The wind here didn't carry sand; it carried ice.
At seventeen thousand feet, the Land of Wind wasn't a desert of dunes anymore. It was a skeleton of grey rock and moraine. The silence was absolute, broken only by the wind whistling through the crags with a high, mournful keening that sounded like a tinnitus ring in the thin air. A stark, high-altitude wasteland where the air was thin enough to make lungs burn with every inhalation.
Sasuke adjusted his collar, shivering despite the thermal layer Tenten had forced everyone to wear before they left the wagon.
His breath puffed out in shallow, white clouds that crystallized instantly on his eyelashes, making every blink heavy and wet.
He hated this.
He hated the cold. He hated the loose scree that clattered under his boots with every step, threatening to twist an ankle. But mostly, he hated the pace.
"We're moving too slow," Sasuke muttered, the sound snatched away by the gale. "We should be running."
"Run here, and you'll break a leg," Kakashi called back from the front.
The Jōnin was walking with his hands in his pockets, seemingly unbothered by the fact that they were walking across the roof of the world.
"Or you'll trigger a slide and bury us all. Moraine fields are unstable, Sasuke. Treat the ground like a trap."
Kakashi shifted his weight, and a cascade of pebbles skittered down the slope—clatter-hiss—sounding like dry bones rattling together.
Sasuke scowled, kicking a loose stone. It tumbled over the edge of the ridge, vanishing into the white mist below. He didn't hear it hit the bottom.
To his right, Neji was scanning the horizon, his Byakugan veins bulging against his pale skin.
"There are eyes on us," Neji warned, his voice tight.
Sasuke's hand twitched toward his kunai pouch. "Bandits?"
"Goats," Neji corrected, sounding offended by the biology.
"Blue sheep. Bharal. They camouflage perfectly against the grey rock. Dozens of them."
The musky scent of animal wool and stale urine drifted on the wind, a biological smell that felt offensively warm in the frozen landscape.
Sasuke relaxed his hand, irritation spiking. "Sheep. Wonderful."
"Don't underestimate them," Tenten chimed in. She was walking behind Neji, her pack jingling rhythmically. She looked annoyingly comfortable, her boots fitted with crampons she had screwed in ten minutes ago.
Crunch. Crunch. The metal teeth of her gear bit into the ice with a satisfying, secure grip that mocked his own slipping soles.
"They knock rocks down on predators. If you get taken out by a sheep, Sasuke, I'm putting it on your tombstone."
Sasuke ignored her. He crested the ridge.
And stopped.
The world dropped away.
Behind them lay the barren silence of the high desert; ahead, the plateau ended in a sheer, vertical drop that disappeared into a cauldron of green mist miles below.
A bird spiraled downward, shrinking to a speck before vanishing entirely, swallowed by a depth that defied perspective.
It was a stairway to the abyss.
"We're going down that?" Sasuke asked, looking at the vertical scar carved into the cliff face.
"The Second War Fortification," Kakashi said, peering over the edge. "Suna sappers carved it fifty years ago to flank the Rain villages. It's the only way down without flying."
The stairs were famously inclined at nearly eighty degrees.
It wasn't walking; it was controlled falling.
The steps were barely a meter wide, tucking under the overhang so you couldn't even see where your next step was supposed to be.
Moisture slicked the stone here, smelling of ancient, trapped rain and wet limestone.
"Face the rock," Kakashi ordered, spinning around and lowering himself over the edge. "Three points of contact. Don't look down."
Sasuke gritted his teeth. He hated being slow.
He turned around, gripping the cold, sharp stone of the cliff edge. He lowered a foot, searching blindly for the niche carved into the rock.
This is a waste of time, Sasuke thought, his fingers cramping as he jammed them into a handhold.
The cold seeped through his gloves, numbing his fingertips until they felt like foreign objects attached to his hands.
I have the Chidori. I have the Sharingan. And I'm stuck climbing a ladder like a civilian.
He began the descent.
The first fifty steps were merely terrifying.
The wind whipped at his cloak, trying to peel him off the wall. The grit from the dry erosion stung his neck. But the rock was dry.
Then, they hit the transition zone.
As they descended into the cloud layer, the air changed. The biting, dry freeze of the altitude vanished, replaced by a cool, damp stagnation.
The wind died suddenly, leaving a ringing silence that felt heavy and humid, sticking to his skin like a damp sheet.
The smell of the storm and ice was choked out by the scent of wet stone and old moss.
Sasuke reached for the next handhold.
His fingers slid.
"Gah!"
He slipped, his boots scrabbling against the rock face for purchase. For a heart-stopping second, he was hanging by three fingers over a drop that would turn a man to liquid.
He slammed his other hand into a crack, arresting his fall. His heart hammered against his ribs.
A loose flake of shale broke off under his boot and fell—click-clack—bouncing once before dropping into the silent void.
"Slippery," Neji called out from above, his voice uncharacteristically shaky. "The moss starts here. My Byakugan... it can't see the friction coefficient. Be careful."
Neji's certainty was eroding alongside his footing. The prodigy of the Hyūga, who could see chakra points from a mile away, was being humbled by slime.
Sasuke glared at the moss. He wanted to burn it off. He wanted to use a Fireball Jutsu to clear the path.
But if I do that, the heat shock might crack the stairs, he realized bitterly. My power is useless here.
"Contact," Tenten whispered. "Three o'clock."
Sasuke looked to his right.
Sitting on a ledge, staring at him with dark, intelligent eyes, was a monkey. It bared its teeth, screeching.
It smelled distinctively of wet fur and rotting fruit.
"Get lost," Sasuke hissed.
The monkey didn't flee. It lunged.
Its calloused hands slapped against the rock—thwack—with terrifying ease.
It wasn't attacking him; it was attacking his pouch. It grabbed the strap, yanking hard.
Sasuke's balance wavered. He swung one hand out to swat the animal, but that left him clinging to the eighty-degree slope with just one hand and slippery boots.
"Let go!" Sasuke shouted, thrashing.
The monkey shrieked, emboldened. Two more dropped from the overhang above, swarming Neji.
Sasuke couldn't weave signs. He couldn't draw a weapon without letting go of the wall. He was a master of the killing arts, and he was being mugged by a primate because he physically couldn't let go of a rock.
The leather strap of his pouch creaked audibly—errrrk—straining under the animal's grip.
The world doesn't care what I deserve, the thought intruded, sharp and cold. It doesn't care that I'm an Uchiha.
Thwack. Thwack.
Two senbon needles slammed into the rock, inches from the monkey's nose.
The needles vibrated in the stone—thrummm—the steel gleaming dull grey in the mist.
The monkey yelped, dropping Sasuke's pouch and scrambling away into the mist.
"Eyes up, Uchiha," Tenten called out.
She was hanging off the cliff face with one hand, looking completely at ease. She had swapped her gloves for ones with textured, gecko-like pads.
"Preparation beats pedigree," Tenten grinned, spinning another senbon. "Stop fighting the mountain. You'll lose."
Sasuke stared at her. Then he stared at the mossy rock in front of his face.
He clamped his jaw shut, forcing his breathing to slow. He dug his fingers into the slime, ignoring the indignity, and lowered his boot to the next step.
The slime squelched softly under his grip—shhh-luck—a repulsive texture that coated his gloves in green paste.
Just climb, he told himself. Just climb.