna just had to hope that this time was no different.

Land of Bears: Split in half by a ravine of actually poisonous gas. Unless you lived there, you stayed well away, and those who lived there didn't tend to live long past their sixties, and even those were sickly years. But hey, they didn't even have bandits to worry about, so that's nice.

Land of Stone: Another religious Land. Historically those who targeted Stone were hit with bouts of very bad luck, so superstition, if nothing else, kept people well away. Possible but unlikely route for Iwa, then.

Land of Birds: Well infiltrated by Konoha following the death of the past Daimyo. While Konoha had no doubt others had done much the same, there was no worry about anything happening within the borders of the Land surrounded by Earth, Storms, Wind, and Stone—it was too well monitored, which was the only reason the land—incredibly lush and resource-abundant—was allowed to continue unmolested.

Perfectly aware that Iwa was operating on similar if not better knowledge, Shin and Sensei had raced to get into contact with the Land of Mountains—Fangs' northern neighbor, which prevented the latter country from having more than a nominal border with Earth—and convince that land to prevent any incursion.

They'd just received the reply.

"What's our next step?"

Sensei sighed. "Suna will have gotten a similar message, no doubt, so we need to act fast—prove how helpful we are as an ally before they feel they have to deal with all their problems and ours besides. A quick and brutal attack, then, by a few powerful shinobi—not enough to hurt them overmuch, but enough to remind them that Iwa isn't a reliable protector."

Shin snorted. "Would we do any better?"

Sensei took a second to answer.

"It rather matters on who's in charge, and their priorities at the moment. We have been investing quite significantly in minor nations recently, however, so at the moment yes. And Mountains has the intel to know that. Still, they have historically been more loyal to Iwa—it's no surprise, just not what we wanted. I'll pen a letter to the Hokage now. You pack up."

"Pack—"

"You've done very well, Shin. You deserve some respite."

Shin stared at his Sensei. They'd been sitting in their cramped little outpost for hours, watching from all sides as the sun beat down on the wooden hut and the desert shuffled along on every side.

It had been days since the last time they'd visited a town, weeks since they'd visited the last Daimyo, and months since the last time Shin had seen home.

Months.

Sakura—Sakura was home. Juro might be too, by now, and either way so were his parents, his nephews, his clan.

So were many of his other friends.

"Let's go."

.

Juro grinned, his face shining despite the weather outside the building.

"Well done, Akimichi." Medic Uchiha said, glancing over his work with a practiced eye. "Really well done."

Between the two lay the body of a fellow Akimichi, his entire torso cut open and two hours of careful work ensuring each and every stone had been removed, every bit of internal bleeding stemmed.

"Ready to sew him up?"

"Yes, Medic Uchiha."

She nodded at him, then turned back to her own patient—a far more difficult operation which, if done properly, would ensure the man still had at least one functional hand by the end of it. "Medic Akimichi is nearly ready for his next patient!" She called out.

The genin—Juro couldn't even begin to guess her name—nodded furiously and then dashed into the pre-op room, reappearing moments later. "Next most severe is amputation!"

The medic behind Juro, Medic Hyuuga, snorted. "You don't have to say all of that, you know. We assume the 'most severe' bit. Just say the needed operation."

The fourth medic—Medic Nara, closest to the door—was the one who took in the meaning of the words first. "Wait, really?"

"Yes, Medic."

He snorted. "Hear that? We've got nothing more severe than amputations left!"

A hoarse chuckle made its way around the room; they'd been at it for hours, still had three more to go until the next surgeons would cycle in, and the General's tactics, however successful they were in continuing to push the battleline into Earth's lands, meant they were never short on patients, even had new medics like Juro transferred up, so the idea of only having amputations and easier injuries left—nothing more severe…

"By all the kami, I feel like dancing!" Medic Uchiha said.

"I'll join you with a barrel of sake after this," Medic Nara said.

Medic Hyuuga—usually uptight—rolled her shoulders. "You know what, I'll join you. How about you Akimichi? You in?"

Juro considered. His eyes felt ready to seal shut, his legs were achingly painful after nine hours standing with only short breaks, and his head was throbbing with all the new techniques and knowledge Medic Uchiha grilled into him as they worked, but the idea of a bit of levity…

That was hard to pass up.

The next patient—a crush injury, absolutely no use trying to save the right foot—was deposited, already under, in front of him as his fellow Akimichi was carried away. As a response to both the new challenge and the question, Juro grinned.

"Let's go."