𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐄 𝐍𝐎𝐈𝐑𝐄 | sasuke uchiha

One Call Away

"Sir, she's nearing our first rank of shinobi. Do we attack, or let her pass through? Over."

Gaara frowned as he received communication from one of the jounin on his headpiece. Standing on the village wall, he had a full view of the desert, and he could only assume that the small ripple in the sand making its way towards the village in a straight line was none other than Sora. He could also just make out where his shinobi were positioned in the sand, and nodded at no one in particular as his mind whirred with different scenarios and possible consequences.

"If you think you're up to it, don't hesitate to confront her," ordered Gaara through his little headset. "But if things get too hard, don't keep pushing. Fall back to the next line for backup, and keep on doing so. We have five lines out there, and we want to keep her as far away from the village as possible. If she manages to break through the second rank, the Senju shinobi and I will deploy ourselves right away. There's no doubt in my mind that we're all going to need to be at the top of our game if we want to survive whatever she has planned for us. She's not going to rest until she's had her fill of blood. Understand? Over."

"She's approaching now. Preparing to apprehend, over."

Gaara took a deep breath as he kept a careful eye on his shinobi below, cautious of just how powerful Sora might be. To some of his men, it seemed like Gaara was overestimating her power, because of how many people he had stationed per line out in the desert. However, he wasn't going to be taking any risks, and preferred that there be too many positioned out there than not enough.

All along the line stood more shinobi, all keeping their eyes locked on the horizon. There were more positioned along the bottom of the wall and in front of the village, which was where Tsunade and her Senju shinobi stood, waiting for their turn.

It would come sooner than they thought.

No more than ten minutes after giving out his last order, Gaara received another call. This time, it was from their fourth line.

"Sir! The fifth line has been broken!"

Alarmed at the message, Gaara strained his eyesight to see what on earth was happening below. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't clearly make out what was going on, but he knew it couldn't have meant anything good.

"Damn it," he cursed under his breath, seeing the specks he assumed to be his shinobi falling back as sand whipped up around them in a mini storm. If it had taken the fifth line that short amount of time to be broken, he couldn't imagine just how quickly the following lines would open up as well.

Wasting no time, Gaara immediately made his way off of the wall and headed towards Tsunade and the Senju shinobi, who stood at the front of the three cohorts that had organised themselves into smaller groups. The original plan that everyone had hoped on was that they would subdue Sora using minimal numbers; after all, the threat of an Uchiha attack still loomed over them, and they would need all the help they could get to deal with that. However, after seeing how quickly Sora had broken through their first defensive line, Gaara knew that defeating her was going to be no easy task.

"She's already breached the fifth line," Gaara informed Tsunade as he approached her. She stood with Neji, Hinata, Naruto, and Kakashi, all of whom were composed and nodded at the Kazekage. Eyes passing over the Uzumaki and Hatake, Gaara noticed that Kakashi already wore a collection of small rolled up scrolls slung over his shoulder, seemingly ready for the extraction and sealing that he and Tsunade were in charge of.

"That was fast," murmured the Hokage under her breath, arms crossed as she kept her eyes fixed on the distance. "How many people did you have in a line? Twenty?"