Getting up from the futon he placed on the floor to rest, Indra created a water ball, and he washed his face with it. Although he could have cleaned himself up completely, It was wartime and it would be categorised as stupid for him to thoroughly do so in the camp. This doesn't mean the shinobi here had gone months without washing though, they had a strict routine for it. Indra didn't care about such rules, but he somewhat had common sense.
"It's currently midnight," Indra muttered as he summoned a small clock to check the time.
Indra activated his byakugan, covering the entire camp in his range. 'Why are they watching me? Don't they know I have the Byakugan?' He thought as he noticed the two masked shinobi hiding a few meters away from his tent.
Ignoring the creeps, he summoned his Anbu gear directly on his body baring the fox mask as he liked to put that on himself.
Slowly placing the mask on his face, Indra felt slightly exhilarated, drunk on the anonymity the Anbu mask gave him. When he is Indra, he was untouchable in Konoha but with the mask on, he was untouchable in the entire world.
Suppressing his chakra, Indra body flickered out of the tent, appearing in front of Hoki's tent. Walking into the tent, what welcomed Indra was an exhausted Hoki hunched over a desk filled with scrolls containing battle reports.
"I'd be leaving now," Indra stated, turning back just as quickly as he came in.
Hoki nodded before replying, "The conclusion of the war is resting on your mission. So don't die, Indra," Hoki said.
"I should be telling you that, your next battle would be far deadlier than the previous ones. Besides, there's no one strong enough to kill me," Indra stated. A cloud of white smoke spreads out around him, with Indra no longer in the tent as the smoke clears.
Hoki had more to say to the boy he'd grown to consider his son, but this wasn't the right time for that. Indra would return from Sunagakure alive, he knew the boy could never be found if he wishes it so he was sure of his return.
.................
Indra still in his Anbu gear was running at full speed in the desert heat. It's been over a day since he left the camp, and he was about six hours away from Suna.
'If I increase my speed, I should be approaching Sunagakure by nightfall,' He thought as he sped up even more.
*Two Hours Later*
"Fuck!!" Indra hissed in annoyance. "I just had to be unlucky, a sandstorm."
Indra created a shelter from the storm using earth release. He wasn't certain on how strong the sandstorms are so he created the shelter underground, just below the desert surface level.
"I might as well just sleep, who knows when this would be over," he muttered as he summoned a futon and placed it on the ground.
*Three hours later*
"The sandstorm isn't over yet," Indra muttered as he woke up. He then proceeded to wash and then he summoned one of the many food packages he has stored in his personal dimension after he was done washing.
"I guess I'd practice chakra control."
Indra refined his chakra control for six straight hours before he got tired of it. He then checked the intensity of the sandstorm by destroying a little part of the roof of his shelter, but he was forced to seal it back up. He wasn't worried about being in a sealed room, as getting oxygen wasn't a problem for him as he could use wind release.
*Sixteen Hours Later*
Indra got up ready to leave as he felt the sand storm subside. He started destroying bits of the roof, slow enough to prevent the sand above from hurtling into the shelter at an abrupt speed.
"That's weird!" Indra exclaims as he drew to a halt. "Why is the storm picking up again?"
'I guess I'd take another nap.'
Indra quickly fell asleep. He woke up about six hours later but the sand storm was still raging so he continued refining his chakra control.
He proceeded with the mind-numbing boring chakra control drills for another twenty-four hours before he felt the storm abruptly drop in its intensity. Although he took breaks in-between the chakra control training he was already exhausted of the monotone nature of it, so the vastly decreased storm intensity was a welcome to him.
He had been in the underground shelter for over two days so he was itching to leave.
'I don't know the anatomy of sand storms but wasn't that weird?' He wondered as he carefully destroyed the roof.
Sand poured into the bunker as he exited it. Taking a good look around, he couldn't see any trace of a sandstorm, it was all desert as far as his eyes could see so he didn't think of it too much.
Indra let out a loud yawn as he stretched, releasing tension from his joint. Although the shelter he created wasn't small, staying underground for over two days made him feel exhausted.
'I should check my surrounding,' He thought.
Activating his byakugan, "Huh, there's chakra residue in the air?!" He wondered.
"Wait!! why is there chakra in the air?"
'The storm!!' he almost screamed out as the realisation dawned on him.
****************
The battle between Konoha shinobi and Suna shinobi was underway, and it had been for over six hours now. Danzo, Kagami, and Torifu weren't participating in it as they were called back for a vital mission with Tobirama and his team.
Hoki had carefully planned the battle, not expecting any reinforcements from Sunagakure due to the war they had with the other villages decided to use all of his shinobi in crushing the much smaller and weaker Sunagakure shinobi force.
Over three thousand konoha shinobi vs about one thousand Suna shinobi, it was going to be straightforward. Unbeknownst to him, or anyone from konoha at that, the second Kazekage had agreed to a temporary truce and alliance with Kirigakure's Mizukage. Both villages were like hounds and they were about to close in on their prey. The death of someone as powerful as Hoki was something both Kages' wanted.
The kazegake and Mizukage had outsmarted him, and he was going to find out soon enough.
............
"Hoki-sama, I can sense Sunagakure shinobi rapidly approaching," a shinobi reported as Hoki cuts down the puppet user from Suna.
"Hoki-sama, Kirigakure shinobi are rapidly approaching," Another shinobi reported.
'I see, so that's why the kazekage refused the armistice offer,' Hoki sighed, his expression turning sombre.
"It's the duty of a shinobi to die for his village."
Letting out a roar, Hoki charged back into the battle, the white charka streak in his tanto increasing in its intensity.
******************
Indra rushed back to the camp at full speed disregarding the chakra expense, but it was already too late. He didn't need to get to the camp, the battleground between Konoha, Suna, and Kiri laid bare for him to see.
With his byakugan activated, Indra looked through the mounds of mutilated bodies, praying that Hoki's body wasn't part of them. But his prayers were all for naught as he the body of Hoki laying in the middle of everything with his chakra sabre by his side.
The same sense of loss he felt when Hashirama died, and then the rage he felt when he found out his mother had been killed came flooding back into him all at once.
With quivering hands, he unfurled a scroll for storing dead bodies and placed it beside him.
'Huh, am I crying?!' he whispered, taking off his mask.
Slowly placing the mask on Hoki's face, he then sealed the body in the scroll.
"I'll kill every one of them," He swore as he picked up Hoki's white chakra sabre.