Tira wasn't the kind of girl who liked getting her feathers ruffled. She was the most chaste and good-natured sister in the Doves of Everlasting Charity. Her skill with the ring blade was unmatched by anyone in her order, but she only unleashed her deadly skills when innocents were in trouble and there was evil to fight.
But now she had fallen into a henhouse of corruption. She had been sent to eliminate a rival sect who called themselves the Bird of Passage, but their numbers were too great even for her and she fell to their pecking order. This vile clan of assassins was obsessed with spreading Soul Edge's festering influence through the entire world… and through Tira.
Her arms were bound between two temple columns in colorful strings like maypoles. Her legs were held off ground by her clustered opponents, keeping her lying almost flat in the air. Her head rocked back in dazed semi-consciousness while her entire body ached from exhaustion.
Her ring blade was abandoned on the floor a few feet away. From her waist upwards, Tira's battle attire was in tattered rags that that could end up becoming a new look for her. The lower half of her body was hidden by the long robes of the snickering members of the all-female cult gathered in front of her. The first round of the battle was evident in the cracked columns and overturned candle holders spread through every corner the dreary temple. The second round continued below the hem of Tira's belt.
She had been blessed with holy resistance against Soul Edge's influence before being sent on this dangerous mission. Mother Dove had anointed her on the head, kissed her on the head, and said prayers over her head so the forces of evil could never invade her head and infect her mind. There was only one small problem: Her enemies were focusing their crafts to somewhere other than her head.
The starry-eyed members of the Bird of Passage looked down on the portion of Tira surrounded by their cloaks and reacted with amazed "ooh"s and "aah"s. Their leader—an older woman standing the closest to Tira's legs—shook her head and rolled her eyes.
"Ladies, ladies. Contain yourselves. It's nothing we haven't all seen before," she instructed her servants with slight annoyance.
It was time to commence the ceremonial plucking of the defeated Dove. The old matron was secretly handed two special items behind the cloaks of her younger cackling subordinates. A candle dripping wax was placed her left hand, while a small razor was place in her right hand. The servants held Tira's legs apart and restricted her from struggling too much. The matron swiped her with a quick combo that left her as smooth and shiny as a jewel.
The matron pulled her hand away and smiled in approval. The younger cultists resumed their innocent oohing and aahing. Tira mumbled weakly in a hairless daze.
"That's a better look for you," the matron said while she nodded. "I'm sure He will feel the same way."
Her eyes shifted toward the ring blade on the ground. The metal weapon began to rattle against the marble with mysterious dark energy. The ground under the empty center of the ring crumbled away like an illusion and opened into a flaming portal.
A thriving black tentacle covered with demonic eyes rose up from the vortex like a vine growing unnaturally fast. The end of the appendage peeled open and stretched into a smaller tentacle, peeled open again, and peeled open again, unraveling on itself like a twisted version of a nesting doll. The shrine matron held out her palm, and the last layer of the tentacle peeled apart and dropped a wiggling black form barely an inch long into the center of her hand. The tentacle disappeared and the ring blade portal turned back into solid ground.
The devious old crone grasped the creature in her fingers and moved her hand toward Tira. Tira gathered enough of her senses to lift her head and look down. Terror grew in her eyes.
"It's just like they say, little pigeon," the matron chuckled to her. "The early bird gets the worm."
The matron moved her hand forward, and Tira's whole body convulsed in shock. Vile forces reached up through her body and attacked her shielded mind. Her mind resisted, creating a schism between her mind and body that tortured her more than if Soul Edge had been able to possess her outright. Her assassin rivals had no way of knowing what effect their curse was going to have on her.
Her psyche tore in half, becoming two conflicting sets of emotions with nothing but a nest of insanity in between. Regaining control of her body, she curled her waist and sat up.
Tira was feeling a bit gloomy, so she cheered herself up by murdering the first two dozen unsuspecting cultists within her reach. She ripped her arms off of the maypole ropes and put all of her strength in her legs to wrench herself out of the women's grasps. Bones shattered and flesh was flayed under the sheer force of Tira's spiked gauntlets as the fragment of Soul Edge embedded inside of her tripled her fighting power. Once she cartwheeled to her ring blade and armed herself again, she went duck hunting for the rest of her opponents.
Within seconds, Tira was the only fighter in the dark shrine still standing on her feet. She looked down on the chaos lying around her and muttered in a sinister voice.
"Do any of you chickadees feel like chirping anymore?"
The cult members responded with collective groans of agony and deathly silence. Their matron was huddled with her back against a column shivering in terror. She raised her hand for mercy when Tira noticed her and started creeping toward her.
"And you, you old turkey," Tira scowled in hatred. "You look like you went rotten a few Christmases ago. There's no point in keeping you around."
"Y-… you. You're… you're a nightmare!" the Bird of Passage matron stammered.
"No, but I know where to find one," Tira smirked.
She swung her ring blade at the cult leader's neck in a swift shimmer of metal and an instant splatter of blood. The old temple matron was one chicken who didn't survive getting her head cut off.
Tira hoisted the ring blade over her shoulder and stretched. She was a mess of her former self wearing the tatters of her old identity. Her once hopeful and noble personality had been shattered beyond recognition. Now she was unhinged, scatterbrained, and driven completely by her dangerously fickle emotional whims. And her current whim was to gather Soul Edge's power all for herself.
Author's note: She got a mistake-a in the cloaca.