Early morning saw her in the Hokage's office. Sakura wasn't sure what was going to happen when Tsunade-sama had called team seven in for a meeting. Three weeks ago, Kakashi-sensei had been called to Tsunade's office and had taken off to a destination known only to him and Tsunade. He had returned shaken, and had to be comforted by Haruhi-sensei. She learned from Naruto and Sasuke that he was supposed to retrieve something, but couldn't find it.

I bet we could!

Sakura was too worried over her parents and little sibling to care too much. It couldn't be that important!

But now she was feeling perhaps just a bit apprehensive as she, Kakashi, Naruto, Karin, and Sasuke approached the Hokage's office. Haruhi-sensei wasn't here, because for all she was a part of team seven, she was still a civilian. And from what Sakura heard, she was busy as a bee. The Third was retired in his garden with the rest of his clan, while Tsunade-sama held office. She would be officially instituted in the coming days.

They opened the door.

"Good. You're here." Tsunade-sama said. She looked swamped, with stacks of paperwork and ink stains on her hands from writing. Most of it seemed to be in preparation for her coronation, and the Daimyo's visit tomorrow.

"Sakura, I'm going to be evaluating you and Haku tomorrow during your hospital rounds."

Sakura nodded, and Tsunade switched the topic.

"As you all know, it's no secret that Konoha has suffered significant losses over the past couple of weeks. With that in mind, we feel the need to train more genin into capable ninja. And since team seven is so good at picking up strays, we're going to assign you another one. Meet Sai. Your new genin trammate."

A boy stepped out from the shadows. Pasty white, black tank top, and artist supplies strapped to his hip.

Kakashi's quarter of visible face gave off the impression that both of his eyebrows were raised to his hairline.

"Hello, I'm Sai."

Sakura watched Karin's reaction with interest. It was, at the same time, alight with surprise and recognition. Where did she meet Sai before?

"Uh, Yeah! We got that already!" Naruto grumped, upset at having to come up early to the office."

Sai smiled. It was wrong. It was as if you told an alien how to smile without showing it.

"Hm. You seem upset. I read that introducing oneself was polite, but I guess not." Then, as an afterthought, added, "Oaf."

Well, We would be mad too!

This seemed to really upset Naruto, which did surprise Sakura. He had matured greatly over these past few months, so it was weird he reacted like this. Maybe he was insulted Sai implied he couldn't read?

Karin calmed her cousin down.

"Look, Naruto, it's fine, okay? Since we're all a team now, let's head to the training ground, I'll even show you how to use your chakra chains!"

That seemed to calm Naruto down.

Kakashi-sensei nodded.

"Right. Let's head out."

They walked through Konoha. Since Tsunade had taken over, if not officially, but in spirit, new life had been breathed into Konoha. Tsunade had allocated some of the funds towards rebuilding the roads and clearing the unsalvageable buildings.. Now you could only tell that they had been attacked by the newly carved tombstones-and the empty spots where houses used to be.

Sasuke took the lead here, directing them over to the Uchiha grounds. After getting them cleaned up, He had opened them up to the rest of their graduating class, and to Konohamaru and his friends. It was great, especially since the other grounds were so crowded. Even then, though, with all their friends having access, it was still sparsely populated. Sakura was pretty sure Moegi had told her she would be using the grounds to try and tree walk, after Sakura had told her she would be too busy to play.

Sasuke began to speak about their housing efforts in the old Uchiha district. It had been a smashing success, apparently.

"After my audience with Tsunade-sama, she agreed to give us funding to restore much of the Uchiha district. The elders didn't seem to like it, but with the Third the way he is, they weren't in a position to stop her. We were able to use the funds to hire carpenters, builders, plumbers, electricians, stonemasons, and woodworkers to construct new houses. With the help of Yamato, and Chunin teams to move heavy materials, the new houses were up in record time. Haruhi-sensei really helped talk to people to help them settle down and move in."

Sakura smiled, and noticed Kakashi perk up at the mention of Haruhi-sensei. Sakura's mother had been one of the electricians hired to help. It certainly had helped to take her mind off the baby. The money she got from hooking up the Uchiha district to the power grid was enough to keep the Haruno household fed for months. Sakura's father, Kizashi, had taken his weekly food group and had opened a soup kitchen to help feed the people while the new houses were going up. Membership had apparently quadrupled.

She had also heard from Tenten, that Emi was commissioned too.

She inhaled deeply, and felt warm with what she noticed. The air was fresh and teeming with life. No smog from burned bodies, no stench of decay, and no smell of rotting wood. The Uchiha district was alive with people. The air carried with it the scent of cuisine, of the wash on clothes lines, and fresh flowers from the new gardens put in. Sakura noted that the cuisine was not native to fire country, which didn't surprise her. Most of the people left homeless were Konoha's already poor, who were mostly immigrants discriminated against, and who lived in rickety houses that fell easier to the tremors caused by Orochimaru's summons. Sakura thinks that could have been her grandmother, who immigrated from Kiri. They didn't need to worry about that now, however-the new buildings put in were top quality.

The best quality! Or I'll crush them!

Speaking of which…

"Sasuke, what was that large building we passed by earlier? The one with many rooms?" It was huge, and Sakura vaguely remembered her father talking about it, when a picture of it showed up on the front page of the Konoha Gazette.

"Oh, you mean the commons? It was Haruhi's idea."

Somehow, that didn't surprise her. She was full of them.

"She saw all these groups gathering together in people's houses and noticed they were getting cramped. The idea behind the Commons would be to give those groups a place to go. Your father is thinking of moving his cooking group there, into the installed kitchen. I know Kasumi is starting a sewing class with Akira there as well. Haruhi-sensei is talking to Iruka and Tsubaki-sensei's to move their literacy classes there, as the academy is hard for people to walk to, with it being far back by the mountain. I'm pretty sure the Mothers Union of Konoha rented out some space, and we even put in a swimming pool-I think Haruhi plans to do something with that, swimming classes or something. She had to invest some of her own money to get it added in, because it wasn't originally part of the floor plan. Although we can't use it yet-pools are highly regulated in Konoha, and we need permission that hasn't been granted yet."

That all sounded really great to Sakura. It sounded like a pillar of the community.

"Wow. A lot of people are interested in that." Karin said. Sakura grit her teeth at the sound of her voice.

"Yeah." Sasuke smirked. "Haruhi-sensei is friends with the owner of the Konoha newspaper, apparently they worked together on literacy classes before. She got the Commons to be front page news."

Kakashi hummed.

"Are the people going to be paying a lot to live here?" Naruto asked. He sounded thoughtful.

"At first, while they get on their feet and find jobs, it's free. But in a couple months, I'll start charging an affordable rent."

Naruto nodded.

They finally made it to the clearing. Sakura noticed a suspiciously healthy tree, where all the others had been scorched to death from Uchiha fire jutsu.

Sai froze, and then jumped into the bushes. It had been startling abrupt from someone so quiet on the walk here, so they all watched with rapt attention when he pulled Moegi out from the bushes.

"Oh, hey Moegi! What's up?" Sakura called enthusiastically, feeling bad she couldn't spend time with the girl. She wondered what Moegi was doing back here. The last time she saw Moegi, Sakura had been heading back home, and almost bumped into Moegi as she ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, for reasons unknown.

"Nothing! I'm going home! Bye!" The girl ran.

"...Hm." Kakashi-sensei said. "Well, Karin, Naruto, show us what you got."

Sai looked after Moegi with a weird look on his face-or maybe that was just his face. She didn't know.

Karin walked out into the middle of the grounds, gesturing for Naruto to stand back. She explained the process of feeling for her chakra. Sakura noticed that Naruto did much better with hands on physical work than he ever did in the classroom. Sakura felt dumb for ever thinking Naruto was stupid.

"So you focus your chakra at specific points in your body?"

"Exactly, Naruto! I can do that pretty easily due to my sensory ability, so don't feel too bad if it take you-"

Whatever Karin was going to say was cut off as a ginormous chain shot from Naruto's chest. It clanked to the ground, almost reminding Sakura of Orochimaru's giant snake. That chain could bulldoze a building no sweat.

"Wow! Uh...I think you got it, Naruto!"

"Really? Awesome! But I thought you had to unlock it."

"You do, um, at least, that's what my mom told me before she died...I'm not actually sure about the specifics. I do know it takes a certains physical prowess, and an excess of, and excellent control of your physical chakra. Your frequent use of shadow clones probably made this really easy for you."

"Now that you mention it, I did notice it kinda felt like shadow clones, like how I had to take my chakra and kinda, uh, push it out!"

"Yeah! The more chakra you use, the bigger the chains. You can get smaller chains coming out of more focused body parts, like fingertips, with chakra control and practice."

"Okay!"

Karin nodded, and Sakura resisted the urge to grimace at her. It's a shame Karin had insisted on letting Ino suffer instead of healing her. They could have gotten along pretty well otherwise.

HMPH! As if!

"Hey, I sense some of our friends coming! From the forests!" Karin exclaimed.

Sure enough, Ino, Shizune, and Haku emerged from the wilderness all in high carried an array of plants in their arms, and there were even more in the bags hanging from their shoulders, and various distillation supplies as well.

"Ah. I thought I sensed something." Haku murmured thoughtfully, shifting the plants in her arms.

"How goes the apprenticeship?" Sakura asked. She was, perhaps, a little envious.

We're the smartest! We should apprentice ourself to Tsunade-sama! That'll show them!

Ino smirked.

"Pretty good. What are you up to, Sakura-chan?" Sakura grit her teeth. She loved Ino, but sometimes she could really lay it in thick.

But just as Sakura was getting ready to snap back, she noticed how happy Ino was. Tsunade-sama had begun treatment as soon as possible, and Sakura could see new skin forming already. Ino still had a long way to go, but if this kept up, she wouldn't need a tube to eat anymore.

"Ah, not much. Mainly helping my mom."

Ino's posture softened at the reminded, and the rest of the group split off to give them some privacy, mostly talking about the new housing and The Commons. Karin, Haku, and Naruto expressed interest in moving into the compound. Sai stared blankly as he introduced himself. Haku and Karin seemed to make brief eye contact as he did.

"Hey, who's that new kid?"

"His name is Sai. We don't know what's wrong with him"

Ino chewed what remained of her lip.

"Sakura, his mind feels...off. Muted. All Yamakan know how to do a cursory sensory jutsu that allows you to detect moods, but he….it's like almost nothing. Something is seriously wrong here. You need to watch yourself around him."

Sakura gulped, and nodded.

Shizune called to her students, and after giving Sakura a hug, Ino took off with Haku to follow their teacher.

"Is something the matter, Porkchop?"

"..."

The fuck did he just say to us!?

Sakura grit her teeth and almost smashed her fist into Sai's face. She recognized, however, that hitting teammates, no matter how annoying, was wrong. Her shoulder creaked with protest as she jolted to a halt.

"Why did you call me that?" She asked through gritted teeth.

Sai had the nerve to tilt his head in confusion.

"Are you offended? I read it was customary to give nicknames to those you tried to befriend. Am I doing it wrong?"

Sakura hoped everyone else was having a better day than her.

When an ANBU appeared in front of her on the way home from another meeting at just before noon with the Hyuga, Tenten thought the jig was up. As Tenten was escorted by her, she frantically combed through every thought possible on how their secret operation could have been exposed. None of the people involved would have willingly told. No one was recently kidnapped or dragged into T and I either.

They entered the Hokage's room, with Tsunade sitting behind the desk. And surprisingly, With elder Koharu standing next to her. Her mind flashed back to the Trial, which was now weeks ago.

Her palms were sweaty.

"Tenten. Genin. 95th graduating class. Age 14, soon to be 15. Lives with Emi, a blacksmith, in Konoha's working class neighborhoods. And has a penchant for fuinjutsu."

Not sure what else to do, she nodded.

"In these recent times, it is now more important than ever to cultivate and strengthen the next generation of Konoha. We've already taken huge steps to house and feed our struggling people, and to enrich our social activities. Your interest in fuinjutsu is a rare, and needed one. Koharu here, is Konoha's foremost expert on the subject. From here on out, she will have joint control over your education, along with your sensei, Maito Gai. You'll learn the art from her. Your first lesson starts now. Introduce yourself, and work out your schedule."

In a move that was clearly dismissive, Tsunade waved her hand, and went back to her piles of paperwork. Tenten startled when Tsunade seemed to wink at her.

So apparently Tenten was off the hook. For now.

Koharu stiffly walked towards the door and Past Tenten. She could feel the Tension, and clenched her jaw when she smelled the expensive perfume wafting from the upper class woman.

"Follow me." Koharu said stiffly. Primly.

Tenten fell into step behind her.

She knew this woman. No girl in Konoha, ninja or non ninja, didn't. The only woman on the council of elders, perhaps the most powerful woman in Konoha, second only to the Inuzaka clan head, and now, Tsunade-sama.

She wasn't a clan kid, but with how wealthy and powerful her civilian family had been, she might as well be. That money paid for the best tutors, the best trainers, the best gear, and amazing connections and rocketed her all the way onto team Tobirama. Her cutthroat cunning, ruthlessness, and willingness to knock down other woman to be seen as the better one left her with many enemies in Konoha. She was the reason Tenten had to find work with Emi as an helper blacksmith, when she pushed legislation that cut funding to Konoha's orphanages, forcing them to either go to the academy and become child-soldiers to get the free meals provided there, or starve in the streets under the red lights.

Tenten wondered what Koharu thought of her. A scruffy, poor, orphan kid, eating up her tax money she could have used on grand ceremonies for the visiting nobles? A stupid, little traitor, a heteric? If only she knew.

Wait.

If Tenten was to learn fuinjutsu…

She could use it to free Neji and the others!

She thought about the wink Tsunade had given her. Did she do this on purpose?

Tenten felt the pedestal Tsunade had shattered rebuild itself in her mind's eye. As she followed Elder Koharu towards, she made a vow.

She would Free Neji. She would free the rest of his family. And she would use what she learned to help whoever she could out of the bonds of slavery!

"Don't think you'll get far, genin-san." Koharu said.

Tenten's exuberance popped like a bubble. She had sounded a little too much like her sensei and teammate for a moment.

She hoped someone else was having a better time of it.

Things were tense in Moegi's house now.

After the incident in the training grounds with the trees, Moegi had run all the way home and into her mothers' arms. It had taken a bit for her to calm down, she had been so worked up, but she had shown her mothers' what she meant by "plant powers" when she took the wooden chair in the living room and made fresh branches sprout from it's polished handles.

Maybe she could be a carpenter.

Her mothers did not appreciate the joke, and made her promise not to use her powers in front of any one until they could safely talk to Tsunade-sama. As two civilians, they had to try and find a way to have a meeting with Tsunade-sama without raising suspicion. By their frantic excited whispers, they had figured something out.

Moegi promised.

Which is why she felt really bad to be borrowing Sasuke's training ground again in the afternoon to test her powers after her mothers left to go to the Konoha's mothers union.

Moegi tried to make dolls. Figurines. To make flowers bloom out of season, and to ripen an apple early. All were met with varying degrees of success.

She was in the middle of opening and closing a rose bud when she was grabbed by a boy with milk white skin, and a blank face. It was like someone had erased him.

Her heart pounded. What had he seen? She should have listened to her mothers.

She blurted out a goodbye to Sakura and the others, and ran past them, past The Commons where her mothers were, and all the way home.

Her day was not going well.

The sun was going down.

But the night had only just begun, and Sai was in for a very long debriefing with Danzo-sama.

His mind spun with all the things he had learned. The kindness that had been shown to him from Karin and Haku. Walking around without hiding. The chakra emotions freely expressed by others.

The little girl with a supposedly extinct bloodline.

Sai told Danzo about the chains, and about Haruhi's activities, hoping it would be enough to deter him. But Danzo hadn't been root's leader for nothing. He knew Sai was pondering something, and either Sai told him about Moegi's wood release limit, or he doomed Tenten and the Hyuga branch family members to death and slavery. He doomed himself and other root agents to having a seal on their tongues. Forever.

Sai told him about Moegi.

He apologized to her, in his head. Her mothers were both civilians, lower middle class. Moegi's disappearance would be given minimal effort by the chunin, and she would disappear into Root, just young enough to be reconditioned.

She was about to have a very bad day.

It was late into the night when Tsunade finished the stack of Paperwork and information packets on her desk.

The new it brought wasn't as bad as she had been expecting.

It was worse.

The information brought to her by Haruhi and Sasuke had been bone chilling. The reports they recovered from the Uchiha's belongings, and the information they were able to coax out of the poor and immigrants staying in the district had been dire.

Hundreds of children missing. Probably more. All under Konoha's nose.

Or was it? Was it under Konoha's nose? These missing children reports, the ages, the time, the places, the coverups, all indicated that someone on the inside of Konoha's government, someone powerful, had a hand in it.

She was neck deep in theories when someone knocked at her door.

"Come in!" She called. She looked at her schedule, and saw that the mothers union of Konoha had been added at the last moment. Tsunade had been doing a lot of meetings like this, in order to garner support for Konoha's more vulnerable, and to encourage some of the civilians who fled to come back. It was working better than she could have hoped. The Mothers union worked together with Kizashi's and Kasumi's and Akira's groups to feed and clothes many.

The door opened, and two women walked in.

Their hands were linked, with matching wedding bands on their ring fingers. One of the women had brown skin and long black braids down her back, and there other had short cropped ginger hair, and light brown eyes that reminded Tsunade much of her own.

The two women were under clear duress, and looked like they were barely holding it together.

"Are you from the Mothers union?" Tsunade asked carefully.

They nodded.

"Yes! Yes, we are. And we need to talk to you about our daughter. Is this room private?"

Tsunade signaled her ANBU guards away, and sealed the room.

"It is now. What do you need to say?"

"Our daughter went missing this afternoon. We've contacted all her friends, we've asked the chunin to search for her, but she hasn't been found yet. And we-" The ginger broke off, her voice cracking with grief. Her wife picked up the sentence.

"And we think we know why."

"Why?"

They looked at each other. Breathed deeply.

"Because she has the first Hokage's wood release.

"..."

You could hear a pin drop.

"...Did she demonstrate this ability before?"

"No. Not until recently. It's only been since the academy has taught them to unlock their chakra that this has surfaced."

"Which one of you is her biological mother?"

"I am." The Ginger said.

"What is your name?'

"Jinja."

"Well, Jinja, did you notice this ability in her bio-father? What about yourself?"

"Her father was a ninja, but from a purely civilian background. As for myself, I'm not a trained ninja, but we think my parents were. I never noticed this ability because I never unlocked by chakra."

"And you think someone kidnapped her?"

Tears welled in their eyes.

"Yes."

"Did anyone see her practicing?"

"She went to train past The Commons in the Uchiha district. We told her not to tell anyone, but we don't know who saw." Jinja's wife voice quavered.

Tsunade had had enough. She pushed back from her desk, walked over to the partners, her potential family, and pulled them in a hug.

"Are you listening to me? I'm going to find your daughter, and I'm going to find whoever was responsible for it. I won't quit until I do. Do you understand me?"

The two clever women nodded, clinging to her for support.

Tsunade already had a headstart with the information given to her by Haruhi and Sasuke.

To that kidnapper, whoever they were Tsunade had something to say.

She would hunt them down wherever they were hiding, and she would eliminate them.

Whatever went under the Third would not go with her.

She was...Justice!

*Crawls like the girl in the exorcist and throws this chapter at you* *jumps out the window and skitters away into the tree line until summer vacation*

Well well well, would you look at that! I found a way to make Moegi relevant! And yes, that Death note reference was necessary. Tell me what you think!