A trio of colorful characters was making its way through the ending narrow layers of the desert that quickly transitioned into a urbaner and rather ancient surrounding. The change of scenery suggested both a social and a visual change, one left the endless desert of the Land of Wind only to enter a realm ruled by someone else entirely. Where the first one was ruled by the strongest, those who managed to take everything they needed, the second one was ruled by the Sheikh, who just for the sake of simplicity kept a very run in a similar manner ship.
One of these characters was a tall and slim man who almost looked like he was put together from bone and hay. His narrow arms and legs appeared almost skeletal and it would've been a surprise to anyone looking from aside as to how exactly could the man keep himself walking upright, his large round head was covered with a metallic mask that had two very clear details to it: a breathing and filtering apparatus that allowed the man to breathe without getting a mouthful of sand in the desert and large yellow googles that covered half his face.
The googles also had small little dots that scurried from one point of the yellow glass to another, telling the observer where exactly the wearer was focusing his attention. The man's hair looked nothing fancier than if someone slapped a handful of hay onto one's head and called it a hairdo, it appeared that only the man's large hat let the hair keep from scattering in the wind.
The other one wore a similar hat, with a hole at the back to let the man's long hair flow through it. The hat was meant to protect the man from the Sun and the hair needed no such protection. Differently from his friend the hat which the second traveler wore was a conical hat, whereas the first gentleman wore a more reminding of a cowboy hat accessory. Also setting the second man apart was a large poncho that the swordsman wore, probably where the man's nickname "the Poncho Assassin" came from.
It was a mystery how this Poncho Assassin didn't sweat to death under that unfitting piece of attire as compared to that of his teammates' which was more ragged, torn up and moderate. The slim friend of the Poncho assassin wore a torn up sleeveless white shirt meanwhile his bearded third friend wore something that resembled an almost Hawaiian shirt but it was soaked in too many different kinds of sauces, vomit and God knew what else to tell for sure.
The third one also wore a strange bandanna with all the different Sheikhate insignia. One may have assumed that such was to blend in wherever the man went but it would've more likely only pissed the locals off. After all, the man wore literally the signs of every Sheikhate and even the symbol of Sunagakure on his bandana. If it wasn't the headset that would've brought the bearded blonde trouble it would've been his terrible smell and an apparent lack of personal hygiene.
Either that or the man's evident slouch as well as his affinity to snag things before he blew them up, not because he was worried that the owners of these things would come after him, it was just that things tend to blow up around him and they couldn't have exactly been snagged or been of much use after an Earth shattering explosion, could they?
"I think you overdid it with the explosion..." The slim google-man whom everyone called just Denton remarked trying to bring up some manner of small talk with his teammates.
"I mean like... Can we really overdo anything in this life of ours... Like... Is something we overdo just more of our goal or a causality of our failure, or is it the causality of like... Our inevitable demise that like... Follows all of us as a species and is ultimately like... The fruit of our hubris?" The bearded man slurred, still high on Hat'ash he had consumed recently.
"Can I kill him now?" Poncho Assassin grunted, "He traded your projectile knives for drugs, he'll blow the whole fucking Sheikhate up when he gets the chance... Not that he'll wait for one." The man warned.
Denton sighed.
"I mean like when you say like that... I feel like we all may have made a mistake collectively but... Like... It's really easy to point fingers and blame someone but like... You have to look at it more as a human problem, a problem of us all as a species and shit..." The bearded explosion expert continued to speak while his friends erratically rubbed their temples.
"It's true that you may think we don't need him anymore but we do. There are also other reasons why we cannot kill him." Denton announced with a certain degree of sadness to his voice.
"Awww, this place is like... Pretty beautiful... It's so natural... Like... Sandstone on clay and it all smells like it was put together on camel poop. I like this place." The bearded man continued to speak
"Why? I mean I get it. Before we needed him to scare the Konoha kids to get lost in the Agbarah so we could have an excuse to pick them off but... Then you said he wouldn't be worth the blades it'd take to cut his throat, what now? I mean he just sold all of your blades, you had to go out of your way to restock your supply just so he could fuel his substance problem, what's to stop him from selling all of us into slavery for more drugs?" Poncho desperately tried to talk his partner into killing their explosive expert and dump his body in the desert, similarly to how the explosive expert got rid of the body of their female colleague previously.
Denton clacked his tongue annoyingly and reached up to the man's upper body, he ripped the upper parts of the man's shirt apart revealing a chest of scars and burns on the terrorist's chest. Right on the upper right corner of the man's chest laid a round seal with a curse word tattooed on the man's shoulder and surrounded by smaller kanji symbols.
"I mean like... I feel a lot of pent up anger coming from your directions but... I mean... Like... I get it... I killed Iyasha because we got a bit excited and I blew our bunker up, I get it. But I feel like both of you suffer from... Hey... Why are you tearing my shirt apart? Like... Come on... Not cool, man..." The bearded gent kept on needlessly bantering with a completely dizzy manner as Denton pointed at the seal on his chest and explained.
"I used to know him, back from the war, the fifth Desert Blitz. He fought on the side of Bethiod Sheikhate and I did as well. He placed this seal on his chest to be set off once he died. When his heart stops beating it will go off. If anything we're lucky that he's high on drugs all the time and harmless, we're lucky that he became this bumbling fool that he is now because the Shaziya I used to know would've sealed enough explosive chakra to blow up the goddamn world when he died." Denton explained to Poncho who just sighed and turned away.
"Yo, yo, man... Come on! I moved like... So past all the violence and all the murdering... I left all the Shaziya name thing behind, man... Now I'm like... Shazster, man, I told you. Why you so disrespecting me, man?" Shazster the bearded terrorist pushed his old war friend aside and tried to button his shirt back before realizing it was ruined.
"It would be the worst possible time to remind you that the fucking dolt keeps trying to blow himself up every chance he gets..." Poncho Assassin slapped his own forehead wiping the sweat off of it and using his own hat to ventilate a little bit as the three got deeper and deeper into Agbarah Sheikhate.
"I feel like you guys are like... Really misinformed about what Hat'ash is, man." Shazster brought up after a moment of uncomfortable and awkward silence.
"Please tell me that this goddamn addict terrorist is not about to lecture us about drugs!?" Poncho complained
"Hat'ash ain't no drug, man. It's like... A cracker and shit, it doesn't get you addicted to it, it doesn't even feel that pleasant really. It's just smoky with brain killing goodness, man." Shazster started his tirade.
"Shaziya was really pissed about Bethiod losing the fifth Blitz, he didn't get on Hat'ash to escape or to relax, he actively tried to mess his own brain up because he didn't want to deal with the world around him anymore. He blamed everyone around him for losing the war, he thought everyone around him was incompetent and he kept grunting how he needed to blow everyone to shits. I think part of it was because everyone he ever knew was killed during that Blitz, he didn't know too many people, most of them were other soldiers. One day he just started poisoning himself." Denton explained.
Shazster continued to stare at the sky, "Have you ever, like, thought... What'd it be like to like... Really communicate with the vultures? I mean like... Really communicate with them? They're like one step closer than us to space dolphins"
"Please don't get him talking about the space dolphins." Denton pleaded when Poncho curiously looked at his mentally damaged colleague.
"Space... Dolphins?" Poncho couldn't keep himself from asking.
"Prepare to have your minds... Like... Blown, gentlemen!" Shazster waved his hands around frantically making Denton crouch slightly expecting his unstable friend to actually blow something up.
*****
"So do you have the bag?" Denton asked a contact in the Sun Disc arena.
The trio had to meet a contact who was working for the Kazekage and who was partly responsible for intercepting the transportation of space-time that Shimo set off. Naturally, there was only one place in the entire Agbarah large enough and well known enough for the two groups to meet up. As Poncho looked around at what appeared to be a rather lazy day at the arena he noticed a couple of more suspiciously very careful and observant men mixed into the crowd. Working for the Kazekage as well, no doubt.
"Sure, there ya go. Did you run into any trouble?" The contact inquired before handing the bag.
"Yeah, we had to fight off the Konoha kids, they were really close to Agbarah and they were having two women on the team, that'd have gathered too much attention and we've discussed the possibility of killing the kids with the Kazekage if they trod too close to Agbarah," Denton explained.
"Is that guy OK? He looks really not well." The contact looked at Shazster who was apparently imitating some sort of a fight with his fingers as action figures.
"He is acting out an aerial battle of the Desert Blitz he took part in, he's our explosion expert," Denton replied.
"That ain't really cool though, the big man may want to bring someone in for those dead Konoha kids. Someone needs to take the fall, trust me, you don't want the fucking Chestnut Hanasaku ripping the chunk of the planet we're on and slinging it beyond the known Universe." The contact looked with rather intimidated and troubled eyes at the Shaphac members, he wasn't in a very pleasant position, having to ask those two to surrender someone and take the fall.
"That'll be no problem at all. You can have Shazster, he's ready to take the fall for the Shaphac." Denton explained gently leading his old friend to another seat right behind the contact.
Poncho suddenly looked at his colleague with newly enlightened eyes. The hat wearing swordsman wondered if giving up his old war friend was always the intention or if Denton just came up with it now. Truth be told, Denton's plan was kind of a success in the short term – he used Shazster's explosions to blow the Konoha kids up. It was so clear that Shazster did it that there'd be no questions about it and the man was too crazy to talk even if he wanted to. Still, a terrorist organization trod dangerous grounds dealing with the village administration.
"Just please keep him contained in a solid B-Rank or higher chakra containment barrier, things do tend to blow up around him and he has an affinity for Hat'ash." Denton lowered his head before standing up and gesturing for Shazster to stay. Obediently his friend kept on sitting close to the Sunagakure contact.
"Isn't Hat'ash not at all addictive? Why would he have an affinity for it?" The contact wondered scratching his head before Denton signaled for Poncho to leave too.
"That, my friend, is the story of your life! Like... Settle down for a tale of space dolphins, action, love, and mystery." Shazster declared as he wrapped his arm around the contact's shoulders and sat down close to him like the two were old buddies meeting up.
"Oh, and Shaziya." Denton turned around alerting Shazster to turn around.
"I'm Shazster, man! Come on!" The bearded fool yelled out.
"If you blow up anything at all in Agbarah, I'll shoot you in the fucking face with a kunai after stuffing five boxes of Hat'ash in your rear end so that when the Earth blows up from your seal you'll have to sniff the mixture of that shit and your own shit for the entirety of your final moments," Denton said angrily walking away with his poncho wearing friend.
"Jeez, man... Like... You could've just said, "Hey, Shazster, don't blow anything up, how 'bout that?", what do you think I am, some sort of a maniac? I sense a lot of pent up violence in you, friend, you need to like... Kick it way down, relax for once..." The blonde beardo yelled at his friend as he left and continued to converse with the Sunagakure contact while watching the fights. Granted that day was a slow one for the Sun Disc arena as nothing but settler refugees fought each other in various measuring skill contests that were meant for the Sheikh to determine their worth.
"Jeez, this place is like... So violent, man... I mean... Like... Can't they just talk it out and shit? Like... I don't know, have some sherbets, talk like rational human beings?" Shazster kept on sliding in strange pacifistic remarks in, once in a while, as if he wasn't just warned by his friend not to blow up everything around him.
"You gave up your old friend to be imprisoned..." Poncho said, more like a statement of the obvious than a question with any degree of disbelief or doubt.
"If Shaziya is safely imprisoned he won't blow up the world, he won't even blow up the village. The reason why I and the Kazekage had a temporary understanding is that both of us wish prosperity for the village and both of us need what the other has. Shaziya is safer behind a barrier, as powerful as they can muster, protecting the Earth from blowing up after that fool kills himself."
*****
"So what now?" Poncho wondered looking at Denton. Their condition at this point as well as their standing wasn't really clear. They had far too much Audra on their hands to not consider all options. If they just handed all of the shards to the Kazekage nothing guaranteed that the man would follow his word but his own word. The thought that the word of a man who negotiated with an underground terrorist organization that wished endless wars upon his village to ensure peace was not worth too much deserved at least to be considered once.
"Now we give the shards to the big man and you go home to your wife, we follow the rumors and news and listen for possible assignments. Our original plan to incite war between Konoha and Suna failed but there'll be many more opportunities. For now, we just need to settle down and wait, maybe I'll pick off a local politician or two in the meanwhile with different village insignia marked kunai, maybe that'll go somewhere, start something." Denton replied.
"Nah, I don't feel like going home to Tali. She supports our cause but I feel it's only because it's what I do, she's a white sheet of paper colored by whatever I do because she wants to support me." Poncho lowered his head as the shadow from the hat he wore covered his face up completely.
"Talia is a good woman, what we do isn't nice, it isn't what common villagers would understand but it is for the best. We've warred with the other villages the entire time ever since the first large settlements were made, spears were flung ever the first rock held firmly on the stick, we cannot afford to let them in, the last time we failed to keep them away they sacked the village and left not a grain of sand on another, all of them rained down Hell from above collectively, not a single village is innocent of slaughter and destruction. War is simpler, war is safer, we cannot afford peace and diplomacy." Denton sunk into memories.
"Were you there? During the Second Great Ninja War? When Suna got sacked?" Poncho also appeared to feel very interested in Denton's sinking into details to that specific event.
"No. Me and Shaziya were elsewhere, serving the Sheikhate that paid more at the time, back then the tensions were high already, once the great fat hand of the Kazekage was unable to do anything all the Sheikhs went at each other's throats that very instant. It's ironic really, some fools claim that losing meant the longest period of peace that Sunagakure has ever known, I say it lead to the bloodiest and dirtiest conflict to ever see the great desert Sun." Denton replied sulking and remembering old times.
"You know... I could always kill one or more politicians abroad dressed in Sunagakure gear, there are plenty events coming: from one of the million rallies in the Kirigakure's archipelagos to the upcoming Chuunin Exam in Konoha." Poncho suggested.
"We will definitely strike at the Chuunin Exams, we've got six months to come up with a plan but if you feel like you want to kill someone do it the other way around – kill Sunagakure politicians dressed in the Kirigakure uniform," Denton suggested
"People in Sunagakure are aware of our methods, I've killed too many officials in other villages' names. It's old news," Poncho replied.
"Very true but people hate Kirigakure now more than ever. The recent rallies at the Archipelago suggest that it may be time for Kirigakure to regain their independent rule, to elect a new Mizukage and let go of the village representatives and administrators. That outrages far too many commoners, even if in the depths of their hearts they'll know it is us, their wish for a reason to hate Kirigakure will work to our favor".
A sky piercing black figure dived from above slamming into the ground where Denton and Poncho were treading. The clouds separated where this figure dived downwards with a roaring punch that shook the ground beneath everyone's feet even while the boy restrained most of his force.
"Kouta!" Shimo grunted, "You could've caused another tsunami on the other side of the world!" He yelled out before the sand cloud cleaned up and a messy young man dug from countless layers above him.
"Sorry," he giggled "I restrained myself as much as I could but I think Meiko dropped me from too high up. Don't worry, it shouldn't reach the other side of the world, probably just a small quake at best." The young man apologized as he dusted off his messy and torn up desert attire.
A bubble of rotating winds appeared from the cloud of sand where Denton and the Poncho Assassin hid from the devastating punch that Kouta threw. A bubble of pure Wind Release chakra that Poncho created using the drawing of his sword and the natural momentum from it.
"We'll be taking that bag of Audra from you," Shimo said placing his hand on the handle of his own sword.
"We'll wish to hear all that you know about the location of Mana-chan, our VIP who got lost after your attack," Kouta added.
"And we also paid you douchebags back for that explosion back then!" Meiko yelled out angrily as she descended from above using her green tracksuit as a parachute and feint chakra bursts coming from her boots as jets that softened her landing.
Shimo and Kouta looked at Meiko confused why the girl yelled it out so loud.
"Sorry, I think the wind up there did something to my ears, or maybe it was Kouta's punch though!?" She yelled out again before instantly forgetting what she was talking about and concentrating on the enemy ahead of her.