Chapter One.
As soon as Lady Momoi was distracted by one of the many men that surrounded her, Yuko took the chance to quickly sneak away from her legal guardian. She knew that Momoi would finally her eventually, and Yuko only wanted to buy some sweets, anyways.
As she turned around the corner, she saw the small sweets store that she had found only a few weeks ago. As she entered, a bell chimed, and the owner of the shop, an old, yet kind man, smiled at her.
"Hello, Yuko. In need of more candy?" he asked.
Yuko nodded at the man in response, and walked to the nearest display of candy. Colorful assortments seemed to glitter in Yuko's eyes.
The bell chimed again, and a loud female voice filled the store. A boastful looking woman with common Sunagakure clothing-a robe with a pale jacket around them - came into the store. "Oi! Old man! Have you heard? Sunagakure has pushed back and took back our land!"
"Huh? Is that so? It's about time we won!"
"They're coming back right now, everyone's waiting for them!"
By the time Yuko had come to the counter to pay for her sweets, the old man and the loud woman had disappeared. After looking around the lonely store by herself, she left plenty of money on the counter and left with her sweets.
When she exited the store however, she noticed how busy the streets were. The people were buzzing with excited news - the heroes of Sunagakure were about to come back. As if on cue, a small group of Sunagakure ninjas walked through the streets, and the citizens seemed to move in sync to the sides of the street, parting a way for the ninjas.
Yuko curiously stared at the returning ninjas. They were quite filthy, a metallic smell of blood filling the air as they passed by. Yuko's eye caught on to a young boy that seemed the same age as her - fourteen. His uniform was covered in blood, the same color as his unruly red hair. As he walked past, his eyes met hers, few seconds longer than it should. Yuko felt a shiver run down her spine as she saw the similar bored expression in the boy's face, his brown eyes half-lidded as if he was about to fall asleep. It was as if she was looking in the mirror, as if she was looking at the same pair of eyes that stared back at her every morning. The emotionless, empty eyes that seemed to see life in black and white, with no interesting colors.
But how could he have such an emotionless expression after being on a battlefield?
"Sasori! You must take a bath immediately, and I will wash those clothes!" Grandma Chiyo ordered as she took her grandson into her home.
"I'm fine, grandma Chiyo," said the redhead as he pushed the tiny woman lightly away from him. "I can take of myself."
"All right, well I have prepared a bath for-" Sasori slammed the door on his grandma, the sand walls easily soundproofing her voice. He took off his blood-soaked clothes, throwing them to the corner of the room, and slowly relaxing into the warm bath. As he closed his eyes, he could remember the things that have happened in the battlefield. He could remember Sunagakure ninjas losing, as Konoha advanced upon them. Even the genius Sasori was at a bind until-
Sasori rubbed his eyes, then focused on his hands. He could still remember connecting his chakra strings to the limp bodies around him. He knew many of those bodies were from Sunagakure, but he realized that they were dead, and he was not. Once he got used to the heavy bodies, he easily controlled them to fight the Konoha ninjas, and pushed them out of Sunagakure.
Sasori leaned his head back, closing his eye once again. Suddenly, an image of a girl appeared in his mind. Her blonde hair was tied beautifully behind her head, her face small. She had wide blue eyes that resembled a cats, yet it seemed uninterested in anything. She was wearing a traditional kimono although it was not a special holiday, luminating her porcelain skin.
In fact, she reminded Sasori of a doll.
A puppet, even.