Rain.
Pouring, icy, seemingly endless rain.
Murky water, thick with mud, hammered against forehead protectors, sluiced down dark-green flak vests, and finally bled into the uneven brown sludge underfoot.
The air reeked of wet earth, rotting plants, and the faint, metallic tang of blood.
The ground, pitted by countless footprints and ceaselessly washed by rain, had become a maze of ruts and rivulets.
Under a gray, sagging sky, Konoha's relief column pushed forward with difficulty.
"Ugh!"
Nawaki's foot skidded. He pitched headlong into a water-filled pit, splattering his brand-new chūnin vest with mud from collar to hem.
Grumbling about this "damned place," he scrambled up under Mikoto's worried glance, cheeks burning.
Mikoto's fine brows knit slightly. Rain had soaked her bound black hair, pasting it to her pale cheeks. Chakra flowed steady at her feet, her light, measured steps spoke of excellent fundamentals.
At the very front, Tsunade's crimson jacket with the giant "Gamble" character was soaked through, clinging to her powerful frame. Water dripped in steady beads from her golden bangs.
Her eyes, sharp as blades cutting through the rain, swept the rolling low hills and sparse, dead woods around them.
At the slightest stir of grass, every nerve in her body drew taut.
Ryo walked beside her, tall. Short, flame-red hair plastered to his brow, water traced the severe lines of his face.
His calm gaze slid across the porridge-soft ground and the blurred curtain of rain beyond. His brow creased, just a fraction.
"This damned place…" Nawaki wiped his face again, repeating himself with more feeling. The rain distorted his voice.
Ryo's voice was low but carried cleanly through the deluge, edged with chill. "Worse than expected. Why isn't the main camp on the Fire Country border?"
Tsunade didn't hide her annoyance. She shot him a look, temper suppressed but audible. "Because the commander ordered it."
She didn't need to say who. Everyone in earshot knew, Shimura Danzō.
Ryo said nothing more.
Rain slid along his brow and down his cheek.
Setting the main base where the supply line would bog into mud and the wounded had no chance to recover?
Danzō's field command defied description.
Orochimaru would have done better.
The comparison flickered across Ryo's mind. Orochimaru might be crueler, but in jungle terrain he would at least choose higher, drier ground for a camp.
"How's the situation?" When Tsunade reached the outer sentry line, she asked the air directly.
Orochimaru seemed to seep out of a crack in the rocks. His pallid face looked even more somber in the rain. Gold serpentine pupils glinted, not with Danzō's paranoia, but with pure contempt for inefficiency and incompetence.
"Not ideal," he said evenly, eyes cold, mind clearly racing.
He had a dozen plans, faster and perhaps harsher, but under Danzō's rigid, dead-handed command they were worthless.
That old fool…
"I never thought Amegakure would be this strong," Jiraiya muttered nearby, voice drained and touched with lingering dread.
He slumped against a slick boulder, white hair matted like seaweed, spattered with mud and gods-know-what. The swagger was washed out of him by cold, ceaseless rain.
"The old man's right. If we let Hanzō keep growing, he'll be a serious threat."
Tsunade joined them, heavy with the scent of herbs and damp earth.
She didn't spare Jiraiya a glance. Her eyes drilled into Orochimaru. "And the intel you gathered doesn't match the strength Amegakure is showing. What did you miss?"
Jiraiya pushed himself upright, scratching at the mud in his hair with a bitter smile. "Ask our commander, why don't you? I'm the errand boy." He leaned hard on the words "commander."
Tsunade snorted, arms crossed. Rain traced the tight lines of her shoulders, clenched with anger. "Hmph. I'd rather fight out here than go back and look at that face." The words found their target, Danzō, and the floodgate opened. "I've finished the antidote formula for salamander toxin and handed it to the head medic in the infirmary. They can handle follow-up casualties."
"But…" Jiraiya glanced at her stormy expression, then asked carefully, "Is it okay to walk out of the primary battle zone like this and come straight to our outer line? Danzō will—"
"What's not okay?" Tsunade cut in, voice like a blade. "I'm a doctor, and a combat ninja. I've seen enough of his face. Out here I can counter Hanzō's raiding parties and reinforce you at once."
The subtext was crystal clear. Stay far from Danzō. Free to operate.
Tsunade's pissed? Orochimaru's pissed?
Of course. Danzō's been disgusting people for years.
Only Jiraiya, thick-skinned as leather, could still force a grin.
"I heard you left your student in the village."
Orochimaru turned to Jiraiya. The grin on Jiraiya's face froze. He sprang up, cursing, "And who are you to talk, didn't you leave Nawaki back in Konoha too?"
"Heh."
Orochimaru's laugh rasped. His golden eyes lingered on Jiraiya with malicious amusement.
"Laugh all you—" Jiraiya started, then every hair on his back stood up. A killing intent like a sheet of ice dropped over him.
He turned stiffly.
Tsunade stood behind him, expressionless.
Her pretty almond eyes held no warmth. A pale-blue chakra aura wreathed her clenched fist, blazing, terrifying against the gray rain.
The air thrummed, low and heavy, with pressure.
Jiraiya's scream sliced the rain. BOOM!
He hit the boulder like a battering ram smashing a wall. The rock webbed with fractures. Jiraiya stuck at the center like a grotesque fresco, limbs askew, unmoving, save for a slow, bloody trickle mixing with the rain down his brow.
Orochimaru's pupils narrowed, then smoothed. The faintest curve touched his lips, almost pleased.
Nawaki gaped at the human-shaped dent, mind blank.
Mikoto lowered her eyes.
Ryo merely cast a brief glance at the embedded silhouette, confirmed the life force was intact, then looked past them into the deep veil of rain.
He didn't much care about Jiraiya's bruises, but that surge of power from Tsunade, that he filed away.
Tsunade slowly unclenched her fist. The chakra halo faded.
She exhaled hard, as if spitting out the sticky irritation clogging her chest, disgust at Danzō, at this bog of a battlefield, at the feeling of being hobbled.
She turned to Orochimaru. "How's the camp? The supply lines are a river of mud."
"Enormous pressure," Orochimaru said, flat but barbed. "Transport losses skyrocket in this weather. Rations barely hold at the front. Medical stores exist, but they're burning fast. As for the wounded, in this environment, infection rates are staggering."
Danzō's incompetence, another ankle weight dragging them down.
Tsunade's frown deepened. "No response from Danzō?"
"Him? He's considering moving the command post into a drier cave." Orochimaru's sarcasm all but steamed in the rain, voice as cold as the mud.
At that moment, a courier in a standard dark vest, face smeared with fatigue and muck, splashed up and bowed deeply to Tsunade, chest heaving.
"Tsunade-sama! By order of Commander Danzō, report to headquarters at once for urgent war council!"
The tone brooked no dispute.
But "urgent war council," in this suffocating gloom, sounded especially suspect.
Fury flashed in Tsunade's eyes. She drew breath to snap, but thought of the collapsing lines, the men dying in filth, the chain of command snarled around Danzō's ego.
She clenched and unclenched her fist, then said coldly, "Understood."
She looked back at the team she had brought, Nawaki, still half-caked in mud, Mikoto, quiet and tired but composed, Ryo, impossibly calm.
"Move." Her order to Nawaki, Mikoto, and Ryo was clipped and iron-hard, pure battlefield command.
Then she turned to Orochimaru and to Jiraiya, who had just pried himself out of the rock and was rubbing a lump visibly swelling on his head. "The perimeter is yours. Any anomaly, summon me."
"Count on it," Orochimaru nodded.
"Y-yeah, ow, got it, got it!" Jiraiya winced, hand cupping his throbbing skull.
Tsunade led Nawaki, Mikoto, and Ryo after the courier toward the main encampment.
Nawaki tried to stand tall, but the mud and rookie jitters showed through.
Mikoto kept her silence, guarding her poise.
Ryo remained a silent reef in the storm.
The rain thickened. Sight shortened. The mud sucked at their steps, demanding more strength with every pace.
Nawaki gritted his teeth, matching Ryo's unbothered stride as best he could.
At last, through the heavy gray of rain, the outline of a sprawling camp wavered into view.
Not the expected fortress of high palisades, but a sprawling, hasty encampment thrown up along the edge of slightly higher marshland.
Crooked wooden chevaux-de-frise sagged in blackened, waterlogged soil.
Cloaked sentries slogged along, spiritless, like sleepwalkers in a wet nightmare.
In the center of the muddy tracks lay rows of wounded, shrouded in tarps or strapped to rough stretchers. Pained groans and suppressed coughs blended with the rain into a dirge of despair.
The stench hit them, sour armpits, blood, and the foul tang of waste that couldn't be washed away in the damp.
Med-nin hurried between stretchers, vests stained with suspicious smears, faces drawn and numb.
The air was thick with the odor of herbs, but it couldn't mask the rot and reek of death.
Near the rear, against a rock face, several larger tents marked the core area.
One black command tent, hung with a banner, stood out, deliberately solemn, out of tune with the chaos around it.
"This way, Tsunade-sama."
The courier brought them to a massive tent labeled as the temporary infirmary. "Danzō-sama orders that you settle your subordinates, then report to the command tent immediately."
Tsunade stared at the canvas heavy with the stink of medicine and muffled moans, and remembered the antidote formula she had prepared, the instructions she had left.
Danzō's intent couldn't be clearer, dump the mess on Tsunade and walk away.
Not happening.
She drew a long breath. Her cold anger felt almost solid.
Ignoring the courier, she strode forward and ripped open the reeking, sodden flap of the infirmary tent.
(To be continued.)