Naruto: Rebuilding the Hidden Sand

One day, while Yuji was in General Commander Shimizu’s tent with Sasori and others, conducting military analysis and deployment regarding the current battlefield situation, a report came in mid-analysis, a subordinate entering the tent and cutting across the conversation without apology.

An injured Sunagakure ninja was brought in behind him. His squad had been sent to scout for signs of Iwagakure activity along the Land of Birds border. They had been hit. He was the only one who had made it back.

"Please, Mr. Shimizu. You have to save Kouta and the others."

His face was tight with urgency and grief.

Everyone in the tent looked at the map.

"How many enemies?"

"At least ten, a Stronghold squad, I think. I don’t know if they had reinforcements behind them."

A captain studied the position marked on the map. "They’ve already crossed into the Land of Birds. Iwagakure will reach them before we can. Even if we move now..." He left the rest unsaid.

What he meant was clear enough. Abandoning the squad was the rational call.

Reconnaissance missions carried the highest casualty risk by nature, and this kind of loss was an accepted part of operating on a contested border.

Sending a rescue force would likely mean spending more lives to recover people who were probably already dead or captured.

"It would cost us more people than we’d save," another Squad Leader said plainly.

The tent went quiet.

The messenger ninja looked at the faces around him, understood what the silence meant, and dropped to his knees. He bowed deeply to the assembled officers, eyes reddening. "Kouta’s child was just born."

Nobody answered him. On a battlefield, personal circumstances didn’t change the arithmetic of a rescue decision.

The previous war had made orphans out of children whose fathers died before they could walk, had taken men from families before their children were even born.

It was the reality of this world and everyone present had lived inside it long enough to know there was little to say.

Shimizu said nothing. Sending people into a losing rescue was not a decision a General Commander made on emotion.

"There’s still a chance."

The voice drew every eye in the tent.

Yuji.

"The reconnaissance squad wasn’t completely surrounded or blocked, if they had been, he wouldn’t have made it out to bring this report. They were hit and scattered, not trapped. The survivors will be moving back toward our lines.

Iwagakure is closer to that position than we are, but they’re in a position of certain victory right now, and the nature of this mission isn’t significant enough to trigger an immediate alarm to their main force. That buys us time."

He looked at the map. "If the support moves fast enough, we can reach their return route ahead of Iwagakure and link up with whoever is still coming back. Three people maximum, any more and we lose the speed advantage entirely."

He looked at Shimizu. "I’ll go. I’m a Medical Ninja, if anyone in the squad is injured I can treat them on the move and prevent further losses. If it’s just a Stronghold squad, there shouldn’t be Jonin-level elites among them. I can handle that."

He met the General Commander’s eyes directly.

"We do not abandon our people."

"..."

The words landed on the tent with an almost physical weight. Several of the officers present looked away.

Shimizu was already forming his refusal.

To let Yuji risk himself based solely on the personal analysis of the Sunagakure ninja who ran back was not a wise choice no matter how you looked at it.

What if there were variables... not to mention that both Yuji and Sasori were already on Iwagakure’s hit list.

Yuji continued.

"I’m not suggesting a reckless rescue. If it were truly unrecoverable I wouldn’t have spoken. But there is a real possibility here, and I’m a Medical Ninja, attempting a rescue when a possibility exists is exactly what I’m here for.

Beyond that, if word spreads that we calculated the cost and left our people behind when a chance existed, it will affect morale across the entire force. We can’t afford that either."

He looked at Shimizu directly. "I will keep myself safe. You have my word on that."

Shimizu had nothing left to say to that.

He was still working out his response when Yuji reached down, took the kneeling messenger by the arm, pulled him to his feet, and turned for the tent entrance. "Time is short. Brief me on the details while we move."

Sasori stepped forward automatically.

Shimizu stopped him and directed a Jonin captain named Ito to go instead. Sending both Yuji and Sasori into an uncertain situation was a risk the command structure couldn’t absorb.

Yuji’s involvement could be justified, he was a Medical Ninja, and saving people was his function.

There was no equivalent justification for Sasori. If something went wrong with both of them gone, there would be no recovering from it.

"Move ahead of us," Shimizu said. "Support will follow behind."

"Understood."

Three people moved fast and quiet rather than many people moving slow and loud. Speed was the only advantage they had, and exposure before arrival would eliminate even that.

Yuji, Ito, and the messenger left the base and pushed hard in the direction of the Land of Birds.

On the move, the messenger gave them everything he had, the contact, the positioning, how the Iwagakure squad had come at them, how the squad had scattered.

"Yuji," Ito said as they ran. "The situation over there is still unclear. Numbers, strength, we don’t know what we’re walking into. If it looks bad when we arrive, I’ll cover the rear. You take the others and go."

"Understood," Yuji said.

He had no intention of following that plan, but he saw no reason to say so now.

The real reason he had insisted on coming, the reason he had pushed past Shimizu’s hesitation and made the case himself, was that this situation was exactly the opportunity he had been waiting for.

The timing, the conditions, the variables. He had recognized it the moment the messenger was brought in.

The three of them crossed into the Land of Birds without incident. A three-person squad at full speed was a different proposition from a larger force, harder to detect, easier to route around the gaps in Iwagakure’s border coverage.

Both villages knew each other’s deployment priorities too well. The warning lines Iwagakure had established were positioned around the known Sunagakure Stronghold directions.

The ground between those points was thinner.

They went deeper.

"There."

Movement ahead, two Sunagakure ninja, visibly injured, running hard. Behind them, closing fast, Iwagakure shapes moving through the trees.

...

Stones, Anyone?

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