No—no—no—no—no—no—no—no—

Yamanaka Hekima had never moved so fast in his life. He'd done the worst out of all the clan kids in the Academy, was so physically disinclined that his parents took him to doctor after doctor to try to figure out what was wrong with him.

Nothing, as it turned out. Just a lack of skill.

Well, it turned out that with enough adrenaline, with enough terror and determination and complete and utter denial of injury—Hekima could fly.

She'd come to him months ago, wanted self-defense, wanted help.

He'd understood, for all that in his view Kohana should have dealt with the issue by not dealing with it, by leaving Water's crime families to the Uchiha.

He'd understood, because he'd spent a lot of time with Kohana and he knew just how stubborn she could be.

He'd also thought most self-defense techniques would be useless against ninja, against even most civilian bodyguards.

He'd taught her anyway.

But because he understood the danger, the risk, he'd also taught her how to flare her own chakra, to send a signal which meant 'danger', meant 'help', meant 'hurry'.

She was still bad at it. She was still so, so bad at it—it took her nearly five minutes to consistently send the signal. She was still bad at it, but she could do it, and he could sense it.

Even as he arrived the Uchiha who had been on patrol, who had been closer, had already busted down the door.

Found her.

Deposited her outside, with one Uchiha as guard, while they took down each and every other living body inside.

Behind Hekima the other Yamanaka shouted, began to surround their Head's fiancée.

Kohana looked at him.

Puked.

Hekima trembled.

"Momo!" he snapped, gesturing to the Yamanaka behind him who had medical training. She ran forward, knelt. Started doing what she could. "We need to get her to Konoha's hospital," she said. "Strangulation is… not good."

"Yeah," Hekima said. And—well, that was his job, wasn't it? Being Kohana's assistant? He—he could do that. "Okay, could… could you go, find out when the next ship is leaving? And you—could you grab a go-bag for Kohana? And—who here has experience sending telegrams? Okay, you're in charge of sending a note to Konoha, for them to send it to Head Inoichi. And—"

"The Kurosoki family," Kohana rasped. "They did this to me."

"Don't speak," Momo said.

Well, that was one way to give the entire Yamanaka clan a new enemy.

"Alright, you four are round-the-clock protection for Kohana until she gets to the hospital. You four go to Himari, protect her. And you three set up more protection for the Yamanaka land as a whole. The rest of you—" Hekima felt his back straighten, looking at all the Yamanaka who looked very, very angry.

"You know what to do."

.

Minato spit, taking another gulp of water to get even more blood out.

"Did you save the tooth?"

"Oh, yeah. Here." It took him a minute to remember the pocket—he really needed a system—but eventually he dropped the incisor into the medic-nin's hand.

The medic blinked at him.

"What?"

"I… I thought they were kidding. When they said you always found your teeth."

Minato grinned. "Not all of them—one of my canines is a fake. But… I dunno. I like my teeth."

"That's…" The medic-nin appeared to give up on finishing the sentence, gesturing for Minato to lean back instead.

They were making a lot of progress very quickly, but that meant that the camps had to keep packing up and moving. They did have a more official hospital tent already ready to go, but between large open wounds and surgeries most people just had to make do with dirt floors and folding cots.

Minato leaned back, staring at the open sky—they were putting up the tent around him, and he listened to the genin fight about how to fit together the poles while the medic-nin fixed his hearing, his bruises, the giant gash that ran down his right arm. Eventually Minato opened his mouth, tried not to scream at one of the more experienced medic-nin forced his gums to re-accept his tooth—it was Minato's least favorite part about being healed, but it had to be done.

"Alright, I think that's everything, Hokage," Medic Kurama said, gesturing for him to get off the cot.

"Thanks," Minato said. He slapped a hand on the shoulder of the chuunin replacing him, waiting to get his eye popped back in his head. "Keep the will of fire alive, alright? We're almost there."

The chuunin grinned at him, careful to not interrupt as the medic started cleaning his eye. "Thanks, Hokage!"

They were making progress, and Minato was happy about that, but he'd seen the corpse car of the train he'd ridden here.

He knew exactly how much they were still sacrificing.

This non-war obvious war would eventually come to an end, and Minato would ensure that happened as quickly as possible, but he needed some sort of solution to deter any future attacks.

He also—

Well, Kushina was on that. He wouldn't have to focus on it until he had more time.

So, peace. How it could be achieved.

Minato had about twenty minutes before he'd have to leave to catch the train, to ping-pong back to the front against Kumo, so maybe he could get it done.

(Kushina had told him he needed to be more optimistic, like he used to be. He really was doing his best, but he had a sneaking suspicion his subconscious wasn't convinced.)

.

Kushina's stomach felt punched out of her.

She knew she wouldn't be able to eat today.

Tomorrow too, probably.

But—

She'd done it.

She and Kurama had talked, had really, truly talked.

(Mostly by very loud yells, but she'd take what she could get.)

He was still (understandably) pissed, but—

He was also

Like

Real.

Like, sapient. And stuff.

(And, to Kushina's everlasting relief, usually asleep.)

He admitted without a single ounce of guilt that he would kill if released, was looking forward to it, to punishing his captors—

But he also admitted to being much, much less enraged than he had been.

Noticeably so.

And the next day Sakura had wondered about perhaps giving him an avatar, so that he might get time to himself; and he'd gone back to being mute, but she could still feel that he liked the idea, and she'd have to tell Minato—

Kushina rolled to the side, forcing herself out of bed.

The talk had ended well, but it had started in a fight, and her abilities in her mind were nothing similar to her abilities in real life, and now she was nauseous, and she had a migraine, and she absolutely needed to get something to drink.

But she was happy.

So, so, unbelievably happy.

This progress—

This line of communication—

It was so very difficult to hold a jinchuuriki, and with three now within Konoha's control, the chance that any children she had would become one was functionally a certainty. If Kushina could learn about the tailed beasts, however, learn from them, try to find another non-violent means—

Then perhaps her children would be free.

…But talking to the Kyuubi had still taken a lot out of her, and even a day later she was still experiencing something just-to-the-left of chakra exhaustion.

Kushina stumbled to the sink, ducked so that she could take a few gulps of lukewarm water before collapsing to the ground.

She—

She'd done it.

She'd forced Kurama to listen, to understand that she wanted to know how to improve both their lives.

He'd finally, finally believed her.

And she'd showed him that he was right to, talked to Sakura, messaged Jiraiya. And then she'd gone to bed, because there was genuinely something so, so tiring about being inside that seal.

And now…

Now all there was left to do was to actually improve her and Kurama's reality.

…Perhaps she should've spent more time paying attention in school.

.

There were rumblings in the Hyuuga clan.

There had always been rumblings in the Hyuuga clan, but before—

Well, before there was the seal.

The threat.

Now, though, most foreheads had been rewritten, were no longer a cause of pain, of entrapment.

And so the rumblings had gotten louder.

Hiashi was certain, quite certain, that there was nothing he could do: the Hyuuga clan was going to break apart.

It—

He knew himself enough to know that if this had happened several years ago, he would have tried to fight it as much as possible, would have gone down kicking.

But he'd grown in the womb alongside Hizashi, and he'd seen exactly what the elders had done to his beloved brother to retain control.

It felt different, now, to fight the dissolution of his clan.

It felt… it was still something that his body sang to do, something that felt proper, but it no longer felt right.

It no longer felt like something he could stand before his ancestors having had done.

And so Hiashi gazed at the ripples of color spilling over the dark sky, and he wondered.

Soon, soon the unofficial elders of the branch would arrive. He would sit before them, ask how they wanted to transition power.

He knew it would baffle them, the idea that he would cede control.

They'd known him since he was a child, known the tantrums he would throw over Hizashi being placed in the branch as a sign of 'unity'.

They knew that he'd never offered to change places.

He knew it would baffle them, but he also knew that a transition plan would allow the people who made up the Hyuuga clan to cope best, and if the Hyuuga clan as it currently was needed to dissolve then at least Hiashi could ensure it happened as smoothly as possible.

He'd talked, with Minato. Or at least his clone.

He'd talked, after it had happened.

And he doubted his childhood training would ever fully go away, but he owed it to his ancestors, to his descendants, to be the best man he could be.

The first white heads came in sight, and Hiashi nodded.

It was time.

.

Konoha was winning.

Konoha was pushing everybody back.

Konoha had officially pushed the frontline well back from Fire's territory, and while Konoha's progress had slowed it wasn't anywhere near stopping.

…but neither Iwa nor Kumo were backing down.

…and Suna was also bewilderingly reluctant to improve Wind/Fire relations.

And Asuma wanted to know why

He—

Hadn't been interested before.

At all.

Diplomacy had always seemed to be the sort of thing he was forced into, not the sort of thing that was… you know, interesting.

But Asuma had been putting his body on the line for months, now, and it was much, much less fun than he expected it to be.

It was mostly just… tedious. Get up, eat. Listen to instructions. Fight for a bit. Pull back to let other people fight for a bit. Nap, and eat, and work on physical therapy and/or training depending on current body condition. Fight for a bit. Pull back to let other people fight for a bit. Eat. Sleep. Do it all over again.

And absolutely no information, because why would fighters need information?

(Asuma, as it turned out, liked information. Liked being in the know.)

The problem was that Asuma had pushed really, really hard for this job, and this job wasn't the sort of thing you could do part-time (or, at least, not the sort of thing Konoha let you do part-time).

And Asuma—

Well, he wanted out.

He wanted—

He was still a kid.

Or, a teenager, at least.

He kind-of felt like he should be allowed to change his mind.

To try out diplomacy.

…He didn't think they'd accept that.

…But, well, he had Ibiki, didn't he?

Ibiki's uncle was a diplomat.

…Maybe he'd be willing to give up some information, so that Asuma didn't have to go through a whole apprenticeship just to stay in-the-know.

(Asuma could ask, at least.)

He' already sent the letter when he wondered how much his wandering mind had to do with Kurenai turning him down.