Sakura stared, agape, as the screen flickered to life. Uchiha Shuji laughed a little too maniacally next to her.
"Well." She said.
"Let's see your pretty little radio do that!" He said.
"Does it transmit sound?" She asked.
He coughed.
"That's not live is it?"
"Well, no—I can only get recordings so far. But still! Think of the uses!"
"So many." She agreed.
"So, so many." Shuji went back to laughing maniacally. He'd been on a bit of a high since his first computer prototype worked, and if anything it seemed to have galvanized him to more action, more eurekas. "How about you?"
Sakura…
Sakura was pulled twenty directions at once, was juggling the clones in the Hospital basement, the meetings with her Clan Head and in office 40, her economics work, Ibiki, and the daily stipend of sealing every fuinjutsu user was now expected to meet…
She'd spent three hours the day before writing out a paper on standard deviations, a formula that was already known, because Head Researcher Aburame had requested it without even telling her why!
"I've got a few projects on the fire." She said at last.
He snorted. "Make sure none of them burn." And then their meeting was over.
Just in time, too, for Head Aburame had another request of her.
For months, now, since she'd come home from Frost, she'd been expected to sit in on every meeting she had with the Deputy Heads, listen to the weekly rundown of every project no matter how small.
She knew why, of course.
She wasn't that stupid.
And even if she was, the brief period that Juro was being considered for the Head position at the Hospital (only two Hyuuga and an Uchiha were still vying for the position, the Nara having dropped out willingly last month—Juro was working to reenter the competition, though, wouldn't give up without a fight) gave her an idea of what signs to look out for.
That didn't mean she was ready.
She was 17.
Head Aburame might as well have been 170.
Given 153 years to prepare, to get everything else she wanted to done… then sure, fine.
Then.
Not now.
But Sakura knew better than that; retirees liked young people to take their place. Inoichi replacing Inoto, Fugaku taking over the Police Department and Uchiha, Shin learning under Sensei Mitokado's tutelage…
Rumor was Minato was being looked at to take over from the Hokage, and he was even younger than she!
For lifetime positions, then, they wanted you to use as much of that lifetime as possible.
So, meetings it was.
She was sure that she'd be asked to tag along to his meetings with the Hokage and other Heads, next.
Between the meeting, her regular work, and checking in on Office 40 she didn't get home until late.
Ibiki had a cold—a common enough ailment in October—and Himari had caught it the day before, so the dining table was full of coughs and sneezes. Kohana wasn't there either; she was having dinner with her possible future in-laws.
After they'd finished eating Ibiki and Himari were sent upstairs. Juro and Sakura stayed to clean up.
"I've noticed you never bring anyone over." Sakura said.
"You don't either."
"I don't have interest." You do—the latter half of the sentence went unsaid, but perfectly heard.
"I don't want to confuse Ibiki."
"You aren't going out either."
"I'm too busy."
"Life's busy."
"Why are you so curious?"
"I just—you deserve to be happy, Juro."
"I am."
"As happy as possible."
"I—"
"No one is as happy as they can possibly be."
"Why try then?"
Sakura rolled her eyes.
"…maybe later," Juro said. "I really am busy."
"Well, you're nineteen already; you're not getting any younger."
"Thanks for that."
They went to bed.
.
Orochimaru seethed as he reentered Konoha for the first time in months, his stint fighting against Kumo over.
Namikaze Minato—
A nobody.
A child.
And he'd been chosen over him.
He was Sensei Sarutobi's protégé, had always been the smartest and most capable of his students. He was smart, blindingly so, and still utterly capable on the field. He'd let his subdivision of Research ably for years, was at the cutting edge of Research, always striving to make Konoha better.
And—and just because of a few measly disagreements, not seeing eye to eye on a few points—he'd been passed over.
His stomach roiled in his anger, his jaw stony and eyes sharp as he looked over the progress made in his absence.
It was significant, he wasn't far gone enough not to acknowledge that. The Yamanaka girl's idea had merit, was finally beginning to show fruit.
Even outside his office, Konoha was still trundling on. They'd been in this war—the Third—for nearly a year now, were still doing fine—better even than they'd done during the Second War; the rationing, while it existed, limited individuals to an amount of food that most didn't even approach during Peacetime.
The mood wasn't exuberant, then, but it was positive. Content. Happy, even.
Except for Orochimaru's.
His was quite dark indeed.
He grinned, teeth that seemed to be shaped like fangs as he stared down at his desk, and thought.
He might never be Hokage, not in this lifetime—
But he was still powerful.
Could still make waves.
And if the Hokage wouldn't let him do it in the sunlight…
There was more than one way to become a shadow.
.
Orochimaru was back.
He'd asked her in, her and Doi, and they'd had a meeting about the clones.
They were called False Clones, now, that was what was written on all the paperwork.
They bled, now. Healed, now. They were…
Their brains didn't work.
Trying to remove any of them made the clone disappear in minutes—organ transplant was out of the question, and they couldn't even wipe off the blood—but they also bruised now.
Scabbed now.
Healed now.
They lasted, on average, four months—as near as they could tell; the newest models hadn't existed that long yet.
They were imperfect, imperfect in so many ways, but—
They could get sick.
Get better.
The Hokage signed off on it; their first testing, their first trials to actually use False Clones instead of the long-gone False Bodies to test cures.
They agreed to test on a type of pox there was already a known cure for, just to be sure.
To figure out the cure anew, see if it worked.
They set it to a bunch of the junior Researchers—who better to figure out what could go wrong—and had Nara Taro lead the charge.
She would be expected to check in on their progress three days a week; Doi would check up on them the other four. Orochimaru would check daily.
Progress, at last, was being made.
She went home, meditated, and thought of the horrific visions she'd gotten of Orochimaru.
She'd figured out that she already knew Kakashi after he put on the mask, the mask she'd sealed as well as she could. He looked so different as an adult; was a sensei, as an adult.
Naruto, clearly, was Minato's child.
She didn't know the fullness of what happened yet, but that was hard to ignore.
She wondered, sitting as she did on her bedroom floor, what great truth she discovered next.
She wondered if she'd discover it in time to act.
She wondered if she'd discover it in time to think of how to act.
She got up, laid in bed, and fell asleep.
.
Minato's duties now ping-ponged him along fronts, having him check in with each—West, North, East—before checking back in with Konoha.
This served many purposes, but all could be summarized in one word: experience.
It gave Minato the experience he so dearly needed if he was to command a military, a people, in only a few years' time.
It gave that military, those people, the experience of him, of his intellect, power, and command, so that when that time came they would trust him.
And it gave his students the most important lesson of all—it taught them that life wasn't fair.
They arrived back in Konoha just before November, fighting as usual. Minato had learned to tune out most of the arguments long ago—he would have been driven mad otherwise—and though he made sure to keep enough of an ear out to make sure it didn't worsen, the actual words of the fight escaped him.
They were headed to the Hospital.
Uchiha Obito's arm was already in a sling—Nohara Rin's experience was well used there—while Hatake Kakashi's eye, already a sickly shade of green, nearly healed, wouldn't need much treatment at all. His skinned knees might have needed more, but it was always a battle to get him to accept care for something that didn't come from a fight. The eye came from intervening in a domestic dispute on the way home; that counted. The knees came from a failed jutsu—that didn't.
His rules, for all that they made increasingly little sense, were planted in his mind with the sort of obstinance only possible in those who'd never learned to compromise at all.
Today they were fighting about chore divisions, a topic which would not have surprised Minato at all if he'd chosen to listen.
Rin hated being given the cooking, hated that neither other boy seemed particularly capable of the task—they viewed it as a sign that she should keep on making the meals, she viewed it as a sign that they'd shirked too many of their turns.
The boys barely acknowledged her role in the argument, however, having mutually agreed she was in the wrong; instead, they kept at each other, each sniping at the other like deer clashing antlers, testing their strength and sizing each other up.
Neither had a particularly positive impression of the other:
Kakashi viewed his opponent as too weak, never to amount to much.
Obito viewed his as a child, and worse, one who was cold, callous, and cruel—a person who could never be respected.
What galled each boy all the more was that so many adults didn't see the other in the same way. Obito was given the same teacher, the same opportunities as Kakashi—the boy had only barely gotten the sharingan two weeks before they'd become teammates, had been forced into it by one of the Uchiha Elders, and yet he was put on the same level as Kakashi, who hadn't once come close to losing in their regular contests.
For Obito it was even worse, or at least he liked to think so. Kakashi was little, years younger—literally half his age, or almost literally anyway (it had been literally, but Kakashi's birthday was in September. It still galled, though, that a six-year-old could trounce him so easily.) Adults treated Kakashi like they treated Obito. Better, actually; Obito was clumsy, Obito was late, Obito never did anything right—not like Kakashi.
Rin—
Rin forgave Kakashi when she wouldn't forgive Obito, because Kakashi was only a child, no matter his rank.
Obito didn't really mind that.
He did mind, minded very much, in fact, that Rin saw Kakashi beating him, surpassing him in every contest and so often without a single drop of sweat.
Neither boy noticed, or cared, that Rin didn't do much better.
That wasn't the point.
They were in front of the Hospital, now—the short trip between the gates and the doors had elapsed in hissed jibes and hastily constructed comebacks—and signing in.
They sat in the waiting room for about a minute—their injuries weren't severe enough to be seen immediately—before one of the medics advised them to head to the children's unit to get quicker care; Kumo had gone on the attack the night before and many of the wounded were still being treated.
Minato almost sagged with relief when he saw Akimichi Juro, and the special jounin noticed.
A quick conversation and Team Seven were in Juro's examination room and Obito's arm was being healed in moments.
Kakashi, for the moment, was silent.
He respected Juro, respected the man who'd taken care of him after his father's death. Juro still checked in on him every time they were in Konoha, always had a bit of silence to share.
Kakashi couldn't bring himself to carry on the argument in his presence.
Obito held no such compunctions, but he was distracted by the healing of his arm, and Rin was distracted by being back in the Hospital—she was always eager to learn—and so for the moment, Team Seven was peaceful.
The two oldest locked eyes as Obito tested out his healed appendage.
Both knew it wouldn't last.
As they exited Juro made a suggestion—Sakura was in the Hospital basement, finishing up some seals, and why don't they stop by?
Minato jumped on the opportunity, and they vanished down the stairs in moments, not quite quickly enough to hide the beginning of the next argument from Juro's ears.
.
Sakura grinned at Minato while his students yelped over the storage seals she'd given them. "If you don't mind them using the seals, why didn't you?"
He rubbed his forehead. "I was hoping they'd want one enough to learn how to do it themselves. Your future clan head agrees, you know; we need more competent sealers."
"True enough. I think the best way, though, is to show them what seals are capable of doing, let them sink their teeth in—and then mention, off hand, that it's capable of doing even more."
Despite the apparent distraction of the genin Sakura knew at least the youngest was listening, paying attention to every word even as he practiced opening and closing the seal. She didn't mind; Minato didn't seem to either.
"Guess I'll try that then." Minato said. "Being a Sensei is harder than I thought." Then, after a pause, "Being a parent is harder than I thought too." Kakashi stiffened. Both teens elected to ignore it.
"I remember that." Sakura said, instead. "The constant fear that I was screwing up Ibiki, the constant worrying that I'd said the wrong thing, acted the wrong way."
"I just—there should be an instruction manual, you know. You should write it."
Sakura laughed. It was quiet—best not to distract the two who were so far oblivious to the conversation. "I'm not the right choice. There are far better parents than me, parents who have raised armies of children to adulthood, each of them a better person than the last."
Minato shrugged. "Have them write the general parenting book, then. I need one for situations like ours, parenthood thrust into our arms with a round, sad face and a terrible cause."
"You love him, right?"
Kakashi had abandoned all attempts at using the seal.
"Of course."
The boy's breath went out in a woosh. He still seemed to think he was unobserved.
"Then just hope that's enough, and do the best you can otherwise. He's a smart kid. He'll still make mistakes—but take it from one genius to another; being smart isn't about not erring. It's about figuring out how to fix it after."
Minato, future Hoakge, grinned.
Sakura, future Research Head, grinned back.
Kakashi…
Kakashi wore a mask.
But Sakura was absolutely certain that under the fabric, under the chakra of the seals, he was grinning too.
It was wonderful to know that you were loved.