"I see them—they're right there. Tsk, Sasuke and Naruto are still chasing them... Hm, Sakura? What's she doing here?" Zi Xu had spotted the Sand trio, along with Naruto chasing them from behind and Sakura bringing up the rear, slowing everyone down.
That Naruto... I could capture him too, but Jiraiya thinks highly of him. Who knows if he'll interfere when the time comes? If I can, I'll take them both...
As Zi Xu thought this, he stomped through the tree trunk beneath his foot. His black cloak snapped in the fierce wind. Since his Crowbar had been damaged, he hadn't been able to find a suitable weapon.
So he simply blocked their path with his bare hands.
"Tsk, Konoha reinforcements..." Kankuro clicked his tongue. Things had just gotten more troublesome.
Gaara, who had been lying across Kankuro's back, slowly woke up. But the moment he opened his eyes, he saw a fist the size of a sandbag hurtling toward his face. Without a word, Zi Xu tried to knock him out and take him away.
Half of Gaara's body suddenly swelled. One arm transformed into an enormous, sand-yellow beast's paw, covered in a shell like sand and stone. Sand formed cat ears on half his face, his eyes turned black, and his pupils became cross-shaped.
He formed an arm out of sand and, quick as a flash, grabbed a nearby tree trunk, using it to vault himself through the air.
Zi Xu's attack missed, but he didn't panic. The masked man in a black robe looked familiar to Gaara, but he wasn't sure why. By then, Gaara had lost most of his reason. Instinctively, he assumed Zi Xu was a Konoha reinforcemement, so he surged toward Sakura, who had just arrived, and seized her body in one claw.
"Hah...