(A/N) Sasuke's match and the Invasion, here we come!
Sasuke landed in the area, across from his opponent. He had his hands already in the tiger sign, and just waited for Genma to give the sign.
"Ready? Begin!" With that, Genma leaped back, away from the fireball that Sasuke had immediately spewed out.
Gaara's sand leaped to his defense, weathering the fireball. Sasuke narrowed his eyes. If the fireball did nothing, time to pull out the stuff Madara said was never to be used in a spar, no matter how high the cost of said spar was. Aka, all the really cool stuff. He had gotten permission to use it against Gaara, however, especially after Naruto explained that Gaara had a biju in him, immediately identified as Shukaku, the one-tailed sand demon by Madara.
"Katon: Solarflare!" Sasuke shouted, breathing out a stream of white-hot flames. He got what he wanted that time, a neat glass sculpture in the middle of the arena. Gaara seemed rather shocked as Sasuke ran in to try and punch him, but got blocked by sand again.
The sand threw him backward, so when he was far enough away, he turned and ran up the wall, leaping off of it to take flight. He quickly did a few more hand signs. "Katon: Sun's Core!" He spat out a series of balls, each one whitish-yellow and glowing brightly. They flew down towards Gaara, his sand once again leaping to the rescue and catching the balls, which exploded in bursts of white light, creating another cool glass sculpture that almost fell on Gaara's head, but he moved far enough to the side to avoid the glass that had once been his sand.
Gaara went on the offensive, sending a wave of sand towards Sasuke. Sasuke dodged narrowly, a few black feathers catching on the sand and being sheared off. Luckily, it was just a few secondaries, not his primaries, which he needed for flight.
Sakura frowned as feathers began falling from the sky, recognizing it as a sleep genjutsu. She quickly pulsed out her chakra, setting up a GNF field that covered the other people in the contestant's box. The Sand ninja had already broken it, and leaped down into the arena, so Sakura grabbed Naruto and Shikamaru and followed. Shino followed on his own, silent as a shadow.
Sakura's ears flicked back as Sasuke landed neatly beside her, watching the Sand Siblings carefully.
"Why in Kami are you doing this?" Sakura asked the Sand Siblings.
Temari snorted. "You wouldn't understand, trust me."
Sasuke's wings flared slightly, Shino stepping back to avoid them. "Why wouldn't we? Do you not know either?"
Two of Naruto's tails pushed at Sasuke's wing, making it fold back in. The other seven remained in battle positions. "Besides," Naruto said, "this is an invasion, did you want war?"
Kankuro growled softly, glancing at his brother. Gaara was glaring at the leaf nin, the little sand that hadn't been turned to glass twisting in anxious tentacles around his feet. "Temari, we don't have the time for this!"
Temari snorted. "Fine." She swung her fan, blowing up a cyclone. They covered their eyes and faces against the dust, anchoring their feet with chakra.
Sasuke parted his wings first, glaring after them.
Sakura sighed. "Sasuke, follow them from the air, we'll follow behind on foot. Naruto, you can track them, right?"
Naruto nodded eagerly, already running for the stadium wall where the sand siblings had disappeared.
Sasuke started running as well, but in no time he was air born, pumping his wings to get more speed and height.
He soared after the sand siblings, catching up fairly quickly, and just gliding in easy, large circles over their heads as they moved ever onwards. He could see Naruto leading the others on a chase after the sand siblings, and was that more shinobi? Dang it, it was. He couldn't do it without loosing the sand siblings, so he swooped down to fly just above the treetops over where the others were.
"You've got a tail, shake it off, or get rid of it, doesn't matter which." His warning delivered, Sasuke flapped madly to get back up to the altitude he was at before.
As he left them behind, he heard Naruto say, "of course I have a tail! I have nine of them!"
The whack Sakura gave Naruto was epic, and Sasuke smirked as he reached his previous height, and began circling again.
He spotted Shikamaru staying behind, and nodded. Good plan. Sasuke turned, and noticed that the sand siblings had separated, Temari continuing with Gaara, Kankuro delaying the rest of his team plus Shino.
Shino broke off to deal with Kankuro, and Sakura and Naruto continued on.
Sasuke came down to land on a nearby branch when Gaara and Temari stopped, standing with his teammates.
"Just go back to Konoha," Temari shouted, frustrated. "You can't stop us anyway."
Sasuke flared his wings slightly. "Watch us!"
Temari looked like she was deciding whether to just leap away or not, but Gaara took the choice out of her hands, swinging his new sand encased arm and throwing her into a tree.
Sakura immediately shunshined to her side, hands glowing as she checked for injuries. Temari looked like she wanted to shove her off, but ultimately didn't.
"I am so gonna explosive tag him!" Naruto said gleefully, pulling out his pouch of explosive tags.
Sasuke quickly took flight. He was not going to be in range when those started going off. He could fire off, well, fire jutsu from up here.
Gaara roared, launching himself at Sasuke, who dodged, barely folding his wing fast enough to avoid the sharp claws. Naruto made a series of clones, who distracted Gaara long enough for Naruto to sneak in and slap an explosive tag on his tail. Or the sand construct that looked like a tail. Naruto quickly kawarmied with one of his outlying clones, and set the tag off.
Sasuke was sent into an aerial flip from the thermal that rose up underneath him. As he righted himself, he spotted that Gaara was mostly unharmed, if a bit singed, and fired off a fire jutsu. Which also did nothing. Troublesome.
(A/N) Aaaand, we can finish the fight next time. Happy birthday to Inoichi! There's a poll up for what to replace MMMDF's update spot, so go see that.