Prologue
Hunger
Minekia watched the ice in her glass slowly melt. It had barely been a week before they had returned to the Village Hidden in the Sand. Naruto being kidnapped had weighed on her heavily. I should have been there… But she had a job to do at the time and couldn't be. I should have been able to help them… But she was too weak as she was now. Never had she felt as useless as she did, she had always been able to help those she considered friends. "The Sand's Ultimate weapon… that's what they call me. And that's all I am. A weapon… Not a shield." She sighed and downed the rest of her water, eating the ice and tossed the glass aside, the hardened ceramics resisting the trip into the sink. She had tried having regular glass dishes but had quickly learned she was too rough with them. And even her pay made it unreasonable to try and keep up with the rate she broke them. That and the shop keeper had quickly become annoyed with the frequency of her visits.
Shrugging she turned from the sink back to the table… to find a latter that hadn't been there before sitting where her glass had been.
She stared at it. No one in the village was that good… except Garaa-sensei but he was in a class all his own. And even if he wanted to talk to her he would have stepped up and said so, not leave a letter. Minekia felt a chill go down her spine as she picked up the folded paper. Holding it closed was a wax seal, a circle with three wavy lines across the center…
The symbol of the Misakata clan… her clan. She could have sworn she had been the last of the clan to survive. But this? She shuddered, no one should be that good.
Slowly she opened the letter, and felt her body go cold.