Mind Over Matter

The sky was blue, and the sun stood high. Somewhere close to the borders between the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire there was a meadow, in that meadow there sat a man. Once, this man had been a member of root, a powerful criminal feared across the entire world. Now, he was nothing, Isamu had for many years been escaping from his own powers, but as everyone knows, it's impossible to flee from yourself and it had finally caught up to him.

He used to wear finery and exquisite clothing, those clothes had been largely ruined by his time in the wilds, and he was unwashed and unkempt, dark rings surrounded his amber eyes. At this moment he was grinning gleefully while his hands were stuck in the opened chest cavity of some unfortunate victim.

"Don't worry, I know you've got ouchie but Isamu is gonna take care of you, yes, you'll be all right. I'm a medical-nin, you see, yes, yes, medic, yes!"

Scattered across the ground of the one-time member of the Akatsuki were various body parts belonging to different people, there were detached heads, arms, hands, legs and torsos. All of the faces were blankly staring up into the sky above. Isamu's "patient" consisted of a brutalized man's torso with his head still attached, his other extremities had been cut off and were lost among all the other body parts. Only the stumps of his arms and legs remained, still barely attached to his torso.

Suddenly, the estranged Yamanaka looked at the face of the corpse, and with a sad sigh he spoke softly, almost affectionately.

"Why aren't you answering? Don't you think I'm a good medic? Is that it!? You miserable wretch, I ought to leave you here to die, I ought to rip out your innards and make you eat them!" At this point the wretched man was basically shouting at the corpse, while his right hand had become surrounded by a nimbus of pale blue light, which quickly changed into the shape of perfect chakra blade.

Abruptly his features softened note worthily, and his voice likewise so. He spoke again, this time his voice had a loving quality to it, like a father talking to his beloved child. His pitch was lighter than before, almost melodic in tune. He lowered his hand to his waist while he spoke, and all threat was wiped from his form.

"Oh, don't cry my dear, daddy loves you, you know he does, he didn't mean to be mad at you. Say, when the kind doctor has finished working on you, will you go with daddy to the candy store? You will, that's great. Watch out, now Daddy is gonna give you kissing cooties!"

With that, Isamu leant down towards the corpse and kissed its forehead lovingly, all while drying imagined tears from the bleak rotting eyeholes. He moved back up in a sitting position while he rummaged through the body parts for something interesting to use, all while he smiled lovingly at his "patient".

"To show you how sorry I am, I've decided to make you pretty, oh, oh-so-pretty you will be. Yes, yes, indeed, very indeed, much indeed, yes... pretty, pretty little Shusuke"

Taking the arms of a young woman, he looked at the corpse and smiled. Her arms were delicate and she had been quite the looker while still alive that is, now the stench of her rotting flesh permeated the air around him, although Isamu didn't seem to notice. Without a care in the world and all while staring intently at the corpse he placed the right arm to the correspondent arm stump on his "patient's" body. Then, holding it with one hand he formed several chakra threads with his remaining one and with such blinding speed that one could barely see his movement he connected every single tendon, every single nerve and every single decaying muscle to the stump in a manner which made the obvious abomination seem almost natural. As a medic-nin, Isamu had once been without equal. Though in the years approaching his death, others had surfaced.

He did the same with the left arm, still strangely meticulous in his grotesque craft. While still in possession of his mind, Isamu had used his powers primarily for killing and torture, enslaving those he enjoyed the looks of and making them his toys for the remainders of their lives. Only now, with his mind in tatters did he actually use it for healing - even if he was attempting to heal a dead person he himself had slain just a day ago. In full sunlight, uncovered and open, Isamu's "doctor game" with the corpse could seem almost poetic to those of a dark mind, like a despicable riddle or a particularily wicked picture.