Ibiki screamed, a lot, but it didn't matter.
By the end of the week she was outside city walls.
She hadn't been sent alone, however.
"Aren't you a tracker? Not… you know, an infiltrator?"
Sayuri shrugged. "I know how to hide, how to track, and I've got a summons besides—a summons that won't look out of place in Kumo."
"Good point."
"What I don't get is why you're leading the mission."
"I have a higher rank. And it's my mission."
"But I'm your older sister!"
"Sayuri."
"Older. Sister. That should count for something."
"We don't have a system based purely on veterancy, Sayuri. Get over it."
Sayuri snorted.
They kept moving.
Their banter more or less stopped after passing out of Fire, and by the time they reached the Lightning border they were doing everything possible to hide their presence, no matter how much slower they made their progress. Konoha still didn't know how Kumo had tracked down their infiltrators, after all; no caution was too much.
It was hell.
The silence was one thing, the systematic covert operations bothersome but not that bad.
It was the environment which sucked.
Early spring in the Land of Lighting was… cold.
Very, very cold.
This was worsened by the extreme elevation differences across the region: the lower two thirds was fertile and mountainous, one ridge after another all pushed up against each other with almost no flat land in between—rolling hills, but much higher than any hills. A country shaped like a washboard.
Which was… well, not fun, when one was trying to get by those mountains to get to the northern plateaus where the railroads were purported to be.
Sakura woke up a little over a week into the mission and…
Just…
She turned, staring at her sister beside her. She was still on watch, her eyes darting about in the very dim light of the beginning of dawn.
Sakura made a sign, awake, then slouched up.
Four hours of sleep was really not enough to live on, but what could one do?
They were moving again in minutes, skating past a village that was just a bit too close for comfort—noticeable at all, in other words, when they needed to stay as deep in the wilderness as possible—to continue north, north, north.
Constantly keeping their chakra signatures tamped down, constantly moving slowly so as to avoid any sign of their passage…
It wore on her.
It would have been worse, of course, if they'd been heading towards any of the major cities—that was where most of the patrols would be, where the chakra sensors were and the guards stayed constantly on alert.
As it was they'd only found signs of one patrol so far, and were reasonably sure of passing through the territory of two more, but it seemed they'd lucked out: none noticed them in return.
Sakura's legs refused to move ten days in.
She woke, as usual, moved to sit up, and…
Froze.
Sayuri turned to stare at her.
Sakura made a sign—legs.
Sayuri…
Sayuri was a trained tracker. She could keep up with their pace, could exercise for days on end without break.
Sakura very much was not.
She worked in an office, only trained for an hour or two at a time. She'd not been built for days of physical exertion without pause, hadn't had enough time to train for it before their mission either.
The two stared at each other.
They'd known it would be a risk, discussed it when in Konoha, but now.
Here.
Sayuri stood, slowly.
Sakura watched her.
She slowly rid the camp of all evidence of her presence, then selected a location—a particularly dense area of foliage—to hide in.
Sakura gave her a few seconds, some time to ready any necessary weaponry.
And then she dropped her chakra masking, and started sensing instead.
She did a wide sweep first, looking for any large and unhidden chakra pools in her range.
None.
Then a more thorough sweep.
None.
Then an even more thorough sweep, double and triple checking that no one was hiding their signatures.
None.
Or, more accurately, none that her talent could see.
Which was as good as they were going to get.
She made a short sign to Sayuri—clear—but her older sister stayed hidden while Sakura turned to the second part of her task.
Juro had had her train on him, mostly, so that he could check her work and she didn't injure herself before such an important mission.
She'd gotten it down, in the end, understood the steps and how it should feel.
But there hadn't been time to experiment on herself.
She placed her palms on her calves, directing her chakra towards her cramping muscles, forcing them into better repair.
By the time she was finished, by the time her legs were almost as limber as when they'd begun the mission, two hours had passed. It had not helped that she'd been forced to routinely re-examine her surroundings, double check all over again that she couldn't feel any other presences.
They were deep in the wilderness, of course, had taken a route that was deliberately far from any reasonable passage, but that didn't mean there was no chance danger, and if they were caught...
Finally, though, she was done.
A hand sign to Sayuri and she was masking her presence again, packing up as Sayuri had done at dawn.
Sayuri grabbed her pack before she could swing it over her shoulders, and took on the extra weight herself—a wise decision, all things considered.
Ideally these horrible, terrifying pauses would be undertaken as infrequently as possible.
They arrived at the plateau four days later.
.
The Ino-Shika-Cho heirs had only just arrived at the front a few days before, but they were already making quite an impact.
They weren't doing it alone, however.
With Iwa only just entering the war, and doing so poorly besides, —their actions were too telegraphed, and they'd gone defensive preemptively only a few weeks in and were hesitating to lash out even now that it was clear Konoha was focused on Kumo—Konoha's forces had decided on a full-frontal assault.
Besides the Ino-Shika-Cho heirs, then, there were the usual powerhouses of the Sannin, Hatake, the Uchiha heir, and a good chunk of the other S- and A-ranked ninja Konoha had, including the Uzumaki and the Namikaze upstart.
They were, in other words, putting everything on the line.
Almost literally.
And it was paying off.
Kumo was not a village that valued direct confrontation; while they had some powerful members, their quantity of bloodlines meant they struggled to match power for power in all out assaults. They did better with guerilla warfare, with covert operations. It made them a hell of an enemy, even in so-called Peacetime, but it also meant that when their opponents were strong enough to simply ignore the defenses of the terrain and the various traps they'd littered the border with…
Kumo had some heavy hitters, it was true, a few powerhouses to call their own, but not nearly as many as Konoha.
And it showed.
Perhaps if Iwa—which did best when fighting along battlelines, when targeting specific opponents—still had their Powerhouse Tsuchikage instead of his son the war would have been less lopsided. Perhaps if Konoha was still worn out from the Second War, hadn't had as much time to recover their strength and resources, Kumo might have been able to pose more of a threat.
As it was, however…
Shika ducked as a man's body—heavily built, at least six feet tall—flew over his head, having been completely overturned by the charge of Chika as he paved the way for Shika and Inoichi to sweep up those who weren't killed on impact. He'd barely begun to rise when he noticed movement to his side—a quick grab with his shadows and the man barely had time to realize he was alive before one of Inoichi's poison darts was sitting between his eyes. Shika glanced down, but Inoichi had made the right call—the man showed no sign of being anyone important enough to use a paralytic instead of killing outright.
They kept moving forward, pushing up the mountain to make another run at Kumo's camp before they had time to fully move back. They were still far from Kumo's border, locked in battle on Frost, but then Frost was allied with Kumo—they had little reason to protect the environment, and every reason to take over as much as possible as quickly as possible.
They'd made three prior passes, each time giving them three days to recover before hitting them again. This time they'd only given them two, and the sheer number of enemies was proof enough that the surprise attack was a success.
The wind, blowing as it was towards the north, masked the scent of smoke from Shika as he caught two more survivors in his shadows, but the actual body of ash was more than enough to stretch the shadows to his benefit—it was a large part of why they'd put Uchiha Fugaku to the East, so that his smoke worked more to their benefit than their enemies'. His techniques wouldn't leave much to be interrogated, it was true, but that's why Shika and Inoichi had been directed straight at the assumed position of the camp leader: it was their job to get as many officials as possible before they had a chance to escape or be killed.
To their west Jiraiya, the only Sannin currently on the front, was working to do… something (he hadn't really been filled in on the details) while Hatake kept them clear of enemies. And in front of them—just at the edge of his vision, and even then only in flashes—was the teenage duo, Namikaze and Uzumake working together to hold off Kumo's reinforcements if and when they arrived.
Their current progress wouldn't last, of course.
The further they went into Frost territory the more time Kumo had to set up, and it was beginning to show.
The traps were becoming more dense, false leads multiplying, and because they couldn't progress across the entire border at the same speeds (the natural geography making that more or less impossible) they increasingly ran the risk of a flanking attack.
But their current work was leaving a mark.
Shika remembered hearing of the rapid progress at the beginning of the Second War, but this felt different. Then it seemed as if Iwa wanted to fall back a little, wanted the advantage of knowing the land better. Here it felt that it was a benefit to Kumo, but they'd much rather be the ones on the offensive, putting Konoha on the back foot.
Shika grinned as Inoichi stuck their third prisoner with the paralytic poison—this was a good haul for today, three possible sources of information.
A shout, and it was time to turn back—too many reinforcements arriving too quickly, so now they had to make sure to hold their position in preparation for their next attack in a few days time.
Shika was more than happy to transition to a holding pattern, though; the quicker that happened the quicker he'd be allowed off rotation to rest up for the next charge and the sooner he could read the letter for him that arrived that morning.
It might have only been a few days, and he knew for a fact that it was too early for anything to have happened, but if chakra Clones could be used medically…
He really hoped, no matter how much he reminded himself of how stupid it was to do so, that they'd somehow already made progress. Already figured out some way to stop anyone else in the future from having to die like his sister did.
Even if the letter was just a progress report, though, he'd be happy to see it.
He was holding up his end of the bargain, and he was more than eager to learn if everyone else was too.
.
Kato Doi wanted to tear his hair out.
Orochimaru, for all that he'd been surprisingly uninterested the first time he'd explained Sakura's idea of using a modified Clone, looked much the same.
They'd been at this for only a little while, only two weeks, but…
Well, with only Orochimaru and the Hokage there to actually produce clones (Orochimaru could reliably make five, was probably capable of making more but wanted to keep something in reserve, and the Hokage only ever sent two) they'd always known progress would be slow.
That might have been the reason for Orochimaru's disinterest, but Doi had the feeling it was something else.
That might have just been his paranoia talking, though.
Regardless, two weeks in and…
Nothing.
Oh, many ideas—Jiraiya had even sent a slew of concepts on how to modify the jutsu, as had several other shinobi who had in the past created or modified their own jutsu. Uchiha Fugaku actually had a great idea about modifying the specific order of the chakra pathways to increase the durability of a clone in exchange for sacrificed power (an idea which hadn't been entirely successful, but still gave them something to start on)—but it was still…
Everything felt there, like the answer was just one twist of chakra away.
And yet both—as well as their many assistants, all running around, recording data, and collating documents—knew that this would likely take months, if not years.
And that was assuming it was possible.
Not everything was.
It was still worth it, of course, even worth not reporting his niece missing daily (though he'd taken to talking about it loudly in the market instead, which Doi was fairly sure had not been what the Hokage was going for), but it felt too much like taking shots in the dark, like rolling dice and hoping they came up in your favor without even knowing how many sides the die had.
Today had seemed a particularly pointless use of the clones, as had the day before and the day before that.
And even though the sun had just barely begun their descent the lack of surviving clones meant, practically, that they were done for the day.
It was time to return to the many other projects Doi and Orochimaru both had running.
Both remained seated.
"I think we'll need to go back to Fugaku's idea tomorrow, or try one of Jiraiya's other ones. They have been the only ones that have shown some merit so far."
"It is unfortunate that they are both on the front." Orochimaru said. He closed his eyes, breathed in and out. "I'm due to replace my teammate in soon. We will continue with Fugaku's ideas until then, and then you can work with Jiraiya on his own."
Doi nodded; it was a sensible plan.
They remained seated.
This idea, should it work…
It would be revolutionary.
But the problem was actually making it work—a problem, Doi thought more than a little sardonically, that Sakura had left him to deal with.
Still, the other projects couldn't wait. He had his work on bladders, and he was sure Orochimaru was quite a busy man himself. "See you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow, then."
The two left the room.
.
Ibiki squinted unhappily at Asuma, who squinted unhappily back.
They were having a 'play date.'
They'd seemingly been left alone, but both knew better than to believe that.
They'd also been given several toys, some snacks, and a courtyard to mess about in.
Ibiki ignored it all.
He didn't want to be here, wanted to be home with Juro and Sakura and Shin.
But Shin was in the Capital and Sakura was… somewhere and Juro was working, and so was seemingly every other adult Ibiki might otherwise be left in the care of, and so he was alone.
…Sakura, or more accurately the Yamanaka as a whole, had always emphasized trying to relate to others, to figure out why the behaved as they did.
Ibiki, still glaring, but increasingly aware that one of them had to do something or else they'd just keep being forced together for the rest of their lives, tried to do just that.
"I can't relate to you!" He finally snapped.
"What?"
"You're the Hokage's kid, and you've never suffered once in your life! I can't relate to you at all!"
Asuma launched himself at him.
In seconds they were wrestling on the ground, their chairs knocked away and their clothes sullied by the dirt on the ground.
"I hate you!"
"I hate you!"
"You—you don't know anything!"
"Shut up!"
"I don't even want to be here!"
"You think I do?!"
"But Mom and Dad are busy, and when they're busy I'm just left alone, and it sucks!"
"What?"
The two wrestling boys froze.
"Your family's busy too?"
"My Dad's the Hokage, stupid."
Inoichi huffed a laugh. "At least you know your Dad."
"…Yeah, I guess so. Still sucks that he's never around."
"Most of my guardians aren't even in Konoha, and Juro works all of the time anyway."
The boys sat, stared at each other in curiosity, and finally—for the first time since they'd met at the very start of school—began comparing their lives out loud instead of inside their own heads.
The ANBU watching grinned behind his mask, watching as the young boys turned from enemies to friends in a matter of minutes, completely uncaring of their previous violent animosity; oh, to be young again.