Maito Guy eagerly leaned forward, flipping to the next page as he signed every agreement—he was a genin, now, an adult, ten years old, and that meant he could participate.

Kato Dan grinned at him as he kept flipping the forms—ever since Guy had found out about the study of human anatomy and physiology two years ago (trailing after his father while he trained, somehow almost as fast already) he'd been ready, eager to find out all he could, already on his way to becoming a taijutsu expert, the sort that made everybody else watch in awe.

"And this is the last form, giving permission for us to monitor your overall health—you know, you really should read these papers before you sign them. Or at least wait long enough for me to finish explaining."

Guy nodded rapidly, clearly wanting the chastising to finish. "When can we start?"

"What exactly are you getting out of this?"

"If I'm going to learn every taijutsu technique, I need to be the most flexible, the most balanced, the most strong. So I need to know where I'm at now!"

"There's other things to life than taijutsu, you know?"

Guy nodded in agreement. "There's also friendship, and family, and sparring!"

Dan decided he did not want to know why sparring wasn't considered part of taijutsu. "Well, you're an adult, and you've signed the forms, so you can participate. You've cleared it with your sensei?"

More rapid nodding.

"Then follow me."

.

Bokuso sat back on his heels, taking a minute to catch his breath.

There wasn't any proof that acid-staining their walls would work, but—well, it had acid.

And it was better than leaving them wholly unprepared again.

It was true that the Uchiha had lost the most in the byoki attack, had lost so many more members than any other clan.

The Aburame lost the second most.

That was the problem with living underground, in the end.

With living in the earth.

He sat on his heels, and looked at the sloping hallway in front of him.

He'd keep on working, and between him and everyone else they'd be finished re-fortifying their home by the end of the week.

He just wished it hadn't been necessary.

He wished—

He wished the byoki were people, people who could be targeted, captured, killed.

But instead it was a mystery, a hard-to-kill anomaly that defied all understanding.

They still didn't know what to do about it.

Bokuso knew they were still regularly driving it away from Konoha. There had even, some time ago, been a rush-job to drive the byoki from ships and the like heading out to sea; that had been terrifying, that ships were an option, that byoki could stowaway. Terrifying. There were ninja, now, who lived at every port, who sprayed down the docks with acid four times a day.

You couldn't do that on the mainland, though.

You couldn't—

Bokuso got back to work.

It was better than feeling helpless, feeling petrified of the monsters that might attack his children in the night.

.

The Jashinists were back.

That wasn't much of a surprise, really; Jashinists came and went in waves, and never ever really disappeared.

But they'd never before appeared in Tea.

Shin had warned them, when Tea started actively targeting cults, attempting to stamp them out, that all they would do was create martyrs, but they hadn't listened.

And, to their credit, Konoha's information network did agree that the cult of Tengu (the cult that had killed the previous Tea Daimyo) had been successfully eradicated, had fled to Fire and then—not appreciating the differing religious beliefs that Fire had—onto Wind, where there was an absolute medley of religions.

But the cult of Tengu wasn't Jashinists.

No one ever got rid of Jashinists.

The most they could do was arrest the worst of the practitioners, allow other, kinder faiths privileges to try to encourage their spread.

No one ever got rid of Jashinists.

And Tea, Tea hadn't understood that.

Shin supposed they did now.

Well, he wasn't helping them this time.

Couldn't, with how hard he was still working on Konoha's reputation, on ensuring there were as few internal and external threats as possible.

On…

It was weird, because from the time he was a genin, he'd been engaging in explicitly treasonous behavior. He had been trained in manipulating the Daimyo, manipulating the nobles, manipulating all of Fire outside Konoha's walls.

This was against the law.

This was punishable by death.

Shin hadn't had any issue doing it. (Or, he had. Actually. He'd just agreed with the need for such actions even more, pushed aside his misgivings.)

And now—

Well, he supposed he'd always thought that most people who interacted with the Daimyo, with nobles, were trying to manipulate them (and each other) in one way or another.

So yes, it was treason, but it was also the sort of treason that everybody did.

But now Shin was going around and doing things that there were like two hundred safeguards against, doing things that, should he be caught, would see even Konoha-supporters calling for his death.

Because sure, all he was doing on the surface was acting as a tutor for a few people.

Teaching them how to catch other manipulators, teaching them how to think critically.

But really, what he was doing was intentionally teaching just about everybody he could find who was reasonably young and reasonably in line for the throne to trust Konoha. To turn to Konoha first, not the nobles. To view Konoha as the way forward. To trust Shin. To trust Minato. To be wary, leery, of anybody who did not support Konoha.

Shin thought the same, of course, but then he'd known from childhood that indoctrination was one of the primary tasks of the Academy.

(Sakura had never liked it, had told him about how much she didn't like it. Had told him about how much it had succeeded anyway.)

Shin really did think that he was doing the right thing, not just for Konoha but for Fire as a whole.

But it was also—

They were children, and he was indoctrinating them, and he could hear Sakura's voice in his head, moaning about how no one wanted her to think for herself.

And, well, he didn't want these children, these teenagers to think for themselves. That's why he'd focused on the young ones—they were more manipulable.

And he tried to make up for it, tried to teach them other things, too, so they could think for themselves in other aspects of life—

Just not anything to do with Konoha.

They should always just support Konoha.

And none of this had anything to do with Jashinists, to do with the letter requesting aid that he'd received, but it was what kept him up most nights, so it was unsurprising that it was now distracting him in the daytime too.

Shin really did believe he was doing the right thing.

He just wished he felt less scummy about it.

.

Aiko unrolled the final scroll. Most places were using sheets of paper, now, but not the judiciary—scrolls were 'traditional' and (more to the point) easier to seal, so scrolls were it.

"So, in total there is only one Kurama who actively put Hizashi into the genjutsu, and another two who were aware of the plan. A further four Kurama also admitted to unrelated crimes during interrogation, primarily related to the illegal ways they were trying to make up for their low birth rates. All five kidnapped women have been rescued, and will remain at the hospital for two to six weeks depending on their injuries. None of the other Kurama were aware, which is something.

"On the side of the Hyuuga, only two elders were actually involved with making and carrying out the plan. The other three in some way guessed what was going on, but only one was supportive of it—the other two were kept in line through fear, the same as the other Hyuuga.

"Our recommendation is the death sentence for the most involved Kurama and the two Hyuuga elders, and imprisonment for the other Hyuuga elders in deference to their intended role as protectors. The other two involved Kurama have been charged for their unrelated crimes and face prison sentences of at least fifteen years, assuming they are only found guilty of the lowest of their current charges—though lesser charges will likely be added at a later date—so the specific recommendation matters less for them because they can wait."

She stopped, reviewed the information she'd been spouting for over half an hour. "That is all, I believe."

"You didn't mention the Head Kurama?"

"Oh, completely senile, so definitely not involved. Removing him is in-clan politics, though, and unlikely to happen, but it looks like his youngest daughter has been trying to become the new leader behind her father as the puppet, and she seems sane and smart enough to pull it off—without committing any crimes."

"Thank you, Judge Utatane," the Hokage said.

The worst part wasn't that she knew for a fact that the Military Police and T&I Investigators who'd left just as she was arriving had already given them all the information she just had—

The worst part was that Hyuuga Hiashi was outright leaking killing intent.

It wasn't intentional. He was trying his hardest to keep his feelings under control, beneath his skin.

He was just so upset it wasn't working.

And then there was the Hokage.

There was no killing intent from him, not even the slightest hair of it.

Every bone in Aiko's body still swore that he was in such a murderous rage that she should move to another country immediately, right this very second, do not wait, do not hesitate, go.

She only managed to stay in place because she was so sure that the Hokage didn't go around murdering people for no reason.

It was still a very near thing.

.

From its inception, Konoha had always emphasized clan rights. It was the only way they could get most clans on board—the promise that such rights would never be abridged, never be threatened.

The risk that the slightest snowfall might turn into an avalanche just seemed too great, to those oh-so-recent forefathers.

And then the Uchiha had given up positions in the police in exchange for Research technology.

And the Akimichi and Aburame in—whatever they called it, Office Forty or whatever—they'd worked together, divulged hidden clan techniques (clan techniques that no doubt hundreds of scrolls promised death to any even theoretical discloser) and decided to share fields between them, work on agricultural research together.

And the remainder of the Sarutobi—they had a woman leader now, Biwako, one that didn't come from the direct line of descent, even if it was just behind closed doors.

And still, the Hyuuga elders had thought themselves infallible.

Even while the absolute separation between clans eroded…

Even while their own power within their clan did too…

They simply couldn't imagine anyone stopping them.

Well, perhaps they wouldn't have.

The caged bird seal was nothing new, after all.

But, well, this was Hyuuga Hizashi.

His brother—the Clan Head—was still alive.

Was the one whose dictates they were trying to contradict.

And they'd brought in another clan, the Kurama clan, functionally allowed that clan power over the Hyuuga.

And they'd done so to attempt to manipulate the Yamanaka boy who was making the new seal.

And—

There were so, so many ways for every other clan to rationalize, to agree that this was a one-off case, to agree that no, this couldn't (already wasn't) just kept in the clan.

The elders simply couldn't imagine anyone stopping them.

Minato didn't know how these sorts of idiots survived to old age, never mind clambering into positions of power.

But he would be more than a little happy to kick them back to the dirt where they belonged.

He turned to Hiashi, the two now the only ones in the room.

"A suggestion?" He offered.

Hiashi nodded. It was still a bit jerky—a combination of his fury and his recovery—but it was sincere.

"Get a new system. No one's going to fight us punishing the elders, not with your clear approval and everything they thought they could get away with, but—well, technically speaking we are edging really, really closely to what is acceptable."

Hiashi rolled his shoulders. "Already working on it. I think… it's time to start shifting values."

"Good to hear it."