Sakura frowned. So did the Head of T&I, and everyone else in the room.
"So we still haven't figured out if there are additional, still-hidden spies from Orochimaru?"
"No, Hokage," the Head of T&I said.
"Shit."
Sakura didn't smirk. Didn't really find it that humorous, when she normally would have. Orochimaru—he wasn't an idiot. Okay, he had messed with his own brain, was probably still trying to physically and genetically and in every other way 'modify' himself, but—
Sakura had kind of lost her point.
ANBU Sun Bear was speaking now, describing the difficulties in tracking possible spies.
They had a lot going for them, to be fair—seals at every Konoha entryway, to monitor the movement of humans and other living things in and out of the city; special paperwork seals, which could record the chakra signatures of those who opened and closed the seal (which were, unfortunately, insanely hard to make, so they couldn't use them for everything); and ANBU itself, who acted as guards and sensors and just about everything else (Sakura still didn't completely understand the ANBU set-up, still didn't completely—anyway, it wasn't her business.)
It wasn't enough.
Well, actually, it had been enough.
For the spies that were caught.
The problem was that they'd never be able to prove, not conclusively, that there weren't any that they missed.
And now she was the focus.
"Can you make more efficient paperwork seals. Efficient to make, I mean. A higher chakra cost to use them would be acceptable."
"Yes," Sakura said. "Pretty easily, if you're okay with very high chakra requirements. I'll get prototypes of all paperwork-seal related proposals to be tested by the end of the week." High chakra requirements had historically been avoided—not 'battlefield ready enough' apparently—but there were already a half-dozen proposals from fuinjutsu journeymen who didn't understand why paperwork seals had to be 'battlefield ready' at all.
"Alright. ANBU Sun Bear, could you go to Research in a week and check them out? Decide which would work best?"
"Hai." The ANBU vanished.
The T&I Head bowed. "Thank you, Hokage."
Sakura bowed too. "I'll get to work right away."
She left, and considered why the Hokage hadn't attended that meeting, had sent a shadow clone instead.
But ANBU was there, and so they were probably certain that that was actually the Hokage's shadow clone, and not anybody else's.
That would have to be enough.
She arrived back at her office and began pulling out the seal proposals. Clone Hokage or no, something had to be done about the information-leak risk.
.
Shikaku smiled, clapping Chouza on the back as he and his new fiancée began their laps of the engagement party, excitedly sharing their love with everyone else.
But he also—
He also felt his heart clench.
They hadn't exactly liked when he'd dumped Yuoko—she'd been really great for the Nara, he knew she'd been really great for the Nara, but she hadn't been good for him, and despite not being happy about it they'd understood that.
Been okay with that.
But he was an adult now, they were all adults now, and Inoichi and Chouza wanted to get married.
They hadn't pushed him, exactly, hadn't wanted to be assholes about it or anything, but…
They were waiting.
Only a few years, probably. If he hadn't been dating anyone by 50 Konoha, or maybe even 51 or 52 Konoha, they'd probably just get married without him.
It wasn't something they'd talked about.
But he knew that, if he had still wanted to be with Yuoko, they'd be getting married today.
Both had proposed, both were deeply in love.
Both had been dating their significant others for years, knew for a fact that they wanted to spend their life with them, have children with them.
He knew that they didn't want to impose on him.
Knew that they didn't exactly like the tradition themselves, especially Inoichi, except that they had ended up such good friends, with such a strong bond that it couldn't possibly be clearer why their families had tried so hard over generations to have heirs that were the same age.
And it hadn't been great, exactly, this feeling of pressure, this tradition bearing down on them, forcing them to at least attempt to have marriages, firstborns, at around the same time—
But they'd all been coping.
And they were twenty-one now, had time.
And, and so Shikaku had tried to put it out of his mind, live his life.
But now both his best friends were engaged.
And if they got married the pressure would be even worse on him, with even more clansmen asking him about dating, trying to set him up.
So he knew that they'd hold off, spend a few years engaged instead.
And his heart clenched, because it wasn't fair to them.
It wasn't fair to him, either, wasn't fair to hear his mother's complaints about his bachelor status every single day he couldn't find an excuse not to be home, but—
It still felt like his fault.
Yuoko would have been very good for the Nara.
His friends had understood when he had dumped her, understood love.
His family, and in particular his immediate family, were less… forgiving.
And now, months later, he was still single.
He smiled, and made polite conversation with the other party guests, and wondered if he would ever be able to explain to his parents the struggle of dating when everyone knew you were on a timeline.
.
Miki babbled happily at his father as Yasuo tried unsuccessfully to convince the one-year-old to eat the mashed peas. He still couldn't help but smile back, nod along to Miki's incomprehensible conversation.
And then hold the spoon up again, and watch as Miki picked up some of the green mush and threw it on the floor, all with a wide smile and runny nose.
Yasuo huffed, trying not to laugh, not to encourage his son.
He could almost hear Aiko's smirk behind him.
"I have to go to work. Best of luck!"
He glanced back, back at his wife in her clean judicial kimono. He smiled. "I'm sure I'll figure it out before you get home."
"Or you'll give up and feed him mashed fruit again," she teased. When he'd first come home, when the war had finally been over and he'd been able to get a position with the Uchiha Police, he hadn't wanted to upset Miki, to see his little boy even a little upset, and he'd been a bit quick to just give his son whatever he wanted.
A few very, very long tantrums over things he couldn't control—no, Miki couldn't have that other child's toy, no, Miki couldn't touch the lit candle, and so on—had put a stop to that.
But the impulse was still there, and so Aiko continued to laugh at his expense.
Yasuo laughed too.
He could laugh, now that he was home.
Now that he was with them.
Even in the heat of the summer, even when Miki was bound and determined not to eat what was put in front of him—
Yasuo could do little else but be happy.
And so he kissed his wife goodbye then turned back, a new spoonful of peas ready for the next attempt.
.
They had more information on the plague, now.
More victims to divine information from.
First, shinobi were safer.
It didn't seem to be the chakra, exactly; the best guess was that physical health and fitness helped.
That was…
Actually kind of bad news for Konoha. If shinobi were safer, the plague would have less of a chilling effect on the other major ninja villages than they'd hoped, and no matter how much they worked to project the opposite, Konoha really could not handle an all-out assault at the moment.
The second discovery was just bad for the world.
'The most vulnerable populations.'
That's what they were called.
What they had been called, since the Uzu had more-or-less invented disease tracking all those centuries ago.
'The most vulnerable populations.'
The already sick.
The elderly.
Children.
Infants.
Pregnant women.
Impoverished folk, who could not afford a varied diet, or much of a diet at all.
'The most vulnerable populations.'
The world relied on the most vulnerable populations, wouldn't exist without them, wouldn't continue without them, wouldn't be without them.
That didn't mean it was easy to protect them.
In this, at least, Fire had a much smaller pool to deal with. Vaccines worked wonders for reducing risk; and while they still had a ways to go, just about everyone on the frontlines—on trade routes, on borders, in major cities—who could be vaccinated, was.
There were still so, so many who might die, who would die, but—
Iwa wasn't testing their borders anymore. Suna was still hinting at changed loyalties, and Kumo was now focused on haranguing the former islands of Water, now Fire, but Iwa had been forced to stop.
Too many deaths.
Too many deaths of the families of shinobi, of their children and parents and siblings.
Too many non-Iwa deaths, no doubt creating problems for their food supply as more and more farms lost their farmers.
Wind wasn't doing well either, but they were more isolated, more able to close off entire communities in time.
Earth hadn't been hit yet, not really.
Fire only had its first twelve diagnosed cases, though in truth the number was probably far higher ; the twelve were only those sickly enough to end up in a hospital, to end up tested, to end up diagnosed.
And then there were the many minor nations, the geographically smaller countries who had far less variation in their geography, who were far less capable of handling isolation.
Fire was allied with almost all of their surrounding nations, was only just beginning to send vaccines their way—but it left them vulnerable, easier to take over.
Konoha had more information on the plague, now, and it wasn't good.
.
It was black.
So very, very black.
That was the problem with new moons; stars by themselves didn't produce nearly enough light, and when you weren't able to create any light yourself that made shuffling in the dark very bothersome indeed.
But it's what they had to do: trespass was legal, but so was killing trespassers, and Asuma didn't want him or his team to have to deal with samurai—samurai they couldn't fight back—catching sight of them while they traipsed across a noble's land.
Of course there were multiple ports on Uzu.
Objectively, Asuma had already known that.
Objectively.
But when they'd heard that a ship was headed to Uzu, when they'd finally just snuck on board, hidden behind a genjutsu Kurenai maintained—
He hadn't even considered that the port they'd end up in would be on the other side of the island.
And time was running out. They'd tried his idea too long, spent far too many days trying to convince anyone and everyone to knowingly give them a ride.
So now they had to sneak at night, slowly, carefully, and skip sleep, and hope that Asahi had done the math right, that they would make it in time.
At least they were nearly done.
This should be, based on their daytime estimations, the last of the nobles' territory.
Asuma actually didn't know who controlled the edge of the shinobi territory, but that was fine.
They were shinobi.
They'd be far more understanding.
And then Kurenai's breath hitched, and he tried to turn towards the noise, and she was whispering—
"Look, light!"
And there it was. Far to their right—they'd definitely gotten off course—but clearly visible.
They turned, started toward it, stumbling over rocks and roots as they picked up speed.
There—
Ibiki turned, grinned as they came out of the woods. "Hey!" He said, waving them over. His teammates waved too, clearly exhausted from a long day of training. "You guys took the long way, huh?"
Asuma made to snap back—Ibiki never seemed to mind—when Kurenai interrupted. "We did. But we're here in time, right?"
"I mean, Kaiso's over that way, but you can easily get there tomorrow, and you still have two days left. You're good."
So, their math was off, but only because Asahi had been overly cautious, overly wary of just how much time had passed while they were hiding at sea. Asuma felt his shoulders relaxing. "Can we sleep here, then?"
Ibiki turned to his Uchiha teammate, who nodded as he finished the last of their (very late) dinner. "Yeah, my clan won't mind. You'll have to leave early tomorrow—no spying on us, you know—but sleeping's fine, and my aunt doesn't really care how many of us are sleeping in my cousin's room."
"Indoor plumbing," Kurenai whispered. "The kami have blessed us today."
Asahi was tired of talking. "Let's go see the room, then. I think I'm going to pass out in about five minutes no matter where I am."
The Uchiha—Sadao—laughed. "Wow, you guys have been rushing. Alright, we're done anyway. Come on, follow me."
And so—only about sixteen hours later—the last Konoha team that would arrive checked in, with only a day to spare until the start of the tournament.
