The sky would brighten as the sun found its way over the horizon once more. Another day would arrive and remind all who lived that they had things to tend to. A slim figured girl, nineteen years of age would arch her back and stretch with intensity, a high pitched yawn escaping her. Her circadian rhythm was in sync with the rise of the sun due to an experiment with radio waves and a particular rooster that seemed to have survived the catastrophe that took place in the surrounding wasteland. It only took a few weeks before she was able to wake up without the aid of that rooster, and what fortunate timing that was, as the rooster disappeared not long afterwards. There were a few other tell-tale signs of the arrival of morning, one rather uncomfortable one that caused her sheets to form a slight tent when she would lay on her back.

Giving a slight grimace and a frustrated swivel of her hips, Utagawa dragged herself from bed and sluggishly made her way to the curtainless makeshift water line she had pieced together with piping to a hot spring. She had easy access to both baths and showers, something not often expected of a junky underground bunker. The heated water carressed her bare skin as she lathered some looted shampoo into her hair. Her thoughts raced around, dozens of possibilities and probabilities. What did the insurgents do to destroy her land on such a devastating scale. How had her home been reduced to a desert? She winced a bit, the water washing over her still relatively fresh eye injury. She had only just become accustomed to making up for the depth perception. Everything had changed so much in just that one instant, and she often reflected upon it just like this.

Though intelligent and ingenious, Utagawa had yet to realize she had been transported through space and time to a world not her own. It was never the first thought of any person that they had been sent through space and time. It made more sense to interpret the surroundings as an aftermath. Above ground, the effort to reclaim Sunagakure was being undertaken by the remaining villages while some natives fought back to preserve it. It was not Utagawa’s fight to partake in, but she could not have been aware of that. The radio receiver from outside of her bunker would give a feedback sound into her headset directly, causing her to wince in pain as she hurriedly opened up the door and walked to the surface to perform repairs. The lair had sheet metal against all of the walls, though made of scrap metal and broken down structures, it was all very well put together. All sorts of intricate trinkets lay across the countertop, including a prototype senbon launcher with a revolving barrel.

The black haired girl stood outside in a school-girlesque uniform complete with a tie. Her short skirt covered little as she bent over, tweaking and adjusting the wiring on the rugged satellite atop of the bunker mound.

WC: 516

A young woman of her profession had little, if any, experience in combat. The steel wristblades she had been working on to help her friends and family survive the conflict in her homeland, they were the only thing she still had after the catastrophic event. And in her mind up until this particular encounter, she had believed they were simply the only things that survived of her workshop and her home at all. It was her belief that only the less advanced technology and building materials had survived. That is how she rationalized the utter lack of the more advanced constructs and updated technology. It was obviously a falsehood, but the alternative was something Utagawa was not willing to accept or fathom.

Only days had passed since she had began the process of rebuilding. In only those few days she had learned how to use those visceral claw-like wrist blades. There had not been an option at all. The blood of looters stained the blades. The weightiness of them, intended for the arms of trained and able-bodied men, had become second nature for her. She had adapted to the feeling of wearing them and, in all actuality, being without them would have felt like being exposed.

As she tinkered with the satellite, a chill ran through her spine. That odd feeling that often came with being watched. A more primal instinct, one could say, drove Utagawa to spin around and make direct eye contact with another woman. She stood a bit taller than Utagawa, bright green eyes that contrasted quite nicely with an almost lavender  colored hair. The look of fear and bewilderment she seemed to display at the sight of Utagawa was...unsettling. The Ushinattan believed maybe she was covering her mouth in fear of giving away a position. Either way. She has been nearly killed by thugs and bandits too many times now to let her guard down. As she stared across the scrap covered expanse beneath her, the roofing of her underground bunker, she would be entirely prepared to let loose her blades if need dictated.

“Are you with the rebels or do you stand with the people of our land?” the question would come with a deadly seriousness, and the answer from Nova may not have been necessarily the correct one considering two separate conflicts would be referenced here in this situation; Utagawa meaning the conflict between the people of her home land and the rebels, Nova likely more inclined to believe she meant the conflicts taking place in Sunagakure. Shaking only slightly in fear, still not sure of herself as a combatant at all, if Nova did reply to the question with “Rebel” or any variation of that Utagawa would deploy her wrist minutes claws and assume a defensive position - it had been the rebels who destroyed her home and even took her eyesight in her right eye.

“I only have so much in terms of supplies. I would rather die up here defending myself than to see looters or destroyers of my home get their hands on them.” It was an overcompensating plea to the girl before her to leave in order to avoid being hurt. There was likely much to be explained by the well-known puppet master, however.

WC: 548
TWC: 1064