Juro sat in the conference room, his position as Head of Pediatrics (Head Nara had retired the second the war was over, had pointedly ignored the suggestion to wait until the new year in favor of planting herself in front of a fishing spot and just not leaving) earning him one of the comparatively few chairs.

Around him sat the other Heads, other medics, even other researchers—Human Research Head Kato, of course, as well as those Researchers that currently had projects that were being rolled out across the hospital.

Hospital Head Hyuuga sat at the very end of the table, opposite Field Hospital Head Nara, and between them, all across the table, sat dozens of folders and scrolls and loose papers and just about everything else it was possible to write on too.

They'd already gone over the patients—each medic giving a summary of those they were overseeing and whether anything worrying had popped up—and the transition from wartime to peacetime organization (especially important, with how many medics were coming back from the field, with how many not-quite-urgent-enough treatments had been postponed until there were more hands, more resources available) and now they were on to everything else: the Research team, the logistical nightmare that was running the Hospital, any non-Konoha issues…

Head Hyuuga placed the latest scroll in the 'read' stack (a letter from the Capital's University hinting at the possibility of a student exchange) and moved to the next—

A very thick folder, with red tape along the upper edge to mark it as urgent.

"And this is—"

"Doi—I mean, the Research Head and I have been working together on this." Sannin Tsunade said, from her position in the very back of the room.

She had, until then, been slouched against the wall, listless while everyone else talked—that was what she normally did in these meetings, attended through her physical presence and not her mental focus—but now she straightened her back, stood more fully.

Juro glanced between her and the Human Research Head with interest. While he knew that they had been able to, more or less effectively, coparent since Sannin Tsunade's… return, he'd been under the impression that they still didn't like each other that much. For the two of them to collaborate—

"It's about the birth rates." Head Kato said.

"Have you figured out the cause?" Head Hyuuga said, opening the folder and flipping with interest—the Hyuuga had had a lower birth rate themselves over the past few years, and they were one of the clans to bring the issue to the government's attention.

"Not to any degree of certainty," Head Kato started—

"It's worse than we thought." Sannin Tsunade interrupted. "As far as we can tell, the birthrate decline has been occurring for about five years, now, give or take, and only went unnoticed because we were in a war then and we barely had time for peace before the Third Great Shinobi War started…" Sannin Tsunade trailed off, hesitating as she sometimes did—in remembrance? Fear? Juro didn't know her well enough to guess.

Head Kato was quick to take over, anyway.

"As far as we can tell the effect extends outside the Land of Fire, as well. While none of the other Great Nations have leant their data to us, several of the smaller nations have, and they report the same population decline."

"Five years…" Head Hyuuga said. "You really don't know why?"

"Our best guess is that it's not environmental–" Doi said. "It's too widespread for that."

"It's the war," Sannin Tsunade interjected. "Or rather, the wars. Obviously. Look, the population rates aren't falling that much, at the end of the day—just to levels last seen before the first Hidden Village. It's—It's distrust, its not knowing if the future will be safe. We've gone out and done interviews, you know, asked around as well as all of the genetics testing and environmental testing and all that. People just… are waiting."

"So, propaganda then?"

Head Kato shrugged. "Best solution, probably. But we're still—"

"Nothing will ever be certain." Sannin Tsunade snapped.

"Thank you." Head Hyuuga's voice rose, overrode the argument everyone could hear brewing just beneath the surface. Head Kato, already poised to respond, shrugged and stepped back. "You said it was worse than we thought?"

"Oh, yeah—because of the implications, too; if people aren't having kids out of fear, then they're unlikely to encourage those children that they do birth to become shinobi."

Head Kato nodded. "And that's what we're seeing in the Academy—despite the influx of children from the rest of the Land of Fire during the drought, this year significantly fewer children than expected entered the Academy."

Head Hyuuga grimaced. "You've passed this information on?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright. Well, if there are to be less children in the near future, then those we do have will have to be kept as healthy as possible. I'm not cutting your budget, pediatrics, but you'll have to figure out how to use what you have to organize health drives across the city, check in on children and make sure nothing's being overlooked."

Juro hid a grimace and nodded. He'd fought hard for every coin in his budget, every inch of it was already allocated, and now—

But it was a good idea, and it wasn't as if anyone else had budget to spare.

"It will be done."

"Alright." Head Hyuuga said, dumping the folder into the 'read' stack and picking up the next—a report on how well the latest blood drive turned out. "Let's continue."

.

Yamanaka Kohana frowned as she flipped through the latest of her boyfriend's 'ideas'. "And what's wrong with having the daycare in a house? Like we've always done?"

"Oh," said Inoichi. "I hadn't—um, I just got really interested in designing the layout, and—"

"It's a very expensive building for what is currently being accomplished quite well by Yamanaka Nozomi's house."

Inoichi slumped.

He had, it was true, been doing much better recently, actually listening when Kohana talked about her experiences running and being part of a daycare, and adjusting his plans accordingly.

He'd been up late last night, though, had wanted something to take his mind off of the orphanage problem—he still hadn't explained that one in full, but from the increasingly disturbed faces of both him and her younger sister Sakura she had to imagine it was bad—and come up with the idea of an independent Yamanaka daycare center, like those that were dispersed across the city.

Of course, the Yamanaka did not personally have enough children for a fully removed center to make sense."

"I got ahead of myself, didn't I?"

Kohana looked up, smiled, and held her thumb and pointer finger a few centimeters apart. "Just a bit." She glanced down, reading through the plan again. "I like the idea of foam blocks for them to move around and crawl on, though."

Inoichi leaned forward, grinning. "Yeah? I got the idea from the jungle gym we had set up. Something—you know, softer, for when the kids are younger."

Kohana hummed. "I'll talk to Nozomi—" the main house of the daycare always ran it— "but I think she'd be okay with a test run. Add some rugs to the floor of one of the main house's spare rooms—"

Inoichi grinned. "Foam's cheap, too. Research basically gave away the recipe because they thought it would be too useful, and too easy to copy, to keep to themselves."

"Which means it could be in-house."

Inoichi nodded. "Quicker, easier…"

.

Clan Head Hyuuga rested his teacup back on its saucer, eying Sakura and Rento as they kneeled across from him.

"It is unfortunate that we cannot come to an agreement."

Sakura hummed, not quite agreeing—acknowledgment was sufficient.

She, after all, did not agree.

Refusing to merge in the tracking seal unless the Yamanaka were the ones who did the work did make any chance of a deal almost zero, of course, but then the idea that the Hyuuga would otherwise agree to remove the… less pleasant parts of their seal was about the same.

Inoichi gave her permission to be a hard ass, anyway.

(She was under the impression that he wasn't a fan of the whole 'branch house' thing anyway, and regardless the seal was a sole creation of Yamanaka Rento and herself—he could force her to do it if she didn't want to, but it would lead to bad blood, which didn't seem to be something he cared to risk.)

Head Hyuuga looked as if he intended to pick up his cup again, then reconsidered, looking back at Yamanaka Sakura with interest.

The two unique eyes met, neither willing to cede any territory.

Rento didn't squirm, didn't give a single hint that he was uncomfortable.

Head Hyuuga had targeted him initially, had seen him as the weak point, as the in, but the teenager hadn't bent in the slightest.

Sakura was more interested in her former classmates.

The elder of the twins, Hiashi, was due to take over his clan in the winter, alongside the other major changes in leadership.

His brother, Hizashi, already had the seal.

Not that Sakura could see it, but it was obvious in every minute interaction between the two.

Hiashi regretted it, hated it, but felt obligated.

Hizashi hated it, quailed under it, but felt obligated.

And their father ignored the obvious discontent rising from both.

Sakura hummed, sipping her tea.

The current Head might be against it, but in a few months? With different leadership?

Head Hyuuga rose, followed by his sons in one corner and the two elders mirroring them in the other, and Sakura and Rento rose with them, Sakura's eyes following the ancient men the entire time.

The elders, they'd be a problem.

They were the ones in the room who supported the Caged Bird Seal.

They were the ones that had to go.

(Sakura probably shouldn't be thinking of what amounted to treason so casually, but she couldn't help it. With a reality as sick as the Hyuuga, revolutionary action was necessary.)

.

Shin smiled pleasantly, sipping his tea as the noble from the Land of Tea continued to bluster before him.

Or, more accurately, before the Fire Samurai whose family controlled much of Fire's border with the Land of Tea.

With the war to the north over, and exploratory missions already completed, it hadn't taken more than a day or two to actually deal with the death cult that had successfully thrown the Land of Tea into civil war—by the time Konoha had come in the cult had already dissolved into its own internal conflicts, after all, and with it lost the defensive power of the risk of martyrdom.

The nobles of Tea were a different matter—they couldn't simply be erased from existence.

Fire had already decided to support a young samurai who the former Daimyo's daughter threw her weight behind. She'd be marrying him, sometime next year, as an official seal of approval, but Konoha had done its own research, too—there were no personal feelings between the two (the age difference, if nothing else, guaranteed that), but the man was an accomplished samurai with an eye for stewardship, and his stated (and, by all accounts, true) goal was stability, so he was a good choice.

Of the other two options, one was a truly blatant attempt at gaining a title they had no backed claim for, and the other was sitting in front of him now.

This one was worse.

There was a reason that the Fire Samurai had specifically sent a request to the Daimyo to be allowed to bring Shin along.

The man was still blustering, still inflating his own importance—he had a good claim to the title, it was true, better even than the steward's was until he got married—but he'd gotten too greedy.

If, perhaps, he'd stayed in his lane…

Well, Shin certainly wouldn't be here.

Instead, Shin calmly smiled, staring at the man who hadn't once considered his identity as the noble grew more and more worried by their lack of a response.

Noble Otomo had, after all, allied with the Land of Water.

(Not that he knew that they knew that.)

Fire had apparently taken too long to choose a side, and rather than respect the literal centuries of relationship between the two countries, Noble Otomo had decided to use the delay to his advantage.

He, apparently oblivious to the standing of the world, had sent a missive to the Water Daimyo, offering a change in alliance, and the Water Daimyo—not an idiot—agreed.

"His" troops were supposed to come in eight days, according to the intercepted letters, were to land on a beach just north of the core of the steward's—Noble Soga's—army and come upon them in a devastating surprise attack.

The Water Daimyo had also sent two shinobi to 'protect' Noble Otomi.

One was already dead, his foolish attempt to sneak into the Fire Samurai's camp ended before it began.

The other was kneeling next to the noble, also beginning to show signs of wariness as the (Water-local, Shin was sure) poison failed to take effect.

No one had asked his identity when he'd arrived, his appearance in no way marketing him as a threat, as someone with a bloodline, and years of practice had made him a deft hand at exchanging the cups without anyone the wiser.

He hadn't just switched the cups—had considered it, but worried the enemy shinobi might be immune—he'd dosed theirs too, and now sat (looking, for all the world, like a scribe), and wrote, and watched.

The enemy shinobi had, twice, attempted to add something to the Fire Samurai's drinks.

He had, twice, thought he'd been successful.

Shin knew better.

At last, Noble Otomi seemed to give up, and the Fire Samurai's constant, deliberate, stonewalling ceased in favor of the pleasantries exchanged at the end of every meeting.

Shin joined in, kept watching.

Another ninja—Ichiro Takahashi—watched from the other side of the door, his senses on high alert.

Shin didn't know, or at the moment care, why the idiot Otomi and the purchased water shinobi didn't suspect that Fire would bring its own ninja.

At the moment, he simply basked in it.

Fire's samurai, an older man called Hashiji, grunted as they entered the Fire Camp.

After a second's hesitation—and a confirmation from the seemingly invisible Takahashi that they were safe—Shin cleared his throat.

"Three attempts to kill us on their side, and one attempt to break into our camp on theirs. We should leave tonight—we killed one of their men already, and the other will drop in less than half an hour. Noble Otomi will take longer; with the mix I gave him it'll be about a week, and then mimic a stroke."

"Good."

Shin grunted.

It was convenient that he, as a Nara, did not look in any way like a ninja.

He just really wished that at least some targets grew wise to that fact.