"...Yes, Hokage-sama."

Back to the command center, then.

Things there are a little confused, to say the least. Between the battle and then people coming back to life, no one is quite sure what the chain of command looks like, and more confused shinobi are filtering in with every minute.

All this is not helped, of course, by Shinrei's discovery that between one breath and the next, Sayuri has disappeared while her attending medic was momentarily distracted.

Shinrei only terrified the medic a little with her questioning.

She's not rushing off, though. Seems to instead be canvassing a bit, questioning the medics about who was around when.

The Nidaime presumes Kakashi knows more about who might have vanished a foreign shinobi and how to unvanish them than Tobirama does; that, he makes clear, is Kakashi's role here, and Kakashi has whatever authority he needs to complete his mission.

(Tobirama walks into the command tent with the aura of someone who knows he will be obeyed, and takes over the rest of the chain of command. Securing enemy shinobi, or driving them out. Making sure Orochimaru's trail doesn't go cold. Securing essential members of Konoha so they don't vanish in the chaos, as well as Kiri's other shinobi. Sending medics to back up the Shodai, securing a location to transfer the Sandaime to. Establishing perimeters, securing the daimyo's safety.)

(He hasn't been a part of this village's operations in decades. He does his best to secure teams he's ordering formed from interference from within, anyways. (He really, really hopes this is just normal chaos, and he won't have to clean house. Tobirama isn't one to let hope impact his decisions.) He doesn't bother trying to figure out what the chain of command was supposed to be. He just makes a new one.)

(He has Uchiha Tobirama brought to the command tent - he knows exactly where she is, and after a brief staring contest with her, he deputizes her to help him with monitoring the village. (He keeps her by his side at every point.))

Kakashi confers with Shinrei, deputizes an Aburame and an Inuzuka, and starts his search.

(He realizes Chihiro is missing too and quietly begins panicking. This is evidenced in his orders becoming even more laconic as he is apparently more and more distracted by his book.)

Thirty minutes later, a tiny figure in ANBU blacks and an unmarked mask slips in through the back of the medical tent and gently lays an unconscious Sayuri down on an open cot.

They make it about three steps towards the front before they fall over, convulsing. Blood dribbles down from the bottom of the mask, almost invisible against the black cloth.

The medics don't have have half a second to sort out their thoughts - a few are already responding, to their credit - before Senju Tobirama is in the tent, having handed off command to Kakashi with a distracted snap -

Sayuri's the least unstable of the two. His hands, wreathed in healing chakra, fall to the chest of the girl in the ANBU mask - he snaps at the head medic to inform the Mizukage to go to the secure ward they've established - and then vanishes with both girls in a flash.

He'd stuck a hiraishin tag on Hashirama. Sarutobi is stably comatose, so Tobirama feels no equivocation in shoving Sayuri at him.

(The girl's injuries are seal-related. Hashirama is an overall better medic, but this is Tobirama's specialty. And, anyways, he'd rather risk a lead dying than a war with Kiri, right now.)

Chihiro wakes up three days later, in a hospital bed with a strange feeling in her mouth.

She seems to be in a single occupancy room. It's - wooden, entirely, the window a screen of translucent paper, no carpet nor wall decoration. No beeping machines. The only light comes through the window, though there's an unlit lamp on a table growing out of the wall.

The Nidaime Hokage is sitting quietly a few feet from her bedside, reading quickly through a stack of papers.

He doesn't address her immediately.

"Where is Sayuri?"

"On the other side of that wall." He nods to the one at the head of her bed and lowers his papers, examining her evenly. "Her sensei is keeping watch over her."

She relaxes a bit.

"Good."

A pause, then: "You've done Konoha a great service."

Confusion.

"That wasn't what was on your mind at the time, was it?"

"...No. He was going to cut out her eyes. And I. Couldn't."

"Does that make me a bad shinobi?"

"No."

"You did the right thing, regardless of your feelings about it. Cognitive understanding of every aspect of the right thing, rather than instinctual, comes only with more experience than you have."

"Your instincts already point in a good direction, however."

"Oh."

"You stopped a war," he says, almost gently. 

"What next?"

"You answer questions about who took Sayuri-san, and about what you know of Konoha's structures and secrets."

"I removed your seal, and we've been able to find out a good bit already, but there are potentials for gaps, still."

"Shimura Danzo," she says, looking faintly surprised that she can say that name. Then she starts giving as much information as she can about ROOT's structure.

He listens, intently, asking questions here or there until her well of knowledge is exhausted.

He nods when she finishes, and then says - "The primary point remaining is about you and your future."

"My future?"

"ROOT no longer exists. We can instate you fully as a chuunin of Konoha, of course, but there's other possibilities that might work better."