A Hard Lesson from a Harsh Land

Posts : 126

The sand was littered with senbon; the air with smoke. What surely looked like a great battleground was occupied by two individuals. One was but a girl, although she wouldn't care to be referred to in such a crude fashion. The other was a man of experience. Each was garbed in a fashion befitting their life stories. The girl wore little more then what she was required to to be considered decent in public. The man, on the other hand, wore much more practical clothing to protect him from the elements. A cloak in sandy, dirt-like color almost allowed him to blend into the dunes all around. He seemed to float atop the fine powder-like sand that blanketed everything for as far as the eye could see. Clearly, he was a native of these lands, capable of making the most out of his home terrain.

The girl though... She seemed to have no grace when it came to the shifting sands. Either that or she simply had no stamina, for as she stepped her bare feet sunk into the sand, pitching her to the side, causing her other foot to come out to stop her stumble from turning into a tumble. She looked up through the mess of blonde tangles falling in her face at the man who stood before her some fifteen feet away. That was when she felt a sharp stinging sensation at the side of her neck.

"Shit!", She hissed, hand rising to pluck a senbon from the size of her neck. She knew the moment that it struck, it was one of her own senbon. It was poisoned. She reached down into the holster at her thigh, knowing she would need the antidote if she was to fight on. She had mere seconds, and she knew it. Her fingers fumbled as she tried to keep an eye on the man, but couldn't seem to find the injectors. Had she not been severely dehydrated and disoriented already she might have remembered that she had to use them all already.

Swallowing was becoming hard, her throat was burning something fierce, the muscles contracting down trying to choke the life right out of her. She sunk to her knees before collapsing stomach down in the sand. It wasn't long before she was puking her guts up on the and, struggling to stay conscious with the mere shallow breaths she could manage. Her struggle was a fruitless one, for once she had finished emptying the meager contents of her stomach, her head fell limp onto the sand signaling the end of her conscious fight against the poison coursing through her veins.

Fast-forward to the present. Izumi awakened in one of Suna's newly renovated hospitals wearing, of all things, one of those dreadful hospital gowns. It stuck to her like a wet t-shirt, the cloth being soaked through with the oily coating on her skin. It felt disgusting, the wet cloth and the weakness in her body. It was humiliating, to wake up in a hospital like this. It made her want to kick and scream in a sort of temper tantrum... but that would have to wait.

First there was the matter of this.. garment. She ripped and clawed at it in what probably looked like an insane fit, tearing it off and throwing it across the room. Her anger seemed futile in the stark white room, like that of a small child pounding their fists against the chest of their father to no avail. She sat there like that a while before a voice addressed her from outside the room.

"Silly girl. Put these on and let's go.", he said with his back to the door as he flung in two familiar pieces of fabric in purple, her clothes. "Not a word from you either. I don't want to hear it until you have learned your lesson. I'll break you of your feeble wetland ways yet." His voice carried on with a sneer at the mention of her homeland. She whimpered as she sat there tying the knots that held the swimsuit in place, wondering what would happen if she didn't learn it this time? It make her hands tremble, knees shake. She didn't want to go back into the desert again, he'd kill her this time!

Over her dead body would she go with him again! No sooner had she tied her top on then she jumped up to make a break for it. She had taken two steps at a run before her legs gave out under her and she began to fall forward. Luckily for her there was someone there to catch her, having known this would happen. Before she had any thoughts of trying to slip away, she had already been slid up onto his shoulder, her gut speared on his shoulder in her position with her butt in the air.

"Did you think you were the first? That I've never seen them run before? ..Silly girl, you're still drugged. Now hold still, your getting oil all over my cloak..", he said matter of factly as he carried her right out of the hospital and through town towards the scorching sands. When at last he dumped her right back where they began he looked down at her with contempt. Perhaps he was being overly harsh... but their enemies would be no less so. It was time that the girl learned.

"Prepare yourself. You'll learn what I have to teach you, even if I have to kill you to do it.", and with those words fresh off his lips he turned and began counting out paces as he walked away. She had barely managed to stumble to a stand when he uttered "ten", and turned to continue their training.

Posts : 126

They both stood for a moment, tension rising while they watched each other for the smallest twitch which might indicate action of some sort. A gust of wind blew sand grains at the them as they waited in the typical Mexican standoff. The first motion was the shaking of her legs as they buckled under her weight, nearly dropping her back down into the sand. She felt a lightness in her head which was swimming in a sea of heat exhaustion. It was trouble enough just to stay balanced on her feet, let alone any sort of training.

Her trainer stood across from her, simply watching and judging her current state. Blind siding her no longer had any purpose. He knew she would be unable to detect an attack coming from any area other then directly in her line of view. She'd be lucky to make out a shiruken flying through the air with how blurred her vision must be. He'd have to use something with a larger cross sectional area while flying at you, something like a kunai.

He drew the decided upon projectile slowly from his holster, watching her eyes move for recognition of the draw. With painstakingly slow motions he brought it up to his opposite shoulder, using a typical elbow snap motion to throw the Kunai. It was a simpler then simple attack, the slow flying kunai moving straight out to strike high and outside on Izumi's right shoulder. It was an attack that she would be able to dodge, even in her pitiful state. ..But she had been dodging all day. Certainly by now she had to be figuring out that wasn't the point of this exercise. But she was just a wetlander, he couldn't expect her to understand the point of this training.

Seeing the Kunai flying in she leaned out of the way well in advance of when the kunai would strike. Her trainer sighed as she took the easy way out yet again. He had a shiruken in his hand in a flash, his hand moving quicker then the eye. It was then he noticed her arm rising up, grabbing the handle of the kunai as it flew wide. She spun with it in her hand, telling herself to release once he entered her field of vision again. The kunai flew out of her hand and upward into the air angled out from her intended target. She watched the kunai flying upward, perplexed at how she missed. She was completely unaware of the angle of the dunes relative to her shifting until she landed on her back in the sand, looking up into the sky with half open eye lids.

Had he been any slower she wouldn't have seen him at all before unconsciousness took her once again. As it was, she only saw a blur of darkness as his cloak bathed her form in shade, eyes slipping shut in exhaustion. Everything went dark for her as her eyes closed, blissful deliverance from worldly pains being gifted upon her sprawled form.

When next light intruded into her world it seemed very harsh. Her eyes cracked open only enough for her to wince and groan as dark spots lit up her vision. Voices soon followed, seeming distant even as they loomed over her.

"We put her on a saline drip. It will be a few days before she is back on her feet, but she should make a full recovery.", that was what a normal person would hear, but Izumi could barely make out that it was someone that she recognized. In her stupor she couldn't come up with who it was though. She didn't have long to contemplate it though before she had slipped off once again. Her next memory was being helped up to a sitting position, propped up with pillows so that she could eat jello.

On and on it went until nearly a week later when they released her from their care. She was being escorted home by one of her cousins when she caught a glimpse of something flashing in the light. It was moving, and rapidly at that. It was then that she noticed that it was headed right at her cousin, who was no ninja, that was for sure. Before she might have taken the hit for her cousin, not being able to stop it in any other fashion... but something came over her. It was a trained response in her muscles, her hand darting out to fish the flying needle right out of the air, sweeping it around before throwing it right back at where it had come from.

The heightened velocity of the senbon caused it to hit with a THWACK! sound as it struck a wooden cart. The shaft had bored clear into the wood, leaving only half the needle sticking out as the other half was embedded in the wood. In front of the cart was a man in a sand colored cloak. She only saw him for but a moment before a civilian in a suit passed between them. In that instant that her vision was blocked, he vanished with a knowing grin. "Not bad for a wetlander", he thought to himself as he disappeared into the village.

She looked on, trying to figure out what just happened when her cousin grabbed her around the middle and whisked her off as if she were but a doll. She hadn't looked in a mirror yet or she would have conceded that she looked like she had lost some weight. The large arms of a manual labor had her in a tight grip, bearing her home with a false sense of urgency. Little did either know that the man in the cloak had followed them home.

While she was still weak, and subsequently needed protection, she would be amazed to find how fast she had grown for it. If she could spot and catch a senbon when she was too out of it to be allowed to leave the hospital on her own, she could possibly catch dozens once her health returned. While she was just beginning to learn the lesson in her head, her body was already catching on. Perhaps she had some potential to be brought out of her yet.

~Fin~