Outside, Sunagakure's air was a wall of heat and light, the wind carrying particles that found every exposed patch of skin. Rika squinted, shoulders hunched, and started toward the stairwell that spiraled to the street below. The Tower's upper gardens were deserted at this hour. Only the faint click-click of beetles and the shiver of wind through spiny succulents marked her passage. She leaned against the railing to catch her bearings. She wove through the maze of foot traffic, her cloak deflecting the worst of the dust. Vendors called out, a hundred sharp voices hawking everything from daggers to pickled cactus, but she tuned them out. Focus was a habit she wore tighter than her armor.
The world's heat was doubled by the time Rika reached Soon's Haven, her mouth lined with grit and her sweat already sticky beneath the armor. The outpost existed on the knife-edge between order and desert, a place where people came to trade, to flee, or to disappear. If Sunagakure was a polished fortress, Soon's Haven was its mud-caked cousin—rowdy, sun-bleached, and crammed with every flavor of survivor. Rika scanned the crowd. She'd learned the trick in the Academy: ignore the noise, look for patterns. The people who didn't want to be noticed always left a negative space, an accidental oasis of calm amid the bustle. Today, the only stationary figure was a man with the physique of a stork and skin dyed a perpetual shade of blue from years spent elbow-deep in chemical baths. He sat cross-legged behind a folding table, his long fingers painting stripes of indigo onto lengths of white linen with a twitchy, birdlike precision. She shifted over. The dyer's workspace was a neat row of order brushes, water bowls lined up smallest to largest, every bolt of fabric precisely folded. The man didn't look up when she stopped, but his brushstrokes slowed.
"Need something for a ceremony, little miss?" His voice was pitched low, for her alone.
Rika grinned widely. "Depends. You do funerals?"
The dyer's hand paused mid-stroke. He dabbed the tip of the brush against the lip of a jar, then finally raised his eyes. They were pale, almost colorless, with a sort of careful weariness she recognized instantly. "Girl your age," he said, "should be picking dyes for a wedding, not last rites. But business is business. Who's the lucky corpse?"
"Maybe you know him," Rika replied. "Gakashi. Rumor says he passed this way."
The merchant's face didn't move, but his next brushstroke was so heavy it left a streak across the linen. He didn't bother to fix it, just leaned back and wiped his hands on his apron, movements deliberate. "Stories travel faster than caravans out here. Gakashi's got a way of making friends. And widows." The dyer's gaze flitted past Rika's shoulder, taking in the movement of the market. "You want to find him, best you look where people don't."
Rika shrugged, playing up the nonchalance. "If I wanted advice, I'd ask my sensei. But you seem the type to keep tabs on your customers."
The man grunted, not quite a laugh, but close. "Last I heard, he was sticking to the Tear-Drop Oasis. Hires on for farm work, then vanishes before anyone gets suspicious. Haven't seen him myself. Too smart to shop local."
"Noted." Rika reached into her pouch, retrieved a sliver of pale green chalk, and placed it on the table. It was a local custom—payment for secrets, even if you didn't know the price. The man accepted it without a word. She turned to leave, then paused. "If you see anyone looking for me, you never saw me."
The dyer gave her a lazy salute, already returning to his work. "I'll remember nothing, little miss."
Sunset was coming fast, the sky bleeding orange and violet across the dunes. Perfect time for an approach: shift change for the sentries, eyes blinded by the last light of day.
Rika reached the rim of the oasis and paused, half-crouched in the shadow of a leaning palm. Ahead, she saw movement - a figure bending over a trough, their shapes distorted by the flicker of firelight and the haze of heat.
Rika slowed her breathing. Tonight, the hunt began in earnest.
The farm buildings had been built for utility, not comfort. Low and rectangular, each wore a scab of old repair - patched walls, doors hung askew, roofs braced with whatever scavenged metal could be hammered flat. The nearest structure was a toolshed, its entrance flanked by drying racks hung with strips of what looked like cured jackal meat. Past it, a squat barn, then the dim outline of a main house. None of the windows glowed with interior light, but all were covered in thick blackout cloth.
Rika hugged the shadow of the shed. She moved, catlike, following a trail. The orchard's fence was a crude affair, just vertical logs bound with wire. Rika ducked low, slipped through the largest gap, and landed in a spray of old pomegranate leaves. In the failing light, the orchard looked wild, overgrown. But the ground here was trampled, the prints overlapping in a direction that could only lead to the farthest structure - a solitary hut, painted with a flaking layer of dark blue.
Rika pressed herself flat against the hut's back wall, listening for patterns. A faint shuffle, the clink of glass. At the same time, she let her other senses stretch: chakra traces, pressure shifts, the barely-there buzz of movement at the edge of normal hearing. She grinned. He was alone.
The sky had turned the color of bruised fruit. Rika flexed her hands, rolled her shoulders to loosen them, and let the world slow down. For a moment, time fractured: she felt each second as a discrete, heavy thing, the sounds of the farm and the blood in her own ears collapsing into one slow, perfect beat. She peered through a crack in the shutters, careful not to silhouette herself against the lanterns outside. The man inside was older than she expected, his scalp shaved and glistening with sweat, hands big as shovel blades. On the table next to him lay a length of heavy rope, a battered canteen, and a small, neatly-bound ledger. Rika's gaze snagged on the dagger. The handle was inlaid with a ring of blue stone, chipped but unmistakable: a trophy taken from a Suna ninja a year ago, during Gakashi's first documented hit. There was no mistake. This was him.
She retreated a step, weighing her options. She could storm the hut and hope for surprise, but she needed to hold back and not destroy the farm or the hut. Better to wait for him to emerge, catch him in transit. Or lure him out. She scanned the orchard for anything usable. The fruit was mostly shriveled, but one tree near the hut's door still had a cluster of ripe, red orbs. Rika broke off a pomegranate, heavy in her palm, and fingered it as she worked her way back to the wall. She tossed it in a high arc, aiming for the shed roof. The pomegranate hit with a thump, rolled down the metal with a raspy scrape, then bounced off the rain barrel to the ground below. The sound was loud in the sudden silence.
Inside, the man stiffened, chair scraping. He stood in one fluid motion, pausing only to grab the canteen and the rope. The door swung open, and he scanned the orchard with a glare sharp enough to cut. Rika didn't breathe. She'd chosen her position perfectly; unless he had senses to rival hers, he'd never see her until she moved. He stepped out, cautious but not panicked. He was dressed in scavenged clothing, a thick vest with several hidden pouches. His hands, though, were bare, the knuckles scarred and callused. He took three slow steps toward the sound, then paused, cocking his head. Listening for the next move.
Rika waited. One beat. Two. Then, when the wind rattled the lanterns and all attention was elsewhere, she slipped from cover and closed the distance. Her feet barely touched the ground. The world narrowed to a single, perfect line between her and her target. She stopped two meters from him, well outside arm's reach, and let her presence announce itself. The man spun, dagger up and ready, his eyes burning with a hard, intelligent focus.
"Well," he said, "didn't expect them to send a child. Sunagakure must be desperate."
Rika smiled, loose and easy, but her mind was already working every angle. "Heh, well, this kid is going to be your downfall."
He barked a laugh, low and genuine. "You talk big for someone so small."
She shrugged, hand resting casually on the kunai at her belt. "Being small makes me harder to hit."
The two of them regarded each other in the cold blue light of dusk, both perfectly aware that the first move might also be the last. Rika felt her heart slow, every nerve ending crystal clear. She was ready. She took up her own stance: feet planted, hands open, fingers twitching as she let the familiar hum of chakra through her arms. The world narrowed to a corridor of possible outcomes, each one mapped and weighed. Rika grinned, a flash of white in the blue dusk. She let her gaze flick to the dagger, then back to his face. "Funny, they never tell you how much smaller the bad guys look up close."
That earned a proper laugh, brief but not unkind. "They sent a child because they thought I'd go soft. That's Suna for you. All strategy, no heart." He sheathed the dagger, then unsheathed it again, a movement so smooth it barely registered. "If you turn around and leave, I won't hunt you. My quarrel is not with children."
Rika shrugged, conjuring a ribbon of cobalt chakra along her palm. The light rippled in the air, a visible seam between what was real and what she willed into existence. "I'll go easy on you. If you come quiet, they'll just lock you up. Maybe even feed you."
He rolled his shoulders, letting the weight of the moment settle. "If you were older, maybe I'd try to teach you something."
She let the ribbon coil tighter, feeling her heartbeat synchronize with the flicker of lanterns. "I'm a fast learner."
For a breath, neither moved. Around them, the air thickened. The camel shifted, sensing violence, and snorted as if offended by the coming mess.
Gakashi broke the silence. "You know what I hate about Suna?" He stepped forward, but not aggressively - just enough to close the gap. "You believe you're special, like the wind owes you a favor."
Rika's smile sharpened. "That's because it does."
He bared his teeth, then lunged.
She parried the first strike with a snap of her wrist, the chakra ribbon hardening into a razor edge that met the dagger in a shower of blue sparks. The impact numbed her fingers, but the barrier held. Gakashi was faster than the dossier promised; he shifted his weight and spun, sweeping at her knee. Rika bent backward, letting the world slow to a crawl, and watched the boot pass within a millimeter of her shin. She used the borrowed time to drop her center of gravity, planting one hand in the dirt and whipping her leg at his ankles. He hopped the sweep, but not without a grunt of surprise. The next instant, he was on her—no hesitation, no wasted motion. The dagger flashed again, but she caught his wrist with both hands, rolling her weight to the side and twisting until the joint creaked. He didn't yell. He just twisted back, using sheer leverage and the size difference to break the hold. Rika spun with the motion, launching herself into a backward roll that landed her ten feet away, balanced and ready.
They clashed again. This time, Rika let the world blur at the edges—using her Seikon gift to fracture time for just a split-second, enough to anticipate the next two moves. Gakashi's pattern was pure Iwa: brute force, with a side of trickery. He feinted high, then dropped for a kidney shot, but she read the faint tightening of his left shoulder and pivoted aside, her hands wove a few handseals, and she activated a ninjutsu, Psionic Rend across his thigh. The cut was shallow, but it drew blood, dark and slow. He hissed, impressed. "Good. Very good."
Rika kept her stance, knowing he was drawing her out, looking for weakness. "You can still surrender," she said. "I hear the holding cells have decent ventilation."
He laughed again, deeper this time. "That's not the kind of mercy I need."
She nodded, and this time, she didn't smile. The air split with the sound of metal on chakra, the blur of bodies caught in each other's gravity. Rika felt herself slip into the familiar logic of a fight: each beat, each breath, each possibility. She was the wall and the wind, both, and in that moment, she knew she could win. Rika used the moment to scissor-kick his other leg, bringing the man down to her height. As he toppled, he twisted, driving his elbow toward her face. She barely deflected it, the force scraping a line across her cheek. The dagger came again, wild and ugly. She caught his wrist, but he was too strong to hold for long. So she didn't try. Instead, she let go and ducked her head, taking a glancing cut along her scalp, pain flaring hot and fast. She blinked the blood from her eyes and spat a laugh.
"Getting tired yet?" she asked, breathless but cocky.
"Not even close," he grunted.
His hand shot out, gripping her cloak at the collar, lifting her up with the ease of a man shaking dust from a rug. She felt her toes leave the ground. He raised the dagger, aiming for her throat. She let go of the world for just a second. To an observer, it might have looked like a stutter: a twitch in the air, a momentary double-image of herself suspended, then gone. But for Rika, time snapped open - she saw the possible outcomes bloom around her like ice fractals. She chose one thread and yanked on it. Instead of resisting, she let her body go limp. The sudden deadweight surprised Gakashi enough to stall his killing stroke. In that microsecond of confusion, she coiled the cobalt chakra in her palm, then lashed it up and around, binding his forearm with a band of pure pressure. She yanked hard, slamming his elbow into the side of his own skull. He dropped her. She landed on all fours, sucked air, and rolled away before he could recover. The sand was cold where the blood ran down her neck, but she used the sensation to anchor herself, to keep from slipping into panic or tunnel vision.
Gakashi staggered, shaking off the blow, and advanced again. He was breathing harder now, blood wetting his pants and dripping from his chin, but his eyes were alive with the same unyielding focus. "You're full of tricks," he said, admiration in the grit of his voice. "But tricks don't win wars." He feinted left, then right, then came in with a brutal shoulder tackle. The impact lifted her off her feet and drove her back against the adobe hut. She felt her vertebrae compress, her lungs flatten, but she didn't break. As he closed for the finish, she slammed her open palm into his chest, channeling everything she had into one perfect surge.
Reality buckled. The air rippled blue, and for a split second, gravity doubled, then tripled, crushing Gakashi downward. She casted a gravity ninjutsu: Newton's Apple. His knees hit the dirt, then his hands. He fought it, every muscle corded, but Rika poured more power into the flow, forcing him down until his face was inches from the ground. He looked up at her, neck straining against the pull. The dagger was still in his hand, but he couldn't raise it. "Go on," he croaked, voice shredded by the effort. "Do it."
"Sorry, buddy, you're coming back with me," Rika huffed out a laugh, then she channeled earth-based chakra, this time not just on the sand, but on the moisture in the air around his arms. The humidity condensed, forming a resin-thick mud that locked his wrists in place. It was a trick she'd improvised during a heatstroke hallucination as a child, and now it worked perfectly. Gakashi's body was pinned, face down and helpless. But his voice was calm, even dignified. She gave the knots another half-turn, then hauled him to a sitting position. He was heavier than he looked, and her bruised ribs screamed in protest, but she managed. The sand stuck to his blood and sweat, turning his exposed skin into a raw, patchwork map. Rika made a mental note: salt and sand together would sting like hell, but she didn't offer him a drink or a rag. She figured he'd done worse.
Rika looked around the farm and spotted a sandrunner, a domesticated one by the looks. The golden feathers glistened in the moonlight, like a majestic beast that it was. She whistled to get its attention and waved it over. She offered it a fruit from the orchard, and it ate it happily.
Getting Gakashi on the sandrunner was a challenge; she tried a fireman's carry and tossed him up onto the bird with a huff. Using a bit of chakra and her affinity for the gravity element, she lightened him just enough to carry him. Her side ached, but she ignored the pain. Rika looked at him before he could speak. She slammed her hand into the back of his head to fully knock him out, which caused the Sandrunner to flinch - almost dropping the man.
"Shhhhh- " Rika shushed the bird before climbing on top of it, ensuring Gakashi was secure. It was going to be a long ride, and she knew she would be sore from the few hits he got on her. But that was okay, he was knocked out - and hopefully she didn't cause him any brain damage. Anbu wanted him back alive. If she didn't have to hold back, then it would have been easier to just kill him. Though the area around them would have been flattened as well.
The world's heat was doubled by the time Rika reached Soon's Haven, her mouth lined with grit and her sweat already sticky beneath the armor. The outpost existed on the knife-edge between order and desert, a place where people came to trade, to flee, or to disappear. If Sunagakure was a polished fortress, Soon's Haven was its mud-caked cousin—rowdy, sun-bleached, and crammed with every flavor of survivor. Rika scanned the crowd. She'd learned the trick in the Academy: ignore the noise, look for patterns. The people who didn't want to be noticed always left a negative space, an accidental oasis of calm amid the bustle. Today, the only stationary figure was a man with the physique of a stork and skin dyed a perpetual shade of blue from years spent elbow-deep in chemical baths. He sat cross-legged behind a folding table, his long fingers painting stripes of indigo onto lengths of white linen with a twitchy, birdlike precision. She shifted over. The dyer's workspace was a neat row of order brushes, water bowls lined up smallest to largest, every bolt of fabric precisely folded. The man didn't look up when she stopped, but his brushstrokes slowed.
"Need something for a ceremony, little miss?" His voice was pitched low, for her alone.
Rika grinned widely. "Depends. You do funerals?"
The dyer's hand paused mid-stroke. He dabbed the tip of the brush against the lip of a jar, then finally raised his eyes. They were pale, almost colorless, with a sort of careful weariness she recognized instantly. "Girl your age," he said, "should be picking dyes for a wedding, not last rites. But business is business. Who's the lucky corpse?"
"Maybe you know him," Rika replied. "Gakashi. Rumor says he passed this way."
The merchant's face didn't move, but his next brushstroke was so heavy it left a streak across the linen. He didn't bother to fix it, just leaned back and wiped his hands on his apron, movements deliberate. "Stories travel faster than caravans out here. Gakashi's got a way of making friends. And widows." The dyer's gaze flitted past Rika's shoulder, taking in the movement of the market. "You want to find him, best you look where people don't."
Rika shrugged, playing up the nonchalance. "If I wanted advice, I'd ask my sensei. But you seem the type to keep tabs on your customers."
The man grunted, not quite a laugh, but close. "Last I heard, he was sticking to the Tear-Drop Oasis. Hires on for farm work, then vanishes before anyone gets suspicious. Haven't seen him myself. Too smart to shop local."
"Noted." Rika reached into her pouch, retrieved a sliver of pale green chalk, and placed it on the table. It was a local custom—payment for secrets, even if you didn't know the price. The man accepted it without a word. She turned to leave, then paused. "If you see anyone looking for me, you never saw me."
The dyer gave her a lazy salute, already returning to his work. "I'll remember nothing, little miss."
Sunset was coming fast, the sky bleeding orange and violet across the dunes. Perfect time for an approach: shift change for the sentries, eyes blinded by the last light of day.
Rika reached the rim of the oasis and paused, half-crouched in the shadow of a leaning palm. Ahead, she saw movement - a figure bending over a trough, their shapes distorted by the flicker of firelight and the haze of heat.
Rika slowed her breathing. Tonight, the hunt began in earnest.
The farm buildings had been built for utility, not comfort. Low and rectangular, each wore a scab of old repair - patched walls, doors hung askew, roofs braced with whatever scavenged metal could be hammered flat. The nearest structure was a toolshed, its entrance flanked by drying racks hung with strips of what looked like cured jackal meat. Past it, a squat barn, then the dim outline of a main house. None of the windows glowed with interior light, but all were covered in thick blackout cloth.
Rika hugged the shadow of the shed. She moved, catlike, following a trail. The orchard's fence was a crude affair, just vertical logs bound with wire. Rika ducked low, slipped through the largest gap, and landed in a spray of old pomegranate leaves. In the failing light, the orchard looked wild, overgrown. But the ground here was trampled, the prints overlapping in a direction that could only lead to the farthest structure - a solitary hut, painted with a flaking layer of dark blue.
Rika pressed herself flat against the hut's back wall, listening for patterns. A faint shuffle, the clink of glass. At the same time, she let her other senses stretch: chakra traces, pressure shifts, the barely-there buzz of movement at the edge of normal hearing. She grinned. He was alone.
The sky had turned the color of bruised fruit. Rika flexed her hands, rolled her shoulders to loosen them, and let the world slow down. For a moment, time fractured: she felt each second as a discrete, heavy thing, the sounds of the farm and the blood in her own ears collapsing into one slow, perfect beat. She peered through a crack in the shutters, careful not to silhouette herself against the lanterns outside. The man inside was older than she expected, his scalp shaved and glistening with sweat, hands big as shovel blades. On the table next to him lay a length of heavy rope, a battered canteen, and a small, neatly-bound ledger. Rika's gaze snagged on the dagger. The handle was inlaid with a ring of blue stone, chipped but unmistakable: a trophy taken from a Suna ninja a year ago, during Gakashi's first documented hit. There was no mistake. This was him.
She retreated a step, weighing her options. She could storm the hut and hope for surprise, but she needed to hold back and not destroy the farm or the hut. Better to wait for him to emerge, catch him in transit. Or lure him out. She scanned the orchard for anything usable. The fruit was mostly shriveled, but one tree near the hut's door still had a cluster of ripe, red orbs. Rika broke off a pomegranate, heavy in her palm, and fingered it as she worked her way back to the wall. She tossed it in a high arc, aiming for the shed roof. The pomegranate hit with a thump, rolled down the metal with a raspy scrape, then bounced off the rain barrel to the ground below. The sound was loud in the sudden silence.
Inside, the man stiffened, chair scraping. He stood in one fluid motion, pausing only to grab the canteen and the rope. The door swung open, and he scanned the orchard with a glare sharp enough to cut. Rika didn't breathe. She'd chosen her position perfectly; unless he had senses to rival hers, he'd never see her until she moved. He stepped out, cautious but not panicked. He was dressed in scavenged clothing, a thick vest with several hidden pouches. His hands, though, were bare, the knuckles scarred and callused. He took three slow steps toward the sound, then paused, cocking his head. Listening for the next move.
Rika waited. One beat. Two. Then, when the wind rattled the lanterns and all attention was elsewhere, she slipped from cover and closed the distance. Her feet barely touched the ground. The world narrowed to a single, perfect line between her and her target. She stopped two meters from him, well outside arm's reach, and let her presence announce itself. The man spun, dagger up and ready, his eyes burning with a hard, intelligent focus.
"Well," he said, "didn't expect them to send a child. Sunagakure must be desperate."
Rika smiled, loose and easy, but her mind was already working every angle. "Heh, well, this kid is going to be your downfall."
He barked a laugh, low and genuine. "You talk big for someone so small."
She shrugged, hand resting casually on the kunai at her belt. "Being small makes me harder to hit."
The two of them regarded each other in the cold blue light of dusk, both perfectly aware that the first move might also be the last. Rika felt her heart slow, every nerve ending crystal clear. She was ready. She took up her own stance: feet planted, hands open, fingers twitching as she let the familiar hum of chakra through her arms. The world narrowed to a corridor of possible outcomes, each one mapped and weighed. Rika grinned, a flash of white in the blue dusk. She let her gaze flick to the dagger, then back to his face. "Funny, they never tell you how much smaller the bad guys look up close."
That earned a proper laugh, brief but not unkind. "They sent a child because they thought I'd go soft. That's Suna for you. All strategy, no heart." He sheathed the dagger, then unsheathed it again, a movement so smooth it barely registered. "If you turn around and leave, I won't hunt you. My quarrel is not with children."
Rika shrugged, conjuring a ribbon of cobalt chakra along her palm. The light rippled in the air, a visible seam between what was real and what she willed into existence. "I'll go easy on you. If you come quiet, they'll just lock you up. Maybe even feed you."
He rolled his shoulders, letting the weight of the moment settle. "If you were older, maybe I'd try to teach you something."
She let the ribbon coil tighter, feeling her heartbeat synchronize with the flicker of lanterns. "I'm a fast learner."
For a breath, neither moved. Around them, the air thickened. The camel shifted, sensing violence, and snorted as if offended by the coming mess.
Gakashi broke the silence. "You know what I hate about Suna?" He stepped forward, but not aggressively - just enough to close the gap. "You believe you're special, like the wind owes you a favor."
Rika's smile sharpened. "That's because it does."
He bared his teeth, then lunged.
She parried the first strike with a snap of her wrist, the chakra ribbon hardening into a razor edge that met the dagger in a shower of blue sparks. The impact numbed her fingers, but the barrier held. Gakashi was faster than the dossier promised; he shifted his weight and spun, sweeping at her knee. Rika bent backward, letting the world slow to a crawl, and watched the boot pass within a millimeter of her shin. She used the borrowed time to drop her center of gravity, planting one hand in the dirt and whipping her leg at his ankles. He hopped the sweep, but not without a grunt of surprise. The next instant, he was on her—no hesitation, no wasted motion. The dagger flashed again, but she caught his wrist with both hands, rolling her weight to the side and twisting until the joint creaked. He didn't yell. He just twisted back, using sheer leverage and the size difference to break the hold. Rika spun with the motion, launching herself into a backward roll that landed her ten feet away, balanced and ready.
They clashed again. This time, Rika let the world blur at the edges—using her Seikon gift to fracture time for just a split-second, enough to anticipate the next two moves. Gakashi's pattern was pure Iwa: brute force, with a side of trickery. He feinted high, then dropped for a kidney shot, but she read the faint tightening of his left shoulder and pivoted aside, her hands wove a few handseals, and she activated a ninjutsu, Psionic Rend across his thigh. The cut was shallow, but it drew blood, dark and slow. He hissed, impressed. "Good. Very good."
Rika kept her stance, knowing he was drawing her out, looking for weakness. "You can still surrender," she said. "I hear the holding cells have decent ventilation."
He laughed again, deeper this time. "That's not the kind of mercy I need."
She nodded, and this time, she didn't smile. The air split with the sound of metal on chakra, the blur of bodies caught in each other's gravity. Rika felt herself slip into the familiar logic of a fight: each beat, each breath, each possibility. She was the wall and the wind, both, and in that moment, she knew she could win. Rika used the moment to scissor-kick his other leg, bringing the man down to her height. As he toppled, he twisted, driving his elbow toward her face. She barely deflected it, the force scraping a line across her cheek. The dagger came again, wild and ugly. She caught his wrist, but he was too strong to hold for long. So she didn't try. Instead, she let go and ducked her head, taking a glancing cut along her scalp, pain flaring hot and fast. She blinked the blood from her eyes and spat a laugh.
"Getting tired yet?" she asked, breathless but cocky.
"Not even close," he grunted.
His hand shot out, gripping her cloak at the collar, lifting her up with the ease of a man shaking dust from a rug. She felt her toes leave the ground. He raised the dagger, aiming for her throat. She let go of the world for just a second. To an observer, it might have looked like a stutter: a twitch in the air, a momentary double-image of herself suspended, then gone. But for Rika, time snapped open - she saw the possible outcomes bloom around her like ice fractals. She chose one thread and yanked on it. Instead of resisting, she let her body go limp. The sudden deadweight surprised Gakashi enough to stall his killing stroke. In that microsecond of confusion, she coiled the cobalt chakra in her palm, then lashed it up and around, binding his forearm with a band of pure pressure. She yanked hard, slamming his elbow into the side of his own skull. He dropped her. She landed on all fours, sucked air, and rolled away before he could recover. The sand was cold where the blood ran down her neck, but she used the sensation to anchor herself, to keep from slipping into panic or tunnel vision.
Gakashi staggered, shaking off the blow, and advanced again. He was breathing harder now, blood wetting his pants and dripping from his chin, but his eyes were alive with the same unyielding focus. "You're full of tricks," he said, admiration in the grit of his voice. "But tricks don't win wars." He feinted left, then right, then came in with a brutal shoulder tackle. The impact lifted her off her feet and drove her back against the adobe hut. She felt her vertebrae compress, her lungs flatten, but she didn't break. As he closed for the finish, she slammed her open palm into his chest, channeling everything she had into one perfect surge.
Reality buckled. The air rippled blue, and for a split second, gravity doubled, then tripled, crushing Gakashi downward. She casted a gravity ninjutsu: Newton's Apple. His knees hit the dirt, then his hands. He fought it, every muscle corded, but Rika poured more power into the flow, forcing him down until his face was inches from the ground. He looked up at her, neck straining against the pull. The dagger was still in his hand, but he couldn't raise it. "Go on," he croaked, voice shredded by the effort. "Do it."
"Sorry, buddy, you're coming back with me," Rika huffed out a laugh, then she channeled earth-based chakra, this time not just on the sand, but on the moisture in the air around his arms. The humidity condensed, forming a resin-thick mud that locked his wrists in place. It was a trick she'd improvised during a heatstroke hallucination as a child, and now it worked perfectly. Gakashi's body was pinned, face down and helpless. But his voice was calm, even dignified. She gave the knots another half-turn, then hauled him to a sitting position. He was heavier than he looked, and her bruised ribs screamed in protest, but she managed. The sand stuck to his blood and sweat, turning his exposed skin into a raw, patchwork map. Rika made a mental note: salt and sand together would sting like hell, but she didn't offer him a drink or a rag. She figured he'd done worse.
Rika looked around the farm and spotted a sandrunner, a domesticated one by the looks. The golden feathers glistened in the moonlight, like a majestic beast that it was. She whistled to get its attention and waved it over. She offered it a fruit from the orchard, and it ate it happily.
Getting Gakashi on the sandrunner was a challenge; she tried a fireman's carry and tossed him up onto the bird with a huff. Using a bit of chakra and her affinity for the gravity element, she lightened him just enough to carry him. Her side ached, but she ignored the pain. Rika looked at him before he could speak. She slammed her hand into the back of his head to fully knock him out, which caused the Sandrunner to flinch - almost dropping the man.
"Shhhhh- " Rika shushed the bird before climbing on top of it, ensuring Gakashi was secure. It was going to be a long ride, and she knew she would be sore from the few hits he got on her. But that was okay, he was knocked out - and hopefully she didn't cause him any brain damage. Anbu wanted him back alive. If she didn't have to hold back, then it would have been easier to just kill him. Though the area around them would have been flattened as well.