The sky was black, with massive thunderclouds packing together and blotting out the sun as if it was some ordinary lightbulb hanging at Earth's ceiling. A loud, terrifying rumble coarsed through the clouds, while the rainfall drenched and drowned everything beneath it's watery wrath. None could've foretold that there was to be such a rainstorm crossing the Land of Fire.

Standing in front of about a dozen ANBU operatives, Risu, known under the name Lamya, was sitting in a tent with two other ANBU members, explaining what they were about to do at the hand of a map and some pictures and documents.

"I have succesfully proven that there is indeed a Black ANBU, but they are just part of something much, much larger," The young woman explained, putting her mask on and walking to the exit of the small makeshift tent. "So you were only able to get permission for a team of a dozen ANBU agents, Mino. Are they reliable?"

One of the two ANBU agents in the tent gave a swift nod, ensuring the ANBU captain that they were indeed part of the inner circle he worked with, giving Risu some relief for her tension. The Black ANBU, with it's elusiveness, was not to be underestimated, but the young woman felt that she was closing in on the center of that organisation's hierarchy. Soon she would uncover the name of the boss himself, but for now she had to make due with cleaning up the hideouts and making sting-operations to disrupt the Organization's influence and plans.

"Proud members of the ANBU," The young ANBU captain spoke firmly, her mask granting more authority to the sound of her voice, but not masking the deeprooting pain and hatred she had begun to feel ever since she started out as an ANBU operative. "Beyond today, you will be the silent legends, you will bring justice to those who defy order, you will strike down those who oppose the rule and graciousness of our Hokage. In the name of our honor, leave no one alive."

With a single sign, the entire group dispersed, but Lamya remained where she was, holding a picture in her hand, with tears flowing down her face, hidden behind her mask. The only person she didn't want to face in combat at this point, but who had been suspected of dealing with the Black ANBU, her own uncle's face was captured perfectly on that picture.

"I'll just have to kill all of them at one point," The young woman whispered, before vanishing from sight, leaving the open space in the woods as if nothing had even been there.

451

Twelve hooded and masked shinobi jumped through the woods, followed by three other hooded and masked shin obi who had a different color of clothing to show their difference in stature compared to that dozen in front of them. Two of those at the back sped up and joined the group of twelve shin obi, splitting up in teams of six with each a leader. The lone figure jumping behind them suddenly stopped atop the wall around Konoha, with each group at each side of her on the wall.

"Team Alpha, you take the straight approach, entering through the entrance," The lone figure spoke calmly, turning her head to the other group. "Group Beta will monitor the area and keep away any obstacles. You will have to create a barrier and keep tabs on anything which moves around that so-called safehouse."

The two teams vanished, leaving the one person who had been giving orders behind; The ANBU captain Lamya, who had decided to go through the back of the Black ANBU safehouse on her own. Slightly miffed that Uraeus was not going to take part in this mission, the young woman jumped down from the wall and started running towards her target, all the while checking if the Beta group had done their job and had created a solid perimeter.

Arriving at the building which she had managed to pinpoint as one of the many Black ANBU safehouses inside the village, Risu tried to approach it without being seen, relieved that her Beta team had created a perfect perimeter indeed and that the Alpha group was ready to launch the assault on the safe house. So far nothing seemed to be odd or wrong, this was going to be a succesful operation if everything went according to plan. regarding the intel she had gathered, Risu knewit wasn't a safe bet, but there were less insecurities than with intel gathered through the usual channels given the Black ANBU's grip on both the CID and the ANBU in general. Not to mention that the overlooking organization of Eien no Yami was probably much more efficient than any village or country could've ever been.

"Go go go," She suddenly yelled, followed by the Alpha team barging through the front door of the house, while the beta group maintained the monitoring of the perimeter and Risu herself knocked down the back door. There shouldn't have been a higher ranked Black ANBU member, but she wanted to be sure, which is why she joined the mission herself, rather than making lower ranked members of the ANBU carry it out for her.

441/892

When she had just opened the door to sneak in through the back, Risu had to avoid getting hit by a blade swinging into her direction with the person wielding it, being a Black ANBU operative. It appeared that the leader of the team of Black ANBU members in the building was rather capable enough to anticipate at least a few basic movements in her operation, but the young woman was not in the slightest impressed by the man who was positioned at the back door with the intend to stop intruders from coming through there.

A second swing of the blade in her direction was easily avoided, by leaning backwards in an angle only possible for someone who was as flexible as a snake. This move surprised the Black ANBU member a bit, making him stagger in his attack for just a small moment, which was just long enough for Risu to cock back her arm and throw a punch into his gut, which forced the man to drop his sword and take a few steps backwards gasping for air.

However, the perseverence of the Black ANBU member was quite something, which he displayed by promptly throwing his hands together and suddenly a wall of mud lifted itself in front of him, followed by spikes coming out of it into the young woman's direction.

However, instead of running or dodging, Risu tensed her muscles, with her skin suddenly being envelloped by scales and her entire muscle structure enlarging around her arms and legs, after which she punched straight towards one of the spikes, crushing through it, as well as the mud wall itself. Before the man could do or say anything, the mask on his face shattered and he was propelled through several walls before landing unconsciously upon the pavement on the road on the road on the other side of the house.

Cracking her knuckles and releasing the jutsu that immensely enhanced her strength, Risu took noticed of her own ANBU operatives dealing magnificently with the other Black ANBU members, briefly noticing Mino taking out a female member by thrusting his tanto through her throat.

"No mercy," The ANBU captain going by the name Lamya yelled at the ANBU operatives. "They do not deserve such kindness. Eliminate them, eradicate them, whipe them off of the face of the earth!!"

While she yelled this, Lamya's left hand went towards her mask, pressing upon it with all her might, she started laughing loudly, the eyes visible through the mask showed emptiness and madness. The toll of being an ANBU and delving into Konoha's deepest secrets was a heavy burden to bear.

444/1336

Suddenly the screams of men could be heard, with several ANBU operatives being thrown down the stairs all mangled up like molten chocolate in their wrappers. A deep rumbling roar could be heard from the upper floor, while Mino and a few other of the lower ranking ANBU seemed to buckle under an extreme pressureshift in the air. At that time, feeling weak in the knees herself, Lamya looked up and saw the figure of a guy, a massive, muscular monster of a man with a silver chain at the side of his Black ANBU armor, depicting this guy was not just an operative, but one step higher in the chain of command.

She knew that most Black ANBU members were handpicked and sought out for their abilities, most of them far exceeding their equally ranked or even higher ranked ANBU counterparts, but to see someone who should've just one step higher than the average Black ANBU member throw away her subordonates like rag dolls was quite impressive.

"Let's play this by the rules, shall we?" The young woman said, while still maintaining herself into standing up firmly, despite the immense pressure she could feel. "There's no reason why we can't do this civilized, isn't it. For a fight such as this, I'm ought to give my name and rank, so here it is: ANBU captain, first division, Lamya."

The man laughed again, a low rumbling sound again ressonating through the house, while Mino already knew what was happening, grabbing a few of his comrades who lost the ability to walk, moving himself and them outside of the building. "I am Iro Zamarogi, Sergeant of the Black ANBU, Berserker division."

A smile crept upon Lamya's hidden face and she knew that behind the massive man's mask, something similar probably had happened. This was no ordinary shin obi, but one who was searching for a challenge, an exercise to demonstrate his power and perhaps grab a promotion. Such a shortsighted individual, but admirable no doubt.

Knowing that her scales were still on her skin, The young ANBU captain believed she could be on par with his basic physical strength, but perhaps this time using her speed would be a bigger advantage, so she dispelled the snake scales and awaited the man's assault, which came with a speed she had not anticipated…

399/1735

His fist lashed out towards her face, just nearly missing it by a hair's width while she mustered all her power to dodge the punch as good as possible, but even though Lamya's speed seemed to be slightly higher than that of her opponent, she could not have expected such immense strength in the form of but a mere sergeant of the Black ANBU forces. As the brute's knuckles only grazed the downside of her chin, an incredible force launched her through the wall of the house onto the street and against the barrier created by the six members of the Beta team.

This wasn't a favorable battle at all. Lamya could've boosted her strength to completely inhuman levels, but her speed would drop too low at such an occasion. She could've balanced out everything, erased her weaknesses, but even so, this man had the advantage of being fast and immensely strong at the same time, something which not only amazed, but also terrified the young Orochi woman.

How would she even defeat someone with two silver chains; a lieutenant or even the one behind everything; the Lord Commander, if a single sergeant was already to much for her. In that moment, she started to see how her parents died, how little chance they had and how little chance her old sensei had when they had to face such inhuman terror wrought upon the world in the form of the Eien no Yami and the Black ANBU.

However, just when the sergeant tried to plant his foot upon her skull, the young woman vanished from sight, only to reveal herself atop the safehouse's crumbling roof, with massive, leathery scaled wings sprouting from her back, a layer of dark purple chakra flowing over it. She seemed to exhume some kind of violet light, looking down upon the powerful sergeant like a dragon would look at a worm.

"Terror is but a word," Lamya said to herself, strengthening her resolve, finding solace in the madness which had begun to eat away her soul. If there was no saving her from terror, she would turn the tides in her favor and become more than terror, she would become Retribution. "In this world the strong dominate the weak, the powerful devour their preys in abundance, while the lesser can grovel for the scraps. Now than, Iro Zamarogi, grovel before me and hope for your sake, that I would allow you to have some scraps."

417/2152

The Black ANBU sergeant looked up, his mask glistening in the light created by Lamya's chakra and the shimmering scales on her wings, making up for quite a spectacle. However, instead of grovelling before her, he started laughing loudly, with that peculiar low and rumbling voice echoing through the street.

"I must thank you for creating such a strong barrier and such a large perimeter," The man said, while his own chakra started surging, th pressure in the air doubling in strength as his physique seemed to grow beyond human proportions, with him reaching a height of eight feet tall. "Now I can demonstrate why you shouldn't mess with the Black ANBU.

Iro's armor shattered into pieces, while his muscles grew, his entire physique surpassed the human anatomy and in that very moment that he broke all boundaries of humankind, he looked up, straight into the eyes of the masked woman on top of the house in which he saw the brutality of the past, the burden of the future and the pure, unbridled power of conviction.

"Very well," Lamya exclaimed loudly, while her wings spread out elegantly, the shimmering violet light giving her an even regal appearance. "If this is you wish…"

She suddenly vanished from the place where she had been standing, having reached right in front of Iro with a single beat of her wings, placing her hand on his chest. The rough surface of her scales and amplified muscular strength touching his skin ever so lightly."…You will die."

As if he had been hit by a horde of elephants, Iro was thrown backwards, skidding over the street's pavement, until he crashed against the other side of the Beta team's erected barrier. However, Lamya had already cought up to him, with her hands holding a scalpel in each, covered by a purple chakra which acted as a blade on its own.

"Heh, what are you planning to do with those tiny…urgh," Iro scoffed, when he could feel the cold steel of the blades and the chakra slice through his throat, butting through skin and tissue, but also disrupting his nerves and his muscles.

A spray of blood covered the winged, masked woman, who turned around to the remaining ANBU members, not so much even looking back for a single second at the fallen Sergeant of the Black ANBU.

"We will show no mercy to those who have trampled on the jewel which is Konoha," She spoke loudly, while rising up in the air, the violet light coming off of her wings and radiating almost everything within the barrier. "Anyone who defies the will of our Hokage must perish. We wont show hesitation, we wont show remorse, for we are the blade of Konoha, we are those who deal justice…we ARE justice!!"

472/2624

When the Beta team had started cleaning up the entire mess, gathering intel from the documents and papers lying around inside the safe house, Mino, who was effectively the Akpha team leader brought out a detailed report at the ANBU headquarters, asking Lamya if they had to send this report to the Hokage, which she quickly decided not to. This was her fight and if she was going to abuse her position to get what she wanted, that was what had to happen.

Luckily, it seemed that they had found a document, which had some juicy information on yet a few more safe houses of the elusive Black ANBU organization and the Eien no Yami, which immediately prompted the young ANBU captain to get her two teamleaders together and decide on what to do next. Despite Mino's arguments on keeping a low profile, it seemed that Samui of the Beta team wanted to do more than just laying low. The fact that Samui was the son of Lamya's former sensei Hamada made it all the more easy to manipulate him into following her idea of using the full force of the ANBU to litterally smoke the Black ANBU out.

She had no pity or mercy for those responsible for the death of her parents, those who had taken away everything in her childhood had to be punished severely. Samui quickly got riled up when Lamya decided to take on a safe house which seemed to have a more significant feeling to it, as it was located near the outskirts of the land of fire, but was seemingly not just a building, but a real fortress.

It was an old military hideout that had been out of use for decades, which apparently the Black ANBU had refurbished and remodelled to suit their own needs. The location and the fact that it was a former military place, made the young woman decide on a more dangerous tactic. She only wanted to use about ten ANBU operatives to go inside, but did request that at least a party of a dozen would secure the outside perimeter to ensure that not a single outsider would know what they were doing there.

After discussing the finer details with Mino and Samui, they concluded that the three of them joined by two squads would take the frontline and that a new Beta team would be formed to take the outside perimeter. When she had finally dismissed the two from her office, Lamya took off her mask and placed it on the small desk littered with the papers they had gathered at the safe house earlier.

"The only way to truly defeat evil, is by becoming an even greater evil…"

455/3079

Cautiously taking in the environment, Lamya was overseeing the assault on the second Safe house of the Black ANBU she and her companions had found after spitting through the documents found earlier.  Her goals of finally taking down this elusive organization under the wings of the even more secretive Eien no Yami moniker was finally taking some large leaps into the right direction. She hoped she could soon find and destroy the head of this massive underground operating organization and finally remove the shackles and burdens that weighed upon her ever since her childhood.

Without making any mistakes, the newly replenished Beta squad started building a barrier, one of the ANBU forces most prized and proclaimed jutsu. Inside it, the entrance to the former hideout would be perfectly usable for Lamya's own team to enter and clean out that hellhole of filth. She would kill everyone standing in her way, for she had already decided that mercy was not something these monstrous shinobi deserved from one who fought for justice and peace.

"Onward!!" She roared to the Alpha squad when the entrance was finally opened, the traps removed and the pathway to the deep dungeons of the hideout open for the ANBU's assault.

Grabbing both her scalpels, the young woman rushed into the hideout as well, already noticing that her team mates were bussy fending off some Black ANBU members who had been waiting to prepare a trap. Ignoring these men and women fighting and brawling all around, she quickly joined up with Mino and Samui to find the entrance to the deeper levels, which they did when opening a double door at the back end of the first floor they had entered.

"Hmm, of all things I never liked in a damp dark place…stairs," Lamya scoffed, deciding not to follow Samui and Mino's example of scaling the iron staircase and rather jump all the way down in between the stairs. "Come on you slackers, we've got lots of work to do."

337/3416

Not a moment after she landed on the ground below, Samui and Mino had already reached the bottom of the staircase, after which a single punch from Samui was enough to force open the door which barred the entrance to the lower level they had reached together. There were no lights on in the area and this was quite irritating, for it was in a way a certainty that there were Black ANBU members laying in wait to ambush them, but this was still not really a concern for the three leaders of the operation.

As Lamya stretched out her arm and pointed forwards, Mino walked up to her and snapped his fingers a few times, after which a series of small explosions lighted the entire area for a short, yet long enough amount of time for the three of them to be able to see the positions of almost every Black ANBU member that had strategically positioned themselves to trap their opponents. The sound of tantos being drawn from their sheaths suddenly rang through the hallway, while in a sudden blaze Mino, Samui and Lamya coarsed through the place.

At the first corner Lamya had to slide over the ground to avoid two tantos slicing through the air around her waist, followed by Mino snapping his fingers twice at each side, setting the two Black ANBU members ablaze in an inferno of extreme heat and flames, however, before he could manage to return to Lamya's side, he was being swarmed by even more of those men, giving Lamya and Samui a sign to move on and that he would catch up with them later.

However, even when the two of them moved on, there were still a load of Black ANBU members waiting for them. At the next corner, four men tried to blow the two of them away by throwing a few kunai connected with exploding tags which suddenly exploded with a hellish light, but their surprise was big when they noticed that Samui had created a cone of swirling lightning and water to protect himself and Lamya from the blast. Dispelling this jutsu, he quickly went on the offensive, enhancing his speed to first plant his fist onto one man's face, shattering the Black ANBU mask with ease, before sending the man flying away with a straight kick against the chest. Lamya in her case silply drove her two scalpels in each side of another man's neck before making a leap over the man, twisting the scalpels in such a way during her leap that he was brutally decapitated with extreme efficiency.

To finish off things, she quickly formed a few hand signs, after which two massive snakes made out of sharp, jagged rock and fast flowing water caught the two remaining men within their maws, after which Samui grabbed them both by the head and drove them into the ground, using his brutal strength to crush their skulls in the process. He had trained years on end for such kind of action and he simply relished it. However, while he got up, a single glance from Lamya's cold, emotionless eyes gave him shivers. Those eyes were so similar to the eyes which haunted him in his dreams for many years, the eyes of the man who had killed his father, eyes which seemed to be able to devour a man's soul without a single shred of remorse or mercy.

"There's more of them up ahead," The young ANBU captain stated coldly, while Samui had gotten his composure back. "We can't afford to take a break. If I'm correct, there should be a few sergeants and perhaps even a lieutenant down here."

623/4039

Samui simply nodded, following Lamya, while she sternly made her way to the end of the hallway. However, before the two of them could reach what seemed to be doors that lead to some kind of elevator, the roars of at least ten men could be heard, which surprised Lamya at least a bit, for it seemed that in a way she was right to assume that this wasn't just a safehouse, but something way bigger than she had originally thought; this was a real hornets' nest.

Her subordonate wondered why Mino had not returned yet, until another batch of explosions at the other end of the hallway made clear that he as well had started facing off against a whole new bunch of those Black ANBU members. One thing was obvious: the fact that those guys were really tenacious.

"Captain, you go ahead," Samui laughed, while cracking his knuckles. "I'll handle them over here."

This was something Lamya didn't allow him to say twice, using the diversion he was offering her to get through the doors and activate the elevator, which seemed to bring her to the deepest level of the hideout…

____________

Samui laughed when two men tried to form a rock wall in front of them, using a combination of futon and raiton to create a drill around his left arm, with which he smashed through the wall and the chest of one of his opponents, followed by a sidekick to the other guy's head, after which the Black ANBU member's neck made a sick, crackling sound before the body crashed against the wall of the hallways with the other man that had just been eliminated. The Konoha ANBU operative relished the display of force he could throw at these bugs.

Another opponent quickly weaved some handseals to create a wave of water to flood the area, only to be electrocuted severely by a single touch from Samui on the water and when the corpses of at least ten men were spread accross the corridors, he started laughing loudly, only to silence quickly again, when he saw an oddly dressed man with silver hair and two long katanas imbued with lightning and wind walk slowly and in a rather stiff way towards him.

A smile came accross his face, as he cracked his knuckles again. However, that smile quickly faded when he realized that the person had suddenly rushed to right in front of him, which forced him to throw his armoured arms in front of him to catch and deflect the impact of the two blades which came at him with great speed.

As the blades connected with Samui's arms, the man noticed that the silver hair of his opponent moved a bit, revealing its face, which showed no sign of life, as there were only two glass eyes, perfectly crafted to seem human, yet at the same time lacked all which humanity would call the soul in an eye's gaze.

"A puppet?" The muscular ANBU operative whispered, suddenly feeling quite out of balance, when he felt a cold shiver running up his spine, when a cold and immensely dark voice whispered in his ears. "A puppet indeed…Hamada Samui, the puppet made of none other than your father."

549/4588

posting theme:

The elevator's doors opened with a soft sliding sound, not in the slightest showing the wear you'd expect to appear in an old machine that has supposedly not been used in at least a decade or more, which showed that the Black ANBU maintained this hideout meticulously, as if it was important, but what Lamya saw when the doors were fully open was not what she had expected.

As far as she could see, there were at least hundreds of tables with corpses on, covered by white sheets and tags. Though it gave her the feeling that it resembled a morgue way to much, she knew for sure that this place was something far worse, something a lot more sinister than a morgue. Curious to who those people laying on the tables were, the young woman started by taking a peak at the covered corpse closest to the elevator.

In front of her on the table, was an old woman shrivelled up like some kind of mummy. However, somehow something seemed odd and it wasn't the fact that the corpse's eyes had been removed, somehow the anatomy, the physical wear that came with age, seemed to have occured on a much shorter period of time than it should have happened. It was as if this woman had her life drained faster by some sort of means which the young ANBU captain couldn't find deep in her mind.

Yet, just as Lamya wanted to turn away from the corpse and check the other corpses, her eyes caught notice of a small tattoo on the wrist of the old woman's corpse, which provoked the young captain to throw her hand against her mask, screaming aloud while trembling in fear. She recognised that tattoo from a description of a missing Uchiha shinobi from the village, a young woman named Uchiha Momo, who wasn't even a year older than Lamya herself.

"How, how can this be?" The ANBU captain asked herself aloud, surprised by the discovery she had just made."What in the Sage's name are these people doing. This isn't anything human anymore, this is monstrous."

Almost driven by instinct, Lamya started running through the enormous number of tables, only to find even more of the missing shinobi from not only konoha, but also other villages on thos tables. All of them had their eyes removed and most of them were indeed members of clans with a doujutsu of which Lamya had at least a semblance of knowledge.

The more corpses she uncovered, the more questions came into her mind. Eveything was so strange, the air seemed so cold, but also so heavy. Afraid of what she had found, she almost jumped up when she heard a scream coming from the elevator, noticing that it was Mino, who had just done the same thing as she did earlier; revealing one of the corpses.

"What is this?" The young man stuttered, while taking a few steps back. However, before Lamya could even present him with an answer, she could see his blood splatter accross the floor, when a lightning imbued katana rip through his chest and a cold voice whispering from the shadows. "These are merely the corpses of failed experiments."

546/5134

Throwing the seriously hurt Mino aside, the puppet wielding the two swords rushed through the place, crashing through a load of tables, throwing aside the corpses on them in its raid on Lamya. When it had finally reached her, the puppet lifted its arms upwards in a fluid motion, followed by a hard slash downward. The sound of metal on metal resonated through the entire space, when the puppet's elementally imbued blades crashed upon the young ANBU captain's strengthened scalpels.

"Who are you, to use Hamada sensei's techniques in such a despicable way?" Lamya roared, while pushing her scalpels upwards to unbalance the puppet and plant her foot against its chest, surprised by the fact that it felt as if she had just kicked a living being. "Bastard, you were there weren't you, you were there that day five years ago!!"

A soft chuckle sounded through the entire place, when the silver haired puppet suddenly stood up again at the other side of the large room, rushing towards Lamya again, but this time the Orochi lady didn't wait until he came close to her, quickly forming a few handseals to create and launch a barrage of strong sickle formed water projectiles at the incoming puppet.

"Maybe I was there indeed," The voice spoke, as if it came from the entire room. It was impossible to locate the origin of it, something which truly annoyed Lamya. "One thing is clear though. You are nowhere strong enough yet, your hatred, your madness…it's all still to feeble!!"

The puppet reacted extremely agile to the barrage of projectiles, dashing from left to right and vice versa to avoid getting his, way to smooth to be a living being. At the same time Lamya noticed something about the puppet, it wasn't just a puppet, as her earlier kick had confirmed, it was a corpse that had been preserved wonderfully and that with her old sensei's techniques only meant one thing: this puppet WAS Hamada sensei.

"You bastard!!" The ANBU captain scoffed, while avoiding a stab to the chest by leaping to the right, straight over a few of the tables, using them as a barricade to at least slow down the human puppet a bit. "Someone like you, you're not some sergeant. You're a lieutenant aren't you?"

Another chuckle followed, ressonating through the room. Still Lamya couldn't locate where the sound came from, as if the person who was doing this was everywhere, as if he was the room itself.

"Perhaps, perhaps I am indeed a lieutenant," The voice replied to Lamya's earlier cursing. "Though, If I were a lieutenant…with you not even able to lay a finger on me, how do you even imagine you'd fare against the leader of the Eien no Yami? You're but a bug, a pawn in a game of ouji, a mere footsoldier. You are nothing but a nuissance and you will be dealt with accordingly…Orochi Risu."

506/5640

Gritting her teeth after the voice made such an insulting comment, Lamya or rather Risu, as it seemed that the mysterious voice knew her true identity, clasped her hands together and formed another set of hand seals, after which two massive snakes made out of mud rose out of the ground and soared towards the dual katana-wielding puppet, which to the young woman's annoyance managed to dodge both snakes just in time, with the two mudcreations creating a deep crater in the ground.

With not much time to spare before the puppet would reach her, the ANBU captain made a desperate attampt to form a large mudwall which crashed through the ceiling and only barely managed to catch the puppet's attack, keeping her safe from the vicious blades, though only barely, as she was sweating beads with the tip of each blade having just stopped a mere half inch in front of the eye openings in her mask. However, as she wasn't intending to let this chance go to waste, her fingers made rapid movements, forming another batch of seals, after which two snakes made out of rock and water grabbed on to the puppet's arms and pulled it down to the ground, effectively immobilizing it and forcing it to leave its swords in the mud wall.

Dispelling her wall, Lamya planted her foot on the puppet's head, using her wires to bind the puppet for the time being, throwing the two blades away into the back of the large room. For a moment, the young woman felt triumphant, but that feeling quickly faded when she noticed the figure of a man stepping out of the darkness that seemed to make the room an endless space without any boundaries.

This man was wearing a black mask with two silver lines on it, running down from the holes through which the man would be able to see. His armor resembled her own, except that it was black and had two silver chains running from the collar to somewhere at the left shoulder. This man was a lieutenant without a doubt, but what caught Lamya's attention even more, was the figure that was walking next to him, wearing an ANBU outfit like hers, with long black hair and white skin just like Risu had. In each hand, the newly appearing puppet held a scalpel, with a lavender colored chakra envelloping both of them.

"It can't be…mother?"

413/6053

Before Lamya had any chance of reacting, surprised as she was when she realized that this new puppet reminded her so much about her mother, the young ANBU captain could feel the scalpel of the puppet slicing through the side of her armor and touch her skin, which prompted her to get her thoughts straight again and jump aside as quick as she could. Breathing heavily, she looked at the masked puppet with every feature of her clan and her family. Maybe it could still be another member of her clan, for with the darkness in that room, the skin's actual color was hard to see and the only way she would be certain was if she could see that puppet's face.

Not only that, the one who was most likely the most dangerous was the one pulling the strings. If this was truly the lieutenant she thought he was, than it had to be Itsukichi Hataro. He alone was responsible for the death of at least three entire ANBU squads, the dissappearance of over a dozen Uchiha and Hyuga clan members and in the bingo-book of the ANBU he was ordered to be killed on sight.

"Trying to confuse me with some puppet that has some semblance of myself, great," The young woman scoffed, while keeping an eye on the puppet, which had just turned its masked face towards her. "You are going to be caught by me and brought to the only justice I see fit for people like you…a painful and longlasting death."

Quickly, she brought her hands together, her muscles tensing and strengthening comprehensively before she launched herself towards the puppet, smashing her fist against the mask and propelling it into the darkness from which it came, where it sounded as if it crashed against a wall. Somehow this did give Lamya some relief, so there were walls after all.

However, just when she wanted to rush towards the masked man, who she knew to be the main target, he raised his left arm and gave a soft chuckle. Out of nowhere, Lamya could feel a massive force push her backwards, sending her crashing against a table with a corpse on it, confused as to what had just happened, giving a slight yelp when she opened her eyes and looked straight into the empty eyesockets of the corpse which had originally been laying on the table against which she had landed.

Throwing the corpse off of her, she watched to her horror, that it was Mino who was now standing next to the masked man. From the shadows another man seemed to appear: Samui.

Gritting her teeth, the young captain watched as the two men suddenly ran towards her, with Mino snapping his fingers to create a barrage of explosions to keep her busy. Samui at the same time threw a mass of small electric darts towards her, which she only barely managed to dodge by jumping behind the table she had initially crashed upon.

"What the heck?" The young woman spat out, wondering why suddenly Mino was attacking her and why Samui was suddenly down there doing the same. They werent just attacking her, they were being controlled like puppets. It was this which made the young woman grit her teeth to the point of almost breaking them. "Damn you Hataro, damn your Black ANBU…I'll even kill my own men again if it means that I can catch and kill you."

Roaring like a wild animal, she jumped up, slamming her hands together, just before getting hit by samui in her abdomen. Yet, not a single cough or grunt was to be heard, only a soft chuckle, when Lamya removed her mask to show her skin being riddled with scales like those of a snake, one of her clan's most prized jutsu. With the additional power she was granted by this jutsu, the woman quickly grabbed Samui by the head, after which her muscles pumped up even more, resulting in the sound of flesh and bone tearing apart.

Spurting out blood through the arteries that were ripped open, the headless corpse of Samui fell to the ground, after which Lamya concentrated an enormous amount of chakra within herself, releasing it into a shredding vortex of water and mud, tearing apart Mino's corpse like a mere piece of paper.

Just when she had done this, she wanted to get it over with and rush over to the masked man, but somehow her legs would not move, in fact, she could not even feel them. A creaking sound and a warm feeling in her gut made her look down first, where she could see a chakra covered hand sticking out of her abdomen, realizing that someone had just stabbed straight through her armor with bare hands. Coughing up blood, the young woman tried to see who it was that had managed to bypass her ANBU sensory jutsu and caught her off guard.

The mask had shattered and the shards fell off one by one, revealing the dead and soulles face of a young woman in her prime, with golden colored snakelike eyes looking straight into a similar looking pair of Risu. Tears started to flow out of the corners of Lamya's eyes, as she struggled to maintain conscious, eventually succumbing to the pain and bloodloss she had suffered while uttering just a single word…"M-mom…?"

From out of the darkness, a second masked man appeared to the man Lamya had recognized as Hataro.

"Hataro, bring her to the Dungeon," The cold voice of the second masked man ressonated through the room."Leave this facility, the other ANBU members have cleaned up the upper floors…we'll need this…young impudent woman to learn a lesson."

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