It was a forgivingly cool evening at the end of summer, but the ground was still parched, the soil turned to a fine dust. Moisture hung down in the air from great grey clouds which rolled like waves; towering edifices of condensing mist choking off the last rays of sunset. There must have been thousands of gallons in a single cloud -- and the sky was blanketed with them; how much water was up there? And how much lack was there below? And shouldn’t it have been the other way around, since after all the sea should have been below the sky?

Or maybe that was just how it used to be. Had been. Before things changed; before the front lines failed and retreats were scattered and hunted down and they had no choice but to send everyone they had. Back then, it had seemed odd, but looking at that liquid sky above scorched earth, it made sense. If all the shinobi and even civillian volunteers are at the front, what’s in the village to protect? There are things. There must be. They must have just switched -- the ninja and their charge, just like the sea and the sky had. Raidou nodded to himself. In his exhausted mind, he’d made sense of the situation.

Columns of rain fell in the distance. The wind was blowing towards him, from where the storm was on the horizon. He looked up at all the water. The water reached its slender fingers down, brushed the ground, testing the soil, and considered. Raidou watched apprehensively. ‘Don’t,’ he wanted to tell it, ‘stay up there. Look, down here there’s nothing but sand. Loose sand. It will all wash away, and instead of the sea being in the sky it’ll be down here, filled with mud.’ It listened; tilted its great hyaline head. ‘The trenches will collapse. Anyone with earth or water-style ninjutsu will be unstoppable. Look at me, I have no chakra left. I’m too exhausted to stand in mud. I’m a taijutsuist. They’ll kill me.’ The sky scoffed at his plea with an all too close rumble of thunder. ‘Please. They’ll kill me.’

The rain came down in torrents, and so the rainy season started with a magnificent storm. Raidou would die soon, he knew; he’d slip or a torn ligament would finally snap or an exhausted muscle would spasm and his opponent would win without effort. He made his way back to camp.

“It’s raining,” the jounin field commander said, harsh black eyes darting over Raidou’s soaked form. “It’s going to rain for days.” Raidou bowed and made a quick report of his patrol. He barely registered what he said as it left his mouth. The jounin didn’t, either. “You’re exhausted, hunter, look at you.” Raidou looked at all the exhausted shinobi, because they all looked like him anywa-- “No, look at yourself. No, you don’t look like them. They’ll live. They’ll form seals and channel chakra and stand on top of all the mud out there. Look, it’s running in under the door.” Raidou looked. Even the ground inside their makeshift headquarters was soaked. “You haven’t got any chakra left. You can’t produce any, because you don’t even have the energy to stand.” Raidou had indeed sunk to his knees, he noted. “So what are you going to do, hunter? Hmm, shinobi-san? What can you do out there?” Nothing, Raidou thought. There’s nothing I can do. “When was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know or you can’t remember?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“I know. I’ll tell you. You didn’t eat, hunter, you’ve never eaten. You’ve never eaten or slept and neither have your comrades. They have to sleep because they have to fight. But you don’t. You can’t fight.” No, I can’t, Raidou thought, staring at the mud as it pooled around his knees. “They also have to eat. They’ve never eaten; none of us have, and now we have to fight. What will we do, hunter-san? What are your comrades going to eat?”

What indeed? “They’ll... I’ll find something. They’ll eat what I bring them.”

“Really? Is that so, hunter? What is there out there?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s right,” the jounin continued, “you don’t know. You’ve never been out there. How did you get soaked in the rain when the only place you’ve been is inside? Go outside, hunter. Find something for them to eat. If they starve, the Iwa nin won’t even have to touch them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Had he really never been outside? Hadn’t he just come in? ...But what his commander said was right, always right, because if he doubted or disobeyed he’d just be killed as a deserter. He must be right, Raidou thought. What are my comrades going to eat?

In a distant spring in another world, there had been a supply line that brought food and medicine. It had been to the south. There was a camp there, a larger one, with a field hospital and a storehouse. There was food there. But it had stopped coming. Why would it stop? What was the purpose of a supply line if it supplied nothing? They were tired too, whoever was there, Raidou thought. They must have been as tired as he was, and that’s why they couldn’t bring any food or bandages or medicine. What are your comrades going to eat?

I’ll go, Raidou thought, so it’s alright. No one will have to carry anything from camp to camp and then fight, because I will and I can’t fight anyway. He walked south. But hadn’t his camp moved south, as well? Hadn’t they been driven back fifteen kilometers? He turned around and walked north. That’s right, they’d moved past the place where the supply outpost had been. He had to go north.

The mud was thickening around his ankles. It was dark. His feet splashed as he walked. Someone would hear it, he knew -- they’d hear it all the way to the north in the supply outpost and know that he was coming to take something back to his comrades who needed to eat. They may even come outside to meet him. I don’t have any registration number, he’d tell them, I don’t have any name. I’ve never even been outside before. I’ve never slept and I’ve never eaten, and neither has anyone in my regiment, but haven’t they got to eat? Can they fight if they don’t?

“I’m sure they can’t,” the man with the armored arms said. He wore an Iwagakure forehead protector. “And I’m sure you haven’t.”

Raidou nodded. Something seemed off about the situation. He reached for his own forehead protector, feeling the outline of the engraved leaf. There was no leaf on the other man’s. Why was he wearing an enemy’s uniform?

“But tell me, Konoha-kun, why you came this way?” The man shifted his weight forwards, not even bothering to disguise his movements. The Konoha nin was delirious. He was barely worth a fight. “Why are you in enemy territory? Did they train you wrong?”

Raidou shook his head, then stopped. Had they? Had he been trained at all?

“It’s alright, Konoha-kun. I’ll train you. I’ll teach you all about fighting a jounin in enemy territory; with no chakra, with all your injuries. I’ll even take notes for you. I’ll carve them right into your skin, so whenever you need a reminder of your training, you’ll only have to look in a mirror.”

A flash of lightning glinted off the man’s armor. Claws. His fingers were tipped with claws. Raidou looked at his own bare hands.

“Where’d you loose your gloves?” the man asked. “And your flak vest? You barely look like a ninja. You’re not a civilian, are you?” He reached out with his clawed hands and pulled Raidou’s dog tags away from his neck. “Namiashi. Hmm. Chuunin.” The Iwa nin tucked his dog tags back inside the collar of his shirt and patted them through the material. Raidou’s chest stung where the claws had touched him. “I’ll leave these with you. Your village will want to see them if they find your body.”

And then the claws blurred into silver arcs; the world slipped and skidded beneath his feet. The jounin was too fast to block and Raidou was too weak to run. Raidou dropped to his heel and swept his foot at the other ninja’s ankles, but connected with nothing. Instead acid seared his back and ran in rivulets down it with the rain water. Raidou curled forwards, his vision gone white and his ears ringing. Claws hooked into his side and threw him; he landed on his back with a knee on his chest. He couldn’t breath. He tried to lever himself up but his exhausted muscles only strained futilely against the ninja’s weight on top of him.

“That’s it. You put up a good fight for a starving chuunin. Good work,” the ninja said, and sunk his clawed fingers past Raidou’s skin, just beneath his right eye. What are your comrades going to eat? He twisted his hips to try to throw the man off. He had to get up.

Four clawed fingers slid over his nose and across his cheek, dripping acid into muscle and cartilage. He could feel it running down his throat. But he had to get up. There was something he had to do; some mission yet to be carried out, wasn’t there? The claws slipped beneath his jaw and down his throat. Something wet and hot slid past his ear and landed wetly in the mud. He had to get up. Wasn’t there something he had been sent to do? He choked as his throat and back burned, his side and hip, his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Raidou’s vision went white again as the ninja worked his claws slowly and deeply through the tissue of his shoulder; down his arm.

The attack that night was brutal; the onslaught too hopeless and daunting for Raidou’s exhausted regiment. One chuunin survived thanks to his agile mind’s talent for the tactical and the fact that senbon didn’t fly any slower in the rain. When the skirmish was over and the attackers moved further south, he avoided them by heading north. The man he found lying in the mud would have been killed by the chemicals spilled into his wounds if they hadn’t been so diluted by the rain.