The Hokage Department was finally a department instead of a badly named office.

The Mission Assignment Bureau was officially independent, was in charge of forming teams, and provided job assistance for shinobi and civilians alike.

The Hokage could still overrule, of course, but now they weren't forced to wait for him to rubberstamp everything.

The Immigration Bureau was folded into the Hokage Department, and somehow still busy despite the less-than-open borders.

And then there was the final bureau, the final part of the Hokage Department alongside the Hokage Office and the Research Office: Internal Affairs.

That had not been a popular creation.

Aiko really did think that it was necessary, though.

(One thing she learned over, and over, and over again when she'd been judge was just how much individuals were capable of. Having watchdogs was absolutely entirely necessary.)

The Hokage Department's restructuring was badly needed, was no doubt exceptionally beneficial.

Aiko didn't take up the Internal Affairs job she'd been offered—loved her judicial position too much—but she'd considered it.

It was fully staffed, though, and the Hokage Department was finally running smoothly.

And then—

Then there was the Hokage.

.

Minato rubbed at his eyes.

They ached.

His body hurt too—getting back up to his previous strength was far more difficult than he'd expected—but his eyes hurt more.

And his head.

He was pretty sure it had been a solid month since his last day without a headache.

Perhaps…

Perhaps the elders had been right, when they'd pushed to postpone the restructuring.

Too late now.

And—

Well,

And it seemed to be working.

Minato just wasn't sure how to prove it: how to prove, conclusively, that everything would be in far more disarray if they hadn't reorganized.

Most of the paper-nin knew, which was something.

But not enough.

And now—

Now it was time for each of the councils' first official legislative meetings.

The Department Council was yesterday, with each Head putting forward their proposals, doing initial cullings and edits.

That had been—

Arduous.

A full-day affair, and that was with every Head working overtime to have everything ready beforehand.

Today was the Elders' Council. Every single shinobi who had served at least 20 years was eligible, and everyone else could watch.

They didn't get to vote on every proposal—that would be insane—only every proposal Konoha didn't mind getting out, getting to their enemies—but Minato had no doubt their session would be even longer.

At least he didn't have to be around for it in-person; he just had to know what their comments were on each proposal.

Then, tomorrow, the People's Council: representatives from each clan, from each district.

And yet another round of comments, of proposed edits, this time to almost every proposal.

And then all of it would land on his desk.

He'd liked the idea when Sakura had mentioned 'democracy' in passing, liked the idea of more eyes before he saw it so less would get to him.

In practice this was taking a lot of work.

And then—

And then there was how he needed to get to the frontlines, show he was recovered.

…Except he wasn't.

The fuinjutsu—

It wasn't his best work.

It was really, really awful, actually, and the only part that worked entirely as intended was the chakra-contribution portion, which allowed everybody (himself included) to exhaust themselves to build up enough energy to launch the damned thing far away enough to never come back.

And they'd succeeded.

He'd succeeded.

But he'd had to survive until then, had to give up almost all his chakra to the attempt.

He didn't—

He didn't really remember what happened after.

He did remember the pain.

He'd given his entire body to fighting the thing, given all his energy to giving it away.

Every muscle was pulled. He'd broken several bones, including half his ribs. His nerves felt… wrong. He suffered from severe burns, and a chunk of his vastus lateralis had been ripped apart by the byoki (and reforming muscle was something Tsunade had only recently figured out how to do, how to manage. He was the first patient). He'd—

Everything—

And he'd worked at it.

He doubted the pain would ever go away, suffused as it was throughout his body.

He doubted there'd ever be a day where he didn't need to stretch, need to go through physical therapy.

But he'd worked at it.

He wasn't recovered enough to go to the frontlines yet.

It was only a matter of time.

.

It hadn't been a conversation.

Or, well, it had been, but it hadn't been one she'd taken seriously.

When Minato had jokingly wondered what stars were made of, Sakura had flashed back to Arden, to her memories and—

It had all come spilling out.

All as supposition, of course; she and Arden weren't the same species, and chakra definitely didn't exist in Arden's world.

It had still done something to Minato's brain.

He'd brought another seal notebook the next time they met up about Kushina's seal, asked her questions.

Jiraiya, learning what he'd been thinking about, had gotten into it too.

And then the byoki attack had happened, and Sakura hadn't heard about it again.

Until—

Until Minato had used his new teleportation seals.

Grabbed her.

Dumped her in front of a monster.

And asked her what to do.

And now she was back in Konoha.

Everyone was busy, moving around.

She was part of the Hokage Department's Research Office, now, was hearing from all the Research Offices across all the Departments.

Was doing her part to prevent a war.

Or at least to survive it when it started.

But her brain—

Her soul—

It was still in front of the byoki.

It was still…

Wondering.

Wondering what her effect was on the world.

What Arden's effect was on the world.

And what she could do about it.

She was still doing her job.

Still—functioning.

But she'd never felt more at sea.

.

Head Uchiha shifted, trying not to show his stress as the elders continued to talk.

Continued to consider Suna's offer.

It was far from the first time they'd been given offers to go to some other Land, offered money and resources and control to abandon Konoha.

They'd never before even considered it.

Konohagakure was theirs, was the Uchiha's more than any other clan, and they weren't going to abandon it, ever.

It was theirs.

…At least, that's what Fugaku grew up being told.

But now.

Now with the byoki, with the clan divided between the mainland and Uzu, with the dilution of their police power, of their general power…

It wasn't as if he didn't agree that it chafed.

It did.

But to him, that was all the more reason to push, to attempt to get Konoha back on track.

It hadn't even occurred to him to treat it as a reason to leave.

.

"We don't have the resources!"

"The Sanin Jiraiya says that Orochimaru is being hosted by Suna! We must retaliate!"

Kohana glanced uncomfortably at Elder Nara, the former clan head. Just about every actual clan head was too busy to attend the second weekly People's Council, so most of the clan side of the room was just representatives, people standing in place of those actually in charge.

Given that the other side of the room were always going to be entirely representatives—based on districts, rather than clans—it should have felt more equal, more reasonable.

Instead everybody watched as the Uchiha and Hyuuga representatives ping-ponged back and forth, each utterly entrenched in their views.

That would be bad enough by itself.

Was bad enough by itself.

Unfortunately, the Hyuuga and Uchiha clans also clearly both agreed that Suna was the only topic they cared about, and the many other proposals had gone entirely unmentioned.

Elder Nara rubbed at a worry stone as he flipped through the documents they'd been provided, ignored the posturing men.

Kohana thought of doing the same.

Didn't.

After another hour, the council broke for lunch.

(It was only supposed to last three hours. With their current progress, they'd never be finished.)

Kohana went straight for the ramen stand across the street—it was cheap food, but she needed something salty and tasty and fast.

It took a minute, a few spoonfuls of rich broth, before she noticed that most of the other stools were taken up by district representatives.

They looked just as miserable as her.

One—the youngest at the stand, and Kohana wondered how much that played a role—leaned in.

"Are they always like that?"

Kohana shrugged. "This is my first meeting with them."

The representative made a face. Kohana tried to place him. She was pretty sure he was representing one of the outer areas—probably the one with genin housing, because that would explain how he got away with being so young. "It doesn't feel very… useful."

Kohana nodded, trying to hide just how fervent her agreement was just in case there were any Hyuuga or Uchiha around. "Three hours did seem a bit… hopeful."

"If they would just stop arguing we could move on," another representative piped up. "It's not as if we have to respond to every proposal, right?"

"That's right," Kohana agreed, because she'd read the rules until her eyes ached. "Look, when we get back I'm going to start talking about the next proposal—the one about the new railroad track—the very second the meeting starts. When I take a breath, can one of you respond? Maybe if we get on enough of a roll, the Hyuuga and Uchiha proxies will move on until next week."

The youngest representative shrugged. "Worth a shot."

.

They weren't any richer in Konoha.

They had land as far as the eye stretched to run and play in before, and they'd had a house with beds for everyone, and they'd had hot rice and good music and family.

They weren't any richer in Konoha.

Kosei knew that his parents didn't care, though.

They'd had some rough years, on the farm.

Some years where they'd barely scraped by.

Sometimes they did better, much better, but then they had to save everything up, prepare for the next drought.

The next cold snap.

The next disaster.

And so they'd sold the land, packed him and his brothers up, and moved to Konoha.

They lived in one room, now.

There was never any quiet.

Both of his parents worked, now.

They had less time together.

Kosei knew his parents thought it was worth it.

He and his brothers were in school, after all, were learning.

Could earn good money, like the traveling doctors and shoemakers and merchants.

And Kosei—

Kosei just wanted to go back home.

Go back to the farm.

He trudged out of class, trudged to the missions desk.

He was old enough, now, to take on wartime D-ranks (because in wartime that's what Academy students did).

It didn't make much, but it made something.

He waited in line, got to the desk, was handed his form.

It took him a moment, to parse through it.

There were always such complicated words, and for the first few weeks he'd had to ask, ears burning, for help.

This time he figured it out, though—helping the Akimichi clan with something, meet at the village gates.

He trudged off.

And then—

Well, he'd seen wagons before.

He wondered why—

"Alright, that's all of you! It's time for the first late winter harvests, so you'll be put in a lot of different fields with Akimichi around to show you what the ripe plant looks like. Get in the wagons, there's no time to waste!"

…Konoha had farms?