Chapter 2:
"Situation report, soldier," barked Baki, throwing the door he exited off its hinges as he rushed to a village outpost. Unlike the other major villages, Sunagakure opted to have their lookouts inside their thick stone walls protecting the inner structures. This means that the village has no towers, but instead an intricate network like not unlike an ant's nest in the walls themselves, with the occasional open window for reconnaissance, or for shooting fireballs and lightning out of in this case.
"The wall on the north-east was bombed by a terrorist, Baki-taichou," was the reply from a young Chunin. "Early recon reports say that an aerial attacker and a large ground army of about one-hundred is by the gate."
Baki punched the wall next to him, drawing a sliver of blood. There was no way that border patrol missed something like that, unless they somehow teleported into the village. That, or there was a traitor in the mist. In any case, there was an enemy beating at their doorsteps with their defenses in shambles.
"Get every available shinobi and ANBU member to the west wall," Baki ordered as he wiped the sweat on his forehead away. "We'll mount our defense there. Send a bird messenger to Konoha. Ask for reinforcements."
Baki began to walk away from the small room, hearing a brief "yes sir" before turning around again.
"And get a unit to assist Kazekage-sama."
XXX
The "Kazekage-sama" in question raced past the village's buildings at a speed that made his vision a little more than a blur. Aside from being a Kazekage, Gaara was also one of the fastest shinobis in the village, and showed his prowess by accidentally winning a training foot race that he never technically participated in. All he wanted to do was talk to the man in first place about his business strategy, but ended up crossing the finish line centimeters ahead of him.
Behind him, two of his personal bodyguards struggled to keep up with the one they were supposed to protect. To further humiliate the bodyguards, Gaara's obnoxiously large gourd behind his back was almost half his weight.
Sliding to a halt, Gaara stopped in front of the chaos. Virtually every building in the vicinity was destroyed, with some debris on fire and others grounded into dust. Several shinobis tried to fight the massive ground army. To say it was fruitless was an understatement. They were essentially walking to their deaths. A scattered number of civilian stragglers scrambled over the obstacles made by unrecognizable infrastructures, and a bell tower collapsed under its own weight.
"Gather as many ANBU units as you can to the North wing," Gaara ordered, spreading his arms out. People of Sunagakure would recognize that gesture as the start of Gaara's famous sand jutsus.
The pair replied briefly, their words flying over the head of their master, before turning back. No time for complaints.
Alone, sand poured out of the gourd behind Gaara. It was not a necessary move, as the sand would move out of the gourd to protect him from any oncoming blows automatically anyway, but Gaara felt more comfortable manipulating his own sand compared to the second-rate ground dust. Before one could blink, the sand formed into several thin spears, levitating around his body. With a forward hand gesture, the spears sped forward towards the massive group of hooded figures.
The spears exploded, much to Gaara's surprise. But the confusion quickly dissipated. He scanned around for whatever was the source of the explosion.
"You're the Kazekage, aren't you?" asked the long-haired individual, standing on some sort of flying clay bird. "The jinchuriki?"
XXX
Kankuro had always hated a commanding role. There was too much thinking involved, and any negative outcomes because of his command would be his fault. Sure, someone like his sister would enjoy the role, being the control freak that she was, but Kankuro preferred a mission where he could just do what he was told and that's it. No sweat. But because his brother was the most powerful man in the village, sometimes it couldn't be helped.
Today, of all days, was not one where he should be thinking about how much he hated his job. If buildings were exploding and people were getting their faces impaled by steel blades, he should have other priorities.
As it turned out, Kankuro found himself running in front of a group of hastily thrown together unit to assist Gaara in the north-west wall. Normally, he would have been close to the back of the pack due to the weight of his puppet, but he had recently replaced them with scrolls instead. Apparently, his constant complaint about back pains was enough for Temari's stingy ass to buy him his scrolls.
Several explosions illuminated the dark skies, revealing Gaara on his floating sand platform. His adversary, a blond slender man on a white bird thing, threw some form of grenades at Gaara's hard sand shield. Below them was an army much larger than the unit, wielding a variety of weapons with their uniform red jackets. Kankuro recognized their movements immediately.
"They're puppets!" he roared to his unit. "Keep the puppets off me! I'll take down the puppeteer!"
Someone with the skills to manipulate so many wooden figures with such dexterity would be infinitely intimidating if the fight was one-on-one. But the puppeteer would have to split his focus between fighting Kankuro and fighting the rest of his unit. If the puppeteer focused too much on Kankuro, his unit would make short work of the brittle puppets and come to his rescue. If the puppeteer focused too much on his unit, Kankuro would easily overpower his distracted opponent and end the fight. It was a win-win situation.
XXX
Gaara had never seen such an opponent before.
"Why do you look so surprised, One-Tail?" Asked his opponent. "Are you too in awe of my artistic abilities?"
Gaara did not reply. He usually didn't participate in distracting banters. Winning verbal battles mean nothing if one loses their life. Instead, he studied his opponent.
The man in front of him had what looked like mouths in each hand. A long, red tongue stuck out both hands. It reminded Gaara of Orochimaru's licking habits, and he hoped nothing as bad as the snake-addict would follow. He was wrong.
The hands chewed whatever was in the man's side pouch, and spat out a ball of white material that his opponent used to shape into various small birds with just one hand. At any other time, Gaara would have silently admired his skills.
The man hurled another fistful of birds at Gaara, curving around the floating sand blobs before digging into the automatic sand shield. Bits of glass fell as the smokes cleared.
"You're pretty tough to hit," continue his opponent. "Let's see some of that One-Tailed action."
Gaara did not show his "One-Tailed action". In fact, all he's done in the fight so far was blocking and dodging his opponent's explosive attacks. He had tried to lure his opponent away from the boundaries of the village, but it turned out the clay bird was much faster than his sand platform.
"What does the Akatsuki want here?" he asked, speaking for the first time in the fight.
His opponent barked a short laugh. "Is that seriously the first thing you say to someone of my caliber? At least show some appreciation for my art with something more original! Say how much you admire my artistic skills and m-"
Sand geysers exploded underneath the cocky Akatsuki member, forcing him to steer his crude clay craft away from the choking columns. The columns turned into large possum arms, reaching and grabbing the small flying man. Debris of buildings lodged into the arms fell as the tide-like arm motion swamped the land beneath. The man threw a larger bird at an arm that came too close for comfort. It exploded in a shower of molten glass.
"Yeah. Now we're talking."
XXX
"We'll co-ordinate our counter-attack with Kazekage-sama!" roared Baki over the sound of explosions and metal clashing into the microphone. His voice blared out through the wall's PA system, grainy as it may be. "Use the most powerful ranged attack in your arsenal against the aerial enemy!"
A crowd of 300 pushed into the tight corridors and rooms of the ant's nest of the west wall. It was a tight fit. The air turned staler that most public toilets, made much worse by everyone's body odor. Men and women were pressed into each other like ham between two slices of bread. But no one was in the mood for complaining. Their Gaara-sama was fighting life and death to protect the village. The least they can do was sucking it up.
Unlike Konohagakure in Orochimaru's invasion, Sunagakure had a very extensive procedure for dealing with a village siege. The walls, at the pull of a lever, were designed to collapse in the middle of each and every corridor and room, just enough for whoever was behind the stone to spit out a fireball or two. Couple that with Gaara's subtle signal, the counter-attack would catch anyone besieging the village off-guarded. A bit of wall renovation was a small price to pay.
Baki rested his head against the spiky inner wall of the room he was in. He had secretly chosen a spot next to the wall to stand next to, just for this purpose. Being the only competent military adviser in the whole damn village, it was his job to plan and execute the counter-attack procedures with minimal loss. It was much harder than the drill version of the process. His voice would be gone by tomorrow from all the shouting, assuming there's even a tomorrow for him.
Cracks began to appear on the wall opposite him. It started off as a small fracture, but grew in size every second. The signal.
An update in forever! I hope this was worth the wait! There was a bit of a delay regarding the final draft of this chapter. However, project deta readers Kira31 and Invader-chan both worked extremely hard to make this chapter the best that it can be.
Future chapters may also be infrequent, because I, like everyone else, have a life to take care of. Ah, if only life doesn't get in the way of creativity...
Anyways, enough lamenting from me! I'll see you all next time. Until then, I hope you enjoyed chapter 2 of Naruto: Overhauled.
TheNarutoOverhauler