Plato's Law

Author: Mask of Mirage

Rating: T

Comments: I've been meaning to edit this story for a while now and I'm just now getting around to it. This was written back when I believed that Minato went by the name Arashi and was the leader of the Akatsuki. I know, I know, we all have our foolish days. So, for the sake that I don't rip my owns eyes from my skull, I'm just going to leave that detail in there. Just sort of ignore it, if at all possible.

Time Setting: Three years after time-skip bringing Sakura about 17 and Sasori close to around 20 (in his new body).

Mood Song: Down With The Sickness by Disturbed

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Chapter 1: Sickness

Love--a grave mental disease -Plato

"Sasori-Danna, please reconsider this! What if you are captured? What then, un?"

"I will not be caught," Sasori replied, voice quickly growing exasperating with the pleading he heard in his partner.

"But really, all this for a girl, un?"

Hidan chuckled lightly from his place at the window. "Deidara, lay off, this chick has got the dude by his balls."

"But she's crazy; she killed him for Christ's sake!" he cried, sinking to the floor, long blond ponytail swishing around his elbows.

"And we're not?" Itachi commented, looking up from the task of painting his nails. He wasn't particularly interested in what gossip that usually went around the compound but just the thought of one of their members falling in love was a difficult thing to comprehend.

"You've only had your body a month, Sasori, un."

"I'll bring her back here in less than that," Sasori wagered, fixing Deidara with a petulant glare.

"50 bucks it takes you longer to get a hold of that damn wildcat," Hidan snickered, aimlessly tossing a kunai up at the granite ceiling.

Kisame looked up from his book, attention caught when slivers of dust rained down upon his head. "I'll get in on that bet. I have nothing better to do."

Sasori looked piqued. "You all have little faith in me."

"Well, it only just took a year to repair your heart, find a suitable human body and insert your DNA into it to just get you running, un," Deidara supplied.

"And I thank you for that but now I must go get her. She haunts me 'Dara; of all people I think you'd understand that," Sasori murmured, locking eyes with the blonde.

Deidara averted his gaze quickly, his feet shuffling nervously on the floor. He hated it when Sasori-Danna called him out on his feelings. "Come on, I'll walk you to the gates, un," he muttered sadly. It was always going to be an unrequited kind of love.

Grabbing his puppet, Sasori said his final goodbyes to the rest of the Akatsuki members and followed Deidara out of the manor. They stopped outside the large wrought-iron gates that enclosed the fairly spacious compound that was the Akatsuki's headquarters.

"Just be careful, okay, un. You know how I feel about you Danna," Deidara said wistfully, averting his eyes to the pebbles at their feet.

Sasori thumped him lightly on the chin. "You're gonna find someone far more worthy of you than I could ever hope to be. And I will," he replied before disappearing into the darkness.

Deidara pressed his forehead against the cool metal, his hair forming a curtain to hide his mechanical scope. "You'd better come back, un," he muttered sadly to the night.

Sasori traveled quickly, sheltered underneath his puppet, as customary. He worked out the possible scenarios in his head, quite confused and irritated at the lack thereof. It wasn't like he could march in, say, "I love you and you're coming home with me," and expect she would go along with it with a stupid grin on her face. Sakura was far too stubborn to do that.

Sakura.

That name had haunted him the past year as he tried to relax and actually enjoy the afterlife. He would never believe the person who said the dead feel nothing. He was in agony, so close to having something and yet so far. So he found a way to contact Deidara and here he was a year later in an actual human body ready to claim the woman who refused to allow him to rest in peace.

It would not be easy; she had help kill him before but he had trained and gotten stronger and was way too damn determined to give up without a fight.

He was a monster; he did not try to hide or disguise it. The Akatsuki was full of monsters; those who had unusual talents that were used for evil or destruction. He fit right in alongside Deidara, who had actual mouths in his hands, his bloodline trait, and Zetsu, who resembled a giant Venus fly-trap and had an alter ego.

So being the monster he was, he would not return till he had her, even if he brought her back dead. That fate could always be worked around. After all, he was brought back from the depth's of the netherworld. The Akatsuki's power had no restrictions; death itself could not even stop them.

Mask of Mirage