Clementia
"We have to leave this place, make for the uncorrupted lands. Ya know, the place that isn't trying to straight up murder us." Clementia said.
Dango, the Amekage, a tall man a buzzcut was leaned against the wall. He gave her a grimace, then said, "So you want to ask the Leaf or maybe the Sand for help? None of the 'great' villages helped us when we needed help to fight the corruption. You want us to cross the corruption so they can snub us again?"
"Do you have a better idea? We're running out of food. Pretty soon, all the people will have left to eat is a dango."
"Our village has always been a war zone and in wars there is often famine. The weak will die and the strong will carry on. It's brutal, but it is the lot we've been dealt. Amegakure has only ever known Hell."
He had never been one for reason and she'd been unable to convince him. Eventually, she gathered those who would leave and headed into the corruption.
Amegakure was not a proper shinobi village. Dango was the Amekage because he decided he was, he was powerful, and no one objected. But in reality, he was more like the leader of a powerful gang than actually managing the village. So, it hadn't been hard to gather the deserters. They had been met with some resistance from Dango's goons, but she could tell their heart wasn't in it, and they were able to leave easily enough.
Amegakure was not a proper shinobi village. So most of those who went with Clementia were not even shinobi. The few that could use ninjutsu weren't very proficient. Many were picked off during the next few scruples they got into with the monsters of this land.
At some point, she'd had her arm corrupted. She'd seen people become corrupted before. One man had gained acidic blood. It had eaten through his skin instantly, killing him. Another had grown horns out of his eyes, blinding him. One woman's tongue had become a cute little wormy teethed creature. It was one of the rare useful ones but she had no control over it and it would lash out at anyone who came close.
Clementia's arm on the other hand, was almost entirely beneficial. Other than the hunger in the back of her mind, the desire to consume others with her arm (which she'd had no trouble resisting so far), there was no downside. Her shadowy arm guided her in battle and devoured her enemies.
She'd also been cataloging the corruption. As a scientist, she hoped it might eventually be put to some use. Perhaps she might even find a way to reverse it if she kept studying it. She'd also autopsied the corpses of a few corruption beasts and her own corrupted people whenever they did fall in battle. She had some ideas of how to make use of the corruption, but only very superficial knowledge of how it worked. At any rate, they were full of interesting and useful organs.
Eventually, she'd ended up in a fight she couldn't handle. The dead were slow and weak, which had made her underestimate them. But once the swarm arrived, they had ended up in serious trouble.
Clementia was the only able-bodied shinobi for the first half of the fight and people died. They might have all died if the Konoha shinobi hadn't shown up.
After the battle, they'd sat around the campfire, sharing their stories. There were five around the fire: The three leaf shinobi, Clementia, and her husband, Renga.
Renga was a squat muscular man who currently had his arm in a sling and bandages around his stomach. He'd been stabbed in the gut in a fight against a centipede creature a few days ago. The wound wasn't healing and she was worried for him. But she had to put aside her concerns and just get everyone through the corruption for now.
She was surprised to learn that these three were the students of someone as famous as the invincible Takara, who she had heard was the most powerful hokage of all time.
"So, even the invincible Takara makes mistakes, huh?" Clementia said. "And now you're stuck here because she didn't understand the corruption's spatial hubbabaloo."
"Of course she makes mistakes," the girl with the white hair said. She seemed to be the leader, or maybe she was just bossing the others around. "But even if she slipped, I don't know of anyone who could possibly beat her."
"Remember the tower challenge, though?" Miu said. "You came up with a really good place and we were about to win."
"That wasn't a real fight," Okimi said. "And it certainly *seemed* like we were about to win, but I think we all know that things are rarely as they seem in shinobi battles."
Clementia considered sticking with these shinobi, protecting them even. If they did manage to find Takara, Clementia wanted her to be indebted to them. Only then would her people be guaranteed a place of refuge from the corruption.
She considered it, but her arm kept showing her visions of the rolling sandhills of Sunagakure. She had been skeptical of it before, but as far as she could tell it only had a beasties intelligence and was not capable of something as complex as deception.
"What do you think the corruption is?" She asked the Konoha shinobi. She fixed her eyes on Miu first, causing the girl to look nervously to both of her teammates. Clementia grinned. Sometimes she loved messing with people.
"A lot of scary monsters with weird powers," Miu blurted out.
"A force of evil," Kurotenshi said.
"A threat. An enemy that we have to ultimately destroy or it will destroy us," Okimi said.
Clementia rubbed her chin. "I agree most with you, Miu, actually. You couldn't call something like that evil."
"Sorry about her," Renga said. "Sometimes Clem just says crazy ass things. Comes with being a scientist, I guess."
"No, no. I don't mean it's good or anything," Clementia threw her hands in front of herself defensively "And yeah, it is a threat. I just mean it's not evil anymore than a tornado or a hungry wolf is evil."
"I get what you mean," Okimi said. "I don't think it's like an animal. I think its intelligent and it wants to hurt us. As for evil, I don't know if I really believe in that concept."
"That's what an evil person would say," the one called Kurotenshi said. There was a long moment of silence as Kurotenshi squinted at Okimi.
"The man who taught me to use ninjutsu once said that evil was just a label that small-minded people used for those who were willing to do what it takes to accomplish great things."
Now it was her turn to glare at Kurotenshi.
"Hey kids! Calm down," Clementia said. "We're all just out here trying to survive. Good and evil are things you can think about once you get home."
"We are trying to survive. And we're almost out of food. Do you have any you could spare?" Okimi asked.
She really didn't want to give them any, but dammit, she couldn't resist Miu's puppy dog eyes.
"I owe you one, so I s'pose I have some food. I can only give you enough for two days, though." Clementia said.
They parted ways soon after. She didn't know where her arm would lead her and her people, and she didn't really trust Konoha. Dammit, she was becoming Dango.
But her arm was leading her somewhere important. She just hoped it would be enough to save her people