Research had, to a man, been forcibly reassigned to deal with the hell that was the multiple utilities failures Konoha was facing.

When Orochimaru's group got the message they'd also been told to offer the prisoners two opportunities: either have Orochimaru carry out their death penalty immediately, or be kept in their cages with minimal food until the crisis was over.

All chose the latter.

Taro promised to check in on them once a day, additional physical barriers were put in place, and the lab was more or less left to itself.

Orochimaru went to the Hospital, to deal with the onslaught of hygiene-related issues.

Taro was reassigned with him, always a loyal follower.

(Orochimaru, in the weeks before, had become prone to extreme mood swings; he might be contemplative one day, overjoyed the next, and enraged the following. Taro might still, like all of Konoha, be in awe of Orochimaru's brilliance, but he'd been surprisingly disappointed when he was told he was being kept on as Orochimaru's assistant.

Orochimaru had noticed.)

Sakura, meanwhile, was sent to the Head. He and Future Head Uchiha were more than happy to have her on board—the Head's Office was literally flooded with paperwork, completely unable to keep up with demands, and Research overtime was at an all-time high.

The largest issue, they all agreed, was the lack of fresh water.

That didn't make fresh water magically appear.

They had water filters, water diluters, all incredibly expensive, chakra intensive—it wasn't enough.

Food rations were common.

Water rations weren't.

At least half of the city was now regularly consuming dirty water, because they felt they had no choice.

"We need better seals." Sakura said, skimming over an incredibly early proposal for a combo storage-desalination seal that would allow them to bring the ocean to Konohagakure.

"That's what the proposals are for." Uchiha said. He knew better than to suggest she make them; Sakura might have been a proficient inventor, but seals still gave her far too much trouble. "They're working hard."

"They are," Sakura agreed. "We need more sealers too."

Uchiha and Head Aburame hummed. Both agreed, but sealers didn't appear out of thin air—it took a minimum of months of practice to get to the point of creating the easiest seals, and that was optimistic.

"All our other sealers are on the Frontlines." Head Aburame said at last, the papers in front of him shuffling to reveal the latest disease numbers.

That was also true; the war with Kumo was decidedly not going in Konoha's favor, the constant hunger of their shinobi and samurai working against them and the far more integrated rail system of Kumo ensuring they never had to deal with any supply issues.

Everyone who wasn't needed in Konoha was refocused to the frontlines; Suna couldn't help (distracted as they were by their continued war with Iwa) and Kiri was dealing with too much of their own supply issues to bother either side of the war.

It was a slow, steady loss—constant pushback, constant retreats, none urgent but none desired.

It was not helping morale.

Neither was the breakdown of the sewage system.

"We had the rainy season." Sakura sighed.

"We should have saved more of that water," Uchiha said, "instead of letting it wash away."

Head Aburame hummed. "Too late now."

That was really the problem; they had many possible solutions, many possible ways to deal with Konohagakure's incredible overpopulation, but all of them required that they'd started preparing months ago.

"Look at this proposal: an aqueduct structure, like they use in the Land of Earth," Sakura said, waving said proposal in the air. "Great idea, and only two to three years minimum to build."

"Do you need a break?"

"Probably." Sakura sighed. She'd tried to do something, at least, when she'd found out that the Utilities Head was warning of a future water shortage; she'd patented a few water filters herself.

She just hadn't even considered how bad it could get.

"No better options," Uchiha said, putting down his stack of new proposals. "We're sticking with the railroad, then."

A rail water transport system, ideally built in a month if no expense was spared.

"It's unfortunate, but I agree," Head Aburame said, his own stack reorganizing in front of him. "Hopefully the new land sales in Uzu help pay for it."

Sakura hummed. "Yamanaka's picked out their slice; Uchiha?"

Uchiha grunted. "Still in talks over the ideal land. It's been agreed that the Uchiha will run the Military Police Force there, too, though."

"Reasonable. Aburame?"

"We are taking a plot of land abutting Akimichi lands; we are in talks to combine resources for farming endeavors."

"And everyone's pouring most of their money into it?"

"Yes." Both men said. At this point it wasn't even a question of getting what each clan deserved—it was a point of pride, depleting all of your clan savings for a bit of Uzu's land; both expanding clan territory and assisting Konoha at the same time.

"Then we'll hope for the best." Sakura said. And then the door burst open.

"Yamanaka Sakura, Researcher?" The genin-corps runner gasped. Sakura nodded, lifting her hand. "Come with me."

They didn't go to the hospital.

Sakura would have preferred it if they went to the Hospital.

Instead, it became very clear, very quickly that the runner was taking her to her Clan Head.

Sakura eyed the sun's position, her stomach beginning to knot as they neared the compound.

One look at Inoichi, at Kohana's sobbing body on top of him, confirmed it.

Less than half an hour ago the latest casualties were announced, and now…

"Who is it?" Sakura said, not wanting to deal with the true pity in Inoichi's eyes.

"Akina. I'm sorry, Sakura. Your sister Akina died this morning."

.

Sakura was bent over the latest numbers on water quality, scribbling out a summarized version for Head Aburame, when the front door burst open.

Himari was in the kitchen, putting together lunch, and Kohana was upstairs weaving new bandages. Ren and his family—who had just moved in that morning—were still transferring all their possessions to Ren's childhood home. Juro was helping Ibiki learn how to wrap his legs, his hands. Everyone dropped their things to welcome Sayuri.

"She's dead? She's really—"

Sakura swallowed, her dry throat barely allowing her, but nodded. "We still have to work, but we're allowed to do tasks that can be completed in the home for the next two days."

"Two?!"

"The war's not going well," Kohana said, her voice saying more about her exhaustion than the bags under her eyes, "and Konoha's a wreck. You know they'd give us more if they could."

Sayuri screamed, then stormed to the backyard, where the family's training ground was positioned. A second or two after they could feel the heat of her fire jutsu slamming against the fire pit intended for just such practice, one after another after another searing the neighboring air.

No one talked over dinner that night.

The next day—the final day of bereavement—Taro showed up at the front door.

"Taro?" Sakura asked, not bothering with other words; she was too tired, too sad to bother with more than what was necessary.

"Lord Orochimaru's missing," Taro said. "He—he left like normal yesterday evening, and then… didn't come back. I talked to Tsunade, but she didn't know where he was, and he wasn't at his lab, and I asked other people and no one had seen him, and he didn't leave a note—"

"My sister is dead." Sakura said.

Taro froze, then began nodding rapidly. "I know, I know, I know I shouldn't be here, but—Lord Orochimaru, he'd been almost buzzing yesterday, like he does when he has a good idea, and I thought he'd figured out how to deal with the Yellow Fever outbreak, but then he just didn't show up today and—"

"Tell the Hokage."

Taro stared. "I'm not—I can't talk to the Hokage! He's the Hokage—I'll just, I'll just… take notes today. Maybe he'll show up again tomorrow."

Sakura sighed, closing her eyes. She didn't want to deal with this. She didn't want to deal with anything. She wanted to climb back into bed with one of Akina's old jackets wrapped around her and do nothing.

She sent out her chakra instead, finding the ANBU hiding in a tree nearby—they weren't attempting to hide their presence.

She turned to them.

"Can you deal with this please?"

The fish mask appeared, nodded. Taro looked faint.

Sakura shut the door in his face.

She was back in the office again the next day, just in time to hear that Orochimaru had been tracked down and dragged into an hour long meeting with the Hokage.

She didn't care.

She'd lost three siblings before, hadn't heard from another two in ages; she just wanted to cry.

Kumo had taken one of Frost's towns completely overnight too.

Sakura wished she was back home.

She went out to the Naka River instead, watched as genin and even volunteer citizens plunged into the murky water and grabbed the various debris floating inside it, loading the trash into boxes to be carted out of Konoha.

The deer were even helping, allowing carts to be hitched to their backs so the humans could remain in the river, working without pause.

The bend Sakura went to was one of the most shallow parts of the river, and correspondingly slow moving, but that was intentional; it allowed for the most trash to be picked up.

The problem, really, was that the majority of the problem wasn't tangible—it was sewage, and runoff and –

And pollution.

Sakura blinked.

She was an idiot.

She was back in the Head's Office in less than a minute.

"I screwed up."

"What?" Uchiha said, looking up from—was that a prototype filtered water bottle? That was a good idea.

Head Aburame wasn't in the room.

"Pollution."

"Pollution?"

"It—I—it didn't occur to me, because many inventions just rely on chakra, but we're also using coal, and wood, and smelting, and—you know how metal forges have to be specially built to not overly taint the air with smoke?"

Uchiha's eyes lit up. "We've been using more metal than ever before; and then there are the railroads—on top of the sewage problems… There was a report, a couple days ago too, about persistent fog—"

"—Which is actually smoke, and the like; air pollution!"

"We'll need to improve drainage even more, then, and also limit new pollution… chakra doesn't cause pollution, not that we've noticed…"

"It got worse in the winter, when people started burning coal in their homes…"

"Maybe air filters? To trap coal smoke and the like?"

"We could put it in everyone's fireplaces. Can you make one?"

"I can make a non-fuinjutsu version. We can merge it with fuinjutsu—"

"—talk to Namikaze. Wait, actually; I'll get him—"

"He's good at air jutsu, right?"

"Trying to integrate them into his combat fuinjutsu too."

"Busy though—"

"If we get this to work—"

Both Sakura and Future Head Uchiha sprinted out of the room.

Several hours later Sakura was bent over her best guesses at functional filters, a total of ten options, as Minato pushed behind her, whipping together over a dozen fuinjutsu options to try in combination.

"…Sorry about your sister."

"Thank you." Sakura murmured. She placed the first prototype over the fire, wondered if he wanted condolences over his student.

She decided not.

Obito, after all, could still be alive.

Still… "How are Rin and Kakashi?"

A smile, fragile and fake. "Working harder than I am. Kakashi's gone into tracking, trying to follow every lead… Rin's in the hospital, trying to bury the pain."

Minato looked a wreck himself.

She knew, through the grapevine, that he'd been short-tempered since the kidnapping of Obito; that he'd been erratic, taken unnecessary risks on the battlefield. He was back in Konoha for only a couple days, an attempt to give him a minute to get his head on straight, but already Konoha had lost territory; Minato twitched like he blamed himself for that too.

Sakura considered lapsing back to the silence they'd been working in since midday, since they'd fleshed out their plan and gotten to work, but—

"I heard that you argued against my reassignment. Thank you."

"You didn't argue for it."

Both watched as the smoke passed through the so-called filter, undeterred. She chucked it, replaced it with version two.

"No. Orochimaru… he is an amazing Researcher, brilliant. But he has no… moral qualms. I was supposed to act as his moral compass." Sakura's brain flashed uselessly back to Orochimaru-the-snake, to the time that the as-yet-unborn children were in the forest and he made them suffer.

"Waste."

Sakura hummed. "Necessary."

"You're not doing it now."

True. Very true. Sakura flashed to Taro's desperation, to Orochimaru disappearing. She reminded herself that the ANBU were tracking him, that Orochimaru had been called in front of the Hokage, that it had only been a few weeks since Research had hard-swiveled to Konoha's breakdown, that he'd been busy, had a more than full-time job the entire time.

She didn't answer Minato.

The second worked better than the first.

She took it off, put on the third.

Minato scribbled out a fifteenth design.

Sakura would have gaped at his speed if she wasn't so tired.

Third was a flop. She put on the fourth.

They were working in one of the training fields. Most were empty; everyone who would use them was working instead.

Research had been given several dozen just to test inventions on.

Fourth didn't work as good as the second. Fifth.

The light changed, the sun beginning to drift toward the horizon.

"The second's worked best so far?"

"Yes." Sakura said, disposing of the fifth in favor of the sixth.

"Alright, I'll try to modify my seals to work better with that one.

Sakura hummed, watching the smoke.

They finished the model by six in the morning.

It was being mass-produced by nine.

Sakura wondered if it would be enough.

Juro didn't come home; he had too many patients.

Shin wrote that land negotiations had stalled over mineral rights—could the Hokage send back-up?

The new year arrived.