Chapter 4.1

The forges burned well into the morning, a steady line of weapons made of that black metal pushed out with every passing hour. Resources were collected, checked, and re-checked, then sealed into the waiting hands of supply officers. A gong struck once. Orders were barked out in a rush, a cacophony of noise that congealed into something almost solid, rising through the air. Units fell into formation, each having memorised their orders.

A cloud of smoke curled around Baki, cigarette held loosely in his lips as he overlooked the last of the shinobi under his command proceed out of the gates.

Not for the first time, he wondered why they had made such a display of setting off towards Fang. Would it not have helped them to remain discrete? Surprise could have played the enemy right into their hands, after all. He’d been told that the point was the show. Soon, news would make it to all corners of the Elemental Nations that, for whatever reason, Suna had gathered a sizeable army and marched it right till the edge of their border. When push came to shove, Iwa simply wouldn’t be able to clamp down on the rumours, and if they escalated, the entire world would know once more of their appetite for war.

The entire world would know who had almost sent it into the burning pit of war again.

If Suna won… well, that would go a long way in settling their financial woes.

There was a flash of pale gold and silver at the edges of his vision. Baki stilled, deliberately not turning his head that way. When it showed no sign of staying far away, he sighed, puffing again.

“Baki.”

He turned but refused to meet the pair of silver eyes boring holes into him. “Suleiman.”

The spirit stared at him for a moment longer, saying nothing. Baki felt like he was being judged. “Good luck,” it offered finally, walking out of the gate with the rest, as if it was no different to any of them.

He took a deep drag, letting the warmth of the acrid smoke settle into his lungs. The sun had long begun its ascent, embracing Suna in its warmth.

Baki shivered anyway.

-o-o-o-

“How do ya think they plan on getting us across ‘em ridges?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we won’t have to.”

“Then how are we supposed to fight?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Think we’re gonna ride on his gold dust?”

Karin sighed, putting her book away. It didn’t look like she was going to get any reading done. “I know just as much as you, numbskull.”

“No need to be mean,” Yuuto grumbled, spitting out the toothpick he’d been fiddling with for the past fifteen minutes.

Karin’s gaze softened. Her teammate was the definition of irritating on the best of days, but seven years of service with him let her see past that. Travelling, once you were well into your career as a ninja, became a routine, boring task, especially if you were doing it in-country. Some played games along the way, some, like her, read to occupy their minds, sooth the pre-mission nerves. Others…

She could see Yuuto fidgeting even as he maintained peace with her, hand drumming on his thigh. “We’re just Chunin, Yuu. Don’t get too worried about the bigger picture – even if you can’t see it yet, I’m sure Lord Fourth has a plan. He’ll get us through it. He always has.”

Hina Tanaka, who’d gotten attached to their squad a few months back, snorted loudly. “Rumour has it even the Captain’s not quite sure how we’re supposed to deal with the ridges. Maybe they expect us to sneak through?”

“It’s possi-”

“I doubt it,” Mio cut her off. Karin glared at the girl, eye twitching at the innocent smile she gave back. “Iwa’s bound to have sensors posted there, they’re bound to see us coming from miles away. Hell, we didn’t exactly make the operation a secret. I’m pretty sure even Kumo knows something’s up by now.”

Kaito Nakamura, the last member and captain of their five-man squad, chose just that time to re-join their group. “I know it goes against much of what you all have been taught, but sometimes, making noise has a value of its own.”

“I don’t see how, but you’re the boss!” Yuuto said, chewing on yet another toothpick.

Mio and Karin shared a look.

“Politics,” they deadpanned at the same time. The rest laughed. They decreased their pace slightly so the other squads in their platoon wouldn’t get left behind. Squad Nakamura prided itself on their speed, and it showed. Not for the first time, Karin wondered if Kaito’s ‘mandatory physical conditioning’ was truly a ‘standard part of Chunin training’ as he insisted it was.

“It’s the bane of logic everywhere,” the captain agreed.

There was a warm chuckle from behind them. “Well said, Captain.”

Karin turned, catching a glimpse of glimmering silver eyes and gold hair. Her breath caught in her throat. That was-

“Suleiman-dono,” the captain nodded at once, clapping a fist against his flak-jacket. The rest of the squad followed. Karin felt her body tense up, eyes glued to the way the afternoon sun weaved through his hair.

“Just Suleiman,” he corrected, smiling serenely. If the lack of a head covering bothered him while he was sprinting through the harshest desert in the Elemental Nations, nothing showed on his face. As if he could read Karin’s mind, he sped up even further till he was shoulder to shoulder with her and Yuuto. He turned towards her teammate, still smiling. “I don’t think you’ll get to ride on Rasa’s gold dust anytime soon, but please do not fret yourselves over the matter of the ridges.”

“Then are we supposed to just, what, wait for the rockheads to come towards us?”

He laughed, a deep, lyrical sound that made her bones echo. “In a manner of speaking. What’s your name?”

“Yuuto Watanabe.”

“Yuuto Watanabe,” the words rolled off Suleiman’s tongue oddly. “I’ll remember it. Say, did you want to ride on the Kazekage’s gold dust?”

“Ever since-” Mio desperately signalled at Yuuto to shut his mouth, but that clearly flew over his head. “-I was a genin, yes sir.”

Silver eyes crinkled in silent amusement. “When we’re returning to Suna, I’ll be sure to ask him personally.”

“Wait, wh-”

Suleiman’s shoulders shook with mirth as he increased his speed to a truly blistering level near-instantaneously, bypassing the need to slowly accelerate altogether. Karin stared at his back blankly. This was the healer? The one who sang metal into existence and commanded the heavens to weep? The sheer casualness of his words and actions went against everything she’d heard about him.

“Yuuto, why do you have to make things harder for me?” The captain asked exasperatedly.

“Sorry boss!”

A minute of blessed silence passed.

“…you think he’ll actually ask?”

“YUUTO!”

-o-o-o-

We stopped after we’d crossed a little over half the distance to the border.

Compared to when I’d first ended up here, it was a piece of cake to weather the desert sun, although sprinting on endless sand for hours still wasn’t pleasant, to say the least. Maiar physiology and the Weirding Way let me grow past my original physical limitations quite easily, but I had a long way to go before my stamina reached parity with the short, powerful bursts of strength and speed I could bring to bear.

“Suleiman,” the Kazekage called out to me. I glanced at him, following him into a hastily erected tent. There wasn’t much in it, a cot to one side and a wide, low table with maps sprawled across it. “We’re going to stop here for a while, gather our bearings again. There’s no real point in exhausting ourselves any further.”

I nodded. That was fine by me.

“Have you…” Rasa struggled to get the words out.

I chuckled. “I’ll be starting soon. I won’t need to do it more than twice. It should all be set up by the time we reach Fang.”

“You know, there’s more than a few of my advisors who think you’re lying. Or just insane.”

“I don’t blame them,” I said easily. “It’s not every day a man, even a ninja, claims to have that kind of power.”

“…the ones who believe you have only been made more wary. They say you ought to be inducted into the Ninja Corps by now.”

I smiled at him, baring my teeth for a brief instant. Rasa stiffened despite himself. “I think you know my thoughts on that, Kazekage-sama.”

He nodded slowly. Then, he shook his head, turning his attention back to the maps. I took that as the dismissal it was and walked out into the open again, doing my best to ignore the whispers that came at my sight.

Calling upon Azyr to make it rain was a calculated move, one that had been designed to impress on Gaara and those who would follow me into battle that there was more to me than what met the eye. It wasn’t about my ego, but rather about the need to engender faith – in me, in their village leadership, and in their chances of making it out alive of what would be a short, brutal campaign.

Knowing how to channel the chaotic energies of the Blue Wind was a critical part, the most critical part, of my plan to deal with Iwa. It wasn’t enough for Suna to beat them back through conventional means. They had to be drawn out of their holes first, and then driven back with such ferocity that it wouldn’t even occur to them that they should try attacking again. In the absence of my full powers as an Ainur, I could think of no tool better than Azyr to accomplish such a thing.

But it was more than just wanting to experiment with my newest perk. If I was right, faith was the basis of my evolution as a Maiar. Though it had only been half a day, I could feel the effects already – my words rang truer than before, there was a weight to my existence that it had simply had less of earlier, which wasn’t easy to keep up with it. It was hard to describe, but imagine waking up one day and realising that you’d grown three inches. Your clothes would fit less, you’d be notably clumsier, and so on, even as there would be natural advantages to gaining height.

Oh, wait. This was the spiritual version of puberty, wasn’t it?

Peeking just below the surface of my skin, ready to be called upon, waiting to be used, was the congealed essence of a hundred odd people’s faith, golden and scintillating. Contrary to how I’d imagined it would work, it wasn’t like a well – it wasn’t that if you took five buckets out of it, you’d be left with the well minus five buckets worth of water. It was more like there was a set amount of energy that could be used for whatever I wished, however I wished, but if I tried to accomplish something beyond its inherent capacity to, I’d simply fail, like any human who tried to jump and stay afloat in the air.

There were, of course, ways to increase said capacity, but that would require me to accomplish greater feats, engender in others greater faith in me. I wasn’t sure if I could drop everything and become what was, in practice, a missionary, but maybe I wouldn’t have to…

For this particular spell, I needed to have a clear sight of the heavens, so I sat cross-legged on the ground and looked up at the sky, closing my senses off to everything else.

Azyr whispered into my ears again, like a thousand different voices that spoke at once, of fate and of the stars that lay beyond the firmament. I latched onto the stream of warpstuff, wrangling it into my hands, smothering it under my presence. Slowly, I breathed out, strengthening my mind against an overwhelming force, letting my will guide a tiny, infinitesimal current within Azyr’s incomprehensible whole.

Something miles overhead shifted ever so slightly. The Blue Wind pushed it and my mind guided it in the direction I wished it to go. Sweat was beginning to trail down my forehead, my legs were trembling. I pushed past the feeling of being pulled apart, forcing my mind and soul to hold true. Then, I latched onto another, repeating the process. And then again, till my whole body shuddered under the strain.

Distantly, I was aware that blood had begun to leak out of my nose. I breathed in, breathed out, redirecting the faith energy I’d collected. It would never have been enough to do what I was doing, only my control over Azyr could manage such a thing, so instead I used it to reinforce myself, bolster my mind against the ever-increasing volume of pure chaos seeking to overtake it.

One last time, I called upon the winds of magic to serve me. They mocked me as they swooped down from the highest heavens to do my bidding. I looked at them, eyes burning silver, and lowered my head in acceptance.

“Casandora cometh,” I said to myself. My voice came out oddly, almost guttural, as if it was overlapped with another. I dropped the spell, nursing my head. As soon as I did, I realised I’d gathered a bit of an audience. There were a few Suna-nin who’d formed a circle around me, including a member of the team I’d chatted with on the way here. Yuuto, I thought. I waved off their concern. I felt like I was dissociating, like I was looking everywhere and nowhere, hearing everything and nothing at once. There was a medic there, looking awfully concerned and perhaps a tad fearful.

I shot a small smile at them, ignoring the coppery taste of blood resting on my tongue.

“Don’t be worried,” I rasped, stumbling my way back into a tent. Maybe I could’ve tweaked the adrenal glands to produce less, lowered the cortisol production, changed my neuron receptiveness to ward off the pain wracking every single part of me, but I knew just as I thought to do so that it wouldn’t be effective. This wasn’t a physical illness, it was spiritual malaise. The Weirding Way, for all its incredible potency, couldn’t help me defend against that.

I slept with one eye open, tracking the progress of the spell. Soon, I’d cast it again, and then once more when we reached our destination.

-o-o-o-

“Shukaku says you’ve changed,”

I glanced at Gaara before going back to studying the loaf of bread in my hands. A baker had made his way out of Suna’s gates to present it and a few other baked goods to me specifically, calloused hands wringing in anxiety. It wasn’t much, he’d said, but he hoped it fed me on the way. I’d clasped his hands and offered him my gratitude and thought nothing more of it. Here and now, as bread broke between my teeth, I could feel something warm rushing through me. In any other’s hands, it would just be bread. In mine, it was an offering.

“How so?”

Gaara considered my question, relaying it back to the Tailed Beast. “He says you’re brighter to his senses now, almost like-” he paused, looking away for a second. “-almost like you’re a picture that’s just beginning to regain colour.”

I smiled. That was one way to put it. “Tell him he isn’t wrong, but if he’s looking for answers, it’s going to have to wait.”

He nodded simply. Then, he fished out a pack of cards from somewhere within his thigh-pocket, placing it on the ground between us. “I never had the chance to play before, or had the patience for it, really, but Baki-sensei talks about ‘poker night’ a lot. Would you teach me?”

“Well,” I began, opening the brand-new pack of cards. “We’re going to need a few more people to join us if you want to play. Why don’t you ask around, see if anyone else is interested.”

He hesitated.

“Go on, shoo.”

Gaara returned a few minutes later with five others trudging behind him, looking all shades of confused, terrified, and more than a little shocked. He seemed proud, but also slightly nervous, as if he’d been afraid that no one would have taken him up on his offer. It was so amusing to imagine Gaara of all people being worried about something so minute, I couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of me.

The red-haired Jinchūriki tilted his head at me. “What’s so funny?”

I laughed even harder.

-o-o-o-

We were less than an hour worth of travelling at our regular pace when I caught sight of my target.

The desert that encompassed almost the entirety of the Land of Wind was slowly bleeding away into sparse vegetation, sand dunes being replaced with outcroppings of rock and grey stone. Some distance from us, I could even see a hardy breed of trees, low and close to the ground, rustling in the wind. I blinked away some of the exhaustion I felt, drawing strength from the way those next to me stood tall.

“Baki,” I heard Rasa say quietly. “Take three others with you and establish contact with Commander Shiro. I want our sensors informing me of real-time enemy positions by the time we’re there. Make haste.”

“The rest of you,” he raised his voice to the captains standing a short, respectful distance behind him, “Conduct a head-count, re-check lists, then gather your people and head towards your respective rally points. Your fellow Suna-nin will be waiting to meet you.”

“Alright boys, pack it in and-”

“Joshiro, re-check radio equipment-”

“-I need an extra roll of gauze, blasted sand got-”

Rasa turned towards his son, a silent question in his eyes. Gaara nodded shortly. Then, Rasa looked at me, studying my form. “For what it’s worth, Suleiman, I hope your plan works.”

I smiled mournfully. If it didn’t, we’d lose many lives. If it did, I’d end many lives. In either case, mankind would not find victory here, only death.

“So do I, Kazekage-sama,” I said finally, training my eyes on the distant, barely visible peaks jutting out of the ground harshly. Those were the ridges that gave the Land of Fangs its name. Those were the ridges that had allowed Iwa to wreak havoc on Suna’s forces.  Those were the ridges I was going to destroy. “So do I.”

AN: And so it ends, the very last chapter before we get a showdown with Iwa. What kind of things are y'all looking forward to or anticipating most?