Saya

Saya ties her pale blue hair into twin tails, bangs framing both cheeks, and dresses in a kimono of red and purple whose hem is left ragged, a light grey corset, and detached furisode-style sleeves in the same shade. A Suna forehead protector sits reversed on her, knotted into an upward-pointing bow, and her nails carry black polish. What draws the eye most is the red paint ringing her yellow-pupilled eyes, echoing a Toad's Perfect Sage Mode, finished with pale violet on her lips.

Arrogant and sadistic, Saya thrills at hunting down fresh prey and turns that same cruelty on her own team whenever they cross her. She lords it over them, demanding they call her Lady and obey her every word, and a swollen sense of her own superiority leaves her certain she cannot lose. Challenge that belief and she snaps into a frenzy, bent on making the offender suffer. She dotes on anything she finds cute, above all her ninja doll, so much that she will pose as the puppet herself for long stretches.

Saya works an unusual take on the Puppet Technique, steering a plain little doll by Chakra Threads. She rarely strikes with the doll itself; instead she lifts a few of a target's hairs, ties her mind to theirs through the Puppet Imitation Technique, and pilots their body from afar much as the Yamanaka do with their clan arts. She can also sink through solid ground, raise dolls from loose sand, and, like Kankurō, trade places with her puppet by way of a substitution.

Saya and her squad take part in the Chūnin Exams and reach the second round, held out in the Demon Desert under Temari's watch. Hunting an Earth and a Heaven scroll on the third day, they run across Team Asuma; taken with how Sakura and Ino look, Saya claims the pair for herself and leaves Chōji to her teammates. She plucks a strand of Ino's hair, seizes control, and drives Sakura's own ally against her. When Chōji's bulk starts crushing her team, she drops Ino and turns the trick on him, but Ino dives into Chōji's mind to confront her, and Saya answers by making Chōji swing at Sakura. Ino forces her out at last, and a horrified Saya, refusing to admit defeat, hugs her doll as Chōji lunges; she swaps with the puppet and flees. Regrouping, she schemes to enslave the Leaf team through hypnosis and ambushes a worn-out Team Asuma with Sana and Mamushi at her side, only for a single ground-splitting punch from Sakura to scatter them all, Saya still insisting she never lost.