Kurama Zencho stood in a corner. There were plenty of places to sit—that wasn't an issue—but he'd assured her that he preferred to stand.

Sakura let it be.

They were nearing the time when their summary was due, and for Kurama Zencho's many flaws, he was a good worker, so it looked as if they'd finish in time.

Which was always a happy surprise.

Still, Sakura was already very tired of the Capital.

Usually—that is, when she was in Konoha—she had to explain things to her fellow Researchers, to the Hokage, to the many loyal shinobi of the Hokage.

While she had to spend some effort to make sure that what she wanted to communicate came across, then, that was mostly a matter of speaking plainly, avoiding jargon when necessary.

Here—

Here there were other concerns.

Kurama Zencho's face stretched into a far-too-wide smile. "We can try all we like, you know. There's no way to have this go down smoothly."

Sakura was well aware of that, thank you.

That didn't change that—that she had to try.

Even if she still thought the shift from the gold standard was a pipe dream, at best, it was still important for the Hokage's conversation to seem put together, logically backed.

Political.

So, she would keep on sticking in as many applicable actions of the nobility as she could, as many ways such a change in monetary policy could help everyone as she could.

She didn't bother to include phrasing suggestions for the negatives—only the counterarguments.

If the downsides weren't brought up, the Hokage wasn't exactly trying to give a clear picture.

Such a thing didn't exist in the Capital.

"We need to include a bit more about the Land of Wind." Kurama said

Sakura frowned. "Good point." The Land of Wind was where most of the world's gold came from, after all—they were bound to hurt the most. "Do we have any documents about how the last gold rush ended up?"

Kurama leaned forward—too far forward, really, he should have just taken a step—and pulled a page out from the middle of the pile on the edge of the desk.

Sakura reached for it.

It was the right document.

"I believe," Kurama said, "that our time is almost up."

Sakura glanced at the clock.

He was right.

"Our best argument is definitely that all countries—even those not directly involved—abandon the gold standard during Wars anyway… our worst is Wind."

"That's what you said when we started."

"It's still true."

The last gold rush hadn't exactly helped matters, either—it had been just when the deflationary effects of the gold standard were becoming hard to ignore, and buoyed all the prices back enough years that everything kind of settled down again.

"I like the idea of paper currency," Kurama said. "Easy to steal."

Sakura had no idea whether or not he was being serious.

Did she feel uncomfortable around him because everyone did? Because of his name? Because of some other memory of Arden's that she hadn't yet uncovered?

"Is anyone… comfortable in your presence?" Sakura asked at last, scribbling out a few final notes in the last seconds before their presentation.

"Not that I've met. Even my mother was discomfited after… four or five, I'd say? I was apparently an odd but not particularly unlikeable toddler."

"And that really doesn't bother you?"

Kurama smiled.

Too many teeth showed.

"I've never been one for people anyway."

It was time to present.

.

Kakashi kneeled, perfectly still, as Sensei and the Daimyo continued to discuss… something, over tea.

Something about the gold standard?

Nothing he'd known anything about, anyway, which was frustrating—Kakashi never liked not being in the know.

Beside him Obito and Rin knelt too, each just as meticulous in their respect of Capital cultures as he.

Sensei had pulled a lot of strings to allow them to follow him to so many of his meetings this week—only pulled the strings because they'd asked him to, all but begged—and so it was important that they acted as perfect representatives.

That said, sitting and listening to a discussion that he knew no context for was…

Dull, really.

More than a little annoying, when both adults kept using jargon and assuming background knowledge that Kakashi simply didn't have.

…That was an issue that had kept on cropping up this week. And before, too, when he and Kushina had started helping Sensei.

Kakashi had mostly been focusing on battle skills—and especially trying to control the bijuu, which he'd only just gotten enough of a hold of to fully mask its presence to any suspicious shinobi.

(Which was the only reason he'd been allowed along at all. He really needed to thank Kushina again—she'd worked with him every day in the weeks leading up to the wedding, knowing how much he wanted to go with Sensei.)

While the battle skills were important (very, very important) he'd kind of let a lot of his Academy studies fall to the wayside since, well, graduating.

It had just seemed not that important, to know history or etiquette or science, not when he could learn ninjutsu and tracking and battle strategy.

It might be time to change that.

Take advantage of the "childhood" Sensei wouldn't shut up about the importance of.

Sensei'd offered to let him sit in on elective classes, actually, without officially returning to the Academy.

Kakashi had turned him down, at the time, but perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea.

He suspected the class on international politics and the economy would have been particularly helpful right about now.

(He hadn't been able to sit in on Sensei's debriefing, unfortunately. With how little the three of them had previously been prepped on diplomatic meetings, any time they weren't following Sensei they were having headaches worth of information crammed into their brains, just to make as sure as possible that they committed absolutely no faux pas.)

Kakashi carefully flexed his calves, looking at his teammates out of the corner of his eye. Rin hadn't taken up the coursework—she was busy with the Hospital, and Tsunade was tutoring her every couple weeks too—but Obito had—he was still young enough to fit in, and Sensei had offered him the opportunity to do just that.

He'd taken just about every class he could fit in, if Kakashi remembered correctly.

Was trying to practice improving his memory, now that he couldn't read.

Kakashi couldn't remember if Obito had said he was taking International Politics and Economy—there were too many classes to keep track of—but he suspected that the older boy was; out of the three of them, he smelled the least confused.

Kakashi took another deep breath, letting it out slowly as Sensei and the Daimyo discussed the political structure of the Land of Wind following the reintroduction of the Great River at the end of the Second Great War.

He'd had a pretty good sense of smell since the summoning contract, but in the past weeks, as he'd learned to work with the tailed beast inside him, the sense had seemed to—not improve, not exactly, but grow.

He'd been able to smell sweat, before. Smell people's specific odors, smell flowers and dust and metals.

Now he could also smell emotions.

The skill was nice, convenient.

Discomfiting.

He could smell Sensei's focus, as he tried to keep track of what he'd been told in the debriefing.

He could smell Rin's concentration.

He could smell Obito's ease, the way he agreed and disagreed in parts with what both Sensei and the Daimyo were saying.

It was rather overwhelming, really.

Still—Sensei suggested he should use the skill as much as possible, learn how to interpret what his senses were telling him even more quickly, ever more surely.

Kakashi took another slow, deep breath.

The Daimyo—

What did he smell like?

Another slow breath.

The Daimyo was at ease, actually apparently interested in the topic, or at least in having a conversation with Sensei.

But that wasn't all.

Another breath, giving time for his nose to really take in the air.

It wasn't the Six-Tails.

That was what was messing him up.

He'd spent the past couple of days focusing almost entirely on emotions, on what he could guess from those scents—

But this wasn't emotion.

This was…

Kakashi tried to place it, remembered the Hospital.

He'd smelled this there, before. He was sure of it.

Was the Daimyo sick?! But—that didn't make sense.

Sensei would have known that, mentioned it to him beforehand.

So then what?

Kakashi tried to picture the last time he'd smelled that scent, the last place he recognized it from.

It was…

Rin's ward, wasn't it?

There was a man, and his wife. Civilians.

They'd both had the smell, but only the man was in the Hospital.

Their great-grandchildren were visiting too, didn't have the smell.

So why had they both—?

And before that, another man—Kakashi had no idea if he was a patient or not, though his cane made it likely.

And a woman, who was lying in bed. When Kakashi had asked what was wrong with her, Rin had snapped at him to be polite and then—

Something about hospice?

Kakashi couldn't remember the definition of hospice, but that didn't matter.

He'd finally put together what all of them had had in common—they were ancient.

Kakashi's eyes narrowed, then quickly went back to the curve of politely interested.

Old people had a scent?

How old did you have to get to have a scent?

Why had no one told him about this?

Well, the latter was most obvious: probably they thought he already knew. Kakashi didn't have any living relatives, not anymore, and he'd almost solely hung around active shinobi since becoming a genin, but—

Most people, they had grandparents.

Old ladies they helped across the street, like Obito did.

Probably even a lot of store owners were old.

It grated, that he'd not considered something so obvious.

Another thing that he didn't know.

That he should have known.

Was the gold standard another example of that?

The effects of the reintroduction of the Great River?

The etiquette lessons he'd crash-coursed his way through?

What else had he missed, in his drive to not be treated like a child?

.

Ibiki was furious.

He'd—

He didn't know what he'd thought, really.

It was the Capital, that's what he thought.

It was the Capital, and there were all sorts of people and horses and politicking and—

He'd thought it would be interesting.

Asuma kept calling him stupid, telling him it was boring, but Asuma thought sealing was boring, so what did he know?

It turns out, quite a lot.

(About this, and this alone. Asuma might be his best friend, but Ibiki was still more smarter.)

Every time he blinked, his eyelids called to each other, begging not to be parted.

Every time he shifted, his legs begged to collapse.

He'd begged Uncle Shin for hours to let him attend something, and after way too many etiquette lessons he'd gotten his wish.

Days of tea ceremonies.

Days of near-complete silence on his part.

Sitting as the counterpart to the son or nephew or younger brother or whatever of whoever Uncle Shin wanted to talk to.

Some of the stuff Uncle Shin talked about was interesting… some of it. Most of it was discussions about intellectual property, and confidentiality assurances, and discussions of written contracts, and oral agreements to agree, and status reports on projects of roads, and bridges, and schools, and so, so much small talk.

Some of it was interesting.

It didn't nearly make up for the boredom.

(He knew Asuma was going to be a snit when he admitted it, too.)