Konoha's Red Dragon

invasion

Aki tilted her head, watching as Sasuke leaped up onto the wall of the arena. Gaara's sand had completely enclosed him by now and she could hear his heart beating erratically, breathing quick and harsh while the sand shifted and hardened. She thought Naruto's and Neji's fight had been bad with the nine-tails Chakra coming out.

Sasuke's Chakra was starting to condense around his hand, a glow visible as it knitted into a tight ball before it started to spit out electrical arches. The ensuing noise, made her ears twitch and her head a little dizzy, but it wasn't horrible.
That was until he made contact. The sound of breaking solid sand into grains by lightening, then the sound of the lightening ball piercing flesh bounced off the arena's walls. Aki's nose twitched and she tugged on the back of Kakashi's vest.

He looked down, she signed, "Blood." And Kakashi hummed. "Then it worked-"

"BLOOD!" Everyone's attention snapped to the two in the arena, Gaara's voice was rough, strained. "IT'S MY BLOOD!" His voice petered out to pained sounding groans.
Sasuke's heart picked up, blood rushing a little more frantically as he tried to get out. Caught with the sand constricting his arm, Aki twitched. She could hear something shifting inside the ball of condensed Sand, she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

When Sasuke finally managed to tear himself free just as a massive arm-hand-thing lashed out of the open hole, slamming to the ground with a heavy thud.
She heard his siblings curse under their breaths, their hearts picking up pace. Her eyebrows furrowed when she watched the hand thing retract back into the sand sphere, it sounded like something was swimming in there.

Sasuke looked wary, if a little scared. That was odd, Sasuke almost never showed fear, or that he was wary of something-

A choked off breath left her, hands clapping over her ears as she hunched in on herself. The scratchy, ear piercing shriek of a roar left her reeling.
She felt bigger hands over her own before she crumpled to the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut and silently sobbed. A high pitch ringing throbbed in time with the pitch changes of the screech, it left her dizzy and unbalanced, collapsed in on herself. She felt someone smaller on her other side, smaller hands than the ones over her ears hesitantly settled on her back.

All Aki did was press her forehead to the floor, teeth clenched so tight together she feared they might crack. Shoulders shaking with her sobs.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck was that thing?!

Was the only thing going through her head. The ringing in her ears refused to let up, it made her dizzy. It made her head hurt.

Why was She starting to get sleepy?

The smaller hand, it smelled like Sakura's in bloom and vanilla, it felt delicate. Sakura, began rubbing her back, before the warm wash of Chakra pulsed around her briefly and the sleepy feeling went away.

What?

The hands, the big ones that smelled like pine and plain soap and were calloused, Kakashi-sensei, moved from her ears to the sides of her face. Lifting her head with little resistance. A thumb tapped her cheek a few times.
She didn't want to, but she opened her eyes anyway, blinking as she sniffled. She saw Kakashi-sensei and Sakura looking at her, Sakura a lot more concerned whereas her sensei was more assessing, searching. Aki's eyes focused on the green shape of Gai, who was standing in front of them, staring down a few sound ninjas.

What are they doing here? None of their genin made it to the finals...

Her eyes trailed over to the Hokage stand and saw a barrier up. What is going on?
She felt the thumb tapping her cheek again and she looked back over, tears having stopped by now.