As he stepped out of the shadow of his doorway, Rysano felt the unfamiliar kiss of the sun’s rays upon his tawny flesh. It was rare in Kirigakure to even see the sun through all of the mist surrounding the village, let alone actually feel its warmth. He was pleasantly surprised by this weather, as today he was free to do whatever he pleased. He had been working so hard the last few weeks as a newly minted genin it had started to take its toll on him, so today he had made sure not to schedule anything at all. This way he could take all the time to himself he wanted and recuperate his strength before he jumped back into being the best ninja he could be.

A single deep breath filled his nostrils with the smells of the village around him. The fresh fish wafting from the coastal parts of the town mingled with freshly baked goods which drew him towards the center of town. ‘What a terrific way to start the day.’ He would think to himself, purchasing a sweet pastry from a vendor cart he passed on the street. ‘How do I want to spend my day off?’ He pondered thoughtfully as he chewed through the gooey roll. ‘Oooo! I should go for a run through the forest!’ The feel of the wooded areas always put Rysano in a great mood. The smells of the various plants and trees, the sounds of the birds and various land fauna all coalesced into a wonderfully natural song he always enjoyed. Many times on his parents rare off days from the hospital, they would take a family stroll down a forest path, and just enjoy each others company within nature.

Making his way through the village streets towards the northern gate, he would smile and nod at every single person who passed by him on his way out. He hoped that they were having as nice of a day as he was, and if not, perhaps his smile could lighten their hearts even a little. As it had been said, “Even if one is not happy, forcing oneself to smile can trick the mind into believing itself to be happy.” or some such nonsense. As he passed by a young child and her mother, his bright smile was met by one just as joyful in the young girls face. He waved at her as they passed and as the girl turned to look back at him, a small cloth doll she had been carrying fell to the ground behind her. She cried out to her mother, whose attention was otherwise occupied, but Rysano heard the exclamation and turned to pick up the lost property and return it to its rightful owner. The pair stopped walking to allow him to return the toy and they both thanked him for his kindness. “My pleasure,” Rysano would say, the smile never leaving his face, “You two have a wonderful day.” He turned away from them and continued out of the village gate.

After clearing the threshold of the gate and crossing the hundred or so feet between the village and the edge of the forest, Rysano would stop to take in that first breath of arboreal air. It soothed and rejuvenated him as he hopped from the ground into the branches of the nearest tree. He decided he would start with a little exercise for his time here, beginning to jump from branch to branch, tree to tree, pacing his breathing with each leap, attempting to move faster and faster with each leap. He would even occasionally throw in a fancy flip or maneuver for no one but himself. He laughed heartily as one such stunt caused him to nearly miss his target branch completely and only catching the edge of it with his hands. His clumsiness could be taken lightly today, as he was in no hurry and no danger whatsoever.

Continuing on like this for twenty minutes or so, he would move quickly deeper into the forest. He wanted to find a nice shaded area to stop and rest. He had packed a couple more pastries from the village in his pack that he planned on eating as a snack when he decided to stop finally. Coming up to the edge of a small clearing, he paused on the branch’s edge before walking down the trunk and sitting up against the ancient tree to rest. As he munched on the first of his rolls, he watched the life of the forest dance before him. A mother deer and her young drank from a small brook nearby, a family of chicks waiting impatiently for their parent to return with their food, a call and response between a few different frogs took place in the trees above him.

Another deep breath to lower his heart rate from the sprint across the forest brought more smells to him. He could smell the water in the stream, the aroma of the flowers around him, and…..blood? The familiar copper metallic scent gave him pause. Why would he be smelling such a thing in the middle of this unspoiled wilderness around him. He decided to investigate. His trained senses allowed to deduce the scent was luckily upwind from him, or he may not have caught it at all. He would make his way through the underbrush to discover who or what was hurt, and if there was any way he would be able to aid them.

[WC 924]

Rysano tore through the underbrush in search of the source of the metallic presence that wafted through the air. He no longer took notice of the world around him. Inside was a singular drive to find out what was going on and help in any way he could. Unbeknownst to him, around him the forest had grown cold and quiet. No birds chirped in the trees above, there were no animals grazing on the grass. The only movement was a stiff breeze that had picked up suddenly which brought a chill with it, and Rysano himself. Five minutes of sprinting through the forest and he finally came upon the grisly source of the smell.

Before him knelt two figures in a small clearing within the trees. He stopped near the edge to observe who they were before rushing in. They knelt in front of one another, the taller of the two holding out the other’s arm in his hand. Rysano had never seen this person before, but he took note of its looks. Most of its body seemed to be covered in a large black cloak emblazoned with many red clouds. His bright red hair and pale skin seemed to almost glint in the sunlight. Surely it was just a trick of the light or something, Rysano thought. But as he shifted his focus to the other figure, he recognized the auburn and teal hair that seemed to be sticking to her face in the heat, and it was hard to miss the prosthetic leg that replaced her left side.

“Nova!” he shouted as he burst out of the treeline towards her. The crimson-headed figure holding out her arm turned its head slowly towards him, accompanied by a very faint clicking noise as it moved. There was no life in its eyes, and it only stared as Rysano ran up to his new friend. It was only as he got closer did Rysano start to see what was really happening here.

As he ran up to her side, Rysano took note that Nova was not dressed as should be to be out here in the middle of the forest during the day. She looked as though she had just gotten out of bed, and the pale pink slip she wore was dyed a deep, dark maroon with the river of blood that currently flowed out of a gaping wound in her upper arm. He gasped as he watched Nova’s own arm was that that held the blade now digging into her flesh, he head lying lazily to one side, resting on her own shoulder, seemingly unconscious.

He quickly knelt down next to the other figure and yelled into its seemingly lifeless face. “What is going on here?! What is she doing?!” He waited for a couple seconds as the other person simply stared at him and Nova continued to saw away. Rysano let out an exasperated sigh and shoved the figure away from the two of them, remarking, “You’re no help, move!” The figure released its grasp on Nova’s arm as it fell back away from them, collapsing into a crumpled pile onto the forest floor. Looking back, Rysano watched the blade cease its repetitive motion and drop to the ground alongside Nova as her head lolled back and she collapsed as well.

Rysano quickly knelt over her and examined the wound. The blade had dug in pretty deep at this point. ‘She must have been at this for quite a while.’ He remarked in his head as he attempted to wake her from her unconsciousness. It didn’t make sense for her to still be asleep while this was going on. The immense pain this would have caused would have woken anyone up from a natural slumber. There was something else at work here. He gave up on his fruitless attempts to wake her and returned to fixing the wound. He knew she had already lost a lot of blood and he had to at least staunch the bleeding quickly, or she was liable to die from blood loss.

He quickly placed both of his hands over her wound, one on top of the other. He focused deeply and began channeling his chakra into them. His hands beginning to glow with a bright yellow light, he would move his medical chakra out through his palms and into the damaged arm of his friend. As he focused on healing the damage, the skin and muscles inside began to knit back together and coalesce back to their normal state. Continuing to heal her, Rysano’s thought would travel back in time to the three days he spent in this same position, knelt over a friend, someone who trusted him, trying to keep them alive. He thought about Asumi. He thought about how he wasn’t strong enough to help her, and he let her die in front of him. He thought about how much that had crushed his spirit. ‘This time will be different.’ He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. The continued to gnaw away at his confidence in his abilities, but he ignored them and continued with the healing.

After about twenty full minutes of carefully piecing back together Nova’s muscles and skin, and keeping an eye on her vital signs, Rysano finally ceased his healing technique and rolled back onto his heels. He felt very drained after using that much chakra at one time, but he believed for now, Nova was not going to die in front of him. He had done the best he could, and there was still evidence that there had been some serious damage to her arm, but for the most part he had fixed the major issues. He would have to wake her up to see if she was still able to move it correctly after he had to reconstruct her muscle.

Now, a couple minutes of rest later, he would have to start trying to wake her up. A quick glance proved that the other figure still lay collapsed where it had been shoved. Rysano could now see some of the exposed joints and plates that made him realize that thing was actually a puppet. ‘But, if that thing is a puppet, how was it holding Nova’s arm while she was unresponsive?’ He would have some question to ask her once she awoke, but for now, he just needed to figure out how to get her to come back to the conscious world.

[WC 1081/2005]

After spending an enormous amount of energy patching the wound on her arm, Rysano would take a short rest while leaning back on his heels. The grass around the two of them had gone from a pleasant emerald green color to a much deeper shade of almost maroon from being soaked in the blood pool that surrounded them. He still wasn’t sure if he had arrived in time for Nova to still have enough blood inside of her to survive.

The now healed over gash on her upper arm still showed visible damage, but it was all back to one piece and the blood had stopped flowing, allowing her clothes to dry out. The new skin he had stitched together was bright pink, she would absolutely bear a scar there, as the healer was not the most skilled in the world, but he did his best. He looked down at his hands, now beginning to turn brown as the blood that had spattered them as he performed his healing began to dry. He reached for his water canteen and began to wet his palms to wash the gore off of them.

As he went to set his water down and begin washing his hands, a primal scream tore out from Nova’s body, laying in front of him. Startled, Rysano would instinctively throw his hands up in front of his face, sending the canteen spiraling into the underbrush. He looked down at her body as her eyelids opened suddenly along with the scream. Seemingly not recognizing him through what he was sure was an immense amount of pain hitting her nervous system all at once, sending shockwaves through her entire body, she recoiled in fear away from his blood-soaked arms directly into the puppets motionless shell.

Another scream, this one sounded less like the cause was pain and more of surprise or confusion. Nova fell back and crawled away from the puppet. Rysano could see the tears welling in her eyes as she fought through the pain to attempt to understand everything that had happened. “What happened... why does it hurt so bad....” She would choke out, pulling her injured arm closer in to her body. It was then that she seemed to notice the crimson trail leading away from her body, and a terrified look crossed her face as she probed at the scar on her left arm, sending more waves of pain through the appendage.


Rysano would break out of his surprise and rush to her side to try and catch her as she weakly attempted to stand, the blood loss and recent return to consciousness making this impossible as her body crumpled back to the ground. “Rysano... where am I?” She would query, as he double-checked her arm to make sure the exertion had not caused the repairs to fail, lest what was left of her blood begin to flow once more.

He would gently cradle her head and lay her back down on the ground as he attempted to explain what had transpired while she was asleep. “Relax, relax. You’ve lost a lot of blood already. You need to take it easy.” He wiped the sweat and hair away from her face and placed a cool rag across her forehead. He tried to get her to slow her breathing and heart rate as much as she could during a situation like this. “I healed the damage to your arm as best as I could. I think you’re going to be okay now, but you have got to take it slow or you risk further damage.”

He made sure to place her injured arm down to her side to promote increased blood flow to it. They had to make sure she had blood returning to it. If not, she ran the risk of needing it amputated, this time by a professional that was qualified for the task instead of doing it herself. “I was just walking through the forest when I saw you here.” He gestured to the pile of robes nearby. “Somehow that thing was gripping your arm, and you were taking a blade to it, despite being unresponsive. If I had been any later, I’m afraid you might have lost the arm, or maybe more.”

He quickly ran into the brush to retrieve his canteen for her. She needed to rehydrate to replenish her internal fluids. He slowly fed sips of the cool, refreshing liquid to her, only allowing her to use her undamaged arm for support. He had a plethora of questions for her, but he wanted to make sure she was stable and mending before he bombarded her for answers, lest it send her into shock. He was lucky she was being receptive to his treatment, or this might’ve been much harder to take care of.

Fifteen minutes had passed, and it looked as though Nova was through the worst of it. Some of her strength seemed to be returning and her mental cognition was at full capacity once again. It was time for some answers. “I know you probably are just as confused as I am, but we need to start figuring out what was going on here.” Rysano would stand up from her side and drag the puppet’s body over to where Nova was resting. “Somehow, this thing was moving and acting of its own volition. Now I don’t know the first thing about puppets, that’s your specialty, but I’m pretty sure the essence of a puppet is that it requires a puppeteer in order to move.” He kicked the robes beneath him as he said this. “It seems to be useless now, so my question is, why this one? What’s special about this puppet? And do you have any idea why you ended up out here in your night-clothes, sawing at your own arms?”

He knelt back at her side and turned her face towards his, the color finally beginning to return to her skin. Dark circles appeared around her eyes. Not unusual for someone who has gone through this sort of trauma. He looked deep into Nova’s eyes, and for the first time she would have ever seen since they had met, there was not a trace of his trademark smile anywhere on his face. “Nova, what is the last thing you remember?”

[WC 1053/3059]

Rysano noticed, as he laid the puppet next to Nova, another shudder would cross her form. It could have still been residual shock from her injury and blood loss, or it could also be a reaction to the puppet itself. ‘Now why would she be afraid of her own puppet?’ He thought to himself as he watched her. She looked to be recovering quickly, not totally surprising for ninja of her strength. An injury like this would have put any lesser person in intensive care for at least a week, if they didn’t die outright.

He could see the tears welling in her deep green eyes as he posed his final question. “Nova, what is the last thing you remember?” He could see the wheels turning in her brain as she desperately attempted to recall what had happened before he arrived. The effort was visible on her face. Not a good sign, as Rysano could tell that meant she had about as much clue of her actions as he did. They would have to work through this mystery together.

At last she spoke, “Well I was... I was at Izumi's. We had gone to dinner, gotten home.. relaxed. Last I remember we were in bed falling asleep. That's where I thought I was until... where are we now?” She paused as it looked like she was on the verge of falling over again. Rysano braced her to keep her sitting upright while she spoke. As she steadied, she continued on, her voice breaking with a nod towards the puppet, “Do you recognize him? He.. It... was given to me after the Chuunin exams. By the Raikage. I don't know why. Why he had it nor why he gave it to me.”

Rysano thought about this for a minute. He couldn’t place if he had ever seen the guise of this dreadful puppet before, but he did remember that Nova and Izumi had both participated in the last Chuunin exams, with Nova emerging the victor. ‘A fitting prize. A puppet for a puppeteer.’ He mused, ‘But why did the Raikage have something like this in his possession? Did he know what is was when he gave it to her? What it was capable of?’ He began developing a mental list of question as Nova continued on.

“A few weeks ago I had the aid of Lord Osada in unsealing the scroll that bound him... seals so strong I would have died if I attempted it myself.” Rysano had heard mention of a “Lord Osada” in the past, but couldn’t quite place the name, but that seemed to be at the bottom of his list of questions for now as, letting the words sink in a moment while looking to her arm again, Nova dropped the the most important information on him. “He wants to turn me into human puppet like he did himself....”

The words came out as barely a whimper as Rysano stood aghast. His mouth sat open but no words exited as he tried to process the thought of that. He looked to the black and red robe pile on the ground in front of both of them. He had never heard of human puppets before, let alone mutilating pieces of yourself in order to become one. The thought would never have crossed his mind, even as a medical ninja. Obviously prosthetic limbs were a necessity in the case of a lost limb, but to willfully replaced pieces of yourself was in-humane.

Looking back toward Nova, he could see another look of pure fear cross her features. This was not the time for him to be questioning the morals of personal augmentation. His friend and mentor was in shock on the ground in front of him, and as a medical professional, and a friend, he had to do everything he could to help her. As he knelt back at her side, he could quietly hear her voice. She did not even turn her head to look at him. She just continued to stare at the ground in front of her. “Don't tell Izumi. She... she can't know... please... please don't tell anyone of this...”

Rysano would grasp her shoulders in each of his hands and turn her toward him so they were face to face. He could see the true fear in her eyes at the thought of what this thing was able to do to her. He would be terrified as well, and he had to help. “Listen, no one else needs to know about this, okay? I just want to help you. I won’t tell Izumi, don’t worry. You can trust me.” He would wipe the tears away from the corners of her eyes with his washcloth and continue speaking. “I understand that you’re afraid of this thing. I would be too, but you can’t let that fear prevent you from acting against it. You don’t have to just sit back and accept this thing’s presence over you. You can fight back. You can train yourself to resist it.”

Rysano began thinking about different ways he could assist her in her resistance. He obviously didn’t know much about what the puppet was capable of aside from what he had already seen. He needed to know more. He had a few questions rattling around in his head still, and in order to combat this force, he would need as much information as he could get.

Releasing her shoulders, he would stand up and begin to pace back and forth in front of her. “I need to know everything you can tell me about this puppet. I know you don’t know why the Raikage gave this to you, but do you think he knew what it was when he entrusted it to you? Does Lord Osada know what this thing is? Could he be any help in fighting against it?” He would pace these questions out giving her time to answer each one individually before continuing with the next, slowly building his knowledge.

Stopping his stride once again in front of her, he would once again kneel in front of her. “I will do whatever I can to help you. If it ever hurts you again, I’ll be able to heal you. I can figure out a way or a technique that can strengthen your mind against its influence.” He wasn’t sure how much he could actually do, especially not right now. He didn’t know what to do, and he was sure he was too weak to help in any substantial way as of now, but this gave him a purpose. A drive to improve, to help his friend with this problem of hers. He would draw Nova into a hug, making sure to avoid her injured arm while pulling her into the embrace. “I will help you, and we can beat this thing. Together.”

[WC 1146/4201]

Rysano listened intently to Nova’s words as she quietly answered the questions he had posed to her. Information would be key in establishing a defense against the puppet’s intrusion, so they needed to learn everything they could about it. “It... no... he was Sasori of the Red Sand. Member of the akatsuki, who fought in both the third and fourth great ninja wars...” He was familiar with the history of the Akatsuki and the Great Ninja Wars, but he was never much into history, and did not recognize the name for what he actually was. He could assume some sort of puppeteer obviously, and presumably from the title, he hailed from the Sand Village like Nova and Izumi.

At the end of her sentence, Nova’s tone of voice would fade slightly at the end of the sentence. Rysano could see the tears start to well in her eyes again, but she quickly shut them and steadied herself before continuing. “I have no idea why the Raikage had him, I don't even know if he knew what was in that scroll. There were seals....” She would once again fall silent. Rysano could only imagine all the things that were going through her mind at a time like this. From her confusion about the events that had transpired, it was clear nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Rysano wondered why the puppet decided to start now. Or how long had he been tormenting the girl before now? His train of thought was interrupted by a pained look from Nova. She continued, “I can still hear him. In my mind, he can talk to me.”, her voice was low as she looked to Rysano, “Lord Osada knows what it is... but he doesn't know about this. He... he read me a warning when we unsealed it and paid it no mind. I thought it was just words of caution... 'Beware the puppeteer lest you become the puppet'”

Rysano would hug Nova tightly, and he could feel her start to cry as the tears began soaking into his shoulder. So the puppet could still talk to her, even while in-animate. That would be his first goal then. He would begin developing a way to strengthen Nova’s mind in order to block out any such intrusion. He had never created his own jutsu, but he had to now, for his friend. He heard Nova’s soft voice, muffled further by being pressed into his shirt. “Rysano... you saved my life. Thank you.. so much.” He would gently stroke the back of her head as he responded. “You don’t have to thank me Nova. Anyone else would have done the same thing. I’m just glad it was me.”

He would hold her like this for another minute or so before she would lean back out of his embrace. The sudden movement must have triggered some dizziness, together with her current blood levels, as she almost looked like she would fall over, but she steadied herself this time. It looked as though some of her good-nature and sense of the world around her had returned as she motioned down towards the now dry and crusty gown she was still wearing. “I'm so tired... I don't know where to go.... Both Izumi's house and Lord Osada's mansion... well they will see this” Rysano had avoided looking too closely at her outfit so far, as it was heavily covered in blood and he was focused on saving her life, but as he took in the sight, he finally realized that she was in no way ready to return to the village in her current state.

Rysano blushed slightly as he averted his eyes towards the trees above them. The chirping of birds had returned to the air and a pleasant breeze drifted through the clearing, as if clearing the malice of the previous events from the area. “Oh!,” He laughed nervously, “Right, you probably don’t want to have to walk through the village dressed like that and covered in blood.” He reached down to his waste and untied the dark jacket he had tied there and handed it to her. “I stopped near a small stream not too far from here before I discovered you. If you wanted to try and wash yourself off first. I’m afraid your clothes are pretty much ruined at this point, but you can wear my jacket just long enough to get through the village.”

He would gesture for her to follow him through the underbrush to where he had spotted the family of deer drinking earlier. It was only a few minute travel, and on the way he posed an idea to her. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to keep an eye on your wound for a little while longer. I’m not totally confident in my handiwork, and I want to be there if it suddenly needs any more healing. And I know you don’t really want Izumi seeing you like this, so would you like to stay at my place tonight?” He nervously scratched the back of his head as he said this. “Obviously it would just be for tonight, so you can rest up and recover your strength. I can just sleep on the couch.” From behind him Nova wouldn’t be able to tell, but Rysano’s face was slowly turning a deeper and deeper shade of red around his nervous grin.

Upon reaching the stream, Rysano would stop more than a few feet away behind some ground cover in order to give Nova her due privacy. As he waited for her to clean up, he walked slightly further upstream to refill his canteen for her and wash the blood off of his own hands. He also began thinking of different ways he would be able to help her against Sasori. ‘I can obviously find a way to enable her to ignore his words in her mind. Perhaps there’s a way for me to interfere directly with the two of them. Sort of interpose myself between them. I’ll have to study how this thing affects her more closely going forward.’

As Nova returned from removing as much of the dried blood from her as possible, draped in his jacket that reached nearly from her shoulder to her knees, Rysano stood up and the two of them finally began the walk back to the village. Rysano silently reflected on the day as a whole. He originally came out to the forest to enjoy his day off among nature, but he was incredibly glad he had stumbled across Nova while he was out. He shuddered at the thought of what could have happened to her had he decided to do something else with his free time. He would spend the rest of the walk just making small talk or answering any questions Nova might have for him.

Finally, they arrived through the northern gates of the Mist Village and Rysano took the lead to direct Nova towards his abode. They obviously received a few confused glances because of Nova’s unusual attire and their disheveled features, but most villagers didn’t give them a second thought. They certainly would have drawn much more attention had they returned looking the way they had earlier in the day.

Not too long after entering the village proper, they would both arrive at the entrance to Rysano’s apartment complex. He would unlock the door and hand the canteen full of fresh stream water to Nova. “The bedroom is down the hall on the right. Don’t mind the mess, I hadn’t planned on any visitors today.” He would give her a wink and a smile, “Try to drink all of the water and rest up. Just yell if you need anything.” And as he ushered his friend and mentor through the threshold of his apartment, he thought about all the things he would need to start working on. It would be difficult to help her, but he didn’t mind. He was just happy to be doing his part.

[Exit Thread]

[Post Word Count 1340, Total Word Count 5541]

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