Yamanaka Kaede fidgeted. They were starting the Academy early, before the new year even began, and he was a part of it.

His father, Yamanaka Kamui, and his mother, Yamanaka Yumi, weren't ninja, but most of the rest of his family were.

He wanted to be a ninja too.

He would forever remember the fear pressing into his chest, watching the black seep out of the ground and coalesce—

He would forever remember being carried home, seeing bodies littered across the street—he would eavesdrop on a conversation, later, and learn it had taken days to find and identify every body.

Kaede figured, crying in his room as he'd waken up from yet another nightmare, that the best way to stop being scared is to get strong enough to take on the threat.

Or at least run away.

So, even though his mom and dad had told him over and over that he didn't have to be a ninja if he didn't want to be one…

Kaede ran to get in line the second his name was called.

He might not have to be a shinobi, but he was going to be one, and he was going to be a good one—the type his uncle-namesake would be proud of.

.

Rin fidgeted, tugging her mask further up her face.

She didn't know how she'd been bullied into agreeing, but now the three of them had a 'motif'—a mask with the kanji for Konoha.

She kind of thought it looked stupid.

She absolutely couldn't tell either of her teammates—they both loved it, and they'd spent literal months arguing about what should be on the mask before they came up with the idea.

She would not, under any circumstances, go back to the arguing.

It didn't matter right now, anyway—they were only in Head Researcher Yamanaka's office, watching Obito's skull get measured from several different angles by a different Yamanaka Researcher—the Head's nephew, apparently.

"Got it?" The Head asked.

Researcher Yamanaka grunted, jotting down a final number on his notepad. "Alright… one currently-non-existent byoki-sensing tattoo seal coming right up." He glanced up, again, at his aunt. It was not a happy glance.

The Head rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I ask the impossible. But you deliver, so…"

"Do you really think you'll be able to do it?" Obito asked.

Researcher Yamanaka shrugged, then blushed. "Yeah. I mean, probably. The Hokage has a lot of good ideas about how to create the seal network, and Aunt Sakura's suggestion of tracking it by what it isn't—given that attempts to define byoki have failed—is a good idea too. I just…"

Everyone knew what he meant, he just couldn't promise to be done in time.

Who knew when the byoki would attack next?

"Still, it's a good plan, and we can start the search immediately," Rin said, hoping to sound more confident than she was.

All three of them were mid-jounin-level no matter which way you looked at it—Kakashi probably even higher—and between Obito's unusual sensing, Rin's pinpoint-precise chakra accuracy, and Kakashi's tailed beast—

They might not be able to stop the next attack, that was true, but they could certainly do their best.

"You're really not helping?" Kakashi asked. Rin hissed, elbowing him in the side, but it was too late.

"No," Head Yamanaka said. "I've never really gotten the hang of sealwork, myself. I'm just one of those annoying bosses who gives you an idea and expects you to run with it."

"Plus you're busy trying to save the economy," Researcher Yamanaka added.

"There is that."

Rin winced. Konoha was empty. Part of that—a lot of that—was the war, the byoki. The rest… civilians didn't want to live here, anymore. No one wanted to live here. Everyone was fleeing, and Konoha was very, very quickly losing the ability to sustain itself.

Rin didn't even know how to begin dealing with that.

Hopefully Head Yamanaka would come up with something—it was what she was known for, after all.

.

Sakura smiled at the two young children who squinted distrustfully up at her from behind their sunglasses.

"Twins?"

Aburame Bokuso nodded. "Mase and Pei."

She smiled at them.

They did not smile back.

Sakura had always known that the Aburame preferred to keep their young hidden—many clans were like that, and the Inuzuka generally went out of their way to deny pregnancy in even the most obvious circumstances—but Aburame did it longest, generally not 'introducing' their children until it was time for them to begin in the Academy.

The newest Academy group had actually started eleven weeks earlier than planned—about four days ago—but due to… everything… Sakura hadn't actually had time to meet them until today. They looked cute.

"It is time to say goodbye; class begins soon."

"It was nice meeting you."

Silence.

Apologetically, "They are not… loquacious."

"See you later Bokuso."

"See you."

.

Ibiki growled, throwing another used lightning rod seal onto the ground as they re-entered the guardhouse. "How much longer will we have to do this until they get the message?"

Sensei, head buried in far too much paperwork, shrugged. The slug sitting on her shoulder shrugged too. "Until the war with Kiri is over, probably. And then they'll just attack us by sea instead. No happy endings here."

"Cheerful," Sadao snarked. His voice could barely be heard, muffled as it was by the futon he'd thrown himself down on.

Misaki whimpered from her futon. (Or, rather, hers and Sensei's. They shared, and the boys shared; there was only space for two.) "I just want sleep!"

"Well then, sleep. They probably won't attack again for at least another hour."

At the very least, this was giving Ibiki plenty of the combat experience that he'd always been told helped promotions.

It didn't seem worth it.

He'd seen people die far too many times, now.

He'd killed far too many times too.

And still they came.

Always weak, always quick to run away—

But endless.

Never more than a day's break between, and that was if they were lucky.

.

Kohana tried to muffle her cough, but she wasn't quite quiet enough—Yamanaka Hekima was inside her office before the cough was even fully out, holding up the tea that was sitting on her bedside before she even had time to sit up.

She couldn't tell Hekima that he was being too overbearing, no matter how much she wanted to. He was one of the only non-disabled age-appropriate shinobi to be considered bad enough not to bring forward. He also had terrible handwriting, so seal-making was out too. While Hekima had been doing most of the paperwork that kept the Yamanaka running since the war had gotten really bad, taking care of the Head's betrothed was apparently an even more important responsibility in his eyes, and she hadn't had time to want for anything since Inoichi had placed her in his care.

It was too much.

Still, for all that she couldn't tell Hekima outright that he was suffocating her, there were other ways to deal with the problem.

"Did you get the—"

"Oh, yes! The Kaiso paperwork." Kaiso (Konoha's main port on Uzu) was officially larger than Konoha now. Not by much, but… not exactly a good thing. That was mostly because of all the refugees, however. While over half were estimated to be killed during their attempt to escape, that still left more than enough in Uzu to completely and dramatically change the culture, even with all the defecting Kiri shinobi more than willing to turn around and fight their former comrades (they were convinced that those comrades had, quite literally, lost their minds—possibly due to some new jutsu—and therefore wanted to put their former friends and family out of their misery.)

The culture clash situation, however, was getting decidedly heated, and that was before the contingent of almost all Uchiha had arrived.

Now it may as well have been bedlam.

For reasons (proximity to Kaiso, maybe?) Ino-Shika-Cho had been put in charge of dealing with it all.

Hekima and Kohana were the only ones actually doing any work on it, but that was to be expected.

"I did what you asked, and had an approximate graph of ages drawn up—here, and I also made several other graphs for all of the individual clans. And civilians, of course. Though I included all the Water people in one big group—I couldn't find the list Inoichi-sama gave me on Kiri clan names, but I'll find it and add the additional graphs later."

"That's really not necessary," Kohana said, "this is—more than enough."

She'd suspected, but proof—when relatively easy to achieve—was always preferred.

The children outnumbered the adults at a rate of two to one, if you counted children as anyone under fifteen.

"Education. That's the solution. Education."

"With what resources?" Hekima asked. It could have been sarcastic, but it wasn't. He was genuinely curious.

Kohana still wished he hadn't asked.

Because that was the question, wasn't it?

The question of the hour. Day. Year.

Who would supply the teachers?

The time?

The supplies?

The curriculum?

They couldn't relocate Konohagakure's Academy, no matter how diminished its student population got. Doing so would be a sign to the Daimyo that Konohagakure was abandoning mainland Fire, and doing so would be tantamount to declaring war.

But what other options were there?

Education—teaching children from various clans and cultures side-by-side under the guise of experienced instructors—would do more than any amount of work with adults would accomplish.

But.

But.

Kohana rubbed her eyes.

She still felt awful (sick, clammy, weak, irrationally guilty over…she wasn't ready to think about it) and she would feel awful for a month or two more, because none of the healers had time to spare to help her body along.

That didn't mean the Yamanaka could afford to have her take time off.

She missed working in the flower shop.

"Contact all the other clans that have land in Uzu. Every one of them is still teaching their own children, I guarantee it. Ask them to combine into one Academy, invite civilian and non-clan children to attend too. We'll see how many respond positively and go from there."

"Hai!"

Hekima wasted no time dashing out of the room.

Kohana gave it a second—one could never be too careful—and then finally allowed herself the few loud, deep coughs that her lungs demanded.

Sleep.

She'd deal with the rest when Hekima came back.

.

It wasn't as if anybody had expected it to stay a secret forever.

It still galled, to see the new page in Iwa's freshly printed Bingo book—Hatake Kakashi, S-ranked threat. Jinchuuriki.

At least there was still some conclusion over which jinchuuriki—Iwa listed multiple options, including the Kyuubi, so Konoha still had a little wiggle room there.

Minato frowned.

Between this and the new goal he gave his students, he really wished he had more time to train with them, to make sure they could go up against any threat.

Instead he tossed the Bingo book in his 'reviewed' stack.

He missed his kids.

He missed Kushina.

He missed feeling happy.

He picked up the next report—a casualty report, which at least had lower numbers than last week.

One problem was nearly over.

Minato just wasn't sure Konoha would survive its end.