The weather was biting now, cold and wet and miserable.
Yasuo coughed miserably from his position as lookout—there was sea on all sides, the tiny island he was camped on had little to protect him from the wind and rain, and his team's relief wasn't due for another three days.
"No change!" Three voices shouted at once.
In an hour the other team would get a break, at which point his team would take lead—three people equally spaced out, trying to watch the whole of the sea during a storm without dying of boredom and cold.
Below them another wave—tall enough that it almost lapped at the top of the cliff—smashed against the rocks.
Their island lookout was chosen because it was a good distance out from the port, in the middle of a rocky mess that ship captains had learned the hard way to avoid. The island was tall, comparatively speaking, even if calling it an island was generous—the only green stuff that grew on it was the sort of mossy nothing that could grow anywhere.
It was an ideal lookout spot—you could see in all directions, you couldn't get a ship close, and it was just close enough to the mainland that even in weather like this the lookouts could set off a signal flare if they saw something.
But there was nothing to see.
After the first series of brutal attacks across the eastern seaboard, Kiri had backed off, unpleasantly surprised by the speed of Konoha's response and the efficacy of the bombing raids carried out by the Uchiha ravens (who were, for reasons they refused to elaborate on, very eager to participate in the war.)
Kiri would be back—and soon—but the port they were watching over was one of the smaller ones anyway, and it had so far been two weeks without a single issue in sight.
They still kept watch—had to, so that Kiri didn't have an opportunity—but the boredom seemed, at times, physically painful.
Yasuo coughed again. He was cycling his chakra as they'd been taught, but the weather and the temperature and the wet meant he'd gotten sick anyway. When they got back on land—on true land, not just a pile of rocks—he'd have to go to the medic with the rest of his team to burn off any traces of whatever was developing.
The seal Sakura had gifted him for his last birthday (complete with heating function, time-keeping function, and light function) buzzed—five minutes.
"No change!" Three voices shouted out at once.
It always amazed him how on time everyone was, despite Yasuo being the only one who had a timer. Still, it wasn't as if there was that much to do out here besides count, besides wait, besides watch.
The wind slowed a bit, pouring the rain directly down on their heads instead of from the side.
Yasuo couldn't decide which way was worse.
He hadn't heard from Aiko since he'd got on the island four days ago.
She'd been upset, learning he was going to be on port watch. It was, admittedly, one of the sensor jobs with the least potential for communication—though the pay was nice.
He'd need it, too, with the wedding and them beginning to talk about kids.
He'd like kids.
The orphanage had been miserable to grow up in, and he definitely wanted to adopt too, but he also wanted one to take care of from birth, to make sure that the child never had to hurt at all.
He'd dreamt, as a child, of being a parent.
Of caring.
Perhaps, when they decided to have a baby, he'd retire from the front. There were plenty of sensor guard opportunities within Konoha, even if they came with much less pay, and he'd be able to come home, take care of the baby.
Assuming this war was over by then, of course.
He hoped it would be.
It seemed it would never end—even the ceasefire was just that, and while Kumo seemed singularly uninterested in starting another war now that Konoha had two tailed beasts, and Iwa was focused to the west, Kiri—
Well, Kiri was Kiri.
"No change!" Three voices shouted at once.
Yasuo slumped uncomfortably against the rocks, his eyes and chakra sense scanning as he imagined being home with Aiko.
Only three days left, and then at least he'd be able to get a telegram.
.
Sakura was officially swamped, but at least she wasn't on the frontlines.
Between reorganizing the entire Research & Development focus for the war, keeping production in line with whatever happened to be necessary on any given day, and taking in a truly overwhelming number of new requests—
Well.
It was the new requests that surprised her, actually. Not necessarily that they existed at all—the Hokage was far from the only shinobi to make requests during peacetime, so it was little surprise the trend continued during war—but how much the requests had ramped up.
The technological boom seemed to have convinced most of Konoha that all the answers lay in a new machine, in a new seal, and if they just made it clear that what they needed—a bigger boom, a rust-maker, a longer scuba mask, whatever—was the most important, then the War would be solved.
Meanwhile, the death count continued to rise.
Kiri had targeted merchant ships to the point that any sea trading had ground to a halt, having been made far too risky by the near-total domination of Kiri's far larger navy.
If they hadn't already built the railroad, connected several ports—
The sheer scale of the blockade would have undoubtedly led to another year of starvation.
As it stood, they weren't starving, but the railroad had been meant for transporting troops and military supplies—the demand for room for commercial needs was far greater than the supply.
So, they had to build more railroads.
But with what labor?
Sakura frowned, re-sealing her work and leaving her office—it was time for another all Heads meeting with the Hokage.
"…but we do. Um, need the Samurai's help, that is. They are the navy." The Commerce Head—who'd been in the middle of what was no doubt intended to be an hour-long treatise on what she needed the Samurai to do when before the Hokage had interrupted to tell her they wouldn't be doing anything at all—seemed almost to be stalling in her disbelief.
"They are the navy," Minato conceded, "but they are not our navy, and so we cannot order them to do anything."
"So we request the Daimyo—"
"The Daimyo remembers that his father delayed the Samurai entrance into the Second Great War, and wishes to emulate—"
"But this war is being fought in the ocean!" The Commerce Head shouted. "Oh, um, sorry, Hokage."
"I understand the… sentiment," the Hokage said. "We did not get confirmation from the Diplomatic Department that the Daimyo will not be swayed until last night."
"I still can't believe it," the Finance Head said. "Really?"
"The Daimyo is fully trusting of our capability to win the war without the aid of the Samurai."
"Shit." That was the Hospital Head.
Sakura hadn't been aware he was awake.
Still, it was a sentiment she could whole-heartedly agree with.
Shit.
"Sakura," Minato said, and Sakura was already beginning to shake her head, "do you think you could build us a sort of better ship—no?"
"We have… next to no experience ship building, and it is a very, very niche field. Best guess—and there's a wide margin of error here, because we really don't know nearly enough—it'll take us three years to even consider beginning on a first prototype."
"Well, shit," the Hokage said.
He certainly didn't have the same sense of formality as his predecessor.
Of course, that was probably why they got along so well.
"What else can we do then?"
"That we're not now?" Sakura asked. "Nothing. No, really, we're out of labor, we're out of Researchers, we are even literally running out of ink!"
"Ink?"
"The Akimichi have assured us they will be stepping up their animal fat and vegetable oil production, so hopefully it's only a temporary shortage, but still."
"How do you step up anima— never mind."
"If the Research Department is unable to solve this problem," the Finance Head interjected, "then might I perhaps suggest a different approach?"
"Yes?"
"If we were to take over the private—"
"No."
That wasn't Sakura, or the Hokage, or the Commerce Head—
It was the War Commander.
"No? And what do you—"
"Do you know what makes this war different from all those we've previously had? This time, the civilians are—by far—the ones dying.
"Not us.
"And, given the advantage Kiri has over water and their unerring targeting of non-military targets, that's unlikely to change.
"So we're now at this situation where the civilians are suffering and dying and, despite all our technology and all our power, we can't stop it.
"We are not going to take over their homes and businesses too."
"I agree," the Hokage said. "We cannot afford a rebellion, and at this point Fire is more unstable than it has ever been before. We will not tempt fate by commandeering the private sector."
"But civilians are powerless!"
"I assure you," the Hokage said, "that civilians are hiding quite a lot of strength indeed."
The Commerce Head cleared his throat. "None of this resolves the issue of the economy. If nothing changes, it is likely to collapse entirely by the end of the year."
The Hokage sighed. "Yes, we do need—well, let's ignore what we need. What can we do?"
Silence.
.
Nohara Rin grinned, hair whipping about wildly as Sensei's wind chakra threw her and the boys into the air.
"It's working!"
Obito laughed, arms waving about wildly, while Kakashi couldn't stop looking around—looking at the air that was all around them.
From far below, Sensei's voice called up, "Alright, now I'm going to try to move you places!"
Rin watched as the ground below whizzed by, and whooped with glee.
"It's working! It's working!"
"Yes!"
Sensei screamed victory alongside them.
A mere few seconds later they were touching the ground again.
"I can't believe you did it!" Obito said.
"Of course Sensei did! He's amazing," Kakashi ran up to Sensei, hugging him as Rin rubbed the wind out of her face.
"I could see just as well as if I was on earth!" Obito said. "Didn't get dizzy at all!"
"I did," Rin admitted, "but I'm pretty sure I can get used to it with practice."
"We'll keep training—at least an hour every day. If I can get it up to at least five or six bodies, for at least fifteen minutes—can you imagine, literally sending jounin into a Kiri ship?"
"And no one is the slightest bit chakra winded," Kakashi added.
"Exactly!"
"Is this the secret project you've been working on when Kushina tells you to go to bed?" Kakashi asked.
Rin turned and blinked in shock.
"Oh, um, no," Sensei admitted. "But that is taking longer than I expected, so I started messing with other transportation techniques, and—well, you've been up there."
Rin grinned, her smile matching those of her teammates and Sensei.
"Kiri will never know what hit them."
