There were only two Departments that had direct control over every shinobi: the Hokage Department—or, more specifically, the Hokage—and the War Department.
.
The Security Bureau of the War Department had three jurisdictions: Wall, Fire, and Charters. Officially, technically, everyone was 'assigned' to one of those duties based on their current role. Fighting off Kumo, for instance, was Fire, while taking on an extermination mission fell under Charters. Really, in theory, shinobi should have been distributed proportionally across each jurisdiction.
That's not how things actually went.
Wall was… understaffed.
Very understaffed.
If it weren't for the defense seals, for the sheer power within the walls—
That would be more of an issue.
As it was, it was still very, very bad.
Next: Fire.
Also understaffed.
Also very bad.
Finally: Charters.
The most staffed by proportion, if only because it actually made money for Konoha. Still understaffed.
War was never easy.
Not even when it was unofficial.
.
The Pursuit Bureau had many tasks: tracking, hunting, warrant-capture, infiltrator-capture, item-capture, and search and rescue.
Today they were hunting down an enemy of Konoha.
Yasuo was happy to be based in Konoha even as the border attacks worsened, and he was more than eager to repay that kindness.
Capturing someone who had put out a new bounty on Hatake Kakashi—within Fire's borders, no less—was also just something that Yasuo was in favor of.
It wasn't…
Yasuo knew, objectively, that people were terrified of jinchuuriki.
Of the threat they posed.
And Kakashi—people knew he was a jinchuuriki, now, knew that he'd been the one to beat back the byoki.
But he was also so young.
Prepubescent, basically.
He deserved to be able to feel safe within Konoha.
And Yasuo was going to make sure that happened.
.
Veteran's Affairs.
It was a sick thing to say, a wrong thing to say, but Itsuki was so, so happy that the Bureau hadn't formed years ago.
It was a sick thing to say.
The thing was, it was really how Itsuki felt, if only for selfish reasons.
It wouldn't have been easy.
Before.
It would have been hard, and expensive, and pointless.
Historically, retired shinobi, medically-discharged shinobi, they were seen as burdens. As problems to be dealt with until they blessedly died and the load of their existence was taken off Konoha's coffers.
This was true before Konoha, too, but to a much lesser extent—before Konoha, it had been clans and only clans that were regularly shinobi, and taking care of your own father, grandfather, great-uncle—that was an easier responsibility to stomach.
And then Konoha had came.
And clanless shinobi.
And—
Well, even if the Bureau wasn't around, the responsibility was. It was just dispersed, without anyone really 'in charge', and the veterans suffered for it.
So the idea of leading a newly formed Veteran's Affairs Bureau even a handful of years ago would have sucked the life out of Itsuki, would have been a sort of torture of seeing his future suffering before his very eyes and knowing there was nothing he could do about it.
And then things began to change.
Prosthetics and physical therapies and blood tests reduced the number of medically-discharged, and enough clanless ninja began to succeed that they'd started creating their own support systems, their own safety nets. Those were important, were needed.
They weren't why Itsuki thought he could do the job, why he thought the job could be done at all.
It had started with the Academy.
With the war.
With the need for more teachers, with the new electives system, and with bringing in veterans to teach.
And then there was the new seals to lock important documents away, to require passwords or chakra signatures or a dozen other little quirks to open—after those began to be common place, the Hokage agreed that not everybody had to be physically fit, able to take on an infiltrator who decided to go on the offensive to nab the information.
Which meant veterans, those considered too old or too disabled before, could fill those roles.
Could earn income, support themselves.
Could stop being considered veterans, start being considered active duty.
Could feel useful.
A part of the community.
Valuable.
It was a sick thing to say, a wrong thing to say, but Itsuki was so, so happy that the Bureau hadn't formed years ago, that he hadn't been put in charge of that imaginary bureau.
He was even more happy that Veteran's Affairs existed now, and that—even as the borders faced increasing numbers of assaults—he still got a budget, a budget which—due to the lower number of veterans, the less support required by those still retired or discharged—actually could be stretched far enough, if he managed things just right.
He'd be sure to make sure it didn't go to waste.
.
ANBU.
It was still ANBU.
Well, maybe it had been renamed, but if it had everybody had promptly forgotten about it.
ANBU dealt with security.
Security within Konoha's walls, security of Konoha's information, security of the Hokage.
…maybe also some other things, really anything where Konoha didn't want specific identities to get out, but mostly security.
And that was all you needed to know.
…And now Alligator was one.
He'd still be running important messages, guarding, doing other 'low risk' jobs for a while yet, but he did get to sit in on official meetings, so that was something.
He sometimes wished the meetings were more… optimistic, though.
"…and at this point, given how frequently we had been capturing Orochimaru's spies, it is very clear that we should have caught more.
"Many more."
Unhappy murmuring.
Alligator had been hearing about this since he'd joined, hearing about how many spies they should have been capturing.
Been hearing about the last one had been caught by Clan Head Hyuuga.
They were missing spies.
They were missing infiltrators.
They needed to do better.
All (probably) true.
But the actually doing better was another matter.
Not, Alligator reminded himself, that it was his job to figure out how to get there. His job was just to guard, guard people and guard information and guard Konoha. Alligator might not know how to stop Orochimaru or any of Konoha's other enemies, but he did know how to guard.
That would have to be enough.
.
The Operations Bureau was, by far, the largest part of the War Department. The Bureau was in charge of the general training of all shinobi during peacetime, and… well, war.
They were busy at the moment.
The door to the Research Office—because now every Department had a Research Office—was immediately off the Commander's door, and they all flinched when it opened.
When the Commander arrived.
Commander Hyuuga frowned, rubbing at the texture of the new fabric. "Is this that much better than the old stuff?"
"…no. But, it is better. And if we keep working at it, it may be as good as full chainmail."
"Hm."
He wanted it to work.
Wanted—
Wanted a lot.
His forehead itched.
He'd just come from home, from watching a ten-year-old boy writhe in pain while his caged bird seal was written over.
He—
He was out of the hospital.
He could relieve Commander Nara from his unfortunate break from retirement, could go to the front himself, enforce Konoha's pressure mission (minimal lives lost. Persevere, don't give up—but stay alive. That was the official command by the Hokage: until he was ready for the front, Konoha's primary mission was as few casualties as possible) himself.
He could take over, do his duty to his clan and his village.
But he couldn't perform miracles.
The Land of Mushrooms was officially overrun.
Konoha's struggle was worsening, and the plague was diminishing—their opponents were able to send even more people to the front.
What they needed was a miracle.
The Research Office had none that would arrive in time.
Hiashi dropped the cloth on the desk.
Left the Research Office.
Thought about going to visit his brother.
Going to visit the remaining elders.
Dealing with his helplessness through misery, through fury.
He sighed, sat at his desk.
Began reading the new frontline reports.
Konoha needed a miracle, but all it had was duty and suffering and—
Hiashi smirked. It was a cruel smirk, a malicious smirk. A smirk derived from pain rather than pleasure.
The one thing you could say about change, was that it never left things as it found it.
And Konoha was going through a lot of change.