Sakura's mind was still whirring when she made it to Orochimaru's lab, but she had little time to take a second and think.

Orochimaru swept by her the second she entered, nearly buzzing with energy and already planning the next surgery he wanted to attempt, and Taro, following behind, shrugged weakly—he hadn't been able to get any information from the Sannin.

He'd already made it to the lab before Sakura had space to interrupt.

"Where were you?"

"What does that matter?"

"You know why it matters."

Orochimaru's shoulders twitched, acknowledging the truth of the statement, and then turned away as the head attached to them began rattling off surgery prep once more.

"Orochimaru."

"Not Lord Orochimaru?"

"The Lord Daimyo is my lord." Sakura said, despite not actually caring all that much about the elderly man in the Capital either.

Orochimaru snorted. "You always were insolent."

"You never minded me calling you Orochimaru before; stop stalling."

"I'm not stalling."

"Distracting, then. Where were you?"

"I am a Sannin, girl. More powerful and brilliant than you could ever dream to be. What I do in my private time is none of your—"

"It's exactly my business."

Orochimaru frowned, his first even remotely negative expression of the day, then whipped towards Taro. "Get a body on the table. I'd like to start."

Why wasn't he even bothering to come up with a cover story?

Why didn't think it was worth it?

Sakura went to book an appointment with the Hokage immediately after her shift ended. The office, of course, was atypically empty when she arrived—the Hokage had gone to oversee the train improvements in person.

Sakura considered leaving it for a moment, coming back the next morning, but–

Something was definitely wrong.

So Sakura went to the factory.

The factory, because it was attached to the rail network directly, was offset from Konohagakure by a few miles. It wasn't much—Sakura was in the building in only a handful of minutes, and running flat-out she could have made it in less than three—but it did provide an additional layer of security.

The factory itself was massive, with the largest portion dedicated to the incredibly complex engine of the train.

Konoha was, at the moment, using coal to power its trains, but ideally in the future chakra batteries would be used instead so the trains could be 'refueled' anywhere. For now, though, the batteries that could handle a train ride had no overlap with those that were energy efficient enough to make the switch worth it, so—coal.

The rest of the train compartments—storage, medical, and bunk rooms—were also made, and then the trains were put together and sent to the yard that was built only a few minutes from the Capital as a final test before starting its journey shuttling food and soldiers to the frontline and wounded and dead back.

The train could barely match the speed of Sakura running as fast as she could, which was nowhere near as fast as some powerhouses could go, but the machine didn't have to rest, didn't have to take breaks, didn't have to sleep, and could carry far more supplies than even the most storage-seal laden shinobi could dream of.

It really was a great invention.

It just sucked that Lightning had thought of it first.

The Hokage was easy to spot, wearing his customary hat, as he examined the latest of the engines—they'd changed the front to be more pointed, were sure they could get a hair of extra speed that way—and Sakura beelined straight toward him, ignoring the suddenly more present existences of his watchers.

He was, thankfully, just wrapping up.

"Please, continue with your good work. Ah, Researcher Yamanaka—I was unaware you were still working on the railroad?"

"I am not, Lord Hokage. I—had a different matter to discuss with you."

"Then we shall adjourn to my office."

And then they were in his office.

Sakura really hated when the ANBU did that—it made her stomach queasy and all she could think of for several seconds after was how little control she had over her own life.

The Hokage, though, was far too busy a man to wait. "What was it you wanted to discuss?"

"Um, two things. Actually. The first is, um, Orochimaru." Sakura took a breath, focused. "He has not come up with an explanation or excuse as to where he has been, and I think that whatever it was wasn't good."

"Why?"

"First, he immediately changed the focus on the surgeries to solely focus on the eyes. He was overtly interested in the organs before, but he removed everything else from the schedule. Additionally, when I began working with him we each exchanged a notebook. I got this one of his, which is one of his earliest, and while most of it remains undeciphered by me, these drawings lead me to believe that Orochimaru is interested in replicating bloodlines, or even using transplants to gain the use of others'."

"What has led you to this conclusion?"

Sakura flipped a few pages, coming to one which seemed to show bands of muscle and fat as they appeared in the arm, with Orochimaru's scribbling covering the rest of the page to the point that it was nearly blackened.

"What I have gotten translated on this page reflects the focus of the drawing—it, as well as about twenty of the pages following it, are notes on muscle and fat tissues." Sakura flipped, showing page after page, several with intricate drawings of muscles and fat in the torso, around the heart, in the hand. "This, I believe, is his attempt to figure out how the Akimichi bloodline works." A heavy enough accusation on its own, given the illegality of studying a Konoha bloodline without the clan's permission. "The next several pages seem to carry out my theory; they describe pills while continuing to frequently use the words for muscle and fat."

"You believe he is interested in the Akimichi bloodline?"

"I believe he is interested in all bloodlines. This section has drawings of human and dog sensory organs, including noses and ears, as well as an in-depth drawing of the various differences of the human and canine musculoskeletal structure: the Inuzuka.

He also has many pages seemingly dedicated to the bloodlines of other countries, including the bone growth bloodline, the supersonic arm bloodline, and so on.

But most of this notebook is dedicated to eyes."

Finally, Sakura began flipping to every page she'd marked with a slip of paper. "The pages aren't grouped together, but each of these mention eyes at least four times. There's also drawings of eyes, some apparently without pupils—like mine or the Hyuuga—some seemingly a sketched out hypothesis about what the sharingan might look like from the inside. Most of the notebook doesn't seem, as far as I know now, to be about bloodlines, but a significant portion of it is."

"And you're certain?"

"I–" Was she? It was still hard for Sakura to believe that a man she worked with every day was capable of what Arden's memories warned of, but—at the very least, she was certain that he was investigating Konoha bloodlines. "Yes."

The Hokage pursed his lips, then held out his hand for the notebook.

She handed it over.

"And you believe that his time spent… 'theorizing', was actually spent investigating the bloodlines?"

"I don't know what he was doing, but I worked with him all day today. He was smug, happy, didn't even bother with an explanation—Orochimaru is a great Sannin, and a great Researcher, but… something's off."

"I will… consider your allegations. Your second point?"

Sakura hesitated, her mind stalling on the less-than-positive reception to her accusations, then forced her brain to jump to problem #2.

"You'll have to ask Akimichi Bokuso for more information, he's been researching it for longer, but children are going missing."

The Hokage leaned forward, and Sakura continued.

.

Orochimaru stopped vivisecting eyes the next day, despite having previously planned for a week of it. He was more distracted, too, but refused again to discuss what was bothering him. He went to the torso, instead, poking and prodding but seemingly doing very little, and he let them go home early every day.

Sakura's stomach wouldn't let up, making her queasy with the sensation of 'wrong', but she had more than once sensed a shadowed ANBU.

It had to be enough.

She had other issues to deal with, anyway.

Danzo was attempting to recruit her.

Well, actually Sakura only suspected that, but it made sense—ever since Danzo had been caught spreading treasonous rumors he'd been surprisingly blatant about his continued attacks on others in positions of power. Rather than slinking back into the shadows, the elder had apparently decided that the best defense was a good offense—while he never even approached saying the words, in practice his actions had a clear meaning: "I was disloyal for a reason."

And, of course, there were many, many flaws ripe for him to point out.

Not that they happened to agree on whether any specific thing was a flaw, but there was overlap there.

And Danzo clearly intended to exploit it.

Sakura strongly suspected that his new bluntness was part of the tactic too—not necessarily for her, but also for everyone else who struggled to toe the line of social propriety, who hated etiquette getting in the way of action.

That group included the whole Inuzuka clan, a significant portion of the black sheep of the Hyuuga and Uchiha families, a not insignificant number of Nara, and most of the non-clan ninja to boot.

The Shimura clan still had a good hold on decorum, on those who were loyal to tradition. Danzo was clearly taking his infamy and trying to turn it to his advantage.

Sakura figured all this out before she even stepped into Inoichi's office, before the first day of the three of them working together on reforming the orphanage.

That didn't make him beginning his attempt any less creepy, nor the weeks that followed as his tactics slowly became more and more successful.

By the time she entered three weeks in Inoichi and Danzo were already at work, focusing on the logistics of possibly moving more of Fire's overall population into the city. They had, previously, attempted to focus on the actual goal of the project, but with their very different takes on the importance of affection in a child's life…

Logistics was a less sensitive topic.

Both turned, immediately, to smile at her as she entered—Inoichi picked up Danzo's tactics almost before she did, and found the man unpleasant enough to actively attempt to work against his efforts.

(Of course, he was also working with Danzo on the orphanage, and when the Elder wasn't around had admitted more than a few times that the Shimura had some good ideas, but then that was true for Sakura too—Danzo had a knack for figuring out what both of them wanted to hear.)

Sakura smiled back, ignoring the blatant attempts of both men, and shifted to look at the papers spread between them.

"We have that many orphans? That's not what the projections estimated last week."

Danzo grunted. "The Samurai did not take into account the full effects of this year's famine."

Ah, yes. The drought. Within Konoha, everyone was already down to two-thirds rations, and those on the frontlines barely got much more than that. Even so, Konoha was lucky; the whole village was a 'military expense' and therefore entitled to rations, and the Hokage had sunk significant money into greenhouses, fishing, and imports to get as much food as they had.

Samurai, too, were landed and entitled to a certain amount of food, and those in the Capital were regularly fed on the Daimyo's dime as part of large festivals in his honor.

The rest of Fire wasn't so lucky.

Sakura hummed a thank you as Danzo passed her the relevant information—while the actual population loss from starvation wasn't yet accounted for, and despite Konoha accepting as many people as possible, it seemed that the drought (the famine, really) was costing far more lives than either the Capital or Konohagakure had previously estimated.

"The plan the Daimyo just announced to allow Konoha and his nobles to settle Uzu will help," Inoichi said, "but for now…"

Sakura grimaced. "Where are the orphans now, given that they apparently weren't in any of the state orphanages?"

"Many are with extended family, which is the good news—" Inoichi started.

"But many of them are just living on the street, or turning to crime, or both, and even those with families are facing the same food scarcity issues that killed their parents."

"Ah."

Both Inoichi and Danzo looked as frustrated as she felt. "All these children—until now completely invisible to Fire." Inoichi said.

"Ripe opportunity for infiltration, for traitors; increased chance for rebellion, too; these children will not grow up loyal to Fire."

"So we need a quick fix before we address long term solutions, then?"

Danzo hesitated. "If we find a stopgap solution then the Hokage will likely be satisfied with such as a permanent solution."

"What choice do we have? If we do nothing more children die, go missing..."

"Missing?" Inoichi asked.

Sakura nodded. "It's been happening inside Konoha's walls—a higher rate of reported missing children—so I have to imagine its happening elsewhere too, where there are less watchers around."

"I wonder why."

"Bokuso and Aiko are looking into it. I'm trying to help where I can, but—" but between Orochimaru, the orphanage project, raising Ibiki, keeping up with Research demands, uncovering Arden's memories, practicing taijutsu, ninjutsu, and fuinjutsu…

She'd stopped by Office 40 twice, since her conversation with the Hokage. It wasn't nearly enough, but her presence wasn't demanded by them, and she knew them; they wouldn't let the problem fall by the wayside.

She really needed more time.

She really wished she had enough chakra for shadow clones.

"I'll ask them later then—" Inoichi hesitated, realizing he was as busy as she, then continued, "—it is relevant to this, after all."

"Is it?" Danzo said.

Sakura felt a headache coming on.

"Yes." Inoichi said. "As you said, the chance that those children are being taken, turned against Fire…"

Danzo nodded in agreement. "Konohagakure should not allow such holes in its security. I will assist as I can; pull on what resources I have available."

Sakura nodded. "How about we address the missing children specifically next week? We still have to figure out funding this effort, so we can work on that today."

The jounin nodded. "I have an idea about how to get some money from the Capital, actually…" Danzo started.

.

Within only a few weeks winter had come, and with it the culmination of far too many issues mounting on top of one another until it seemed Konoha as a whole would topple down.

The rainy season—the beginning of autumn—was well and truly over, the last cold months before the next crop could be planted had just begun, and Konohagakure was in turmoil.

The largest, most constant issue was resources. Rations had been cut once again—the harvests in other countries having also ended—but that was planned for, expected.

The water issues should have been, too, but…

There wasn't much snow in Konoha, and it wasn't long until everyone viewed that as a net negative; at least you could cook snow down, have water to drink and bathe in that way.

But Konoha tended to be dry in the winter, so instead people had to rely on the river, on the internal plumbing Konoha had set up.

Both failed.

The river almost visibly stank; there was too much runoff, too much sewage, and it was no longer acceptable to bathe in, much less consume.

The plumbing situation wasn't much better, despite the best efforts of many researchers, and was relatively limited besides—most apartment buildings had one shared plumbing source per floor, if that.

High-level water jutsu—which brought together all water from the nearby air—was a stopgap solution to the worst of it, but it wasn't much of one.

Crime was worse, too, and so were tensions as existing Konoha residents grew increasingly aggravated at the newer arrivals and everyone grew increasingly aggravated at the reports of Konoha losing ground in the North.

And then there was the homelessness situation—there literally wasn't enough room outside of clan compounds, and none of the clans wanted to cede territory.

There were just too many people in Konoha.

Something had to change.

Shin tried to relax his shoulders as the meeting stretched into its seventh hour of the day. They were making progress, he reminded himself, just ironing out the details now.

And it was true—at their current pace there would only be three, four weeks until Uzu would officially be open to settlement.

But he'd seen enough reports from Konoha, visited enough too, to know that they needed solution now, not in a month.

Settling the Land of Waves once more would solve so many problems—the land had a different climate than the rest of Fire, limiting the severity of any future droughts; there was plenty of resources like fertile land and salt to boost the Land of Fire's economy, the stormy season was over so people could be shipped there quickly…

But there was still the matter of land rights.

Konoha's section had already been allocated—almost a quarter of the land, all in the northeast quadrant closest to the Land of Water and (more importantly) where the previous Capital-cum-Shinobi Village had been located.

It was the rest of the nobles who were still battling it out over mere meters of land, who didn't want anyone to be allowed to start settling until they did.

And the Daimyo, viewing this as a way to increase his power, to increase the wealth of the nation by having the nobles cede significant amounts of their current wealth, agreed.

So now, instead of setting up a satellite Hidden Village on the island, instead of building lighthouses and watchtowers and signing up Land of Fire residents to move to Uzu, to start building their houses and stores and warehouses to prepare for the next growing season—instead everyone was still sitting in meetings, considering how every blade of grass might affect their family wealth fifty to five hundred years in the future.

And he couldn't even get that mad, because he knew there was an identical discussion happening between the Clans in Konoha, as the Hokage ceded much of the granted land to one or the other so they could spend their own money building it into working condition.

It was important, Shin knew, for every noble, every clan to feel invested, to feel like they'd gotten what they deserved.

But Sakura's most recent letter described families sleeping against compound walls, and Juro's described alcohol being used instead of water to clean and preserve just that much more of the pure stuff.

It had all seemed to go bad so fast, without anyone even the slightest bit aware of how serious it could get, and it was only a matter of time until dozens of new diseases sprung up, until riots began, until the already damaged war effort began outright faltering.

Something had to be done.

It was growing dark; the Samurai began moving to table discussions until tomorrow.

Shin's shoulders felt like rock.