Pakura awoke restrained on a surgical table.

Her training kicked in and she feigned unconsciousness as she tried to get the rusty cogs in her head to rotate and ascertain her situation.

She had been stripped and masterfully strapped to the table in a way which prevented her from bringing her full strength to bear on her restraints.

Her muscles and chakra were lax and her mind seemed to be stuffed with cotton, probably the effect of some drug.

As the memories of her capture flowed back into her mind, she realized that she was a prisoner to the monster… no, its test piece.

And it was her compatriots who had sold her to him.

Forcefully depressing the heartbreak and the panic that was rising within her, she extended her senses to try and obtain information that might be helpful for her escape.

“… underestimated chakra. It isn’t any worse than world vitality in grade. It just has different characteristics. Now, if I modify these runes here…”

Near her, she could hear someone muttering in a foreign tongue. Her mind rapidly analysed the information, ‘The entirety of the Elemental nations speaks the same language, except for the barbarians in the archipelago off the coast of the Land of Fire. When and how did they produce such an expert?’

Before she could think any further, she heard the voice again, “Ah, there we go...” and a tingle permeated her body via the straps that kept her bound.

Her chakra grew turbulent and battered in her meridians, seeking release. The excruciating pain was too intense, even for her enhanced tolerance and she screamed.

Finally finding a drain port in her acupoints, the errant chakra gushed out of her, leaving her feeling empty and sore all over.

She gasped for breath on the table, drenched in sweat as she heard the voice muttering in an unemotional manner.

“So, the modified demon’s bane formation does work on chakra… hmm… its function is just less violent in this case. Ordinarily, the meridians should have ruptured… is it due to the fact that chakra is generated by the body so it is less harmful to it and safer to use than world vitality? Needs more testing.”

Although the meaning of his words eluded her, she got the gist from his tone.

All of a sudden, the indignity of her situation crashed down upon her. Her eyes were bloodshot with suppressed agony as she turned her head to take in the sight of her captor.

He had tortured her, not for any information she was withholding from him, or even to sate his twisted desires. That, she could deal with. That, she had been trained to deal with.

Yet, being treated like an object for study, being dehumanized so thoroughly? She wasn’t prepared for that.

Her gaze latched onto his form as he paced with his back to her, muttering under his breath. He was clad in a white medical apron with a few of his red and gold curls peeking out from under a medical cap.

She realized that they were in the subterranean medical facilities belonging to Lady Chiyo. Apparently, the underground structures had been left untouched by the reformation of the city.

How much did her fellow villagers have to hate her for them to not only sell her out to the monster but also provide the facilities for his experiments.

She had thought that she had finally overcome the stigma.

Recollections flashed through her drug and pain addled mind.

Her eleventh birthday… the happy talks and laughter of a family of three… blowing out the candles, wishing for a happier tomorrow… the flames growing instead of extinguishing… the explosion from her newly awakened bloodline… the two charred corpses… the funeral… the fear-filled gazes of the villagers… working her way up the ranks in the only profession where her lethality was a boon instead of a curse… the battle at the Iwa border… the reverential chants of her name… Pakura of the Scorch style, Hero of the Sand…

Her life had been one of trials and tribulations. The fruits of her labour had been sweet. Her enjoyment of them had been too short.

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She watched the monster turn back, his amber eyes sweeping over naked form dispassionately and settling on her restraints.

He approached her table and traced the intricate runes on the straps, muttering under his breath the entire time.

She was amazed that he hadn’t even noticed that she was awake.

There she was a naked, restrained woman at his mercy and yet there wasn’t even a flicker of lust in those glowing eyes. She might as well have been a doll.

He had taken away her freedom, her dignity, her entire life’s achievements and now he had dealt a blow to her confidence as a woman.

It was too much. The potent cocktail of negative emotions amplified by the drugs in her bloodstream found an export in the form of a choking sob.

“Oh. Damn. She’s awake. Stupid stopgap anaesthetics and stupid demon cultivators and their insane resilience. Should have known… what with the chakra system being so similar. Well, it’s the middle of a desert after all… can’t expect them to have everything. “

The continued muttering irritated her and once the floodgates opened, they could hardly be stopped.

She used her tongue to prod at her molar in search of the poison pill to put her out of her misery, only to find it absent.

Her sobs intensified as she thrashed ineffectively within her bonds screaming all manner of abuse at him.

“Shit. I’ve never been good with crying women… shush girl… oh… you can’t understand me, can you? How about now? Yeah… look its all the drugs messing with your brain. Just stop crying for a moment… I’ll get better sedatives, I promise. I meant for you to be unconscious for the entire procedure. I don’t really want hurt you… just study your bloodline and ability and then I’d even set you free. Your village obviously doesn’t want you anymore… I can drop you off anywhere you’d like after the experiment… so, just don’t cry, please?”

The very concept of the omnipotent God she had seen reshape Suna with a wave of his hand, getting flustered over a hysterical woman, was so absurd that she began to laugh hysterically through her tears.

“Damn. I think I broke her.”

When she finally stopped, exhausted and panting for breath, the dejection in her eyes was gone, replaced with a blazing veneer of indignation coating the morass of her sorrows.

“You broke no one, monster.” She spat out, sheer vitriol distorting her voice.

“We aren’t your toys to manipulate as you will.

"We live!

"We breathe!!

"We feel!!!

"Do you not think of us as human because you come from elsewhere?

"If so… cut me! See that we bleed the same red as you!

"There are mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters who are crying now because you were callous enough to desecrate the graves of their dear departed. There are men who have lost their life’s savings just because you couldn’t be bothered to inform them in advance before changing the city on a whim.

"Now you have the audacity to decide the rest of my life in just a few words! Who gave you that right?!

"Your strength? I refuse to believe that anyone capable of creating such beauty is a power-crazed lunatic.

"No… You haven’t looked at us like living, breathing individuals from the start. We are objects in your eyes. Puppets for you to string along.

"I beg of you, open your eyes. See that we are human too.

"That I am human too. Not an object. Please… I can’t… just ‘sob’ can’t… take anymore…”

Lin Feng watched, stupefied as the woman succumbed to her exhaustion and the drugs in her bloodstream and fell asleep, her last words stretching into the deafening silence of the room.

He felt a fog of self-deception lift from his soul. His soul sutra revolved automatically as his Resolution Earth upgraded from the boundary of iron will to adamantium resolve.

The Grand Architectural Sect was a neutral influence. They offered their services to all, be they devil or sage. They only checked if the price was satisfactory. As its former hegemon, Lin Feng had interacted with many leaders of the devil faction. Any successful devil had forsaken anything but the most solipsistic, self-centred views of the universe in their quest for power. His actions since his arrival in this plane and his total disregard for the sentiments of the people of this world were consistent with their ideals.

The fact that he hadn’t even known of the existence of the now destroyed graveyard hit him hard.

It had taken a woman, bound and powerless though she might have been, to scream some sense into him. She was the only one who had dared.

This world wasn’t his treasure house, it was a home to millions.

His gaze went to the woman, taking in her dishevelled green and orange hair and her unclothed form.

Suddenly, feeling self-conscious, he turned around hurriedly and found a sheet to cover her with.

As the leader of a Sect, he hadn’t been short of female company and had developed enough resistance to their charms… but… whenever he saw her, the image of her bloodshot brown eyes, fiery in their conviction and seething with a poorly suppressed sorrow, as she decried his behaviour came to his mind.

He placed a hand on his chest. His heart thumped in a manner it hadn’t since his teenage years, a nameless anger at Suna, for discarding such a splendid individual so easily, rose within him.

The Enthusiasm Fire in his mind shifted to a deeper shade of red, losing its pinkish tinge.

Guided by instinct and emotion, he placed a palm on her forehead and with a mysterious fluctuation that seemed to touch a chord with the very world, a bond was formed.

Sobering, he staggered back from the sleeping woman as a deluge of negative emotions from her submerged him through the link. Even asleep, her nightmares chased her.

He stared dumbfoundedly at his palm and her forehead.

He had no idea what he had just done, or how it had happened but it seemed that he was linked to her in some manner.

He sighed as he rubbed his aching forehead, suppressing the link with his soul cultivation base.

She had just vilified him for trying to decide her life for her… yet, here he was, having formed a link, if he wasn’t misreading this, to her very soul when she wasn’t awake to share her opinion.

A smile quirked his lips.

At the very least, tomorrow would be interesting.