Ancient Evil - Main Story

Ami entered the ancient temple with a wary look around. Having left Yori back at the lab, Ami was taking this task alone. When she'd been approached with the information she was well aware that not many people would be as eager to see the results of this experiment as she was and so she'd made sure that not a single soul would ever know she'd come here.

Ami thanked her intense scientific knowledge that she'd gifted herself with the ability to see in the dark as, this being a Hanyou temple, it was entirely underground and devoid of any lighting or windows of any kind. This was a place for those who prowled the night and could see clearly through the darkness...

She walked some distance through the ancient stone halls and various decorative rooms before finally stopping dead in one in particular. She couldn't see him, but he was there. She could feel his eyes on her immediately. It made her fur bristle intensely. Immediately she began to fiddle with the complicated looking headset mounted atop her forehead in preparation for what was to come.

"Do you have it? I want to see it. I need to verify what it is before I can get to work." She spoke briskly and without fear. She had no reason to worry that this man had other motives. Her life was never in danger. They were both in the business of doing the world monumental favors and being misunderstood. One could even call what they had a kinship of sorts. That's why he came to her rather than anyone else.

The Hanyou stood in the hands of a large statue within the room, he had always enjoyed a view that game him an advantage. As the scientist entered the room, he smelled the air. Blood type was the same, heart beat was a little accelerated but nothing to show that she was being deceiptful or had brought anyone else to their gathering. Yes, everything was going according to plan thus far. The man smiled, his fangs almost shining through the darkness.

The man leaped down and landed just a few feet away from Ami. "Forgive me, you are the only one I trust in this matter, I have always appreciated your discretion" he said before walking forward. "I have it right here for you," Rakdos said before holding up his hands. It was currently covered by a blood red cloth, but as it was removed...something large was visible in his hand.

It appeared as if it was a large black pearl, but it wasn't solid. The darkness within the pearl seemed to move about, as if it was a liquid trapped within a sphere. Even just it's movements seemed to go against how science would dictate for it to move. The man started to walk forward, bringing it within inches of Ami.

"Well...shall you get to work?"

The sight of the small ball of glass filled with the unknown fluid immediately brought a wickedly feline grin to the woman's face, her glowing eyes staring fixedly on the way the crimson-black liquid moved with unnatural physical properties.

"Excellent..." she muttered quietly before flicking down the telescopic lenses atop her head and beginning to adjust the various settings. "I see..." It was only a mere few seconds before she threw the lenses back up and out of her eyes to once again regard Rakdos. "Testing begins now. Do everything in your power to attempt to shatter the vessel. I want to see what qualities it possesses. A pearl of glass should be little match for a shinobi of your caliber."

The man smiled as Ami requested that he do everything in his power to open the vessel. He had already tried it before, but he had no qualm in allowing her to see his repeated attempts. "You're going to want to stand back, trust me," he said before waiting for her to move. Once she had he set the orb on the ground before cracking his fingers. From his back he pulled out two twin serrated curved blades. They were butcher weapons, meant to hack a prey rather than kill it quickly.

"If there's anything Rakdos Hanyou can do, it's do some damage"

Rakdos held his blades above his head before channeling a great amount of chakra in to them. HE smashed the blades down against the pearl, causing a shockwave to emanate from the orb and fire back. Even with Ami's distance, a large amount of pressure and dust would be sent her away. By the time the room cleared, Ami would see that the surface of the orb hadn't so much as shifted or phased at all. "See? Had I placed any more chakra in to that attack, I might have brought a wall down. There's something else keeping this object sealed"

At his suggestion that she gain some distance, Ami took a few steps back to wait patiently with her hands held calmly behind her back. She stood straight at attention as she awaited the expected results, not making a sound as Rakdos touted his own ability to inflict damage on an object.

She continued to hold her ground as the blades slammed into the glass pearl, her coat and hair billowing out behind her as the shockwave passed her. Once the damage, or lack thereof, was done Ami was quick to step forward again. With a quick stoop, she grabbed up the orb and flicked the magnifying lenses back into place over her eyes to get a closer look.

"Aha... I see now..." she mused. "It's so complicated it's nearly microscopic, but I can get past even such a complex seal fairly easily with the right tools. ...Do you mind?" She held the orb back out for him to take once again. This place didn't seem to have much in the way of tables and, even if it did, it would be difficult to hold such a thing in place once work was started.

"Not at all" Rakdos said as he took the orb and held it with perfect balance. If you wanted something done right you had to do it yourself. Rakdos couldn't open the orb, but he knew that Ami was the most qualified individual to do it, whoever created it wanted to make sure that it was never opened again. Thankfully Ami had the mindset of an individual that believed all questions must be answered, even if no one else wanted to know it.

Rakdos continued to hold the orb in place, watching Ami work with curious intrigue.

With a quick flick of her wrist, Ami produced a rather small tool that looked more like some sort of mechanical hypodermic needle than any sort of tool for smashing or slashing. This was Ami's answer to the question of how to break the seal and get at the gooey center of the ancient vessel.

"Alright, you're going to need to hold it perfectly still even though this is likely going to be putting off a good lot of pressure so I'd brace yourself in a comfortable position if I were you. This is going to require the utmost precision so we both need steady hands for however long this is going to take. ...It could be hours."

With her warning given, Ami waited long enough for Rakdos to either refuse to move or take up a better stance or find a place to sit or whatever he may plan to do. Once he'd finished, however, Ami was quick to bring the miniscule point of what was actually a drill bit down onto the glass and flipped the switch on her device. The wonder of technology hummed into life, both the ball and it thrumming with a deep vibration the moment the sharp point of the bit met with the glass of the orb. Ami really laid into her work, pressing in on the vessel even as it began to shriek with a terrible sound of resistance against her efforts.

A second layer of drilling power would be added to her efforts soon thereafter as the bit began to glow with sudden lightning that spiraled down the shaft and straight into the incredibly tiny dent she'd managed to create thus far. It wasn't much, but it sure was progress! Her tongue poked just past her lips as she put all her concentration on the task at hand. Just as she'd said, this would take awhile.

Rakdos knew better than to question anything Ami said. She was the kind of person that knew she was smarter than everyone else, and while she loved pointing it out, she hated to explain to anyone that she didn't think would understand. It was a sentiment he shared with certain subjects.

When he was ordered to get comfortable, he sat down and crossed his legs in a way that he could support his arms and use them to prop his arms up. He knew that this would take some time, and so he entered into a rested state. He used his chakra to ensure that his body wouldn't give way to Ami's efforts. This was too important of a task to mess up now.

He had come so far, he wouldn't let his weakness ruin this. He waited in absolute silence, waiting for Ami's drill to do its work...

Ami lost track of the passing time in the sunless catacombs as she kept at her work, ears flat against her head as she made further and further progress. There was no possibility of taking a break given the vessel's properties. In all likelihood it had the ability to regenerate damage inflicted on it given even a second's respite. With that in mind, Ami kept at her work despite all else, her perspiration falling in tiny droplets from her brow onto the glass of the nigh impenetrable container as her drill bit did the impossible and delved deeper through the glass.

As it turned out, the two of them would actually lose several days before the constant shrieking of the drill biting into the seal-enhanced glass finally ceased and Ami's hand holding the device jerked forward to fully penetrate through to the core.

"IT IS DONE," Ami spoke plainly, but far too loud given the fact that she'd lost her hearing at least a day ago amidst the constant whine pounding against her sensitive ears. She hesitated a moment with the miniscule drill still buried in the hole it had created before switching the purpose of her device. Drilling no longer, Ami twisted a large vial onto the end with her free hand and began to extract the viscous liquid from its former prison...

Rakdos had to endure much throughout the years. Hatred, violence, near-death experiences. All of it had lead to a moment like this, a moment where he would finally be able to change the world in a drastic way. He wanted to laugh at the irony so much in those days that they lost, but he'd never let Ami know that what she was doing wouldn't help the world. She was going to help bring it to to ruin, and her science wouldn't be able to help her at that point.

She had killed everyone, the moment she broke through that barrier.

Rakdos's concentration went from his position to the scientist as she started to extract the liquid. Yes, this was it. He smiled, watching as the syringe pulled out an ancient wonder to the world. "That's it, just like that," Rakdos said to himself as he watched the woman work. They were so close.

And finally, with a quick, precise motion Ami slid the needle point of her miraculous creation from the hole it had pierced through the former device of imprisonment. Even with nothing left to encapsulate, the glass still went about it's automatic task of beginning to repair the hole, though much too slow to actually prevent what was within from escaping.

With her syringe now full to brimming with the contents of the glass globe, Ami made to squirt a small sample onto the ground. The reddish-black liquid fell to the dusty stone of the temple with a wet splat... and remained there unmoving as nothing more than a stain. Ami's brow was quick to furrow in disappointed annoyance.

"NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS EXPECTING..." she spoke in a hesitant shout above the continued ringing in her ears. "GIVE ME SOME TIME TO RUN SOME TESTS AND SEE WHAT I CAN DO WITH IT, OKAY? I THINK TIME HASN'T BEEN SO KIND TO THE POWER THAT WAS HERE BEFORE."

Rakdos watched the work curiously, as Ami took the syringe and saved the black mess of liquid. The orb was already healing, but Ami had done what she needed to. With the liquid in this form, they would be able to continue their work.

"Excellent," Rakdos said as he raised his voice to make sure that Ami could hear him. "You will have time, and I will come by within a month's time to see your progress. I will also come with the payment as we agreed, plus extra for your troubles" Rakdos said as he moved. His back released five pops as it seemed to be in need of a good stretch. "For now we must part ways, I have further business to attend to before I return to Honegakure. Should you have news earlier, you know how to reach me. Same method as before" Rakdos said before turning.

The demon walked to the exit, a small smile across his expression as he slipped away. Yes...everything was falling perfectly in to place.

It was nearly a month before Ami sent for Rakdos once again, deciding that their meeting spot would once again be the temple, though this time Ami arrived beforehand and hid only just inside, not going as deep within as the two of them had together. There was nothing of interest for her within, after all. It was merely a convenient place to meet in secret where no one would look.

She waited patiently for the demon's arrival, casually checking over her fingernails while she leaned against the ancient stone wall of the temple.

Rakdos walked in to the temple, prepared to head to the meeting place where he and Ami had worked on the orb together. He had arrived here as soon as he could, but he didn't have enough pull in Kiri to leave without some sort of reason. Thankfully with a few favors called in, he was able to make that happen.

Rakdos stopped as he felt Ami's presence and turned his head towards her. "The trip from Kiri to here wasn't short...I hope this is worth our time"

Ami merely sighed in response to Rakdos' first words.

"I'm doing such a favor for you and you open with a line like that? For shame, dear Rakdos, for shame. I'll have you know that my efforts have borne a great fruit of knowledge. You'll have that which you desire soon enough, but not without a bit of effort on your part. You'll remember that time and imprisonment had been... unkind to the power that had been locked away within the orb you gave to me. It was reduced to so much primordial ooze. Through careful experimentation and my own scientific expertise I perfected a method in which the sentient liquid, as it was found to be, could successfully parasitize a host to incubate to full maturity once again. I couldn't simply choose any old human being, however... I needed a being of truly great power. ...One such as yourself, but also one we don't mind killing once the incubation period has reached completion. ...You should already see where I'm going with this. I've theorized that she'll begin scenting as a Hanyou within a day or two, which should make her easy to pick out of a crowd. Her DNA should be broken down on a fundamental level as the power makes her body its own. Coping with her change will be difficult and I believe you, as a fellow Hanyou, would be the best choice to ease her through the changes that will very soon be overcoming her. Most important is obviously weaning her from solid food and onto a blood diet before she starves herself with a refusal to drink. I'll let you decide the details."

Rakdos just listened to Ami before realizing just exactly who she was talking about. That was going to be interesting. It was a bold move, one that Rakdos hoped would pay off rather then blowing up in their faces. Rakdos had a great deal of influence in Kiri, but even he had superiors that might blame him for taking matters in to his own hands in Honegakure. He would just have to work around Setsuna's weaknesses.

"I see, a very interesting approach Ami, but one that I believe will work out for us" Rakdos said before turning towards the door. "Anything else I need to know? If not, I have another trip to make it seems"

"Of course it'll work out. It's my plan," Ami stated simply, casting her eyes slyly in Rakdos' direction. "This will be our last communication unless a dire emergency comes up or you have another use for me not pertaining to this matter. I've fulfilled my end of this deal and it doesn't look as though you've even brought the payment we agreed upon."

Rakdos moved his hand quickly and produces a large bag before throwing it to Ami. "I'm a shinobi, misdirection is my specialty" I say before Rakdos stood there and allowed Ami to open the bag. As promised, a payment in the form of several priceless gems filled the bag. They were of varying type and size, and Ami would have no problem funding several of her next projects with this kind of money. "Till next we meet Ami" Rakdos said before turning and leaving the Hanyou Temple.