"I appreciate you agreeing to meet," the man's voice rasped.

"…Your offer was quite tempting."

The tea set was old, very old. Everything was old. The sort of old that made it very, very clear the offer was real.

And—

He didn't want it to be real.

He didn't.

But it was a very, very good offer.

"I assure you," the Suna representative said, "we are more than willing to improve the offer. Name your terms."

…and that.

Fugaku—

He loved Konoha.

Felt loyal to Konoha.

But he was loyal to the Uchiha first.

And Suna was—

Was basically offering anything at all to bring the Uchiha to them.

…Which meant that Fugaku was now deeply regretting telling Minato even as much as he did.

But, well, he hadn't told Minato everything.

"Let's talk," Fugaku said.

The representative smiled.

.

The room was silent.

The sounds of kids screaming and laughing bled through the window, but the curtains were closed.

Inoichi stared at the palms of his hands.

He shouldn't have shouted.

He could see Kohana as she shuffled back and forth in the room.

He waited.

There was little else he could do.

And it had all—

He'd just been worried.

That's all it was.

He'd just been worried.

It was just… he hadn't gone about it the right way. Dealing with his fear. His anxiety.

(He still felt like he was on the battlefield, getting a burn healed—like the genin messenger was standing in front of him, telling him Kohana had been kidnapped, was hurt.

(It still felt—)

"I am not pregnant," Kohana said.

She sounded good, sounded herself.

(Inoichi really wished he'd said anything else.)

"I know."

"I can't exactly be pregnant, can I? We haven't—there hasn't been a chance, since the miscarriage."

Inoichi winced.

Wanted to say that it wasn't anything to do with her, it was his own brain—

Doubted that would help.

"I am not pregnant," Kohana said again.

"I'm sorry," Inoichi repeated. He'd already said it too much. It definitely wasn't making any sort of impact.

"For what? For ordering me to stop being my own person? That's your right as Head."

Inoichi wanted to flee. Wanted to ask for advice. Wanted to figure out how to undo it—undo what he'd said. 'What if you miscarried again? Risking—you're not allowed to take those sorts of risks without my approval!'

Stupid.

So, so stupid.

"I don't—" Yamanaka were supposed to be good with words. Whoever spread that rumor had never met him. "I shouldn't have said that. I don't even believe it. I just… I spent the whole time running here thinking about worst case scenarios, and it started with—all these awful, awful things happening to you, and then I tried to think about how it probably wasn't that bad; you were definitely alive, and then I started to think about how it could be worse; I could—if you were pregnant—have lost you and our child, and I just felt so, helpless."

Kohana didn't stop pacing. She wasn't even supposed to be up, really; the hospital couldn't afford to fully heal her injuries, told her to take it easy for a bit.

But at least Inoichi had gotten it out, explained why he'd made the mistake he had.

"Do… do you want me to leave?"

"No."

"Okay." Inoichi kept staring at his hands.

"It was terrifying. Really, really terrifying. And I never—I never want anything like that to happen ever again. It's just… not what I… it's not for me. Violence. But, Inoichi. I'm going to keep trying to do the best by our clan, our village. I'm going to keep—keep being me."

Inoichi looked at her, looked at her looking at him.

"I get that. I like that. I know—I know I need to figure out how—how to deal with… my fears."

Kohana nodded. "When I was in the hospital, waiting for you, and then moved here, all I wanted was for you to be there. Hug me. Tell me everything was going to be okay. And then you did that, and we came here, and—"

"And I screwed up."

"You screwed up," Kohana agreed.

"I really am sorry."

"It just—it immediately brought me to—to—was that—it snapped me out of, of being comforted by you. And that sucked."

"I made a really bad mistake."

"Yeah. And also, you know, the baby thing. The pregnancy thing."

Inoichi's ears turned red. "Right, that."

Outside, the Academy kids kept laughing.

.

Ibiki's knuckles had barely grazed the door when it yanked open. "Deidara?"

"Ibiki! Look at my apartment!"

It was plain, like all public housing options: white walls and ceiling, wooden floor. The kitchenette was tiny, the bathroom carefully positioned to allow for full use despite only taking up three meters squared, and Deidara's futon (pressed up against a wall, right under one of his two windows) was the only furniture.

It looked exactly like Ibiki's clanless friends' apartments had, when they'd moved out.

"Looks good! Got any plans on how you want to decorate?"

Deidara nodded, pulling him to the kitchen where he opened one of the cupboards—which was filled mostly by clay, but the bottom shelf had other art supplies too. "I'm going to start drawing on the walls! I have this idea—about like, a forest, right, except it's on fire, and the animals are charging at us—it's going to look so, so cool!"

Ibiki grinned.

He liked Deidara. The eight-year-old was—after he'd grown used to the idea of not going home—constantly excited, constantly interested, constantly ready to try something new.

Ibiki (newly twelve, and therefore very mature) felt like Deidara would make a cool younger brother.

"When's your first day at the Academy?"

"They don't want me to wait until summer, so I get to start next week! And—and I got to choose electives, and I chose fuuinjutsu, and advanced maths, and international politics, and physics."

"Those sound… like exactly your sort of courses, to be honest."

"We didn't have electives in Iwa," Deidara murmured, picking out some of his modeling clay. "It was all—all do this, do that. And when they figured out that I was good with explosives, then that was all I got to do."

It wasn't new, what Deidara was saying. Was a big part in what they'd focused on, when they were still regularly interviewing him. Iwa's public education tactics—which were, as it turned out, very limited—were important to know, and their explosives corps' education tactics doubly so, given how rarely they were captured by anybody.

"Yeah, Konoha's really been trying to, you know, let kids try stuff out," Ibiki said. "Because once you're graduated, then you've got to really focus on doing the job you have well. But before that—well, it's more like, figuring out what stuff you'd be good at, and what stuff you want to work on in your free time, and stuff."

Ibiki's Aunt Sakura had emphasized that a lot: how much the off-duty work people did on seals helped Konoha. About how much people's off-duty taijutsu training helped, because then they were sparring against more than just the same couple people. About how much their reading helped, because eventually people always seemed to end up in missions where their niche knowledge came in handy. And how much people's connection-making helped, because it drew civilians to Konoha, bolstered the economy, improved daily lives when people viewed shinobi as people with a job, instead of as a separate, deadly species.

It hadn't historically been a concern, Ibiki knew, but then during the Warring Clans Era, clans were regularly wiped out overnight.

It hadn't historically been a concern because it couldn't be a concern, because immediate survival was much more important than long-term benefits.

And Ibiki knew that he had his aunt and uncles to thank for him knowing that, because he had so, so many friends who treated Konoha like it was—

Well, imperfect, but normal.

Unremarkable.

But Ibiki had grown up hearing his family talk about the difficulty with maintaining Konoha, with improving Konoha. Ibiki had spent months hanging out with a boy who had thought of Iwa as normal, unremarkable.

Nowhere in the world was normal.

Nowhere in the world was unremarkable.

But Konoha—

Konoha wasn't perfect, but it was the sort of place that cared about all of its citizens, instead of just the physically powerful or just the clans or just the chakra-heavy hitters.

Konoha was the sort of place that tried.

And that was exactly the sort of place Ibiki wanted to be a part of.

"Konoha used to have early graduates, you know," Ibiki said. "One of the Hokage's first orders in office was to stop the practice. Everybody deserves a childhood, and in Konoha you can get one."

Deidara grinned. "Don't worry; I'm going to take full advantage."

.

Nara Shikaku wanted very, very much to go to sleep.

Unfortunately, Chouza was sitting next to him and very unwilling to let him accomplish his perfectly reasonable goals.

Objectively, Shikaku knew there were some benefits to this legislative set-up. If nothing else, it allowed the Hokage to actually spend time anywhere but behind his desk, and Namikaze Minato had formed such a reputation that the more time he spent fighting the better.

On the other hand, this sucked.

So, so much.

Yes, okay, he got it. They needed to figure out how to 'encourage' Iwa and Kumo to stop fighting, because Namikaze trouncing them had been going on for long enough that it was clearly insufficient alone.

This was important.

This made sense.

On the other hand, some of the other clan representatives were acting… oddly.

Uchiha Fugaku, for instance, had started arguing that the fighting should continue. This had not been his previous stance, and Shikaku didn't want to deal with figuring out why that had changed.

And then there was Hyuuga Hiashi who—well, wasn't here. All clans were technically allowed to use any clan representative, but it was 'suggested' that Clan Heads attend in person when they could.

Hiashi was busy, yes, but no less busy than Shikaku.

He could have made it.

And then—in those rare instances when the Hokage was in Konoha—there was the inarguable point that the Hokage was not trying to fight Hiashi on the issue.

And then there was Hyuuga Mawaru, the representative.

The branch member representative.

Who hadn't stated anything, hadn't made a single comment hinting at the fact—

But was clearly studying to lead the Hyuuga clan.

Which…

Shikaku didn't want to deal with that either.

And then there was the Mitokaido and Akimichi clans, who (and Shikaku said this with absolutely no hate, because he loved Chouza) were far too focused on competing over storefronts, competing over the economy in general.

It had been years; and after it became clear that it wouldn't escalate, people had stopped paying attention—

But Shikaku knew for a fact that the only thing Chouza had done to prepare for this meeting was lobbying about the possible food safety law, and that was…

Less urgent, let's say, than the ongoing deaths of Konoha-nin.

…Actually, out of everybody here, the ones that did the best to stay on-topic, to prepare, were the district representatives.

The non-clan members.

Which…

Shikaku hadn't expected, to be honest.

When this had formed, he'd thought—well, clan heads had the experience, didn't they?

And then they'd started, and the district representatives had been scrambling, confused, issue-focused.

And then…

And then they'd…

It was the oddest thing.

As far as Shikaku could tell, it was because they'd figured out that they wanted to be able to explain loads of issues, so that their constituents would vote for them no matter what issues they cared about.

"Sorry, um… southeast? You're southeast, right?" That was definitely not the official name. And also not his actual name.

"…Yes."

"Right, could you repeat that?"

"Well, the Daimyos officially have power, right? So we shouldn't be negotiating with the Kage to begin with. At least, um, that's what I'm saying we argue."

"…We need to talk to the Diplomacy Department. We should have been talking with them since the beginning."

Especially, now that he thought of it, because Minato had definitely been meeting with the Department Heads' meeting a hell of a lot more than he was attending with this one.

.

Kohana… had never wanted to be a shinobi. Not once. She'd liked some parts, but as Sakura had begun to talk about her own issues with the idea of killing…

Well, Kohana wanted out.

And at first she hadn't regretted that decision.

She'd liked working at the flower shop, liked meeting with all sorts of people.

And, yes, sometimes there were people she'd rather not deal with, but when that happened there was always her siblings, her clan, the police.

And then the war had come, and Kohana was certain she'd made the right decision.

And then she'd gotten a new job, started learning how to work at a daycare.

Later, how to run a daycare.

And she'd absolutely loved the daycare, loved working with toddlers.

…And then she'd fallen in love, and more and more responsibilities began to be pushed onto her, and she'd had to give up her job at the daycare, and she kept on being warned about what a target she was, what a target her relationship with Inoichi made her.

And he'd talked to her about that, but respected her when she said she could cope.

And then she'd started being asked to deal with organized crime affecting the Yamanaka, affecting Uzu as a whole.

And she'd realized the danger in poking around people who weren't used to Konoha or its laws.

And she'd started learning self-defense, but for civilian women that basically boiled down to chakra, and she'd never learned to work with chakra, dropped out of the Academy well before that, so it had been slow-going and when it had become necessary she hadn't been as prepared as she wished, but she had been prepared.

And now she was faced with deciding what she wanted to do next.

About Inoichi, about the crime families, about her relative weakness.

About children.

She… hadn't been happy.

After her miscarriage.

When Inoichi refused to touch her.

But in hindsight, he'd maybe unintentionally fallen into the right thing, because she'd been, in her own mind, trying to 'prove' that she could have a healthy pregnancy.

But that had been then, and then she'd talked to Himari, talked to some Yamanaka doctors, come to terms with everything.

And Inoichi still wouldn't touch her.

Was too terrified.

And then—

Well, he hadn't been terrified when it was their relationship that had put her at risk; only when it had been her own choices.

And she understood, she did, fear.

She understood that.

But it still wasn't nice to be treated as Inoichi had her.

And she knew he regretted it, but was that enough?

Was his oath to do better enough?

If not, what would be enough?

And for the crime families, it wasn't even as if she'd been personally interested in that—she still wanted to be working at the daycare; she just couldn't because she didn't have the time. Was too busy dealing with Yamanaka issues, like organized crime.

And her relative weakness hadn't been an issue when she'd been working at the daycare, at the job she'd loved…

It was only an issue because of Inoichi.

That's what it all came down to, didn't it?

Just one question.

Was her relationship with Inoichi worth it, given its downsides, given his behavior, given what she'd be bringing onto her children?

Kohana really wished she had an answer.