A/N: I went to see The Avengers last night. First movie of 2012, and it was worth every penny and then some.

Chapter Four

The north-south sweep had passed over them just fifteen minutes earlier; they had managed to avoid detection by lying on a flat rooftop directly in between two of the strangers.

"What do you think?" Yurei whispered, directing the comment at Genji. "They're not liable to find the crawlspace."

"Crawlspace?" Ryūkei asked, one eyebrow lifted quizzically.

"If you think we can get there without them finding us, then I say yes," Genji nodded. "We'll be moving in their direction, though. We'll have to make it fast."

"Then let's get to it."

The three of them rose after a quick check around, then vaulted over the edge of the two-story building to the ground below, sprinting off through the sand. Ryūkei moved up next to Yurei, who led the trio.

"Where exactly are we going?"

She smiled. "My house had a crawlspace underneath it that Genji used to hide in whenever he was in trouble. If the academy teachers couldn't find him there, these people won't either."

"Hey, you used it too," Genji scowled. "Just keep your eyes open for —"

"Hey!"

They ground to a halt, seeing a single cloaked figure on a rooftop overhead. The person was slightly smaller than the rest, with a distinctly adolescent voice. Apparently lagging behind the rest of the skirmish line, he'd chanced upon on the group's quarry.

A hand appeared from beneath the cloak, holding a kunai. "Hold it right there! My boss wants to talk to you."

Genji crouched slightly. "Sorry, kid, we've seen the way your boss treats the people he works with. I don't thing we're interested in meeting him as prisoners."

Pushing back his hood, the boy showed himself to be in his late teens, with bright blue hair. His face was set in a determined frown. "It's not a question of whether you're interested or not. Michima-senpai ordered us to find you and bring you in."

"You and what army?" Genji fired back. He sprang from his crouch, launching himself upward at the boy. "Wind Style: South Wind Kick!"

He landed on the roof where the boy had been as the latter went flying back from the condensed wind that had hit him in the stomach. Genji paused for a shout of 'Run!' to his two companions below before he was off and sprinting along the rooftops. Yurei and Ryūkei followed at ground level.

At the first opportunity, Genji dropped from overhead to land beside them, and fell in beside Yurei. "He heard us talking about the crawlspace. They'll make sure to keep an extra-sharp eye out now; it's too risky for us to just find a place to hide."

"You two should make for the south entrance to the village," Ryūkei put in. "It's harder to find one person in a city than three people together."

"Wait a minute." Dodging sideways, Yurei opened the door of a house, and pointed them both inside. "Take a moment; we'll think better if we're not trying to run while we talk." Closing the door behind them, she put her hands on her hips. "Ryūkei, it's not safe for you to stay here anymore. I don't want to leave you here by yourself."

The man shook his head firmly. "I'm not leaving just because some people show up and would rather stick a kunai in me than shake my hand." He folded his arms. "Like I said: it'll be harder for them to find me if I'm on my own."

"I dunno," Genji said doubtfully. "They'll be pretty riled up now. They're liable to search the entire city for you, especially if Michima is half as ticked about this as I think he'll be."

"They'll find your tracks, they'll find wherever you've been living, and then they'll find you," Yurei said seriously. "Look, I'm not saying that if you come with us, you have to [i]stay[/i] with us. Wait a couple weeks, then come back here; they'll probably be long gone by then."

Ryūkei hesitated. ". . . Where will you be going if you leave?"

Yurei turned to Genji, an uncertain expression on her face. "That's a good question. What do you think?"

The redhead rubbed his chin in thought, staring out one of the house's windows. "If we leave by the south entrance, we can double back north and go right for the others."

Ryūkei held up a hand. "Wait a second. You're talking about going back to the 'people' you mentioned in the records building?" The other two nodded. "And what people would that be?"

The two traded an uneasy glance. "See, that's the thing . . . unless we actually know for sure that you're going to come with us and won't sell anybody out, we can't tell you," Genji said, shrugging. "They're all very . . . suspicious. They don't let just anybody know who they are."

Folding his arms, Ryūkei scowled. "And how do I know you're not going to sell [i]me[/i] out?"

"Because you were willing to let us leave before," Yurei said reasonably. "If you didn't trust us to keep your secret, you would have had to kill us."

With a final hesitation, the desert man nodded. "Fine. I will see you as far as wherever this organization of yours is located; then I'll head back here." He glared back over his shoulder in the direction the boy had been. "And these people had better be gone by then."

Smiling, Yurei reached up and squeezed his shoulder. "They will be. Come on; let's go to your hidey-hole so you can pack a bag. You'll need one to cross the desert."

Michima stared at the young man standing in front of him; the boy's expression was twisted slightly with pain. ". . . Well, Sōma, you must have taken quite the beating. What did they do to you?"

Sōma grimaced, rubbing at his aching back. "The red-headed man hit me with some sort of Wind Style attack, senpai. I heard him tell the others to run, but I didn't see where they went after that."

Slap! Backhanding the teen across the face, sending him reeling, Michima rose to his feet. "Useless!" he snapped. "Can't you master a simple concept like detaining a fugitive?"

Clutching his cheek, Sōma stayed where he was on the floor as Michima turned to the rest of his followers. "And the rest of you! Not hide nor hair of them? That's just pathetic! You're all supposed to be former ninja; start acting like it!"

"We were just about to start the east-west sweep when you summoned us," Noa said evenly, shooting her commander a thinly-veiled glare. "We'll keep sharper eyes out this time; we'll find them."

"You had better pray you do," Michima growled, stalking up in front of her until they were nose-to-nose. "Because one of those three is carrying what we came here to get, and if I don't have it in my hands by sundown, it'll be your neck on the line. Do you understand me?"

Hiroshi intervened, as he had earlier. "The guards on the cliff top have an uninterrupted, panoramic view of the area. Our three fugitives can't escape the village so easily. We'll find them, Michima."

Growling under his breath, Michima turned away. "So what are you waiting for?"

The rest of the group looked to Hiroshi, who nodded toward the exit. They all filed out, leaving their leader to brood by himself.

"It's not going to be easy, and we're going to have to be completely silent, but it should work," Yurei said, the three of them crouched inside the abandoned house that Ryūkei used as his personal home base within the village. The sandy floor allowed the dark-haired girl to sketch out a rough diagram of the surrounding area to explain her plan.

"With no streetlights, or light from buildings, this place is going to get very dark once the sun goes down. All we have to do is stay hidden until then, then get to the cliff top and head out into the desert." She pointed to an X at both north and south positions outside the circle that was Sunagakure.

"We heard Michima say that he wanted guards here and here . . . that leaves the eastern and western sides more open. The surrounding land is flat, so the guards could still see us in silhouette if we stand up. Once we reach the cliff top, we'll have to stay flat, and get as far away as we can before sun-up."

Lifting her head, she glanced between the two boys. "Make sense?"

"Simple, straightforward . . . I like it," Genji nodded. "Gives us a bit of time to rest up before we head out, too."

"What direction are we heading once we leave the village?" Ryūkei asked, adjusting a shoulder strap on his freshly assembled pack.

"North," Yurei said. "From here, it should only take two days to reach the edge of the desert, and we can stop off in the ruins of Ishigakure for extra supplies." Standing, she dusted herself off before moving to the window. "You guys get some sleep; I'll keep an eye out for our friends."

Ryūkei glanced at Genji as the other stretched out on the sand, using his pack as a pillow, before asking his new question. "You said 'the ruins of Ishigakure.' That village is gone too?"

Looking over from her position, Yurei frowned. "Yeah; all the Hidden Villages were abandoned after the war, remember?"

Ryūkei shook his head. "There's a lot I don't remember anymore."

Sad-faced, Yurei wiped a hand over the sketch of her plan, obliterating it and smoothing the sand. "There was no one to even go back to them. After the White Zetsus and undead army made that last push, our forces finished them off, but not without considerable losses."

Her lips pressed together briefly in discomfort. "A lot of the Allied Shinobi forces broke ranks and bolted. That masked guy set off a massive jutsu, like an earthquake, and killed or injured a lot of those who stayed. Those who could, escaped. Those who didn't, or were left behind, were . . . well, they're mostly considered killed in action."

Ryūkei sat perfectly still, stunned. "I remember all that . . . but I would have thought that some villages might have people come back. Especially Konoha or Kumo . . . . I thought Suna was too far out of the way, too isolated for people to bother with . . . that's why I came here."

Genji's voice was quiet as he spoke. "Mr. Masked Man was pretty on-the-ball about establishing a bigger presence after the war. Thanks to his reputation with the Akatsuki, he was able to gather a huge group of rogue and former ninja, plus mercenaries, thieves, bounty hunters . . . any scum of the earth that he could. They're his new 'army.'"

"The last we knew," Yurei interjected, "they were as scattered as the former allied forces, only they're keeping watch for any known shinobi or kunoichi. Anyone even [i]acting[/i] like a ninja. And if they find someone, they drag them right to Maskface and let him deal with them."

Frowning, pondering that, Ryūkei murmured, "So they're a secret police force . . . ." His head came up. "In the records building; that woman said that 'Ridā-sama' was counting on them to retrieve something. That must be Masked Guy. And that other man said something about having followed two people . . . ."

"He was talking about us," Genji confirmed. "We noticed those eight following us when we stopped over in Tanzaku Quarters on the way here. We managed to lose them and get here before they did, but they must have been able to track us after all. They're after what we took from the records building."

"Which was?"

The two former Suna ninja exchanged one of their repertoire of simultaneous looks; this one serious and full of caution.

"We . . . can't say," Yurei finally hedged. "Remember the people we work for? They expressly told us not to reveal what it was we came to get, not to anyone but them. If it fell into the wrong hands . . . ."

"I understand." Lying back on the sand, a few steps away from Genji, Ryūkei folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Whatever – their problems weren't his problems. He was simply going with them to wherever their secretive masters were, then turning around and coming back.