70 Esumi vs Sasori of the Red Sand (1/2)
Esumi and Sasori walked a few meters away from the sand village's stronghold and stood a few feet away from each other. They stared into each other eyes. The sand blew gently past them. Only the sound of the blowing wind and sand was present. Sasori was inside his Hiruko puppet that hosted a quite a few numbers of dangerous items. Esumi saw with her Byakugan behind her transformed glasses exactly what was hidden inside.
An extendable iron tail, A heavy looking back shield, the poisoned senbon from earlier, and that weird wooden arm with even more poisoned senbon hidden inside. 'Maybe he will have more to show me if I smash that ugly puppet he's hiding underneath. He is a puppet master, so he should definitely be hiding his puppets with a scroll. Time to have a little fun and show little Khael-chan how a master puppeteer fights.' Esumi thought with a smile.
Esumi thought about what weapon she should take out. She has gained a lot of new weapons and a lot of duplicates. 'Hmm.. If I take out a sword I might just slash through his puppets and it'll be over too quickly. But If I smash it, it'll be over just as quickly! I hope he can reattach his puppets or this will be over too fast… Oh I know! Why don't I just ask him?!'
”Hey short, dark, and ugly can you----” Esumi suddenly stopped herself. 'I can't ask him if his puppets can reconnect or he'll know I know that he's inside a puppet right now! Aghhhhhh! So annoying! Fuck it!' Esumi shouted in her head before taking out a long black steel staff and rushing towards Sasori.
”I don't like to wait or make people wait. I'll end you quickly.” Sasori said in his gruff voice as he stabbed towards Esumi with his iron tail.
Esumi uppercutted with her staff and knocked Sasori's tail out of the way. Although slightly surprised by this Sasori swiftly retaliated against Esumi's incoming attack. He shot out more waves of poison senbon from his puppet's mouth at the very close Esumi. Esumi disconnected her weapon into two and deflected every single senbon that got close to scratching her until Sasori was finished. Esumi saw Sasori pull out his puppet's wooden arm and aim it towards her before firing it. Due to the semi-close range of the two, Esumi dashed towards the incoming rocket arm and bashed it deep into the sand before hearing a muffled sound coming from the sand below.
”It seems like whatever surprise you had for me turned out to be a dud Sasori-kun. I hope you have more to show me.”
”Impossible. A little girl like you couldn't possibly be so skilled. It must be a fluke.” Sasori said before stabbing towards Esumi with his iron tail once more.
Esumi using her monstrous strength deflected Sasori's tail attack with one half of her staff and used the other half to smash towards Sasori's face. Sasori once again was caught off guard by the little girl's immense strength and tried to block with his Hiruko puppet's other arm. Unfortunately for the puppet master, his Hiruko puppet was no match for Esumi's strength and was soon smashed apart across the desert. The only thing left of it was a black cloak that swiftly hopped away.
'Hehe. No more hiding away behind a puppet Mr.Sasori-chan.' Esumi thought to herself before showing a faked shocked expression at the black cloth moving and the Sasori being blown into wooden bits.
”You were hiding inside a puppet the entire time?! What the heck?! You wuss! Take off that cloth and reveal yourself. Or I'll just have to smash you up even more.” Esumi finished with a giggle.
”Well done. Despite being so young you managed to defeat one of my favorite puppets. I'll admit I underestimated you before. But now I will treat you as an actual opponent.” Sasori said in a much more smoother and attractive voice as he removed the black cloak over his body and revealed himself.
Esumi had a brief inner moment of fangirlism as she stared at the very beautiful and young looking Sasori. Even though she could see him all this time with her Byakugan, his face looked so much better when he wasn't hiding it away.
”Hey hey weren't you taught in school to never underestimate an enemy? I bet you're still underestimating me now. You haven't even taken out another puppet yet. You're gonna regret that ya know.” Esumi said.
”While I said I wouldn't underestimate you, I didn't say I would go all out either.” Sasori said as a small scroll dropped from under his Akatsuki robe into his hand.
”But this is my other favorite piece of art. The lengths I went to acquire it, makes it much more special to me.” Sasori then inserted chakra into the scroll and with a poof of smoke summoned a puppet.
”Just one? Are you sure you're taking me seriously Sasori? Didn't you take down an island or something with your puppets? You can't have done that with only two puppets.” Esumi said.
”I should have known you would be too young to recognize who this is. But no matter this is taking longer than I wanted it. I hate to keep people waiting.”
Sasori then sent his puppet flying towards Esumi before unleashing some terrifyingly razor sharp claws from his puppet's hands and clawed towards Esumi. Esumi noticed the poison also on this puppet's claws. Esumi reconnected her staff and smashed towards the puppet's claws and soon a struggle of strength happened.
”So this one is tougher than the other one huh?! But it doesn't matter!” Esumi yelled as she steadily grew more and more ground against the puppet's claws. Sasori smirked before having his puppet's other arm suddenly split open and from some fuinjutsu seals drawn upon It, a sea of arms burst from it. Esumi looked at the sudden thousand-armed puppet and quickly retreated. The arms followed after her though like a ravenous starving snake.
”Haha! Kinda annoying, but fun!” Esumi shouted while laughing childishly and going through some hand signs. One of the arms managed to nick her top and slightly reveal more of her breasts.
”Lightning Style: Circus Festival!” Esumi shouted as a wild mass of yellow lightning chakra bounced, zipped, and flew towards the numerous hands. Sasori made his puppet dodge out of the way and watched as Esumi suddenly take out a large blade and try and slash some of his puppet's arms apart. Sasori's puppet had flipped some of the wrist of the sea of hands and blew out a wave of purple gas towards Esumi. Esumi smirked as she held one of the famous seven ninja swords of the Mist.
”That's one of the blades from the Hidden Mist… How did you acquire something like that?” Sasori asked.
”I found it.” Esumi responded cutely.
This blade was sitting next to two graves in some small village she passed through one time. She decided to take it because of how cool it looked, but didn't find out till later what was exactly so special about this sword. It was called the Executioner's Blade or Kubikiribōchō. She only found this out when she was attacked by ninjas from the Hidden Mist village and their hunter-nin. Although this blade's special ability to instantly recover back to peak condition by using iron isn't useful here, it's still good enough to cut through some puppets.
Esumi sent a burst of chakra through one of her chakra points on her feet and swiftly escaped the incoming poison gas, but not before seeing Sasori force his puppet to shoot two ropes with kunai on the end towards Esumi. She guessed he intended to tie her up and force her to inhale some of the poison by being trapped within the poison cloud.
”Too bad!” Esumi boasted as she deflected both kunai with her sword and stood face to face with Sasori and his puppet.
”You've made the right choice in deflecting them. If you tried anything else you would've been captured and poisoned.”
”I'm a genius. Don't cha know? I'm the famous Yada Esumi! The best kunoichi in the world! Like I would let myself get taken out by some lame poison.”
”My poison is anything but lame. There is no known cure to my poison currently anywhere in the 5 elemental nations. Even I would have trouble creating an antidote for it.”
Sasori brought his puppet closer to him before shooting a wave of kunai towards Esumi from his puppet's horde of hands. Esumi grinned before sending Quick Style/Swift release chakra throughout her body and slashing through the nearly uncountable amount of kunai. In most shinobi's eyes she would only look like a blur as she defended against the onslaught on dangerous metal. She then stopped using the swift release chakra and returned back to her normal self.
”Not bad. But this will be over soon.” Sasori commented.
”Yeah yeah cutie. Just gimme the hard stuff already, you're kinda boring me testing me like this.” Esumi said suggestively.
Sasori sent his thousands of arms back towards Esumi. Esumi charged towards the wave and started to slice it apart, piece by piece. Sasori quickly made his puppet release the arm that had the heaps of hands and suddenly equipped a new hand with a saw blade attached at the end of it. Esumi hacked towards the saw blade and clashed with it, but soon stopped after seeing the previous claw swipe towards her face. She chopped it and deflected it to the side before slashing upwards with her sword, trying to cut off the arm of the puppet, but the buzzsaw hand got in Esumi's way and forced her to clash once more. The two then continued to collide multiple times in a few seconds before Sasori pulled his puppet away. Esumi grinned tauntingly when Sasori noticed the puppet's buzzsaw and claw were slashed apart and basically useless.
”This is starting to take a while. I guess I must take this a bit more seriously.” Sasori said before making his puppet loosen its jaw and open its mouth.