Starring:
Date: May 19th, 2010
Summary:
Sheex continues to try to steal the Three-Tails's power, but Ruri's plan is already in action! The wickedness of evil men will be their own undoing.
"Scars - Regeneration"
Land of Waves
The Sheex-Mountain may or may not be able to feel pain. If he can, he may be too much of a lunatic to care. Because even as the Three-Tails shreds and rends the Mountain of Flesh, the face of Sheex just continues to grin maliciously. He seems not to be concerned as his tentacles fail to ensnare the Giant Turtle's Jinchuuriki. The flesh that is ripped apart by the Three-Tails rapidly regenerates, starting to grow over, around and potentially THROUGH the bijuu's body! Such massive healing power!
When Kara starts spreading a mix of oil and fire all over the mountain, and then Shiikaa adds some wind to fuel the flames, the fires start from the color of normal fire, to nearly pure white, such is the intensity and heat. The stench of burning meat fills the air, and smoke rises in a thick column that will be visible from a hundred miles away.
Ruri's fire attacks blast into Sheex's face, scarring it and forcing it to regenerate as well - deforming the features as the self-healing flesh grows beyond its original scope. The flesh that Ruri stands on begins to send up tendrils that wrap around her limbs, her torso, her head, and even her bare chest, and begin to pull her down into the creature itself. Sheex lets out another evil laugh, as his ruined face pulses and throbs.
Ruri focuses her Chakra from the Stored Chakra tattoo and tries to break free, but she has run out of Flesh Scroll tattoos to use. She didn't have that many to begin with, because this was supposed to be a vacation with a simple mission attached. She sinks up to her knees in the mountain. 'I hope I didn't make a mistake…' is what she thinks as she is pulled down further into the nauseating purple-red tissue, until just her head and hands are above the surface.
And then her left eye widening, she watches as tendrils of flesh snake along the surface of the Mountain, converging on her. Her Stored Chakra… It must be making her a target. Just like her sister. She gives one last look up at the Three-Tails, before a tentacle forces its way into her mouth, and another into her right eye socket. Then she is pulled under, even as the tentacles begin to suck away her Chakra. The vampiric violation is almost as bad as the physical things it's doing to her as she is trapped inside of cold, pulsating walls of boneless flesh, with things trying to grow THROUGH her. Her hand reaches out of the hole above her for a second, and then that is gone too.
'Nee-chan…' she thinks in the darkness.
It seems Sheex was right to be confident. It seems he will soon have all the power he could possibly want and then some. And that's when things go wrong for him. There is a THUMP-thump of his heart. His face takes on a look of surprise for a moment. "Uhh…!?" he lets out. Then THUMP-thump. He grits his teeth, though they're made of skin instead of calcium or whatever, and then his mouth opens impossibly wide, more like a cartoon character than anything resembling a human being. His deafening roar is cut off suddenly as something starts growing out of his 'throat'. A huge mass of white flesh with veiny structures all over it. His eyes wide with horror as he continues trying to scream around the mass that continues to grow and spread, white blotches start to appear all over the Mountain. They continue to grow, but they seem to be intertwining with the tentacles, trying to ensnare them… And then strangle them. Because this is what happens when cell-growth goes unchecked. When the regulations of DNA and the associated developmental controls and instructions are ignored - or in Sheex's case, damaged - there is something else that begins to grow… Tumors.
Sheex has cancer.
Pieces of the Mountain fall off as they are squeezed until they are sliced through, and fall into the ocean. The tissue trying to grow through the Three-Tails turns gray and dies, falling away from the Giant Turtle. The Sheex face is ripped apart, his left eye looking around wildly as white cancer tissue creeps inwards rapidly, and then invades the eye itself. The summon falls apart, dying as its own regenerative powers kill it. Somewhere in there, Sheex probably dies with it.
No matter how it heals, the three-tailed beast continues to rend, to tear, infuriated by the mere fact that the creature around and below it was still moving, was still thrashing about, still able to withstand it's attacks, the bijuu doesn't let up. But for every snap of it's jaws, every swipe of it's claws, or pummel of it's spiked tail, it seems yet more of the hideous flesh is willing to take it's place, even as tentacles begin to wrap around it's large, dark form.
The tendrils wrap about it's strong limbs and it's stout torso, and many of them are torn, either with claws, or sheer brute strength, but there's simply too many of them. …Until the summon begins to destroy itself with it's too-rapid growth. In it's tearing, thrashing, fighting throes, the aquatic monster manages to rip free, completely free, hurling itself back and away from the monstrous flesh golem. Gravity begins to do it's work, and the Rinako-summoned monster crashes towards the waves below, disappearing beneath the surface with an enormous wave of impact, sending water high and in all directions.
For a moment, the seas churn where the bijuu had vanished, then lie still.
After that violent dismount, it'd probably be easy to miss the slim form of the dark-haired kunoichi that resurfaced, sporting tiny cuts and shallow lacerations all over her body, one hand surfacing to grip tightly to a large hunk of the fallen mountain that had rotted off, before Rinako, back to her human form, pulls herself painfully half-out of the water. When she coughs, it's a mixture of sea water and blood that comes up, though it's likely largely unnoticeable amongst all the other red fluid seeping out of nearly every inch of her body, her breathing sounding a bit wet and labored.
"Nngh… some vacation…"
Yup…add 'How the flimdy-flam did we just win?' to the growing pile of never-to-be-answered questions. o.O; Not that Shemri's complaining, mind you. She just doesn't happen to know anything about genetics, and the enemy randomly growing bad stuff (well, worse than all that gunk to begin with) that kills him/it really comes out of left field for her. So…what now? Ruri-san must still be in there somewhere, guess getting her out is a high priority. Shemri dashes over to the disgusting mound and starts digging into the area where Ruri disappeared as quickly as she dares with her kunai. "I shall be certain to find out where the free tickets came from next time," she mutters through her teeth as she works.
Kara is running low on Stamina, feeling rather tired and all. She has used up quite a bit of Chakra too. But she has enough left to fire a few more shots before she's out of juice. And it looks like those fire blasts aren't bothering the Three-Tails after all, so that's good to know! However, a lot happens. Ruri vanishes into the Summon, and Rinako is fighting off the endless swarms of tentacles, and it looks like the damned thing is healing even from the Wind + Fire combo of herself and Shemri (nevermind it's Pharaoh and Shiikaa who are actually attacking)! Are they doomed!?
No! White stuff starts to grow all over as the Sheex-Mountain screams out in… Rage? Pain? Sheex's yells are interrupted by a huge pile of gross, veiny white flesh that is emerging from his mouth. Soon, the whole thing is killing itself, seemingly, and beginning to fall apart. Kara may not be an expert on genetics either, but she figures that either Rinako or Ruri had something to do with this. She'll understand about the tumors and cancer when it's explained to her later.
When the Three-Tails falls into the ocean, and huge waves result, Kara runs further up the beach to avoid getting swept away. The water settles, except for the occasional splashing and plopping of dead flesh at it falls into the sea. "Come on, Pharaoh-kun! Let's go look for-Oh, there's Rinako!" Kara runs up to where Pharaoh is and then past him, the Puppet leaping onto her back as she goes. "Rinako-chan!-Or are you Ruri-chan?" she calls out as she runs towards the twin emerging from the ocean. When she sees the clothin difference and lack of tattoos, she decides it's Rinako. "Hey, that was amazing! You really tore that guy apart! But why didn't you tell me you had that kind of power!?" she frowns, and decides to cut off the lecturing in favor of getting Rinako some help. "Come on, let's get you to a doctor or something. You look exactly as good as you feel. Or how I imagine you feel. Which is not good at all!" She bends down and puts an arm around Rinako, and puts one of the younger woman's arms around her shoulders and starts to lead her away from the ocean. Pharaoh follows after, directed by the Chakra Strings on Kara's free-hand.
"Shemri is probably looking for Ruri-chan. So we'll all go to the hospital together! …Though I wonder why no one has shown up yet. All those Kumogakure ninja, and none of them even thought to come check out this noise? Something is definitely weird here. …Beyond everything else, I mean."
The Summon doesn't seem to be vanishing back to its original plane. Does that mean it's still alive? As Shemri lands on it and starts slashing at it with her stolen kunai, she doesn't make a whole lot of progress. Cutting up the flesh results in it splitting open. It doesn't heal anymore. No matter how deep the cuts, though, it seems like Shemri will need something sharper and longer, or at least more powerful, if she plans to go excavating in the dead Mountain.
Then a noise comes from above. If Shemri looks up, she'd see that Sheex's head, malformed thought it is, is still upright - though at a 'broken neck' angle. And further, there is movement going on in the face. The right eye… Sealed shut throughout the entire fight, it is starting to bulge in places, as though something on the other side were moving on the INSIDE of the head. The right eye… From whence comes that possessing beam of light! Is Sheex still alive and about to possess someone else's body, or flee and return another day!? In her weakened state, Rinako would stand no chance against him!
The sealed eye BULGES outwards, and then bursts in a spray of bloodless flesh strands! A figure slides out of the eye socket, wet and gross, and falls about fifteen feet before hitting the cancerous Mountain's 'body' and lying still. From the fact this figure has rather visibly female anatomy, due to lack of clothing, it's probably not Sheex.
Ruri lies on the tumor-ridden flesh and doesn't move from where she is, just breathing slowly, like she's asleep.
"Nngh… gruuuuuuuu… ughhhhhhn!"
The elder Rurohashi sister isn't what one would call a great conversationalist about now, barely having the strength to keep latched onto her piece of flesh that was keeping her afloat and safe from drowning. There's little to no help for Kara at all as she lifts Rinako's one-hundred-thirty-something pounds of dead weight out of the ocean, but hey, ninja are tough! The jinchuriki seems to be trying to move her feet, but apparently lacks even the chakra to walk on the surface of the water, and is even at that moment fighting as hard as she can simply to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head.
She might have been able to hold her breath for ungodly lengths of time, but about now, she looked like she might drown in a kiddy pool. Not to mention the cuts covering her form was likely to draw sharks in the near future!
There's one word she manages to lock onto in her barely-awake state. "Im… outo… chan…"
But by the time they reach the shore, Rinako's consciousness has faded to the occasional incoherent mumble, and, if possible, she's even moving less. Just as they hit the sand, the dark-haired kunoichi lets go of her waking mind, and slips into the realm of dreams, or possibly nightmares, likely to whatever part of her mind dealt with the creature inside of her.
o/~ I've been diggin' in the flesh-mound, all the live-long day… o/ ~ Or that's how it feels, as Shemri doggedly stabs and cuts and pulls apart the rancid meat. She's not sure she's in the right spot, but she can't stop-Ruri's life may depend on the next few seconds! And-*SPLUT* …Oh. e.e Sigh. Shemri checks Ruri over briefly…well, at least she's still breathing, suffocation was the biggest worry. Shemri pulls off what remains of her sun-dress and wraps it around Ruri's chest. "Next time we go on a vacation together," she grunts as she lifts Ruri and heads off the flesh-pile, "I believe I should choose the place." :P