Sakura walked over to the pitcher.
Poured a glass.
Threw the water into her face.
Walked back to her seat.
Sat back down.
"The good news," Head Inoichi said wryly, "is that Hiruzen is not your issue—that's me and Tsunade. Just… something that you have to be aware of. Considering that you're here."
"Right," Sakura said. She swallowed.
She'd guessed—
Well, she'd guessed lots of things.
She hadn't gotten it right, though.
"Right."
"So: the jinchuuriki."
Why she was here.
Right.
.
Summons can and do survive wholly off of chakra.
Unfortunately, there is far less chakra in summoning worlds compared to his world.
And so summons became, well, summons. In exchange for an investment of the summoner's contract, whoever was summoned could soak in the ambient chakra of his world, bring it back to their own to share with their kin.
Of course, there were a lot of downsides.
First, a summoner had to find a summons.
Survive the attempt.
And get something out of it.
And, too, it was possible for a summons to be killed in his world—and then they would bring nothing back.
And the summoning contract would still be active, and summons could still be brought to his world against their will.
And then the next summons could be brought, without any way to stop them.
No warning whatsoever.
Even if the summons and summoner was on good terms, there was no way to provide notice.
Just the sudden jolt of reappearing in another world.
So a summoning alliance—
It was always a delicate sort of thing.
Always on a knife's edge.
Ibiki grinned, teeth just a hair too sharp, as the firefly eggs began to hatch.
.
You could teach yourself to chakra sense, if you wanted to.
Even if you had no natural talent for it.
No one bothered, though.
It wasn't a matter of difficulty—that would only affect the number—it was the use.
You had to teach yourself, over at minimum months, to push your chakra out of your body.
Benignly.
Consistently.
In every direction.
And then you had to learn how to draw it back in.
That took at least twice as long.
Understand what it meant when some chakra came in more or less quickly than it came out.
That was insanely difficult. Borderline impossible, except that some now-dead researchers had gone and proven it could be done.
But then there was the matter of how much information you could possibly get.
If your chakra was exactly, boringly average—you could do about three meters.
Just under, actually, according to the insane chart that the Researchers still kept, but about three meters was a much shorter number than the chart used.
If you had loads and loads of chakra, you might manage a good few yards.
There were diminishing returns, though.
For each meter the radius of your sensing expanded out, you also had to account for up.
And down.
And every other direction.
The difference between a line and a sphere.
Therefore, useless.
And then Obito had gone and had his eyes stolen.
And Sensei—
It still made his heart swell painfully, wonderfully, to think of it.
The problem was, the seals required quite a bit of chakra to maintain.
They allowed Obito to 'see' in all directions, yes, and they did not require any effort to maintain, as sensing without the seals would, but—
It was still chakra intensive.
Sensei, he'd created two little seals attached to the larger seal, where other people could press their fingers to, give chakra to the seal directly.
But even that had its problems.
Obito sat, almost nodding off in the late evening air, and Kakashi growled. "Sit still, dolt! I'm almost done."
"It's already been an hour!" Obito complained.
He knew it had to be done, though.
They were getting nearer, closer.
Sensei had come up with another seal, a brilliant seal, transcribed it to their kunai, to his body, so—
They just had to get close enough.
They'd run all day, chasing the byoki.
It wanted to get away, wanted to flee.
It amassed, growing larger.
Had tried to attack them in their sleep, now, twice. They couldn't sense it like they could everything else—it tended to stay just underground, didn't feel like chakra—but Sensei'd come up with a solution to that, too, more seals that pinged if the byoki was within 20 meters. It wasn't ideal (20 meters really wasn't that long a distance) and each seal only lasted about four hours, but whoever was on watch could make sure it was running, and they'd all learned to wake into battle position in less than ten seconds.
But it was Kakashi who always drove the byoki back, drove the byoki away—the benefit of the beast inside him.
(Obito didn't know what they'd do if they didn't have the six-tails. Didn't like to think of the byoki running roughshod, Konoha completely unable to counter it. There was only so much acid, after all.)
And it was Kakashi, too, who refilled Obito's seal reserves, so that Obito didn't have to wait long enough to do it himself. So that Obito had enough chakra to be battle-ready.
It made Obito's stomach twist, to think of how much Kakashi had on his back.
He couldn't say anything, though. Kakashi got all upset when he did.
Instead he tried to think of other things.
"What do you think we'll find? Whenever we get to where the byoki is fleeing to?"
"Something otherworldly," Rin answered.
"Something powerful," Kakashi said.
"Do you think we can fight it?"
Obito could hear the grin in Kakashi's voice: "Yes."
Rin didn't answer.
.
Fugaku watched as former Commander Nara bowed to Commander Hyuuga Hiashi.
Everyone had known that Nara was retiring after the chuunin exams—he was exhausted, and old, and wanted a break.
Everyone had known that.
They simply hadn't known who would become the next Commander, the next Head of the (post-restructuring) War Department.
When Hiashi had been announced… well, the responses had been mixed.
Especially given everything that had just happened with his brother.
In truth, Fugaku was sure Hiashi would do his best in the role.
He just… well, he wished it was someone, anyone else.
Any other clan.
His clan was already splitting apart.
Uchiha in Uzu were beginning to talk about themselves as if they were separate from the Uchiha in Konoha, were arguing that they had different wants, different needs. They didn't want to work with other clans, wanted to turn inwards, protect their youth themselves.
(The Uchiha had always had that habit. That drive to do it all, to rely on no other. Fugaku had that habit. He wished, as the years passed, that it wasn't so ingrained in the Uchiha bones.)
And then—
In fairness, he hadn't told the Hokage. Hadn't told anyone, outside Uchiha.
Had only told the Uchiha elders, and only because by Uchiha law and custom he had to.
The Kazekage had sent them an offer. A proposal for the Uchiha to relocate, to have a new start in Suna.
And Fugaku knew many of his kin were tempted.
And now there was this—a Hyuuga, not an Uchiha, becoming commander.
The Uchiha had been one of the two founding clans, and still they'd never become Kage. Hadn't been Commander since the first.
It was grating.
And, Fugaku knew, the tensions would only grow.
Uchiha Hono was heavily pregnant, now. It was a healthy pregnancy, and there were only a few weeks until the child was born.
He wished she'd told him earlier.
He understood why she hadn't.
An Uchiha-Yuki child…
One that the medics couldn't find anything wrong with…
Tension.
Everywhere he looked, tension.
He bowed shallowly to the new Commander, his lips pressed in a firm line.
He would need to find a solution soon, or the childhood he wished for his son would be hard to secure.
.
He didn't—he hadn't been thinking.
Fuinjutsu had just been so easy, had just been so breathtakingly fascinating.
And he knew he wasn't allowed to experiment without supervision yet, wasn't yet at a journeyman level, but the lessons had been going so slowly—
He hadn't meant to—
His hands were trembling.
Shimura Ryoma didn't look up when his half-brother entered.
The hospital gown left the scars visible.
He didn't want to see the disappointment on Ryota's face.
"Hello, little brother."
"Hello."
He heard Ryota sigh, drop heavily into a chair.
He kept staring at his hands.
"The nurse said you'd only have to stay for overnight observation. The explosion was… obvious, so you received near-immediate medical attention, which likely saved the use of your left hand."
"…yeah." His voice was quiet. He didn't—
What could he say?
He'd done wrong.
He'd nearly lost his life because of it.
They sat in silence, for a time.
Ryoma kept his arms lying on his legs, gave them stability so they wouldn't tremble.
It wasn't until his brother was right beside him that he noticed he'd gotten up.
Ryota's hand pressed down on his head, pushing his hair away from his face and forcing Ryoma to look up.
Ryota looked tired.
He didn't look angry.
Ryoma blinked, surprised, and Ryota smiled down at him. "I'm glad you are alright."
Ryoma—
He'd always known his clan didn't like him, the bastard child, and he'd thought his brother felt the same.
But Ryota had started training with him, after their dad died. Had asked after him, had wanted to know how he was.
Ryoma's arms were weak, and his guilt was strong, but that was not what brought tears to his eyes.
Ryota leaned down, kissed his forehead. "I will see you tomorrow, brother."
Ryoma smiled.