Gaara, Ryuichi and Gihei were stood in a circle, now outside of the cave, surrounded by more people wearing the same uniform as their attackers and the girl that had saved them from the wave of fire.
The girl in question-Ami, if Gaara recalled correctly, stood before them within the circle at a distance of about four metres, smiling at them apologetically. Silently, the Kazekage appraised her.
Dressed in white kosode and navy hakama like the others that surrounded them, her peach blonde hair and green eyes were the only immediate physical thing that differentiated her from the rest.
Her aura however, was something else. There was a calm weight that seemed to command the very air around her. He would not have forgotten someone like that if he had met her in the past, so why did she lie?
"Explain, Ami. How could you know this man when you have never set foot outside the sanctuary?" The serious looking boy yelled from his position to Gaara's left side.
"Though I don't know if he is a friend, I am certain he isn't an enemy. I have seen him in my dreams." Ami replied, her voice loud but her tone even.
"This isn't the time for jokes Ami!" The serious youth yelled at her, his fist lighting with a flame as he stood poised to shoot it at the Kazekage. Gaara's eyes slid over to him even as he remained stationary facing Ami. He didn't weave any handsigns to produce that flame. In fact, he wasn't sensing all that much chakra from it either. It was just like in the cave, this man was using some other type of energy to produce the flame. Just who were these people?
Though they were silent behind him, Gaara could sense the discomfort radiating off of Ryuichi and Gihei from the stand-off. He stood still as the sand in his gourd began to slip out, grain by grain. Ami's head snapped to him, eyes wide and not even a full second later, the fire left the boy's fist, moving at speed. Gaara began to raise a sand shield, but halted when a wall of wind blasted between the flame and himself, effectively putting it out. Ami sent him a small glance, directing her eyes at his gourd before she turned to glare at her teammate.
"Does it look like I am joking Rintaro? I really saw him in a dream. Eyes like that cannot be mistaken. They are the same eyes, he was stood in the desert and he was cloaked with shadows." She stated as if it was a matter of fact.
The young Kazekage blinked. She had his standing down pat, describing him perfectly without knowing him at all. Sensing that she wasn't getting anywhere with her friend, Gaara took action on his own, sending threads of sand to wrap around Rintaro's body, pinning his arms to his body and his legs together before clamping a mound of sand over his fists.
Rintaro gasped and the rest of the young people in uniform stood more to attention, many like Rintaro lighting their fists with flames as others stomped on the ground and forced clumps of earth to rise and a few others even pulled slim streams of water from the oasis, brandishing them like whips.
"You must be an enemy! Why did you attack me?" Rintaro accused, struggling to break free from the binds. Ami stood with her back to Gaara and faced off against her teammates, poised. A stance of trust.
"Ami, how can you defend him even now when he just attacked Rintaro?" A gentle looking boy who weilded the water cried out. Ami's head looked over to him in frustration.
"Haru, you have to listen to me! This is a mistake- he is not an enemy, his chakra isn't-"
"So why is Rintaro bound like that then, if he means no harm?" Another girl, with navy hair tied with a white ribbon, scorned, her foot shifting forward as the earth around her lifted up in small pebbles.
"I will not have my comrades threatened. They come from Shinrin, the town that guards the forest of the Gold Mountain. Their lives are my responsibility and I will not see them harmed while I can help it." Gaara's cool tone rang across the circle, causing the uniformed people to pause.
"Indeed." A gravelly voice echoed across the space. Gaara lifted his head to see an elderly woman being escorted from the direction of the cave by two young women in the same uniform as Ami. In fact, this group that surrounded him was much bigger than the one that the trio had been attacked by, numbering at around twenty people. Where had they been hiding in that cave?
"You must be the Kazekage, the shinobi leader of this land." She said. The uniformed group startled, staring at Gaara disbelievingly.
"That's impossible, he's even younger than I am." Rintaro scoffed, struggling still to break free from his thin bonds. The old woman pursed her lips and made her way to Gaara, sending a pointed look in Rintaro's direction as she passed him. Lifting his hand, Gaara released the sand and it flew back to him, returning to the gourd on his back.
"Although they are often two sides of the same coin, experience is not solely gained through age. Though he is young, he has clearly been acknowledged enough that the people of the land entrust him with their lives. You would be wise to show some respect." She berated Rintaro. The young man scrunched his face, irked by the scolding.
"Cease, he is not the enemy." She instructed the uniformed group. Warily, the fists that were lit on fire lost their flames, the clumps of earth returned and restored themselves to the ground as if they had never been removed and the water whips slipped back into the watering hole with nothing more than a ripple. The elder came to replace Ami's position, facing Gaara as the girl stepped behind the two that had escorted the leader.
"It is an honour to meet the sender of my little note. I'm sure many haven't had the pleasure." Gaara greeted her with a small bow which was returned by the old woman as she dipped her head.
"Please, call me Senkensha."
~*~
In the darkness of the evening dusk, a mass of fireflies swarmed, providing a strong source of illumination. Gaara, Ryuichi and Gihei were seated underneath a large tree, with Ryuichi and Guhei sat with their backs against the trunk and Gaara sitting just in front of them while Senkensha faced them, the twenty one uniformed people lined up in three rows of seven. They all sat in the exact same way, feet folded beneath their bottoms and palms flat on the knees of their navy hakama, totally still.
In the first row behind Senkensha were the two young women who had been escorting her, seated on either side of her. Ami was on the left of the one with deep purple hair, the people called Haru and Rintaro seated beside her as well as two others that he didn't recognise on the right side of the other escort, the one with light green hair. As Gaara's eyes slid over all their faces, his gaze paused when they landed on Ami. Who was this girl? She said that she had seen him in her dreams. What could that mean?
"Firstly, I think it would be best to explain who these young people behind me are. These are the Tenrei trainees, students who are mastering their connection to the natural and spiritual worlds." Senkensha began. Gaara's ears perked with interest.
"You do not train to use ninjutsu?" He asked. Senkensha's lip lifted at the corner as she shook her head minimally.
"We the people of the Gold Mountains have been shown favour by nature. As such, we have focused on developing skills that harness natural energy instead of relying more on chakra like the shinobi world does." She explained. Gaara nodded. That explained the strange energy he had sensed from the Tenrei pupils. Senkensha continued.
"Though we possess chakra, we have learned more of how to fuse the spiritual element of it to connect better with each other. As a result, these young people you see behind me have each a special connection with the world around them, and this connection allows them to utlise the world around them."
"The elements." Gihei muttered from behind Gaara. The elderly woman nodded.
"I see you are understanding the gist of it. That's right, these young ones can use earth, water, fire and wind style skills."
"No lightning style?" Gaara interjected, curious.
"Lightning style? Does such a thing exist?" Rintaro spoke up, disbelieving, earning himself a knock on the back of his head from Haru, who remained deadpan as he returned his left hand to his lap.
"Yes, in fact, there is even a shinobi village where it is very common." Gaara informed them, gazing at them with measure. The Tenrei pupils looked at him with wide eyes, fascinated. Senkensha's gaze landed on the ground.
"I worry that our leaders gone past made an error in choosing to isolate away from the rest of the world."
"Lady Senkensha! Please don't say such things!" The young people protested, silencing immediately when she raised a hand. Gaara had to refrain from lifting his non-existent eyebrows. These young people were well trained.
"The reason we isolated was because past seers, such as my mother, forsaw that the world of shinobi that starved for more power was not something that we were to be partakers of." Senkensha continued.
"Beings not of this world, huh?" Gaara murmured after a pause of silence, looking contemplative. Ami stared at him, the air around her beginning to weigh a little heavier on her skin. There was something about him that puzzled her, made her curious. The air was tingling around him, pushed and swayed by the fluttering of the fireflies, drawing her focus.
It could have been because he was a stranger, yet she didn't feel this curiosity toward the other young men he had arrived with. Her affinity was only resounding with him. Who is this boy? Gaara's gaze slipped over to the girl and she felt herself prickle all over in awareness. Senkensha nodded, recapturing the Kazekage's attention.
"That is right. There is a clan that roams not the earth, but the universe, and possibly other universes as well. For this world, our people were called to develop the skills necessary to keep them in check."
"But could you not have drawn out your power better if you had joined with the shinobi?" Gihei spoke up from behind the Kazekage.
"The ninjutsu that has developed in the world was meant to better other people in battles among people. We withdrew because our enemy was never meant to be man, but celestial beings." Senkensha answered. Gaara was silent as he processed what the elder had said.
"Then... do you believe you were attacked by these...beings?" He asked.
"You received my note, my vision has revealed that the time for them to arise is approaching. They surely want to eradicate threats to them and our very people stand as the largest ones." Senkensha gestured around her.
"I do not believe they would come and seek us out directly if they can help it, but rather use covert tactics to catch us off guard. Just as they did two nights ago." She said, her eyes drooping at the memory.
"Do you know when they will seek to attack directly? Or if they ever will?" Gaara's mind was moving so fast he was unsure that he was asking reasonable questions.
"Unfortunately, the gods do not grant such specifics to me." Senkensha chuckled, pleasantly surprised that this young man had not once ridiculed or dismissed her as she had partially expected. Gaara turned his head to look at Ryuichi and Gihei who had remained still and silent behind him the whole time.
"The ninja that attacked your town, did they wear any kind of identifying clothing, like headbands?" He asked. Gihei looked thoughtful while Ryuichi, who had been too busy staring at Ami, blinked back at him blankly. Gaara's gaze paused over him pointedly before he turned back to face the elder, waiting for one of them to speak up.
"To my memory, they didn't have on anything particularly unique that regular travelling merchants wouldn't wear, but they did all wield jutsu that blew things up, hence why our town is in such a state." Gihei recalled. Gaara exhaled quietly, directing his gaze to the ground. He knew all too well of someone who knew how to blow things up.
Could ninja from the Hidden Stone really have travelled all the way to the Gold Mountains just to attack these people? Or, the Akatsuki? That made no sense. Firstly, why would a village in a far off land want to attack this specific group of people that were in the jurisdiction of another shinobi village?
And secondly, the people of the Gold Mountains were scarely known to anyone within the Land of Wind, let alone other lands. How could the attackers have known that the Kinzan people were isolated and vulnerable to attack? Then there was the issue of the Akatsuki. They were seeking out tailed beasts, so he couldn't imagine them needing to attack a group of people who didn't even know anything of ninjustu.
Deciding that he would need to consult with his sibling advisors at a later point before bringing it to the council, the young Kazekage raised his eyes. There were other things that needed to be attended to than conspiracy theories. Such as the state of the mountain sanctuary.
"I will consult with advisors and the town chief on the best way to investigate. For now, however, we should lay the fallen to rest." He murmured, gazing at the bodies on the far side of the oasis.
The Tenrei pupils remained in their positions, silently waiting for instruction from their leader, but Gaara saw it. The tension in arms and the slight flaring of nostrils. The boy named Haru cast his eyes to the ground and Rintaro scowled at the space above Ryuichi's head. Ami was still, her face blank and her eyes glassy, as though they were empty.
Gaara's heart went out to them. To a people who had not hurt anyone or had any reason to have enemies, this attack must have been harrowing. Silently sighing, the Kazekage rose to his feet, Ryuichi and Gihei following suit.
"Please, let us help you. They deserve proper resting places." Gaara stated, his voice soft as he approached the elder of the people. Senkensha looked up at him with grieving eyes and nodded as tears touched the wrinkled corners of her face.