Sakura leaned back in her bed. She knew, given the traditions she'd been raised in, that Taro should not be in her room—not with no one else there—but then all the girls and boys who were in love did it, so why not she too?

Anyway, it wasn't like they were doing anything untoward.

Really, Taro was just pacing.

And she was… leaning.

And reading her medical journal—the sun was only just beginning its rapid descent, so she still had good reading light without bothering with her fuinjutsu lamp.

"I—" Taro had attempted to at the very least start a sentence at least five times now.

He'd failed five times as well.

"Do you mind… you know, saying something?" Sakura said.

"I don't know what to say." Taro said. Then, "Should I be here? I shouldn't be here."

"You said you didn't want to go home."

"I did say that. I should be working, shouldn't I?"

"I don't think anyone in Research is working today."

"You're working." Taro said.

"You could be too."

"I don't know what to do."

"You don't know what to say, you don't know what to do…."

"You're not very nice, you know?"

Sakura snorted. "I never said I was." Moreover, she wasn't really sure what 'nice' would be. Was she supposed to snap him out of his funk? If so, how? Or else—was she supposed to let him wallow in it? It's not as if his feelings were invalid, after all.

"I just… I needed to talk to someone, you know?"

Sakura sighed, then put down her journal and sat up fully. "What happened… Tsunade escaping with Shizune… it's terrible. But it's not—I don't understand why you're having the reaction you are."

"They destroyed our workplace. She—she kidnapped a child. It's—it's—and… and I got, I mean…."

Sakura waited.

"My entire life was ruined, just because I couldn't deal with my genin team. And—and the Hokage is just letting Tsunade go. Just… letting her get away with everything. She gets, she gets her reputation, and her niece, and her slugs, and everything."

Sakura shrugged. "And?"

"AND!"

"Yeah, and? I mean, you are… clearly drawing parallels between you and she, but the histories and reasons for the two of you are different."

"So you think her being let go without a single hunter-nin after her is okay?"

"I didn't say that. I don't believe that, actually. But… well, honestly, I think you need to stop comparing. You do it all the time—your team to mine, the Sannin Tsunade to you, and so on. Has it really gotten you anywhere?"

"So what do you recommend then?" That was said with more than a bit of a sneer.

"I—just do something." Sakura shook her head. "That was rude of me. You like Research, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, Orochimaru really took me under his wing, so that's nice."

"So, devote yourself to that. Dig yourself out of the hole you put yourself in."

"That's a bit rude, too, you know?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't unnecessarily rude."

Taro sighed, then dropped his body next to her on the bed. "I just… do you really not care?"

"Oh I care. I care a lot." Sakura focused on keeping her body relaxed—it was something her psychologist encouraged. It was hard, though, with how much she wanted to fist her hands and dash out the front gates towards the kidnapper. "I just…" She let her voice trail off.

She didn't know what to say.

She—what Tsunade did, that despite all her misgivings about Orochimaru, she'd never considered Tsunade. That Kato Doi would now have to deal with not knowing where his niece was, or that she was okay, that Orochimaru (who really was rather decent, all things considered) would have to deal with the shame of having a teammate do something like that, that the Hokage was unable to overlook his personal affections to do what (at least in Sakura's view) was the right thing to do—she couldn't be okay with what happened.

But,

Well,

There was nothing she could do.

And wanting to do something when there was nothing she could do was how she'd ended up pulled from the front in the first place.

Instead, she asked Taro if he wanted some soup.

.

As Spring began to pervade the Fire Nation, good feelings began to permeate too.

Under Danzo's strong hand, the war was finally beginning to go in their direction once more.

Intentional battles were now being fought, the Samurai—having finally finished helping clear out potential enemies within Fire's borders—were now being used to full effect in the frontline, and (at least according to whispers on the street) Danzo had started an infiltration offensive of an almost unheard of size which would no doubt begin reaping the rewards very, very soon.

Best of all, for the first time since this particular war began, Konoha was beginning to rotate its active shinobi to give even those who were uninjured a break.

Sayuri arrived home on the last day of March.

"Hey!"

"Sayuri!"

"Hope you don't mind, but I broke my lease before I went to the prisoner camp. Staying here's fine, right?"

Sakura glanced at Kohana. Kohana glared at her. "What?"

"Kaa-san left you in charge."

"But you're both kunoichi!"

"So?" The ninja said.

"I agree with Sayuri and Sakura." Himari said.

Kohana… did not seem to like being put in charge. "Oh. Um, yeah, you can stay here. Dinner's in…."

"Now!"

"Dinner's now."

After dinner (which was mostly filled on filling Sayuri in with Sakura's various troubles), attention turned to Sayuri.

"So did you bring anything back?" Himari asked.

"Oh! Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho!"

"Okay, so you have something." Sakura said. "Just spit it out."

"Guess! Guess!"

"Why do people always ask me to guess? I'm not going to just stumble on the right answer." Plus, although she wasn't about to admit it, she had a headache. Keeping Arden back had been particularly hard since the Human Research labs had been destroyed.

Sayuri grinned. She was twenty-six now, the second oldest of all of their siblings, and she'd draped herself across the family room couch (and Himari's legs) the second they'd switched rooms. She was short but lanky with stereotypical Yamanaka looks and a general attitude of serenity. (Well, after adolescence, at least.)

She was also…

Well, she was the sister who Sakura felt most fit the stereotype of the oldest older sister.

Sayuri grinned. "It's always fun to get you riled up. Okay, okay, here's a hint." She shuffled a bit, so she could sit up, then flapped her arms wildly.

"You… brought home a chicken?" Sakura chanced.

"No—no, you turned into a chicken."

Sayuri snorted. "Your guess is even worse than Sakura's, Kohana. Come on—"

"Just tell us!"

"Fine!"

Sayuri, less than thrilled at having her fun taken away, took her time and slowly reached into the pack she'd laid beside the couch, slowly rifled through it, slowly pulled out an object before realizing it was the wrong one, slowly put it back—

"Oh just grab it already!" Hinata snapped. "You're supposed to be mature."

"Wow, no sense of humor in any of you." And then Sayuri had a scroll in her hand.

Sakura recognized it, actually; it was one of her first storage seals, one which had not been approved because the amount of chakra and length of contact was deemed too particular to use properly—even Sakura had had to try several times to get it open. Sayuri had decided she could make use of it anyway, however, and so Sakura'd given it to her as a birthday present.

Rather than being pleased her older sister was still using her gift, however, Sakura groaned. "She's going to draw it out all over again!"

Sayuri frowned. "Hey! I've had this seal for a while, you know. Watch this:" With a flick of her wrist, the storage seal snapped open, and with merely a tap, a new scroll appeared on top of it. "Hah!"

That… was admittedly impressive. Primarily because she'd made it far flashier than it needed to be, but still. "Nice."

"Wow!"

"Okay, that was cool."

"Hmph." Sayuri sat back, visibly insulted by the very idea that she might not be cool.

"But it's still just a scroll." Kohana said.

"Not just any scroll! No, this is a special scroll! An incredible scroll! An unbelievable scroll! A—"

"And she's back to dragging it out."

"It's a summoning seal."

Oh.

Huh.

That—

Sakura's question—"How did you get a summoning scroll?"—overlapped with Kohana's—

"What animal?"

And Himari's "A what?"

"Summoning scroll. How Mom's boss gets cranes to appear." Kohana explained, again overlapped with Sakura's own—

"It allows you to summon a specific type of animal from another realm for a specific task."

"Okay. What animal?"

"I still want to know how you got it."

"Animal first. Alright, I already gave you a clue: does anyone have a guess?"

"Is it a bird!"

"Yes it is, Himari! Can you guess which?"

"You literally just flapped your hands, Sayuri. How could we guess? Plus it's not like Himari and me know much about summons to begin with."

"How. Did. You. Get. It."

"Oh come on, just one guess!"

"Fine, one guess each: I'll go with owl."

"Flamingo!"

"Um, sparrows."

"Sparrows?!"

"Well, why not?"

"Well, it's not sparrows. Or owls, or flamingos. Come on, try again."

"Sayuri, we already guessed!"

"Fine, fine, fine. It's—drum roll please—it's… what, no drum roll? Fine, it's… ba-da-da-dum… the condors!"

"Cool!"

"That sounds powerful!"

"Where did you get it?"

Sayuri, now very smug, crossed her legs and leaned against the back of the couch. "From a prisoner. Last of his family—getting him to give it up meant that I got to keep the seal, because a lot of summons are more partial to whoever defeated their last summoner." And then, in a much quieter voice, "probationally."

"So it's not yours yet."

"It is! I just… have to, you know, actually sign it."

"You haven't signed it yet?!" Kohana yelped. "Why not?"

"They haven't agreed to take you, have they?"

"Shut up, Sakura. I was their summoner's enemy, it's going to take a bit."

"You just said—"

"I know what I said! It's just maybe possible that the condors are in the minority. Maybe. Probably. But I still get a couple months to convince them!"

"Mhm."

"You little—"

.

Kato Doi took nearly two months off of work before he came back to Research. The labs had been rebuilt by then, two more of Sakura's less groundbreaking proposals approved for preliminary testing, and Orochimaru had come and gone from the frontline twice in the interim.

Kato Doi looked miserable.

"Hey Doi!"

"Hey Sakura. How are your projects going?"

"Bandages are going through official approvals next week, I have two medicines in production, and my hormone test has been more or less taken over by Orochimaru but he's letting going me assist and walk me through what I don't know when he gets approved to start testing."

Doi smiled. "Not bad, little flower. Not bad."

"How are you?"

"You had to ask that, didn't you?"

"Kind of, yeah."

Doi snorted. "I'm… I know she'd never hurt Shizune. So there's that. And I know she's strong, and powerful, and really, genuinely, does want Shizune to live. With her. And she'd a great medic. So I'm not worried about something happening to Shizune, necessarily, I just…."

Sakura watched him.

"I just, really worry about what growing up with that woman will do to her."

"I liked Kato Dan. Was she anything like him?"

"Oh, yes. The resemblance is—was—is uncanny."

"Then, how do you think Dan would have done?"

Doi snorted. "Who knows?" Then, "He'd have landed on his feet, probably. He was like that. Nothing ever got him down, not really. He'd take a sucky situation and learn from it, would always keep going and seem even smarter and more prepared the next time you saw him, no matter what had happened in between."

"And as you said, while Tsunade—" Sakura hesitated over her words. Preferably, really, she'd like to say 'has gone batshit crazy,' but that wouldn't really help her argument. "—is troubled, she'd never hurt Shizune and would in fact do everything to protect her from anyone and anything who'd want to hurt her. And the Hokage says he believes Tsunade will come to her senses soon, right? So this'll just be merely a hiccough in her life. She hasn't even started the Academy yet, after all."

"I hope you're right." Kato Doi said. "But when we were fighting… she didn't sound like she was coming back."

.

With Sayuri in the house as well, and her younger sisters still watching the Yamanaka children in the house, and Sakura working from home more—Orochimaru had taken to giving her homework to improve her understanding of the biology and chemistry relevant to her proposals, and while it was fascinating it also took time—Sakura's house was beginning to feel like a home once more.

Sayuri's series of increasingly vulgar curses—the children, thankfully, had already been returned to their parents—only helped with that.

Sakura grinned, then popped her head out of a window into the backyard. "Problem?"

Sayuri glared. "I'll get them to let me sign it."

The condors… hadn't exactly been thrilled with the loss of their last summoner.

They hadn't taken to Sayuri at all either, said she was too relaxed.

Well, she wasn't relaxed now.

"Well, sucks for you. I'm about to take off—"

"Where? Take me with you! I'm about to tear my hair out over this and I would not look good bald!"

"—to my friend Sachiko's apartment, to visit with her and Ibiki."

"More babies?! Why is everything babies?! All my friends—babies. My sisters—babies. My brothers—babies. My—"

"Ren is the only one of us who has kids, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, but you're visiting your friend with the baby and Kohana and Himari are babysitting and Kamui's got that girl who's just moved in with him—"

"Yamanaka Yumi."

"—yeah, her, and I just… babies are gross, Sakura."

"I like them. And you do realize you have ten younger siblings, right? Many of which you helped change and everything?"

"Yes, I realize that, and—don't take this the wrong way—that whole situation was terrible enough for me to be put off experiencing it personally forever."

"Gee. I knew you loved me."

"I said don't take it personally!"

"Well, just don't have kids then."

"But all my friends—"

"If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?"

"See, I know mom liked to say that, but I have literally jumped off of many bridges. It was fun."

"Sayuri."

Sayuri rolled her eyes. "Don't you have a friend to get to?"

"Yes, and she's leaving at the end of the week, so I have to hurry." Sakura waved at the still kneeling, still frustrated Sayuri and turned to go.

"See? She doesn't like babies either!"

"She's taking him with her!" Sakura shouted back. "Long term assignment!"