Chapter 34 -> Part 34

When I woke up properly, I was lying in a hospital bed. There was someone sitting in the corner of the room next to what looked like a crib. I lifted my head slightly and saw one of Sakumo's dogs curled at the foot of the bed.

It was the middle of the night. I didn't feel ready to have anyone fussing over me and asking questions. I didn't want to move, so I spent several hours watching the moonlight rise on the wall in front of me, waiting for it to hit the clock on the wall that was just barely shadowed enough so that I couldn't read it. Out of nowhere, a baby started to cry in the corner of the room. I could see the person sitting in the corner of the room stand up, then heard a male voice humming to the easily calmed infant, but no matter how hard I strained my eyes, I couldn't figure out who it was.

Finally, the man stepped into the moonlight, smiling down at a silver-haired child nursing from a bottle. I almost didn't recognize Sakumo. He wore civilian clothes and his sabre was nowhere to be seen. I just watched, gaping, as he walked past my bed several dozen times, holding the child long after it had fallen back asleep and singing lullabies. Eventually, it turned to speaking, but I couldn't quite understand him. The baby woke once the sky outside began to lighten, making noises back.

A soft knock came from the door before Tsunade pushed her way inside. She laid what I recognized as my medical file on a rolling table then pushed the dog off the bed. At the animal's indignant yelp, Sakumo glanced up and returned the now-sleeping infant to the crib in the corner while the summon disappeared.

Tsunade hovered near the edge of the room and the two had a conversation I couldn't hear, periodically glancing at me. Eventually, Sakumo nodded and slowly walked towards me, his hands held out as if he thought I was going to attack him. "Welcome back, Kichiro," he murmured and sat down on the bed beside me. "There were several extremely powerful Genjutsus on you when you arrived, and you were brought here by both Iwa Jinchuuriki." That was good to know. "You're not under an active Genjutsu right now, as far as we can tell, but it might be a while before you get back on your feet."

Tsunade took over the explanation, but stayed near the door. "You did a passable job healing yourself up so you wouldn't die. Medics managed to patch up everything life-threatening, but they can't do anything until they know you're free of the Genjutsus. Someone from the interrogation department will have to take you through the captive recovery program."

I opened my mouth to respond, but Sakumo shook his head. "Don't try to talk, your throat is extremely raw, you'll only hurt yourself.

Tsunade continued. "You don't have any way to determine whether or not this is a Genjutsu, which is why we haven't given you any information you can't get on your own. Anything we tell you now will be called into question later."

I nodded.

"Basically, captive recovery is just to force you to dispel any Genjutsus the medics missed, make sure you're clear of anything anyone might have put inside of you, seals that might have been applied, and there's no latent injuries, then a Yamanaka will go through your memories since you left to get a more accurate report, since only they can tell the difference between a Genjutsu memory and a real one."

I nodded again, I already knew the procedure, I had to perform it twice before the war began on several Genin who wouldn't allow any adults near them after being imprisoned by bandits for a week.

Sakumo glanced at Tsunade and she knocked twice on the door to let in a small man with fake glasses. Sakumo left with his son, immediately followed by Tsunade, leaving us alone. Before doing anything, the man blacked out the windows and lit a candle, placing it on a rickety table between us.

Dispelling a general Genjutsu in battle was simple and straightforward, a pulse of chakra usually did the trick. When targeted directly with a Genjutsu, it gets harder, simply because whoever is doing the targeting knows how their target thinks and how to make sure they don't even realize they were in the Genjutsu to begin with. Even then, once identified, it could be dispelled the same as a general one. In battle, Genjutsu was a distraction, like throwing sand in the opponent's face or rolling marbles underneath their feet to get some breathing room. With time and some talent, it could be used on a captured opponent, and if they're properly restrained, they are unable to dispel it, whether they know they're under a Genjutsu or not. A Genjutsu master could layer countless Genjutsus, each only altering a tiny aspect of their reality, until there was no way to determine what was real and what wasn't.

It was terrifying to think about and even worse in practice, though it was an effective way to get information, because it could twist reality until their thoughts were vocalized. I resigned myself to learning an entirely new code system for messages.

The most disturbing part was that the Kyuubi didn't or couldn't break me out of them.

I was glad my stomach was empty, because I snapped several Genjutsus that had altered my sense of balance and general equilibrium. The man walking me through the process never gave his name, and I didn't ask.

It didn't take long for me to give up on keeping track of time. The candle never seemed to burn down and I figured he didn't want me knowing how much time passed.

I wasn't exactly sure when I passed out from exhaustion, but when I woke, the man and the candle were gone and the room was lit by faint sunlight. Sakumo sat on the bed beside me, one hand on the side of my face, the other holding tight to my hand.

He smiled lightly as I made eye contact with him.

I opened my mouth to say something, I didn't know what, but he shook his head. "Don't try to talk, it'll only hurt." Sakumo shifted and put both hands gently on either side of my head, then pressed his forehead against mine. "You're safe, I promise," he said quietly, looking directly into my eyes before pulling away when the door opened. A Yamanaka stood on the other side of the bed. "Kichiro, Kichiro calm down and look at me," Sakumo said. I didn't even realize I was hyperventilating. "Kichiro, just focus on me."

"No—" I managed to say, but Sakumo was right, it hurt to force out the words. "Don't—" Sakumo pulled me upright and held me tightly against his chest, my face turned away from the Yamanaka.

"No one is going to hurt you, Kichiro. You're safe here."

Before I could protest, another hand was on the back of my head and I was unconscious.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed once I woke up, but Sakumo was pacing back and forth with an infant in his hands, crooning at the child. After a few minutes, he realized I was awake and sat down beside me, quietly introducing me to the child. I barely registered he was speaking. Only then did I truly realize that something had gone horribly wrong. I tried to skim through my memories, but there were gaps, massive gaps that were either from extremely dangerous Genjutsu or a powerful assortment of seals. I tried to sit up, but my muscles weren't responding. Sakumo disappeared for a moment then returned without the infant. Tsunade appeared seconds later alongside another medic I vaguely recognized as the Sandaime's wife. I fell limp as both leaned over me.

After a minute of watching healing chakra course through my torso, Tsunade murmured something to Sakumo and left. The Sandaime's wife ended the jutsu a minute later and followed Tsunade.

Sakumo gathered me up in his arms and just talked, repeatedly carding his fingers through my hair. I turned my face away from him to hide the tears dripping out of my eyes. An IV stuck out of my hand and I noticed that I had lost a significant amount of body fat and muscle. My body was young enough to regain it reasonably quickly, but I didn't remember losing the weight.

When I finally calmed down, Sakumo offered me a small bowl filled with some kind of liquid and a straw sticking out of it.

"It's just broth. You don't have to finish it, we just have to see if you can keep food down. Your stomach was damaged and the medics need to know how well it healed.

The smell made me hungry. With shaking hands, I guided the straw to my mouth with the hand that wasn't bandaged against my chest while Sakumo held me upright. When I had sucked down a quarter of the broth, Sakumo pulled it away and waited for it to settle in my stomach. When there were no ill effects, he let me consume the rest. I was still hungry, but Sakumo didn't offer anything more and my throat hurt too much to ask.

He laid me back on the bed and stared into my eyes with an unreadable expression. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. When I woke again, Sakumo was gone and Kushina was lying on the bed beside me with a book propped up on the pillow beside my head.

"Nii-chan!" She exclaimed when she saw my eyes open.

My lips cracked as they stretched into a smile and the muscles ached, but I ignored it and just reached up to hug her.

"You're back," she breathed as she buried her face in my shoulder. Her touch was gentle, barely there.

"I'm back." I responded, my throat aching. "I'm sorry I left. I shouldn't have."

"It's okay, Nii-chan. You didn't have a choice. You never would have left if it wasn't important."

"I feel like I have something important to tell you but I can't remember what it is."

Kushina sat up on the bed. I relaxed against her hand as she brushed my bangs off my forehead and gently stroked my cheek, tracing one of the thin white scars I couldn't explain. "The Yamanaka said he managed access your memories from while you were in Iwa, however he said he didn't want to try to unlock the memories."

"Did they tell you what was in them?"

"No, everything about you is so classified that only Sakumo-sensei, the Hokage, and one or two others know. I was told that not even the Yamanaka was allowed to remember anything." She gently pulled the sheets off my torso to reveal more bandages than I expected—I thought I healed much more than that. "Is there any pain? Can you breathe?"

"I'm fine," I responded, wincing as she laid a hand over where I remembered the sword going in. The heat from her skin burned through the cool, damp bandages. It wasn't particularly painful, but I couldn't stop myself from tensing and squeezing my eyes shut. I was tired of the pain, sick of it. When I glanced down, there were several pinpricks of red soaking through the white linen. My right arm was bound against my chest, and the rest of my limbs were loosely restrained with bandages. The injuries were bad. "Can you unwrap it so I can see?" I asked her as pleasantly as I could, but her expression went from worried to irritated in an instant.

Instead of hitting me, she pinched my side. I tried to roll away, but couldn't move more than an inch.

The restraints were a recent addition, probably added after the last time I was awake and somewhat coherent for an extended period. I knew for a fact they weren't present before.

"Tsunade-sama says you should know your limits. Everything has been taken care of. You have nothing to worry about. Hokage-sama said that once you started talking to us, I would be given leave for a few months to stay with you while you recovered."

"You mean, the Hokage wants me under guard and Sakumo can't do it."

She grimaced. "No, I used my accumulated leave time to be here. This doesn't have anything to do with any scheming."

"I'm sorry, Kushina, I didn't mean—"

"It's okay. You can have a look at your file to see what the deal is. Your chakra is still a bit wonky from the Genjutsus, so I wouldn't recommend messing with it just yet." She put the folder across my hips, untied the restraints, and hurried out.

The room was empty except for a crib in the corner with a sleeping infant. I slowly propped myself up to look at the file, but it was all coded and gave me a headache trying to break the new code.

Several minutes later, arguing voices approached my door.

"—finished making sure of his loyalties less than an hour ago. You can't interrogate him already."

"Only Uchiha Madara has ever been reported to be capable of controlling the Kyuubi, and you confirmed that you're the only loyal Uchiha who might, might be capable of such a feat. Someone else has that ability and we need to know who." I automatically recognized the Hokage's voice.

"It can wait." Kagami responded firmly.

"It cannot, we've been fighting Iwa for months, and suddenly I'm finding out they may have more skills in reserve and our entire village could be compromised! I can't afford to wait!"

"He thinks he's been gone for six months!"

"I can't help whatever they did to him—"

"It was your mistakes that put him there in the first place!"

"I did the best I could."

"We can't do anything about the Genjutsu user, whether they're from Iwa or not. The boy is barely aware of where he is, much less what happened. Give him a break, time to process what is going on."

"There is no time. He's safe here, that's going to have to be enough."

"Stop and think about what you're doing before you go in there, Hiruzen. The boy already hates you because of that damned seal you put on him. The Yamanaka already went through his head and told you everything."

"Some of his memories were indecipherable."

"No matter how intelligent he is, he's still a child. Those memories are from before the war began, there's no indication that they have any connection. He's good at communicating his thoughts, but he's not perfect." The Yamanaka should not have looked at anything except what happened in Iwa. The violation of protocol irritated me, but I decided not to press the issue.

"You know that's not the reason, the Yamanaka said as much."

"Time and time again that boy has proven himself trustworthy and reliable. This antagonistic suspicion is completely unwarranted!"

"Kagami, you know as well as I that he's hiding something."

"You already confronted Sakumo about it, and he said he knew what it was. You can trust him."

"Can I? I trusted Danzō, only to find out he was going behind my back. The boy called him out on it like it was obvious!"

"Danzō made some mistakes, but he's still loyal and has proven it several times over! Did you ever ask the boy how he knew?"

"I was a bit preoccupied at the time with the two of them fighting in the middle of my office, the Kyuubi about to escape, and potential treason."

"Is that why you're suspicious of him? Because he noticed something you missed?"

"I asked Danzō about it, he has no knowledge of how the boy figured it out, and your student knows nothing of the situation."

"Of course he wouldn't admit to a then-nine-year-old inadvertently finding a hole in a network he managed to hide from everyone else. I don't know anyone who would, including you and me. For all we know, he has a perfectly reasonable and intelligent explanation for everything. Unless you can prove he's untrustworthy, leave him be. The Namikaze boy and his sister have done some impressive stunts to make sure they could spend time with him. Somehow, despite everything, this war hasn't corrupted their innocence, so I'm advising you to let the matter lie. Over the course of this war, the three of them, as Genin, have done more for village morale than any Jōnin, and that includes you. Don't ruin it." Kagami stomped away.

After a long pause, there was a tentative knock at the door. I held my breath and didn't respond.

"Hokage-sama?" Sakumo's voice called out several seconds later.

"Hatake-san, I was just looking for you. Did you get the report on the ANBU patrol sent to assist the Chuunin on the Kiri border?"

"With all due respect, Hokage-sama, I officially retired from ANBU several months ago, I'm no longer authorized to report on ANBU activities. Are you alright?"

"I apologize, I'm just a little distracted right now."

"Are you ready to speak with Kichiro? Tsunade-hime said he would be waking up within the hour and you mentioned that you would need to."

A long pause preceded his answer. "No, no, it's not urgent. When will you be able to return to service?"

"Three days ago, my infant son was placed in the Bingo books and we agreed that I would be taken off active duty instead of leaving his defense to a team and holding up more resources."

"Your wife—"

"My wife died in childbirth," Sakumo cut in coldly.

"Right, my condolences. Apologies, I have work to do."

"Perhaps you should wait here to see Biwako-sama when she comes by. You don't look too well."

"Thank you, but no, I have work to do."

"You've said. I have to ask you to verify your identity." Sakumo growled, suspicious.

The walls hummed to life across the walls and door. An infant's wail sounded from the crib and I realized I wasn't alone in the room. Sakumo started to knock out a code I could barely hear on the wall. I slid out of the bed and walked on wobbly legs to the baby's crib. I made my hand glow with medical ninjutsu and held it just out of the child's reach, which immediately captivated the infant. I could control my chakra just fine, but I wasn't ready to attempt jutsu or heal anyone except myself. I didn't dare touch the infant while the Hokage responded with a verification code, or three.

A few seconds later, the security seals went down and Sakumo quickly entered, closing the door behind him, a bottle for the baby in one hand and a burp rag in the other.

"Did you just threaten the Hokage with a bottle?" I asked, hoarse.

"Kichiro!" He spun around in alarm. "You're awake! You're standing!"

"Yeah, babies crying and a very dangerous seal, that would kill a gnat without a verified chakra signature, activating is a bit difficult to sleep through."

"Sorry about that, I overreacted. Kakashi was born, then you came back with two Jinchuuriki and looking like hell, then some idiot put a bounty on Kakashi's head."

"Kakashi?"

"My son." He gestured proudly at the baby staring at my glowing hand. "Almost a month old!"

I didn't think Sakumo would even hear the response I wanted to give because Kakashi had caught sight of his father and was smiling in his direction.

Sakumo tucked the bottle into his pocket and lifted the child into one arm and throwing the other around my shoulders, steering me back to the bed. "Tsunade-hime will skin me alive if she finds out I let you walk around before you got one last check over."

"I'm fine." I protested. I wasn't fine. My limbs were shaky, but not as emaciated as my delirious memory recalled. My chakra felt strange and my balance was off, not to mention the ache from the injuries. I was well enough to be discharged though.

"Well, you're a bag of bones, so we'll go out and get you something as soon as she shows up and gives the all-clear. In fact, if you hold Kakashi, and feed him, I can get Tsunade right now. I'm sure you're more than ready to get out of the hospital. We're all ready for you to get out."

As soon as I sat down, Sakumo placed Kakashi in my arms and stuck the bottle in the baby's mouth. He was kind enough to leave the burp cloth before he zipped out of the room.

Before I could adjust my grip on Kakashi, who looked like he was about to cry at Sakumo's disappearance, he returned with Tsunade in tow.

"Hatake-san, I don't understand what the rush is!" Tsunade protested impatiently.

"I want some time with my student before his family of hellions get their claws in him and I don't see him for a few months."

Tsunade sighed in exasperation, but didn't refute the point as she performed a basic health assessment while I struggled with Kakashi. I swear he was giving me an evil grin and squirming just to give me trouble. In the back of my mind, something wondered why she didn't just use a diagnostic jutsu, but I ignored it in favor of not dropping the child of one of the deadliest ninja in the village.

"Take your spawn, Sakumo, he's being mean on purpose."

"He likes you!" Sakumo protested.

"You may be alright with getting tortured by an infant, but the rest of us aren't. At least the child isn't screaming again at being supposedly abandoned." Tsunade scowled as her hands flew through the familiar routine.

"It would be easier if you used chakra," I noted quietly to her.

Tsunade stiffened, but responded in a stiff voice. "I can't use medical ninjutsu anymore."

I frowned, not understanding. Tsunade glanced at Sakumo. "It's too much of a risk for him not to know," he said, sighing.

She took a deep breath and pulled two slips of paper off the inside of her wrists. My stomach churned as the disguise on her hands faded away to reveal deep scars around her fingers, hands, wrists, and halfway up her forearms. It had been a long time since I last treated anyone but myself, but just by looking at the scars, I could figure out what happened. Tsunade's hands had been bound with ninja wire and it had severed too many nerves for any other medic to repair. I'd healed several cases like that before, where not only the nerves were practically destroyed, but the chakra pathways as well. If the victim was bound for too long, the nerves would die and the chakra pathways would shrivel. Before I left, I hadn't had a chance to explain more than the basics of my technique to heal it, making me the only one able to help her. From the way she manipulated things in her hands, the seals gave her some control, but it needed her chakra, which was drawn from the undamaged tenketsu higher on her arm, but it was impossible to learn to heal others with new tenketsu once a ninja left their teenage years, their chakra just wasn't flexible enough. Using jutsu wasn't too big of a challenge, but medical techniques required much more control.

Tsunade pulled back and reapplied the seals before I could determine what I needed to do to fix the damage. "It's too late, even for you, Kichiro. The scar tissue has set."

I shook my head. "It would hurt like hell, but it's not too late. It's a simple surgery, It shouldn't take more than a half hour. I just have to destroy the scar tissue, reattach and reawaken the nerves, then the chakra pathways—"

"Chakra pathways? I thought you said you used a seal!"

"Not an actual seal, just part of the theory behind one. It only works on the chakra pathways."

"We'll talk about this later," Tsunade stated. "Kichiro, you're good to go, all three of you, out, now."

Sakumo picked me up, baby and all, and was out the window before I could say a word.

We landed outside his house and he set me down, taking Kakashi from me with ease. "Come on, takeout should be on its way."

"Where are my real clothes?" I asked, looking down at the hospital shirt and shorts.

"They went directly into the trash, the stuff that was in your pockets are in a box at my home. Somehow, your weapons made it back with you, as well as some of your gear, it's all sealed in a scroll, which is also in the box. I got you some new civilian clothes and put them under the sink in the main guest bathroom. Go down this hall and take your first right, then it'll be the second door on your left. I'll be in the main room right here." He jerked his head towards the room to the left. I nodded and set out.

To be frank, the house was huge. While the Hatake clan only had a small handful of members, it was made up entirely of well-respected Jōnin. Or, at least it was before the war. I was nearly certain Sakumo and Kakashi were the last two survivors. I found the bathroom without a problem and decided to bathe before returning to Sakumo. I sat in the tub and filled it with a few inches of hot water, painstakingly unwinding the bandages and healing myself. It took an hour and I had to empty the tub several times and refill it with clean water, but after an hour, what was left of the damage was nothing but dull pain and bright scarring. I could have healed the scar, but I chose not to. Scars like that could come in handy and I could always heal it later if I needed to. I pulled on the clothes then headed back to where Sakumo was feeding baby Kakashi.

I sat down across from him. "You have questions," he murmured as Kakashi started to drift off to sleep.

"How long was I gone?" I asked. I thought it had only been six months at the most, but I didn't trust my memory.

"Just over seventeen months."

I stiffened. "You're wrong, you have to be. It couldn't have been more than five or six months."

"I'm certain. It's the first week of October now."

"Where did I miss the time?"

"The Yamanaka said various sections of your memory had been intentionally locked away, which warped your sensation of time. He couldn't figure out how, but due to the content, he didn't try to undo it. Eventually, they will fail, but hopefully not until Konoha is in a position to handle the backlash they will cause on you. We're most concerned with the effects of the Genjutsu. Luckily, it wasn't as long-term as we originally feared. The day you spent with the Gobi Jinchuuriki until you started the dispelling process was influenced by Genjutsu. Not even the Yamanaka could determine what was real or not. We suspect it was from a third party, mostly because it wasn't manipulating you, just tormenting you by magnifying the pain, feeding you false images in the place of reality, causing you to move in ways that prevented further healing. The Jinchuuriki were significantly worse off, under a Genjutsu that forced loyalty for several years, if not more, but exposure to the Kyuubi's chakra in Iwa broke it and they faked it well enough until they could grab you and run."

"Are they still here?"

"Yes. They claimed they were willing to do anything to gain a village's trust and prove their loyalty once they had your assurance that Konoha was the right village, but they refuse to become missing-nin."

I slumped back in the chair, almost sliding off. Sakumo laid Kakashi on a thick blanket on the floor when a knock sounded from the door.

He returned a minute later with the takeout, which he placed on the coffee table and motioned me down to sit across from him. "Eat," he ordered, pushing a box towards me. I had no problem obeying. I was starved. As I grabbed the chopsticks, I realized it was nothing more than miso broth and a few vegetables. I reluctantly put the utensils down and picked up the bowl to slurp up the broth while Sakumo dug into a much more appetizing plate filled with meat and rice.

"There's more you're not telling me," I stated as I debated whether it was worth risking upsetting my stomach by stealing some of the more substantial food off his plate.

"There's a lot I shouldn't tell you."

"I'm sure you can say how Iwa reacted to their Jinchuuriki kidnapping me." Sakumo slapped my hand as I stealthily tried to snatch a bite of fish from him. I still managed to get the bite to my mouth.

"Iwa broke the treaty two months after it was established by having one of their clans attack Konoha. The Aburame were almost entirely responsible for driving them off. A second, much larger assault force made it partway into the Land of Fire before a group of sixteen Konoha Jōnin used a suicide jutsu to wipe out almost half of them. They retreated, but in the past few months, they've nearly regained the ground lost." Sakumo didn't meet my eye and his tone was flat.

"You were there," I surmised, abandoning my attempt to steal another bite.

"Yes," he answered quietly. "Kagami-sensei was in charge and most of the force sent out to stall Iwa had already died, it was just the core leftover. Sensei was in the thickest of the fighting and I was running support alone, trying to make up for the Chuunin who died. I was about to send up the signal for reinforcements, when one of the Jōnin ran back and ordered me to retreat as fast as I could. I started to pull back, but didn't get far before the Jōnin linked their arms and made a seal I didn't recognize. The entire battlefield stopped to watch in morbid fascination. Sensei figured out what they were doing and barely managed to get behind them, out of the line of fire. I don't know what they did, but I could only describe it as their spirits leaving their bodies. They swept through the battlefield in a long chain and anyone they touched died instantly. Iwa fled and in a minute, Kagami and I were the only living people left."

I lost my appetite in a hurry and set my chopsticks down.

"You coming back hasn't helped or hurt anything but our peace of mind."

"An entire division was lost in one battle?" I asked hollowly.

"Three divisions were sent out. It was a suicide mission to begin with, Kichiro. Two people came back and it was two people more than expected. We faced the entirety of Iwa's invasion force and put them on the run after five days of battle."

"That's a hundred and fifty people, at least, dead in a single battle, not including Iwa's casualties."

"Two hundred and eight Konoha ninja died in that battle. Most battles haven't been that costly, but there will be another one like it in the near future." Sakumo let that sink in before changing the topic of conversation to Kakashi. Over the next hour, I learned more about the month-old infant than I cared to.

I didn't ask about his wife, I didn't want to—I didn't want to know what happened. I could tell Sakumo was using everything he could to distract himself from her death. I let him ramble on until we finished eating. Only then did Sakumo direct the conversation back towards catching me up on events in the village.

Kiri and Suna had been completely defanged and were staying out of further conflict. Most of Suna's fighting force had been decimated. Sakumo boasted about how he figured out a way to cut the strings the puppet brigade with his unique sabre and attacked them directly, shattering the last of Suna's supposedly ironclad defense, which I had cracked with immunizations to their poisons. Even though he knew I would disapprove, he told me that Konoha had methodically cut down anyone who opposed them once they entered the village, civilian or shinobi, and destroyed any goods Suna could use for anything more than feeding themselves. If Suna had hard times before the war, their situation was ten times worse now. They wouldn't be raising a military for a long time, and it would be at least a decade before they started to recover.

In Kiri, because the Mizukage had chosen to surrender rather than follow in Suna's footsteps and lose most of his core fighting force in one go, the entire Land of Water was divided on the issue and it was extremely likely a civil war would break out as soon as the side opposing the Mizukage gained a leader.

I listened impassively, doing my best to detach myself from the implications and only taking in the facts.

Kumo knew when they had been beat and would have done almost anything to stop the periodic Bijū rampages. A promise of peace with Konoha was worth it, though only the Raikage and the highest ranked shinobi knew they gave up one Bijū to secure the other. The Hachibi Jinchuuriki, B, had sent several letters addressed to me through the diplomatic channels after an attempt to sneak off to visit me had failed when he was caught by Konoha patrols and sent home with a handful of bruises and a damaged pride. It was a good thing Konoha had a policy on only killing aggressive foreign Genin and tossing the rest back over the border a little roughed up. Content that Konoha wasn't greedy and willing to maintain the treaty where any other village would have broken it, Kumo opened negotiations for an alliance, which Konoha snapped up like a starving child scrounging for fallen pieces of rice.

Outside of the village, Konoha was holding its own against Iwa, and buddying up with Kumo. Inside, Konoha was a mess. I had easily put down the first civilian protest, but as soon as the Hokage regained control, the civilians rioted.

Enough ninja made it back to protect the shinobi clans from attacks and vandalism, as well as the merchants and shop owners who supplied shinobi. The Hokage created an actual program for the retired shinobi and Academy students, which led to an increase in Academy enrollment from the civilian sector. Children older than six didn't need parental consent to join said program, they only needed a retired shinobi, a significant number of whom banded together to create a formal roster to make it easier for the civilian children to approach them and find sponsors. Even though the Academy had been suspended, Genin were still making it into the ranks and with the help of the rest of the retirees, they were gaining the skills they needed to be promoted to Chuunin, even without their Jōnin senseis. The only rank not receiving a regular influx of new blood was Jōnin. The standards for Genin and Chuunin had been relaxed, but no one dared to mess with the standards for Tokubetsu Jōnin and Jōnin. Genin were now forced to run supplies and deliver orders into the field due to the losses the Chuunin had taken over the course of the war. Even so, for both groups, assignments to the front lines rarely lasted more than a few weeks for the most experienced; however, Jōnin assignments lasted for months at a time, and they were often forced to take back-to-back missions.

I knew it had to be worse for ANBU; they had to do it all without being seen, without the support and recognition Jōnin received.

The anti-shinobi sentiment only seemed to increase when the mentorship program exploded with success, which was one of the reasons the Hokage started to let the Genin run missions outside of the village, and created a boarding program to keep Academy students and Genin from being swayed away from shinobi life because of their parents or other adults.

Before I left, the martial law had been almost nonexistent and all the Hokages had taken a nonviolent approach, caving to most civilian demands, such at stopping ninja recruitment from civilian schools and public civilian places. Now, the Sandaime had been forced to institute the strictest laws and enforcement of them they had ever seen and the civilians were chafing against it. There was a 'single warning' policy the civilians hated the most. If they were caught breaking a rule, they would receive a red mark on the back of their hand that wouldn't wash off for several weeks. If they were caught again before the mark faded, they were fined or executed, depending on the severity. Illegal assembly and speech were executable offenses. Keeping lights on after curfew was fined.

What surprised me was that only full Jōnin and ANBU were exempt from the rules.