Grasping at the Sky

Chapter 24: Confession

The one thing Kira had always hated about her ANBU mask was the lack of ventilation. Sure she could breath just fine, there was no problem there, but whoever designed the Leaf styled ninja mask had been more worried about other things. She supposed being able to seeing your full spectrum and making sure it wouldn't fall off were far more important than any discomfort the wearers own breath might cause. But it was there.

It was a personal sauna of hot air that never ended as her breath hit the mask an inch in front of her and was forced back onto her face. Most of the time is didn't bother her, but with how hot it had been lately it only made wearing the damn thing more annoying.

Curse Shura and his stupid veil counting as a mask.

"Everything alright?" Aya's voice was muffled from behind her own ANBU mask, the blond having changed formation slightly to get close enough in order to talk privately. Off hand, Kira wondered if her friend's face was as sweaty as her own. It had been a long time - before the war - since she'd been on a real ANBU mission with her teammates. One could say this wasn't a normal mission, she realized, her eyes darting to the side and slightly behind to catch the shadow of Gaara running beside her. In some ways, it was like her job hadn't changed at all. Team Fukurō had been assigned as the squad to escort the Kazekage across the land to the Hidden Leaf. After talking it over with Kankurō and Kira, it had seemed best to send more than just Kira along with the redhead due to the situation at hand.

Kira remembered talking with Gaara about the events the day of the fire and how it had been decided to send some ninja out to look into it. There were weird happenings near the border of the two nations. It had started with random village raids in the area that had occurred in the last month or two. Nothing extremely valuable had been taken, mostly food and normal everyday supplies. Except those ninja had been gone over a week now when it should have only been a few days at most. It wasn't too uncommon for ninja to not check in during undercover or investigation missions due to the fact that they had to not look suspicious. Gaara had said to give them a few more days, and they would have, if not for the fact that later that same day they'd received a letter flown in by hawk from the Leaf, or more precisely, from Kakashi, the current Hokage.

The letter had detailed that a ninja squad had been returning from a mission and had stumbled upon human remains near the border. After investigating the corpses, they had come to the conclusion that a fight had broken out and that the deceased were Suna ninja three days expired. Descriptions and names from the belongings had matched up with the squad that had been sent out to investigate the raids. They were dead and they'd been laid out where someone would find them.

They were a message, and with the incidents so close to the border it had been agreed that the two Kages needed to consult on the matter at hand before proceeding. If all went as planned, Gaara would stay in Konoha to discuss further trade agreements with Kakashi, while team Fukurō went to deal with the problem. Kira had no doubt that they could handle whatever was going on. The last group had been newer, unseasoned ninja and the rank of the mission had only been C. Now that mission had been changed to S rank given the deaths and ANBU were trained for high-risk missions.

Still, something about all of this still bothered Kira, but the shadow user couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe it was just the normal anxiety of being out on a mission again after playing guard for so long within the walls of Suna.

Looking back to her friend Kira gave a slight nod of her head. "Something about all of this just seems weird, like we're missing something." It was weird, having to try and figure out missing pieces to a mission again, another thing she'd been getting rusty at. Funny, how fast those skills dull.