Sakura gestured for the genin to enter. He did so slowly, reluctantly. He didn't look afraid, necessarily, just confused and anxious—understandable, she guessed, given that she co-ran Research and he'd only started working there less than a month ago.

"Tea? Water?"

"Um, no thank you."

"Alright." Sakura kept her posture relaxed and calm. No need to stress him out—there was nothing to be stressed about. "Do you know why I called you in here today?"

Genin Takeuchi shook his head. "No, miss. Ma'am. Sama. Um."

Sakura pulled out the notes he'd made on a chuunin-researcher's human disease transmission project. "You're smart, Genin Takeuchi. You clearly know a lot—the other genin assistants speak very highly of you. But when someone asks you to put pen to paper, make suggestions… you don't. You offer up all your ideas to the other assistants instead."

"Sorry."

Sakura sighed. "Can I ask why?"

"Dunno. Just—didn't expect to get asked my opinion, I guess. My dad said that genin assistants just run things. So when Researcher Uchiha asked I… dunno."

"Well," Sakura said, "I'd like to see you put forward some more suggestions, okay?"

"Okay."

The genin left.

He was… odd.

Familiar, almost.

Sakura opened his file again, but there was nothing to see.

And then Juro was in her office.

"I'm going to the Capital!"

"Okay?"

"Um, I mean. Not now. Well, soon. But not—I mean."

"You do know I get a lot of the hospital gossip, right? I have a whole Research sub-division which outright works out of the hospital."

Juro glared at her. "You knew."

Sakura shrugged, grinning. "I did."

Juro slumped, falling into the chair she'd placed opposite her desk. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was wondering how long it would take for you to cave."

"You know, it wasn't actually a guarantee—"

"Yes it was. You're still writing to the waitress."

Juro blushed.

"Shut up."

And then, because you could either have boring days or busy ones, Sakura's office door slammed open again.

"You need to get to the orphanage."

.

Tsunade groaned. She'd just gotten to sleep—it had taken hours, and she still wasn't quite sure how she managed it when her brain constantly bounced between desperation for alcohol and desperation to gamble.

And then she'd been woken up.

It was the stupid byoki, of course.

The strange black sludge that was completely destroying her life, refusing to be contained, studied, or known.

The reason she'd been forced to take a genin team: because 'her obsession' was becoming 'medically problematic' to her health.

And now "a lot" of it was in the orphanage.

"How much?"

"Um," the genin said. "I don't know."

"Why wasn't it spotted before? Orphanages are busy, aren't they?"

"They are," the genin admitted. He puffed next to her as she finally slowed, having arrived at the door of the orphanage. "It's not in the main areas though."

"Where is it then?" Tsunade stepped through the front door.

There was a massive hole.

The basement—the bunker, only intended to be used in emergencies—had been blasted open.

All over the floor—byoki.

Well, that answered that question.

"Shit."

"Hey, Tsunade." The Yamanaka—Inoichi or something—grinned up at her.

It wasn't a very happy grin.

He was leaning back in a wheelchair, which was something, with two genin flanking him, but he shouldn't have been in a wheelchair at all.

She glared at him. "You're supposed to be in bed for another week."

"Something came up."

She glanced past him, past the other Yamanaka and the Akimichi, and at the floor.

At the various genin who were staring, milling about uselessly.

Shit.

"How the hell did you find this, then?"

"Kids were behaving oddly. Getting sick, sleep-walking," the Yamanaka Head explained. "I went looking."

"Shit," said a voice behind her.

Sakura stepped next to her.

Another Akimichi—Ino-Shika-Cho really were taking over—stepped from behind Sakura.

Juro.

Tsunade should have guessed.

"Have you figured out a way to keep the stuff contained?"

She glared at Sakura instead. "No. It's still slipping through every material we try—metal seems to work best, but even that only seems to delay it."

A genin—a smart one, apparently—immediately dashed to the kitchen, coming out seconds later with an armful of pots and pans.

Tsunade swept her eyes over the lot of them.

Fine.

She was going to take control.

"Alright, you—go to the Hokage. Tell him to immediately reassign everyone to combing through every kami-be-damned square foot of this village for this stupid, stupid byoki. The rest of you genin, collect the byoki—"

"There are large metal containers in the warehouse on the corner of Maple and Seventh," Sakura interjected.

"Shove it in the metal containers. We'll ship the stuff out to the research outpost each time the containers get full."

Sakura grimaced. She'd hopped down into the hole when Tsunade had begun giving orders, and now she was poking at some of the byoki with a stick.

It looked so solid, like sludge, and yet both of them knew it could slip away, slip through, slip by in a heartbeat.

"You two—back to the hospital. Third Yamanaka, you go to the Hokage. Give him a more thorough explanation than the genin I already sent."

Inoichi started to complain—she'd expect nothing less—but the Akimichi Head dragged him along easily enough, and after four or five bows, the other Yamanaka took off too.

Juro grimaced. "I—I think I'm going to go back to the hospital," he said. "I don't know if I'll catch anything, but I want to run some tests on the kids, see if I can find anything."

"Smart," Tsunade said. She'd been avoiding the kids so far—had mostly been focused on pregnant women—but this was… worrying.

Very, very worrying.

Any additional information would help.

.

The war was not going well.

The hard, hard work of each and every Konoha ninja had ensured that they weren't crumpling—

But they still weren't doing well.

Each and every attempt to act offensively failed.

Each and every attempt to act defensively only succeeded with losses, injuries, civilians lying dead in the streets.

The economy was suffering badly, too.

And the Daimyo refused to step in—wanted to wait for the most opportune time and swoop in as his father had, but the current Daimyo was nowhere near as shrewd, didn't have his father's eye.

He still seemed to think Konoha was going well, no matter how many times every diplomat they could send told him otherwise.

The samurai were at least helping to protect their own territories, but that was—yet again—defensive.

Always defensive.

They needed an effective offensive; they needed to put Kiri on the back foot—

But no one fought like Kiri.

No one knew the water like Kiri.

And Minato—

Minato was tired of sending ninja to die.

He hated war.

Hated the pages and pages of death tolls, of injuries.

So far, 'fortunately,' most of the deaths had been of civilians.

Truly awful for the stability of the country, but currently the sole reason why Konoha itself wasn't falling apart.

Kiri was targeting civilians, and it was working.

Something needed to change.

Minato stood, grimacing at the ache in his knees as he did.

He needed a break, and the frontline needed a win.

Maybe a few hours of taking down ships would—

The door slammed open, a gasping genin being let in by a pallid Kushina.

"It's gotten worse," she said.

"The orphanage!" The genin gasped. "We need to collect the byoki!"

Well, shit.