“So, this is all that’s left. It seems.” I thought to myself. The once proud nation of the Sunagakure, had been reduced to nothing but rubble in the matter of a few hours. Though that was of no surprise. The massive snake must have helped a great deal. Sadly, as much as he would have loved to engage in the fight his job lay somewhere else. Alpha, yawned absentmindedly as he entered the remnants of his former- no, still current home. He slid down the steps with ease, ducking down into the basement. I took note of the sandstone doors. Still untouched. Thankfully. I was confident that he would have to slay the poor fools who lingered too long, hoping that they could find safety in those impenetrable walls. Perhaps they might have. I swiftly punched in the pin number with my free hand as the other was preoccupied with a heavy number of book-kept records. Personal histories, clan documents, closely held Sunagakure secrets.

Indeed, as stronger as he was, he was faster. So while the front line dealt with the threats and the genin evacuated the civilians Alpha was quickly gathering important documents into his workshop. Using a sealing technique to transport large bookcases directly to safety while he carried the rest in his arms.

As I transversed my mess of a laboratory I set down the pile of notes and information onto an empty table. Leaning my blade against against a computer off to the side as I sorted through the endless piles of notes. Replacing them with another pile from the archives I managed to save. Soon I had a garden of paper and ink growing up around me and I decided that a more efficient system of organization would be required. Hopefully his digital copier was still working and the energy generator hadn’t given out yet.

---

I fell onto the work desk, exhausted. After finally digitally copying everything he saved from the administration building he was ready to take a well deserved nap. The damn project took up more than half of his seventy five terabytes of space. Granted that there was already a healthy helping of data there to begin with but the wealth of sheer information held in the archives was enough to more than double it. For such a poor country they really did keep a massive amount of meticulous records. However that isn’t always the case. A few decades before Kisei and I showed up some shady stuff was going on. Human trafficking from the Karisuma, corruption from within the administration, and a large number of nameless criminals. Quite a decent number of them missing ninja.

That was a rather disturbing fact. Even with all the corruption you wouldn’t want to weaken the estate by- Oh I see. These were all people who went against how the Sunagakure officials ran the village. Interesting. As my investigation dug deeper into the conspiracies I also came across one of the surviving entries in the bingo books. The obvious big league names stood out among them. Gin. Tame. He swept through them like a breeze. Scanning for anything they might lead him to the those that destroyed the village. The village….

I threw down the bingo book across the table where it slammed against another stack of books and knocked the whole tower over, scattering it across the ground. I just slumped back against the chair and buried my face on the desk. “Damn it.” I cursed. This wasn’t how their new life was supposed to was supposed to go. They weren’t supposed to lose EVERY! GOD! DAMN! THING! AGAIN! Like shit! Kisei was just getting over the nightmares a week ago. Kisei didn’t deserve this! He didn’t do anything! This… This is all on me...

I sighed softly to myself. Which is why I have to make things right. I can’t be as soft as I was this last year, if I have just a little more resolve I could've destroyed the invaders. Grudgingly I got up and walked over to the pile of fallen books, bending down to retrieve the book. But my fingers froze in place as I glanced upon the face on the open page, reading the name carefully. “Syekren Uchiha?”