Disclaimer: I do not own NARUTO.

WILL OF STONE

CHAPTER NINE: "The Village Hidden in the Rain"


The border between Grass and Rain was branded twice. From below, gray steel walls jutted up from the earth, man-built walls looming over the flat plains. Watchful grass-nins patrolled the fortifications. The walls seemed to be like nothing so much as some sort of giant cage, keeping their unknown captives locked behind it.

The second brand was not so obvious as the first. Sakura only noticed it when they had reached the border. Then she felt a drop of something wet on her cheek. Then more drops, falling from dark dew-laden clouds, a curtain of water that seeped deep into them, soaking and filling everything. From above, the heavens poured out their tears.

The UC Embassy winded its way through a maze of armed checkpoints; then, suddenly, they were in the Rain Country. The first thing which greeted their eyes was an empty ghost city. The ruins loomed eerily silent, broken rubble and twisted metal.

"What happened here?" Lee asked Gai.

Maito Gai did not smile. He hadn't smiled since they had left Kusagakure for the border. Sakura had only seen the green-jumpsuit, bowl-cut ninja so serious like this once before. That had been during the chuunin exam when Gaara crushed Rock Lee's legs.

"War," Gai said finally. "These are just buildings. You'll see the real ruins soon enough."

She did. There was only one major road through Rain that was not destroyed or in a war zone. On either side the road was dotted with refugee camps, slums of teeming squalor and violence. It was like a haunted land. They passed camp after camp of starving, half-naked, sickly people. Some refugees went up to the Embassy and begged variously for food, for medicine and protection. Others shrunk back, recoiling in fear, in imagined recognition. But most of the refugees just stared at the ninja with blank eyes. They had been driven from the homes by the civil war, driven north to the border with Grass. But the Grass Country had sealed off the border. Now there was no place for them to go except the camps.

Akatsuki, Sakura thought. Akatsuki did this. This was the place where Akatsuki was born. Fifteen years Akatsuki had originally emerged here, as a terrorist insurgency in the Rain Country that sought to overthrow the daimyo of Rain, Lord Mukai Hanzou. Through a decades-long campaign of terror and fear that made December 7th seem like a walk in the park in comparison, Akatsuki had turned at least half the Rain Country into a lawless, war-torn wasteland. The civil war would have ended in Akatsuki's favor long ago were it not for the power of Hanzou, the legendary ninja who had ruled Rain with an iron fist since the Second Ninja War. And so the war went on—and on, and on. Now it had even spread outside the borders of Rain, to Sound, to Wind and Fire. That had been since Orochimaru took over Akatsuki seven years ago and transformed it into an organization not just for Rain rebels, but for all rebels and all missing-nin worldwide.

The ultimate source of the December 7th attack on Konoha is the Rain Country. Even though it wasn't directly executed from here, the attack would never have been possible if Orochimaru hadn't been able to leverage the instability of Rain in order to create a terrorist haven. Rain is the epicenter, the headquarters, of Akatsuki. If our purpose is to destroy Akatsuki, the first place we have to destroy them is here.

Sakura knew that the Hokage was desperate for Rain to join the United Countries. Moreover, having already failed with River, Waterfall, and Grass, the Embassy could not afford to leave the Rain Country empty handed. No doubt the Hokage had some sort of plan; but Sakura had no idea what it was.

Once Tsunade-sensei ordered that the Embassy stop at one of the largest refugee camps and unload aid packages to the people there. For a day Sakura herself worked in the hospital, a large tent where rain leaked through patches in the roof, trying to heal the sick and dying as best she could. There were thousands of them. Many of the refugees had horrible untreated wounds from the war, missing limbs or whole-body burns or deep kunai punctures. Others were dying from simple diseases that could be easily treated by antibiotics, except there were no antibiotics in the camp. Sakura tried to help them, but within a few hours she was utterly exhausted, both physically and mentally. The other medics also failed to persevere. Only Dr. Honjo Micho, the Konoha Chief of Medicine, was an inspiration. Micho was a whirlwind of strength and force. The old doctor attended to the refugees with the energy of ten younger men; that day he healed thousands without stopping at all. Watching him Sakura was moved to redouble her own efforts.

But Sakura was glad when the Hokage ordered that the Embassy leave the camps behind.

The Embassy continued along the road west and south. They called this place the Weeping Lands, for everywhere, it seemed, there was rain. The storm never ended. Here the flooded Haven River had become a sea, a black sloshing tide of mud and sewage and cold rainwater that stretched for kilometers in every direction. Sometimes the Embassy could wade across it in the shallow places, but more often they were forced to erect bridges and roads and ferries in order to cross. Horses died, whole wagon trains collapsed, but day by day they ground on.

At last the road reached a conclusion. Through the pouring rain they could make out the faint outlines of metal towers in the distance, dozens of them, near as high as the skyscrapers of Ashwarren. The metal city stood by itself on a high island hill, and the rain down ran from the city in curtains to the vast black sea which surrounded it.

The city had two names. The first name was old: the name it had when it was first built, decades ago, before the endless storms had come, by the idealists who had come to this place to found a glorious new republic. They had named the city Bliss. Now the city had another name.

Amegakure, the Village Hidden in the Rain.

The Embassy marched across a rusted drawbridge onto the island, then up the hill into Ame. Walls and masked sentries circled the city. The gates of the city opened into a maze-like fortress of metal. It was a technological wonder: thrusting skyscrapers and twisting alleys, tunnels and levels of bewildering steel. But the steel was rusted, decaying. And there were very few lights. It was both capital city and hidden ninja village, the greatest city in the heartland of the North, but somehow it reminded Sakura of the refugee camps they had left.

The rain-nins were out in force to welcome the Embassy. Files of ninjas in ceremonial dress, which in Rain consisted of straw hats and white robes and red umbrellas, lined up on either side of the main boulevard. Behind them thousands of young men beat drums and chanted ritually, filling the air with deep, shrieking rumbles that overwhelmed the otherwise constant patter of rain. It was an impressive ceremony.

There were crowds of villagers, too, who appeared to be kneeling on the ground and praying. At first Sakura thought the prayers were directed toward the Embassy, until she realized the villagers were facing in the wrong direction. They were facing forward.

The villagers looked forward to the end of the boulevard. There, on the highest point of the city, was a tower even larger and taller than the others, a gigantic black vertical spire that thrust against the endless storm clouds themselves. It was at the center of Ame.

"What's that?" Sakura asked.

"That," said Maito Gai," is the place from which Hanzou the Reaper rules over the Rain Country. He calls it the Asylum."

Now Sakura understood. The villagers were praying to Hanzou. She could just make out what they were saying. "Hanzou," they prayed. "Oh Lord Hanzou, save us. Deliver us from evil. Save us. Oh Lord Hanzou, deliver us from evil…"

The Embassy marched along the boulevard up the hill until they came to the Asylum. The prayers and the drums were even louder here. The black face of the tower loomed down over them. Finally, at the very top of the tower, there suddenly shined a blinding red light. The light grew brighter and brighter until it was like the sun itself.

The light spoke, and its voice was godlike.

"SENJU TSUNADE… THE QUEEN OF TORMENT…

"…WELCOME… TO BLISS…"

"It has been too long, Hanzou," the Hokage said.

"INDEED."

"I am here as a representative of the United Countries, the last, best hope for peace in our time. Will you join us, Hanzou?"

"COME… LET US TALK…"

Two rain-nins opened a door in the bottom of the tower of the Asylum. Inside the door Sakura could only make out darkness. But the Hokage walked in without hesitation. The rain-nins shut the door after her.

The red light at the top of the Asylum went out.

The prayers of the villagers of Rain crescendoed to their greatest height, a deafening orgy of ritual chanting. ""Oh Lord Hanzou, save us. Deliver us from evil. Save us. Oh Lord Hanzou, deliver us from evil…"Then all at once the ceremony was over. The rain-nins were silent and the drip-drip-drip beating of rain filled the city once again.

The Embassy dispersed. Some went to mingle with the crowds of villagers, while others went with their Ame guides to find their living quarters. Sakura was eager to go with them—she definitely needed a nap—but something was wrong with Maito Gai. Gai stared up at the Asylum and didn't move. He seemed to be locked in some sort of trance.

"Are you okay, Gai-sensei?" Lee asked. The boy frowned.

The man was slow to speak. "I'm fine, Lee. Just remembering… something…"

"What is that place?" Neji asked. "You said it was the Asylum. What does that mean?"

Gai hesitated. But at last when it looked like he was about to tell them a group of rain-nins approached.

There were four of them, three genin and a jounin sensei. The genin were dressed in some sort of armored black wetsuits. Their teacher wore a straw hat and a thick reed cloak that rippled down to his boots; he was taller than Gai by half and muscled like an elephant. In his hand the man clutched a thick bamboo staff studded on both ends with spear points.

"Maito Gai the Butcher Beast," the man said. "I did not think you would dare show your face in Bliss again."

Gai didn't smile at all. "Not happy to see me, Tosuken?"

"No," the man said. "I am very glad to see you. Because it means you will not leave this city alive."

"The Embassy is here under a diplomatic truce," Gai said.

"And so I did not snap your neck the moment you walked in… but that is only a technicality. If you have any honor at all, Butcher Beast… if there is any part of you that is not spineless… you will not run away. Not this time."

Lee couldn't hold back anymore. "What the hell are you talking about?" he shouted. "Who the hell are you?"

Now one of the Ame genin laughed. "He's Densuke Tosuken the Chameleon, the second strongest ninja in Rain, after my grandfather. And he's going to kill your sensei."

"Shut up!" Lee shouted, outraged.

"Mamoru wouldn't have wanted it to be like this," Gai said.

Tosuken slammed his staff into the ground. The concrete pavement exploded into webs of craters. "You dare speak his name!… you murdered Mamoru in cold blood… do you think that we would forget? Do you think that you could come back here and ask us for our help? The treachery of Konoha destroyed this country… only the power of Lord Hanzou keeps what remains of Rain from falling to the Akatsuki terrorists. I do not know what kind of deal the Queen of Torment thinks that she can make with Lord Hanzou. But we will never join your ridiculous United Countries. Not until Mamoru… and every other Rain ninja… is avenged! Maito Gai… I challenge you to a duel to the death!"

Lee yelled and started to rush forward to defend his teacher. But Gai pressed his hand against Lee's chest and pushed him back. "This has nothing to do with you. Be quiet!"

Gai turned back to look at Densuke Tosuken. For a while they just stared at each other. Sakura thought they would stare forever when somehow, for some reason, Gai grinned. It was the first time in days. He gave Tosuken a thumbs up. "I accept your challenge!" he said.

The rain ran down Tosuken's straw hat onto his face. "Then tomorrow you shall die."


Next: CHAPTER TEN: "Eye of the Storm"