Born Weapons
Arc II
I Am A Monster
Chapter VI
The Desert
"If there is meaning in death, I have yet to find it."
-Momoichi Zabuza
Thirteenth Mizukage
As Prince of the Uchiha, he who would be Lord one day in his own right, direct descendant of the Sage of Six Paths and a Jonin of Konohagakure, one of the five great powers of this world, Uchiha Sasuke did not complain. If he did, however, he would've saved his complaints for here, and now, and unleashed them like the flood that peasants in the Land of Water claimed had once swept over this world (and would return again, in time).
No sooner had Kakashi shown his face at the Horde's market than they had been ordered back into the village, to pack for months of travel. A mission. Sasuke's heart had soared at the thought, at the chance to finally prove himself worthy of the Jonin title his birth had won for him. Anticipation had rattled his bones in the scant hours they spent preparing for their mission into the Land of Wind, and he had hardly slept the first night, or the second. His nighttime hours had been filled with the sight of the starry sky, and with thoughts of the glory that awaited him in Sunagakure.
But then the days had turned to weeks, and Sasuke's enthusiasm had faded. Each day they urged their horses across a landscape that grew sparser and dryer by the mile, until finally they reached the banks of the mighty river Kahaki.
"This is where our journey begins in earnest," Kiba had said, and Sasuke had shuddered at the thought.
The river Kahaki was a torrent of blue and green, six miles across at its widest – so vast that even with chakra enhancing one's vision, it was impossible to see the other shore. The curvature of the earth hid it from even the sharpest eyes.
"There isn't a bigger river in the world," Sakura had gushed, when they had ridden aside one another for the entirety of an afternoon. "The Noho, in Water, it's wider, especially during the wet season. But in terms of pure gallons…"
And Sasuke had nodded, and asked questions. There was little else to do, in the endless hours as they rode – save watch for other travelers. It was best to remain unnoticed, Kakashi had told them, but that was not a particularly easy thing to do. To wander too far from the river Kahaki meant death, which meant that all traffic in the Land of Wind gathered along its banks. Even as they ranged further and further out, they could not keep from crossing paths with travelers. Their frequency had forced Kiba to abandon his hound, letting the beast roam far and free while the Inuzuka rode a bartered for horse alongside the rest of them.
Kiba, it seemed, had none of Sasuke's compunctions against complaints. "This isn't the mount of a warrior!" He had shouted at Kakashi as they rode. "I'm a man of the Inuzuka!" But Kakashi had fixed the boy with a cold, silent stare, and eventually Kiba had relented.
Still, the hound was with them, always. Sasuke sometimes caught sight of it, padding across the golden dunes as they rode ever northward.
"How's he gonna eat?" Naruto had asked. Of the four non-Inuzuka, he had been the only one to truly befriend the hound.
Kiba has only smiled and assured them that the dog could take care of itself. A day later, they had come across the freshly mangled corpse of a hippopotamus.
"Been a long time since I've eaten hippo," Kakashi said as they tore into their meal. More hippo crackled over the fire, and smoke drifted lazily up into the night sky, filling Sasuke's nose with the smell of cooking meat.
Sakura poked at her hippo hesitantly. "Are you sure it's safe?"
Naruto made a garbled noise of assent through his mouthful.
Sasuke tried to eat his own portion with a little more dignity than the blond. The meat could hardly measure up to the feasts he had enjoyed back in the Uchiha compound, but after weeks of nothing but trail rations he was just thankful to have something that hadn't been engineered in a lab.
They had stopped for the night within sight of the river Kahaki, which at this point in its journey crawled sluggishly through the desert rather than racing as it had closer to the ocean. An outcropping of large rocks shielded them from biting nighttime wind.
Kiba, finishing off his dinner, let loose a prodigious burp and flopped back onto the sand. "Reckon we're close," he said, over the crackle of the fire. "Two days, maybe three?"
Sasuke blinked, processing the words. He had begun to think this traveling would never end – and as he mapped their journey in his head, realizing that Kiba was likely correct, the anticipation crept back in at the edges of his thoughts.
"Hm." Kakashi squinted up at the sky, taking long moments to study the stars. "We haven't seen any Nosuri this whole trip."
"They don't usually come this far west," Kiba said. "Maybe it was different during the war, but they spend most of their time on the border, raiding."
Kakashi shook his head. "During normal times, maybe. For a mourning, they'll come to the city. They might not be heavily involved in politics, but they have interests that will need seeing to."
"I can call Akamaru back, do some scouting," Kiba suggested.
Kakashi considered it for a moment, then nodded. "We're close enough that stealth is no longer our main concern. Better to know what's around us."
"I don't know much about the Nosuri," Sakura said. "Have either of you fought them before?" She gave a small smile when Sasuke looked over, but he could see the hand that gripped her plate shaking just a bit. He was not the only one feeling the imminence of their destination, it seemed – and while Sasuke sought peace by imagining glory, Sakura looked for it in knowledge of her enemy.
"Don't look at me," Kakashi said. "I didn't join the war effort until we had already pushed into Sunagakure. The Nosuri were harrying our lines, but they were mostly out of the fight at that point." He lifted a tin cup to his lips and took a long sip. "Care to weigh in, Inuzuka-san?"
Sasuke tried not to let his eye twitch. Kakashi had yet to refer to him so politely.
"We've tangled once or twice," Kiba said, pushing himself back up into a sitting position. His hair had grown long and unkempt since they began their journey, and it stirred lightly in the desert breeze. "Hard to avoid them, if you're out on the fringes of the desert. Bastards are always spoiling for a fight."
"It's part of their culture," Sakura said, quiet. "They're not men until they survive their first battle." Apparently, to Sakura, not knowing much about something meant that she only knew one or two textbooks worth.
"They ain't ever men," Kiba said, and the look in his eyes practically feral. He spat a string of words in a language Sasuke didn't understand, an ancient nomadic pidgin rarely spoken in civilized lands. "Demons would be a better word."
Sakura shook her head. "They're just people."
"People have honor," Kiba shot back. "Respect for the dead. They don't carve out the hearts of the people they kill."
"No way," Naruto said, his meal suddenly forgotten. "For serious?"
The firelight danced across Kiba's face – one moment it was illuminated in deep reds and yellows, the next it was cloaked in darkness. "Seen it with my own eyes," he said. "They like the Inuzuka hearts most of all."
"I've heard of this," Sasuke said. "Your clan and theirs...there's history there."
"History" Kiba shrugged. "Sounds too tame. There's blood between us, enough to drown in."
"Well you can't leave us hanging," Naruto said. He was leaning forward, a smile stretched across his face. "It's about your turn to tell a story anyway."
Naruto was hardly the only one eager to hear. Sakura had scooted in closer, and even Sasuke found himself hanging on Kiba's silence. Kiba glanced over at Kakashi, but the man was still looking idly up the stars. So the Inuzuka turned back to them, brushing long, dirty strands of hair away from his face. In the firelight, the fang tattoos on his cheeks seemed more blood than ink.
"I ain't a teller," he began, his voice hesitant, "so I can only say what I was told, how I was told it. Well, thousands of years ago, the Inuzuka rode the plains that border what's the Land of Wind, now. We were mighty, but not as mighty as we are now. There were those who could challenge us...and then one spring there was a plague that bloodied us something fierce. We were a shell. It looked like we might not make it at all.
"And then the Baku clan came in from the north, from the mountains that are part of the Land of Earth now. The Baku ain't much to fear now, not after their bloodline got all reduced to sealing-" Kiba's finger traced the familiar seals of an explosive tag in the air, almost unconsciously, "but this was long before then, when they were a force in the world. So the clans of the region called a meeting, and the Inuzuka went. Now back in those days the Nosuri were at the height of their power. They had a little empire of sorts, a whole bunch of land that they terrorized at will, from the mountains up north all the way to the sea. Rivaled only by the Subaku, they-"
"And the Uchiha," Sasuke cut in.
Kiba glowered at him. "Oh, neh?"
"Neh," Sasuke said. "If this is set when you say it is, the Uchiha would be somewhere between the mountains and sea." He looked to Sakura, who shrugged.
"The records aren't really conclusive…" she said, eyes flickering between Sasuke and Kiba. "The Uchiha were moving a lot at this point too...all we know is that they didn't go east, into what's now the Land of Fire."
Naruto groaned. "Who cares? Are the Uchiha in the story?"
"They ain't," Kiba said.
Sasuke shrugged. "Keep talking, then."
"Like I was saying…" Kiba cleared his throat. "The Nosuri ruled a whole bunch of land. They weren't worried about the Baku, but everyone else was. So the Nosuri said fine, we'll protect you, if you prove fealty. All the petty kings of the desert, lords of their clans, came forward and honored the Nosuri with gifts and treasures. Flattered them outrageous-like. Until only the Inuzuka were left.
"And like I said, the Inuzuka were weak just then. And poor too. They didn't have anything to give. But our Chieftain at the time was a young girl. Mokone. Beautiful. She goes right up to the Nosuri king and says that she ain't got anything to give him, so she'll give him the only thing she's got. Her heart."
"Holy shit!" Naruto said from around another piece of hippo. "She cut her own heart out?"
Kiba looked at the blond like he couldn't understand what was going through Naruto's head. "It was a metaphor," he said slowly. "A figure of speech, you know? She was saying she'd marry him."
"Well then when the hell are we getting to the heart cutting out?"
"In a minute, for fuck's sake," Kiba said, shaking his head. "Look, so the Nosuri king was already married. But he was so taken by Mokone that he killed his wife right then and there. And he said after he crushed the Baku he'd marry her. So us and the Nosuri and all the other clans gathered together and met the Baku in the field, and beat them back."
"And then?" Naruto asked.
Kiba grinned. "The corpses on the field were still warm when the Nosuri king sent his son to collect Mokone. But the second he got close, she broke his legs and fed him to her hound."
Sakura made a small, distressed sound and put her hand to her mouth.
"The king came then," Kiba continued, "spitting mad, killing anyone who looked at him funny. He demanded that Mokone give her heart to him, but she refused. Told the rest of the clan that to be vassals of the Nosuri would just be another kind of death – not the glorious death of battle but the slow death of a people, as their culture and identity is torn from them piece by piece. So they would spit in the eye of the Nosuri, and flee the desert.
"That didn't make the king any happier, you can probably guess. He said that if Mokone wouldn't give her heart freely he would take it from her, along with the hearts of all those who rightly belonged to him. Then for three years he chased them, all across the desert. Until finally Mokone led the Inuzuka into the east, where the Senju had grown their great forest. Nosuri skippers couldn't follow us through the trees, so we escaped and survived." He shrugged. "But we didn't return to the desert for generations...and when we finally did, the Nosuri were still there. Waiting for us."
For long minutes there was no sound except the fire and the gentle, rhythmic snores coming from Kakashi. Sasuke glanced over and saw that the man's eyes were still open. Sasuke wasn't entirely sure if the Jonin was fucking with them or not.
As he silence continued to stretch, however, Sasuke shifted in his seat. "Mokone should not have done that."
"How could you say that?" Sakura asked, her tone almost – but not quite – accusatory. "Being forced into a marriage like that, it isn't…" she trailed off, color rising in her cheeks. "The – the Nosuri king had already killed one wife. He was...a monster."
Sasuke chose to ignore the implication behind her words. There was no point in widening any rift between them, not when they were so far from home. "She was Lord of her clan, and she gave her word," he said. "Made a promise to another, and broke that promise even after they upheld their end of the bargain." He glanced over at Kiba. "It's no way to rule."
Kiba met his gaze with cool disinterest. "She ain't here to take offense," he said, "And I sure as shit don't need your approval."
-ooo-
Naruto stood in his stirrups, more to stretch his legs than anything else. The desert spilled out around him in every direction, seemingly endless – they had been forced to veer away from the river Kahaki that morning by a procession of travelers. Stealth, while no longer their first priority, was still a concern. Kakashi clearly seemed to believe that they wouldn't be safe until they reached the walls of Sunagakure and could count on the protection of this Subaku Temari.
His horse, an undersized roan with enough attitude to remind Naruto of himself, whipped its head back and forth. Naruto ran a hand along its neck to steady it. It had proved a sure-footed mount, even as the sand beneath them had become more and more treacherous, and now it plowed gamely up the side of a large dune. Behind him, Sakura a let loose a steady string of curses as her horse veered off course for what must've been the tenth time in the last hour, throwing off her billowing hood to make sure they didn't accidentally fall off the side of the dune. She had been slow to adapt to both the horse and the expansive desert robes – and with their journey coming to a close, it was looking more and more like she would never master either.
Kakashi and Sasuke of course, were far more comfortable on their mounts. Kakashi had plenty of experience traveling to far-flung land, and Sasuke's education as a Prince wouldn't have been complete without learning to ride – though Naruto couldn't shake the feeling that the Uchiha particularly enjoyed it. He was too much of a control freak to entirely trust his horse.
When he reached the top of the dune Naruto could see even further than before, and he took a moment to drink in the landscape. He would've thought that endless sameness of the desert would've bored him after a while, but somehow he never tired of the sight of sand rising and falling like waves on a vast, frozen ocean. He sharpened his vision to see more, see further.
It was then that Naruto saw of Kiba, a small spot on the horizon.
The Inuzuka had called his hound, Akamaru back just that morning, and team Kakashi had seen neither hide nor hair of him since as he ranged out to ensure their path was clear. Now he raced towards them, Akamaru kicking up a rippling cloud of golden sand in his wake. Naruto drew his horse to a halt and shouted, a wordless cry for attention, pointing.
A moment later a plume of red smoke rocketed from Akamaru's back, high into the sky. Adrenaline raced through Naruto's skin, shaking his bones.
It was Kakashi who spoke first. "Nosuri!" He shouted, taking a tighter rein with his horse. He grabbed a fistful of his desert cloak and yanked it free, tossing it aside. His fatigues, and armored jacket lay waiting beneath. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto mimicked the motion just moments later, Sakura grunting in relief.
It was then they saw the pursuers. Akamaru was a blur as he dashed across the desert towards them, but the two shapes that crested the top of the dune truly flew. Wooden skiffs, longer than they were wide but large enough to hold a dozen men, with two crescent runners extending from the bottom. Large sails, pulled taught by an unnatural wind, pulled them across the sands so fast that they barely seemed to touch the ground, only occasionally returning to earth in an arrhythmic skip, skip, skip.
Nosuri skippers. Despite the fact that they were loaded with people coming to murder him and his friends, Naruto couldn't stop his breath from hitching at the sheer, suicidal beauty of the crafts. Once, so long ago that the exact date had been lost to time, someone had built the first skipper and declared that they would ride the desert like the sea.
If you couldn't admire someone with balls that big and brass, what could you admire?
Kakashi kicked his horse into gear, and the his students followed him. Naruto whooped as the wind streamed through his hair, and his screams and those of his horse made a strange almost melody as they half ran, half tumbled down the side of the dune.
Kiba met them at the bottom, Akamaru pacing in angry circles. The horses shied away from the beast, but their fear wasn't as pronounced as it had been when they had first set out. Akamaru was fearsome, but kept the peace around the other animals.
"Is that all of them?" Kakashi shouted, pointing to the two Nosuri skippers. They were drawing closer with each passing second, gobbling up the distance with extended, languid leaps.
"Should be," Kiba said, his voice hoarse. "They don't normally come in threes."
"How do you want to handle this?"
Naruto frowned, surprised to hear Kakashi deferring command. He had been waiting for an opportunity to see the Jonin in action since that first day, when he had effortlessly smacked the three of them around, but when the knife finally met the grindstone he seemed more than happy to follow Kiba's lead.
Well, of the five of them Kiba was the only one who had fought Nosuri before. Still, by the look on the Inuzuka's face he didn't like their odds. "Would prefer even numbers," he said. "Each skipper will hold five to eight."
Kakashi squinted into the distance. "Five on one, seven on the other. Can the four of you handle five?"
"I…" Kiba stared at him. "It usually takes three of our men to handle a skipper. At least."
"Ah well," Kakashi said, stretching his neck side to side. "Excuse me if I don't tie a hand behind my back, to even things up."
"Have it your way," Kiba said, shaking his head. "Won't enjoy picking your bones from the sand."
Kakashi waggled his eyebrows and saluted before putting spurs to his horse, sending it galloping off towards the skipper closing in from the right. "Come on then!" Kiba shouted at them. Akamaru moved without a signal that Naruto could see, and he struggled to get his horse to follow suit.
The four of them fell into a ragged line, charging straight for the Nosuri skipper. Kiba shouted something, and Naruto forced chakra to his ears to avoid the instructions being snatched away by the wind.
"They're too fast to board right now!" the Inuzuka shouted. "We'll have to slow them, try and jump aboard!"
"Fortifications?" Sasuke asked. Even shouting he managed to sound quiet and reserved. "I have earth techniques!"
Kiba shook his head. "Sand won't hold them without practice! If you have any ranged techniques, try to hit the one working the sail or the levers! Otherwise, drive them towards me!" He reached down to run a hand through Akamaru's fur. "Akamaru can match their speed in short bursts! They'll know that, try to keep distance!"
Sure enough, as they drew in close the skipper began to bank away from them, maintaining separation. Naruto could see five Nosuri aboard.
They were wrapped in long strips of cloth that shielded them from the desert sun, only their eyes exposed. Dressed so, it would've been nearly impossible to tell them apart had they not worn colorful scarves around their necks. Two stood on an elevated deck towards the back of the skipper, with the one bearing a yellow scarf manipulating a mess of levers that were lashed to the sail with a complex knot of ropes. By adjusting the levers in turn, he changed the angle of the sail just enough to alter the trajectory of the craft.
If the yellow Nosuri at the levers provided the direction, then the one at the sail – with a blue scarf, Naruto noted – provided the thrust. He wove hand seals and then thrust both hands forward, filling the sail with a burst of wind that propelled the skipper into another leap.
The other three Nosuri, Red, Green, and Orange, hung from the side of the skipper, held in place both with liberal applications of chakra to their feet and with a heavy rope knotted around their waists. Green, who was on the edge closest to the Konohagakure Shinobi, punched out towards them, and a straight line of sand rose as if pulled upwards by a wind.
Naruto shouted and yanked his horse to the side, barely evading the oncoming attack. Sasuke was not so lucky. The Uchiha prince grimaced as sand struck his horse, the beast's chest and stomach exploding into a fine red mist.
"Sasuke!" Sakura's wail was thick with shock and fear, but the Uchiha was too stubborn – or perhaps too talented – to die in such a way. He threw himself from his saddle, hitting the sand and falling into a roll that kicked up clouds of golden sand.
"Give him your horse!" Kiba shouted, realizing at the same moment Naruto did that a dismounted Sasuke was useless to them. Sakura wasn't a fighter...but didn't that mean she was more vulnerable on the ground?
She didn't hesitate though, wheeling her horse towards where Sasuke was trudging through the sand. "Uzumaki!" Kiba roared, and suddenly Naruto's attention snapped back to the skipper, which was following up with another attack. Naruto guided his horse out of the way, keeping a close eye on the three Nosuri that were free to attack them. If he just watched them, he would have enough time to react to their techniques.
"Press in from that side!" Kiba shouted, pointing the way, and Naruto obeyed instantly. Every cell of him hummed with fire and music, burning away conscious thought and leaving only a single, ferocious instinct. His horse snorted as he gave it spurs, increasing it's speed, and Naruto's legs gripped the animal's side with reckless abandon as the ground blurred beneath him.
Faced with a pincer, the skipper opted to angle away from Kiba – towards Naruto. Naruto banked his horse left, so that the front of the craft didn't block his view of the attacking the Nosuri, and fished a throwing knife from the holster strapped to his leg. They approached each other parallel, him on his horse and the Nosuri on their skipper, and only when they close enough did they exchange fire, like great ships in some naval battle. The blast of sand from the skipper whiffed harmlessly in front of him, but Naruto's knife fared little better, whizzing over the head of Orange and burying itself in the wooden mast. He was treated to only a split second of it quivering in place before the skipper sped away.
Sage, how was he supposed to drive that thing anywhere, let alone towards Kiba? It was so fast, and he had little in his arsenal that could meaningfully impact a craft of that size. Maybe a fire clone's explosion could do some damage...but with how the wood of the skipper was withstanding the strain its sheer speed must've been inflicting upon it, Naruto wouldn't have been surprised if it was hardened somehow, reinforced with chakra.
The skipper began to turn and readied itself for another run, never slowing down any more than it absolutely had to. Naruto twisted to see Kiba and Akamaru trying to close in, but the Nosuri seemed perfectly content to ignore the Inuzuka, at least until they cut down his support. However, when it once again began moving in a straight line, its trajectory pointed it not towards Naruto, but well to his right.
Naruto twisted his neck to see Sakura running across the sand, chasing after her horse as it galloped, riderless, away from the fighting. Though Naruto's eyes swept the desert for Sasuke, there was no sign of him. Had something happened to him? What the hell was she doing?
"Sakura!" Naruto cried, but if the girl even heard him she didn't respond. Instead she kept her course, and the skipper plowed forward to chase after her. When only a hundred or so yards separated them it swerved, exposing its side and giving its riders a clear firing angle – but Sakura didn't change course. Though the skipper pointed away from the girl, its momentum continued to carry it closer. Eighty yards. Fifty.
When the skipper was no more than thirty yard from Sakura's retreating form, Sasuke sat up, throwing off the mass of sand that had shielded him from view. His blue-black hair was streaked with gold, and two extended fingers glowed with blue lightning. He held the technique until the skipper finished its drift – until it was ten yards away at most – and fired.
A streak of lightning cut the air, and though the attack was soundless Naruto could smell the ozone even from two hundred yards away. He watched as the blue-scarfed Nosuri threw himself aside, the lightning missing his chest by mere inches.
Naruto groaned in frustration – and yet, the attack had done what it was designed to do.
Already at the end of its drift, the skipper needed another burst of wind in order to transform its remaining momentum into speed, but with Blue out of position it wasted precious seconds drifting at a speed that Naruto's horse could've matched. Naruto himself was too far away to capitalize – but Inuzuka Kiba was not.
With a roar Kiba launched himself from Akamaru's back, landing on the deck of the skipper just as Blue managed to put more wind in the sail. The skipper took off like a rocket towards Naruto as Kiba leapt for the green-scarfed Nosuri, Akamaru wheeling around to find Sasuke.
Naruto turned his horse around and spurred it to action, forcing it to run in the same direction as the skipper. It gained ground on him quickly, of course, but with Kiba causing such a ruckus, the Nosuri in the yellow scarf didn't seem to realize that their trajectory would take them right alongside Naruto and his horse – not even when it sailed right past them, close enough to touch.
Naruto stood in his stirrups, his horse heaving beneath him. The skipper had slowed, Kiba tearing across it like a wild animal, streaks of blood painting the wooden deck in his wake. Still, the thing was unnaturally fast, and every second took it further from Naruto despite his horse's best efforts. He placed a foot on the saddle, shifting his weight, preparing to jump.
Indecision seized him, an icy prisonof his own devising. The gap between him and the edge of the skipper's deck, widening by the moment, seemed an endless chasm. The song of steel echoed from the battle aboard, promising enough pain and fear and violence to drown in. This was what he wanted to hurl himself into? This was the destiny he leapt for, with no care for what waited for him should he fall?
Faces flashed before him. Sakura, Sasuke, Rai. The stone visages of the old Hokage, gods surveying their creation. The clarity that raced through him was like a mouthful of hot coffee on a bitter winter's night.
Yes, I will leap for this. This and more.
The next moment he was airborne, arms pinwheeling. The wood of the skipper raced to meet him – but though his initial burst carried him close, he bled momentum quickly. Gravity pulled him downwards, towards the golden earth, just as the skipper began to get distance.
Naruto roared and stretched out his hand, fingers just barely scraping the hull. Chakra held him to the surface as surely as if he'd been nailed there, though the sheer speed of the skipper kept him horizontal, billowing in the wake of the skippers' passing like a flag mounted on a horse. His other armed strained against the force, until it too was touching the hull, and only then was Naruto able to pull himself bodily to the craft. Pressed up against the hull shielded him from the craft's slipstream, and it wasn't difficult for Naruto to haul himself up over the railing and onto the deck itself.
Chaos greeted him. Two Nosuri – Green and Orange – had Kiba pinned towards the far edge of the ship, avoiding his blasts of shearing wind as he danced along the top of the railing. Orange spun, sunlight glinting off the blade in his hand just moments before it bit deep into Kiba's calf. The Inuzuka screamed, tumbling from the railing – but he maintained enough composure to fall towards the deck, rolling back to one knee and raising a hand to ward off his attacker. Though Orange stepped back, not willing to risk a front assault, Green charged in at Kiba's blind spot. Kiba whirled, but slowed by his injury he couldn't get his palm into position in time -
Naruto raced across the deck, the wooden planks beneath his feet shrieking as the force of his footsteps threatened to shatter them. Blue, still manning the sail, screamed a warning in a strange, guttural tongue, but Naruto shot past him and barreled into Green just as the Nosuri was about to crush Kiba's throat with his fist. The two went to the ground, skipping once across the deck before Green slammed hard into the wall with a wet crack of bone.
An uncanny awareness of the battlefield rushed to fill Naruto's head, chakra reflexively sending all five of his sense into overdrive. He could smell Kiba's familiar scent to his left, could taste the blood and salt on the air around him. He could feel the footsteps of Orange to his right, even as the skipper groaned and shuddered from the force of its own speed. He could hear the way Orange's blade cut through the air, wickedly sharp. A blast of wind cut across Naruto's back, the barest edge of Kiba's attack, and Naruto dropped to his stomach, rolling out of the line of fire. He popped to his feet, bringing his hands together in the shadow clone seal.
Another Naruto burst into existence within a thin cloud of smoke, just in time to catch Orange's wrist. The man's eyes widened in surprise beneath thick wrappings of cloth – but he recovered quickly, dropping the knife and snatching it deftly out of the air with his free hand.
Naruto ducked in, pivoting around his clone and dropping his torso so low that he was practically laying on the deck. One foot snapped upwards, catching Orange in the hand and sending the knife flying. It spun high into the air and over the side, lost to the desert below.
Orange roared in frustration, locking his hands together in a haymaker blow that Naruto's clone was too slow to dodge. It burst into smoke as Naruto popped to his feet, taking advantage of Orange's poor post-blow footwork to land several punches on his unprotected face. Orange reeled back, hands weaving seals, and the long strips of cloth wrapped around his body suddenly leapt as if they were living things, wrapping around Naruto with an unnatural strength. As the blond struggled, Orange charged in, and Naruto was unable to raise his arms to stop the man from evening the score with several savage blows to the head. Fireworks exploded in Naruto's vision and he staggered, spinning, only keeping his feet through sheer unconscious stubbornness.
"Naruto!"
Kiba's shout shook the cobwebs from Naruto's brain just in time to avoid another Red pressing in from behind, having finally abandoned his position taking potshots at Sakura and Sasuke. Kiba was engaged with his own opponent, a now-recovered Green, and the two rolled across the deck like children play-wrestling – but the knives in their hands revealed the deadly seriousness of their struggle.
With two opponents in front of him now, Naruto tore his arms free from the prison of cloth and clapped his hands together to summon two more shadow clones. He would've loved to switch it up – a fire clone, or maybe wind – but the Nosuri were already moving forward and the shadow clone was the quickest technique in his arsenal.
Somewhere to the side a horse screamed, and the skipper swerved so sharply that one end of the craft came off the ground, titling the deck beneath him practically 45 degrees. Everyone on board began to slide – though Naruto noticed that the Nosuri were quick to stick themselves to the deck. Naruto himself slid nearly halfway down the deck before managing to arrest his momentum, and as the skipper righted itself with a heavy thud there was a crack like thunder and a flash of pain across his face.
Naruto howled as Red wheeled in the leather whip, arm beginning the next strike, but a clone threw himself into Red's personal space and stopped his arm cold. Orange wove more hand seals, but this time he raised his hands to his lips as if holding a horn.
A battling ram of air shot from the man's mouth, and would've bowled Naruto over had he not been still half-stuck to the deck. As it was, the burst of air cracked something in Naruto's chest, and he clutched at it with one hand while the other stopped him from collapsing. Footsteps let him know that someone was charging him, and he barely managed to stand in time to deflect a punch.
Then Orange was truly on him, and blows fell around Naruto like rain. He took a step back, then another, the assault did not relent. A kick from the Nosuri's left foot caught him in the knee, forcing it the deck, and then Orange spun into a roundhouse kick with his right foot, bouncing Naruto's head against the floorboards.
"Naruto!" Kiba again, and this time there was an urgency to the Inuzuka's voice that Naruto didn't recognize. The world spun and shook, and the seemingly omnipresent sun vanished behind a sudden shadow. Naruto looked up to see Orange standing above him, raising one foot to crush Naruto's skull as he might a beetle.
Naruto rolled, desperation giving him a speed he had never before managed to reach. He gained distance from Orange, gritted his teeth, and forced the world still with a supreme effort of will.
Red caught Naruto's clone around the throat with his whip and yanked hard, dispelling the technique in a puff of smoke. Naruto circled, low enough to the ground that he could support his balance with his hands as he moved, until Red and Orange were both in front of him again.
It was Red who moved first, the whip snapping forward. Rather than retreating or dodging to the side Naruto imitated one of Sasuke's favorite maneuvers, diving towards his attacker and rolling through the space between the two Nosuri. Orange's hand flashed downwards, the telltale whistle of a knife through air – and Naruto realized with a start that even if he could grab a knife from his leg he would never raise it in time.
Salvation came through memory, and a keen awareness of the world around him. Naruto spun, hand reaching, and his fingers curled around the handle of the very throwing knife he had embedded in the mast at the start of this conflict. He yanked it free just in time to knock Orange's knife away in a shower of sparks.
Orange stumbled aside, his footwork again suffering from his zeal to press the offensive, and Naruto whirled to chuck the knife at Red. The throw forced Red away, bending backwards until the back of his head nearly touched the deck – and for the first time since he had boarded the skipper, Naruto found himself with time.
His hands flew through seals and a moment later a fire clone popped into existence behind him. Orange, recognizing the threat, whipped his knife through the air towards the clone – but Naruto just barely managed to put his hand in the way. Four inches of steel slid through Naruto's palm, and he let out the pain in a hoarse scream.
"Kiba!" He shouted, just as the clone began to move.
Orange dashed forward, trying to catch the clone before it could do any damage, but Naruto was there to meet him. He had to trust that Kiba understood the purpose of his shout, that he managed to get clear -
The clone reached the skipper's sail and leapt into the air. A moment later, it exploded.
Maybe he couldn't hurt the craft itself – but he didn't need to.
The effect was instantaneous. The skipper tilted forward, hard, and its nose slammed into a dune that it otherwise would've glided gracefully over. Though Naruto's feet were anchored to the deck with liberal application of chakra, the force of the crash threw him high into the air. As he tumbled head over heels through the sky, he saw that his feet were still clinging to fragments of broken wood which had shattered on impact.
Naruto tried to orient himself, but everything was spinning too quickly for him to get a handle on it. His world flashed from blue to gold and back again, again, again, so nauseatingly quickly that the only information Naruto could glean from it was that he was rapidly approaching the ground.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
He hit the ground, hard, and skipped across the sand. Once, twice, three times he bounced, each impact eliciting new agony, until finally he bled enough momentum to skidded to a stop amongst towering dunes.
He gasped, sucking air in greedily, and flailed his arms and legs. Miraculously, everything moved.
Then he heard the ragged breathing.
Naruto rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself onto his hands and knees, limbs shaking. Red lay not five feet from him, stunned but seemingly unharmed. He was taking longer to recover from the crash, but it wouldn't be long before he managed to get up as well.
Naruto half crawled, half dragged himself towards the Nosuri. Red didn't realize he was even there until he practically on top of the man – but then his hands went for Naruto's face with a brutal, frantic strength. Coarse fingers crawled along his cheeks, seeking his eyes.
Naruto threw his leg over the Nosuri's hip until he was straddling the man, and then found himself at a loss. It was only a particularly sharp burst of pain that dragged his attention down to his hand, where a Nosuri knife was still thoroughly embedded in his palm. Naruto grimaced and grabbed the bone handle, pulling the thing free with a scream.
The sight of naked steel only made Red redouble his struggles, and he managed to get a palm under Naruto's chin, forcing the boy's face up to the clear blue sky. Naruto grunted and stabbed downwards, but as he couldn't see what he was aiming at the knife went wide and sunk into the sand. Naruto pulled it back, struggling against the Nosuri's arms – but always the man held him at bay.
Panic began to flood Naruto's mind. With the knife and the top positioning he had the advantage – for now. But already he could feel the exhaustion creeping in, could see the way his muscles trembled. Even if he could hold out, he no way of knowing how the rest of the fight was going. If he took too long, it was entirely possible that one of the Nosuri would stumble upon them, and then he would be as good as dead.
As he struggled and strained, Red continued to grasp for anything he could use, fingers scrabbling around Naruto's face. Dirty fingernails tore furrows in Naruto's cheeks, blood slicking his face and neck, and then – suddenly – the Nosuri's finger slipped into Naruto's open mouth. There was no time to think, to consider the options. Naruto bit as hard as he was able.
Blood, salty and hot, filled his mouth, and the Nosuri howled in pain and surprise. Some of the blood slipped down Naruto's throat and he gagged, but thankfully he managed to spit the vast majority of it – along with the severed half of the man's finger – out onto the sand. Red cringed away instinctively and Naruto was finally able to free his head from the man's grip. Now able to properly aim, Naruto stabbed again, but somehow the Nosuri managed to catch his wrist with his intact hand hand before the blade could strike free. They stayed locked in that position, straining, every muscle trembling, for what seemed like an eternity.
It took Naruto several endless moments to realize that Red was speaking something – a string of whispered words in a language Naruto didn't understand. It reminded him of the pidgin Kiba had spoken the night before, the language of the road. Red spoke in long, flowing sentences, rarely pausing for breath. His eyes shone with a fevered intensity.
The string of foreign words was becoming too much to handle, and so Naruto found himself mirroring it. "C'mon," he grunted, the knife's point descending by maybe half an inch. "C'mon, fucking...just...please...c'mon...fuck! I don't…"
Then, all of the sudden, the strength seemed to go out of the man. His arms fell away and Naruto tumbled forward, the knife driving itself into Red's eye with a quiet, terrifying schlunk.
Red kicked, a sudden spasm that put his knee into Naruto's groin, and then lay still. Naruto spent several seconds panting in the sand before he realized he was now laying atop a dead man. He shouted – a hoarse, exhausted noise – and then rolled onto his back. The sun beat down on him, relentless.
It was not long before Kakashi's masked face obscured his field of vision. "Oh, you're alive," the Jonin said, with the same tone of pleasant surprise one might use when finding an extra egg in their ramen. "Can you stand?"
Naruto swallowed. His mouth was mostly sand and grit, and the taste of blood was still prominent. "I...got him, sensei."
Kakashi glanced over at Red's corpse, then back to Naruto. He bent down in a deep crouch, elbows on his knees. "I can see that."
Naruto turned his head to stare at the dead man. He didn't look so different – though, with his face turned away, Naruto couldn't see the knife sticking out of his eye. "He was gonna get me."
"Yep," Kakashi said.
"But I...I got him first."
"Yep."
Naruto exhaled through his nose. Every part of him hurt, even the parts he didn't know he had, and beneath the pain there was nothing but an exhaustion that bit deep into muscle and bone. Together the two sensations filled him, leaving him with room for nothing else. "I thought it'd be different."
Kakashi nodded. "Everyone does." He reached out and placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder, just for the briefest moment. Then he pulled away, as if embarrassed by the contact. "This is the life we chose, though," he said. "Too far from home to turn back now. Am I being heard, Shinobi?"
Naruto closed his eyes and took a moment to collect himself. He could not make the pain and fatigue go away – could not even pretend that the were not there. All he could do was stand, and continue on despite them. "You are being heard, sensei."
"Good." Kakashi stretched back out to his full height, then offered Naruto a hand. Naruto took it with his uninjured hand – as much as any part of him was uninjured, at last – and his sensei lifted him up to his feet without so much as a second glance. "The good news," he said, brushing some sand off his vest, "is that we've got some speed behind us now."
Naruto looked up and saw the second skipper, sitting peacefully in the sands not far from its splintered brother. Sakura and Sasuke were hauling bodies off it while Kiba tended to Akamaru. "We know how to steer one of those things?" He asked.
"Who said anything about steering?" Kakashi asked, sounding far too excited for even Naruto's comfort.
-ooo-
Sakura couldn't entirely place why the walls of Sunagakure looked so large.
The rational side of her brain told her that that they were no larger than the walls of Konohagakure – smaller even, if only by a handful of feet. And yet the flat expanse of sandstone seemed to tower over her memory of her home, dwarfing her.
Perhaps it was the terrain. Though Konohagakure took great care to keep the area around its walls clear of trees, the forest was never far, always available for a quick comparison. Its presence helped keep things in perspective. Here, there was nothing for miles but desert – and, of course, the river Kahaki, which trudged ever southward. Sunagakure was built upon its slowest, widest stretch, to take better advantage of its annual flooding. The flatness only served to accentuate the height of the walls, the only vertical surface for miles.
The five of them – six, Sakura supposed, counting Akamaru, who was currently curled protectively around a fidgeting Kiba – sat cross legged in the sand, nearly in the shadow of the wall. They had not moved for hours, and spoken only occasionally. To her left, Naruto had once again caved to his boredom and begun picking at the stitches in his palm, forcing her to smack his hand away and glare at him until he mumbled a halfhearted promise not to do it again. She had done her best to patch him up following their fight with the Nosuri, but she could only do so much. She was a competent surgeon, but the healing art – the manipulation of another's chakra flow to stimulate the body's natural regenerative processes – had always eluded her.
Kakashi sat at the head of their little formation, staring up at the wall with a tenseness in his shoulders that looked out of place on the man, who was usually so carefree. Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, and Kiba sat a few yards behind him, ceding control to him. Sakura could see that it rankled Sasuke, to be placed in a position of such low honor, but he kept his tongue and did not challenge, or question.
Part of Sakura wished that he would question. They could not sit here forever. Far in the distance, many miles yet but drawing ever closer, was a storm the likes of which she had never before seen. A massive cloud that rose up from the ground rather than descending from the sky, swallowing the land beneath it.
Sandstorm. Sakura had heard stories of the Land of Wind's sandstorms – how they could choke a man caught out in the open, how they could flay his skin from his bones. Some of that had to be mere exaggeration – and yet she could not calm herself, seeing that cloud on the horizon. Kakashi seemed no calmer. Had she not known the man for several months now, she might not have picked up on the tension in his posture, but she could see it now. How much longer would he continue to wait?
It was then that Subaku Temari made herself known.
The wall in front of them rumbled, sandstone bricks sliding out of the way to expose a small rectangular doorway. Sand Shinobi in fatigues and flak jackets emerged first, scanning the area to ensure that the visitors weren't planning any kind of ambush.
It was almost eerie, looking at their dress – so similar to the Shinobi uniforms that she had grown up surrounded by, and yet subtly different. The fatigues were lighter, a not-quite-white, with slightly more open sleeves. Their flak jackets had less pronounced collars and far more pronounced shoulders, but most importantly were khaki rather than green – the coloring had led to the pejorative "tan" being adopted amongst many of Konohagakure's military personnel. As more Shinobi emerged from within the wall, Sakura saw that many of them wore hats with broad, flat bills, to keep the sun out of their eyes.
Only when the Sand Shinobi had formed a loose semicircle around the area did Subaku Temari emerge from hiding. She was short, her skin deeply tanned like many of her men, and her dirty-blonde hair was pulled into four spiky pigtails. She wore body armor similar to her men, but sleeker and more form fitting.
Truthfully, she looked like a soldier. Were it not for the number of piercings – and the golden chain strung between her nose and ear – Sakura would not have identified her as a princess.
Temari strode forward until she was only a few feet away from Kakashi, then pressed her hands together and summoned a raised flat platform from the sand beneath her. Sitting upon it, she could command height over the Leaf Shinobi still seated on the ground. When she spoke, she said only, "Hatake Kakashi."
Kakashi inclined his head. "Subaku-hime."
They had debated at length on how best to address the princess, when they spoke. Kiba had been adamantly against using honorifics at all, cringing at the idea of giving respect to an enemy, and Sasuke hadn't been much better. It was only at Sakura's insistence that Kakashi had agreed to use -hime, the old word for "princess." In the east the term had long since faded from use, replaced with the more multipurpose -sama, but the cultures of the west clung more stubbornly to old formalities, and for a citizen of the Land of Wind, -hime was the expected form of address when referring to the daughter of the Kazekage. Surely it couldn't hurt to show deference to their hosts?
If the honorific bought them any good will with Temari, however, it didn't show on the woman's face. Her expression was flat, controlled, almost bored – but her eyes never left Kakashi, not even for a moment. "You arrived just in time," she said, gesturing to the storm that raged many miles behind them. "That's quite a fierce storm on your tail."
"Our timing is indeed fortunate," Kakashi agreed, and it was strange to hear him being genuinely pleasant, without a note of mocking in his voice. "We would welcome the chance to shelter within your walls."
"Ah," Temari said. "Perhaps."
The word hung on the air. Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto exchanged looks – Naruto's face plastered with bewilderment, Sasuke's with grim recognition.
"We've traveled quite a long way, on your insistence," Kakashi said. "But if you no longer have need of Konohagakure's support, we're more than happy to turn around and return home."
Temari nodded. "You may be able to make it to shelter before the storm arrives," she said. "Though, were I betting woman, I would not wager on that."
"I see," Kakashi said, somehow still sounding as if they were having an amicable chat over tea. "You understand then, that every second counts."
Temari lifted a hand, fingers toying with one of the earrings that dangled from her ear. "I fully intend on letting you through the wall," she said, "provided you speak honestly and openly with me."
"Well, I suppose that would depend on what you wanted to discuss."
Sakura was pretty sure she could guess. Kakashi's exploits during the last war between the lands of Fire and Wind, and it hadn't taken long to learn who Temari's mother was. Sure enough, the next words out of Temari's mouth were "fourteen years ago you killed my mother. Reishi Yoshino. You will tell me why."
There was no easy way to respond to this question, even when one knew it was coming. Were Sakura in Kakashi's position, she might've taken a moment to assess the situation, determine how best to proceed.
Kakashi, by contrast, started speaking the moment Temari shut her mouth. "Well, when two geopolitical entities hate each other very much-"
One of Temari's soldiers, a tall, broad shouldered man with purple eyes, stepped forward. His hand gripped the hilt of the sword slung across his hip so tightly that the knuckles turned white. Temari held up a hand, and the man froze in place – but the glare he leveled at Kakashi burned.
"You joke?" Temari asked, after a moment. Her eyes flashed with fire. "You think I won't let the storm take you?"
Kakashi shrugged, and Sakura bemoaned that she could only see the man's back. He had every one of their lives in his hands, and she couldn't even figure out if he was taking any of this seriously. "Well, frankly," he said, "I don't think you will. If you wanted me dead, you wouldn't have come out here to interrogate me. You would've just riddled us with holes from the top of the wall."
Temari took a moment to breathe, to master herself. Her eyes closed, and when they opened again they were calm as still water. "I phrased my question poorly," she said, "when I asked you why you killed my mother. You did not merely kill her, after all."
Sakura swallowed, looking to Sasuke. The Uchiha seemed desperate to speak to her, to say something, and yet he dared not.
"You dragged her body through the streets of my village," Temari said, her voice curiously flat and devoid of emotion. "You strung her up along my father's palace, and stood by while the crows ate her eyes. When a Shinobi...or a mere citizen...stepped forward to cut her down, you cut them down instead. And so we could only watch as her corpse was defiled. As she lost any chance to find peace on the river."
Without eyes, how could one navigate the river that ferried the dead between this life and the next? It was a strange belief, and yet Sakura supposed all beliefs were strange, particularly where they concerned the proper handling of one's dead.
This time, Kakashi did take a moment to consider his words before he spoke. "My response was...in poor taste," he said, finally. "If we are to be allies here, I owe it to you to be more forthcoming." He glanced over at the purple-eyed Shinobi. "If you would tell him to stand down, I'd greatly appreciate it. He's making my students nervous."
It was only when he said it that Sakura realized how tense she was – every muscle straining, preparing to leap into the fight at a moment's notice. Sasuke, Naruto, and Kiba looked no better – even Akamaru's fur stood on end, his muzzle locked in a silent snarl.
For the first time since she sat down, Temari looked away from Kakashi, to meet the eyes of her soldier. "Daimaru," she said, and when she spoke to him some of the imperious authority bled from her voice, leaving her sounding much more human. "This is my battle."
Daimaru straightened and pulled his hand from his sword – but he did not step back.
Kakashi nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Thank you," he said to Temari. "Now, given our tight schedule, I suppose I should keep this brief. How much do you know of the events surrounding the war?"
"I am the daughter of the Kazekage. I know my history, and my politics."
"Excellent," Kakashi said, "Then I will summarize only for the benefit of my less scholarly student."
Naruto rolled his eyes, but at least he didn't try to argue.
"The war did not begin between our counties," Kakashi began. "At first, it involved only the lands of Fire and Lightning. Kumogakure had, during the Third Great War, seized control of several iron mines along Fire's northern border. The Sixth Hokage decided that it was high time we got them back.
"Of course, in this era of Shinobi, it is rare that two of the five great powers wage war without the interference of the others. It was not long before Sunagakure got involved on the side of Lightning, as...well, for many reasons, but mostly because our two villages enjoy taking any chance to antagonize the other." Kakashi looked up at Temari. "If I'm not too bold in saying so, Subaku-hime."
Temari inclined her head. "You are oversimplifying…but I can hardly say you are wrong."
"Despite being attacked on two fronts," Kakashi continued, "Konohagakure quickly gained the upper hand over Sunagakure forces. It was not long before were within the walls of this very village, and an end to the war's western theater seemed imminent. The problem was that the other front, against Kumogakure, had stalled. We were not losing ground, but were no closer to taking the mines that had begun the conflict.
"It was clear amongst Konohagakure's military leadership that more manpower was required. We need an ally, and we had one waiting in Kirigakure – who, if you'll remember your lessons, had signed a mutual defense pact with us in the years following the Fourth Great War. Unfortunately, the terms upon which Kirigakure was obligated to help us were...limited. The Mizukage was not eager to spill the blood of his men, and declared that he would not lift a finger unless we were first attacked by the only remaining player in this little drama...the Land of Earth."
Temari narrowed her eyes, leaning forward. How much of this was new to her, Sakura wondered. She did not seem like the type of person who would leave her mother's death unexplored for so many years, but even a Kazekage's daughter had limits to her reach.
Kakashi leaned forward to meet her, as if the two were not merely having a conversation, but circling one another on the field of battle. "So the Hokage and his advisors concocted a strategy. They sent some of their most elite Shinobi...and I hope I don't seem too conceited by including myself in this number...to the front lines with a very specific mission.
"See, you remember what I did to your mother very clearly. But what you likely don't remember is that while I was here, doing that, other Leaf Shinobi were in the demilitarized zones, toppling shrines. Burning temples. Violating sacred ground, spitting in the face of thousands of years of tradition. We were, in short, carrying out a coordinated campaign of violating cultural norms."
Something akin to realization flashed through Temari's eyes. Her lips mouthed the word, "Iwagakure."
"All with a very specific purpose in mind,"Kakashi said. "To scare the elite of Iwagakure. To force them to take the field against us. We believed that that Tsuchikage – as traditional and honor-bound a Shinobi as you will ever meet – would not stand for the mockery we were making of unspoken rules of war."
Temari made the connection mere moments after Sakura herself did. "But Iwagakure never joined the war."
Kakashi nodded. "They did not. And eventually, we were forced to concede the mines to Lightning's control. We got a little territory in exchange but…" he shrugged. "The war is widely considered a failure."
Silence.
Sakura was supernaturally aware of the sandstorm now. She knew – knew with every fiber of her being – that the time it would take to reach them was measured in hours. And yet every second that passed, Temari staring at Kakashi as if she would like nothing more than to watch his head spontaneously combust, she felt herself growing more and more anxious.
The storm would be here soon. Kakashi knew that. When did he decide enough was enough? That their lives weren't worth the chance that Temari might be sincere about letting them inside?
She tried not to think about the chance that their lives wouldn't ever be worth more than that chance – that Kakashi would happily keep them here until the sandstorm flayed them, just for the chance of being granted access to Sunagakure during a mourning. This is what it meant to be Shinobi. This is what it meant to be the empty vessel.
Finally, Temari stood. Outwardly her expression was nothing but calm, and yet even Sakura, so unpracticed at understanding the nuances of the people around her, could see the emotions that raged just beneath the surface.
"Come then," Temari said, her voice thick with something Sakura could not identify. "Today, I extend to you my shelter. Tomorrow, you will make me Kazekage."
