"Remarkable." Tonbo couldn't help but admire them — whatever era had produced men like that, it made a different class of fighter entirely.
Third Hokage or disciple, every one of them belonged at the top of the field. He'd never seen most of them in action before tonight, only carried fragments of their reputations in from a life that wasn't his, but their presence alone told him they stood every bit as tall as Hiruzen Sarutobi himself.
A boom rolled through the ruined streets as the Nine-Tails went sailing clear of the village walls, and before it could turn back, a new figure surged out to meet it — hands swelling to some monstrous size, closing around the beast's body and driving it back down.
Akimichi Torifu, unless he missed his guess. The chakra alone marked him, thicker even than the others already in the fight, and that towering, borrowed size besides. He'd barely registered the man until now, too busy watching the Third and his generation to notice one more name that seldom appeared in his fragmentary knowledge of the future. Age had plainly cost Torifu some of his raw strength — he wasn't Chōza's equal there anymore — but decades of battles Chōza hadn't lived through yet made up the difference easily enough, and it showed in how cleanly he pinned the thing down. Other ninja closed in around him at once to help hold it.
Tonbo shook his head and turned his attention back where it actually belonged. Whatever was left of that fight wasn't his to join. He'd hoped his new secret technique might carry some weight tonight, and instead found his best contribution barely worth mentioning next to what those old veterans could do alone. Konoha ran deep with talent, deeper than he'd given it credit for — though he noticed, in passing, that Orochimaru was nowhere in it. With Hiruzen having already driven the beast out bodily, the worst of it would be over soon regardless.
He dropped down among the wreckage the Nine-Tails had left in its wake and got to work, pulling survivors free where he found them. Ruined homes, families that hadn't made it — the kind of sight that didn't fade easily, and there was no shortage of it tonight. The beast's every step had leveled something.
For the injured, he leaned on whatever battlefield first aid he'd picked up over the past year; for the ones who'd lost limbs outright, he stopped the bleeding by hand and used genjutsu to dull the pain signals climbing toward the brain, since real medical ninjutsu was still well past him. Grief carried up and down the ruined street in waves — the wounded thanking him through their tears, others simply calling for parents who weren't going to answer.
Watching it wore at him more than he expected. If it had been his father instead, or Ayame — he didn't let himself finish the thought, only let it settle into something harder underneath. He'd never claim he could save the world. Saving the people who were actually his, though, that much he intended to manage.
Ruins and broken walls, as far as the eye could see through the heart of the village — Tonbo just one of many ninja working the wreckage that night, pulling out whoever still had breath left in them. Somewhere well beyond the walls, a separate fight was still running its course.
He'd never once caught a trace of it through the night — Minato and whoever he was facing were simply too far out for his range to reach, whatever the distance actually was. All he had to go on was the quiet: the commotion out there thinning by degrees as the hours wore on, until at some point it stopped altogether. He took that to mean the Fourth had come back.
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At some point in the wreckage he passed a boy crying over what was left of a home — Iruka Umino, a name his fragmentary foreknowledge supplied, two or three years younger than himself. He didn't go over. A boy who'd just lost his parents didn't need company; he needed to be left alone with it.
"Tonbo — anyone left out here who hasn't been pulled out yet?" Guy's team found him not long after, Genma and Ebisu trailing in behind him. Being the strongest sensor among them had put Tonbo at the head of the search more or less by default.
"That's everyone who could still be saved." He shook his head. The rest were past helping. No wonder, years from now, so many people in this village would carry a grudge they couldn't quite explain — grief this widespread didn't just evaporate, and somebody always ended up wearing the blame for it. Guy's team let out a collective breath, half a night of rescue work finally catching up with them.
"Good thing you were out here — that timing probably saved a fair few of them," Genma said, offering a thumbs-up. Guy and Ebisu had already dropped to the ground back to back, done in.
"Credit where it's due — plenty of other sensors out here tonight too," Tonbo said, and meant it.
Dawn came up slow over a village that looked nothing like the one he'd left the evening before.
Ayame was waiting when he finally made it home. "Tonbo — are you all right?"
He pulled her into a hug. "Alive and well, don't worry. Konoha took a beating, though. I expect things get busy from here."
A night of rescue work and a morning spent writing it all up had eaten the whole day before he'd made it back; whatever came next would have to wait for official word.
"Good. I'm proud of you." She rose onto her toes and tapped his cheek.
Knock, knock. "Don't you dare pretend I'm not standing right here," Teuchi grumbled from behind the counter, not bothering to open his eyes. Behind him, Tōsei caught the whole exchange and allowed himself a small, satisfied smile — no need to worry about his son's prospects there.
"Proud of you all the same, Tonbo. Keep it up," Teuchi added.
"Yes, sir."
With both his father's approval and his girl's settled squarely behind him, Tonbo felt something in him steady back into place. The next morning found him back at the Analysis Team.
The mood there had gone gray. Everyone greeted him with a nod and little else, some private cloud sitting over the whole room. Shimon arrived late, looking no better than the rest.
"Any word? What actually happened out there?" He knew Tonbo's senses ran further than most, and clearly hoped some of that had translated into answers.
"Every serious fighter in the village got thrown at it. Given how it ended, I'd guess the Hokage came out on top." That was enough to loosen something in Shimon's shoulders — resolved was resolved.
"Official word should come down soon enough," Tonbo added, and left it there. Whatever losses the village's real strength had taken that night wasn't something to hand around loosely — not with every other village watching for exactly this kind of weakness, and Konoha still not fully recovered from the last war besides.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before Inoichi's orders came through: the whole Analysis Team, patrol duty, no exceptions. Whatever the fight against the Nine-Tails had cost the village in combat strength, it had clearly cost enough that even intelligence staff were being pulled onto the streets to cover for it.
Walking the quiet rounds beside Shimon, Tonbo noticed it before either of them said anything out loud — not a single Uchiha anywhere along their route.
"Seems the Third's people are already looking sideways at the clan." He turned it over once, unhurried. A Sharingan behind something like tonight's disaster — that bloodline was going to cause this village more trouble yet before it was through.