Sakura was in a rush.

She was already late—would be at least half an hour behind schedule no matter what she did—but late in the evening yesterday one of the Academy volunteers (a Nara, because of course it was) wondered about whether the regularity of their shipments could be tracked and she, her co-Head, and at least half the Efficiency Division had spent most of the night coming up with a workable solution.

She'd gotten three hours of sleep.

She'd just finished shoving on her clothes (shirt, pants, belt, good enough) when she heard the door knock.

Sakura paused, trying to decide if she should answer it or just pretend no one was home.

Well, she was already late anyway.

As she jumped past the staircase, Sakura stretched out her chakra sense to see who was on the other side of the door.

What was her niece doing here?

"Yoriko, hello. What are you—is everything okay?"

Yoriko—she was only five years younger than Sakura, already sixteen—grimaced. "Do you have a minute?"

"Sure, come in."

Hotaru would forgive her, and anyway she'd solo-run their department for a full weekend just a week ago so he could take his nieces and nephews out fishing.

"Tea?"

"Yes, please."

They sat at the kitchen table, the cups warming in their hands.

Yoriko didn't speak.

Sakura could see the anxiety in her features, but it really didn't look like Yoriko was reluctant to talk about it—just preoccupied with thinking about it in her own head.

"What's up?"

"Oh! Um." Yoriko straightened, absently blowing on her already cooling tea as she tried to put together what she wanted to say. "Okay. So. I just. Could you, um, give me some advice? About being a kunoichi?"

"Of course. About what part of being a kunoichi?"

Yoriko shuffled. "About—about how to, um, deal with… with people treating you differently."

Sakura sighed.

Sipped her tea.

"The civilians, or the shinobi, or both?"

"Everyone? I mean, obviously they don't all act the same, but—"

"They do treat kunoichi differently," Sakura finished.

She'd actually managed to get by most of that—her name had been out there at a young enough age, she supposed, and she had many powerful friends—but she already knew from gossip that her niece was considered exceptionally attractive, and she'd seen more catcalling from so-called mature shinobi than she'd have even imagined.

And that was just the most public of the problems.

The rest of them—the teasing, the jokes about 'bed-warming', about how women earned promotions, about how emotional they were, the men who didn't know how to take no for an answer, the men who just couldn't get it through their skulls that a woman might know more about any topic at all than they did…

And then there were the civilians.

"I'm going to get out some biscuits, too," Sakura said. "This will take a bit."

.

Juro frowned over his paperwork.

Across from him, medic Nara Denki continued his work completely unperturbed.

Denki was—

Well, he was a fantastic surgeon.

He'd started out in trauma (everyone started out in trauma) and, after more than a few… issues… with patients (Denki had absolutely no bedside manner, and lacked the motivation to change it) had been swapped to purely trauma surgery, with absolutely no interaction with conscious patients at all.

Denki really had no bedside manner.

Still, fantastic surgeon.

After some time, Denki had grown bored of the traumas—said he'd gotten too good at it—and asked to become a pediatric surgeon.

Juro—head of pediatrics—had approved the request, with the caveat that Denki could still be called in to particularly tough trauma cases.

Denki had been on his team for a little over a year now, without issue.

(Well, actually, he also had no coworker manners, but everyone was used to that.)

So, all in all, Juro didn't really mind working with Denki.

But now Denki had gone and offered him an opportunity.

Denki, apparently, was slightly less caustic in his writing, and had struck up some sort of pen pal relationship with a doctor in the Capital.

That hospital had been in communications with Konoha's hospital and Research Department, and apparently were beginning to talk about possibly having medical professionals from both hospitals who specialized in trauma spend some time at the other for 'development' purposes.

The doctor Denki had been communicating with had suggested that he come to visit, but Denki was, well, aware of himself.

He wanted Juro to go in his stead.

And the thing was—

The thing was—

Juro wanted to go.

He was still writing to the woman he'd met, writing to her as often as possible actually, and she was doing the same.

Being closer—

Seeing her in person—

That would be great.

But.

He had obligations here.

Family here.

A career here.

And—

And the Capital—

This would be a move.

The opportunity would be for a year.

Trauma was likely going to wait until the war was over, but pediatrics could swap immediately.

A trial run, so to speak.

Which—

Was enticing.

Except, obligations. Family.

Life.

Juro was well aware that Hospital Head Nara would agree to the swap.

Sakura would encourage him, too, and it would be good to spend time with Shin again.

But—

A year.

A year, at least, away from—

From everything he was used to.

He wasn't a child, anymore.

Had a say in where he went.

And choosing to leave felt wrong, felt like a mistake.

Except.

Except he couldn't think of anyone who wouldn't encourage him to go if he wanted to, and he did want to.

Even Ibiki was more focused on being treated as an adult, so he'd never admit to wanting more parental figures around.

So why was he so reluctant?

Juro glared at Denki, who didn't even notice.

If he'd just not offered the opportunity, then Juro wouldn't have to do any soul searching at all.

.

Sakura slouched as the latest meeting droned on.

She understood, intellectually, why the number of meetings increased so much during wars.

She was even living through the very reasons.

But at some point, no matter how important the topics discussed were…

Meetings never felt like they got anything done.

Well, that wasn't true.

One-on-one meetings were fine.

Even three, or four, person meetings could work.

But the Hokage meetings—with Minato, every Department Head, every Clan Head, and several elders besides?

Sakura understood the problem.

Konoha needed more money.

She understood the other problems discussed during the meeting too: they were still on the defensive, they needed more manpower for the battlefield, the demand for missions was high but the war meant they lacked the supply, there was still the byoki to wonder about (the mysterious black substance still had no explanation, no real way to contain it long-term), Fire's infrastructure was suffering without the usual C-ranks to help maintain it, and so on, and so on.

Sakura even had a suggestion of how to fix not all, but some of the issues.

But over the past three hours she hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise.

She glared at the perfectly innocent chuunin summarizing the financial position.

He had also not managed to get a word in edgewise for the past five minutes—too many people arguing, and none of the backbone to interject.

The actual Hokage (namesake of the Hokage meeting) had stepped away 'for a moment' more than an hour ago, and hadn't come back since.

Well, fine.

Words weren't the only way to communicate.

Sakura fished out a notebook, scribbled her suggestion, crumpled the paper into a ball, and threw it at the Infrastructure Head.

Hayate (a Nohara, nice guy, got promoted about the same time as Sakura) didn't bother to hide his confusion, but uncrumpled the letter –

'Sell space in railcars to merchants?'

–and grinned.

Before long, paper had swamped the room.

It wasn't necessarily better than the spoken method, but at least it was quicker.

The Hokage—where did he come from?—cleared his throat. "I believe that makes a good stopping place for the day. How about we all review our… notes… and reconvene the day after tomorrow?"

"Hai."

Well, at least she was getting out a full hour ahead of schedule.