Welcome to the Land of Lightning!

After making a slight detour to the coast to see the strangely shaped rock formations on the beach, Team Sakura and Lord Tsuchimikado of the Land of Hot Water and his entourage had resumed their carriage ride northwards through the Land of Lightning.

"Oh," said Karin offhandedly, at some point during their journey. "So, they have those here too, huh?"

Sakura reclined on her seat in the horse-drawn carriage, admiring the sprawling mountains and deep valleys all around her. The Land of Lightning was famous for its mountain peaks that scraped the sky— and just as the name implied, Kumogakure was located at the top of a certain mountain range; it truly was hidden among the clouds.

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked Karin slightly breathlessly.

Even though she wasn't physically straining herself, Sakura had unconsciously begun drawing deeper breaths of air to compensate for the lack of oxygen— they had been steadily climbing in altitude for quite some time now, and they were now so high above the sea level that the air around them had become rarefied.

"Oh, it's probably nothing, onee-sama," Karin answered dismissively. "We had them in the Hidden Leaf too— that's where I first sensed them, actually."

"What's them, exactly?" Sakura asked, slightly worried. "They're not Leaf Anbu, are they?"

According to Tenten, there was a very high probability that the Hidden Leaf had already dispatched some Root ANBU to the Hidden Cloud to assassinate Hinata, and to retrieve her eyes before they could be used against the Hidden Leaf.

"I'm not quite sure what they even are," said Karin, closing her eyes to concentrate. "They have lots of chakra, and they're buried deep underground. Maybe that's why they're filled with hatred and malice?"

"I don't see anyone directly under us," said Neji unprompted, as thick veins spider-webbed around his eyes. "What are you—"

But the instant Neji activated his Byakugan, one of the carriage's wheels just happened to hit a particularly large rock; causing all of the carriage's occupants to fly up a few centimetres into the air… and subsequently land rather painfully back onto their backsides, a fraction of a second later.

"Oi! Why don't you watch where you're going?" Sakura snapped at the driver. "I'm bouncing all over the place, back here!"

And that's when Sakura noticed that Neji was no longer looking at his feet, but rather at her chest, which was shaking wildly. He was staring with such an intensity that the blood vessels around his eyes were visibly pulsating…

"I didn't see anything!" said Neji, hastily deactivating his throbbing pair of Byakugan.

"Neji, you filthy… voyeur!" Karin shrieked. "This isn't fair! I wanted to be the first to see onee-sama's…!"

"You… you…!" Sakura snarled. "Shanna—!"

But just as Sakura was about to make the young Hyūga regret the fact that he had ever been born, their carriage came to a halt, and their driver yelled out, "we've arrived, Lord Shinobi!"

"Karin!" Sakura whispered.

Karin quickly scooted over, her hands reaching under Sakura's shirt to tighten her chest bindings. Sakura had loosened the bandages for the duration of the carriage ride, since they compressed her chest and her ribs to an extremely uncomfortable degree.

"Transformation Jutsu!"

Karin took the appearance of the noble's wife, while Neji popped on his contact glasses. Once the trio's flawless disguises were done, they stepped out of their carriage and rejoined the rest of their party; Lord Tsuchimikado and his retinue, who had taken separate carriages to ride to their destination.

'So, where is this famous Hidden Cloud Village?' said Inner Sakura, as she glanced at her surroundings. 'Oh, and that must be the welcoming committee…'

A few dark-skinned shinobi bearing Kumo forehead protectors on their brows were coming towards them, having seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Their village had to be somewhere nearby, but Sakura couldn't see it just yet…

"Lord Tsuchimikado!" one of them called out. "I trust your journey was… er, pleasant…?"

The Kumo-nin had just noticed the nobleman's black eye— Karin's handiwork.

Sakura and Neji took a step back and fell in with the rest of the servants and guards while the nobleman and the disguised Karin exchanged pleasantries with the Kumo-nin, to avoid drawing too much attention.

Sakura curiously inspected the Cloud shinobi— the last time she had seen such dark-skinned people was in Shinjuku, back on Earth; presumably tourists visiting Tokyo.

"Our sensors detected two shinobi in your group," Sakura heard one of the Kumo-nin say. "Two chakra signatures; one elite Jōnin-class, and one upper Chūnin-class. A bit extravagant for a simple protection detail, wouldn't you think?"

'So, we're considered elite Jōnin-class, hm?' said Inner Sakura smugly. 'Doesn't mean we could actually beat a real one, but still!'

The Kumo-nin were right to be suspicious— hiring shinobi was expensive, especially Jōnin— and the small nobility from backwater nations weren't exactly known to be swimming in ryō, either. Still, the Land of Hot Water was perhaps the only exception to the rule, since their economy wasn't agrarian-based, but rather tourism-based.

…

Lord Tsuchimikado couldn't answer the question— he was drawing a blank. He definitely remembered paying for the price of Genin; he would never have financially recovered from the cost of hiring one Jōnin and one Chūnin for such a long mission!

"We decided to splurge a bit," said Karin in a levelled tone, answering in her 'husband's' stead. "We heard these dreadful rumours of highwaymen ravaging the countryside, you see…"

The Kumo-nin's faces darkened— nobody liked having their homeland disparaged by foreigners.

"The rumours of rogue Kiri-nin raiding our shores are false," said one of the Kumo-nin coolly. "Under Lord Raikage's reign, our country has become the safest on the continent."

"And even if the rumours were true," another one piped up, "we'd still have the situation firmly in hand— that's how great we are!"

Unexpectedly, Sakura had overheard something interesting from the conversation. What was this about rogue Kiri-nin acting as pirates and raiding the Land of Lightning's shores?

"At any rate," said the first Kumo-nin, glaring at his overly chatty teammate, "we'll have to ask your guards to disarm—" He then raised his voice and looked at Sakura, "—you there, girl. What are you hiding under your shirt?"

'Busted,' said Inner Sakura. 'In more ways than one…'