The Sandstorm's Maw

[Throniv]

The desert whispered to her.

The wind carried the distant groan of shifting dunes, a song of the ceaseless tide of sand that had existed long before nations, long before war, and long before the blood of Sunagakure's defenders was spilled upon it. It was a conversation that only those who knew her sounds could hear--and only those born to it could understand what each sound meant. Sakaze knelt upon the dune, her hand pressed to the golden granules beneath her and her eyes closed as she felt for the vibrations and listened for the signs that her prey was approaching.

The earth trembled with the slow, methodical march of a convoy--Iwagakure’s supply train, a caravan of supplies, weapons, and sustenance bound for the occupied remnants of her home. All to benefit the rule of the oppressors, and keep their slavemasters well-fed and stronger than the chattel that they oversaw. She scowled and dug her fingers into the sunbaked silicate as she let out a pulse of chakra to activate her Desert Genesis. Within 160 meters of where she stood the sand seemed to shift as her power flowed into and through it, breaking down a layer of compacted sandstone about 30 meters below the sand and causing the whole dune to sag slightly as its support gave way.

The sand around her shifted up and over her form as she knelt at the crest of the dune , covering her in a thin layer that made her nearly invisible from a distance as she opened her eyes and squinted against the midday sun at the path in the distance. She could see them now, dark specks against the white-gold dunes. Wagons laden with food, medical supplies, and weapons, all meant to sustain the invaders as they dug their claws deeper into Sunagakure’s corpse.

Rage coiled in her chest, but she did not let it consume her.

Not yet.

She exhaled, steady. The sands shifted in response, curling around her wrists like loyal hounds.

The supply train was well-guarded. Shinobi clad in Iwagakure’s colors walked alongside the wagons, heads on a swivel, their movements sharp with vigilance. They knew the desert was hostile to them--her revolutionaries had been making life uncomfortable for the oppressors with more regularity, now that they had a base to operate out of, and they seemed to be taking the threat seriously. Still, they should have brought more men. Behind Sakaze, her revolutionaries lay in wait, their bodies half-buried beneath the sand, breaths shallow. They were not soldiers, not like the men below—they were ghosts, wraiths of a fallen village, survivors who had been stripped of everything but the will to fight. 30 men and women who had vowed that Iwagakure would pay for the pain they had wrought upon their home and loved ones.

She didn't move other than to press more tightly against the dune as the caravan approached, watching the lead wagon with hungry eyes--soon, but not yet. Patience was what her lady asked of her now, and she would not fail Her. She waited as the wagons pulled forward, waited until she saw the whites in the eyes of one of the passing guards.

She lifted a hand. A single, silent signal.

The desert answered.

The dune beneath the lead wagon collapsed in an instant. A pit of yawning sand swallowed the front of the convoy, the first cart vanishing into the shifting abyss. Horses screamed. Men shouted. The patrol broke formation as the second wagon lurched to a halt, only for a wall of sand to appear behind the rear of the caravan and cut off their retreat with barely a gesture from the living embodiment of the desert's fury.

The sand beneath her feet rose in a whirling cloud, blotting out the light of the sun and obstructing the view of any in the caravan, and her soldiers rose with it, letting out a trilling battle cry as they spilled over the dune they had been hiding behind along with their leader.

"AMBUSH--!" one of the enemy shinobi cried out, only to be silenced by the kunai made of sand that Sakaze embedded in his throat. The mad prophet paused for only a moment as she watched the Iwa dog's lifeblood spill over her hand, before she removed the knife. One of the shinobi caught sight of her through the chaos, his hands flying into seals—Doton.

She saw it, felt it, even before the ground lurched beneath her. Stone spikes tore from the earth, aiming to skewer her mid-step.

Sakaze did not falter.

She twisted, sand surging to meet her call, a wall of shimmering grains swallowing the spikes before they could pierce her skin. The Iwa-nin’s eyes went wide. He barely had time to react before the sand beneath his feet rose up closed around him like a vice. She clenched her fist.

"In Her name," she remarked coldly before the man was simply sucked beneath the earth, followed closely by the spot he'd been occupying starting to stain a vibrant crimson. Blades, screams, and chaos abounded around her as she moved through the battlefield killing any who wore Iwa's Hitae-itae, and leaving alive those who cowered and did not fight--it would not do for her to gain a reputation as someone who killed innocents. The chaos lasted mere moments before the sand fell back to the earth, revealing the bodies of the caravan's escort and her own followers that surrounded those that had survived the initial assault.

"My name is Sakaze, of the Hokori," the robed woman stated plainly as she stepped forward, her sandals squishing as she stepped through a patch of blood-drenched sand. "This caravan and its contents are now the property of the true sons and daughters of Sunagakure. Any slaves will have their chains broken, and the others may leave and go where they wish--though I would recommend due east, if you don't want to be consumed by the sands."

Her indifferent gaze wandered over the few members of the caravan left, waiting to see if any of them would come forward.

OOCShow

Chakra Pool: 50
Endurance: 20
Control: 50
Strength: 20
Speed:39
Willpower:41

[Desert Genesis]
S-Rank Ninjutsu
After forming the proper hand seals or channeling, the user lets loose a pulse of chakra that will cause any non-liquid terrain to quickly turn into granular sand for 160 meters in every direction, including down, at [Control] Speed, effectively creating a desert within its radius. This transformation does not effect structures. The sand created in this way is infused with its creators chakra, and can be freely manipulated with Kinesis.

*[Sandkinesis]
A-rank Ninjutsu
Having achieved notable mastery over Sand, the user is capable of shaping, directing, and manipulating existing bodies of the element without the need of hand seals or an existing technique. The range at which the user can manipulate the element is equal to the user's control times 2 metres. While the user can freely manipulate this element, they cannot produce the element naturally.

[Sand Wall]
C-Rank Ninjutsu
After forming the proper hand seals or channeling, the user generates a wall of sand that can be erected within 15 meters of the user, angled in any way the user chooses. This wall is 15 meters long and 5 meters thick that appears at [Control] Speed and possesses [Control] Strength.

[Shizue]

The first couple of days were a fun little trek through the desert, the ever twisting sands and tides of silica played and danced in an intricate weaving pattern that mesmerized Shizue in a way that felt oddly calming like the beaches of Pebble Country back home. She had grown up at the crossroads of Wind Country and Fire Country, the unlikely merger of the two and the military might of Pebble afforded the country the safe haven sanctuary that the shinobi needed for their festivities.

Thus, Shizue was no stranger to the ways of the sands, or the seas, or the tides, but she didn’t know that the desert was so vast. So horribly, dully, boringly, soul-suckingly vast. She kicked at a bit of sand in front of her as she trudged and found that it had been the day home of a little lizard which scurried up the nearest dune, grabbed its tail in its mouth and went tumbling down like a snow-ball that starts an avalanche. It bounced hither and thither without a care as it rebounded off of the ever-changing eddies of sand that marked the entirety of the landscape as far as Shizue could see.

Losing sight of the lizard she watched the lead wagon of the caravan go bumping and jostling in the sand on its wide-wheeled chassis. The groans of the wood had started small, but with each passing day the sand wound its way into the sinews of the wagons, causing creaking, the incessant creaking and grinding like grit at the back of your teeth that you can’t even spit to get rid of. Shizue spat and wasn’t surprised that it came out as mostly clay. She washed her mouth out with water where no one could see her as she had been scolded for wasting water the last time she had been caught at it.

As they had said a little clay in the gut is good for you, but when you’re literally almost shitting bricks, she decided that was the line. The clothes that she had bought in Sunagakure to wear on the way to Iwagakure was what she wore now, and her naturally tanned skin had grown dark under the unrelenting sun. The rays of the sun beat down ever more and more as they climbed the hill, making her huddle in the small bit of shade that the wagon provided as it groaned up the hill, drawn by two camels working side by side, giving her an irritated look as they strained and she enjoyed the shade that their load provided.

Shizue sneered at the beasts, as she had been spat on by one of them only a couple of days ago, she believed it was the large milk-colored one at the head of the three camel team. Though the sand had embedded itself into her rough long coat, she still had the glossy white that kept most of the sun off of her. She knew that she was beautiful, especially when she was clean, and that meant that the vain thing bit, spat, and hissed at anyone who didn’t treat her like a princess.

Shizue knew what it was to be pretty, privileged, and yet, she hated the beast at the front of her wagon with a vengeance. The caravan owners liked to see the two girls bicker, so she was undoubtedly saddled with the ill-tempered camel for the amusement of the caravan.

The strong dark-skinned men that had long curved swords and headbands that had the Iwagakure symbols on them were who were guarding the caravan. She was actually a guest in this particular caravan. Or she was pretending to be. Her father had paid for her to ride back to Sunagakure, to meet up with her escort who had taken her there, Kaito, who she missed now, being a good three months apart from him. She felt like she smelled as bad as the camels as one of them defecated and the wheel rolled over it. She shuddered to the side, out into the unrelenting sun, burning her eyes and singing her skin almost as soon as she stepped out of the shade. It would soon be time to wear the full garb that would keep the sun’s rays off of her, but would do little to keep her cool. That was what the water was for.

She took another swig when the caravan peaked the next dune. She hoped to see- well, anything actually. Shizue hadn’t seen ‘anything’ in the last four days and it was mind-numbingly disappointing each time that she crested a dune just to see the ever-expanding ever-shifting fully dull sand dunes stretching out forever in every direction. All beautiful, all different, and yet all the fucking same.

She groaned as she stuffed the water bottle back into the wagon and then got out her desert garb. Best to put it on and start to get used to it rather than have it stifle her with its warmth when she needed it. She had learned that the first day out from Sunagakure, and had almost gone into heat-shock when she had to be revived. That wasn’t something shizue wished to repeat.

She wrapped her blood-red hair into a turban, which she had asked how to wrap and was shown, graciously, by a woman who sold her the outfit she wore from Sunagakure’s outposts. She then wrapped a cloth over her face, donned the long white flowing gown and stepped out from the wagon’s shadow and covered her eyes as the sun almost blinded her. She kept going for a bit before she noticed that her wagon was now in the lead.

Odd.

There was a screaming of horses, the camels groaned and grunted in dismay. Shizue looked around as someone shouted “AMBUSH!” Shizue looked toward the person who made the cry. He had a kunai in his throat, a kunai made of- sand?

Shizue ran to him as he dropped on his back, clutching at his throat, blood bubbling from between his fingers in a pink froth that coated his teeth and spattered his eyes as he scrabbled at his chest. Her mind went blank as she sank deep into herself and the world’s noises died away. She was a medical shinobi, and she was taught how to deal with a wound like this. Channeling chakra into her eyes she looked at how deeply the kunai went and found that it had hit the jugular vein, which was lucky, as it wasn’t the carotid artery. The pinkness of the blood had her fooled for a moment before she was able to assess the situation.

She faltered for a moment, with the thought of ‘can I save him’? As the battle was quickly coming to a close. She pressed on four different pressure points above the wound on his neck, closer to his head. It would stem the blood flow while she tried to yank the weapon from the man’s adrenaline fueled hand which tore at her clothing, the man was biting his own tongue in desperation, clawing at the front of her white tunic, trying to find air. He would pass out soon, which would mean she would have a good minute before death to deal with him.

His black skin was turning pale and he was sweating, not from the heat but from the panic that was set so far back in his deep brown eyes, eyes that looked like the first deer she had ever killed. The person who threw this knew what they were doing.

The sounds of battle started dying as she wove hand seals and then started to apply chakra stitches to the patient’s neck, one by one she did this while she pulled the knife carefully out of his neck, millimeter by millimeter stitching his veins, tendons, trachea, larynx, and then neck back together. What she didn’t see, being a genin and lacking any real battle experience with healing, was the rebel shinobi that came up behind her.

Shizue felt two ribs crack as she was kicked, hard in the left side, the air exploding out of her lungs as she was sent careening into the wagon with the white camel that she didn’t like. She coughed, wheezed and gasped as her eyes rolled back. She couldn’t mend bones, damnit, it hurt. She hadn’t ever had broken bones before. Each breath came and made her wheeze, made her almost wretch. She dry heaved which made her head spin and loll to the side.

Someone was saying something, probably important. The ninja that kicked her roughly pulled her hair, jerking her head back and exposing her throat. Shizue looked down past her own cheekbones and noticed the man she had healed had his head removed in one swift blow. All that work for nothing.

The person was going through her things, looking for something. Finding her pebble headband it was thrown at the woman who had addressed the caravan. What had the woman said? The one who had turned the boring, miserable drudge through the desert into a destruction-laden battlefield.

As Shizue looked around she noted that it wasn’t a battlefield, it was a massacre. She gulped and looked to her captor, who was looking to Sazake, waiting for instructions for what to do with the Pebble Ninja who was just trying to save a life, any life that was. But a life of an Iwagakure Shinobi. What would her fate be?