The Nohara clan was not one of Konoha's major clans.
It was a clan—had been for centuries—but no big names had ever come from the family, and no enemies ever changed their behavior when they learned they were facing the Nohara.
They did have a bloodline, though—a significantly lesser need for oxygen, which came in helpful when diving or walking through fires.
Rin, throughout her entire kunoichi journey, had never actually put it to use.
Now, though, now she'd told her Sensei that she wanted to do more than just medicine; she wanted to be frontline, to fight alongside others using her own might to keep those beside her from being harmed in the first place.
Sensei had agreed, because of course he'd agreed, but Rin had still spent the next month working in the hospital, giving Kakashi time to heal and Obito time to learn the basics of life without sight and Minato time to etch incredibly complex seals on both of them.
Kakashi's allowed him to tamp down on the pressure, on the aura of 'threat', that the Beast would otherwise exude from him, and it allowed him to use some of the Beast's strength as his own, at least tripling the power her youngest teammate had on hand.
Obito's was, if anything, even more of a work of art—already the Human Researchers were buzzing about it, were using the drafts Sensei gave them to try to create one that could be applied to the many other blind and blinded citizens of Konoha.
Obito's let him better parse vibrations—those of sound, traveling through the air in specific rhythms, those of vibration, traveling through the ground, telling him what was nearby—and smells—an even trickier seal, apparently, and one that covered the whole of Obito's nose and much of his forehead too.
Between that and his vibration sensors—centered around his ears, before wrapping around and covering the whole of his spine—as well as his goggles, now clouded over and with storage seals inside to give opponents even more of a shock—Obito looked…
"You look dangerous." Kakashi said, grinning from across the room, where his bared chest showed off more of their Sensei's handiwork.
"Really?" Obito said, reaching up to feel the bumps of the fuinjutsu work again.
"Yeah," Rin said. "Everyone's going to think twice about messing with you."
Obito grinned, then turned to the door excitedly.
A moment later Sensei entered.
"Hey guys, ready?"
"Ready!" Said Obito, eager to put his new abilities into training.
"Ready!" Said Kakashi, eager for the same.
"Ready!" Said Rin, not feeling ready at all.
All Sensei had told her was that he had 'some ideas' on how to use her bloodline and medical jutsu offensively.
She wanted to be able to do that, wanted to learn—
But her bloodline didn't even have any jutsu associated with it, and being using a chakra-scalpel as a particularly chakra-intensive knife—
But Sensei had grinned, and looked kind of wild given that he seemed to be running on no sleep and pure willpower, so Rin hadn't pushed.
Now her stomach tied in knots, and she was looking at her two teammates, and—
It was stupid, to think that she could go frontline, wasn't it?
With Kakashi and Obito's power, with their—
Sensei's hand was on her shoulder.
He was smiling at her.
"Ready?" He asked again.
And Rin found herself relaxing in spite of her worries.
Sensei believed in her.
The boys believed in her.
She—
They—
Could do this.
She nodded. "Ready."
.
Ibiki squirmed, glancing at the blue sky outside before refocusing on the notes in front of him.
He'd been the one to ask for additional lessons, after all.
It wouldn't do to leave them just because he'd prefer to be out playing.
Refocused, Ibiki scrunched his nose at what he'd written. "I thought us having two jinchuuriki was a good thing?"
That Konoha had two had taken three, maybe four days to spread across the whole of Konoha. While the specifics still weren't clear, many of the most powerful of Konoha's jounin had been isolated inside the Hospital for weeks and only allowed out when the bijuu's chakra began to leak—only to disappear again, far outside of the village to presumably train in the chakra or protect whoever had it/act as a decoy, to not give everything away.
Aunt Sakura hummed in agreement. "It certainly is why the war ended as quickly as it did, but two jinchuuriki has its downsides too. Can you think of any?"
Ibiki frowned in thought, then put forward the most obvious guess and its counter. "We're a bigger threat? But–that doesn't make sense. Kumo made peace with us, Kiri was already planning to go to war, Iwa and Suna's war—" was over, actually, had been over for about two weeks now— "weakened both, and Suna's our ally anyway."
Aunt Sakura nodded, then leaned back. "Two things. First, you are only considering all out war. Second, the second jinchuuriki might affect alliances too."
"How?"
"Suna might worry that we don't need them anymore, and decide to backstab us before being backstabbed. That's why we've already sent a Delegation over there, and why we're agreeing to build some railroads in their territory—it confirms that we want our relationship to remain lasting and positive. As for the non-war ways—"
"Assassinations." Ibiki interrupted, his mind spinning. "Kidnapping—Kumo's always been a fan of that. Just—trying to cut our power down to their level by any means necessary."
Aunt Sakura nodded. "Mind you, that likely would have happened anyway—Konoha hasn't lost a war yet, and that's more than a little intimidating, but—"
"Tailed Beasts are their own bracket of danger."
"Exactly."
.
Yoriko swallowed, her dry throat fighting against the action as she raced across Fire's vast forest.
This was their first mission without Sensei Uchiha, and they had to do it right.
Of course, this was also their first mission as chuunin at all.
Nara Kosuke, Akimichi Chihiro, and herself had been some of the last genin to be field promoted during the war, and its quick end meant that Sensei had spent the last two months shoving even more information into their heads. But Sensei had to go back to the KMPF, and Yoriko and her teammates still needed a few more missions under their belts before they could transition, full-time, into their specialties.
It made sense when it was explained, it made sense when Sensei was there to teach them, but now Yoriko was actually in the field, with only her fellow teenagers, and a mission to deliver—
In less than a second Yoriko's melodramatic thoughts were shoved away, in favor of a rush of adrenaline and a sudden change in direction.
In front of her Chihiro and Kosuke swerved too.
There were a variety of signal flares Konoha nin were taught to use, after all, and the one currently being sent up—bright white, visible even in the midday sun—was a request for immediate backup.
It was a request every ninja had to obey, no matter how outclassed they might be by the enemy:
It was a request that meant 'imminent danger to all if not stopped.'
Yoriko—
She was a fresh chuunin.
She just wanted to be in T&I, wanted to learn under her father.
She pumped more chakra into her legs.
It was another chuunin-led team—the ones assigned to patrol, most likely—and two of the three were already dead.
The man who was literally playing with the last didn't even look injured.
She didn't recognize him, but a quick hand signal from Kosuke, followed by three more in rapid succession, told her enough.
Konoha missing-nin.
Jounin-level.
Brothers died in service.
Yoriko took a breath, and let instinct take over.
Step One: Flare. (Doesn't matter if someone else already did it. Do it again.)
Step Two: Stay back. (Chihiro ran straight ahead, their job to be the physical fighter, and Kosuke went for long-range; he had to wait for her to do more.
Step Three: Bloodline.
The Yamanaka had many different abilities through their bloodline, though most only displayed one. In Yoriko's case she'd taken after her mother; with little effort, she could see through the eyes of others.
And let them see through her own.
It was a mutual exchange, and one that didn't allow Yoriko to look inward or control their movement, but—
When you weren't expecting it—
The missing-nin addressed the danger as soon as it appeared. He threw a knife to dispatch the chuunin he was playing with—who dodged, thank the kami—and threw fire jutsu after fire jutsu, both to keep Chihiro away and to keep the shadows from lasting enough for Kosuke to get a grip.
That was the expected response, though, one that her team—Team Fifteen—planned for.
Yoriko looked like a Yamanaka, so enemies always tried to avoid her eyesight—but her style, Yamanaka Style Seven, accounted for that.
With her ability, after all, she only really needed them to meet her eyes for a second or two.
A quick hand sign, and her body seemed to almost flicker. A second to check, and the illusion was in place—Yoriko standing at the ready, hands moving to try to cast a genjutsu.
Yoriko knelt, centering her eyes where her stomach would normally be, and waited.
A second or two, and her illusion began to shift, twist as if about to pull out a weapon—
And the missing-nin glanced at her.
Avoided the face, obviously, but went to look at the stomach, get an idea what direction—
And Yoriko grabbed him.
In a moment she was staring out of his eyes, watching as her teammates moved forward to attack.
He, on the other hand, was looking through hers, kneeling in the bushes.
And his instinct kicked in.
He had no idea, not in the first instant, that he was still in control of his body.
He thought he was in control of hers.
He moved, tried to break their eyesight, but he assumed that he was moving her body.
She knew better, actually moved her body to keep him in sight.
It took a second, maybe two, for the reality to kick in.
But in the interim he'd stopped fighting, stopped keeping the chuunin back with such ease.
"Shadow Bind: Complete." Kosuke said, already straining against the might of the missing-nin trying to get free, and then the next round of reinforcements arrived.
"What is he doing here?" The Inuzuka snapped, pointing her nin-dog to sniff out his past movements while her Hyuuga partner incapacitated him.
Team Fifteen looked at the other surviving chuunin.
"Chuunin Sakai Itsuki. Um, I don't know. I—my teammates—" He swallowed, reality setting in.
The Inuzuka frowned, then snapped her head to the right as her nin-dog barked. "She's found the scent."
The last member of the team—not from a recognizable clan—grunted. "Let's go."
The Hyuuga dumped the now limp body next to Kosuke. "His immobility will last six hours. Get him to a prison before then."
And then the specialist jounin disappeared.
Kosuke frowned, looking around.
"What was he doing here?"
Yoriko swallowed, looking at the two dead bodies. "Not our problem anymore. Let's… let's get to the nearest outpost."
Kosuke frowned, then nodded. "I'll take the prisoner. You seal the bodies and carry them. Chihiro—"
Chihiro was still in one piece, but a huge gash covered most of their upper right arm, and a massive bruise was already visible just below their right knee. "I'll walk with Sakai."
The three of them glanced at the fourth chuunin, at his trembling hands as he stared at the bodies of his teammates.
They tried, and failed, not to imagine themselves in his position.
"Sounds good." Kosuke said. "Let's go."
Yoiko—
Yoriko did not feel ready to be a chuunin.
.
Tsunade frowned, flipping through the latest infiltration information.
"How accurate is this?"
"Pretty accurate," Nara Takuya grunted. "Long-term infiltrator, just got out after ten years to transition to something in-village."
"Ten years." Tsunade repeated. She stared at the scribbled notes in the margins. "Well, shit."
Takuya leaned forward.
"That bad?"
Tsunade hesitated, pulling out a map of the continent as she did.
"This is just data—do you know if the Land of Mint had any recent wars?"
"Uh… no, I don't think so. We only sent in infiltrators because Earth was considering buying land of them, but they didn't end up going through with it—got too busy with its own wars, you know? So Mint's actually been pretty peaceful. 'S why the infiltration mission was so successful, really—got us loads of information about the other nearby minor nations too."
"Then this… isn't good."
"Why?"
"Lower birth rates." Tsunade muttered, now ignoring the Nara entirely. "Why is it always…"
And then she walked out of the room.
With the confidential documents.
"Hey, wait!" Nara Takuya shouted, running out after her.
.
The Land of Iron sat to the north of the Land of Earth.
It was a minor nation that did not bother with ninja, but their samurai were considered some of the most formidable.
Iron lacked in certain natural resources—little arable land, not much in the way of livestock –
But it was rife in others.
Iron ore, obviously, was very common in the land, but the mountains were filled with just about every other kind of mineral too—copper, gold, silver, platinum, iridium…
Really, just about everything that could be mined could be found in the Land of Iron.
The samurai were not only some of the best trained, they were also some of the best armed.
In order to keep Iron from being in a state of constant war—despite its more remote location, its resources made it too valuable to leave in the hands of an enemy—every major nation (and most minor ones) agreed to never so much as send a single infiltrator to the Land of Iron.
And, on the whole, they had all more or less kept to that promise.
Still, during wars it was rather hard to get deliveries—with the weather conditions of Ishi-ka Bay any trade more or less had to go through Iron—so the rest of the world had been left more or less lacking as the Earth/Wind/Corn war ran its course.
Now, though, it was over—Corn had been cleaved in two, its upper half renaming itself "Land of Pickles" and allying with Earth, and Suna had eked out enough victories against Iwa that the Land of Fangs had swapped allegiances.
Now Earth was no longer at war, none of the Great Nations officially were—Kumo was only beginning to skirmish with Kiri, would likely take several battles before anything more definitive was acknowledged—and that meant one thing:
Trade.
Sakura stared as wagon after wagon after wagon parked outside the village entrance, each and every one filled with purchases the Hokage had made in the interest of Konoha.
Beside her Future Head Uchiha stared just as eagerly.
"How can—"
"Kumo paid out a lot, when they signed the peace treaty."
"Even—"
"A lot."
Sakura really wished she could see the terms.
"I have so many ideas."
Future Head Uchiha smirked. "So do I." A glance, far more playful than any expression she'd ever seen on his face before, and the two of them finally allowed massive grins to spread across their face.
"Let's get started."