Misaki pursed her lips, watching as a samurai contingent rode past without stopping. They were Frost samurai, not Fire—the Daimyo had not seen fit to deploy any of his or his nobles' samurai to defend the neighboring minor nations that had begun to be harassed following the byoki attack.
"Why are we allegiant to the Daimyo?" she asked.
She'd not asked it before—it was an intensely rude and somewhat treasonous question—but it felt relevant, and over the past months she'd lost the ability to see the world as she had in the Academy even if she wanted to.
Sensei and Ibiki answered at the same time: "Tradition."
Sensei snorted.
Ibiki expounded, "It's not—I mean, obviously Konoha could, like, assassinate him easily enough, and the resulting war with all the Fire Samurai would be very bloody but could land in our favor, but it's not just them, right? Daimyos have ruled the continent for thousands of years, since the Empire… whatever." No one actually knew anything about the Empire, besides the scant few remaining writings post-Empirical fall that only mentioned its existence and the various Daimyos roles as smaller nobles in it, but scholars' best guess was that it had fallen apart three to four thousand years ago.
Misaki had done a class project on it—she'd gotten an 85% because Sensei said she should have chosen a topic with more relevance to a shinobi career.
"Anyway, so the Empire goes away or dissolves or splits up and stuff, and then the Daimyo are ruling. And they have been ruling. And ruling. And ruling. And they like being in power, and they've been ruling for long enough that everyone's just kind-of used to the Daimyo system, and if it works why fix it?
"So the point is, if we try to overthrow the Daimyo system in Fire, then every other Daimyo on the continent, as well as every island, as well as all the Samurai, and the other shinobi too—they'll want to prove they're not involved—will come after us.
"Not worth it, basically."
"We could just… I don't know, take over without killing him."
"Puppeteering? I mean, it's possible. It's not really done, though. Not in most nations, anyway. There's Water… which who knows what's going on there…"
"Lightning?" Sadao suggested from his position slouched over the roasting rabbit.
"Nah, they get along okay. Familial relationship or something—the Kage and Daimyo are distant cousins."
"Earth," Sensei said. She sealed another paper into the storage seal that her slugs would be delivering to Konoha that night. "Their official stance is that the Daimyo and Kage are equal. The Kage even refused to intervene in that civil war a few years back, between all the nobles. I have no idea how their governance actually works, though."
"I think the Daimyo has control over the samurai and citizens, and the Tsuchikage has control over samurai and the neighboring minor nations," Ibiki said.
"Shouldn't you know all this?" Sensei asked. "We're supposed to be a diplomatic-leaning team."
Sadao snorted. "You're supposed to teach us this stuff. We don't come perfect, that's the whole point of genin."
Sensei frowned. "What are they teaching you in the Academy?"
"Didn't you go to the Academy?"
"Nah, village was too new. They just stuffed us in genin teams the second we could aim straight."
"You haven't noticed your niece isn't an expert in everything?"
"It's diplomacy! You're a diplomacy team! Ibiki knows stuff!"
"One of my guardians is a diplomat, and all three were in a diplomat team when they were genin."
"…Right."
Misaki liked having Sensei as a sensei, actually—she knew so much medical stuff, and answered all their questions without doing the weird 'well, what do you think?' questions that the Academy instructors had been so fond of. So she liked Sensei, but Sensei was also… well, she was Sensei.
Still, as Misaki looked down at her still surviving fish—it had to be going on fifteen minutes now, and she was only just beginning to run out of chakra to continue—she had to admit that the benefits outweighed the positives.
.
Yasuo growled in frustration as he watched Iwa-nin skirt across Suna's border.
That hadn't been part of the brief they were given on the western border situation—they'd reported it immediately, but hadn't yet received a response, an answer that explained what they were seeing.
Uchiha Kenji was pretty sure he knew.
Whatever the Western war had been like, whatever had happened—Suna and Iwa had become more aligned.
Suna hadn't ceased its alliance with Fire, yet, but—
They were hedging their bets.
They were, as overtly as ninja could, stating that this time they wouldn't be by Konoha's side in the war—good luck.
Yasuo snorted when Kenji explained it. "Fair weather friends," he said. "Who needs them?"
"Well, we do," Takahashi—the third of their team—responded.
The three of them sat in silence.
Yasuo wanted to disagree, to hold his position—
But Konoha was battered, bruised.
Kiri might soon not be a threat, but what about Iwa? Kumo? Hell, even the Daimyo.
And, of course, the byoki.
His stomach turned whenever he thought of it.
Almost two days had passed between the time he heard of the attack and when he learned that his wife and child were fine, had been taken by some Aburame who had sacrificed almost all their hives to keep the byoki from touching skin.
Aiko had finagled it, somehow, to even get a time to speak on the radio, to be the one to promise Fire citizens that Konoha would persevere, that law and order were still in place.
Takahashi had woken him from a dead sleep to hear her voice—had patted his back as he cried.
Takahashi's parents had not survived the attack.
His fiancée would never regain full use of her right leg.
He'd refused Yasuo's attempts at gratitude, of guilt over forcing Takahashi into the caretaking role.
"We're a team," Takahashi had said. "We will always be here for each other."
And that was true—while Yasuo still didn't know how many strings Kenji had to pull to get them this gig, this much safer gig, it had to be a lot.
Kenji had to have given up a lot of favors.
But it meant that Yasuo was much more likely to see his son grow up, and so he would not allow his guilt over his teammates' sacrifices to overwhelm him, to overwhelm their relationships.
Instead he would sneer at the Iwa-nin intentionally passing close to their camp just to show that he could.
"We've got a lot going for us," Yasuo said at last. "We're the most technologically advanced, we've got two jinchuuriki, we're in the middle of decisively winning a war—Suna's idiotic for counting us out."
Kenji glanced at Takahashi, who took a breath. "You're right. You're right. And even if you're not, we'll make you be right. We'll show every betrayer exactly how much they screwed up."
.
Sayuri was sweating.
Physically speaking, this was probably one of the easiest combats of her life.
It didn't feel like it.
Only the Hokages were able to fight it—the other ten A-level ninja were already battered, half-dead or worse, and it was all they could do to get their bodies out of the way of the Hokages without attracting its attention.
And then there were the Yamanaka, like her. And many of her close relatives, too, including her sister Ayame.
By now those that were still alive (a majority, thankfully; they couldn't be mind-controlled and the Hokage were keeping it sufficiently distracted) had spread themselves evenly around the room—if a Hokage was even vaguely looking in their direction, they'd do everything they could to catch their eye.
So far, it had worked.
Many, many close calls, and the A-level backup were all in desperate need of medical care, but the Hokages had very quickly picked up on how the thing that must have been the Mizukage fought, were able to all but force it to focus on them.
Collateral damage was still something they had to watch out for—from both sides, actually—it was better than being outright targeted.
The closest they'd gotten—not including a few particularly wide jutsus that the Hokages managed to divert at the last minute—was when the Third Hokage had looked away for barely a second, was trying to catch another Yamanaka's eye while he ran to a better position, sent yet another jutsu after the Mizukage—
And was controlled.
Sayuri would never forget the image of lancing lightning headed directly towards her cousin.
If it hadn't been for Yamanaka Hana-who-plays-music—
But she'd been there.
And she was better than anybody else at hiding her chakra, had even gone through the effort of using the Cloak of Invisibility jutsu to hide her presence for the extra millisecond that could very well be necessary.
And it had been necessary.
She'd managed to get in the Third Hokage's eyeline just in time, just in time for the man to divert most of his jutsu, turn back to the Mizukage in time to stop an attack that might have otherwise bisected the Fourth Hokage.
Her cousin, Yamanaka Daiki, was still lying there.
Still unmoving.
She could see his skin, see where some of his skin used to be, see what was underneath.
But Hana-who-plays-music had checked for a pulse, found it, before she'd disappeared from Sayuri's vision, and that was enough.
It would have to be.
Again, and again, and again, jutsus more powerful than could reasonably be explained in words filled the air, the ground, the everything—
You could almost smell the chakra, almost hear its power.
And still the battle raged on.
Somewhere along the line the Fourth Hokage had lost the use of his left arm, was doing all his signs one-handed.
The Third Hokage's chest was one massive bruise—he'd tanked an earth jutsu that had slammed right into his chest, hadn't even given himself a moment to recover.
In comparison, the thing looked far, far worse off, which was great, especially considering the two Hokages were more or less forced to fight blind.
But it was still—
It wasn't Sayuri who sounded the alarm.
Another Yamanaka had the Fourth Hokage's eyes right now, but Sayuri was in a pretty good position to catch them if the Hokage needed to charge forward, so she'd been focused on that.
She had no idea who sounded the alarm.
But someone did.
"Byoki!"
Shit.
Shit-shit-shit-shit—
Sayuri couldn't afford to divert her attention from the Hokages.
No one could.
She knew acid would help, but it wasn't exactly something she carried around.
She couldn't even summon a condor large enough to get even a single person off the ground.
And then there were toads, toads as far as the eye could see—not that hers were looking.
And the thing—the Mizukage—was growling.
"I don't need your help," it said. "Go away."
Toads puddled at her feet.
Some were talking—"Taste my skin!", "Ha, look at you shrink!", and similar shouts and jokes.
Most toads just croaked.
Even as the adrenaline from the initial alarm was still pumping into her veins, even as she realized what the call meant—
It was already being dealt with.
Moreso, it was distracting the Mizukage.
The Fourth Hokage was suddenly staring straight at her, and she met his gaze, intentionally tried to destroy his balance—
And he was charging forward, the Third right behind him.
And the Fourth Hokage was staring at her, and she was trying to trip him, trying to disrupt him—
And some of the toads were still talking, still bragging about how hard they'd worked at their acidity—
And she knew the jutsu kept going through, that she was stopping his brain from balancing instinctively, but he still managed to correct each step in real time, keep charging forward—
And the Mizukage was screaming—
And the Fourth Hokage was screaming—
And there was a seal—
And the red-hot blaze of a painfully large amount of chakra expenditure—
And silence.
And the thing on the ground wasn't moving.
And the Fourth Hokage was holding his hand up.
And the toads went quiet, except for an occasional grunt as they hopped and scooted along the floor, searching out any byoki which they hadn't found already.
"I'm going to look away, now," the Fourth Hokage said, still meeting her gaze. "Be ready."
Sayuri nodded.
She was sure everyone else did too.
The Fourth Hokage looked away.
Stared at the ceiling.
The floor.
What was left of the body of his enemy.
Behind him, the Third Hokage—trembling, visibly holding himself back—kept staring at another Yamanaka.
Then he, too, looked away.
And nothing changed.
They'd won.
And then they heard the rumbling.
Neither Hokage wasted any time shifting the earth under their feet away, looking for whatever it was that had made that noise—
There, a weak and near-dead man sat, powerful and terrifying chakra radiating off of him.
Clearly, the man had been used as some sort of power source.
"The jinchuuriki of the Sanbi," the Hokage whispered.
Sudden, thick, killing intent filled the air; Hokage Sarutobi was looking at all of them.
"No one must know of this." He turned to the Hokage, who was already next to the jinchuuriki, prodding the massive seal on the man's chest. "Do we need to reseal immediately?"
"No," the Hokage said. "We have time to be careful—the seal is based on the same Uzu design ours is." His eyes also passed over each of them. "You may discuss this battle, but not this beast or anything that implies its existence."
Each nodded in turn.
And then it was time to leave—it was best that they didn't even have any idea where the tailed beast went.
Sayuri helped her sister carry another Yamanaka out of the room, and everybody else did the same. A boat was waiting, unmanned, and the Hokages made it clear they could be left behind; the injured needed treatment, and that couldn't wait.
Still, despite carrying a cousin who was coughing up blood, despite every able-bodied Yamanaka having to help carry someone, living or dead, it was over.
Sayuri didn't smile—she couldn't, not with the death count experienced that day, experienced across the whole war—but the relief washed through her entire body. The rain seemed to soak her inside and out; and for the first time in a long time, she felt the adrenaline leaving her body, felt her shoulders untensing.
She met Ayame's eyes, knew that she felt the same, and that was enough.
.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was not a man who considered himself prone to wild emotion.
But right now he was terrified.
He still remembered the blinding rage he'd felt when Minato had dealt the killing blow—unreasonable rage, because he could have sworn he didn't care who did it.
So why had he cared?
He never had before.
And he'd cared about the jinchuuriki too, about how Minato hadn't just given the power of the beast to him—and Hiruzen was more than aware of what a stupid idea that was.
What was happening to him?
When else were his emotions not his own?
And what could he possibly do to regain control over his own mind?
