Nightfall By Freowin

Chapter 58 - Itachi's Dominance

I don't own Naruto and I never have, probably never will. Can never tell for sure though.

Nightfall!

Chapter 58: Itachi's Dominance

Gaara was floating high above a large civilian village on the western border of the Land of Fire, around him flew a large clay bird, and atop the birds back stood the long-haired blond member of the Akatsuki, Deidara.

His sand started moving to match the speed of the clay bird, sand shuriken, and explosives meeting in mid air granting the people below a spectacular light show if they were not more concerned with running away from the scene of two powerful ninjas trying rather hard to harm each other.

Below them on the rooftops of the village two more ninja were squaring off against each other. Haku was on the back foot as she continuously dodged the large tail like blade of Sasori. "Well you are good at running, I will give you that" Sasori grumbled darkly as Haku created two pillars of ice under her feet to escape what would have been a direct hit from Sasori's blade.

"That's not all I can do I assure you... Hyoton: Hail Damage" she said calmly and with a great breath of air she blew out hundreds of small balls of ice towards the stationary Sasori. The former Suna ninja jumped away but the force of doing so caused him to lose his akatsuki robe.

There stood what appeared to be a wooden man standing hunch backed on all fours, wider than he was tall. Haku's eyes widened in confusion, she had been told all about ninja puppetry by Gaara but this was the first time seeing anything that remotely resembled it. 'It's a puppet! But where are the strings? And for that matter where is his real body!' she thought as she quickly scanned the area, but there was no sign of chakra strings or a puppeteer.

Up above Gaara had just been forced to use a large amount of sand to block a rather large clay insect. As he turned away from the explosion his eyes fell upon sasori. 'That's Sasori of the Red Sands! And that puppet!, Kankuro would talk about trying to make a copy of it for himself all the time when we were kids' "Haku-chan, he is inside! What you are seeing is a defensive shell, that man is the greatest puppet master Suna has ever seen! And don't let him cut you, the smallest scratch could be fatal, puppeteers are well known to use poison blades" he yelled in warning before turning his attention back to Deidara who has sent another barrage of explosives toward the Ichibi jinchuuriki.

Rather than block the explosions with sand this time Gaara flew away slipping in between the clay animals with practiced skill. 'I need to get this guy out of the village so I can make some more sand to fight with, otherwise it is only a matter of time before I run out' Gaara mused as Deidara took flight after the jinchuuriki.

"Clever little brat, should have known he would recognize me even in this form" Sasori mumbled in acceptance.

"So your are inside that... thing, then?" Haku asked as if looking for clarification.

"That is correct, this is my puppet, Hiruko, it is the ultimate puppet for personal defense, something most puppeteers are weakest in. you see it takes great concentration to control even a single puppet effectively, and because of this they tend to be poor at Taijutsu, this puppet compensates for that weakness and turns it into a strength.

Haku had to admit that it was a brilliant idea to overcome a glaring weakness in the fighting style. "it is a very impressive piece of work, it is a shame that I will have to break it" Haku said before quickly running through several hand seals. "Hyoton: Certain Kill Ice Spears!" she yelled before slamming his palms to the ground.

Sasori's eyes widened as the ground under his feet began to change. He jumped just in time as thick spikes of ice shot up from the ground the area the jutsu covered was very impressive but Sasori could tell she held back to avoid doing damage to the village. "Foolish girl, you held back and allowed me to escape because you didn't want to harm the people of this village, truly pathetic, how can you call yourself a ninja if you can't do what needs to be done. In a life or death fight like this you care more about the safety of this civilian village than surviving. As long as this fight is inside the confines of this village you cannot defeat me" he taunted the Ice wielder.