Scorpion liked the leaf shinobi that had been permanently moved to the village hidden in the sand. They were strange, for sure, all of them louder than anyone was used to, but they were also a fountain of knowledge that was previously unavailable. Kiba Inuzuka was not only teaching beast mastery and the Konoha clan histories to the sand nin, but he’d even instigated a breeding and training program for service dogs. Scorpion’s blinded brother had one. Dogs were seen around the village helping patrol territories and protect key individuals, there was even a branch of the water budget that had been put aside just for the canines. On a more personal level, Kiba was also a great guy to catch a drink with. The man was a guaranteed laugh for Scorpion.
Shikamaru Nara was a far more reserved man than Kiba. Scorpion had only been able to pull him into a few conversations over the last couple of years of the select leaf citizenship in Suna, but talking to the Nara was like trying to maintain three different conversations at once. As far as he could tell, Temari and Shikamaru had married each other just so they’d have someone to talk to. Their entire relationship seemed to be like a shogi match that Scorpion couldn’t begin to fathom. But he’d also seen Shikamaru shut down two coups and single-handedly organize the defense against the stone nin attack. He was just glad Shikamaru was working in Suna’s interests and not against them.
While Scorpion liked Shikamaru and quite liked Kiba, his favorite of the three leaf nin was undoubtedly Rock Lee. Rock Lee was sent to be a teacher, a way for the village to train their shinobi to the best of their potential. The sand ninja boasted the strongest ninjutsu users in the world but that left them weak in every other aspect. Especially taijutsu. But sending someone who could help fill a void in the city’s defenses could also destroy it from that same weak spot. The council kept a constant eye on the three with a particular interest in Lee.
Scorpion had been assigned to watch Lee from the first day the leaf nin walked through the front gate. The council was worried about him, he could cause so much damage if given the opportunity. And most of the council was convinced that Lee was a liar. No one in Suna had ever heard of a ninja who could not use ninjutsu or genjutsu and thus suspected Lee of trying to hide in plain sight with unknown abilities.
Scorpion, as well as many of the other rotating ANBU assigned to Lee, knew the strange green clad man wasn’t lying after just a couple days of observation. One, because he’d seen Lee at work on the training ground and two, because Lee was the most earnest person that had probably ever been in Suna. Probably the purest soul to ever be born, though perhaps he was biased. Lee couldn’t lie or manipulate anyone or anything. The guy was a taijutsu genius, but he was also incredibly dumb. If Scorpion wasn’t a feared and respected ANBU he might even say Lee was precious and adorable… while also holding the equivalent physical strength of the entire Suna army in his body.
Two years after Konoha and Suna had traded three of their citizens to each other’s villages, Scorpion was still on Lee watch. However, the ANBU guard around Rock Lee had long changed from doubtful and scrutinizing to hellishly protective. Lee had quickly become a favorite of nearly everyone in the village and most certainly the kazekage himself, but some suspicions of a few very highly ranked individuals had only intensified. A majority of said suspicions fell on Lee himself rather than Shikamaru or Kiba. The Nara was usually out of sight and thus out of mind, and Kiba just wasn’t as big of a threat.
The kazekage had made it clear that Rock Lee was to be protected at all costs but Scorpion doubted it had needed to be said at all. The green clad man with his giant eyebrows and ridiculous leg warmers was a national treasure. He’d easily tripled the power of the sand shinobi with his teaching and had platonically accidentally seduced every citizen he came across. Including Scorpion.
And because the three siblings that made up the royal family were off on a diplomatic mission to the capital of the Land of Wind, security on the precious Rock Lee was taken extremely seriously. Scorpion eyed the extra ANBU that were sitting in the shadows watching Lee train.
Unfortunately, and not unusually, the ANBU weren’t the only ninja following Lee. Hinti Yaranok consistently sent his own people to shadow the taijutsu master. Yaranok had been quite vocal about his dislike of the leaf ninjas and had been insulting and cruel to Rock Lee since the first meeting where his name was brought up. Scorpion had been at many of those meetings where Hinti had tried time after time to get Lee exiled or put under harsh security. The kazekage always shut him down, and recently had been learning to do it more effectively than ever.
There were more of Hinti’s men today than there were yesterday, Scorpion noted them all and shared a few hand signals with Hawk and Bobcat. They would all be on high alert. They watched Lee move gracefully through his morning routine, and kept a constant awareness of the four other ninja that were nonchalantly sharing the training field with the taijutsu master. Lee didn’t seem to notice them in the slightest.
Scorpion slowly bled out from the shadows and leaned against one of the pillars at the edge of the grounds, using his painted mask and ANBU armor to hopefully intimidate some of the unknown variables into leaving. Hawk and Bobcat remained well hidden. His attention snapped back to Lee when there was a low cracking noise that had become familiar over the months. And sure enough, when he snapped his gaze over to his charge, it was to see Lee’s guilt ridden eyes already on him. “I’m so sorry!” Lee cried out with a nonsensical wave of his arms. The huge stone pillar behind Lee was already falling to the ground.
Scorpion didn’t roll his eyes but only because no one would be able to see it through the mask. Lee dashed to catch the pillar before it hit the sandy ground and made the windows in the surrounding buildings rumble. Once it landed in those deceptively strong arms, he gently placed it down and looked once again at Scorpion.
“One more practice pillar added to the kazekage’s bill this month, noted,” Scorpion said with an audible grin.
Lee was in front of him faster than he could fully comprehend. He made another note to himself, perhaps for the hundredth time, that the kazekage’s lover was faster than any ANBU member in Suna. Scorpion should really have Lee come in and start speed training them.
“No!” Lee shouted. Scorpion had long become used to the volume. “I can pay for it myself!”
Scorpion doubted that. The pillars weren’t expensive to replace but they certainly weren’t cheap. The kazekage’s budget could easily swallow the numbers up but a standard shinobi would feel the financial crunch at the end of the month. Especially since Lee did this about every three weeks. “We have our orders,” Scorpion lied. The kazekage had never said anything about the pillars that Lee routinely broke on accident, but he was quite sure that his lord would not like Lee paying for it out of pocket. “All equipment destroyed by you is charged to the kazekage’s accounts.”
Lee visibly fretted and Scorpion’s amusement faded away. He was used to Lee being overly embarrassed by his repeated destruction of the training grounds. Lee was genuinely contrite and upset by it every time, but this seemed different. Lee seemed worried. “Lord Kazekage is happy to cover the tab, Lee,” Scorpion said.
“It is quite alright, Scorpion! I can shoulder my own responsibilities! I do not mean to be a burden upon the royal family. It would be unyouthful of me!” Lee’s eyes momentarily scanned over the training ground and Scorpion realized that Lee might not be so oblivious as he’d thought. The statement still puzzled him though. Rock Lee wasn’t a burden to the kazekage, his family, or Suna. He was… the very opposite of it.
“What are you talking about?” Scorpion asked in honest bafflement.
“Like any other shinobi I will pay for my mistakes! Honestly and fully!”
Scorpion wasn’t even sure what happened when training equipment was broken in the past. It didn’t really happen much before Lee. The more used ninjutsu training sands were on the other side of the village and didn’t have equipment to break really. The equipment in the grounds and centers for physical work were, to his knowledge, only replaced when they began to naturally deteriorate. Scorpion was confident an explanation of that would not make Lee feel any better.
Scorpion’s attention was pulled from Lee in an instant when several newcomers came onto the grounds. They were shinobi, but Scorpion recognized several of them and knew them to be more underlings of Hinti. The angry old man had far too much sway over the older families of Suna. “How about we go up to the treasury and talk to them about the proper regulations of the replacement of equipment?” he asked Lee without looking away from the newcomers. He felt that getting Lee far away from here would be a good idea.
Lee seemed to think for a couple seconds and then he broke into a shining grin, that Scorpion could barely look at, and exclaimed, “What a thoughtful idea, Scorpion! You truly have a gift of insight, my friend!” Scorpion did not think it was insightful exactly, but Lee was half intimidating genius and half endearing clueless idiot.
Lee turned on his heel and began marching toward the edge of the training ground and supposedly off to the admin building where the treasury was. Scorpion jumped to his side and matched Lee’s pace. The suspicious ninja behind them were now wandering the grounds aimlessly. Scorpion sent a couple rapid hand signs at Hawk and Bobcat, ordering them to move with him and Lee.
When they reached the edge of the training ground, Scorpion hopped down the couple steps right before the gate and stepped through the arch. He was quite pleased with his ‘insight’ and his ability to get Lee so quickly out of whatever subterfuge Hinti was trying to start. Only then did he realize Lee had stopped abruptly on the top step. Scorpion turned and caught the last second of an eerily blank expression on Lee’s usually expressive face. Then that face scrunched up in wide eyed terror and Lee whirled on the spot to stare at the center of the training ground. “Gaara!” Lee screamed with a fear that Scorpion recognized as haunted. Any shinobi would recognize it.
Scorpion reached for Lee’s arm in a snap of motion, he didn’t know what was going on but he knew one thing: Gaara wasn’t in Suna.
Lee dashed away with that damned inhuman speed. Scorpion had just cleared the couple of steps back to the raised ground when he saw the green figure of his charge stop dead in the center of the training ground. The loitering ninja from before suddenly whipped their hands together in a flurry of hand signs and Scorpion didn’t stop to think, he ran straight for Lee.
Purple flashed before his eyes an instant after he moved and then he slammed bodily into a wall that sent an agonizing pain sparking through every bone in his body. He fell back to the ground and looked up at a horrifyingly familiar sight. A purple barrier that created a perfect cubic rectangle. It covered a majority of the training ground, and stuck in the center of it was Lee. Scorpion swore and breathed through the waves of pain from his collision with the barrier. The pain that he now realized was the result of light electrocution. He’d hit the side of the barrier right as it sprung into being and he knew if he touched it now that it was fully in place he’d suffer a lot worse than just ‘mild’ pain.
“This is Orochimaru’s barrier jutsu,” Bobcat said from behind him.
“We did always suspect that Hinti had known more about the previous kazekage’s death and Orochimaru’s plans than admitted to,” Hawk said.
Scorpion managed to catch his breath and stand on shaky legs. He hadn’t looked away from Lee but he didn’t understand what he was looking at. Lee was racing in circles and reaching for something that wasn’t there. He kept screaming the kazekage’s name.
“A genjutsu,” Scorpion realized belatedly.
Hawk didn’t reply but pointed at Hinti who stood in the farthest corner of the rectangle. A couple ninjas at Hinti’s side made the same hand signs as before and a wall came up to box them and Hinti safely into the corner. Protected from the outside and inside. Just like Orochimaru and his sound nin had done.
Other than the three behind the second barrier, there were five other ninjas inside the walls. All of them spread out around the edges of the purple cage and watching Lee avidly. Scorpion forgot how to breath for a moment when all five of them pulled out kunais.
Hawk, get help,” Scorpion ordered. “Bobcat, find the seal master Hu and bring him here immediately.” Scorpion then dashed around the barrier walls and stopped just behind Hinti’s corner. “What do you think you’re doing, Hinti?!” he demanded.
Lee had stopped yelling Gaara’s name but was now staring at something in the distance with an open expression of despair. “Gaara?” Lee asked softly, softer than Scorpion had ever heard him speak.
Scorpion lunged toward the purple wall when he saw three of Hinti’s men throw their kunais, all straight at Lee. Scorpion stopped just shy of hitting the barrier and only breathed out when Lee effortlessly spun and avoided the attacks.
“You must be the leader of the ANBU team that babysits the leaf traitor, yes?” Hinti asked. The tone of the old man’s voice was smug and Scorpion had never wanted to draw blood more.
“You’re attacking a member of the royal family, Hinti.”
The old man sneered and glared in Lee’s direction. “He is nothing but a liar and a thief.”
Lee was dodging incoming kunai and shouting out questions about the kazekage. “Where is Gaara? What have you done with him? Who are you?”
Scorpion didn’t know what Lee was seeing but he was shouting his questions at no one. Lee didn’t seem to know where the five ninja that were attacking him were. “It’s a genjutsu, Lee!” Scorpion yelled.
Hinti just laughed and replied, “He can’t hear you, ANBU.”
Iguana and Rattlesnake landed next to Scorpion silently and all three of them stared in horror as a kunai slipped through Lee’s defenses and sliced across the edge of his left thigh. The leaf ninja paused and looked down at the wound in complete confusion. It was a hint for Lee that Scorpion could only hope his charge picked up on.
“Iguana, tell the kazekage’s aide to immediately send a hawk for the kazekage informing him of the situation.” Scorpion didn’t look as Iguana leaped away to do as he was bid. He glared at Hinti and watched Lee from the corner of his eyes. “What do you hope to accomplish by this? When Lord Kazekage gets here, you’ll be imprisoned at best and sand coffined at worst.”
“The leaf garbage have infiltrated our defenses and that fool Gaara is completely blind to it. He welcomed Lee into his bed and gave him access to every security of the village. Not to mention the Shikamaru mess with Temari! It’s irresponsible and it’s a mistake we can’t afford.”
“Rock Lee-san has never given any indication of ill intent towards Suna!”
“Biding his time, no doubt. That Nara bastard must be gathering intel for their hokage and making a plan. The Inuzuka’s mutts crawling across our sand have become a small army that could attack us all at any time.”
“This is insane!” Scorpion suddenly had the terrifying thought of Shikamaru and Kiba being attacked in the same manner as Lee. But did Hinti actually have enough people to pull that off?
“This idiot,” Hinti gestured at Lee, “is the linchpin though. Not only is he the strongest opponent, he is in the kazekage’s good graces. Who would have thought that the great vessel of Shukaku could be tamed and manipulated by a good fuck?”
Scorpion blanched at the disrespect, then shouted, “Release Rock Lee at once!” More ANBU were skulking around the edges of the purple barrier looking for weaknesses of any kind. Others were running across the rooftops nearby, undoubtedly looking for other prongs of attack. “This is treason!”
“Gaara will thank me once he returns,” Hinti replied. “The brat will be taken down a peg when I prove that Lee is nothing but a tool of the leaf village’s revenge.”
“What do you mean ‘prove it’?”
“This is the perfect trap!” Hinti was near bursting with pride and Scorpion wanted to physically wipe at his own skin at the feel of it.
“Why’s that?”
Lee let out a shout of frustration as he backflipped over the latest kunais and charged in a specific direction to give a powerful series of kicks at nothing.
“There is no ninja without ninjutsu or genjutsu, it’s a mockery even the leaf village wouldn’t allow. It’s the most blatant lie that’s been shoved down our throats yet. This,” he gestured around himself, “is the perfect way to catch him out in the lie. He will have to break the genjutsu or die. Either way, the village will be safe from him.”
“If you kill him you’re promising yourself a future of agony! The kazekage--”
“Gaara is nothing now that the demon is out of his body. He is just another man, and once he sees Rock Lee’s lies, he will be nothing but a man owing me a great debt.”
Scorpion snarled and sprinted away, rounding another corner and stopping halfway down one of the long edges of the cage that Lee was trapped within. There were small cuts littering Lee’s body and he looked angry and confused. “Where’s Gaara?!” he screamed before launching into the attack of an invisible foe once again. The five real attackers were smoothly moving along the inside of the walls, jumping from pillar to ground and back, to attack from all angles.
He watched another kunai slice into Lee’s skin and his fingers curled into fists. If he’d only been faster at following Lee, if only he’d grabbed him and ran the moment he saw Hinti. Not that Scorpion would have been able to move Lee if he’d wanted to. Only a natural disaster could knock a stable Lee over.
Lee stomped as another scratch opened on his chest and Scorpion watched his charge slump into himself to form an uncharacteristic slouch. “What is going on?” Lee asked the ground.
Scorpion turned his attention to Bobcat who had finally returned with a harried seals master in tow. “Master Hu,” Scorpion greeted as he glanced back at Lee. “Get this barrier down as fast as possible.” The shaking seals master looked in at Lee’s dodging and panting figure.
“Is that young Lee-san?” Hu asked. “What’s going on?”
“You need to break down the walls so we can get to him, that’s what’s going on!” Scorpion snapped. Hu nodded and dropped his bag down to the ground and began digging through it. Lee let out a shout as a kunai he hadn’t dodged hit him in the calf. Scorpion watched Lee look down at the new wound with that same confusion as before. His charge’s eyes scanned the surrounding area, not landing on any of the people present.
Shinobi and citizens were starting to gather on the nearby rooftops and streets at the rising commotion. Scorpion didn’t bother warning them away, the situation was fortunately, and unfortunately, very well contained.
Scorpion saw the moment Lee figured out what was happening. The young man stumbled halfway through a kick, a sight that Scorpion had never seen before. Then Lee hung his head in a moment of realization and let out a strained chuckle. None of it fit Lee. When he looked back up, and did another scan of his fake surroundings, Lee looked genuinely scared.
Scorpion had seen Lee near death after breaking open five gates to protect the kazekage and his siblings. He’d seen Lee polite and befuddled and intimidated by council members. One time he saw the famous drunken fist technique when someone thought it’d be funny to slip alcohol into Lee’s cup. He’s watched Lee take on battles no one short of the kazekage should be able to get through. Yet never before had he witnessed such pure terror on his friend.
A few seconds later though Lee shook himself out of it and focused once again with wide determined eyes. Lee vaulted into a series of back handsprings to bring him out of range of the newest thrown attack and Scorpion cried out when he saw the kunai coming straight for Lee’s side. The leaf nin must have felt it coming because he twisted left just enough for it to pass underneath him. Lee landed in a crouch and scrunched his eyes shut.
“Can he really not break it? The genjutsu?” Iguana asked from beside Scorpion.
“You know he can’t,” he replied.
“I understand he prefers taijutsu and knows little of the others, but surely he’s been taught this most basic requirement.”
Scorpion sighed and shook his head. As team lead he had more information than the others. He’d read Lee’s file from cover to cover. “Rock Lee’s chakra passages are damaged. It’s not that he doesn’t use ninjutsu and genjutsu, it’s that he can’t.”
“Does he have no chakra then?” Iguana sounded surprised. Scorpion looked over at his friend and colleague and saw several of the other ANBU around obviously looking and listening in to the conversation. Scorpion had better make this very clear.
“If he didn’t have chakra then he never would have gotten into the leaf academy. He has chakra, it’s just not available to him. He has the basic perks of a chakra enforced body, durability, slightly higher healing speed, and increased strength. He just can’t push any of the chakra outside of his body. It’s trapped inside him.” Just like Lee was trapped inside the damn cage. “His chakra is all but useless to him except for the bare minimum of increased physicality. That’s why he’s so physically strong. No shinobi has that kind of actual strength, they wouldn’t need it since they could channel chakra into a strike. Lee can’t do that. Every hit received from Lee is from pure strength and willpower.”
Iguana took a tiny step backward. “You mean… he can’t even walk on the surface of the sand or stabilize weapons? He has no ability whatsoever?”
Scorpion had wondered himself how Lee ever got anywhere in the desert. The sand shinobi used the walking on sand technique, just like walking on water or up trees. Lee couldn’t do that but it didn’t seem to bother him. Perhaps the kazekage or others firmed the sand beneath him on missions or something. He’d never asked, it didn’t seem important.
Scorpion didn’t answer, instead he focused on his trapped friend. Lee was losing his patience, or perhaps his calm, inside the barrier. There were three practice pillars that lay mostly inside of the barrier and Lee had already smashed one of them into pieces during Iguana’s questions. It was a good move tactically, the attacking ninjas had been bouncing between and on top of them to get higher angled attacks. Lee punched one pillar so hard and precisely that three feet above the ground it neatly split in two and the top half flew perfectly horizontally into the barrier wall. Once it hit that purple wall the stone of the pillar blew up into tiny fragments and dust.
Thankfully Lee was out of range of the rubble, already on the other side of the cage doing the same to the last pillar. Scorpion swallowed roughly. Those pillars had basically vaporized against the walls. What if Lee ran into one accidentally? As if in answer to Scorpion’s thoughts, Lee tilted his head slightly as he looked at where he’d hit the last pillar. Lee held out a tentative hand and began walking toward the wall. Scorpion screamed at Lee but his friend didn’t so much as twitch, just kept walking.
The attacking ninja had been scattered by Lee’s destruction and the fear that they’d be accidentally hit by a pillar or Lee’s sudden aggression. But they’d already regrouped and Scorpion watched them throw a storm of weapons at Lee’s back. Lee dropped prone to the ground, two feet away from the barrier, and every blade sailed over his head and hit the barrier where they disappeared into mist.
Lee sat up and studied the wall again. Or studied whatever the wall was in the genjutsu. He then reached out one hand with one finger extended and prodded at the purple barrier. Scorpion could see the shock go through Lee’s body and the leaf nin rolled away from the wall in an instinctive retreat.
Lee returned to the middle of the grounds and crouched. Scorpion sent some chakra to his ears when he realized Lee was mumbling to himself. “Alright, Lee, you cannot afford to be unfocused.” Another attack and Lee dodged gracefully and continued talking to himself as if he wasn’t moving at blinding speed or using ridiculously high amounts of energy. “It’s an illusion of some sort. The attacks have no patterns that I can see and they are all long distance weapon attacks. The combatants I see are not the true enemy.” Lee flipped backwards onto his hands and launched himself over the latest hail of weaponry. Lee was headed directly into a different attack though that he didn’t seem able to see. Two kunai landed in the meat of Lee’s thigh and he rolled as he hit the ground.
Lee’s hand shook when he pulled the blades out. Scorpion glared at the blood rushing out of Lee’s body as if he could scare it into retreating back to where it should be. Lee quickly used some of the wrappings on his hands and arms to bind the wound shut. Hinti signaled for his men to pause their attacks while Lee did so.
Scorpion had no doubt that Lee would eventually die in there if they couldn’t get to him. Enough cuts and blood loss and one lucky blow from a blade would be all it took. “Brute force may be an unwise choice for breaking whatever containment I am being held in,” Lee continued mumbling.
Another slash from a shuriken across one cheek and Lee let out a shout of frustration. With a spike of energy that was almost visible Lee broke through the first gate. Scorpion had only seen it a couple of times but the punch of that energy was hard to mistake. When the next attack came Lee jumped into it and somehow snatched each blade from the air with his hands. Then he spun in a circle and released them with deadly speed. The ninja behind Lee caught one of the kunai to the shoulder and Scorpion cheered for Lee. He wasn’t the only voice to do so.
He looked around at the surrounding buildings and the streets around the square to find hundreds of Suna citizens. They all looked a mix of scared, furious, and despairing. Their eyes were fixed on the cage and Lee fighting for his life.
Scorpion was not a stranger to the audiences that tended to gravitate to Rock Lee’s particularly intense training days or the rare but highly attended spars between Gaara and Lee. He was used to shouted questions for Lee and laughter from the crowd. This atmosphere was entirely different.
He glared down at the seals master near his feet and demanded, “Report.”
Master Hu looked up and the answer was written across the man’s face. “The barrier is based on seals and chakra tags but they are inside of the barrier itself. I can’t break that.”
Scorpion swore and looked back at Lee.
“However,” Master Hu added. Scorpion turned back. “The barrier can’t sustain itself for too long. It should eventually burn out.”
“How long would that take?” Scorpion asked.
“A few hours.”
Scorpion closed his eyes and scolded himself for hoping. Though if someone were to survive in such terrible conditions it would be Rock Lee.
“Scorpion?” He looked at Lee when the leaf nin said his name and felt a chill run down his back as Lee began talking in earnest, “Scorpion, I know you are there somewhere. It would seem I have been targeted.” Lee cut off with a hiss of pain as another cut appeared on his skin. “The reason why does not matter.” Scorpion looked at the sun and noted that no more than a quarter hour had passed. “Clearly I am trapped in or you would already be in here fighting by my side, both of us are in the springtime of our you--”
Lee froze in place and for one glorious moment Scorpion didn’t know why. Then Lee fell to his knees and Scorpion finally saw the kunai protruding from Lee’s back. “LEE!” Scorpion screamed. He caught himself once again reaching for the barrier and pulled back.
Hinti held up a hand for a pause of attack and the man was staring at Lee with a wide smile. He was leaning forward in anticipation and Scorpion wanted to gouge those eyes out.
Lee struggled to his feet and reached back, tugging the blade out of his back. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he unfurled even more of his wrappings before tying it around his middle, covering the wound sloppily. Lee looked around and asked, “Why is this happening?”
Hinti scowled and his hand came down as a violent signal. More kunai than Scorpion could count were sent speeding at Lee. Lee leapt straight up, and Scorpion watched in awe at the ease with which the man had done it. Then his breath caught as Lee’s back brushed across the barrier ceiling and Lee screamed in pain.
Lee fell back down, scream tapering off the further he fell. He hit the ground hard enough to leave a small crater. He didn’t stand back up. Scorpion could just barely make out Lee’s body through the dust and sand the impact had shaken up. Lee was spasming.
The crowd was silent around Scorpion. He glanced around and saw every ANBU member in sight frozen in place, masks all turned to the cage. Suna held still for a moment. Another one. A full minute passed where all that moved was Lee’s twitching body. Scorpion hoped that the spasming meant Lee was still alive.
When he looked at Hinti the man looked annoyed. He was gesturing to some of his ninja and hissing commands but Scorpion couldn’t hear them. Camel was over there, and if it was anything important she would signal him and the other ANBU.
He started counting seconds. Another minute passed in silence before Lee moved, actually moved. Two shaky arms pushing his upper body up from the ground, his legs curling up underneath his body. Ever so slowly Lee stood up. His green spandex suit was torn to pieces and his hands were only half wrapped, the ends fluttering uselessly in the air. His back was covered in spreading blood from the wound he’d tried to wrap and a black star shape had burnt through the spandex between his shoulder blades. It was blistered and pieces of his clothes had melted into the skin.
Lee swayed on the spot precariously and then his left foot slid back and smoothly to the side while he rested his weight on the other. Two unbandaged hands came up to hover in front of his chest and face. He looked around and Scorpion saw the pained but determined expression on Lee’s face. “I do not give up,” Lee said. The shaking of his limbs slowed until Lee stood up straight and in the perfect fighting pose. “I do not know what giving up is.”
One of Hinti’s ninjas hesitantly threw a kunai that Lee caught between two fingers and threw back at blinding speed. It smacked into the attacker's thigh and he fell to the ground. Lee looked at the spot he’d thrown it but didn’t react.
The crowd finally moved again as the rooftops exploded in shouts for Lee. Some encouraging and some despairing. All of them tinged with a pride that Scorpion himself felt strongly.
“We could dig,” Bobcat whispered into his ear. Scorpion hadn’t even noticed her approach.
“What?”
“We could dig under the barrier and get inside that way.”
Scorpion spun around to look at her whiskered mask. “Find every sand jutsu user and bring them here.” She disappeared before he could finish his sentence.
Bobcat was gone for longer than Scorpion had expected or wanted. A full ten minutes passed before she returned with three shinobi at her side. For those ten minutes Lee fought for his life. Was sliced over and over again by things he could not see. Lee had been stuck in there for half an hour now and already his skin was barely visible anymore through the blood.
Scorpion gave distracted but strict orders to the three shinobi and they got to work. He wished there were more of them. They may live with sand all around them but it wasn’t actually a common affinity for a shinobi. Sand was hard to work with, it was temperamental and fell to pieces too easily. No one in the world was anywhere near the kazekage’s unheard of level. But Scorpion would take anything he could get.
The digging was slow moving even with three sand users. The training ground sand was mixed with heavier soil and rocks so as to make a more stable base. So for each grain of sand that was moved there was a pebble or clump of dark soil that fell into the hole. Another ten minutes passed as they dug, only making it a couple feet down, and Lee was lagging. His movements were losing their innate grace and speed. The exhaustion was getting to him, the wounds, the blood loss.
Then one of Hinti’s men noticed the digging taking place on the other side of the barrier and two of the ninjas abandoned their attacks on Lee and approached the activity. One of them made some hand signs and then slammed his hands into the ground while the other protected his open back from any of the desperate kunai throws from Lee. The hole they’d managed to make so far began filling once again. Scorpion and Bobcat looked at each other, unable to see beyond the masks but already knowing what the other was thinking. The sand users bent down further and began channeling more chakra, pushing harder than before and working faster. They still made progress but it was at a snail’s pace.
Scorpion tugged at the hair at the base of his skull and tried to think of anything they could do besides watch Lee get slowly run down. The barrier would kill them and would vaporize any equipment sent through. Lee couldn’t see them or hear them. They couldn’t release the genjutsu without touching Lee. They couldn’t go under or over. Damn it all.
Scorpion moved around the cage to stand once again behind Hinti. “He can’t break the genjutsu, Hinti,” he said to the old man.
“He knows he’s being watched. He won’t release it until he has no other choice,” Hinti replied, his eyes locked on Lee.
“He already has no other choice!”
“He’s still fighting isn’t he?”
“How far will you push him? How much blood does he have to lose for you to accept the fact that he’s not lying?”
He caught the flash of a faded eye as Hinti cast a quick glance at him. Then Hinti laughed. “I still have many choices, ANBU. As long as I have the boy,” he gestured at Lee right as the leaf nin stumbled with a shuriken in the back of his shoulder, “I have many choices.”
Scorpion narrowed his eyes. What kind of choices? He looked at the ninja throwing weapons and wondered how many supplies they had taken in with them. Surely they would run out of weapons to throw eventually.
“What do you want?” Scorpion asked. “What could I give you for you to take the barrier down?”
“I don’t think that’s up to you, ANBU. You forget your place.”
“Like you’ve forgotten yours?”
“I haven’t forgotten mine, it’s just been taken from me.” Hinti turned fully to glare at Scorpion. “I used to be an affluent man. Gaara’s father listened to me. Gaara does not. He’d listen to traitors with weak blood lines over his own people.”
“So you’re blaming Lee for your fading importance? You’re an old man, Hinti, you’re stuck in the past.”
“A past where the village hidden in the sand was the strongest shinobi village to exist.”
Scorpion scoffed. He loved Suna with his whole heart but they’d never been the strongest. Konoha had more ninja and more political ties. The village hidden in the waves was deadlier than them. Suna had the strongest ninjutsu users in the world but that didn’t mean the village was stronger. The last kazekage had been weak, allowing distrust and anger to build in the hearts of his shinobi and the land. He put too much effort into the shinobi and not enough into infrastructure.
“The wars are behind us, we are allies with the Leaf Village! Please, stop this!”
“As you say, ANBU, I am an old man. I have nothing left to lose.” Then he turned away from Scorpion and ignored any other attempts at communication.
Scorpion made a couple laps around the cage and found every angle to be as bad as the last. Lee was as terrible looking as ever. On the third lap Lee knelt on the ground and brought his hands to his face to wipe at the blood. He rolled when shurikens came for his head and when he was once again in a kneel a moment later, he ripped his leg warmers off his legs.
Lee jumped and avoided the next attack and when he landed he quickly slid off his leg weights, holding one in each hand. He ran in a tight circle, no longer fully visible due to his speed, and flung the weights in two different directions.
Through luck or skill, Scorpion didn’t know, one of the weights slammed into the stomach of one of the attackers. There was a sickening crunch of bone splintering. But the weight didn’t stop moving, the unfortunate ninja was hurled into the barrier and with barely a scream the man disappeared into a bloody mist, the weights exploding into black dust. Scorpion took stock. Four attackers left, two injured by kunai, one busy with sand jutsu, and one stuck in place to protect the sand user.
Lee panted and took advantage of the pause in attacks to catch his breath. His other attackers were staring in shock at their comrade, or rather where their comrade had been. Lee had killed a man with his leg weight. Scorpion almost laughed but it got caught somewhere in his lungs.
After another hour of watching Lee, the crowds getting larger around the training area, and more and more blood dripping from the leaf ninja, Scorpion heard his charge speak once again.
“Scorpion,” Lee said. His voice was strained and thick. “Anyone. I don’t know what’s happening or when it will end and it does seem that my youthful spirit may meet its end here. I wish I could see my attacker and that this was a battle worthy of my blood, but…” Lee dodged the renewed attacks. “I have not written a will.”
Scorpion stopped his pacing of the perimeter to give Lee his full attention.
“I did not write one because I do not have much to give. Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro gave me a home and a safe place. Gai gave me my spirit and hope. Lady Tsunade gave me a second chance. These are not things I could pass on.”
Scorpion wanted nothing more than to yell at Lee that he was being fatalistic, but he was a shinobi and death was their reality. Lee would die in sight of half of Suna with none of their love or encouragement heard. All because they couldn’t break the barrier. “I leave my dojo to Tenten. I have written a letter for Gai in case of my death, Shikamaru knows where it is. I give my thanks to my family in Konoha and here in Suna. I give my undying love to Gaara, it will stay with him even when my youth fades. Please remind him of that.”
Lee stopped moving and Scorpion noted that his friend’s limbs were shaking once more. He looked a complete fright, literally dripping with blood.
Scorpion ran to the sand users to see the hole they were working on was twice as deep but still not close. It’d been an hour and a half now with Lee inside. Lee growled in pain and some other dark emotion but started moving once again. Continued to fight, as if he could do anything else.
Another hour passed with the battle beating Lee down. The hole was shifting between progressing and filling in. The sand user inside with Lee was clearly stronger than the three Bobcat had herded together. The ANBU had taken to throwing paper bombs and weaponry at the outside of the barrier in precise patterns to try and find a weakness. They were unsuccessful.
Another hour passed and Lee was gasping with every movement. He was slowing down. He’d already broken open three gates to save his life from nearly unavoidable attacks. Scorpion had genuinely no idea how the man was still standing with how much blood he’d lost. The ground underneath him was splotched with red and sweat.
“Gai said that what made me a splendid ninja was the thing everyone saw as my weakness.” Lee didn’t so much dodge the next attack as collapse underneath it. A lock of that pristine bowl cut was sliced away and floated to the ground after him. He was also speaking quieter, not to Scorpion but to himself. Scorpion had to send chakra once again to his ears to hear. “My weakness is my strength, but it is still a weakness.”
Lee struggled to his feet once more, each time he did it was slower and more painful to watch. Before Lee could even raise his arms into a half fighting stance he was hit by a kunai between the ribs on his right side. He fell once more.
Lee didn’t try to remove the kunai from his side and Scorpion was glad, that one was in a potentially fatal spot. He’d lost far too much blood already.
“Maybe just this once,” Lee mumbled so quietly Scorpion strained to understand. “Just this once it will work.” Lee brought shaky bleeding hands together into the standard ram hand sign and breathed out, “Release!”
Scorpion glanced at Hinti and sneered at the look of victory on his face. Lee’s eyes closed. “Release!” he shouted. Hinti smiled. Nothing changed.
“Well?!” Hinti asked one of the ninja in the protected area with him.
They shrugged and said, “The genjutsu is still in place.”
Scorpion reached out with his chakra to feel for Lee’s. There was no sign of chakra release. It was, as always, stuck inside Lee.
“Gaara,” Lee breathed out. His body went very still, bloody and crumpled on his back with a kunai poking out of his side. “Gai sensei, I hope I made you proud.”
Scorpion swallowed down the despair and sent more chakra to his ears. He could hear Lee’s heart still beating. “Hinti!” he yelled. “Release him!”
“Release. Release. Release.” It was one voice and then a couple and then the crowd all around them began chanting. Every pair of hands was brought together in the ram sign. Scorpion could feel the chakra rolling out of the audience members. It was useless to Lee, they couldn’t release him from his mental trap without physical contact. Not this type of genjutsu at least.
“Release. Release. Release.” The rhythm was almost hypnotic and the flares of chakra beat with the words. Even those without chakra abilities of any kind were chanting. Scorpion watched Iguana and Camel bring their hands together in the base ram sign and join the chant.
“Release. Release. Release.” Scorpion could smell the salt of his own tears and fancied that he could smell the crowd’s as well. Their voices and chakras were one, perhaps their tears and grief were too. He wished Lee could hear it.
“Hinti!” Scorpion pleaded. “Please! He’s proven you wrong! He has no chakra abilities! Release him!”
Hinti didn’t respond but he was staring at Rock Lee’s collapsed form with something like awe mixed with loathing. Scorpion could also see the way the old man’s eyes left Lee and began frantically looking around as he mumbled to himself. The five ninja still alive, three in the area with Lee, and two in the smaller area with Hinti began to shuffle nervously around. But none of them approached Lee, which Scorpion counted as a small miracle.
“I’ll let you run.” Scorpion declared. “I’ll let you walk out the front gate if you just let him go!” He wouldn’t make it far and they both knew it. It was all Scorpion had to offer though. Hinti ignored him.
Scorpion looked at Lee, his charge and his friend. He brought his hands together with a sigh. He made the ram sign and joined in the chant.
“Release. Release. Release.” This shouldn’t be the way the hero Rock Lee died.
“Release. Release. Release.” Though in some ways, it was fitting for the man. Rock Lee would die surrounded by Suna and its love for him.
“Release. Release. Release.”
Scorpion could hear Lee’s heart slowing. “Gaara,” Lee exhaled and then every muscle in his body slackened.
“Release. Release. Release.” The chant was becoming disjointed and interrupted by sobs and hiccups of grief. Scorpion couldn’t believe how helpless they were to help. All of Suna here and they couldn’t break through to the loved man inside. Was this how the leaf shinobi had felt when their hokage had died. Was this karma?
“Release. Release. Rel--”
A flare of chakra surged over everyone and the air fell silent. The chakra was familiar and strong and very very angry.
The sand in front of the training ground spun violently into a small storm within which a form began to materialize. A flash of red and brown and the sand fell down to the ground, silent as the atmosphere around it.
Gaara stood panting in place. Scorpion looked around for Temari or Kankuro but didn’t see them. No fan, no puppets, just one panicked kazekage.
Gaara’s hand went to his chest as he panted hard, each breath was ragged and sent a pang of sympathy pain down Scorpion’s throat. The kazekage spun in place and looked in confusion at the barrier. Scorpion watched the usually blank face of his lord fall into horror at the sight of Rock Lee’s bloodied and collapsed body. “LEE!” The scream of Lee’s name brought back memories of the screaming of a child on a rooftop many years ago.
Gaara ran toward the barrier and Scorpion moved just fast enough to slam his weight into the kazekage and knock the man away before he hit the barrier. The redhead snarled at him and Scorpion accepted his inevitable sandy death, but he had a message to get across first. “The wall will kill you. We can’t get inside. Lord Kazekage-sama, I am sorry, we have failed.”
Gaara stood up and shoved Scorpion away from him before stepping up close to the purple wall. Scorpion almost reached out to pull him back once again but the kazekage didn’t try to make contact with it. He was just looking.
Scorpion edged away from the sand that was vibrating and hissing around his lord. Tendrils of sand and chakra lashing out in random directions searching for something to attack. Scorpion happened to glance up just in time to see his lord catch sight of Hinti.
“I will kill you,” Gaara growled. He quickly walked around the edge of the cage and toward where Hinti was hemmed in by his own barriers. “Drop the barrier.”
“Now, L-lord Kazekage, listen here,” Hinti tripped over each word. Sand began to creep up the sides of the barrier and burn away into nothing on contact. It made a strange sizzling sound and it smelled like lightning.
“Bring it DOWN!” Sand slammed into the part of the wall closest to Hinti and exploded loudly back. The kazekage didn’t flinch, the sand couldn’t hurt him anyway.
“It’s your fault the leaf ninja have infiltrated this village!” Hinti shouted. “And this one,” he gestured at Lee’s body, “This one is the worst. Worming his way into your bed and the people’s good books. It’s insulting to watch!”
The kazekage wasn’t listening. Once it became obvious that Hinti would not bring down the barrier and hasten his death, Gaara had looked away and begun pacing. He was mumbling to himself in that dark low growl of a voice and just the sound of it made Scorpion’s body twitch with an instinct to flee.
Gaara stood straight and flew through hand signs faster than Scorpion could see them. The mumbling had increased in speed and volume but that was quickly sent to the back of Scorpion’s awareness as the ground began to shake underneath him.
The ANBU as a unit backed up and created a perimeter from a safe distance. Scorpion was still well in sight of Hinti, the kazekage, and Lee. The ground vibrated harder as the dark chanting continued.
Scorpion was focused on his lord up until he saw the flash of the small inner purple barrier falling. He watched Hinti sprint from the corner, at a surprising speed for such an old man, and toward Lee’s body.
The cage rumbled as the ground beneath it, sand, soil, and rock, began to lift up and into the air. The kazekage’s hands were held out in front of him, palms up, as if he was holding something. As he lifted them higher, the cage followed suit. Lee and Hinti rose out of Scorpion’s sight. He almost jumped to the roofs with the bystanders so he could see inside but he wouldn’t break the perimeter.
The kazekage then brought his left hand down and Scorpion watched as the middle section of the ground broke away from the edges where the barrier sat. Gaara lowered it gently back down to its original resting place. Soon Hinti and Lee were in sight once again. As soon as the sand touched down, Hinti’s ninjas tried to make a run for it but were easily caught by the ANBU.
Gaara returned his full focus back to the hovering barrier. With both hands he began to make violent tearing motions. The sand above them creaked audibly and loudly scraped against itself. The barrier crackled and gave off purple sparks as its base was violently manipulated. The purple began to blink in and out until with one final tear of Gaara’s hands it imploded with a bang that couldn’t be heard, but was like a punch to the solar plexus. The sand fell back down to the ground as the kazekage stumbled forward through the raining sediment and toward Lee.
Bobcat stepped forward as well, she had extensive training in medical ninjutsu and healing chakra. Scorpion followed. All three of them froze in place once they could see through the falling sand. Hinti was holding Lee against his chest with one arm wrapped around Lee’s neck holding him up and one hand grasping the kunai in Lee’s side.
“Let him go,” the kazekage said with no inflection, only darkness. Scorpion moved automatically to pen Hinti in and Bobcat did the same. They moved together to place themselves to the sides of Hinti and a little back, so that the two of them and the kazekage made a loose triangle around the traitor.
“You are a fool, Gaara,” Hinti hissed.
“Let Lee go!” This time the words were sharp and dripping in fury and grief.
“I’ll let him go only if you listen to me!”
Scorpion didn’t have to look hard at the old man to see that he’d been overtaken by the self righteousness and senseless courage that only the truly desperate had. This was the end for Hinti no matter what and he knew that. They all knew that.
But Lee…
Gaara took a step forward and Hinti pushed the kunai further into Lee’s flesh. Gaara froze. “Give him to me and I will make your death swift,” the kazekage promised without looking away from Lee.
“I have the boy, he’s nearly dead already. One slice to the side and his organs will be falling to the sand. You used to like such things, Gaara.” Hinti’s voice was more melodious than it had ever been in his life. It sounded free and untroubled.
Gaara’s eyes squinted at Hinti. Scorpion could hear and feel every grain of sand in proximity shifting and stirring. The chakra emanating from the kazekage was so heavy Scorpion struggled to stay upright.
“I know what you’re thinking, boy,” Hinti said. “You really think your sand can move fast enough to stop me? All it would take is a flick of the wrist really. How fast can it move?” He looked at the sand around them contemplatively and dismissively. “And will you, kazekage, risk your bed warmer?”
A pause and then, “What do you want?”
Hinti opened his mouth to respond but then stopped and thought about it. “I don’t know anymore. I wanted so many things and this ridiculous taijutsu specialist was walling me in from all sides. With one suggestion he had you changing the entire shinobi military. With one glance he could make you silence me and anyone else. He destroyed property and yelled constantly and honestly… I think what I want now, more than anything, is for you to watch him die.”
“Don’t.” It wasn’t a plea or a command. Gaara’s voice was blank.
“It’ll be a lesson to you. All that strength and confidence. Both of you. And neither of you can do anything about it.”
Lee moaned and moved ever so slightly. His eyelids fluttered to half mast and looked out blankly at nothing in particular. Hinti smiled and moved the kunai half an inch to the left, a mocking of his true intentions to slice Lee open from left to right. Lee’s eyes shot open at the pain and a little lucidity came back to him.
Scorpion didn’t know how the man was conscious.
“Lee,” Gaara breathed out. One word shouldn’t be able to hold that much emotion, and most certainly not from the most stoic man in Suna.
Scorpion watched Lee struggle to focus his eyes on the kazekage. When they finally did he whispered, “Gaara? What’s hap’nin’. I felt your ch-ra.” Then Lee coughed and blood dribbled down his chin. Lee then immediately choked on a gasp when the cough jostled the kunai in his side. “What?” he mumbled. He struggled to move his legs and failed, but when Gaara let out a small sound of grief, Lee visibly dug up some impossible strength and wrapped one hand around Hinti’s hand. They were now both holding the kunai in place. “I can see you?” Lee asked. His eyes flew over the scene and Scorpion had no idea how much his friend was comprehending but Lee smiled with bloody teeth that still managed to glint in the sun. “Yes!”
Lee’s unoccupied hand made a feeble reach for Gaara and the smile grew bigger. “If I’m still under the genjutsu, this one is far better. This one I’d gladly die in.”
“You’re not going to die,” Gaara demanded. His own hand had mirrored Lee’s aborted reach. The sound of the sand around them was as constant and loud as a rhumba of rattlesnakes all shaking their tails. “Lee.” Gaara waited until Lee made eye contact with him. “You’re not going to die, because you promised me.”
“I promised you?” Lee asked in apparent confusion.
“Yes, you promised to never hurt me like he did.”
Lee’s face fell in despair. “I did, didn’t I? I hadn’t thought of it…” Lee paused to cough and gasp in pain, “it like that.”
Hinti sneered and pulled Lee slightly higher up and said, “You were a monster before, Gaara of the sand. You may have lost the sand spirit inside you but you’re still slowly killing this village. It will always be the same, you are the death of Suna.”
“I’m not the death of this village, I am its protector.” A shout of agreement and pride echoed around the area with the many voices of their audience. The kazekage seemed to notice the crowd for the first time and glanced about, but only for a second. His unsettling eyes fell back to Lee and then finally to Hinti. “But I will be your death.”
Scorpion pulled a double sided kunai from his pack and his knees bent a little so he would be ready to spring forward. Lee’s hand tightened around Hinti’s and Gaara’s sand rose up behind him with deadly intent.
“Wait,” Lee said. They stopped, though Scorpion was pretty sure Hinti only did so out of confusion. “Gaara, I love you. Every moment I’ve had with you has made me stronger, even that first fight.”
“Don’t, Lee,” Gaara said.
“I would stay by your side as long as my muscles have strength.”
“You are strength,” Gaara replied and now Scorpion was quite certain his lord was pleading.
“Enough of this!” Hinti growled and his arm muscles bunched as he moved.
“LEE!” shouted a hundred different voices, though none as pain soaked as the kazekage’s.
The sand struck forward as Hinti moved, Scorpion lurched forward as Bobcat did.
Lee choked on a sound of pain but his hand clamped down on Hinti’s. Rock Lee was strong enough to accidentally destroy a building or purposefully crush a mountain to pieces. Every muscle of his body was honed and strengthened to an impossible degree. So even while mostly exsanguinated and half delirious, Scorpion wasn’t exactly surprised to hear the breaking of delicate finger bones underneath Lee’s grip.
The kunai stopped in place and the sand caressed Lee’s sides as it passed by him and stabbed through Hinti’s body. Scorpion had never seen sand used as a blade like that but he didn’t hesitate to add his own blade to the mix. He stabbed at the base of Hinti’s neck where the spine met the skull. Bobcat was already reaching for Lee and Scorpion made sure to not block her way.
Hinti fell backwards when Scorpion pulled his kunai out. Scorpion was reasonably confident the man was dead before he’d stabbed him in the neck. The sand didn’t seem to care as it swallowed him up. Scorpion tried to ignore the muted crunching sounds of bones.
Lee fell forward into Bobcat’s arms and Scorpion saw the Lord Kazekage fall to his knees. Bobcat was already lowering Lee gently to the ground as Gaara leaned forward to get closer. The sand came up to help Bobcat keep Lee steady and softly molded itself around the leaf nin once he was laid out.
Lee was breathing harshly and the kunai had been pulled from his body in the struggle and fall. Scorpion was very familiar with the smell of blood but the sting of iron in his nostrils was disgusting and stronger than he’d experienced before. Bobcat pulled out a couple of plasma pills from her pack and stuffed them in Lee’s mouth, her hands moving then to his side.
Scorpion didn’t bother supervising Bobcat’s healing, he wouldn’t know if she was doing it right anyways. Instead he watched a moment he probably shouldn’t have. He watched Gaara gently coax a delirious and barely conscious Lee into biting down on and then swallowing the pills. Then the kazekage, the past jinchuuriki and most feared being of the desert, began to weep. It wasn’t loud like the scream of Lee’s name before, but quiet and gasping. His tears fell to Lee’s chest where they mixed with the blood.
“Thank you,” Gaara said. He leaned down and placed a small kiss to Lee’s forehead as he mumbled his thanks again and again.
“I said I’d always fight for you, love,” Lee said. He spoke without a rhythm and was constantly interrupted by his labored breathing, but it was understandable.
Gaara smiled ever so slightly, which was more than Scorpion had ever seen before, and took Lee’s hand. Gaara awkwardly crawled and sat down so he could put Lee’s bloody head in his lap and give Bobcat full access to Lee’s injured body. Other medi-nin were beginning to flock to the pair, though none of them tried to move the kazekage.
Scorpion stepped back and away from the scene. He checked in with the other ANBU, ordered for the prisoners to be taken to interrogation, and then sat down on the steps leading out of the training ground.
He closed his eyes and breathed. The sand was finally quiet around him and he smiled at the nervous but happy conversations and shouts echoing from the rooftop audience.
He hadn’t thought Hinti would go so far. He felt a deep vindictive satisfaction in knowing he was crushed into the sand. Rock Lee deserved peace. And Scorpion would try even harder from now on to make sure his friend got it.