Hokage Namikaze was up.

Barely.

Well, actually, he was wheelchair-bound, and so trembly he couldn't even feed himself, but—

He was up.

Awake.

And—

Angry.

He glared at the elders.

He glared at the Heads.

Hotaru… didn't glare back.

He wasn't an idiot.

But he also wanted answers, wanted information.

And yes, they had postponed the government restructuring without the Hokage's permission. But he was—busy, or unconscious, or both, and their borders were being attacked from all sides.

(But Kiri.

(It was still so, so odd that Kiri didn't exist any longer.

(That the Land of Water didn't exist any longer.

(It was amazing, that that hadn't gotten more backlash. But Hotaru supposed that infiltrators from other nations had also noted the increasingly odd behavior of the Water Daimyo, of his possible disappearance.

(And Konoha had allowed refugees to move back, which many had taken advantage of.

(And they'd given up almost all the land to Fire, not kept it in Konoha's hands.

(It was still amazing, that it had taken this long.)

He understood that the Hokage was upset.

He didn't understand why, really; he believed they'd made the best decision, under the circumstances—

But he understood.

He'd heard Sakura's theories about confidence often enough, about how if they acted like everything was fine the rest of the world would too.

He'd even seen it in practice, seen as the Hokage had grown more and more in love with the tactic.

But that didn't mean—

There were limits.

"We are pushing forward," the Hokage ordered, and despite some murmurs—well, he was the Hokage.

They would obey.

"Is there anything else?"

"The bank runs have stopped," the Finance Head said, clearly wanting to end the meeting on a more positive note. "Research Head Yamanaka's comprehensive bank insurance system worked, and after enough people withdrew their funds without issue they calmed down and started reopening accounts."

The Hokage shuffled his paperwork. It was painful, to watch him try to force the papers where he wanted them to be. "There was a bank run?"

"Ah, yes. I don't remember which debriefing we sorted that under—but, yes. It, when all of you came back—there was a bit of a panic. People calmed down relatively quickly, but there was a lot of concern about... um, about what had happened."

"Alright, get the report to me as soon as possible. Problems like these—unclear delineations in authority—are exactly why we need restructuring, to be clear."

"Yes, Hokage."

.

They'd decided to start with the Services Department.

It had made sense, several months ago.

The Department largely made up of the new Konoha Police, and with how the majority of Uchiha now lived in Uzu they'd expected relatively little pushback.

Now, though, the byoki had been defeated.

Maybe.

Which meant—

Fugaku Uchiha stood in front of the Hokage.

The Hokage, still wheelchair bound, leaned back from behind his desk.

"My clan will not take this well," Fugaku said.

That he felt the same did not need to be explicitly stated.

The Hokage nodded agreement. "The Police will still largely be run and peopled by Uchiha," he said.

"But we will no longer be independent."

They'd had this discussion before.

Minato had grown up an orphan, had grown up seeing the worst of the police.

He wanted more structure, more oversight. More security, for the people of Konoha.

The Uchiha, meanwhile—as far as they were concerned, the Senju might have married out, more-or-less willingly dissolved their clan, but that didn't mean the Uchiha had to do the same.

And they felt that, as one-half of the city's founders, they deserved trust. Power. Control.

Fugaku stared at Minato.

Minato stared at Fugaku.

"This will not end well," Fugaku warned.

"Give it a chance," Minato countered.

And, in the end, the Hokage was the Hokage.

And so the new Services Department was structured with the Groundskeeping, Fire Prevention, Transportation and Postal, Childcare, and Law Enforcement Bureaus and a Research Office.

.

Groundskeeping Bureau:

Internal – collect waste, clean streets and training grounds, and look after Hashirama's trees.

External – offer missions in horticulture and arboriculture.

Kumiko giggled as Nara Shikaku swung her onto his hip, walking towards where the newly uniformed Groundskeeping Bureau workers were trimming the trees. He hadn't slept in something like two days, but this was one of the best parts of his work, spending time with Kumiko. They'd mostly been spending time in the Nara woods, learning about plant care and benefiting from the thick Hashirama chakra that still persisted in the trees, minimizing the risk that anyone would notice the girl's work. Today, though, they'd be talking about the new work that had just begun.

"Why do you think trees are pruned?"

"So people like the way they look?"

"That's certainly one of the reasons. It also improves safety by allowing us to better predict where the tree, or its branches, will fall. Diseased and dying branches are also removed, to try to make sure the tree is as healthy as possible."

Kumiko reached towards the tree, and Shikaku quickly shuffled towards the next, not allowing her chakra to do much more than begin to accumulate.

"Now, why do you think the First Hokage chose to line the streets with so many different types of trees?"

.

Fire Prevention Bureau:

Internal – control and extinguish fires, minimize fire risk

External – offer missions in controlling and extinguishing fires, minimizing fire risk

Nohara Tomoya grinned as he ducked back out of the chimney and took a deep breath.

"Good or bad?"

"Awful. It's been swept, which is fine, but the bricks are beginning to crumble on the inside."

His boss winced.

Chimney checks were now free, and many, many families were taking advantage—which was good, except that it had become very clear that chimneys were in far worse condition than previously thought and Konoha had likely come scarily close to dozens of fires going out of control.

The problem with bad bricks was that the chimney would have to be rebuilt, which sucked, but it was a lot better than an entire condominium burning down.

.

Transportation and Postal Service Bureau:

Internal – transport letters and parcels, monitor mail; build, run, and maintain rail.

External – offer missions in transporting letters and parcels; transport of people and goods.

It wasn't—

Might Duy knew that much of Fire was worried for Konoha.

The news of the health of many of Konoha's most powerful had spread, and spread fast, and—

It made everyone leery.

They'd managed Kiri, they'd managed to survive, but that was mostly because of the plague, of the other nations not really able to press forward when they planned.

It had been months, now, though, and Iwa especially was coming out the other end, and—

And despite that, Konoha had powered forward with the planned changes.

With Duy's new Bureau, Transportation and Postal Service.

And Duy knew that much of Fire was worried for Konoha, but the new reduced rates for rail transport—

He grinned, helping an old granny into the car.

"I'm going to visit my granddaughter in the Capital," she told him, smiling as he carried her luggage after her. "She just had her first child, a little girl."

"Oh, that's amazing!"

"You Konohans brought me the letter about that last week, and I just knew I had to see her. I don't have much holding me to my house anymore, anyway—my husband died, and I'm relying on my old friends far too much. But helping my granddaughter, that I can do. And she asked, you know, so I'm just so happy that I can afford the trip."

"I'm glad to hear it!" Duy smiled, and she smiled back ."I'll be on the roof for the trip, but when we get to the Capital I'll be sure to help you with your luggage, okay?"

"Oh, that's so sweet! Thank you."

.

Childcare Bureau

Internal – daycare; family assistance, including courses, orphanage, monitoring of children to identify signs of potential harm.

External – offer missions in family assistance, including courses.

One odd effect of the byoki attack was that the search and rescue effort had led to the uncovering of far, far too much abuse.

And then, before that, there had been the uncovering of Danzo and everything that had happened with the orphanage.

And simultaneously—Uchiha Shisui, and putting children in situations that they could not be mature enough to deal with.

So the push for a greater focus on children, on their safety, was—

Large.

When the Hokage decided to restructure Konoha's government, then, the creation of an out-and-out Childcare Bureau saw no backlash.

But then it came time to—

Well, to start working.

And now it was up to Yamanaka Hina, because when Head Inoichi asked his fiancée who she thought of, she gave him Hina's name, because it had been Hina who had run the daycare Kohana had started in, and it was Hina whom Kohana had watched storm to her second-cousin's house, dragging him out by his ear and straight to Head Inoto when she'd learned he'd been disparaging his youngest son for his deafness, neglecting his needs as if his disability made him in any way less-than.

And Hina had been working, been spending days and nights—

But now it was official.

Hina sat behind her desk, and squared her jaw.

She might be terrified of screwing up, she might feel like an imposter in a position she felt in no way qualified for—

But she was going to succeed.

Konoha's children were going to be safe.

.

Law Enforcement Bureau:

Internal – deter, discover, and capture people who break the law.

External – offer missions to investigate crimes

The Uchiha were not happy.

Were, in fact, very unhappy.

A month ago the restructuring had made sense, had been reasonable given their general shift to Uzu—

But now the danger was (probably) gone.

Now they could move back.

And yet the Military Police was still disbanded, the Law Enforcement Bureau formed instead.

Uchiha Hono tried to ignore the complaining of her aunts, but they were doing so loudly.

Very loudly.

She was lucky her baby was such a deep sleeper.

And it was—

She felt resentful, too, felt pushed aside too—

But she knew perfectly well that all three of her aunt's husbands had moved to the exact same positions in the Law Enforcement Bureau.

She knew perfectly well that her aunts weren't planning on moving back to Konoha, were pushing their husbands to move to the Uchiha's Uzu Compound too, even though everybody was saying the byoki had to be gone now, had to be taken care of.

And it just—

It didn't feel so simple as it once had.

Hono spent hours, now, days, with her baby's father.

With his family.

With his neighbors.

Some of them were shinobi, but very few.

Most were civilians.

And most were visibly uncomfortable with the Uchiha's Military Police.

They never said anything to her directly, never spoke a single word—

But it was obvious.

And so Hono had asked why.

Had wondered what had caused the Uchiha to be—

To be feared.

Fuyuki hadn't really wanted to answer, but he'd admitted that there were times when the Uchiha had been… less than delicate, in their interactions with non-Uchiha.

Once someone was proven to be innocent, the Military Police would release you—but they'd treat you as guilty until then, even if your only crime was being foreign-born.

And Hono—

She knew, she did, that Head Fugaku had become concerned about the public perception of the Uchiha.

Particularly after everything with Danzo.

She knew that.

She just—

She hadn't really thought the negative perception was based on anything, had thought that her family's interpretation that it was based in envy, in jealousy—

Well.

Now she worried that there was a reason people, particularly civilians, particularly foreign-born residents, particularly poorer people—now she worried that there was a reason they were so tense when they interacted with the Uchiha.

She listened to her aunts, and she looked at her child, and she wanted something—anything—to change.

"Auntie, I need to go run an errand. Do you mind watching Ame for me?"

"Oh, of course, of course! She's such a darling baby."

Hono smiled, thanked her aunt.

Left.

And made her way to the Uchiha's telegrapher, translating what she wanted to say to the syllabary the telegram system used.

She didn't know if Head Fugaku would respond, but she had a child, and she had worries.

She had to try.