Scorching desert sun combined with powerful yet not less searing at the slightest winds that also pelted Mana’s cheeks with sand. The magician despised the sand and wished that she had something to protect against it better. Had it not been for her strange habit to find conflict everywhere she went, halting the squad’s progress at every twist and turn she’d have perhaps not have had her desert cloak burnt to a crisp from inside her backpack when the Nine Tails blasted them back in the Land of Rivers. Now she was stuck with what she had, still, it was better than Meiko’s situation, the poor blacksmith hated the feeling of scratching sand so she never removed her tracksuit making travelling through the desert a living torture for her.
Shimo was talking to some mean looking desert raiders. These were apparently his contacts from the time he trained with a rogue ninja during his journey of self-discovery. He seemed to have picked up a lot of weird skills during that time. The one that Mana fancied the least, secretly of course, was his newly found love for self-preservation. Obviously it was nothing wrong to protect oneself and one’s friends from harm at all costs, Mana herself would’ve been quite an established follower of that rule if it was made law, that being said, rogues thought of it differently and that different approach made all the difference where it counted.
Mana could see it in Shimo’s eyes, he roamed the world for over a year, training gruesomely with a powerful rogue ninja who taught him not only improvement of his swordsmanship and also his physical attributes, but the boy also picked up some less than stellar attitudes and skills. Since when did he know some pretty well equipped and well established raiders in the middle of the Land of Wind? These guys he was talking to reminded Mana of criminals that, be the situation any different than it was, she’d probably be gunning for on a mission with a team of ninja.
It went so far beyond just being a matter of changes, the magician could see it in the eyes of her friend that he changed. He saw some things beyond the village walls that made him always fight to survive. No longer did he take things for granted, all those stories of women and crazy brawls and daring escapes from villages when his sensei’s status of rogue ninja was discovered… He suffered a lot to discover himself and he failed to do so. He got lost even more. Now he had that strange shadow of the young man he was before looking from deep inside locked in a chest while his true self fought to preserve himself and berated anyone else who did not share that belief.
Perhaps Mana was just paranoid, maybe she just felt bad that her friend and she no longer really saw eye to eye. Every time they spoke it all looked so blissful yet every time she made a call he couldn’t have judged her more. Yes, her calls never compared with the rogue ninja code that well, she was rarely looking out for herself or her team and despite being just a client she held the mission hostage every time she decided to make a detour to help someone on the way to the mission objective…
“So how’s the old pervert doing?” the raider in a strange head cover with a ring on top holding the thing in place wearing light armor and covering white cloth all over his body asked Shimo as if the two knew each other.
“Well, he lost an arm to a courtesan, turns out she was no courtesan at all…” Shimo strayed from the topic, Mana wanted to have as little as possible with these men, they were looking quite suspiciously at ninja, the only reason their guts didn’t cover the desert sand was because they weren’t Sunagakure ninja which meant they had no jurisdiction here. Usually the order in the deserts was maintained by Sunagakure but it was hard to oversee such a vast land and so it was mostly left to self-regulation. The worst bastard of them all always controlled everything until an even worse one raised his head and either had it cut from his shoulders or actually succeeded in becoming the next worst bastard. It seemed to Mana that this man talking to Shimo may have just been a bastard not unlike the theoretical one she imagined.
“Well, I kept telling him, gotta check their backgrounds first, never bed a woman you don’t know, their crotch is the last place you need to get to know…” the man shook his head unpleasantly and then the bunch of raiders behind him laughed out loud. They appeared to look at their friend losing an arm as if he passed out first in a drinking game and someone drew an inappropriate picture on his face while he was out.
“It’s different in places where crotches aren’t full of sand, you don’t have to worry about that part so can’t say I blame sensei for his call… Did you hear it, though? That man he was so afraid of is now close to Shukuba…” Shimo scratched the back of his head and then wiped sweat off of his face. The Konoha ninja weren’t used to such weather so they definitely were wondering if meeting in the middle of the day was even the best idea.
“No shit? That’s good to know, whatever fucker made that guy stop talking about breasts scares the shit out of me, so, I assume you and your Konoha crew didn’t come to Viper’s Pit to chat?” the raider started walking up closer to Mana and looked at her, his brown eyes examined her skin closely.
“Where’s this girl from? Ah, nevermind…” he reconsidered raising the subject once he saw Shimo’s face turn sourer by the second when the topic turned at Mana. He was really still mad at her for pulling that irresponsible feat back in the mines and then surpassing that feat just half an hour later.
“Anyways, we wanted to sell you something, something we snatched from a bunch of losers in the Katabami mine, the whole Syndicate is down and out, also there’s zero chance of them placing a fancy shoe wearing foot down on the Land of the Wind’s sands so it’s safe, no bullshit or anything…” Shimo walked up to Meiko and tried removing her pack filled with Audra ore to which the girl hissed and then opened the backpack herself.
The purplish blue shine of the ores glowed even brighter when reflecting from the greedy raider’s dark eyes.
“So what do you want for that? An army? This whole damned desert? I don’t get it…” the raider looked confused, he approached Meiko and carefully touched the bag, like a housecat who was getting cosier with the new people around her Meiko let the man check inside the backpack but it was clear that she was ready to bash his head in if he tried anything funny.
“Nope, the thing is that we know you’ve no means to work it so we know it’s of limited use to you, it’s Audra ore for crying out loud and we’re really desperate for supplies. This young woman’s here got a killer appetite and this one that you were so curious about is a civilian who is currently hitting four days without a bite in her mouth. We’ve got a lengthy trip ahead and we’ll need water, food, maybe even a camel or a bulky raider to carry us on his damned shoulders. We have no time to… Realize this merchandise for an appropriate price so we’re willing to give you a shard of Audra ore for one thousandth its market price as long as you’re taking up the responsibility for doing whatever the fuck you want with it and leaving no strings on it attached to us. As usual, if we do this, we don’t know your ass from a camel’s upchuck.”
The raider removed the veil covering his mouth and stroke his long black beard playfully. “Shit… As it happens… There’re things you’re not up to date with yet…” he spoke up turning away from the stones and approached Shimo.
“Dammit, you know we could murder your entire camp, I’ve kicked your ass before! You’re turning away a stone of Audra alloy, something that shouldn’t even exist, for a million ryo worth of supplies a piece?” Shimo growled angrily, yet quietly right up in the raider’s face. It was somewhat entertaining seeing a half-developed fourteen year old hold more intimidation power over a fully grown man who owned a raider encampment and managed a whole band of raiders.
“No, that’s the thing… The deal is so sweet I’m willing to cut my fingers off with a blunt rusty axe so that I could place my lips up your ass. The thing is that I’m not the man in charge anymore and if you knew the… Full picture… You may not want to sell me this” the raider’s cheeks extended in the most despicable and twisted smile. He wasn’t a very plump gentleman, looked more like a weasel and yet he managed to legitimately look like a guy who’d steal medicine from a baby.
Meiko zipped the bag up, she apparently took this sign as a clear indication that the deal wasn’t going to happen. Kouta looked at Shimo questioningly, Mana’s eyes looked at the boy with a glare of jealousy since Kouta managed to have enough brain to buy multiple copies of a desert suited cloak so he wore by far the most sand-proof attire out of everyone there.
“Speak. I’ve broken a man’s tail bone with a headbutt for you, if I missed my head would’ve literally been inside another man’s ass, don’t you dare screw me over now!” Shimo cut his words down like he was swinging his sword and not flipping his tongue. The boy legitimately wanted to show Mana how real ninja did things, ninja with actual world experience and now his plan was blowing up in everyone’s faces and he didn’t like it.
“I know, I know… There’s this guy… This old fucker with fancy gems on his cloak and all, gold laced teeth and bunch of overblown neckwear. He’s buying the raider bands, like outright buying them, those that don’t sell out he annihilates! Technically he’s the guy in charge of us. He owns all nine of the relevant raider camps out of fourteen, he says he plans to fuck Sunagakure over once he has all of them on his payroll. From what I gathered he’s an ex-Sunagakure ninja, dishonourable discharge most likely, maybe a Tribunal case. We don’t know how to work Audra but that guy has… Power and influence and I’m sure that he’d manage to properly work the ore” the man weaselled out.
“No way, only Kirikuzu can work Audra ores, everyone knows that!” Meiko yelled out of line. Previously the four stroke a deal that they’d let Shimo handle it but Meiko was never a person who let rules and lines get in her way. Not when she had places to be in and had things to find out about things she cared about…
“Correct, missy, but the guy… Fennec he calls himself… Has this weird stash of sealed bloodlines. He’s got all sorts of bloodline jutsu sealed in a bunch of scrolls and I’ve never seen him not having a bloodline he needs ready to use. He’s got a Kirikuzu bloodline in there somewhere, trust me, ability to craft perfect weapons is something he’d think about when gathering an army and Kirikuzu are the best there are” the man answered. Meiko turned away, the topic of her clan heritage was still sensitive to her, she didn’t quite like her clan rules, she wasn’t that good at the signature clan techniques. It’d only make sense she’d want to hear about how great a name she disowned was as rarely as possible.
“I’d imagine the knowledge that we’re fully able to work the ore and mean to use it to overthrow Sunagakure would be a dealbreaker then?” the raider smiled once again as if he was talking about making candy cotton and not weapons out of one of the most difficult to get one’s hands on ores that was capable enough to contend with chakra conductive weaponry.
“Very much so…” Mana spoke out of line again.
“See? That’s where I have to play the scumbag then, we really need those ores, you see…” the raider spoke up but before he could blink Shimo’s blade was already drawn and almost stuck in his eyes, had the man continued to blink he may have cut his eyelids on its tip.
“Don’t do this, drowning in your own blood mixed with desert sand is a very nasty way to go, I’d hate to do it to a guy I had my arms mauled by desert dogs for…” Shimo calmly explained. Strangely enough none of the man’s raiders looked remotely scared or surprised nor did they jump to arms after seeing their leader threatened.
“Nah, I wouldn’t dare threaten you or your lovely young ladies you’re trying to impress with all that heroic ninja antic. You see, you know how these deserts work, right? There is Sunagakure, those guys are the top dogs here so they play like they’re in control when they’re really unable to oversee everything that goes on here. Not everyone wants to be a part of a ninja village so they’re all over the place. There are bunch of wanderers and small settlements of wandering people moving from one source of water to another. Robbing them and owning them and all they have is our job, the job of the raiders and yet these people don’t care because ultimately they ran away from a ninja village owning everything they have to us doing the same thing…”
Meiko leaned up to Mana’s ear. “So should I be punching him now? I feel like I missed a signal or something? Did Shimo raise his hand or was he just itchy on the nose?”
Mana couldn’t help but chuckle but then she whispered back, “Just stay still for a while, let’s see what their game is”
Once all this was cleared up the magician kept her eyes on the raider leader. The man looked quite charismatic and may have been a pretty fast fellow, he wore a simple curved sword, Mana read about them. Pretty short and light but nasty to face since their slashes were much deeper at the center but they also had the potential to thrust over simple armor and shields. Knowing he was a raider, essentially similar to bandits close to Konohagakure, he must’ve had concealed weaponry but the magician felt confident about their chances at taking this camp if they needed… The problem was their tired and exhausted condition, it was the same problem that lead them to even striking this deal in the first place. Also it may have been ideal to not face them from the center of the camp where they were surrounded and clearly observed from all corners.
“We know the location of at least four peaceful settlements of merchants, cattle-breeders and just all around nice people who shelter lost desert roamers and feed them. Thing is, we’re ready to make their days a whole lot worse if this deal doesn’t happen. I’m talking fire, blood and bunch of people drowning in their blood on the sand, which, as you pointed out before, sucks quite a lot. So are we talking business or do you want to go to sleep knowing that several hundreds of people died because you didn’t want to sell some rocks over to desert raiders and their noble goal of overthrowing a village and starting a war?” the raider smiled once again with that disgusting twist of lips he called a smile. Mana’s fists clenched and her head sunk down with her hair getting in the way of her face. She was almost shaking from anger.
So many things went wrong and the worst part was that this was her call. Shimo wanted this, the others were a bit hesitant about selling this tide turning ore to desert raiders but Mana affirmed them that they needed this. She thought that there was no way that a band of bandits would have means of working such a tough to handle material. Now it was a tough choice between selling the ore to people who would use it to spark a war with a ninja village where thousands of people would die and possibly the Sand Village would be spiralled back down to the pit it was after the Great War ended and letting all those poor innocent people die. There were tales spun about how kind and welcoming the wandering people of Land of Wind desert were, always helping out dying and lost travellers, always willing to trade with them even if the deal isn’t too useful for them and if a deal is impossible even giving stuff away just because they were kind.
“So that’s the kind of guy you call a friend, Shimo? Some Third Mizukage wannabe serving another Third Mizukage wannabe?” Mana’s shaking voice broke through the silence, she saw Shimo completely stumped and frozen in place. Normally someone like him, someone with a rogue mindset, wouldn’t have cared if hundreds of people died because of a deal, Mana knew of his nindo however, his dream of never letting harm befall innocent people like it has fallen on the shoulders of his parents when they had to flee the Kirigakure during Mizukage Daikon’s reign.
“Come now, young lady, we just really need that deal to be made, it’s not like we’re being unreasonable here, I mean we’re not bullying you out of the stones, we just wanna make sure you sell them to us. We’re willing to pay…” the raider shook his arms and walked up closer to Mana. The girl carefully observed his quick hands, knowing full well of the raiders’ “stab first, talk later” ways. It was unlikely that the band would try anything funny but the situation was out of control enough already.
“Really, because it smells like long and fishy Daikon moustache here…” Shimo grumbled out completely crushed, he was really having a crisis deep inside.
“No, we’ll sell you guys the ore…” Meiko said out of the blue, walking up to the guy and chucking the whole backpack right in his face. “Mana was kind enough to put this mission together for me, she helped us out many times throughout this trip and she doesn’t deserve the feeling of being dead inside, she’d literally kill herself over the lives of those people and I don’t want to see it. Sunagakure is strong enough to handle a bunch of sick losers who’d do something like this anyways…”
“Hmmm… You’re this… Mana? I assume?” the raider smiled at the magician who was still shaking in defiant anger. She wanted to just leap at the man and kick his face into the dirt until he was just barely alive so that he could no longer open his mouth by himself and so every time he did open his mouth in agony he’d think of her. She was no longer afraid, she was angry, unlike so many times before she wasn’t afraid to be angry, after meeting Guru Ayushi she knew just where her limits lied as far as fighting went. She wasn’t afraid to leave all of those raider scum bleeding out on the sand, just barely on the line but never an inch past it.
“You’re quite a leader if you get your friends so loyal to you. This girl however, her build, her slight hint of accent, her reaction to when I spoke about Kirikuzu… She wouldn’t happen to be from Kumogakure, wouldn’t happen to be a Kirikuzu herself would she?” the scumbag dared to ask, Meiko’s face twisted in disdain and shame.
“No, I’m Wakizashi Meiko, Wakizashi, you hear?!” she yelled out.
“Wakizashi? I’ve never heard a more made-up name in my life. What, was Bucklershield taken too many times for it to seem natural? Doesn’t seem like you made much of an effort to disguise your heritage, little missy…” the raider shrugged.
Mana walked up to him and got on her toes so that her face got as close to the raider’s as possible. She no longer felt threatened by him, no longer protected herself against any surprise attacks that the man could’ve thought of throwing her way. She wanted the hatred and anger in her face to be crystal clear to the man, her guts that it took to approach him so carelessly must’ve impressed him because the man leaned back for a moment before matching the girl’s gaze.
“We’ll make the deal but just to save those people. We’ve come right out of the Katabami mine where we confronted the Nine Tails… It’s not a good idea to mess with us. I’m just crazy enough to leave all of you in the rubble of your own camp even if it costs me my life and my mission objective. Mark my words. We’ll be coming back for that ore, this Fennec will see none of it, not a single pebble…” the magician uttered slowly and clearly, never letting the hatred disappear from her tone for a second.
“Holy shit, we’ve got a little Stifferson here, we’ll be having that Kirikuzu girl too, we need insurance that Fennec will be able to work that ore” the raider opened his mouth again.
Meiko started making a ruckus, she was ready to leap at everyone but then Shimo grabbed her shoulder. “Didn’t you hear what Mana said? Just sit here on your ass and drink lime sherbet until we come at night and take our ore back…” he uttered. Meiko’s angry eyes looked at Mana who just calmly nodded.
Meiko looked at the raider and smiled spitefully, “An all-you-can-eat sounds nice…” she said after calmly sitting down where she stood. To Mana it appeared like the exchange of camels, food and water as well as endless bags filled with golden ryo coins happened instantly. The four looked back at Meiko who was currently finishing yet another barrel of ice cream which apparently existed in the desert, stashed deep underground where the nights chilled the sands enough to keep it cool. Once the three ninja left the raiders surrounded Meiko and tossed a bag of ore at her feet.
“Well, work your ore, Kirikuzu!” the raider leader ordered to which Meiko’s lime green coloured smile greeted his eyes.
“I can’t work it for shit… You just bargained your whole operation away for nothing. Shouldn’t have messed with us really, now Shimo, Mana and Kouta will come back for their ore with your food and camels and kick your ass like there’s no tomorrow” she laughed out energetically.
The raider yelled out in frustration and pulled out a curved blade swinging it right at Meiko’s neck. The girl’s arm moved almost instantly, with a loud clang and an awesome deafening shockwave picking up sand and bashing it mercilessly at anyone around where it started the man’s blow was blocked by Meiko’s bare palm.
“Impossible…” the raider’s surprised jaw fell down almost all the way to the sand he stood on while a small rock fell out of Meiko’s hand. Her arm moved to the backpack and then still was in time to block the man’s strike using a shard of Audra ore.
“Well I guess I could kick your asses too, after all, it doesn’t look like you guys are just gonna let me eat in peace…” the redheaded girl unzipped her tracksuit and ventilated it around to try and chill her incoming heatstroke out.
The sound of Meiko’s knuckles cracking was deafened by a combination of sounds of hundreds of swords being drawn.
*****
Finally night came and the temperature dropped almost a full 180 to where it was, from being impossibly hot it started to become so cold that Mana felt bad about trading her jacket away with a traveller close to the entrance to the Land of the Wind. The three genin carefully snuck up to the camp and looked at it from far away, all the way from a large dune that wasn’t even there in the morning. Apart from a small fire and a brief source of light in the center of the camp there appeared to be no action inside. The four snuck up closer, surprised to see no guards watching the camp, after all, they pretty much declared that they’d be back once they weren’t surrounded by raiders inside their own camp… The sight inside of the camp made the jaws of the four shot wide open.
On top of a giant pile of unconscious raiders, wearing a white coat and a blue headscarf, borrowed from one of them while her torn up and dirty tracksuit laid on the beaten to a pulp leader of the raiders, still eating a larger than herself barrel of ice cream and enjoying herself, sat Meiko, covered with scratches, cuts and bruises but as happy as a child seeing a dolphin for the first time.
“Yo, nights around here really are a way better time to eat sherbets…” the girl smiled with a dirty mouth full of coloured treats that made her cheeks and tongue as messy as the mouth of a child.
[Reviews - 0]Chapter or Story
Table of Contents
- Text Size +