Suzume speculated the sun's first rays peeking out of the horizon. The cool morning air hung around them and a stray tumbleweed was sagged to a stop nearby. Soon, the sleepiness would abate and the place would be vibrating unbearably with energy.

"This doesn't make sense." Akira was turning the map every which way and Suzume could see the tenseness in his shoulders. "We should've been there by now."

"Let me see," Ritsu held out a hand for the map and compass and Suzume returned her attention to the lightening horizon.

Seconds later, Ritsu was just as confused as Akira had been. "According to this, we should've been on the border of Fire, never mind the Demon Desert checkpoint."

"There's something else." They turned to look at Suzume and went to join her in her examination of the dawn. "Is the sun supposed to be rising from the north?"

Expressions of shock shadowed the boys' faces and they quickly looked to their right then back to the sun in front of them. Ritsu hurriedly pulled out a screwdriver and tinkered with the compass. The base popped up and he lifted it off to see the mechanism rusted.

"We were given a defective." He tossed the compass to Akira for him to gawk at. "We're lost."

"Should we head back?" Akira inquired.

Ritsu blew a thoughtful raspberry then lifted the side of his mouth in a less than charismatic way. "Nah, we can still make it. Probably not by sunup but..." he made a nonchalant gesture toward the rest of the desert.

"Ri-chan..." Akira sighed. "There's nothing," he mimicked the gesture his friend did, "about this situation. We're lost with no clue of what to do."

"C'mon, Akira. Why should we worry?" Ritsu shoved his hands into his pockets and smiled sweetly toward Suzume's direction. "After all, we got this year's rookie on our team, she should be able to figure something out for us."

Suzume stared at him from the corner of her eyes and Ritsu's smile darkened.

"Ri-chan—" Akira was brushed off as Ritsu pushed forward. He leaned down so his face was intruding on Suzume's space and he tilted his head questioningly. "Naa? You have a plan right?"

Suzume's eyes slid to the side to stare at him. "Shouldn't the Genin top dog have one?"

Ritsu exaggerated his remorse. "You see, according to the rumors, I could be easily beaten down by you. So I've just accepted my fate." He heaved a heavy sigh. "So, I'm trembling in excitement for your orders, Miss Freak of..."

Ritsu finally noticed how Suzume lost interest in the conversation and floated off to chase after a jackrabbit. Once it stopped and she stood by a pace away, she squated down and held out a palm. It approached cautiously and closed the distance between them. Sparkles danced around Suzume's face as she petted the curious rabbit.

Ritsu turned to Akira. "Is she serious?"

His friend shrugged, amused. "It is her first time out so far from the village."

The rabbit suddenly bolted away from under Suzume's hand (much to her disappointment) and was soon swallowed into the blurriness of the heat waves. Ritsu caught sight of something slithering under the sand approaching Suzume's feet.

"Watch out!" He launched a kunai at the snake.

His kunai was abruptly stopped in midair by Suzume and the boys watched as she placed a gentle hand in front of the rattlesnake to have it happily slide up her arm to rest around her neck.

After a second of shock, the guys heard her say in a soft but excited voice, "Ryu..."

The snake was very satisfied with its new name.

"Akira, she's wearing a deadly snake."

"Yes."

"She's named the deadly snake, Dragon."

"Yeah."

"What's the appropriate response in this situation?"

"Beats me."

Meanwhile, Suzume had an exchange with her new friend and she bent down again to let it crawl back into the sand and slither along so it left a trail in the ground.

"Ryu knows where the checkpoint is and she's going to help us."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Ritsu waved his arms around to order a pause in the proceedings. "You want us to follow a snake?"

Suzume nodded.

"You really are crazy."

"Ri-chan," Akira said in disapproval.

"She wants us to follow a snake, Akira! She thinks the snake can understand what we say! She thinks a snake knows what a checkpoint is!"

Suzume frowned, displeased. "Ryu knows more about the desert than we do."

Ritsu groaned. "Hai, hai, whatever you say, Miss Freak of Nature. You can follow the reptile if you want to. We're going this way." He grabbed Akira's wrist and dragged him along.

Suzume watched them go. The sound of a rattle made her rotate around to see Ryu waiting for her a few paces away. After one last look at her teammates getting smaller and smaller, she trudged after the snake.

Akira cast a look back at Suzume and then renewed his struggles against his friend's grip. "Dude! We can't just leave her behind!"

"This is a test," Ritsu said in a quiet voice, making Akira stop his pointless wriggling.

"What?"

"This is how they fish out the rejects." Ritsu thought it was safe to let go of Akira and he kept stomping forward, knowing his friend would follow. "The Jonin will probably pick her up before she dies."

Akira was stuck to Ritsu, although he was still hesitant, he trusted him. "So, do you know where you're going?"

"Of course I do. I'm not storming off without thinking you know. We'll reach the checkpoint tomorrow if we keep up this pace."

Akira cracked a grin. "You're really the expert, Ri-chan."

"Heh-heh." Ritsu smiled proudly.

As they continued to walk, Akira stared at Ritsu's hands and sure enough they began to fidget. His teeth were playing with his lips and his eyes pulled back then snapped forward again.

Akira giggled. "You're worried about her, huh?"

"What?!" He whirled around, red-faced more than from the sun. "No, I'm not!"

"You're a good person, aren't you, Ri-chan?"

Ritsu huffed and trudged forward. "Whatever. Miss Freak of Nature can handle herself until the Jonin get her."

"Wow, you must think really highly of her."

"Stop putting words in my mouth!"

"It's true, though."

Ritsu let out a frustrated noise and turned his back on a smiley Akira. "Ever since we were kids... always so infuriating..."

The two of them traveled miles together. Being born and raised in the desert, both were well adept in surviving in it, and being shinobi, they had thicker skin than most civilian adults. A day's journey should've been nothing for them and it was, but once the night came and the next morning as well with no sign of the central tower of the Demon Desert, Ritsu became increasingly anxious.

As the two had come to a stop to discuss their dilemma, Ritsu was pacing back and forth until he made a dip in the ground. While his friend was muttering and searching the map, Akira spotted something and wandered over to it.

"Hey, Ri-chan."

"What is it?"

"Haven't we been here before?" Akira asked, considering a couple of cactus.

Ritsu rolled their map up and shoved it back into his bag while sauntering over to him. "No, we've been traveling straight, we couldn't have looped around."

"Well, if we didn't, how did we end up back here?"

They slowly came to the same realization.

"Fuck!" Ritsu tangled his fingers together into the release sign. "Kai!"

The reality he'd been stuck in warped and twisted then popped like he was inside a balloon. The silence and coolness of the desert at night greeted him away from the heat and daylight of the genjutsu. The beat of wings signaled the presence of a hawk flying over him.

Ritsu ran a hand through his hair and his face was aghast. "They-they didn't put us in a genjutsu before..."

He spun around to see Akira a few meters away from him, still stuck in the genjutsu and standing with his chin touching his chest. Ritsu rushed toward him.

The sand underneath his feet rocked and stirred and burst upward into a towering wave. Ritsu pushed himself forward and collided with Akira just as more hills surrounded them.

He surged his chakra into Akira's arm and his friend didn't have time to sleepily awaken since Ritsu jolted him forward. "Snap out of it, Akira, we need to move!"

The hills that were forming exploded and Akira's eyes filled with fear. "Giant Desert Centipedes...!"

The smooth armor of each centipede squirmed and their millions of writhing legs clattered. The vibration of the ground from deep below told them there were hundreds they couldn't even see.

The two boys joined hands and tried to scramble away, but they couldn't catch good enough footing in time and were soon trapped in a tangle of insect legs and snapping jaws.

"It's a nest!" Akira yelped as a swelling began below them and Ritsu's grip on his hand slipped.

Ritsu felt his heart stop as he watched his friend fall. "Akira!"

"Ri-chan!"

Before he could go after him a centipede circled around him and he only managed to get out of the way of poisoned fangs to tumble until he smashed into another centipede's armored body.

He dodged to the side and chakra billowed from the bottom of his soles. He stared down a monster's beady eyes. "You should've stayed underneath my feet where you belong."

His chakra spread up into his body and wrapped around his legs. He shot into the sky and flipped until he was only a blur. He struck the centipede's head, drawing out a high pitched squeal of pain.

He heard a whistle of something being thrown into the air close to him, recognized what it was and swiftly bolted down the thrashing body of the centipede he'd attacked away from it.

A bright flare of light exploded above him and the centipedes screeched and scurried away to escape from the flash before they burrowed back into the ground.

The desert was dead silent if only for his pounding heart. He gulped and turned to see Suzume standing next to him, calmly looking ahead with him. Ritsu did a little spasm of surprise. "You threw that flash grenade! What if it had hit me?!"

She met his gaze. "You scared them."

"I scared them?!"

"Ri-chan..."

"Can you believe what's coming out of her mouth, Aki...ra..."

Akira was standing on shaky legs and blood was seeping out of the hand pressed on the side of his abdomen. He smiled, "Sorry... I got hurt..." He collapsed.

"Akira...!" Ritsu bolted to his friend's side and his hands hovered over the bloody gash in his stomach. "Shit..."

Ritsu pulled out a medicine pack from his sack and ripped Akira's shirt so he could see the wound clearly.

"Wait, Ri--" Akira winced in pain. "My arm... my arm..."

Ritsu saw the veins in Akira's arms bulge outward against the green and purple skin. He seized it and wrapped bandages around the upper arm to cut off the flow of blood as much as possible. Then he brought the cut to his mouth and sucked out the poison to spit it to the side until he couldn't taste the poison mixed in with the iron taste of blood.

"You ready to become right handed?" Ritsu joked half heartedly, returning to the gash in his friend's stomach.

"I'd rather not," Akira chuckled.

After a quick stomach wrap, Ritsu pulled Akira's arm around his shoulders and onto his back.

"Hey, freak." Ritsu startled Suzume out of her trance. "We'll be over there," he jutted his chin at the small cluster of rocks in the distance, "go collect some cactus needles and meet us over there and be quick about it."

Suzume went off without another word and Ritsu made sure not to cause Akira too much discomfort as he walked toward the rocks.

They managed to find a good spot to rest among the shadows of the boulders and Ritsu snipped the soaked bandages off to examine the wound again. Gnarled skin and bone with oozing blood seeping out of every crevice. And despite Akira's tough words, his eyes were losing their focus and his breathing was labored.

Ritsu tapped him lightly on the cheek. "Can you heal yourself?"

Akira grimaced and lifted a heavy hand to land on his abdomen. His chakra glow flickered in and out but the pain and fatigue were too much and his hand slipped off to land in the dirt. "Can't..."

"Okay." Ritsu wanted to punch himself for not putting in the effort to learn healing as he tended to Akira's arm.

"The... Jonin..."

"They probably lost us in the chaos, but they'll find us soon."

It was then when the cactus needles arrived and Ritsu grabbed them and began to stitch Akira's wound together.

"You can lose consciousness if you want."

Akira let out a shuddering laugh, "Over something like this? I'm offended."

But he fell asleep anyway.

"Hey." Ritsu finished tending to Akira and placed all of their blankets over him. He was now getting to work on a fire. "Get us as much water as you can find."

Suzume left without another word. Ritsu didn't know if he liked her all business attitude or whether he hated how calm she was in this situation. No. He just hated her.

Soon, the fire was roaring and Ritsu had taken out maps and tools to find out their location. If he knew anything, this wasn't nearly enough for the exam to be canceled, but... he wasn't really sure if he knew anything anymore.

Well, he wouldn't let that stop him. He wasn't going to let Akira die. Never again.

"Rina-chan..."

Ritsu froze in his spot before he turned to see Akira drenched in sweat with his eyebrows furrowed in pain.

"Ri...na..." he whispered again.

Ritsu crawled over to him and uncorked a water canteen to tip it into Akira's parched lips. His gaze softened as his friend continued to sleep.

He must've been really out of it if he was calling out that name.

And Ritsu must've been a fucking idiot if he fell asleep only to wake up again in the morning.