# Chapter 24
**Land of Earth — Far East — Town of Gurunda, at the foot of the Blackstone Hills**
The dirt here didn't give a damn about anything. Cracked and split like someone had taken a hammer to it, then left it to bake under the sun for too long. Spring meant nothing to this place—just more brown dirt and grass that looked half-dead even on its best days. Those Blackstone Hills squatted in the distance like sleeping giants, their tops hidden behind clouds that never seemed to know whether they wanted to rain or just hang there being miserable.
The Walton farm sat east of Gurunda, squeezed between some twisted oak trees and wheat fields that had seen better decades. A dirt road that was more holes than road wound through their property, past a horse corral where the animals looked like they were thinking about better times, past what used to be a granary before something—weather, time, or just plain bad luck—had gotten to it.
Marek Walton lived there with his wife Ellena and their boy Jorin, who'd just turned fourteen last month. Not much of a celebration, what with the way things were going.
This particular morning, the air tasted like something had died and been left to rot. Mist hung over everything, creeping along the ground like it was looking for something to strangle. Even the crows looked nervous, perched on fence posts with their black eyes darting around like they knew something the humans didn't.
---
Jorin sat on a busted fence rail, swinging his legs and watching his father wrestle with the horses. The animals were skinny but they still had some fight in them, which was more than you could say for most things around here. He rubbed his sleeve against his father's old riding glove, trying to catch some of that familiar smell of leather and honest sweat.
His mother worked the vegetable patch nearby, pulling at cabbages that looked like they'd given up weeks ago. A few carrots poked out of the dirt, dark red like dried blood. The sparrows that flitted around her feet seemed jumpy, pecking at the ground like they were afraid of what they might find.
"See any Leaf Village scouts today?" Marek called over, rope in one hand, looking tired in that way that went deeper than just needing sleep.
Ellena straightened up, dirt falling from her hands. "You worry too much. We're nowhere near the fighting. Just that damn mist getting thicker."
Jorin shifted on the fence. His stomach felt tight, like it had been all morning. "Ma... Pa... I gotta tell you something. I saw something last night."
The way his father's face changed made Jorin's mouth go dry. "What kind of something?"
"Like... like a hole in the sky. Above the dead forest." The words felt strange coming out, like they belonged to someone else.
His mother's spade hit the ground with a wet thud. "A hole?"
"Yeah. Show you if you want."
---
They made their way through the thin line of poplar trees at the edge of their property, moving quiet-like without really knowing why. The horses behind them kept their heads down, chewing grass like nothing in the world could touch them. Lucky bastards.
When they reached the little dip where the morning mist pooled thick as soup, Jorin pointed up.
There it was. A tear in the air itself, maybe as wide as a man could stretch his arms. The edges flickered purple, and behind it... Christ, behind it something moved. Long, black things that twisted and writhed like they were trying to squeeze through.
Marek held up his old lantern—the iron was cracked but it still threw light—and the thing in the sky seemed to pulse back at them. In that shaky yellow glow, those black tentacles looked wet and wrong, dripping something that wasn't quite water onto the ground below.
One of them pushed through the opening, reaching down like it was testing the air before pulling back. The whole thing made a sound like the world taking its last breath.
Ellena made a noise in her throat, somewhere between a sob and a curse. Jorin felt his heart trying to punch its way out of his chest. His father's knuckles went white around the rope.
"Get the horses," Marek said, his voice shaking despite trying to sound tough. "Now."
---
By the time they got back to the corral, the horses knew something was wrong. Three of them were rearing and screaming, eyes rolling white with terror. Sable, Jorin's favorite mare, let out a sound that cut through the morning air like a knife through skin.
"Ellena, grab the fillies!" Marek shouted over the noise, trying to get a rope around one of the stallions. The animal fought him, teeth bared, spit flying. "Jorin, take Gunner and Ember. Get them to the woods."
Ember, the black stallion, tried to take a chunk out of Jorin's arm. Gunner, the chestnut mare, was pawing at the mud like she wanted to dig her way to somewhere safe. Jorin grabbed the lead rope and pulled, half-dragging them toward the tree line while his mother wrestled with another panicked horse.
The ground started to shake. Not like an earthquake—like something huge was breathing underneath it. Above them, that tear in the sky got bigger, breathing in and out like a wound. The light went dark, and then it started to rain.
Except it wasn't water. The drops burned cold when they hit skin, like being stabbed with ice picks. Ember screamed when it touched his flank, and Jorin felt his own skin start to blister.
Then came the roar.
Not an animal sound. Not wind. Something like the sound the world might make if it was dying. Jorin stumbled backward, dragging Ember with him until they found the path that led toward town.
And then, like someone had drawn a curtain, it stopped. The tear snapped shut. The burning rain stopped. Everything went quiet except for the sound of their own breathing and the horses snorting with fear.
Jorin looked back at where the thing had been. Nothing but empty sky and clouds that looked normal again.
"What the hell was that?" he whispered.
His father didn't answer. Couldn't answer, maybe.
---
**Far away, across oceans and seas**
**Land of Wind – Sunagakure, Four Years into the Great War**
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The desert wind had teeth that year. It howled through Sunagakure's broken streets like it was hunting something, throwing sand in everyone's faces just because it could. Four years of war had chewed up the Sand Village and spit out something that barely resembled what it used to be. Buildings leaned against each other like drunks. The market stalls sold rusted weapons and bandages that had seen too much blood. Hope was something people talked about in the past tense.
The Council Hall hadn't seen a full meeting in over a decade, but here they were. The Third Kazekage's chair sat empty—had been empty since he disappeared four years ago, probably dead in some ditch nobody would ever find. Now the vultures were circling, and everybody wanted to know who'd be the next to sit in that chair and pretend they could fix this mess.
Inside the hall, old men in faded robes whispered to each other like schoolchildren sharing secrets. The clans were split six ways from Sunday, and nobody was sure if they even wanted to put the village back together or just carve up what was left.
Four names kept coming up. Four people who thought they could save Sunagakure, or at least be the last one standing when the dust settled.
Rasa looked like he'd been carved out of sandstone and bad intentions. Tall, weathered, with golden thread woven through his hair like he was daring someone to try and take it. He'd led the Golden Legion through hell and back, and he had the scars to prove it. His message was simple: make the village strong enough that nobody would ever think about messing with it again. "Strength is the only truth," he'd say, and people believed him because he'd earned the right to say it.
Pakura was fire in human form. She'd lost an arm in the war and replaced it with something made of metal and hate. Used to be a medic, now she was something else entirely. Her pitch was burn it all down and start over, keep only what could survive the flames. Some people called it purification. Others called it insanity. But nobody called it weak.
Then there was Yukon, who moved like shadow and spoke like poison. He'd run the village's dirty work for years, the kind of jobs that nobody talked about afterward. His plan? No more big battles, no more honor-bound nonsense. Just quiet deaths in the night and enemies who'd never know they were at war until they stopped breathing. It was efficient, he'd say. Clean. Some folks thought he was brilliant. Others thought he was already planning their funerals.
And Djinnal. The quiet one. Pale as bone, eyes like storm clouds that had forgotten how to rain. He didn't want to conquer anybody or burn anything down. He wanted to hide. Wrap the village in walls of sand and wind until the rest of the world forgot it existed. His followers called it protection. His enemies called it cowardice. But when he walked, the desert moved with him.
Up in the shadows of the hall, two ancient figures watched it all like they were keeping score at a particularly boring game. Chiyo sipped tea from a cracked cup, her fingers twisted from years of puppet work. Her brother Ebizō sat beside her, cleaning an old kunai with the kind of care you'd give a dying pet.
"Same shit, different day," Chiyo muttered, watching the candidates argue below.
"Same ending too," Ebizō replied. "They'll talk about principles and honor until they're blue in the face. But when it's over, the one with the sharpest knife wins."
"They'll kill each other before anyone gets crowned."
"Good. Saves us the trouble of figuring out which one's worth following."
Down below, the elders were getting nasty. Elder Sakuro, blind as a bat but twice as mean, thumped his cane on the table. "Rasa's got steel in his spine. The others are too hot, too clever, or too crazy." Elder Naura, skin scarred from old battles, shot back, "Rasa'll bury us in his iron fortress. Pakura's still got heart, even if it's made of fire."
Elder Kadoro barely looked up from his hood. "Heart don't stop poison. Yukon sees the war nobody else is fighting."
Old Arashi whispered like the wind itself was talking through him, "The desert's already chosen. It listens to Djinnal. Maybe we should too."
Behind each elder stood the real power—jonin who'd survived too many battles, clan leaders with old grudges, rogues who'd come back from the war with nothing left to lose. Their eyes were harder than their leaders', their patience thinner.
The "debates" started. Not with words—with bodies. Challenges in dust-choked rings. Accidents that weren't accidents. A jonin loyal to Rasa was found with his lungs full of mystery gas. One of Pakura's medics burned up in her own tent. A scout working for Yukon just vanished, leaving only Djinnal's name carved backward in the sand.
Chiyo and Ebizō watched it all with the interest of people who'd seen this show before.
"They think this is chaos," Ebizō said as another explosion rattled the council steps.
Chiyo snorted. "This is just Tuesday."
They sat there, drinking their tea and keeping score, while the village tore itself apart like a beast with too many heads and not enough sense.
And when the blood dried, when one of the four crawled out of the mess with their clothes torn and their hands red, they'd nod and say what they always said.
"Finally. Someone who knows how to win."