AN: A bunch of thanks to blackkat who acts as a sounding board for plot ideas and thoughts about the Naruto characters, and also elenathehun who gives me feedback and answers questions for Star Wars stuff.

And last but not least, one of my best friends in real life, Lauren! When I asked her to read over the chapters for general feel and logic mistakes, she went over each sentence with a fine tooth comb and improved it for grammar and little things. It's just amazing all the effort she put in unprompted. I have been gifted when it comes to friends.

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"Get down!" Tobirama ordered as he vaulted over the teenaged padawan, his lightsaber a flash of dark blue as it seared through the creature's neck.

Padawan Itama hit the ground and rolled just in time to avoid decapitation by another of the damn things, and Tobirama reached for the creature with the Force even as he battled another three using his lightsaber.

Except it was near impossible to get a firm grasp on any of them in the Force. All of them felt like the cloying tar of Darkness, but attempts to use mind tricks or simple telekinesis tended to slide away like oil separating from water. Even more disturbingly was that while they appeared alive by any definition of the word, every one of the several dozen beings permeating the settlement's streets had precisely the same Force signature. And while their identical white-green appearance certainly inspired thoughts of amoral cloning and genetic experiments between some vicious plantlife and a humanoid species, no clones could possibly have the identical signature. It simply wasn't possible.

Except it was obviously happening, which meant that Tobirama was missing some factor.

"Master!" Itama called out suddenly, as a separate Force string latched on to the teen's pursuer, followed by Tobirama's opponents and all the creatures in a 30-meter radius, and then slammed them together like debris drawn into a black hole. Tobirama took ruthless advantage of their stunned entrapment and quickly beheaded them with augmented strikes before looking towards the approaching steps.

Itama had trotted over to meet his Jedi master, absently shaking sand out of his tunics on the way, and looking greatly relieved as the rather short, red-haired man reached up to briefly place a steady hand on the boy's dual colored hair.

"Knight Akasuna," Tobirama greeted with a nod.

"Knight Tobirama," the telekinetic replied passively, grey-brown eyes drifting back to examine his padawan. The man's lips tilted down slightly at the varying cuts, but they were all lucky it wasn't worse considering the pair had been separated over an hour ago when the latest resurgence started.

After all, fighting inside a civilian city was usually more dangerous for both Jedi and non-combatants. Cities had small streets, idiosyncratic layouts, and far too many places for enemies to hide or plan ambushes. And that didn't even include the possibility of damaged architecture resulting in attacks through walls or, more stressfully, buildings being dropped on your head. Yet Selk's block-long, reinforced buildings and wide streets with few alleys made it harder for the creatures to corner them or approach unseen. It wasn't the worst battleground for a padawan like Itama who wasn't being trained to specialize in fighting.

"Where have you been, Master Sasori," Itama asked, eying the hovering corpses a bit uneasily. Akasuna's left hand moved slightly and the creatures' remains lowered to the ground.

"I was delayed by a larger force that appeared from the ground in the north-west quadrant," he replied, folding his hands within his sleeves and catching Tobirama's eye before walking northeast towards the central district, padawan at his heels. "Once you relayed that you were accompanied by another group of Jedi, I recruited further support and ensured they were aware of the situation we face here."

Tobirama closed his eyes briefly, confirming in the Force that the only active hostilities were currently in other districts and then followed. Although...

"When you say 'appeared', did they surface from the ground itself or suddenly appear without warning?" he questioned, following behind the duo and keeping narrowed red eyes focused on the area around them. Selk's evacuation protocols meant that the storm shielding was still active and buzzing lowly with power around most of the buildings, but that was no reason to get careless.

"Both," Akasuna replied. "Several of the knights personally witnessed them rising as if made of earth, but leaving behind no visible change to the ground except for a lingering miasma of ill feeling in the soil. Another padawan had her back to a concrete wall and even with 365 degrees of sight, she was nearly disemboweled when it appeared right next to her."

"A Hyuuga couldn't see it coming?" Tobirama repeated, frowning at the implications. That humanoid species had incredible eyesight and combined with Force abilities and the heightened adrenaline of battle, it was essentially impossible to approach them unawares. And their sight detected infrared and a much larger spectrum of light than other humanoids so any tech that could be doing this would have needed to be intentionally built to withstand their eyes.

The probability of such wasn't that high.

"That means it's most likely an unknown Force technique, doesn't it, Master?" Itama asked, fingers tensing on his weapon.

That would be the worst option, yes, Tobirama thought, exchanging a wordless glance with the other knight. The creatures were already incredibly dangerous and fast and unlike any humanoid the Jedi had been taught about, and the Order's education was extensive. They seemed to have limited sentience, but in turn they possessed something similar to a hive mind or collective consciousness. Once a trick was used, they were all aware of the trick. It quickly became a matter of sheer power or skill to take them down because cunning, traps, and outwitting them were made futile as they learned. To add on Force abilities to that...

"What reinforcements did you acquire?" Tobirama asked, changing the subject as Itama grew more nervous. The younger Senju rightfully should never have been on this battlefield with his master, but the pair had simply had the misfortune to be on the scene when the first attack occurred and there'd been no dormancy period long enough justify sending them off.

Hashirama would probably say it was a rare blessing from the Force that Knight Akasuna was such a deadly combatant for multiple attackers despite his intelligence specialty. Many other Jedi would have simply died without even managing to relay knowledge of the attack back to the temple.

"A merchant who... happened to be nearby," the Knight answered, swiftly moving left through a large hole in a smaller building to take a shortcut to the next street. When they exited back onto the road, they had to abruptly dodge around some large crates that had been abandoned near a store during the evacuation yesterday.

Tobirama resisted the urge to glare at the man.

"A merchant," he verified, temper rumbling a bit before he released it to the Force. The very idea though: recruiting a merchant in a battlezone.

"More like a Jack-of-all-trades."

"Mr. Deidara is here again then?" Itama asked, perking up a bit before wilting in the face of Tobirama's ire spiking back up in the Force. He reigned it back in quickly though. It was hardly the student's fault that his teacher had lost all sense.

"Yes," the red-head answered, actual irritation shading his tone. "He arrived two hours ago apparently."

"We shut down all ports near this city because of the last 37 hours of periodic attacks," Tobirama said, eyes narrowing.

"The brat took it as a challenge," the Knight replied, Force lashing out to the left to grab three enemies before whipping them into the ground with enough velocity to kill them in a shattering crunch of bone and flesh. Tobirama frowned at the gory scene perpetrated within sight of the fourteen-year-old next to them, but there were only so many methods to kill with when using telekinesis and the beings were dangerously resilient. As it was, the boy just shivered uneasily and actually moved closer to his master who glanced back but made no mention of Itama's reaction.

"Mr. Deidara is a..." Itama fumbled for a moment, "well, a friend, I guess? Master Sasori met him back before I became a padawan once or twice and he... just kind of shows up sometimes? Well, maybe more than just sometimes. Kind of a lot?"

Tobirama wasn't sure how to respond to what didn't quite sound like unprofessional and unbecoming recklessness from Sasori Akasuna who took preparation and forethought to a deadly level. "You take him on missions."

The knight actually scoffed that time, "He is an adult, and he simply shows up: I take the brat nowhere. He's highly Force sensitive. I'm nearly positive that he's close to my level of strength in raw power. His awareness of minute details concerning things that catch his attention is also impressive. "

"I think he can actually feel where we are," Itama offered as they darted through one of the rare crystal parks, ignoring the spray of water shooting upwards from a broken fountain. "He meets us in transit sometimes so it's not like someone's telling him where we're going or anything. Although I think he actually tracks down Master Sasori rather than me because he never finds me first if we're in different places."

"To my great misfortune," Akasuna input.

Padawan Itama actually gave a grin at that and mouthed They're friends. They like to argue. behind his teacher's back.

"That hardly changes the fact that there's no benefit to having an untrained civilian here," he said, resuming his original point, tempted to pinch the bridge of his nose had he been willing to shut his eyes in this environment. "Force potential means nothing if not trained."

A flat glance from eyes half lidded: "While the fool may often fail to prepare sufficiently enough, he's acceptably capable. Certainly more preferable than the numerous other sentients that we cannot evacuate and who you'd prefer not being here."

"And his skills?" Tobirama asked, one eyebrow raised.

Akasuna seemed disinclined to answer except for a tilt of his head in the direction they were heading towards. His padawan at least had better manners even if the boy seemed uncertain suddenly for no reason.

"He's... well..." the boy trailed off.

A distance away, close to the spaceport in the north-central area bordering the scrublands, a rumbling blast suddenly went off. Tobirama started running. It was followed rapidly by many smaller and... strangely uniform blasts.

It's not the right sound for blaster fire or other projectile weapons. Some compact explosives? It's possible there were some available in the spaceport waiting for transport. If the creatures have resurged there, one of the others might have taken advantage of the stock to help manage the numbers, he considered.

Itama laughed a bit weakly from where he and Akasuna were following behind him. "He's a bit explosive?" the boy offered.

"That's your merchant!" Tobirama demanded as they ran.

The knight gave him a dirty look, "I claim no responsibility for the brat, but there's a reason he hasn't gotten himself killed sneaking around my missions."

"Not the subtlest person in a fight though," Itama commented under his breath.

"Using explosives violates local laws on the majority of planets and brings about property damage that would get you noticed on others!" he snapped back as they finally reached the center square of the city and veered north to reach the spaceport.

"Well, to be fair, Mr. Deidara doesn't really blow things up without a purpose. Or, you know, in areas where it's too troublesome to avoid getting arrested. And Master Sasori's already informed him that was the last time we were bailing him out."

Am I actually hearing this? Tobirama thought to himself, not even looking them anymore.

"And he did deserve it!" Itama insisted defensively, apparently having realized how his earlier statement sounded. "He saved us a month of time and an encounter with the Hutts, and he only got caught because I messed up! It wouldn't have been right to leave him there like that."

Akasuna's flatter than normal expression implied he would have been perfectly happy to leave 'the brat' there to suffer the consequences if it hadn't been for his padawan's guilt about the matter. Especially since it had probably only encouraged the 'merchant' to keep showing up.

"Tobirama!"

"Master Mito," he greeted as the red-haired Jedi waved to them from the spaceport entrance. "What's the situation like in this area? We've cleared the south-west quadrant for now with nothing sensed in the south-central or west-central."

"It's under control," she answered, waving them in with a polite greeting towards Akasuna and a smile for Itama. "We had a few mass swarms suddenly manifest out of the tarmac in the landing areas outside, but some unusual help allowed us to quickly deal with them wholesale before they spread out further."

"The explosions from earlier?" he asked dryly.

"Not exactly our normal methods," she confirmed with a nod, "but it's quite fortunate this time. We only have seven Jedi on the ground right now. Without being able to identify how the creatures are arriving and stop them, we simply don't have the ability to cover the entire city with these few people."

"Do we have any information on them at all?" Akasuna asked with a frown. "Nothing from my network matches what we have here."

"No," Mito answered. "Knight Ebisu and his student have been unable to find anything that remotely matches so far in the archives on Coruscant, and the Corellian archives are younger. It's unlikely they have it, but we've asked another team to search there as well. At this point, we're referring to them as 'Drones' because of the apparent collective mind."

"Why have none of the other backup teams arrived?" Tobirama questioned, reworking his plans as much as possible to account for the limited fighters. "I was informed that another thirteen Jedi at minimum were on route to help contain this."

"There's a large ion storm going on that started engulfing the main hyperlane route nearby this planet. Anyone who didn't manage to get in ahead of it is having to divert to avoid it. It's adding onto the travel time so the next arrival won't make it for a minimum of nine hours, and they'll be staggered coming in," Mito said, frowning.

It was definitely bad news. The attacks had a regular pattern for timing which meant they could potentially have shifts sleep between them, but it had started two days ago and all the Jedi present had already been going for a minimum of fifteen hours. If Akasuna's attack style wasn't so physically minimalist, he would have already dropped from exhaustion from managing the first ten hours with only his padawan, followed by the rest of it. As it was, the Knight was probably hiding a migraine from intense Force overuse compounded by the concentration needed for his work.

And none of the Jedi dossiers he'd read in preparation for heading this mission mentioned a species whose circadian rhythm was designed to go more than thirty-one hours at best.

"Do we have information on methods for killing them? They're very resilient and they can regrow limbs with time, but beheading is effective and Akasuna verified that mass trauma also puts them down."

"Well, you can always blow them up," a cheerful voice input.

A young blond man with long hair covering his left eye approached them, casually tossing a thin cylinder up and down. He was dressed in the typical style for spacefarers except for what seemed to be a modified crossbow in his right hand and an open messenger bag hanging by his left hip which gave Tobirama suspicious feelings just looking at it. The man also had a strangely active Force signature for someone who was supposed to be completely untrained.

"Hello, Mr. Deidara," Itama greeted.

"Hey kid. Nice to see you haven't gotten yourself gutted, stabbed, blown up, or kidnapped to be a paramour to some sick old freak with control issues and bad hygiene, un."

Itama groaned softly, burying his face in one hand as Tobirama and Mito both looked at the student-teacher pair with raised eyebrows.

"Were you the one that made that crossbow or did you have a professional do it?" Akasuna asked, ignoring them both.

"I am absolutely capable of making my own supplies, Sasori-no-Danna. There is not a flawed part in this entire get up this time. I checked it twice like you showed me and besides," Deidara said, patting his bag with a smirk, "the bow is just the delivery system, un."

Tobirama tried to place whether he'd heard that accent before and what planetary language 'Danna' might be from. Mito, however, turned and gave Akasuna a look which her fellow red-head met evenly, arms crossed but with the fingers of both hands freed up. Itama gave them both a slightly concerned glance, but slid over when the blond gestured for him and quietly argued as the man started loading him up with something that appeared to be small birds?

"...not saying it's not, kid, but that lightsaber is short-range and you're not a natural with it. Take them and try not getting killed. Funerals are boring even if Jedi ones are mildly artistic, and Danna will be totally bitchy to deal with if you kick it, un."

"There is nothing artistic about any funeral service, you ill-educated philistine," Akasuna injected, eyes narrowed slightly.

"You set people on fire-"

"Your predilection for arson doesn't give it artistic flair."

"It's the ambiance and the symbology that makes it art, even if it still sucks as art and could be improved by-"

"Blowing up bodies isn't suitable nor is it art in any-"

"Gentlemen," Mito interrupted, eyebrows raised as she looked at the two men. "If we could kindly stay on the pertinent topic we're currently concerned with, that would be appreciated."

See, Itama mouthed at Tobirama, dodging Deidara's distracted slap to the head, I told you that they like to argue.

Apparently so, Tobirama admitted. Which was surprising, given that Hashirama had once bet Mito quite a large amount of Naboo delicacies that Akasuna wasn't physiologically capable of reacting strongly to anything.

"Come along," Mito said, the authority of an established Jedi Master making her words a subtle command. "I have a droid working on an accurate city map to mark the points where they've appeared and when, and it should be finished consolidating all the available data from the last few days."

"And if it's random, un?" Deidara asked, interested as he fell into step beside Akasuna.

"You'll find that very little in life is truly random, Mr. Deidara, so long as you've the mind the see the hidden patterns," Mito replied, sweeping off towards one of the parked starships. "And I'm quite interested in finding who made this particular pattern."

"Who?" Tobirama repeated sharply.

Master Mito merely hummed. "Call it a feeling."

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The current code of the Jedi Order was something that foundlings like Tobirama had grown up with practically from birth. Unlike the rare Jedi trained from an older age, the Code was very much a part of who they were, regardless of what their thoughts on it were. Tobirama had always done his best to adhere to it even with his personal failings at managing his temper and his occasional arrogance.

After all, there was much wisdom to be found in the Code: there is no emotion, there is peace... there is no ignorance, there is knowledge... there is no passion, there is serenity... there is no chaos, there is harmony... there is no death, there is the Force. And of course, there was the less formalized advice from the elder Jedi: Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. All of these emotions were wisely avoided or dealt with by Jedi during meditation and day-to-day life.

That being said: Tobirama hated deserts.

It was more hyperbolic than the raging emotion spoken against by Jedi everywhere. After all, even Jedi were not immune to the habit of exaggerated speech that spanned so many sentient species. However, it was also perhaps more passionate than he should have permitted himself. He had tried his best to manage the constant irritation inspired by that particular environment, but...

Well, once you have a more than generous handful of fellow Jedi who would cheerfully do paperwork acrobatics or actual groveling to the council if necessary to avoid being partnered with you for another desert mission, it was impossible to avoid admitting there was a problem.

Simply put, Tobirama got pissy, vicious, and steadily more short-tempered and sharper-tongued the longer he had to stay in a desert. Especially if he also had to simultaneously deal with stupid, short-sighted or self-centered people. It used to be the absolute despair of his otherwise proudly fond master. The woman had been a genius herself and a genuinely nice Twi'lek even in the face of subtle or blatantly racist comments that had made a teenaged Tobirama bite his tongue to stay quiet. The only times Tobirama had ever seen her approaching frazzled was when he and a desert were involved.

Apparently, it was harder to balance the heat, the diplomacy, the egos of fellow sentients, and the potential danger involved when you also had to wrangle a teenaged boy-human who had to drown in sunscreen to avoid broiling and who quickly became a knife-sharp, grumpy, pathological truth teller with no care for how many blasters are armed and in the room.

Tobirama was never amused about how his master fondly reminisced on how much more diplomacy she learned during his teaching years compared to the entire rest of her career, but he couldn't exactly contradict her either.

Hashirama had always found the entire thing incredibly funny to the bafflement of all their friends and former creche mates.

So needless to say, Tobirama had been unenthused right from the point where he saw the destination on the mission brief, but a Jedi went where they were called. And the Council might very well have learned something after all, given that all the Jedi on this particular mission had worked with Tobirama before on other non-desert missions. And even if he was officially heading the task team on dealing with this threat, having Master Mito there to research the underlying cause meant there was less chance of interpersonal clash to begin with. Very few Jedi were willing to act up around such a respected master and Mito had a way of calmly inspiring people with her skills, competence, and manners. Tobirama always found her very enjoyable and relaxing, even if he still failed to understand why the older woman paid attention to his self-proclaimed brother.

Regardless, with all the talented and competent Jedi on this mission, Tobirama had been certain (even after they hit the ground) that they would manage to successfully complete their goal. They would figure out what was happening with the absolute minimum of civilian deaths and with hopefully no deaths among their own if luck and the Force was with them at all.

... Unfortunately, luck was something they wouldn't end up having this time.

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"Alright, everyone!" Mito called out, scanning the circle of assembled Jedi, and serenely ignoring the city and government officials hovering uncertainly to her left. Notably, Deidara had included himself with them rather than the onlookers by claiming the spot on the other side of Akasuna from Padawan Itama and offering a friendly smirk to Knight Kamizuki's sideways look.

They had ended up gathering together inside the shielded hangar of the local spaceport once the other Knights had trudged back in from their own sectors of the city. It was safer to convene here, after all, where the shields would prevent any surprise attacks if the Drones broke pattern. However, it did mean that all of the "big fish" who'd come to meet the Jedi were able to observe them, along with those citizens who either worked at the spaceport or had been caught there when the evacuation order had gone out.

Tobirama really didn't envy Akasuna the effort it had apparently taken to get that order issued in the first place. The local tunnels that connected the city buildings underground were traditionally not blocked off when the shields went up for a storm lockdown. Knight Akasuna had sensibly insisted that they be shielded off as well, of course, which had made everyone in Selk really unhappy, given that one of the first things the local mayor had asked him and Mito when they touched down was to repeal that order. Tobirama had taken no real pleasure in explaining in very small words why they would not be doing that, given they had no known limits to the Drone's ability to manifest in different locations.

He did take a bit of pleasure in the fact that all the officials avoided him in favor of Mito now. Apparently she looked safer. It was extremely amusing to all the Jedi here who had seen Mito fight in demonstrations before.

Master Mito nodded at the small droid next to her who beeped and started up a hologram. Starting from the planetary view of Samaria, it quickly zoomed the display in on an aerial view of Selk before adding a transparent grid over the city.

"Given the information provided by Knight Akasuna and the Samarian government, you are all aware that the attacks have been ongoing for roughly thirty-eight hours now, with periodic breaks ranging from five to eight hours. However, by utilizing satellite based technology to better document the locations for each attack, we've discovered that this is incorrect."

The display of the city rapidly filled with small, individual red pins and larger light blue circles.

"Each blue circle encompasses a group of Drones that manifested together. As you can see, they're concentrated wholly into the western and central quadrants with the south-central having nearly no attacks and the northwest quadrant having 1.5 times as many manifestations as any other quadrant. Following that logic, I had R3-78 expand the map into the northwest scrublands to determine how large the radius was for these creatures."

Knight Hagane gave a low whistle as the map expanded a few dozen kilometers, revealing nearly twice as many appearances with a good sixty percent of them focused around a recessed crater just inside the desert itself.

"All of these have occurred starting 110 hours ago, but had gone unnoticed and unreported up to now," Mito elaborated, shifting dark eyes towards one of the well dressed Samarians nearby who tried valiantly not to wilt in the face of her subtle disapproval.

"Master Jedi, er, Jedis, the surveillance you were given access to doesn't report to a local level like our city government. We had no way of alerting you to the correct details about the matter!" he exclaimed, radiating nervousness under his bravado.

"You're stating that you just didn't notice strange and murderous non-sentients appearing en masse outside your borders?" Knight Ao asked, eyebrow raised over his patch as he turned to stare at the civilians with his remaining lavender eye. His padawan beside him seemed torn between intentionally disconcerting the civilians with her own identical eyes and fussing over a shallow gash she was bandaging on her master's arm.

The man spluttered briefly, but was interrupted by one of the security guards behind Hagane snorting.

"Uh course not. Not a single natif Samarian e'er heads that way and all the roads and pathways head out towards the east and south. Ain't no reason we'd a seen 'em," he explained with a split lip, crossing his arms and staring back as they all turned to look at him.

"Isn't a path straight north the most efficient way to reach the subregion's capital?" Tobirama questioned, narrowing red eyes at the almost palpable unease radiating off most of the civilians in the space port. Knights Gou Zu and Mei Zu exchanged a silent communication to his right behind their goggles and rebreathers and subtly signed at Ao with a flash of tangerine and tea rose colored fingers.

(Years later and Tobirama still hadn't forgiven his Master for picking up that undercover mission involving interior decorating.)

"Well yeah," the man admitted with a shrug, "but you're not gonna get anyone willing tuh go that way. It's bad luck. Better to swing east a bit and then head north."

"What type of 'bad luck'?" Mito questioned evenly while Tobirama caught Ao's eye. The older Knight made sure the other Knights were watching and then, blocked from view of the officials by Tobirama, Ao used a more common dialect to sign that something in that direction both felt and looked strange to the Kel Dor and Hyuuga pairs respectively.

"The lethal kind," he said dryly.

"It's just a superstition!" another official argued, a strained smile tossed to the Jedi as they waved a tense hand dismissively.

"Not when it's got a body count, it ain't."

"How long has this bad luck been prevalent?" Tobirama questioned, cutting in forcibly before embarrassment or pride could cloud the facts in favor of saving face.

"Always, sir," said a different guard politely. "The town's quite a few centuries old at this point, but that area has been trouble since the very beginning. People don't come back sometimes or they come back strange. I can't quite describe it, but it's just not right over there and it's more so the closer you are to that bowl in the ground."

"That part's more recent, though," the first man commented. "Area's the same, but the ground there caved in about...hey, Jerik!" he yelled over his shoulder, the "polite man" beside him looking pained as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "When'd that cursed hole open up?"

"I think it was about six years ago, perhaps, Master Jedis," the second man commented, hand still over his face as he punched the first man in the arm, earning a glare.

"What was that for?!"

"Six years," Tobirama considered, ignoring the hissed condemnations continuing on about proper behavior. "It seems unlikely to be related directly to this incident with that kind of time gap, but the location is a definite concern."

"We could divide in half, leave one group here and send in the other to investigate at the beginning of the next five-hour gap," Kamizuki offered up. "It would give the group more time to explore unimpeded while safely escaping before they linger long enough to get outnumbered."

"We might well use that method, but we have two major problems," Mito said, frowning. She tapped the droid lightly once and the indicators disappeared from the map before resettling, one at a time, in a loop.

Tobirama's frown deepened as he watched the timelapse move forward, and he knew the others had realized it when Padawan Himawari uncharacteristically cursed.

"As you can see," Mito continued, "there is no five-hour gap. While it is true that the town goes a minimum of five hours without attack, the creatures are appearing for a duration of one hour every three hours. They simply skip the town every other repetition while continuing to appear at the sinkhole."

"So our window's smaller than expected," Ao said grimly.

"True, but it's not the problem I'm concerned with," Tobirama acknowledged as the hologram stopped on the current time's image, revealing a sinkhole so covered in red pins it was practically a solid blackout. "After all, the town is free of Drones because we've been steadily killing them as they appeared. The depression has been under their focus for over four days with no interference."

"Fuckin' shit," the soldier from earlier muttered in the background. Tobirama exchanged a flat look with Mito as the fear and whispers from the civilians spiked in the background. It was extremely unfortunate that they'd had to discuss this out in the open, but the officials had made such a fuss that getting rid of them hadn't been worth the time required to do it. Even Itama, easily the nicest person here, looked a little offended at the lack of faith in them.

Even if it was turning into a small clusterfuck with the multiple complications.

"If we wait longer," Gou Zu said, voice gravelly through his mask, "their numbers simply increase. Do we have the luxury of waiting until the other Jedi arrive, Master Mito, Knight Tobirama?"

Master Mito turned to look at him, head tilted slightly in offer, and Tobirama nodded back before addressing the others.

"Given the staggered arrival times of the reinforcements and how long until the next, I don't believe we should wait. If their rate of growth holds steady, they'll be unmanageable by the last arrival, even at the most optimistic projections. There's also the possibility that they might achieve whatever their goal is at the sinkhole before then and lose interest."

Which would mean those numbers could be turned against the town, Tobirama thought, throwing the words into the Force for his comrades as he signed what he could with the hand partly hidden by his sleeve. And if they turn those numbers against us in this urban battleground, we've already lost.

The others indicated their agreement, hiding the unspoken possibility from the surrounding audience.

"What we need to do at this point is look at the available information on the specific area as quickly as possible and formulate a plan of action that will confront the Drones in more manageable numbers. The sinkhole is in desert area rather than the shrublands nearby, which makes for treacherous footing at the best of times."

They all took a moment to pause and assess the situation before Akasuna sighed, eyes closed.

"Deidara," the redhead started, ignoring the hologram, "assume you have immunity for assisting in a Jedi mission on behalf of the public: exactly how many explosives do you have hidden on your ship?"

The blond started with a low, deep laugh that ended in an unsettlingly wide and toothy grin.

"Danna, I always have enough supplies to make my art as big and impactful as I want, un."

.

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Impactful was an understatement.

Deidara's bombs did far too much damage for something that managed to get past security. They tore through the masses of Drones one after another in a viciously loud parody of dominos falling in the wake of the man's ship, scattering pieces and bloody chunks of white-green flesh all over the kilometer-wide sinkhole. The uninjured Drones were sent scrambling about, unorganized and divided, which would have been even more of a benefit if their team had been able to approach the sinkhole instead of crouching at a distance and waiting until the concussive blasts stopped.

"Your boy-toy has some nice tricks, Akasuna," Mei Zu commented with a raspy laugh, tilting his goggled head toward the red-head and flicking an orange finger towards the rampant destruction.

Akasuna turned his head slowly towards where the Kel Dor knight was crouching behind their sand dune, and had such a disgusted, flat glare hidden under his impassive expression that you would think Mei Zu had just suggested he fornicate with a Hutt.

The other man broke out laughing.

Gou Zu just hung his head and shook his twin's shoulder reprovingly before grabbing Mei Zu's hood, yanking it up over his orange head, and practically shoving the cackling Knight face first into the sand.

"My apologies, Akasuna," Gou Zu offered, "we've been on assignment in the Outer Rim too long and all his behavioral training's gone to the dogs. He's even forgotten how to roll over and beg."

"That's not what she said," Mei Zu muttered wickedly, making Hagane snort on Tobirama's right.

"Of course it's not," Akasuna agreed evenly, "for 'her' to say anything would require that a woman not avoid your very presence."

"I'm considering drowning them in the sand dune," Tobirama commented to Kamizuki, staunchly ignoring how Mei Zu's attempt to shoot up to his feet in offense was being foiled by his brother's weight pinning him down with an elbow between the shoulderblades.

"Well, you could do that yeah," Kamizuki agreed, shoving brown hair back under his bandanna, "but it looks like the bombs are starting to trail off and there's still an awful lot of those things down there. Might as well keep them around to help until Master Mito can look at the cleared area and fix whatever's wrong."

"Izumo's right," Hagane agreed, wide smile stretching the green tattoo across his face. "Besides, there's a convenient sinkhole right there! You can always shove them into it when we're done."

"Take off your wraps and go fondle some lingerie, you Kiffar bastard. If I go in, I'm dragging you with me," Mei Zu shot back, elbowing his brother off him once more.

"We might all get dragged in at this rate," Akasuna said, frowning towards the settling explosions. "It's hard to feel through the ambient Darkness, but I believe the bombs have destabilized the area further. It feels like the edges of the sinkhole are crumbling inward."

"Alright," Tobirama announced, lightsaber held ready but unlit. "Everyone keep a distance from the pit itself. They don't seem to have issues with the footing and we don't need to give them any advantages if it gives way beneath us. Knights Gou Zu and Mei Zu, Knights Hagane and Kamizuki: you're two teams, and Akasuna will work with me. There's no real advantage for us in cover or approaching unawares, but keep in mind their ability to materialize from the ground. We can't be certain that they only do it on the timed patterns: if this is their real goal, they might call reinforcements."

Tobirama looked at the others, serious to a man now that the fight was about to begin.

"Deidara has said he'll keep airborne and out of range of being attacked, so if we need an escape, we'll have to get to a large enough open spot for him to lower the ship. Blasters only have a forty percent chance of hitting them according to R3-78, but the suppressive fire will let us board if needed.

"Work with your partner, don't get separated, and try to keep an opening at your back in case you need to retreat," he ordered before placing his hands together and bowing.

"May the Force be with us."

"May the Force be with us," the others echoed, bowing back.

And then it began.

.

.

"Would you look at that, un," Deidara said, whistling lowly at the swift moving Jedi on the display feed. From an aerial view, the easiest thing to see was the neon gleam of the lightsabers leaving afterimages as they blazed through the twilight landscape, cutting apart their opponents in twisting dances across desert sand. Two green, two light blue, one dark blue and a stationary burnt orange being held straight up which had to be Sasori, given the surrounding whirlwind of white-ish bodies being flung through the air without anyone touching them.

"You know, I keep saying that Danna's a work of art himself, and he still doesn't get it. But look at this: he's like a human storm. A motionless, blazing center surrounded by absolute chaos and unpredictability. There with no warning and gone with no sign it happened but the wreckage left behind. Just a brief instance of skill and power which can never really be captured for future generations. Truly a transitory masterpiece. And so ironic given that Danna thinks anything that doesn't last has no value as art, un."

"How illuminating, Mr. Deidara," Master Mito's voice said over the comms, voice as dry as the planet Dac was wet. "Perhaps you could focus on describing what's occurring for those of us without ring-side seats?"

"Is your snazzy satellite footage not doing the job, un?" he asked, flipping some switches and gently raising the ship just enough to get all six fighters back in view.

"There have been complications," she said pleasantly.

Deidara shivered slightly at her voice, chill racing down his spine. Jedi Mito definitely reminded him of a polite version of that female mandalorian mercenary he'd met in a bar once.

"Well, so far I've made an entrance and dealt with most of them from the air. Your fellow Jedi seem slightly jealous, though, because they're hard at work to even out the kill count. No sign that I can see that they're popping up more of the weeds around, but the sinkhole got wider under the stress, un."

"Hmm... any sign of potential causes, yet?" she asked.

Deidara laughed, leaning back in his seat and spreading his hands for his distant audience. "And exactly how am I to know that? I wasn't ever trained as a Jedi, thankfully. If you want the mystical stuff accounted for, I can swoop down and grab that white haired mansicle. Or Danna instead: he's good at figuring out how strings are being pulled unseen, un."

"The battle is still being fought, is it not?"

"Yeah, it's... what the?"

"What is it?" the Jedi asked authoritatively.

Deidara blinked at the screen, zooming in a bit further and yeah... "They're moving, un."

"Towards the town?" came the grim question.

"No, they're just moving away from the sinkhole. Like rats abandoning a ship, un," he corrected, frowning at the sight. Several of the things even ran towards the Jedi at times just to get slain, but all of them were suddenly crawling out of or fleeing away from the crater.

"I don't know, Master Mito," Deidara said suspiciously, impulsively hitting the speed to thrust the ship up higher and to the side away from the recessed ground. "I have a bad feeling about this, un."

.

.

Tobirama shot left, intercepted the path of a Drone to cut off its escape, promptly beheaded it, dropped to the ground, kicked backwards into another to land on top of it where he shattered its skull with a reinforced elbow, and rolled back upright.

Seven others had managed to flee past him in those few seconds.

Akasuna caught all the ones in his range and flung them back in front of Tobirama at breakneck speed before scrambling for yet another batch going around them both.

"They've stopped focusing on us," the telekinetic murmured, eyes at half mast and moving rapidly to track their opponents. The Knight had been extremely effective as long-distance support earlier while Tobirama had flowed around him, but the change in the Drone's behavior was making the situation untenable.

"OI!" Hagane bellowed from a quarter distance around the sinkhole, as he and Kamizuki continued weaving in and out of the fleeing forces. "What's the plan now?"

"Focus on getting between them and the town!" he commanded. "The other directions have no settlements nearby!"

A sweeping whirr of a lightsaber through air made him jump backwards so he could catch Akasuna in his periphery while heading off another Drone. The man was fine, but he must have finally been growing weary, as he'd lowered his lightsaber from the focus stance clasped in front of his chest in favor of stabbing forward sharply like a scorpion's tail.

"I dislike it when something flees with no apparent cause," Akasuna said flatly. "It has yet to turn out well."

Tobirama hummed in agreement. "We need to move further back to match where the others are heading. We can catch more running in that direction and then hunt the others down once the main threat to the town is finished."

The other nodded, and then they both staggered as the world rocked beneath them.

It was like being suddenly caught in some horrific blend of earthquake and whirlpool. The earth rocked and bucked, and there were deep snapping sounds ringing through the air along with the sucking, grated roar of sand flowing past them at high speed into the sinkhole.

Then a geyser - an actual geyser of sand instead of water - shot out from the center of the hole, cleared their heads by several dozen meters and crashed back down around the edges. Thank the Force it hadn't hit them directly with that much weight, because simply being caught in it several meters away was like being trapped in a riptide: the ground under their feet pulled forward towards the hole and the sand at their knees was wrenching them backwards.

Jedi Knights, and it was all they could do to just keep their footing. He couldn't even see the other four anymore with so much dust and particles in the air under this madness. He could vaguely feel them, but it was hard enough just to keep track of Akasuna's presence behind him in the Force.

"The sand!" the other man choked out. "The Dar- the Darkness is permeating all of it!"

"Move!" he roared out over the bombardment of sound. "Get further away!"

Tobirama stored his lightsaber in his robes quickly, heart thudding and ears ringing as he tried getting to higher ground. But as soon as he got his left foot free and tried to brace himself on the sand, something shot out and grabbed him.

Fear hit instinctively and Tobirama shoved it down even as more of the ground seemed to sink out from beneath him specifically. He grit his teeth and scrambled with both hands to catch hold of something solid, but he kept sliding with nothing around to brace himself on.

A tendril of something wound up his left leg, too deliberate and too condensed to just be his brain playing tricks with the sand. His breathing ratcheted up despite his control, and the relief that hit when Akasuna's hand shot out to grab his right wrist was incredible.

The red-head's eyes were squinted shut against debris and his whole body was braced on the ground, both to spread his weight and because, Tobirama realized as his eyes widened, he had fallen so deeply into the pit of sand that Akasuna hadn't been able to reach him without hitting the ground.

Another tendril creeped further up his right leg and he let go with his left hand, clenching tightly onto Akasuna's wrist as he reached for his lightsaber and ignited it again. A careful slash through them proved futile, however, because there was nothing in the wretched things but sand and it just reformed!

He cursed, shoving his weapon away and lashing out with his rudimentary telekinesis while he tried climbing again. Akasuna was having infinitely more luck using his ability to brace himself against the unsteady ground and get traction to pull while not sinking, but the man's strength lay in detail work and worn down like he already was...

He's not going to last, Tobirama realized, stomach sinking even as he struggled relentlessly towards the surface and away from this Dark, sapient sand. It's not focused on him, but he's going to run himself dry before he can get himself out of this sucking whirlpool.

For a moment, it was as if the entire world slowed down for him. The surging sand, the grasping tendrils, the Darkness below and around them and the sticky, deeper Darkness of the fleeing Drones all muted down under the sound of his heartbeat racing in his ears and the sweaty warmth of Akasuna's wrist under his fingers.

He took a slow, steadying breath as nerves fell away under his decision and he released all the fear and lingering anger into the Force.

It has been an honor to grow and live alongside you, Hashirama, my friends, he thought, having faith that the Force would carry his message somehow.

Tobirama looked back up at Akasuna, calm written onto his face and settled in his red eyes despite the constricting sand clutching higher around his waist and chest.

"I'm sorry, Sasori," he said.

Then he broke Akasuna's wrist bones and went under.