Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

First time writing fanfiction, I'd absolutely love reviews :)

Sasori flexed the fingers on his new body, getting used to the feel of it. Moving his core from one puppet body to another wasn't something he liked to do regularly, and this particular body was much smaller than his usual one.

He felt unarmed without his usual attachments, but the ones he had would have to do. After all, it was just a surveillance mission.

The body was that of a chunin from the Stone Village that he and Deidara had captured a couple of weeks ago. Normally such a weak ninja wouldn't have been worthy of immortalisation in puppet form, but in this case Sasori was forced to make an exception. It was orders from Pain himself, and Sasori wasn't stupid enough to argue with the leader of their organisation over a subject such as art.

Some people understood it, and some people just didn't.

Surveillance mission or not, the helplessness of his current body annoyed him. The chunin had known some simple Earth-style techniques, but nothing that would be very helpful if he was exposed while in the Leaf.

The same went for the attachments Sasori has installed – he'd only been given limited time to work on the puppet, so a couple of hidden blades and smoke bombs were all he really had. After all, you couldn't rush true art.

Deidara landed the bird they were flying on a fair distance away from the village, as to avoid detection. "Sasori, my man!" Deidara grinned mockingly at him. "I'm liking the new look, un."

Sasori frowned menacingly back at him, or at least as menacingly as was possible in his current form. He had at least made an effort to find a body that resembled his younger self – red spiky hair, light skin – but he still felt absolutely ridiculous.

"Silence," he hissed. "Even a puppet like this is still better than your pathetic excuse for art."

Deidara sniggered, obviously still not able to take Sasori seriously as he was. Annoyed, Sasori decided to ignore him and started walking off toward the village.

"Bring me back a souvenir, un!" Deidara cried out as he lifted off the ground on his clay bird.

Sasori kept walking, not even turning back to acknowledge his moron of a partner. Surveillance? Who did the Akatsuki think he was? Once he got back he was going to have to ensure that the rest of those barbarians realised that this was Sasori of the Red Sand they were dealing with. However, that would have to wait.

As he approached the gates, he got stopped for a routine check. "Name?" grunted the ninja at the gate.

"Sasori, from the Hidden Stone Village," he said. He didn't bother trying to come up with a fake name – it would have taken too much effort to remember. Anyway, there was no possible way anyone would make the connection. "I'm here to visit my uncle."

The leaf ninja nodded. "Alright, I'm going to have to search your stuff," he said, indicating the bags that Sasori was holding. Obligingly, he passed them over. It wasn't like he was going to find anything of interest. He took the opportunity to look around the area.

As far as he could see, there were two main guards doing searches on the way into the village, as well as a third keeping watch. The area appeared to be mostly civilians, apart from a group of ninjas leaving the village that appeared about chunin age.

One wore a leather jacket and was riding a giant dog as if it were a horse. Another had the ridiculous goggles and almost completely concealing that Sasori knew marked him as an Aburame, a clan which had given him and his old comrades back at the Sand far too much trouble in the past.

But it was the third that really caught his attention.

She was incredibly pretty, with long blue hair that hung down below her shoulders. Even with the conservative outfit she was wearing, Sasori could tell she had a quite attractive figure. The kid with the oversized dog said something to the group, and when the girl smiled in response Sasori's heart (well, core) nearly skipped a beat. She was perfect…

"Hey, kid? Kid?" The leaf ninja's voice brought Sasori back to the real world. Honestly, what was he thinking? He was Sasori of the Red Sand. He had given up all his emotions long ago. But still… No. He refused to think about it anymore.

"Thank you," he smiled with fake politeness to the ninja as he took his stuff. He needed to shake these ridiculous thoughts from his head. After all, he had a mission to fulfil.