Spoiler:

Survival in Kaze no Kuni is hard, even when the heat of the sun isn't bearing down on you or the sand isn't slowly eroding your cheeks. Yasu didn't really have to worry about any of the alleged environmental hazards that the Land of Wind had to offer as long as he didn't do anything stupid like provoke giant animals or run head first into the Door to Hell. Another, albeit less common, hazard were the ninja who called this place home, a force that some people weren't wise enough not to provoke. Yasubei was one of those ninja. In his research, Yasubei stumbled upon some notes on near extinct megafauna, specifically a breed of 10 foot long lizards whose tails when ground into a fine paste were rumored to cure many diseases.

As night falls and Yasubei is many hours from his base of operations, he looks back down at the reference book in his hands. Buttoning the clasp that locked the book shut once more, he pauses for a second inventorying his surroundings. The mute look on his face for but a brief moment dances quizzically as he rifles through is mind for information. "I can't imagine it's much further than this. Sensei's directions were very clear about the burrow's location." Reaching into the large bag on his back Yasu pulls out collapsible poles and tarps and begins piercing the rapidly cooling sand with the, setting up cover for the rest of the night. As the fine craftsman who made it simple one over is all that's really needed for him to tell that there were not any major breaches in the tarp itself that may affect its integrity in the case of a sandstorm or other unfortunate event. Satisfied with his work, he began carving away at a small statuette each stroke revealing the inner beauty of his work as it began taking humanoid shape. Manifested by the pale, blue light of the moon and a sea of countless, glistening stars his silhouette diligently imitated his every move.  

No more than a few hours passed before noise and light began to rise over the dunes. The light was relatively easy to make out. It had all the telltale signs of an unnecessarily large pyre lit by an amateur in the night time. The sound though was much more difficult to analyze "Tourists." Yasu could never understand what people needed with so much light, especially on a night like this. No self-respecting citizen of this land would pollute such an aesthetic nightscape as this one with smoke and a sloppy fire. The statuette was flawed some how, in a way he couldn't put to words. "Hmm, I wonder if the mood's not quite right?" He rolled the thought over and like an acrid wine it sat bitterly in his throat. Releasing the statuette from his hands he left it in the sand as he stood from the ground, patting off any loose debris. One leap away and he was atop a thirty or so foot dune looking at the muted orange that stained the horizon.

Yasu carefully made his way closer, creeping up to 100 meters out just far enough where the light of their fire would hinder their vision more than help it, because of the stark contrast between it and the night it assaulted. The story was clear now to him, as he looked down upon the camp. Two people, it seemed it was a man and a woman stood next to the fire throwing in what was probably pieces of a cart or some other large wooden construction, though with no wheels in sight odds are it was one of the tarped objects not too far from the fire. Not too far from the two pyros there was a woman with a large stick battering a man tied to a post. Barely even fit to be called clothed, with just a pair of briefs protecting his fading dignity, he yelped every time the cackling woman left him with a new welt on his back. No more than ten minutes of this passed before the three bandits grew weary of their game and made their way to sleep, leaving a whimpering, bound man to fend for himself. Once they had all settled in, Yasu himself would promptly return to his own camp for the night.

[WC= 730]

The morning light quickly baked the sand back up to its usual scalding temperatures as the arid land drank of the sun's radiance like it was a mother's milk. Yasu's eyes slowly fluttered open as he parted the opening of his tent and stood from half lotus in an unnatural display as his limbs rotated on axes to facilitate him standing in only one fluid movement. After a few hours of attempting to find the right mood to carve, he eventually tossed the statuettes to the side and disassembled his tent. minutes later there was no more sign of him ever having been at that site, except a few unfinished wooden figures quickly being submerged into the waves of sand. Traveling as fast as he could it took a few minutes before his subconscious understood the scent filling his nose as he narrowed in on the lizards' burrowing grounds. It was the distinct smell of blood, though it didn't smell human. As he kept getting closer and the smell kept growing more potent the thought arrived in his head that the smell was too strong for just one person worth of blood, until eventually he stopped atop a rather large dune, and saw countless dead lizards, blown to tatters, and each of them missing their tail. Yasu investigated the first 20 meters of an opening of a tunnel and it was the same story, smoke blood, and signs of explosive tags. The signs were still fresh whoever had done this had done so an hour or two ago at most, and they left not a single living animal here in their wake.

The Sand exposed its uncaring nature as it covered the tracks of those who possibly wiped one of its species into extinction. Yasu looked for foot prints, pieces of cloth, maps, ledgers, or any sign of those who had done this, and after spending the rest of the day investigating he found nothing. That night however, the same gaudy light as before lit up no more than a half mile from the tunnels. "Tourists." Yasu grumbled to himself as he sprinted off towards their camp.

---

Yasu fell from the sky into their camp behind the man who was this time throwing large pieces of meat into the fire. "Is this basically all you do every night?" The to poachers turned from their pyromaniac pleasures to face Yasu who in turn threw a kunai at the woman's, well illuminated neck clipping an artery and spilling her blood as he quickly followed up with a punch to the man's gut. A thin blue string and a twitch of a finger yanked the kunai back to an expectant fist as what would have been a punch turned into a gutting. The two pyromaniacs' consciousnesses began to slowly wane as the thirsting sands lapped up the blood that overflowed from them. The prisoner rebound in this new camp looked pleadingly at Yasubei as he walked closer. "Where is the other woman?"

"Listen man, who cares. You gotta get me outta here!"

The man looked terrified as a third voice chimed in, "Ah, come on I just got them."

"Why did you kill all of those critters."

"The guy with the money said they were worth a pretty penny."

"Unaesthetic simpletons."

"The bounty from that mission will be ours." The poacher was deliberate in her movements as she unsheathed a kunai and held it to her side letting the exploding tag dangle beneath it. She had a smile that almost beckoned Yasu to try something. Yasu simply grabbed the binding from the now crying man's arms and lifted him to his feet. The woman simply chuckled as she tossed the kunai at Yasu, not caring about a hostage who had used up all of his value. Yasu without a care pushed the crying man at the kunai, and as he fell to the ground Yasu leapt over and past him to the woman placing his blade through her throat. The tag exploded. When the dust settled Yasu looked under the tarps, low and behold there were no less than five carts each with at least a dozen tails within each cart.

---

At sunrise later a cloaked figure would arrive at a Suna store house with three carts rolling behind it. It would unfurl a scroll and hold out its hand for payment. Survival in Kaze no Kuni is hard.

[WC+ 735]
[TWC= 1465]

Mission Completion= 750
+150 Bonus Ryo= 600
Leftovers= 165

[Exit Thread]