Itami had been sitting at his desk within his office. A small manor guest house behind the main mansion of one of the many politicians in Konoha that owed him a great deal of favors. After all he had made sure they made it into office and then had all their little slip ups with their hobbies covered up. Some might call it black mail that had him housed and hidden but he really liked to think of it more as a favor between friends. After all one tended to be your friend when you rid the evidence of them killing hookers. Sometimes choking games just went too far. For this one man it happened a little more often then Itami would like but at least he cared little for those turned to little more than ash. Just another tool used to gain him power in the end. Not much of a waste any way. Whores were a dime a dozen. Not that they charged such affordable prices.

Still even if the status of his household was rather humble he would get by. No servants since he needed to remain hidden more often then not. Due to an annoying nephew. However the cleaning lady did come by once a week to clean the rest of the place and the mess he had made. Never his office though. It was his private space where he kept certain files under strict confidence. An incineration seal placed for any chakra other than his own attempting to access them. Nothing that might incriminate him but more of a file on those that might prove useful to his schemes in the future. So it was that he sat behind the mahogany desk in his button up silver silk shirt and black slacks with dress shoes on and studied one such file that had been purchased just that morning. It appeared that one of his interests had turned back up in the world.

Enaka had been interesting but difficult to influence since he cared little for money. It was his favorite way to influence many around him since money could buy almost everyone and he had an abundance. However there were other things to influence those with less interest in monatary gain. Lamya for instance was the file he was examining now. She was a name he recognized and had always had an invested interest in investing time into. Likely she was like her uncle and too smart to turn and do his bidding for thirty pieces of silver. However she had a great deal of hate in her. How she ended up in the prison was unknown to him as was her current lack of chakra. However she was someone close his that annoying nephew of his. Someone of use that was already on a dark path.

So Enaka had made his way as soon as night fell out of the manor having donned his black sports jacket and glasses as well as a walking cane before catching a carriage ride to the prison. Traveling in luxury and confidence was far more comfortable then walking where someone he didn't care to see him recognizing him. Besides Rippa was out of town. If there was a time to make a move it was now. He smiled as he pulled up to the prison and his guard on the pay roll was waiting to escort him within. Quietly he would climb from the carriage and step foot across the prison grounds. Letting the transport wait there for him. He ignored the sounds of the prison as he walked its halls and took the elevator down to the correct level. The guard droning on and on about how costly it would be to lose her and how much compensation he would need. Such a bothersome one. Still the lift would stop and he would walk down the hall until they reached just the right cell. The sound of his shoes across the concrete echoed as did his cane tapping the floor every left step. Slowly he would step in front of the cell and smile to the poor woman within. Tilting his head as he examined her.

"My my someone has treated you poorly haven't they Ms. Risu?"

Visits had been few and between, interrogations more so, but trying to get any information out of someone who had both the history as the former Anbu captain-general and a history as a puppet, a plaything for a man notorious for his cruelty like Enaka, was nearly impossible. Not to mention the fact something was fueling the former White Snake of Konoha other than anger for her imprisonment, it was a seething hatred, a boiling rage and a thirst for vengeance which drove her to percevere in konoha's prison.

A few guards had already managed to underestimate the young woman trapped in her cell, thinking that she was helpless without her weapons and her jutsu as some of the prison medics had managed to find out. However, these poor guards forgot about her rather extraordinary physical capacities, which ranked her among konoha's best. Two guards had already been sent to the medical ward with  a broken arm and one of the guards had his neck snapped in such a fashion that though he'd survive, he would never be a shinobi again.

The warden had warned her he'd put her in the lowest level if she continued on this path, threatening her with a solitary confinement in the lowest levels of the prison with anbu guards rather than regular ones. Laughing at her that unlike her uncle, she could not escape so easily nor did she have the man's sway over the guards. Yet, when confronted with the warden, the young woman just spat in his face and smirked, resulting in his two best guards roughing her up a little before sending her back to her cell.

It was funny, how those guards thought she could be handled without any caution, thus as she was beaten up, she managed to take a senbon from one of the guards and used it to unlock her shackles, yet during her attempt to unlock the door, the senbon broke. With a chuckle she dropped back onto the ground, still glad that at least her hands and feet were now free.

Suddenly, while she was enjoying her limited freedom, as she was rubbing her wrists and anckles, she could hear the doors of the lift on the other end of the corridor open and close. The typical sound of the metal clanking and the hissing of the pistons making Risu quite wary of what was going on. the fact that those sounds were followed by the sound of something hard tapping onto the ground in a rather rhytmic fashion, made her stand up and get slightly closer to the cell's doors, finding the sound to be conspicuously ominous. However, due to her lack of abilities at the moment, she could not perceive nor sense who it was that was coming closer and closer. It was really frustrating to be in such a weakened state and even though she should've been able to simply rip the celldoor out of its hinges with some great effort... it would mean nothing if she still had to go all the way up to gain her freedom.

"My my someone has treated you poorly haven't they Ms. Risu?"

The former Anbu captain single eye turned towards the face at the other side of her cell's door, a smirk appearing on her face when she had the time to analyze the face she was seeing. It wasn't someone she was familiar with, not someone she knew directly, but something told her this person was... interesting.

"This is a prison after all...pointless to expect anything better out of this place."

610

Itami would smile and tilt his head at her smirk and remark. How remarkable that she would have so much spirit in her with the condition she was in and where she was. Idly he would rest his cane up against the wall and reach up to remove his glasses. As he did he would lower them and take a hankerchief with her clans symbol on it out of his coat pocket and begin to clean it. As he cleaned it he looked up and around the cage. As he did she would notice something different if she were looking. With the glasses on his eyes had both been blue but when he removed the glasses his right eye where a large scar was present was purple and it had some strange design with several lines going through it. His eyes studied her cell a moment before noticing the broken bits of Senbon. His head tilted before he held his hand out over the lock and the metal seemed to simply pull to him as if by some unseen strings out of the lock. Slipping gracefully into his hand as he studied it a moment. Slipping his glasses back on and puppeting the hankerchief as his eyes returned to blue behind the glasses. Speaking to her while studying the small weapon. Still missing a larger piece.

"Yes, one wouldn't expect five star meals and a chocolate under their pillow every night here would they? Oh it even appears they didn't supply you with your own room key. Creative though. Coming across this in here certainly shows you as a resourceful individual."

He would twirl the broken senbon between his fingers a moment as he studied her a little longer. How surprising that she didn't appear to recognize him. It amused him that Enaka had been one of the few people that hadn't revealed him at all. Of course those that had the temptation he had chosen to give them an express ticket to the after life. Still the piece of metal spun between his nimble fingers idly like a drum stick as he looked her over. The guard at the end of the hall not entirely out of ear shot. He wondered if she might go for his cane to try and use it in some way but he was positive in his own capabilities. He had of course read her reports and knew her to be more than capable as a shinobi. Still it was so curious to see someone of her calibur and sense her chakra within her. Knowing she couldn't access it certainly made him more confident. Yet no aura of danger or killing intent came off Itami. It was as if he was a politician and not a shinobi. However someone as skilled as Lamya would be able to easily sense something was off about him. And for all his perfume, his scent of cigar smoke, she might even catch a wiff of a familiar scent. Like blood freshly spilled but none to be seen. Still he would lean up against the wall and let his head touch the concrete as he gazed into her cell. Looking her in the eye.

"I have a question for you Ms. Risu and I would appreciate it if I were given a straight forward answer. Your relationship with one Dr. Chi Rippa, How would you describe it? Are you two close perhaps?"

"A man that I do not know visits me, an older and seemingly distinguished gentleman from the looks of it," The young woman laughed, as she looked at the man with her single eye. Yet when she got to see his eyes when he removed those glasses of him, she did notice that one of his eyes was very different, without a doubt it was some sort of dojutsu. Silently she licked her lips when she could hear the metal of the lock on her celldoor warp and twist to seemingly the mysterious man's very own presence, when in an instant the other part of the senbon she had stolen flung out of the lock into the man's hand.

With a smirk on her face she watched the man carefully, strangely interested if it was the dojutsu or perhaps something else which he used to get the piece of the senbon out of the lock, perhaps some very thin invisible strands of chakra. It intrigued her, but then again it didn't really matter. If this man was perhaps sent to kill her, he surely took his time and above all that, he seemed rather talkative for someone who'd do any dirty job himself. "If I wasn't resourceful...do you think I would've survived for so long in this world filled with lies and deception?"

The young woman turned around slowly, walking to the other end of the cell, waving her hair aside before she settled herself upon the cold concrete floor. Even when there was no throne, no chair, not even a pillow of a sheet filled with straw to sit on, she treated her cell as her kingdom and the place were she sat as her throne. After all, even without her jutsu abilities, even with an eye taken from her, she was still Orochi Risu, nay she was Lamya; the anbu captain once touted as part of Konoha's three geniuses.

Then finally the mysterious man seemed to come closer to the goal, the purpose of his strange visit. Though she had some hesitation towards the question, some wariness towards the man's expectations, she had learned from Kyohei that due to the change of Hokages, she had been forgotten, thought to have died while on a mission and what none knew was that this solitude, this distance from the village and the nature of the mission she had given herself had twisted her view on the world or rather it had opened her eyes. The shinobi world was a flawed place, where those in the shadows were discarded by those in the light, pawns to be used and abused without the public knowing it. There was a great darkness in the world and the wrongful struggle against it only made things worse.

"Once perhaps...once I could've seen him as a good friend, an older brother...something more that I wanted," The woman chuckled when she remembered that he had actually rejected her a long time ago and though now she had fully become an adult, he probably would never look at her again with the same expressions like he did before. All of the love in her life had turned against her, Kyohei had gotten over her disappearance, so would Rippa. "He is a proud Konoha shinobi, a well respected member of this village and nation...someone who could potentially get in my way..."

The young woman stood up, slowly walking towards the bars of the celldoor, placing her hands on the bars as she closed in towards Itami, looking him in the eye with her only visible one, smiling rather seductively as she licked her lips. "Now... why would someone who can't hide the smell of blood ask a snake for something like that... there's always a reason behind a question."

Lamya's expression, the glee in her smile contradicting the void in her golden eye, it was an expression so familiar to all who had seen Him. her years toiling in the darkness of the shinobi world, the pain of losing everything, the shock of losing her love and the fire of a new, darker ambition burning within herself. She was so similar to Him now, as if the final piece had been brought to complete the puzzle, she had become a real snake now.

All who had ever face or dealt with Him, could remember Him, even if it had been years or even decades, his eyes void of any emotion, the gleeful smile. Perhaps Itami, due to his own burning ambition and sinister dealings had never feared Enaka, simply because they shared some interests, but nonetheless he should've known that the one named Orochi Risu was gone and all that was before him was Lamya... a perfect creation by His hands, a monster molded by tragedy, lies and deception.

817/1427

Itami would smile at being considered a distinguished gentleman. Oh how he liked to make people believe such things. So much of the world saw everything in black and white. The evil people had no use for someone with good intentions and the good people had no room for anyone with an ounce of evil in their heart. The hypocrisy was just exhausting. So from an early age Itami had always wanted to see the grey area that so few believed exhisted. As if such a thing were difficult to find. To so many he was just a good doctor and helpful to the clan. To others he was the funding to some very unspeakable activities. Neither world was ever allowed to know of the other if he could help it. Of course there were those that simply could not be easily swayed from the truth. Enaka had proved especially troubling in that aspect. Discovering more about Itami than Itami had ever intended to let on. He hadn't known to be as careful then. For now he was careful to avoid his name or relations to his target. No more owing favors to his toys.

In silence he would watch as she moved across her cell and made herself comfortable. Like she were playing a game with him. Digging for information yet he was simply interested in her views on the matter. Evading his own reason for being there. His glance shifted to the guard checking his watch. It appeared time was a limited resource. How long could the man keep Itami's presence here hidden? He wasn't the warden after all. Just another guard looking to earn a quick pocket full of coin. Poor choices for someone trying to protect the world from the contents of the prison. Still Lamya speaking up with humor in her voice reattached his gaze to her. No sign of concern on his features. They were making quick progress without any riddles or mind games. Straight forward conversation. He listened as he grew ever so slightly concerned she might not have the stomach for the job he wanted her for. She knew plenty about the man though. She had grown next to Rippa. Part of a legend with him. If anyone could get close it was her. What only made it better was how she found the young man to be an obstacle.

He would smile a little as he stopped spinning the senbon. That was certainly something he could use. She viewed the target as a threat. However if he knew Rippa he knew the man thought of her as a friend. One never saw the knife from those closest until it dug into their back. By then it would be far too late. She slowly moved over next to him doing something along the lines of what he assumed was practiced seduction. Of course Itami had no time for such things nor interest. If he wanted to get his peter wet there were safer routes to take. Danger was not a turn on for him. Still he smiled in a half cocked grin before listening to her question. Redirecting away from it slightly by flicking his free hand not holding the broken senbon. One moment his hand was empty and the next like magic it had a small vile in it. A green tinted liquid filling the tiny thing. A creation of Enaka's that he kept a sample of just for such an occassion. He spoke to her then with a smile and a flash of mischief and greed in his own gaze.

"Who am I? Lets call me Saint Nicholas. For you my dear it can be christmas. See, I harbor some irritation the the afore mentioned individual. You see, He is currently on a diplomatic mission to Kumo. Out of the village and without a clue of this game you played. You see him as a potential problem? This here is your solution. So I wonder, If I get you out of here...out of this cell and out of this prison, Can you make it all the way out of Konoha on your own? Can you bring yourself to take this little tiny thing and just, slip it into a drink of his? One moment a danger to you, the next nothing but a memory."

Lamya smiled rather haughtily at the man who called himself Saint Nicholas in a rather joking fashion. Who did he think he was talking to? All she needed was to find someone capable of restoring her power and when she'd use the opportunity of having her lost eye be replaced by a certain something she had managed to store away in a place only she knew about, she'd be as good as new, no she would be better than she had ever been before.

The former anbu captain noticed the smallvial the man so eloquently had appear into his hand, after years of going through her uncle's records and his creations, it was almost impossible for her not to recognize it. Though she still couldn't get a hold on all of her uncle's records, what he had left in the hideouts spread accross the land of fire was enough to know that what the stranger was holding in his hands was a means to a slow and agonizing death. "I see, you do not expect me to grant the person in question an honorable death. You truly show no mercy, mister Saint Nicholas. Ah well, we all have our crosses to bear and as I told Rippa on the first day we met, I am a monster."

With that being said, the woman smiled and nodded in the direction of the guard. "I can make it anywhere I want when I'm out of this place, though there will be something I need to have returned to me no matter the cost. My personal effects should be in storage and the only people that can get in the storage are those guards. You wouldn't want me to travel in these tasteless cloth sacks they call clothes, do you?"

It was truly sad though, that she had to accept a ticket out of jail from a stranger, being requested a job she would've tried to avoid whenever necessary, yet her freedom was more important than the life of a single man, even if it was Rippa. "If you don't disappoint me...I won't disappoint you, such are the rules of negotiation."

369/1796

ooc: sorry for the short post, I suck at fluff

Itami would listen to the woman as he glanced at the guard looking him over and then back to her. As if doing some sort of comparison and doing a rather large smile of satisfaction. Whatever he was planning would work nicely. Still her mention of him and his lack of mercy. The word bringing forth a sigh as if frustrated. Memories of the word used so often. Begging people asking to be forgiven for something that cost him, their lives on the balance brought that word out so often. Even those who thought themselves in a position of power utilized the word when they were asked something they truly didn't wish to do and yet were not given the option to deny the favor. So few people would get into power and not have some dirty laundry. Itami just had a way of finding it. Enaka had proved most useful with his information. However his protige he only needed for one thing because of her friendship with the target in the past.

Still as she mentioned needing her things he would pause his exasperation and look back to her. There was a chance she intended to try and snap his neck the moment he got that cage open. A chance that she would try and murder him just to get out of their deal. However there was something he liked about her. She was a professional. She didn't ask why he wanted the man poisoned, didn't push for his identity. Confidentiality was priceless in his business. Still he would hold the vial out to where she could easily grab it before winking if she did. Once the vial was collected (Assuming it is) Itami would eye the guard once more before taking a calm breath. The man was looking away from them and had never truly been more than a sacrifice anyway. That one had needed to know an awful lot. He had received lies of course but Itami doubted his continued silence. With the broken senbon Itami would prick the end of his finger ever so slightly. Removing the needle and holding out his hand as a single drop of blood fell to the floor. Crashing against the floor almost silently. For a moment it sat there motionless.

Then it began. The spot of red on the floor would spread out and swirl. Growing to the width of a man before ever so slightly growing taller and taller in silence. Itami would hold a finger to his lips as the shape would grow into some horned thing. Like the head of a goat but the body of a man and the legs of a hound. Standing on two paws with spikes running along its back. Made entirely of blood. It moved swiftly then, his demon blood puppet. The guard was picked up by the back of the head as large clawed hands wrapped fingers over his mouth and muffled his cries. With a couple of punches there was a snap as the spine severed and then another as the neck broke. Dropping the body to the floor the puppet rained down blows crushing the bones to powder and then removing the clothes. Finally it leaned down over the mans face. Dead eyes staring into empty sockets before it seemed to simply suck out all the insides and then fading into the ground back into a single spot of blood. Itami would walk over and collect the keys idly. Tossing them to lamya as he smiled to her.

"If you would step this way, I can make you a guard. Or at least the appearance of one that worked here until very recently."

Her eye was trained upon the single vial, it's contents thoug not completely known to her, the secrets of the liquid still not fully to her comprehension, Lamya knew that this was possibly one of the cruelest and least favorable ways to get someone to enter the final stages of their life. If anything, she'd rather allow the man she was supposed to kill a proper and merciful death at her own hands, but as she herself had said earlier: a deal is a deal and she was bound to her own words. It was ironic that while she desired completele freedom, the former Anbu captain's own words placed yet another bond upon her.

"Well then, let's not hesitate in our own actions, shall we?" The woman calmly remarked when she was handed the vial, calmly grabbing it and opening the door that had seperated her from Itami this entire time, since there was no need to feign anything anymore. Alas it seemed that she was about to be shown something rather interesting in the meantime.

A single drop of blood fell from the man's finger upon the ground, a single droplet turned into a violent and vicious torrent of blood which turned into some shape or form, the actions of the demonically looking blood mirrored in the poor guard's eyes as dread overcame him before death took him into its silent embrace. This was no mere jutsu and the very fact that the man who had named himself saint nicholas had such an ability made it all the more obvious to which clan this stranger belonged. Even if his ability seemed to completely contrast that of Rippa, there was no doubt that they were in fact both of the Chi clan. "Hmm...interesting."

It was all she could say as she left her cell to watch the guard's final moment, showing a subtle grin when the deed had been done.

As the mystery man threw the keys towards her, she grabbed them and removed the shackles of her legs as well, moving them around a bit to get rid of the straining feeling which the shackled had given her. In an instant, she started chuckling and grinned less subtly when she looked straight at Itami when he suddenly proposed to give her the guard's appearance. "I wouldn't mind...as long as I can get my stuff. I don't need any jutsu to take care of guards of this caliber anyway."

With that being said, she came closer to Itami, awaiting whatever he'd plan to do next, just so she could get out of that wretched place and regain her full strength.

453/2249

Itami would smile. His attentions on the woman before him with little to no interest in her sexually. She was like any other tool to him. Equal to a screw driver or in her case an arrow. Something with purpose to be used. His nephew had evaded assassin after assassin or eliminated the threat. Growing in influence and reputation for so long. Every little thing Itami had done against him had only helped the fool boy grow. It had been exhausting and frustrating. However this new plot even as it became a reality was something much more devious. Enaka's own neice. His own blood, doing what no one else could. For one reason and one reason only. She could get close to the man when his own forces were no where to protect him. With his guard down around her she would seal away the mans ability and life force and Itami would finally rise to power. An instrument of his will even if she hardly saw it that way. He had spent far to long in the shadows and it was finally time to act and build. All the riches of his clan would soon be his to access.

Still she seemed to hold little to no concern over the display of his own ability. He knew that had essentially served to reveal he was of the same clan as the target but he cared little to begin with. If she was playing him, his nephew already knew Itami to be a threat. There would be nothing gained of it. If she wasn't then it was a step forward he had been waiting for. Besides that she couldn't exactly bring this to the village. Not with what she had done here already. So little to lose and everything to gain. He was loving these odds. Still she accepted his terms for her escape and he nodded. Happily taking the skin from the pile on the floor. With a swish of his hand her clothes would fall away unless she resisted and he would place the skin over her. Running some chakra along it until it infused over her like a costume and she took on the same appearance as the guard. After he was done he would leave the stitch work up the spine so everything moved the same. When she blinked the skin blinked, when her lips moved its lips moved. Grotesque as it was it functioned.

He would give the man a moment to dress into the unstained guards clothing before he would smile. No evidence was left of the guard dying there. She would have escaped and the guard would have gone missing. Many would assume they ran off together some how. She was known for her seduction as deadly as it was. Still he would turn and move to the elevator. His own face and height shifting to that of a fatter bald man with glasses. Well kept but sweaty. He would lead her to the evidence holding part of the prison and hand over a forged approval letter to obtain and study her belongings. Claiming his name was doctor Grey and providing forged credentials. He was well prepared to get her out of prison today. He would have her, the guard, carry it for him and escort him back to 'the lab' and leave the prison with her in tow. Only changing back to his prior self once they were well along to road. Holding out his hand as the cane he had left in the prison sealed itself and unsealed itself into his hand. Speaking before leaving her there. Walking back to where his carriage was waiting.

"I advise modifying the uniform to look like normal clothes but keeping that face until you reach the border, or if you prefer use your ANBU gear to remain hidden. Up to you. Do be good to yourself now young lady and remember our deal. I look forward to hearing of your success soon. Bon voyage."

Exit thread

Her single eye simply blinked when Itami ripped off her prison clothing with a single swipe, leaving not much time to react either way. Yet she did react by shivering when she could feel herself slipping into the skin of the dead guard, the icky feeling comparable to wearing some sort of synthetic rubber leotard, certainly not comfortable as long as the fit wasn't perfect. However, when the Chi clan member closed the back, the skin felt surprisingly comfortable, almost as if it were her own. "Never thought I'd say that wearing another person's skin could feel so...refreshing. I should make a note of this, my mysterious Chi, heheh."

After pulling on the guard's attire and following Itami in his new form to the storage room to retrieve her own outfit, she felt relieved that they apparently had not put her items into the classified area yet, they probably hadn't figured out their use yet, which was a lucky moment for Lamya. After all, even if she now betrayed her village and clan, she was not going to hand over her treasured scalpels back to those decrepit elders.

When they left the prison, Lamya, with the guard's appearance walked up closely to Itami while he made his way to the carriage. "Oh Saint Nicholas, I forgot to mention this,"  She spoke calmly and kept her voice down so only he could hear it. "I know only one Chi who'd benefit from this deal, so I think you have heard these words at least once before: if you ever think about betraying me...no money or manpower in the world will keep me away from you... thanks for the agreement, I'll be sure to uphold it, okay!"

295/2544

training:

Exit thread