Blind Sight (COTK Book 1)

Chapter 3: Gaara's Mark

CHAPTER 3: Gaara's Mark

Kazekage Tower, Suna, Land of Wind, EN.

Every time he covered for Rasa, the dread of one day becoming Kazekage himself got a little bigger.

Clipping the scroll closed, Baki dropped it into one of the large desk's many drawers and closed it. Rubbing his face, he tried to wake himself back up, but it wasn't working very well. It was late, really late. He wasn't anywhere near as good as Rasa was at shifting through the dozens of requests, reports, and spending bills.

While the Kazekage certainly stretched his legs more often than, say the Daimyō did, the position still had way too much paperwork. Especially during times of peace. Baki had declined two different requests to build a night club in the exact same place. They had enough of those as it was already.

Everything had to be looked at from several standpoints. Whether or not it would harm the city's security, how the population would receive it, could they afford it, did it benefit the city as a whole?

Baki chuckled. Rasa had stopped caring about what a lot of the civilians and even the Shinobi population thought of his decisions sometime ago. Baki respected that.

He had just stood up, deciding to quit for the night when a Shinobi threw the doors open, failing to knock entirely. They were lucky Rasa wasn't here right now, he hated when someone did that.

"Baki-sama! The Kumo Embassy has been attacked!" the Shinobi, Miyazawa, shouted. He barely managed to slow down before colliding with the desk, having to take a second to catch his breath.

By the time he did, Baki was already gone. Shaking his head, he turned around and sprinted back down the hallway.

Reaching the window at the end of the hall, Baki threw it open and jumped out, landing on the curved roof below. Leaping into the air, he landed on a nearby rooftop, keeping his momentum.

It only took him a few minutes to make it to the embassy, but it felt like years. He could sense the team of Elite Shinobi, one of which was sitting on the roof of the embassy, manipulating a low-level Genjutsu and preventing the passing civilians from noticing the rest inside.

It was always best to keep civilians out of the loop.

"There you are. Took you long enough." Ochida commented as Baki touched down on the roof of the building adjacent to the deathly-quiet embassy.

"What's the situation?" Baki demanded. Ochida tended to be uncooperative with him, though the Senior Puppeteer always listened to Sasori of all people.

"Five dead. One of which was the prisoner we delivered to them four days ago."

"How long have they been dead?"

Ochida took a cigarette out of his kunai pouch and put it in his mouth, the edge catching on fire out of thin air. He inhaled deeply before replying, "Guess."

Baki rubbed his face. His eyes badly wanted to shut, but he had to deal with this now. Something made him suspect he probably wasn't going to get any sleep tonight.

A junior Puppeteer appeared on the roof in a swirl of sand. They took their sweet time brushing the sand off their clothes before acknowledging those present. Ochida scoffed.

"Everyone inside has been dead for four days, each died from having their throats cut open and bleeding out." Reijiro said, "We've been unable to find any trace of the attackers so far."

"We need to inform Kumo of this immediately," Baki decided, Reijiro nodded.

"I'll wake up Hamada then," Reijiro said, vanishing in a swirl of sand a second later.