How long had it been since she had ended up in Sunagakure? She had helped out during the evacuation, and while she had thought she had made a friend in a little puppet user he had gone missing sometime afterwards. Of course, he wasn’t the only one whom had disappeared as she had, too. She had gone out to use the bathroom while they were camped out away from the destroyed village and had ended up getting lost. She had wandered the desert for hours in hopes that someone would find her, and then had ended up staying in the same place for some three days while thinking that would be best. Unfortunately, those who found her were a group of bandits. While Chou was a Genin and somewhat capable of handling herself to a degree, she knew that against such vast numbers she was nothing more than a sitting duck. She had no idea the intentions of the men and women who had stumbled across her, but she had known that to survive she would have to make herself useful and so that’s exactly what she did. Their cooking skills were horrible, and it seemed that they were at a loss on how to plan a meal accordingly so that everyone had a proper portion. This was where Chou came in handy: she knew very well how to cook, and could turn food into something edible and delicious from the bare minimum scraps - which tended to be what she was working with, at least at first. Her skills got the approval of the bandits, and kept harm from coming to her.

Thus, this was her life for the next nine years: cooking for a group that she honestly wanted nothing to do with, but which she was stuck with if she wanted to survive. Of course she could have killed them off easily enough, especially since it only took roughly six months of being watched while she cooked before she gained their trust enough to be left alone. Yet, where would that lead her? She didn’t have any place to go. Konoha had never sent anyone to come find her or so she assumed, and considering they had allowed her to walk out of the village in the first place with a criminal she figured that assumption was as close to correct as possible. So she had simply bided her time, slowly getting stronger piece by piece. While they went about robbing and killing and doing only the gods knew what she kept to the camp area that changed places every few weeks or so, using the fact that she was busy cooking for such vast numbers as a reason to keep her own self from becoming tainted by such actions.

“Don’t piss off the cook”, became a motto quickly enough for the group of bandits, and thus no one protested too hard if Chou wanted to remain behind and prepare their next meal instead of helping to rob, hurt, or kill people. It also gave her free reign to wander a bit, though out of fear of getting lost again in the vast desert she tended to stick close to camp at first. However, she did begin to go on little scouting missions with the bandits, if for no other reason than to begin learning the layout of the land as well as how to track: skills she hoped would come in handy the moment she decided to take off and leave them behind - because honestly, she had no intentions of staying longer than she had to, and she already felt like she had stayed too long as it was. It wasn’t that she made enemies, as most of the bandits were friendly enough, and there was even one she was close to, but she knew this wasn’t the life she wanted: she didn’t want to just scrap by while taking advantage of the hard work of others. She wanted to be out there doing something, even if she didn’t know what that something was.

Through the years Chou had begun to age of course, going from an adorable little ten year old girl fresh from the Academy in Konoha, into a beautiful eighteen year old woman. While her face still held some of that child-like innocence, the rest of her had evolved and changed. While still a ‘big girl’ by normal standards, she had proportioned nicely into a beautiful woman with a fairly large bust, and exceptionally long hair that had become so bleached by the sun that it had lost its red hue, allowing her to change it to purple which faded to a light blue towards the end. Unfortunately for her she had to spur the advances of many bandits, but they had taken it well enough, knowing not to piss her off unless they happen to find something in their food that their diet could really go without.

Today was like many days before it: looking to be nothing more than the usual routine. She was up before the sun, preferring to do much of her preparations for cooking for the day before the heat of the day got to be too strong and ended up combining with the heat of the fire to make it nearly unbearable to be around for long. Unlike the bandits around her that were covered in various forms of armor and desert garb, Chou had chosen what was comfortable for her: a cotton, black in color, short sleeve crop top, with a pair of cotton black pants that were baggy enough to allow for air circulation through them. While the darkness of the color would have likely done her in in the early years of being in Suna, the heat nor sun didn’t bother her much anymore: she didn’t even sunburn as she used to, her skin having gone from fair and light, to a darkish brownish peach color. She was mostly alone in the camp, save for a few bandits who had stayed back to remain guard over the place. The rest were out scouting for some threat, as someone or something had been hitting their numbers fairly hard as of lately. Bandits were disappearing, groups being severely diminished upon return from raids if they returned at all. The bandit leader was up in arms about it to the point to where he had left as well, thinking that the bandits were either beginning to turn on their own in secrecy, or that there was a larger and far more deadlier threat out there than simple civilians right for the pickings. As per usual Chou had kept her distance, remaining behind to cook instead of partaking in this search. It wasn’t really her business if bandits were disappearing, and at this point she honestly didn’t care. She felt like she knew enough to survive on her own if she had to, and if the threat happened to show up? Well, she had no intentions of putting her own ass on the line to save anyone’s skin but her own. She was not beyond fleeing if it came to it, and she was more than aware of a few nicely hidden underground caves ripe with water supplies still fresh and untainted that she could duck into for a few days if need be.

“What’s for dinner tonight?”, called over one of the female guards, causing Chou to look up from the fish she was currently gutting.

“Some kind of fish, probably with a salad. Got to get rid of those greens before they go bad.”, Choul would respond while turning her attention back to the table and the knife in her hand. Her cuts had once been unsteady, a knife feeling wrong in her hands, and yet over the years this had changed as many things about her had: the knife glinted and flashed in the sun as she went from fish to fish, gutting and deboning them with ease.

“You’ve got some skill with that knife, why don’t you ever go out on raids, too? I heard you used to be a shinobi, Chou…”, another bandit called over, the partner of the one who had spoken to her first, though this time a male.

Chou didn’t bother responding: it was none of their business why she didn’t go out on the raids, and really there was no point in speaking about it. It would only incite a fight, or an argument. Plus, she didn’t want to deal with the questions as to why she had stuck around for so long if she didn’t like being here: because really, who would want to admit they thought they had nowhere else to go?

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