Chinmoku—even Shin, who'd had to race back to Konoha from the Capital—were called into the Hokage's office a few weeks after Sakura's birthday.

She was seventeen now, seventeen to Shin's eighteen and Juro's nineteen and Ibiki's five.

(It felt as if time was moving too fast, as if she was desperately trying to figure out how to do all she could but months were slipping by without her making much of a difference at all.)

The Hokage, as usual, was behind his desk, working on a seemingly endless stack of papers.

"Hello, chinmoku." He said, looking up as an ANBU allowed them in. "I'll get straight to the point. You have a mission."

"Uzu?"

"No, no—the guard house is working fairly well now, and the Daimyo is considering formally annexing the island once the war is over; those plans are progressing smoothly. No; Frost."

"They're changing allegiances, then?" Not particularly surprising, rumors had begun spreading months ago, but Sakura hadn't paid much attention to them; Frost had yet to appear in Arden's memories at all, and she had too many other things on her plate already.

"Yes. Your genin Sensei Mitokado, Namikaze Minato, and you, Nara Shin, will be writing the treaty. In exchange for their allegiance you, Sakura, will be working with their ministers on economics while you, Juro, will be coordinating with the local government to supply the food your clan is generously donating to the cause."

Chinmoku shuffled uncomfortably. "Would it be possible for one of my clanmates to take that role, actually? We'd prefer it if one of us could stay home with Ibiki."

"Actually, your child will be going along."

Sakura blinked.

"He will?"

"Yes. It is traditional for children to be brought along to peace negotiations—and really, that's what this is—as a sign of good faith. My own son, Asuma, was present for much of the accords that ended the last war. Besides that, Jounin Namikaze—he was promoted some months ago due to his work on the frontlines—will be bringing his student, a young Hatake Kakashi."

Chinmoku shuffled. Kumo… kind of wasn't Ibiki's favorite place, with what had happened to him there, but he'd never really seemed to express any sort of opinion on Frost, so they doubted it would be harmful to him, particularly as his mind had fully recovered from the torture he'd undergone, but—

He was also five.

And this would be his first time since outside Konoha walls.

And—

Well, he'd like Minato being there at least. Still idealized the teen.

"You'll be leaving in three days. I'll let you get to your preparations. Dismissed."

Chinmoku bowed, then took their exit.

Sakura—

"I guess we're going to Frost, then." Shin said.

"I'm going to have to talk to my clan head." Juro said. "I've never worked in supply logistics before."

"Well, I've had the experience with Mushrooms at least. Something tells me that working with former enemies might be a bit different, though."

"I'll pick Ibiki up from school." Shin said. "I think he'll be happy, actually."

"Minato?"

"That, and he'll get something to brag about, and he and Asuma will get to share the experience."

"I bet Asuma was too young to remember much of anything that happened."

"Guarantee you they'll still bond over it, though."

Sakura shrugged, agreeing. "I'm going to go Delegate my projects, then. See you at dinner."

"Barbeque? Might as well go out for it."

"Sounds good. I'll tell Himari; Kohana's eating with the Head Family tonight anyway."

Shin snorted. "She still terrified of them?"

"Less so, now. Inoichi's still super apologetic of hiding their relationship whenever he can come to eat with us, though, so that's fun."

.

Three days later Sakura, Shin, Juro, and Ibiki made their way to Konoha's gates.

Sensei hadn't yet arrived, but Minato and his student were already there.

"Hi Minato!"

"Hey, Ibiki! Enjoying the Academy?"

"Yeah! It's still boring a lot but I have friends and they're teaching me stuff the school isn't! Asuma even showed me how to get out of wrist ties without looking like I'm free!"

Sakura… hadn't known that. By the look of it, neither had Juro or Shin. Still, there were worse things for him to know.

"Cool! Here, I want to introduce you to someone. This is Hatake Kikashi."

"Hello, Genin Hatake." Ibiki recited—they'd been emphasizing rank a lot recently in his class, which was likely the only reason he didn't refer to the boy who was barely older than him by his first name. Behind him chinmoku nodded.

Hatake… didn't look impressed.

But then, he had the sort of face that strongly suggested he rarely looked impressed.

"And," Minato said, turning to his student to finish introductions, "this is Morino Ibiki and his guardians, Akimichi Juro, Nara Shin, and Yamanaka Sakura. They are all special jounin."

Hatake nodded to each of them as they were introduced, and then—

And then everyone turned towards the gate as something that sounded suspiciously like a shriek rang through the air.

"What—"

"I'm not touching that—that—that thing!"

In the genin's defense, the horse that she was standing next to—no doubt one of the ones meant for their trip—had just pooped, a habit which was the very reason that the horses were not usually allowed within the rules.

This didn't quite make up for her not actually being allowed to refuse, but Sakura remembered all too well her first experience with the same to not feel at least a little empathetic.

Her sensei—and it was clear now that she was part of a genin team which had been specifically assigned to load their wagons—was less understanding.

"Lead. The. Horse. NOW!"

The girl turned the horse around, leaning as far away from it as she could.

"That's a horse." Ibiki said.

"Yes."

"I didn't know they pooped that much."

"They're very large creatures." Shin said. "They have a lot of poop."

Ibiki grinned. "Cool."

Sakura smirked, eying Minato's genin as his face revealed his reaction to be far closer to his genin peer's than Ibiki's.

"Have you told your student what his duty will be yet?"

"Ah, no." Minato admitted. "Was kind of hoping they'd allot a driver for each cart."

"Nope, we're keeping the wagons in Frost and Konoha never likes their drivers to be inactive for long. Plus there are far more wagons and horses than drivers."

"I'm—I'm supposed to—"

"You'll be sitting at the front of the back wagon and directing it, Kakashi." Minato said. "It's pretty easy to get the hang of— the horses are well trained—and all you have to do is make sure your wagon keeps following the front wagon. Um—" Juro coughed. "—Juro will be directing that one." Hatake's face was a picture of betrayal. Minato's was the very model of guilt. Hope got you far, until it didn't and you had to face the consequences. "I'm sorry, Kakashi, but we're in war—all the wagon drivers have other priorities."

There were some benefits to Sakura's first wagon trip being during a time of peace; this was not a hurdle she had to surmount, and given the reactions of Hatake and her nephew all those months ago it was a very significant hurdle indeed.

"There's Sensei." Shin said, turning to—ah, yes, a fast-approaching blob that was headed straight from the Mitokado compound.

"Alright, let's make sure everything's loaded."

.

In the end the trip through Fire went quite smoothly. Despite the war and increased military traffic their current position meant that Fire as a whole was doing fine, and so the risks were low and the pace steady.

Their pace through the Land of Hot Water slowed somewhat, burdened as they were by a greater need to watch their surroundings, but Minato's range far outstretched her own—she gave him breaks occasionally and they switched off night watches but she, personally, was having a very easy trip. Shin, Ibiki, Sensei, and Juro were equally comfortable, and even Minato was outright relaxed—this was likely far less dangerous than his usual missions.

In effect, then, the only one of them that was remotely uncomfortable was Kakashi.

And Kakashi was very uncomfortable indeed.

It wasn't the horses, really; he didn't like them much but they were well-trained and his daily job simple.

It was more…

He was clearly a genius, clearly physically gifted, clearly on a career trajectory that was as close to vertical as physically possible, and this mission, for all that in reality it was actually a great career boost, likely didn't feel like such for the combat-hungry child.

Their arrival in Frost was made very, very obvious, not only by the checkpoint (manned by Fire and Hot Water Samurai and Ninja) between the two minor nations but also by the sudden and stark change in atmosphere.

Hot Water might have been closer to the war than Fire, and cut off from its northern trading partners, but there had been almost no fighting on the land before Konoha pushed forward, and Konoha had learned its lesson from the Second War—Fire/Hot Water relations were being actively maintained, a constant stream of information and aid flowing both ways to strengthen their bond.

Frost…

Well, there was little the Land of Lightning could have done to help, having been on the retreat for the entirety of the war.

But the difference was still stark, was still—

Fields lay empty in both directions, houses seemed abandoned more often than not, Konoha's military had taken control of all the roads and many of the buildings…

This was a nation under enemy control.

And that wasn't even going to change—or, more accurately, Konoha was still going to be in charge, was going to remain a dominant and dominating force in the lands until the war was over.

The 'enemy' part would change, it was true, but a lot of work had to be done before the actual people of Frost (the whole of which looked absolutely terrified of every shinobi they happened to catch sight of) actually felt that the Land of Fire was no longer against them.

It was an eerie sight.

Kakashi was still in a bad mood.

"They don't even want us here!" He snapped, having finished putting together the fire and rolled out his bed roll. Almost everyone else was already gathered around the fire, eating—only he and Sensei, who had chosen to meditate, weren't picking apart the hares Shin had snagged. "We could be doing better things!"

"Kakashi…" Minato sighed. This wasn't the first 'conversation' they'd had; it wasn't even the first in front of chinmoku.

"I am already a genin! I'm clearly capable of more! And you have me leading horses! Can't you see—"

Sakura was very much done. Minato was soft spoken to Kakashi, always far too aware of his charge's age. It was reasonable, Sakura thought, but putting a boy that young into uniform wasn't, and as long as he was going to be in that uniform he needed to act like it—to realize what was necessary and do it. His current behavior, selfish as it was, was dangerous—for them and him alike.

It also wasn't accomplishing anything.

"I was nine." Sakura said conversationally. "Remember being new genin?"

"I remember having to start learning how to ride a horse on our second day." Juro said. "That sucked."

"And the weeks and weeks and weeks of memorization!"

Sakura turned to Kakashi, startled into silence, and explained. "We were the genin team for the Spring Delegation, which is the most important yearly Delegation for Konoha."

"I ended up in Diplomacy full time," Shin added, "so being there was a major boost to my career, but it helped Sakura and Juro too."

Juro nodded. "Having personally met the Daimyo is considered a huge political boost—the Hospital's considering training me for future Head, and being in the Delegation is still considered proof I have the political savvy that job would require."

"I submitted a bunch of economic reforms, but if I hadn't been on the Delegation they likely would have taken years longer to put into effect—my time in the Capital meant the Hokage trusted me to lead an envoy to Mushrooms to implement my theories there, and those results are what gave me the right to do the same in Konoha proper."

"I was in a Spring Delegation too," Minato said, "in my second year as a genin. Not every student gets to go, and the opportunity is usually dropped entirely during war, but I know for a fact that my behavior there was a significant help to my career."

"We're not in the Capital, though. We're in Frost."

"What we're doing is still incredibly important—having Frost on our side not only helps them, but it also makes the frontline's rear safer, sends a message to all the other minor nations, limits Kumo's support when the war eventually ends…"

"And if you comport yourself well," Shin finished, "then Konoha will treat it as a sign that you will also be able to represent Konoha as a jounin. Which is—for all that everyone always forgets it—one of the requirements of that promotion."

"Oh." Kakashi frowned, then shrugged. "I'm really powerful, and smart; I'd do fine even without."

Sakura rolled her eyes, but a warning look from Minato told her not to push anymore. She knew she was rather unsympathetic to entitlement—her mother had frequently warned her because of how she'd talked about Inoichi after she'd started tutoring him—but it wasn't really a habit she felt much of a compulsion to break.

It was true, however, that Inoichi had turned out alright. In fact, most of the adults she knew were perfectly decent no matter how they'd behaved in their childhood… ignoring the traitor.

If Kakashi needed a few more years to figure out that the world didn't revolve around him, then that was fine.

Sakura certainly had her own internal struggles, after all—she still regretted all the years she'd spent hesitant and scared of the memories Arden tried to gift her, never mind actually acting on what they entailed. She still felt as if she was progressing too slowly, changing the world too little to have an effect, but at least now she could comfort herself with what she had managed to do.

And, of course, what she was doing now.

Frost's Capital was chilly despite being well into spring. It was a significant way up the mountain, built to take advantage of the natural defense of a series of cliffs, and far, far smaller than even Mushrooms' Capital.

Frost had never been a very prosperous country, and was plagued by a series of increasingly intolerable rulers. Their current Daimyo wasn't particularly well thought-of, but he wasn't the unnecessarily cruel tyrant history described his father as, so the local samurai continued to loyally serve.

There was also, officially, a ninja village.

Sensei had been there once. He said that there couldn't have been more than twenty ninja total, and at least half of them couldn't use chakra.

They were, in every way that mattered, currently irrelevant.

The Samurai at least still acted as the land's law enforcement and judiciary, but they were relatively few in number, too; there just weren't that many natural resources for Frost to take advantage of.

The house they were led to was not a guest house.

Or, well, it was, in that they were guests who would be staying there while they sorted out Frost, but it was also very clearly someone's actual house that had been hastily cleared out sometime before their arrival.

Sakura wondered if the residents were simply living somewhere else in town, or had joined many of their compatriots in their flight north.

They'd arrived late, so after dinner with what few of the Daimyo's courtesans remained all that was left to do was to prepare for the next day.

.

Sakura stared at the man purporting to be the head financier.

He stared back, trembling under the weight of her disbelief.

It was something, she supposed, that she wouldn't have to prove her talent before any of her ideas would be taken into consideration. It was unfortunate that that was only because everyone who had previously held a high position in the Daimyo's court had fled, and those who remained were utterly unprepared for the positions they'd been promoted into and knew it.

"You've been… making more coins?"

"Yes? I mean, we couldn't—that is to say, the government doesn't currently have an income stream, with everything, and the Daimyo was very clear that standards couldn't drop, so I just, you know, ordered more coins to be made to, um, pay the expenses."

"And have you noticed costs rising?"

"Well, now that you mention it, yes. Actually, it's getting to the point where the coins are only worth the value of the metal itself—I was thinking of ordering the coin manufacturer to stop and just send us the metals directly."

Sakura sighed. "That's smarter than just continuing to print the coins, at least."

Several hours later, well after the sun set, Sakura had only just used a small jutsu to light the candles in their accommodations—they'd been left unlit because no one knew the time they'd be back—when Juro stumbled through the door.

"Do you know what they're doing?"

Sakura did not. She managed a shake of her head, her eyelids drooping too much to do anything else. Still, there was work to be done—as Juro began to rant she moved to their bags, pulling out their selection of energy pills.

"—and so now they're punishing the farmers! For just trying to keep enough to survive! There's a famine—and most of the court has disappeared anyway—but oh no, lessening the taxes is impossible—"

Sensei was the next to arrive.

He grunted, moved immediately to make himself willow bark tea, then announced that the Daimyo was a tyrant and a fool whose only saving grace was his relative powerlessness—if Frost as a country was any stronger he likely would have been assassinated long ago.

Minato, who arrived with a fuming child behind him, reported bad news himself: Frost had become too reliant on the idea of Lightning's defense, and their Samurai and Ninja were weak enough that he'd sent Kakashi against anyone who thought they could beat him—and the boy managed to get through the day without a single bruise.

Ibiki…

"Where's Ibiki?"

"I have him." Shin said, pushing through the door with Ibiki's wrist firmly grasped by one hand. "And he's got a few things to tell all of us."

Sakura, Sensei, Minato, Juro, and even Kakashi turned.

Ibiki, who looked very much like he knew he was in trouble for all that he wasn't the least bit apologetic, frowned.

Shin jostled him.

He took a deep breath, then, and began to speak.