Thank you to all of my readers. Enjoy the chapter! As always, reviews are gold. =] Now, on with the story.
There was. No. Time.
No matter what Al did, he was never left alone. During the day, all they did was walk. At night, it was set up the camp and go to sleep. Every time he promised himself he would wake up and sneak off, he didn't. This whole 'sleeping' thing was becoming a hassle. Well, the dreams were nice, but they took up valuable time he needed to practice his alchemy. He hadn't had a moment to himself in four days! Now, Shikamaru had just announced that they were LESS THAN A MILE from the meeting point. After that, he'd have yet another ninja to deal with.
To say that he was edgy was an understatement. It felt like his soul was five different entities; each attempting to go a different direction, each jumping at the slightest noise, each wanting to simply go home, but having no idea how to do so. All the while, his body was having to battle to appear calm, relaxed, and to keep his true emotions from showing on his now expressive face. He'd never had a poker face before except when it was made out of metal, so how was he possibly supposed to fool 'ninjas' who were trained to read every inadvertent twitch! Arggg!
Al shook his head rapidly to clear his mind. Thoughts like that would just make it harder. All he needed was a few minutes to calm down, relax, test his alchemy, and be away from people watching and analyzing his every move! How was he supposed to-!
Bad thought.
Al shook his head again and took a couple of deep breaths. Getting angry was self destructive. When Ed got angry, he usually blew their cover and gained a few more enemies in the process. That was the last thing Al wanted right now.
Thinking of Ed did the trick. Ed was probably worried about him, possibly even thinking him dead. He had to get back at all costs. He'd thought Ed was dead once, and didn't want his brother to go through that sort of pain. At least not if he could help it.
Al smiled sadly to himself. I wonder if brother's eating enough? Now that our bodies aren't connected anymore, he shouldn't have to eat so much, but still. Please let him not do anything stupid.
"Hey, Al. Are you okay?" A concerned Naruto was walking beside him. "You were shaking your head. Do you have a headache or something? Feeling ill?"
"No. I'm fine." A thought occurred. "Actually, could we stop for a minute? I think I need a break."
"Really? But the meeting point's just over that hill there. Surely you can make it that far. It's just another minute or two and then we can stop for the night."
"Oh. That close? That came up fast." Great. Now I'll have another prison guard to watch out for. "I guess I can make that."
At the top of the hill, Al looked down on their supposed meeting spot. Not a soul in sight. The meeting spot was as empty as every other place they'd passed recently. Unbidden, his gaze moved upward.
So this was the desert they had to cross.
As far as the eye could see, hills of sand spread to the horizon. Interspersed among the rolling dunes, the occasional plant broke the monochrome brown and splashed its own mark upon the landscape. The sun was hovering just above the horizon, and its glow outlined the dunes in sharp contrast. Deep shadows emphasized every undulation making slopes appear twice as steep, and the desert foreboding.
Naruto's snickering broke the spell of the sand. "Hey, Shikamaru. We're here first!" He gave a full-out laugh. "Someone's late!" He proclaimed in a sing-song voice.
"Yeah." Said a women's voice from behind them. "YOU ARE!"
"AAAAHHGGG!" Naruto pinwheeled and fell flat on his face almost bringing Al down with him. By some miracle, Al avoided the flailing arms and spun around to face the voice's source.
The woman was actually more of a girl. She appeared to be around the same age as the rest of the ninjas in the group and was looking at Naruto with bemused curiosity. Her blond hair shot out in four ponytails behind her head, each in a different direction, as if it was attempting to emulate a square. She was wearing a black dress…kimono… thing… with a red waistband that had to be way to warm to be practical in the desert. Perhaps that was why she was carrying what appeared to be a giant fan.
Al relaxed his guard as he took a good look at the rest of his group; none of whom appeared to be alarmed. Apparently, this was their guide.
Now that Al thought about it, it made sense that she was from another village. Instead of the spiky spiral emblem on his groups' headbands, hers appeared to depict a lower case 'I,' or perhaps some type of pillar. Supposedly, according to Naruto, the spiky spiral was supposed to be a leaf, but it looked like no leaf Al had ever seen. Actually, he'd thought it was a snail. If that type of logic carried through with all headbands, he'd never be able to guess what the pillar was supposed to be.
Sputtering, Naruto sat up. "H-hey Temari. Long time no see, huh." He scratched the back of his head, a personality quirk that Al had long ago interpreted as a nervous twitch. Apparently this girl was as scary as Sakura. "Where'd you come from?"
Before fan girl had a chance to respond, Sakura gave her own answer. "Well, it was obvious by your reaction, but really. You seriously didn't notice Temari walking behind you for the last MINUTE! What type of ninja are you? It's no wonder you're still a Genin. Jeez. You're an imbecile."
Suffice to say, Naruto was slightly put out.
"Hey there!" Temari walked over to Al and grinned. Well, it actually had a slightly smirking feel to it, but Al appreciated that she was at least trying to be friendly. "So, you're the one we're supposed to be escorting. Name's Temari, I'll be your guide from here on out."
She turned away, her brisk footsteps kicking up puffs of sand, and walked to the front of the group to stand by Shikamaru. She turned to face the rest of the squad. "Naruto! Don't go putting those packs down yet. You're all late, so we're going to keep walking. Let's go."
"Wait a second Temari." Sakura looked slightly frazzled. Apparently she's used to being the scariest girl around. Her intimidation factor just took a dive. "Al's still recovering. He needs time to rest. He-"
"-seems perfectly fine to me." Temari interrupted. "A little light walking never hurt anyone. I'm the guide. What I say goes." Without another word, she turned and began walking into the desert. Shikamaru cast an apologetic glance back at the rest of the group, shrugged as if to say 'I can't do anything about it,' and then fell into step beside Temari.
"Traitor." Sakura grumbled. "Why do we even need a guide? I've been to Suna plenty of times. It's not like it's hard to find. And of course, he has to take her side. Look. Now they're talking away. Stupid, blond, power hungry…" Sakura continued to grumble as she stomped ahead, the displaced sand forming angry mushroom clouds behind her.
Hinata trailed behind Sakura at a safe distance to avoid the ominous aura being emitted, and Al was left to walk with Naruto once again. The blond ninja was, not so quietly it might be added, bemoaning their fate. Apparently, the lack of dinner was a grievous sin; an unforgivable transgression. Al was left to his own thoughts.
Well, I suppose traveling by night would be the smart thing to do in a desert…. When brother and I traveled to Leor, he was constantly complaining about the heat. Still, I wish I could have had some sort of a break. There's no place to practice alchemy in the desert. They'd see the light of a transmutation no matter how far I go. Perfect…. On a positive note, at least this time I'm not hollow so I won't sink. It should be interesting at least.
Interesting was an understatement. Sinking turned out to be the least of Al's problems.
First of all, walking on sand was hard. Not only was it physically exhausting, it was literally hard to keep your footing. In just the two days they had been crossing the desert, Al had fallen more times than his pride would allow him to admit. The heat was a factor that hadn't been present the last time he had made a desert crossing, and it was proving more of a challenge to acclimate himself than he had expected.
But, if there was one thing worse than the heat, it was trying to sleep in it. Sleeping under shelter or inside a tent to keep off the sun was the only smart thing to do, but it turned into a sauna. No matter how tired he was, he found it impossible to sleep in such conditions.
And so it was, in the early morning of the second day in the desert, (they had been walking all night) a very sleep deprived Alphonse got his first glimpse of Suna.
Towering stone walls rose out of the desert. Rather, it looked like a natural cliff, perhaps a plateau of some sort, made out of sandstone. On close examination, there appeared to be some sort of a vertical slit in it as though some giant had sliced it with a knife. That would probably be the entrance into the city itself. There were many different words to describe the sight: huge, imposing, and fortress, at the forefront of the list. The one thing it wasn't was 'hidden.'
What is it with ninjas and being hypocritical? Their names make no sense. The Village 'Hidden' in the Sand should be changed to The Village 'Surrounded' by Sand. Names at home are better. At least 'Central' City is actually in the 'center' of Amestris.
As they drew closer, black dots on the cliff face grew larger and became recognizable as people. Whereas Konoha had had perhaps three guards stationed at the gate, there were easily twenty guarding Suna. All of their manpower went toward guarding the one, singular entrance. Al doubted they even had many other guards stationed around the rest of the perimeter. All he would have to do would be to create a simple tunnel through the wall and he was free. This village had obviously never gone against a trained alchemist before.
At the gate, they were waved through without a second glance. The guards recognized Temari, knew of her mission, and let her pass. Actually, many of the others were also greeted by name. The lack of protocol made Al twitch. Even he knew about transformation jutsus. If they were so easy for ninjas, why didn't the guards at least ask for a password to confirm their identity? Al sighed and let it go. It wasn't his problem. Call it paranoia, but he'd just had too much experience with shape-shifters to ever rest easy about a person's identity.
Temari stopped at the threshold of the city itself. The group was still cast into shadow from the towering rock rising on either side of them, but just beyond Temari early morning sunlight lent its luster to sandstone buildings turning simple brown into varying shades of red and gold.
"Lord Kazekage will be expecting us, so we're going straight to his office. We'll rest later." Alphonse barely managed to suppress a groan before following Temari into a city filled with some of the most unusual buildings he had ever seen. There were almost no right angles to be found as though the weather had eroded them away, and many of the buildings had these spherical structures placed on top of them. They looked as though the same giant that had carved the entryway had decided to play a game of marbles across the rooftops. Even the windows were circular. Pathways running between the buildings created elevated walkways for second layers of traffic. If Konoha had seemed strange to Al, this city was altogether foreign. It was a blatant reminder that he was no longer anywhere close to home.
As they approached the center of the city, one building stood out in comparison to all the others. While the other buildings lacked sharp angles, this one was almost completely spherical. A giant round sign proclaimed the importance of this piece of architecture in red letters that Al had no hope of understanding. Tsunade's language jutsu had only given him the ability to understand spoken language. Al still had no idea how all of those lines translated into words.
Once again, at the gate of the spherical building, the guards simply let them pass. Either security was really lax, or the Kazekage was so powerful that they had no reason to worry about his safety.
While the group followed the winding hallways, Al attempted to force his muddled mind into high gear. If he was to be talking to someone as powerful as Tsunade, he needed to avoid mistakes at all cost.
Finally, they reached an impressive set of doors at the end of a hallway in the upper half of the building. Naruto got there first; his fist pounding against the wood creating an excessive amount of noise. Sakura rolled her eyes.
Once the echoes had finally stopped reverberating from the walls, a quiet voice spoke from behind the doors.
"Come in."
Naruto wasted no time obeying the voice. The doors swung open revealing an office much like Tsunade's back in Konoha. Well, not exactly the same – the walls were a different color and it was a lot more organized – but it was close enough. Staring out of the window with his back towards the door was a figure dressed in a white robe and scarf. His blazing red hair stood in stark contrast to the reserved nature of the robe. What surprised Al was how short he was. He was only slightly taller than Naruto.
"Gaara!" Naruto bounded into the room and the figure turned to face them. His blue eyes were rimmed as though he had had as much of a problem sleeping in the desert as Al but, in his case, it had lasted for years. The blue orbs hid any real emotion, but the faint smile tugging at his lips hinted that he was actually happy to see the hyperactive blond ninja. That small smile was soon blocked from view as Naruto engulfed the red-head in a giant hug and slapped him on the back.
Finally, the Naruto released the Kazekage who proceeded to brush himself off and attempt to regain some of his squished his dignity. "Ahem." The Kazekage cleared his throat. By this point, it was apparent that not only around the same height as Naruto, he was around the same age. If the Kazekage's the most powerful ninja in the village, I don't want to see how strong this kid is when he gets older.
"Welcome to Suna." He sat down in his chair and pulled a small pile of papers toward him. "I called you here once I received Tsunade's letter because I believe I have some information that could be useful." A few sheets of paper were pushed toward the group and Shikamaru picked them up. "I think these are the bandits you are searching for."
The papers were passed to Al for his approval. The picture at the top did, indeed, fit the vague description Al had given to Tsunade, but the rest of the writing was gibberish. Oh well, he'd just fake it. If they called him on it, the most they could get him on was pretending to be able to read when he couldn't. "Yeah. This certainly looks like the group, but how can we be sure? There could be many groups of bandits around. Wait, sorry. That sounded offensive. I don't mean that you allow bandits to wander freely, just that there might be lots of bandits…." Al stopped before his addled mind could dig itself into a deeper hole. "Sorry. Here." He put the papers back on the desk.
"No offense taken." The Kazekage's blue eyes seemed to be evaluating Al. "Naruto. Why don't you show everyone where the guest rooms are. I'm sure you're all tired. Temari and Sakura will stay here and give me the details about your journey." His curt nod was a clear sign that they were all dismissed and Alphonse followed Naruto in hopes that he would finally get a good night's rest.
Gaara faced the two kunoichi before him after shuffling through his paperwork. "Now that the bandits have been identified, Lady Tsunade suggested that I send your group to apprehend them and get a final identification. Sakura, I trust your team is up for that?" Sakura nodded her agreement. "Very well. Than you make take one day to rest before heading out. Now then, I would like to hear both of your accounts of the journey."
Sakura opened her mouth to speak, but Temari beat her to it. "Forgive the interruption Lord Kazekage, but I have a question." Gaara tipped his head slightly to the side. "How is it possible that a small group of minor thieves could have kidnapped most of a village? As far as we know, they haven't even moved in the past few months."
"Hold on." Sakura was slightly confused. "These bandits haven't even moved in the last few months?"
The papers rustled. "No. They haven't."
"Then there's no way these could be the same people. If Al says they are…"
The Kazekage looked up and blue eyes met green. "Yes. That would seem to be the problem."