Kiyomi wandered through the marketplace gathering supplies. A dark leather back pack that she filled with food and water, some bandages, and a flask of alcohol for sterilizing her blades and needles. As an after though she purchased a small package of matches, though she chuckled as she did, it would be cold day in hell before she went back to resorting to that barbarism. As a finishing touch she found a merchant willing to part with a fine blanket at a reasonable price, which she rolled up and tied along the top of the bag. She was very tired of losing everything she owned, and after double and triple checking that all was in place she set off out of the gate towards the southern forest. While she had been in the market she had overheard tales of criminal and murderous dealings in Suna, and it had peaked her interest. She was not overly fond of the idea of criminals themselves, however where there were petty thieves and thugs, there was true grace and power. That was what she sought, and so off she went down the road to a place she could not recall with any certainty ever having been before.

It was quite dark before she had made any real progress, she had not thought to bring a light source of any kind, but of course normally she was not free to travel on her own and so these things did not occur to her. The sky overhead was allowing some starlight through, but not enough, and her arms were beginning to ache with the urgency of blood not yet spilled. She would rush to the side of the road, just past the tree line and rip her bag from her shoulders, letting out an anguished cry as it fell. Dropping to her knees she would pull out her kunai and kiss the blade while mumbling a prayer of forgiveness and a blasphemous curse to whatever god it was that cursed her to love that same blade so much. With tear filled eyes she would roll up her left sleeve, as her right arm was always bare. And with a smile of pleasure and scream of pain would slowly draw the kunai across each of the twelve identical scars, six on the inside of each forearm, one inch in length and one inch apart from each other. As the blood ran from her wounds she would fall back onto the forest floor, screaming in rage once and then writhing calmly as all the pain left her. Blessing and curse… Damn you… As the waves of pain and pleasure began to lose their hold Kiyomi became aware of a presence near her, too late for her to do anything about mind you, so she would call out through her haze to the presence. “Who are you… What do you want from me?”

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Hirohiko frantically and blindly traveled through the dense forest. With his eyes closed shut tighter than ever before, he would would try to navigate his way through the wooded land, unknowing of where he was going. To him, he was traversing through the darkness, his mind in a panic as he was all alone. His mind frantically searched, split wondering where he was going and trying to justify what he had just done. His arms were crossed with his hands gripping onto the pale skin that were his upper arms, his fingers digging into it, tightly holding on as he continued to move with his hastened fast walk. 'It was an accident, he attacked me, I couldn't stop it..' he would think to himself as he continued wandering about in the confines of his mind, his body stumbling around, lightly bumping into trees on a more often than not occurrence, making small, hushed "mmm"'s come out of his closed mouth.

Tears would be fought back by his closed eyes, though would water up along the tear ducts, dripping to the ground every once in a while. He would have plastered upon his face a tight-lipped smile, one of which had the bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly, covering the most obvious of emotions that he was feeling at the moment, preventing them from showing in anything more than the language his body had already presented. The smile did an extremely poor job at masking his feelings, and his thoughts weren't able to be hidden as well at all. With his head down, he was seemingly smiling at the ground, the regret and pain washing over his body like waves crashing against a shore, the sheer weight holding him from being able to fully straighten out, let alone think straight in general. 'He hurt himself...  I didn't do anything...' his mind would trail on, the mental images of the fight still in his mind. The one time he opened his eyes once more, someone had died, and he never wanted such a thing to happen again.

His knees buckled under the weight of his sins that were on his back, causing him to shrink smaller in regards to appearances. Hirohiko could feel his stomach turn over and over, aching, making him almost puke with disgust for himself as he began to realize some of the blood from the other male was on the fingertips of his right hand, the lukewarm, colding red liquid rubbing against his right arm, wiping it against that pale skin of his, the dark cloth sleeve that was his short kimono covering this, though chances are that, if there was blood on his fingers, there was most likely trickles of blood on the front of his clothing as well, as when he stabbed him the other male was over him. The very thought of this would make him cover his still-smiling mouth with both hands for a few moments, his stomach churning as he would fall to his knees, resisting the temptation to release his insides all over the grass before him.

With the lump in his throat, Hirohiko would find it all of the harder to calm himself down, his face twisting as it had wanted to fight against his wish to frown so badly, causing the plastered smile before to twist slightly, lips quivering underneath those hands of his. He couldn't move after this, instead he was frozen in place, his head thumping, the drums of regret and grief thumping hard within his mind. It craved for escape, for release around him, leaving him to release his thoughts telepathically around him as if he were crying for some kind of help, for the presence of another in the area. 'I didn't do it... I promise...' his mind rung out around him, searching for a place to implant the thoughts within, but he couldn't find any, at least not to his current knowledge. Still, the light release of his thoughts helped his mind quiet down a little, allowing for the male to be able to fight back the urge to puke and, with those same, shaky knees, try to help himself up.

Standing back up, the five foot three male would grip his upper arms once more, though this time they would grab a hold over the black cloth that covered them, his twisted smile smoothing out slowly but surely as he begun to breathe deeply, trying his best to calm himself down. 'He forced it.. it was either me or him.' He would once more think to himself as his body worked hard in trying to calm him down. It would be then however in which he would hear an anguished cry unlike his own, one of which would be nearby, enticing the male to follow it, seeing who else was suffering during this time of the day like he was. He realized however that, whoever it was that seemed to be distressed, that seemed to be in need of a servant, would first need him to open his own eyes to see, though for just a peek, not nearly long enough for the their gaze to curse the world with its own existence.

Peeking, he would see a female, whom of which would be on the side of the road, her bag having landed on the ground and a kunai in her hands, tears seemingly filling her eyes. He would closed his eyes, standing there silently as he would wait for her, smiling that forced smile of his all the while. He would grimace as he heard her screaming once more, though this time being one more full of rage than before, causing the male to literally flinch for a moment as he listened and waited until she seemingly calmed down. The bag was the target. For some reason, she must've felt as though the bag was too heavy, or that it had harmed her in some sort of way. This was his way to help him redeem himself for his own sins, to serve again under someone else, someone new.

He could hear her calling out, asking someone who they were, and what they want from her, though he could only suspect that these questions were directed towards him, as for those few moments in which he was peeking were the few seconds in which he had heard her cry out, and had seen no one else around. He wished he could introduce himself, to say who he was, what he had done, to spill out his guts and beg for forgiveness from a stranger, but he couldn't. The only thing he hated more than his eyes was his voice, his voice of which, he vowed that only very, very few, the people which he could only trust, would hear. Instead however he would sheepishly inch his way closer to the female, or more specifically, to her bag, where if she hadn't stopped him, he would kneel down next to it, grabbing a hold of it and picking it up, holding onto the hefty sack with his right hand as he waved at her with his left, the lines his tears have left remaining upon his cheeks, and the smile being his way of greeting.

The bag would seemingly be too heavy for him at the moment, at least in the exhausted, grieving state he was just in before he found what could possibly be a ray of hope in his way, and he would end up dropping it, having no longer been holding it up with both hands, his thin fingers still holding onto the strap, causing he himself to suddenly stumble down with it, landing on his knees. Attempting to pick it up against, the male would this time place the strap over his right shoulder, using his back to help support the weight as he would once more attempt to face the female, once more waving to her, hoping this wouldn't make her reject him. He had to make this count, and he had to do whatever it takes to ensure she doesn't reject him.

Having decided on impulse, he would do something similar to talking, though something he was more accepting of, especially since he could and has used it in the past to mess with the heads of others from time to time. Reaching out, he would attempt to send a message into the female's head, a voice really. "Hirohiko. I wish to serve." He would send, the word clearly being a name, followed with a request, though little more than that. With his hands, he would try to blindly use sign language to form out the rest, a skill he learned early on from his fellow orphans in order to help him communicate more easily with them, a means to help him overcome his inability to speak. 'I want to help. Please accept me.' He would request with his hands as best as he could, hoping the stranger would understand what he had said.

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Kiyomi had been expecting many things, a bandit perhaps… someone who followed her from Konoha or even some wandering animal but not this. A small boy, so frail looking that she feared if he fell he may shatter into a thousand pieces, came walking out of the shadows towards her. No, not towards her. Towards her bag. Kiyomi struggled to gain her bearings, the blood loss from this ritual was taxing and she did not truly have the energy to spare chasing down even a tiny frail child to save her modest bag of belongings. She let out a sigh of languid frustration, she needed those things, but she also needed to prolong this moment. As she struggled weighed the value of the options in her mind she watched incredulously as the boy did not make off with the bag, but rather attempted to bring the bag to her. It was both charming and pitiful, and Kiyomi could not help but to laugh softly. It pleased her greatly in a way this young boy could not have known, that at all the times anyone could have chosen to be subservient to her… it would of course be now. It was poetic irony at its absolute finest.

She would roll onto all fours then and slowly push herself up into a standing position, leaning heavily on a nearby tree for support.  After watching him struggle with the bag was no longer amusing she would ask again, “Who are you?” and she would slide down the tree and grasp at her head as the words "Hirohiko. I wish to serve." rang clearly through her mind. She would look up at the boy suspiciously, his eyes closed, a friendly smile on his face. It was odd… out of place what are you doing out here all alone at night tiny thing? And all covered in blood? She would watch his hands move and recognized the hand sign for “Please”. Kiyomi would sigh… this was not what she wanted… this was not what she had been trained for, broken and molded and put back together for. Or is it my love? Does he look free to you? Take him… he is in much of need of it as any, and he is asking it of you.

Kiyomi would hold out her hand for her bag, and after a moment realizing the boy could not see would speak to him. “My name is Kiyomi Yamada. You may call me Kiyomi. I assume that your name is Hirohiko. You may travel with me, I am sure we will be friends, but for now perhaps you and I should clean up, eat some food and get some rest. Come, sit with me, I will not harm you.” She decided to not question the boy about the blood, she understood the importance of leaving some things alone. If the boy handed her the bag she would unroll the blanket and place it on the ground beside her patting it gently, expecting the boy to take his rest. It was a long road to Suna and she was damned sure not going to carry the waif all the way there.

{Exit Thread}

Travel Completed 600/600

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Hirohiko could hear the sounds of a soft laughter, which he didn't know how to take. Was it out of a sense of pity that this stranger had taken upon him, or was it out of mockery? To hear laughter at such a time was something which he hadn't expected, especially from someone that had just been wielding a weapon just a few moments ago, seemingly going through her own emotional moment as well. It had both confused him and made him wonder what exactly was going on, especially since he had just communicated his desire to serve to her. Generally, at least with someone normal, he expected more of an outright response, a yes or a no, really, and not some form of soft laughter, instead.

But while it had confused him, it also helped him calm down a little himself, the seemingly positive expression providing a slight sense of ease which he had desired, something of which he needed more of. These temporary feelings that it had produced is something which he could feel fight off some of the negative feelings, and for a moment, that sense of confusion nearly made him forget what he had done until he tried to remember why he felt the way he did at that moment. He could hear a sigh, one of which expressed a different feeling within him, and he waited for it to happen, just like it had happened with those fools that would visit the orphanage, looking for what broken toy to buy so they can pretend to be their dream family. He waited for the stranger to reject him.

The rejection wouldn't come, however, instead an introduction of her own, her voice would slide off smooth like honey, sweetly touching his ears as she would tell him her name; Kiyomi Yamada. She would assume his name is Hirohiko, though an assumption is one that hasn't happened in this situation at all. She knew his name was Hirohiko because he was the only other one around, because he was the one that shot it into her skull. For a moment, he had felt a sort of vain pride within himself, though it would be quickly suppressed by his hatred of speaking, the feelings creating a conflict that only served to make his stomach turn slightly, making him feel an uncomfortable sensation throughout his being.

He would be happily be proven wrong by the female, whom of which would actually allow him to travel with her, ensuring that they will be friends, though also suggesting that they clean up, eat some food, and get some rest. He could virtually jump with joy, but was held down by the sack, so instead his pasted smile would slowly become more genuine, and the previous painful, negative feelings would slowly begin to fade away for now, instead being replaced by happiness that he could serve once again. Taking the bag off, Hirohiko would hand it to the female before trying to feel his way along the ground, sitting down around a few feet away from where the female patted, which is close enough.

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[exit thread]