Kakashi leaned against a fence, rubbing his eyes in the late afternoon fog.
He'd done good work, in the first day or two—destroyed plenty of byoki.
Now though, it all seemed to be gone.
Maybe it had fled.
Maybe it was in hiding.
Either way, his role was now solely as a threat, a promise—not an execution of the threat.
He knew better than to assume he'd be leaving Konoha before they figured out some sort of solution.
It wasn't so much—
He knew it was necessary.
He was more than willing to protect his fellow Fire citizens from the byoki.
But.
It was getting, just a little…
Boring.
Particularly as he couldn't stop hearing about what was going on outside the walls.
There was Kiri, of course, and the impending ending of that particular war.
There was Kumo, their threats.
There was Iwa—their western wars were finally over, and they looked to be more than eager to take advantage of Konoha's current backfoot.
There was Suna—a nation quickly picking up in trade power, given Fire's current struggles.
And then there was trying to figure out what to do about it all.
Whether to go after the remainder of the Land of Water, whether to instead defend the mainland from Kumo and Iwa.
What to do about the byoki.
What to do about Orochimaru, who had recently popped by for who-knows-what reason.
What to do about—anything, everything.
But none of that would involve Kakashi.
He would be too busy patrolling.
His break over, Kakashi pushed himself from the fence and moved on.
With every step he took, a tiny tendril of the tailed beast would exit from his bare foot, push underground, and lash violently in several directions.
Then the tentacle would return to his foot, and he'd take another step.
It was a long, slow walk.
Theoretically, this would keep his identity as jinchuuriki quiet.
Practically, he'd been far too visible on the day of the attack—the secret was out.
Truthfully, he was simply doing this to keep the citizenry calm, to keep them from freaking out over the still-intense aura of the tailed beast he contained.
But it was boring.
And it was exhausting.
It took all his energy, every single day, and it was mind-numbing.
He couldn't complain.
He wouldn't complain.
But by the kami, this was a struggle.
.
Ibiki wriggled forward, leaning around his Uchiha's teammate's shoulder to get a better look.
"Hey, I know those seals! They're based on my aunt's whip!"
"They are," Sensei said.
Sadao shifted. He was still awkward whenever Aunt Sakura was brought up, but Ibiki wasn't about to stop mentioning her, so he'd have to get used to it.
"What do they do?" Misaki asked.
"They redirect lightning, even ninjutsu lightning. They only work for one use, but it takes almost no chakra to activate and the energy is redirected straight down—it has a gravity component."
"Cool!"
Ibiki grinned, familial pride rising in his chest.
Sadao had a slightly more practical focus. "Why are you showing it to us?"
"We're going up to Kumo with a contingent of a few others—mostly Uchiha. Make a statement."
"Kumo's going to attack us?"
"Not officially, no. But they're going to test us—small little raiding parties of supposed 'bandits.'" Tsunade tossed a handful of seals to each of them. "We'll be making sure they accomplish nothing, and we'll be using genin to do it."
"Aren't we too young—"
"This isn't frontline," Sensei said, "so the Hokage hasn't banned it."
"It's not frontline."
"It's not a war; there's no lines at all."
"Except the border."
"Except that."
"Are we going to have to kill?" Ibiki asked.
Misaki eeped.
"Yes," Sensei said. "And, to make a statement, we want as many kills as possible from you genin. Even the Uchiha are mostly sending genin."
Ibiki swallowed.
Misaki swallowed.
Sadao swallowed.
It would not be a very good mission.
.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was a beast.
It was hard to remember—he'd primarily kept from the frontlines since ascending to Hokage—but with his only two child relatives (a second cousin and a third cousin once removed) killed by the byoki, he was angry.
He was very, very angry.
He'd lost most of his relatives in Iwa's targeted attack, he'd lost sons through the normal horrors of war, and now not even his clan's children were safe.
He'd asked to be sent to the frontline.
The current Hokage had sent him there, sent orders that the man be given whatever he wanted—
Because Minato was not stupid.
He knew what a powerhouse Hiruzen was.
And now Kiri knew too.
Apes swung through Kiri's ships, decimating the humans aboard, while Hiruzen targeted the biggest threats.
He was bleeding, and bruised, and still coughing up water from one particularly lucky attack, but—
He was Sarutobi Hiruzen.
This—
This was what he was missing.
This was what he needed.
He'd grown far too used to bureaucracy, to administration.
This—
This was coming home.
Gradually, the coast emptied.
Every boat either sunk or fled.
Hiruzen made his way ashore.
To the medical tent.
Wiped the blood off his face while his body was healed.
Gestured to a nearby runner.
"Where is being hit the hardest now?"
"Another port, about two hours north from here by railroad speed."
Hiruzen didn't know the port—it likely wasn't an important one, given Kiri's recent tactics of just trying to make it inland wherever they could.
He did know, however, that he could get there in half an hour or less.
"Go tell the telegraph operator to send that I'll be there by noon."
"Yes, Sarutobi-sama."
Not Hokage.
He'd become Hokage almost immediately after he'd managed to get any personal respect at all—he'd been so young.
It felt nice, to hear it again.
He looked down, judged himself sufficiently healed, and took off.
This, this was what he was meant to do.
This kept the thoughts away.
.
Minato glared down at the numbers.
Death tolls were never fun to look at, but now they had the official statistics from the day of the byoki attack.
He could almost feel his blood boiling.
Something, anything, had to be done.
He forced himself to relax, to keep his muscles untensed—doing otherwise would help no one.
He cleared his throat of the growl that wished to escape.
"Is Yamanaka Sakura back at work?" Which wasn't to say she'd ever stopped, but he knew immediately after the attack she'd worked at her sister's bedside, so her head couldn't possibly be fully in the game.
"Yes, Hokage," an ANBU responded. "She was the one that identified the spy yesterday—the one who killed himself before T&I could interrogate him."
Yet another problem on his plate. That could wait, though. It would have to—there was too much else to deal with first.
"Bring her here. And my team. I have… ideas."