Power.

That's what it all came down to. What the reports from the infiltrators made very clear.

Minato wanted to laugh.

Wanted to cry.

They'd already known power was a lot of it, that there was an inherent danger in multiple jinchuuriki, in massively expanded land holdings, in technological revolutions—

But they hadn't known it was this bad.

Konoha hadn't called in the Samurai.

In fact, they hadn't even really pushed the issue.

They'd asked the Daimyo, because why wouldn't they, but they hadn't used any tricks, big or small, to get him to change his mind.

They'd accepted the no.

And then they'd still held ground against Iwa and Kumo.

They didn't even have any allies—Suna being what it was—and they still held ground.

They destroyed the byoki.

He destroyed the byoki.

And he'd thought—

He'd thought they were worried about that power, wanted to weaken Konoha before he was back on his feet.

But then even after he recovered, even when he made his presence known, they kept fighting.

They were afraid.

They didn't want to know how powerful Konoha could become if they left it alone.

Shikaku and the civilian representatives, they had a plan to make everybody dependent on Konoha. To hold economic power in addition to military power.

The plan had made sense, was the largest reason Suna had never formally tried for war; Wind was still very reliant on Fire's food exports.

It wouldn't work.

Not if the fear was as strong as it was, not if Konoha's power remained such a threat.

But Konoha could not remain at war indefinitely; that was no life to live.

Minato—

The first Hokage, he'd distributed jinchuuriki to try to maintain peace.

That hadn't worked.

The second Hokage, he'd continued where the first had left off.

That hadn't worked.

And the third—

No.

Minato needed to try something different.

He just didn't know what.

.

Suzuki Tomoa didn't know how he'd ended up on a team with Yamanaka Akiyo and Nara Miho.

Well, that wasn't true.

Kai had died, is what happened.

Kai had died, and it had been—

And Tomoa hadn't really kept in contact with his initial genin team anyway (they both ended up going medic), was certainly not fighting alongside them, and—

And then Miho had…

Had done something.

Had conversations, probably.

And suddenly Tomoa was on their team.

Konoha liked teaming up frontline fighters, liked the idea of people who knew intimately how to work together, how to get the job done.

That hadn't been them.

Not at first.

They'd stumbled, always in each other's way, and Miho and Akiyo kept expecting—well, an Akimichi for backup.

Not a civilian-born like Tomoa.

But they hadn't—

They hadn't given up.

They'd remembered Kai together, they'd joked about how he would deal with their problems together.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, their teamwork began to improve.

Tomoa began to improve.

They were eating in the mess hall, now, and they were quiet despite the general din of the room.

It would have been Kai leading the conversation, and he wasn't there.

Tomoa thought of talking of Kai, about the time he'd snuck Tomoa into his aunt's wedding, gotten caught, and started singing to distract from Tomoa. Had kept singing, dancing around the room, until a poorly-timed spin had knocked over a wine bottle, spilled the dark red liquid all over his aunt's green wedding dress.

Thought of talking about how it was the most Tomoa had ever cringed, and how Kai had sat next to him in class the next day and slid over a piece of paper—he'd drawn himself dancing with everybody's eyes on him, drawn himself the center of attention, and completely forgotten to include the bride.

He'd called it one of his favorite adventures, even with the punishment.

Tomoa thought of telling that story, but the girls had almost definitely already heard about it when it happened, and it seemed that all they ever talked about was Kai.

He needed—

They needed—

They needed to get to know one another.

Needed to have an image of the other that did not include that one vital (missing) component.

Tomoa cleared his throat. "Did you hear about that cannibal cult that Tea's hidden village stamped out?"

Miho looked up. "Yeah, I did," she said. "They were Uchiha worshippers, so my boyfriend was over the moon."

Akiyo shivered. "The Uchiha worshippers are creepy. And the Hyuuga worshippers. I don't get why so many cults are so obsessed with them."

"It's the eyes," Miho said, leaning towards Akiyo. "Just you wait—soon the Yamanaka will have their own bogeymen out to dissect them." Akiyo made a face.

Tomoa needed to contribute, to keep the conversation going. "Or you could use it to your advantage. Loads and loads of minions, ready to do your bidding."

Akiyo gestured at him. "See, that sounds nice." Tomoa grinned.

Miho sat up, ready to creep her teammate out again, and—

And Tomoa didn't know how he ended up here, not really, not in the particulars, but he was going to make sure he made the most of it.

.

Before Anko had moved here, moved to Konoha, she'd been an older sister.

She'd been in charge, been respected.

And then she'd come to Konoha, and she knew nothing, and nobody looked up to her.

She took a breath, quieting the butterflies in her stomach and smoothing her skirt.

Today that would change.

Inside the classroom the sensei kept on rattling off names, and the line slowly moved forward; each mentor revealed in turn.

And then it was Anko's turn.

"…Nara Kumiko, your mentor will be Mitarashi Anko."

Anko jumped into the room. She was nine, now, nearly a legal adult, and Kumiko would only be around six. She looked to be six, too, or even younger; very small, but all little kids looked small to Anko.

"Nice to meet you!" Anko said.

The Nara girl smiled. "Nice to meet you too."

They were led out onto the track a couple minutes later, told to get to know one another.

"I'm an immigrant," Anko started, because lots of people cared about that. "But I'm really good at the Academy. I'm good at seals, too, but I don't want to go into sealing; I'm interested in Research."

Kumiko nodded. "I'm not an immigrant," she said, clearly following Anko's example. "I don't want to fight or anything, though. I want… I want to take care of trees, and plants, and stuff."

"Very Nara," Anko approved.

Kumiko blushed.

"Do you want to play ninja?" Because Anko couldn't think of any other way to get to know people.

Kumiko nodded, looking around. "Is there anyone else we can play with?"

"Let's ask."

.

The moment Bokuso stepped into the room all the murmuring stopped.

Thirteen ninja.

Thirteen terminally-ill ninja.

They probably knew that, by now.

Knew that they were being offered a suicide mission, by now.

All thirteen had been vetted, had been double- and triple-checked.

They'd even splurged, gotten the Yamanaka to mindwalk, to be absolutely confident that none of them were hiding too much darkness.

"Hello," Bokuso began. "I am Aburame Bokuso, and I am here to discuss an investment Konoha wishes to make in our future." All thirteen of them were still staring at him, still completely silent. "We believe it is time to expand Konoha's repertoire of summons—" sudden comprehension—"through an inherently dangerous method: the Sarutobi have a reverse-summoning ritual."

One of the ninja—a Nara—snorted. "Probably still a hell of a lot safer than trying to grab contracts from our enemies."

Another—civilian-born, but a diplomat—rubbed his head. "And that doesn't even take into account that Suna's been actively seeking out contracts for ages, now."

"Can they reverse-summon?" the Nara asked.

"I think so, yeah."

"Even greater chance the summons will be hostile, then."

Bokuso remained silent. Let the thirteen discuss the risks, the many different ways this could lead to a bad end.

After the first hour Bokuso ducked out, returned with coffee, tea, and far too much street food.

After the fourth Bokuso relaxed.

Of the thirteen, six weren't interested, wanted to spend their last months with their families.

The other seven were willing, liked the idea of passing on summons as a legacy. Were now primarily focused on maximizing their chances for a successful contract, for surviving in another world long enough to begin negotiations and then convincing the summons to agree to deal with Konoha, to create a contract to bring back home.

It would be one week, maybe two, but very shortly the first attempt would be made, and then—

Well.

The possibilities were endless.

.

Sakura rolled her neck, sensing at the edge of her perception as the ANBU hand-over occurred.

Well, her last watcher hadn't been Otter, so she was almost certain this was him again.

She drummed her fingers on her desk, wondering if she should say anything.

Do anything.

She loved him, cared about him, wanted him to be able to live his life—

But he hadn't actually, you know, admitted he was ANBU.

Or even in Konoha.

So.

Awkward.

Because he had to know—

She froze.

He didn't have to know.

She'd only known it was him relatively recently, and she'd been crazy busy, hadn't met with Minato all that often in the past few months.

He probably didn't know that she was the Hokage's advisor.

Didn't know that he could give up his ANBU identity to her.

(He wouldn't be the first mask she knew, after all.)

Well, there was an easy way to fix that.

Minato's assistant waved her into his office after only a moment, and ANBU Otter followed steadily behind. He'd seen her meeting with Minato about all sorts of research things, after all. Wasn't at all confused.

Would be, soon.

"Hey, Minato," Sakura said.

He looked up at her, tired but relieved for the break. "Hey, Sakura. How are you?"

"I'm well. Just thought I'd check in on you; it's been a while."

Minato rubbed his eyes, gesturing to the pile of seals keeping his paperwork in order. "You know me. Busy, busy, busy."

"That bad?"

"I haven't been able to work on Kushina's seal at all, the manatee is still—well. There's the offensive, which I have no idea how to end…" he looked up at her, eyes pleading. "Any suggestions? New ones, I mean?"

Sakura glanced out the window at the sprawling city beyond.

"It does feel like every time we solve any problem twelve spring up in its place."

"Yeah. And obviously—I mean, your advice is working… Kushina says Kurama quite likes the idea of an avatar, even one without his inherent power, and the minor nations are still benefiting from us enough that they aren't whining too badly about us hanging around in their borders so long. But, still…"

"There's Rento's idea for a truth-speaking seal, too. That would do wonders."

"Yeah. It's just… a question of what to do in the meantime. What to do with all the other issues." Minato straightened. "Hey, have you gotten a shadow clone yet?"

"No," Sakura admitted. The clone… it took a lot of chakra. She'd worked hard at exercising her chakra, at refining her control… but it wasn't enough. She didn't know if it would ever be enough, with how much a shadow clone required.

Minato didn't hide his disappointment. "It would be so helpful to have you as an advisor while you're working. Kushina is a huge help, obviously, but even between the two of us it still feels like far too much. Plus, now she's off to the frontlines against Kumo for a bit to get everything back in order. It is now very obvious why Hiruzen kept on his genin team as advisors. And even outside of my Hokage duties I'm swamped! Between being there for Kakashi and Jiraiya…"

Sakura wasn't surprised about Kushina—with the Konoha force's general reaction to the gravity-users' reappearance they needed someone of her power just to keep morale up, and Kushina was the only one who didn't really have to worry about chakra exhaustion when flexing her metaphorical muscles day after day, and Kakashi was basically Minato's son at this point, which meant there wouldn't be a single day the man wasn't thinking about him—but Jiraiya was new. "What's wrong with Jiraiya?"

"He's… not coping well." Minato hesitated, seemingly deciding how much to sell out his own Sensei. "It's bad. He snuck over to Suna and didn't tell anyone, had to be chased out, and then he said he was going to track down Orochimaru himself, even though we already have a team set up and it would be more efficient for him to just ferry knowledge to them—it's. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make him get his head on straight."

"Have you asked Tsunade?"

Minato snorted. "She's much more liable to make everything worse. And she's busy with another round of miracle-healing, anyway; it's doing wonders for Konoha's reputation, but it also means that she's not likely to want to spend any more time getting into headaches talking to people."

"Miracle-healing?"

"It's what the civilians call her; the miracle-healer. She likes traveling, anyway, so I figured it wouldn't be a bad job to have her and some medical students bolster that reputation."

"Smart."

"Thought so."

"How about… Shin?"

"Your genin teammate?"

"Yeah. He and Jiraiya get along pretty well, and he's read all of Jiraiya's books—you know how much Jiraiya likes a fan."

Minato rolled the idea over in his mind. "Sending Jiraiya to the Capital isn't a horrible idea…" he said. "He can hobnob a bit, bask in the more positive aspects of his reputation, and Shin can keep him under control."

"The fire monks like talking to him, too, and the Spring Session starts soon."

Minato came to a decision. "I'll send a toad. Thanks, Sakura."

Sakura smiled, left.

It didn't take long for Otter to approach.

He tried to modulate his voice, hide his identity. Of course, no ANBU that was her brother would approach her to begin with. "You and Minato seem close?"

Sakura nodded. "I'm his advisor. It's a secret, of course—as I said, better to be underestimated—but we think very similarly."

Otter shuffled. "How close an advisor?"

"Close enough that I know several ANBU identities, and could probably know them all if I just asked."

"Really?"

"Really."

A second, then another passed.

Then another.

Finally, "You know who I am, don't you?"

Sakura grinned. "It's good to see you, Arato."