A scream of pain and anguish erupted from the depths of the newly built research facility, a sound akin to that of a soul being ripped out of a body and shred to pieces right thereafter. It was a scream one would never want to hear, for besides the terrible pain it seemed to also be filled with unspeakable rage and anger.

"Aaargh, does any of this work, damn it!?!" A woman dressed in a long white dress with golden thread covering most of her breasts which was stained on one side with blood turned towards an elderly man with long graying hair and thin, sharp features. The man took a step back and was trembling all over his body, mumbling excuses and apologies to the woman, who did not look pleased nor satisfied with the result of what had transpired. I thought you said you were an expert on removing seals?" The man reluctantly nodded and mumbled another few apologetic words, trying to take another step back again, yet before he could do so, the woman in the white and gold dress grabbed him by the collar of his white labcoat and pulled him towards her with surprising force and agility. "You failed in the one thing I demanded your presence for. You failed to deliver what I asked after I even paid you and now you're trying to run away with your tail tucked between your legs. You virulent insect, you failed me, you failed to fullfil my demand and you dare to have the audacity to try and run away?"

The woman let out a surprisingly deep hiss, dropping the elderly man to the floor, ignoring his pathetic rambling and turned her attention towards the massive white snake which had been resting, coiled up next to the operating table upon which she had been sitting during her examination. "Uraeus, you know what to do." The snake hissed calmly and seemed to let out a yawn, slowly slithering towards the elderly man, who paralyzed in fear started to panick, pleading for leniency. "I AM giving you leniency you old fool, would you rather have me take care of your insignificant life? You deserve death and I am merciful enough to grant it to you, rather than torturing you for the remainder of your pitiful life, I am granting you your deserved death right here and right now, so tell me...am I not merciful, am I not lenient?"

"Yes you are, mistress," The snake replied calmly in the elderly man's stead, already coiling up around the man before he had the time to notice it, slowly squeezing the air out of the poor man, until his entire body was covered by that of Uraeus, at which point the snake opened its mouth, dislocated its lower jaw and suddenly snapped at the elderly man, swalloing the entire head in a single gurlp and slowly pushing the man's broken, yet still squirming body into himself. "So...this one was a failure as well."

The woman walked over towards a mirror on the other side of the operating table and looked into it, watching her reflection carefully with a cold expression on her face, one so dark and filled with an icy rage that if she did not suddenly punch the mirror herself, it would've shattered just from the pressure coming from within her. "To get rid of this curse, I'd need someone who doesn't fear experimenting with fuuinjutsu. I'd need someone at the very least as strong as I am, with enough chakra to contain my own and someone who ...oh...yes, he'll do...He'll be perfect for this job."

The woman walked out of the room, ignoring her own snake as he continued to devour the last person she had requested to deal with her...'issue'. She knew exactly who she'd call upon now: someone she knew to be strong, someone who had made a vow and a contract, thus making him the most trustworthy person for the job. She needed the Stranger, he probably would be interested at the very least.

As she passed the door of the room, she turned towards the two men dressed in black robes and carrying a single saber each. "My dear Ryujin...go find the Stranger and tell him I request his presence. Tell him I will grant him a free deal of his choosing in return for a service of the utmost importance." The two men nodded and vanished from sight instantly, leaving not a single trail of their earlier presence behind. "I must get rid of this...before it's too late."

As she uttered those words, the woman looked at the shadows in the furthest corners of the corridor in which she was standing. A purple, fluorescent mark appearing on her neck for a mere instant. "Even now, I can feel his influence and his hold over me...I need to get rid of this mark, I need to get rid of Him."

844

Lamya watched the mirror adjacent to the operating table she was sitting on, not sure wether or not her eyes were deceiving her or not, a dark shadow seemed to cling to her, seemingly clenching around something deep within herself. A pair of eyes resided in this shadow, two dark and seemingly endless pools of night, reflections of an insurmountable void of nothingness. The woman knew all too well what this meant and who's reflection, who's shadow thise truly was. It was a manifestation of will, a formation of desire and a visualisation of a contract, albeit unwillingly made long ago. It was in the dark recesses of this shadow that salvation lurked, that sanity remained intact beyond the layer of madness which was constantly growing and endangering the safety of not only the woman around which the shadow dwelled, but also those who served her and who were guided by her.

"Perhaps the Great White Snake sage could aid you in this time of need, milady," A large snake, still holding the body of the last insignificant man who had failed at an attempt to remove the curse laying upon the Dragon Empress, slowly slithered accross the floor of the room, calmly raising its head a bit and looking at the woman adorned with a most splendid dress soiled by her own blood. "We must perhaps sent for his aid, I am sure that as an Orochi and of direct descent, you are most likely to be granted his assistance and generous wisdom..."

The woman nodded and dismissed Uraeus' plea to go and seek out the old sage's help in this particular matter. She knew very well that the sage, though wise and powerful was far from powerful enough to rid her of the problem which had been plaguing her for a while now. "despite my trust in the geezer's power and wisdom, I think he lacks both the finesse and actual experience to deal with something as intricate as this. You seem to forget who made this seal, Uraeus. If you'd remember who it was that has cursed me with this mark, you'd surely know this needs expertise, finesse and above all a lack of fear or perhaps a lack of knowledge on who is behind this seal," A shiver passed through the woman's spine, making her jump up and stare at the mirror, beads of cold sweat appearing on her forehead and rolling down her cheeks and even down her neck, leaving trails of nearly invisible salt on her white skin, which seemed to lack it's usual luster and radiance, now being replaced by a somewhat sickly sheen. "It's why I have sent for this...stranger, even if my knowledge on him is limited, my senses did not betray me and history has not been rewritten. He is my best, if not my only choice and option...even if this may come at a terrible, if not impossible price on my end."

A hackling cough escaped her lips, with her only barely on time to hold a silken handkerchief infront of her mouth to catch the droplets of spit and blood which left her mouth. "It's worsening, with everything I've been through it's probably making Him anxious and impatient, he's already failed twice before...but now, I don't know...it's as if the seal stronger somehow," Lamya stood up from the operating table and turned towards the door on the other side of the room, where only an instant later, her Ryujin appeared before scurrying out of the room to leave her alone with the man with whom she had forged a contract, a geass in blood. The only man who seemed to make the same kind of deals she did, but while similar, still vastly different.

A wry smile appeared on her face when the man posed a rather important question and seemed distrought by the sight of the state she was in, yet Lamya in her eternal arrogance and confidence simply made a swift motion with her left hand, waving away his concerns, despite the fact that they were grounded in truth. "It's a seal that has been placed upon my very soul long time ago, alas my attempts to get rid of it for now have been...less than fruitful, much less insightful to the way of finally getting rid of it," The woman made a slow and calm motion towards the massive white snake resting near the operation table. "As you can see, the last man's attempt to get rid of this seal was...without result and his end of the deal had been granted upon failure. Do not mistake this state of mine as a form of weakness, for that it is not."

Her words should've been clear and were without hidden meaning, even if the attempts so far had been failures, that did not mean the seal truly weakened her, it rather made her less predictable, as she had nothing to lose if the curse would truly activate. "I requested your presence due to your expertise with things like this, contracts if you will," Another dry cough escaped her throat, her chest heaving as she tried to regain her breath and her composure. "If I told you that the one behind the creation of this seal is far more powerful than even I am...would you still take it upon yourself to challenge this accursed seal and its creator?"

926

Raw chakra, sickening and dark in both nature and intent was seeping from the seal, it's pressure and suffocating power worlds apart from even that of the Dragon Empress herself, yet at the same time remarkably similar. It was without a doubt a certainty that whomever that vile and repulsive chakra belonged to was connected by blood to the woamn who was struggling to the best of her capacity to contain the massive energy from leaking out too much. However, it seemed to react rather violently to Yosei's first actions, as the moment he started using his fuuinjutsu, the leaking chakra seemed to shimmer and shiver for only a mere moment, reverting back into the woman and vanishing completely.

At this point, the form of the seal started to appear on the back of the rogue shinobi's neck and it grew larger, revealing that it nearly encompassed her entire upper back, the back of her head and neck, but its core was without a doubt located near the lowest part of the back of her head, explaining why she was weakening, as it was literally sapping strength from her Mind Gate and putting immense strain on the other Gates which controlled her chakra flow. What seemed like ink of a well made and intricate tattoo started to pulsate with a deep purple light in reaction to Yosei's presence, making it obvious that this was no mere cursed seal, but one step higher: a Living Cursed Seal. "It was Hataro, an associate to my clan and its former regent, it's a seal of their design...however, I don't know it's purpose," Lamya seemed to have trouble standing straight, her knees practically buckling due to the seal's sudden weight upon her and its seemingly active reaction and repulsion of the Sealer's presence near her. "It speaks to me...with voices of my past. I never had act like this until the moment we had made that contract. It's as if it has been completely awakened after you appeared before me...it's why I held off calling for your aid, as it seemed you were the cause of it to begin with."

Spoiler:

As the bells chimed and the symbols ignited around them, the room got quiet, eerily so, as if it was cut off not just from the outside, but reality itself. Even the sound of the pulsating seal got drowned out by this silence, when all of a sudden black tendrils shot out of the seal upon the Dragon empress, reaching out for the symbols in the air, touching the symbols and seals on the ground, gradually growing thicker and more vast, until it seemed that the both of them were woven into a coccoon of shadows and darkness, with only the seals and symbols providing a feint light in that unnatural darkness.

The skin on Lamya's back wriggled, the core of the cursed seal seemingly rising slightly from her skin as it started to turn into a black vapor taking shape in the middle of the coccoon, a shadowy hand calmly grasping the bells and silencing their chime instantly. "She's mine, mine to command, mine to control...all mine," Two golden, snakelike eyes appeared where the shadow's face was presumably located. They stared straight into Yosei's own eyes and from them emanated a power that could rival, if not completely surpass that of any shinobi Yosei knew of. "Don't think your pitiful fuuinjutsu will stop me. You may struggle and prove to be a valiant user of the sacred arts, but in the end...you are but a human, a creature bound to a mortal form in a world diseased by mortal sin."

In a single instant all the seals and symbols shattered, the bells reacting heavily to the sudden shockwave that coursed through the air, when a shadowy hand reached for Yosei's throat. "Do show me what you can do. Do show me that rage hidden within..." The eyes came extremely close to Yosei's own, so close that he would be able to feel an icy cold breath upon his face. "You seek to save this child, but can you save yourself...Mitsuhide..."

The shadow instantly vanished when Lamya coughed loudly, revealing the room yet again, burnmarks spread on the floor where the seals used to be and Yosei's bells now adorned with a black shimmer on them. "It hurts...my back...it hurts..." The Dragon empress was laying on the ground, squirming in pain and anguish, trying to reach for her back with her hands, as the skin upon which the cursed seal was showing, was wriggling, as if something underneath it was trying to escape. "Make it stop...make it stop...this is unbearable."

806

As Yosei moved the writhing lamya to the operating table, he could easily see the wriggling, pulsating and basically disturbing movement of the seal which encompassed easily half of the Dragon Empress' upper back and neck now. Her skin felt surprisingly cold, even though she was obviously sweating from the pain she was enduring. On her neck, her veins and arteries had started to become visible, darkened as they were byè some sort of influence originating from the massive seal which continued to seemingly drain her of her lifeforce and chakra to manifest itself.

As the Sealer started to make his preperations, Lamya turned her head a bit, trying to calm herself for just a moment, looking at Yosei from the corners of her eyes and showing a forced smile. "An odd situation, isn't it...?" Through a coughing fit, she still managed to chuckle, albeit rather softly and wholy not healthy sounding, her speech already getting slightly slurred and h"er breathing becoming rather hollow. "Any other would've seized this opportunity to strike me down...but you...you seem to still desire to know...to see with your own eyes that which can bring down those that have stepped into the proximity of the gods...I reckon death grants one an appetite for understanding and knowledge." While being inserted with the needle, she only winced, but didn't react in any other way, her eyes closing as her breathing became less ragged and calmer than before.

"There's no need to remain quiet about this," She whispered right at the point her chakra was seemingly sealed off. "I've felt this sensation before...I...know...this." lamya finally closed her eyes again, falling into a deep slumber as her body started to relax now that the seal's chakra only had one way to go: inwards. Though this could have catastrophic results, it seemed that the consciousness residing in the seal itself also felt the sensation of the closed off tenketsu and seemed to remain calm for now. However, the seal's size didn't stop from progressing, in fact...Sealing off Lamya's chakra seemed to have an adverse effect, as it's black and purple shine seemed to course further through her veins, darkening them more and more in the process.

In response, Lamya seemed to shiver for a short moment, her breath nearly crystalizing as her temperature now dropped below humanly possible levels. The needle started to vibrate, relaying the information on the seal faster than it could even process, practically forcing Yosei to write down the seal's intricfate design faster than ten calligraphers together would be able to do and to make things worse...it looked like at some point, around two or three layers in, the seal showed its true intricacy, the true reason why it could be called something beyond a mere 'ucrsed seal', as rather than being multilayered, it truly did change, evolve and grow at an exponentially faster rate than any seal the stranger probably ever encountered. This was not just the work of someone experienced in fuuinjutsu, but a combination of multiple fields. There were traces of very high level fuuinjutsu, unparallelled medical ninjutsu, kugutsu of insurmountable skill and on top of those the chakra that seemed to have been used to bond the seal to Lamya was of such a high grade and had such a huge concentration of power that it's originator had to be beyond the level of a kage, even beyond the dragon empress' own level.

Through the needle, Yosei could feel the cold sensation, as if the needle itself; the instrument of the sealer's work was gradually being frozen. It probably would not have taken long for Yosei to realize that there was one thing which was suddenly being touched by the immense power within the Dragon Empress' body: the needle had become a conduit for the chakra, now creating an adverse effect. "Trying to figure it out, are we?" The chakra that leaked out, started to take the form of a shadowy figure, but it was without a doubt a male person. Slowly, this shadowy figure placed a hand onto the sleeping empress, the hand singling through her skin, apparently to its own surprise. "I see...blocking off her chakra, makes it harder for me to interact with her, very smart, very smart indeed.'

The shadowy figure took a step towards Yosei and lowered himself a bit, looking straight into the sealer's eyes with it's own, cold golden eyes. "Let me tell you a story, or rather let me show you..." Before the Sealer could move, before he could even lift a single finger, Yosei could feel a icy cold sensation running through his head, followed by what seemed to be a flash of light. When the light subsided, he could see something; two pairs of hands on the back of a young child, no older than seven years of age. Though people did look different through the passages of time, this child had a few distinctive features that could allow the Sealer to conclude upon her identity: the white skin, jet black hair and the wide open eyes with golden, snakelike eyes were enough of an indication.

One pair of hands seemed to be continuously pressing on the child's back, while another pair of hands; slender and covered by a pair of thin latex gloves was tracing lines accross the child's back. "How much more time do you need Hataro?" The voice was distant, yet similar to the voice of the shadowy figure he had seen before. "In time, this child will become my herald, so don't screw this up."

The vision distorted and another flash of light appeared and subsided until now, Yosei was looking at a scene he should've known all too well: the fight he once had for the title of Hokage, but he was looking at it from a distance, from another floor, hearing the voice of a man who he did not recognise. "Why didn't you just claim the title, Master?" A sigh could be heard and suddenly that same voice he heard coming from the shadowy figure could be heard again. "Why limit myself to becoming but a mere kage, when I can become so much more. It doesn't matter who wins, neither can stand in my way...neither will ever be able to beat me. For now, we'll just monitor the child's growth and steer her in the direction of that Chi child...let's have a little test."

Again a flash of light and now Yosei was looking straight at the shadowy figure again, back in the room they'd been in all this time and the shadowy figure seemed to be smiling gleefully. "It's exhillerating, wouldn't you say...this little game. You try to figure out the seal and I give you a glimpse of its creation. You try to figure out who made it and I grant you a glimpse of my memory. They say a magician never reveals his secrets, but both you and I know that for men like us...the search is much more fun than the actual discovery."

1215

"There is nothing to discover. You have no secrets worth being found by me. You are a pathetic creature who is afraid of death. Why else would you struggle so hard to hold on to this poor soul? Soon, your seal will be broken. You must be familiar with these needles, you have fought to dispel the Shōkai which inverts her chakra flow because you know it holds the key to my victory."

The shadowy form turned its attention towards the needle and let out a soft grunt, Touching the needle with a dark and liquid-like index finger, seemingly quite impressed how it looked like the vibratiots; though allowing the chakra some stability, also managed to redirect its form ever so slightly. "Oh, you are indeed correct, I seek to live eternally, I despise the idea of ever having to embrace one's death and I truly find the very principle of mortality a despicable curse wrought upon one such as myself," A soft chuckle escaped from the shadowy figure's hardly visible mouth. "However, calling me weak and pathetic is only the sort of thing one who knows not the plight of humanity would say, one who has not a shred of humanity left in their entire being and even if I were to say I was beyond humanity, it is my mortality which still grants me that one trait that puts us even above the gods themselves: my will, my everlasting, ever consuming and ever desiring will to keep going until the end of days."

It was at this point that Yosei inserted the second needle into Lamya, surprising the shadowy figure with this action. For a moment, the shadow shimmered as if it reacted to what was happening, the figure grinning ever so slightly as the sealer was desperately doing his work with the outmost precision in order to prevent any and all mistakes. The seal in reaction seemed to slow down with its corruption, slowly retracting until it at the very least shrunk down to the size it had at the start of Yosei's investigation. The Shadowy figure shimmered even more, becoming see-through in the process while cracks seemed to appear onto it, like veins of light started to tear into the darkness. Grabbing its own hand where the cracks had started form, grunting almost like a wounded beast, the shadowy figure let out a growl and looked at Yosei with pure malice and hatred in its eyes. "You dare defy my will? You... you..." The shadowy figure rushed towards Yosei, only to halt in its path when the Sealer spoke.

"You appear as shadows and haunt me with cryptic visions in an effort to distract me. This is not a game of cat and mouse; in time you will come to learn that there is no battle of wits to be had between us. I will deal with this affliction in the manner which is reserved for all curses. You will be left with nothing but the knowledge of my will. Be gone, and hide in the dark, cowardly creature, while I undo your life's work."

You dare...you DARE!!" With a roar filled with rage and ferocious anger, the shadowy figure tried to reach for Yosei's throat, yet at the very moment the tips of his fingers were about to touch the sealer's skin, the seal on Lamya's back started to pulsate again and shrunk even further, reducing to the size of about that of a hand. In response the shadowy figure seemed to be drawn back in, the shadows vanishing into the seal which now again started to pulsate heavily, showing its violent reaction towards the inserted needles, nonetheless being contained for the moment.

The patient shivered for a slight instant, opening her eyes just once. She turned her head just a bit, smiling softly. "I guess I should thank you properly," Yosei's seal seemed to be fine, the rogue shinobi herself seemed to regain some of her composure even despite the fact she could not feel her own chakra just yet. The cursed seal itself seemed to have thinned out slightly, being contained between the two needles as the extra layer of protection created by Yosei as he held the bell between the two needles. "Turning that chakra inwards was simply...Brilliant, if I say so myself."

Lamya's soft smile turned into a crual grin, the golden color of her eyes turning silver, while her hair started to thicken and lose it's colour as well, with her lips turning black and her teeth growing slightly  sharper and obviously more carnivorous. "You truly have no idea..." With full force, the rogue shinobi jumped up from the operating table and swung her arm towards Yosei with a clenched fist. "What you're dealing with, do you!!" Standing up straight, the woman tilted her head with her eyes closed, cracking her neck and letting out a sigh of joy and pleasure. "Being forced to do this prematurely, you have garnered my respect. However, you have lost...I am in control, as I had said from the start."

The needles on the woman's back remained in place, yet rather than expelling chakra, the needle which was supposed to do this now seemed to act as a lightningrod for massive flows of nature chakra being drawn into the dragon empress' body. Even if it did contain the cursed seal and even if the extra layer of protection was still in place, the Sealer's job seemed to only become harder with every passing moment. It was without a doubt a work of art, hard labor and extreme intelligence. The seal had surpassed any of the seals used by any known fuuinjutsu specialist Yosei had ever encountered and the chakra which had been kneaded and woven into it was without a doubt powerful, yet even than it was but merely scratching the surface. The true power of the seal was that it had taken not only the will, but also the knowledge and intelligence of its creators and even if it lacked the full power of its creators, it had their intelligence and an intelligent cursed seal was without a doubt any sealer's nightmare when trying to subdue and destroy it.

"Locking me in a singular path, trying to syphon off the second layer and even trying to seal a seal...very smart," The woman laughed, showing just a single glare towards Uraeus and stopping him in his tracks when he tried to sneak up on her. The entire time, she did not let her attention slip, showing a remarkable control over her surroundings, like someone who had been a shinobi far longer than most. Her left hand rose towards her face, her index finger softly touching her lips as she seemed to be thinking about something. "It's a vexing though, that you'd think that that bell could hold me in my entirity. True, I did not expect it to be able to contain some part of me...I should look into that. However, for the time being, let's make this place a bit more comfortable, shall we?"

As soon as she said that, the woman started to raise both her arms a bit, making a flicking motion with her right hand, after which black lines seemed to appear all over her body, swirls and shapes of various sizes appearing all across her skin. The protective barrier was slowly being overwritten, but seemed to hold off the lines for now. "Much better," The woman grinned visciously. "Now than, what's your next move...surrender or struggle against inevitable defeat?"

1287

The possessed dragon smirked, the silver eyes of the woman looking intensely at Yosei, as the sealer started his monologue. With every word that escaped the man's mouth, the woman winced, as if refraining from doing more than necessary, yet the more the sealer spoke, the further the sickly ink of the curse spread itself across the Dragon empress' body, showing the result of the growing chakra's seething anger towards the stranger. The man spoke about someone or something called Naraka, somewhere inside the dark chakra, deep within the connection which it had with it's originator, that name rung a bell. "Your arrogance truly is rather obnoxious," The woman hissed, before suddenly a bright golden light practically blinded all outside and within, both the fleshly and the astral got drawn in by memories untold and unseen by mortal eyes.

The dark chakra fragment didn't know what happened, but could only guess that the sealer had applied the same technique as it had done itself, by applying an inverted version of the ANBU mindwipe tactic and technique. However, in this case there were two people rather than one who was watching the memories of another: a silenced Lamya and a man far far away through the eyes of his remnant. A twisted landscape dotted with signs of death and decay arose before their eyes. Scores of inhuman creatures of various sizes roamed the land beneath their eyes and in the center a lone human was drawing a line in blood, death and despair in his wake. As this was a memory, the one who was connected to the remnant knew what this place was. Hell was not fiction or fantasy any longer and the dark side of the afterlife was revealed before the onlookers' very eyes. To top it all off, a strange, frightening form of a demonic god seemed to show itself at the very end of the trail.

An eternal battlefield, a landscape of martyrs and misery," The remnant spoke through Lamya, a soft chuckle escaping in reaction to an inhuman cold which washed over the pair. "Hardly anything to frighten me with...urgh..."

Before the remnant could react, something odd happened: a field of birds, dark and demented turned into golden bands of strange and unusual energy that started to rise out of nowhere, wrapping around its limbs, envelopping its body until it snatched its throat and started squeezing with an irresistable force.  An energy far from anything the remnant had ever felt before had started to make it feel as if it was being ripped apart and reassembled with every word spoken by a disembodied and inhuman voice. A mere whisper floated through the air, yet each word spoken felt like being cut by a thousand superheated steel daggers. Even now though, despite being bound, despite facing something it could almost not comprehend, the remnant still tried to assert its dominance, with foul dark chakra escaping like a necrotic vapor through the openings which had been left by the golden energy envelopping the dragon empress' body. "By my will alone, the world will turn, by my words, the world will bow..."

In an instant, the corrupted form of Lamya stood alone in a field of sunflowers, while the remnant and Lamya watched over it, the field instantly erupting in a blurring vision of flapping wings and chittering beaks. In the end, the Remnant was still standing in the same room, panting and sweating, yet quickly regaining its composure. Despite having managed to keep control over the rogue shinobi's body and still managing to surpress her power, it was shaken by what had happened, what it had encountered and endured.

As Yosei spoke, the remnant glared at the sealer, it's eyes showing doubt and distrust, at least until a possibility was given, an option to grasp what it wanted for so long and it was offered with seemingly no strings attached. With a smirk on its face, the Remnant looked at the revived former hokage, a devious twinkle in the otherwise cold and ruthless eyes of Lamya's possessed form. At least, there was a twinkle until the Remnant finally heard that single name, the name it carried and the name the originator of its power wielded: Enaka.

Just like it had done before, black, insanely powerful chakra seeped out of lamya's skin, envelopping the corrupted form as it momentarily seemed to take the form of a grotesque, shadowy monster of towering height and inhuman menace. Instantly the shadowy form reached for the sealer's throat, yet it did not squeeze or cause harm. It was a mere sign of showing and asserting dominance and as the fingers clasped around Yosei, touching the sealer's skin, the shadow seemed to flake away to reveal the Remnant's true identity. He looked younger than Yosei could remember him being last they had meet, but there was no mistake that it was indeed the former Ouroboros regent, the man who even when imprisoned managed to force a hokage to his knees with a simple show of force alone; Orochi Enaka. "In a world populated with insolent creatures thinking themselves gods...I will admit that you are something different, something far more interesting...little Mitsuhide," The man chuckled, it's black gloved hands letting go of Yosei's neck. With half of his face covered with a black mask, a purple coat with white fur adorning the collar and slick black pants and boots, Enaka looked almost like an entirely different person than the traditionally clothed middle aged man he used to be, yet the emotionless eyes betrayed him to be who he truly was. "Your power rivals that of my own child, my own most worthy creation...it's fascinating."

Taking a step back, this new image of Enaka crossed his arms and nodded calmly. "I shall relinquish my dear nice as I have already figured out her powers," Again reverting to the corrupted form of Lamya, the remnant got back onto the operation table and sat down with a wicked smile on her face. "All you need to do is pierce the third layer of the curse and extract the core...you can have it...it might come in handy. Look at it as my gift to you...However, do not betray me nor deceive me. For whatever power that fool Hastur believes himself to have, he is but a welp, an adolescent child compared to me. Do not tempt me to snuff you out like all those who have tried to face me before, for no force in any of the realms will be able to save you from my wrath."

With these words, the remnant turned Lamya with her back upwards and instantly the woman's sage form got disrupted and slowly vanished, giving her back her black hair and golden eyes, having forced her into a sound sleep while the curse mark reduced itself to its original fist-sized shape.

"The time is near..." With those words, the last of the dark chakra seemed to vanish and only the dragon empress' calmly breathing body remained on the operating table: helpless, defenceless, yet no longer held back by the curse.

1210

Lamya's eyes opened slowly, her golden eyes looking straight at the white wall at the other end of the room with a haziness in them. Slowly, she rose up til she sat straight on the operating table, still having a puzzled expression on her face, before she seemed to be plagued by a pang of pain, forcing her to clasp her hands against her face for a moment, hissing slightly as somehow she could've sworn to have seen things she wasn't ought to see, but the memories were vague and blurry at best. "Did...did you get rid of it?" Standing up, she moved her hands from her face to her back, feeling just her skin and the ripped silken strands of her dress. Nothing seemed to be there, nothing at all.

With a sigh of relief, the woman sat down again and looked at Yosei, calmly accepting the cup of tea he was offering, yet when he'd look at her he'd see that something was off. For some reason, despite the fact that she looked practically exactly as she was supposed to, he could see it deep within her eyes: a bottomless void in a mere spec in her golden eyes, a thin silver-colored rim now rested at the edge of her normally pure golden, snakelike orbs. Was it some aftereffect of the seal's removal or some sort of remainder of the Remnant's influence over her? Whatever it was, it wasn't something which would appear naturally and just the fact that the sealer had just dealt with someone who when it came to pure power was without a single doubt a threat to the shinobi world, even more so if he'd unleash whatever he got within that sick and twisted mind of his and here she was, sitting on the operating table, holding a cup of tea quietly, the one thing even Enaka had to make sure to keep under his control through various methods.

"You know, why would I build something, when I can just as easily take what I want?" The snake looked up towards Lamya, tilting its head to the side wondering what his mistress was talking about. "Why should I spend my time waiting and collecting, while I can just as easily take everything? You come from Konoha...I come from Konoha, we're both cast out and forgotten...maybe we should make them remember again, remember who we were and who we are...remember what we stood for and what they have failed to achieve by doing so."

Standing up, the woman placed the cup on the table near Yosei, black strands of chakra becoming visible as she started chuckling softly. Her chakra was different, more corrosive, colder in nature and much more refined as it had been the last time she had displayed it to the sealer. It was as if her body had remembered the chakra which had plagued her, the chakra which had been building up and had assimilated part of it within her. There was no mistake, despite the Remnant having held up its part of the bargain with Yosei, in the end, Enaka's words were very much true: she was his greatest creation and with every adversity, she grew stronger, vastly more dangerous and closer to him in ways even he could not fathom. "If I need soldiers, I'll make them out of the corpses of those who resist me. If I need power, I'll just take it from others, if I need a nation...I'll just have one bow down to me in fear. I'm not the shinobi this world needs... I'm the monster it deserves."

Laughing out loud, she let her chakra run wild, a black void of energy erupting from her body and completely eradicating the roof above the two of them. Quickly as he could, Uraeus slithered onto his mistress and as Lamya stopped laughing, she turned her attention back at Yosei. "You've freed me from that bastard's control...but I'm certain there was a price to be paid. Be wary of him, for even I dare not face him directly...not yet at least." With those words spoke, she vanished from sight, leaving but a cracked floor and a bell which rang ominously within Yosei's posession, showing just how close she had gotten to what a single man had once said: "If I am to be the god that saves and rules this wretched world, there must first be a monster to destroy it."

770/7058

EXIT THREAD

1500/1500 Fuuinjutsu learned from Yosei
4000/4000 Fuuinjutsu D->C

1558 wc leftover