Gaara & Itachi: A Shinobi Battle
Chapter 3: The Fire Battles Sand!
In the outskirts of the Hidden Sand, Gaara and Itachi are left staring eachother down as Itachi sends a signal over to Gaara, readying to battle the red headed leader of the village. Both men stare down at eachother knowing that this is going to be a showdown of incredible heights. Quickly now, Gaara erects his arms outwards, hurling sand at Itachi as he easily cuts them away using a kunai. Gaara haults his attack as Itachi gets closer and closer to him, running forward as he knocks those blasts of sand away. Itachi stops about 30 feet away from him and performs a hand seal. "Katon! Gamayo Emudan!(Fire Element! Fire Blowing!)" Itachi yells, finishing the seal as he emits a huge flame from his mouth at Gaara. The attack gets blocked by his shield of sand as it disperses away towards the sides. Itachi stops the blast and jumps up into the air. Gaara watches him as his eyes open greatly, summoning sand from the ground to hurl towards Itachi. Itachi gets hit by the sand that erupted as it pierces through his abdomen. Blood spews from his mouth as his Sharingan disperses... along with his body in a cloud of smoke, as it was only a Kage Bunshin no Jutsu(Shadow Clone Technique). Gaara's eyes shift around towards his sides looking for the mysterious man draped in the clothing of the Akatsuki organization and yet again he see's not a thing. Gaara then remembers he attacked from underground last time this happened, and he begins to run away from the area he had been fighting with Itachi at. All of a sudden, as Gaara runs, a pile of the ground beneath him starts following underground, easily being aware that it was Itachi, so Gaara jumps up allowing the sand to hover beneath his feet and forcefully push him up into the air as he spreads his arm outwards, throwing multiple Suna Shurikens(Sand Shurikens) into the ground at Itachi. Itachi jumps up and is pierced by the attack! Yet again... it was just a Kage Bunshin, but from out of no where, Itachi is above Gaara! Gaara doesn't realize until after the shield of sand blocked the kunai Itachi had pierced the shield with. Itachi was struggling with the kunai to push it straight through the sand as Gaara turns around. Suddenly, Itachi breaks through the sand, but thankfully, in that short time, Gaara was still able to attack as he tilted his hand forward, calling out "Sabaku Kyuu!(Desert Coffin!) As sand shot at Itachi, covering his whole body except for his head in extremely dense sand! "I'll make this short!" yells Gaara as he looks into Itachi's eyes. The sand explodes and crushes inwards onto Itachi, but suddenly blood started to pour from Gaara's mouth and eyes. He didn't understand what was happening, but he was in terrible pain. Gaara's breathing becomes hard as he takes a knee to the floor, looking into the palm of his hand as he noticed that there was an eye there! He jumped back a bit, worrying about what was happening as the eye turned into a Sharingan... then showing images of what just happened a minute ago. Gaara watches into his hand as he then see's himself performing the Sabaku Kyuu jutsu... but he see's Itachi escaping, and then slicing his throat with the kunai! "A-am... Am I dead!" Gaara thinks to himself before realizing he's in a Genjutsu(Illusion). "Genjutsu!... I can feel the mental damage taking over. It's the same weight as the feel I had from Kankurou when I saw him..." Gaara thinks to himself with shock. "This mental anguish... it is nothing compared to what I went through!" he screams as he stands up, looking over the sand he was left on. "ITACHI!" screams Gaara as he closes his eyes with his fists held closed tightly. As he opens them, he realizes he made it out of the Genjutsu. He looked forward and see's Itachi still in the Sabaku Kyuu jutsu. It seemed only a split second passed before the Genjutsu started as he see's Itachi's eyes closing and opening again with his pupils twitching slightly. It seems the Mangekyou Sharingan was used longer than it should have been, including with Kankurou. Itachi got his sight back and his eyes opened back to the 4-pupil Sharingan as he uses his eyes at the sand, exploding it from around his body, being released afterwards as it also took a chomp down on the sand beneath Gaara as he flips back, landing right after Itachi did back onto the ground. "I can't use that eye, but it won't take away much anyway with this kid. I'll get around his sand barriers soon enough" Itachi thinks to himself. The two stop their fighting for a moment, getting themselves together a bit.
Meanwhile, back at the ER, Temari is still seen sitting next to Kankurou, holding his hand as he lays passed out. She looks to the man from the council and asks "Do you know anything more about Itachi?...". The councilman speaks back in reply, "Besides him being one of the strongest Genjutsu users, there isn't even much information to begin with". "What about weak points? Does he have any at all? I mean... look at what just staring him in the eye did to Kankurou. Would Gaara have a chance?" asks Temari. "Well... it's said the Mangekyou Sharingan which he harnesses doesn't last long and can cause damage to the eyes after a while... so unless Gaara survived a Genjutsu use of the Mangekyou Sharingan, and it tires the eyes of Itachi, I see no opportunities for a win. Even with his Sharingan out of use, it's not like he can just easily win either. Remember... before obtaining this eye of his, he was all ready accepted into the ANBU group of Konoha which is an elite squad of ninja ruled directly under the Hokage there... not to mention he was accepted into ANBU at an age where most are still nearly Genin. He's also an elite Katon user, along with Taijutsu. Gaara has no Taijutsu practice, and only masters in sand defense and attack, but hopefully his natural practice and immense chakra use can break down Itachi if he doesn't run out of chakra too soon" speaks the wise man from the Hidden Sand's council, giving Gaara barely any hope, letting down Temari as she didn't wish to hear such an answer. "Gaara... please do your best. Don't let him get to you. You're the Kazekage!" Temari thinks to herself as Kankurou's hand shakes a little while placed still in Temari's.
Back at the place of battle, Itachi and Gaara stare each other down yet again. "He's... so strong. It's unbelievable how content and easy it is for him to fight as he does" Gaara thinks to himself as the sand circles his body slowly. Itachi, from out of the blue dodges forward towards Gaara, catching him off guard as he attempts a punch, but as always, he ends up being blocked by the sand shield. Itachi then keeps punching and circling Gaara at such a high speed that his eyes can barely keep up to Itachi. A left punch is thrown at Gaara's right eye, followed by several punches to the chest and chin. Gaara's eye begins to bleed as he lifts his head up, holding his arms out, bending them upwards as he screams randomly with pure anger infiltrating his heart, forcing the sand around him to spin uncontrollably, catching Itachi off guard as it starts slicing at his arm and his face. Blood drips from Itachi's right cheek as he jumps back away from the enraged Gaara. Gaara then puts together a seal, "Ryusa Bakuryu!(Desert Avalanche!)" Gaara screams as suddenly, a swarm of sand made several hundred feet wide and a few stories tall starts rumbling terribly, chasing down Itachi as his eyes widen. Itachi tries to run from the avalanche chasing him, but it seems it's catching up way too quickly now as it grows more and more until it's distance becomes so immense that it is impossible to divert! "SABAKU TAISOU!(DESERT REQUIEM!)" Gaara screams with the loudest of his voice after placing his two fingers across one another as the avalanche falls heavily right over Itachi! "Shit!" screams Itachi right before the avalanche covered his body and crushed him with thousands of pounds of pressure and sand. Finally, the rumbling had stopped as Gaara stood there, panting heavily from lack of chakra with his hands placed tired to his sides along with only his uninjured eye open as blood dripped from the other. He places his fingers into a seal yet again, silently calling out another jutsu, "Sabaku Sousu(Desert Graveyard)" which forces the sand that landed over Itachi to compress itself, making it more dense as it twirls inwards in a spiral, breaking into the ground several hundred feet. Just incase Itachi is still alive... Gaara knows this should sure be enough to crush him and rip him apart from himself. Gaara stops the attack, knowing that even if he was to still be alive, he's trapped under indestructible amounts of sand and that there's no air to breath. He should soon be dead. Gaara stands there as about two minutes passes by with no sound. Gaara figures Itachi is dead as he starts to turn around and walk away, but suddenly he heard a crack within the sand. Then, within a blink of an eye, Itachi jumps out from the ground, landing roughly back onto the ground he had just been swallowed by. His breath is heavy and his robe is torn. Blood is dripping from his lips as he knocks his shoulder back into it's socket. Gaara's eyes are widened more so than ever before. "The only time... someone managed to get out of this combination of attack... was Kaguya Kimimaro... and even after he did, he died almost instantly!" Gaara thinks to himself as he turns his body forward towards Itachi. "Looks like I miscalculated your strength, Gaara! It won't happen again, plus... I'm sure you don't have much chakra to use anyway!" Itachi yells over to Gaara with an insidious smirk gently laced upon his lips. What Itachi said was true... and Gaara sure knows it. "I am out of a lot chakra... damn" Gaara says to himself as he then shouts back over to Itachi, "You too seem to be running out of your chakra, so don't talk so demeaningly towards me because my attack failed. You failed more than I so far. You can't deny that you're running low on chakra either. I'm sure of it, considering the amount of chakra you had to use to get out of my Sabaku Sousu no Jutsu. Believe it when I say I'll kill you!". Itachi still wears the smirk, but suddenly it leaves his face. He performs a hand seal, as does Gaara. "Katon! Housenka No Jutsu!(Fire Element! Phoenix Fire!)" shouts Itachi as he emits many multiple blasts of fireballs from his mouth at Gaara! "Mugen Sajin Daitoppa!(Wind Element, Great Infinite Sandblast Breakthrough!)" then yells Gaara, emitting many multiple sand flurries from his mouth to be hurled over at Itachi! The two attacks are targetted to impact eachother as Gaara and Itachi seem to have thrown away more of their chakra in these attacks.
There still seems to be no winner yet. To Itachi, it's a battle of pride and for Gaara's Jinchuriki. For Gaara, the battle's for the people of his village. Who has a more important motive? Only the shortest of time shall tell as the battle begins to reflect some more amazing scenarios!