Guy sat behind the desk with his hands laced. Kakashi stood at his right shoulder with the book put away, which meant this was not a meeting anyone was going to enjoy. Homura and Koharu had taken their usual chairs. Danzo stood and his cane rested against the floorboards.
The subject was in a cell three floors below them, chakra-suppressed, fed, and watched around the clock. Yugito Nii. Cloud's jinchuriki. The Two-Tails.
"Extract it." Danzo advised. "Remove the beast, seal it into a shinobi of our choosing, and add a second tailed beast to this village's forces. Jiraiya will be taking the Nine-Tails on a journey outside the village soon. If Konoha is attacked while the Nine-Tails is outside, we have nothing. One extraction solves that."
Homura's fingers drummed once on the arm of his chair. "Danzo is not wrong. Having the Nine-Tails outside our walls with no replacement is a vulnerability we have never carried before. If Stone or Cloud or both decide to test us while Jiraiya is gone, we face them without a single tailed beast. That is not a position any of the previous Hokage would have accepted."
"Agreed," Koharu said. "A second jinchuriki gives us insurance. It is the practical choice."
Guy looked at Kakashi.
"That would start a war with Cloud," Kakashi said. "We captured their jinchuriki. That's already an act they can build a case around. If we kill her and take the beast, there is no version of that story that doesn't end with Cloud mobilizing. And we cannot fight a full-scale war right now. The manpower isn't here."
"That option is off the table." Guy said.
"Is it?" Danzo questioned. "That way of thinking, Hokage-sama, is precisely what defined the Third's tenure. Caution. Patience. Restraint. An unwillingness to act when acting costs something. Hiruzen believed he could keep the peace by never reaching for the sword." The cane shifted a centimeter. "And where is he now?"
Nobody answered that.
"I see where you're coming from, Danzo-sama." Guy started to speak. "And I understand. I do. But the longer we take with this, the more time we have to rebuild. Every month of negotiation is a month our academy fills, a month our jonin heal, a month this village gets closer to the strength it needs. If we extract the Two-Tails now, Cloud declares war now. And if we extract it, finding a compatible host is not something that happens overnight. That new jinchuriki will not be combat-ready by the time Cloud arrives at our border. We would be starting a war with a weapon we cannot use yet."
"Then let us speak plainly about what you are proposing," Danzo said. "You wish to hold her. To negotiate. To buy time. And when those negotiations conclude, you intend to return a perfect jinchuriki to a village that will spend the following months preparing her and the Eight-Tails for revenge." He let that sit. "Rock Lee has already embarrassed Cloud and worsened relations beyond repair. Do you honestly believe they will simply forgive us and leave us in peace after one boy humiliated them in the Land of Wind, captured their jinchuriki, and forced concessions on them? They will come, Hokage-sama. The only question is whether they come with one tailed beast or two."
The room was quiet.
Guy was silent for a long time. Danzo's points landed because they were not wrong. Not all the way right, but not wrong either. Cloud would not forgive this. Cloud had demanded a Hyuga's death for a failed kidnapping they themselves orchestrated. This was a village that held grudges. The idea that negotiations would produce genuine peace was, if he was honest with himself, optimistic at best.
He looked at Kakashi.
Kakashi shrugged.
Guy sighed. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, and for a moment the office watched the Fifth Hokage think, and no one interrupted him, not even Danzo, because even Danzo knew what that look meant.
"...I need time," Guy said at last. "I hear every word you've said, Danzo-sama, and I am not dismissing any of it. But this decision, once made, cannot be taken back. Give me time."
Danzo regarded him. Whatever he saw in the Hokage's face was enough.
"Time," Danzo repeated. "Very well. But time, Hokage-sama, is the one resource Cloud is also spending. Do not forget that."
He left. The elders followed. And the office held two men and the silence that comes after a room full of people who disagree about something that matters.
"You already know your answer, huh?" Kakashi asked, after a while.
"Maybe." Guy opened his eyes. "Maybe I just want one afternoon where I don't have to be the man who decided it."
Sakura had decided, somewhere in the last hour, that she was not going to tell anyone how she spent this afternoon, because there was no version of describing it that survived contact with Ino.
The Green Savage Devil of the bingo books, the boy who ended a war, the S-rank terror of two hidden villages, was asleep in her lap.
Mostly asleep. His eyes drifted open whenever her fingers stopped moving through his hair, so she kept them moving, combing through the black bowl of it, and Lee lay across his own bed with his head on her thighs and his hands folded on his stomach with a wide smile on his face.
Six months. Six months of one letter every few weeks and then three days ago the gate. And he was finally back.
She traced a finger down from his hair, along his jaw, down his chest. Same warmth. Same ridiculous solidness. The desert had browned him and the war had put nothing on him at all, no new scars, no marks, nothing. Six months of two skirmishes and a tailed beast, and the only evidence was the tan.
On the pillow above them both, a heavy pile of jet-black and charcoal-gray shifted, and Kagerou's blunt head slid out of his own coils to settle across Lee's collarbone, tongue testing the air in slow contentment.
"He didn't do that for me once," Sakura said. "Six months. I fed him, I cleaned up after him, I let him sun himself on your windowsill like he owned the building, and the whole time he looked at me like I was the help."
"Kagerou is very friendly for a Kagekujira!" Lee reached up without opening his eyes and rubbed under the snake's jaw, and the python leaned into it, the thick muscle of him easing. "He is simply loyal. You cannot rush loyalty, Sakura. You should've seen his siblings. Now they were pretty feisty. They couldn't help but give me love bites for trying to help them."
"Well, he hasn't tried to bite me, so I suppose he is nice for a snake..."
The tongue flicked toward her, considering, and then Kagerou extended his head the width of one hand in her direction and left it there, which from him was an open declaration of love.
"Tell me another one." she said.
"Mm." His eyes opened properly. "I have told you all the good ones, Sakura."
"You've told me four stories and you were gone half a year. I think you're still holding out on me." She pouted.
"The others are boring! War is mostly sitting around and waiting, everyone lies if they say otherwise." He considered. "Did I tell you about the courier-nin?"
"The one who almost died carrying your weights."
"He was very healthy underneath the exhaustion." Lee's hands came up, illustrating. "He crossed two countries and a battlefield with a load that three shinobi could not lift, because sealing it in a scroll would have been, and he said this to Temari-chan's face, against his creed. I gave him a massage as payment because I had no money, and he left faster than he came. I think about him all the time. That is the kind of ally I want on my side in a long war, Sakura. Not the strongest. The ones who show that kind of dedication and effort toward what they believe."
"You gave a strange mailman a massage in the middle of a war. And Temari-chan? In all the letters you sent back, you referred to her as Temari-san."
"It was an excellent massage. He said so. And yeah, we kind of became friends by the end of the war, I'd say."
"Friends, huh?" Sakura laughed.
She pulled a lock of his hair just hard enough to notice.
"Ow."
"That's for taking so long to come back." She went back to combing. "The festival one is still the best. The banner with the cat."
"The cat looked very surprised," Lee agreed solemnly. "The artist captured the spirit of the battle, if not the details."
"And you cried."
"Sakura, an entire village that once wished me dead painted banners for me." His voice went softer than the joke wanted to allow. "Of course I cried."
Her fingers stilled a moment on his chest, right over the heartbeat. Six months against two armies and a monster, and this is what he brings home. A mailman he admires and a badly drawn cat. She knew there were other stories. Stories he wasn't telling and she had decided she would not go digging for it. He'll tell her on his own time.
"Enough war talk," Lee declared. "You have been letting me talk for an hour and you have not told me the important thing. How is your training with Lady Tsunade!?"
And she squealed because she had been sitting on this for six months and the letters could never have held it.
"Okay so." She sat up straighter; his head rode the movement without complaint. "You remember the exercise you taught me? Before the finals, the chakra release timing, hold everything in until the exact moment of contact and let it all go at once?"
"Of course!"
"Lee. She knew it." Sakura's hands left his hair to gesture. "Lady Tsunade. It's hers. It's one of her signature techniques, it's the exact same principle, perfect release timing on contact. She showed it off by trying to kill me and Ino. She shattered a tree with a punch and when I did something similar, you should've seen the look on her and Ino's face! Oh my god! It was totally freaking awesome!" She was grinning so hard it hurt. "All thanks to you. She's been building me on it since. Me, specifically. I even managed to outdo that pig Ino thanks to you!"
"Sakura, that is incredible!" Lee's smile somehow widened as he pushed up onto one elbow. "I always believed your chakra control was special, truly special, ever since the tree that afternoon, and for Tsunade-sama herself to build on it means that you-"
She kissed him on the forehead.
It stopped his sentence dead. Lee froze like a statue. The blush came up out of his collar and took his whole face in one, ears included.
"...means that you," he resumed, with tremendous dignity, exactly where he had left off, "will surpass her one day. I mean it. Sakura as long as you refuse to stop." The blush was still present and his voice did not acknowledge it at all. "So. One day, when people speak of the greatest medical shinobi, someone will say Tsunade, and someone older and wiser will say no, no, you are too young, you never saw Sakura Haruno."
Sakura looked at him for a long moment. Then at his lips.
CHA!!! GO FOR IT!!! SAYING SOMETHING LIKE THAT DESERVES IT! COME ON!!! Inner Sakura cheered.
No way! I can't! It's too early! It's very sweet and kind and awesome to say, but no! If I kiss him here where would that lead?! Oh god! I can't even see what would stop me! No! I can't! We can't!
Six months! He was gone for six months! He deserves more than just a kiss on the forehead don't you think?! Think about those sand hussies that were no doubt clambering over him after he became their hero!
Shut up! Shut up! Maybe a quick peck after we're leaving. Just a peck! Nothing more!
Hell yeah!
Sakura pulled his head back down into her lap and hid her own face in the act of leaning over him, because fair was fair and the blush was contagious.
"You're staying home for a while." she informed the top of his head. It was not a question.
"That," Lee said, comfortable and warm, "is up to the Hokage."
"The window for retaliation is open now." Danzo spoke. "It will not stay open."
The Hokage's office held six people and one argument. Guy sat behind the desk. Kakashi stood on his right shoulder. Homura and Koharu had taken the chairs. Danzo stood and the map on the desk between them all had three colored markers on it that were the whole of his argument.
They had been at it for twenty minutes until the door opened.
Shikaku Nara came in with an armful of folders and dropped the stack on the Hokage's desk.
"Apologies for the delay. I wanted to finish all four before I brought conclusions instead of impressions." He tapped the stack. "Mission reports. Rock Lee, captain's log. Shikamaru's, as second. Izumo's and Kotetsu's. Six months, two fronts, cross-referenced against the Suna dispatches their office shared under the alliance, and against these."
He laid two thin folders side by side on top, almost gently.
"Intelligence pulls. The Hidden Cloud's bingo book, updated three weeks ago. The Hidden Stone's, updated five. Cloud and Stone has entered Rock Lee at S-rank." Shikaku let that information settle for a moment. "Two enemy villages have now promoted him ahead of us. I'd like to fix that if I can."
"Fix it how…" Guy sounded confused.
"Tokubetsu jonin. Effective immediately." Shikaku pulled the map aside without asking and set the captain's log in its place. "I'll give you the file's version, short. He held sole responsibility for the combat weight of an allied campaign on two fronts for half a year and lost not one man under his command. Not one, Hokage-sama, in a war Suna's own projections had eating a fifth of their standing forces. He planned or co-planned every engagement he led; the trap work in these pages is his and Shikamaru's both, and my son's report spends a full page, and my son hates writing reports. He taught, in the field, under campaign conditions, a forbidden jutsu to two chunin with no aptitude for it and both came home alive and improved; Izumo and Kotetsu's reports on his instruction read like men describing a second academy. Suna's Kazekage is greatly indebted to him and personally fond of him. And he is, per two hostile intelligence services, the single most expensive engagement problem either of them has on their books." Shikaku straightened. "Jonin-level ability in a specialized field. That is the definition of the rank."
"And the second part?" Danzo asked. He had not moved, but something in his attention had.
"And a genin team." Shikaku said it evenly, watching Guy as he said it. "There are three academy students who failed to pass their genin exam last year who need a sensei, and I want to put them under him."
The office went quiet.
"He is only fifteen…" Guy said.
"He is and the reports say he spent six months being the only thing between several thousands of people and the end of their village, and came home asking what's the next mission. Age isn't an excuse based on his capabilities." Shikaku agreed.
"You want to hand him academy students?" Guy's hands were still flat on the desk. "Genin die, Shikaku. Even good sensei lose students to no fault of their own. You are asking me to put three children's lives into the hands of a child himself?"
"Guy." Kakashi had put the book away. "Just shut up and trust your student."
Guy's head came around.
Kakashi's one visible eye was staring at Guy. "Listen to yourself. Not one voice in this room has questioned whether he's able. Including yours. Your objection is the weight, and you know the weight because you carry it, because this village looked at the man most frightened of this desk and decided that fear was the qualification. That was the whole argument, Guy. Lord Jiraiya made it about you in this room." He tilted his head at the stack of reports. "So you don't get to run it backward for him. You are not protecting Lee from the weight. You are protecting yourself from watching him carry it. Those are different things, and only one of them is a Hokage's job."
"The times-"
"I made jonin at twelve." Kakashi's voice stayed mild and went somewhere old underneath. "The times were different, yeah but they were not that different. And I will tell you what I would have given at his age to have had what he has, a teacher one desk away who knew exactly how it felt." A beat. "He's better prepared for this than either of us was for anything. You raised him that way. Trust your pupil."
Silence. Homura looked at Koharu. Koharu nodded fractionally.
"The elders concur," Homura said. "The boy has met every test this village and three others have set him. He has not failed us once. The rank is overdue and the team is sound succession planning; we are short of sensei and shorter of examples. Approve both."
"Agreed," Koharu said.
"Agreed," Danzo said.
And if he has even half of Might Guy's gift for building shinobi, Danzo did not say, watching the stack of reports with his one visible eye half-lidded, then whatever three students come out of his hands will be worth watching very closely. Konoha's Hokage produced Rock Lee. Rock Lee's own students, forged by that same lineage of teaching, seasoned to chunin under an S-rank hand. The cane settled a centimeter into the floorboards. Ripe for the taking, once they are grown. Earlier, if any of them show particular promise. The Foundation has always known how to appreciate what the tree grows and never counts.
Five sets of eyes were on the desk.
Guy looked at the stack of reports, at his student's familiar handwriting on the top folder, and he was, for a moment, the only person in the room who was not seeing a promotion order. He was looking back at the young child, who despite everything the world had thrown at him, continued to smile and work hard. Pushing himself with blood, sweat, and tears day in and day out. Never giving up on his dream no matter how much he was mocked, insulted, or even knocked down.
I cannot tell, he thought, whether I am being his Hokage right now or his guardian. And a man who cannot tell the difference should not trust his own vote over five clear ones.
"...Prepare the paperwork," Guy said at last. "Both orders."
Shikaku had it ready, of course. He set the promotion order on the desk and the team assignment beneath it, and Guy read every line of both, and then took up the pen.
He signed.
The others gathered their things around him, the meeting dissolving into the smaller talk of powerful people, Danzo already gone and Kakashi lingered last at the door.
"He's gonna cry tears of joy when he hears about it." Kakashi could already see it.
"I know." Guy was looking out the window. Below and east, past the roofs, the academy yard was letting out, a scatter of small bright shapes yelling their way home through the afternoon. "So am I. That is why you will be in the room, standing on my left, being cool, hip, and trendy enough for both of us."
"Heh, what a headache…" Kakashi rubbed the back of his head.
Guy sat alone with the signed orders and the distant sound of children, and after a while he squared the papers, and set them down for tomorrow. He allowed himself, at last and in private, to be nothing but proud of his boy.
The messenger bird came through the open window ten minutes later.
It was not a Leaf bird. The scroll case bore Cloud's seal, and Guy broke it and read and the pride left his face one line at a time.
This scroll from the Hidden Cloud Village was not a negotiation, and was not a request, and was not anything he could set down for tomorrow.