The below is what lead up to the start of the scene.
The sand beneath her feet gave way as her chakra control failed her for the hundredth time that day. The first dozen times were accompanied by yelps of surprise and a valiant effort of righting herself. More often than not, she had succeeded, but as the days progressed forward those successes devolved into resigned failures. With even less energy than the last time, she pushed herself up from the hot dry sand and onto unsteady feet. At first being stranded in the desert alone was of little concern to her, her natural talents provided her enough water and kept her cool in the blazing sun of this forsaken country. As minutes streched to hours and then days, that confidence waned to the point of shattering.
Pressing the tip of her master's sheathed blade onto the sand, she managed to steady herself and begin walking once again. Late yesterday evening she had been at the breaking point, but off in the far distance she had finally caught sight of it, the only hope for her salvation from this accursed land. Had her master been with her now, it would have been different. As she took beleaguered step after step, using the cherished memento as little more than a walking stick, she could hear the man's words as clearly as her own.
"Treat the blade as an extension of yourself, do not swing it about like a tree branch or the walking stick of a man with one leg in his grave." She knew it was only in her mind, but she would swear that his voice was coming from his weapon. The rational parts of her mind, the ones most starved of food, water and rest, knew this was because it was simply the only possession of his she was able to salvage from that swarm of those... things. She had never seen anything like them before, while he had managed to cut them down by the dozens with ease.
Her mind snapped away from that thought, as she pushed herself to her full, but modest, height. She closed her eyes and took a few slow deep breaths as she tried to calm herself. Thinking of him was not going to do a damned thing to help her live; if she dies here and now to the sun, of all things, then the last vestiges of his memory and legacy would die with her. The mere thought of his weapon left here to rust away into dust, or worse, to be found by scavengers and used by some common bandit to commit countless crimes chilled her to her very core.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed one step in front of her after another, sipping at the reservoir of newfound determination as each labored step brought her one step closer to the village and one step farther from where her master made his final resting place. Minutes came and went and her mind once again began to drift back towards those mintues that felt so far removed from her they may as well have been years. Gripping her own pair of small swords, she had fought off a dozen of those soulless husks while her master cut them down by the dozens. Her form was a pale imitation of his. Having only been in his tutelage for less than a decade, how could she have compared?
Kicking off the face of one, he soared into the air, landing with a sword in each hand that he drove down into the pale skulls of two more. With a graceful spin he ripped another blade from a corpse at his feet, sliced the arm off another attacker with a flick of his elbow and sent the blade flying at yet another. On he danced, each motion seeming random as his seemed to carelessly cut, sever or impale his enemies with reckless abandon. Yet each motion seemed to seamlessly flow into the next, as if each chaotic piece was stitched together into an intricate masterpiece that was all part of some grand design.
It was rare to see her master fight with such intensity, but he was not taking the fight seriously. She knew that, in his eyes, this was just another test for her to overcome. A chance to sharpen her skills and push her past her current limits while he curtailed the threat just enough to keep her alive. Even knowing that, she felt utterly overwhelmed as she followed her own unseen rhythm, taking each opportunity she saw and immediately flowing into the next. Her moves were not as graceful, boisterous or as powerful, but after years of study she was shaping up to be a proper disciple.
Her own short blades cut into the chest of one of the creatures that lurched at her. She ripped one free, shoved it back and then leapt up towards him, using the hilt of her embedded blade as a stepping stool up to its head. With a powerful kick she knocked it down and left half a dozen feet into the air, taking the moment to survey her surroundings. As she came down, she reached her hands to her side, the air around them shimmered as the water instnatly crystallized in her open palms. It was not much, barely more than daggers, but it was all she could manage as she came down upon another husk, driving both icy blades into its shoulders. Leaving them embedded into it, she landed with a pained grunt as she hopped back away from its counter attack.
The next few moments came to her in only bits and pieces, blurred together with time and painted over by a thick coat of adrenaline. Another of these things, but much larger and looking less like some mindless zombie and more malicious had grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground. The seconds after that were even fuzzier, as she heard her master's voice and saw his body collapse a short distance from hers. She did not know if it had been seconds or minutes, but as her mind had come to, she was surrounded in a sea of bodies, and among them lay the broken body of her master, only one sword of his remaining in his grip.
She had rushed to him, her ribs cracked and her vision blurred, but even to her it was clear that he was still. A part of her wished to stay, fight and avenge the man, but what hope did she have. A dozen yards away she heard more stirring as the hulking behemoth stirred, half a dozen blades jutting from its body as it attempted to right itself. Whatever had happened, she had no chance of finishing it. A hundred possibilities of what had happened ran through her mind, none of them making any sense to her. It was impossible that he was dead, not to these things, but as sure as the sun rose she felt his still chest, covered in blood and sand and as still as a stone.
Without pride or honor, she grabbed his sword and sheath and fled. There were still more of the mindless drones and she had no confidence that she could stand up to whatever that thing was, however it had gotten the best of her master. So she ran, her chest burning from exhaustion and the pain of her own bones trying to pierce her own organs. She knew it was cowardly, but it would be what he would have told her to do. To willingly bend the blade past the breaking point is not boldness, it is stupidity. Those words of his, and many others, played through her head as she sprinted on through the sand, tears filling her eyes as it began to sink in that she would never hear them again.
Her master had been all of the family she had known for most of her life. She knew litte about him, he had been a secretive man and she had tried to respect his wishes, even if she regretted it now. She knew that he had once been from the Village Hidden in the Sands, but she did not know why he had traveled the countryside on his own. Even now she did not know if it was pity or something else that had convinced him to pick up the abandoned girl on the side of the road, her merchant parents' cart looted and their bodies tossed aside. He had offered, and she had instantly accepted, to track down the bandits and to avenge her parents. She was old enough to know what swearing herself to him would mean, but it was not as if she really had any other choice.
It seemed almsot too coincidental that a few years later she had began to show signs of her family's distant lineage: the Yuki bloodline from the now frozen islands. In this, he was a poor teacher, but he had encouraged her to learn and experiment on her own. It was the only real taste of freedom she had from her travels and training from her master, which was as unforgiving as it was effective.
The man was a master of the blade, one who wove through a battlefield like a hurricane of steel and fury, and now, likely because of her, he was now food for the scavengers. Felled by some mindless abomination that she likely would never see again. As she collapsed down again, she barely caught herself with on the hilt with his sword, feeling the unnatural chill seeping out from the edge of its sheath as she pushed herself up once again. The sword itself was nameless, just another tool in her master's arsenal, but holding its hilt in her hand she could almost feel his hand on her shoulder urging her forward.
The next day was grueling, but after four long days of exhaustive travel, she finally made it to the village gates. As soon as the young woman's eyes made contact with the shinobi at the gate, the last wisps of energy that sustained her gave out as she collapsed like a lifeless sack onto the hard compacted path.
The sand beneath her feet gave way as her chakra control failed her for the hundredth time that day. The first dozen times were accompanied by yelps of surprise and a valiant effort of righting herself. More often than not, she had succeeded, but as the days progressed forward those successes devolved into resigned failures. With even less energy than the last time, she pushed herself up from the hot dry sand and onto unsteady feet. At first being stranded in the desert alone was of little concern to her, her natural talents provided her enough water and kept her cool in the blazing sun of this forsaken country. As minutes streched to hours and then days, that confidence waned to the point of shattering.
Pressing the tip of her master's sheathed blade onto the sand, she managed to steady herself and begin walking once again. Late yesterday evening she had been at the breaking point, but off in the far distance she had finally caught sight of it, the only hope for her salvation from this accursed land. Had her master been with her now, it would have been different. As she took beleaguered step after step, using the cherished memento as little more than a walking stick, she could hear the man's words as clearly as her own.
"Treat the blade as an extension of yourself, do not swing it about like a tree branch or the walking stick of a man with one leg in his grave." She knew it was only in her mind, but she would swear that his voice was coming from his weapon. The rational parts of her mind, the ones most starved of food, water and rest, knew this was because it was simply the only possession of his she was able to salvage from that swarm of those... things. She had never seen anything like them before, while he had managed to cut them down by the dozens with ease.
Her mind snapped away from that thought, as she pushed herself to her full, but modest, height. She closed her eyes and took a few slow deep breaths as she tried to calm herself. Thinking of him was not going to do a damned thing to help her live; if she dies here and now to the sun, of all things, then the last vestiges of his memory and legacy would die with her. The mere thought of his weapon left here to rust away into dust, or worse, to be found by scavengers and used by some common bandit to commit countless crimes chilled her to her very core.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed one step in front of her after another, sipping at the reservoir of newfound determination as each labored step brought her one step closer to the village and one step farther from where her master made his final resting place. Minutes came and went and her mind once again began to drift back towards those mintues that felt so far removed from her they may as well have been years. Gripping her own pair of small swords, she had fought off a dozen of those soulless husks while her master cut them down by the dozens. Her form was a pale imitation of his. Having only been in his tutelage for less than a decade, how could she have compared?
Kicking off the face of one, he soared into the air, landing with a sword in each hand that he drove down into the pale skulls of two more. With a graceful spin he ripped another blade from a corpse at his feet, sliced the arm off another attacker with a flick of his elbow and sent the blade flying at yet another. On he danced, each motion seeming random as his seemed to carelessly cut, sever or impale his enemies with reckless abandon. Yet each motion seemed to seamlessly flow into the next, as if each chaotic piece was stitched together into an intricate masterpiece that was all part of some grand design.
It was rare to see her master fight with such intensity, but he was not taking the fight seriously. She knew that, in his eyes, this was just another test for her to overcome. A chance to sharpen her skills and push her past her current limits while he curtailed the threat just enough to keep her alive. Even knowing that, she felt utterly overwhelmed as she followed her own unseen rhythm, taking each opportunity she saw and immediately flowing into the next. Her moves were not as graceful, boisterous or as powerful, but after years of study she was shaping up to be a proper disciple.
Her own short blades cut into the chest of one of the creatures that lurched at her. She ripped one free, shoved it back and then leapt up towards him, using the hilt of her embedded blade as a stepping stool up to its head. With a powerful kick she knocked it down and left half a dozen feet into the air, taking the moment to survey her surroundings. As she came down, she reached her hands to her side, the air around them shimmered as the water instnatly crystallized in her open palms. It was not much, barely more than daggers, but it was all she could manage as she came down upon another husk, driving both icy blades into its shoulders. Leaving them embedded into it, she landed with a pained grunt as she hopped back away from its counter attack.
The next few moments came to her in only bits and pieces, blurred together with time and painted over by a thick coat of adrenaline. Another of these things, but much larger and looking less like some mindless zombie and more malicious had grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground. The seconds after that were even fuzzier, as she heard her master's voice and saw his body collapse a short distance from hers. She did not know if it had been seconds or minutes, but as her mind had come to, she was surrounded in a sea of bodies, and among them lay the broken body of her master, only one sword of his remaining in his grip.
She had rushed to him, her ribs cracked and her vision blurred, but even to her it was clear that he was still. A part of her wished to stay, fight and avenge the man, but what hope did she have. A dozen yards away she heard more stirring as the hulking behemoth stirred, half a dozen blades jutting from its body as it attempted to right itself. Whatever had happened, she had no chance of finishing it. A hundred possibilities of what had happened ran through her mind, none of them making any sense to her. It was impossible that he was dead, not to these things, but as sure as the sun rose she felt his still chest, covered in blood and sand and as still as a stone.
Without pride or honor, she grabbed his sword and sheath and fled. There were still more of the mindless drones and she had no confidence that she could stand up to whatever that thing was, however it had gotten the best of her master. So she ran, her chest burning from exhaustion and the pain of her own bones trying to pierce her own organs. She knew it was cowardly, but it would be what he would have told her to do. To willingly bend the blade past the breaking point is not boldness, it is stupidity. Those words of his, and many others, played through her head as she sprinted on through the sand, tears filling her eyes as it began to sink in that she would never hear them again.
Her master had been all of the family she had known for most of her life. She knew litte about him, he had been a secretive man and she had tried to respect his wishes, even if she regretted it now. She knew that he had once been from the Village Hidden in the Sands, but she did not know why he had traveled the countryside on his own. Even now she did not know if it was pity or something else that had convinced him to pick up the abandoned girl on the side of the road, her merchant parents' cart looted and their bodies tossed aside. He had offered, and she had instantly accepted, to track down the bandits and to avenge her parents. She was old enough to know what swearing herself to him would mean, but it was not as if she really had any other choice.
It seemed almsot too coincidental that a few years later she had began to show signs of her family's distant lineage: the Yuki bloodline from the now frozen islands. In this, he was a poor teacher, but he had encouraged her to learn and experiment on her own. It was the only real taste of freedom she had from her travels and training from her master, which was as unforgiving as it was effective.
The man was a master of the blade, one who wove through a battlefield like a hurricane of steel and fury, and now, likely because of her, he was now food for the scavengers. Felled by some mindless abomination that she likely would never see again. As she collapsed down again, she barely caught herself with on the hilt with his sword, feeling the unnatural chill seeping out from the edge of its sheath as she pushed herself up once again. The sword itself was nameless, just another tool in her master's arsenal, but holding its hilt in her hand she could almost feel his hand on her shoulder urging her forward.
The next day was grueling, but after four long days of exhaustive travel, she finally made it to the village gates. As soon as the young woman's eyes made contact with the shinobi at the gate, the last wisps of energy that sustained her gave out as she collapsed like a lifeless sack onto the hard compacted path.
Kazumi's eyes remained unfocused as she pulled one unsteady step after another. Her mouth had completely lost feeling, becoming partly chapped from her inability to keep it fully closed. Her clothes were ragged and ripped in places, in part from the fight that had brought here here but others were a result of mistreatment in the past few days. The young woman's muscles, bones and skinned aches, rashes and sunburn coating her exposed skin. Whomever she was, she certainly seemed ill prepared to be traveling throughout the desert.
With her mind almost completely vacant, only a few scant thoughts kept her going as she pressed one heavy step after another up the side of the dine. She could see the dark shape of a wall far ahead of her, and while she couldn't understand what she was seeing, she knew in that direction was her only hope for making it out alive. The first day or two had not been so bad, but she had quickly run dry of her chakra reserves and her body had no chance to replenish them,. So whatever was on the other side of this gods forsaken hill of sand and grit was either going to be her damnation or salvation.
Stabbing the old sword's hilt into the sand she pushed herself up over the rise. At first it was difficult to understand what it was, but after a few sluggish moments she finally understood. A large wall curving away from her, with a set of large gates embedded into it, only a few hundred feet away. For the first time in days she felt a tinge of elation and hope. Her mouth cracked into a smile as her lips trickled a little blood from the edges. She even thought she caught sight of a figure near the base. With a burst of vigor, she pressed one foot early up over the rise and collapsed to the ground. Her last moments of consciousness were one of relief and elation, but that quickly faded to oblivion as her body finally gave way under the strain.
Her body rolled over itself and than began to slowly tumble down the hill, the remnants of her outfit wrapping her up as sand shifted and spilled around her roll. It only took a few seconds before she finally came to a rest at the bottom, a trail of sand cascading down from behind her, half burying her in half-formed pockets of hot sand. Had she not been within shouting distance of the village gate, this certainly would have been her final resting place.
