Jigoku Prison, high security facility, Iwagakure

With a scalpel in hand, numerous medical equipment spread next to her on a small aluminuim cart and a few assistants all wearing mouthmasks and the uniform of Iwagakure's medical corps, Lamya was bussy at work with a new goal in mind. The Ryujin had been a succesful attempt at creating better and more capable soldiers, but their dependance upon the blood of their creator made it rather hard to keep them in check. If she did not hold an overwhelming powergap over them, the endresult could have been disastrous. However, with this new trial and error, the former Desert Snake was trying to expand the limits of the human body with a whole new method.

"Hand me those pliers," Calmly clipping the pliers on the skin of a corpse she had just cut open, Lamya grabbed a paper with a rather strange looking seal upon it and placed it upon the still heart of the corpse, exposed after having cut open the cadaver's chest and cracked open his ribcage. "Let's see if this works..."

Making a few handseals, the woman pressed her hand upon the paper and let out a controlled pulse of chakra. Lifting her hand, she picked up the paper when the seal vanished from it and appeared onto the still heart of the corpse.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, yet suddenly the seal seemed to jumpstart the heart, jolts of chakra in the form of raiton nature coarsing through the heart, the lungs, the liver, the muscles, the bones. With an excited smile on her face, Lamya was witnessing what was happening in front of her, calmly removing the sheet which covered the corpse's head and reaching out for a flashlight while opening the corpse's eyelids. "Pupils are reacting, yet slightly dialated, there seems to be the feint presence of breathing and residual motorfunctions should be fine...apparently the painreceptors are not active, denoting the fact that subject is not yet completely alive...the body is functional, but still needs a pilot to drive it."

Looking at the silently, shallow breathing hollow shell of a man, chest still cracked and pried open, with every organ forced to work under the activation of the seal she had placed on it, Lamya wondered what she had to use in a case like this. She could use puppeteers, maybe some additional seal to forcibly give it some motorfunctions...but without a basic instinct, without the very basis of consciousness, a corpse would remain a corpse, even when technically alive, it would be no more than a comapatient in a vegetative state. Pondering about this, she wondered if this might actually be a good thing for her little Jugo to play with, after all she had managed by some miracle or curse to revive someone like herself, so perhaps her skills might be...interesting to combine with her own.

Removing her gloves, the woman sighed and told one of the medical corpse members to go and call for her student. Which one of the assistants adhered to, giving a nod before leaving the room, closing the secured vaultdoor behind him.

"Ugh..." The woman looked at the corpse and had to resist herself from coughing, holding her hand against her mouth for a moment, taking in a deep breath through her nose to subdue the feeling. When one of the assistants looked at her, she smiled, waving away their concern and putting back a latex glove on her right hand. "Ah... I forgot to give that guy the key for the door...ah well, when they're back, they'll just have to knock on the door, I guess..."

609

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601

B rank - Fade to Black:

"Alive...yet not alive, dead...yet not dead in the eyes of natural law," Lamya sighed, coughing for a moment, when she heard someone fiddle with the lock on the door. It was rather funny that those incompetent people were called the Iwagakure's medical corps, though perhaps the former Konoha ANBU was a bit too demanding of those who served under her. After all, there were but a select few that could match her in terms of her medical skills, let alone surpass those. However, what Lamya had in her favor, was an unmatched thirst for knowledge and progress. Lots of techniques and experimental data of the great and wise practitioners of old had gone, lost to the idle hands of time, but she was confident that she would find a way to grasp the laws of nature just as her forebearers had done. She would unravel nature's mysteries and pervert them to suit her own needs, that was after all, the pinnacle of control: to defy...nay, usurp the entire role of nature itself. "Time is a fickle ally and a most sadistic enemy to those who practition both science and the occult."

Turning around when called, Lamya was rather shocked to find her student Laïs standing so close to her, having completely circumvented the sage's own senses. It was both pleasantly surprising, but also a very dangerous thing to do. To Lamya, it seemed that though for now she might've had the complete upper hand compared to the young Jugo, but somewhere deep in her mind, this one thing already told her to keep a good eye on Laïs, who's latent talent was equal, if not greater than her own.

The other assistant, who had been prepping the seals, cleaning the tools and had been doing other menial tasks, was first just as shocked, but due to the nature of the work they were doing, it seemed he had somehow managed to detach himself from further emotion or actions on the matter, just calmly walking over to the door to open it and let in the other assistant, closing the door again when the other assistant came in, bowed to Lamya and immediately set of to work again.

"You see Laïs, the aim this time was to find a way to get around the...more common downsides of the old Ryujin experiments," The pale woman looked at the Jugo girl, smiled and instantly started coughing again, her back heaving heavily as she hackled loudly, covering her face with her gloved hands. "There is no soul present in this body, so it isn't affected by the laws of time, by the very nature of our souls and our chakra...so it also does not have the problems of being dependent on an external source of chakra...of life."

The woman placed a hand on the seal which had spread all across the lifeless, yet somehow alive corpse, a black vaporous chakra seeping out of the seal when Lamya's gloved hand came in contact with it. It was changing, the characters of the seal shifting and reacting to Lamya's own chakra, as syhe tried to find a way to rewrite and correct a few issues with the seal. "Alas, to be perfectly capable of autonomous movement, no matter how small and feeble, this things still needs a soul or some form of catalyst to act as the engine of the body and mind, to propel it to wherever it needs to be going. On the other hand...souls tend to be flawed, bearing pains and tragedies of the past, visions and even transformations of death and decay may occur...ugh... as if time sees fit to rewrite itself the moment a soul passes the barrier and regains physical form again."

Again, Lamya started coughing loudly, beads of sweat becoming visible on her face, which for some reason seemed to be so...hollow. One of the assistants instantly dropped his work and supported her, dragging the woman to a nearby chair, all the while not looking at the droplets of black liquid which had splattered upon the ground where she had been standing, letting of a smell similar to burnt flesh. "Life...death, they are but aspects of time and as such, I have found an adversary even I am afraid to face ... one which troubles my senses, haunts me in my sleep and seeks to balance that which is out of order. Do tell me Laïs... what is the one thing everyone wishes right before they die?"

769/1378

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506
Total: 1'107

"Peace and rest...for someone who's apparently been dubbed The Necromancer, you surely do lack the insight in humanity, especially when it comes to the despair that comes to the moment of death," The woman coughed again, splatters of black liquid dripping from the corner of her mouth, letting off a sizzling black vapor as they touched the ground, the stench of burned flesh becoming more prominent as Lamya's face started to show flakes of skin dropping off of her, her feature's becoming sickly or more precise: sickening to look at. "They simply ask for more time, they wish for it, desire it, but time as I sad is fickle, to all...even me, so it seems."

Caught in another fit of coughs and spasms, Lamya held one of her hands against her forehead, not even noticing that her hair was starting to thin out, her skin starting to wither and peel off in various places like old parchment. "To truly...be revived...I need to stop...time itself."

Slowly, the woman stood back up, from sight alone it was apparent that her entire body had been degenerating extremely fast, with her features sickly thin, sunken in and almost skeletal in nature. Burnmarks had appeared all over her skin, black liquid dripping to the ground as she stood motionless, her hair covering her face, no sound being made at all.

Both assistants stopped with their work and looked at Laïs, than at the strangely silent Lamya, before turning their attention back to Laïs again, a somewhat desperate look in their eyes, confused as they were about the whole situation.

"T..T...Time..." The word sounded hollow, uttered in a single muttering breath, smoke floating upwards through the black hair covering her face as she spoke. However, when one of the assistants moved towards the door, dumb enough to drop the keys to the floor due to his trembling hands, Lamya's neck snapped backwards, revealing a face that had been burned, her eyes having popped open, her skin nearly completely gone, black liquid seeping through her teeth and upon her jaw, dripping down upon the floor, letting out that same burning smell as it had before.

Without as much as a word though, she let out an earpiercing wail, storming through the room in a rather jagged fashion towards the assistant who had managed to drop the keys and was frantically trying to pick them up again. The frightening visage which had been beautiful just a few moments prior looked at the man, slowly reaching out for his face with her boney fingers, slowly forcing him to raise himself back to his feet, to affraid to resist. "T..ime..." Her boney fingers instantly wrapped themselves around the poor man's throat, pulling him close to her in an instant and before he could even react, her other hand placed with a strong grip on the back of his head as she seemingly went for a kiss.

A long, black tongue slithered out of her cheekless face, flailing out of the side of her face and making its way into the frightened assistant's mouth, a gurgling sound resonated through the room, followed by an inhuman sucking noise and as the tongue vanished into the poor man's mouth, the woman's face pressed against his to seal the deal with what was without a doubt the most sickening kiss imaginable. The poor assistant flailed about for a moment, before all of a sudden his entire face started to become wrinkled, his entire body starting to become thinner and frailer, until all that was left within the skeletal woman's grip was no more than a lifeless husk which had been completely sucked dry of both its chakra and lifeforce. "Need...m...ore...t..ime..."

The skeletal figure's head dropped down again, standing motionless in the middle of the room, with the only person with the keys to the door now lifeless on the ground, dead fingers gripping the key.

675/2053

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754
Total: 1'861

With one of the assistants down on the ground, completely drained of both life and vitality, remaining as nothing more but a mere husk of dried flesh, skin and brittle bones, the withered form of Lamya simply remained standing still near said corpse, her head slumped forwards with her thinned out black hair covering most of her withered and burned face, all the while dripping that same dark liquid upon the ground which she had been coughing up earlier. Like hot tar, it let off a foul smelling vapor when it touched the cold concrete floor of the prison in which Lamya had been conducting her experiments. However, despite her earlier show of being close to an animal with a ravenous apetite and hunger, it seemed that she was currently in a somewhat eerily calm and unmoving state.

The other assistant looked at laïs and wondered what she was talking about when she mentioned something called 'the three keys', only to freeze in place when it seemed that Lamya reacted to Laïs' words, a shock running through the withered body, its head snapping to the side with a loud, sickening crackle and pop, her arms, thin and skeletal in appearance, shivering for a mere moment before falling silent again. "Time...time...tic...toc..." The words came out like a sigh, as if it were a cold damp breeze in a graveyard during the middle of the night, hollow and cold without any tone or life within the voice which emanated through the room. "Time..."

The assistant looked at the withered woman, cringing every time he could hear her speak, though he started to think about his own survival, looking around the entire room while contemplating what to do next. His comrade's dried up hand was still holding the keys to the door so that was an option, yet probably the least safe one so far. As his gaze went towards Laïs, the assistant noticed her backing up a bit and already knew that in her own consideration, she had already decided to use him as a sacrifice if there was no alternative. Wondering about his own options, he looked further, noticing the scrolls and brush near the undead corpse on the metal slab near the withered woman at the center of the room. However, just as with the keys, this looked like a very farfetched idea that rested solely on luck and time, two things he doubted he'd have in a situation like the one he was in.

"Ma'am," The assistant muttered towards Laïs, hoping she'd be able to figure something out, after all, it did look like she had some sort of idea when she made a mention in regards to something called the three keys. However, the fact that a sound managed to leave his mouth was the poor assistant's undoing, as without any warning or any sign, the withered Lamya's arm stretched out precariously and had the man pinned against the wall behind him with her skeletal fingers in an impossibly strong grip around his neck.

The withered Lamya raised her head, her neck crackling, her bones creaking like old metal pipes, revealing a face with no eyes, no lips, barely any skin left to be called cheeks, a face burned beyond recognition with a jaw completely unhinged and hanging open, while a huge black tongue slowly slithered out of it, dripping the same black liquid of before onto the ground, causing the room to be filled with the noxious looking and wretched smelling stench of burned flesh. Slowly, she turned her head in an unnatural angle towards the assistant, her grip on him remaining firm no matter how hard he squirmed, almost casually shuffling towards him. "Time...time..."

As she reached the desk standing in her way towards the assistant, the withered woman looked down for a moment, letting out a sound of both disbelief and confusion, as if her mind had completely reverted to a basic instinct to feed and nothing more. Yet rather than tear the desk apart or smash it, she simply rested her free, skeletal hand upon it, surprising the assistant as he could see the wood turning black and crumble like ashes underneath her touch, the remaining sap and strength removed from the wood alltogether. "For the love of the sage of the six paths, help me...help me!!"

The assistant cried out in fear, looking with a bewildered expression on his face towards Laïs, practically begging her to intervene in what both knew was about to come. In his fear, he panicked, clasping his hands together and starting to form a seal, yet before even one seal had been completed, a terrible, dark and monstrous aura seemed to ooze out of the skeletal woman, bursting out intensely with such pressure the ground seemed to crack underneath her, the concrete floor buckling underneath the ravenous expulsion of terrifyingly dark and hate-filled chakra, shocking the assitant to such a point that it became hard to breathe, his entire body seemingly paralyzed by that shock, drooling from the corner of his lips as he had momentarily lost consciousness and when he regained his bearings a bit again, he looked at Laïs and started to squirm and even yell in the final throes of life before the inevitability would come knocking in the most gruesome manner possible. "Help me!! Help me you bitch!! for the love of, just help ME...uh...urgh..."

The woman's thick, slimy black tongue slithered against the man's face, pressing itself against his lips and forcing its way into its mouth and into his throat like a halfrotten serpent, burrowing itself a way to the place within him where his chakra was most strong, where his life was most vital. Slowly, the skeletal woman's burned and withered face closed in to the man, her free hand grasping his chin as she seemingly seemed to kiss him, her tongue squirming within his throat, as it bulged and pulsated with  it inside.

The man's legs started to flail, his eyes wide and bloodshot as vein after vein seemed to pop and burst within them. When at long last, the pulsating within his throat stopped, the poor assistant's eyelids suddenly spread open so far one would think he'd be popping his own eyes out, his legs stopped flailing, resorting only to a weak and continuous tremble, his pants becoming soiled and wet, the fabric darkening as blood trickled out of both his ears and nose. His skin started to wrinkle and sag before completely drying up as if it were parchment stretched thin over bone. His eyes glazed over, dried up and vanished and his hair became grey before falling to the ground in swathes. With a last hollow gurgle, the skeletal woman suddenly retreated her slithering black tongue out of the man's throat and mouth, letting go of the now lifeless, dried up prune of a corpse and turned towards Laïs with a cruel looking, hollow smile upon her somehow slowly repairing face. "Your time...give me your...TIME!!"

1198/3251

Convert 3250 wc to ryo: 975
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