Nohara Rin grit her teeth as she turned in her genin-assistant vest. She'd be back, she knew, would be an iryo-nin in no time—and actually being taught by a jounin-sensei was a vital part of that—but it still felt wrong, to be turning her back on her time working in the Hospital.

She'd been asked, when she graduated the Academy the winter before, if she minded beginning her genin career with Hospital work.

She'd jumped at the opportunity.

Now, though, she was to be put in a team.

With two boys, almost definitely.

With no other iryo-nin, certainly.

Training Ground Seven… she hoped they were nice, at least.

The ground seemed empty when she arrived, but something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She stayed on guard, despite being nearly an hour early, but no one appeared.

Forty-two minutes later a jounin appeared.

Rin recognized him.

She didn't think she hid that very well.

He grinned.

"Yeah, that's me," he said. Had she said his name? She must have. She was only nine, though, had graduated a year early alongside most of the rest of the class when the war started. She still didn't remember to listen to herself when she spoke, not all the time. "And you're Nohara Rin, one of my new genin. Have you seen Hatake Kakashi or Uchiha Obito?"

"You know I'm here!" A voice snapped from a nearby tree. Rin snapped towards, only to see a young boy—so young, almost a toddler—drop down and rush at Jounin Namikaze Minato. "You're back!"

"I am." The two hugged, utterly oblivious to the world for a few seconds. And then Jounin Namikaze Minato held the boy—Hatake Kakashi, must have been, because she'd had class with Obito—and looked him up and down. "How are you?"

The boy stiffened, then began to rattle off the training he'd done in the past month.

Rin swallowed as he listed hours spent at various weapons, days spent summoning hounds, sleep training and physical training and jutsu training that she couldn't even begin to compete with.

He must have been five, or thereabouts. He must have been five, and she was about double his age, and—

She could feel her lack of muscle definition despite her clothes, despite her hands being at her side.

Neither male seemed to notice as she shrank to Kakashi's size, felt like a first-year Academy student with how little she'd trained in comparison.

"Okay, okay, okay—but how are you?"

"…fine." Kakashi's voice was suddenly soft, vulnerable. And then, once more, any sign of weakness was erased. "Yamanaka Sakura sealed my mask against many gasses."

"That was kind of her."

"She only did it because I was going to spend my inheritance to get one of the fuinjutsu shops to do it, but it still saved me a lot of money."

"It's handy, having a mask like that. But why do you have it on now?"

"I like it."

Jounin Namikaze Minato sighed, then shrugged. "As long as you're doing well. We'll talk more, tonight." He turned, again, to Rin. She wilted under his gaze. "Now, you clearly know who I am—and I know you—but have you met Kakashi?"

"No, sir."

"Sensei's fine."

"No, Sensei, sir."

His face looked somewhat pained, but she tried to ignore it as he turned to introduce her to Kakashi. The boy had apprenticed under him, apparently, was his protégé.

So she wasn't behind, she wasn't expected to be on his level, but it still galled.

When she was his age she couldn't multiply.

She bet he could in his sleep.

Uchiha Obito still hadn't arrived.

"He was usually late to the Academy." Rin explained. "Whenever anyone asked him to help he felt like he had to."

"Not an awful habit." Jounin Namikaze Minato said, at the same time that his apprentice snapped

"He's going to get himself killed like that."

"Well, uh… that's a bit drastic, Kakashi," Jounin Namikaze Minato demurred. "Being late is something we'll have to work on, however."

And then Obito was there, and everything seemed to go pear-shaped very quickly.

.

Yamanaka Inoto was an old man.

He'd been clan head for what sometimes felt like forever.

He still remembered his younger years with the sort of golden hue that required both the memories actually be pleasant and the time in between hard.

He still remembered his first wife.

He'd loved her, loved her as the sun loves the day, as fire loves air.

The rest of their clan had liked her too, at first.

She'd been a good match, they said.

Her family primarily worked in T&I, but she wanted to teach at the Academy.

She'd been sweet, kind, had not laughed when he admitted to her in a whisper that, if he had a choice, he'd be a teacher too.

He'd loved her.

But years had passed, their wedding had come and gone, and no children manifested.

Their clan had turned against her then.

He still remembered the day she left, years after their wedding.

The note she'd placed on her pillow, the crisp lines of her handwriting telling him to marry again, have the child their clan needed.

He didn't love his second wife, but she was nice enough and she'd brought him Inoichi.

But now Inoichi as a teenager, and Inoto's knees ached every time he tried to stand, and everyone his age was long retired, mere elders while the younger generation ran around doing the brunt of the work.

He was ready to join them.

But his son still needed more time.

Inoichi had grown, had matured so quickly during the Second War, was showing his strength now in the Third, but he still needed experience, practice, before Inoto could feel safe in handing over the whole of their clan.

So this—

This was his duty.

The Yamanaka Elders frowned over the papers Yamanaka Sakura (the Researcher) proffered, the evidence of the strength of false rumors and hearsay according to Lord Jiraiya, according to Diplomat Mitokado, according to their own relatives in T&I.

They'd already known the strength, really; what they were interested in was what each report ended with:

How to weaken them.

There were surprisingly few ideas, and none that promised any degree of certainty.

Something about the public's reaction to the third war, to the Generals, still read wrong—too passive about the first, too aggressive about the second.

Tracking the change…

There were even fewer ideas about how to do that.

(Which wasn't to say Clan Yamanaka wasn't trying.)

What was worse was that the target of the mass opinion shift was tied to the government, might have even come from inside the government.

He'd asked the Hokage—it hadn't come from him, hadn't come with his permission.

Someone else, therefore, was probably interfering.

But that someone might, very well, be the person in the military that was tasked with tracking down the bias, with figuring out what read to so many of the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi as 'off.'

And then, of course, there was the chance that all of this led to nothing—that Inoto and his clan were just over-hyping the honest, true beliefs of the entirety of Konoha's rumor mill.

Still, it felt off.

"Break off for the day?" Elder Yamanaka Hana said. "Ruminate a bit more, meet up next week?"

It was a rather significant amount of information they'd just been given, for all that at first glance it didn't amount to much. "Agreed."

The non-elders bowed, then the elders. And then he was alone again.

He had a headache, and he wanted a nap. His joints were killing him.

He got back to work.

.

Kamui's brow was soaked, he had a shift starting in half an hour, he hadn't slept in twenty, and his fiancée had banned him from the kitchen because every scent was making her stomach turn, but he'd finally finished with that day's wedding arrangements.

Mostly; he still had to actually deliver the cards.

His parents would kill him if Yumi and he had their child out of wedlock, though, had threatened the same to Ren when he'd gotten his own significant other pregnant all those years ago, and if they didn't Yumi's parents would, so he continued.

Actually, really, it would probably be Yumi's parents. His father hadn't been home for a long time, now, and his mother for even longer—she ran one of the prisons, now, wrote regularly but hadn't visited.

She loved her job, he knew, felt like she was in the midst of a second life, but she hadn't visited.

He'd give her the benefit of the doubt, hope she came for his wedding.

If she didn't…

Well, there was no point in thinking of that now.

.

Ibiki stared, open-mouthed, as Asuma scaled the wall using only his feet. "You have got to teach me that!"

"Us too!"

"No, you're too young."

"You're our age!"

Yeah, but I'm better."

"Better at sucking, maybe!" Genma shot out. Ibiki snickered; Kurenai did too, but tried to hide it.

"I don't suck! I'm awesome!"

"Then you'd teach us!"

"No!"

"Fine." Ibiki said, an idea popping in his head. He whipped around, staring at his other friends. "I'm going to teach you two how to make use seals."

"Cool!" Genma said.

Kurenai, at least, got what he was going for. "I'll teach you to hide knives in clothes; my mom does that. Genma, you're the best of all of us at throwing. Can you teach us that?"

"Oh, yeah, totally!"

"Alright, see you later, Asuma."

"Wait, where are you going?"

"We just said!" Kurenai said. "We're going to go learn how to use seals, and hide knives, and throw knives. And seals too, I guess."

"I only know how to use storage seals."

"Not throw seals then. We could still practice throwing paper, though."

"That's true."

"I want to join!"

"No you don't, you already said you didn't want to tell us how to walk on walls."

"You're just too young! I'll teach you later!"

"Then you can join us later." Ibiki, Kurenai, and Genma began to walk off—towards the Akimichi compound; it held the closest of Ibiki's rather large family's training grounds.

Less than a minute later Asuma's footsteps were thumping after them. "Hey, wait up! I'll try to tell you how!"

In the end, when Ibiki was picked up by Juro hours later and taken home, none but Asuma knew how to walk on walls, Genma hadn't figured out how to get any of them to aim better, they'd lacked any seals to practice opening, and Kurenai's techniques all relied on pockets and the like already existing in clothes.

The day was still entirely worth it.

.

In September Iwa made its first concerted effort to strike back.

It failed.

Completely.

For one thing, they'd tried to strike in too many directions at once—an attempt to overwhelm their opponents, most likely.

Instead, they had too few combatants for each attempt. Suna pressed upwards eagerly, glad to take the opportunity to show off their skills to future patrons. Konoha didn't—they had another theater to show off in—but they'd had plenty of time to get entrenched, were even working alongside the shinobi villages of minor nations to strengthen ties; the fighting was bloodier, there, but Iwa was still fought off.

Every sign pointed to the attack intending to be a massive assault, a push forward as the beginning drop in temperature brought Iwa's ideal fighting ground to the forefront—

Instead, it petered out in hours.

It felt…

It felt, some thought, like they should push the advantage.

Others argued—it had to be a feint, a ploy meant to lure Konoha further in, away from their blockades.

Still others thought the point was moot; Kumo was still fighting, actively pressing for every advantage; they simply didn't have the resources to spare.

After several days of talk, of debate, a decision was made.

Poison gas—the same poison gas which had cleared out Uzu, which was still regularly wafted towards their Eastern Shores—was sent to Suna.

Suna, glutted with wind users, sent it North.

And then it was very clear that it was a ploy, that Iwa had fully intended them to push the advantage—

And that Iwa had not expected them to respond with air.

Reports had Iwa nin exploding out of tunnels, shooting themselves away from the gas and exposing the network they'd built in one go. Poison gas was quickly shifted across the front, wind users alongside each delivery; the network would be razed by the end of the year, news bulletins promised; no more Iwa sneaking underground.

Sakura's stomach twisted when she thought of Konoha using the same gas that had been used against them, but every higher-up had loved the idea, loved the massive effectiveness of a handful of deadly molecules and some wind.

It was becoming a very deadly war.

.

Kushina laughed, whipping fire lashing out at every ship that came too close. Underneath her the tiny boat creaked, pushed to its brink by the wind user and the water user working together to whip between each of Kiri's ships.

This was probably one of the most dangerous missions they'd thought up since the start of the war. She'd spent weeks convincing Minato to go through with it, that his calculations of the total surprise were worth the danger.

She still thought she'd probably have failed if it wasn't for his crush and her constant needling to make him prove he actually saw her as a force, as not just some pretty girl to sit at home.

She supposed she'd have to believe him after this.

She laughed again, the breath forced out of her by the wind as the Kyuubi's power punched a hole in another hull, sent another ship underwater.

And then it was apparently time to leave.

The two other shinobi stiffened, turned, and then their little skiff was zipping back to shore.

Kushina watched as tiny arrows of something zipped underwater. She tried to grab them with the Kyuubi, but she was unused to aiming underwater. She missed, then missed again.

She hit the third time, destroyed the first body eerily close to their little skiff.

The race continued.

Still far from the shore—the horizon barely hinting at the beach and cliffs that made it up—and Minato was there, talking quickly with the other wind user and then—no warning—they were in the air, sailing above the sea as the water below shook with electricity (a jutsu? No—too big for her not to have felt—a seal, a seal of stored lightning let out at just the right moment.)

They were onshore what felt like moments, hours later, and suddenly the weight of the venture fell on her. She slumped onto Minato, letting her do the work of carrying her to the medical tent, having her checked out.

"Mission success." Kushina murmured.

Minato laughed—a dry laugh. He must have been worried. "I'm—I'm going to have to think of a quicker transportation technique."

"I thought… Research was trying to come up with their own railroad?" She heard the medic giving her the okay; chakra exhaustion, but not severe. She was fine.

"Can't use a railroad over water," Minato said. "I can come up with something better."

"You do that." Kushina said, and then she looked around and noticed they were in her tent. She grinned, turned to him as he finished sealing the tent against eavesdroppers, moved to tuck her in.

She kissed him.

"I did good?" He grinned, his eyes bright in the dim room.

"You did very good. Have to be anywhere?"

"No—my team's already in bed; I've got a nice C-rank for them to do tomorrow afternoon but tomorrow morning they're each privately training."

"Good."

A clone left her tent that night, but he didn't.