In Servitude

Uchiha Tajima did not hesitate to pull up the collar of his shirt- momentarily obstructing his vision- to dry his sweat-dampened face in harsh strokes. He was surrounded by his clansmen and so could afford a few seconds of laxness. Everyone was watching each other’s back and there was a contrived effort made by each man to keep the mood light and not succumb to the infighting that would be blown into much bigger conflicts. It was the damn desert heat and the post-battle jitters that had everyone on edge, even so, his men were holding up very well so far. The discovery of valuable loot that was now theirs rightfully probably helped with the morale. Tajima stood at the ready, waiting for the last of the human livestock to be freed from their shackles so he could make his way to the nearest city and set them free there. The Uchiha enjoyed whatever loot they came across, but slaves were something that they had no interest in. He kept his sharingan off, not wanting to commit to eternal memory the grief-stricken cries of some of the women huddled together. There was not much joy in being freed, not when you had been captured and forced to endure inhumane treatment during your ownership.

He fought to keep his sharingan off when he picked up the rising distressed voices of his men from the other side of the camp. Tajima flared his chakra to grab the attention of Tekka— who will be his second in command during the journey to the city— to signal his movement towards the commotion.

His men had crowded the animal cages and Tajima used his hands to move some of his clansmen around so he could make it to the front and see what exotic or badly injured animal had caught their attention. He found something much worse, a girl. Tajima did not hesitate to turn back around and level the men with a look that quickly thinned down the number of onlookers. Breaking the lock was easily done in a matter of seconds, he used pure lightning chakra and cut through the lock. The noise resembled the hum and buzz of all sorts of aerial creatures combined. It was the noise of the cleaved lock smashing onto the metal bed of the cage that made the quiet girl flinch. He couldn’t estimate her age in her dirty and wounded state, her ethnicity was ambiguous as was the amount of danger she posed to his men. The only thing he was certain of was that she was a slave girl, an eternal slave girl. On her forehead sat the Seal of Enslavement, which once inked, could never be removed, thus preventing its wearer from ever being set free.

She spoke to him— in one of the languages or dialects native to Wind Country— her voice deep coming from a scratched and parched throat. His men caught onto the issue and Hikaku was quickly ushered in. His demure demeanour did not change the fact that he was known to hate being interrupted when he was accounting.

Inside the cage, Hikaku was quick to turn on his sharingan and try to communicate with her. There was trepidation at first, she leaned away, closer to the bars of the cage. Seeing the sharingan up close for the first time did that to people. Then her face morphed into confusion. Tajima could pick up the difference in inflections and the pronunciations of certain letters to tell when Hikaku was moving from one language or dialect to the next, even when he could not name them.

There was finally a response from her. She was confused, then surprised, then excited, her face an open book, you would not need the sharingan’s ability to detect telltale signs of lies to know the truthfulness of her words. For someone so cursed with the worst of fortunes, she was quick to become animated, though in a subdued manner.

“Uchiha-sama”, Hikaku began, “we have a born slave girl, she says she was fourteen when taken and is unsure how long she’s been here.” Hikaku paused when she interrupted him, and then promptly translated. “She asks for the man who killed her previous master, Shayan ‘Ain.”

The name was unfamiliar, not one that was mentioned in the intel. Tajima waved off her request. “Bring her to the rest.” He turned to leave, but did not get far, not when the girl let out a distressed cry. He turned in time to see her shake her head and hold tightly a fistful of Hikaku’s clothes.

“My lord, she says the seal will kill her if she is not…well,” he paused and searched for the correct words, “there is a time limit you see.” She pointed at her forehead, and Hikaku nodded sympathetically. “Whoever killed the previous master needs to come forward to…the seal needs a…top up?

Tajima acquiesced and they got a description of her master. The search for the correct corpse began. Tajima left them to it and returned to the freed women.

“Brother,” he greeted his second in command and smoothly mounted his horse.

“Taji, the journey will be slow.” He pointed at one of the two maps that were spread across his lap and covered the back of the head of his horse. Once his brother had moved closer to him, he handed one over. “Tamir city is about the same distance from here to Fire Country borders. But with all these women loaded on carts, I don’t know how much to double or triple our journey time.” They stood there and compared the accuracy of the Uchiha-drawn map of Wind Country to a map of the country found among the loot. The placement of villages, cities and oasis’ were accurate, but the map obtained had some newly inked markings that needed to be translated and maybe added to the Uchiha map. They could be anything from new settlements to black markets.

There was much backslapping and well-wishes heard, flashes of chakra sparked up and died down as huge storage scrolls were used and a clear divide between the Uchiha men was established. The ones to the right would be returning to Fire Country and the ones to the left would be doing business in Wind for a while.

Tajima kept the Uchiha-drawn map with him and rolled it up. He pet his newly possessed horse. Wind Country horses were smaller than Fire Country horses, and this horse had the signature upturned small nose and narrow face that their famous purebred Sand horses have. He stroked the slick black coat of its neck; his hand absorbed the heat the animal’s coat contained.

He caught sight of his brother’s unhappy face as he trotted around on a similar-looking horse, turning this and that way to familiarise each other.

“Is the horse of royalty not good enough for you?” Tajima teased. He removed the cloth he had secured around his waist and wrapped it around his head, the sharingan’s power directed his arms and hands in the correct order of wrapping the material over his hair, neck, and face. The sun inched towards the middle of the sky and it would soon become blistering hot and unfit to be out and about, but they needed to get rid of the women as soon as possible, so they’d have to face the natural dangers of Wind Country head-on.

Tekka poked and prodded at the head and face of his horse. “It looks like it’s only fit to ride the width of a harem courtyard, not the gruelling distance we’re about to do.”

Tajima left him to his grumbling and caught snippets of, “…now a real horse would…” and “…if you die on me…”.

Meanwhile, Hikaku led the slave girl around the quickly disappearing encampment. He gave her space and did not grab at her when she lagged to stare but was still firm in keeping to the schedule. The freed slaves will be taken away soon, and her affairs must be sorted before that. The correct corpse was quickly found and Hikaku had it just as quickly removed from her sight at her reaction. He had no desire to dwell on this for long, that a man would place this kind of seal on another told him everything he needed to know about his character and her lived experience with him.

“Did I kill one of their infinite princes?”

“Quite the opposite Madara-sama”, Hikaku introduced her to the killer of her deceased master. She had taken to hiding behind him once introductions were given and he did not fault her for it. Madara’s growing mane of hair took up more space than the width of his body, its unruliness only adding to his crazed look. There’s blood splatter all over his cream and white clothes. He reeked of freshly opened stomach lining and copper; so sharp you could taste it in your mouth. And the eyes. He almost forgot the red eyes and the demonic touch they give a man.

“I…I need him to cut a finger. The smallest one. The cut must be deep.” She did not cling to him but used his body as a shield from Madara.

“From what I understand, the seal requires the blood of the victor,” Hikaku translated to Madara, “I’m not sure if it will nullify the dead master’s hold over her or what, but you see the dot on her forehead? It should be fully black, not… ‘nearly empty’, for a lack of a better phrase.”

Madara did not question it, he sliced his finger and held it out. She approached cautiously and moved his hand to her forehead. Her hands shook, and as a result, she moved his finger around, smearing the blood around the seal until she finally found the spot. A sort of ripple in the atmosphere passed through them, it reverberated through their bones and skulls, and their reactions to intrusion were immediate. Madra’s sharingan whirled into its mangekyō form and Hikaku felt the wildfire that was Madara’s powerful chakra rise in reaction to his emotions. Madara attempted to pull his finger away from her, but it was as if his finger had been nailed to her forehead as she only stumbled after his hand and cried out in pain.

“Please don’t move!” She held on tightly to his hand, and tears welled up and spilt down her face.

Just as Hikaku stepped forward to try and dislodge the two of them using his chakra, the pulsing faded away, the air pressure returned to normal and Madara pulled back his hand. The girl crumpled to the ground and clutched her head. The tension in the air broke when the two separated, Uchiha clansmen returned to their duties and others stayed to watch the show.

Hikaku picked her up and settled her in his arms, he needed to put space between her and his Lord. She did not fight him off, even though he felt her arms lock up under his hands and heard the sharp intake of her breath. Once she was under the shadow of a wayward horse, he wasted no time and interrogated her.

“Please tell me what just happened. Will Lord Madara be suffering any adverse effects?” His sharingan was on, and Hikaku was diligent in his inspection. The three tomoe in each eye analysed every bit of her body, and every sound that emanated out of her; the stutter of her breath, the flex of the little bit of muscles she still had under her sallow and taunt skin, how her hand shook ever so slightly, the rustle of her damp and matted hair, the wet noises of her mouth opening and closing. Hikaku moved back a little, where the sun hit him but where she would have the space to breathe and not feel as though she would come to physical harm. Her shoulders loosened up, but as the telltale signs of pain and fear left her, another negative emotion took its place; distress. She started to drag the nails of her right hand through the skin of her left arm and Hikaku was quick to notice pre-existing lines of scars that matched the path of destruction her nails took. Interestingly, as soon as she passed a few swipes across the length of her arm, her body seemed to mellow out and her mind found the words needed.

“The seal sucks the blood out of the finger. I’m sure that hurts a little but he was a big baby about it”, she complained in a soft-spoken but wounded voice, “him trying to pull away hurt me more than his bloodletting. And no, he’s not going to die, but I will if he moves a certain distance away from me.”

“What”, he said flatly, his brain having short-circuited.

She slightly tilted her head to the side, eyes blinking slowly. “The enslavement seal you know. It enslaves its wearer to the master completely.”

“Yes, yes, but…a distance limit?”

“It wouldn’t be a very good enslavement seal if I could run away from the master, would it?”

And well, that was a good point, albeit a dreadful one. Hikaku knew of the seal, but as someone who had no use for it, he had never needed information regarding all its intricacies.

Hikaku closed his eyes and rubbed his face dry from the rapidly accumulating sweat using his sleeve. He steadied himself and levelled his emotions, when he opened his eyes he got right to it.

“What is the distance limit?”

“Five acres. That used to be the space of a palace and its grounds, but I know that palaces are now much bigger.” Not good. Not good at all. Madara had missions to attend, missions that were definitely further than five acres from the clan compound.

“Is there any way to tweak the seal to give more distance from you to him?”

She had a very confused look on her face. “Is his home bigger than five acres?”

“No. There are times when he’ll have to leave the clan compound for missions.”

“Oh. Well, why would he leave me when he goes out? It is the duty of a slave girl to accompany her master on his travels to set up a home anywhere he goes and to do his bidding.”

“I…” He sensed that there was a disconnect in this communication and did his best to collect himself once more. “Ok. Will you tell me your name please? I am Uchiha Hikaku, of the Yahata Lineage. I hold the books of the clan. As in, I deal with the clan’s money.” He waved the battered accounting book he had taken off one of the dead and was in the middle of double-checking against all the goods in the camp before he got called over to deal with her.

“Temra,” she paused before she continued, “of the Desert.”

“Is that your family name?”

She broke eye contact with him for the first time. “No. children born of a slave have no right to a family name. We are all ‘of the desert’.”

“Ok, Temra. When it comes to certain missions, they must be carried out in secret and by highly skilled warriors, such as Lord Madara. By himself. You cannot accompany him as I am certain you do not have the skills of espionage and assassination that he does.”

“But…” there was a rising panic in her voice and body language, “he can leave me in the area of his… you know, somewhere around wherever he’s assassinating. I’ll be very quiet. Please! I’ve tried so hard. I’ve… I can’t… I really don’t want to die.” She cried.

In any other circumstance, Hikaku would have smiled at the image of Madara plopping her in a tree around some government official’s house while he went in to take care of business and then picking her up when he was done, but she was steadily getting more and more distressed, with specks of blood appearing at the scratched trails of her arm.

Hikaku hummed and pretended to consider her words while he weaved a genjutsu over her like a blanket. He used his chakra to pick and prod at hers and allowed the two life forces to mingle with each other. It was hard work to have enough control to thin out the gaseous tendrils of his chakra and have them sink under her skin to study the network that he needed to work on. Her reserves were large but locked behind some sort of block, which he assumed could only be the doing of the seal. It was the work of seconds to look into her eyes and ensnare her with his sharingan, slowly lulling her into a calmer state of mind. He passed through the stops that the seal had placed at all her tenketsu points and worked his way through them; he smoothed out the points all down her spine so her frayed nerves could mellow out, his chakra sank into the point at the back of her head and fiddled with the chakra there until the adrenaline secretion decreased, he bypassed the ones at her scent and sweat glands and convinced the body to stop secreting due to fear. The sharingan had pulled her under a genjutsu, but it was an offensive tool and not something that was used for such a mundane purpose, so Hikaku had to further work on the genjutsu, finetuning and perfecting it.

“Temra, even the wives and servants of a man will not accompany him on missions as this puts them in danger and jeopardises the mission’s success,” Hikaku spoke slowly and compassionately all while he expertly controlled the ebb and flow of her emotions.

“But I…” She frowned and wiped the tears off her face using the collar of her ragged dress, and that was the extent of her negative emotions. “I don’t have a choice. If I’m not within the parameters my brain will explode and I’ll die.”

That was incredibly unfortunate. “For now, I’ll keep you two close, and in the meantime, I’ll go look through your master’s belongings for information on the seal.”

“Why would he have anything on it?” She sounded genuinely confused. Hikaku stood up and walked with her.

“Why would he not? Did he not place the seal on you?”

She gave him a very judgemental look that questioned his intellect. “I was born with it. And the people who place enslavement seals live secretly from society to protect themselves. He’s also dumb as shit.”

His information on the seal must be even worse than he had initially thought. He had assumed it worked on the same principles as the Hyugga’s Caged Bird Seal, that perhaps she was born to a slave girl and once she came of a certain age was painted with the seal. But to know that the children of sealed slaves in Wind Country have no chance of freedom at all is a bleak thought indeed.

“I am not well educated on matters concerning your seal. I will still be looking through his belongings personally. As for now, I’ll hand you over to a clanswoman to help you clean up and dress, the sun will injure you further if you don’t. Please keep up as we must move out soon.” They arrived at a congregation of Uchiha that didn’t bother hiding their inspection of her person.

“Izuna-sama, can I trouble you with placing her in your care for now?” His sharingan was still activated, he wasted no time to ensnare the Uchiha in question in a short genjutsu that assaulted the mind. ‘Extract as much information as possible to share with me, very emotional, age unknown, chakra is bound, can’t speak any of Fire’s languages, weary of men, is bound to your brother with that seal, do not kill, may have information on Senju business dealings.’

Izuna levelled him with a dirty glare that dissipated into a comforting smile when she peered over Hikaku’s figure in an attempt to catch the eye of her charge.

“Hello,” Izuna said in a gentle voice, “I am Uchiha Izuna. Will you come with me?” Her movements are slow, she used her hands to illustrate the words that were spoken— she waved, pointed to herself when she said her name— in a language foreign to the girl.

But Temra only moved away from Izuna, her emotions returned to the former high levels of anxiety and upset now that Hikaku had pulled the genjutsu off her. “You said I’d be with a woman,” she accused.

Hikaku schooled his face and did not allow a smile to break through as he translated the issue to Izuna, who only laughed and moved into Temra’s personal space of.

“Look,” she said. She pulled the collar of her clothing until there was a space big enough for Temra to peer into. With the strong rays of the sun shining from above, Temra saw plenty of skin but also fabric tightly wound around the torso, that covered Izuna’s chest— no wait, her breasts. Understanding of the situation dawned on her and with the wavering of her chakra signature that signalled the feeling of shame, she quietly followed Izuna out of the area.

“I must inform your father of this predicament and then I will be returning to my duties,” he informed her and she waved him off.

The two women made their way to the outskirts of the camp where a smaller group congregated. These Uchiha warmly greeted Izuna before moving their attention to Temra who kept her gaze firmly glued to the ground. Izuna gave out various instructions, and as some of the Uchiha got up and scurried off, Izuna took Temra’s hand in her own and walked with her towards a group of camels. A huge swatch of a light brown coloured cloth was hung over the humps of two camels that stood close to each other. With this makeshift tent constructed, Temra was herded in from one end. Two clansmen came in from the other side, one held two waterskins and the other an armful of wash rags.

“They are both women,” Izuna assured her. She translated the meaning of her words by using her hands to motion the outline of a curvy female body in the air and then pointing at the two Uchiha. Temra nodded her understanding and relaxed her tightly wound-up limbs.

The one holding the rags stood in front of Izuna but was pulled back by her much to the Uchiha’s surprise. “Dickhead!”

“Get lost Naka, I’ll be doing the dirty work,” said Izuna as she picked out two rags. “I gotta build rapport with her.”

“Leave her to Naori,” Naka complained and Naori, the Uchiha who held the waterskins, ignored her. “You can’t even speak the same language, so it’ll be easy for her to cosy up.” Izuna also ignored her.

“Take off the dress for me, will you?” First Izuna tugged at the dirty rags that covered Temra’s body and then she mimed the action of taking off an item of clothing over one’s head.

“She’s an unidentified threat, Naka. It’s best if a mangekyō user is the one to be around her for now.”

“You’ve got to be joking, she’s so weak that even if she did know some Uchiha eradicating jutsu she wouldn’t be able to perform it. Wait…what the fuck? Is her chakra blocked off?” Izuna quickly shooed off Naka.

All the Uchiha in her vicinity could sense the dejection and shame radiating from her, and Izuna was sure that two people talking in a language unfamiliar to her while they stared her down only worsened her self-consciousness. She fisted her garment and pulled it up and over her head. The sad excuse of a dress was dropped to the ground and whisked away in the next second. The lid of a waterskin was popped open and water was poured liberally onto two pieces of cloth. She was wiped down from each side while struggling to stand still, the water used was warm, but the strength applied by the two women who diligently worked on cleaning her overpowered her malnourished and weakened body. A bar of soap was placed onto a new wet cloth and rubbed vigorously until the cloth had lathered up. The bar of soap was passed to the other Uchiha who did the same thing. Temra dug her feet firmly into the sand as she was once more washed.

Once she’s rinsed down from top to bottom a kunai was drawn out and shown to her. “I need to cut your hair, it’s matted terribly, and you might be carrying lice, so we can’t wait till we get home to try brushing your hair out,” Izuna explained. She brought a matted chunk of Temra’s hair to the front and mimed cutting it.

Temra gracefully accepted her fate and was manoeuvred so that her back bent at a bowing angle. Chunks of her hair were shorn off. She fully expected to walk around with mismatched lengths of hair once the matted pieces were cut off. They washed her scalp and used their fingers to run them through the shortened strands of hair, from root to tip. When they encountered a tangle or kink, they broke it apart and then repeated it. A comb was brought in and used to scratch her scalp before being inspected. The sharingan had already been used to look for lice or any other insects and only found a few ants and a dead spider. Her hair was rinsed off and the brittle strands were combed through with their fingers. Temra had been steadily getting lightheaded and had one hand clenched onto her knee for support while the other one grabbed onto Izuna’s clothing. They realised that she was not doing well and pulled her back up, only for the light-headedness to get worse and for her knees to go weak. Between the two Uchiha, they caught her and moved her body so that the back of her neck was resting on the outstretched arm of Naori who used their other arm to hold Temra’s body close to themselves. Izuna continued to wield the kunai around her head, she took strips of hair here and there and did her best to shape it.

“Lord Uchiha tries too hard to impress her brother’s slave girl,” she was heckled from around the two camels.

“Come experience the luxurious treatments offered by Izuna, the hair-cutting extraordinaire! Her services are not limited to just those of her brother’s harem, so please, step forward!” Izuna teased back as she moved from left to right, fluffing the strands, comparing both sides of her scalp. “Here at the oasis bathhouse, we have a professional barber, ready to render personalised cuts and treatments with the help of the talented Uchiha Naori,” holding a limp Temra, Naori did a small curtsy with a most solemn look.

“How personalised are we talking about? Because I think you’re going to need something sharper for that bush,” an Uchiha gestured to the nether regions of Temra.

Izuna let out an exaggeratedly scandalised gasp and shooed away the Uchiha who had started to come closer. “Shame! Shame on you!”

Eventually, the hair was brought to order and with a final rinse Temra could stand straight without getting any of the cut hair stuck to her body. She was quickly dried off and then manhandled into new clothes. She was taken aback and tried to move out of their grasp once the first layer was pulled over her head. It had been a while since she had felt something so soft touch her skin. It had been a while since she’d had skin clean enough to feel the softness of a fabric. They slowed down after that reaction. Temra was coaxed into wide-legged pants made of cotton and dyed in a dark blue shade. The waist was too big for her, so a cloak pin was used to secure the excess fabric. The fabric was pleated and pinned at her right hip so that if she were to bend forward or sit, she would not harm herself. A heavy woollen outer layer was then slipped over her head, it was made of the same fabric as the rest of the dress tops the Uchiha were wearing. It was a plain piece of clothing with no pattern on it and dyed in a muted burgundy colour. It was the smallest garment they had but it was built for the figure of a man or a well-fed, full-figure Uchiha woman, so it hung terribly off her frame. The dress had wide sleeves that covered her fingertips and was long enough that it dragged on the sand. The length was fixed by using a dress cord to tie it at the waist and lift enough fabric till the dress hung at ankle level. They had no spare shoes, so she was stuck walking barefoot, not that it seemed to bother her.

Lastly, there was the headscarf to tie on which Izuna stepped up to personally do, only for Temra to take the headscarf off her hands and shake her head. Temari tried to explain something to her that Izuna could not grasp. Temari tried again when she saw the blank look on Izuna’s face. She mimed a square, one smaller in size than the headscarf she was holding, but Izuna did not see the need for obtaining anything extra when she could just wrap her head in the fabric that all Uchiha had.

“Naori, she wants something, I don’t know what or why.” Naori, who had just sat down after helping with the cleaning and dressing immediately got back to work.

Temra’s face lit up in excitement as Naori introduced herself and spoke her native tongue. Temra quickly explained herself.

“She asks for an…under scarf? I don’t think we have the word for it. It’s a piece of fabric comparatively smaller to the headscarf, it contains the hair close to the scalp and prevents any strands from peeking out.”

Between the five of them, they found a cotton piece of cloth and repurposed it as an ‘under scarf’. The item pleased Temra, and she tied her hair back with nimble fingers. The square was folded into a triangle and placed on her scalp, with the long side of the triangle framing her hairline and the sides of her face. She tightly tied the two edges of the triangle at the back of her head and used her fingers to push back any wayward strands of hair under this makeshift cap. She pinched the fabric at the front and pulled it closer to the front— covering her hairline and some of her forehead, including half of the seal spread across her forehead— then moved on to the head scarf. She handled it in a way different to how the men whom they copied off their tying technique did. She wrapped it around her head and tucked and moved the fabric around without the need of looking at her reflection, in a way that bellied years of experience. With her hair and neck hidden from the elements and wandering eyes, she pulled at a piece of the fabric and brought it across the lower portion of her face, tucking it in between the left side of her face and the tightly wound head scarf. All that was left to see of her were her deep sunken green eyes and full eyebrows.

Naori and Izuna- the two who had helped wash Temra- squatted down to wash their hands thoroughly and mostly everyone else dispersed.

“No undergarments for her? What if her bleeding starts?” Naori did not look at Temra when she spoke about her.

“With her current condition, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t had a bleed in the last few months. It’ll be a long while of recovery before her body works to its fullest again,” Izuna explained as she picked the dirt from under her fingernails.

“Yes, except that Wind Country women are known to be incredibly fertile, even those in the poverty-stricken areas. Her physical condition may not have affected that part of her.”

Izuna contemplated that fact, it had escaped her when she was dressing Temra. “I’ll give her my underclothes once we cross the border. No point in unpacking to get that for her when we’ll be changing once we reach the borders anyways.” Naori nodded her head to Izuna’s wisdom and let it be.

“You and Naka have to challenge every little choice I make don’t you,” whined Izuna, without any real heat.

“Well, if I didn’t make it a habit then you’d be going through with a lot of your more… dumb choices. And Naka just likes to see you lose your temper, so please don’t ever group us together again.” Izuna barked out a laugh and called over Temra.

With the help of Naori’s translations, they were able to get her onto a horse and walk her through riding one. It did not go well.

“I’ve never ridden a mule so cursed before,” she complained while she soothingly rubbed her inner thighs and behind.

“We could have her sit in one of the carts? I think it’s better actually; she is a little too weak to be making a full journey on horseback anyways”.

“It’ll be extra effort to get her out in time if we’re ambushed though,” warned Izuna.

They found that one of the three camel-drawn carts they’d be taking was filled with tightly bound swatches of fabric. As they went to work, Izuna noticed an Uchiha had taken her into the shade of another caravan and was plying some water and dried snacks into her. They moved around the brocades and created a man-sized hole in the middle, someone unfurled a few of the woollen fabrics and laid them out in the hole, creating a soft nest.

It must have been a female Uchiha taking care of Temra as she was quick to warm up to her. Their time together was cut short when another Uchiha swooped in on his horse. He threw his arms wide out and Temra— a little cautious but ever so obedient— mimicked him but in a more subdued manner. He picked her up under her armpit in a smooth motion that spoke of experience. Temari let out a squeak at the rough treatment but was quickly lowered into the nest made for her.

When one walked beside the cart, one couldn’t see Temra over the height of the cargo. When Izuna climbed onto her horse and looked down, Temra was visible to her. She waved at Temra from above and got a weak wave in return. Naori hopped onto the back of Izuna’s horse and then gracefully hopped onto the cart. She sat down- legs crossed- and moved around until she found a comfortable spot to occupy.

“When we pass through customs we’ll push these ones,” Naori pointed at the brocades at the very top of the piles that surrounded Temra, “inwards so that they’ll fall and cover you. So don’t panic when that happens. And if a fight breaks out at any time you need to stay put. Someone will pick you up and keep you protected at all times.”

There was a lurch, and the carriage was moved forward. Temari and Naori pushed at the cargo to keep it in place, but none of it fell inward so they slowly relaxed. “Would you like to come up? You can keep your feet on the bed and look out here.”

Temari accepted immediately and with a little struggle from the uneven movement, she pulled herself up, Naori’s steady hand on her shoulder helped her. The cargo around her reached to below her breasts so she was able to lean forward on her arms and look around.

“Why are the carts at the back, and not well protected?” Temra asked. Her head moved back and forward as she compared the front of the procession to the back.

Naori swallowed a mouthful of dried fish before she spoke. “If we are attacked and need to run away due to a huge number of attackers or a skill level that we can’t match, we need to be able to easily leave behind that which will slow us and run off with the lighter load.” She offered some of the snacks to Temra who sniffed it warily but still ate it, albeit slowly.

“But this is too valuable to leave behind.”

“The life of an Uchiha is much more valuable. Better the loss of a material good, than the loss of a life.”

“But there is no shame in death. There’s a lot of honour. To die having protected the coin and property of your people. There is honour in you dying while defending or providing for your people.”

“Honour? Honour does not heal your mother’s grieving mind when she must bury the mutilated corpse of her child. This kind of death ruins a family; they no longer have a provider; they no longer have an integral pillar of their life.”

“But it happens still. And when it happens it is honourable right?” Temra pressed.

“It is. But being a martyr is not worth the pain and damage you leave behind.”

Temra frowned, her chakra burst with surprise and offence.

Naori sighed and moved to end the conversation. “Then why not die yourself? You live the life of a slave Temra. Where is the honour in that? You have no agency, no rights. You may yet find freedom and justice in death and the afterlife”.

“Because!” And she stopped. She’s hurt. Confused. Wounded. “I don’t lead an easy life, sure. And it is dehumanising. But I… I’m still entitled to live. To be alive! I still have hopes and dreams. I’ve made friends and I still feel good things, like love and happiness. I still laugh sometimes. If I die a slave… no, if I die like this, then it’ll be bad. I can’t die yet. I can’t.”

She dragged her nails across her arm, which irritated previous wound tracks. “Listen. A warrior dies doing something meaningful with his life, even if he hurts his loved ones with his departure. If I die right now, all I’ll have done and experienced is running around doing the bidding of men and learning how to bite my tongue when they intrude upon my body.

When I die it should be when I have achieved something. And it doesn’t have to be as big as wealth or freedom, it can be achieving the love of an adopted family or peace with myself. Then I can die. Not now. Not like this. I am too angry to die in peace right now.”

Naori gave her the space she needed. Their eyes wandered to the scenery around them; to their left lay the vast Sahara that Naori took in with her dark black eyes. The lifeless arid wasteland stared back at her, and she was whipped with hot whisps of air as though in punishment for not glorifying it. When her sharingan sprang to life, a whole new world came to her attention. She saw the continuous dance of the top layer of sand all around them, how it shifted and slithered effortlessly and without ever resting, like the feet of a king’s exotic dancer. For a land that housed the least number of animals compared to every other country, the sounds of beasts occupied it more than anywhere else Naori had ever been. She heard roars and howls, some far in the distance that echoed, others close by as though only a few steps behind her. She heard whistling, whisperings, and whimpering. She heard the rich and high-pitched laugh of a high-society woman, she heard—

“Stop!” Temra slapped her hard on the chest, her voice cracked, her eyes wide with fear. “Do not zone off like that or they’ll get to you! Are you not afraid?!” Her emotions were still frayed from before and this did not help her.

Naori flexed her chakra to warn off the Uchiha members who had turned their attention to them, ready to strike down her charge. Blinking rapidly, she tried to look straight at Temra but found it hard to focus. She was shaken again, Temra’s bony fingers dug into her covered skin.

“I’m ok, I’m ok!” She tried to laugh off her concern and leaned away from Temra’s touch.

“This is not funny! Were you not warned?” Her chakra flared with distress and Naori did her best to dim the sensory input so as to not get overwhelmed any more.

“Temra please, I’m ok. I just got lost in my head,” she said, gently but firmly.

It calmed Temra a little, her hands loosened their death hold on her. “Do you not know about the djinn? I thought all foreigners knew.”

“I know I know, I was just admiring the landscape, I wanted to be able to go back home and show my family bits of wind country.” She pointed at her swirling sharingan but did not further explain.

Temra frowned. “It’s not good to openly look at the dessert. You invite what lives in it into your mind. And then you’ll be in a lot of trouble. And pain.”

Naori smiled, “I’ll be more careful. But don’t you think that the stories were made to scare little children into behaving?”

Temra blinked slowly, her mouth open and gaped behind the cover of her veil, disbelief swirled in the big chakra points around her stomach. “You were not educated well on these matters, were you?”

“Temra, we have these kinds of stories too, youkai who seek revenge against those who wrong them, deities that aid their favourite mortals or take them as lovers. And while some are evidently true,” she pointed at her spinning sharingan, “others are just stories with morals”.

“Naori,” she said her name slowly, carefully pronouncing the foreign phonetics alien to her tongue, “while the merchants, bartenders and guides who talk of our dangers may exaggerate the stories for entertainment value or cover them in a layer of mysticism or romanticism, it doesn’t change the severity of the dangers. It’s easier to swindle foreigners from their money and information when weaving an engaging story. Spirits, Jinn, demons, whatever you call them, they walk among us. So please take care to protect yourself. Also, if you had approached the correct people, they would have told you the truth of it, pious people, no-nonsense truth-speaking ordinary people. Scholars, religious leaders, and women and men who study their religion, they would have explained things to you and instructed you on how best to protect yourself and from what”.

“Well, how many people do you personally know were affected by your spirits?”

“Many,” the frankness with which this word was delivered surprised Naori, “my aunt had one fall in love with her and it tried to run away in her body. I was the second heaviest out of all my family members at that time so when they dragged her back, I had to sit on her legs and my mother sat on her chest to keep her in place as they exorcised the thing out of her.” Naori’s baffled face prompted Temra to elaborate. “Jinn are as varied in emotions, desires, and ambitions as humans. You don’t need to be out in the desert to be targeted by them. They can fall in love with you, romantically or with lust, some may bond with you in a more familial way; they might see you as a sibling or their child. They might take offence to something you said and hurt you for it, or they might grow to hate or envy you for whatever reason and move to hurt you.”

“Have you been hurt by one?”

“Maybe when I was a baby, but in all my memories that I can recall I don’t believe I’ve been hurt by one.”

“So how likely is a person to be hurt by one? If anything and everything can catch the attention of a Jinn, how do you prevent that? Are you not scared that you’ll be hurt by one?”

“There’s nothing to be scared of if your belief in God is stronger than your fear in Jinn. Also fear of them attracts them in droves, both the good and the bad so please temper your fear. You obtain protection against evil— both the physical and unseen— from divinity when you acknowledge its power over you more than the power a jinni may have over you. How do I properly explain this? People who are hurt by jinn are people who indirectly invite them into their lives; they are struggling in life, struggling with their emotions, faith, family, money and so on. When a person is emotionally vulnerable and does not have protection from the Most High, there is no barrier between the human and the jinn, and the jinn take advantage of that, even those who are morally good.”

“I understand what you’re saying. The concept of praying to your god for protection against spirits is something we also have. Anyways let us lighten up the mood so none of them come swarming in!” Naori’s smile did not reach her eyes.

“There’s most definitely a bunch of them around us since we’ve been talking about them for a while. Don’t panic! Just be respectful and don’t listen and concentrate on the words they’ll try to whisper in your ear. If you hum or sing a song or keep talking it’ll be a lot easier to not be influenced.”

“You don’t think that the whispering I heard was just the wind running through the sand and dunes?” She teased her, trying to lighten the mood since Hikaku the Bastard was carrying out a live translation of their conversation to those at the front of the caravan and their clansmen were not taking this information very well.

“The fact that you let yourself slip long enough to hear words spoken is very, very bad,” Temra was not pleased at all, she was staring straight ahead, arms tightly folded in front of her.

“Come now, it was a mistake that won’t happen again.” She tried to pull Temra close to her, but she remained firmly in her place.

“For you to have heard fully formed words means that you’ve already been influenced.” When Temra turned to look at her Naori smiled, but that seemed to only upset her further.

“How have you been sleeping? How much have you been moving in your sleep; did you walk around last night? Are your dreams more vivid and are you remembering them as though they are real memories, not made-up dreams? Do you find your limbs spazzing out on their own randomly? Do you experience rapidly shifting emotions, manic glee in one minute, and then a lonely depression in the next? Have you been eating more than usual? Enough to perhaps sustain two adults.”

Naori firmly squashed down the rising feeling of foreboding that had been building with each new point. “These things can all be explained by being away from home, in an unfamiliar and harsh landscape carrying out a sensitive mission.”

“These are not all of the early symptoms of possession, there’s so much more. This is how they prime you. Once they wear you down enough and have all your family members used to your new behaviour and oddities, only then do they begin to ease you into cohabitation. And after that, they attempt a complete possession.”

There was silence among all the travellers, sending tendrils of chakra out to sus the situation, she caught Hikaku finishing up translating Temra’s last point.

“Did anyone bring the exorcism equipment?” Naka asked the whole of the clan and they laughed it off, some of the tension eased out of their tightly coiled chakra signatures. “Temru- Temari might just be able to work the”.

Naori corrected her pronunciation of Temra’s name immediately.

Temra was visibly confused, her head moved up and down the caravan trying to discern the reason for the laughter, so Naori got ready to explain the situation to her. Just as she closed her hand around Temra’s arm to get her attention, the girl let out a piercing scream. Her hands went straight to her veiled face and head and she clawed at herself. Everyone moved into action in less than seconds; Naori pulled her out of the hole while her ears rang from the high-pitched noise, Izuna who was to their left, at the very parameters of the caravan, flared her chakra out and bellowed Madara’s name. No sooner did she do that, Temra’s body went limp and her eyes stared out, half-lidded and unfocused.

“What was that?” Naori asked Izuna, tone a little accusatory. She was quick to remove the clothing around the areas that she could smell blood pouring out of; her ears, eyes, nose and mouth. The thin trails of blood down her face from where she had clawed at it didn’t help matter at all.

“She said that there was a distance limit between how far the slave can be from the master. We were testing it out.” Izuna’s eyes were dispassionate and calculating, her displeasure evident for all to see.

“Was she telling the truth?”

“Her information checks out. It’s around five acres.” She ran her hands over her face in rough strokes, “this is not good at all. Brother will be limited in his movement for an indefinite amount of time.”

“You’re not going to just kill her and be done with it?” Naori was surprised, as were many of the clansmen around them.

“I’m not ready to strike her down in case the seal protects her. And I’m worried it might affect Madara if it retaliates on its wearer’s attacker as a defence mechanism.”

“You really think that a seal placed on a human for subjugation purposes is going to do any type of protecting? Aren’t slaves abused physically by those around them?”

“Ok so maybe physical harm done to her won’t hurt Madara, but it doesn’t change that it may or may not retaliate on the one who kills her.”

“Just as I said, why would it protect slaves—”

“Because there’s something around it! It’s more than just a distance-binding seal, Naori. When I watched her with my sharingan, there was a ripple in the air around her. Not like when the wind moves around a person, more like the very fabric of existence around her, it ripples and moved and then it, this force, it coalesced into a roughly cylindrical form and one end of it was on her head. That’s when she began to suffer.”

“Ok, so the seal reacted to Madara stepping out of bounds. That’s its sole function. That had nothing to do with any defences it might have to protect its wearer.”

“Naori, the rippling started when Madara was four acres out. It came into existence and moved about. It went above her, then moved to our left and hovered on top of that dune, and then it moved back to encompass her, and then the cylindrical shape took form out of the force and once Madara stepped over the distance limit, there was movement around her head and she was hurt.”

“What the fuck,” said Naori calmly.

“Can we leave? What the fuck can we leave right now,” Naka spat out.

Hikaku rode up to them. “Would you show me, Izuna-sama?”

“Absolutely not!” interjected Naka. “Show him after we’ve left this god-forsaken country.”

“Izuna, Izuna-sama it is still around her?” Naori whispered her question, shaken a little at the implication of what just happened.

Izuna’s sharingan was still one and she shook her head. “It stopped once Madara stepped back into the parameters, and then it moved its ‘hand’ away once Madara was within four acres, then removed itself from existence when Madara came within three acres.”

“That is very disturbing,” Hikaku commented sagely.

“Shut the fuck up and go back to the front,” barked Naka. Hikaku obeyed.

“You still wanna kill her?” Izuna teased, a weak smile forming on her lips.

“Maybe once we’ve figured out the full extent of the seal. Madara-sama cannot be limited like this forever.”

“Well in fairness, it’s not like he goes on many missions to begin with. The price of hiring the Uchiha Madara has made him a lot more expensive and exclusive. When even was the last time he went on a mission?” Naka said, getting her bearings together.

As the three women pondered this, the caravan began to move again and Temra’s body was lowered back into her cavern. Naori reached down and closed her open eyes for her.

“Two months ago, wasn’t it? He’s been complaining about his increase in domestic chores because of it.”

“Serves him right.”

Izuna looked down at Temra. “I hope she wakes up; we really need information on the Senju dealings she most likely saw.”

“Maybe you should have questioned her before you carried out your little experiment,” Naka snapped immediately, as though sensing weakness in Izuna and spitting out a prompt attack was a biological response ingrained in her very bones.

Naori tuned them out as she moved Temra’s limbs into comfortable positions that would not disrupt her blood flow and cause her discomfort when she woke up. She used the headscarf she had removed from her to cover the hole to protect Temra from the sun. The Uchiha didn’t have healers adept at dealing with brain injuries, so there was nothing they could do but pray to their deities. It was going to be a more arduous journey than initially anticipated, as they looked out for not only natural and human threats but also threats from the unseen world.