Mission Info:

Trees sighed with the wind and the grass whistled sweet music to my ears as I sat on fresh grass looking up at the clouds in the sky.  A white bird circled overhead.  His feathers shining in the sun with each rotation as they let the wind push and keep him afloat in the sky.

What a wonderful view of the world he must have that bird, I thought.  Then, without even really thinking it, I was drifting upwards into the sky.  At first I became frightened and tried scrambling my arms to grab hold of the ground but the grass slipped from my grip and off into the sky I went.  I flew straight up to meet the white bird.  The closer I got, the more I realized just how big the bird was.

Finally reaching up to his altitude, the white bird was a gigantic white hawk that turned its head to study me as he continued his circle in the sky.  He was nearly three times bigger than me.  Shivers went down my spine as I felt completely out of my comfort zone.  My legs dangling over five thousand feet above the ground and a giant white hawk encircling me.  Without warning, the hawk surged forward and pecked me hard on the head.

I jumped up and felt my head where the beak had made contact but felt nothing.  The sudden pain was gone.  Opening my eyes, I was back in bed and two shinobi were by my bedside. "Lady Suzume," they began, their words tainted with worry.  "Sorry for waking you, but we have urgent news."

"Well, spill it then!" I yelled, a bit flustered from my dream and angry that I had been woken in the dead of night.  The clouds held a bit of light to them, which meant dawn was near, but also that it was well too early in the morning for such a rude awakening.

"The Vault of Forbidden Jutsu has been broken open.  The fuuinjutsu scrolls were taken!"  They both exclaimed.

Now that certainly woke me up.  Who would have been able to do this?  We had those locked tight.  Obviously the vault was in need of some repair, but it should have still been able to keep any shinobi at bay.  Whoever stole the scrolls must know of the vault's weakness and exploited it.  This could mean an inside job, though nothing was for certain.  There were still too many assumptions and not enough facts.

"I'll meet you at the Vault in five minutes.  Now go!" I barked, jumping out of bed and going straight to my wardrobe.  The men nodded and vanished into thin air.  Oh how I loathed the Body Flicker technique.  Ninjutsu always irritated me to some degree.  Still, I was too focused on getting dressed to let their little jutsu to have bothered me.  Wearing the first thing that I could see, I plunged out into the dark Suna city with my combat attire on.  I was going to get to the bottom of this.

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I leapt from my bedroom balcony and landed on the sandy street outside my home.  The half crescent moon shone brightly from its perch in the sky as it lit the way to the Vault.

The Vault was a building like any other in Suna except that it was never used.  Having been unfortunately built on patches of quicksand the building had collapsed in on itself and had been deemed unsafe for anyone to use.  After being quartered off from the public, one of the former Kazekages long past had sent shinobi to check the building out.  Through an accident during the search, the shinobi discovered that the quicksand dropped into an underground pocket of air.  Seeing as there was no other way out except back through the quicksand, it became the Vault, a secret storage of forbidden scrolls and items that would be hidden from anyone trying to get their hands on them.

Unfortunately, it seemed Suna's closely kept secret had been revealed to whoever had just stolen the forbidden fuuinjutsu scrolls.  Out of everything in there, they took those scrolls, which meant they had plans to use whatever was inside those scrolls specifically.  Even I, as the current Kazekage, didn't know what was stored in those scrolls but it was forbidden and that was enough for me to know that this was definitely not good.

I met up with the two shinobi that had woken me in my sleep outside of the Vault's main entrance.  The door was bashed in and the footprints of the thieves led straight to the room where the quicksand lay.  "Looks like these two knew what they were doing" I said, the two shinobi only nodding in agreement.  "Well, let's see the mess inside."

We all went inside the Vault and crossed the broken floor of the wrecked house.  Pieces of the ceiling had come down and part of the second floor had fallen so we had to climb over and under the rubble just to get to the back of the house.  Following the footprints, we quickly came to the back room where the quicksand had done the worst to the building.  Several pillars were tilted or laying on the floor.  Each year it sank more and more into the quicksand.  Had this building not been cleared out when it did, the weight of being furnished would've submerged it years ago.

Diving straight in, I sped up the quicksand's process and it sucked me down into the underground pocket.  I landed safely on an open patch of sandstone, the other two shinobi following me inside.  The room was pitch black until the torches on the wall could be lit, revealing a long cavern-like area that brimmed with scrolls and cabinets holding swords and armors.  All of these things were forbidden, having very harsh side effects to those that used them.

I was lead to the back where the stolen fuuinjutsu scrolls had been kept inside a glass casing.  The glass had been broken and the casing had fallen off its pedestal, laying upside down on the floor.  My eyes wandered around, looking for any signs of how the thieves might have tried to escape the vault.  The only way out was a special jutsu that only the keepers of the Vault knew, and none of them were missing or had the scrolls in their possession.  They had already been searched and questioned by Suna's police.  So if the thieves weren't a part of the keepers of the Vault, then they had to come up with their own way out.

After some careful searching, I found a corner that was filled with wet sand.  Getting closer, I noticed a recently cut out tunnel of wet sand.  The rest of the walls were dry, which meant that the thieves used a suiton jutsu to weaken it, and seeing as they didn't just use a doton jutsu to escape, they used some other drilling technique to cut away the weakened wall and tunnel their way out.  The sand was still muddy to the touch, meaning the tunnel was still recently cut out.

Tearing off my cloak, I climbed down the tunnel, yelling out to the two shinobi that I had found something.  The tunnel was long and the wet sand, almost as thick as mud, got all over me as I crawled on my hands and knees.  After an hour of crawling I came out on the other side of the western wall.  Two pairs of footsteps in the sand lead further west in the wild deserts.

The hunt was on.

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The other two shinobi had yet to come through behind me.  Had they not seen the tunnel like I had?  They must have still been searching below in the Vault.  Regardless, I took off down the trail of footsteps.  Mere hours were all that stood between me and my prey.  Having a head start would only grant them the feeling of safety, which was the very thing I wanted them to feel.  What better way to take these thieves by surprise.  I could think of no other plan, that and the only real option at the moment was to catch up with them before they realized they were being hunted.

Two hours past of me trudging after footprints in the sand, the moon my only supporter as it lit my way.  But finally I came upon the owners of the two footprints.  They were out twenty meters from me and had yet to see me approaching.  I took a brief moment to ready myself.  It was just me versus two unknown shinobi that were skilled enough to slip into the Vault and take the Fuuinjutsu scrolls.  Thieves or not, they were skilled and well trained.  I couldn't afford to rush in without having some sort of plan.  Taking stock of all my weapons that were on me, I quickly laid out the plan.

My footsteps were heard as I closed in on the two thieves.  I used my full speed to reach them and once I was five meters away they had been able to react to my movement.  The two parted, one left and the other right, as I surged to a halt in between them.  I was in a bad spot, they had me in between them and they quickly realized this.  From behind a blast of water raged at me in the form of a dragon, it's watery jaws gaping wide open to slam into my back.  Coming straight at me from the front was a long wave of air, the sound of the air blowing around as well as the sight of the shinobi twirling like a spinning top in my direction.

Ducking down, my hair was trimmed by a blade of wind, and the water dragon was just upon me when I sprang out from in between the two jutsu.  The dragon clamped its jaws upon the blade of wind and the power of the two jutsu clashed, spraying water everywhere as the wind erupted as well.

The two men sidestepped back to each other's side and faced me together.  I pulled out my bō staff with my right hand, unlocking it to two meters in length.  The red staff was ready to spill blood and I was ready to oblige it.  Jumping at them, I unraveled into a flaming spin, my staff emblazoned with katon chakra as it rushed out at them.  My staff flew around my body, wrapping itself around my waist repeatedly in rapid movements, sending the fires outward around me and at the thieves.  "Give up the scrolls now or die!" I screamed over the roar of the spinning flames.

The two were quick enough to jump back, but the length of the flames still caught their clothes.  The one who had cast the water dragon jutsu cast out jets of water from his mouth, holding his hand as if playing a trumpet and doused the flames on him and his friend.  Their clothes were burned through, revealing harsh third degree burns on their chests.  They looked at each other's wounds, then to me, and then back at each other.

"Midori, you must go.  Take the scrolls and go!  I will hold her off as long as I can," said the one to my left.

Midori looked a little shocked at this, but seeing me come closer he quickly nodded and took the scrolls off the back of his friend.  "I'll wait for you, Burū, my brother."  Midori clasped his hand on Boru's shoulder before fleeing off.

Burū turned to face me.  "You will not get by me so easily, little lady."  His hands went through several signs and out of his mouth spewed a wall of water that protected him from my flames.

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