THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 244. INTO TATANI

By nightfall, the three teams had separated, and a base had been set in the south, north, and middle. They would go in two hours after sundown, and at the moment, Sagiri, Kiuga, N’varu, and Kaka were lying down a few feet away from five members of squad Yoka who would remain at the border of Tatani. Their task was to wait for them to come out after two hours, and if not, then they would go in to pull them out. When the two hours after sundown hit, the four rose from their hideout. Silence was key, and sagiri had been listening in on the direction they would be going.

It was deadly silent. It brought back memories of when they had gone in to eliminate the tree snakes up north. They had managed to scare away all the small beasts.

"Anything?" Kiuga asked, shuffling closer so Sagiri could hear him. It was not necessary anyway because with the silence, Sagiri could hear him from a mile away even if he whispered.

"Nothing, not even a squirrel," Sagiri said.

"That’s odd. How can there be no beasts in such a tranquil place?" Kaka said.

"Very odd. What do we do?" N’varu whispered.

"We go with the plan," Kiuga answered, and the team started preparing to enter the Tatani lands. There was fear and anticipation in the air. This was squad 25’s first real mission together, and it just had to be in the deadliest territory.

Taking a step into Tatani felt odd, and everyone was involuntarily holding their breath. Two steps in, then a hundred feet. Sagiri could not feel anything yet. Things were getting more odd. The squad held the formation with Sagiri in the lead. Kiuga and at the back, and Kaka and N’varu flanking him. He was the strategist after all, and they had to protect him most. If he were taken down first, Sagiri would have to depend on Tavora, and he did not want to work with any strategist besides Kiuga.

The team moved slowly, depending on Sagiri’s eye, mostly to look out for traps. There were no traps. Just land that looked like no one had walked through in years. The silence was thick. It was unnerving. Even the wind seemed to have stopped as soon as they stepped into the Tatani lands. The silence pressed harder the deeper they went, settling into their bones. Like the land itself was holding its breath.

A faint shift passed through the air. It was as if just stepping into Tatani, they had completely stepped into a different world. Each step felt heavier and more eerie than the last. The fear in the air was not just coming from inside of them. Perhaps during the decades of war between Tagayia and Safaya, the land had taken on a new smell. It only knew fear for ages, and maybe it had become fear itself.

"Is it me, or is this chilling?" N’varu said after a while of walking. He was not one to be easily startled, and voicing his worries made everyone more on edge.

"How long have we been walking?" Kiuga asked after a while. Sagiri lifted his watch to his eyes. He was the only one who could see the outline of the watch with his right eye in the dark. His brows narrowed the moment he looked at the watch on his wrist. It had stopped at the two-hour mark after dark before they entered Tatani.

"My watch seems to have malfunctioned," Sagiri said, coming to an abrupt stop.

"What? Here, use mine." N’varu said.

Sagiri turned around and grabbed N’varu’s lifted wrist to look at his watch, but just like him, N’varu’s watch had stopped at the two-hour mark after dark.

"This is odd," Sagiri muttered.

"What is it?" Kaka asked.

"Both our watches are malfunctioning," Sagiri said, already crossing over to look at Kaka’s watch. It was down just like his and N’varus. He moved quickly and snatched Kiuga’s hand before he gasped. Kiuga’s watch was also down.

"What is happening?" Sagiri asked no one in particular. "Why are all our watches down?" At his question, he could feel the uneasiness rolling off his teammates.

"What do you mean all our watches are down?" Kaka asked with a beat of irritation as if he was blaming him for his dead watch.

"We need to pull out. Now!" Kiuga said, and the team started retreating. This is why Sagiri liked working with Kiuga. He did not hesitate to make important decisions, and if he did not understand something, then he would not take any chances. The squad started pulling back immediately. The squad broke into a run following the path they had used to go in. Sagiri had it all memorized with the archive. It only took them twenty minutes, if running at top speed, to break out into the starting line, which is to show they had not gone so far into tatani. The five members of the Yoka squad, involving captain yoka himself, were in tense positions outside the Tatani territory.

"What took you so long. You were supposed to be in there for only two hours, both to and from. It is three hours now, and I was about to come in," Yoka said in an irritable voice.

"What do you mean by three hours? We haven’t been in there for more than an hour or so," Kiuga said, and Yoka’s eyes narrowed.

"What are you talking about? Don’t you have your watches with you?" Yoka asked.

"All our watches stopped the moment we stepped into Tatani territory," Sagiri said, and the four with Yoka looked at them as if they had grown another head.

"What do you mean, all your watches malfunctioned?" Yoka said, looking at his watch. It was surprising that he could see his watch in the dark. Well, Sagiri could expect nothing from the shadow corp. The four with him lifted their hands in uniform.

"Mine is working perfectly fine, and it’s almost midnight," one of the Yoka squad said, and the others nodded in agreement.

Sagiri lifted his hand to look at his watch, and it was now working properly.

"What is happening?" Sagiri gasped.

"Are you sure the southerner didn’t lie about it just to scare all of you?" Yoka said in an accusatory tone.

"My eyes don’t miss any detail," Sagiri snapped, his glowing eye falling on Yoka.

"Sagiri can not possibly lie about something like that. I believe him. We need to pull back to the central base. And take a headcount now. Something is not right with this land." Kiuga said with urgency. It was clear that Squad Yoka was not buying it, but they could not do anything about it, and so they could just nod, and the team started moving back to base.