With Sakura's mood having finally fallen in line with those of her comrades, it came as little surprise that over the next few months good news was hard to come by.
The worst began with November.
Iwa, in the time that they had been falling back, had also left plants and spies among those native to their Land and the Land of Mushrooms and the Lands of Canyons and Rain. They'd sat, as infiltrators do, completely silent for the nearly half a year, gathering information and reporting back only when safe.
And then Iwa had decided it was time.
And all at once they moved.
Their goal, it became clear, was not to carry out assassinations—Konoha had already proved how good they were with defending from those, at least off the battlefield. No, their goal was far more far-reaching: they went after supplies.
From destroyed roads, to poisoned water, to burnt, eaten, or otherwise made inedible food, Konoha's supplies began vanishing under their eyes within a period of just a week.
And it wasn't really like they had many supplies to spare.
Between the very, very effective attack, the burnt supplies from the spring storm, and the bad harvest of the previous year, Konoha simply didn't have the supplies to spare.
A message was sent out at the end of the week: rations were cut in half, and shinobi were expected to find the remainder themselves.
Sakura, Nao, and the rest of the sensors pooled their resources together, and straight-up bought food from other shinobi, which themselves typically sourced from less-than-reputable sources.
It wasn't enough.
How could it be? It wasn't as if they'd been overfed before, and given that the reason for the ration cut was because Konoha couldn't find enough food, it was little surprise that its constituent parts couldn't either.
It was worse, the Second Brigade were told, in the First Brigade, where it was somehow even colder and there were mouths to feed from the surrounding just as barren land.
They didn't care.
What they did care about was the sudden disappearance of those hit by the new bloodline. They were being sent to the hospital in Konoha, they were told, but no one believed them—perhaps one or two might, but they were in a war. Feeding bodies that might not even have minds in them was very clearly not Konoha's focus.
They'd just barely entered December, already so cold that even Iwa was attacking less often, when more news came in.
It wasn't good.
(When was it, nowadays?)
"The Hokage's students, as you are aware, have been fighting together in the north, attempting to reestablish supply lines as they go. As you may also be aware, Rain has not taken well to the months we spent in their territory, and have begun bolstering their shinobi forces in response." General Sarutobi Kyo stared out over the heads of the bodies clustered around her.
"Last week, as the Hokage's students were working on restructuring and creating some supply lines within Rain Hanzo, the Kage of Amegakure, went after them.
They lost."
The Second Second stared back at her, dead-eyed.
"Look. I know this isn't going well, but despite what it looks like we will still persevere. All we need to do is survive the winter. The spring—beautiful spring—will bring the year's first harvests, and the weather we work best in, and Suna has promised larger forces to help us push with the warm weather. Not only that, but both Kumo and Mizu have continued to stay out of the war, and despite Rain's less-than-positive relationship with us, we remain on good terms with both the Land of Mushrooms and the Land of Canyons.
Remember this: we are fighting against the destroyers of Uzu. Remember this: we will win."
A cheer, not quite rousing but still technically there, forced its way through the crowd.
And then everyone went back inside.
Sakura'd only just settled back into bed—she had two more hours until her shift, and it had been weeks since her last decent sleep—when someone knocked on the wooden pole that stood in the middle of the door flaps.
"Yeah?" She grunted.
"It's… Shimura Ryota." Shimura Ryota said. "Can I come in?"
Sakura glanced at Sasaki Nao, who shrugged.
"Yeah."
He ducked into the tent.
Sakura hadn't seen him since the day in the alley. She hadn't quite known what to do about that—he'd reacted in what was probably the best way she could have expected, but he also hadn't stopped his clanmate from doing the same again, and he clearly had been very serious about forgetting that the day had even happened.
Now he looked much like the same, still tall and broad-shouldered and muscled enough to be blatantly frontline, but he was also skinny. Really, really skinny.
"How are you?" He asked her. "I heard… well, I heard about what happened two months ago."
"No new messages on that front, so the funerals will be at the end of the month." Sakura said. "Besides that… well, surviving, I suppose."
Shimura looked around at the rest of their tent.
It was a bit barren, as far as tents went.
There were four beds, two raised above the other two, and those on the upper bunks—who had the shifts that would begin in ten hours—were in such a deep sleep that only an alarm or an actual physical shove would wake them up.
Six sensors shared the tent, actually, but two were working at any given time (one above Headquarters, the other running border patrol) so in total four mattresses was sufficient.
Beyond that, there was little. A small table stood between the bunks, with what food they had (very little) on top and their water supply stored underneath, and below the bunks sat their personal supplies, and in the middle was one of the many heating seals Sakura had made in August, which one of the genin corps came in regularly to refuel or replace.
"I have… news, on that front." Shimura said.
Sakura sat up. "What?"
"My father is one of the three within our clan who hold the tapir summoning contract. They aren't necessarily made for stealth of speed, but as they are summons they are still used to communicate within our clan."
Sakura nodded.
"One arrived for me this morning. It did not come from the First Brigade or Konohagakure, however—my father is based in Sunagakure at the moment."
Sakura nodded.
"Yamanaka, the message said that they'd received word from your Sensei and genin partner."
Sakura stood up.
"They were sent to the west, to try to learn about the bloodline, apparently, and because they went the direct route were presumed to have died in the desert. But my father's message was quite clear: he's sure they're alive, and on their way home."
Sakura stared at Shimura. She'd been mourning Sensei and Shin along with Aoi for months, had given up all hope of their survival, and—and—and—
She threw her arms around Shimura and began, without much say in the matter, sobbing.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"I'm just passing on the message." Ryota said.
"I—the message was clear? They're alive?"
"As clear as it could be," Ryota looked distinctly uncomfortable, but Sakura didn't care. "It didn't say what, exactly, the sign was that they were alive, but my father isn't one to assume."
"Thank you!"
"Again, messenger," Ryota said. Then he sighed and hugged her back. "I am glad that it was a good message, though.
There are too few of those nowadays."
"Do you want some heating tags?"
"What?"
"Heating tags. I have to give you something—don't argue—and heating tags are something I can give you. They won't be charged up, so you'll have to do that yourself, but I crank out like four a day and most go to the logistics tent to be allotted, but so long as I give them three I can distribute the rest as I please. Do you want them?"
"Yes. Can they be put inside clothes? Yes no matter what, though."
"Yeah, so long as they're not crinkled too much and they're put in already turned on." She dug into her bag. "Here."
"That's—that's ten."
"Shimura, how would you feel if someone gave you the news that your Sensei and one of your genin teammates was alive after months of believing otherwise? Take them."
"I—okay. Thank you."
"Altogether that's about thirty hours of heat."
"Thank you."
Ryota left.
Sakura grinned and turned to Nao.
"They're alive."
He smiled back. "I heard. Congrats.
You want to hug me, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Fine."
Sakura hugged him.
"You do realize that everything isn't going to get magically better?" Nao asked nine hours later, when their shifts were over, their meals were eaten, and Sakura had finished the last of the sealing she intended to do.
Sakura rolled her eyes at him.
"For me it already has."
"Yeah, but the war in general, I mean."
"Nao. Don't take this the wrong way, but at the moment I don't particularly care about the war."
"Fair enough, I suppose. Just… more people are going to die."
"That I'd managed to figure out on my own. You can't take this away, Nao—Shin and Sensei being alive will make me ecstatic no matter what the surrounding circumstances are."
"Yeah, yeah. I dunno, you're right. I just… well, I suppose I'm just a bit too used to the doom and gloom. And hey, maybe they brought back information! That would do a lot."
"There you go." Sakura said. "Positivity, it's infectious."
.
Shin and Sensei had, in fact, brought back information.
Sakura learned this two days and several hours later, when she was in the middle of a shift and suddenly sat straight up.
This, unsurprisingly, caught the attention of the Uchiha MP acting as Headquarters guard.
"Felt something?" He muttered.
"I—my genin Sensei, and teammate."
"Oh?"
"Sensei Mitokado Supaku, Konoha Delegate—last I saw him—and genin Nara Shin."
"Oh. I wonder what they're doing here."
"Well, they're walking straight for us so we're about to find out." Sakura said.
And then neither said anything.
The Uchiha—his name was Homura, a favorite name among the Uchiha and therefore one that was also used by the other male Uchiha MP, making its use as differentiation meaningless—was not one for conversation.
The next few minutes were agony.
The thought had not, until then, occurred to Sakura that Ryoto may have been lying. She was very happy, now, to know that was impossible.
Still, the knowing was now compounded with the feeling to culminate in an absolute need to be seeing and so Sakura was very, very, very, very happy when they finally appeared in front of her.
"Hi Sakura!" Shin shouted up.
Sensei handed the MP a scroll.
"You're not dead!" She shouted down.
The Uchiha read the scroll.
"Yeah, sorry about that. Trip was a bit more convoluted than expected. How's Juro?"
"Dunno, but I suppose that's a good thing. Aoi's dead."
"Oh."
Said Shin.
(He looked at her, then said nothing else. Sakura'd developed an increasing distaste for pleasantries about grief ever since Juro's brother's funeral and the comments she'd heard following it, and Shin therefore knew enough not to parrot anything like that at her.)
"We'll need her too." Sensei said. He glanced up at her then, and smiled.
"Yeah, yeah," the Uchiha said. "You can go in now and she'll follow in a minute when her substitute arrives."
They entered.
Four minutes later, Sakura followed.
Quite a lot had happened in those minutes, clearly, and whatever it was had General Sarutobi in deep thought.
"Tomorrow?"
"Today."
"Ah."
"Yes."
"Can I—your information?"
"Sorry, Kage first. Then he can disseminate the information."
"Fine. I'm getting sick and tired of having sensors taken away from me though." The General said.
"It has happened often?"
"Well, only the twice now, but both with Yamanaka—the first time was when she stopped my assassination attempt, which was appreciated, of course, but also we also just about burned through our supply of chakra pills."
"Well, I hope they've been restocked." Sensei said.
"So do I." The General said.
Both turned to look at Sakura.
"I will be returning to Konohagakure. You and Shin will be going to the Capital to deliver a message. You will pick up Juro on the way—an entire Ino-Shika-Cho contingent."
Sakura blinked. "Understood."
Then Sensei turned to Shin.
"Remember your career."
Shin said nothing at all.
Two hours later, the three of them were on the road. Some days later, they'd diverged, picked up Juro, and kept traveling.
And still Shin said nothing, or as close to such as possible.