The failure of Kiri's attempt to take advantage of Konoha's weakness was something to be immediately taken advantage of.

Minato was sent out all but immediately, a flight of diplomats behind him.

The first ship sailed before the end of the day; he didn't bother to slow down for his less chakra-fortunate compatriots, more concerned with getting to Kiri so he could get back, continue searching for Obito, as soon as possible.

(He knew it wasn't healthy. Kushina had talked to him, kept talking to him, trying to get him to calm down, take a second to assess his options; his maddened drive to find his student wasn't even directed enough to be useful.

Minato agreed with her.

He just couldn't seem to stop.)

Kiri had no interest in letting him anywhere near Water's Capital, or their Hidden Village, so they met in an outlying island instead.

The peace talks…

Didn't go well.

Bottom line: they failed.

It wasn't exactly the most unexpected result—Kiri wasn't known for playing well with others, which is what had made their original partnership with Kumo so unusual—but it would still be another thing for Danzo to point out, to just-so-happen to find a relevant reason to mention in every single meeting.

Minato couldn't bring himself to care.

After one of the Diplomats—a Mitokado—took over, things went a little better.

Minato got to be the superpowered muscle, then, menacing over the entire event with the knowledge that he'd killed thousands in one single battle, and Mitokado got to do the sweet-talking, say the words that acknowledged that his counterpart couldn't go back to his boss with a peace treaty, no, that would be unacceptable, but—perhaps a ceasefire?

Five years, both sides agreed.

Just enough time to prioritize other needs, then back to fighting.

Konoha was sure Kiri would continue to target its ships, but perhaps take a less aggressive approach in doing so.

Kiri was sure Konoha would continue to target its ships, but perhaps only when Kiri was actively in the midst of pillaging another ship.

It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was—

Good.

Better than what Minato would have gotten alone.

"Are you alright?" Mitokado asked.

Minato didn't know how to answer that.

He wasn't, of course, but—Jiraiya had always instilled in him that there were two truths, one of thoughts and one of actions.

His thoughts –

But his actions, at least for this mission, had been to recognize the truth of his thoughts and take a step back, let Mitokado leave.

On the other hand, he was meant to be Hokage, meant to take over from the Hokage when the war with Kumo had reached some sort of conclusion.

He shrugged; his problems were his own, and he'd figure out how to solve them in due course.

Mitokado seemed less sure.

.

Tsunade glared at the note on her psychologist's door.

Yes, okay, there were a lot of prisoners—but did they have to draft everyone in the mental health field to help interrogate them?

Ask the Hokage—she was screwed up enough to need constant attention!

Not…

That she necessarily minded the break.

Mio was a good psychologist, highly recommended, but it was never a fun hour and a half, going over all her failures over and over and over again.

Not how Mio would word it, of course, but then she wasn't here.

She thought of Shizune, but she'd be in the Academy—hated the violent stuff (probably Tsunade's fault, not that she thought that was a bad thing) but liked the rest of it enough that she hadn't asked to drop out yet.

Jiraiya was… somewhere, and Orochimaru was probably busy in his lab, which was absolutely not where Tsunade wanted to spend any time.

Her family didn't particularly 'like' her, and there wasn't many of them left anyway; the Senju had never been the best at reproducing, and they'd always tended to take a… 'headfirst' approach to combat.

Which wasn't necessarily the most conducive to long lives.

There was a reason she'd focused so hard on becoming a medic.

There was a reason she'd been so vulnerable already to –

Well, she wasn't thinking about that, not when Mio wasn't around to make her.

It did rather limit her options, though.

There was always her "Kushina" project, but she'd hit rather a dead end there and wasn't yet at the point of stooping to asking for help.

There was also always booze.

She was supposed to stop that particular vice, though.

Also gambling.

Also knocking people out—apparently that was a problem of 'misplaced anger.'

There were a lot of things that she wasn't supposed to do.

She frowned, staring at the door, and tried to think of something—anything—else to occupy her time.

There was always booze.

Or maybe gambling.

Or ideally both.

.

Orochimaru frowned over his notes. It had been years since he'd first realized the power of human testing, began recording his ideas for when such eventually came into fruition.

He had, at first, thought it a certainty that Sensei would eventually realize just how much knowledge was being ignored, all just to prevent a little suffering.

But Sensei had held firm, was still just as convinced that the trade-off was worth it.

And then the body clones had been invented, a far too convoluted attempt to do what far cheaper human bodies already did, and Sensei and the whole Department he had used to run suddenly felt like human testing was really not necessary after all.

Idiots.

Orochimaru knew Sensei had finally agreed to allow him to test on prisoners because he'd become worried about him, had begun watching him constantly.

Tsunade was the almost missing-nin, not he, but Orochimaru could understand where Sensei was coming from; Tsunade's problem was with herself. Orochimaru's was with Konoha.

He'd been thrilled, actively happy, when Sensei had bent (no matter what the cause) until he realized that it wasn't nearly the gift it seemed to be; the prisoners had strings attached.

Specifically, Sakura.

A Yamanaka, loyal, and smart enough to understand what he was doing, and always around.

He couldn't use the prisoners to test something the clones could do—everyone would immediately point out how unnecessary it was and shut it down.

This was fine.

He hadn't intended to do so.

It was the second restriction, the other end of the scale, that hurt. Orochimaru had plans, ideas, ideas involving eyes like the Yamanaka, Uchiha, and Hyuga, ideas involving permanent life and re-life, ideas involving replicating bloodlines, ideas involving incredible body modifications –

But Orochimaru was well aware that Sensei wouldn't be happy with any of those.

And Sakura reported to him.

She was a nice enough girl, brilliant, shockingly tricky cypher—he still didn't even know where to start with decoding—but she didn't understand.

So few did.

There were so many people in the world, and almost all of them would amount to nothing—mere pawns, in the game of life.

And then there were those that strove for more.

Him, Sakura, Sensei—Konoha was rife with power, with people whose lives might actually amount to something.

But to make full use of their potential, suffering had to occur.

Orochimaru had to suffer through his childhood, his genin team. Then he had to suffer through learning how to lead, acting as Deputy Head.

But it was not just he who had to suffer—if he was to accomplish all he was capable of, then others had to suffer too.

Not necessarily anyone important; if they would just realize the importance of realizing their potential to then there would be no need.

But the pawns.

Their lives were mere blips, anyway; being used, being made into a tool by someone important—was that not the best they could wish for?

Sensei was sure every life had the same inherent value.

Orochimaru never understood how he'd come to such a blatantly false conclusion.

Still, eventually the Hokage had agreed that a pawn already sentenced to death could be allowed to volunteer to make their lives worth something.

And, while the majority of Orochimaru's experiments weren't exactly palatable enough for supervision, he at least had several places to start.

Except –

Well, medical research had never been easy.

Orochimaru was sure it was only a matter of time until he found a breakthrough.

And then, as if the world was aligning for him, Sakura and his assistant Nara were both hospitalized following the attempted invasion.

72 hours, minimum, without anyone looking over his shoulder.

And he was going to use it.

.

Iwa had gone through somewhat of a restructuring after the Peace treaty had been signed.

And that was putting it lightly.

They'd also shifted focus, turned away from the Great Powers still duking it out in the East to focus on the West, the ancient empires and countries that were far more stable.

And also far less militaristic.

That wasn't to say there weren't major powers in the West, but there were far fewer land struggles, far fewer resource wars.

Iwa wanted to take advantage, give their new Tsuchikage a name for himself.

But they'd forgotten that one other Great Nation was also involved in both the East and West.

And that the other Great Nation had recently had somewhat of a deserved ego boost, and an economic boom besides.

And Wind was very, very interested in both Earth and Iwa never forgetting them again.

It was a very good thing that a temporary peace between Konoha and Kiri had been agreed upon, because Suna suddenly and with almost no warning pulled the majority of their shinobi back, sending them all the way across the continent to fight against an old enemy in a new environment.

Konoha could cope, would cope, but –

It hurt.

It put them on the backfoot.

Something had to change soon, or else this war could very well turn into a forever war, both sides constantly pouring resources into the next great advantage only for it to stop just short of actually changing the balance.

For now, however, Fire's goal was simply to persevere.

Leave the tricky stuff for another day.

.

Morino Ibiki set out like a man on a mission—until he reached the Nara Gate.

It wasn't as if he'd never been there before; he actually regularly spent time with his cousins, learning various games of theory and games of chance or just cloud watching.

It was just –

He'd never felt so low before, hadn't felt low since his mom—

(That had been worse. Much, much worse. Still hurt to think about, even though all of her friends were more than willing to tell him stories of her during happier times.)

And he certainly hadn't visited the Nara then. He'd mostly just holed up in Aunt Sakura's house, trying to stop the hurt.

This hurt was different.

Better, but still cruel.

Twisting.

Still, if anyone had an answer, it would be the Nara.

(Or his godparents, but he didn't want to ask them.)

So Ibiki forced himself to keep moving forward, to push further into the compound.

He found some older Academy students after a few minutes, splayed out underneath a massive tree with a shogi board between them.

A couple of fawns—nearly grown, now, certainly ready to brave the winter—watched from the side, bleating back and forth as they seemed to debate the position on the board.

After a second one of the fawns stomped their hoof, one-two-three one-two-three, and the student on his side obligingly moved the designated piece.

One of the boys eyed Ibiki curiously as he approached, but the other didn't even do that—too much effort.

Ibiki hesitated, then flopped down to watch from a spot on a more prominent tree root.

A few minutes passed.

Pieces were played, their positions determined by the complex stomping code the Nara—deer and human—were taught from birth.

"I'm not as smart as you." Ibiki said at last, the words grating in his throat even as he forced them out. "I'm not as powerful as Asuma either, and I don't have Kurenai's chakra control. I'm not dumb, or anything, but I'm not—I'm not even near the top of my class. I was at first, more or less, but as more and more lessons get piled on and the tests get harder and harder I keep… slipping."

The Nara closest to him sighed. "You're still going to pass, though. You're more than good enough to get on a genin team."

"I know that!" Ibiki snapped. Then he took a breath. "I just—I'm not a genius. I'm not any kind of genius."

"And?"

"And Aunt Sakura is a genius. And Namikaze Minato is a genius. And Sarutobi Asuma and Yuhei Kurenai are, not geniuses, but still good—still prodigies. I just—they're going to be capable of so much, and I'm –

I'm never going to catch up, not completely."

The other boy sighed. "There's always going to be someone better than you. It's inevitable. But Ibiki, you're comparing yourself to the kunoichi with the most patents in all Konoha, the future Hokage, the youngest son of the current Hokage, and the daughter of the second to the Jounin Commander. And the thing is—yeah, you can't beat any of them at what they're best at, but I bet you there's a million things that each of them can be beat at. Just, you know, figure out what you're good at and… ride that wave, so to speak. You are a genius, by the way—you're a six-year-old in your fourth year at the Academy, of course you're a genius—you just happen to be measuring yourself up against other geniuses at their best. Just get a 'best' of your own and be done with it."

"I suggest something T&I related." The Nara closest to him added. "You've got an in, living with the Yamanaka, and your godparents really cover the breadth of knowledge that T&I considers useful, even ignoring your extended family."

Ibiki, in his fourth year at the Academy and already ready to make an impact, to matter, grinned.

T&I?

That wasn't a bad idea.