Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't know why he'd sent that order out at the last minute. Possibly because they would need all the help they could get fighting the Kyuubi and that nobody could be spared for other tasks, such as guiding civilians who should already have the disaster plans and escape routes memorized, considering all of the schools religiously taught them and ran monthly drills during the two previous wars. Danzo had been the one who'd sent out an order telling the Uchiha to stay away from the fight with the Kyuubi and to direct the Civilians to shelters. At the last second, an instant before he'd headed out to join the fight against the monster Kitsune that was rampaging through town, he had sent out an order belaying Danzo's order and directing the Uchiha to join the fight posthaste.

The fight wasn't all that long, fifteen minutes tops, but the opponent was stronger than any ten kage combined and could only be contained at great cost. Many good shinobi lay dead at the end of it all. Much of Konoha's best, those that had survived the most recent war and had been looking forward to a few years of peace, not this, definitely not this, lay strewn across the rubble of broken buildings that had once been a thriving downtown. Bodies of people who were friends as well as subordinates were being lined up in the nearest park one after the other while iryo-nin triaged the wounded, sometimes forcing themselves to leave people who might've lived under other circumstances to die because they didn't have the time or the resources to treat their near-mortal injuries considering the massive number of casualties that had been left behind by the Kyuubi's rampage.

Hiruzen's own wife was gone, the first death of the evening. Taken by the mysterious Uchiha who had attacked out of nowhere for no reason that anybody could see. So many people's wives were gone. And husbands, and sisters, and brothers, and fathers, and mothers. Shinobi weren't islands. And, as was often the case, civilians were amongst the first to die.

The crisis was over however, and it was now time to come out of hiding and rebuild once more. As quickly as possible before other villages decided to take advantage of their weakness and do to Konoha what had been done to Uzushiogakure. The damaged walls would have to be patched fast, and the retired called out of retirement, and the children fast-tracked through the Academy like they had been during the war despite the recent switch back to a peacetime academic schedule.

As he tallied what would need to be done in the near future to ensure Konoha's survival, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konoha, and possibly soon Hokage again, decided that he would pay a personal visit to the shelters behind the Hokage Monument, offering what comfort he could in his own grief. The people would need hope that they could survive in order for them to do what it would take to survive, and it was up to the Hokage who had to be more than just the strongest ninja in the village and more than just the one to do "what it took" to protect the village to provide that hope.

Entering the hidden shelters, the Sandaime could see lost looking children everywhere, some of whom were plaintively calling for parents they'd never see again, some of whom had already lost their parents years earlier in the recent war. A small boy with a nasty looking cut across his nose was clinging to a dazed looking drunk and crying. Sitting silently in a corner, a small dark-haired boy held a crying infant in his arms.

Looking at those two, Hiruzen felt guilt for the words he'd said the night before. Guilt for the order he'd given. The order that had led to the Uchiha Clan head and his wife lying amongst the dead. Had he not said a word and let Danzo's order stand, those two small boys, one of whom had been named after his father, would not have been deprived of their parents.