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As they crossed the invisible line separating the Land of Wind from the borderlands with Earth, the air turned more serious.
Pakura's squad stopped abruptly upon cresting a small rocky hill. In front of them, several columns of black smoke rose toward the gray sky. They were unmistakable signs of explosions and the chaos sown by the Iwa ninjas.
Pakura, as leader, knew this mission wouldn't be easy. Unlike the younger shinobi in her team, she had participated in enough conflicts to recognize the danger of facing a well-trained Iwa detachment.
Those men weren't simple bandits; they were disciplined soldiers who had invaded and annihilated everything in their path.
"We're stopping here," Pakura ordered firmly, breaking the sepulchral silence.
"Recon and intel team, go gather clues about our targets. The rest, set up immediate defenses. Don't let your guard down for a single second."
Her subordinates nodded and dispersed with efficiency. Pakura, for her part, spread a map over a flat rock. Her fingers traced possible escape and ambush routes.
She knew Iwa was playing a dangerous political game: by wearing down Suna with these incursions, they ensured the Village Hidden in the Sand couldn't fulfill its peace agreements with Konoha.
On the Great War board, Suna was a piece Iwa needed to neutralize before the balance tipped toward the Land of Fire and they had to fight two villages at once.
"If we're twenty-six against twenty, we have the numerical advantage," she whispered to herself, but a bad feeling gripped her chest.
"But Iwa never sends groups this large into enemy territory just to loot. There's something more." Her thoughts were interrupted by a dull explosion less than five hundred meters away. It wasn't thunder.
"Captain! They're coming from the west flank!" shouted one of her scouts, returning at full speed with a pale face.
From among the rocks emerged the Iwa ninjas. They weren't twenty, as the initial reports indicated. There were at least twenty-five, and at the head walked a man of robust build and sadistic gaze: Gari.
The Suna ninjas tried to maintain their defensive formation, but the first wave of attacks was devastating.
Gari didn't use complicated seals. He simply struck the air, and a shockwave knocked down the three shinobi manning the front barricade.
The bodies flew through the air before internal explosions of their own organs silenced them forever.
"It's the Explosion Corps!" Pakura roared, instantly summoning four spheres of heat that began orbiting around her like miniature suns.
"Dispersal formation! Don't let them close the distance!"
The battle turned into chaos of screams and detonations. Pakura charged forward, her Shakuton spheres whistling through the air. With a fluid motion, she launched one at a group of attackers; upon contact, the water in their bodies evaporated instantly, leaving them like dried mummies in the middle of the battlefield. But for every Iwa ninja that fell, two more seemed to take their place.
"Not bad a Shakuton user. Too bad you're going to die here," Gari's voice resonated right behind her.
Pakura, feeling her instincts scream to dodge, spun on her heels deflecting a fist charged with explosive chakra with a burst of intense heat.
The collision created a shockwave that cracked the ground beneath their feet.
Pakura shook her head and propelled herself backward to gain distance. She had heard about the Explosion Corps and especially its leader Gari a highly dangerous close-combat fighter compared to Kirigakure's Kaguya clan thanks to their respective bloodlines. The only difference was that Gari used explosions as basic attacks.
Perhaps against Gari she would have been a difficult opponent in the past, but she was no longer the same Pakura from years ago.
She had improved, and she was confident she could defeat Gari in a one-on-one.
So without hesitation, she began launching her heat spheres at Gari who, seeing them coming, didn't hesitate to slam his palms against the ground, creating a thick earth wall.
It blocked the first one, but the second pierced the wall like butter, melting the figure behind it which was an earth clone.
Pakura didn't fall for that. Using a chakra cloak on her fist, she struck to her right colliding with Gari's fist, which exploded on contact.
"You think a simple chakra cloak can stop my explosions?" Gari asked, using his other fist to launch another strike.
"I never thought about stopping your explosions," Pakura said as her last heat sphere approached from behind
Gari who, seeing the sphere coming, Preferred to counter by directing his fist that was supose to going toward Pakura and last second changed it toward the heat sphere using his explosion to propel himself away and avoid the heat blast.
Pakura who emerged unscathed from her own jutsu's heat only looked at her arm, which was slightly purple from the strong blow.
Though not as bad as Gari who, despite dodging, had his clothes especially his upper part disappeared, leaving a severe burn on his torso.
"Seems you're more resilient than I thought. Maybe two will be needed to finish you off," Pakura said, creating three more heat spheres.
"You caught me off guard that won't happen again. You must be Pakura, right? There were rumors in Iwa about a prodigy with Shakuton in Suna. In the end, it was worth coming on this mission now I can remove a threat for the future," Gari said, ready for the second round.
Though this time Gari wasn't alone two Iwa ninjas landed beside him, ready to join.
At this, Pakura only shook her head and observed her surroundings, noticing how her shinobi wouldn't last much longer if things continued this way.
Without wasting words, Pakura charged toward the first one who attacked her with quick body strikes to finish him with a blow to the chest. One less though Pakura wasn't one to let them recover, so along with the body, a heat sphere headed toward him.
With Gari and the other, they weren't so foolish to jump for there dead. Instead of attacking head-on this time, they created several earth walls around Pakura, trapping her inside.
Then, with a palm slam from Gari against the wall, he made it explode making a lot of small pieces of earth flew at high speed toward her.
The other ninja did the same but differently since he didn't have the Explosion Release, he used explosive tags and then detonated them.
Seeing the attacks, Pakura knew her spheres wouldn't be enough to block everything and she would end up injured though that wasn't her only technique.
She had created new ones thanks to Daigo's help, and it was time to show them.
Forming hand seals quickly, Pakura used her new jutsu.
"Shakuton: Shakunetsu Hadō (Scorch Release: Searing Pulse)"
Pakura who was in the middle of the attacks released a circular explosion of extreme heat chakra from her body, forming a thermal wave that expanded in all directions, melting all the earth pieces flying toward her.
After the smoke cleared, a Pakura in perfect condition emerged as if nothing had happened.
Though instead of attacking Gari and the other shinobi again, she moved quickly toward her squad.
"Retreat to the canyon!" Pakura ordered her remaining men. Knowing they wouldn't win even if she held Gari.
Looking around, her heart sank. Of her twenty-six men, only fifteen remained standing and many were injured. The roles had been reversed.
The retreat helped the Suna ninjas start fleeing—but not without having all the remaining Iwa ninjas chasing them like madmen, launching explosives and all kinds of jutsu and ninja tools.
Pakura, for her part while keeping one hand focused on her heat sphere used the help scroll to request reinforcements as quickly as possible.
"It doesn't matter if you call for reinforcements—they won't arrive in time to save them from dying to my explosions," Gari's voice said from behind them.
Pakura analyzed the situation with a coldness born of desperation. Iwa's hunters' plan was perfect: they had pushed them into a dead end.
If they kept fleeing as a group, they would be annihilated one by one from behind. Reinforcements from the village might arrive quickly though no one could guarantee that
She saw a young chūnin barely a child who couldn't be more than thirteen holding his broken arm while trying to keep up with the group.
She saw the fear in her comrades' eyes men and women who trusted her to see the Suna sun again.
"If I don't stop here, they'll all die," she thought.
Looking at the situation, her pride as a kunoichi and mission leader wouldn't allow those expressions on their faces.
Perhaps if Daigo were in her position, he would do the same thing she was about to do.
She stopped dead in a narrow section of the canyon where the rock walls prevented passing any other way, making it the perfect place for her idea.
"Keep going and find reinforcements!" she shouted to her men her voice resounding with an authority that allowed no denial.
"Head to the dry river crossing until the Suna border! That's a direct order!"
"But Captain, we can't leave you alone against the ninjas left!" shouted one of the shinobi—the most veteran of all.
"I said go—I won't hold out much longer!" Pakura said
Seen that she need to stop them, her heat chakra was so intense that the air around her began to distort, turning orange from the high temperature in the area.
The Suna shinobi with tears of helplessness in their eyes obeyed. They didn't know Pakura well enough to know she would make this sacrifice for them but they had heard how strong she was, along with her strength in becoming a jōnin at an early age.
Perhaps she would manage to survive and emerge alive from this battle to tell Suna that she wasn't a ninja who would die for nothing.
Pakura turned to face the approaching Iwa group. Gari stopped a few meters away, raising a hand so his men wouldn't fire yet.
"A heroic sacrifice?" Gari asked with a twisted smile.
"I imagine you think it's a poetic end—though it's a shame that after finishing you off, they'll be next."
Pakura didn't respond with words. She joined her hands in a seal that made her veins stand out on her arms.
The ground beneath her feet began to crystallize from the extreme heat. Her four original spheres multiplied, surrounding her in a crown of solar fire that illuminated the canyon as if it were midday.
"I'm not alone," Pakura whispered her vision starting to blur from the intense heat in the area, but her will firmer than ever.
"I still have the honor of my village. Come for me I cook you alive, Iwa dogs!" Pakura said, launching her first two heat spheres toward her enemies.
While her team disappeared into the distance, Pakura unleashed all her power becoming a beacon of absolute incineration, willing to consume her own chakra so her men could live to see a new dawn.
End of the chapter