All of the fighting transpiring around the castle ruins seemed to pick up a raging whirlwind of violent desert winds. In their storming rage these winds tossed weighty masses of sand bashing them against the bodies of anyone silly enough to stay outside during this windstorm. That being said, the rage of the forces of nature did not yet reach the overwhelming level of a sandstorm that blew one off their feet and buried them in sand however it was approaching that point quite soon. In just fifteen minutes the entire shanty town would be covered up with sand, together with the main entrance to the castle which would’ve made anyone need to look for an alternate entrance.
“Kunoichi of Sunagakure, you have incurred my wrath for beheading me, I shall fight with full intent of killing you…” Mardith’s voice thundered outmatching even the mightiest wind of this windstorm. An impressive feat having very much to do with how powerful the man’s lungs were. The gentle giant reached towards his back pocket pulling out a much larger black rod with a very pointy tip.
For a skilled weapon expert it would’ve been quite difficult to discern as to what purpose such a peculiar tool would’ve served: it had no handle so it couldn’t have been comfortable for swordfighting, on the other hand it had a pointy end so it had to be some sort of weapon, it had no sharp edges meaning it was purely a stabbing tool however the material didn’t look too tough and firm to risk close distance approach without having the weapon break down.
“Oh, you’re one of those…” the woman in front of him nonchalantly remarked without an effort to be heard. Unseen several glowing sand grains slipped out from her gourd mixing into the endless swarm of grains within the picking up sandstorm. The woman closed her eyes and smiled. She saw everything wherever her glowing and overflowing with chakra sand grains got carried by these violent desert winds, they also had incredible uses of their own. Even as they spoke her opponent had her sand slipping into his nose, his skin, his mouth, his eyes, his ears… Everywhere whether he was aware of the crevice’s existence or not. She was well aware of her opponent’s strengths and weaknesses due to her personal history with his kind.
“Die, kunoichi of the Sand!” Mardith yelled out tossing his ritual dagger at the woman, even with her eyes closed the bombshell beauty of the Sand Village leaned to the side avoiding the straightforward projectile as it whizzed rustling her black as night hair. The woman’s blood red make up which covered her eyelids made her closed eyes appear almost demonic in nature, almost like a bloody eyed beast was observing her opponent from the cover of the picking up sandstorm.
Unnoticed by the woman, Mardith’s fingers twitched as a steel wire pulled the dagger back, the beauty of Sunagakure whose name was revealed by her husband to be Regalia ducked, almost like she knew where the dagger was coming from. The gentle giant who was desperately trying to kill her waved his arm around, not without skill or finesse, his movements were trained, well taught to draw blood as the ritual dagger moved to the right and to the left to the woman’s location. Perhaps even more impressive than the man’s coordinated assault was Regalia’s impressive skill in evading the knife.
The ritualistic dagger was small, it was moving at an incredibly deceptive and untraditional manner. Even so, Regalia leaned to the side, jumped up and ducked down, stepped wherever it was more beneficial for her to go to avoid the attack perfectly. Finally the giant pulled the knife back to his hand and grabbed it by the grip.
“Impressive, you did not strike me as a physical type and yet you perfectly evaded my attack even with that weight on your back. I cannot mark you for my Curse Technique at all despite my flash speed overwhelming offense…” the man commended his opponent as the woman deserved all the praise being able to move so swiftly, so deceptively with that heavy gourd on her back.
“I am not a physical type ninja. It is simply because of my ability to see forward in time that I avoid your techniques. I see forward where they will cut me and so I avoid the strike…” the woman smiled playfully tipping the ends of her desert coat while she bowed to her opponent.
“That is impossible, ninja cannot possibly control time, not without achieving fame and great status…” Mardith’s eyes angrily squinted at his opponent, he didn’t believe the woman’s words for a second.
“The sand I hold in my gourd is very special. It is infused with chakra just like it is for anyone in the famous Sabaku clan, mine however possesses the ability to bend time and space, which includes the ability to alert me of the events set in stone to transpire…” Regalia continued to explain while her opponent took his fighting stance.
“Prove it to me then, woman. Prove it to me that your Sand Release has the ability to control time, manage to defeat me without being cut once!” the man yelled out through the raging sandstorm as his flowing chakra split the winds apart sending a shockwave the woman’s way.
“I very much intend to…” the woman informed leaping forward and waving her arms, sending a crushing mass of sand the man’s way. Mardith’s hand shot to the side, his ritualistic dagger cut into the sand and the man pulled at the string that held it flinging his entire body to the side to avoid the crushing tsunami of sand sent his way, once Mardith reached the dagger he retrieved it by gripping its handle and pulling it from the sand.
“Did you not know I would do that?” Mardith taunted the woman.
“I did know that…” she smiled, her dyed crimson lips were clearly visible through the murky background surrounding the two.
“You’re a joke, a woman clinging to her lies!” Mardith tossed his knife at the woman, Regalia leaned to the side, her arm grabbed the knife in mid-air and pointed it at the giant.
“If I didn’t read the passage of time, how could I have grabbed this in such terrible air condition with no weaponry training?” she taunted the man but Mardith’s heart freezing laughter cut Regalia off.
“You foolish wench! Curse Technique: Strangling Noose!” Mardith yelled out as Regalia’s bloody crimson dyed lips soon shot wide open and paled before turning blue and somewhat purplish. Mardith raised his arm and clenched it into a fist, almost as if his grip actually strangled the woman in front of him and what was the most gruesome “ it worked. Regalia just pathetically tried to catch any actual oxygen but her neck extended upwards and black marks started covering it almost like she was being hung.
“Had you actually had the ability to see into the timeline you’d have known that the followers of Jashin “ Jashinists possess the Curse Technique that is initiated when the opponent grabs an object of theirs. That is how the ritual is started. Do not fret, it’d take twenty grueling minutes for you to choke before you actually died, only for five of them would you be unconscious, I fully intend to kill you much faster than that…” Mardith rumbled out pulling his ritualistic dagger back to his hand and then tossing it right at the woman. The dagger cut her right in the cheek despite the strangling Curse jutsu ceasing when the knife left her possession. The woman had just so little air that her first instinct was to clench her throat and cough profusely which lead to her being cut.
Mardith licked the blood off of the knife and playfully toyed with the long black rod in his hand. “If you didn’t lie about your experience with the followers of Jashin, you’ll know what comes next… I would wish for us to take our time and properly fulfil the ritual but I will have to go for the short version “ I am in a rush to find this Box” he explained as the man thrust the rod through his own stomach spilling extensive amounts of blood over the sand, using his bare foot Mardith dragged the bloody sound into the Jashin symbol of a triangle surrounded by a circle as his skin turned black with white skeletal motif markings all over his body. The Totem armor crumbled off of him as if it rot instantly. Truthfully it was merely released as it was no longer needed.
Regalia finally recovered from her injury, she weaved a hand seal as a perfect copy of her appeared from the sandstorm being composed entirely of her glowing golden sand and dashed off into the distance. Further away her clone landed close to her husband and whispered to his ear “ “The Konoha girl is getting away, I’ve placed sand grains inside her so I can feel her and track her but she may get out of range if she tries to flee instead of looking for the box “ scare her a little so that she hurries to the Box’s location, beloved”. After delivering the message the clone dissolved into miniscule particles of sand and mixed into the messy sandstorm.
“Whatever tricks you try now, woman, they shall be ineffective, let us share the pain on our final journey to Lord Jashin, only as I possess the nano-roaches in my bloodstream I shall be brought back whereas you shall die for good. Sharing pain with your enemy is truly the best… Curse Technique: Death Controlling Possessed Blood!” Mardith screamed out in glee as he stabbed himself through the heart using the long stabbing rod. Regalia gasped in surprise as all the damage that Mardith took was transferred to her body as well. She tore off her desert coat and looked at her crimson dress which did not properly portray the bleeding injury she took, only due to its soaking appearance could she see that she was bleeding from her heart before the painful shock claimed her life and the woman collapsed dead together with her opponent.
*****
Fifteen years ago, a young family in the Land of Tea was preparing to go to sleep. The young girl, the daughter of the family, instead was more hyped about her positive result from the Academy tests. She spent two years in a ninja student exchange program between Konohagakure the jurisdiction of which Land of Tea belonged to and Sunagakure which was very beneficial to the girl who was of the Sunagakure native Sabaku clan capable of infusing their chakra into the grains of sand.
The girl just couldn’t sleep as hours passed and the night grew more mature. Close to the hours of early morning the young one heard yelling voices reminding of the voices of shrieking teenagers. Slightly curious she looked outside seeing a bunch of black wearing gothic looking bunch wandering around. These weird folk reminded her of those strange tales that her parents told her. Apparently while she was gone a new cult was being born within her beloved native village, some sadistic people started killing victims while also maiming themselves, inflicting wounds upon their victims while wounding themselves the same way.
It would’ve been just an ordinary gang of cultists had they not attracted the attention of some strange ninja who helped these people adapt their MOs into actual ninjutsu techniques that the bunch called “Curse Techniques”. Father was quite intimidated by those stories and begged for the young Regalia to stay home after the late hours as these “Jashinists” as they called themselves were not above sacrificing children to their sick bloodlusted God. Regalia observed in utter horror as the cloaked figures started kicking the doors down in the neighborhood and rushing inside, two or three at a time.
The girl ran down, she wanted to warn her parents of what was going on, ask her father to push something firm to the door but when she reached the staircase she saw a breathtaking sight “ the door was already down and cloaked men with dark colored faces with white skeletal markings were rushing in. Her father was struck down instantly with a single cleave of a large scythe that one of these men wielded. Another man attacked her mother tearing her clothes off and cutting her above her breasts. Regalia leaped forward to help but a powerful kick sent her flying back to her room as a third assailant sneaked up to her.
The man raised his black axe and swung it right close to the girl’s gut nearly disemboweling her but leaving a wide gash. Regalia screamed in pain clutching her bleeding belly as the man then cleaved half of his own arm off sending blood gushing all over her and over her room floor. The man used Regalia’s scared face to paint the cult’s symbol all over the floor and then the girl heard it “ her mother’s agonizing scream being silenced by death’s embrace. These people killed her mother and her father… And she was going to be next…
No one knew what they wanted, they never showed fancy for anything less than slaughter, they left no one alive according to the stories and they had to be stopped. The Jashinist lifted his arm wielding a black rod ready to stab himself into the heart but then the hand of the little girl shot up in an open palmed position, sand seeped out from a gourd under her bed and enveloped the man in a large mass, making it impossible for him to move. She raised her hand into the air and the mass followed.
“Sand Coffin…” she uttered with mad eyes, she couldn’t believe what was happening, her mother was desecrated in front of her own eyes and her parents were just murdered, her own gut sliced open and she was slowly bleeding out…
“Fuck… Cunt… Kill you… Slaughter… Lord Jashin will be pleased… Pain… So much pain!!!” the delirious cultist screamed out in pain and utter madness licking his own blood covered lips.
“Jashinist… You destroyed my life, I’ll kill you now for what you’ve done, you and your friends, all of them!” the maddened girl screamed in all of her pain and tears ridden voice as she clenched her open fist up.
“Sand Burial!” the mass crushed the man into a blood raining mass of crushed flesh and bones.
Slowly the girl made her way downstairs, one of the Jashinist scum rushed at her but her arm instinctively shot to the side with the sand bashing the man’s head to the wall and splattering the contents of the man’s head all over it.
“Biiiitch!” another one screamed in mad fury but sand covered his wrists and the lower parts of his legs, Regalia’s blood covered face turned at him, her smiling face screaming for suffering of these men looked him into the eyes. She opened her arms as if she was preparing for a victorious hug as the sand strands tore the final Jashinist to pieces. Only then did poor Regalia notice the golden glow in her sand, what was this strange technique? The girl stumbled outside looking at the madness that was transpiring. People were screaming inside their homes, once in a while blood splattered on the windows or human corpses were flung through the doors busting them open.
“Jashinists… I will kill you all…” the girl deliriously mumbled as she was bleeding out on the porch of her home. She fell down on her knees when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She turned and saw the most civilized yet most intimidating man she had ever seen, a man surrounded by a black shroud of mystery with only his red glowing eyes being visible. As she was being touched the girl screamed, it wasn’t that she was hurt by that touch, no, it felt strangely… Soothing. But she felt her chakra being ripped from her body, almost like the man tore his hand into her innards and pulled chakra out of her despite only touching her shoulder.
“You wish to kill these men plaguing your village? Their chakras are bland and disgusting, yours however… That golden aftertaste… Yes… Most savory meal I’ve ever had, no, just an appetizer…” the man mumbled to himself as the shroud finally disappeared and the three meter tall figure of the man became apparent, his ravenous black hair, his pale skin and those… Crimson eye-gouging scary eyes!
“I’ll let you do whatever you want, just kill them all!” Regalia demanded as her lifeless body fell down on her front she looked up at the man’s well maintained shoes and formal attire. He buttoned his jacket and fixed his bowtie.
“Very well, I shall smash them all to bloody bits and then… Taste some more of you… But I won’t kill you, no, a delicacy like you must stay alive and feed me again and again. We’re bonded now, Regalia, I shall find you wherever you go, I am faster and stronger than you. I am your natural predator and I find you irresistibly tasty. However you’re so tasty that eating you before you become boring would be sinful, I’ll take more and more every day from you, leaving you just enough chakra to live…”
“Shut up and kill them all, whatever you do with me later doesn’t matter!” the dying young woman screamed out.
Moments later the Land of Tea was filled with screams, whatever the Jashinists did was messed up, whatever this Leech did to them was infinitely worse. Regalia was lucky to not have seen what happened to him, the surviving villagers would later treat her and call her a hero for her actions, they’d say she did whatever she did to the Jashinists but… They’d remember those torn, bashed and mangled corpses. They’d never look at her the same way again forcing the girl to leave her home to the only place she could call home “ Sunagakure, the place where she was exchanged to as Academy Student, the place she met friends at. The place where HE was not, at least not yet…
*****
Regalia’s body stood in front of the suicidal Jashinist. She looked at the deceased Mardith from above. Genjutsu was a powerful tool, illusions to make her opponent believe whatever she wanted them to believe: that she could control time, that she could reverse it, that she could read it. And all it took was a simple slip of some sand grains infused with chakra to enter the man’s nose, eyes or mouth. How easy was it to pull in the middle of a sandstorm? Too easy…
“Jashinist… There will be no return for you…” she uttered closing her eyes and feeling billions if not more of small roaches swarming in the man’s central heart area, trying desperately to fix it, begging for the Aburame clan’s technique to kick them into overcharge to resurrect the man shortly after his death.
The man believed that Regalia dodged his attacks, he believed that she was stupid enough to get cut when facing one of his kind. He believed he initiated the ritual when in reality he only stabbed himself in the heart and died like an idiot he was for accepting Jashin as his God. Foolish sadistic men of religion had no right to exist in this world. This plague of death and suffering had to end, preferably by Regalia’s own hand.
Regalia spun two fingers raised above her head. Violent vortex of golden sand formed around her before she aimed her two fingers at the man, the sand crackled with lightning as the chakra infused sand grains rubbing together produced friction and thusly released the energy in the shape of a lightning technique that would’ve fried the nano-insects in the man’s body.
“Sand Release: Eye of the Storm!” she triumphantly declared as the wave of golden sand slammed into the dead Jashinist the weight splattered his body into a mass of blood and broken bones where the lightning fried not only what remained but also the nano-insects inside him.
Regalia, the Illusionary Queen of Time killed another Jashinist that day…
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