Friction and Sawdust

On the fifth day after the Shinobi Allied Forces was formed, a strange silence hung over the camp.

It was not the silence of peace—it was the suffocating stillness in the air before a volcano erupted, when storm clouds pressed down to their lowest point. Eighty thousand shinobi from the Five Great Nations had been crammed into the same temporary camp, eating from the same pots, sleeping on the same muddy ground, and obeying orders from the same command center. On the surface, everyone stood beneath the same banner—the great flag bearing the character for "shinobi" snapped in the center of the camp like some unshakable oath.

But oaths hung from flagpoles. Human hearts grew in flesh.

The shinobi of Cloud Village were used to being blunt, starting every address with "Hey." That made the people of Iwagakure deeply uncomfortable—in their village, addressing someone without an honorific was naked provocation. Konoha's shinobi tried to mediate between them, only to be disliked by both sides. "You Konoha people are just too good at talking. The more you say, the less anyone believes you." The people of Mist Village simply ignored everyone, huddling in a corner at the edge of camp as they wrapped bandages around their shinobi blades, as though waiting to see the other four villages start fighting first.

Sand Village adapted best—probably because they had always been poor and had never had much to lose, so they did not care who they shared a meal with.

At noon on the fifth day, the friction finally surfaced.

It began with a kettle of water. A Chunin from Iwagakure had gotten in line ahead of a Chunin from Cloud Village while fetching water. The Cloud shinobi patted him on the shoulder and said, "Brother, move back a little." The Iwagakure shinobi