The Stars' journey through the Land of Lightning wastelands had been uneventful all the way until they crossed into the southern parts where the ground turned rock-solid and ice-cold and powdery snow began pelting at their bodies. The flakes reached to the very essence of their resolve and washed at it like a relentless autumn rain threatens to dislodge a stone of an ancient, ruined wall and send it plummeting down to the roaring ocean below.

"Okay, what now?" Endo turned to the rest of the Stars as the team had reached the point where hills began taking over the landscape and all of them knew that it would be merely a matter of time before those hills transitioned into sky-reaching mountains. It would continue that way for at least six thousand kilometers that way before reaching twelve thousand kilometers of the tundra of blinding white. The Land of Snow was not as large as the sum of the Land of Lightning, but it was an annoying natural wonder to work one's way through.

"Now the least rocking part of all…" Shitaka sighed, deflating before the very eyes of the spunky recruits as the man withdrew himself inside of his leather coat. "We wait until a cabbie drops by some passengers looking to make their way through and pay him to take us back alongside him."

"No way! It's that difficult to cross to the other side of the mountain range!?" Damisan grabbed the cylindrical headgear that he hid his face down under in shock.

"Why did you think Kumogakure was isolated for so long?" Shige-H turned to Damisan with a squint of her eyes. "They hadn't even seen people that looked different from them until a couple of hundreds of years back."

"Yeah, you'd think one of those small villages based on caravans would have found their way on to the other side of the mountains, but they don't seem to see anything of use to find here. Any people living here are wanderers and loons that live in the mountains," Shitaka pulled on the straps of his bag. "But don't worry, little dudes, the other side of the mountain range lives and breathes the caravan business so multiple trips are in rotation at any moment. It will take us at worst a few hours until we see our ride to the other side."

"I guess it makes sense why no settlers would want to bunk down here. It's basically all frozen rock in the soil, not a single living soul in the vicinity for kilometers, no animals to hunt nor predators to hunt them… I'd wager that not enough people would want to go from Land of Lightning on to the other side to support a cabbie lifestyle either," Damisan turned to the side signifying the distance that they've already walked from the Allied Ninja HQ.

"Of course, nobody wants to travel back. What is it there on the other side to see? The Iron Country and Kumogakure has the finest swordsmen in the world. Nothing but savage outsiders out there…" Endo crossed his arms with a grumpy look on his face. "If you make it through the mountains on to Land of Lightning, you've made it."

"Yep…" Shitaka looked around with hazy eyes. "Nothing but miles upon miles of wasteland, desert, mesas and canyons… Why would one ever wanna leave this place?"

"What's that?" Endo growled at the Allied Ninja that the Supreme Leader insisted would lead their expedition for a Guru Ayushi's flesh sample. One that would bring Mana back to her feet. "You've got something to say about the greatest country in the world, say it to our face then!"

"Our?" Shige-H sighed. "Don't drag me into this petty, old stuff…"

Damisan's stomach growled. It was not because the man hadn't had a bite to eat since leaving from the shoreline where the Allied Ninja HQ was located, but because a tasty smell reached his nose. A smell of roasting, hard vegetables and watery fruit slices positioned onto a plastic platter and a smoldering, subtle flame that Tomi held her hands over.

"Now there's a little dudette that's got the right idea…" Shitaka rolled his eyes. "You should probably all get a bite of something or make some preparations you hadn't had a chance of making before. Who knows when shit's gonna hit the fan once we make it to the other side. I must agree with the fussy dude on the fact that the other side can and will probably get pretty savage."

"I packed nothing that takes into consideration the fact that we'll be eating on this side of the mountains. I'd best reserve my rations…" Damisan breathed out a depressed sigh while feeling out his stomach underneath the cloak that hid the scarred and scorched skin that covered it.

"Nonsense, we are a team. I will share some of my food to keep us happy!" Shige-H suggested.

"Humph, I shall not take charity from you," Endo hissed and walked off closer to little Tomi to see what she was roasting. "What is this? Looks like a bunch of roots you've pulled out of the ground. The ground's frozen, don't you know those are rock-hard? As if I'm eating any of that…"

"Those aren't for you," Tomi hissed, turning to the apprentice samurai. While the little one was not overly fond of people mostly being just a cheerful, rainbow-riding bundle of joy all by her lonesome or surrounded by her ninja animal friends, she looked especially protective of the measly food she's been working with.

"I couldn't have noticed the fact that you're only preparing roots and fruit. That's especially cruel, Tomi-chan, you know, the desert folk back in Wind Country eat mostly that stuff because the hard stuff like meat and fat bogs down the body and makes it waste water…" Damisan whined out while observing the stumps that Tomi was roasting and slicing up.

"They're not for you either," Tomi lashed back as vicious as a pit viper. The young lady bit her finger and worked through the hand seals to summon a whole myriad of ninja animals. Ninja sparrows, ninja frogs, ninja beetles… While sometimes the question still lingered in the air, like these it truly seemed like Tomi had most of the species of ninja animals under her contract.

The living zoo ready to fight at their little mistress' behest at any moment dug into the improvised lunch that the friend to all animals had prepared. Tomi turned her back on the Stars and Shitaka and joined the circle of animals, though she wasn't eating but sharpening a stone which she was fashioning after the shape of a kunai. Until that point Tomi had used the weapon as blunter, bashing tool to open up mushy fruit and vegetables and expose their innards or to pick out their seeds from bashed remains.

"That's so cruel…" Damisan sniffed, clearly overacting as he had a decent amount of food rations of his own and could have stopped to resupply at one of the little settlements on the other side at any point. That's, of course, if he brought any money with him.

"Tomi's not to receptive with people. She doesn't even let me in too close. I think Mana's the only one she's warmed up to and even then it's because Mana knows the ninja rabbits that are the only animal species I've never seen her use in training or after-hours…" Shige-H tried standing up for her fellow Stars member at the same time as comforting the other one, as a true leader should have in her eyes.

"Don't make me laugh…" Endo smirked. "All that hot air about being a friend to all animals and loving animals because humans are so mean and suck and all… Hogwash to fool someone that never saw her eating meat chunks larger than herself in size."

"Don't get your spirit down, appropriately dressed dude. I've got some drugs with me if you want any and the cabbie will have some rice wine for you under the seat," Shitaka opened up one side of his leather jacket, revealing an assortment of colorful flasks littering the countless pockets.

"I think I'll pass," Damisan sighed before picking himself back up as only someone that's had one of the poorest hands around dealt to him and yet kept going regardless could. "Alcohol and drugs will not solve the root of the problem and it will do little to help the fact I'm peckish though…"

"It'll help to forget, that's for sure. Sometimes, after I take a load of pain meds during a long trip, I forget which flask's got what… It's a good thing that I enjoy rolling with what I splash at my enemy most of the time and ain't a stickler for the rules…" Shitaka cringed while scratching the back of his head.

"What a stupid fighting style," Endo observed. "Don't those flasks ever shatter and cut you up when you take blows in battle? You don't look like that stern of a guy, so it's not like you can take a beating that well anyway…"

"Heh, you've got that right, I've slashed my nips plenty of times with broken glass and spilled a lot of noxious and even corrosive chemicals on me by accident," Shitaka chuckled. "I've kind of picked up on a neat trick eventually though, I ain't as hardcore as I used to be in my young days so nowadays I mostly coat the flasks with chakra since they're contacting my skin for the most time. I take out the coating when I fling 'em, that takes care of that…"

"That's very innovative!" Shige-H commended her superior. "I'm not sure what you mean with "your young days" though. You still look rather young, Shitaka-san."

"Yeah, well… Made a lot of poor decisions all throughout my life, they took their own toll and pulled the red line back a few years each," Shitaka shrugged while looking up and at an undisclosed point far off over a rocky hill.

Perhaps it served as a testament to Shitaka's experience to see the caravan arrive a good pair of hours later and scoop the recruits and their squad leader looking to go on to the other side up.

"So, who exactly is this person we're meeting?" Shige-H wondered, turning to Skaven.

"He's an old contact of the Hellhounds," the knight of the iron face replied while looking on ahead the chaotic mess of the Land of Fire forests. "He can arrange us a deal with Hanada Katsuo's crew and get us some Guru Ayushi tissue samples."

"Isn't Guru Ayushi hospitalized in Konoha? Why would we risk arranging a black-market deal when we've clearly don't have the resources to pay up? That means we'll be fighting off every party involved and trying to get them off our backs," Endo wondered.

"What's the matter, intense dude? Can't handle a bit of action?" Shitaka smiled with a warm face of challenging, friendly rivalry.

"Why you…!" Endo grit his teeth.

"It's not about what you can or can't handle, we've discussed this matter with Shitaka-san and this is the best way to go about it. If we walk into Konoha–we'll be announcing our presence to the Hokage who knows nothing about any Allied Ninja activity in his village which will instantly raise red flags. We'll have black ops all over our tails and no way in hell will we manage to just walk into the hospital and tuck the comatose stiffer," Skaven shook his head. "Trying to sneak into Konoha is too risky and difficult, the odds of success are too slim and the stakes are too great. We either do this thing this way or not at all."

"I'm sorry, Skaven," Shige-H muttered.

"Why?" Skaven turned to her, a little baffled by her saddened tone. His face had taken a paler shade ever since they've entered the Land of Fire and it's become especially apparent in the light of the setting sun giving everything a red shade while Skaven's cheeks contrasted that, shining pale like hustling moonlight.

"From how you put it back in Supreme Leader's office, it didn't sound like you left the Hellhounds on the best of terms. I'm sorry that you have to rip open old wounds like that for us," Shige-H elaborated.

"Trust me, this won't be for you guys. Didn't you hear me when I told you the first couple of times? I hate to see injustice done to people who don't deserve it. That's why I felt like the life of crime was choking me. The Hellhounds must have had a whiff. They mostly used me for revenge hits or big gang fights where the suffering party probably had what came to them coming. Anyway, you can't just keep afloat and sleep peacefully every night that way. Mana deserved nothing that happened to her," Skaven shook his head. He looked like was talking to himself just as much as he was affirming this to Shige-H.

A resonating chain of blasts littered the area, joining in on the blood-staining party of the setting sun with an infernal blaze of its own. Endo slammed against a thick, oaken branch with his back in a grotesque fall that looked like it would snap his back but with a growling grunt, the apprentice samurai wriggled and writhed himself down to a normal fall down on his arms and knees while he pulled out the pieces of his double-blade weapon together and connected them into a single tool for slicing and shredding.

Being trained in evasive action, Shige-H had evaded the resonating cascade of explosive marbles littered across the patch of the forest their group has been travelling on. Upon the first gleam of the erupting blast, the medical kunoichi of Kumogakure took immediate dashes and leaps and outraced bodily harm though the tips and ends of her long fur coat singed a tad.

Damisan attempted to stone-wall the explosion, putting up his prosthetic arms and seeing them spread out like webs to form an interconnected shield of steel ribs and an ethereal membrane of chakra coating stretching out in between. Whatever effort went into the construction of Damisan's new prosthetics served its purpose and showed some spunk–his arms walled the blast with minor dents to the structure. The right arm sparked a few times when it had to return to its normal formation since more than a few ribs deformed to where Damisan had to force them to bend the right way so that the formation change could complete itself but he successfully shielded himself and Tomi who was right behind him.

"Thanks…" the little one nodded her head with gigantic eyes, looking up at the rattled, self-rebuilt man.

"No problem, just glad to be included!" Damisan nodded. While his face remained hidden underneath the cylinder, his tone left nothing to doubt that the disfigured ninja was very proud of his work and usefulness for the Stars.

"Yep…" Shitaka groaned with a husky hiss. "Gonna need some pick-me up to stop feeling that…" the ninja winced as he rose to his feet, having taken a blast to the face and crashed back down through multiple layers of branches and leafage though, him having ended up more fortunate than Endo, there were no branches thick enough to snap him like a twig.

Skaven coughed up blood, having flown right back and hitting the very shaft of centuries-old oak tree with no hope of downing such a marvelous and almost mystical natural structure. It was the human body that folded first rather than the Senju-grown tree.

"Mercs…" he muttered. "We'll just have to fight them off!"

"I know that voice!" a shrieky-sounding tune filled the grave silence that reigned in after the ordinary hustle and bustle became snuffed out by the bombardment of mercenaries that befell the Allied Ninja. "Skaven, isn't it?"

"Haga…?" Skaven panted down on his knee as his eyes scanned the tree lines across various levels of altitude for a familiar face. "It's me, what the fuck!?"

"Sorry, Skaven-boy, heard you went separate ways from the Hellhounds. It's nothing personal, but you're just a bunch of ninja guppies snooping around places you're not supposed to be in. I'm afraid we must take you guys out and hand your stiffs for Ijiki to figure out." The same voice that sounded as if someone had dragged their nails across one's own nerve endings like playing some grotesque instrument filled the forest area.

"We're…?" Skaven wondered to himself.

"Earth Style: Mud Grinder!" a masculine chant came from down below, weightlessness took over before Skaven could realize what had been going on, prompting the young man to throw a kunai attached to a steel wire and stress his right shoulder with a yoink that brought him to the bark surface of another tree. The perturbed Nara observed the ancient tree becoming enveloped in mud and drowning inside it, while only shreds of it came out in a frightening shower.

Yet this jutsu came from a man down and behind the tree where Shitaka stood. One of broad shoulders and intense physical build who looked like he'd have been able to cave in faces and smash skulls with bare hands enough as it is, even without the bolstering of Earth Release ninjutsu.

"You too, Natsu?" Skaven yelled out.

"Hey, the money on your head is still good on the black market. It ain't anything to go out of my way to cash but with you presentin' to our hands yourself an' all… Sorry, man, it's how it's gonna be…" the mercenary craven referred to as Natsu replied with a lower pitch, buffoonish tone accompanied by a decent amount of spit being thrown from the man's face that had plenty of his teeth bashed out and many repairs of the man's broken belfry before.

"Well met, Skaven, dear boy!" a yell that seemed to want the Nara to acknowledge it came from even higher up as a near bare chested man in a Konoha flak jacket saluted Skaven while standing up on a spear that he himself had lodged into the tree to keep him so high up as no branches up there were thick enough to support the body weight of his athletic body. "Sorry we'll have to cash you in. Nothing personal, as Haga said, but try to make it interesting, ey?"

"Any more friends of yours that we have to worry about?" Shige-H turned to Skaven.

"Unlikely. I'd wager that Ijiki holed himself up in his hideout all by himself. He doesn't dirty his hands, Raitoncide and Geppo are off securing the prize as they're Ijiki's most trusted men. That's unless they've added fresh faces to their crew," Skaven shook his head.

"What arrogance, challenging us six to three… Don't make me laugh!" Endo growled in pain while still reeling in pain from the nasty bump and the fall he took.

"If cocky people make you laugh, you must have long since gotten numb to it just having to deal with yourself," Tomi showed her tongue to Endo from high up.

Regardless of if the Allied Ninja party was ready for it or if the odds worked for them or against them, working on hostile, foreign territory odds were never clear and the nature of this aspect of their jobs dawned on the Stars as they stared at a trio of local mercenaries looking for a cheap buck on the black market.