Chapter 3

A wave of sand higher than the village walls began to form. Whatever remains of the west infrastructure were swept up by the surge. The walls began to collapse and break as its foundations began shifting with the wave.

"Is that supposed to impress me?" the long-haired man asked, smirking as he hovered in front of Gaara.

The wave molded itself into the shape of a large possum head. Black streaks ran along its face and gigantic mouth, its sharp teeth part of its lips.

"Fire!" Baki shouted, a little unnecessarily. The middle section of the wall detached itself. Within seconds, missiles of all sorts filled the skies, arching towards their comparatively small target. From outside the village, the assault could be seen as a fireworks display. The light emitted from the barrage illuminated the night sky.

The possum head opened its wide mouth, sculpting a ball of air so condensed that [replaced the ; there] the atmosphere in the cavity was distorted. Gaara had heard of other junchurikis being able to perform the "Tailed Beast Bomb", but he was nowhere near that level of control of his possum. This jutsu would have to do. There was no way his opponent could get out of this one alive.

The long-haired man stared intently at the massive barrage, eyes wide and mouth opened. The air ball in the possum's mouth was released, flying past all the other smaller jutsus. In its wake, fireballs became raging infernos and lightning shots became electrifying cannon balls. The concoction of death annihilated the small man on his bird, with a large portion of its shots missing him completely. That was the end of the annoying flying bomber.

A clay bird zoomed towards Gaara like a bullet, exploded inches away from his shielded face. He desperately looked around.

"Over here," taunted the terrorist. Apart from a fountain of blood at the place where his right arm was, he seemed completely unharmed. Though missing a limb can hardly be called "unharmed".

"You were pretty good," he continued. "If I hadn't known your counter-attack plan, I'd probably be dead. But you know, you can never fight art, not with your unappreciative mind."

That statement confirmed two things for Gaara; that there was a traitor in the village, and that confidential information has been leaked by said traitor to the most dangerous mercenary organization known to the world.

"How did you evade our attacks?" Gaara asked, still trying to shake his head free of his surprised.

The man smiled devilishly. "I thought you were at least capable of figuring that out, you ignorant crap. I used my very own art as my substitution. I call it Bakuton: Substitution. All you managed to hit was a doll of explosives!"

"What about your arm?"

"Oh, this," he grasped his stump. "Yeah, yeah. I was too slow to dodge your attacks completely. Blah blah blah. I guessed I should be ashamed, losing my arm to someone like you. But I'll make up for it with my next masterpiece."

The man pulled out a small clay bird from his side poach. Gaara could not discern if he made it very quickly or if it was made beforehand. Either way, the important factor was the stark difference between this bird and the ones he threw before. The bird looked more humanoid than bird, with its wings replaced by arms. In place of its torso was a round bottom that resembled one of the wooden dolls that spring back up whenever it was pushed. From his experience, the more difference the attack seems, the more he should expect.

"You might be hard to hit. But your village, on the other hand, that's an easier target."

Gaara's eyes widened in panic as he realized what his opponent's next move consisted of.

"Behold, my masterpiece, the C3!"

The "bird" was thrown upwards, travelling much higher than Gaara expected. As it reached its apex, it suddenly enlarge into a massive sculpture many times the size of a shinobi. Gaara shifted his focus on his opponent, who smirked before flying away from the village.

If size was anything to go by, this next explosion would be enough to destroy most of the village and virtually everyone in it. The possum head that Gaara made had taken him a lot of chakra to maintain. He was almost completely drained. But the attack must be stopped. He was the Kazekage, the proud leader and protector of the village that those before him had spent so long to cultivate. He would see to it that the village doesn't fall in his hands.

With a loud exclamation of effort, Gaara forced whatever was left in him into the sand beneath him. A massive possum hand surged up, reaching for the clay bomb.

"Katsu!"

The bomb exploded in a brilliant array of white light. Everyone that was watching was stunned by the sudden change in brightness. Bits of glass fell from the sky as the possum hand absorbed the explosion, crumbling in the process. Gaara fell onto his knees, his sand cloud slowly losing its integrity. It wouldn't be long before the platform gave its master to the mercy of gravity. But at least the village was safe. As a last comforting though, his opponent must also be depleted with that attack, so the rest of the village should be able to take him down with no problems.

I'm going to die soon, Gaara thought, a half smile on his face. But I have protected my village with my death.

It turned out that he was completely right.

A clay spider shot through the hot atmosphere, lodging itself into Gaara's sand shield. Though he had no more energy left to look around, he was certain that his opponent was back.

"Well done, well done," said the man, confirming his presence. "You stopped C3. But now there's no way for you to counter this next attack!"

The spider melted in a pool of white liquid, with smaller spiders emerging from it. They buried through the sand shield, appearing on the other side. Gaara could only look on.

"This time, you'll know the meaning of true art!"

XXX

Kankuro layed on the ground, curled up in a ball in pain. He could feel the poison injected into him making its way through his body.

"Your skills with the puppets are impressive" said the contraption, retracting his tail from the broken parts of Kankuro's puppets. "But they're not good enough against me."

"How…how can you…" Kankuro tried to ask, but failed as the paralysis spread around his vocal chord.

The contraption hovered its tail above its head. "Crow, Black Ant, Salamander…those puppets were made by me!"

If his body could allow it, Kankuro would have looked surprised. "Sa…so…ri…"

The contraption, which was about to switch his attention to the fight in the air, suddenly looked at the limp body in front of him. "For my name to be known to someone like you, that's certainly an honor. Indeed, I am Sasori of the Red Sands."

"Why…leave…?" Kankuro wheezed out despite his suffering.

"What good is it for a person about to die to ask that?" Sasori replied, drawing the contraption's tail up for the finishing blow, already losing his interest in the person in front of him again.

Suddenly, Sasori's peripheral caught a movement by the ground. Within milliseconds, the head of one of the broken puppets flew upwards, a blade protruding from its mouth. He quickly repositioned his tail to deflect it. Bad move, as it turned out.

A second puppet part came flying in the other direction, this time an arm with a blade where it once joined the main part of the body. Desperately, Sasori leaned back to avoid the attack, narrowly missing his face and slicing a bit of cloth away from the cover over his mouth.

"Very close," he remarked.

Kankuro's fingers twitched slightly, a memorabilia of his latest attack. But there was no way he could make another one. He began to feel his consciousness slip away from him. The world around him grew dimmer each second.

With his final moments, he saw Sasori retracting his tail again, apparently no longer interested in finishing him off.

"The poison'll kill you in three days. Since you desperately want to live that much, I'll let the poison kill you instead."

XXX

Sasori recalled back his puppet army. The Sand fools had obviously underestimated his ability to deal death with them. Truth to be told, he was a little disappointed about the fight. It was incredibly easy to pile on the support unit, even if they had ninjutsu and his puppets didn't. The boy he fought was also not much of a challenge, either.

An explosion in the sky drew Sasori's attention. His partner had apparently blown up the Kazekage at point blank. He certainly could not see any falling corpses. Not being able to even throw a blow against the One-Tail jinchuriki was also something he secretly disappointed over. It was probably more challenging than the amateurs he had to fight.

Without warning, the One-Tailed Beast was unsealed, its container no longer alive. It slammed on the ground, throwing a wave of compressed air and sand in the process. The possum roared into the night sky, a cry of its newfound freedom

Sasori smiled, though it was impossible to tell. Maybe he could make up for not fighting the jinchuriki after all.

At long last. Chapter 3! Interesting cliffhanger, eh?

(Well, that's the idea, anyway...)

So! Thank you so much for reading up to now. I'll try my best to keep these chapters coming, but with life in the way, progress can be really slow. In the meantime, you can always leave a review or shoot me a suggestion over at the project forums! It will never cease to encourage me to write more when I hear feedback from you guys. And you can also be a part of the project by requesting for a role in it over at the project forums!

As always, a big thank you to Invader-chan and Kira31, the beta readers of this chapter. Without them, you'll be reading terribly made plotlines along with spelling and grammar mistakes. And with that, I'll catch you next time!

TheNarutoOverhauler