Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
AN: Full chapter title: Her Curse Is Unleashed! A Master's Cruel Legacy!
No one who called themselves Shinobi was a stranger to pain. All of them knew pain and knew how to handle it. Even so, Pakura couldn't stop her scream as she slammed into the ground. She had limits, however great they may be, of what she could take. Her body was too broken now to even consider rising. She didn't know if it was from the pain or the sheer frustration but she screamed.
Kakashi Hatake still lived.
She could no longer fight, could hardly move. She doubted she could even twitch her fingers without suffering absolute agony.
And now a monster stood in front of you.
"Damn you!" Pakura looked to where the last of her Scorch Release Chakra left her hand, nearly the last of her Chakra at this point after the taxing first aid she performed on herself. "What the hell are you!"
The gray skinned beast only growled at her. It was on all fours above Kakashi, clearly shielding the down Shinobi with not only its form but the strange and large webbed hands that emerged from its back. Pakura wanted to kill it but her Chakra was too little to make use of any techniques. Even staying awake now was proving almost too difficult. She felt her consciousness waver, barely managed to maintain it, and she groaned where she laid on the ground. It was impossible to deny the facts in front of her now.
She was defeated.
'What is that thing even?' A critical eye ran over the beast in front of her. If she could get out of this, escape this place, she needed to know what the creature in front of her was. 'Hatake summons hounds. Could it be some mutated mutt? No. He doesn't have the strength to do anything like that. He would've done so a long time ago if he could. There's no other Konoha Shinobi worth knowing about here. There's nothing in our records about a summon like that anyway.'
The beast growled at her and Pakura's eyes widened. It was preparing to attack. Dark Chakra flared around it, consumed it until the only thing Pakura could see were the beast's glowing yellow eyes, surrounded by dark hate filled abysses.
'It's going to kill me!' Pakura tried to move, to dodge the beast, but her body fiercely protested the very idea of movement. 'My body won't move anymore. I don't have the Chakra to create anymore threads. I'm nothing but a free target to that thing now!'
Pakura tried to force herself to move, force her legs to obey her, force her arms to do as she commanded, but it was all worthless. Her body was too broken, too exhausted, to move any longer. She was going to die. The beast was going to aim to kill, its claws would soon be covered by her blood after it tore her apart. She couldn't escape her fate now. She was doomed.
The beast's body tensed before it simply vanished from sight.
Pakura closed her eyes, steeled herself to die with at least some dignity. She would not whimper in fear, try to beg for a nonexistent aversion from her fate. She would die a proud Sunagakure Kunoichi and nothing else. She had done what she could to accomplish her duty, had at least wounded Kakashi and taken him out of the fight. He would die of his injuries just like she would die now. The invasion would succeed. The Hidden Leaf village would be crushed by the might of the Hidden Sand, destroyed through the unmatched brilliance of the Fourth Kazekage.
She could die almost happy with those thoughts.
"You foolish girl." Her salvation from death came with agony. Her body was violently pulled away from the stone she rested on, avoided death, but pain made her vision go white.
She almost screamed but withheld herself, stopped herself from thrashing, from sobbing at the absolute pain her body endured.
"C-Chiyo-sama..." A pair of Chakra Threads hung her in the air, attached to her back and made her sag forward. Pain was everything to her, consumed her in a abyss she couldn't escape any longer.
She nearly welcomed it.
The abyss would lead her to darkness, away from the eyes of the elder before her.
"Hush girl." Chiyo drew her closer, let her hang in front of her for now. Disappointment was a dim flame in her eyes. "You've failed your mission and can hardly stand by yourself. It's almost sad to see you bought so low."
"Hatake will not trouble our forces. He can no longer fight." Pakura bit down her anger at Chiyo's biting words. She knew the old woman in front of her would have failed to even match someone of Kakashi's caliber.
She was simply jealous of her power. Jealous of the power she could so easily call forth, the power to reshape the very battlefield.
"I should leave you here but Rasa-san has too much of a soft spot for you." Chiyo's words did finally bring a snarl from Pakura. The little Chakra she had left was enough to raise the temperature around the two to just uncomfortable levels. It could do little else and Chiyo knew. "You s-"
Her words were lost as she pulled back, threw Pakura behind her. The monster had seemingly stopped waiting and attacked them both. The ground Chiyo stood on erupted into a cloud of dust, stone pulverized in a single blow it seemed from the creature.
"You should stop taunting Pakura-kun so much sister." Ebizo ran a cloth over the old blade in his hand before sealing it away. "You nearly lost your life."
"Hmm. This creature is the girl who was Orochimaru's student, isn't it?" Chiyo unsealed a large hulking Puppet from a seal, four arms in total with large bulky fists that it brought together with a audible thud. "She must have awakened that power because she was dying. How pathetic."
The Puppet lunged forward just as the monster tensed. The two massive fists on its left side crashed into the ground, the monster already gone in the blink of an eye. Chiyo's eyes searched for the transformed Kunoichi and swiftly pulled the puppet back while it was joined by another much more slender one. Blades tore through the ragged black cloak that covered it's smaller form, scythes from its backs, slender blades erupting from its chest as if opening a artificial maw, rows of jagged blades spreading down each of its arms, and even its head was given a head of jagged spikes blades hanging on wires as if they were hair. A trio of cables tipped in barbed hooks emerged down the wrists of the larger puppet and both threw themselves forward at a twitch of Chiyo's fingers.
The beast didn't get far before a large fist struck her in the back, cratered the ground with the vicious impact. The second machine threw itself forward in a roll, scythes aiming to cleave through her as it spun. The beast was gone in the blink of an eye instead. The attack failed. A large fist sailed forward on a cable, senbon followed after it in a small storm. The smaller puppet took to the air in a blur of movement, swung down as the wooden fingers broke apart, razor sharp wire cascading down as its arms began to rotate. A deadly twister of wires descended on the beast as it reappeared on the ground.
It didn't stay still for long. The large webbed hands emerging from its back swung out, threw it into the air to the surprise of all those watching. A clawed hand grabbed hold of the puppet. No, the beast was too raw of mind to grab the puppet. It's hands ripped into the chest, tore it in half with a bestial roar. It threw the split halves to the ground as the large puppet was drawn before Chiyo.
Caution came to her eyes. Caution at exactly what she was fighting. It was no longer like the Shinobi she had fought before. It was nothing like any Shinobi she had fought before. It had become something else entirely.
A true monster.
Fear gripped hold of her heart, a ice cold shard that pushed its way into her heart, spread through her veins.
Terror.
It was terror consuming her.
"How...impressive." It was just as swiftly forced away. She was not one to let terror control her, to force her to surrender her body to it. She focused on what needed to be done and only it.
She needed to kill the beast before her. And it needed to be done now.
Her fingers twitched, drew the bulky puppet to surge forward as its cloak tore open. The large open cavity that was its chest was revealed as its two lower arms were thrown forward, extended by a hidden mechanism. The large hands interlocked and the cavity split open at a seam, opened like a giant maw. Blades began to move, saws began to spin, and Chakra flowed to a seal located at its core. The arms opened on the side, too many lines of Chakra to count forming a razor sharp net. The beast was trapped within as a powerful suction began.
Its webbed hands functioned as wings as they flapped, forced it into the air as it battled the powerful suction coming from the puppet before it. The beast snarled, roared, and the shockwave such a action released nearly threw Chiyo off her feet. She was lucky she could anchor herself with the puppet and her Chakra Threads. Speaking of the puppet, it dropped to the ground, it's talon like feet digging into the cracked stone beneath it to anchor it in place. From each of its shoulder came a trio of darts and cables, latching onto the ground around it as the seal burned bright with Chakra, as the suction increased. The beast still stayed in the air, battled against the suction with a mad frenzy that had Chiyo concerned.
There was a limit to the suction mechanism she didn't expect to have to account for. It took a fair amount of Chakra to power even with the efficient seal on the puppet. It would be difficult to maintain if the creature continued to battle her.
"You could lend a hand any time now Ebizo." She didn't turn to see where her brother was. He was assuredly standing nearby merely observing her progress. "Now is not the time to be lazy."
"I was just checking on Pakura-kun, Chiyo." His humored voice did not fit the grim expression crossing his face. "I see Orochimaru's Cursed Seal is quite powerful."
"Just help me kill her." The net of Chakra burned dimmer as Chiyo staggered where she stood. "I don't need to head you compliment the boy!"
Ebizo spoke no more. His sword was raised as he vanished from sight. He appeared silently on the extended arms of the puppet, his Chakra racing down the blade as he focused on his target.
A single swing unleashed a crescent of Chakra as thin as a lock of hair. It soared silently through the air, through the vacuum the creature battled against with its bastardized wings, and struck true.
His eyes widened when the creature hardly bled from the attack that should have sliced through its dark gray neck, decapitated the monster. He recovered in time to see the creature turn its black and yellow eyes to him, snarl at him, and then scream.
"Ebizo!" Chiyo didn't hold back her shout as she saw what looked like a wave of Chakra and sound strike her brother. Blood didn't sprout from any wound as the elderly Shinobi slammed into the ground far away from her. He only came to a stop when he struck the railing.
So close to the raging sands hiding the Jinchuriki. The sands that were ravenous, thirsted for fresh blood always.
Chiyo ignored the fact that distance from the puppet weakened the technique. It was already failing as she moved away and to her brother. The puppet released its anchors, the cables disconnecting and the feet left behind, and surged forward as a second seal activated. It propelled it forward with a burst of wind from its back. It slammed into the beast as its extended arms retracted. It grabbed hold of it in a four armed bear hug, dragged the beast into the countless roaring blades within it. The beast roared as its response. It webbed claws wrapped around the puppet, talons at the end ripping into the puppet.
The beast's chest rose as it breathed in.
Chiyo was nearly deafened by the creature's next use of what had to be a weaponized scream.
It destroyed the puppet, obliterated it into splinters and chunks of wood. It flapped it's wings, sent the wood that clung to the talons at the end of what should be fingers away, and suddenly dropped to the ground.
Chiyo used her free hand to grab hold of Ebizo's no doubt broken form, bring him to her with as much gentleness she could with such haste. The creature growled behind her. She heard it breath in, prepare its next scream.
Cables wrapped around her neck, made the beast thrash when electricity suddenly rushed through its body. Chiyo ignored the few members of the Puppet Brigade she brought with her as she pulled Ebizo away.
"Keep it restrained!" She barked out a single order to those responsible, saw them already struggling as their puppets anchored themselves into the ground not unlike hers had did, talon like feet and a number of wires with hooks at the end gripping the ground. She saw two already healing Pakura.
The Kunoichi had fallen unconscious at last it seemed, unable to remain awake for the entire duration of her clash with the beast.
Chiyo considered her lucky. She wouldn't have to deal with the rest of the invasion.
"Ch-" The Shinobi was interrupted by the beast before them all.
A roar ripped free of the beast that they thought finally restrained. The webbed hands at its back were wreathed in dark Chakra, something so vile it made some sick, made their concentration waver. Cords that had been pulled taut suddenly grew slack and the beast showed its appreciation for its freedom.
It tore the limp puppets forward, shattered them with the bodies of the others. A number of scrolls were drawn, new mechanical warriors released, but it was too late.
The creature's webbed hands swung down, talons embedded in the stone ground beneath it, let its vile power run free. The dark Chakra that had previously wreathed its wings erupted from the ground.
"Fall back!" Chiyo leaped away, dragged Ebizo with her, and those that could followed after her.
One was not fast enough.
The wave of dark Chakra consumed him, made him scream as he was torn to the ground. Chiyo could only stare as the Shinobi died in front of her, snakes of the same vile Chakra ripping free of his body. They shot across the ground, vanished into whatever the Third Stage's proctor had become thanks to Orochimaru and his experimentation with power few could understand, power even fewer could make use of, and even fewer ever mastered.
'This girl...' The beast looked to her, stared at her with yellow eyes that held no shred of humanity anymore. It growled but did not pursue. It let them go.
It had what it wanted.
Such a thing left a sour taste in Chiyo's mouth.
She was a veteran of war, a woman renowned for her skills with poison and puppetry and put them to deadly effect, and was one of the greatest Shinobi Sunagakure could call upon for any tasks be it diplomatic or military. She had decades of experience on the girl that silently watched her flee. She was leagues above her in terms of power, in terms of experience, in terms of raw intelligence. She should be the one silently watching the girl free, run from her while she decided to spare her.
It should not be the opposite. She should not be the one forced to flee from a battle. It was ludicrous to think that she had to run, had no choice but to flee from a superior foe. It made no sense why she had to be the one to run from a girl who should be dead.
The beast silently watched her leave.
Chiyo swore to make it pay.
The beast growled before it turned away from the fleeing Shinobi, turned to where Kakashi still laid on the ground. He had fallen unconscious just like Pakura, left the conscious world for an unconscious one without pain.
Next to him stood Ibiki Morino.
"Anko...can you hear me?" The beast didn't lunge towards the scarred man. It did nothing but stare at him. He took it as a good sign to stay where he was.
He figured if she didn't want him here he would already be dead.
He had seen how she had handled Chiyo. Raw power overcame experience and whatever Anko has become she had plenty of power, enough to make Ibiki worry for her.
Power like it, Chakra that felt so dark, didn't come without some kind of price.
"I need you to listen Anko." She didn't come to him, didn't move from where she still stood. He figured he was still in the clear. She wasn't showing any outright hostility. "Can you do that for me?"
He received no answer. She didn't nod her head or grunt. She continued to just stand and stare at him.
"Anko." His voice was slightly more forceful. Only slightly.
He didn't flinch when the transformed Kunoichi was suddenly in front of him. He stared into yellow eyes and waited. Her fingers tensed, curled, and then settled at her side. Her eyes roved his face, searched for something. She didn't find it. Her head tilted to one side. Her long blue hair flowed over one shoulder, settled there after a moment of action from the sudden motion as she silently watched him. His body was completely still. Fear was absent from his eyes. He was trained to handle these types of situations, trained to show nothing but what he wanted to anyone unfortunate enough to be interrogated by him.
He counted her breathes. She wasn't preparing a scream. He counted it as a win, another small victory for him. He was fine with small victories over large ones. Small victories added up rather quickly. Large victories faded away in the end, weren't worth the cost some times. Small victories were calculated, large victories were often too spontaneous, too random. Interrogations were won by a series of small victories, a dozen small victories in a small room.
"Anko." His voice lost the added force. She did nothing but stare at him, wait for a reason to act again. "Can you hear me?"
He didn't get a verbal response.
A clawed hand settled on his chest. His body didn't tense, didn't flinch, at the suddenly contact. He had read it already. He was ready for it. She was curious about him. That was better than the alternative. Outright hostility would leave him dead.
Her fingers ran off to the side, away from his steadily beating heart, grabbed hold of the edge of his coat. She tugged on it. He waited. She tugged on it again. He leaned forward slightly, let her pull on it again.
It was clear now.
He moved back slowly.
She pulled slowly.
His arm slid out the far sleeve, let it fall off the other. The clawed wings withdrew into her back, vanished from sight as if they were never there at all.
Anko smiled as she put the coat on.
"Back with us I see?" Ibiki watched as she adjusted the coat, covered her exposed chest with it by closing it up to her bust.
He received only a look from the still transformed Kunoichi. He raised an eyebrow. She pointed to her throat. He nodded.
Hurt
Yes
He nodded.
Move
Yes
Their brief talk done, he bent down and grabbed hold of Kakashi.
A clawed hand settled over his wrist.
He didn't panic. Anko loosened her grip before she broke his wrist. He pulled his hand back. She picked up Kakashi.
"Can you change back?" It was time for Yes and No questions. Her arms being occupied meant she couldn't sign anymore.
She focused for a moment, he felt the Chakra suddenly surge around her. It was gone just as suddenly as it arrived. She shook her head a moment later, a frown making the corner of her darker lips sink.
"I was afraid of that." He didn't need an answer as he walked besides her. "After this is over, keep out of sight. Jiraiya-sama will know what to do about this most likely."
She nodded.
The two preceded forward.
'I hope he does.' Ibiki glanced to the once black and dormant seal burning with a purple light on Anko's neck. 'I don't know anyone else who can fix that seal.'
AN: This chapter was also somewhat annoying to write. Figured there had to be a decent payoff to Anko's Cursed Seal but also disliked the idea of having Pakura fight again after going to such length to show how much the fight had taken out of them both during the previous chapter. This in mind, I decided to bring back Chiyo and Ebizo as well as add in the Puppet Brigade. I also had some fun with Anko's Cursed Seal form, decided why not have it utterly unique as the first recorded successful instance of the Cursed Seal of Heaven. I also, strangely enough, had fun with having Chiyo make use of her puppets. I always figured she would have a decent sized collection and like to make use of it. Side note here, I normally enjoy writing anything with puppets in this story. No idea why.
Also, there was no way I would kill off Kakashi this early. He's far more useful with future plans I have.
Something to think on: How was Ibiki's approach to Anko? I wanted to make it unknown for him but also display some of the skill she has as an interrogator, someone able to read people and understand how to proceed. At the same time, I wanted there to be a definite point where Anko went from Not Anko to Anko. Probably didn't accomplish that but trying is (somewhat) just as good.