Chapter 10. Silence

The rest of the night passed dreadfully slow. They had found a cave barely a mile from where they had stopped, little more than a small, half crumbled outcropping near a dried up oasis. The land seemed alien and strange. There were no more rats or cacti, no convenient oasis or abandoned buffet. There was only the sound of the wind and their own gnawing stomachs. With Shikamaru still injured and the others exhausted, they had decided to stay for a few hours to rest up. They'd gotten perhaps four hours of uneasy sleep before Shikamaru's cry had woken them up.

"I'm sorry for being such a burden," Shikamaru said, around a pained grimace. He clutched his wound with one hand, blood slowly trickling through his fingers. "I had a nightmare. Must have pulled my stitches waking up."

Kakashi snorted and threaded the needle. "Just keep still. I don't want to have to put in a tourniquet again."

Shikamaru grimaced but bore the treatment with true Nara stoicism.

Gaara came to stand next to them, his eyes on the desert even now. "Ebizou-san isn't doing well," he said shortly.

Ebizou was sitting in the corner, practically buried in his blankets. His breathing came too fast and he complained of dizziness.

"He's not usually one to complain," Gaara said quietly. "His aide only found out about the pneumonia when Ebizou-sama collapsed at breakfast."

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully. The fact that such a hardened and experienced warrior complained at all spoke of a certain degree of unawareness of his surroundings: he was the first to feel the dehydration.

Kakashi had seen it coming, of course. It was hard not to think about the possibilities of walking around in the desert without a supply of water and food. Without his chakra, he would be able to draw water from their surroundings, either – if there was any in the first place.

Kakashi did have a plan, one that his students, if they were here to hear of it, would probably hate. He had left his backpack when they fled, leaving behind valuable resources such as water and food in the process. That, and... He looked at Ebizou. His father's scroll was still in the bag as well.

He couldn't really justify going back for just the scroll, but they hadn't seen any sign of food or water for the past few hours. Loophole.

He did at least have the grace to feel slightly bad about it.

Kakashi looked back at Gaara. "I have water in my backpack, back where we left it. If I go during the day, chances are those creatures have already left. It shouldn't take me too long."

The others gave him alarmed looks.

"What, on your own?" Shikamaru said, frowning.

Kakashi shrugged. "If I don't go, we could all die of thirst. I haven't seen any vegetation for hours. You are injured, Ebizou is too slow and ill, and Gaara –"

He met Gaara's pale eyes and paused, unsure of how to continue without insulting him. "You should probably stay here to look after the others," he said lamely, dropping his shoulders in defeat.

If anything, Gaara looked faintly amused. "By which you mean I would hold you back if I came along," he said.

Kakashi let out a deep breath. "I won't stop you from coming if you want to. You're the Kazekage, and you know this land better than I do."

"But?"

"You're not used to being without your sand," Kakashi said bluntly. "If we're attacked and you hesitate… I'm used to fighting with less protection."

The tension had been visible in the lines of Gaara shoulders of the strain of his eyes ever since they first arrived in the desert. No surprise, when the young man was used to having a literal second skin on him at all times. Kakashi tried to imagine what life would be like if he had had his stone hardening technique active from birth – being stripped of it would make him feel incredibly vulnerable.

Gaara's face tightened. After a moment, he nodded. "Your reasoning is sound," he said. "But I will follow you if you do not return within three hours."

Shikamaru looked from one to the other with a face like thunder as his mind doubtlessly tried to figure out a safer strategy. "You're sure there's no water around here? Absolutely sure?"

Gaara looked out into the desert. "There are no signs of water. No cacti, no shrubs, no life. Not even bugs. And I do not know these lands. They are familiar and foreign all at once. I think we might be at the Western border of Wind Country – but little is known about those lands. There are rumors a powerful shinobi clan inhabited them once, but nobody has lived there for centuries."

Shikamaru sighed. "That rat we ate earlier wasn't looking too good either, I suppose." He looked back up at Kakashi. "Are you sure about this?"

Kakashi thought of what it had felt like to feel his father's chakra again after so many years. "Perfectly."

He set out barely an hour later, Shikamaru's kunai holster strapped around his free leg for extra ammunition. He left his flak vest behind but rolled out his sleeves to protect his skin against the sun. It was probably a pointless exercise; his skin was too pale to be able to weather a full day out in the desert without sunscreen. It was still a few hours before noon, but it was going to be hot without the protection of proper desert clothes or the sneaky Suna jutsu he usually employed to keep himself cool.

He looked back only once, at Shikamaru's worried expression and Gaara's self-recrimination, and finally Ebizou, dozing in a corner. He left.

It felt good to be alone again, although the circumstances were anything but ideal. He was used to anything but ideal, though. He thrived in it.

He followed Gaara's instructions to find his way back to the route they had taken earlier and set a brisk pace, just short of a jog. Without chakra he felt more animal than man, forced to rely on sight and sound and scent. It made him feel bare and unprotected.

The desert was eerily quiet.

The last time Kakashi had been in a landscape as silent as this one had been years ago, back when he had been in in ANBU. He had been given a solo mission to the land of Snow, where he had wandered through glazed forests and flurries of snow for days. But even there, there had been birds and rabbits, foxes leaping away at the sight of him. There had been life. Here, there was nothing.

Fortunately, that's where ANBU conditioning came in. Don't think of discomfort, don't think of your chakra, ignore the pain in your jaw, think only of your objective and how to obtain it. Focus only on the here and now.

Instead, he thought about the damn scroll again.

Kakashi reached their old campsite according to schedule. He had a pounding headache and his feet felt rubbed raw by the sand, but he was rewarded with the sight of their bags, lying more or less where they had left them.

He didn't approach them directly but scoped the area out, much as they had with the prison. The creatures from earlier weren't anywhere to be seen. There was blood though, great swathes of darkened sand where the Sound shinobi had met their grisly end. Not snakes, then, or they would have swallowed them whole. Of course the sadism they had shown wasn't really a snakelike trait, either – unless you counted Orochimaru.

He waited for almost half an hour, and then climbed over the top of the dune and slid down through the sand. The backpacks were still there, although one of the creatures had ripped them open in search of food. Kakashi picked up one of his old shirts with a sense of regret, as he looked at the holes torn through them. Well, better his shirt than his chest.

He dropped the shirt and rummaged through the remnants of his bag. He found his water bottle first, and the scroll second. The creature hadn't damaged either. He next picked up a couple of exploding tags, still intact, and an extra shirt that was more or less hole-free. The dried food packets he had brought along had been torn open savagely, but evidently the creatures hadn't much cared for dried beef jerky. They had, however, managed to spoil it with their saliva. Great. Thanks.

Kakashi discarded his bag and found Shikamaru's. It was in a slightly better state and would at least be able to carry some weight, so after emptying it of everything they wouldn't need, he put his water bottle and the scroll in. He found more water amongst Ebizou's things, but one of the old man's bottles had been smashed and was unusable. On the upside, the old man had brought anti-inflammatory medicine. Kakashi quickly pocketed it.

Gaara's bags weren't particularly good loot either: he hadn't brought anywhere near as much water as the others, as if his body could sustain itself more effectively in the heat. Hell, perhaps it could. He hadn't seemed anywhere near as bothered by the first as the others. Perhaps it was a kind of bloodline limit. Kakashi took what he found anyway, and managed to scrounge up some unspoiled dried meat and fruit as well. Not bad, all things considered, but the lack of water would present a problem soon.

He drank a bit of water there and then, hoping to at least curb the headache a little. Once he was satisfied, he slung Shikamaru's bag over his shoulder and started walking.

He noticed the sound first, like wind whistling through Konoha's trees.

Something large and dark slithered through the sand toward him, meandering.

Snake, Kakashi thought. It is a snake after all.

He had barely finished the thought when the creature launched itself at him, its gaping maw opened wide and large enough to swallow him whole.

Kakashi ran. The creature screeched in an inhuman voice behind him, smashing into the sand with a mighty blow. A single kunai wouldn't be enough to stop this monster. Kakashi looked for a way out, for anything – there was only the sand and a small but high rock outcropping in the distance. With a curse, he grabbed a kunai. This whole not having chakra thing was starting to get incredibly old.

He leapt to the side to avoid another blow and threw the kunai at the creature's eye. The creature didn't respond fast enough and screeched in pain, blood and gunk running down its jaw. Not used to shinobi, Kakashi thought.

As he ran to the heap of rocks, he also thought: this thing had better not be able to spit venom. He had had more than enough of being poisoned, thank you very much.

He cast a quick look over his shoulder and confirmed a suspicion: the creature didn't slither over the sand but through it, as though it were swimming. That's how it had snuck up on them: it could simply hide underneath the sand. It had probably buried itself into one of the dunes at night to digest.

He had to reach the rock outcropping. It wouldn't be able to dig through rocks. If he could get up high enough, he would be safe. His breath rasped in his throat. Sand entered his shoes and bit into his feet, tearing at his skin. He leapt at the rock just as the sliding sound returned, steadily getting louder. His heart began to race painfully fast. He leapt again, and this time it stuck- there was a hollow just above him that his fingers fit into. He pulled himself up with strong fingers used to the strain of climbing- but he wasn't as fast as he normally was. The thing hissed behind him, and he couldn't reach his damn chakra.

He reached up further. Something bit into his hand but he didn't care- he had to get out-

The skin of his fingers broke on sharp edged stone as he pulled himself up. When he reached the top of the stone, the massive snake launched out of the sand, right at him. He threw himself out of its path by instinct and fell onto his back before he realized the creature couldn't reach him. It hissed furiously below, and then the slithering noise slowly faded away.

Kakashi sat back up and tried to regain his breath. His heart had reverted to some primal, ancestral fear of giant creatures and was trying its best to hammer out of his chest. He could still see the sand creature, half hidden beneath the sand. It was waiting for him to come down. It was also out of reach of his kunai.

In short, he was a sitting duck.

Well. At least he would have plenty of time to figure out a strategy.

The female refugee who had lost her baby boy sighed one last time, and died.

Sakura's chin dropped to her chest as the hand clutched in her own went limp. There hadn't been much she could do for the poor woman. Medical aid came far too late, and there was no reassuring her that her infant son would be fine. Sakura could have tried lying, but these civilians had seen enough of Orochimaru's cruelty to know even an infant would not be safe in his hands. Sakura closed the woman's eyes with gentle fingers, anxiety clawing at her own gut.

Sakura had known for a long time that Orochimaru used civilian victims as much as he used shinobi, but it seemed almost impossible that civilians could survive the kind of horrors he put people through. Usually when she thought of Orochimaru, she thought of Yamato and Sasuke. Neither of them ever mentioned their past with the Sannin, as if they could erase it by simply never speaking of it again.

These refugees, however, bore their history on their faces. One of them had started to talk about his experiences sometime during the night, speaking in a soft voice with his eyes distant and sad. Some of the others joined him, sharing their own sad tales and taking turns to sit around the dying woman to stroke her hair or hold her hands. Sakura had tried not to listen in.

Now, they clustered around her once again to mourn her passing.

Sakura got up slowly, still looking at the dead woman's haggard face. That's what exhaustion looks like, she thought. Not just physical exhaustion, but mental as well. It's desperation.

Owl, Anko and Temari looked up when she approached them, and Temari's face fell. "She's gone, isn't she?"

Sakura nodded.

"We will have to bury her here," Owl said softly. "We can't take her all the way home."

Sakura nodded again.

Anko cursed quietly, perfectly encapsulating all of their feelings.

It didn't feel fair, but then nothing about the situation was. These people had been robbed from their homes, gone through unimaginable horrors, and now the only people capable of helping them at all were part of a scared, worried group of shinobi from the same village their captor had come from.

Owl was an efficient leader and even the Suna shinobi deferred to her judgment, but her ominous appearance scared the refugees. And, Sakura had to admit, there was something a little jarring about taking orders from someone whose skill set and competency she knew nothing about. It didn't matter that owl seemed to know what she was doing so long as Sakura couldn't be sure their moral compass was aligned. Owl was ANBU, after all. A veteran who had likely fought Suna shinobi during the invasion.

At least with someone like Kakashi, Sakura could be sure he was perfectly capable of setting his grudges aside and seeing things objectively. But Kakashi-sensei hadn't come back. By now, Sakura was pretty sure he wasn't going to, either. Not by appearing in the seal in a flash of light, anyway. Whatever had happened to him, she would have to wait to find out.

He wasn't dead, though. He couldn't be. She saw the same certainty in Temari's eyes, whose concern for her brother and boyfriend had left shadows under her eyes. Kankuro had attempted to reassure them even further by pretending not to be worried at all, but that was taking things too far.

'Not dead' wasn't the same thing as 'not in danger', after all. And if Orochimaru was behind all these things, the seal could well have taken them right into his lair.

Of course, knowing Kakashi-sensei, the odds were equally likely that he would just turn up one day, Icha Icha in hand, and wonder why everyone was staring at him in that funny way. The thought made her smile. He was such a loser, really. A proper dork, who had somehow managed to obtain the highest position in Konoha. Thinking about that made pride war with exasperation, as it always did. Because dork or not, he was team seven's dork. Well, one of them, anyway. He was also a true survivor.

Yamada, the Suna councilmember, came over to hand them each a portion of canned food. "Any change?" He asked. He alone seemed perfectly at ease with the situation. Perhaps, Sakura thought nastily, he was rather pleased that his three greatest critics had so conveniently disappeared.

"None whatsoever," Sakura said, perhaps a little bit too sharp. "You were with sensei last, weren't you? Did you see anything?"

Yamada shrugged. "Not that I can think of. We took the scenic route, through the reinforced cell. There was no sign of anyone there, though. You guys hit the jackpot."

"Reinforced?" Temari asked.

"Yeah, for high profile prisoners. The ones too strong for simple chakra seals."

Temari made a hissing noise. "To think this prison has been here all along, and yet no one ever told us. Makes me wonder if there are any other secrets the Council is keeping from us," she said, glaring at Yamada.

Yamada held up his hands defensively. "Don't look at me, I didn't make this place."

He hadn't exactly made friends over the last few hours, aggravating shinobi from both villages with his tactless remarks. Sakura was fairly sure that if it was up to him, they would leave the refugees behind to die.

Anko snorted. "Who else are we going to look at but the guy who kept it a secret all this time?" She said crankily. Her chakra was running a little low as a shadow clone of hers, impervious to hunger and thirst, was currently on its way back to Suna to ask for help. It was faster for a clone to go than an actual person, who would need sustenance, but that didn't mean Anko liked it.

"But they kept prisoners here. High-level prisoners," Owl said. She sounded thoughtful behind her mask. "How could they have kept it secret? When Konoha captured a well-known shinobi, they would practically parade them through the streets."

Sakura tried not to flinch. Humiliation to boost morale. Classic.

Yamada shrugged. "That's all fine and dandy if you've got the Daimyou in your pocket, but we didn't. The Kazekage needed permission for every bloody action he undertook. I guess he got tired of having to await the Daimyou's verdict of what was to be done with prisoners. I guess he didn't mind a small loss of morale. Anyway, most high-profile Suna shinobi were perfectly aware of this place. It's just the younger generation that doesn't know."

"And apparently, you never bothered to tell them," Sakura said, thinking of the Uchiha clan massacre and how long the village had kept Naruto's identity a secret from her generation. She didn't care for secrecy.

Anko chuckled.

"All I know is what my father told me. It's Ebizou-sama you should be accusing. It was his generation that built this place, and his generation that used it. I only ever heard stories as a boy, but they seemed more fairytale than truth," Yamada said. "Like bedtime stories to keep us from getting too scared. Except the stories were true. I remember how angry I was that they wouldn't let me tell any of my friends."

"Tell them what? That the people in charge were keeping secrets from the entire village?" Temari bit back.

"No, that Sunagakure was every bit as strong as Konoha. That it managed to capture even shinobi like the White Fang. Imagine if the entire village had known!" Yamada smiled, his eyes fiery. "For every high profile shinobi we captured, we could have had celebrations."

Sakura's stomach dropped at the mention of that nickname, and she could have sworn the other two Konoha women flinched as well, too minute for Yamada to catch on. "That's what you used a reinforced cell for," she said coldly, "to keep shinobi like him trapped."

Yamada's smile faded a little as he caught onto her change of tone. Or maybe he was figuring out that talking about capturing shinobi and holding them prisoner wasn't a very tactful thing to do, when there were shinobi from that same village listening. "Yeah. I guess." He crossed his arms across his chest.

"The cell you took Kakashi-sensei to," Sakura said, more to herself than to Yamada. "Brilliant." Owl's head dipped slightly.

Temari eyed her warily. "White Fang… He was a Konoha shinobi, right?"

"Yeah," Sakura said, and got back up to her feet. She wasn't about to tell Yamada White Fang's real name. She didn't think Kakashi-sensei would want her to. She tried not to linger about what being taken to his father's prison cell might have done to him. "I will help the refugees with the burial. Also – I asked Sasuke to come here. He's a fast traveler, so don't be alarmed when he gets here."

She got up and turned away, taking some sadistic enjoyment from Yamada's muttered "Sasuke? Uchiha Sasuke?" and went to join the refugees around the dead woman's body.

The boy with the canine hearing was crying softly, stroking the woman's pale hair. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I'm going to help you now. Do you know her name?" She asked, nodding at the woman.

The boy shook his head slowly. "No, but… She was kind to me, even after her husband died. Will you… Will you also help us find her son? It's what she wanted most. Please. We can't let that man have the baby."

The solution to Kakashi's little problem wasn't actually all that hard to think of. The real question was whether he would be physically capable of it without his chakra. He felt his chakra as little more than an echo of its former self, lagging behind like a shadow, unresponsive and useless. He was fairly sure he could feel it more clearly than when they had first gone through the seal portal, but it was too far out of his reach to be useful.

He pondered the question of what to do next as he wrapped an exploding tag around a kunai. Without chakra, he wouldn't be able to set it off – unless he could figure out a way to light a spark. Once he had set off a spark, he would have 5 to 10 seconds before the tag exploded and took everything in its path with it. Five to ten was seconds was plenty to a man who had been capable of running from exploding tags since the age of seven, but not to one without his chakra.

A bow drill was useless without wood. Two clashing kunai would occasionally spark if they hit each other hard enough, but it would be hard to mimic those circumstances here. And that was all assuming that whatever had blunted their chakra hadn't also sniffed out the seal's exploding capacity.

If the snake thing could be a dear and reveal its secret, super convenient ability to breathe fire, though, that would be great.

His other options? Wait until nightfall and hope for the best. Downsides: Gaara would come looking for him and walk right into a trap. That, and the creatures had attacked at night. Dumb idea. Idea number two: distract it somehow. Downsides: it was born to survive in the desert, so it would likely outstrip him.

That brought him to idea number three: figure out its weaknesses and go for a direct confrontation.

Why did it dig through the sand? Why not simply slither across, which would surely be faster? Why did it attack at night? Kakashi narrowed his eyes and observed the creature as best as he could. He was sure it had had large, pale eyes last night, but now he only saw a slit for its intact, right eye. The left was crusted over with dark blood.

So… Ah.

The sun was very nearly directly at his back, still climbing. With a bit of luck, the snake was only able to distinguish silhouettes. Kakashi shifted his weight. The snake didn't immediately respond to his movement, so he risked walking to the edge of the outcropping and sitting down, changing the silhouette of the outcropping. The snake shifted, but didn't move.

Kakashi climbed down a little bit further, keeping the kunai in his hand. He looked up – the top of the outcropping was now above his head. Perfect. To the snake it would seem as though he had left.

The snake raised its head from underneath the sand and sniffed at the air with its tongue. It began to slither towards Kakashi slowly, almost carefully. Kakashi smiled to himself. If he just stayed here...

If Kakashi just stuck to the side of the outcropping, it would have to get very close before it could actually detect him.

Or so he hoped, anyway.

The snake came closer and closer, moving its head from side to side as it searched for him. It could still smell him, but…

Large pale eyes and nocturnal attacks meant the creature likely suffered from sensitive eyes. The eyes were large enough that it likely depended on them at night. It would normally hide in the sand, protecting itself, striking only when its prey was already nearby.

So why on earth it was so adamant about attacking him even after he had already injured it confused Kakashi. Most creatures would back off after losing an eye. For some reason, this one didn't.

As the creature came closer he could observe it more carefully. It scales were a riot of dark colors, swirling and swooping around its body. A set of small horns rose up over its eyes, likely intended to shield them even further. Its head was uncommonly narrow for a snake, more lizard-like in shape. It reminded Kakashi of the strange mutant creatures living in the Forest of Death, bred for aggression and size rather than evolutionary success. He could even see useless, vestigial legs attached to its chest, remnants of its lizard ancestors. Gaara had mentioned a shinobi clans that had once lived here. Perhaps they had been responsible for breeding this strange creature.

It was a little hard to feel bad for the creature when it still had the Sound shinobi's blood around its muzzle, though.

Kakashi's fingers gripped the kunai tightly as he carefully shifted his feet beneath him so he could propel himself forwards. The snake raised its head –

Kakashi mentally apologized to his friends, and leapt at its remaining eye.

AN:

Thank you for reading, let me know if you liked it!

Hurray for Kakashi trivializing near-death experiences. Also, remember that baby boy. He might just come back. Next chapter, expect lots of Naruto.

In other news, I'm working on a canon-divergent Team Minato-centric story that starts with Rin becoming a jinchuuriki and actually surviving, and goes from there. I'm pretty excited about it, so maybe consider subscribing or following my account or checking out my tumblr, Hii-raeth, for updates.