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Her ninja speed run through the desert had become a brisk trudge weighted in hot sand and winds. Following the swift and graceful fox as it led her through the endless expanse of sand. Despite her high stamina and endurance, there was nothing to decrease the strength of the sun's rays. The fox seemed to be running with purpose despite the long gaze of the desert leading to nothing as far as the eye could see.
But Sakura held onto the hope that there was more here and that this fox with proof of it. Of course in the back of her head, she had a voice chipping through her wall of determination telling her that she was just chasing a mirage, a figment of hope that would never materialize.
For a while, it seemed that was going to be the case until the desert in the distance moved. The sands had risen like a beacon for her to see. A dust cloud, towering high enough, shaping like a mushroom cloud. She was familiar with that shape, it was an indication of an explosion.
The little fox stopped and turned back to her, "You think I should check it out?"
The creature just gave a whimper, which she took as an affirmative.
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The desert cloud was still clearing when Sakura appeared at the source. She kept pace with the fox that took her to the center of that sand cloud, and the unusual phenomenon made her cautious in her investigation. Suspicious and cautious of the unknown.
She saw someone sitting in the hot sand, kneeling with his head bowed as if posturing hopelessness. That was her impression anyway. A young boy dressed up in bright colors, orange, a tattoo following from his neck up to his bald head.
She decided to make her presence known, "Excuse me, are you alright?"
The boy turned his way towards her, immediately taking a stance, his staff upright in her face. Though he couldn't be more than twelve or thirteen, his eyes were hard as a soldier, and glossy from shed tears.
She instantly recognized him from the wanted poster, it was different from seeing that emotionless painting.
"Who are you?" He questioned with a demanding tone.
"Are you the avatar?"
"I asked you, who you are. Tell me!"
She held up a lax pose, hands in front, giving him a clear target to strike to help lower his guard. "My name is Sakura Haruno."
'"Why are you here?"
"I was looking for the avatar,"
He frowned at her, "Did you see anyone else here? Sand benders? Were they dragging a bison with them?"
"Hold on, please," Sakura continued to hold up her hands in surrender. "I don't know what you're talking about. I've only been in the desert for maybe two hours and I haven't seen anyone here other than you, and this little fox,"
Sakura turned to gesture to the creature but the fox was already turning back and making itself scarce, vanishing across a desert dune, but it was in sight long enough for the boy to catch sight of it.
"That's one of Wa Shin Tang's foxes," He said, glancing down at the little creature. "Where did you come from?"
"I just came from that little oasis springs. Look I don't mean you any harm I promise. I've been looking for you."
"What do you want?" The boy asked strongly. His eyes were still hostile, though his stance loosened.
"I need your help,"
He scoffed, "I can't do anything for you right now since we're trapped in the desert."
Sakura didn't waver just yet. There were still a few cards in her hand, and she would have to play them now. "What about the spirit library? I heard you went looking for it?"
"Well, that's ten feet under sand now," He said bitterly. He gave her a brief explanation that they had already found the library, but the spirit who owned it had decided to send it underground where no one would be able to reach. While vague in details on the reason why, Sakura knew she wouldn't be getting into that place now, and there went a vital clue to her goals. However she still had the avatar in her sights, even if this was not what she expected, she was stubborn enough not to be dissuaded by a little hostility.
From the way this boy was looking, Sakrua could already tell he wasn't in any position to desire to offer a helping hand. So she decided to take another approach.
"I do want to ask for your help in something, but that can wait." Sakura stated, placing her hand in front of her, "Something's clearly the matter, would you please tell me? I'm willing to help in any way I can. Including getting out of this desert,"
Her demeanor seemed to affect him and straightened. "My name is Aang."
"Aang," Sakura greeted, bowing her head slightly. "Alright please, tell me what you need."
The young avatar told Sakura his story, of how he and his friends had come to the Oasis Springs and met a professor that had been searching for the spirit library. And they were able to find it, but while they were inside, they were mugged by sandbenders. More specifically, Aang told Sakura about his sky bison, Aapa who had flown them across the desert. Which was how they had been able to find this elusive spirit library to begin with. But since he was taken, they were all left stranded in this desert.
But through Aang's explanation, Sakura kept note of his changing tone, and shifting body language, she could tell the degree of pain he was in from losing his sky bison.
"Alright, what do you want to do?" She calmly asked.
Aang glanced out into the distance, overlooking the dunes.
..
..
..
Aang was swiftly sailing through the air on his glider, catching the wind. The first for Sakura to see, airbending in action. Although he had insisted for a while that he could travel on foot with her, she knew he doubted her ability to keep pace with him which was why he offered. She had asked if he would be able to track his friends on foot like that and he admitted defeat and took to the skies. Aang quickly received the impression that Sakura wasn't an ordinary traveler. She kept pace with him, using his shadow in the sand to guide her.
He was only able to spot the movements of three silhouettes as the sun was setting. The desert had grown cooler, as the skies started to turn orange. Sakura followed Aang through the desert, noticing his eyes had not shifted, though his cheeks were flushed with exhaustion. It was clear he was deeply troubled by the loss of his bison. But circumstances didn't allow the luxury of worry. She just hoped she could offer a way to alleviate some of this burden.
"There they are," Aang called down to her.
She decided to back peddle, allowing Aang to reach them first. She waited until she could confirm he landed before the three and followed shortly after. There in the hot sands, stood Aang's companions, who were obviously relieved to see him, and also just as exhausted from the heat.
One of them, a boy a bit older than Aang, and with rather lopsided eyes that made Sakura believe he was in some kind of delirious state, approached her fist. He pointed at her. "Hey Katara why are there two of you?"
"You're brain's still on that cactus juice Sokka!" The girl hissed at him. Sakura immediately noticed the two were very similar. From their blue fur cut blue dyed clothing, and their shared features, including the same eyes. Sakura could tell from their facial features they had to be related or at least distantly from the same clan.
She turned to Aang questioningly, "Aang, who is this?"
The boy seemed somewhat occupied with his own shadow in the sand, kneeling over, so she decided to introduce herself. "Hi, I'm Sakura Haruno."
"I'm Katara," The girl gestured to herself, "And this is my brother Sokka, Toph, and Momo,"
She pointed to Sokka, who was lying on the ground, arms wide, staring up at the darkening skies in a complete daze. Katara explained that he drank some cactus water and had been a bit thrown off reality since then. And then she pointed to the young girl, who seemed to be in similar age to Aang, she had pitch-black hair that was in stark contrast to her blank eyes, and Sakura then realized that the girl was blind. She greeted Sakura with a 'sup,'. And Momo was the little lemur who mimicked Sokka in the sand.
Toph, asked, "How did you find another person in the desert Twinkletoes?"
Aang calmly responded. "I didn't. She found me."
"I was searching for the avatar and I tracked you all out here?" Sakura explained.
"What for?" asked Katara.
Rubbing the back of her neck, she just said, "Considering the circumstances, I'm gonna hold off on any explanations for now. But I can help you guys out of the desert, I have a compass and map. So I can show you the way back,"
Katara shook her head. "We can't go back now. We have to go to Ba Sing Se."
Sakura's eyes widened in recognition. "Ba Sing Se? Some friends of mine recently went there too. Like I said I have a map that we can follow."
Toph crossed her arms skeptically. "Can we really trust her?"
Sakura raised her hands in a placating gesture. "I know it might seem strange. But I promise I don't mean any harm. I only came to you because I need help."
Toph smirked. "Must've been pretty desperate if you were willing to walk through a desert to track people down."
"I am that desperate," Sakura admitted, her voice steady with conviction. "But I also know you've all been through a tough time,"
"I'll say," muttered Toph kicking up the sand.
..
..
..
Since there was still some daylight to kill and the tension was as unbearable as the heat, Sakura decided that now was as good a time as any to kick off their venture. But she learned that everyone had spent quite a bit of their energy for today.
Sakura calmly carried them through the desert at a pace they could all manage. Sokka was still befuddled from the cactus juice, and the others were constantly being hit with the heat which was weighing down their steps. And drying out their throats which refused to make way for chatter and pleasantries.
Sensing that their limits were breached, Sakura decided to call it as she was leading the group from the front with the map and compass.
"Alright guys, you should get some rest for a little while," There was an agreement of groans and bodies dropping hard into the sand. Sakura gave them one of her canteens, and the group did their best to savor the drink without devouring more than they should, considerate of each other.
As the sun set, the intense heat of the desert gave way to a cool, refreshing breeze. The temperature change provided a much-needed relief. Sakura didn't think it would do anyone much good to try and rest under the smoldering sun, which gave way to its own form of torture. At least like this, they could actually cool themselves. And she knew that by the time night hit, they would wish they had more layers to shield themselves from the cold since the lack of cloud coverage was what made the desert beating hot in the day and blistering cold in the night.
Everyone quickly fell asleep, except for Sakura, who lay wide awake, her mind racing with doubts and uncertainties. She wondered if she had truly found her savior in the Avatar or if this was just another broken thread in her unraveling quest. Her compassion wouldn't allow her to confirm that just yet and perhaps in a way she was grateful to have that delay, so she could hold onto hope a little longer.
For about an hour, there was nothing but the quiet night, and endless skies keeping Sakura's mind occupied, until she heard shuffling on her right. There Katara seemed to have just woken up from her brief rest and realized she wasn't the first one.
Katara approached her with a gentle smile. "Can't sleep?" she asked.
Sakura shook her head. "I'm alright, just keeping watch. You should rest while you can, the weather might be cooler now, but it's still going to be a ways to go,"
Katara sat down beside her, pulling her legs up, she looked at the map and compass, "We're actually lucky you found us,"
That's when Sakura decided to fully understand the disposition of Aang's current demeanor, and the reason for it. "The avatar, um Aang told me that his sky bison was stolen that's why you're all trapped in the desert,"
Paying heed to the slightest twitches of displeasure and sadness in Katara's features, Sakura waited or her to muster up a response.
"Yes, Aapa carried us here, well he carries us everywhere." She glanced at Aang's back, "It's especially hard on Aang. Aapa was always with him even when…."
Sakura waited but Katara shook her head as if ridding herself of the thought. Uknowbist to Sakura, Katara was revisiting the first time she and her brother found Aang. Frozen in that iceberg with his bison for over a hundred years. She thought about the fact, that Aapa was all Aang had left of his old self, of his old life in the Southern air temple. When everything else was taken and burned to ashes.
"Why are we heading to Ba Sing Se?" The hidden question was why were they going there instead of searching for this precious friend of theirs. And Katara's face turned stern.
"We got some information from the spirit library, and it can help us in this war." The waterbender took a breath, "Now we need to get this information to the earth king in Ba Sing Se. But since we lost Aapa, things weren't looking great for us,"
"Good to know I'm of some use to you then," Sakura dusted off sand some from her lap.
"I'm the one who feels useless, water benders can't do much in a place with no water," Though it was a sheepish point, Katara's voice sounded strained at the end.
"Then we should get out of here," Standing up, and wiping off, Sakura offered her hand to Katara to pull her up before asking her to wake up everyone.
Sakura went over to Toph while Katara went to Sokka and Aang but when Katara reached out to him, Aang turned around on his own, already awake because he hadn't been able to fall asleep. Seemingly drowning in his worries. Despite the turn of events, being trapped in the desert and meeting a girl who followed him into said desert with a request for help; it was clear his mind was still on one thing and that was his missing bison.
Sakura started to gently shake awake Toph and Sokka. Toph groaned her usual deadpan expression unchanged even in the desert's unforgiving conditions.
"Yesterday my mouth tasted like mud; now it just tastes like sand. I'd never thought I'd miss the taste of mud so much," Toph muttered, smacking her dry lips and tasting the small grains on her tongue.
Sokka yawned and rubbed his eyes, standing up slowly. "Is dinner ready?"
"We're moving out."
They both groaned and stood up.
Suddenly, Aang looked up at the sky and saw something drifting across the full moon. His eyes widened with hope. "Appa!" he cried out in joy.
Sakura looked at Aang, noticing the sudden shift from aloofness to cheerfulness. She followed his gaze and squinted, trying to make out the shape in the dim light. "That's a cloud," she said softly, but her words shattered Aang's fleeting hope.
His face fell, but Katara gasped excitedly. "A cloud!" She quickly took off her water sack and handed it to Aang. "Here, fly up there and bend the water from that cloud into my pouch."
Aang grabbed the pouch with a grim expression. His movements were sharp and agitated as he opened his glider and took to the air.
Aang flew across the cloud making it disappear slowly as he swept across the sky back and forth to gather the entire cloud, then landed back on the ground handing the pouch back to Katara.
"Wow, there's hardly any in here." Katara looked down.
"I'm sorry okay! It's a desert cloud I did all I could! What's anyone else doing? What are you doing?" Aang asked with a sharp tone, pointing his staff at her.
"Trying to keep everyone together," Katara said, sounding disheartened before turning away to the map. "Let's just focus on getting out of here."
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Walking through the desert under the cold night air was blissful compared to traveling in the day. Although it was in tense silence, that felt as heavy as their footsteps in the sand and cold to the touch. It seemed that this was going to be the main setting for the rest of their journey.
Suddenly Toph fell forward on the sand after a heavy thud was heard; she clutched her foot. "Crud, I am so sick of not feeling where I'm going, and what idiot leaves a boat in the middle of the desert?"
"Boat?" asked Sakura, she couldn't see any boat, only a small stub of a rock that Toph must have fallen over.
"Yeah, I kicked it hard enough to feel plenty of vibrations," Toph told her
And the confusion continued.
Aang threw his staff over the stump which created a giant gust of wind, pushing the sand back; that revealed the structure that Toph was talking about and it did look a bit like a boat. A wooden boat with two long pieces in front attached to a square base at the back and a sail.
"It's one of the gliders that the sand bender uses," said Katara as she climbed up onto the base where she found a large round contraption with an arrow pointing to a painted symbol of a sun. "And look there's some kind of compass. I bet it could point us out of here. Aang; you can bend a breeze so we can sail it, we're gonna make it!"
THAT'S ALL FOLKS!
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-Commission: Demon slayer x My hero academia
Kunoichi amongst Benders (Avatar x Naruto crossover) (7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
-Kunoichi amongst Heroes chapter (71, 72, 73)
-Kunoichi amongst Heroes WHAT IF SPIN OFF: Dorms and Exams
-Kunoichi amongst Pirates chapter ( 30, 31, 32)
-Crossroads of Fate chapter 21, 22, 23, 24
-Through the Looking Glass chapter 26, 27, 28, 29
-(SEQUEL) Through the Spyglass chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6
-SPECIAL HALLOWEEN CHAPTER: Shinigami amongst Shinobi
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