Everyone saw it coming.
"At least they'd gotten two years of peace first," the merchantwoman said as she handed over the bag of onions.
"Two years too many!" the customer snapped back. He was elderly, with a hunched back and uncomfortably few teeth, and a well-known war hawk. "We should have hit them where it hurts immediately!"
The merchantwoman shrugged in response, not willing to argue with the retired woodworker. "If you say so. I liked having my son closer, though. I even have a grandson now!"
The elderly man grumbled, "Imagine if we'd put Kiri through its paces, taken over it as well as Uzu. All the fish you could possibly want! Well, at least we're getting around to it now."
"Soon there will be a whole new slew of woodworkers who don't have to worry about tariffs."
The man hesitated over the taro crop that the merchant had available. He glanced in the direction of his old shop where his sons still worked, unable to hide his dislike over the thought of more competitors. "Hadn't thought of that. Well, we can trounce them without taking them over, anyway."
"Fair enough," the merchantwoman said. There was a rumble, and both turned to look at the smoke billowing above the walls—it had been happening all day now, something about bomb testing, so they knew it wasn't a problem, but it was still… noisy. After a second, both turned and went back to the produce.
The old man had bypassed the taro, but the potatoes were particularly large this year. "I'll get two dozen."
The merchant nodded, reaching for one of the sacks she had ready. "It's one hundred fifty ryo now."
"What? It was only one twenty two weeks ago!"
"And now we're preparing for war," the merchantwoman said, "and war is expensive. With all of the extra security—my prices are all going to shoot up, and I'm not going to starve my family just to keep my prices equal."
"Bah!"
The merchantwoman didn't respond. She knew full well that despite her higher price she was still one of the cheapest options around, and she spent the time to make sure all of her produce was top quality—something the elderly man cared a lot about.
"Fine, fine."
"Anything else?"
The man glanced at the onions, potatoes. He glanced at the fruit, but they both knew that those prices would have risen even more than the root vegetables. "That's it." He dropped the sack, fishing out the necessary change. "Here."
"Pleasure doing business."
The old man snorted.
The ground rumbled again.
.
Kiri didn't go after Konoha this time.
Likely they figured that that would be too obvious, too well-defended.
But Fire was a very large country, and there were many very good targets.
Konoha was out, yes, and the Capital too, but that was fine.
Kiri did better near the water anyway.
Miyagi, the biggest port-city in Fire, was ideal.
They came under cover of storm, which made it all the worse for the defenders.
The storm had almost definitely been worsened one way or another, too; Kiri had historically been known to summon hurricanes out of what seemed to be thin air.
Regardless of whether they'd done that this time—it seemed likely, but then there was also the chance that the ability had been tied to the Tailed Beast—the storm had come thick and heavy, and Kiri had always been very, very good at teaching their shinobi to move unseen.
The first contingent was almost on top of the docks when they were finally spotted.
Now, less than twenty-four hours later, the damage reports were still coming in.
Jounin Commander Nara frowned over the battle board, taking in the small tokens that represented the state of Miyagi—terrible—and the surrounding area, as well as the known locations of any shinobi, allied or otherwise.
"This is bad," the Hokage said. "Very bad." His eyes flashed down the long Fire coastline, at the hundreds of villages and cities of all shapes and sizes that were ripe to be targeted.
Jounin Commander Nara grunted in agreement. "They didn't do this last time because they were more concerned with taking things, but right now they seem pretty solely focused on damage."
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit," the Hokage said.
Another report came, and one of Jounin Commander Nara's assistants carefully added a few more pieces to the board—the Kiri ships had been spotted, would likely be attacking a city (ironically called Minatocho) already.
Minato slapped his fist on the edge of the table. "We barely have any shinobi there!"
That… wasn't exactly accurate, actually, but it was true that they'd expected Kiri to go after Ribaderutashiti first—a city almost as big as Minatocho and slightly closer to Miyagi.
That they'd got it wrong meant many of their shinobi were out of place.
It also meant they'd badly underestimated the speed the core Kiri fleet was moving.
Or—worse—that there were multiple fleets.
Which meant that they'd even more badly estimated the size of Kiri's overall army.
Either way—
"Shit," the Hokage said again.
And to think, he'd been elected in part due to his eloquence.
And then the next report came, and with it the sighting of another fleet.
It was the Nara who said it this time.
"Shit."
.
"Their boats are made of wood," Sakura repeated. "Wood."
"Well, yes, but their ships are specifically treated to be less flammable—"
"Alright, fair enough. But are they still flammable?"
"Um, yes."
"Then I'm not seeing the issue."
"Well, it's just that, you know, fire bombs aren't as effective, so I believe we should shift sealing resources to using acid bombs."
"Do you know what's particularly helpful about fire bombs?" Sakura asked.
Inoue Ema, who ran what was at this point Konoha's sealing factory (officially it was still a sealing office, but in function it had become a lot more production focused, and the regulation aspect—examining seals sold on the open market—had become its own office two years before), swallowed.
"No."
This—
Wasn't true.
Inoue Ema knew it wasn't true, Sakura knew it wasn't true, and yet here they were.
"Most people in Konoha are fire natured. This means making fire-natured explosives costs minimal chakra. In comparison, no one at all is acid-natured—as far as I know, that isn't a thing. This means that acid explosives cost significantly more chakra to make, limiting how much any individual sealer can create. Are you arguing that they can make enough acid-explosive seals to create the same—or better—effect to Kiri ships as our current output of fire-explosive seals?"
Inoue Ema swallowed.
Shook her head.
Ema was nice, really, and shockingly good at dealing with the fast-expanding Sealing Office.
She had a good eye when hiring, and she was always exceptionally accurate when predicting which seals her office could reasonably produce, and in what quantity.
But she was marrying the heir to the Shimura Clan in six months, and for the past two months—since their engagement had been officially announced—she'd been coming forward with a lot more suggestions.
Suggestions which were never completely thought through.
Sakura didn't want to deal with this, deal with the Shimura trying to influence policy through Inoue Ema—she already had to deal with the same from the current Shimura, as well as every other clan member depending on the issue—but she had to put up with it for the same reason she had to put up with everyone else.
There was nothing she could do to stop the clans from trying.
"Then we'll stick with a focus on fire-explosives," Sakura said.
Inoue Ema nodded, bowed, left.
The woman really hadn't liked making the suggestion—clearly didn't believe in a word of it—which if anything made it more difficult.
If someone had a genuine suggestion, believed in the suggestion—then it was a question of digging into the facts, weighing the pros and cons, trying to see if the change would be worth it.
When someone came because one or many of their elders cared, however, their interest tended to be… less.
Which meant that she had to spend time addressing the suggestion, when both conversers didn't actually think the change would be a good idea anyway.
She needed a break.
Stepping out from her office, Sakura could see her Co-Head bent over one of the large collaborative desks they'd carved out space for.
Several other Researchers surrounded him, pointing and gesturing frenetically as two of them in particular seemed to be getting more and more excited by whatever they were trying to explain.
Hotaru had the half-smile on his face that meant he liked what he was hearing, and given the Researchers around him that was a good sign—they'd finally made a breakthrough on the air-masks which would allow shinobi to breathe underwater for hours.
The door banged open, letting in a rush of junior Researchers—Academy students who volunteered for two- to three-hour blocks on weekends to do running, sorting, and clean-up so genin assistants could track results, crunch numbers, and summarize updates.
"That explosion was—"
"So cool!"
"Biggest ever!"
That… wasn't a good sign.
The explosives team had been trying to create targeted blasts—the same power affecting a smaller area—but if they were creating the 'biggest ever' explosions…
Well, if they had managed to get more bang for each buck, so to speak, that would still be useful.
Sakura nodded, received far too many bows in return—the students were jumbled up and kept hitting each other and restarting—and left.
The hospital was a good idea—it had been almost a week since she'd stopped by last; and for all that she got regular reports on the medical devices and drugs being tested, sometimes medics wanted to explain things 'in their own words.'
Arriving at the hospital, however, Sakura was startled at the urgency coating the building.
Well, that was it then.
The end of the ceasefire.
She'd hoped for at least a few more days, but—
Well, that had just been hope.
And even then, not much.
The patients hadn't arrived yet (Sakura could see the operating room scheduling board empty, ready to be filled), but seven genin were seated at the telegraph center, jotting down summaries of injuries and stacking them on a ledge above the desk, where a head medic picked up the notes as they arrived, skimmed, and then shouted orders.
Patients were being shuffled to three to a room already—to make room for the new patients, as well as allow some of the more secure rooms to be turned into temporary operating rooms.
People were running in from behind Sakura—medics of varying levels called in to help the upcoming onslaught.
In the corner, Utatane Hiro stood. He was the Hospital Administrator, organizing the budget and dealing with human resource issues and the like—just about everything, really, that wasn't medical.
Which meant he wasn't much help in the immediate.
Sakura moved to stand beside him.
"Lots of patients?"
Hiro hummed.
"They're sending the worst off of civilians, too, at least those that can survive the journey, and a second city's just been hit—we're not going to be slowing down any time soon."
"They're sending civilians?"
Hiro grinned, nudging Sakura. "Your fault. Or, at least, your people's. It's the railroads—so much more room than the old medic wagons, and they can add cars to the end to make them even bigger. A single wagon could hold, what, twelve patients, squished together, one medic, and the driver—and would need at least two guards too.
A train, in the meantime, can take over one hundred patients, sorted into cars by need so the medics can be targeted where necessary, and only four or five guards and two drivers."
"Efficient."
"Exactly."
"Lower civilian death rate would help with morale, too."
"Better yet—fixing civilian injuries, here, will do wonders for our tree hugger reputation. We're already a popular choice for civilians, but keeping up the 'nice' image will ensure our peacetime income."
"That's good."
"Yeah."
The medics were still running around—the first train, according to a cacophony of shouted voices, was due to arrive in only two hours, and the second train—which would arrive a little over an hour later—would include the first patients which were patched up temporarily on the coast and would need far more significant surgeries upon arrival.
Both Sakura and Hiro stood, watching.
"We're at war again," Sakura said at last. "We're at war, and thousands will die."
"Yes."
"I hate war."
Sakura turned, left.
She hated more than war.
Hated ninjas.
Hated child soldiers, and resource scarcity, and politics.
Hated that she was just as much a part of it as anyone else.
But that didn't mean she couldn't try.