The air over the Sunagakure border encampment tasted like grit and desperation. Fine, golden sand, whipped into a perpetual haze by the unforgiving wind, coated everything – the rough canvas of tents, the worn leather of flak jackets, the metal of kunai hilts, and the parched throats of the shinobi stationed there.
The sun, a molten coin sinking towards the jagged horizon, cast long, distorted shadows that stretched like grasping fingers across the dunes, painting the camp in hues of ochre and deepening violet. Heat radiated from the baked earth, even as the temperature began its swift desert plummet.
Oba scraped a layer of dust from his eyes with a calloused thumb, his mouth a grim line beneath the standard-issue sand scarf. He walked the perimeter path, a beaten track between rows of tents and hastily erected watchtowers, his sandals crunching rhythmically on the abrasive ground. Beside him, Riku, a younger chunin barely out of his teens, nervously adjusted the strap of his water canteen, his eyes constantly scanning the imposing silhouette of the Land of Earth mountains looming to the north.
"Quiet again," Riku muttered, "Too quiet, Oba-san. Makes my skin crawl."
Oba grunted, "Quiet means they're not charging."
He spat, the globule vanishing instantly into the thirsty sand. "Though, Sage knows what they're planning over there." He jerked his chin towards the distant, shadowed peaks where the Iwa camp was known to be nestled.
"Scouts say their numbers doubled last week. Like ants boiling out of a kicked nest."
Riku swallowed hard, the sound loud in Oba's ear. "Doubled? But... we're stretched thinner than old rope here! Half the battalion got pulled south last moon after that Konoha skirmish." He gestured vaguely towards the south, "If they push... if they really push..."
"Then we hold," Oba stated, "We hold until our teeth crack and our bones turn to dust. That's the job. Sand crushes rock, remember? Eventually." The old Suna adage felt hollow even as he said it. He clapped a heavy hand on Riku's shoulder, more for his own reassurance than the boy's. "Besides, Command says the Tsuchikage's just posturing. Rattling his rocks. Trying to scare us into concessions over that destroyed village nonsense." He didn't sound convinced.
Riku managed a weak smile. "You really think he wouldn't attack? After they accused us of... of genjutsu on his daughter? And blowing up their supply dump?"
Oba snorted. "Onoki's not stupid. He knows starting a war with us while Konoha licks its wounds is suicide. He needs us distracted, not destroyed. Probably just wants better trade terms or access to the western oases." He tried to inject confidence he didn't feel.
The sheer scale of the Iwa force gathering was unnerving, posturing or not.
"Konoha," Riku spat the name like a curse, his earlier nervousness replaced by a familiar, simmering hatred. He kicked a small stone, sending it skittering into the gloom. "Licking their wounds. Hah! They caused half these wounds themselves, the arrogant tree-huggers."
Oba's own expression darkened, the lines around his eyes deepening. He didn't need prompting. The memory was a fresh scar, even years later. "Last war," he began, "the 'Skirmish' at Dust Canyon. Konoha ninja, hunting one of their precious deserters, blasted through our patrol sector. Didn't care who was in the way." He stopped walking, staring out at the darkening wastes, "My parents... civilians. Just trying to get water from the communal well when the earth-release jutsu hit and buried them alive. Konoha called it 'collateral damage'. Offered reparations in rice and bandages." He spat again, the bitterness acrid on his tongue.
Riku nodded fiercely, "And now they've got another monster growing in their shadow. That Uzumaki. The 'False Jinchuriki'." He shuddered, not entirely from the cooling air. "What kind of freak is he? He's not human."
"Worse," Oba muttered, "He's just another weapon they'll point at whoever they please. Another reason the world burns."
He pictured the reports – vague, terrifying accounts of impossible summons that could grapple with Tailed Beasts, speed that blurred Sharingan sight. The moniker 'False Jinchuriki' was less a description and more a chilling warning.
"Pray to the desert winds we never cross his path, Riku. Pray hard. People like that... they leave only corpses and curses in their wake."
Riku looked genuinely terrified. "You think... you think he could be sent here? Against us?"
Oba barked a harsh, "Why in the Sage's name would Konoha waste their new pet monster on us? We're tangling with Iwa! Sending their precious False Jinchuriki to the Iwa-Suna border would be madness."
They walked in silence for a moment, the weight of Iwa's numbers and the spectre of Konoha's unnatural warrior hanging heavy between them. The desert night was fully claiming the sky now, stars pricking through the indigo veil, cold and indifferent. The camp buzzed with the subdued activity of shinobis practising taijutsu on a sandbag.
"Just feels like the world's squeezing us," Riku whispered. "Iwa on one side, Konoha always lurking... and powers like that Uzumaki walking around. Makes a person feel like... like a grain of sand in a hurricane."
Before Oba could offer another hollow platitude, a sharp voice cut through the evening murmur.
"Oba! Riku! Enough sand-gazing!"
They snapped to attention as their squad leader, Jiro, a grizzled veteran with a nose like a crumpled sand dune and eyes like chips of obsidian, strode towards them.
"Perimeter check. Now! And I want eyes sharp, not tongues flapping about Konoha bastards! Those Iwa rock-heads could decide sunset's a fine time for a—"
"CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!"
The sudden, frantic, deafening peal of the alarm bell shattered the tense calm. It wasn't the measured toll signalling a drill or a shift change. It was the emergency bell instantly silencing all other sounds.
Every nerve in Oba's body came to life. Adrenaline, cold and sharp, flooded his veins, washing away fatigue and fear in an instant. His hand flew to his kunai, already drawing it. Riku gasped, fumbling for his own weapon, his eyes wide with terror.
"INTRUDERS!" The raw, amplified shout from the central watchtower boomed over the camp, magnified by a crude wind-release jutsu. "SOUTH-WESTERN APPROACH! HIGH SPEED! PREPARE FOR DEFENSIVE—"
Chaos erupted. Tents whooshed open as shinobi poured out, scrambling into pre-designated formations. The shink-shink of dozens of kunai and swords being drawn was a deadly chorus. Shouted orders tangled in the air, creating a cacophony of panic and discipline fighting for dominance.
Thousands of Suna shinobi flowed like a dark, armoured river towards the southwestern perimeter. Years of harsh desert training kicked in, overriding individual fear with drilled cohesion.
Earth-release users slammed their palms onto the ground, sending walls of compacted sand and rock surging upwards. Wind users gathered swirling vortices of chakra, ready to deflect projectiles or obscure vision. The camp transformed from a drowsy outpost into a bristling fortress in under a minute.
"Damn rock-brained Iwa bastards!" Oba roared, falling into position beside Jiro near a hastily raised earth barrier, his kunai held ready. He peered into the gloom beyond the lights, heart hammering against his ribs.
"Attacking at dusk! Cowards! Can't face us in the daylight!" The timing felt like an insult, a deliberate choice to exploit the shift change and fading light.
Riku, trembling but holding his ground beside him, scanned the darkness, Sharingan useless without Uchiha blood, but eyes wide with effort. "Where are they? Sensors! Report!"
Near the watchtower base, the head sensor, a pale man named Hoshi with veins pulsing visibly at his temples from intense concentration, suddenly stiffened.
His eyes snapped open, wide with disbelief and dawning horror that eclipsed even the fear of an Iwa assault. He whirled towards Jiro and the assembling defenders, his voice raw, tearing from his throat:
"IT'S NOT IWA! THE CHAKRA SIGNATURES—!"
"THWIP!"
The sound was horrifyingly precise. A kunai, moving faster than sight, faster than sound in the chaotic din, materialised from the darkness. It struck Hoshi directly in the throat, cutting off his warning mid-sentence.
Hoshi's eyes bulged, shock and agony warring on his face. He clutched at his throat, fingers scrabbling uselessly against the kunai's hilt as dark blood welled instantly, soaking his sand scarf and tunic, gleaming black in the dim lights.
Oba stared, frozen for a split second, the blood roaring in his ears.
'Not Iwa?'
The words echoed in the void left by Hoshi's silenced voice. The sensor's desperate warning, cut off by a kunai that came from nowhere… the impossible speed… the chilling precision.
If not Iwa… then who?