2:47 AM
Just as the Land of Fire has the Hidden Leaf Village, Konoha, the Land of Water possesses the Hidden Mist Village, Kirigakure.
It is a village enclosed in thick mist and steep mountains, a location difficult for foreigners to find and enemies to exploit.
It was another place that paid its prices with blood.
Just as Konoha has its Hokage, the Fire Shadow, Kirigakure has its Mizukage, the Water Shadow.
Since its founding, not a single one died a peaceful death.
The Fifth Mizukage now walked down a hallway freshly painted in freshly spilled blood. The corpses outnumbered the living in this building. Not a single one was still fit for proper burial or cremation.
There were corpses cut into pieces.
There were corpses smashed into pulp.
There were corpses burnt and flayed.
There were corpses blown apart.
There were corpses stitched together.
She walked across those puddles of blood left behind.
Blood dripped on to her from the ceilings.
The woman didn't flinch.
It was no different than the rain.
A shinobi cannot avert their eyes from death anymore than a mother can avert her eyes from her child. It is what they bring into the world. To simply reject that is something unattainable.
Something had attacked her home.
Something that brought back memories.
This woman, Mei Terumi, was someone that had fought and killed until her beautiful appearance was drenched in blood for the sake of her compatriots. There was none in this land that could overcome her strength.
How many had she reduced to bones in her life?
She swallowed down the anger building up in her chest and replaced it with a steady calm.
Her investigation unit was scouring the building this very instant, searching for any possible lead, a fingerprint, a hair sample, even just a scent.
They wouldn't find anything.
She stopped in front of one of the corpses as her expression became bitter.
He was an upcoming talent in the village. His skill developed at such a commendable rate that he was selected to wield one of their treasures, to become part of their most elite group.
His corpse was impaled against the wall.
The lower half of his body was removed.
That lower half was nothing more than a grisly heap on the floor. His guts spilled from his body. Unclosed eyes had glazed over.
A shinobi cannot expect a peaceful death.
There at his heart, a plain sword nailed him to the wall, chipped, dulled, and uncared for as if picked up from a forgotten battlefield.
Her face became still as a dead sea when she realized what had been taken.
There was a time when her home was in possession of seven legendary swords.
Now they had none.
…
They slept in shifts.
Kakashi-sensei advised them to sleep with one eye open if they could.
They were traveling day and night to the Land of Snow. This was Naruto's first time leaving the Land of Fire.
No, not just that, this was Naruto's first time leaving the village.
He didn't realize how big the world was until now.
Even if he spent his entire life traveling, there would probably be lands he had never stepped foot in.
He knew vaguely about the other shinobi countries. There was a land with something called samurai. There were lands that had nothing to do with the ninja. There were places that were nothing like Konoha.
He wanted to see them some day.
Then he could tell someone about his own adventures.
Escorting Princess Gale, or rather actress Yukie, wasn't as exciting as he thought it would be.
They went to a train station first and boarded after making sure they had all of their supplies. It seemed that they would be taking multiple trains on the way. They were on the last one now, sweeping through forests and caves.
It was practically an antique, decorated with rustic wood and polished copper, fueled by heaps upon heaps of coal.
The boiler room was pretty neat, but after just a minute, his clothes were already drenched in sweat and he had to wash himself and change clothes just so that Sakura would stay in the same side of the room as him.
Halfway through the trip, the movie director decided right then and there that they would film the opening scene of their next movie right then and there, in the train itself.
It was all Kakashi could do to persuade him not to film anything on the roof of a moving train.
It would've been really easy to kill someone up there.
Naruto imagined that falling off a train wouldn't be very nice.
Speaking of not very nice, Yukie was a lot more cranky in real life.
She tried ditching the whole job before it even started and they had to track her to a bar where she got drunk.
She could switch between a sobbing princess and an exasperated lady in the blink of an eye.
Guess that's what made her such a great actress.
He learned that people often get signatures from famous people as a sort of proof that they had met them in their lives.
He tried getting one, but she tossed the paper out the window.
She was kinda a jerk
Naruto had learned to like kinda jerks before, but he didn't know if it would happen a second time.
The train was hectic and busy during the entire filming process. Kakashi directed them to make sure nobody got off or on the train without them knowing.
When they were awake at night, Kakashi warned them about how losing focus for even a second could end with their throat being slit.
Naruto wasn't afraid of the possibility.
If anything, he wanted it to happen.
He wanted someone to try.
He wanted to see what he could do.
Even if he got hurt, that was just part of the job.
Sasuke got the first shift, then Sakura, then himself, then Kakashi took over. The train was still rather loud at night. The sound of the steam engine rumbled through the floors and walls.
Looking outside was nothing but winds and black.
He was having trouble sleeping, so he stared out the window and did his best to see the clouds in the dark until his mind faded into slumber.
He had dreams.
Strange dreams.
Dreams of walking through an eerily lit prison.
It was a prison swamped with lukewarm water.
His feet brushed against chains snaking through the floor as he moved forward.
The light behind him faded with every step he took
He could hear breathing that seemed to echo through the never ending hall. It was almost like a never ending hell. Maybe calling it hell was too harsh, more like purgatory.
A lifelong prison before salvation.
If salvation would ever come…
He could smell something in the air, something suffocating, something like a wild beast. It made him quiet.
The water made it up to his waist.
It was only when the lights disappeared, that he realized he wasn't in the dream anymore. He was on a small padded bench that doubled as a bed. They were arranged as bunks across from each other throughout the compartment.
Naruto let out a sigh of relief upon waking up, mind still groggy, and looked out at the night sky.
He thought it must have been cloudy since he couldn't see any stars.
There was a sound like lightning, the sound of thunder, and he thought there must've been a storm starting up there.
But then, he realized.
He realized that his legs were still submerged in water.
Water that was still rising.
Air forced its way into his lungs as he gasped, scrambling back against the wall as the train dipped down even more as it flooded with water.
He couldn't see anything.
Holding his face close to the window, grasping at the curtain rods, back against the water, he tried to see outside to figure out what was happening.
There were no clouds or stars, just the inky depths.
Chakra rushed through his arm towards his palm. Sparks flashed and flickered, finally bringing a semblance of light to the cabin.
A yellow glow illuminated his face.
A small flame rose and died in his hand.
The light reflected off the water.
He still couldn't see what was under there when he dived down. The cold water bit into his skin as he swam through the submerged cabin. He already felt wanting for air.
Using his hands and feet, he felt his way to the door. He couldn't use his chakra to stick to the ground with the water in the way.
He couldn't even light a small fire submerged as he was.
Naruto tugged on the door.
It didn't budge.
No matter how he hit it with his fist or slammed against it with his legs, the door wouldn't move. Underwater, his every movement felt sluggish.
He barely made it back up before he ran out of air and blacked out. There was hardly any air left in the cabin, only enough space for him to hold his face up in the corner.
Taking one final breath, he dove back down.
The frame was crumpled inward. He bashed at it with the bottom of a kunai until it loosened. There was no longer any air left.
That was good, now the pressure was equalized, not that he knew.
The door finally opened just to show him more black, murky water that made his body freezing.
He swam faster, pushing his hands through the water, clothes feeling like they were ten times heavier than before.
His head thumped against the soggy, carpet floor.
This train cart was twisted on its side, tilting upwards. Naruto felt something in the water here. Somethings. Heavy bodies drifted by him. When he tried to reach out to them, he was nearly swept away.
Eventually, he was able to climb to the next compartment.
He could see a little light now.
His head broke through the surface.
Somehow the air was colder than the water, or perhaps the water made the air colder.
Immediately, he took as many big, heavy gasps for air as he could manage.
Five minutes felt like an eternity.
Broken light bulbs blinked on and off, but it was enough for him to see a familiar shade of pink above him.
"Sakura!" Naruto called out to her with a relieved smile.
"Naruto!?" She called back to him from one of the turned over bunks.
There was a cut on her arm that let droplets of blood slide down her arm. She held onto an unconscious Yukie Fujikaze.
"What happened!?" He was surprised that his shout was so quiet.
The cabin they were in was like a column in the sea. A broken door above them revealed the cloudy night sky. Half of the train had been knocked into the ocean.
Half was filled with the sounds of blades clashing
There was also a sound of screaming.