He had always known that he would be forced to leave the desert if the desire to travel did not cause him to roam, but Rokumaru did not enjoy leaving Sunagakure in the condition it currently was in. That wasn’t to say he thought he could rebuild the village to its former glory all by himself, even if he had tried; as far as he was concerned, the Jackal was doing a satisfactory job of keeping the place occupied, leaving some trace of what had been there before. The redhead was young, sick with grief and held a grudge with the world. He was not spending the next few years rebuilding while those who had destroyed Suna were still around to finish the job.

And so, without a word to anyone despite no one being around to tell, Rokumaru collected his remaining possessions together and simply left. His clothing was wet from a Water Trumpet technique after he had decided they were becoming too grungy even for a homeless person such as himself, having stacked his remaining items of clothing in a pile on a large stone and pressed them with a smaller stone, and he was satisfied with the damp but fresher outfit to wear. The sand clumped to the wet spots he was unable to dry, but the grating sensation against his bare skin was something he enjoyed as he slipped back into his clothing. His gourd was removed from it’s scroll and the ordinary sand within dumped out unceremoniously, and after doing so Rokumaru began to erode a fresh mound from the glass bedrock beneath the small layer of sand that the wind had blown in. This sand was imperfect, with moderately-sized chunks of glass escaping the force of his erosion and being nestled among the loose, grainy sand, but he accepted the symbolism.

It was after having finally prepared, the leather satchel hanging behind his flak jacket as he tightened his straps and double checked that he had forgotten nothing, that Rokumaru realizes he did not have a real plan. He had a goal of course, the inevitable demise of his enemies, but there was a lot that would have to happen between that and now. Always having been one to adapt and improvise as best as he could, he’d let a plan come to him as he went along. His first action would be leaving the desert behind, and on one unusually-windy Monday morning, Rokumaru left the ruins of Sunagakure for what he hoped would not be the last time.

As Kaze no Kuni was the southernmost nation of the continent, he was forced to travel North. The lands of Earth and Fire bordered the Wind and he would need to pass through one of these on his journey, and in all likelihood it would be one of their villages he would be forced to stop at for rest and information. Roku thought about these two villages and his feelings about them, concluding that Konoha could go either way in terms of good or bad and that his annoyance with Iwa was just something he had invented to amuse himself. He did not know if the destroyers of Suna had originated from Iwa, whereas he knew that Konoha had spit out at least one of those monsters, so that would have obviously been the safer destination to travel to. The Sarutobi could have fled back to his village for succor, and the arrival of someone who was clearly a Suna-nin could alert the man to his intentions.

But it was also his best chance for picking up their trail, discovering the identity of their collaborators and collecting the necessary information needed to lead them into peril. The destruction of a Hidden Village was cause for concern to Konoha even if they did benefit from it’s absence, and even if it was one of their own who done committed the act, so it was unlikely the village would risk itself to protect the Sarutobi from the consequences for his actions.

Rokumaru ambled through the desert at a sedate walk, his unfocused eyes staring at the ground ahead where he would walk as he lost himself in his thoughts. What consequences were there for the bastards who had done this? As far as he knew, the two foreigners and that turncloak from the ANBU had gotten away scot-free from massacring thousands and displacing tens of thousands. Were they being hailed as heroes for what they had done to his village? Roku was not ignorant of the corruption within the administration and council, and the unsavory rumors what the Karisuma were doing to grow their own power, but he wondered if the large majority of foreigners thought his village was evil. He supposed this journey would be the time to find out the world’s true feelings toward what Suna had been, and to garner support for the Suna that would one day be.

A coiled rattlesnake shaking its tail broke him from his thoughts and Rokumaru respectfully walked around the long creature watching him warily as he passed, hissing and rattling in an even pattern. This pause from his internal musing made him bury his face in his hands, sucking air through his fingers before dragging them through his long tangled maroon hair. This was too much for a simple Chuunin to be dealing with, and so why did it fall upon him to right the wrongs that had been done to his people? He thought of the young woman who had become Kazekage and how much he had wanted to believe in her, but he did not give her or the village the support they needed along with everyone else in the place. Now he was paying for his content behavior; they all were. The high-Jounin and council were either dead or spread to the wind, everyone else having given up on the village and fled as refugees, and it felt like the only ones who cared a bit were himself and whoever was a part of the Jackal’s flock. And they were likely interested only in ruling the scraps left over from Suna’s demise.

These thoughts weren’t productive or healthy, but the angsty teen felt justified when he thought that the entire world had done him an injustice personally. For miles he walked across barren desert in silence with only his thoughts to keep him company. He had left just before the sun had begun to rise and now it had begun to reach its zenith, so the boy took a break from his march to force some food into his upset stomach. Since the fall of Sunagakure Rokumaru had subsisted on only what could be scavenged from the desert rather than buying or stealing from the group in the rebuilt slums. This included a large amount of snake and the occasional rat or armadillo as well as the vegetation that was safe to eat, the bitter fruits of cacti being his go-to hunger satisfier. This did lead to a lack of certain essential vitamins however and he was slowly withering from malnutrition, his weight having dropped from 10 stone to nearly 8, and the thought of grains and veg was making his plans to leave the desert so much easier to bear. After catching a snake and drying its meat for several hours, his lack of Katon or any fire-starting tools making his meals dry and unsavory, Roku again set off north. His sedate pace meant his journey would take at least a few days, and as the sun began to creep behind a distant dune the redhead dig himself a foxhole and bundled himself into a ball to sleep.

The next day brought with it further ideas about where to go from here, and as he nibbled the chewy slab of meat from the day before Roku thought more about the village of Konoha. It was directly involved with the Sarutobi by virtue of being his place of birth and so it seemed like the best place to gather information about the man. He had not laid eyes on an official Bingo Book in months, but he was faintly aware that it did not list the man as a Konoha subordinate at that time. Did they sanction his attack on the Hidden Sand, or would they rebuke him for his actions? What was clear was that Iwa did not draw him as much as Konoha did, and so Roku would trust his gut. His path slowly began to stretch further and further Northeast as he decided the Leaf was his destination.

The days of lecture at the Academy came rushing back as he struggled to remember all that he had been taught about that particular village. The oldest, and often recognized as the most powerful village, Konoha was lucky enough to be located in the central province of Hi no Kuni that had a rather temperate climate. If something had been made of wood in Suna then it was a very strong likelihood that it was imported from Konoha or one of its affiliates.

As a Suna-nin, Rokumaru had always been dismissive towards his neighbors to the North. They had their own business just as he had his own, and their business may or may not have been turning his home into some sort of modern-art piece involving glass. It would not look good for him if he turned up out of the blue in a Suna uniform, raving about the demon from the Leaf and that he would avenge his fallen home, no matter how much he wanted to do exactly that. Even being affiliated with Suna at all was painting himself as someone with their own agenda, but he would not disgrace their memory by abandoning his fallen Suna comrades. He would find justice for his village, and he’d do it in their name. Or he would die a pointless death, and hopefully inspire some folk song about the fallen Sand. He muttered another prayer in the hopes he lived long enough to call that Sarutobi out for the bastard that he is. They gave out the title of Saint pretty freely in Konoha, apparantly, or assumed it was just another word for master or lord, something equally boastful.

Two more days were spent walking across the windy desert, the sun in his face as he traveled Northeast for half the day, and at least once he wondered if the sand would stretch on forever. An idea that would have delighted the Rokumaru who had a village with walls that granted a reprieve from the sandstorms and creatures that dwell among the dunes. Now, he wanted only for the dunes to cease popping up in the horizon, stamping down the laziness inside that told him to turn back, or to stop where he was and never move again.

He was certain that it was stress alone that was keeping his mind in a functioning state, as he always felt the walls of his psyche leaning inwards, threatening to fall under the weight of his family’s death and the destruction of his home. As it was, with only revenge and hate forcing each foot to fall in rhythm, he had much more respect for the Uchiha and their Curse of Hatred. He was still jealous that their grief brought them crazy eye-powers, whereas his own only brought him sleepless nights filled with the faces of the dead. He wished it was someone like Sana that was forced to deal with this rather than him.

On the third day after Rokumaru had left the glassed ruins of Suna the landscape began to change visibly; the winds of Kaze no Kuni were miles behind him and had blown only enough sand to form tiny dunes, the sand slowly shifted to grass as he reached soil, and not long after stepping onto grass for the first time did Rokumaru spy the tree line that made the Village Hidden in the Leaves so formidable. He walked into the forest, following the cobbled path beneath him.

There, surrounded by trees for the first time as he traveled further and further down the paved path that connected the desert to the rest of Hi no Kuni, Rokumaru understood what the sensation of claustrophobia was like. It was such a stark change from the openness of his home, the horizon broken only by dunes that were followed by larger dunes and on and on. Here, however, there was too much to focus on; too many places for someone to hide or ambush him, too many factors to keep track of in his mind. This was going to be a very uncomfortable journey. He hope he survived it.

WC: 2147
2147/600 - Travel Thread Complete

Training:

Thread Exit