Love Through Negotiation «COMPLETED»

Chapter 27

Kurotsuchi was breathing hard as she ran from pillar to pillar, dodging out of the way of the debris falling from all around her. She only had a few seconds at most to regain cognizance of her surroundings per pillar before her cover was blown and she had to go to the next. What she saw in between her brief moments of respite was some of the most unbelievable stuff she'd ever seen in her life.

And that was saying a lot.

A giant made of glowing purple bone and armor walking forward, trying its hardest to destroy what was in front of it with a sword the size of any of the pillars she usually hid behind and black fire pouring from its mouth.

It was Sasuke. Naruto's rival/brother figure. The way Naruto talked about him put the exact wrong picture in Kurotsuchi's head. A nice-hearted, but stubborn and dark kid that got swayed by the promise of power in order to exact revenge against his real brother. Perhaps not the most glamorous type of person to exist, but Kurotsuchi would be lying if she said she couldn't understand that type of person. It was only about two months ago that if someone said the hidden leaf was destroyed a smile would come to her lips. Things change, but the way he was described gave her some empathy for the situation he was in.

Now…

Fu, covered head to toe in purple battle armor slammed into the giant's chest feet first and pushed back with all her might, launching herself backwards and staggering him a little bit. As she did a full rotation in the air, she whipped her arms around and dug the sharp end of an exoskeletal polearm into the giant's ribcage, pulling herself forward and landing another kick to its chest.

They were trying to topple him, hoping that would reveal the squishier human it was hiding. Kurotsuchi didn't know if Fu was planning on killing him after that or what, but it was a fight for survival for all of them. Worst still, after trying to dig a tunnel underneath the giant purple monster thing, he'd been targeting her most of all. The worrying part was he must have been doing that because he considered her actions his biggest threat. And considering she was in a room with a Jinchuuriki, a kage, and a puppet master, the fact that she was the biggest threat spoke volumes to an apparent lack of hope they had.

She dashed out between her pillar, quickly firing off a shot of quicklime at the giant's base before diving behind another pillar. The biggest plan she had for her was to pepper him with small shots of the quick drying cement and douse the base with a lot of water, hopefully blinding him to the outside world and keeping him in place long enough to figure out what to do with him.

Temari and Kankuro came rolling around on the Salamander puppet, doing the dual job of being mobile enough that he can't get a good hit on her and allowing her the vantage point she needed to let loose huge gales of wind at him, further disorienting him.

Another hit to the pillar she was hiding behind. The fight was becoming patterned and routinized. That was never good. It always meant that the losing side was going to do something big and crazy to flip the game board over and come out on top. She had to end things quick.

"Fu! Buy me time!" Kurotsuchi shouted out before breaking for cover one last time. The green-haired girl was already on the case, having abandoned her wings for a heavy set of armor with four arms that had oversized hands attached to the ends. Sasuke's Susanoo dropped a bastard sword the size of a building on Kurotsuchi, which was caught by Fu's hulking form.

Kurotsuchi finished doing her required handseals and shot a geyser of water at Sasuke's base. It hit the dust that was on the ground and shot up around him, covering at least up to the giant's chest with the quick drying cement with a thick base around the bottom.

She was confident in the strength of her cement, but she also knew that she was a human amongst giants. Being around so many powerhouses at once had started to make her wonder how useful she could be at helping a fight.