It all came down to Sasori.

The teen had no love for Konoha—Hatake Sakumo had been sent on a mission which had conflicted in aims with his parents', and they'd died in the ensuing battle, leaving behind a child who knew his parents' fate and held onto the knowledge with a grudge.

(The alleged Land of Birds Daimyo that had paid for the Hatake's aid had ended up losing, incidentally, and dying at his successor's order. That no doubt narrowed the boy's anger even more.)

That said, the teen had no love for Suna either.

He was a puppet master, was by now more than known to all of Suna's enemies, and he was brutal.

Suna was brutal, after all. Had water now, which was something, but…

But Suna was not natural.

Had not been willingly formed.

Suna had been brought together by force, a mandate that ninja live in the village or be punished, and then when the village lost its river—lost its water—so quickly after it formed—

Suna was a very unhappy place to live.

And Sasori knew that.

He was born into a relatively-respected house, as far as Konoha's intel could tell, but perhaps as a result of his early orphaning, he'd spent far more time with those children whose parents did not have power, those children whose futures were bleakest.

Then he'd grown up.

And he'd begun spending a lot of time with Orochimaru.

(Konoha hadn't known that at the time. Didn't know until Suna and Orochimaru had gone their separate ways. But no matter if they knew it or not, the boy still spent significant time in the man's company.)

Rasa, Kage of Suna, was a cruel man, but he was smart, he was calculating, and he loved power.

Sasori was, to Konoha intelligence, much of the same.

Except that the boy was mad.

He used human puppets, now. Puppets made of human corpses.

The Puppetry Corps in Suna refused to converse with him—his human puppets had been possible in theory long before him, but to the practitioners they were a religious sin, a cultural taboo, a forbidden industry practice.

He had become obsessed with immortality, just the same as Orochimaru.

It was still an odd thing, Alligator thought, to put a madman like him into power.

But the Hokage was right; aiding him would provide many benefits.

And so Alligator crept, crept, crept. Catlike, mouselike, as light-footed as a breeze.

And he waited.

The boy had come up with the plan to assassinate Rasa all on his own; Konoha was just there to ensure his plan succeeded.

And then—

Well, Alligator supposed the teen would make his former liege into a meat puppet, use his far-more-respected body to rule.

…the Kazekage's wife was a bit of a problem, there, especially because she was pregnant, but some of Alligator's compatriots were watching her, ensuring that he hadn't thought to eliminate the obstacle.

Because, of course, while the Hokage wanted Sasori to become Kazekage, to disrupt Suna—he certainly didn't want an insane leader to remain in power.

A year, maybe two—enough time for Rasa's changed behavior to unnerve people, enough time for Sasori to get a message to Orochimaru, ideally lure him into the open—and then Konoha would uncover the farce.

Rasa's infant would simplify a lot of that, ensure Suna wasn't thrown into the sort of chaos that would be hard to predict, hard to control, so they wanted to keep his wife alive.

Not Alligator's job, though. That was Otter's team's task.

Alligator winced as the Kage slumped far into the distance—just within his shunshin range, in fact, but Alligator's sensory range was one of the best in ANBU—and then slowly sat up again.

Well, that was a success, then.

Time to move out—the less evidence of Konoha's presence, the better.

.

So…

Children have temper tantrums.

Really, this shouldn't have been a surprise to Shikaku.

Really, this shouldn't have been noteworthy at all.

Things were never that easy, were they?

Kumiko's tantrum—and her reaction to its results—had thankfully subsided to only sniffling, and as her foster mother cradled her, shushing the girl's final tears, Shikaku turned a critical eye on the many, many saplings that had broken through the nearby roads, gardens, and training grounds.

"Well…" he said.

The ANBU next to him—Gecko—tilted their head. 'What do' they signed.

Which was a good question.

"How many people have seen?"

The tantrum, unluckily, had been a bedtime one, and that meant there were many, many adults out and about.

Shikaku winced at Gecko's estimate.

Okay.

Okay, so first they had to assume Mokuton had gotten out.

But—

But this was a heavily populated area, so in all likelihood they wouldn't be able to narrow down who, exactly, the Mokuton tied back to.

But…

"Backdate some papers alleging that Kumiko is biologically a Nara. That will explain my interest in her, and her love of her foster parents will explain why I haven't simply gotten her adopted into the Nara.

"On the off-chance that Mokuton can remain unnoticed internationally, round up every ANBU that can be spared. I'll help too. We want all the trees—and all evidence—gone as quickly as possible.

"On the far-more-likely chance that somebody with loose lips has noticed, see if any Senju are willing to pretend they've been living in the area. Retired- or active-duty Senju only, please—someone who understands the risks."

The ANBU bowed, disappeared.

Shikaku grit his teeth. He was not looking forward to meeting with Minato later.

More to the point, he had to move quickly—he had a meeting in an hour, and his absence—particularly given how involved he had become—would raise questions.

.

Minato rolled his neck.

The Mokuton was out—nothing to be done about that.

Suna… well he'd already made his choice about that.

But the People's Council plan (put together, unusually, by its civilian members) for the war was a good one. More to the point, it was an Ino-Shika-Cho supported one.

Because they'd heard that Konoha had tried to reason with the Daimyo, with the other political forces that weren't digging at Fire's borders—

That such attempts had failed—

And they'd decided the rejection only meant that Konoha needed to do a little explaining.

He drank some more water, waiting for Sakura to finish reading through the proposal.

"It's smart," she said at last. "But it will also—well, they won't be happy."

Konoha was already poaching civilians, poaching talent. Not gaining friends in high places, certainly, but also targeting the sort of low-skill laborers and sickly folk that the other nations weren't exactly rushing to retain.

"Worse than mere trade embargos, definitely," Minato agreed.

Because it would be.

Because it was one thing to add more taxes, or ban certain goods.

It was quite another—a far different thing—

To flood the other major nations.

To make them as reliant on Konoha as the minor nations.

"We'll have to choose the technologies carefully," Sakura said. "Non-replicable, and only temporary. Something—well, actually, Shin had a request for me too…"

.

Ibiki bent his head quickly, lapping at the drip of ice cream before it could get to his finger. Beside him Asuma kept rambling.

"…and, I really do think I'd be good! Like, I wouldn't, um, be asking if…are you paying attention?"

"Yes," Ibiki lied.

Asuma narrowed his eyes at him, before turning back to his own cone.

This was not the time of year for ice cream—far too cold and dreary—but Asuma had offered and Ibiki was more than willing to let him pay.

"Alright, what was I saying?"

"Letter of recommendation to Uncle Shin. Got it," Ibiki said, because he hadn't tuned Asuma out that long ago.

Asuma's eyes narrowed further. "You're just going to do it? No questions asked?" He took another lap—he had far more ice cream left than Ibiki, given how uneven their conversation had so far been.

"Yeah, sure," Ibiki said. "I mean, you did a lot of diplomacy stuff as a genin, so I bet Diplomacy will take you. I dunno if Uncle Shin'll be able to let you enter at a higher level though."

Asuma groaned. "Why not?" he whined and then—because that whine had been very high-pitched, and Asuma was working hard on tricking everyone into believing his voice had finished cracking—he finished in a much lower register. "I just need to do something, you know. And—and frontlines is something, yeah, but it doesn't really require much thought."

Which… was true, but Asuma had always liked that. "What happened?"

"What what happened?"

"Well something had to have changed."

"No it didn't."

"Yes it did."

"Did not!"

"Did too! This is immature, we shouldn't be acting like this."

Ibiki rolled his eyes. "I'm younger than you, remember. Twelve." And then, to dig the knife in, "My voice has only just started cracking!"

Asuma glared at him. "Kurenai said no."

"What?"

"Kurenai said no."

"Oh. Shit. Sorry, man."

Asuma turned away, shrugging far too nonchalantly. "It's fine."

"What… did she say… why?"

"Couple things," Asuma said. "Mostly just… she thought we should focus on our work. Too young."

"That makes sense," Ibiki said, and wow, Asuma could glare when he wanted to. "I don't mean—I mean she's—her dad's a shinobi, right, but her mom isn't. She was raised in a different sort of situation than us, Asuma. A different class."

"So, for her…"

"For her she needs to focus on doing well. She doesn't have family money and security to fall back on—not that either of us are doing that!—and." And then Ibiki stopped.

Because there are some things that he didn't talk about with Asuma, some things that Asuma didn't take well.

His father, for one. Giant trigger, that.

Also his struggle with languages. He was really embarrassed about that.

"And what?" Asuma said, and Ibiki knew he should have thought ahead a bit more, finished speaking one syllable sooner.

"What?"

"And. What. Ibiki."

Ibiki didn't look at Asuma, focused on his ice cream cone.

"And," he finally said, "and people talk, Asuma. Kurenai likes—she likes being powerful. She likes—she's a lot like you. Prideful. And people talk."

When he chanced to look up, Asuma was staring at his ice cream as it dripped onto his fingers.

"So… people would say things. If we dated. And she went up the ranks."

"Not to you," Ibiki said. "Maybe not to her either. But maybe…"

"And she's worried about that."

"She probably just wants to prove she can stand on her own first."

Asuma's fist clenched enough to crack the cone.

Ibiki's ice cream was finished.

"Everyone should just shut up."

Ibiki… didn't see that as something worth answering. "Want to meet my new friend?" he asked instead.

.

Konoha was sinking.

Not by very much, thankfully, but—

Well, Sakura supposed she should have seen it coming.

Change did, after all, always have an effect.

And forty-seven—nearly forty-eight, now—years ago, this land was…

Well, the Nara just set up houses on the opposite side of the forest.

And the Senju lands—those were in the Forest of Death, now, all past residents driven out by those attracted to Senju Hashirama's initial, far too powerful Hashirama trees.

So it hadn't been unpopulated, exactly, not really, but it also—

Anyway, there was a lot more here, now.

And the city was sinking.

So.

What to do.

(Hadn't Shuji been working with ground?)

.

Nara Taida worked directly for Jiraiya.

Jiraiya, after all, was rarely in Konoha—but Konoha was an easy place to centralize all the information intended for him.

That was Taida's job.

Compiling information, abstracting possible realities, summarizing the huge swaths of information within Konoha's reach into something—

Well, into something.

And today that came down to the report by Nohara Kimiko.

He grimaced, sketching out another note on the edge of another scroll.

Uzu was…

Good for Konoha, in the end.

Gave more space, more defensibility.

Loosened ties within clans while keeping Konoha ties strong.

Allowed for plenty of room for immigrants without allowing their machinations to get to close to Konoha's center.

But, of course, there were downsides too.

…And often, the two sides of the coin were one-and-the-same.

It was a shame, that the conversation she overheard was so brief.

It was a shame, that Taida had already made his own choices about the Kurosoki family, choices he was still unsure about.

It was a shame, that what she heard left open so many possibilities.

Was so hard to decipher.

Some Water immigrants were certainly selling some sort of information about Uzu, but what? And to who? And by who? By families? Individuals? By infiltrators? By people who just wanted money?

And should Taida have some Yamanaka grab them, interrogate them—

Or should Konoha wait, allow them to try to use the knowledge?

The former would provide more security.

Konoha was likely ready to deal with the latter, and doing so would help them on the global stage.

One choice, because any kind of interrogation would no doubt be discovered.

If they still had time to do it, they only had it for a little while.

If not—well, if not the choice was made for them.

One of Jiraiya's toads hopped onto the desk, ready for the weekly dispatch, and Taida—