Danzo frowned as he read the latest reports delivered to him by a breathless chuunin who had barely taken the time to certify their delivery before running off once more.
Earth's civil war was over.
The uncle of the once-child Daimyo was now in charge.
The news wouldn't be officially confirmed for weeks, or perhaps even months—he'd invested quite a bit into solidifying an infiltration system in Iwa, had used methods his dear friend would have considered dark, even evil, to make sure that those he sent would be able to pass any check, would be able to pass back any message.
It was worth it, for the speed it brought them.
Between them receiving the message at the furthest outpost, sending back the message by radio, and having the message delivered to him less than an hour had passed.
The end of the war had only just been agreed upon that day; the signing of the obligatory treaty wouldn't happen for some time.
And Danzo knew exactly how the new Daimyo would try to solidify his rule.
They'd already guessed, of course, had the two remaining sane Sannin sent to guard Suna already (his dear friend hated that description—'sane'—believed what it said about Tsunade to be too pessimistic and too soon to make such a call over his student's mental health, so Danzo only used it with him in private.)
Danzo wanted to get out ahead, however.
While neither side was much enjoying the results of the war on the rest of their existence, if he didn't do something decisive, the war would drag on for months or even years more and Konoha's win, however inevitable, would seem weak, too easy to ignore given that they were only fighting one other Great Nation.
Danzo wanted to hit, and he wanted to hit hard.
They had telegrams, they had radio. They had three batteries now, none of which were perfect but all of which could be used, and the Research pipeline was promising a number of new tools reliant on the machines in short order.
They had the best healthcare in the world, which allowed many of their soldiers to go back on the field while others would be forced to deal with their wounded for the rest of their lives, and they had a swelling shinobi population besides—his longer Academy days had only somewhat stunted that growth when some parents had grown reluctant, and if the Hokage would listen and mandate shinobi education then even that hurdle would be overcome.
He didn't want to wait until those longer-term advantages came into effect, however.
He didn't want to deal with an influx of Earth samurai on the other side of the battlefield, with a cohesive country providing easier transportation and more stability.
Danzo wanted to hit while the iron was hot, and so he would.
There would be casualties, of course, but that was the benefit of having the world's best hospital: he didn't have to care as much as Konoha's enemies did.
He'd hit Iwa, and he'd hit them hard—just when they were least expecting it.
Danzo grinned, his white teeth flashing in the dim lighting as his plan coalesced: with one kage already dead in this war, could Earth really survive another?
.
Yasuo grunted as he fended off another attack—their supply convoy had nearly gotten to the border when he'd felt the bodies sneaking up the telegram line tower.
They were invisible, and fast, but he was a sensor and whenever he passed a tower it was his duty to come close enough to sense, to check for infiltrators.
A sharp whistle had brought his teammates in a run, had them punching and kicking and cutting and slicing and breathing fire and soaking the nearby ground in water—earth users always had a harder time with mud unless they practiced.
Their opponents were built for stealth—he'd nearly missed them, and he'd been mere meters away, hidden in the foliage.
They were not.
His team was built for muscle, and for chakra, and for power.
They might just run wagons and caravans, but they also acted as an assault team for anyone stupid enough to try to attack anything from Konoha: they sent a message, and protected weaker teams defending other wagons from being attacked out of sheer wariness.
They hit hard.
Their opponents were only three, too, an even battle in numbers.
If it wasn't for his team's concerted effort not to hurt the towers—they'd been told, once, how much they cost, and their eyes had boggled—then they'd have killed or incapacitated all of them already.
One down.
Then—Yasuo went for the one on the right, judging him a bigger threat. He went for the kill, assuming that they'd save the weaker for interrogation.
Kenji had made the same assumption, but then Uchiha fire was always a bit too excessive—he sent a small blast at the weaker of the two, meant to make him jump back into Takahashi's waiting embrace, but the teen realized too quickly that they meant to capture him, jumped into the fire with a singular determination born of years of training, willing to die rather than risk giving away his secrets.
Yasuo only really realized what had happened when his own opponent already lay, unmoving, on the forest floor.
"Shit."
"Shit."
The two boys looked at the Uchiha.
"Hn."
"Well, we're gonna catch flack for this—and a stricter training regimen, probably."
"We were too focused on protecting the tower by getting them down quickly." Kenji said. "We could've managed a longer combat."
Yasuo grunted in agreement, but there was little point in analyzing it now: they had to get back to a radio station to report, quick.
There were new infiltrators, and that was never a good thing.
.
The funeral for the Nara leader's daughter, positioned as it was in the midst of a plague, was a far more muted affair than it otherwise might have been.
It was also drawn out, as every time a new face returned home it happened all over again, everyone grieving for the little girl who never even saw adulthood and all the other children and adults and babies and teenagers and elderly who had passed.
The cemeteries and shrines always had someone in them, tending to one spot or another.
Shika, Shiho's older brother, had been back for months.
Few knew.
He hadn't visited a single shrine, hadn't been to even one cemetery.
The Nara had a series of simple cabins hidden within the thickest parts of their woods, and he stayed in one of those, instead, slept and ate and sat there to pass every day.
There wasn't any order for him to rejoin the battlefield, after all; as the heir to a major clan, he had more freedom on that front.
Beside him sat Inoichi and Choza, a team like they had never been before.
After the first few weeks the boredom had gotten to the two of them, but they'd dared not say anything.
After a month, the boredom had gotten to Shika too, but every time he remembered how long it had taken between Shiho's death and his being told…
He tried, as much as was possible, to distract himself, but inevitably his thoughts would be influenced by his mood; he tried to remember a good meal and thought of those who starved, tried to recall a good fight and remembered that his opponents would never see their loved ones again.
As the weather finally developed the true bite of autumn, he sat up in his bed. "I want—"
The other two boys looked up from across the room where they'd been playing a muted game of koi koi and waiting for their breakfast to finish cooking on the small fire just outside the window.
"I want to… I want things to change. Do you have Sakura's letters?"
Inoichi grunted, then shifted in his seat to be able to reach his backpack without standing. In seconds the pile of letters was in his hands.
They'd been meant for Inoichi alone initially, had been sent by his old tutor in his desire to improve himself. He also got letters from his father—though he refused to share those—and two of the Yamanaka elders, one of whom had passed during the plague.
Most of Sakura's letters were focused on moral dilemmas, questions that weren't necessarily supposed to have 'right' answers (though for the boys many of the choices seemed obvious.)
In the most recent letters, however, Sakura had included a new topic: her and her friends' reform list.
She'd even included examples.
Shika lurched out of bed, stumbled to the table, and knelt beside his teammates, grabbing the papers as he did.
"I think—we're three clan heirs. We have power, and stuff. And we can—"
His mind was whirring, dozens—hundreds—of ideas pouring out of the recesses of his mind and filling his head with more than it ever had before. Choza grabbed some blank paper and a few pens. Inoichi leaned forward, pulling the letters from Shika's hands to find the ones that talked about the reform list.
And Shika just kept talking.
And talking.
As the sun rose, hovered, and then made its descent across the sky the three boys, nearly fully grown, sat at the table. They paused occasionally—food, relief, stretches because kneeling for hours ached—but mostly they just…
Talked.
And planned.
And realized, with a start, that being the heir to a clan head may very well have more than a few perks.
.
Yamanaka Kamui glanced desperately at the setting sun outside his family home's window. He'd set up a dinner date with his girlfriend Yumi, had promised to attend—his job as a chef meant they were able to share very few meals together—and had only stopped by the house to drop off a few meals for his youngest sisters.
It was meant to be a quick visit; he had the food and some ice from the Yamanaka cold storage to keep the fridge going—the fuinjutsu made the ice last longer, but it still needed to be regularly supplied—and so getting in and out was merely a matter of putting the two where they belonged while saying hello and goodbye.
Best intentions and all that.
And it wasn't like he could leave, either; Kohana was literally sobbing on top of him, and their only other sibling in Konoha was Himari who wasn't even home, wouldn't be home for a couple minutes yet, and Kohana was dreading her arrival, didn't want Himari to see her upset.
Particularly because of why.
Kamui had actually liked Kohana's (now ex-) boyfriend when he'd met him. Yamanaka Ken had seemed nice, and upright, and most importantly treated Himari well.
And now he'd gone and cheated on Kohana, and Kohana had (rightfully) dumped him, but Himari had liked him, had thought he was amazing because he didn't look down on her for acting a bit slow or not being able to be a shinobi. Everyone had liked him for that, really; Ken had been very likeable.
Right until the cheating, that is.
So now, Kohana had sobbed into him, she not only had to deal with the failed relationship—he'd been caught red-handed, so there was little that could be done to salvage it—but she also had to explain to Himari.
"Could—"
Kamui winced.
Kamui did not want to explain to Himari.
He wanted to go have a nice meal with Yumi, maybe spend the night with her, and enjoy his evening off.
"Could you—"
"Yes, yes, of course." Kamui said. Because that's what he was supposed to do, right? He was Kohana's and Himari's big brother, older and wiser by at least seven years.
He hoped Yumi would forgive him.
He imagined her warm apartment, her lack of roommates (both had been sent out of Konoha recently, leaving her unexpectedly alone), the warm meal she had no doubt prepared, knowing he'd grown tired of cooking when he wasn't working.
"How about you go upstairs and take a nap, and I'll get dinner ready and deal with Himari?"
Kohana sniffled. "Thank you."
"Of course." Kamui said. He glanced at the sun again, even lower than the last time he looked. "Anything for family."
.
Sachiko tried not to breathe. Her son, three and a half and held tightly in her arms, held still as much as possible too.
When she'd asked—pled, really—to be allowed to have Ibiki with her, to go undercover with him by her side, her handler had jumped at it.
But she'd also warned her.
In incredible depth, and in disturbing detail.
Infiltration with children, particularly children as young as Ibiki, tended to be more successful because it was harder to suspect the young mother, the innocent toddler.
But when they were caught—
Sachiko had asked where they'd be sent; the Land of Steam was the response—slightly more difficult to infiltrate than her last major assignment, but also not particularly risky, being on the other side of Fire than the war and having a relatively large tourist industry too.
She'd agonized over it, but accepted.
She was good, great even, at infiltration; it was her way of ensuring her son's future. But she also missed him, longed to see him again whenever she went away.
Taking him with her would only increase the chances of mission success, and Sachiko had been well instructed on when and how to run if her role did seem to be going south.
It hadn't been, was the thing.
Throughout the plague, throughout the slow recovery, she had been allowed to exist in the Capital without the slightest hint of distrust.
Within weeks she'd gotten a good job as a maid in the palace thanks to a forged letter of reference and a scatterbrained noble; her son, Ibiki, was even soon ingratiated with some of the children of the harem, and her their mothers.
Things had been going well.
And then—
She didn't know what, had no semblance of a clue, but imagined that Kumo had to somehow be involved.
There'd been an influx of their shinobi recently, wandering about the city and going to bars and meetings and just being present. Very, very visibly present.
She didn't know how that had led to this—had led to one of the other maids waking her in the middle of the night and telling her to run, telling her to flee before the shinobi arrived—but she'd really had little time to ponder.
They'd made good progress at first, had managed a quick pace, and even snuck a message onto a wagon bound for Fire's Border, but they hadn't been willing to let her tag along, even with her son, and so they'd found another but they'd been… a problem and so she'd left the main roads, decided to make a go of it herself for a bit (they were so close to the border), and then—
It wasn't anything in particular. It wasn't a noise, or a scent, or something she saw.
She just knew she was in danger.
She'd grabbed Ibiki, found the most inconspicuous place to hide, and proceeded to do just that.
She tried not to breathe. Ibiki did too. The footsteps drew ever nearer, stopped, and then the boots she could just see through the foliage pointed straight at her.
.
Yamanaka Sakura and Advisor Saigo sat comfortably on opposite sides of the carriage as it meandered across the Land of Mushrooms' countryside. It was nearing midafternoon, and they'd been going since just after dawn.
Advisor Saigo may have been new to his role, and wary of women in positions of power in general, but he clearly knew his country, knew its rich history, its cherished victories, and mourned defeats. He knew the areas that had been hurt most by the war, those few that had thrived, and how the past few years had changed his Land in ways both expected and not.
As they made their way past houses and shops and warehouses and fields and many, many marshes they talked.
Sakura tried to explain as much of the economic theory Konoha had selected to promote to the Land of Mushrooms as possible, and how it really would be beneficial to the Nation, for all that it would help Konoha too.
Advisor Saigo, in turn, tried to explain as much of the suffering Konoha had brought to his Land as possible.
Neither was entirely successful.
Sakura was held back by a near-constant requirement to prove, once more, that her intelligence was beyond what he assumed of her gender, and by the sheer novelty of many of her theories. That she was here on Konoha's behalf to promote a theory which intended to most benefit Konoha in the long run was also… a hurdle.
Advisor Saigo, in the meantime, was limited by his strong belief that women should not be made to experience or know of certain horrors, his need to dance between expressing his points and attempting to keep some secrecy from his country's much larger neighbor, and his sense of propriety and etiquette, which left each conversation far longer than the information that it actually imparted.
They'd stopped for lunch then continued on, still talking in the slow, deliberate pace necessitated by noble manners.
They'd had tea, several times, and had had more or less redundant conversations over each brew.
They'd repeated arguments made before when they felt the other hadn't truly understood their side, waited with bated breath for the other to finish so they could make their counterpoints, and always, always watched the countryside pass by outside the carriage windows, to provide a literal context for their often quite theoretical conversations.
Sakura had also found out, about an hour after midday, that the younger Mitokado was badly allergic to one of the many flowers in the Land of Mushroom countryside.
(He'd been sent back to the Capital; she didn't know enough iryoninjutsu to dull his immune response and none in the party—him included—wanted to delay the Delegation by returning as a group. It had been a distraction, though, and not a particularly welcome one; Sakura felt like she needed as much time as possible to convince Advisor Saigo.)
In all, though, Sakura thought it was going quite well: he hadn't immediately dismissed her, after all.
The problem was that despite that, and despite a further week of meetings already planned out before their first possible return date, Sakura already knew that few, if any, of her suggestions would actually take hold.
Advisor Saigo had conceded her expertise on several occasions, had admitted that he had no reason to disbelieve her well-reasoned suggestion, and then in the same breath implied he was still very unlikely to actually put the suggestion into effect.
Her gender was a part of it, of course, but then so was the nebulous priorities of Konoha, Advisor Saigo's own understanding of his experience, the uniqueness of her theories, and the reluctance to risk change while already dealing with the effects of war.
Sakura had to think of something, had to find some new angle.
The theories she was marketing here might be slanted, but if they didn't bite then Konoha never would—and Sakura needed to maintain the hope that at least some of the differences between Arden's world and her own (almost no child soldiers, lots of clean water, ridiculously advanced healthcare) were possible here too.
As the carriage continued steadily along a main road back to the Capital, Sakura began to plot.