Of all the Great Nations, Fire was perhaps the best known for its empire-building.

It didn't gain land at a greater or less rate than any of the other nations, though—no, it was known for controlling its neighbors through other means.

Hundreds of years ago—the exact number could vary by up to two centuries depending on where on the continent you were talking about—all of the larger continental nations decided that, actually, they did not particularly want to border each other anymore.

(The story went that it had begun with the Land of Dragons, the Land of Corn, and two giant walls that faced each other. Interestingly, the Lands of Dragons and Corn since became, through no acts of their own, the largest nations to still share borders.)

Consequently, Fire did not border Wind. It didn't border Earth either, or Lightning. It certainly didn't border Water, but then no one did.

No, Fire was surrounded by minor nations.

And Fire had spent the past few centuries doing its damnedest to shore up relationships with each of those minor nations—a loyal barrier being far more effective than a disloyal one.

Which was why it had come as such a shock to Shin that the Daimyo had reacted to the total destruction of Uzu by…

Not reacting.

Sensei had helped, there. Had explained how, yes, it did hurt their reputation, but that reports (reports that later turned out to be in error, but had at the time been the most accurate available) claimed that Earth had come out almost entirely unharmed from the venture—

And with Iwa's shinobi outnumbering Konoha's as they did,

And with them apparently being able to wipe out one of the strongest non-Great nations on their home turf,

Well.

And then the Hokage had given a speech, had implied—heavily—that all that was holding him back was the Daimyo's order.

That had been bullshit.

The Hokage was just as aware as the Daimyo of the risks and in complete agreement that as long a preparation as possible was necessary, but he hadn't wanted the blame.

Hadn't wanted the people's ire focused on him.

The Samurai, after all, were loyal to the Daimyo and only the Daimyo. The samurai were trained from a young age to kill themselves should they ever do anything that might even slightly hurt the Daimyo.

Shinobi weren't like that.

Shin knew that as well as anyone, knew that the older members of his clan hadn't grown up in Konoha, hadn't considered themselves under the Hokage until they were adults. The elders had even retired before Konoha was founded—they'd never worked for Konoha, and they were the ones that ran the Nara.

For the Hokage, then, he had to be constantly aware that he was surrounded 24/7 by incredibly powerful people, the most powerful of which tended to pledge their loyalty first to their family, then to him, and then to the Daimyo.

He'd thrown the blame at Fire's leader with so much speed that most under him didn't even hesitate to do the same—the Sandaime Hokage, after all, had been taught by a man married to an Uzu native. The Sandaime Hokage had bolstered the Diplomacy Department to a size never even imagined under the Nidaime Hokage, had fought in wars side by side with them—he was someone they knew. Someone they trusted.

Shin was even willing to admit (privately, to himself) that if he hadn't gone down his career path, he would've been right alongside them.

Still, even after Sensei had explained their leaders' reasons, Shin had found it… distasteful. More than that, he'd found it problematic.

Fire had a huge border.

Not as big as Earth' or Wind's, that was true, but then unlike them, Fire didn't really have any physical obstacles—any impassible mountains, massive deserts, tundra wastelands—to protect itself. There wasn't a single place in Fire that could be considered hard to get to, and the Daimyo knew that.

That had been why they, more than any other Great Nation, had invested so heavily into diplomacy—if one couldn't use geographical barriers, then political ones would have to do.

Giving all that up for a few more months of preparation? Preparation that Earth would also get?

And then war had come, and it had gotten worse.

The First Shinobi War had been fought almost entirely within the confines of the Land of Fire—that Fire and Leaf had held out so well was one of the reasons it was still so respected today.

The Second Shinobi War was happening entirely outside those confines.

It made sense, of course, to take the battle to the enemy, to avoid risking one's own people and lands, but then, again, one ran into the problem of the minor nations.

Leaf hadn't asked permission before storming through their lands, hadn't asked permission before setting up waypoints and road checks and treating their land like it was Fire's own.

That would have been bad enough.

But there was a drought.

And Leaf's food supplies were… lacking.

And the Hokage had dealt with the problem by not dealing with it—by complicity telling those under him that it was okay to ransack the lands they were on for sustenance, residents be damned.

It was this problem, the problem of the Land of Canyons—where most of the fighting on the First Front was taking place—that Shin spent most of his time and energy ruminating on. His General, Shimura Danzo, had already realized the status quo couldn't last much longer, and so it had been put onto Shin to find a solution.

He was… less than eager, to find out if he was capable of such.

.

If there was one thing Konohagakure was known for, it was teamwork.

This was no accident.

Compared to the other Hidden Villages, Konoha was equally as likely to fall apart, to succumb to the differences of the many clans that otherwise ensured its survival.

There were, of course, many ways to deal with this: fear was a common one, and the primary tactic in both Iwa and Kiri. Necessity also worked; with shinobi now generally 'fenced in' to being allowed to (legally) work in individual nations, Suna had made participation in their village a condition of continuing to work in Wind's borders. Kumo went an entirely different route, that of removing all other ties: at ten, their children were taken from their family and taught together in a single Academy for the next five years.

Konoha, Shin Masuyo liked to believe, was instead influenced by the practices of the Ino-Shika-Cho alliance: instead of forcing parents to give away their children for years (there's a reason why Kumo has the fewest bloodlines), they allow them to stay with their family—on the condition that they are taught together. More than that—more than Kumo—they are not just given lessons together, but made to fight together; no matter how easy a mission may be, at least two shinobi would always be assigned, and the two were, as rarely as possible, from the same clan.

Konoha forced their ninja to learn about each other, to fight beside each other, to care for one another.

And that, Masuyo thinks, is why they have not yet lost.

Oh, Iwa does the same, at least on a purely literal front; Masuyo is sure they, like Konoha, line up all their people and teach them the standard 'group-fighting' taijutsu side by side.

But they are not taught to fight together.

And so every time a bloodline user wants to use a bloodline, they are held back by the need to check if they can, the need to get the right conditions, the need to make sure no allies are injured—they are held back, in short, by the lack of teamwork.

For Konoha shinobi it is different.

She had begun the day fighting beside an Akimichi she only knew from three weddings and four funerals. He was a replacement for her partner, who'd been hurt badly enough to need treatment in the main hospital and had therefore been sent all the way back to the village.

Somewhere between hour one and hour two of fighting, though, an Uchiha who'd been working to the Akimichi's left shouted—she'd spotted one of the dreaded bloodline's members.

The Akimichi had wasted no time.

Masuyo had whipped out her shadows, protecting his transformation, and the Uchiha leapt back and began to throw a truly astounding number of weapons in quick succession—many with an explosion tag attached, too.

In the meantime, the Akimichi attacked.

By the time they'd managed to extract him from the front, he looked almost skeletal.

In comparison, his target was a flattened pancake whose body—along with those destroyed along the way—was left where it lay; the Iwa had a bloodline that could temporarily reanimate recently dead bodies, so they saw no reason to remove their weapons from the front.

With the Akimichi gone, she and the Uchiha—at least a decade older than her, but still in good condition—closed ranks. She'd snare a target, the Uchiha would burn them alive, and they'd move to the next.

With the exception of the Uchiha's first call, and a few words spared to the medics, all of that had been done—was still being done—with no words exchanged.

But it wasn't enough.

Konoha had the will, had superior teamwork, had quite a few heavy hitters, but it wasn't enough.

Masuyo knew this, knew this as much as she knew that her triplets had celebrated their first birthday without her, as much as she knew that her only brother was almost directly behind her, in the central tent, and had to be protected from everyone in front of her, as much as she knew that Konoha had, actually, killed more than they lost that day, and almost every other day before.

She knew this because now no one was fighting.

On both sides, as one, everyone had turned north.

Had stared.

Had watched as the Kyuubi ravaged across the field, killing indiscriminately.

Had watched as, suddenly, the Kyuubi disappeared—had likely been brought into a new vessel, one who had no idea how to use the power they now contained.

Uzumaki Mito, they realized as one, must have died.

Uzumaki Mito, the wife to the First Hokage, was dead.

And then, as one, they turned.

And they faced their enemy again.

And, with a cry of rage, both attacked.

(They were down one powerhouse, one of their most important powerhouses. They wouldn't be able to replace her for years. The Iwa had just gotten a huge morale boost from accomplishing such a thing, while Konoha was dealing with the loss of the First Lady of Konohagakure.

Masuyo would fight today, and tomorrow, and every other day too to keep her family safe.

But something had to happen, or else they would lose this war.)

.

Nara Shikaku was eleven and a half years old. Inoichi had just turned twelve, and Choza would be next—his birthday was in April. Shikaku's wasn't until July, though.

They'd been genin since seven.

Four years of genin.

Inoichi, the year prior, had worried that they wouldn't ever see the frontlines—genin were never sent there, and their team was definitely combat-focused.

Shikaku had… not so much worried, but hoped for the opposite.

He didn't care, was the thing. Hadn't cared.

War seemed troublesome; he could see how they'd gotten there, but risking his own life was still something he'd have liked to avoid.

Choza had, if anything, been even more against going to war; he was less worried about his own health, and more about those they would have to kill.

So Inoichi had really been the only one who was eager.

And when, in September (he'd only been eleven then; they'd all been so young then) the Yamanaka brat (no longer his friend) had convinced their Sensei Hyuuga that, if pure combat was impossible, then they could at the very least act as very good trackers.

At least they hadn't been sent to the frontline; instead, their duties were entirely within Fire's borders, protecting shipments across the Great Nation.

It had been… fine, at first.

They were trained well, and Sensei Hyuuga had acted as their sensor, doubling their efficiency easily.

Their teamwork, they were consistently told, needed work—Shikaku was pissed that Inoichi had dragged him and Choza to the frontline, Choza had a whole ritual that he had to do every time he took a life that both Inoichi and Shikaku saw as time wasting, and both Choza and Inoichi thought that Shikaku wasn't taking this seriously enough.

They fought every day.

They weren't fighting now.

Sensei was dead.

His head had been nearly completely removed from his body, and then his seal had gone to work—his body was unrecognizable in seconds.

Choza had done what he could, acted as their protector, and gotten the saboteurs to back off, but the relief was only temporary; soon they'd realize that he'd exhausted himself to unconsciousness.

And then there was Inoichi, who was staring, frozen, at their sensei's former body.

It had happened so fast.

They hadn't even been looking out, really; Shikaku saw no point when their Sensei had the byakugan, and the others had followed his lead.

It wasn't like he could ask, now, but Shikaku suspected that Sensei hadn't been scanning as frequently; they'd caught three infiltrators in the past two days, and chakra conservation was becoming an issue.

Shikaku had been hanging back—he and Inoichi had gotten into a full-blown row that morning, and he had no desire to be near the other boy—while Inoichi fiddled with the newest weapon he'd picked up—a tanto he'd pilfered from a corpse—and Choza fished in his bag for some more snacks.

And then they had been on them.

They'd come from behind, taken advantage of the three boy's lack of focus to dart towards the known blind sport of the byakugan and take full advantage.

Shikaku was willing—desperate—to believe that everything that had happened up to and including that point wasn't his fault.

It was for everything that happened after that the blame fell squarely on him.

Just as trained, his teammates' eyes had turned to him. He was their team leader—he'd been the one to take charge when the unexpected occurred.

He'd—

He hadn't frozen.

(It would have been easier to forgive himself if he'd frozen.)

He certainly hadn't told them what to do, by words or signals.

(That would've been easiest to forgive—if he'd done that he'd have done all he could.)

He'd turned, decided to fight on his own.

All of this had happened in just a few seconds. He hadn't had to draw a breath between realizing the danger and turning.

But he'd still thought.

He'd still spent those scant seconds deciding that Choza was too weak, Inoichi too reckless.

He'd still (somehow) not spent any of that time considering the benefits of teamwork that his family and village had spent the past decade drilling into them.

He'd whipped out his shadows, tried to contain all five attackers at once—never mind that he'd never done more than three at a time, and certainly never more than chuunin—and, promptly, lost control.

But he had drawn attention to himself.

He had made all five of them see him as their next victim.

He was not built to take damage, and now he had nearly a half dozen saboteurs focused on him.

It had been Choza who'd saved his bacon—he'd downed two pills, doubled in size, and crushed Shikaku's nearest opponents.

Shikaku, who was still reeling from having his shadows snap back to him, had barely had time to react—had barely had time to realize that there were still three perfectly healthy enemies, and the two that were crushed had managed to evade enough to stay alive—when Inoichi had decided it was his turn.

Or—that wasn't accurate, actually.

Shikaku may have decided to act alone, but his two teammates certainly hadn't.

They had, in no more than a glance or two, come up with the plan Shikaku hadn't bothered with.

Choza's transformation—its primary purpose had been to allow Inoichi to get closer unnoticed. Inoichi had sprinted forward, selected who he thought was the leader (he was wrong, so wrong; he'd selected the muscle—the leader was hanging back, just close enough for most not to notice) and leapt into his mind.

And then, as he fought for control, as he desperately tried to force the far larger and older body to do his bidding, Choza had protected his and Shikaku's forms.

Had taken stabs.

Had taken slashes.

Had taken kicks and punches and even rocks slamming out of the ground into him.

And he'd kept anyone from touching them, long enough for Inoichi to take control, for him to get his new puppet to turn on the others and aim to kill.

They'd escaped, then, the saboteurs. Shikaku didn't know—couldn't predict—if they were regrouping to attack again or fleeing in full, but neither option was good: one of the men had a bad torso wound from Inoichi's puppet, and the puppet and another man had killed each other, and one of the other men had slit his own throat when he realized his legs had been crushed, and the other one Choza ran over was dealing with a useless arm, but the leader was unharmed.

The Iwa's leader was unharmed, and their sensei was dead.

Choza was going to die in less than twenty-four hours if he didn't get aid.

Shikaku was suffering from the migraine of failed shadow-work, and while Inoichi's bloodline attempt was successful, it was still exhausting enough that he had to have similar symptoms.

It was time, Shikaku decided.

It was time to stop being a child.

"I have a plan." He said. Inoichi's eyes snapped to him, at first distrusting and then, resignedly, deferential.

Shikaku wondered if Inoichi would ever forgive him.

And then, glancing at Sensei's dead body and Inoichi's hands clenched around the tanto that he didn't even need, he wondered if he'd ever forgive himself.