A/N: So during my break yesterday I've finally gotten a haircut, brushed my teeth, showered and changed... haha I'm joking! Other than the haircut I do the other stuff everyday, promise :P Can't say the same for Snake and Kakashi though, now that they're going to Ame :P
With only ten percent of their chakra at their disposal, Snake and Kakashi travel barely faster than a civilian pace. It'll take them four solid days to reach Ame's border but that time is not wasted. The pair of ANBU use the time to work out the details of their cover, practice the Ame accent, and memorise maps and meeting points. They discuss Ame history and politics, quiz each other on the major members of Hanzou's dictatorship and the Akatsuki resistance, and plan engagement strategies.
Far away from Konoha, secluded in the wilderness with nothing but the chirp of crickets and the shrill cry of cicadas, the more dangerous implications of the mission can be murmured in the dark.
"I trust that you've already noticed that Sandaime-sama is not in favour of this mission," Snake says as they sit around a smouldering bonfire. Hyaku and Rin are lying on the leafy forest floor, gazing at the small patch of starry sky above them, while Sakumo sits beside Kakashi and listens.
Kakashi inclines his head slightly, his uncovered eye dark. "The 'unauthorised interference' is linked to Danzou-sama, isn't it?"
"It's always Danzou," she sighs. "Ever heard of ROOT? It's his own little ANBU of brainwashed shinobi." Kakashi's eyes widen slightly and Snake chuckles mirthlessly, the features of her borrowed face highlighted eerily by the fire's dancing lights and shadows. "Konoha isn't so nice, is it?" Kakashi is quiet as she pokes at the flickering flames idly, sending a tiny sparks jumping into the air.
"Danzou-sama is doing something behind Minato-sensei's back." Kakashi says slowly, testing the waters. "But he's Sandaime-sama's teammate and Sandaime-sama doesn't want Minato-sensei to interfere."
"Sandaime-sama has always been... passive when it comes to Danzou." Her tone is bitter.
"He trusts Danzou-sama too much?"
"Trust..." She rolls the word on her tongue, weighing it. "Perhaps. Sandaime-sama trusts Danzou to work for Konoha's good even if their methods differ. He trusts Danzou to do the dirty work. But I'd also say it's plausible deniability. Whatever Danzou does, if Konoha benefits, wonderful. If it doesn't, Sandaime-sama can brand Danzou as a rogue and let him take the fall for Konoha." A bark of laughter escapes her. "Win-win."
Sakumo himself had gathered as much after becoming one of the "legends" and socialising within their circles for years. Each of them are just as fallible as any other human being. A position of power and the experience to back it doesn't guarantee beautiful solutions. He's not one to judge Hiruzen, Danzou, or Minato - not when he might not have done any better if put in the same position - but it has been a long time since he was blind to these ugly realities. This mission is just another power play between the old guard and the new.
Turning back the bonfire, Kakashi stares thoughtfully. "If we obtain evidence of Danzou-sama's wrongdoing, treason even... Minato-sensei will be able to dispose of him and Sandaime-sama won't be able to turn a blind eye."
"It's more difficult that that," Snake says with a tiny smirk, making Kakashi roll his eye, "but yes."
"Then we'd better succeed."
Half a day's journey away from Ame, the two ANBU Henge themselves into the children they're meant to be and put on the set of tattered yukatas that they'd brought. They're barely more than rags, fraying at the hems and worn thin from use. Kakashi and Snake will be freezing once Ame's constant rain soaks them through.
The small backpacks of supplies that they'd brought are hidden deep inside a cave, along with all the weapons they'd been carrying on their person. The only things which they bring are two soldier pills each. It's hardly enough for the three day journey to the Akatsuki hideout but they'd been skipping meals since they left Konoha to acclimatise their bodies to the imminent lack of food. If they are caught, the soldier pills can be explained away by theft. Anything more would be suspicious.
As the dense forests and soft mosses of Hi no Kuni give way to grey, drizzling skies and hard-packed earth, they are soon stopped by the Konoha border patrol. They are let go after a short conversation of ANBU field signs — what goes out of Konoha hardly matters as much as what goes in.
The difficult part is slipping through Ame's borders. Further suppressing their chakra signatures, they Henge into a pair of ravens and take to the skies. It's a difficult Henge to maintain with chakra reserves as meager as theirs but there is no doubt as to it's efficacy. They fly for miles, over camouflaged Ame outposts and over military encampments further inland, until the exhaustion of repeating such unnatural movements as flying begins to take its toll.
Sakumo is glad that as ghosts, they are able to float and fly quite instinctually. If they had been in Konoha, their birds-eye view would have no doubt been magnificent. As it is, they only see Ame in all her grim, shattered glory. Along the distant skyline, the shinobi city is a sprawling mass of blackened sludge, its buildings caught within it like caltrops in tar. Beyond the city borders, a brown wasteland lies disfigured with craters and fissures. There are small settlements here and there, forming little mosaics of rusting, corrugated metal roofs. Some are abutted by patches of dull greens — what little agriculture that can be coaxed from the choking clay soil and the perennial, rot-encouraging rain.
About five miles safely inside Ame, Snake and Kakashi find an abandoned piece of land and crash land, splashing into mud-water potholes with flailing limbs and pained winces. Covered in filth that even the battering rain and wind doesn't wash away, Snake grasps Kakashi's hand tightly and pulls him onto his feet. They trudge on hand in hand, shivering with cold.
No-one speaks, not even the ghosts, as they travel. For every evidence of life's tenacity, there is another monument to the death that had swept this land. Women draw water from wells created by crashing Suitons; men build fences from pieces of mountains shattered by Tsunade's fists. Toddlers play under the shelter of a towering stone arm created by a Doton, ignorant of the bones that are still clutched inside its fist.
Sakumo knows of the pain of war, of loved ones never returning home and of comrades breathing their last in his arms. But war had never been on Konoha land, had never reached so far as to crush the sanctuary of his soul. Seeing the devastation lying before his eyes, still unhealed and festering, Sakumo realises that this is the true price of the shinobi nations' arrogance.
If there is suffering amongst the people of Ame, only the heavens hear and weep with them.
A/N: I found out today that there's actually a filler episode where adult Kakashi goes to Ame to check if Hanzou is still alive (he's not) and deliver an invitation for the Chuunin exams (the one Naruto participates in). Wow the visuals of Ame city were so striking. So gloomy and spooky. I really want to capture that feel.