The electronic door bell that denoted someone entering or exiting the hospital gave off a soft “ding” as the Main Branch Sennin stepped out of the warmth of the entrance and into the mountain cold. The sharp winds cut right through her modest clothing but she took in a deep breath fully accepting of the frosty winds. Her femur had all but healed itself over the last few days, which confounded all the doctors of the Kumogakure’s hospital; including herself. While her deep reserves of chakra were a wonder to behold in terms of healing prowess…to heal a femur, in a couple of days, was beyond even what she was normally capable of. Especially after such a large fight that drained her chakra so deeply. A battle that even resulted in her crying for help; her, of all people. The leg may have healed with gusto, but that mark on her pride was as fresh and tender as ever. The elated mood from finally getting back into cold weather quickly soured as she let out a loud sigh. It was around 10:00, which meant that she could still put in some office hours and catch up on three days worth of piled of work. There was already a lot Rei needed to set into motion regarding her diplomatic venture with the leader of their country. Putting the entire Lighting Country on auto-pilot this early on in their regime seemed foolish by a long shot, not to mention the fact it would take at least three-weeks; but the chance at what they could succeed in obtaining was too big a prize to pass up. Besides, Rei mused to herself, the new Judge System was already showing massive fruits in being deployed in key points across the country. Crime was already starting to drop, most of the bigger bandit clans were broken up, and now even sea piracy was starting to cut down.
Instead of doing her normal thing where she used chakra to jump across the village in high speeds, the Sennin instead hailed a taxi. A simple black beetle-esque car with a TAXI sign lit up on top slowed down and allowed the woman to climb in. She gave a curt order and the driver looked up into his rear-view to see who had gotten into his cab; the man’s face quickly paling at the sight of the Ryuu Head Clansman. Without wasting a step the cabbie shifted gears and began to move back into the light traffic of their city. The movement of the car through the streets was an odd sensation but Rei enjoyed it regardless. The chance to watch the citizens and random members of her branch in such a casual setting allowed her a wider view. Usually she was set on looking down from above, but today, she rode among the commons. Despite the epic growth of their fair Village the streets were clean; exceptionally so. Having low-ranking Genin who never get beyond a certain power-set gave the army a lot of extra hands to do extra jobs no one else would. It worked two-fold as well, since there were some Genin within who had latent abilities that needed to be drawn out through inspiration; and cleaning the city streets a few times apparently did the trick.
The cab pulled up to the giant towers and the heavy sennin climbed out of the back, the frame lifting back up on its suspensions. She casually walked her way up to the building, surprised Genins opening the doors for her as she crossed into the much milder warmth of her tower. Stepping onto the elevator near the entrance Rei keyed in the special code to have the metal box drop down under, into a secret basement that only the Sennin, Raikage, and the KIS knew of; the latter because it was their headquarters. The elevator opened to a dimly lit office with giant screens on the far wall displaying camera feedback on important posts throughout Kumogakure. A great deal of the staff turned to see who was walking through out of schedule and nearly everyone went straight out of protocol. Folders went flying, pages with redacted information flew through air, and nearly all of the staff rushed to meet the Sennin; many of them actually hugging her. A torrent of concerned questions about her health came in and the spymaster had to push them back, one-by-one, before finally explaining herself,
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Really, I just healed right up again. Lets not worry about me, we got a Village to protect! Chalk this down as a victory, we got one of the big bastards!”
“Which one do you think it was?”
“Delta, had to be Delta. If it had been Alpha I wouldn’t be standing here.”
The Lycan disease was a deep problem now, but the Guild taking great strides in curbing it. So long as they didn’t live in the country, a common citizen would never even hear about the werewolves. Even among the big farming communities it was mostly an unfounded rumor until her own pupil had been sent out to deal with some. Out in the boonies, though, that’s where they were still running rampant. Of the original shinobi that had been finally identified through a lot of this nonsense, Rei found that there were still 3 Jounins missing of considerable talent. Considering how powerful and quick her last opponent was, she had to assume that Delta had been Jousune - a solider who specialized in stealth combat. The other two were still out there, so far, but with Delta being eliminated, the rest woulds fall in sooner or later. Once the crowd had dispersed and duties were being returned to, Rei drew an aid to her side to catch up on everything she missed in the last three days…
Three hours later and a headache was killing the spymaster. She had caught up on the backlog in the first hour - thankfully most of it was easily delegated to lower stations. The last two was spent setting up Kumogakure on auto-pilot; or at least trying to. The problem with that came down to the burning fact that there would be some things in the courts getting tied up unless she passed down special privilege for their extended journey. Which, an easy fix, but could be disastrous if one of the Judges got too much power, or if they as a group decided to throw a coup. Rei trusted the men and women she had appointed, but the risk of power going to their head was huge….yet at the same time she couldn’t just tie up a lot of the big business proposals waiting on judgment from Kitsune and Rei. She reached up to draw the back of her palm against a sweaty forehead and it felt…furry…
The Sennin quickly drew the hands down in a panic. She stared at the palms first before turning them back over to find the back of her arms covered in dense Lycan fur. Her heart rate spiked. Turning the hands back over as she began to hyperventilate, Rei found the palms becoming a blackened distorted color and the fingers elongating into terrible claws. She began to scream for help again, pride be damned, but a howl ripped through and echoed off the glass panels instead. Bones began to dislocated, twist, and relocate. Her body felt like it was tearing itself apart and rearranging the muscle groups as her body bulged and solidified into a werewolf form. Clothing ripped to shreds, the woman watched in horror as her body began to move forward with no input from herself. With a simple palm thrust, the door to her office flew off and down the hall - decapitating someone walking by. Another furious roar tore through the office halls as Rei felt her body launch itself at the corpse, disemboweling and devouring the poor spy’s innards before turning a blood-lusting eye down the hall to see a bunch of other low-powered spies standing in shocked horror. In a blink the Sennin-Wolf was on the other side, her movement so quick no one saw her launch from one end of the hall to the other; just the blood sprays that painted the walls in her wake. Throughout the secret basement floor the entire KIS was trapped with their Spymaster as she hunted every single one down. No one could stand against Rei, even those who had been trained to face off against anything crumpled like paper before her raw might. She had ended her path of carnage in the very same room she had entered in. Feeding on one of the desk jockeys, the elevator gave off the warning ding that someone was coming, and when the door opened Kitsune stood there in abject horror. Her sharingan activated, and Rei launched herself at her best friend.
“NO!” Rei screamed as she woke up from her vivid nightmare. Her hand was extended out, as if trying to grab someone and stop them. Looking at the hand in horror, the same beginnings of the nightmare playing out again; it was partially transformed. This time, she drew her furry hands together and formed a few hand-seals that dumped the adrenaline flowing through her body and blocked off the gland. It dropped her mental state into a slog at first, but the fur all but fell off and her hands returned to normal. The Sennin carefully let up on the Jutsu until she could move again, grabbed the wastebasket beside it, and vomited violently into it. Sobs of crying could be heard between the retching, if anyone could actually hear anything outside of the soundproof room. The dream of killing those she found precious tore her to pieces, and the strange nightmares from the hospital could no longer just be side-effects from pain killers she barely took. It was more than obvious that somehow, Delta had infected her in his last act.
The Sennin stormed out of her own office. She didn’t say a single thing to those in passing but they didn’t ask either. Most of them were just happy to see their leader up and walking around again, completely unaware that she was saving their lives right at that moment. Rei didn’t even know when the fever took her and caused her to pass out. From the papers on her desk prior to leaving it looked like she was on the final stages of turning on auto-piolt instead of bing a worry-wart about the Judges. The doctor had no idea how long she had been out, nor did it matter anymore; she had a problem that needed dealing with. The options for doing so came down to three choices; her best friend, the Forbidden Archives, or the secrets her own clan held.
The first one was out. As much as Rei wanted to bring this to Kitsune’s attention, she was too afraid of the consequences. If something went wrong that would be the Raikage’s possible death, or even Rei’s possible death at her best friend’s hands which, didn’t sound like it’d go well either. Also it would absolutely push back their diplomatic mission by only the Kami knew how long. The time was ripe. Everything had finally lined up for a potential true alliance between Kumogakure and Konohagakure. If Kitsune and Rei were successful in their mission, the two major military powers would easily rule over two-thirds of the known world with trade routes being shared between each other. The economic boom of their technology, and the Fire Country’s production, could set up for a massive empire ruled by two states.
The Forbidden Archive was also out. While it probably had some kind of answer lying in wait, she had a feeling that there wasn’t much time left to research this disease. Plus there was little to no real organization. Archives on old bloodlines had been lost in there for ages with some only recently being rediscovered by Miro’s ex-protege. Which left the doctor with her own clan’s secret crap…something she didn’t take lightly.
There was only one thing she could think of that could even begin to remotely help, and that was the very same seal she had on her chest. The Dragon Seal, as it was simply called, was a multi-leveled seal that kept her wild chakra in check so that it didn’t tear her body apart; just unleashing it down to the 6th Seal broke her damn femur! Unfortunately, the new time-bomb inside of Rei was biological. It couldn’t be simply sealed away and dealt with later. If she transformed and lost control on the trip, or god forbid, during the negotiations, there was no telling how much leverage those in Leaf could have over them; so waiting wasn’t going to be an answer either. Not when vivid nightmare were already trying to turn her into one of the beasts.
The doctor quickly pushed past people in the lobby before stepping back out into the cold air once more. Night had fallen already and she felt like her chakra was fluctuating violently. Biting her bottom lip and taking a deep breath, she tried to shoot it down to her feet to help launch into the air, only to find herself far higher than intended, and going up twice as fast. Looking down at the village whizzing by, Rei held her hands out and used all of her mental focus to start molding her chakra to channel the element of Air and stream it out of her fingers. After a moment she was able to “grasp” the sky, and used it like a velvet drape to drop herself down into the center of her compound. Aids went to her side immediately and she turned them way - only giving instructions to keep Sumika and everyone else away from her and safe.
Within the compound and beneath Rei’s home shared with only her most trusted clansmen was a secret tunnel that lead down into an old ritual chamber. It had been built ages ago by the previous clan that originally built the grounds and was perfect for high-level sealing rituals. The entire room’s walls, stone pillars displaying thousands of sealing tags, and ritual table in the center were all made from the same blue, chakra refracting, marble. The Sennin had no idea what kind of stone it was and feared chipping any of it off for study in the hubris that it might ruin whatever magic had originally been instilled into these stones. The Dragon Seal could have up to twenty-seven layers of sealing, and normally a single layer took an entire day - but not so in this chamber. Here, the warrior was, (with the help of her clan), able to seal eight layers in eight hours.
The sealed doors barring entrance from the secret stairs leading back up into the home were thrown open as the desperate woman stood there panting. One of her eyes was already turning feral, and she could feel half of her teeth had transformed as well. It was pure willpower now that held her together as she limped on towards the ritual table; her left leg suddenly numb. The fellow Ryuu clansmen stumbled in behind, trying so hard to cry out and stop her but she simply kept going forward. Once she stepped over a certain threshold, her leaking chakra activated the built in seal to keep them out as they watched, helpless.
At the edge of the circular room, within the four pillars, Rei bit down on her wrist. The blood welling up in her mouth was horribly distracting, causing her to bite down a little harder than intended. The barely felt pain was the only thing that triggered her will to release the wrist as it gushed blood freely. With a weak limp the transforming monster moved around the alter to make a circle. Then she splashed the first pillar, the one behind her, then the two to each side; all of them in cardinal directions of North, South, and then East/West at the same time. The blood immediately began to glow a soft purple hue. The warrior’s vision had long ago started to blur, and the memory of how the seal was supposed to be written becoming harder to focus on. Yet still, she dropped to her knees before the alter, wetting her other hand with the wound to begin writing intricate designs, weaving in chakra with each stroke until the entire spell had been written out in grand detail. Even with her mind fogging up from blood-loss, Rei managed to not miss a single line before crawling onto the alter itself. She laid on her back and put her hands together though the left one with a wound had gone numb long ago. Three Seals. Tiger, Dog, and then Dragon. The chakra stored within the blood began to light up, along with the pillars, and became an unbearable sight to look upon. Purple light filled the chamber, refracting off the barrier that kept it from unleashing and absorbing the entire clan grounds.
Screams suddenly rent the air. Blood began to spray against the walls of the barrier, covering some of the pouring light as they increased - were cut suddenly silent - and then began again. The warrior’s severed arm smashed into the barrier before burning away from the might of the chakra swirling within. Inside the woman was being torn to pieces and reassembled over and over again. The Lycan Virus was also being torn and reassembled, layering itself over Rei’s genetic code as it began to transform her. At one moment all that remained was a brain, eyes, and nervous system. Then she was a werewolf, eight feet in height and heavy enough to crack the alter she laid upon. Then she was a normal human again, fear in her eyes as she fell witness to her own hubris. Had the spell gone wrong? Her mind raced before it was torn apart and reassembled again.
Three hours passed. Then six. Help had been called but nothing could break the barrier or those with the know-how to do so feared that doing it would actually kill her. So those limited few in the know, Kitsune, the headmembers of the Ryuu Clan, and the other Sennins, could do nothing but wait for either the warrior within’s willpower to crumble, or for the seal to finish the job it normally took multiple people to do. After another hour of sheer silence, then the barrier began to show cracks. Within moments the cracks multiplied until it shattered, sending blades of chakra to embed themselves into the strange blue marble. Rei wasn’t anywhere to be seen, at first, but the lingering chakra in the air began to swirl into the center above the alter. It pieced together into human flesh, slowly, rebuilding their head clansman from the toe to the head. When it finished it was clear that she lost something along the way. Those stalwart muscles, so proud of them she had been, were all but gone. While the body rebuilt was toned and created towards something in the mind of stealth applications, no more did she appear to wield the superhuman strength she had become famous for.
Until the chakra around her began to shake reality itself.
The naked woman raised her hands, eyes still glazed over in a trance as she commanded the new power created within to reabsorb itself back inside. An intricate seal burned itself onto her flesh, tribal-esque in its style that covered her entire body. It then reeled back in, folding in on itself until it was a smaller circular seal onto the center of her back. Steam hissed from it, as if the heated mark had been seared onto Rei’s flesh with a heated brand. Still floating there for a moment the glazed look finally regained full focus as she fell back to the blue marble, crumpling down onto all fours with heavy breathing as sweat began to bead onto her flesh. Her eyes shook from the experience.
Madness was ever at the door in the Ryuu’s head. It was part of that infamous curse her clan skirted around. Even those with latent powers had to be careful, and those with powers like her’s…well, easy to say the Dragon Seal did a lot originally in keeping that all in check. The feeling of being torn apart and re-imagined by her own willpower over and over again until she finally found form, had been more than enough to finally break her steel mind a little. With a shaky hand the woman touched her own face, eyes, and lips, panting quickly into a hyperventilation until screaming again; she lost consciousness immediately after and fell over.
The Main Branch’s leader slipped into a coma for about a week after. When she woke back up she was surrounded by many of the Ryuu Clan and the Raikage herself. As the Sennin went to move in her bed to sit up better she found her strength all but gone. It took real effort to move, the seal etched onto her flesh still healing, along with the burns left by the original seal in full form. It made it all but impossible to shift without help; which was graciously offered by all in the room, at the same time. The results of her emergency ritual were finally brought to her attention once a doctor ran everyone out except Kitsune. The chamber she had used for the Dragon Seal was destroyed. Shortly after she collapsed the strange blue marble disintegrated into ash, causing a structural collapse of her home. No one was hurt, thankfully, as her command to remove everyone important out had been followed to the letter. The more alarming thing was that the doctors could no longer track her genetic make up. Rei’s DNA structure had been changed to a point that her chromosomes could no longer be counted. All known diseases and hereditary aliments from her parents had been erased, but along with that not a single trace of the Lycan Virus could be found either. She was, technically, no longer human though. The sennin’s new skinny weak-seeming form asked everyone to please leave the room as she pondered the meaning of her existence.
Another week past. Plans for the diplomatic trip were being finalized by Kitsune herself as Rei continued to take time off her job and let the Captains of each sub-branch take over temporarily as a mini-council. Such a thing would have never crossed the old Rei’s mind. She had also shed any need for a disguise or secrecy. Most days she could be found in a trance-like state wearing street clothes. Her white hair billowed around her softly as her red eyes stared off into the distance. What was going through the Sennin’s head was impossible to tell, and there was no something of an aloofness that she had never once shown throughout her entire life. Every once in a while she would hold up her palm and look at where there would have been scars from the Lycan’s bite and then back out into the wild-blue yonder…
[Topic Entered/Left]
[MFT]
Instead of doing her normal thing where she used chakra to jump across the village in high speeds, the Sennin instead hailed a taxi. A simple black beetle-esque car with a TAXI sign lit up on top slowed down and allowed the woman to climb in. She gave a curt order and the driver looked up into his rear-view to see who had gotten into his cab; the man’s face quickly paling at the sight of the Ryuu Head Clansman. Without wasting a step the cabbie shifted gears and began to move back into the light traffic of their city. The movement of the car through the streets was an odd sensation but Rei enjoyed it regardless. The chance to watch the citizens and random members of her branch in such a casual setting allowed her a wider view. Usually she was set on looking down from above, but today, she rode among the commons. Despite the epic growth of their fair Village the streets were clean; exceptionally so. Having low-ranking Genin who never get beyond a certain power-set gave the army a lot of extra hands to do extra jobs no one else would. It worked two-fold as well, since there were some Genin within who had latent abilities that needed to be drawn out through inspiration; and cleaning the city streets a few times apparently did the trick.
The cab pulled up to the giant towers and the heavy sennin climbed out of the back, the frame lifting back up on its suspensions. She casually walked her way up to the building, surprised Genins opening the doors for her as she crossed into the much milder warmth of her tower. Stepping onto the elevator near the entrance Rei keyed in the special code to have the metal box drop down under, into a secret basement that only the Sennin, Raikage, and the KIS knew of; the latter because it was their headquarters. The elevator opened to a dimly lit office with giant screens on the far wall displaying camera feedback on important posts throughout Kumogakure. A great deal of the staff turned to see who was walking through out of schedule and nearly everyone went straight out of protocol. Folders went flying, pages with redacted information flew through air, and nearly all of the staff rushed to meet the Sennin; many of them actually hugging her. A torrent of concerned questions about her health came in and the spymaster had to push them back, one-by-one, before finally explaining herself,
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Really, I just healed right up again. Lets not worry about me, we got a Village to protect! Chalk this down as a victory, we got one of the big bastards!”
“Which one do you think it was?”
“Delta, had to be Delta. If it had been Alpha I wouldn’t be standing here.”
The Lycan disease was a deep problem now, but the Guild taking great strides in curbing it. So long as they didn’t live in the country, a common citizen would never even hear about the werewolves. Even among the big farming communities it was mostly an unfounded rumor until her own pupil had been sent out to deal with some. Out in the boonies, though, that’s where they were still running rampant. Of the original shinobi that had been finally identified through a lot of this nonsense, Rei found that there were still 3 Jounins missing of considerable talent. Considering how powerful and quick her last opponent was, she had to assume that Delta had been Jousune - a solider who specialized in stealth combat. The other two were still out there, so far, but with Delta being eliminated, the rest woulds fall in sooner or later. Once the crowd had dispersed and duties were being returned to, Rei drew an aid to her side to catch up on everything she missed in the last three days…
Three hours later and a headache was killing the spymaster. She had caught up on the backlog in the first hour - thankfully most of it was easily delegated to lower stations. The last two was spent setting up Kumogakure on auto-pilot; or at least trying to. The problem with that came down to the burning fact that there would be some things in the courts getting tied up unless she passed down special privilege for their extended journey. Which, an easy fix, but could be disastrous if one of the Judges got too much power, or if they as a group decided to throw a coup. Rei trusted the men and women she had appointed, but the risk of power going to their head was huge….yet at the same time she couldn’t just tie up a lot of the big business proposals waiting on judgment from Kitsune and Rei. She reached up to draw the back of her palm against a sweaty forehead and it felt…furry…
The Sennin quickly drew the hands down in a panic. She stared at the palms first before turning them back over to find the back of her arms covered in dense Lycan fur. Her heart rate spiked. Turning the hands back over as she began to hyperventilate, Rei found the palms becoming a blackened distorted color and the fingers elongating into terrible claws. She began to scream for help again, pride be damned, but a howl ripped through and echoed off the glass panels instead. Bones began to dislocated, twist, and relocate. Her body felt like it was tearing itself apart and rearranging the muscle groups as her body bulged and solidified into a werewolf form. Clothing ripped to shreds, the woman watched in horror as her body began to move forward with no input from herself. With a simple palm thrust, the door to her office flew off and down the hall - decapitating someone walking by. Another furious roar tore through the office halls as Rei felt her body launch itself at the corpse, disemboweling and devouring the poor spy’s innards before turning a blood-lusting eye down the hall to see a bunch of other low-powered spies standing in shocked horror. In a blink the Sennin-Wolf was on the other side, her movement so quick no one saw her launch from one end of the hall to the other; just the blood sprays that painted the walls in her wake. Throughout the secret basement floor the entire KIS was trapped with their Spymaster as she hunted every single one down. No one could stand against Rei, even those who had been trained to face off against anything crumpled like paper before her raw might. She had ended her path of carnage in the very same room she had entered in. Feeding on one of the desk jockeys, the elevator gave off the warning ding that someone was coming, and when the door opened Kitsune stood there in abject horror. Her sharingan activated, and Rei launched herself at her best friend.
“NO!” Rei screamed as she woke up from her vivid nightmare. Her hand was extended out, as if trying to grab someone and stop them. Looking at the hand in horror, the same beginnings of the nightmare playing out again; it was partially transformed. This time, she drew her furry hands together and formed a few hand-seals that dumped the adrenaline flowing through her body and blocked off the gland. It dropped her mental state into a slog at first, but the fur all but fell off and her hands returned to normal. The Sennin carefully let up on the Jutsu until she could move again, grabbed the wastebasket beside it, and vomited violently into it. Sobs of crying could be heard between the retching, if anyone could actually hear anything outside of the soundproof room. The dream of killing those she found precious tore her to pieces, and the strange nightmares from the hospital could no longer just be side-effects from pain killers she barely took. It was more than obvious that somehow, Delta had infected her in his last act.
The Sennin stormed out of her own office. She didn’t say a single thing to those in passing but they didn’t ask either. Most of them were just happy to see their leader up and walking around again, completely unaware that she was saving their lives right at that moment. Rei didn’t even know when the fever took her and caused her to pass out. From the papers on her desk prior to leaving it looked like she was on the final stages of turning on auto-piolt instead of bing a worry-wart about the Judges. The doctor had no idea how long she had been out, nor did it matter anymore; she had a problem that needed dealing with. The options for doing so came down to three choices; her best friend, the Forbidden Archives, or the secrets her own clan held.
The first one was out. As much as Rei wanted to bring this to Kitsune’s attention, she was too afraid of the consequences. If something went wrong that would be the Raikage’s possible death, or even Rei’s possible death at her best friend’s hands which, didn’t sound like it’d go well either. Also it would absolutely push back their diplomatic mission by only the Kami knew how long. The time was ripe. Everything had finally lined up for a potential true alliance between Kumogakure and Konohagakure. If Kitsune and Rei were successful in their mission, the two major military powers would easily rule over two-thirds of the known world with trade routes being shared between each other. The economic boom of their technology, and the Fire Country’s production, could set up for a massive empire ruled by two states.
The Forbidden Archive was also out. While it probably had some kind of answer lying in wait, she had a feeling that there wasn’t much time left to research this disease. Plus there was little to no real organization. Archives on old bloodlines had been lost in there for ages with some only recently being rediscovered by Miro’s ex-protege. Which left the doctor with her own clan’s secret crap…something she didn’t take lightly.
There was only one thing she could think of that could even begin to remotely help, and that was the very same seal she had on her chest. The Dragon Seal, as it was simply called, was a multi-leveled seal that kept her wild chakra in check so that it didn’t tear her body apart; just unleashing it down to the 6th Seal broke her damn femur! Unfortunately, the new time-bomb inside of Rei was biological. It couldn’t be simply sealed away and dealt with later. If she transformed and lost control on the trip, or god forbid, during the negotiations, there was no telling how much leverage those in Leaf could have over them; so waiting wasn’t going to be an answer either. Not when vivid nightmare were already trying to turn her into one of the beasts.
The doctor quickly pushed past people in the lobby before stepping back out into the cold air once more. Night had fallen already and she felt like her chakra was fluctuating violently. Biting her bottom lip and taking a deep breath, she tried to shoot it down to her feet to help launch into the air, only to find herself far higher than intended, and going up twice as fast. Looking down at the village whizzing by, Rei held her hands out and used all of her mental focus to start molding her chakra to channel the element of Air and stream it out of her fingers. After a moment she was able to “grasp” the sky, and used it like a velvet drape to drop herself down into the center of her compound. Aids went to her side immediately and she turned them way - only giving instructions to keep Sumika and everyone else away from her and safe.
Within the compound and beneath Rei’s home shared with only her most trusted clansmen was a secret tunnel that lead down into an old ritual chamber. It had been built ages ago by the previous clan that originally built the grounds and was perfect for high-level sealing rituals. The entire room’s walls, stone pillars displaying thousands of sealing tags, and ritual table in the center were all made from the same blue, chakra refracting, marble. The Sennin had no idea what kind of stone it was and feared chipping any of it off for study in the hubris that it might ruin whatever magic had originally been instilled into these stones. The Dragon Seal could have up to twenty-seven layers of sealing, and normally a single layer took an entire day - but not so in this chamber. Here, the warrior was, (with the help of her clan), able to seal eight layers in eight hours.
The sealed doors barring entrance from the secret stairs leading back up into the home were thrown open as the desperate woman stood there panting. One of her eyes was already turning feral, and she could feel half of her teeth had transformed as well. It was pure willpower now that held her together as she limped on towards the ritual table; her left leg suddenly numb. The fellow Ryuu clansmen stumbled in behind, trying so hard to cry out and stop her but she simply kept going forward. Once she stepped over a certain threshold, her leaking chakra activated the built in seal to keep them out as they watched, helpless.
At the edge of the circular room, within the four pillars, Rei bit down on her wrist. The blood welling up in her mouth was horribly distracting, causing her to bite down a little harder than intended. The barely felt pain was the only thing that triggered her will to release the wrist as it gushed blood freely. With a weak limp the transforming monster moved around the alter to make a circle. Then she splashed the first pillar, the one behind her, then the two to each side; all of them in cardinal directions of North, South, and then East/West at the same time. The blood immediately began to glow a soft purple hue. The warrior’s vision had long ago started to blur, and the memory of how the seal was supposed to be written becoming harder to focus on. Yet still, she dropped to her knees before the alter, wetting her other hand with the wound to begin writing intricate designs, weaving in chakra with each stroke until the entire spell had been written out in grand detail. Even with her mind fogging up from blood-loss, Rei managed to not miss a single line before crawling onto the alter itself. She laid on her back and put her hands together though the left one with a wound had gone numb long ago. Three Seals. Tiger, Dog, and then Dragon. The chakra stored within the blood began to light up, along with the pillars, and became an unbearable sight to look upon. Purple light filled the chamber, refracting off the barrier that kept it from unleashing and absorbing the entire clan grounds.
Screams suddenly rent the air. Blood began to spray against the walls of the barrier, covering some of the pouring light as they increased - were cut suddenly silent - and then began again. The warrior’s severed arm smashed into the barrier before burning away from the might of the chakra swirling within. Inside the woman was being torn to pieces and reassembled over and over again. The Lycan Virus was also being torn and reassembled, layering itself over Rei’s genetic code as it began to transform her. At one moment all that remained was a brain, eyes, and nervous system. Then she was a werewolf, eight feet in height and heavy enough to crack the alter she laid upon. Then she was a normal human again, fear in her eyes as she fell witness to her own hubris. Had the spell gone wrong? Her mind raced before it was torn apart and reassembled again.
Three hours passed. Then six. Help had been called but nothing could break the barrier or those with the know-how to do so feared that doing it would actually kill her. So those limited few in the know, Kitsune, the headmembers of the Ryuu Clan, and the other Sennins, could do nothing but wait for either the warrior within’s willpower to crumble, or for the seal to finish the job it normally took multiple people to do. After another hour of sheer silence, then the barrier began to show cracks. Within moments the cracks multiplied until it shattered, sending blades of chakra to embed themselves into the strange blue marble. Rei wasn’t anywhere to be seen, at first, but the lingering chakra in the air began to swirl into the center above the alter. It pieced together into human flesh, slowly, rebuilding their head clansman from the toe to the head. When it finished it was clear that she lost something along the way. Those stalwart muscles, so proud of them she had been, were all but gone. While the body rebuilt was toned and created towards something in the mind of stealth applications, no more did she appear to wield the superhuman strength she had become famous for.
Until the chakra around her began to shake reality itself.
The naked woman raised her hands, eyes still glazed over in a trance as she commanded the new power created within to reabsorb itself back inside. An intricate seal burned itself onto her flesh, tribal-esque in its style that covered her entire body. It then reeled back in, folding in on itself until it was a smaller circular seal onto the center of her back. Steam hissed from it, as if the heated mark had been seared onto Rei’s flesh with a heated brand. Still floating there for a moment the glazed look finally regained full focus as she fell back to the blue marble, crumpling down onto all fours with heavy breathing as sweat began to bead onto her flesh. Her eyes shook from the experience.
Madness was ever at the door in the Ryuu’s head. It was part of that infamous curse her clan skirted around. Even those with latent powers had to be careful, and those with powers like her’s…well, easy to say the Dragon Seal did a lot originally in keeping that all in check. The feeling of being torn apart and re-imagined by her own willpower over and over again until she finally found form, had been more than enough to finally break her steel mind a little. With a shaky hand the woman touched her own face, eyes, and lips, panting quickly into a hyperventilation until screaming again; she lost consciousness immediately after and fell over.
The Main Branch’s leader slipped into a coma for about a week after. When she woke back up she was surrounded by many of the Ryuu Clan and the Raikage herself. As the Sennin went to move in her bed to sit up better she found her strength all but gone. It took real effort to move, the seal etched onto her flesh still healing, along with the burns left by the original seal in full form. It made it all but impossible to shift without help; which was graciously offered by all in the room, at the same time. The results of her emergency ritual were finally brought to her attention once a doctor ran everyone out except Kitsune. The chamber she had used for the Dragon Seal was destroyed. Shortly after she collapsed the strange blue marble disintegrated into ash, causing a structural collapse of her home. No one was hurt, thankfully, as her command to remove everyone important out had been followed to the letter. The more alarming thing was that the doctors could no longer track her genetic make up. Rei’s DNA structure had been changed to a point that her chromosomes could no longer be counted. All known diseases and hereditary aliments from her parents had been erased, but along with that not a single trace of the Lycan Virus could be found either. She was, technically, no longer human though. The sennin’s new skinny weak-seeming form asked everyone to please leave the room as she pondered the meaning of her existence.
Another week past. Plans for the diplomatic trip were being finalized by Kitsune herself as Rei continued to take time off her job and let the Captains of each sub-branch take over temporarily as a mini-council. Such a thing would have never crossed the old Rei’s mind. She had also shed any need for a disguise or secrecy. Most days she could be found in a trance-like state wearing street clothes. Her white hair billowed around her softly as her red eyes stared off into the distance. What was going through the Sennin’s head was impossible to tell, and there was no something of an aloofness that she had never once shown throughout her entire life. Every once in a while she would hold up her palm and look at where there would have been scars from the Lycan’s bite and then back out into the wild-blue yonder…
[Topic Entered/Left]
[MFT]