War, as promised, did not come.
People got busier, yes, as border patrol duties picked up and T&I worked overtime to ensure a lack of any non-Konoha spies in the area, but there was no war.
Iwa, for all that they were clearly planning something, never quite attacked outright, and so the Fire Nation stood in perpetual limbo, knowing what was coming but completely unable to stop it.
In Research, Sakura had never before seen anyone slack off during their shift, but now they worked double time and overtime and all the time, trying desperately to eke out any sort of technological advantage they could find. Sleep eluded her, so Arden's memories did too—her continued failure to find the mentions of her world that she knew existed made continuing the search when exhausted less than tempting.
In the hospital, Juro was picking up more shifts too; he and the other medical students spent long hours practicing triage and helping teach short courses to civilians about what they could do, how they could help the hospital.
Shin was nearly impossible to find, now, when there wasn't group training; his work took up every spare second and he was still not allowed to talk about it, allowed to mention a single detail.
Yasuo Sakura hadn't spoken to at length in months; when he wasn't dealing with bandits or patrolling, he was training with the rest of the frontline ninja in group fighting tactics.
Sensei was not around much, either. They trained as a group for only two days a week now, and very rarely the full days; instead, Sensei spent most of his time in his office, compiling reports sent back from various diplomats and trying to figure out which nations, great or small, would join which side when the time came.
Aiko was dealing with the rapid shifts to the Academy (where she had only just begun to work) as they tried to both teach their usual material as well as a significant portion of wartime tactics, all while keeping children from graduating early; the time for that would be when war was officially called, no earlier.
Bokuso was busy, obviously; everyone in T&I was busy, and that was unlikely to change any time soon.
And yet, despite their suddenly lost free time and their much harsher training regimen…
War did not come.
Sakura turned twelve. Summer passed, then fall, then winter. Still war did not come.
Tension, when held that long, was exhausting in and of itself. Everyone continued to work hard, but there was only so long the constant pressure could last; tempers got shorter, punishments harsher, and all the while Iwa only paced their borders, making no offensive moves at all.
Today was Monday, and Sakura had just finished a ten-hour shift in Research, acting as a gopher and darting across several dozen training fields to facilitate communication among the Communication and Detection researchers.
Now she just wanted to go home, rest her legs, have a warm meal and some tea, and go to bed.
And then a member of the genin corps ran up to her.
"Yamanaka Sakura?" He said, breathless. (Couriers were always breathless—they'd be punished if they were found 'lollygagging', and their commanders tended to be quite broad in defining that.)
"Yes."
"You've been requested at the hospital—third floor, returning shinobi ward. Would you like an escort?"
"Yes."
They took off.
The Returning Shinobi Ward was where any injured shinobi was kept. It was called "Returning" to make it clear that chronic problems weren't treated there, but that it wasn't triage either: it was somewhere in the middle.
Every ninja was conditioned to hate the ward. Triage was fine—mild injuries were to be expected for many missions—and if you ended up with a permanent issue, then it was permanent, and you'd be dealing with it for a while.
But being in the RSW meant that you were (probably) going to be fine… eventually, but until then, you couldn't do x, y, z, w, q, u, or l. And, to be on the safe side, not a, b, c, or d either.
Sakura had been very, very happy to have never needed to go to the RSW and had been hoping to keep up that streak for the rest of her life. She supposed that being a visitor was better than being a patient, though.
The genin-corps member led her to a door, gestured to it, then left to start their next assignment.
Sakura took a deep breath and opened it.
"Sachiko?!"
Her childhood friend, now sixteen years old, sat cross-legged on the bed. She was tall, now, much taller than Sakura remembered her to be. She was made up of harsher lines too—the intervening years had not been good to her, at least on the calorie intake front.
"Hey Sakura. Sorry… sorry to call you here, I just… figured you'd be best, I suppose."
"Best for what?"
Sachiko looked down. She took several deep breaths, looked up again, then faltered.
Sakura, in the meantime, had taken stock of what she could. Despite Sachiko's clear discomfort she wasn't visibly hurt in any way, and the room didn't contain any of the various instruments used to try to measure and care for sick or injured patients either.
Sachiko, however, seemed to be so tense she was about five seconds from snapping in two.
Sakura sat next to her.
"Best for what?"
"It didn't happen during the mission. Or—it did, but it wasn't part of the mission. I was… I was a bit stupid, I suppose, and I didn't even think—" She fell silent for a few seconds, then looked Sakura in the eyes. "I'm pregnant."
.
Sachiko was an orphan.
Her father was a question mark, her mother a drug user.
She'd lived in one of the Daimyo's prisons for the first three years of her life—babies and toddlers were allowed to stay with their mothers. She'd been moved to the local orphanage then; had once described it as too many mouths to feed, too little empathy. A shinobi recruiter had come through one month before the start of the Academy. Her stutter was a mark against her, and so was her physical condition, but she was smart enough and, despite a relatively miniscule chakra supply, was already subconsciously using said supply in her day-to-day life.
She was offered, and accepted, a position at the Academy.
During her time there, she lived at Konoha's orphanage, a rather large building that sat relatively close to the Academy and farmed out more ninja on a yearly basis than any single clan.
She'd graduated early, being filtered into infiltration due primarily to her being able to so efficiently hide what little chakra she had, and then made her way to the Land of Birds, where she'd spent the past two years in deep cover as one of the local Daimyo's housekeepers.
And then she'd met a boy.
He was, Sachiko explained, originally from the Land of Swamps, far to the west. He'd immigrated in the interest of more pay; the Land of Birds was wealthier than the Land of Swamps, so he could get more money working as a manual laborer there than at home.
They'd had a bit of a whirlwind romance, Sachiko explained, if one could call it that. Both were quite busy with their day jobs, and both (one openly, the other less so) were still loyal to their places of birth; neither intended to stay forever.
She'd only figured out she was pregnant three weeks before, and by then, he'd already left for his country's annual cranberry growing season and wouldn't be back until the following fall, when it ended.
She couldn't wait that long; didn't want to be visibly pregnant anywhere but Konoha.
So she'd left.
Her handler had been… displeased, both with the mission ending prematurely and with the pregnancy. But Sachiko had gotten good information—the family in power was likely to stay that way for some time, and was staunchly in favor of Fire (this had less to do with Fire itself, unsurprisingly, and more to do with Earth's habit of claiming the land of surrounding states as their own. While Fire also strong-armed its neighbors, it would at least leave the rulers in place as figureheads if nothing else.) Her pregnancy, while unfortunate and a sign of stupidity, would be forgiven in time.
"So… what are you going to do?" Sakura asked.
"I have… a friend, in infiltration. She does short term missions, and I'd like to live with her, and I think she'd agree. But… well, she's on one of those missions right now."
"So you want to stay with me until she's back."
"Would that be possible?"
"Of course. My mother wouldn't mind—she's like that, and she married at sixteen besides."
Sachiko's lips quirked. "I think our cases are a bit different."
Sakura smiled. "They wouldn't be if you had paid more attention in kunoichi lessons."
Sachiko laughed. "Forgive me."
"I'll try." She glanced out the window. "You can stay for the duration, if you like. Or even after."
"I don't think I'd be comfortable living in a clan that I don't belong to that long," Sachiko said. "But thanks." Both startled as the door opened, turning to look as a chuunin entered.
"Hello, Genin Morino. Is this your point of contact?"
"Yes."
"There is no medical reason for you to stay in the hospital, so I can sign you out now if you wish. If you do not, the hospital offers—"
"No—no thank you, I'll just leave now."
The chuunin nodded and handed her the appropriate form, and before the end of the hour both were at the front gates of the Yamanaka compound.
"She—my friend from infiltration—is supposed to be back next week," Sachiko said. Sakura hummed. "I'll move in with her then. She's got a spare room—offered it to me before I decided to go long-term." Sakura nodded. "I haven't had to deal with morning sickness yet, so that shouldn't be an issue while I'm here."
"That's nice."
"Who, um, which of your siblings are home?"
"Only Himari, Kohana, and Fujio. Ayame's in intensive training right now, for frontline combat, and Arato was home for a bit but then he had to go back to work. Ren still lives down the block—his two kids stop by sometimes, too, but mostly they like their street; more kids."
"What does Fujio do?"
"He works for tracking. Thinking of switching to T&I, though."
"Huh. Not a good fit?"
"Seems so. He likes T&I more, anyway, and it looks like he's going to get the okay to transfer. Sayuri helped him a lot with tracking, but I think he wants something more sedentary."
"And Kohana's working at the flower shop?"
"Yes. She likes it. And Himari's babysitting a lot of the younger kids, and mom's still in T&I, and last week we planted a new row in the garden. You can't delay this forever, Sachiko."
"…Let's go in then."
The house, despite its additional four residents, was empty. It remained so as Sakura showed Sachiko to a spare bed, pointed out where the bathroom, towels, and other paraphernalia were, and made the two of them tea.
Kohana came home first.
"Hey Kohana, you remember Sachiko?"
"Yes, it's good to see you again."
"You as well."
"She'll be staying with us for the next couple days." Kohana eyed Sachiko curiously, but didn't say anything. Fujio came next, and only grunted—he'd just ended a month-long mission digging trenches the day before, and had apparently not regained enough sleep to care about the additional body in his home. Then came Kaa-san, who took Sachiko aside to get more information before welcoming her warmly. Himari came home last and brought dinner from Kamui.
Sakura went to sleep that night, and tried very, very hard not to think about the little boy or girl who would doubtlessly be born in the middle of a war.
.
Hundreds of ninja and civilians stood in groups, spaced out across training ground after training ground. The sun had crested over the horizon less than an hour ago, but already their faces were to a man covered in the sweat of hard work. Each century—each hundred—were coached separately, but they were all being coached simultaneously, so close together that those at the edge of the groups had to strain to make sure they were responding to the right calls.
Sakura, Shin, and Juro were among them.
They, with the rest, were practicing Taijutsu.
Every other morning each ninja, as well as every civilian volunteer, would participate in group exercises followed by group training. They were taught together, punished together, and trained together in the way of the Leaf. Sakura panted under the strain, forcing her body through its paces over and over again. Those around her weren't doing much better.
Many—if not all—clans had their own versions of taijutsu and bukijutsu, but the Leaf's method was supposed to be particularly effective when fighting in a messy situation with many obstacles (read: trees), enemies, allies, and hostages. It was a very helpful technique and learning how to use it best—as an army—would doubtless help substantially in war.
And so every morning everyone gathered and practiced together.
To her group's right were some of the chuunin frontliners who were currently within the city, going at a much faster pace and after a much harder workout than her own group. To her right civilian children, their pace much slower and meant only as a last resort and to help them build muscles should the war take long enough for them to come of age during its continued fighting. Behind her practiced another group of civilians; civilian men, with jobs, families, bodies, and lifestyles that made them wary of joining into the local militia group. Ahead of her, elderly former ninja went through their katas, their pace somewhere between Sakura's and the civilian men, and all around them, other groups practiced, improving imperceptibly every day.
At last, they finished, and chinmoku wasted little time pulling out their waterskins.
"My place for lunch?" Juro gasped. "We can train after—I think I have the human bullet technique down enough to try in battle."
"Sounds good to me," Sakura said. "I'm going to visit Sachiko, but I should be done by noon, and I have to tutor Inoichi, but that's in the evening."
Shin grunted. "I've got to babysit my nephews. Can they tag along?"
Juro and Sakura glanced at each other. "Can they behave?"
"No."
"Yeah, I guess they can come."
Shin grinned. "If it helps, the middle one just got his tonsils out and he's miserable."
"He got his tonsils out?" Sakura asked.
"Why would that help?!" Juro groaned.
Shin turned to Sakura first. "My sister and the doctor decided he was getting throat infections too frequently. Plus he had bad breath, but I'm guessing I cared more about that than they did." Then he turned to Juro. "Well, he won't be getting in everyone's way, will he?"
"He'll be whining, though!"
"Well, yeah, but he'd have done that with or without the surgery."
War still did not come.