Disclaimer: I do not own NARUTO.

WILL OF STONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: "Into the Mountain's Maws"

They had walked across half the world.

Starting from the Fire Country, over a period of two months, the United Countries Embassy had slowly winded its way west. Along the way they had passed through a whirlwind of countries, cities, villages, places—forests and rivers, grasslands and mountains, deserts and swamps and maelstroms—all of them strange, all somehow indefinite. Like a misshapen shape glimpsed from a rushing train, they left behind only an obscure impression, gone as soon as they had been seen. What lingered were not the shapes. It was the changes the shapes had wrought in those who had glimpsed something they had never seen before.

The place they came to now was the one most unlike the place they had left. The chief geographical feature of the Fire Country was flatness, openness; it bled into four other countries along its western border, into the Sea of the Sage toward the south, into Lightning and Water toward the east. In a certain sense Fire, the political entity, existed more as lines on a map than as a real state, reflecting its origin as an amalgamation of bits and pieces cobbled together by the first Fire daimyos.

But the borders of the Earth Country were stamped in the land itself. Many thousands of years ago, violent volcanic eruptions had formed a long chain of mountains which surrounded Earth on all sides. The Dreamstone Mountains, closing off Earth from the rest of the continent. Ever since then it had existed as if it were an island on land, isolated and mysterious. Only the coming of the Sage of Six Paths had brought Earth into the world again.

The people of Earth bowed before the Sage's godlike power, adopted his religion and absorbed his teachings. But the old ways and customs were slow to change. Their dress, their distorted language, their ethnic and clan ties, their values, all persisted even in the face of extraordinary economic and technological transformation. And five hundred years later they still lived much as before. Whereas Fire had already become an industrialized society, Earth was very much still agricultural and rural.

As the Embassy squeezed through the narrow pass into Earth, the first thing they saw was mountain upon mountain of terraced rice paddies. Farmers with bent backs and straw hats on their head waded through the flooded paddies, whipping water buffaloes harnessed to their plows, circling slowly around the terraces. When the farmers saw the Embassy they shouted. At the shout flocks of wild geese burst from behind the mountains, quacking nosily. Far below, loose rocks kicked over the edges of the pass tumbled down into the Dreamstone River, green and calm like a sheet of jade.

"The Earth Country!" Rock Lee cried. "The Iwa chuunin exam!"

"Walkin' straight into the mountain's maws," Kankuro observed. "We must really want to die."

Sakura thought it was the most extraordinary place she had ever seen.

Even though the Earth Country was so different from Fire, Sakura felt far more at home here than at any other time on the Embassy. She didn't know why. Maybe because it was the beginning of summer, hot and bright. Maybe because she was near the end of her journey. Maybe because she had stopped training so hard and relaxed enough to see her surroundings. Whatever the reason, impressions came to her with the clarity and permanence of a photograph.

Crossing the bridge across a valley stream. The wagons jamming up in piles on the narrow wooden bridge, but men splashing into the glittering rushing water, wading across the stream with artless laughter. Red leaves floating in the water cling to their clothes as they climb out.

A frog jumping into a pond with a splash, and Tonton following it.

Wandering through a hidden meadow, scarcely larger than the trees around it are tall. The air stifling sweet and smeared with the nectar of ripe oranges. Shaking slim tree trunks to make oranges fall to the ground by the armful, throwing them one by one into each other's mouths.

A hollering shepherd running down a hill with long strides, swinging a stick, driving in front of him a thousand bleating sheep.

Climbing a moss-cracked ridge and suddenly seeing before the sheer jagged peaks of the Dreamstone Mountains, so high they were covered in white glacial ice.

Shirtless boys playing in ruins from a thousand years ago by the side of the road. Running a hand over overgrown temple walls made of huge stone faces, feeling the worn broken idols beneath her fingertips. A tree made of twining trunks squatting on top of a doorway, the roots hanging down like strands of thrown over hair.

Marching at night through valleys thick with forest shadows. Passing a cottage with a single candlelight still on. Catching a glimpse of a young girl singing in an unknown tongue, and wondering who she was.

Sakura found herself mesmerized. Day by day, her consciousness was drawn further into the rhythms of Earth, into the lives of those who lived there. She tried to comprehend how all this immense beauty could exist in one place. What did it all mean? Peace, she imagined to herself. Peace and innocence.

But she didn't forget what she had come here for.

"What do you want, girl?" the Hokage had asked her two months ago. And she had thought she had known. "When the Embassy arrives at Iwa, I will test you. It will be a test of strength. If you pass my test, then you shall be reinstated as a ninja, and you shall participate in the Iwa chuunin exams. If you fail… then it's over. Do you understand?"

A test of strength. Another chance. That was why she had come to the Earth Country. She had come here to be a ninja again.

She was ready.

Meanwhile, the mesmerizing beauty of the Earth Country had turned into chaos.

It started in Hiroshiki, the capital of Earth, three days after the Embassy had entered the country. That morning the towers of the city had first appeared over the tree line. Sakura could just make several gleaming white stone spires; a ruby was embedded in the crest of the central spire. This was the legendary Cathedral of the Faith, the vast white stone temple first built by ancient pagan kings, then refashioned by the Sage of Six Paths. In the distance, behind Hiroshiki, the Dreamstone Mountains sloped up higher and higher until the peaks were covered in white ice. But the paved valley road into the city was smooth and lined on all sides by trees.

The Embassy rolled down the road in high spirits. Ahead of them a large crowd of earth-kin, Hiroshiki civilians, had gathered. A welcoming party, Sakura thought. Until she saw the banner they had unfurled along the length of the road. The banner read:

"LEAVE NOW, BETRAYER! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!"

Behind the banner thousands of earth-kin protesters waved signs to the same effect. The most popular sign was a version of, "GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM APES!" followed by "DEATH TO THE FIRE COUNTRY!" and "DEATH TO KONOHA!"

At the head of the Embassy, the Hokage reined in her horse in front of the protesters that blocked the road. When they saw her the crowd of earth-kin started screaming as if they had been drenched in boiling water. "Betrayer!" they shouted. "Get out of here, Betrayer! Get out of Earth!"

The Hokage struggled to make her voice heard over the roar. "The Embassy is here on the invitation of the daimyo! Make way or you will be dispersed!" But her words only seemed to enrage the protesters more. The Hokage turned to her entourage. "Inishu! Clear a path!"

The ninja in the vanguard of the Embassy moved forward, pushing aside the protesters. And then all hell broke loose.

Suddenly a mob of wild screaming people was attacking the Embassy on all sides. They were civilians. A single ANBU could probably kill them all; or at least the Hokage could use a genjutsu to knock them out. But the Embassy couldn't use that kind of force against civilians. Instead they had to absorb the attacks of the mob as they pushed forward through into the city. "Death to the Betrayer! Death to Konoha! Death to Konoha!" the protesters shouted. They threw rocks and broken glass bottles, kicked and punched and spat. Sakura was almost hit by a rock a few times and had to wipe the spit off her face and clothes. "Don't fight! Just get into the city!" the Hokage ordered, riding back and forth along the Embassy. The Hiroshiki police were waiting inside the city gates. They did nothing against the mob outside, but held back the protesters from entering.

At last the Embassy was through. The Hokage led them quickly down the thoroughfares to an isolated barracks on the outskirts of the city. In the rush Sakura caught only a brief glance at the actual streets of Hiroshiki, a combination of the ancient white stone architecture that still survived along with newer wooden houses and buildings. She didn't have a chance to see it again. After a hasty audience with the Earth daimyo, which came to nothing, the Embassy slunk out of the city that night.

"What's going on?" Sakura asked Asuma.

"It's those goddamn Sougon bastards again. They're fucking with us."

Sakura understood his implication. "You mean the Tsuchikage."

The Fourth Tsuchikage of Iwagakure was Sougon Sawar, known by the epithet Sun Breaker.He was also the head of the Sougon clan, and the person who had ordered the attack on Honjo Laboratory in the Forest of Death.

The person behind everything that had happened.

"You got it. The Earth daimyo is interested in the UC, but Sawar hates it. So what does he do? The bastard stages a fucking protest right in front of the daimyo's palace. Makes it seem like the masses hate us just as much as he does. The daimyo gets scared, calls off the negotiations. Now we're runnin' off with our tail between our legs." Asuma shook his head. "I don't why Sawar spent so much effort trying to assassinate us when he could have just thrown a few rocks instead."

"What were they chanting about? Why did they call Tsunade-sensei the 'Betrayer'"?

Asuma shrugged. "Tsunade and Sawar go way back, you know. There's a lot of bad blood between them."

Sakura considered this. "But it can't all just be the Tsuchikage's personal grudge against Tsunade-sensei. I mean... millions of people died during the Third Ninja War, on both sides."

"Well... yeah, some earth-kin haven't gotten over the war yet. Most of Earth isn't like that. You saw them before, right? Nicest people in the world. Still... Sawar has definitely got the riff-raff stirred up now. It's probably going to get worse every day. And Iwa is gonna be a real riot."

Thereafter, in every village and town they passed, and even just by the side of the road, a crowd of angry protesters came out to welcome them with chants of "Death to the Betrayer! Death to Konoha!" The harassment was constant and furious. A few of the civilians and regular soldiers on the Embassy were injured, and one of them was almost killed by a stone that hit him in the head. It was like walking through a never-ending ambush.

One day an old earth-kin woman started screaming, "Murderers! Murderers!" and raised up the body of a little boy in her arms. The boy had been stabbed in the throat by a kunai. The old woman pointed a quivering finger at one of the Konoha ANBU. "Fucking Sougon plant!" Asuma said. The mob went wild. "Murderers! Murderers!' they shouted, rushing at the ANBU to tear him limb from limb. It took hours to beat them all back.

The woman was detained and an investigation was made. It turned out the boy had died from a stomach virus and wasn't even related to the woman, an Iwa operative. But it didn't matter. The story of the Konoha ninja murdering a little child in cold blood spread like wildfire. The protests grew larger by the hour.

At last the Hokage was forced to order the Embassy along another route to Iwa, away from the main roads and the mobs of protesters. They pushed deep into the mountains, navigating steep, winding passes so narrow that sometimes they had to walk single-file. Most of their remaining wagons and other heavy equipment were abandoned in this last leg of the expedition. There were little signs of human habitation; only the endless, sweeping indifference of the Dreamstone Mountains. The stunning isolation from everything was almost inconceivable against the fury of the past few days. Sakura thought the land was even more beautiful than before.

On the last night of their journey the United Countries Embassy camped at the base of a large, heavily forested mountain. Tomorrow they would reach Iwa.

Sakura's mind was full of confused, half-formed thoughts. Tension ran through her whole body like an electric current. This is it, she thought. Tsunade-sensei's going to test me tonight. She walked away from the others to the edge of the camp. The moon was absent and the sky filled with stars. For some reason, though it was not cold, she decided to start a fire. The girl stared into the crackling flames as if looking for something in it. But there was nothing. She wondered what her mother and sister were doing in Konoha, and if they were well.

The fire was oddly soothing, and eventually the girl nodded off into sleep.

It was cold again, and snow covered the ground in heaps and drifts. The sickle moon hung high in the sky, pale as white porcelain, and the trees were a skeletal tangle of naked lungs. Everything was so still and silent. Even the little bubbling brook was frozen, and the wooden bridge over it deserted, except for her and him.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said. "I never noticed it before."

"No. You're a spring girl," he said.

She laughed. "And what season are you, Uchiha Sasuke?"

He didn't say anything, but drew her close. His breath was hot on her face and his tongue tasted like fire. But the kiss ended; then he shrunk back away from her, as if frightened of something. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He paused. "I can't take you with me."

"Take me where?"

"Girl," Sasuke said, as if from a place far away.

"What?"

"Girl," Sasuke repeated. His voice echoed, changed, seemed to turn to a higher pitch. It was softer and colder all at once, like a silver reed in the frozen snow—

"GIRL."

Suddenly the snow vanished, replaced by the embers of a dying campfire. The dream faded. She was back again in the Embassy, in the camp in the Earth Country. All that had happened returned with the clarity of waking from an unwanted sleep. Before her loomed a tall shadow, dark and inscrutable.

"Tsunade-sensei…"

The Hokage's eyes flashed in the dim firelight. "It's time, Sakura. Come with me."

Next: CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: "The Master's Shadow, Part One"