Chapter 59: The Blood-Soaked Mist
The Land of Fire's forests gave way to rugged hills, then to damp, spongy earth. Team Nine moved with the silent, relentless efficiency of predators on a scent, eating up the miles towards the bleeding wound that was the Land of Rain.
Rain was not a helpless victim. Sandwiched between the giants of Fire, Wind, and Earth, it had bred a survivor's toughness. Under the rule of the "Demigod" Hanzo, it had embraced militarism, a nation where ninja held absolute power, unencumbered by civilian daimyo. Its ambition to become a sixth great power was a threat the established five could not abide. So, they turned it into a battleground, a convenient, bloody pit where they could settle their own scores while plundering its resources. Konoha was no saint in this; its boots were just as muddy.
As they traveled, Captain Moonlight Swiftfire briefed his team, his voice a low monotone against the rustle of leaves and the rhythm of their footfalls. He spoke of Iwagakure's earth-shaking tactics, Amegakure's guerilla warfare in the perpetual downpour, of supply lines to disrupt, commanders to identify.
Ragnar listened, but he was largely an observer. Swiftfire, Yamanaka Kaiji, and Aburame Shigeru formed a closed circuit of experience. Their glances, their shorthand, spoke of missions run together, of trust forged in prior shadows. To them, Ragnar was the prodigy, the raw talent with the glittering Crucible record. But records meant nothing in the field. Talent without tempered experience was a liability. A shiny, dangerous liability.
Swiftfire had received his quiet orders from the Hokage: Guide him. Protect him if necessary. So, their attitude was one of patient, slightly distant instruction. They told him formation protocols, hand signals, how to read the scout's coded marks. Ragnar played his part—the attentive, if silent, rookie.
Days bled together within Fire Country's borders, the travel smooth, the tension a slowly winding spring. As they neared the border, conversation died. Silence became their language. In wartime, the edges of even the great nations grew porous, haunted by scouts, deserters, and infiltrators.
Then they crossed the threshold.
The sky, which had been a clear, innocent blue, soured. Thick, bruised clouds crowded the horizon, pressing down like a sodden blanket. The air grew heavy, damp, and cold, carrying the metallic promise of perpetual rain. The Land of Rain lived up to its name even before they set foot in it—a land of weeping skies and shrouded secrets.
Soon, they were in it. The sun was a forgotten memory. A fine, cold mist became a constant companion, then a steady drizzle, then a downpour that turned the world into a grey, dripping etching. Ragnar remembered fragments: this endless rain was later the work of a god-complexed orphan named Pain. Now, it was just the country's natural misery, amplified by chakra-saturated conflict.
Following faint, almost invisible markers, Swiftfire led them to a Konoha scout—a haggard chunin hidden in a waterlogged culvert. The exchange was terse, coded. Information passed. A scroll changed hands. Team Nine's mission parameters crystallized.
And then came the order that made Ragnar internally sigh.
"You take the center, Rakshasa," Swiftfire stated, using his codename for the first time in the field.
"Center?" Ragnar echoed, the flatness of his voice hiding his exasperation.
"Yes. The three of us will take point and flank. Triangular formation. It offers the best protection for the… least experienced member. We can react to threats from any vector."
Shigeru and Kaiji moved without a word, assuming their positions at the forward points of the invisible triangle. Ragnar was placed squarely in the middle, the precious egg in a basket of seasoned hands.
They think I'm the baggage, he thought, the irony bitter. The boy who had killed jonin was being bubble-wrapped. But he saw the logic in their eyes. They were following orders, and in their worldview, it was the right call. He couldn't blow his cover by arguing. He gave a curt nod and took his place in the cradle.
Their missions were, by ANBU standards, mundane. Deep reconnaissance. Mapping patrol routes. Identifying mid-level Rain ninja officers. The occasional "elimination" of a local Rain official or a low-chunin supply officer. It was the grinding, ugly work of war—chipping away at the enemy's structure, not facing its champions.
There were no grand battles. No clashes with Hanzo's elite. The danger was insidious: ambush in the fog, poisoned water supplies, traps in the mud. The true enemy was the environment, the constant stress, the paranoia.
For Ragnar, it was surreal. He was shepherded, protected. He barely lifted a finger. To avoid looking utterly useless, he began to use his Observation Haki subtly. A minute shift in the mist ahead. A chakra signature too still beside a waterfall. He'd signal a halt with a raised fist, point, murmur a warning. Each time, Swiftfire's sharp eyes would find the lurking danger—a wire trap, a camouflaged sniper. His estimation of Ragnar shifted from "liability" to "rookie with preternatural instincts." A valuable asset, if kept safe.
A month blurred past in the grey monotony of rain and tension. It was time to rotate back to Konoha for debrief and resupply. The cycle of war.
They were on the return leg, navigating a narrow, mist-choked valley. The ground was a mosaic of deep puddles reflecting the iron sky. The rain here was heavier, the mist thicker, clinging to their masks and cloaks. An unnatural quiet had descended, the usual sounds of dripping water and distant thunder muffled.
Ragnar's Observation Haki, constantly active at a low level, suddenly screamed.
DANGER.
It wasn't a person. It was the ground. The intent was hidden, dormant, but malevolent. He saw it in his mind's eye—a puddle just ahead of Swiftfire, not water, but a membrane over a pit of razors.
Time seemed to slow. The fat raindrops hung in the air. Swiftfire's foot was lifting, poised to come down squarely in the center of that deadly pool.
Ragnar didn't think. He acted.
His hand shot out, grabbing the back of Swiftfire's flak jacket and yanking him backward with a force that belied his size.
Swiftfire stumbled, off-balance, a flash of irritation and confusion in his eyes behind the mask. "Rakshasa, what—?!"
His unfinished sentence was answered by the earth itself.
SHHHHKKK-KRSSSH!
The puddle erupted. Dozens of razor-sharp blades of pressurized water, chakra-forged and deadly, shot upward in a vicious geyser. They would have shredded Swiftfire from foot to thigh, likely severing arteries and bone in an instant.
"Wall of Insects!"
Aburame Shigeru's reaction was instantaneous. A black cloud erupted from his sleeves, condensing into a dense, buzzing shield of kikaichu between the team and the water blades. The blades slammed into the living wall, slicing through hundreds of insects with wet thwacks, but their force was spent, dissolving into harmless spray.
The silence that followed was louder than the explosion.
Swiftfire stood frozen, staring at the dissipating insect carcasses and the now-turbid, churned puddle. The spot where his foot would have landed was a small crater lined with deep gashes in the stone beneath.
He slowly turned his head to look at Ragnar, the irritation gone, replaced by a dawning, cold horror. He had been a half-second from being crippled or killed. Not by a jonin, not in a glorious duel, but by a hidden trap in a fucking puddle.
The mist around them seemed to congeal. The quiet was no longer natural. It was the held breath of a hunter.
The ambush wasn't over. It had just begun.
(End of Chapter)
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