Reborn in the Mist

Leaving Fukasa behind was easy enough. Team Kirigakure and Pakura sprinted straight through the wobbling gates that offered a rusty welcome and equally pathetic goodbye. There was little else beyond the port town save rapid growing dunes of sand and even those were flatter than Zabuza first imagined.

Still, the air was dry and while the winds billowed with the lightness of the sea they left behind, Pakura promised it would get harsher. As such, their entire group moved as one, spread apart with Team 3 as the shaft to the spearhead that was the two Jounins. Team 5 took the right flank while Team 8 took the right. Everyone of them fully covered underneath their desert cloaks— at least partially.

Team 8’s only female. Zabuza hadn’t bothered to learn her name or anything else about her, she had about as much presence as a civilian in his honest opinion and acted like one too if her insistence on keeping her ‘cute’ outfit visible was any indication.

His cloth mask smothered a groan as he put the useless Genin out of mind. If there was anything she might be good for it’d be bait and they could really use some about now.

Neither Pakura nor Ao had indicated they’d sensed the presence of any ‘unfriendlies’ but Zabuza was certain there were a fair number lurking ahead or behind. He couldn’t be sure but the entire team was on high alert the minute the horizon swallowed Fukasa.

It’d been at most three hours before Ao asked Pakura to slow down for the sake of Team 8. Maita wasn’t the problem, but his teammates Tamura and the stupid one were less durable. In Tamura’s case he was simply overburdened— on top of his Poison Mist clan equipment, he was kind or foolish to bear the weight of both his backpack of provision as well as hers.

“Let’s keep it up a little further, there’s a cave nearby we could use as a resting spot.” Pakura said, her voice barely reaching his ears.

Utakata kindly passed the message to the others. Mangetsu looked relieved hearing that and Zabuza could sympathize with his rival— as much as he saw Mangetsu as his equal and acknowledged his skill as a shinobi, his pre-puberty body put him at a disadvantage when it came to the more strenuous demands of life as a shinobi.

Sweat dripped down his temple as he chugged another bottle of water from his pack, flinging away the remains as he continued to keep the pace. He was in a state of limbo battling the heat of the desert— was it hotter with the cloak on or off? Zabuza didn’t know he hadn’t taken his off much less adjusted it since they left Fukasa, he was familiar with the heat. Long summers living in such tropics as Kirigakure, even with the mist covering most of the village that terrible heat invaded his paper thin walls with a troupe of blood-thirsty mosquitoes.

He’ll be fine. Zabuza thought as Pakura led them towards the cave. Had he been any kinder he might have asked Utakata to slow down a tad so Mangetsu didn’t feel as much pressure to keep up with the Jounin and keep ahead of the Genin. But knowing his rival, kindness of that measure from him could easily be misconstrued as an insult, that’s how Zabuza would interpret such himself anyhow. In the end, they approached the cave with their sprints tampering out into tired strolls and Zabuza decided it best to leave kindness to the kind, if Utakata thought for a moment Mangetsu needed help, he’d offer it.

“Alright team, let’s have a short hour rest and be back on our way.” Ao said as the team panted and crumbled into cold corners of the cave. “Remember to keep your eyes peeled, this position is defensible but with the right jutsu it is also a death trap.”

Ao’s omninous words rang true to most who listened. The cave was a simple gap in an otherwise massive rock formation. There were ration bar wrappers, burnt up camp fires and even drawings on the walls indicating its frequent use. There weren’t any signs of battle, much less an ambush to be seen but that didn’t stop most of the team from being tense throughout the short hour break.

Mangetsu seemed less concerned. He’d taken off his desert cloak and scarf the moment he stepped into the cave and went on to douse himself in another bottle of water. Zabuza would be concerned he was wasting water if he didn’t also feel the thirst and heat wave up all around them.

The cave provided a cool shade from the rising desert sun but with eleven people there wasn’t much ‘cool’ to go around. Still, the sweat would dry from their brows before it was time to leave again.

In the meantime, Maita, Ao, Pakura and strangely Haruka each volunteered themselves to keep watch. That many eyes weren’t needed to watch a single entrance but Zabuza allowed himself to feel comforted that two pairs belonged to Jounin. Pakura scanned the desert as soft, hapless winds blew through its sun scorched sands, her distress was evident from her body language alone but Ao, the man who could see the back of his own head and several hundred metres…remained oddly calm.

Zabuza wasn’t sure which of the Jounin’s instincts to trust. Pakura fully anticipated an attack, even on a group of shinobi as large as theirs but Ao hasn’t been shaken in the least by anything in their short time away from Fukasa.

“Either the enemy is really good at hiding or…” Zabuza muttered, leaving that thought unfinished.

“Or we’re actually going to be fine?” Akari said, peering behind him with a bottle of some piss-coloured soda. Without invite she crouched beside him with a grunt. “If you’re wondering if we’ve noticed anything…we haven’t.”

I wasn’t. I’d notice it before you. Zabuza kept that snide response to himself and simply nodded at the kunoichi. Utakata beside him picked up the conversation bait and answered, “We haven’t spotted anything amiss either, I thought this would be a good spot for an attack but…we’re almost done here.”

“When we least expect it.” Team 5’s adult Genin said from across the cave, his back straight against the wall and his hair wet with water.

Zabuza snorted. “When we least expect it is when we’re right outside the Sand Village. I doubt whoever’s attacking us from Fukasa would travel that far just to preserve the element of surprise.”

The man shrugged, looking too tired to contribute more than that little fallacy. Akari went on though, “Then it’s back to what you said, good at hiding or we’ll be fine.”

“How much longer to the Sand Village?” It was Tamura that asked, suddenly seperating from the dark of the cave wall to speak.

Zabuza found him to be his true favourite of Team 8. He only like Maita because he vexed Mangetsu in an entertaining way but Tamura, well, he and the Poison Mist shinobi had more in common than any of the others for just being caste clan.

“Do any of you know?” Tamura’s ever so slight head tilt made it known he was directing his question majorly at team 3.

Zabuza and Mangetsu shamelessly pinned Utakata with the same questioning head tilt. Qualified as they were, Utakata was the only one who could possibly have an idea and he was sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

“I’ve visited the Land of Wind on missions before, but none ever brought me to the Sand Village. Even those missions had me moving through the Land of Fire before Wind, we sailed here and it’s my first time seeing Fukasa.” He said, wincing as disappointment turned their faces.

The team looked among themselves in the silence that followed. Each knowing the right person to ask would be either of the Jounin, especially the Suna-nin acting as their guide. Yet at the same time, no one wanted to be the whining Genin.

“Alright, that’s enough, we should get going now. If I’d have to guess we’re a nights out from the Village.” Pakura declared with an encouraging smile and two thumbs up. “One or two more sprints like this and we’ll be home.”

Despite her best efforts her smile struggled to reach her eyes. Something was bothering her and unlike Ao she at least was doing a better job of keeping her uncertainty hidden. Ao’s usual calm was broken up by a deepening frown, he barked at them, “Pick up your things, we move now.”

The team reorganized themselves swiftly and within a minute they were all back under the glare of the sun. After the first tense hour of sprints Zabuza felt an adjustment take place as the team stopped looking over their shoulders every three minutes and concentrated on keeping one foot ahead of the other.

The Land of Wind was a rather inhospitable place in Zabuza’s opinion but that didn’t stop anyone from settling there. Spaced far and wide between the scalding desert were soft settlements, the kind of small hometown villages that barely saw over a hundred denizens much less had any sort of hospitality.

Still, each time their entourage sped by a settlement, kids or teens with bronze tanned skin and teeth that glint in the sunlight would grin and yell, “Shinobi! Shinobi!” fruitlessly chasing after them.

The team went on sprinting through the country this way for another hour, well pasts the sun’s peak. As it began its arc back down the horizon, softening its glare as it did, Zabuza watched his teammates ease into the strenuous journey as cooler winds began to billow around them. Mangetsu especially looked more acclimated once cooler winds picked up. Yet the fact there were winds this strong seemed to be a problem in of itself.

“Prepare yourselves.” Pakura yelled across. “There’s a storm coming, we might pass it before it forms but protect your eyes, don’t get blinded!”

The team prepared as best as they could without outright blindfolding themselves. It was a wise warning to protect their eyes as even before the winds congregated the dust devils the sand scattered up at their faces was hot and stung as bad as an insect bite.

Dust, sand, dirt and every insect that burrowed flew about as the winds picked up with every passing second. The soft howling became a groan as sand dusted the area viciously, the colour brown stained Zabuza’s vision entirely as he squinted through his scarf, barely able to keep his eyes open longer than a second.

It happened then, in a blink of an eye. A desert storm formed around them, volumes of sand kicked up around them so thickly he lost sight of Ao and Pakura completely. As if coming to the same realization, Utakata and Mangetsu halted around him, straining their voices to speak over the wind and their protective scarves.

“We’ve lost them!” Mangetsu yelled.

“Where are the others?” Utakata spun his head around and then pointed in some direction. “There! Hey, over here!”

He waved and beckoned over the sand caked trio of Team 5, not long after they pierced the veil of the storm Team 8 came hiking up a dune behind them. “Where the hell is Ao-taicho!” Maita screamed at the top of his lungs, searching eyes for answers no one had at the moment. “Where did this storm even come from?”

“There’s no time for that.” Utakata yelled, an authority coming over his voice suddenly as those kind eyes sharpened. He drew everyone in and said, “We need to keep moving, if we stay in this storm we’ll lose time and distance, Ao-taicho and Pakura-san could be looking for us right now but if they aren’t for any reason…we don’t want to stay here either.”

As though having heard him, the stormy winds ceased all at once, an unnatural sign. Zabuza flicked a kunai into his palm immediately, eyes adjusting as fast as they could as a the sun revealed itself once more,

There was a large circle of fallen sand around them, loose grains still fell out of the sky where there was once a storm. Ao and Pakura were nowhere to be found but there were more pressing company to attend to.

Shifting out of the sands were six thickly wrapped figures, sharpened metal rods in their hands and a murderous intent in their eyes. One of them released his hands from the Hare hand seal and declared, “Kill them!”