Please leave a comment or PM if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns, or just compliments. For the sake of this work, the elemental balance will go earth}lightning}water}fire}wind. Thanks to SmallFountainPen for betaing chapters 57-73. Thanks to SoaringJe for betaing beginning with chapter 116.

The Utilities Department had gone through their renaissance when the pollution had taken over years ago, had completely restructured not to get ahead of potential issues but to deal with the onslaught.

Which meant in their case the restructuring—while it was restructuring, complete with three bureaus and one research office—was more a case of… well, of public perception.

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Power Bureau

Internal – produce energy for Konoha, maintain energy system, store energy

External – offer lighting set-ups based on solar-energy seals within Fire's borders. Nothing else.

Anko took a breath.

Glanced around again, heart beating rapidly in her chest.

She'd been living in Konoha for nine months, now, but that had all been spent in the orphanage.

She wasn't an orphan.

She had parents.

Aunts, uncles.

Grandparents.

She'd just—

Wanted to be a ninja.

Was training to be a ninja, now.

And the Public Housing Bureau had finally finished building the new building for kids attending the Academy as a boarding school.

Which was where she was, now.

…At the orphanage, Anko had been monitored. Even more so than when she lived at home—she'd had to be inside at night then, but that was fine, because you couldn't see anything anyway. Her parents hadn't much cared what she'd done during the day, though, as long as she'd had her chores done.

The orphanage cared a lot more. Had curfews, and chores, and structure.

And now she lived in the Boarding House, with the other Academy kids who didn't have Konoha homes to stay at.

And no one was monitoring her.

She had to keep her room clean alongside her roommates, but… that was it.

She could go out at night.

She took another breath, opened the door.

Stepped out.

And smiled.

Streetlights splayed in every direction, people laughed and talked and lived—little flags hung from every lamp, showing off Konoha's leaf sign, and a patrol officer helped a drunken man stand back up.

She—

She could—

What could she do?

Well, she could explore.

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Water Bureau

Internal – supply water, sewage, and drainage; purify water; collect raw water; maintain drainage basins; store water

External – sell cleaned water

Konoha wasn't the only city in the world with plumbing.

Many cities—most capitals, and the larger trade centers too—had that luxury.

It was just…

Well, Konoha had been forced to deal with pollution.

Had been forced to come up with filter seals, purification seals.

Been forced to repair its entire sewage and drainage system—even separate them, create two different systems for the two different types of dirty water.

So many, many cities had plumbing.

Konoha just did it better.

The largest effect of that, the most important effect of that, was illness.

Or, more accurately, the lack-thereof.

Konoha had the most advanced medical care in the world, but it also didn't have to worry about as many incidents of salmonella. E. coli. Giardia. Hepatitis. Rotavirus. Novovirus. Yellow fever. And on, and on, and on.

Konoha's water was clean. It did not need to be boiled to be drunk; it did not need to be dealt with as a sort of unfortunate necessity.

It was clean.

And Konoha had just gone through a major population boom, had many new immigrants moving in all at the same time—

And realizing, all at the same time, that they were sick far less often.

And telling their relatives about it, their friends, their merchants.

And then those people told their relatives, their friends, their merchants.

And then The Byoki Controller was sent into space.

And Kumo and Iwa (and Suna, to a blessedly lesser extent) all began nipping at Fire's borders.

Which shut down trade.

And, more importantly, made many everyday people wonder if the security and economy of staying where they were, not moving to Fire, to Konoha, was worth it, actually.

Kumo, and Iwa, and Suna kept pressuring Konoha.

The people of the Lands of Wind, and Earth, and Lightning… didn't.

And that became very obvious as the first trickle of wartime immigrants began coming in, chose to move before the winter storms.

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Communications Bureau

Internal – operate and monitor the telegraph and radio

External – send messages for a cost

Nara Hatsuo rolled his neck, taking a moment before reading the new information he'd have to encrypt and send back to Konoha.

Huh.

More immigrants.

…They were going to run out of Yamanaka interrogators at this rate.

(He wondered, idly, how other hidden villages coped with immigrants. He knew that Konoha was more accepting of civilians than any other, but he hadn't before considered just how much the Yamanaka likely had to do with that.)

He scanned the information again—two families, civilian. Blacksmiths, which was interesting—skilled labor was always useful.

Well, really, any labor was useful.

But blacksmithing took forever to teach, so it was nice to get more people with those skills already embedded in their muscles.

He grabbed his chalkboard, began scribbling.

A minute later the translating was done and the original was burnt into ash.

After he finished transmitting the translation would need to disappear, too, but at least that was just a matter of erasing.

His job was rather boring, but Hatsuo didn't mind.

He liked learning about all the things that he otherwise wouldn't be able to know, and his translation speed had begun to be recognized—with any luck, he'd be transferred to the Konoha office soon.

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The Education Department's restructuring was the baby of Yamanaka Inoichi and he wasn't even able to see the change in person, was on the frontlines against Iwa, scraping together enough of a defense to get to winter, to get to the Hokage recovering.

It ached, a bit, that he wouldn't see it, but he'd done the hard work to get it ready, to get everything ready.

Five bureaus and the research office, all working to educate Konoha's populace until no one else could compete.

He couldn't wait to see the improvements in person.

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Adult Education Bureau

Internal – provide educational opportunities for both civilian and shinobi Konohans

External – provide some coursework in Konoha to non-Konohans

Takumi trailed after his uncle as they made their way to the new business course the Academy was offering in the evenings.

He was terrified.

He hadn't told his uncle, hadn't wanted to admit it, but—

What was he supposed to do?

How was he—?

He'd never taken a class before, not a real one.

He'd learned to write, to do math, in a small one-room classroom with the rest of the village kids, but that was it.

And that had been enough.

And then his uncle had asked him to attend the class with him, because Uncle Teuchi's ramen shop was doing okay but not great, and Uncle Teuchi's ramen was way too good to only be doing okay.

And Takumi agreed with that, he did, he just—he'd preferred to have helped by manning the ramen shop alongside his aunt, not…

This.

But he was an adult.

He had to straighten up, toughen up.

It was just a class.

Takumi cringed as he walked into the classroom, looking about at the fancy desks, at the wooden floor, at the blackboard, at the crowd of other people settling in.

Uncle Teuchi smiled. "Looks well-attended, that's a good sign. Ready to learn, Takumi?"

"Um, yes."

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Apprenticeship Bureau

Internal – monitor apprenticeship programs within Konoha

External – sell non-shinobi opportunities for apprenticeship to non-Konohans

Konoha was getting into shipbuilding.

They kind of had to, given their deals to protect most of the Fire Islands.

And, of course, owning several Fire Islands themselves.

So Konoha was getting into shipbuilding, but shinobi did not know how to build ships, so they'd hired many, many outside experts.

(Mostly from the former Land of Water, because they were now Fire residents anyway).

And now the Apprenticeship Bureau was in charge of all of those negotiations, which was great because previously the War Commander had been in charge and he was a bit busy at the moment.

Konoha's interest made sense.

Konoha's interest came with money.

And now Konoha's interest came immediately, and not at some indeterminate future date.

It was still rather surprising that the shipwright masters preferred this system, if only because Takashi would've expected that they would be opposed to having to prove their mastery, their quality to ninja who clearly knew nothing about shipbuilding at all.

"See? See—and look over here!" the shipwright—Hirose—pointed out another board. "Only three days! I am an expert!"

Yamanaka Takashi, who knew absolutely nothing about ships but was spending hours every day changing that, squinted. "The repair?"

"Yes!" Hirose said. "Still—not great. But better." Hirose hadn't spoken any of Fire's language prior to immigrating, but he managed communicate his enthusiasm quite effectively despite that.

"You seem… really happy?"

"Yes! Money! Many students! All the wood! Cheap wood! Beautiful wood! Also rope!"

"You…" Takashi wondered if he should continue. "You know this is an audit, right? I'm here to make sure you are meeting your end of the contract."

Hirose nodded, nodded, nodded again. "Excellent students, no issue. Excellent students. Very eager. In Water—in Water too much competition, too difficult, too much suffering. Students had many jobs, too tired. Here—not true. Here much better. And now—now Apprenticeship Bureau. You give me targets; you say you want this, and this, and that. And then you say—tell us what I should teach. And I tell you. And you say yes, and more money, and more students!"

Takashi suddenly understood why he'd been told to start with Hirose. "Alright, good. Um, do you mind going over everything again?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

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Library Bureau

Internal – operate public libraries in Konoha and Kaiso

External – sell access to the first floor of the library to non-Konohans

Objectively, male and female bodies had different bell curves of ability.

Different average strength.

Different average flexibility.

Different average stamina, and power, and agility, and coordination, and respiratory endurance.

How different varied, but there were differences.

Usually these differences didn't matter.

Chakra—as far as Fire scholars were concerned, though the East tended to dispute this—was the great equalizer, and the ability of chakra to reinforce a person's physical ability evened out the differences, made chakra skill, training, and effort matter a lot more.

So within shinobi communities there was a lot of gender equality.

This was not true for civilians.

Sui was a civilian.

Her parents had immigrated, though, had come to Konoha so that her younger brother could receive treatment (he was sick, so sick, couldn't keep down any food, gain any weight. Now he laughed, played. Still had to go to a doctor twice a month, but that was only until winter was over. Her parents didn't want to risk anything, risk him getting sick again once they left, had decided to live here permanently).

So now Sui was seeing gender equality, was seeing girls treated as equals to boys.

Her parents wouldn't let her join the Academy, wanted her to learn how to be a good wife, not a shinobi.

But her father was busy working, and her mother was busy with her brother, and so Sui could escape.

Could explore, could see.

And then she'd found the library—they'd put a sign in front of the door, a picture of a book, too, and she'd entered, shown her resident card.

And—

And—

She could read, a little, and the librarian helped her whenever she came upon a word she didn't know.

She came to every story time, too, came to the puppet shows, came to the classes on basket weaving and flower arrangements and anything and everything on offer.

Her parents hadn't been happy when they first found out, hadn't liked the idea of her learning masculine things. But she showed her flower arranging skills, how she'd learned how to perform new types of tea ceremonies, and they'd calmed down, let her keep going.

And one day, while she was reading, a kunoichi approached her.

Sat next to her.

And began asking if she'd like an opportunity, if she'd like to be a shinobi in secret.

And Sui knew there was a reason she loved the library.

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Testing Bureau

Internal – test shinobi for promotions and qualifications

External – offer some non-shinobi-related testing for a price

Sadao rolled his shoulders, his mind whirring. Misaki knew exactly what she wanted to do—field medic—so she had specific things to study for.

Sadao had made a different choice.

The International Chuunin Exams had promoted him to chuunin, but under the new testing rules he hadn't qualified for any particular job. No one had.

Instead the new Testing Bureau had tests that they gave out for different positions—tests about medicine, about international politics, about economics—about everything, basically, and each position required certain minimum scores on various tests to qualify.

You could take as many tests as you wanted.

Sadao, when he learned that, decided there was only one possible option.

He took a deep breath, tried to relax his shoulders again. Tried to relax his everything again. Tried to—to calm down, to remember that he could always retake a test later.

A bell chimed, and Sadao shot to his feet.

Around him everybody else tensed too, turned towards the door.

Began filing in.

This would be Sadao's next three weeks.

Test after test after test after test after test after…

He'd made, objectively, a stupid decision.

He didn't regret it.

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The Academy

Internal – educate children

External – sell educational texts

Hyuuga Daku did not want to be in school.

He wanted—

He wanted to be home.

To be on the dais.

To have Yamanaka Rento painting his face, painting his forehead.

But he wasn't next, wasn't due for another two weeks.

His Head was better, at least, was healthy, more or less.

And his Head's brother—

Wasn't.

But was headed that way, and that was something.

Daku had never liked being a Hyuuga.

Had never liked the fuinjutsu on his parent's foreheads. What it meant.

Had liked it even less when it was his turn.

But now—

Now the Hyuuga were changing.

And Daku… was in class.

Was learning about the new official rights of Konoha citizens.

Which…

Actually, was nice.

Objectively, nice. To learn about how as a Konoha resident he was now entitled to things, entitled to trials, and education, and clean water, and all sorts of things.

But he was more concerned about his status as a branch-Hyuuga, and that was not something he'd learn about in class.

So he liked the new lessons, liked the new information, but he still didn't want to be in school.

Because home—for the first time in his life—felt like home.

And that's where he wanted to be.