The day of Sakura's birthday—officially thirteen, a true teenager—reports came in of a rampage in Kumo. The Gyuki, the eight-tailed beast, had freed himself from his restraints and killed, and killed, and killed.

Who the Gyuki killed, and how many, was still unknown, but from the reports, it had taken hours, if not days, for the beast to be brought back under control, and a freed beast…

Well, casualty count estimates wouldn't be scant.

One day after Sakura's birthday reports arrived—the Gyuki's rampage had terrified the locals, and Frost was experiencing an influx of refugees at its border, pushed through fear to abandon all they knew in exchange for a country where the only unclaimed land was so high and cold almost nothing grew.

Two days after Sakura's birthday, a new report came in. Its arrival wasn't publicized like those before, at least not immediately, but its effect was far greater.

Three days after Sakura's birthday, the content of that last message—a message which had been delivered straight to the Hokage, a message which few others had been aware of—was made known. A message between Kumo and Iwa had been intercepted: Kumo could not go to war in the summer as planned and wanted a year to recover before re-mobilizing.

The opportunity was too good to pass up. Despite the recent fire, despite the drought, despite Iwa still being unharmed—this was it. This was their chance to catch Iwa flatfooted. This was their proof—the proof the Daimyo claimed he needed before war.

Four days after Sakura's birthday, it was time to fight.

The day began with chinmoku being summoned to Sensei's office.

"As you are aware, we have begun outright mobilization for war. All businesses have shifted to wartime footing, production priorities have been set by the Commerce Department, Utilities has set quotas for water and fuel usage, and the Daimyo has been notified of Konoha's activities.

Now it is your turn."

Sakura nodded, resolute. Juro and Shin did the same beside her. This was it—the end of their childhood, their free time, the last of their innocence. At least it was for a good cause.

"Two brigades are being sent to the front at present. The first will push through the Land of Rain—because it is geographically the best route, four battalions have been placed in the brigade. The Second Brigade will join with Suna and press north from there with two Konoha battalions and two Suna battalions. An additional battalion has been set to defend Fire's borders and act as relief. This is a full push—we are leaving nothing behind.

"Juro, you will be allowed to remain until your medical chuunin exam in the fall. Shin, you will be sent with the First Brigade, to be a part of the Third Battalion's communications unit. Sakura, you will be sent with the Second Brigade, to be a part of the Second Battalion's sensor unit."

"What?!" Sensei cut Shin a look. "I thought—we're a team, aren't we? Shouldn't we be kept together?"

"If you were combat oriented, yes. You are not."

"So," Juro said, "No more team 18?"

Sensei gazed at them, then stood. He walked around his desk until he was directly in front of them. "It has truly been a pleasure to teach you. You were my first genin team, and you performed admirably during the entirety of your time under me. But training non-combat genin as a team only happens during peacetime; we are now at war. You have your assignments, and I have mine. It is unfortunate, but not particularly surprising, that they do not coincide. It is time, unfortunately, for me to wish you the best, and express hopes that I will see all of you on the other side of the war. It is time, unfortunately, for you to do the same to each other. May we meet again."

"May we meet again," Chinmoku recited. Sakura felt as if she were in a daze—she'd known, of course, that the team would dissolve sooner or later; none had chosen paths that would keep the set up for very long, and the skills they were supposed to learn under their sensei—chakra manipulation, real-life mission experience, fighting as a team, the foundations of how to be a good Leaf Shinobi—they'd already learned, or near enough anyway.

Still, she'd thought—she was thirteen, after all, and despite having as much genin-time under her belt as the average fifteen-year-old it still felt premature, unnatural, for her team to end this early. Usually, a non-combat team would dissolve with the first promotion, but Juro still had months to go on his, and here they were.

Their team—Team 18—had been assembled for the first time on Sakura's second birthday. Eleven years later and it was over.

Shin, Juro, and Sakura left Sensei's office. They passed the Yamanaka compound, then the Akimichi compound. They entered the Nara compound, nodded to the families hard at work packing themselves and their loved ones for war, and made their way to Shin's house. They entered Shin's house, mounted the stairs, stepped through Shin's room, and crawled out onto the roof.

The roof, unlike many in Konoha, was stucco. Shin's parents had had it redone two years ago following an incident with one of his nephews, and Sakura had found that, despite the heat of the new material, she was more sure-footed on top of the clay than she'd ever been on the straw.

It was Shin who spoke first.

"I'm not ready to let go."

"We'll still be friends."

"Yeah, but it'll be different."

"I didn't expect it to end either."

"I did," Juro said. "But, I mean, I knew I was close enough to promotion to be kept at home when the war started."

"We should have guessed that too, shouldn't we?"

Juro shrugged. "I dunno. I don't pay much attention to sensing, to tell you the truth."

Sakura laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry, are you saying me sitting in silence for hours at a time is boring?"

"We're really sorry to break it to you," Shin said, patting her arm comfortingly. "I know it's a surprise, but yes, you sitting in silence for hours at a time isn't our idea of a good time."

"Next you're going to say that you don't have any interest in fuinjutsu!"

"Should we tell her?" Juro asked.

"Let's not. I don't know if she can take it."

"Hey!"

"Well, you are kind of sensitive."

"Me?! Sensitive?! Which one of us refused to show any of his writing out of fear that people wouldn't like it?"

Shin laughed. "I stand by my decision—my first drafts were terrible."

Sakura sat up, jarring both the boys and the tiles around them, and stared at them in the tinted evening sky. "I'll miss you. You know that, right? I'll miss you so, so much."

"We'll miss you too," Shin said. "And each other."

"I didn't want a team. I remember—it was that ceremony, that stupid ceremony we did for all of the heirs looking like they were going to survive infancy, and I remember Kohana dragging me around looking for you and me just not caring at all."

"You remember that?" Shin said. "That was—you were two!"

"You don't understand—I just, you were—I…"

"You didn't know us yet," Juro said. "Not really, anyway, and we didn't know you. We only really started to get to know each other after the Academy started, playdates or no. But that doesn't matter, Sakura. We know each other now. We love each other now. We miss each other now, and we're still sitting right next to each other. I know that 'Team 18' is no more, but 'Team Training Ground Forty' still is. And we—the three of us—are still best friends. Our siblings are still best friends with their genin teammates, and the same goes for our parents. Even retired ninja still see their genin teammates as often as possible."

Sakura smiled. "Well, now I feel stupid."

Juro laughed. "Wouldn't want you to get a big head!"

"The horror."

Shin grinned, then stood up. "We have to leave tomorrow, but for tonight let's have some fun. Who else feels like trying to make dango with whatever's currently in my kitchen?"

.

The chuunin corps member looked harried and in a bad need of time off, but as genin Inuzuka Tera left only to be replaced by Sakura he began flipping to the 'Yamanakas' all the same.

"Identity."

"Genin Yamanaka Sakura." Then, because another Sakura Yamanaka had made genin just that winter, "daughter of Yamanaka Kaoro and Yamanaka Kenta."

"Second Brigade, Second Battalion, sensors?"

"Yes."

"Information." Sakura duly rattled off her height, weight, and age (all vital information for the distribution of rations), that she had 'moderate' combat training (trained as a team, but with a paperwork ninja goal), and that she was eleventh in her family (important because it meant she would almost definitely not be forced to come back to act as family head.) The chuunin duly noted each response next to her name on his sheet, made a mark on the bottom, and gestured her past him. "Sensor unit's that way. We move in three hours."

.

"Sensor Yamanaka?"

"Yes."

"You have second shift—eight to four. I've got first shift, midnight to eight, she's got third. We're the Headquarters sub-unit: our job is to monitor the Headquarters, and the Headquarters alone. The other sensors will be doing border control, so you won't be switching off with them, but we'll all be in the same tent. Got it?"

"Yes."

.

Before she'd left, Sakura had helped Kohana pack up the house.

Her mother had already been sent to one of the remote prisons to interrogate various future Iwa POWs for any information they might have. Sayuri was also leaving—she'd been assigned to the First Brigade's Third Battalion as part of a scout unit, and Ayame was going to the same battalion in one of their combat squads. Fujio had also been assigned to a prison, though it was a different one than their mother's. The house, then, would be empty except for Kohana and Himari, so it made more sense for them to be moved in with Ren—who would be training his genin team (he'd gotten them a year ago. He hated them.) and working at T&I's base—while their house put to use for something else.

Compared to the crowded mess of a living situation she'd been born into—with sometimes even three to a room—Sakura didn't want to even imagine what the house was like empty, but her late leave time meant she was on the hook for helping remove every piece of furniture, every pot and pan, every knick-knack from the residence.

At least she wouldn't have to see it empty.

Because she was headed to war.

As a sensor.

Because she qualified.

She nearly hadn't. Her range was comparatively small, and if it weren't for her talent in determining the quantity of chakra, she probably would have been allowed to stay behind, to remain in the Research Department as they worked at quarter strength and ten times the speed.

Instead, she was in the Second Brigade's Second Battalion.

There were over 500 people in her battalion.

There were over 5,000 shinobi as a whole, but those 500 were the only ones she would see for some time.

Of the 500, there were six—six—qualified sensors.

Sakura would not get a day off.

While she would technically have 16 hours free every day, sensing for eight hours straight at the absolute edge of her capabilities would be draining: the only reason she got so much leave was because it was expected that sensors would sleep for about twelve hours a day.

At some point she would rotate out, but not for long—sensing was too rare a technique to allow any of its users to remain on the sidelines more than necessary.

Before she'd left, Sakura had helped Kohana pack up the house, and it felt far too much like packing up her life for comfort.

.

It really was unfortunate that Sakura was part of the Second Brigade, because the route of the First—almost entirely north and up through the Land of Rain, then west across the Land of Canyons and into the Land of Earth was substantially easier despite the notably longer length.

That route, despite covering about twice the distance, was mostly flatlands and easy travel.

The route the Second Brigade took only started that way.

The bottom half of the Land of Canyons required routes so circuitous and prone to supply line sabotage that no one, in any war, had ever intentionally used the land as an invasion path. Beyond them, then, only two other small nations divided Earth from Fire: Storms and Mushrooms.

The first, which also bordered Wind, had dealt with its unfortunate location by mass-producing Samurai and refusing to let any other nation use them as an invasion route.

The second, like the Land of Canyons, relied on its geography.

It was that route that the Second Brigade had to take.

In the Academy, every student had been forced to memorize a map of their entire continent, no matter how rare it was that anyone from the land of Fire would have any reason to interact directly with the far west. One of the stamps on that map was the Land of Swamps. Literally all that was known about it (that they taught Academy students) was that it existed at the time the map was created.

Despite that, just about every Konoha graduate knew the Land of Swamps, because it was almost inevitable to, at some point in the midst of learning about the Land of Mushroom's low altitude, about their many rivers, frequent flooding (particularly in the spring), and miles of wooden pathways built because it was just about the only way to get around in some parts, mistakenly put the Land of Swamps down instead of the Land of Mushrooms in response to a quiz question.

Armies could not travel on little narrow bands of wood.

Instead, they traveled fast, jumping from tree to tree as much as they were able and relying heavily on their boots and water jutsu when even that was impossible.

Their speed, which had been oh-so-hasty, slowed to a crawl—or, more accurately, a trudge.

"What… what was that?" Sakura said, glancing down at her feet (hidden completely by the mud) warily.

"What was what?" Sensor Inuzuka walked beside her. It was her break, and as the leader of the sensors she'd been going over Sakura's capabilities.

"I… felt something. Against my boot."

"Well, there's loads of animals around. Could've been any of them."

"It was big."

"Plenty of big animals too."

A whistle shrieked in the stillness—what little light that was reaching the swampy forest floor was almost gone, which meant it was time to make camp.

"Oh, thank the kami," Sensei Inuzuka said. She whistled, a sharp, low one that didn't resemble the louder call, and her hound perked up out of the gunk. "Let's get you cleaned up. Sensor Sakura—you're on break too, so you get to help."

They'd barely left the heart of the swampy forest—weren't even near the border of the Land of Mushrooms—when the fighting started.

They'd (as had been expected) been spotted at some time in the past few days, and Iwa had had plenty of time to amass an army and send said army to greet them (without any time at all in the swamps.)

Konoha had known that would happen, though, and they had some of the best scouts of any nation, so the second the advance scouts turned back and raised the alarm, everything shifted from march to fight. Sakura, holding up one hand with the symbol for Headquarters, found herself violently shoved backward as many of those around her dove ahead.

She watched as entire buildings were set up in the space of minutes, as ranks were formed and combatants sent out as quickly as they could be mustered, and she clambered up on top of the Headquarters building and opened her senses just a touch wider.

Around her, an army prepared for battle, which meant she too had to do her part: sitting, perfectly still, ignoring any sights and sounds, and watching for any possible invaders for the next four hours.