The Bleak Adventures of Puppet Sasori
I spent sometime reading some fanfics on the members of the Akatsuki the other day. My favorite bad guys in all of Naruto to say the least! However, I was surprised that no one seemed to do a fairy tale version of Sasori's origin. It seemed to scream Pinocchio!
So here is my weird attempt at a Pinocchiofied version of Sasori's life and my first attempt at a fantasy fanfic.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or The Adventures of Pinocchio. I am not profiting with anything I am writing.
Chapter One -
It came to be one solemn evening that Old Ebizo, a toymaker, found a lone oak tree in Konoha forest.
He had stopped abruptly from his feverous search for the perfect herbs to give to his dear sister when he stumbled on an uprooted root. A bout of laughter startled the old toy master. Though Maestro Ebizo preferred to remain emotionless and cold in the face of his rival, the pervert of a man Sarutobi, the moment he realized that the laughter originated from the hollow of an oak the wrinkles on his face intensified.
"Must be the wind." The Old Man reasoned, pushing himself up to carry onto his secluded cottage at the outskirts of the forest. As a hermit, Ebizo had often come across strange sounds from the forests begun to realize the tricks by which the mind plays on those alone.
"No wait! Don't leave me!" A beseeching child-like voice cried from within the wood.
A shudder ran along the spine of the elderly man. He was certain in that moment he heard the cry hollering in the oak tree. Trotting towards the grand plant, the Old Man pressed his ear against the base of its trunk. He then lifted his wrist and tapped the wood.
"Ouch! Stop hurting me! Stop it or I'll kill you!"
Old Man Ebizo narrowed his eyes in annoyance, "A trick played! A trick by Sarutobi, nonetheless! Sarutobi come out you old baboon! No reply? Could it be that this tree had learned to speak and cry? Well, I'll chop this tree down and see if someone is inside."
The old toymaker drew up his axe and hacked away at the tree, ignoring its shouts of pain. Ebizo believed it must have been a trick of his mind when he found nothing within the core of the wood. Gathering up his tools, Ebizo set off to the edge of Konoha forest where the land of Suna overlapped the luscious grounds.
Ebizo, weary of the meddling of a block of wood, decided to donate his finds to his beloved sister – a hag even older than he. "My sister Chiyo would have far greater use with you than I," he spoke tiredly as the company moved further from his life of seclusion and crossed the Great Naruto Bridge (a site named after a mischievous fox-child said to have said the village of Mist nearby) and into the bustling city of Kohona. "She is a puppet master and relies on my wood to create her art."
With these words, he knocked upon the Old Lady's door.
"Chiyo! I found something nice in the forest!" Ebizo called out, hurling the talking wood at his sister. Chiyo was once a beautiful maiden (the Desert Lily as the people of Suna called her) but now only her brittle bones and pasty wrinkled-skin remained. Many children from the village have mistaken her for the dead whenever she contemplated napping in public. Perhaps this was where the hag's dislike for children (the little brats) began.
Ebizo's shot hit dead on, knocking the old bat onto her back.
Fire brimming in her eyes, Old Lady Chiyo launched the block back into her brother's withered face. "You idiot! It's just a piece of wood. Come inside before I toss some of my poisons at you!"
The old toymaker fought back tears of agony and proceeded with great difficulty to explain to his stubborn bat of a sister the purpose of his gift.
"But my lovely sister –"
"You make me wait for over three hours for your arrival with my herbs and all you repay me with is a cinder block? Where are my herbs?"
"Chiyo the thing is -"
"You forgot didn't you?"
"No."
"Then where is it?"
"Would you both stop acting like a bunch of asses?" asked a bored voice that seemed to have come from no where. The quarrelling siblings looked at one another, both curious if the other heard the same sound.
"Did-Did you just call me an ass Ebizo?"
"What? No! Never! I was staring right at you when we heard that voice!"
"Oh enough of your 'voices' Ebizo. You're lucky that I don't send you to that nursing home run by Shizune. Some bolts are unscrewed in there if you get my draft."
The Old Man sighed, picking up the discarded wood which had rebounded from Chiyo's initial toss and hit the Old Lady's goat. The things he put up for his sister –
"Chiyo I thought you might want this lovely wood I cut. It would make a lovely wooden Marionette, would it not?
Chiyo rubbed the wart on her decaying chin, pondering her mule of a brother's proposal. "What do you want in return? My dear brother Ebizo, I am not as scattered as the village portrays me to be. No sane person offers anything without wanting an exchange."
The old toymaker chucked at her reasoning, "Chiyo since when have I been a sane man?"
The old puppet master's brow twitched, "Who is after you now Ebizo?" She concurred knowingly, accepting her brother's gift reluctantly.
"What? No one!"
"Liar!"
"Chiyo, did you just insult my standards?"
"What? No you buffoon, I didn't say anything. Great not only are you senile but you also need a hearing aid."
"Listen Chiyo if you insult me one more time -"
"Thief! Butt-sniffer! Lip-locking monkey-lover!"
"You take that back! I don't like to be compared to Sarutobi, Chiyo, and you know that."
"If you'd just use your brain than you would realize that the voice talking sounds like a boy!"
"Murderer! Get out, baby killer! Murderer!"
At that last remark the siblings grew deathly pale. Not many innocent citizens from Konoha knew of their dark past, assassins and traitors from their homeland of the desert.
Ebizo bowed his head to signal his departure, leaving his elder sister with the burden he had come across within the Kohona forest.
He desperately hoped that he truly wasn't going mad when he heard those odd voices.
At the disappearance of her brother, a dark gleam glistened in the old puppet master's eye as her gaze trailed along the remainders of a once elegant oak tree. Wanting to test out her theory, she grated her dirty fingernails against the block of wood.
"Oww! What are you trying to do? Stab someone?" the same tiny voice from before remarked. A grin spread like a wildfire across the old hag's wrinkled face. Something new, something remotely joyful had entered her life. The voice, the tiny voice, she had recognized its childish pitch.
"I'll make a lovely Marionette you shall make! A puppet that can sing and dance and talk!" the puppet master cackled, beginning the desolate existence of a non-existent entity.
Life was truly cruel to the weak and manipulated.