"Roye?" Nonki's voice sounded from the door.

"Yes?" she asked, trying to make herself look like her life wasn't a depressing mess of broken relationships and identity crises.

He opened the door. "I need to talk to you."

"About what?"

Nonki entered and shut the door behind him. He spoke lightly, "what is your purpose in Kaminari no Kuni?"

"Well, in truth, the Leaf is trying to hunt down an organization, the Akatsuki. Have you heard of them?"

He shook his head. He came and sat down adjacent to her, scanning the maps that littered the ground.

"It's an unlawful group that works under rogue ninjas and outcasts. The Leaf has put it as a maximum threat and is trying to do everything it can to find and disband them. A ghost town by the name of Kogarashi was suspected to be a possible hideout. Unfortunately," Roye looked down at the maps, "this Kogarashi is proving to be quite elusive."

"Hmm," Nonki said, frowning in thought. "I don't think Kogarashi is what you're looking for. From what I know the town was used as a shipment hub decades ago. It's probably under some sort of surveillance by Kumogakure. That doesn't seem like an ideal location for an underground organization."

"Yes, I can understand that, but my task is to locate the town and find out if there's any suspicious activity. I don't get to choose a more sensible place to investigate. Do you have any idea where Kogarashi is?"

"Well, my son is arriving here in a few days. He would definitely have more knowledge than me. But... from what I can see on these maps, the town is somewhere around this mountain. All of its possible locations are surrounding Mount Atsui. Your best bet, for now, is to start there."

Roye stared at the maps that lay across the stone floor. It was impossible to miss, now. The bad weather and recent bouts of dejection were getting to her deductive reasoning. "Of course."

"I'm glad I could help," Nonki said and then smiled a good-natured smile. "You really need to start eating more though. There's fish on the table and I'm hoping that it'll have disappeared by morning."

"Thank you, Nonki," she said. Roye really should have cherished the accommodations while they lasted. She hadn't joined the two for any meal because it evoked a sense of nostalgia. It wasn't only that she was seclusive; a child and a parent living alone in difficult circumstances was just so reminiscent of the period in her life which she and her mother suffered destitutely.

She bid Nonki and shy Momoka her goodbyes and set out for Mount Atsui early the next morning. It wasn't a long route, but the night's rain had softened the ground and she didn't enjoy trailing through sludge. She dug a pit in the back of her mind and buried her cares and concerns for Sasuke, Team Seven and Konoha before she left. She was tired of this cycle of misery. Roye promised herself anguish in exchange for affection from Sasuke. And in raw truth, Team Seven had only ever gotten that in return for their desperate search for his sympathy.

Mount Atsui was one of a string of many towering mountains that stood erect between the border of Kaminari and Tsuchi no Kuni. That must have been what gave the two countries such a vastly different climate. The mountains that lined the border contained the tempestuous storms of Kaminari and sheltered the much drier, comfortable Tsuchi.

Roye surveyed the land. She saw little to nothing but the vast mountain range. She could not depict even the slightest sign of civilization. Mount Atsui, in particular, gave off a grim air. It was gargantuan compared to the surrounding peaks. Roye thought Atsui loomed above them like a sagacious, intimidating fatherly figure, silently brooding over greater matters.

She began the climb up the mountain when it was almost midday, leaving a seal on the ground before it began to slope upward. Her Location Seals were useful in finding the way back. They were even more useful in tracking.

The sun beat strongly overhead as Roye summited Atsui. The limestone was rapidly drying, but she often came across slick rocks that made way for an injurious fall. The mountain did not cease its utter dominance as she reached higher. She did not feel any bigger after the climb, dizzy from the perilous height, but not exactly elevated. Besides, she couldn't see any town or even a meagre cluster of infrastructure around the mountain.

Roye sighed in frustration. Was she just unmotivated? Was that why this was so difficult? Finding Sasu- shut the fuck up. She needed to stop associating willpower and incentive with the defector who would deliberately kill his teammates if they got in his way.

She lit a cigarette from her stolen pack. It had been a moral crime to repay the man who sheltered her by pocketing his cigarettes. Roye was not proud of it, but she didn't exactly regret her decision. What she earned couldn't be spent on such frivolities, but the man had them out in the open. It had been weeks since she'd had the chance and she had crushed her conscience and taken it.

The habit came from watching her father. Her mother would hate him for it, so her dad had found a way to hide his shenanigans. Roye amused herself with the ridiculous things he did just for a smoke. Life had been good back then. It had been better than that; it had been ideal. She and her mother were not running from house to house accepting the lowest forms of work for a simple bite to eat. Roye did not only dream about getting an education. And, most importantly, she had still had a father.

Roye exhaled. The pleasant high of smoking after a long period of time rushed out of her lungs with the smoke. She felt light-headed after a bit and ground it, dousing the embers, before tossing it. Roye was about to get up and do another quick survey when something caught her eye. The where she had buried the cigarette was unnaturally discoloured from its surroundings. There was a darkish strip of tough material embedded in the grey limestone. She ran a hand over it and came to a surprising conclusion - the strip was actually an electrical cord. A much, much bigger cord than any she had seen.

Roye tried to follow the stip but it was running underground most of the times. It would be seen aboveground every now and then like ash marks littering the mountainous terrain. She couldn't possibly deduce what a cord was doing so far out, but it certainly meant that there must be some sort of civilization up here if electricity was needed. It was after a good deal of hunting when Roye arrived at an opening in the mountain. From the rectangular structure of it, she had already figured that it was man-made, but as she dove inside the corridor-like passageway, she had no doubt as to what the electricity would be used for. Bright lights illuminated the passageway, but they were placed so far apart that there were stretches of gloom before the next light. She walked along the passageway for some time before a railroad appeared, confirming her suspicions on the establishment being a mine.

However, when Roye approached the end of the corridor, she saw how shallow that viewpoint was. The passageway opened up to a huge chamber occupied with rows of basic buildings interlaced with rails that bore supply trolleys and an uncharacteristic bustle of human activity. A sign to the right of her said Kogarashi.

She had arrived.


A/N: Ok... I last updated months ago. I'm really sorry, I was super busy, but with the advent of summer a motivator, I might actually get farther in this story.