a/n
First time working on a Naruto fic. I'm a little nervous, but I've been considering it for years. This will be a long story, full of slow burn and fast action. I'm so excited to get this out there.
Passing from the Land of Fire to the Land of Wind was always a subtle shift, a barely perceptible change of climate and landscape. The heat didn't rush up to meet you, the leaves and dirt beneath your feet didn't instantly become shifting sands. Everything came gradually, from the temperatures slow climb to the thinning of the trees as dirt gave way to sand and many varied forms of succulents. Narrow, shady paths slowly shifted into vast open spaces, rolling hills of hot sand, and a merciless sun.
If not for her training, she wouldn't be able to tell the exact moment she crossed the border from one nation to the other. It was somewhere in that in-between place where sand met trees and a blistering sun filtered down through leaves onto the sandy paths below, that she could always feel it.
Or, rather, she could feel him.
Perhaps it wasn't her training at all. Maybe it was just that after all these years, being acquainted with his chakra as she was, she could sense it the moment she crossed into it. Into his realm. His nation.
It wasn't exactly a calming shift. If anything it was unsettling, the way his energy seemed to wrap around her as heavy as the heat. All she could think about was being pinned to the tree by his demon manifested arm, breath labored, gasps growing shorter as she lost the fight with her own consciousness. She could still hear him taunting her friends with her life as she faded out, feel that angry, vicious chakra almost vibrating in the air around her. And she could still see him in her mind, more demon than boy, wild eyes filled with fury and pain as he screamed.
His chakra was everywhere in this land. Infused in the sand itself that he controlled with absolute and total perfection, he'd poured himself into his land and poured the land back out until the two were inexplicably intertwined. It was an impressive defense. The very terrain of this nation protected it's people from invasion the same way the sand had always protected him. Nothing moved here, nothing entered or left that he wasn't aware of. Impressive, but unsettling.
She led the team over now familiar terrain, having traversed it herself many times over the last few years, even more than the two men traveling with her. She kept her eyes ahead of her on the nearly imperceptible path they were following and her focus on the open space around her. Her chakra was focused in a loose sort of shield around the man behind her on her left, the one she was here to protect. Loose enough to allow him his own freedom of movement and energy but focused enough that she could tighten it powerfully at a moments notice. She could also sense the other man's energy as he ran behind her to her right, feel it in the long shadows they cast along the sand and smaller ones cast by desert plants and towering dunes.
As the sun moved slowly across the sky they pressed on, speaking quietly on occasion to one another and pausing only when the heavy desert began to give way to giant gusts of sand that whipped and tore at their exposed skin. Masks were tied around the bottom part of their faces and headbands moved to their correct position. She opted out of the protective eye wear, instead letting a small stream of chakra filter the sand from here eyes. Better to spend the chakra and have total visibility. Gear in place they resumed their mission.
She felt it long before she saw it, or again rather she felt his presence there before the city of Suna itself rose up in the distance to greet her. The city was as tough and hard as she remembered it, much like the Kazekage who controlled it. Carved out of massive rock cliffs that rose high into the sky, it blended almost seamlessly into the surrounding terrain. Only the single, narrow entrance between the two cliff faces gave glimpse into life beyond as the sun reflected metallically off giant steel doors.
Night had fallen by the time the group stopped again, high on a dune overlooking Suna before them.
She took a deep, steadying breath behind the mask. The air here was thick with his power and she did her best to control her own reaction, schooling her features into indifference and her emotions to calm.
She wasn't a terrified little genin anymore and she would never let him know the power he still had over her. She had a purpose here. She had a mission.