The Air France flight stood there on the black tarmac desert. A blue and white vulture. Lines of heat bisected it, cut the barren landscape in two.
Boots rattled down the metal stairway and into the staggering heat. Mottled figures carrying sacks half again as big as they, holding everything they needed. Everything they owned fit in their pockets. What mattered was within arm's reach.
A few kissed the ground upon disembarking, regretted it. Flight was something that about half had experienced before. Kissing blistering hot asphalt was something else novel. No one would forget that day, for various reasons.
They filed, like green ants across the airfield, a sea of black. A sea of nothing. In the distance, light bent upward. Yellow sand. A yellow nothing. An island ahead, made of concrete. A building like every other one they had seen in months. Their lives were a boat shuffled from one port to another, each one identical. They moved around on deck, busying themselves following commands. But they were inevitably headed in one direction.
Basic training was anything but. But it did not instill the same hopefulness that training once did. No sense of accomplishment lay at the end. They passed each day, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, only to see which one of them would not be there the morning after. Each hoped there would be something awaiting them in those poorly air-conditioned walls. Something to fill that empty void. There was. It wouldn't.
The desks that awaited them were no different than the ones they had left behind in their previous lives. They had gone from being schoolchildren, to schoolchildren with a mandate to kill, and the expertise to follow it up. The professor was leaner, sharper, with more shiny brass on his chest. And Frenchie-er. Blaze red beret cocked left (1) and a Parisian accent, haughty and refined, but clipped in a way that left no room to question. Not that they needed to.
He would give them direction. Calling their names from a printed list he scanned above his bushy mustache, groups of freshly minted legionnaires disappeared into blank doors in company of NCO's (2) who had been stacked to the side of the room until needed. These were their unit assignments, as unconventional as they were. Yet, to some they felt too familiar.
Faces had all been the same until that point. They were all legionnaires, hammered into the same mold. They were interchangeable. Until now. There were five faces left at the end of the list. Each looked around at the empty seats, the people left looked back. Each were strangers, distant family.
"Lebel, Moses, Nemoto, Tamura, Uzumaki."
They stood and filed out in wake of someone else who was not yet clear enough to be a stranger, but would be their commander for the foreseeable future. Their handler.
"You three."
They found themselves standing at attention in front of that same stranger as he sat behind a cheap particleboard desk in a room barely large enough to hold three of them, let alone six. The heat was nearly unbearable, now that they were aware of it. A rusty fan that could have been either a decade or a century old the only thing providing relief. Not enough.
He thumbed through a blank manila folder in his hands, not looking at any of them in particular. They knew which three he meant, though. He stared at them above his coke-bottle glasses. He wasn't sweating. Somehow unaffected by the heat, he had all the time in the world.
"Sir!"
Three consecutive answers. Three bodies stepped forward, as far as they could.
"At ease."
As best they could, they complied. Uneasy, not just because of the awkward position.
He dropped the folder closed on the cheap desk. A harsh slap, which everyone in the room cringed at. Even him. Though it didn't seem like he missed a beat. He propped his Ranger boots on the edge of the desk, leaned back. How he could do so in that small room was a mystery.
"I don't need to tell you, that a lot is riding on your shoulders." He was unreadable. For the three that stepped forward, it was like he hadn't even moved his lips.
"I don't mean the war." He shrugged his shoulders. War was life, for the Legion. Peace was waiting for war. "I mean for your future."
Not one of them. All of them. All Shinobi. Familiar to one another even before the grueling training had made them all brothers, sisters. They had been broken down, stripped of this distinction, and yet here it was again, reminding them that they were different, and as long as they were, there would be conflict.
"I for one would like to see it succeed." He looked at the fan as if he was looking out a window, of which there were none. "The potential that you bring to the table is…staggering. Although, not everyone sees that as a good thing." He sighed, looked back at the three of them as if they were more trouble than they were worth. They probably were.
"There are so many volunteers for our corps that they had to reinstate the 1ere REP. A regiment, I'm sure you know, that was disbanded after they attempted a coup on the president of France back in '61" (3). Again, he shrugged it off like it was not big thing, let out a single laugh. "Look at it whichever way you want." A second chance for the disgraced regiment. An omen of ill fortune for them.
"Each of you is supposed to be some kind of superhuman. But you know, every green legionnaire that comes to me thinks that." He spoke as if he had seen scores come and go, but his youthful face was hard to believe. Crow's feet peeking out behind his glasses, leathery skin on folded arms. They supported his claim. "There are records," he waved to the folder lying forgotten on the desk. Apart from a pen, blue, there was nothing else. He had them, but they had nothing on him. No nametag. "but they tell me nothing. I see bodies in front of me like I see words on the page." One male and two female. Unprecedented in the legion, but then again, everything about their kind seemed to be.
"What I want to know, what I need to know from you Shinobi is if you can work with me. Work with them." He motioned to the other two still standing behind them. They didn't need to look. "So can you? Can you follow my every command as if it came from another shinobi? I'm not like you. I'm normal." Eyes sharp as glass sparkling irony, said otherwise. "What if I asked you to do something that might get you killed?"
There was nothing for a long time. Hours ticked by without a clock to tell them how much time had passed. The Belgian's massive body continued to radiate heat behind them. But it was a test of wills. A test they could not fail. The unnamed NCO waited out the eternity scrutinizing them passively. It might have been better if he hated them. Hate was easy. This was a man they did not want to disappoint.
"Sir."
A single eyebrow drifted upward.
Parched throat. Swallow. The blond in the middle fidgeted, took a half-step forward.
"We are not Shinobi. We are legionnaires."
A coy smile.
"Ah!" Look of discovery. "But why?"
No answer was needed, for now. He shot to his feet and they found him on their side of the desk. The space mystery was solved. He was short. Shorter than the smallest of them. Still, he clapped the giant Manu on the shoulder, somehow looking down on them all in the process.
"Désolé. I must hand you two off for now. I have to deal with the three problem children." He smirked at the three of them as the door opened. Another brother, as of yet unknown led Manu and Conrad away, presumably to join the rest of the squad. Once cleared, he beckoned them out the doorway.
"Come."
Taking them all under his wing with a sweep of his hand.
"I like to think on my feet." Explaining everything.
It had all happened so fast, the three were still struggling to come to terms with it. In basic, they were nothing. Here too, they were nothing of a different sort. Now they had responsibilities, and the barest sense of permanency. Details filtered in selectively.
What they knew from their commanding officer was only what they could see. There wasn't even a name on the desk. The expediency with which he exited the room made them nervous.
"Sir?" He paused at the transept, glancing over his shoulder.
"Shouldn't you take the folder with you." The manila folder, left forgotten. The pen was already in his pocket.
"Hm? Nah. It's not mine. It was here when I came in." Glasses winked at them as he disappeared.
"Isn't this…your…office?" Three bodies were already drawn in his wake as the question was parsed out.
The four of them swept through barren hallways. They were on his heels and having to catch up. He was fast. Not brilliantly energetic, though. He just did not waste time that was not his own.
"Nemoto, Karui."
"Sir?" The redhead spoke up. Though one could hardly tell. Each of them were buzzed to the scalp.
"What are you good at? I need to know what I am working with here. We know you Shinobi types work well with one another. I need to know how I'm going to fit you in to the rest of us. I know you have prior skills, but I need to see what can be of use to me. This isn't a peacekeeping mission, you know."
"Sir, I fought in the war as well, sir." She paused, glanced back at the other two. "We all did."
"Not like this one, you haven't. Officer's quarters." A dismissive wave at the faded door without stopping. "Not that you'll need it. I'm not here anyway. Well?" He was still waiting on her answer.
"Sir, I'm above par in Kenjutsu sir, that is-"
"A sword, I know. Hardly useful where we're going. Next. Tamura, Tenten, go." The redhead was indignant, being dismissed so fastidiously and not having a chance to defend herself. Her upset was red tinge on her dark skin, no more.
"Sir," Tenten jogged to the head of the group. "I-"
"Mess hall." He cut her off, gesturing to an open set of double doors. There was always someone eating in the mess, no matter where you were. It was half full now. Quiet, much more sedate than they were used to. "Be sure to grab something here when we are done." That was an order. "Well, go on." They had not stopped moving, he did not expect her to stop either.
"I am proficient with just about any weapon." She admitted with honest humility. "If it shoots or cuts, I can use it."
"Tabarnac!" He swore, they assumed. "I am supposed to get superhumans and I get the three most normal in the lot of you! Uzumaki, please, give me something to work with." They all saluted smartly passing the same officer that addressed them earlier, didn't slow their pace. Tenten, like Karui, slunk to the back of their party with masked indignation. They still hurried, to where, they did not know. It still seemed they were traveling in circles.
The blond paused briefly, for the first time in a long time since his emigration from his homelands. Used that split-second to think about everything. Where they had all come from, they all spoke the same language, but there were accents varying depending on where you were from. With the influx of people from all over the world, they had been deluged with different languages to the point where accents did not matter as long as you could communicate. Their NCO spoke in French, a natural patois but unlike anything they had heard before. Deep, ancient. Much like their own native tongue. Look underneath the underneath.
"Sir, weren't you given files on us? Surely those details must have been included."
He stopped, and the three of them had to slam on the breaks to prevent from running into him. He sent an amused smile over his shoulder.
"Of course they were. But I want to hear it in your words."
Naruto's straight face drooped slightly. The attitude was disturbingly familiar, and thus painful. They continued on. When he didn't receive an answer right away, he supplied his own.
"They really castrated you, no? Shit! Half of your abilities got put on the 'Forbidden' list. So what do you have left to go on?" The tongue lashing cut him deep. Somehow he knew that he wasn't talking strictly about his ninjutsu. They knew next to nothing about him, and he knew a lot more than he let on.
He probably knew why the three of them were there in the first place. How much of their history that was written up was available? How much could simply be surmised? The simple fact that they were there told him a lot. It meant that they each had nothing to go back to. No other options left for one reason or another. They couldn't exist in this new world thrust upon them, and this was the only way to keep treading water.
They burst through double doors into a cavernous space, a hangar which immediately drenched them in stale heat and the smell of oil. It was the same one they'd entered in scant hours before. Their duffels were stacked in a pile in the center with all the rest. He stopped. For good, it seemed. Turned around, with hands crossed behind his back, and stared at them as they froze to attention.
"I suppose it does not matter. If you were not capable of being trained, you would not be here." He spoke as if they were dogs, which, for all intents and purposes, they were. They had since lost the investment into indignation at such broad insults, after all, every recruit was worthless. It was 90% of their basic training, learning repeatedly that they had no value other than as a cohesive unit.
"However…"
However, this was new. He looked them over, individually this time. Not as individuals per se, but rather cuts of meat, each with unique flavor and purpose. It threw the three of them off balance, even more than the redundant questioning had. They had gone from being an amorphous group called 'Shinobi', to another group called 'Legion' without reconnecting with their own humanity. He saw their face, and what lay behind. They did not even know what motivations existed back there, and so felt naked and stripped under his scrutiny.
"It is not merely enough, simply to be trained. All the training in the world means nothing without learning to apply it. I cannot make you learn. I can help you find what motivates you to learn. So, not now, but sometime, I am going to need to know: what drives you? What inspires you to continue fighting when your homeland has renounced such ideals? When every logical part of you says that peace is the answer. Animals fight." He shook his head, admonishing a false answer. "You, none of you are animals. I need more than that." He nodded once, to himself, and turned on his heel leaving them without another word.
As if acknowledging one another's presence for the first time, the three looked back and forth at one another. Each hoping for a hint of comprehension but each coming up disappointed. But this was but a second, before they realized they had missed something far more crucial.
"Sir! Wait, sir!"
He halted mid-stride and glanced over his shoulder as fully-laden forklift skittered on by.
"We didn't even get your name!"
A smile and a wave, but not an answer.
"I suggest you get some rest!" He yelled back at them. "Tomorrow comes early, and time, she waits for no man! Or shinobi!"
Though equally nonplussed by the bizarre introduction, the eccentric man in his obfuscations sparked a flame of familiarity, continuity, in the heart of a blond young man. And that flame lit a candle so he could begin to search the depths of his soul.
Night. The moon past its highest arc, but in no way morning. The three, now five, lay sprawled out on their loaned luggage in the hangar which never went fully dark, red light hanging in the midst of sunset. And never was it quiet. But by now, they had learned to sleep anywhere.
Which was good, because neither had the two non-shinobi known where to billet. They had had the foresight to sneak in a fast meal, and sympathy enough to smuggle some out to their other comrades. Gone were the days of glamor and hubris. They were digits of the same hand. Each needed to be functioning in order to grasp the situation.
They had no idea where or when their commander would come to fetch them, but knew that the hangar was logically the only place for them to depart. It was only possible to travel East so far by ground from the Legion base in Djibouti (4).
Nights proved bitter cold there as well, despite the staggering heat of the day. So when the light slap snapped the blond shinobi awake, it also disturbed Conrad and Tenten on each of his shoulders, huddled close for warmth.
"Wakey, wakey, Levez-vous!"
The three of them shot to their feet as if a cannon had gone off. The other two sprawled out on top of the pile slid into their place on either of the wings.
"Good morning!" Their still unknown command greeted them with an overtly facetious levity. "Sleep well?" Strangely enough, the question was in apparent earnest, but again did not wait for an answer. "Good. Allons-y!" He lassoed them with his finger and beat a quick pace to the cracked hangar doors where black night shone through.
They scurried to grab gear, bags that were not their own were shunted off like footballs.
"Oh!" He cried again in his departure. "Bring something warm!"
Individually they cursed, and between hobbling to catch up they rummaged through their over-stuffed duffels to find something that fit that description.
"Where did he go?!" The redhead all but demanded as she wrestled with an arm on her parka, tripping out the door in the midst of the stampede. Naruto pulled his head through the issue tricot shirt and spied a modest silhouette heading for one of the many transport planes. This one, however, was already revving its props and had its lights dimmed. Their measures had been prudent after all. Time, and apparently their new NCO waited for no one.
Though as they came panting in through the lowered cargo ramp, he stood there with his distinctly unreadable smile looming sinister in the crimson light. They tossed their effects in the mostly full hold and stepped in just as a single nod started to close them in and the floor underneath them lurched. As the fresh troops struggled to catch their consciences up to their fully awake bodies and clung on to webbing to avoid being sent to the ground, they saw their tormentor deliberately pointing his finger at them and counting silently.
"Good, you're all here." He said at last. He stretched like a cat before plunking down in a fold-out chair, a canvas bucket. But none of them had any better option, and as the aircraft picked up speed and nosed into the air, they quickly found spaces on the corrugated steel floor or else hooked their arms through the fastened cargo webbing. Once again, though, it was only a temporary measure as they found themselves at a loss and adrift without orders.
He was happy to oblige.
"What's the matter?" He appraised their jumbled expressions, confusion, amusement and perhaps a touch of disappointment on his own lips. "Hurry up and wait!"
They did.
With the first step out on the tarmac, it was difficult to tell that they had every even left the historic outpost in Djibouti. The unapologetic heat which greeted them was the same, but now they were moving in opposite direction to the flow. Personnel in short-sleeved desert fatigues rushed them on their egress, flowing past them like water to unload the much more valuable cargo from the craft's hold. They swam upstream against this to keep sight of their commander who had already jumped ship and was lost in the blinding light.
It was, however, a different port they had arrived at. Though the same asphalt sea stretched on for miles in desolation, mountains clearly loomed like shark's teeth not far beyond. Sharply jagged and with ample replacements stacked up behind them. It was a good metaphor for their own status, as well as the task that lay ahead of them.
A blaring honk drew their attention, and a Landrover Defender with an open top skittered in to view, a pleasantly sardonic face behind the wheel. Even with the extended cab, there was barely enough room for them all to fit in between cargo, and they quickly had to rig up their bags to hand off the side while they piled into the open back, or in the case of Manu, the front passenger seat. Despite the prior rush, their nameless command hardly even acknowledged the delay, and instead stared intently at the precarious peaks, losing himself in the lofty altitudes.
But as soon as the last boot was lifted off the pavement, his own foot was firmly on the gas pedal and even with most of the human cargo sticking themselves to the bed with chakra, they still had to hang on to one another to keep from being shunted out the back where they would most assuredly be left behind.
The rushing wind prevented any sort of intimate conversation, not that any of them had such a desire. They were in a shared dream, and perhaps talking now would only break whatever semblance of normalcy they had developed to cope with their incredible situation. Opting to continue lucidity was easy. The light patrol vehicle sped off down a hardpacked dirt road with nothing but wasteland monotonously streaming by, jackets and sweats were unzipped and pulled off, and the illusion like blinders was easy to slip on.
None caught the glassy eyes straying from the road ahead to peak back at their complacent charges in the mirror. Green sclera winking cheerfully from behind thick plastic rims.
They drove well into the afternoon and early evening. Stopping once. Fill and unload. Fuel was dumped into the twin gas tanks with jerry cans from the cramped space in the back. The noise of the operation mingled with the now gentle afternoon breeze, the tinkle of overly-full bladders being relieved. Rations were fished out of packs and scarfed down on the road between mouthfuls of dust.
They were getting closer and closer to the base of the mountains, and so the sun continued to disappear more quickly. How the one driving was able to see the road ahead while staring into the blinding sun was yet another mystery to associate with their 'normal' leader. As soon as the sun disappeared, however, an encampment became clearly visible. Swaddled comfortably in a shallow wadi, the complex of tents proved extensive, yet perfectly blended into the undulating terrain surrounding them with camouflage nets that hung off their peaks like cobwebs.
The truck lumbered up cautiously to a spot on the outside of the assembly, a place it clearly was meant to go if the wheel ruts incised in the dirt were any indication. He parked sufficiently near that it could disappear into the dunes easy enough, and did in fact as soon as they unloaded their bags jerry-rigged to the outside. Further sand-colored nets were produced from inside the truck and strung up so that in the darkness it became just another unassuming lump. He waited in patient silence as they did this without his having to say so.
He lead them to one of the larger tents, uncharacteristically waiting for them with flap raised, where he stayed perched until they all had filed in.
It was not a small room, but the majority was occupied by a sheet-steel folding table with a pile of maps stacked like cards on its olive surface. These, he ignored as he stood on the far end and addressed them under the barely-sufficient electric lantern. Before he did, though, he paused as if remembering a detail, and then proceeded to deliberately point at each one of them, squinting, while he mouthed numbers with his lips.
They stood in silent protest, not quite sure what to make of this eccentric man who was given position as their caretaker. There was an almost-consensus that he was simply doing these paltry tricks to throw them off balance, but with the look of youthful innocence he so innocuously possessed, there was always that niggling doubt which questioned his capacity to lead them into combat. Only time, unfortunately, would tell. And by then it might be too late.
He finished and coughed gently into his hand, all that he apparently needed to rid himself of the silence and dust that accumulated throughout the day.
"Well then. Glad you could make it." Like a hood he pulled over his head, he became a soldier. "Fist off: you will need to know what is expected of you, from both me and by those above me back in Kabul and Paris. The simple answer is the best you can. If you think you are doing your duty, you are not doing enough. Not for these people, and not for me. It was a stretch to let any shinobi into a foreign army, and it was an even bigger stretch to allow them roles which would be pivotal in long-term strategy. They resurrected a whole regiment just to accommodate you. I cannot stress enough that it isn't just your heads on the line."
He flicked his gaze to the other side of the table where the two 'normal' soldiers stood at uneasy rest. "That goes for you two as well. You may not think it fair, but the higherups are going to be keeping their eye on you as well, expecting you to keep these three in line." He laughed derisively to himself. "Not that any of us here really could, if any of them decided to go all out." He looked back at the shinobi like he was eying a growling Doberman on a leash. "The only thing keeping them from eviscerating everything that stands in their way is a piece of paper a thousand miles away. Never forget that."
Once again he managed place the shinobi into an uneasy stance. They had not liked him deriding their abilities, but by the same token the way he talked about them now as if they were unstable bombs was as biting as it was contradictory.
"I expect all of my soldiers to obey my orders. It doesn't matter where you come from, who you were before this, or even who you thought you were in basic. But I also want my soldiers to be able to think and fend for themselves. That's the criteria for being in special forces, and that's what you are now. 1ere REP, Commando de Renseignement d'Action Profund (5). You're now expected to be able to go anywhere, do anything, so that's what you're going to be asked to do. And failure, as you already know, is never an option."
The most senior English speaker twitched at the irony of the acronym their title made, but the others were as sober and jumpy as stone. This had been the most 'no-bullshit' answer they had received from him thus far, and no one wanted to disturb the magic.
"Failure in our case… always means death." His eyes closed and took with them the tumultuous green sea inside. It returned almost immediately. "And despite my earlier question," it was hard to remember which one, it always felt like a lifetime ago. "I do not take the lives of my subordinates lightly. No matter how I feel about you personally, it is my goal to bring you home."
A heartwarming, if abstract concept for the lot of them. Where was home now? The Southernmost reaches of Africa? The busy streets of Bruxelles crowded with scents of coffee and frying potatoes? A land that the rest of the world, and even those living within it forgot? Was it back in Calví? Or this humble tent-village seconds away from being swept up by the desert in the middle of….where were they again?
"Afghanistan."
He had whipped a map out of the stack seemingly at random, but producing a full-color map of the subject, fractured into cookie crumble states with the thick baker's mold around the whole thing delineating it from the other, nigh-unimportant countries. Nevertheless, everything had already been sampled beforehand by an unknown person with red and black felt tip pens, including those outliers.
"In the entire history of this country, no one has been able to conquer it. The British Empire tried. The Soviets Tried. Now, the US thought that as the new kid on the block, they'd try their hand at it." His disapproval was well masked, but it smelled more like exasperation. "Luckily for them, the Fatherland decided to lend itself to the cause, along with many...eager…volunteers. And it just so happens that the Legion is well versed in the alchemy of finding victory in defeat."
"Sir," The first time someone decided to volunteer an opinion. Immediately regretted it, but there was no backing down. The colored Afrikaner choked a cough but continued. "Wouldn't it, I mean, should we not go into this thinking it is possible to actually achieve a victory? We aren't trying to conquer it, after all."
"Well of course!" He smiled at Conrad, somehow managing to look both proud and contemptuous at the same time. But his smile flatlined right after. "But, what do you define as victory in this case?" Silence. "Conquering is easy. You kill. You destroy everything. This, is hard." He let that fall on them.
Conrad had no answer to this. The stoic Belgian had none. Neither did any of the shinobi. They doubted if he himself had one. Perhaps this was why he was so keen on depriving them of information? Because it was a case of blind leading the blind. If any of them had faith, it was the time to turn to it. If there were any, the prayers were silent.
"Peace."
The other five turned to the raspy voice. The blond shinobi swallowed, but only to wet his otherwise parched throat. He was not afraid of being thought a fool.
"When every last person in every last valley can lay down their arms against one another. When everyone, man woman and child can be treated with the same dignity as everyone else. When a child can think about what they want to be when they grow up, not if."
Everyone in the dim tent was silent. There were no snickers of derision, no applause, no condemnation. Just nothing. The commander stared at the map intently, reading lines and dots like a secret language, seeing if the answer was in that scripture.
"Like your people did?" He glanced up at the whiskered man, boy, whatever he was standing there in his uniform which gave him license to kill. "Your people were given something to unite against. A common enemy." His fingers traced the bold lines like reading palms. "All this, here every valley is its own world, much like the Shinobi Nations before the discovery. What these people have in common is a way of life, and no matter what we do, even if we do nothing, we cannot preserve that way of life because we cannot return ignorance. Neither to ourselves, nor to them."
He removed his hands from the table, straightened his back and gingerly removed his glasses. Removing a fine cloth from the vertical zippered pocket on his uniform, he began massaging the spots from the lenses. Crow's feet bled into many scars, hidden under the plastic frames. "So we are expected to bring about that type of world. Given the tools we have, it can be done. We give them a common enemy, hmm? Just like the it was with your homelands." He glanced down at his handiwork, scouring the transparent surface with his gaze, picking out every blemish. "Them against the world…. Is that the kind of peace you are looking to create?"
"He'll never be able to understand, you know. What you have done for us."
The manatee duffel bags had long since been unpacked and meticulously repacked, leaving only what necessaries they would take along with them on the morrow. Their mission details long since sketched out, and the rest of the team, old and new, long since departed to an all too short sleep once again. All except for two of the shinobi, night owls by trade. But long nights were about the only comfortingly familiar aspect of the whole ordeal.
Neither the blond nor the redhead felt at home in the parched landscape. For her, the mountains were comfort, but not as they were camped just out of reach. For him, there was simply too little green. He would little be able to understand how his closest friend could find solace in such a scene without life. Though in retrospect, it might be appropriate foreshadowing for the world they were about to enter.
"It's funny," He started out on a seeming non-sequitur. "The stars. We are in the same hemisphere, but everything looks so different. Makes you wonder if we were ever seeing things the way they really were at all."
The nominally abrasive woman scowled, perhaps at his ignoring her question, or perhaps understanding this was part of his answer. She pressed him. Let the tent flap fall, and moved a few paces into the darkness. He was sitting with his knees pressed to his chest, shaved head cocked up to look at the powder-sugar coated night sky.
"You did something no one thought was possible. I didn't think it was possible. First time we met, I thought you were either crazy or stupid."
"Why couldn't I be both?"
She obliged him with a humored huff, which fogged in the rapidly cooling night air.
"Maybe you are, still. Doesn't change the facts."
The moonscape all around them was silent for a pause. A flock of bats swam across the deep blue.
"No, it doesn't." And even in this admission, he sounded more forlorn than he had in his musing about the stars. The Cloud native seemed to take offense at this though, and her foot stomped the hardpacked sand in lieu of his posterior.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" She yelled barely above a whisper. They may have been speaking a language only the three of them should understand, but she also wanted to be respectful of their teammates. "Yeah, okay, I understand why you might be upset. Sure, they got rid of the Kage positions, took that dream from you. But it was for the good, right? It's what you wanted, for everyone to live in peace. You still have the respect of the entire shinobi nations for that. They-we, will never forget that."
Her diatribe, long overdue petered out into the night. It had been festering in her for many months now, able to be ignored, as all passive thoughts were during that time, in favor of surviving the grueling pace set by their instructors. Conversation between recruits had always been scarce, privacy non-existent. Plus, how was one supposed to express thanks to a mortal who dwelled in the business of gods?
But Naruto felt more mortal now than perhaps ever before. It was not the non-stop pace of the training every day and night for nearly a year before this, learning things he never dreamed possible. Nor was it the indignation of having his cultivated dream paved over in the span of a fortnight. It was the shear daunting nature of what still lay before him. And the fact that he could see no other alternative. Peace was always the ultimate goal.
He sighed, and looked down at a small scorpion toying with his booted foot. So strange he felt in those, even after all this time. While feet wrapped in leather protected him from the scorpion's stinger, he still felt so numb.
"I know." And Karui was taken aback by this, halted in taking another step towards the young man to wring his neck, if only for old-time's sake.
"But did I really do anything? Did anything really change?" The words of their mysterious yet shrewd command stayed with him all this time, fueled by his own doubt to overpower long-held convictions.
"What do you mean?" She could not comprehend the tenacity with which the previously bright boy clung to his malaise. Their homelands were at peace. While the rest of the world waged war all around them, they had planted the seeds of peace, and had even fostered it in their neighbors. The world as a whole, was looking up.
"Why are you here, Karui?" It was a strange thought, but this was perhaps the first time in nearly two years he had spoken her name. It bothered him that it sounded foreign on his tongue. His own voice, twisted into his native syllabary sounded strange. He was a stranger.
"What do you mean?" She huffed and folded her arms, taking it to be a questioning of her abilities. "I got past the physical, same as you."
Naruto was undaunted.
"Yes, but why are you here? Why not stay back in the Shinobi Nations? What do you not find there that you find here?" This barren waste, this land of death.
Her offense bled off like excess heat. A deep breath gave her cold air, calmed her.
"I guess… because it's the only thing I know how to do." She rubbed her arm, suddenly cold in only the tricot pull. "I don't have any other skill besides being a ninja. I guess I'm just a relic, now. There's a bunch of us like that." She admitted without shame. "But that will pass. The generation that comes after us, they won't have to live like we did. And that's thanks to you."
She stared at his hunched back, saw him toe the scorpion who had crawled up on his foot. It fell off into the sand. Tried to climb back on again.
"I know it seems daunting," a moment of epiphany, a recurrence of her ability to empathize gave her an insight as to what might be wrong with the dour boy. "trying to bring peace to the rest of the world. But just know," A clenched fist moved over her heart. "I swear that I will help you in any way I can. And I know Tenten would do the same, along with any other shinobi we happen across. We gave you our faith before, and you didn't disappoint. I know you won't again."
He had known for some time, given his desire to become Hokage, that people would expect great things of him, and he would be obliged to deliver. But how much was too much? He was just a mortal. Gifted, no doubt. But the task he had assigned himself to was as Sisyphean as they came. This world was many times larger than the one he had pacified before. It was older as well, and each of those years was another devoted to warfare, to killing, to hating one another. Even without Chakra this world before him had accomplished great, and terrible things.
And it seemed apparent that they were destined to continue. As much as he loathed to use that word, he could see no other alternative, as fate had indeed intertwined them all. The line was becoming blurred. Ninutsu, Ninshu. Good and evil. Here they were trying to liberate a nation that had never been conquered. Trying to instill peace at the end of a spear.
"…. Is that the kind of peace you are looking to create?"
Maybe. Maybe it was true peace. Or good enough, in any case. Maybe it wasn't. But just because it wasn't perfect, did not mean he had the right to stop trying. He was a slave to his altruism, shackled to his goodness. The trick now, was how to convince others of that fact. He may have understood the language now, but he was far from understanding them.
"C'mon." She slapped his back lightly. The scorpion fell off from his pantleg. "Get some sleep. It's going to be a long day tomorrow."
And the next, and the next, and the next.
Tomorrow came early. And in the form of a hand like an oven mitt probing him gently awake. He had not slept soundly. Not for some time.
Blue eyes snapped awake. He sat up, nodded to the Belgian, who was already halfway out the open flap. Unsheathed himself from his sleeping bag, swung his feet down and into his boots. Didn't bother lacing them. Wrestled the synthetic down container into a compression sack, hitched it on to the rest of his gear. Slung the full pack over his shoulder, and followed the smell of charcoal and coffee.
The sun was not yet up, and the sand colored everything was tinted blue. Blue tents. Blue camo nets. Blue uniforms. Blue shorts.
Despite the fact that there was still a thin layer of frost blanketing every surface, half those awake were moving around dressed like they were still in bed. Apparently used to the cold, or else fortified by some especially strong brew, Naruto found himself surrounded by silently bustling men, all at least half again his age, majority clothed in short-shorts and tank tops. He was surprised by their resilience, rather than the display. Modesty had been bread out of all of them early on.
"It is early."
Naruto twitched. It was disorienting to hear the literal translation (6). He had gone to sleep last speaking Japanese, yet the greeting was in that irritatingly obscure variety of French. Misty vapor wafted its way across his nose. He glanced down to regard the cup of coffee from whence if emanated. The calloused hand which clutched it. He took it without thanks.
"It's already light." They had gotten up earlier. He was sure his commander had as well.
"True." He heard the man take a prolonged sip after the much too chipper admission. "But it is still early. I know that you and your group have been run ragged the past few days." Can you handle the mission still?
The blond eyed the mud in the stainless-steel cup. Swirled it. Saw the grains percolate to the top. Took a large gulp which burned. Felt good in his stomach. He looked…down at his commander. His level smile.
"When do we leave?"
The expression didn't change. A loud noise drew both their attention. A metal container being unlatched, lid carefully removed. He regarded the soldier as he sorted through the contents. Took another sip.
"Soon."
He nodded to himself. Turned around and began to walk off. Stopped another man, talked to him lowly. Naruto took another gulp of his coffee. Already cool enough. He downed the rest in a third gulp. His face scrunched. It was much stronger than the stuff they'd gotten in basic. His split-second reflexes threw up his hand, a scroll landed in his open palm. He glanced at it, the lopsided grin of the commander.
"Go on. Get ready."
He scowled, but curiosity drew him to the nostalgic object. He unrolled it, and his nose wrinkled as if it contained a bad smell. Mass production. He wasn't really a snob when it came to such things, but he just resented those people picking and choosing among their traditions. Bastardizing them. Judging them. And then using them regardless. He never thought he would see the day the ninja world would looks scrupulous.
He followed orders none the less, and returned to his rucksack and sealed everything that wasn't immediately needed, and put everything else into a day sack, including the scroll. He left out only the critical elements. Warm clothes, for one. It would warm up soon, but where they were going it was cold all-day long.
He dressed in layers, or as much as he could with what he was issued. He supposed he could have purchased some better equipment in the PX shops, or any number of stores which catered to his type of people. But they had hardly had any time as it was in their nonstop hop over international borders. First line gear came next. Sidearm, knife, first aid and E&E kit strapped to his belt which he clipped on over his jacket. 2nd line went on top (7). It was again, standard issue, and very cumbersome to someone used to high speed low drag. But it was comfortable enough, and some pencil-pusher high up in the bureaucracy had enough brains to procure some special-made pouches for their shuriken and kunai that sat alongside the STANAG ammo pouches.
Last thing he threw on top was the ubiquitous Chéché. In a previous context, in a life quickly slipping away, he might have thought the accessory frivolous, fruity even. Experience taught him otherwise.
Sure enough, when he sidled up to the truck, now trucks, for it had seemingly gone through mitosis overnight, almost every able body moving around had the same scarf draped over some part of their body, or wrapped tightly around neck and head.
The rest of their gear, though, was certainly anything but standard. Though a fair bit of it was indeed the same mottled camouflage made standard throughout the French forces, the majority was of simple drab colors, tan and olive, and all caked with a goodly amount of the local terrain. Other items which hadn't started out so inconspicuous had been improved upon with a slap dash application of spray paint. A number of them were wearing items that looked far more eccentric than what would have been allowed to pass inspection back on the mainland, and Naruto took to be of local production.
"Here."
Speaking of which, his ever-mysterious and omnipresent caretaker popped out from one of the nearby tents amidst the bustle, admittedly catching Naruto off-guard a little. He was proffering something to him, but Naruto had his eyes glued on the man's head, which indeed bore the anticipated scarf and of course glasses, but was also adorned in what looked like a woolen mushroom.
He must have caught Naruto's moment of fixation on his headgear, and in response dropped the bundle he had been carrying into Naruto's already laden arms.
"It's a Pakhul."
Naruto looked to the black case now cradled in his arms. It looked like a rifle to him.
The glasses the man was wearing prevented Naruto from seeing his eye twitch at his continued ineptitude. Naruto might have become a professional soldier, but he still didn't catch on to things very quickly. Something his instructors in basic had yet to rid him of.
"The hat." He pointed a gloved finger to his hat just to emphasize it to the apparent dullard. "It's traditional Afghani. It's good to blend in."
He may have nodded but dumbly in response, but Naruto still took keen note of it. Both of the costume, as well as the need to keep a low profile. Though with the two trucks loaded down with a baker's dozen fully-armed and equipped troops, he failed to see how they were going to do that anyway.
He slung the small pack over his shoulder and unzipped the case, which was indeed a rifle bag. And of course, out came a rifle. It was not the standard issue FAMAS which every Legionnaire had been schooled in (8). He was still not an aficionado of weapons, but forced to learn it in the course of his training, he knew what it was and how to use it. An M733, a fine weapon, or it might have been about a decade ago. This one was worn out of its Parkerizing and its silvery undercoat had been covered up multiple times with that same cocktail of drab paints. The grenade launcher extended past the snub-barrel that was barbed with what looked like a medieval prong.
He eyed the still rather foreign weapon in his hands, hefting it rather like it was musical instrument than one made for war. Too light, in his opinion. For the life of him he could not fathom why he had been passed this relatively ancient weapon (if it were a sword, it would have been no problem. But guns had moving pars which wore down with time, and this one was probably as old as he was). It was a mark of special forces to use more tailored weapons, and this was certainly that. But he began to wonder whether this tailor job was just a little bit threadbare.
A firm hand on his shoulder shook him from his inspection.
"Nice gun." He cocked an eyebrow at the cheekily grinning tomboy, who with a buzzcut looked even more butch and yet retained that dangerously dominant spark of femininity. "It suits you. Short barrel won't matter, you probably couldn't hit anything with it anyway."
He sent Tenten a distinctly flat look while he ducked through the sling attached to the weapon. Unlike the two female ex-shinobi, while he was just barely able to meet minimal proficiency with the standard rifle, he was nowhere near on par with the two women. With Tenten, it was kind of a given. She just seemed to take naturally to whatever was put in her hands. Speaking of which…
Naruto's flat look turned into a sly grin as he stroked the thick length of the launcher seductively.
"Mmmm. You're damn right it does. Looks just like me, don't it?"
He received a punch in the arm as his only response.
Despite the reactionary double-entendre, something about the exchange felt forced to Naruto. That was the manner in which they had talked all throughout training, when there was talk to be had. And it had been alright there, especially as a means to break the social ice between them and the non-shinobi. But something about it now seemed so trite and superficial. These were his kinsmen. All of them were, and he longed to talk to them on more than just that surface level of vulgar soldier-humor.
"Oi! Face-de-crosser! Get a move on! You're with Tarek! In! In! Go! Go!"
The ranking officer's biting words cut through the otherwise quiet morning air, and shattered their jovial mood rather quickly. They both hurried to make haste, finding the second of the long-range vehicles with the rest of their neophyte team in back, the driver and passenger seat occupied by a swarthy looking man clearly of middle-eastern extraction behind the wheel, and a humorless African glaring at them from behind an overly-large pair of sunglasses.
Taking the olive-skinned man to be Tarek, they jumped into the surprisingly roomy bed of the truck, behind both Manu and Conrad who was clinging on to the Ma-Deuce saddled in its pedestal mount. And as soon as they did the first truck hopped forward in a sand and rubber, and cloud of dust which impeded their vision. But apparently not that of their driver, who followed quickly in the coattails of the first, which was being driven like a bat out of hell by the same consternating NCO.
As they bumped and skipped out of the wadi and back onto the main road-hardly more than a goat path- which snaked its way into the horizon and up into the mountains, Naruto pulled the Chéché up over his nose and mouth, lest he break his fast on another meal of mainly silica. After managing to secure his goggles over his eyes while keeping one hand glued to the bench seats to prevent from flying off, he glanced around the back, noticing that it was a good deal roomier than when they had hopped out last.
The reams of cylindrical objects lining the bottom of the benches was the explanation. He did not even have to unroll them to know what they were, and likely what they contained. Mastering his disgust at the sheer number of surely press-stamped scrolls, he had to concede a bit of admiration to whoever had had the wherewithal and farsightedness to invest so heavily in the (to them) experimental devices. They had encountered very little flexibility in anyone they encountered outside of their home nations. Apart from the researchers, the average person was apprehensive at the idea of chakra based devices.
The military was even slower to change, so it was a wonder that they even got pouches for their throwing weapons. This discovery was on a different scale altogether. It made him wonder if the unit they had been assigned to was allowed that much leeway, or if their commanding officer was just that resourceful and shrewd. Either way, it made Naruto feel conversely more at home, and more off-balance than he had in the past year. Just what had they been dropped into?
Manu mumbled something that was swept up by the winds, which had picked up considerable speed in with the sun peaking over the horizon.
"What's that?" Naruto shouted to the giant, further muffled by the khaki turban wrapped around his head. It was the first words he had heard in months from the soft-spoken man.
"He's speaking Flemish!" Conrad yelled over his shoulder. "It's similar to Afrikaans, but I think he said: 'from the valley of death!" Manu made no attempt to repeat what he said, though.
Naruto frowned behind his dust-mask. He recognized the reference, if only through the continued utterances all throughout basic training. Tied to some sort of religion that was favored much to the west. But something about it seemed wrong.
"It's normally 'through the valley of the shadow of death'." Supplied Conrad, answering the mystery before he turned back around to focus on bending his knees in anticipation of the nasty bumps ahead.
Ah, that was it. 'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil'. It was pretty self-explanatory, and honestly a little silly in his opinion. Fear was something to be embraced, because it guided you away from death. But what of the Belgian giant's transfiguration of the phrase? Bad translating, or something else?
Were the natives of that sacrilegious valley bringers of their demise? Maybe it was they who were the shades emerging from the valley, and he was warning whoever awaited them the demons from the pits of hell were coming for them that they might seek reconciliation with their gods?
Naruto preferred neither. He had been the demon, and he had been the one on the other side, fighting against the creatures of hell. He just wanted to ascend those lofty peaks and float away into the thin blue sky.
Behind him, Karui drew a deep breath of mountain air as the trucks' tires caught purchase on the gravel road wandering back and forth up switchbacks into heaven's realms. "It's like home…"
Naruto looked at his comrade, and then at all of them, cramped and huddled into the back of the four by four. Dour, wistful and manic looks alike, and found his own mouth curling up into a sight grin.
"Yeah, it's kind of like home, isn't it?"
1. The French Foreign Legion paratroopers have traditionally worn a green beret ever since they were introduced. Red, the color coined by the British in WWII, is the traditional color for paratroopers worldwide, and is such for the airborne forces drawn from mainland France.
2. Non-Commission Officer. Means that while they hold some command, they are still part of the rank and file. Officers in the Legion may also be drawn from the regular forces, but typically NCO's are promoted from recruits, hence they have more in common with the average 'poilu' (French equivalent to GI. Literally means 'Hairy One').
3. When then President Charles de Gaulle wanted to pull troops from Algeria in 1961, many in the FFL felt abandoned by him, and so a good portion plotted to rebel against the president, planning on parachuting into Paris itself. The plot was discovered and the conspirators punished, but the 1ere REP (Regiment Etrangére Parachutiste) was disbanded. Only the 2eme REP still exists today.
4. Really? You can Google this, but Djibouti is in East Africa, another historic base of the Legion.
5. C.R.A.P. That is the actual acronym (canon time, not sure if it is still in use). Deep Reconnaissance Commandos. Don't laugh, those guys are the badass of the badass.
6. Good morning in Japanese is Ohayo Gozaimasu, literally "it is early".
7. E&E, escape and evasion kit, used for survival. 1st line gear are things that you never go anywhere without. Usually a medical kit, knife, etc. This is up to personal choice a lot of the time. 2nd line is where you carry all of your ammunition and field gear.
8. I really don't want to hear anybody whose only experience is Call of Duty or any other video game lecture me. The Famas is the standard rifle for all the French forces at this time. But just because it looks cool doesn't make it a great rifle. It's operating mechanism is too flimsy, which is why the French are now switching over to the HK416. Although special forces have always been given preference and leeway with using other weapons they deem necessary.