Kurotsuchi was annoyed.
She had begged her grandfather to let her fight in the main battle against Sunagakure, yet he forbade it and assigned her to some insignificant sneak attack instead.
"You can gain valuable experience there, and it is going to be much safer there!" He said.
"BULLSHIT!" Kurotsuchi would like to scream at him right now.
It was totally safe. At least, until they freaking ran straight into a minefield, and the ground started exploding underneath their feet. Their commander was an absolute moron!
Even she had heard about the problems with buried explosives the main army was having three days ago. And she didn't pay much attention to these issues in the first place!
And when she complained? Tried to advise caution?
She was told, "I don't care whose granddaughter you are. While you serve under my command, you will listen to my orders. I have more experience than you, and I know what I am doing, girl."
Because, of course, the arrogant dipshit just couldn't stomach the idea that a teenage girl might have a better idea about how to lead than his forty-year-old stupid ass!
Not that she would get an opportunity to tell him, "I told you so!" anymore. He was one of the first ones who stepped on a mine, and his shredded torso was now decorating these god-forsaken sand-filled lands.
But that wasn't all. Oh, no. That wasn't even the start! Safe, her sexy ass!
Then some sand-controlling freak had to show up, and Kurotsuchi almost had her feet crushed. Only the extremely annoying training in instinctively using the earth chakra to harden her body that her grandfather had put her through since she was a child had saved her. It still hurt like hell!
Even now, she felt a faint sensation of pain coming from her feet, but at least she ended up better than the many poor sods who had them crushed and were now useless, rolling on the ground.
But the sand snorter was not done. He just had to continue with an admittedly impressive large scale techniques, causing mayhem as their casualty count increased. Fortunately, Kurotsuchi had managed to rally some earth users when the towering sand waves surrounded them, and they pushed that attack back.
The resulting explosion was unexpected, but no big deal. A joint earth dome dealt with it. Defense and explosives were her village's forte. As if some half-assed explosives could bring the proud Iwa ninjas down!
... The previous minefield incident did not count. That was a sneak attack! Absolutely unsporting behavior that only honorless snakes high on special sand would employ.
What kind of ninja uses sneak attacks like that!?
As she warily watched the redhead from Suna standing back up, Kurotsuchi's irritation increased. At least, once she got a second of breather to concentrate and bring forth her lava release properly, the tables had reversed.
Still, his stoic, deadpan expression annoyed the hell out of her. She then noticed him giving her a measured look, and for a brief split second, his eyes flickered to the top of her head.
Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment, but then her expression donned a look of realization as she made a mental connection with her previous comment about him being wimpy-looking. She realized the redheaded midget bastard had just compared their heights and found her wanting!
Her temper flared, and her face went angrily flushed. She was Onoki's granddaughter, so her height was always a touchy issue for her.
Admittedly, as cool as her grandfather was, his genes did not bring to the table a lot of potential for growing up into an imposing figure.
"Name's Kurotsuchi." She grumpily said with a scowl. "Remember it. It's the name of the person who is going to beat the shit out of you, you sand bastard!"
Her body tensed, ready for a sudden attack.
"My parents were married, though." Gaara replied with a cluelessly confused expression. He even visibly tilted his head and gave Kurotsuchi a strange look, making her speechless for a moment.
But inwardly, she was a bit relieved as she realized he was not going to engage her in combat straight away. He probably needed to gather his sand for the next big offensive, and that was why he opted to talk with her. He was buying time. But that suited her just fine. She also needed some time. The lava release technique she was using to heat up the surroundings around her was not easy to keep up.
It was a new one, too. She had gotten the idea when some jutsu scrolls from Konoha were sent to Iwa by their spies. One of them had a D-rank technique for raising the body's temperature. A very convenient thing for cold nights in the wilderness.
But for Kurotsuchi, it was an inspiration. If normal chakra could do that, why couldn't she do something similar with her lava release and make a searing killing field around herself? It sounded so friggin' cool!
Sadly, the technique was not yet finished. She didn't expect to use it here, but even in its current state, it still managed to glassify the sand around her and deny her opponent an easy way to attack her. So, despite how hard it was to keep it up, she was still using it.
After all, she was here to give her boys the necessary time to retreat. If she could kill the redheaded bastard, then great, but if not, then whatever. As long as she bought enough time, all would be just peachy.
The surprise attack was in the dumpster anyway. Retreating from a bad engagement was also a kind of win.
"You are kind of special, aren't you?" Kurotsuchi mockingly asked with a smirk after realizing that the redhead's confusion was, in fact, sincere.
Was he an idiot?
Gaara blinked, obviously thinking about her words for two seconds before he nodded and impassively replied. "Don't worry. I am sure your family also considers you special."
Kurotsuchi's smirk became a little strained, and her eyes narrowed in irritation.
She opened her mouth to throw another remark at him, but then sand rose and formed into five figures of the redhead around her. They aimed their hands with outstretched fingers straight at her, and her eyes widened as sand bullets shot toward her.
She got a bad premonition, and her perception of time slowed down as her senses sharpened due to danger. Her technique worked, and the sand bullets turned into glass before they could reach her, but that didn't matter much. The kinetic energy behind them did not change, and the now glass bullets still almost ripped into her.
Only a last-minute throwing herself onto the ground and rolling away saved her from becoming a pincushion.
Kurotsuchi's roll transitioned into a crouch, and she swiftly stood up, her hands joining in a hand seal for a lava bullet, only for her eyes to widen.
"You gotta be shitting me!" She urgently exclaimed as she saw the massive swirl of sand in the air and realized what was coming next.
The sand twisted together and formed hundreds of lances before they hurled themselves straight at her and the area around her. Gritting her teeth, Kurotsuchi's chakra flared as she smoothly changed her hand seals, and instead of a lava bullet, walls of magma sprang up around her, protecting her from the rain of sand lances that glassified upon contact before shattering against the walls.
Not at all happy with the immense chakra expenditure it required to switch techniques mid-cast like this, Kurotsuchi coldly snorted as her mood turned upset. She put her chakra-protected palm against the extremely hot surface of the magma walls and used yet another technique she created based on these nifty jutsu scrolls from Konoha.
One of these scrolls could be placed on an Earth Wall after creating one, and it would sort of explode outward. Kurotsuchi was instantly in love with that one and created her own version.
She flexed her chakra, and the magma walls around her instantly exploded outward with a lot more lethality than just a normal earth wall.
Gaara's eyes widened, and he quickly formed a swirling sand shield in front of him, using a massive amount of sand to stop the molten rock shrapnel from reaching him as it rained all around in a hundred-meter radius.
Both combatants lost sight of each other, but Gaara didn't hesitate for a second. A tendril of sand formed and snapped like a whip toward his opponent's previous position, and even as he felt he lost control of parts of it due to the heat turning it into glass, he ignored it. A moment later, he heard a pained grunt as he felt his whip impact something soft, and a sense of satisfaction filled him.
It lasted only a second as, through his sand, he sensed a strange flavor of earth chakra in the thing he hit. And then two hands sprang up from the ground, catching his ankles.
The world froze for a moment.
And then... Gaara's ankles instantly became glass alongside his feet and lower legs, followed by his body turning into sand and destabilizing, showing that he was just a sand clone.
Kurotsuchi popped out of the ground, feeling that the earth clone she had left in her original position had also destabilized. It was just a decoy, and she didn't exactly fill it with a lot of chakra.
She clicked her tongue and looked to the right, where the redheaded bastard rematerialized in a swirl of sand. Her hands neared each other, and she was about to spit a lava bullet his way... but she stopped herself just before forming the first hand seal.
Her lips settled into a frown as she thoughtfully looked into the distance behind Gaara. Sighing, she let her hands fall back next to her body.
"Let's end this here, sand bastard." Her fellow ninjas were no doubt already evacuated, and the sand ninjas were about to arrive. If there was one thing her grandfather had beaten into her stubborn head, his words, not hers, it was to never fight a losing fight if it could be helped.
"Fuck you!" Giving Gaara a mocking salute, Kurotsuchi disappeared into the ground, leaving Gaara staring blankly at the spot where she had stood just a moment ago.
He had finally gathered enough sand and chakra for a massive counterattack that he believed could go through her annoying defense that countered his techniques, and now she decided to run away?
He felt a bit cheated as Shukaku angrily yelled at him in his head about how uncool his jinchuuriki looked.
Somewhat annoyed, Gaara cut the connection between his mind and the seal, instantly shutting up the Shukaku's voice in his head.