Border Deployment and the Secret Activation of the Eye of the Sandstorm

Night.

The wind of the Land of Wind always carried sand. Fine grains slipped into every crevice, scraping against the face with a rough, stinging pain.

The Konoha ANBU codenamed Sand Scorpion lay like a weathered rock, half his body buried on the sheltered side of a dune. Through a specialized monocular, he watched the writhing black dragon on the distant horizon.

It was Sunagakure's ninja force.

A ribbon of torchlight wound through the pitch-black desert, stretching toward the Land of Rivers. Flags snapped sharply in the night wind, whipping up sand and dust with an air of grim resolve.

Less than three hours after the intelligence had arrived, Rasa's army had moved.

Highly efficient.

The direction was precise.

They were following the script written by the Hokage to the letter.

Beneath his mask, the corner of Sand Scorpion's mouth curled into a faint, unnoticed smile. He put away the monocular, carefully erased every trace he might have left behind, then slowly sank his entire body into the sand.

Earth Release: Earth Swim.

His presence and Chakra fluctuations instantly merged with the vast desert, as though he had never appeared at all.

Beneath the earth was utter silence. Only the dull friction of sand and soil being pushed aside by his body could be heard.

He had to avoid every patrol, bypass every Perception Barrier, and reach a set of coordinates that had long been marked countless times on the map.

It lay deep within the Land of Wind, in a ring-shaped mountain region known as the "Eye of the Sandstorm."

Because of its unusual terrain, fierce winds gathered there year-round and sandstorms raged without end. Sunagakure had designated it a Forbidden Zone, unsuitable for passage. Only a handful of fixed outposts stood guard along its outskirts.

The weakness of