Sasori gasped as he abruptly sat up in his small pallet upon the floor. He groaned and slumped forwards, attempting to rub the sluggishness from his mind by running his fingers through his hair. He looked up and blinked his eyes, trying to remember what had happened the day before. He remembered that he had died, and to his chagrin he had somehow regained the body he had before he had immortalized himself. He was pitifully weak in this condition, something that Sasori planned on fixing as soon as he could, and he had been picked up by an old woman who had told him he was in a place called the "soul society" where he would basically his live out life, again, except poor and useless. Oh, and shinigami existed here as well as demonic monsters that could eat your soul.

"What the hell is wrong with this world?" Sasori muttered as he slowly prepared himself to get up. The heavy lethargy in his limbs was maddening and Sasori would've started building himself a new puppet body immediately if he had had the dexterity, or even the power, to do so.

Eventually, Sasori slowly and painstakingly managed to pick himself off of the floor and onto his feet. He dragged a few deep breaths into his lungs as he lent his back against the sturdy wooden wall. Sasori looked up and surveyed the room properly while he caught his breath.

The small room was traditional in style, all wooden floors and rice paper doors. The small, slotted window to his left was open and the harsh morning light filtered through it to light up the room. The silence was broken by a loud gurgling that made Sasori twitch slightly and he exhaled the air in his lungs harshly as his stomach continued its protesting.

"Freaking perfect," he mumbled as he shakily walked forwards and opened the sliding doors.

Sasori continued to use the walls as a support system and he soon made his way down the dark wooden hallway to the open door at the end. Sasori could hear pots banging and a teapot whistling, and figured that he was heading towards the kitchen.

When his feet stepped off of the warm wooden boards and stepped onto the cold, gray tile, Sasori shivered, but continued towards the table that stood in the middle of the room. This room, Sasori noted, was much better lit than both the room he had awoken in and the dark hallway. There were decent sized windows to his left and to his right, but the one on his right let in the greater amount of light due to the impressive sunrise that could be seen over the rooftops of the small village.

Nobuko was making herself busy in the left corner with a low hearth fire and a pan. The teapot that he had heard whistling was now on the table next to two mugs, a plate, and a battered old pair of chopsticks.

"Good morning," Sasori rasped as he sat down heavily into the stool that had been closest to the door.

Nobuko jumped a little when she finally heard her guest over the sizzling in the pan and she turned to look over her shoulder at the young man that was pouring himself some tea.

"So you finally decided to wake up, did you?" she smirked as she swirled the contents in the pan around a bit with some cooking chopsticks.

Sasori frowned at this, wondering just how long he had slept, but he grunted his affirmative and took a sip of the tea. It worked wonders on his sore throat. At this thought Sasori frowned, being fully human clearly wasn't sitting very well with him.

"Well, I hope you're feeling better today," Nobuko said as she lifted the pan from the fire and brought it over to the table. Nobuko scraped the food in the pan into the plate and Sasori barely saw what was there before picking up the chopsticks and wolfing down his food.

Nobuko wrinkled her nose at his awful table manners and sat down onto another stool.

"Sorry that I didn't have any food around last night, but I don't eat much myself. I went to the market this morning and picked a few things up," Nobuko told him as she poured herself some tea. Sasori grunted again as he finished up the last scraps of his meal.

"Nice to know that people still think I'm a good cook," she said wryly as she blew over the top of her cup before taking a sip.

Sasori finally set his chopsticks down and sighed. He wiped at the corners of his mouth with his sleeve and reveled in how much the fullness of your stomach could improve your mood. He almost felt like smiling...well, almost. Sasori looked up at the old woman sitting adjacent from him who was staring at him with her eyebrow raised. If Sasori was a lesser man, he might've blushed, but instead he simply remembered what few manners he managed to retain from his life before and put them to good use.

"Thank you for the meal," Sasori said politely, nodding his head respectfully in her direction.

"Uh-huh," she said, still staring at him.

Sasori twitched in his seat a bit, but quietly picked up his own cooling cup and took a sip.

"Do you think you're going to be hungry like that very often?" Nobuko asked, her eyebrow looking like it had been permanently stuck to the top of her forehead. The look that Sasori gave her was questioning.

"Probably not very often, I just hadn't eaten in a while," Sasori said slowly, as if he was talking to someone who's brains had been addled. Nobuko scowled at the tone.

"Don't talk to me like that, boy," she chided. "You obviously don't understand the significance of being hungry here."

Now this caught Sasori's attention.

"What? Don't people here normally eat?" Sasori asked.

Nobuko shrugged her shoulders.

"Sometimes, although it's more out of feeling of nostalgia or perhaps for some sort of celebration. Often, food is a luxury that few can afford. I'm pretty well off because my teashop is a favorite of the locals and the occasional traveler," Nobuko explained. "But if you want to eat regularly, you had better find your own money quickly."

Sasori looked a little dumbfounded at this. Yet another quirk of this world that didn't quite make any sense.

"What significance does being hungry hold here?" Sasori said, irritated by the many things here that he was ignorant of. Nobuko sighed as she set he cup down onto the table and stared at it.

"Well," Nobuko began tentatively. "It means that you've got a higher than average level of reiryoku."

Sasori raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term and waited for her to go on.

"It's uncommon around here, although it's even more uncommon amongst the living, or so I hear," Nobuko explained while looking out the window, her eyes never meeting his. "I'm not quite sure about the specifics in all this, but it just means that you've got a greater amount of spiritual energy."

Sasori looked unsurprised to hear this. He had, after all, had high amounts of chakra during his lifetime, part of which was made up by your spiritual energy. Therefore, it wasn't that much of surprise that this would somehow translate over into his afterlife.

"Okay," Sasori said as he took another sip of his tea. It seemed that his only problem would be making some extra money in order for him to eat regularly. He could think of something, eventually. Nobuko was still disconcerted, however. Even more so when she saw the lack of reaction her explanation had gotten her.

"You do know what this means, don't you?" Nobuko asked, although she guessed that he didn't if the blank look she was receiving was any indication.

"Usually, only the shinigami and random vagabonds have any kind of spiritual energy," Nobuko told him, her tone of voice indicating that he should not be taking this as calmly as he was. "This will make you a big target should any one find out about it."

Sasori studied the worried look on her face curiously, still not feeling very concerned. He closed his eyes and sighed again, slightly irritated that she wanted to drag this topic around for longer than Sasori felt was necessary.

"If it bothers you that much, I'll prepare to leave as soon as I am able," Sasori offered, not bothering to mention that this what he had been planning anyway. Nobuko frowned, however, her facial features twisting as if she had just tasted something especially sour.

"Now that wouldn't be right," she said, shifting in her seat uncomfortably. "You're new here and you look as if your still as weak as a newborn calf."

Sasori felt himself twitch at the comparison, but he decided to say nothing in lingering gratitude for the food. Although if she kept it up, he made no promises. He might still be unused to his new body, but he would bet that he could still skewer a fly with one of his chopsticks from across the room. He had always been told that he was a talented individual, after all, and God forbid if anyone ever treated him like he was completely helpless.

"I wouldn't want to trouble you," Sasori gritted from between his teeth. Nobuko gave a little harrumph as she shifted again in her seat.

"You're not any trouble...yet," Nobuko admitted. "And I was telling the truth about needing help. You just worry about getting back on your feet so that you can help me about. We'll talk about things then."

Sasori didn't like that the fact that she sounded so sure of herself, but he supposed that it was a reasonable plan. Once he had gotten to that point he would start working on ways to support himself so that he could leave as soon as possible. He honestly didn't mind becoming a "wandering vagabond" seeing as that had practically been his job description as an Akatsuki. So, Sasori nodded his head to placate her and Nobuko gave him a smal smile.

"So, after you finish up your tea you can try walking around a bit. Try building up some muscle strength," Nobuko suggested sternly.

Sasori fought the urge to roll his eyes. He doubted that the old woman knew more about body and muscle training than he did, but he nodded nonetheless in agreement to her advice. He would first have to do a few stretches and exercises before he started to waltz around her little home. He was going to have to work the awkward stiffness out of his limbs first and then move onto a general work out routine. After he had gotten his body back into something resembling decent physical shape, he would experiment with what his "spiritual energy" could do.

First things first, however, Sasori decided as he pulled himself up slowly from the table. Nobuko watched him closely for any signs of weakness as she collected the dirty tableware. He had a long few weeks ahead of himself Sasori decided. Hopefully, he would be out of here as soon as possible. He really did hate old women.

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Sasori huffed as he carefully worked through his stretching exercises on the floor of what had become his bedroom. Nobuko had given it to him to do with what he liked claiming that she never had any visitors anyway and that the space was simply going to waste. Fortunately, the old women mostly left him alone, much to Sasori's relief. She was impressed with the amount of progress that he had made in the last week alone, seeing as he barely stumbled anymore and he could stay on his feet for more than an hour or two before becoming fatigued.

Nobuko had also deemed him healthy enough to begin helping out in the store below them and, unsurprisingly, Sasori found it as unbearable as he thought he would. The little shop both sold and served tea to a wide variety of customers. Sasori grudgingly agreed that the old woman had needed a bit of help which Sasori provided by occasionally serving to the customers and making the tea in the backroom. Nobuko did everything else. She handled all of the money, of course, and she also sold and served the tea whilst chatting and gossiping with her regulars.

However, while Nobuko thought that he was fit as young person could be, Sasori had different standards. In his eyes, he was still ridiculously weak, although not quite as helpless as he had been when he had first arrived here. He still had a long way to go, but he had already started to experiment a bit with his "reiryoku" when he was alone and feeling up to it. Fortunately, Sasori found that basic chakra manipulation wasn't beyond him. It almost made Sasori feel excited, but he stifled it when he recognized the feeling. Hopefully, in the very near future he would be able to retrain himself to resemble a fraction of the shinobi he used to be.

Sasori sighed wistfully when he thought of his puppet body and all the other rare puppets that he had acquired over the long years. He doubted that he would ever reach his peak again, but as long as he was able to practice the art of puppetry once more, Sasori would be content... for a while. In the meantime, he would have to endure smelly teashops and tedious exercises for just a bit longer.