The First Stage

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The little steam puppeteer had abandoned the training grounds.

At his parent's suggestion, he'd decided to try to get back into his usual routine, but his heart simply hadn't been in it. The loss of his older brother had affected the genin profoundly, and it seemed a little less meaningful to improve himself when there was nobody to run home to share his gains with.

He made for a bit of an odd figure. From a distance, his profile would be thrown off by the fact that Saezuru was perched upon his shoulder. In the grayishness that passed for the last light before dusk in Kirigakure no Sato, the fact that the over-sized canary was made of metal and rivets and painted a yellow that was only painful to the eyes might not be apparent until a viewer was up close.

His small hands were dug into the pockets of the baggy brown cargo shorts he was wearing. As the sun continued to dip below the horizon, he'd likely be withdrawing them in order to huddle his arms around his chest for warmth. A jutsu derived from the slim twelve year old's bloodline gave him the ability to withstand the scalding nature of Yugeton, but at the expense of “running colder” than non-Jouchaku. Without an outside source of warmth, he had trouble keeping the chill away.

He was wearing a black t-shirt with a white, stylized cracked egg upon it. Trudging his way toward the village proper, he turned down a street that tended to be less trafficked than others which still had open shops and restaurants. Lately, he'd been wanting less and less to be around people. To them, save for Kyogi, it was like nothing had changed at all.

He shook his head, shifting his longish, bright red hair a bit so that it fell more evenly. His tepid work out hadn't left him at all exhausted or disheveled, but it was nearly unconscious for him to make such minor touch-ups to his appearance.

Glum and chilly, he continued plodding toward home. He couldn't walk back roads forever, though. Eventually, his lonely path would surely cross others.