The desert winds howled fiercely, whipping up endless sand. Visibility dropped to almost nothing in the swirling yellow storm.
The sky was gloomy and dull—everything within sight was just sand, a world buried in it.
Inside the sandstorm, a group of people crouched silently beneath a makeshift wind shelter, waiting for the storm to pass.
"How much longer?"
Kagetsu turned to a nearby ninja wearing a Sand Village forehead protector—Jonin Baki, now the right-hand man of the Fourth Kazekage.
"Not much. We're already in the core area. Once the storm clears, we'll reach Rōran soon. According to the intel, that rogue ninja is hiding somewhere in Rōran. As long as we have the Kazekage's official letter, the King of Rōran will give us permission to search."
Jonin Baki answered immediately. He hadn't expected Orochimaru, now Hokage, to send Nara Kagetsu himself.
But it showed that Konoha's attitude toward cooperating with the Land of Wind and the Sand Village hadn't changed.
Kagetsu nodded. This time, aside from Itachi, his team also included the Third Hokage's son, Sarutobi Asuma.
Shisui and Anko didn't come along. With Konoha currently unstable and short on manpower, they were needed back in the village.
In other words, Orochimaru didn't believe that dealing with a rogue ninja from the Sand Village required too much of Konoha's top fighting force.
Just sending Kagetsu already showed significant importance.
But the focus wasn't really on the rogue ninja. The real reason was to respond to the Land of Wind's Daimyō and his test. As for Itachi and Asuma, they were mainly brought along to gain more field experience.
After all, the Sand Village was also sending its own team for this joint mission.
After the sandstorm, the sky revealed the bright sun again, and the surrounding landscape had already changed drastically due to the storm's destruction.
The fine sand floating in the wind mixed with the warm air, hitting people's faces.
The weather was unbearably hot.
A group of people continued their journey under the leadership of the Sand Ninja.
From a high vantage point in the sky, countless black figures, as small as ants, could be seen moving through the sand dunes.
Before nightfall, they finally reached the place Baki had mentioned.
Rōran!
Standing on top of a tall sand dune and looking toward the location Baki pointed out, a massive building gleamed in the last rays of the setting sun.
It was a large and dense cluster of buildings that appeared huge in the desert. The outer walls were high enough to block the external sand and wind.
"Is this Rōran?"
Itachi and Asuma looked at the distant buildings, their eyes filled with curiosity. They had seen the mission's information, which stated that Rōran, like the Land of Grass, was a small country near a major nation.
However, unlike the Land of Grass and other small countries, Rōran was located in the desert within the Land of Wind.
The Land of Wind's land was vast, but there were very few areas suitable for habitation. Much of it was desert and wasteland.
Therefore, the Land of Wind's Daimyo didn't value the land as much as the other great nations. As a result, some small nations had established their roots in the desert.
Roran, according to the intel, was located in a remote desert area, where the people lived in poverty and hardship, to the point of being forgotten by others.
Even the Daimyo of the Land of Wind had forgotten that such a small country existed within their own land.
However, even though they hadn't entered yet, just from a brief external observation, even with the perspectives of Itachi and Asuma, it didn't seem like this country was as underdeveloped and poor as the intel suggested.
From the well-preserved walls alone, it didn't appear to match the description of an extremely impoverished country.
"Wasn't it said that Roran is a very poor country?"
Asuma raised his head, his eyes instinctively looking at the surprised Sand ninja, Baki.
Baki looked down at Asuma's question and shook his head slightly, indicating that he didn't know either.
Roran was like a monster's nest, and the Sand ninja's spies sent in beforehand had all perished, none coming back alive.
The Sand ninja really didn't have anyone to spare for important tasks.
Otherwise, the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, wouldn't have been forced to accept the proposal of the Land of Wind Daimyo and the Land of Fire's Konoha Alliance.
"So, something must have changed inside this country that we don't know about! Should we enter normally?"
Itachi also looked up at his teacher, Kagetsu. His judgment was that some unknown change had taken place in Roran, and entering normally could be dangerous.
If possible, it would be better to infiltrate and gather internal intelligence, and then make decisions based on what was discovered.
Itachi even had a sensitive hunch that the changes in Roran might be related to the rogue ninja who had earlier defected from the Sand Village.
Otherwise, Roran had no reason to oppose the Sand Village, a war machine.
"Didn't you notice it?" Kagetsu reminded Itachi and the others.
"Notice what?" Baki asked, confused.
"A powerful source of energy!" Kagetsu didn't hide anything and suggested that Itachi use the experience he had when learning the Fire Cannon technique to feel the energy in the air.
Itachi closed his eyes and carefully sensed for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he nodded seriously:
"The natural energy here is very active, but it seems different from the natural energy I've felt before."
Baki didn't doubt Kagetsu would lie to them about something like this. In his opinion, such a lie would serve no purpose.
His gaze quickly shifted to a nearby Sand Shinobi. After carefully sensing, the Sand Shinobi shook his head slightly, looking a bit bitter.
"I can indeed feel a powerful chakra lingering in the Land of Rōran, but it isn't very obvious. If Kagetsu hadn't mentioned it, it would've been easy to overlook."
"Perhaps that's the reason behind the changes in Rōran," Baki pondered for a moment, then suggested to Kagetsu, "I'll infiltrate with you. Then, one of us should stay outside while the other returns to the Sand Village to report the latest information to the Kazekage and Hokage."
Kagetsu nodded, not rejecting Baki's proposal.
However, Kagetsu didn't leave Itachi and Asuma outside. The four of them quietly infiltrated the Land of Rōran together.
But just as they were entering through the underground with Earth Style, it felt like they had touched some invisible barrier. They smoothly passed through like a bubble with no resistance.
Except for Kagetsu and Itachi, who sensed something unusual, Baki and Asuma felt nothing as they entered the Land of Rōran.
****
Please support me on my ko-fi account and read upto 15 early chapters,
https://ko-fi.com/pirateking24/tiers