"How did you get a bloody nose?"

Anko hesitated.

The hospital guy sighed. "Look, I've got to know if there's anything internally wrong with you. How you broke your nose might affect that, and what needs to be done to fix it."

"Can't you just fix me with chakra?"

"No. I have better things to spend my chakra on."

"Like what?"

Hospital guy smirked. "Oh, you know. Storage seals, doorbell seals, air purifier seals…"

Oh. That wasn't… exciting.

"I got in a fight."

"Not a spar?"

…She should have thought of that excuse. "No."

The guy sighed. "Does your buddy need any help?"

"She's not my buddy!... And she won, anyway."

"No injuries?"

Anko flushed. "I might've bruised her."

Hospital guy looked very unimpressed, and also like he knew she hadn't been so lucky. "So how did you get your bloody nose? A punch?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, let me check if it's broken."

Anko sighed. She hoped it wasn't broken. If it was broken then everybody would know, because he'd probably tell her Sensei, and then her Sensei would tell everyone because it would 'encourage her not to make the same mistake again'.

She only had a month left in the Academy, too! So close to freedom, and yet so far away.

"Well, it's not broken, but that bruise isn't going away anytime soon."

Bruise?!

"I can't have a bruise! I'm going to be in so much trouble!"

"Should've thought about that before you got in a fight, huh?"

"I had to punch her! She was—" Anko stopped. Shut up.

But now she had hospital guy's attention, and he was between her and the door.

…She knew coming here was a mistake.

"What was she doing?"

…That was the same voice her Sensei used. The 'there's no right answer' voice. Still, Anko did think she was in the right. "She said Kumiko wasn't really a Nara!"

"Kumiko?"

"Nara Kumiko. I'm her mentor this semester. She's only six, and Nara Yuko is ten, like me, and she told Kumiko—she told Kumiko that she'd never be a real Nara, because she wasn't born with the Nara name, and she's only a bastard."

"…You know, as far as reasons go to punch someone, that's a pretty good one."

"It is? I mean, it is!"

"You need to work on your lying skills."

"I wasn't lying!"

"I know. Here, lean forward."

Anko squinted at him, but it wasn't as if she had much of a choice. She leaned forward. Hospital guy put his hands on her face again, and then—

Oh.

Iryouninjutsu.

…Cool.

"Next time, maybe try something that actually punishes Nara-chan, huh?" He wiped off the last of the blood from her nose, and Anko could already feel the difference, could no longer see her cheek.

She grinned. "Thank you, hospital-guy-san!"

"…Yeah. Okay. Off you go."

.

Konoha was pulling out all the stops for Iwa.

Iwa had done the same, but for Iwa that had meant sending big names, big threats to sit around peacefully in horrendously-expensive clothes and do a whole lot of nothing.

…Konoha was going to do this too, of course.

But that wasn't Konoha's focus.

Konoha's focus was, of course, economic.

"I wasn't expecting the caravan to be so big," Obito said.

"How big did you expect it to be?"

"I dunno. Spring-session-sized?"

"Honestly, I'm with Obito," Rin said. "I was there when they were organizing to leave, and it was… a lot."

"What are they bringing?" Obito asked, because he had been with the investigation team as Deer during that.

"Stuff to sell," Kakashi said, and that he knew was—surprising.

"Did you watch too?"

"No, I was training the kids in my house. But, like, I get it, right? We're bringing loads of seals and foods and all sorts, to get Iwa hooked."

"You make it sound like we're drug dealers," Rin said.

"I wonder if we're bringing recreational drugs."

Obito gasped. "Would we?"

"Why not?"

"Aren't they bad for you?"

"Sure, but who cares if Iwa-nin get addicted?"

Obito… well, he cared. Kakashi was probably right, though; nobody else would.

"I think we probably didn't bring drugs," Rin said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We want to maintain good relations with our new ally, and opium isn't the way to do that." She cleared her throat. "We are, however, bringing quite a few drugs through my contingent."

Because she was with the hospital, technically, even if Obito still thought of them as a team first and foremost, and Konoha was going to try to sell medical care not only in Iwa but also on the way to and from the celebration.

"Drugs to sell?"

"You know, I don't know. Probably not, though. We wouldn't want them to try to reverse-engineer anything."

Kakashi nodded. "That's true. Hey, Obito—you see those banners they're rolling out now?"

"Yeah." They felt kind of weird, to his sensory vision—they moved fast in the wind, which made the chakra pulses he released to 'see' kind of confused, but he'd sensed enough flags to know the sensation.

"They've got drawings of Sensei on them."

"Really?" Obito asked.

"Yeah, in his favorite cape and with the Hokage hat. He's smiling and everything." Kakashi spoke like he was smiling, and Obito thought, not for the first time, about how happy he was that his teammate had Sensei to look after him.

"They did a good job making him recognizable." Obito said, because he'd heard that description many times before—Konoha had spent a lot of time and energy making sure everybody knew exactly who Sensei was.

"The clothing is doing most of the work," Kakashi moderated. "I mean, it's a good job, but if you take away the getup Sensei just looks like some blond guy."

"Still," Rin said. "I doubt you could do any better."

"You always have to find a problem with any compliment I give, don't you?" Kakashi sniped back.

Obito allowed the bickering of his teammates to wash to the background, taking a moment to scan the perimeter again. They were clear, as usual, but the three of them were meant to be front and center against any threat—not only due to their power, but also due to the statement it would make given their Sensei—so it was good to be on guard.

(In all likelihood, though, the official chakra sensors would know long before he did. It was their job, and he was sure anyone selected for this job had a range far outspanning his own.)

"We should officially check in, shouldn't we, now that we've caught up?" Rin nodded to Obito's question, and Kakashi pointed to one of the wagons. "That one's got a bunch of Hyuuga around it. I bet we should check in there."

"We might also want to tell them about how obvious a cluster of Hyuuga are," Rin murmured.

Obito snorted. "Isn't that the point of this trip? Being seen?"

"Doesn't mean we should sacrifice operational security," Kakashi countered, because he was Kakashi. "Hey, do you think they'll let us sneak away for a bit on the way home? Don our masks again?"

"Because that wouldn't be blatantly obvious." Obito imagined Rin smiling as she said that—she liked poking fun at Kakashi's increasing antsy-ness, especially because she and Obito knew something Kakashi didn't. She just sounded a lot less obvious than most people about her expressions; Obito could always tell when Kakashi or Sensei were smiling, but Rin sounded similar no matter her feelings.

Kakashi groaned. "I'm so bored of no combat, though! This is something different, but it's not as good as a solid fight."

"And you expect to get a solid fight out of bandits?"

"Stop pointing out flaws, and start brainstorming solutions!"

They made it to the tent, and Obito grinned from behind his teammates. "Three troublemakers, here to stir things up!"

That made Rin whip around, slapping him in the arm before he even finished the sentence. "Shut up! Sorry, Team Minato checking in."

To his front-right, he could sense Kakashi shifting; now that Rin had teased him, and Obito had teased both him and Rin, it was Kakashi's turn to go on the attack.

Obito loved his team.

.

Out of all of Research Director Yamanaka's many talents, the one the Chief Officer Yamanaka (of the Intelligence Bureau) liked the most was her knack for creating more-or-less indecipherable code languages.

Once explained, her codes were relatively easy to decrypt—but her use of symbols to stand for multiple similar sounds in some codes (an idea that had been done before, but with more emphasis on one-to-one connections), word substitution and association (with a heavy emphasis on idioms and other culturally-disseminated knowledge), and multiple native Fire oral languages were an excellent blend of secure and easy (for Konohans) to learn.

The seal stuff…

Well, he remembered her blowing things up in her backyard as a young child.

He hadn't really given it much thought.

And now—

Now it turned out that she, and Uchiha Shuji, and about twenty or so other Konoha sealers—had created a sealing technique unique to Konoha.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious. While there was quite a lot of math involved in a functional seal, there was also quite a lot of language—and language was always something Yamanaka Sakura had excelled at.

…It was kind of baffling that no one had noticed that the sealing tradition had strayed so far from its Uzu roots, but then it was very common for master sealers (like Jiraiya, like Minato, like—apparently—Yamanaka Sakura) to put their own spins on things.

(Chief Officer Yamanaka wondered about that.

(Wondered if they could have multiple traditions if every master had put as much emphasis on teaching more sealers as Research Director Yamanaka had.

(Wondered if anyone could convince Sannin Jiraiya to try.)

And now—

Now the possibilities had opened up.

In front of him Yamanaka—no, not Yamanaka—Morino Ibiki sat, not quite able to hide his boredom as he continued to effortlessly translate his guardian's seals, including several seals he had never seen before.

Chief Officer Yamanaka was aware, vaguely, that the boy already spent his hours on watch or working at the reception desk playing with seals, creating some of the more complex designs that the Sealing Division needed, but—

Well.

He'd sort-of assumed that the boy would have gone down the research route if he'd had the talent to follow in his aunt's footsteps.

As it turned out, he did—he just wasn't interested.

And that was the rub: Chief Officer Yamanaka was now very, very interested in what seals could do in his Bureau.

But if he put the boy on only seals he would no doubt leave, seek opportunities more to his liking.

Perhaps…

Perhaps a focus in codebreaking was in order?

And perhaps a class?

It would be good to see how the boy reacted to being put in charge of his seniors, and the more sealers Konoha had the better.

(Especially given Yamanaka Rento's work.

(Chief Officer Yamanaka couldn't wait for the day that came to fruition, and he knew his distant cousin was equally eager.)

Was the Intelligence Bureau unfortunately busy, unfortunately backlogged?

Of course.

But Chief Officer Yamanaka was living through the age of opportunity, and he was going to make the most of it.

.

Ebisu ducked into the alleyway, his heart slamming against his chest.

No-no-no-no-no-no—

"Ebisu, stop!"

Shit.

He'd been spotted.

He'd hoped—

Well, it didn't matter now.

"This'll be quick, okay?"

Quick.

A quick death was unlikely; maybe just a punch?

Ebisu slowly turned around.

There, at the start of the alley, stood Asahi.

He looked—

Better.

Less pallid.

He had his uniform on too, which was a relief. (Ebisu knew that he'd only been temporarily medically suspended, but that hadn't kept him from irrationally fearing that Asahi would quit in an outrage.)

Definitely strong enough to plow Ebisu into the dirt.

"Ebisu, it's okay."

…What?

"I'm not exactly happy about it, but I get why you thought you had to call in help, and I'm not, like—I'm not going to go after you or anything. You can stop running whenever you catch sight of me."

"You don't blame me?"

"…I didn't say that. But, you know, it is what it is. Clearly a bunch of other people agreed with you, and I hadn't even really noticed that you and Aoba were freaking out about it."

"So… you're not going to, like, hurt me or anything?"

Asahi rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't hurt you even if I did think you were acting on malice."

"Oh."

"So just… stop freaking out, okay? Live your life, stop punishing yourself." Asahi smirked. "I know just how badly that can go, after all."

"If… if you're sure."

Asahi rolled his eyes. "Stop being a worrywart. You're jumping at shadows like a mouse."

Ebisu snorted. "Or a pika." Everybody, after all, had heard about that particular summoning.

Asahi smiled. "Or a pika." And then he turned, and left, and Ebisu was staring at the light ducking around the corners of the building, staring at the people bustling back and forth in front of him.

So…

Asahi wasn't going to punch him.

Or yell at him.

Or try to destroy Ebisu's fledgling career.

…Maybe Ebisu had been worrying a bit too much.

…Maybe it was time to learn how to meditate.