Chapter 20.1- Gamer of the Desert

‘Lava Release is such bullshit,’ I thought to myself as I jumped over a wooden fence and continued my escape from Kiri’s she-devil. How did I get here? Well, the answer to that question requires a bit of a story. It all started two months ago.

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I walked into the mission room again, and this time, the desk chunin seemed to have been waiting for me. "Gaara of the Desert, the Kazekage will see you regarding this mission," he said, and I nodded before walking away. This was the first time Rasa was personally requesting me for a mission since the escort mission a year ago. Since then, I'd basically smashed mission record after mission record. The B-rank quota had been met in the first three months of my decision to start speedrunning missions.

The A-rank missions were a mite more complicated. Turns out that the first mission had been something of an outlier. Since then, all the missions required some sort of research into the target, and time spent covering up the assassination or not making it obvious at least. Assassinations were the only missions I bothered to accept at this point. I could accomplish them single-handedly, and there was very little room for my time to end up being wasted by things out of my control, so I could move at my own pace. I avoided escort missions like the plague.

I walked into Rasa's office with my back straight and my head held high.

"Gaara, I have another mission for you," he said without taking his head off the papers he was reading. I waited for him to continue.

"Lord Nayohara personally requested you for this mission. A merchant in Kiri has caught his ire. It's A-ranked, but the pay is more commensurate with that of an S-ranked mission," Rasa said, probably trying to sweeten the pot, but he had me at Nayohara. I owed the man. Staring at the gleaming 47 floating next to my fuinjutsu skill was enough to remind me of the fact.

"I'll accept the mission," I said to him, and he fished out some scroll from his desk before tossing it to me.

"Good. Your team will be waiting for you at the Gates."

"Team?" I asked.

"A jounin is required to lead teams of ninja on missions. You cannot be promoted without showing some leadership traits," he said, placing emphasis on some of the words he said, clearly passing across some message. I nodded at his words and left the office.

I wondered how best to do this. A year of pretty much non-stop missions meant my appearance had taken a bit of a backseat. I checked a mirror as I walked past a store and noticed that my clothes had some scuffs and scratches, but beyond them and my hair, I didn't look too bad. Not badly enough to warrant a change of clothes or a haircut at all. Not in my opinion, at least.

I shunshined towards the gate and found the team that had been set aside for me, and imagine my shock when I was easily able to recognize all of them. Temari, Kankuro, and Baki. I marched towards my former sensei and ignoring the awkward greetings from my siblings, pulled him over to a corner.

"Genin on an A-ranked mission?" I asked him, and he just looked at me.

"The Kazekage has given his orders," he said.

He probably wasn't any more pleased with this situation than I was. Although, we probably had different reasons for our annoyance. I didn't want Genin slowing me down, and he probably didn't want his charges dead on a mission far beyond their skill levels. I had to applaud Rasa for his ingenuity, though. Baki couldn't go against his orders, and he gave me the one mission I would never reject out of hand once things got too troublesome.

I returned to my siblings with a forced smile on my face. "I am Gaara of the Desert, Chunin of Sunagakure, and I will be taking point on this mission." Kankuro made to say something, but Temari jumped on him with a hand over his mouth.

"Please take care of us," she said with a bow, her hand still over our brother's mouth. Good. No awkward confrontations or attempts to bond. I only hoped things remained that way.

"Our mission will take place in Kirigakure. We've been asked to remain anonymous for the entirety of it, so once we leave Kaze no Kuni, we will travel as civilian refugees," I said to them, taking charge with ease I would never have expected.

We moved as one from the village. At least, if I was going to get stuck with any team of genin, it was probably for the best that it was this one. Baki's training would ensure that they were at least competent enough to not slow me down too much.

Of course, I'd spoken too soon. It ended up taking us three days to leave Kaze no Kuni itself.

"What do you mean you haven't been taught to Desert travel?" I'd asked Temari with a snarl on my face.

Baki just shrugged at me, clearly holding back a self-satisfied smirk. Teaching them the chakra technique to circulate chakra through their coils to prevent themselves from overheating had been an ordeal on its own, and then having to constantly stop for breaks as Kankuro's frankly pathetic chakra reserves made him need to stop more often than I was expecting.

At the end of the day, I was able to keep a hold of my temper by imagining a gleaming jounin vest at every instance. Where the Jounin vest was insufficient, the Kage hat and robes stepped in. At least, with the constant breaks, my clones were able to get even more training in. I'd have to dispel them once we left Kaze no Kuni, though. The farther I got from them, the more chakra was lost in the dispelling process, and something told me I'd be needing every drop of my reserves for this particular mission.

Our chosen route was through the Land of Fire. While I wasn't keen on being in Danzo's territory, it was the most direct and subtle route. Besides, our treaty with Konoha meant we had clearance to cross their borders at will.

The time wasted in getting out of Kaze no Kuni meant I had to rework the plan to consider the delay.

"Present yourselves," the Konoha Chunin asked, and I stepped forward.

"Gaara of the Desert, Chunin of Sunagakure. Moving through your borders for a mission in the Land of Waves," I tossed him a dummy scroll Baki had given me, and he nodded after examining everything.

"You will be given a Chunin escort," he said before whistling into the treeline. Four Chunin dropped out of the trees and took places around our group. I just shrugged and said to the one in the lead, "I hope you can keep up." He audibly scoffed before I shot up from the ground like a bullet. Two tendrils of sand appeared behind me and caught both Temari and Kankuro in their grips. Kankuro actually shrieked in fright as the tendrils lifted them up from the floor and forced them to float beside me.

We were behind schedule already, and I really needed to make it back before my twelfth birthday. It would be pretty fucked if the person I needed to secure my promotion was already dead by the time I actually completed the mission to get the promotion.

We were out of the Land of Fire by the end of the day and could move to the Land of Waves at a more relaxed speed. Baki had calmed an irritated Temari and Kankuro during the journey, and I knew I'd lose some points for that stunt.

Passage into the Land of Water was easy to find. We found a ship that was going to dock at the Land of Waves for a few hours to restock and make its way to the Land of Water immediately afterward.

Posing as a father and three kids after changing into the best examples of civilian clothes we had. Luckily Baki had, at least, taught them the value of being prepared, so everyone had the outfits they needed.

That just meant all we needed to do was wait on the ship during the transport. It took a whole day for us to even get to Waves. The weather was something else. After restocking, the Land of Water was approximately another three days away. The only bright side was that this ship was going to be docking on the same island as our target.

Two days later, when we could see the island under the cover of night, I had Baki wake the kids up, and we dove out of the ship, heading right into the ocean and swimming to the island. We didn't want any record of our passing, and Baki had already genjutsu'd the crew into forgetting our presence here. It wasn't the strongest in the world, but it should be sufficient for a few civilians.

We arrived and wasted no time in setting up in one of the half dozen empty apartments close to the docks, and I set off to do some scouting of my own.

The Island was pretty close to empty at this point, showing the situation in the Land of Water. My knowledge of canon told me there should be a civil war or something ravaging the land right now, and a look around the Island gave me loads of signs that that was true. Poverty was common. Starving children littered the streets, making me somewhat of an oddity with my clean clothes and well-fed appearance. I retreated to the apartment after the looks were getting too much and I deemed the information I'd gathered as enough.

Our target stayed in the large manse close to the center of the Island. It was a small Island, so he was pretty much the only one with any good amount of wealth. He was also the mayor of the Island, which the scroll definitely hadn't mentioned.

Still, the mission would go forward.

"So how do we kill him?" I asked my siblings and Baki, wanting to get some ideas from them. This would probably end up being my most complicated assassination mission yet.

"Poison," Kankuro answered instantly.

"And how do we deliver it?" I asked them.

"Food," Temari suggested. I nodded at the idea. I was more fond of using medical ninjutsu to stimulate sudden heart attacks in my targets, but this might require an even more delicate touch.

"Good. Temari, you will scout the manse under a transformation and find two of the kitchen staff for you and Kankuro to impersonate. I will be taking the place of his food taster. People like him always have one, and Baki will remain here to secure our escape route. Is that fine with everyone?"

They all nodded, and I smiled. Guess we had a merchant to kill.

The plan itself ended up taking little over a month to get all the vectors to come together. To my irritation, I was the main delay. In a shocking turn of events, the food taster and our target were actually friends, so I dedicated the time to learning all that I could about the man I'd be impersonating in a short while.

His name was Lee. He spoke with a drawl that I'd have some trouble replicating, and he was prone to making out-of-pocket comments and replies. Day after day, I watched him move across town, from store to store, observing his interactions with the citizenry and his employer, in those rare occasions the merchant deigned to leave his manse. If the scroll wasn't so clear about making the thing look like an accident, I'd have sniped the idiot the moment he reared his head outside.

Still, we were ready. I'd seen enough. I dropped down behind the taster as he turned into an unoccupied alleyway. He was head before my feet even hit the ground, and I was quick to stash his body into my inventory and take on his appearance.

A/N; Closer and closer to canon we go!