Clementia
Clementia's group continued their trek through the corruption.
All the while, Clementia felt a strange connection. A presence whispered to her from the depths of the Corruption, guiding her with an eerie familiarity from her corrupted Beast Arm.
The arm pulsated with an otherworldly energy, pulling her deeper into the corrupted landscape. It seemed to possess a twisted low intelligence, as if it had become a gateway to a power she had never known. It whispered promises of survival, of knowledge and Clementia found herself unable to resist its call. Perhaps in gaining the arm, she had somehow gained the power to detect those things which she sought.
Renga's condition had worsened. He was now being carried behind Clementia on a makeshift stretcher.
Clementia channeled her worry and sense of urgency into the task at hand. She pressed through the corrupted brambles, tearing through them ferociously with her Beast Arm.
Every now and then the brambles would make a move and wrap around one of her people, trying to drag them into the thick. Then Clementia had to backtrack and cut them free.
Eventually, she pressed through one thicket and a blinding light shined in through the brush. She had to shield her eyes. What was- wait! This was sunlight! She hadn't seen it in so long.
Before her now was a vast stretch of desert. This had to be Wind Country.
The Amegakure evacuees took some time to rest and treat their wounds.
Except for Clementia. Sunagakure was near. She could feel her arm urging her to cross the desert.
"Renga, how are you holding up?" She asked her husband.
The man on the stretcher turned his eyes towards Clementia but didn't reply. His chest was still rising and falling, but barely.
"I'll get you to Sand Village. Hang in there."
Clementia walked through the crowd of people lounging or setting up camp. She found her daughter, Anri, terrorizing another kid. She was on top of him, pummeling his face with her fists.
Clementia grabbed her little hellspawn by the collar and flung her backwards.
"What did I tell you about murder?"
Anri got to her feet, unphased. "Not without a good reason."
"Right and do you have a good reason?"
"Yes. I really wanted to."
"That barely qualifies as a reason at all, my dear."
"I wasn't gonna kill him. Not all the way." The small girl had Clementia's yellow eyes and her father's platinum blonde hair that she wore in high pigtails. She licked the blood off of her fist as the boy she'd assaulted scurried away.
"You also aren't allowed to beat people half way to death unless you have a really good reason, such as if you're doing an experiment with very questionable ethics."
"I want candy."
"You don't get candy after you beat people up. Behave yourself if you want candy."
Anri pursed her lips.
"Don't give me that look!" No, no. She couldn't let her adorable little sociopath get the best of her. Clementia looked away.
"Just let me see the bag."
Anri had a large brown sack, a makeshift backpack, affixed to her back. Without waiting for permission, Clementia began rummaging through it, then pulled out a scroll.
Clementia unrolled it on the ground and an abhorrent conflagration of human and corrupted animal emerged. Spindly insectoid legs were sewn onto a human torso. In place of the head were three tags.
Clementia heaved her husband onto what she was calling her spidermobile. Then she jumped aboard. There wasn't really room for her to sit with Renga on board. Hmmm. That was a bit of an issue. She needed to focus her chakra into the seals. They were simple directional controls. If she still had her lab she would have just used a microchip.
While she was pondering this, she heard a familiar voice say, "Da fuck is that?"
Oh, this was excellent! She turned her head to see Kini, a tall man with platinum blonde hair who always looked pissed.
Well, almost always. As soon as he saw Clementia's face, his expression turned to concern, almost fear.
"Oh fuck this," Kini said and took a step back.
"Oh, but Kini-weenie, be a good boy and stay for a bit. There's someone you need to meet."
The veins in his forehead were bulging now and Clementia felt a surge of chakra coming off of him.
But she swiftly disarmed Kini's anger with two words, "Your daughter."
Clementia gestured towards her child, whose hands and mouth were covered in blood.
"Are you my Daddy?" Anri asked.
Now Kini's face was back to terrified. Then frustration. "Wait, that ain't even possible. We never-"
"Oh, you know that one experiment we did where I took DNA samples?"
"Don't you go actin' like I wanted to be part of that."
"I wanted to study that Kekkei Genkai of yours, but you ran away."
"Yeah, because you're a crazy bitch."
"Soooo, I took your DNA, mixed in some of my own, and boom-ba-da-bing, made a new test subject."
Kini's jaw dropped. He stood staring at Anri for a good fifteen seconds.
"Daddy, I want candy. Gimme or I'll stab your fucking eyes out."
"Yep, definitely your child," Clementia said. "Anyway, I'd love to stay and catch up, but I'm kinda on a timer here, sooo. I'll leave you two to bond. Spidermobile, awaaaay!"
She tapped the center seal with her foot and the biomachintion began crawling forward, fast enough to almost knock Clementia down.
She turned around and shouted back at Anri. "Try to be a good girl when I'm gone. Actually, that's probably too hard. Try to be a bad girl while I'm gone as opposed to an outright evil girl."
Kini continued to stand there, flabbergasted.
Before long Clementia came across an odd sight: a pony with a a cardboard cutout of a tree taped to it. As much as she'd love to make a half-pony half-monkey monster, she ignored the pony and pressed on.
As she raced across the desert, Renga's breathing grew more and more shallow. As she came into sight of Sunagakure his eyes stopped moving as well.
And the landscape drastically changed. The sky suddenly became night. The stars were all wrong, though. Many were a mystical violet, casting a pale amethyst light over the desert. The sand took on a lavender hue and a dreamlike quality. There was a giant teapot floating in the sky. And the village itself had become some kind of flip-floppity wonderland.
Most impressive was the palace outside of it, a Palace that shimmered with the aspect of the night sky.
She was panting with excitement now. This wasn't a normal area of the Corruption. She'd left the Corruption proper. This was a standalone corrupted area. And it was a beautiful harmony of Corruption and civilization. She now understood why the Beast Arm had led her here. This was where she could learn the Corruption's secrets, learn how to use it.
As she neared them, the heavy doors of the Midnight Palace swung open before her. Clementia's eyes gleamed with curiosity. The scientist now stood on the threshold of an unexplored realm, a realm that promised to reveal the secrets of the corrupted forces that had engulfed her world. She saw not a palace of malevolence and rot, but a laboratory of unprecedented possibilities.
A skinny orange-haired man seated upon a twisted throne beckoned to her with an outstretched hand, his corrupted disciples lingering in the shadows. Clementia took a step forward, her analytical mind racing with scientific questions she wanted to ask him.
Clementia entered the Midnight Palace, ready to confront the mysteries that awaited her. Her journey, which began as a quest for survival, had transformed into a relentless pursuit of truth.
"I've been expecting you," the man on the throne said. "I am Avatar Maguro, The Weevil of Power."
The man had a corrupted arm as well, his covered in blue scales. Had it informed him of her arrival? What was he even talking about, though?
She supposed he expected her to impressed by these titles, so she would play along. "Oh wow, how'd you know I was coming?"
"The Corruption is a mysterious guide."
"Right, so I definitely definitely want to talk about the Corruption, but right now Renga here needs a medical ninja. A very good one. We haven't been able to heal his corrupted wound by any normal means."
"To direct the Corruption is well within my meanness, but… he looks dead."
Clementia looked down. Renga's chest was no longer rising or falling. She pulled one foot out of her boot and stepped lightly on his chest. No heartbeat.
If he'd just died though… the brain should keep for a few minutes.
"Is there a laboratory around here."
One of Maguro's followers stepped forward, a tall blonde man in a ornate white robe with gold trimming. "We have the puppet workshop. The scientists who used to work it were already executed. Vile criminals."
"If you would pledge yourself to the Corruption, you may have it.," Maguro said.
She had no reservations. Afterall, getting closer to those who understood the Corruption was her goal. And on top of that, she could plunder the secrets of Suna puppetry. "Yeah, sure."