Karura was in the kitchen with Yashamaru on her lap, feeding him spoonfuls of rice between his breathless account of something that had happened at the academy the day before, when someone knocked on the door sharply.
Yashamaru leaped from her lap like a startled bunny. It was too embarrassing to still be fed by his big sister in front of strangers. He was going to become a respectable ninja just like his sister. There was no way he could take a hit to his reputation by letting people think he was a big baby.
Her mother opened the door. A shinobi in a sand-colored flak jacket stood on the step, a sealed scroll in his hand.
"Genin Karura. Team Ebizo is requested at the assignment desk. Immediately."
Yashamaru's spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. His violet eyes went wide. "A mission?"
"Sounds like it." Karura set him down and wiped the rice from her fingers. "I have to go, Yasha."
"But you just got back from the last one!"
"That was two weeks ago."
"Aw man…" Yashamaru realized she had been home for a while.
Karura knelt in front of him. She put her hands on his shoulders. "I'll be back soon. And when I am, I'll teach you two new kicks instead of one. Deal?"
"Three kicks."
"Two."
"Two and a half."
"I don't know what a half kick is.."
"Two kicks and you let me go in your workshop."
"..." Karura looked at him. "As long as you promise not to touch anything." She kissed the top of his head, grabbed her mission pack from her room, and ran.
…
The assignment desk was quieter than usual. Most genin teams were already deployed or on leave, and the hall felt empty. Ebizo stood near the windows with the scroll already open, reading. Mai leaned against the wall beside him, arms crossed, bouncing on her heels. Pakura was there too, standing apart from the others with her arms folded.
"You're late." Pakura pointed out.
"I was having breakfast with my family."
"How sickeningly cute."
"Breakfast was sweet." Karura nodded. "How did you know?"
"That's not-"
Ebizo cleared his throat. "Now that we're all here." He laid the scroll flat on the desk surface and the three genin gathered around it.
"B-rank. Assassination." His finger traced the text as he spoke. "A civilian named Doma has established a criminal operation in the Land of Salt. He arrived roughly eight months ago with money, hired muscle, and enough ambition to corner the country's entire salt export market. Every trade caravan that used to run through Wind Country's network now goes through his operation. He takes a cut so deep the miners see almost nothing for their labor."
"Stealing from our nation…" Karura understood.
"Redirecting trade that funds our village. The council considers it a direct threat to Suna's financial stability. The Wind Daimyo wants him gone as well." Ebizo's eyes moved across the three of them. "The target is to be eliminated and his operation dismantled. The complication is that he employs hired muscle, several dozen civilian fighters, and likely hired shinobi."
"So we can't just kick down the door and kick this guy's butt?" Mai said.
"No. The Land of Salt depends on Suna for protection. We can't leave a trail of bodies in their streets and call it a favor." Ebizo looked at Pakura. "Which is why we're doing this differently."
Pakura's chin lifted a fraction. She'd already read the situation before Ebizo finished describing it. "I'll go in."
"You go in. Transformation Jutsu. You enter the compound as a hired hand and work your way close to the target. When the opportunity presents itself, you kill him."
"And the shinobi?"
"Handle them as necessary. The priority is Doma. The shinobi are secondary targets."
"What about us?" Mai jabbed a thumb at herself and Karura.
"We create pressure from the outside. Hit his supply lines. Raid his shipments. Disrupt his income until he panics and consolidates his forces inside the compound. The more distracted he is by what we're doing to his business, the less attention he pays to what's happening under his own roof."
Karura studied the scroll. The Land of Salt sat south of Wind Country, a flat, mineral-rich territory economically dependent on salt exports. Small population. No standing army. The kind of place where a man with money and no morals could build a kingdom out of other people's labor.
"How long does Pakura need inside?" Karura asked.
"Depends on the target's routine. Three days minimum to learn the layout and find an opening. Maybe more."
"I won't need more." Pakura stated.
Ebizo spoke to her sternly. "Don't be arrogant."
"..." Pakura was momentarily surprised by the sternness in her sensei's voice. "I won't. Trust in me. I've learned a lot from my parents these past two weeks…" She said somewhat softer than she usually would.
Mai snickered. Pakura glared at her.
"Okay, I'll trust you. We leave within the hour," Ebizo said. "Pack for a week. Light gear."
"Understood."
"One more thing." Ebizo's voice dropped half a register. "The people in the Land of Salt are civilians. Miners, laborers, families. They're suffering under this man's operation. We do our job and we leave them better off than we found them, not worse. Understood?"
"Yes, Sensei," Karura said. Actually looking forward to that part the most.
"Yeah, yeah," Mai yawned.
"Mai." Ebizo looked at her.
"I will take it seriously! Geez! I'm not just a Suna ninja because it's cool. I care about our nation too!"
Ebizo smiled.
They left within the hour.
…
The Land of Salt was not the prettiest place Karura had ever seen. If she could be generous.
She'd thought the Land of Dust was bleak, with its cracked hardpan and dying settlements and people who looked like they'd forgotten what green was. But the Land of Dust had at least been a place where things had once grown. You could see the old irrigation channels, the ghost of what the landscape used to be. There was loss in it, which meant there had been something worth losing.
The Land of Salt was the floor of a sea that had died before anyone living was born. It ran flat and white to the horizon on every side, mile after mile of dried brine baked into a crust of pale polygons, each tile rimmed by a low ridge where it had buckled against the next. The crust crunched and gave underfoot, hard in some places and thin in others, with damp grey salt-mud waiting under the spots that hadn't set.
There was no shade anywhere and nowhere for the eyes to rest. The sun came down white and bounced back off the ground almost as bright, so that within an hour everyone was squinting through stinging, watering slits, and looking too long at the open flat left dark blooms swimming across everything after. The air was dry to the point of pain and it tasted of salt, a thin mineral bite that pulled the water from lips and eyes and split them by midday. Heat stood off the surface in a shimmer that pooled into false water in the distance, and with no rock or scrub or rise anywhere to set against, the far edge of the plain could have been a mile off or five. Out here a person learned fast not to trust their own eyes.
"My eyes hurt…" Mai cried as she wiped her eyes behind her glasses.
"Wrap your face." Ebizo said.
"I can barely see as it is with these glasses!"
Karura pulled her scarf up over her nose and mouth. The fabric filtered the worst of the salt-tinged air, but it couldn't do much about the brightness. She activated the Byakugan behind her transformation, and the world snapped into a different kind of clarity. Chakra signatures appeared in the distance. Structures. The faint outlines of a settlement taking shape through the glare.
"Mai, what can you see ahead?" Karura asked.
"Huh?" Mai actually focused with her glasses. "Up ahead, There's the village I think. Tiny buildings, construction. There's a building on the eastern edge. Guards at the gate. I can see people inside."
"How many?"
She counted the chakra signatures, filtering by location. "In the building, around thirty. The village itself has maybe a thousand."
"Thirty in the compound," Ebizo murmured. "That matches the intelligence."
They kept moving while they stayed low. It was during the hours when the sun's angle created the worst glare, making them harder to spot from the settlement's walls. By late afternoon they'd circled to the northern hills, a low ridge of pale stone that overlooked Shiokaze from a kilometer out.
The settlement sat in a shallow depression between two ridges, buildings clustered around a central road. The compound dominated the eastern edge, a walled enclosure of stone and timber that was newer and taller than anything around it. Ten-foot walls. Sharpened stakes along the top. A gate flanked by guards, manned by men with all sorts of weaponry.
"They definitely aren't ninja." Mai said, studying the guards through the Byakugan embedded in her glasses. "The two shinobi are deeper inside. They have bigger chakra. One on the second floor of the main building. One moving along the far wall."
Ebizo nodded. "Mark their positions for Pakura."
Mai described the layout. Every building, every gate, every guard post, every blind spot. She mapped everything she was asked to. Pakura listened with her arms folded, her brown eyes tracking the compound in the distance, memorizing the information deep in her brain.
"The servants or slaves are on the north wall," Mai said. "Few people are around there. One guard, and he doesn't check people coming in. The barracks are on the west side. The main building, where the ninjas are, is at the back."
"The ninja there," Pakura said. "Woman or man?"
"Woman. Fat woman."
"Trained."
"Maybe? She's holding a halberd."
"And the one on the second floor?"
"Man. Skinny like a twig. He stays close to the main building. Barely moves."
Pakura uncrossed her arms. "Bodyguard for the target. She handles security, he handles proximity protection."
Mai nodded. That matched what she was seeing.
The team made camp behind the ridge, invisible from the settlement. Ebizo built no fire. They ate fresh hot food from Karura's 'scroll'. It was really from her kekkei genkai. Scrolls don't keep food hot and fresh or anything like that.
"Your dad really knows how to cook. What's his bakery called? I gotta visit next time I get the chance." Mai spoke while eating.
"Chew before you speak. That's disgusting." Pakura scooted slightly away from Mai.
"Sunagakure's Bakery." Karura told her.
"Simple, huh? I like it!" Mai replied.
As the sun dropped and the temperature plummeted, because the Land of Salt held no heat after dark. The white plains went from blinding to ghostly, reflecting moonlight in a pale glow that made the landscape look like it was made of bone.
Pakura stood at the edge of the camp, looking south toward the settlement.
Karura joined her. She held out a cactus fruit from her pack.
Pakura took it. Bit into it. Chewed without comment.
"Are you nervous?" Karura asked.
"No."
"It's okay if you are."
"I said I'm not." Pakura took another bite. Juice ran down her chin and she wiped it with the back of her hand. "Four days of pretending to be someone I'm not, in a building full of idiots, working for a man who deserves to die. There's nothing to be nervous about."
"I can go in your place if you feel like it." Karura offered.
Pakura glared at Karura for even uttering those words. A look of anger, disgust, and rage welled up before she could stop it. Her palm shook as she kept herself from smacking Karura. "Don't you dare pity me. Don't you ever look down on me. I don't care how gifted you might be, that doesn't mean I am lesser than you and need your help! I'll catch up to you one day and surpass you!" She stood up and stormed off before Karura could apologize.
Mai whistled in the background.
"What crawled up her butt?" Mai took a squat next to her.
"I may have said something insensitive…" Karura realized.
"Ah, don't let it get you down. Everyone knows you're the nicest person ever. If anyone finds a problem with you, everyone knows that they're the issue not you." Mai pulled her cheek.
"I still feel bad... Pakura is our friend."
"Ehhhhhh…" Mai made a groaning sound. "Friend might be pushing it…" She cackled. "We tolerate the princess. I don't know if we're on her level enough to be considered friends."
"Shut up, Mai." Karura giggled. "She's our friend. Even if she is a little…" she couldn't say the word.
"I don't think she'd ever admit that about us, but whatever you say." Mai shrugged.
They split at dawn.
Ebizo, Karura, and Mai stayed behind the ridge. Pakura walked south alone, her silhouette shrinking against the white flats until the salt haze swallowed her and she was gone.
She found a dry creek bed a hundred meters from the town's edge and knelt in the white dust. Her hands formed the seals and a poof of smoke obscured her body.
The transformation settled over her, and she let it reshape everything. Her green hair darkened to a dusty brown and fell past her shoulders, lank and unwashed. Her face broadened, the sharp features flattening into something common. Her eyes stayed brown but lost their edge. The sleeveless top and short pants dissolved into a grey tunic, worn trousers, scuffed sandals. Bandages on the forearms, the kind laborers used.
She checked her reflection in a puddle of stale water pooled in the creek bed. A loser stared back.
Good enough.
She walked into Shiokaze.
The compound's gate was open. Two guards leaned against their posts looking bored enough to be dead if it weren't for the occasional scratching and spitting. One was picking at something between his teeth. The other stared at the sky like it owed him money.
"Looking for work," Pakura said.
Tooth-picker looked her over. "What kind?"
"The kind that pays."
"Everybody wants the kind that pays. What can you do?"
"I can fight. I can stand on a wall. I can keep my mouth shut when someone tells me to." She shrugged one shoulder. "That's more than half the people you've got in there."
The guard snorted. Then he looked at her again, a second pass, to see if he recognized her. She was young and thin and plain-faced and exactly the sort of desperate lowlife that Doma's operation attracted.
"Find Bara. Bald guy, big, scar on his chin. He's in the barracks." He jerked his thumb toward the gate. "Tell him Kenta sent you."
"Got it."
She walked through.
The compound was bigger inside than it looked from the wall. A central courtyard surrounded by low buildings. Men loitering everywhere, the hired-thug variety, leather vests and bad attitudes and the confidence of people who'd been told they could hurt others without consequences. She counted twelve in the courtyard, more in the buildings. The main building sat at the back, two stories, glass windows, a lacquered door. Nicer than everything around it.
She found Bara in the barracks. He was everything the guard described, a man the size of a small building with a scar that split his chin in half. He sat behind a table covered in paper and empty cups and looked at Pakura with a nasty look.
"Kenta sent me," she said.
"Kenta sends everyone."
"Name's Ren. I can fight, I can follow orders, and I don't ask stupid questions."
Bara studied her. Small. Young. Unremarkable. The assessment took three seconds and she could see the exact moment he decided she wasn't worth more than that.
"South wall, sundown to midnight. Ten ryo a day. You eat what the kitchen serves. You sleep where I point. Don't steal, don't talk to the boss unless he talks to you first, and don't cause problems or you're dead."
"Got it."
"Get out."
She got out.
And she settled in.
The work was nothing. Stand on the wall. Haul crates. Run errands. Fetch this, carry that, move those boxes from here to there and don't drop them. The kind of mindless labor that existed to fill time between shifts, keeping bodies busy so they didn't get bored enough to cause trouble.
The people were nothing either.
Heki, a lanky thug with a crooked nose, cornered her near the storehouses on her first evening and told her the south wall shift was the worst and she'd better get used to freezing her ass off all night. She told him to worry about his own ass. He laughed and called her a dumb fucking brat before he walked away. She was already forgotten.
A pair of guards twice her size blocked the kitchen door one morning and told her new hires ate last. She looked at them, looked at the door, and said "I'll wait."
The thing was, and this surprised no one who knew Pakura except possibly Pakura herself, she was good at this.
The thug part. The blunt, graceless, say-what-you-mean-and-nothing-else way that Doma's hired muscle communicated with each other. Someone told you to do something, you either did it or told them to do it themselves, and whatever happened after that was between you and their fists.
It was how Pakura had been talking to people her entire life. The only difference was that here, nobody expected better.
She didn't have to perform politeness. Didn't have to fake respect for people who hadn't earned it. The transformation disguised her face, not her personality, and her personality fit this place well. When a thug talked down to her, she talked down right back. When someone tested her boundaries, she pushed. Not enough to stand out. Just enough to establish that "Ren" was the kind of person you didn't waste energy hassling because he either kicked you in the balls or knocked you out another way.
By the second day, nobody bothered her. She was just another goon. Unremarkable and unmemorable and exactly where she wanted to be.
She watched the daily life of the compound. Guard rotations. Meal times. Which doors were locked and which ones weren't. She mapped the routes the two shinobi took through the compound, the lean man who rarely left Doma's building and the fat woman who walked around at unpredictable times.
She saw Doma for the first time on her second evening.
He came out of the main building flanked by the lean shinobi and two of his largest goons. Short. Fleshy. Gold rings on thick fingers. Silk clothes that were too fine for a mining town and too tight for the body wearing them. His face was round and oiled, his small eyes buried in soft cheeks, and he walked with a waddle.
Everyone in the courtyard moved out of his path. Not with fear, exactly. Just, no one wanted to mess with their employer and get on their bad side.
"The southern shipment is late," Doma said to the lean shinobi. His voice was soft. "Find out why. If the caravan master is skimming, bring him to me. If it's bandits, handle it."
"And if it's shinobi?"
Doma's lips curved. "Handle it louder."
They disappeared into the kitchen. Pakura stood at the edge of the courtyard.
That night, she lay on her bedroll in the barracks, surrounded by snoring thugs. Through the thin walls, voices carried from the main building. Doma's soft tone. A subordinate reporting.
"...the miners in the eastern field are asking for better rates again."
"Tell them what I told them last time."
"They've stopped working. Twelve of them. Sitting in the field refusing to dig."
A pause. Then Doma, gentle as a lullaby.
"Bring the youngest one's family. His wife and the boy. Put them in the storage room behind the kitchen. Don't hurt them. Not yet."
"And then?"
"Tell the miner his family is enjoying my hospitality, and they'll continue enjoying it until he and his friends remember what they're being paid to do." A pause. "If he doesn't dig by morning, cut off one of the boy's fingers. If he still doesn't dig by noon, cut off two more."
Pakura stared at the ceiling.
She was going to kill this man. And she was going to enjoy it.
Not the act itself. She wasn't a sadist. But the satisfaction of removing something rotten from the world, of putting her hand on a throat that deserved to be crushed and squeezing until the voice behind it stopped forever, that she could enjoy. That was earned.
I'll show him what safe looks like.
She closed her eyes.
For the first time since arriving in the Land of Salt, Pakura slept well.