A few seconds after Baki and his team found the marker
"Shinobi," a voice called out, both deep and echoing through the sand.
"Children sent to die."
The words carried across the dunes, washing over the Suna team who were currently frozen still in their places, their bodies tense and eyes whitened while wearing a blank expression.
Figures began to appear over the ridges, except their numbers were a lot smaller; even then it was still a formidable force. A large unit of raiders carefully surrounded the Suna team in a tightening circle, their weapons glinting under the sunlight.
"To think your abilities were this useful...", the voice returned, colder than before.
"The both of you sisters have proven yourselves to be very good an useful."
Atop the tallest dune stood a figure draped in tattered but reinforced armor, each plate stitched with scraps of sun-bleached crimson cloth. His face was hidden beneath a hammered-iron mask, crude in shape yet terrifying in its blank simplicity. His hands hung at his sides, empty, but beside him stood a massive war axe, its steel head buried deep in the golden sand.
Behind the armored giant, two girls stood, their presence eerily out of place among the sea of raiders around them. They looked less like soldiers and more like ghosts tethered unwillingly to this slaughter, their youth contrasting violently with the feral mob.
Both bore the sharp features and pale eyes of their clan, a clan known for the mastery of sound and illusion, long thought to have perished when the desert swallowed their settlement years ago in a massive sandstorm.
Whispers of the Oborozuki clan still haunted the southern trade routes, stories of travelers who followed phantom music into the off route, only to be found as dried corpses with bugs or animals festering on their flesh.
The younger girl wore her fiery red hair in a single, loose braid that draped over one shoulder, stray strands escaping to frame her pale, freckled face. She moved with the hesitance of a startled fawn, her gaze fixed on the ground as though afraid to meet anyone's eyes.
Her clothes were simple and travel-worn: a faded tunic of roughspun fabric, frayed at the cuffs and patched in several places, and trousers stiff with old dirt and dust. Stains darkened the knees and elbows, evidence of many long days on the road. Her boots were scuffed and cracked, the laces mismatched and barely holding together.
She clutched a slender flute of pale gray wood close to her chest, its polished surface gleaming faintly in the light. Her fingers tightened around it protectively, knuckles white, as if the instrument were both a shield and a lifeline. Her lips quivered, parted as though she meant to speak but could not quite summon the words, and her uneven steps betrayed the quiet turmoil within.
The second girl stood taller and sharper, her very stance radiating quiet authority despite her youth. Her hair, a deep auburn shade darker than the other one's, was bound neatly at the nape of her neck, not a strand out of place, framing a face set in a cool and unyielding way.
She bore the signs of being on the road for a long time, and even the desert was beginning to leave its marks, especially on her clothes that were composed of a fitted tunic of light, sand-colored fabric layered beneath a long, sleeveless mantle that swept just past her knees, its edges frayed from travel but trimmed with a faint, intricate pattern that hinted at heritage and pride.
A dark sash cinched her waist, both practical and ceremonial, the knot tied with care. Her trousers were loose and tucked into weathered boots designed for long treks across unforgiving terrain, their leather scuffed but well-maintained. Though her garments were patched and sun-faded, they carried a subtle elegance, almost like the worn remnants of royal attire.
In contrast to her younger sister, strapped diagonally across her back was her weapon and legacy: a small and ornamented biwa. Its curved body was carved from desert-hardened wood and polished to a soft sheen, its strings shimmering faintly in the sunlight, drawn taut across a surface etched with the sigils of the Oborozuki clan.
Each pluck of the strings resonated with crystalline precision, sending out vibrations that could twist the senses and bend perception like heat rippling off the desert sands.
It was this second girl who raised her chin now, her pale eyes fixed on the shinobi trapped within their tightening circle.
"Do you hear it?", she whispered, her voice soft yet carrying across the battlefield. The whisper coiled into the ears of all who heard it, deceptively gentle, a lullaby that masked its venom.
The Suna team's ears twitched, their focus wavered, and suddenly the lines between real and unreal blurred.
"They're caught.", the second girl continued.
The younger girl looked away, her grip tightening around her flute. Her voice came out as a fragile murmur.
"Sister… did we really have to…?"
A hand brushed lightly against hers, silencing her. It belonged to her sister.
"Don't forget why we are still alive. We were spared for this purpose. Otherwise…", her eyes flicked toward the masked bandit leader, the warlord who had claimed them when his men destroyed their Oborozuki clan stronghold.
In fact, they were also about to be killed when their combined genjutsu caught a few of his men. That single performance was enough for him not to kill the two of them, deeming them a resource too valuable to waste.
The warlord's voice bellowed once more, deeper now, laden with certainty.
"To think you can even trap them so easily… as expected of the Oborozuki clan. Cripple them."
The sisters lowered their eyes, with the younger one having shame burning across her cheeks, she still raised the flute to her lips regardless while her sister also picked up her instruments, the sound slithered into the desert like a deadly invisible serpent.
The Suna team staggered, reality bending as the genjutsu wove its grip. The three genin started sweating heavily, with the worst one being Shira.
Baki's eyes suddenly flickered with light before narrowing down in a sharp and dangerous glint at the surrounding enclosure.