Okay, so this might not have been Anneia's smartest idea ever. She thought she would catch the Compact girl by surprise (which she did) close to the city, so she wouldn't be able to just straight up glass her (which seems to have worked as intended), but she didn't think the fight would go on for so long (it has). Anneia's starting to get a little tired! But she's seen some cool tricks. That thing with throwing the sword only it turns out to be an illusion and the girl's run sofastwow around to her blind side with the real sword, that was neat. She's got a trick of her own left still though, which is why she thought she could do this in the first place.

If she can just- whoops don't get your leg blown off by that blast- just stand still long enough to charge it up, dammit.

Tch, almost had her with that. She's agile, Tasara'll give her that much. Needs to work on her battlefield awareness, though. She's too focused on trying to prep a big piece of magic whenever she gets a moment to notice the pit Tasara has been slowly building and herding her towards. Just a few more steps-

Then there's a lurch, the world twisting into black around them, and they're falling for a half beat, and then the world untwists - somewhere else.

There's figures in blank white masks and an old man surrounding a boy in his late teens. The boy's stumbling back, clutching at his bleeding eye - which the old man seems to be holding.

-wait, what the hell?

Ha, an opening! Anneia jumps up and focuses her magic into an enormous hammer, the head glowing brightly as she imbues it further. She brings it down in an overhand smash as she falls, aimed directly at the other girl.

Tasara whips her head around and has just enough time to flare her ward, focusing power at the projected point of impact-

-she has just enough time to feel the resistance and think to herself, oh, shit-

-and then there is light, and heat, and anywhere within fifteen yards of their position is a very bad place to be.

Anneia is launched backwards through the air and hits the ground hard.

That didn't exactly work out.

The masked people had gotten well out of the way of the suddenly appearing fighters.

The guy who's currently missing an eye got out of the way of the blast, but isn't as thoroughly out of the way as it looks like he'd like to be. He mostly seems like he's looking for an opening to run away.

The possible eye thief is looking at them warily. "Who are you, and what is your business here?" the older man snaps, voice authoritative.

Oh wait what this isn't the right place. Who are these guys? She thinks about getting up but on second thought she's going to stay down a while longer.

Her colorful outfit vanishes in a flash of light, revealing the form-fitting body armor she was wearing before.

Okay, the Domain girl isn't getting up. She can spare the attention for these strangers.

"That depends. I am Tasara, Executor of the Polemarch. Why have you taken that boy's eye?"

"Not your concern," says the man. "You are trespassing. I am operating with the full lawful authority - "

"Like shit you are," snaps the boy. His eye hurts, and he's pretty damn sure that pretzeling of time and space that preceded them was thanks to him trying a last-ditch eye technique. Apparently it summons people. Possibly random people, from how they're acting. Whoops. They might be enemies of Konoha, even if he doesn't recognize the 'Polemarch', but it's pretty damn obvious anyone getting their eye stolen probably has a valuable doujutsu, so doesn't hurt to say - "He's after my eye's power - "

Danzo aims a brace of kunai at him, forcing Shisui to dodge. It's almost insultingly easy. He might be injured and down an eye and dizzy in a way that suggests someone's poisoned him, but he's not slow.

(There's still too many of Danzo's goons for him to make an easy break, but if they're focused on the girls as a threat - )

She makes a swatting motion and a glow of light bats the knives from the air.

"As Executor, I am an embodiment of the Polemarch's rule and her law travels with me. I hereby find you in violation thereof, by willful and reckless endangerment, mutilation, and incitement to violence. Lay down your weapons and surrender yourselves to custody."

"The only authority here is the Hokage's," the man says, though he looks wary. "Your 'Polemarch' carries none here."

"...As the one with his eye torn out, can we please not involve foreign powers in this," the boy groans. Killing him's fine and something Shisui can run with! Subduing him for Konoha arrest gives him time to wriggle out, especially since Shisui isn't convinced the Hokage won't side with Danzo again, but, again, Shisui can manage that. Bringing him to a non-Konoha place is a no. "We have our own justice system." That even mostly functions some of the time!

"Lay down your weapons and surrender," she repeats. "Or I will subdue you."

The man gestures, and the masked figures attack her while he goes to seal the eye into a scroll. The boy sighs and backs slightly out of the possible blast radius, remaining eye red and keenly watching for any openings.

They're faster than she was expecting. And they have magic, even the males. It's a strange kind, but not anything that poses a serious risk of actually hurting her. Shrugging off a blow that might have eviscerated an ordinary person, she adjusts her reflexes upwards and summons her own sword into her hands, long blade gleaming bone-white and leaving a trail of fire flickering in the air as she spins, clearing the immediate area and launching herself at the old man.

There's suddenly a giant tapir-like monster that appears between them in a cloud of smoke, which immediately begins trying to suck her into its snout. Fire blooms around her, courtesy of a figure she missed.

The boy downs a few figures that go for him. He's significantly faster than even them, and currently sticking just to weapons but making a strong account of himself all the same.

She tucks her arms in tight and flares magic around her, a chaotic maelstrom. She drills right through the creature, ignoring the fire entirely. When she makes it through, her first objective is to cut off the man's hands and secure the eyeball.

He's fast, but not fast enough, and she succeeds - 

And then he flickers, and her blow never landed.

He goes to retreat.

What-

-worry about it later. Stomp, and the ground around him ripples like a disturbed pond, and then she's on him again.

He keeps his feet apparently rather easily, sending a massive wind scythe towards her, strong enough to damage even the toughest known defences of his world.

His injuries continue flickering out.

Okay, maybe she does have to worry about it now. She crosses her arms in front of her and the wind parts like a storm sliding around a mountain.

Some kind of cheat death. Rapid healing? No, changed position. Temporal rewind? Not generalized, only he's jumping, hideously expensive, unlikely to be kept up this long. Dimensional interference, pulling from realities where the attack didn't happen? Usually requires setup, also expensive, have to be pretty paranoid to have it ready while attacking a teenager with a gang of backup. Best guess she's got. Counterward is too finicky to set without a distraction, but she doesn't see an obvious power source so he won't be able to maintain it for long, minutes at most. Experience tells her she's got fifteen minutes of high exertion left herself. So dial back enough to conserve without giving him a chance to slip away or set up something more complicated. Keep landing hits. When they start to stick around, put him down hard and call being able to ask questions a secondary priority.

The flickering lasts a minute. He takes minor injuries that rapidly heal afterwards, and then the next time she lands a debilitating or life threatening blow it starts up again.

He manages to get a purple, shimmering barrier up at one point, that's almost strong enough to withstand her harder blows. 

As the fight progresses, there are small oddities in addition to the flickering - the world is maybe a hair too consistent, almost not fully reacting to the power she's flinging around, at least not like she'd expect.

That is odd. Odd enough, in fact, that she's willing to spend more power than usual on this next area effect. She curls up in a tight ball protected by a shimmering field of force. After charging it for a couple seconds, it expands explosively, devastating everything in its path.

It fades -

He's just fine, the area around them devastated.

And something locks her in place, paralyzing her.

That's new. No obvious bindings, at combat levels any poisons would have already been purged, leaving hostile magic. Magic is beaten by more magic, so she spikes hers inward, increasing her strength and strains against whatever is holding her still.

It takes a lot of straining -

But she's able to shatter the binding.

The old man had, apparently, started retreating again, only to be cut off by the boy, who's more keeping him in place than anything, landing light blows too quick for the human eye to track that nevertheless heal.

Then she can skip the 'get him to stand still' step and move straight to the 'disabling blow' step.

He starts the flickering again.

The boy backs off, apparently conserving energy.

The man doesn't manage to get another seal engaged on her, though, and when the flickering stops this next time it doesn't start again. He tries forming a wooden wall around himself, branches lashing out at her and attempting to wrap around her. They're unnaturally strong, but no match for her own power, and as he grows more desperate his right arm twists, turning into a tree as his energy fails, forcing him to detach from it.

He's unable to maintain much of a resistance, after that.

Good, then maybe she won't have to kill him to get him to stop fighting. Once he's down, she conjures glowing chains that snap around his neck, ankles, and remaining wrist.

He goes down.

The boy straightens and walks over, then drags a hand down his face. Honestly, killing Danzo and disposing of the body is going to be the least trouble at this point, so - "You wouldn't happen to mind killing him? Or leaving him with me to face local justice?" He's not going to win a fight with this woman, though she seemed - not vulnerable, but not immune to genjutsu, so if she becomes an issue he still has just enough chakra for kotoamatsukami.

"First I would repair you eye, if we can find what he did with it. And second, to learn more about the particulars of this place, now that your life is no longer in immediate danger."

"He sealed it. I should be able to undo the seal easily enough; I can doll emergency medical techniques, which should be enough for getting to an actual medic. Where are you from? That twist felt extra-dimensional."

Sealed? Pocket space? She searches the old man for the scroll she saw in his hand.

"Most recently, the planet Anietch, in the Tinmdal Cluster. Just outside of Javersn."

"Don't recognize it. And as far as I know we're just on the one planet. Sorry about that," he says. "I can retrieve things from the scroll, including my eye - oh, also, what're you planning on doing with him?" Because Shisui would rather be able to honestly say he didn't kill Danzo, and he'd also rather not have to fight the woman to keep Konoha's secrets in Konoha.

"It is not generally the practice of the Polemarch to support summary execution, but in the present circumstances I do not think she will be terribly upset with me. I have neither the facilities nor the knowledge to keep him confined long term, and he clearly poses a present threat. Unless your own judiciary is near enough to take custody of him and competent enough to punish him, I will obtain from him fuller details of his crime, and then kill him."

"I can provide the details on what he was doing now. Full, exhaustive details likely involves state secrets; surely you understand why remanding someone who committed a crime on Konoha soil, against a Konoha shinobi, is against policy. He's also going to be trained against any interrogation technique known here, up to and including straight-up mindreading, unless your powers work very differently?"

"Tell me your story then," she says, "starting with your name." She extends glowing lines of force to the chains and lifts the man off the ground, turning to walk back to where she started the fight.

"Uchiha Shisui. I was interfacing between him and another party. I had a plan for reducing hostilities, which he disagreed with. He decided it would be best to kill me and take my bloodline ability for himself, and then presumably handle negotiations his own way."

"What is a bloodline ability?"

"Genetic traits? Specifically ones tied to certain abilities, like the Hozuki have a bloodline that allows them to reshape their bodies as water." Best to use a non-Konoha example, and one well known enough it doesn't reveal the state of their intelligence.

"And yours... resides in your eyes?"

"My vision is different from baseline human."

"Different enough to be worth torturing and killing over?"

They make it back to the first crater.

Anneia is sitting upright now, still untransformed. She essays a small wave.

"I think that was mostly because I'm a bit of a pest."

"Speaking of pests..." She goes over to the other girl.

"Are you going to do anything foolish?"

"No, I think I'm all out of foolish. This isn't Anietch, is it?" She pronounces the terminal clicking sound at the end of the planet's name slightly differently than Tasara did.

"No."

"This is - we call it Earth, I suspect a lot of people call their own planet that. We're not interplanetary. You're nearby Konoha, right now, the Hidden Village - which are sort of military sub-governments - of the Land of Fire. I'm not sure how to return you to your home dimension yet, but my family might have helpful documents."

"Are you... not killing me?"

"Not unless you attack me again. You're more of a known quantity than anyone I will meet here."

"And you need someone to watch your back?"

Nod.

"Okay. Truce, then."

"Truce." She holds out a hand and helps the other girl up.

"I'm Anneia, by the way."

"Tasara. This is Shisui."

"Pleased to meet you both."

"So, uh. Which way to Konoha?"

"I'll lead you. We should, hm, visit a medic friend of mine, first, get my eye reattached properly." Then he can figure out what the fuck to do with the interdimensional visitors who're probably his fault. "Well, actually first I'll need to deal with Danzo..."

"I can help with your eye."

"'Deal with' as in kill?"

Well, that'd avoid letting anyone know about this, but Shisui's learned very thoroughly you don't let unfamiliar medics anywhere near you, and he's not good enough to tell what's an attack and what's not from a skilled medic.

But, hey, he's currently her best bet for returning to her dimension, and she's been helpful and almost heroic so far, so, "Sure, that'd be great." And, to the second woman, "Yeah. He's a terrible person, and keeping him from continuing to be terrible will be difficult as long as he's alive." Being surprised by killing's weird in an adult with powers, but maybe their culture's different.

"This may feel a little strange." She holds his eye near the empty socket with one hand as a soft blue glow covers the other. The glow stretches out to encompass the eye and his face, making everything feel somehow sparkly. The eye slowly floats back into its proper place and the sensation intenifies, coming very near to something describable as pain. He feels a strong urge to blink rapidly.

"Do you have to do anything special or just like cut his head off?"

To Tasara, "Thanks!" Then, to the other: "Was going to slit his throat and then destroy his body. I've got it handled."

"Okay, if you're sure."

He kills Danzo quickly and efficiently, and then summons a flock of crows to very thoroughly destroy the body, and sets about doing the same for Danzo's lackies. (Luckily none of them escaped.)

"So I saw some of your fight here."

"Did you?"

"It was, uh. Impressive. I do have a question, though."

"Oh?"

"Were you going easy on me?"

"A little. I cared more about the city than I did about this... forest." She indicates the general destruction around them.

"Huh."

"Can you teach me to do some of that stuff? Since we're working together now and all."

"...We'll see."

"Yesss!" She pumps her fist in triumph. "The other guys had some neat stuff too. Like that, uh, fireball thing. What did that feel like?"

"It didn't get through my ward."

"Oh, right. You kept that going for a long time, though. How old are you?"

"Sixty-eight standard."

"Wow. Hey, Shisui, how old was that creepy guy?"

"...I think sixty-three or so? Our year lengths might be different, you do not look even remotely sixty-eight unless your people age slower or you're using an anti-aging technique."

"Magical girls don't get old unless we want to. Or, well, we get older but we don't get old."

"Most shinobi get old that way; I can think of only three exceptions."

"That kinda sucks for you, I guess!"

"Are we likely to meet any of the exceptions?"

"Unlikely. They mostly avoid making big waves, so no one makes too great an effort to end them anyways."

"I see. Are you finished here?"

"Yes. There's not much else I can do to destroy the rest of the evidence, unfortunately..."

"Why do you need to destroy the evidence?"

"He has allies I'd rather not know I was involved, or even that anything happened here."

"Apologies. Covert operations are... not our strong suit."

"Eh, they're not for everyone, especially not hard-hitters like you guys. It's why teams are a good idea."

"More than one magical girl is usually overkill."

"Yeah, like my combat instructor Eliese blew up half a continent one time, all by herself. She's like two hundred though, so she's super strong."

"...They let the Terror of Ransheer near children?"

"Yeah? She was cool. Pretty strict but I learned a lot."

"Why wouldn't she be allowed around students? Sounds valuable, if she's strong."

"She killed millions of people and scorched a continent to glass. That's not the sort of example that should be followed."

He feels like there's a wrong answer, here. "Including noncombatants?"

"Ransheer was inhabited. She didn't care. She could have engaged the army and forced a retreat, but instead she decided to deny the world to everyone."

"That's. Inappropriate, yeah."

"Well, it's not like she did that in front of us."

"If she'd been acting against orders she would've gotten in trouble, here, though admittedly many countries would tend to let things slide if it didn't negatively impact them."

"No one achieved their goals at Ransheer. Except maybe her."

"She would've been censored for that kind of disobedience here, at a minimum. Military actions without prior approval are often punished outright."

"Good."

That got awkward real quick. Anneia's just going to be a little quiet now until Tasara has some time to cool off from the Eliese thing.

"Is that sort of thing common where you're from?"

"Unauthorized military actions or glassing continents?"

"Uh, more the first, I'd hope not the second."

"Most of the time a magical girl old enough to cause significant damage has learned how to work with her theater's other commanders. But we are officers in our own right and sometimes outrank anyone else on the field."

"That's usually not how we do things, people with field command are relatively rare and have to pass a test, there's actually a few people who get stuck at the apprentice level because they're not considered ready for leadership. People who can completely make their own decisions regarding the battlefield are much rarer, someone who makes it to jounin would be extremely unlikely to do something like that."

"Strategic... blunders on the scale of Ransheer happen very rarely. Most of the time it is a younger girl sticking her neck out too far and getting herself or her squad killed, or pulling through by sheer luck."

It is in fact very useful information that they can glass continents. And that Tasara objects this strongly.

"I think our system for that might be pretty decent, we put newly graduated genin on teams under a more experienced commander, only let them advance as they mature - I think we didn't do anything like that during the Warring States period, which tended to end poorly for the inexperienced..."

"We train girls until they are eighteen. If they are lucky, they will be assigned to a front with someone more experienced they can learn from. But the war is unforgiving, and unceasing."

He goes quiet for a bit, then: "We had that a bit ago, during the Third War. Throwing kids at the meat grinder before they could get their feet under them. But the Great Wars tend to burn out, and we've been at peace almost eight years now."

"I'm glad for you."

"Yeah. It's been. A change." He thinks for a moment. To keep that peace... He really could use them as a peacekeeping force. Which means on his side, not the clan's, not the village's. Ugh. Politics.

"There's been some tension lately, but I'm hoping to try and keep it from spiraling out of control. That man I was fighting - Danzo - seemed to be hoping the opposite, as far as I could tell."

"That tracks with his behavior."

"He was one of the sorts who claimed he was always doing things for the good of the village. Seemed to be his own good, more often." A moment of quiet, then, "Hopefully negotiations will be easier with him out of the picture, though suspicion for his disappearance might fall unideally..."

"What would be the ideal way for such suspicions to fall?"

"There aren't many. Within the system would unsettle things; a foreign nation would risk war; 'wandering rogue nin' is going to provoke disbelief. 'Dead, but there's proof he was doing something illegal when he got himself killed meddling in a foreign nation' might be best, since Konoha would be 'at fault' in that situation, and it would go politely unmentioned to avoid hostility."

"Do you have such proof?"

"He keeps records. I'll be able to obtain enough to make things suspicious."

"What would you have us do?"

"If you're willing to help? I could use help making sure those records don't vanish conveniently."

"Standing guard would be a simple task. Or do you need to acquire them first?"

"Moving them and changing the seals might be the best bet. Or just grabbing them to bring directly to the Hokage, who'll probably realize I was involved anyways."

"How are they protected?"

"Seals, most likely. Which come in a tremendous variety, but most can be undone - I'm not an expert, but I'm decent."

"I'm not sure we'll be much help with that. But we will assist you as we can."

"Thanks - I'll need to think of other ways you guys can help, but I can do that while we're arranging the information..."

"This is all very sneaky."

"Shinobi usually are pretty sneaky, it helps with the not-dying."

"I usually go for a more straightforward approach."

"It might behoove you to expand your repertoire."

"Can't we just tell people the old guy was going to steal Shishui's eye?"

"Some people might not believe that. Some people - like my family - might believe that, blame Danzo's allies, and get up in arms. Some people might decide that the people who killed him are to blame, anyways, even if it could be argued as self-defense."

"People are hard."

"They are! Getting a sense for how the respond is a pretty rare skill."

"So how far is it to Konoha?"

"At this pace another fifteen minutes; I can go faster but that risks alarming people, and we'll want to thread between patrols anyways."

"Do you have a cover story in mind for our presence here?"

"Work in progress, but - someone I ran into on a mission who wanted to see Konoha, if you're not planning on showing off power levels. 'Dimensional shenanigans' if you are, which might be best if you want to have an impact on politics, and then the brass can develop their own cover story for the outside world."

"The latter would be preferable, I think, as it would not require the convincing impersonation of a native of this world."

"Yeaaahhhh..."

"Yeah. Especially since there's probably inferential gaps I don't even know to cover."

"So we just poofed out of the air on top of you while nothing especially interesting was going on and you decided to bring us home?"

"I'll probably claim I was experimenting with space-time ninjutsu, that has weird side effects sometimes, but haven't been able to replicate the results. It being something I did makes you two sound less suspicious."

"Less suspicion is good."

"Definitely. Is there anything else about your world that might be relevant? I - don't fully know where to start asking, we haven't contacted new cultures in anywhere close to memory."

"There are two major political entities: the Compact, my home; and the Domain, hers." She gestures at Anneia. "The Compact extends primarily over the western and southern regions of the galaxy and is led by our Polemarch, while the Domain is concentrated in the east and is ruled by the Imperatrix. The Polemarch and Imperatrix are both ancient, powerful magical girls. They keep the precise details of their history to themselves, but most believe that they were the first."

"This continent is controlled by the Elemental Nations. There's five big ones - we're in Fire. To our north-east is Lightning, to our northwest is Earth, to our west is Wind, and to our east is Water. There's also an assortment of smaller nations, who mostly are relevant when they ally with the bigger ones. The nations are each ruled by a daimyo, who is a hereditary ruler. Each of the five big nations and many of the smaller ones have Hidden Villages, where shinobi train and mostly live. The Hidden Villages serve the daimyo, alongside assorted other players. The Hidden Villages are each ruled by a village chief; the chief of the five big ones is called a Kage. The Fire Hidden Village is Konoha, led by the Hokage. The local political scene - okay, so, the Hidden Villages only started existing about sixty years ago. Before that, shinobi lived in clans, which were in a constant state of warfare. Two of the larger and most vehemently opposed clans, the Uchiha and the Senju, decided to set aside their differences, ally, and form a village together; they were joined by more and more other clans once the peace looked like it'd last. Other nations formed their villages in response. In Konoha specifically, the first two Hokage were from the Senju clan. The Third is from an ally of the Senju. The Fourth was a clanless orphan, who was taught by the Third's student and so while not in the Senju bloc he was only sort-of neutral, and he didn't live long. There's been some tension in the village the last few years, which kicked up old grievances, and the disagreements between the Senju and Uchiha blocs have widened, which threatens political and eventually social and potentially military instability. Danzo was one of the major drivers, I can't be positive but I think he was intentionally spreading rumors to worsen perception on both sides, and he's firmly in the Senju bloc. My family is the Uchiha, but I'm considered politically more-or-less in the middle, since I've been trying to stop the two sides from forming a schism. Danzo attacked me when I refused to ally with him, he was planning to preemptively kill at a minimum the leaders of the Uchiha, to head off even a possibility of conflict."

"Quite frankly, you two being simply new will shift the landscape dramatically. I can't be entirely sure how, but it's unlikely to be worse than a war that slowly spirals across the continent."

A war that only spans a single continent doesn't seem that bad but she should probably not say that given the thing about Eliese so she won't. Look at her, learning from her mistakes already, isn't she clever.

"Why would an, um, internal dispute in Konoha spread to the rest of the villages?"

"Currently the peace is mostly maintained because everyone ran out of a field-able army in the last great war, and there's a balance of power that a coup, feud, or civil war would disrupt - Cloud, Lightning's village, would probably pounce first, they've been being increasingly antagonistic, especially since they had the fewest casualties last time and we're between them and any easy land routes to other nations. Stone, Earth's village, has an ongoing glaring contest with us that can easily turn hot. Mist, Water's village, is currently run by a blood-thirsty dictator who'd hopefully be too busy with his own nation imploding but might decide a foreign war is exactly what he needs to rally his people. Sand, Wind's village, would probably side with us, but who knows which faction, and they might decide to be opportunistic instead. Several of the smaller nations are also constantly jockeying for power, which taking a bite out of us would get them. Then there's non-village actors, like Orochimaru, who'd probably love to take advantage of any chaos to make a grab for any vulnerable bloodlines. ...And bloodlines are another factor, if the Leaf isn't able to maintain its own integrity, there are many, many valuable bloodlines here that'd be vulnerable to bloodline thieves. There's already been attempts on the Hyuuga clan head's daughter in the last few years."

"Bloodlines are things like your eyes, right?"

"Yes. Inborn abilities, of varying power. Some are accessible from birth, many require some sort of stress-trigger or training. Eyes are easy to steal outright, and that's happened before, but a real prize for a foreign power would be someone living with the bloodline. Multiple someones, if they can manage."

"Are we likely to be targets of these bloodline thieves?"

"Your powers are - beyond what's typical for bloodlines. Claim it's something learned, and that it has no genetic component, and that'll discourage most people, even those stupid enough to go after an adult of unknown or high capability. Bloodline thieves usually target children, or at least fresh genin. The only person who might go after you anyways is Orochimaru, he's rumored to be able to change bodies, but I don't know how credible that is."

"That at least one less likely complication while we focus on preventing those already in Konoha from fighting over us."

"Yes. Power games are unfortunately a possibility. With Danzo gone, the most militant elements should be more wary, but..."

Worse comes to worse he can use kotoamatsukami - on the Uchiha leaders or with any luck the girls - but that's an extreme measure he'd strongly rather not rely on.

"People are hard."

"That they are, I might also want to summarize specific people if you guys are going to be helping me..."

"That would be useful."

"Okay, so, probably non-exhaustive list:

"The Third Hokage is Sarutobi Hiruzen. He's been in power a few decades. He's generally considered soft, and was prone to leaving unsavory business to Danzo. He used to be a lot more warlike, the Second War is generally blamed on him."

"His living advisers are his old teammates, Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura. Koharu is - very traditional, but that probably doesn't mean much to you. Stern, strong-willed, believes in the importance of the group over the individual, militant. Homura is prudent, efficient, composed - very well thought of in general - and also more militant. He's more likely to interfere if he dislikes the Hokage's direction than Koharu is.

"On the Uchiha side, most notably is the clan head, Uchiha Fugaku. He's stern, proud, willful, but cares a lot about his sons. His name had been proposed a few times when the Fourth Hokage was being chosen, and he wound up on a shortlist of three. When the Fourth died and the other of those three defected, Fugaku not being appointed as Fifth was seen as a slight by some. 

"There's also his wife, Mikoto. Mikoto's ruthless in a way he isn't? She's - calm and gentle when you talk to her, liable to stab someone with a smile if they get in her way. She maintains a united front with her husband in public, though.

"Fugaku's great-aunt Miyama is one of the most vocal drivers against compromise. She might hold an initial grudge because the Second Hokage killed her father during the Warring States period, and her uncle - who raised her - wound up defecting after a disagreement with Konoha's leadership. She's generally considered level-headed, though, and a clan loyalist. Not one for forgiveness.

"There's a few others, especially among my generation. Fugaku's daughter Itachi has been a major voice, but she's... Incredibly bad at people. She's firmly in favor of peace, though. There's also a few hotheads among the chunin, unfortunately.

"There's also some other political shenanigans going on - a monster attacked the village seven years ago, which some rumors blame the Uchiha for despite all of us being accounted for. We were assigned to help with evacuations, so weren't on the front, which is another thing some people are resentful about. Someone - I'm almost entirely sure Danzo - pushed through a law restricting the Uchiha to living in our compound. Theoretically because of threats against the bloodline, the justification was that Cloud was making a series of attempts, but that doesn't hold up well, and is a massive source of resentment."

"Why did the Third Hokage return intstead of a Fifth being appointed?"

"Complicated reasons, I'd figure. He probably wants one of his own students to take the position, but the two eligible refused reportedly. He also stepped back up in a time of minor turmoil, might have thought it best not to rock the boat - then simply stayed where he was."

"So he is at least in favor of stability. With Danzo gone he may not seek to immediately pit us against the Uchiha."

"That'd be the hope. He isn't as stubbornly in favor of peace as he currently claims, but - that's at least the rhetoric he supports."

"All right." There's not much point in her making plans now, so she'll just bear this information in mind when they get to the village.

"I'm glad you guys are at least interested in helping. Thanks. I'll try to get things settled here, well, and see if I can leverage resources towards reversing what brought you here. Is there any specific way your abilities could be used to help, do you think?"

"Theoretically very little is conceptually out of reach of our magic. Practically, we are limited by the power we have available. Teleportation of any useful distance is cost-ineffective for me, and certainly beyond her."

"That sounds like seals, but - writ large. Seals can do basically anything, what they effectively do is storage, explosions (which are modified storage), and barriers. Non-magical abilities? I get the sense you're better at people than her."

"I have more life experience than she does. At our Academy, we study history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy, etiquette, strategy, and small-unit tactics in addition to magic."

"Yeah, I did mostly the same stuff. Plus I took a section on small-engine repulsorcraft once but I don't think I'll be able to find the stuff to make one here."

"Repulsorcraft? And I can't think of much about how to leverage that, beyond seeing if alien math impacts sealing in an advantageous way..."

"They're like, um, wagons? Except they float and don't have wheels, and don't use horses or whatever."

"What sort of math does sealing require?"

"Sounds useful," and, "Currently it's mostly - geometrical things. Most shinobi don't learn past trigonometry, and that's at the chunin level, so most sealing uses up to that. The Fourth's Hiraishin probably used calculus, don't know which kind. There's some theory that more advanced sealing is possible, but seal masters are few and far between - there's also another written language you have to memorize for standard seals, and our Academy education focuses mostly on practical skills - and largely hoard their secrets. Sealing's also hampered by being slow, usually, most people can't do complicated equations in their head, so it's less tempting to spend your time on than a more immediate technique."

"Does it have to be mental math?"

"If you're planning on starting a new seal while someone's trying to stab you, it does, but pre-prepared seals can be written."

"So a calculator wouldn't be that helpful."

"Not unless you could use it mid combat. Would shorten things for pre-preparing seals, though."

"Oh, cool. Um." She turns to Tasara. "Did you bring your digi? I mmmay have left mine at base."

"Why would you-"

"I was trying to be sneaky."

"...of course. Yes, I have mine."

"What's a digi and why isn't it sneaky?"

"A personal digital assistant. It's like a multipurpose calculator."

"But it pings a tracking signal that the enemy can pick up if they're scanning for it."

"Doesn't your armor have a mesh pocket?"

"Ohhh. Right. Forgot about that."

It sounds like these "digis" have a radio function which can be blocked...

And also how slowly do they mature, if anyone her apparent age is forgetting basic facts about equipment?

...Actually that might be useful to know: "How quickly does your species mature? I noticed Anneia seems. Young?"

"The legal age of majority is eighteen."

"I'm twenty," she supplies.

"Our majority is based on competency tests, which most people pass at twelve - though you could argue there's graded competency, most genin aren't allowed outside the village on their own, and usually it takes two or three years to reach either chunin or enough of a track record for solo missions. I passed mine at eight."

"Oh wow. I didn't start training until I was twelve."

"There is a... theory, in our galaxy, that less-developed societies tend to pressure younger children harder, because they have fewer resources available to invest in their growth, so they need to know sooner if a child is worth the effort."

"Mostly it's the factor that our system is best learned the younger you start, and there's no point in keeping someone who's passed basic competency from getting experience. We also don't have limitless resources, nor time; the current system is a major overhaul that allowed those still learning to get to where they'll probably survive in peace, and the Warring States period is only barely not in living memory."

"I see."

"It's far from perfect. I'd rather we never be at war, and be able to teach things like sealing and medical arts to everyone, even at a leisurely pace. But we don't have - the buffer needed for that."

"It is a long-term aspiration. There are- many steps."

"Maybe we could help. If, y'know, we're here for that long."

"I'd like to try returning you two to your world, but - if that doesn't work out, well, even if the current generation grumbles, future generations will appreciate it."

"That'd be neat."

"If there's any possibility of you guys as a long-term stabilizing or peacekeeping force, I'll have to rethink my approach some..."

"There are only two of us. But if we are stuck here, it would be good to be useful."

"Last thing I'd want if I got dropped somewhere was being stuck in some corner, definitely."

"How would you have to change your approach?"

"Establishing you two as a more generally neutral force from the start, for one, rather than any hint of being a potential resource on Konoha's side - the latter would provoke paranoia in general, and potentially attempts at preemptive attacks; if you two definitely weren't going to stick around, I would be aiming more for 'long term secret' than any establishment plan."

"What do you see the chances of being able to send us back as?"

"We've never successfully managed cross-dimensional transit in proven history outside of the summoning contracts - and summons' worlds are tied tightly to this one, and have defined paths already - and most of our greats died in the Third War or the attack several years ago. But, some sort of dimensional manipulation is - rumored - in documents pertaining to the higher forms of my bloodline. There's also... If you can be taught sealing, the usual constraint on seals is that they take a long time to develop, almost no one passes on their full corpus even to students, and very frequently techniques die with their creators. You do not have those problems. Even if you don't have chakra, you should be able to develop a seal eventually, and at that point if humans still exist trying to find someone to put you back should be relatively trivial."

"So - eventually? Approaching guaranteed. Soon, on a scale of months? Extremely unlikely. Soon on a scale of years - it depends on how well peace can be maintained, and how well you take to sealing, I suppose. The Second and Fourth Hokage both developed revolutionary space-time techniques in between missions, by thirty years of age. I don't know how revolutionary dimensional transit is, though, nor how much raw power it would tend to take."

(And, hell, if they successfully manage even a brief peace let alone a lasting one, he'll declare them honorary family and will his eyes to them for study and use.)

"In that case- I think we should make preparations for the peacekeeping idea."

Sigh. "Thanks."

Sounds like fun.

"How does making a seal, uh, work?"

"Uh, details would take a while, but - standard sealing as used in Konoha, there's a set of images that have various meanings. Sometimes people use specific sealing glyphs, sometimes they just use kanji. The arrangement of those glyphs is determined mathematically. You can also do a seal with pure math, using the glyphs to represent certain concepts, equations, or results - this is easier if you're doing them on the fly I think? Seals are usually at least somewhat radially symmetrical, and written with special materials, preferably on special paper. You can use normal ink, but things like specially treated inks and blood are - more conductive.

"The general theory behind seals is that they act as channels, forcing chakra into shapes it wouldn't normally take and that are hard to maintain otherwise, and often storing the chakra channeled into it for later release - either as a function of the seal or of its materials. Chakra in certain arrangements has certain consistent effects on the world, so part of developing new seals is probably figuring out the correspondences between new arrangements and what they do."

"So it's trial and error?"

"There's patterns, which you can get a feel for, or some people have managed to find actual calculable ones for some things. Which would probably work better if we had better computers."

"Accelerating that development may be worth our while."

"It'd be greatly appreciated in general - seals do a lot, the decline in masters has really hit most places hard..."

"Wouldn't peacetime give more people the opportunity to work on seals?"

"It's that secrecy problem I mentioned earlier - we lost our two greatest seal masters right around the time peace was declared, and they didn't have the time to take apprentices between their rise and then death. One of them was the last of a major tradition, too."

"That is unfortunate."

"I'm hoping that can be rebuilt, at least..."

"I'm guessing they didn't, like, leave notes behind or anything."

"Nothing I'd have access to, and it's standard to encrypt notes fairly thoroughly. That can be worked through, but it's slow and risky - skilled seal masters can trap their notes directly."

"Yikes."

"Things are sometimes reconstructed? But yeah."

"One step at a time."

"Mhm."

And Konoha starts to be audible, at least. Shisui leads them around patrols with the familiarity of someone who's done this a possibly treasonous number of times, angling for one of his boltholes just far enough off the edge of the Uchiha compound to avoid surveillance. 

(He directed one of his summons to Itachi earlier. Hopefully the girl will keep her head down. She's sometimes a bit of an idiot, though...)

The two girls follow him closely, if not so quietly.

He gets them there - a house in the woods that probably used to belong to a shrine-maiden, beside a little shrine - 

And Itachi's standing out front.

"Hello," she says, from where she's sitting on the front stoop. She's vaguely twelve, though thin and wiry for her age, hands callused and expression hard. She stands. "Your crow didn't detail the situation much, so I came out."

She's so small. Looks scrappy, though.

"Itachi. Please tell me you're not starting your teenage rebellion phase."

"No. You're just an idiot, so I decided your suggestion was dumb. Who are they, and what happened?"

"My name is Tasara. This is Anneia. We are visitors from another world."

"Another dimension, or another planet?"

"Dimension, we think."

"Huh. Shisui, you said something about the plans with that man?"

"Uh, let's get inside." There's at least some measure of privacy seals on the house.

Inside it is.

Once inside, to Itachi, "That man turned on me, and tried to take my eyes. He's dead now. I'm aware that changes our plans regarding the clan rather drastically. Also changing the plans: these two don't know how to return to their world, I don't know how to return them, and they're willing to at least look into helping maintain the peace while a solution is figured out."

"From the sound of it, you guys could use a little peacekeeping."

"I'd be hesitant about outside interference."

"In your place, so would I. But there is no real choice about whether it will happen, we are already here. What you have is a chance to influence the how."

"What's your current plan?"

"Introduce ourselves to local government in such a way as to minimize the fallout from killing Danzo and attempt to mitigate tensions between your family and the rest of the village. Gain a more complete view of the broader sociopolitical climate and what problem spots exist, then use contacts made here and our own power to resolve those in a sustainable fashion."

"It might be best to dissociate yourself from Danzo's death. The Hokage is usually considered soft on him, but likely has been using him as a politically convenient shadow."

"That was the plan."

"I've been into his base more than Shisui, and had already formulated a plan for infiltrating it. There's documents that need to be recovered, and we should move quickly before his death is realized."

"What of the defenses?"

"...Itachi, what did you do."

"What I had to. Danzo threatened Sasuke. I sought paths for infiltration. I know his defenses by now, well enough at least."

Anneia feels very quietly vindicated that she's not the only person here who does things other people think are dumb.

"The eight million kami together couldn't save me from pre-teens, could they."

"I'm basically a teenager. And almost a captain."

"You're basically an idiot. Still, your entry method's likely the best we've got."

"Shall we proceed with that, then?"

"Yes. Itachi, I'll let you take lead on this."

She nods and takes off, adjusting her speed upwards as the magical girls keep up.

They can go fast. Still not nearly as quiet.

They might notice their footsteps echoing much, much less, the sounds gradually replaced by the natural nighttime forest as Itachi adjusts to them.

That is very clever.

They get to the probable base. Itachi signals for them to stay back, then approaches on her own - openly.

A masked boy melts out of the shadows. He looks around Itachi's age, though he's slightly smaller than her, and it's hard to tell with all his skin covered.

"Raven," he says, voice young and flat. "What is your purpose here?"

"I have urgent business with Lord Danzo," she says, quietly and with that same lack of inflection. "It's about the guard mission."

"Lord Danzo is not seeing visitors right now," he says.

"I think he is," Itachi replies, voice heavy and echoing, and the boy puts his hand to his head and slumps -

As does a girl, who had been remaining out of sight.

Spooky.

Tasara holds out a hand to stop Anneia from moving up until they're signaled again.

She touches a blank space between two trees, twists her fingers into an odd symbol, and glowing lines spiral out from her index finger. She tilts her head, and there's an odd, static-laden feeling in the air as her hand twitches.

The world twists, and a small box-like structure appears, the metal door firmly shut. Itachi messes with a few other similar symbols, until it swings open silently. She glances in, then gestures back to her watchers.

"Unfortunately there's only this one way in, and going in, knocking out any guards, then returning for you three would raise alarms. Shisui and I can justify being here. I can briefly hide the two of you, but you must stay still and silent."

"We can do that."

Anneia nods. "The easy job."

Into the box then it is.

Said box turns out to be an elevator, which moves silently and smoothly downwards at some gesture from Itachi. She and Shisui are in fact confronted when it opens, something about codes not getting passed - Itachi convinces the person codes were passed, then, after the person fades back into their waiting place, meets the two magical girls' eyes and nods along the hallway. 'Slow,' she mouths.

Slowly forward, yep.

A few more guards are tricked or subtly disabled - of varying apparent age, the youngest they see is probably around eight, and the oldest sounds maybe in his twenties - until one glances past Itachi, lands her eyes on the magical girls, opens her mouth - 

And she falls, dead, Itachi's hand resting lightly over her chest.

A shame. (They are so young.)

"The alarm will be raised, soon," Itachi says softly. "We should move quickly. Our first destination is nearby."

"All right."

That- was over really quickly, wow. And quietly. Kinda impressive in its own way.

They get to a heavily sealed door. Itachi says, "I can get through this, but I need Shisui's help, and I'll need to concentrate. There might be people coming this way. Try to disable rather than kill, I can alter their memories of your presence, but killing is an acceptable alternative. None should be any sort of threat, this isn't a well-guarded base."

"Understood."

She drops into a ready stance, facing out.

Anneia mirrors her, facing the other way.

The two shinobi get to work.

The first person to come across them is a white haired boy - maybe nine or ten - in a blank mask. He seems to mostly be spying, or perhaps waiting, and doesn't try to attack.

This is still enemy territory. She doesn't actually hesitate. A Disable erupts from her hands to seek his head, to blind, deafen, and stun. She materializes her sword behind him and pulls it toward her, pommel first, to knock him out.

He goes down, hard.

Further hostiles are more cautious about revealing themselves, but once there's enough they grow bolder, striking rapidly towards the group, some hiding their tracks well enough it's difficult to sense them approaching.

It's hard to stealth through area effect attacks. Quiet ones, but it's not hard to fill the hallway.

And unfortunately for their attackers this hallway was designed to be easier to defend from the magical girls' current position than to invade.

One girl's good luck is another's hopefully-not-actually-a-painful-death. Or something.

Itachi gets through, shortly after the base apparently runs out of incautious operatives.

"Got it," she says, opening the door into an office. "Shisui, help me grab and seal files."

They make quick work of the office - Itachi leans towards 'grabbing everything' - and then of other archival rooms; there isn't much more opposition. Itachi goes over the downed enemies, tapping their foreheads, and says, "I sealed the entrance behind us, so none of them should have been able to escape, but that's still a small possibility. Still, they wouldn't have descriptions of you two, at least."

Tasara nods. "Good work."

Nod. "We'll want to go over what's here, sort out what we should pass on, figure out if we need to hit other bases - but this was the central base; Danzo kept fewer forces, more information. There's bases with trainees, which might have information on Danzo's actions against the clans, but I suspect the Hokage will want to handle those directly."

"Likely. We should move before they start to wake up or the guard shift changes."

"Indeed."

Their exit goes without note. Itachi double checks on the two unconscious guards outside - still out cold - and tweaks the illusion over them.

"The same hideout as earlier works. My family knows not to expect me back for a few days."

"Are we sneaking back?"

"That will be best. We can go faster, now that I've adjusted to you both."

"Okay."

Being sneaky without having to do anything: kinda fun.

Sneak sneak sneak, quietly through the forest. (They do in fact pick up speed a good bit; not nearly to shinobi limits, but they're going much too fast for someone not enhanced to ever have a hope of keeping up).

At the hideaway, Shisui and Itachi break a few seals on the files themselves, then start sorting through papers. "Does your translation cover written words?" Itachi asks, off-hand. (She doesn't intend to let them help, but it's important information to know.)

"We grew not yet had occasion to test. It is a product of his doujutsu."

She'll write a few short phrases then - intended for them, intended for a general audience, intended for Shisui, intended explicitly for not-them - and then provide something written previously.

"Can you read these?" she asks, gesturing at the statements.

They can, as it happens.

"Useful. I can pass you a few documents to read once I've sorted them, which should help you develop a better idea of the geopolitical situation."

"All right."

Sort sort sort, read, both Shisui and Itachi are reading fast, barely glancing at each page for long enough to not cause friction burns turning them.

The stack for the magical girls is relatively small, and assumes the reader is familiar with the area, but Itachi can use it as jumping off points to explain who's who and where.

They got a basic picture from Shisui, but the extra context will certainly help.

There's a lot of political factions, so it does take longer to explain than the basic picture did - Itachi places more emphasis on small actors than Shisui did, too. There's groups she's wary of, some of them no more than a handful of members powerful enough to swing the balance.

"Really? Three people make a faction?"

"Depends on how powerful they are, and how much influence they can exert, through money or threats or persuasion. You two will likely quickly be counted among the small but powerful factions."

"Fun."

"Please focus."

"Right, right."

"This group - the Akatsuki - is a largely unknown factor. A decade ago they were revolutionaries in Ame. It's unclear who is currently Ame's leader - the country hasn't had open borders since before the Third War. Some mentions of the Akatsuki have recently arisen as a mercenary group operating outside the remit of the Hidden Villages. It's unclear if their goals have shifted, or how."

She is not mentioning the man who approached her, claiming to be of the Akatsuki. She hasn't told Shisui yet - he'd overreact, and she can handle this on her own.

"Mercenaries, especially former revolutionaries, tend to be destabilizing. Is there a pattern to the kind they're known to have accepted?"

"Mostly the sort of jobs villages set a high price for, or refuse. Assassinations, especially of sensitive targets, especially those whose deaths would be unacceptably destabilizing. Sabotage. Some level of espionage. At least one case of aiding in a minor war - the Land of Rivers had a civil war, and the Akatsuki at a minimum aided in dismantling one side."

"Do they ask for less money?"

"Yes, in every case I've encountered."

"Still ideologues, then. Whether it's the same doctrine..."

"I don't know their original doctrine, either. Their reason for rebelling is generally thought to be against Hanzo's despotism, and the increasing poverty of the country - minor revolutionary movements were common. Akatsuki was only exceptional in surviving."

"Maybe we could find out more if we talked to them."

"You are likely powerful enough to accomplish that safely. I am... Uncertain if it would be more wise to establish yourselves first, or get a better idea of any potential players."

"Shisui?"

"The main way I'd see an early attempt to talk going would likely be a recruitment attempt on their part. Talking after you establish yourselves might result in them being more wary of you, but gives you a better negotiating position. And you'll want to test your resistance to a wider variety of illusions and control techniques, first, I'd suspect, since we don't know what capabilities they possess."

"Good point."

"This seems to be all of what we'll need for the Hokage, if we want to reveal ourselves to him. I'm still unsure on having him officially know about you two; I'll include you in the report, but it might be politically best for him to distance himself. I suppose he can make that call, though."

"So we should wait here while you deliver that?"

"That'd be best. Itachi will stay with you, and can continue explaining the political situation."

"Good luck!"

He nods, gets together the 'for the Hokage' pile (it's the largest chunk) and body flickers out.

"So. Who's next?"

The big five countries, in more detail about the governments - all of the big five at least nominally have a dual system of government between the daimyo and the kage, where the daimyo commands the Hidden Villages. This is variably true in practice, and often shifts between administrations, since what ends up mattering more is soft power.

Lightning is an odd case, being originally a raider culture - their daimyo is looked down upon, the position not being hereditary and the first daimyo being from nomadic stock. The people of Lightning still don't have clans per se, with it being common for children to end up with families other than their birth parents, and no one using clan names. The daimyo is shrewd, and relatively young. The Raikage is a harsh man, and often strongly emotional.

Earth is somewhat different culturally, too - the bulk of the population, especially the rural population, doesn't speak the same language as the rest of the Elemental Countries, though all their dignitaries and shinobi learn Japanese just the same. Earth is considered unusually formal and bureaucratic. The daimyo is isolationist and arrogant. The Tsuchikage is old, and known for staying largely neutral in conflicts unless he's confident he can win, or has no other practical choice.

The people of Wind are descended from desert nomads, and still have comparatively few cities. They have a strict honor culture, and all of their kage are drawn from the same clan. The daimyo is hedonistic, and reportedly on poor terms with the Kazekage. The Kazekage is reportedly paranoid, prone to undercutting his own forces to avoid challenges against him.

Water is fairly fragmented, usually being considered only nominally united, and has in the last few years been plunged into a civil war. There isn't currently a daimyo, that lineage having been dragged into the war. The Mizukage is brutal, having instituted bloodline purges, and a system whereby new graduates from the Academy would fight to the death.

The smaller nations generally depend on the big five for protection and alliances, but there's some exceptions, Ame among them...

"Back to Ame again."

"Soooo it's probably important."

"Perhaps. I would be more comfortable if it and its Akatsuki were more of a known quantity."

"Unfortunately there's several groups like that..."

Among them: Orochimaru, a Konoha missing-nin, is suspected to have followers and bases scattered throughout the Elemental Nations, but they don't know more than that - though she suspects Danzo might have, given that his records hint at locations of at least one base, and past dealings with Orochimaru. The Nokizaru group are mercenaries - somewhat more is known about them, and they usually take lower profile targets that the Akatsuki, being mostly known for operating dirt-cheap. There's a terrorist group from Ishi, that they suspect Iwa might have files on but they haven't found out much about, who've been striking public targets, primarily in Wind, Earth, and Hill countries (Hill being where Ishi is located). 

There are seventeen territories all or partially in the continent, though only sixteen have recognized governments, the Mountain's Graveyard - which borders Fire, Rice Fields, and Rapids - being considered a no-man's land. Rice Fields, Hot Water, and Wave lack shinobi forces, though Hot Water used to have a village before a demilitarization campaign. Rivers is neutral territory, though historically has allied with Fire in the past, and is home to Tani. Plains has historically tended to ally with Earth, and is home to Kusa. Ame is located in Lake country, which was a major player in the Second Shinobi World War but has been isolationist since, and which wasn't known to have a daimyo. Rapids contains Taki, and is currently Fire's ally. Frost has Shimo, and is allied to Lightning. Lightning has Kumo. Water has Kiri. Wind has Suna. Earth has Iwa. Fire has Konoha. Itachi doesn't know as much about the last two - Fountain and Marsh, which are to the far west of the map, and are only barely on the continent. They only maintain direct trading relations with Earth, Wind, and Hill.

"... that's a lot. Too bad we don't have any support staff."

"Think of it as practice for the next time you have to do without. And it's good to be able to understand the principles decisions are being made on, in any case."

"Exactly. I can explain Shisui and my reasoning more in depth; also, we can serve as your 'support staff' so to speak, perhaps in addition to others drawn from different countries in the future, being familiar with the area."

"Yeah I'm more of a shoot things kind of girl." She makes finger guns.

"That does seem to be the case, yes."

"Specialization! Or something."

"Teams do usually benefit from the presence of one or more specialists, or from being specialized entirely for a mission type. Though leaders are expected to be more generalists."

"Must be neat to work with other ninja regularly. There aren't a lot of magical girls, relatively speaking, so we usually can't."

"Even before the villages, shinobi gathered in clans. Individuals rarely survive long, though absent enough for clans I could see a non-shinobi support structure being useful."

"We are chosen by our leaders, not born. There's no such thing as a family of magical girls."

"I imagine that changes dynamics rather a lot. Shinobi are often loyal to their family first, their village second, their country third, their philosophy fourth, humanity a distant fifth, if at all."

"That does sound... potentially unbalancing."

"It works for us, but our system has been built around this. Most people assume the good of the country is good for the village, and the good of the village is good for their family. Though the Hidden Villages are making strides towards reducing clan loyalty and increasing village loyalty, but it progresses in fits and starts."

"Shisui was saying there was some trouble with your family and the village?"

"Yes. My father is among those who place family over village. There have been tensions between our family and the rest of the village for several years - the first cracks started, to my knowledge, during the course of the Third Shinobi War, though I have heard grumbling about the Third Hokage's handling of the Second War, too. The primary split happened after the Nine Tailed Demon Fox attacked. The Uchiha were assigned to evacuation, but rumors spread afterwards that we were cowards for not having been on the front lines, and there was resentment because we lost fewer forces. Additionally, rumors started that an Uchiha had caused the attack. The source of those rumors is unknown, but given their timing alongside other rumors that undermined the village, and given who they advantaged, I suspect Danzo might have had a hand in at least enabling them."

"After the Nine Tails' attack, relations worsened dramatically with the village. Three years later, an attempt was made on the Hyuuga heir, and legislation was passed restricting those with major bloodlines to their historic compounds, citing a supposedly increased risk of bloodline thieves. This mostly impacted the Uchiha, since the majority of other major bloodline clans already lived mostly or entirely in such a compound by choice. Uchiha were increasingly frequently denied promotions in the following years, or removed from sensitive positions, or faced with bad mission intelligence at a suspicious frequency."

"These are problems, and they need to be addressed. The solution my father, and several clan elders, came up with, is rebellion. This is the wrong solution. It won't work, and even if it did would cause tremendous loss of life and weaken the village, risking a larger scale war. My father can't be convinced otherwise, and doesn't believe in waiting for me to solve this in a slower way."

"Wait, wait. Nine Tailed Demon Fox? That sounds incredible."

"It's one of the nine Tailed Beasts, which are chakra constructs. They can be killed, but will eventually reform. They're immensely powerful, at least compared to us. The Nine Tails was defeated by the Fourth Hokage, at the cost of his life. They are not currently active threats, but it's possible that could change."

"Okay, cool."

"...Anyway. Can you tell us more about your father?"

"He's proud, to an extent. He cares deeply about the good of the clan, and of his family, but not of those outside us, and does not see foreigners as worthy of consideration at all. He's stern, and does not often emote. He genuinely believes a rebellion is the best - or perhaps the only - path forwards. He works hard, and is beloved by his men and by the clan at large."

"How is his relationship with the Hokage? What will his reaction be to Danzo's death?"

"He dislikes the current Hokage, though he admired the Fourth. His list of complaints against the Third is long, and of variable legitimacy. He would be grimly happy at Danzo's death, I suppose, and might be more willing to negotiate afterwards - my mother was part of the Black Ops, so my family is at least somewhat aware of how Danzo pushes things."

"Why haven't they picked a Fifth Hokage yet?"

She shrugs a little. "I'm not sure. The usual claim is that there's no viable candidates, even though a few who were put forward last time are still alive and loyal, including my father. The Third willingly stepped down last time, so it seems unlikely he's clinging to power."

"Well, Danzo probably didn't want your dad in charge if they hated each other. Maybe now that Danzo's dead we can try making him Hokage."

"That might create more problems than it solves, if Danzo spread his prejudice to the rest of the village."

"I think as Hokage he would treat the village as a family - he admired that about the Fourth - but given how politics have been I doubt he would be popular. And the people would resent any appearance of foreign interference."

"Which is another factor, yes."

Anneia sighs.

"Politics are very complicated, unfortunately. I don't know who the Third would be willing to step down to. The Uchiha clan has put hope in Shisui and I. I am not so good at people, so I don't think I would make as good a choice, but Shisui is popular."

"That might be best. The younger generation takes over from the old, makes a cleaner split."

"Exactly. Shisui still has a ways to go, before he has that sort of pull, and that sort of personal power, but assuming nothing goes horribly wrong and we can delay, he might be a good option."

"Another option, if any sort of unification or peace-brokering can go through, might be allowing the Uchiha who want out to leave. It wouldn't be allowed, now - deserters are met with death - but it would be a kinder split."

"That would be better than a rebellion. But I would like a way to keep the village intact better."

"I would prefer that, too. But it is important to have fallback plans."

"True."

Itachi will continue explaining local geopolitics until Shisui returns, then.

He looks haggard and exhausted, and half-heartedly waves when he gets in.

"You look like death."

"Explaining myself wasn't fun. And I hate long debriefs. You guys been up to anything interesting?"

"Politics."

"Always fun. Itachi, you alright to stay up while I get some sleep - " He waits for her nod, then says, "Which is something I should be getting. I can go multiple days, but it's extra not fun. Hopefully the world won't explode before tomorrow."

Anneia gives him a thumbs up. "That'd be nice."

And he can go collapse into bed.

Itachi stays up - 

And a messenger hawk comes screeching into their window.

She surges to her feet, sees the yellow-striped red band on its leg, and shouts, "Shisui! Emergency!"

To the girls, "There's a hostile intruder, high priority emergency." A sense of panic flutters in her chest - nothing's changed, Danzo didn't have any dead man's switches that would go off against Konoha, she checked - 

But Madara always seemed to know every single little thing she did or said or thought - 

And he knows damn well she'll do anything for Sasuke, and he hates the clan, and the foreigners are her best shot at foiling him and she's pretty sure he was conspiring to get Shisui killed - 

"I need to go. Stay with Shisui, there might be someone after him and he knows what to do and people'll trust his word you two are fine."

She takes off.

The girls are on their feet in an instant and transform in a burst of light.

"Go make sure he's up-" And Tasara flashes out after Itachi.

Anneia runs to Shisui's room.

Itachi ignores the hawk's message - instructions to gather at a certain set point - and barrels for the compound.

It's stupid. She might get attacked by friendly fire.

But it's like she's trapped in a tunnel, forced forwards, no other place to go but Sasuke - 

Several people are dead when she gets there. She ignores them, and the sound of fighting - multiple loci - and darts for the clan head's house, zeroing in on Sasuke's window.