Boulders

Migmatite

Toph was running.

She held the hands of the smallest two, the older children following along behind.

Behind them, people screamed and died.

She felt Kisame fending off three attackers at once, but he wasn't fighting as hard as he usually would. He barely seemed to keep on top of them, allowing several hits to slice through his clothing and scrape against his hardened skin.

"Toph-san!" Akiko whimpered from behind. "You're a shinobi too, right? Please do something!"

Toph bit back a snarl, not pausing as she tugged the children away from the battle. "Kisame-sensei told me to take care of you lot. That's what I'm doing."

The youngest of all of them, a boy called Shibata, clung to her fingers, his hand hot and slippery. Toph barely managed to keep a hold of him.

"Are we gonna die?" Shibata whispered.

"Absolutely not," Toph pulled them behind a wagon, crouching down so as to be out of the way of any stray projectiles. The others followed, though she had to pull down the youngest girl.

Behind them, some woman was begging, pleading with the attackers. "Please no! Please don't-"

Her cries ended in a sudden gurgling that cut off into choked silence.

Toph cradled Shibata's head against her side and prayed for the children's silence.

"Ugh, this is such a pain!" A man suddenly exclaimed from right on the other side of the Kami forsaken wagon! "Where's that annoying kid at?"

One of the girls, Kiya, whimpered.

Toph clapped a hand over her mouth. Her fingers met the girl's own hands, but Toph held her position.

"So much pay for such simple work," a second drawled. "You'd have thought the Daimyo would've hired someone more high-profile to guard his kid, rather than some low-class grunts."

As one, the other children's heads turned towards-

Shibata.

Shibata was their target.

He let out a muffled sob.

"Did you hear that?" The first man asked.

Toph's blood ran cold.

"Hear what?"

"That noise," his footsteps came closer and Toph prayed to whatever deity who would listen to please, turn him away...

But Kami was deaf to her plea.

"Well, well, well. Look what we have here," the man said. Toph could hear his smirk in his voice, could feel his exhilaration at finding them. "If it isn't a bunch of rats!"

Slowly, Toph shifted, moving herself in front of the boy and her hand a little closer to the sword. "Go away. I don't want to hurt you."

He outright laughed at that, his friend coming towards him, them, coming to kill them all because if they had just wanted Shibata they wouldn't have killed that woman.

Toph's sword snapped into her hand. She raised it, her hand steady. She could tell when people were lying. They couldn't.

Hopefully that meant they wouldn't call her bluff.

The first man squatted down just out of reach. Toph gathered her legs under her, heart pounding like a war drum.

"Let's see. Boy, so not one of the girls. Hey, Gaku, which one do you think is the target?" He asked.