There was once a little puppet,
left in the ground to rot.
Broken and abused,
the importance he forgot.
As alone in his solemn world,
regret-filled and despaired,
found by a broken hearted girl,
who's hearts they both repaired.
Darkness. Silence and darkness.
No sense of being; it left his will floating into nothingness, his soul long gone. Yet his body left behind developed a copy soul, just like all human puppets in his long-lost collection.
There was no physical sense: no sight, nor smell, nor touch, nor taste, nor hearing. No mental sense as he could no longer think or frown upon his predicament; his mind just as blank as his being. However his spiritual sense and his emotional sense remained inside the wooden corpse as he distantly felt the souls of the living. His whole being reeked of sadness. His proceeding soul left the body filled with regret and despair.
An epitome of the wasted life he left behind. His forgotten purpose.
The broken puppet left behind by Akasuna no Sasori, as his soul joined the departed, lay wasted in the cavern to the parents' blades. Waiting, no matter how much his predecessor hated it, waiting.
A few months had past until something odd happened.
He had a thought.
'It's my time.'
True to his words, it was the beginning of a process that would allow him to rise up and better himself.
He felt a soul. A large soul transitioned near him. The soul cried out to him, sharing the same loneliness and regrets that he himself stored away. And through their similarities, a spiritual bond was created. Bound to be together even after death, stretching their arms to become one. Wanting to break the barrier set out between the two. Even as the puppet still lingered between life and death.
Months passed and the body of Sasori could produce more complex thoughts. He began thinking about his situation, wondered what was outside of his soulless eyes, and even began to question how he developed thinking in the first place. The more he thought, the more his mind opened up and allowed himself to glimpse into his own memory. An old woman. Two puppets. A longing. Was this his regret? Was this what he lost?
His memories darkened the more he remembered. His killings brought about by emptiness. His joining of the criminal organization that sparked his downfall. How he used his art to try and become eternal unlike his lost parents which, he discovered, was the main cause of his being trapped in the prison body in the first place.
Another month passed and he felt his mahogany finger twitch.
'Wait, I felt?'
His physical senses had started to develop while his body slowly lost it's slumbering powers. He became less dormant as the days moved on, even if he could only really twitch.
But feeling? In a sense, no. Wood cannot feel. Yet he could feel his body moving. A contradictory internal sense of touch.
The spirit still lingered. He long ago figured out that someone was fixing him, he could feel their soul moving against his torso. He wished he could reach out to them, communicate to them. The loneliness bursting forth from his now beating heart. The bond set months ago, now ironed down a long chain connecting the two souls spiritually.
This person. He wanted to see him.
He could hear now. The clank of metal, the clink of wood against wood. He guessed he was in some form of a workshop – being repaired by a fellow brethren who could wield the puppet master jutsu.
Small panting and light humming gave the person's position away. He would lie on the hard surface area and enjoy spending days immersed in the sounds of the workman's hums. In essence, he was being reborn. So, sure enough, he filled his empty heart with the thought of a new father. Desperately wanting some form of human connection.
'Father.'
His arm reached out towards the humming and stroked a solid object which he hoped belonged to his father's body. The humming stopped and he heard a small chuckle which made the puppet's heart beat faster in pleasure. Sasori then felt the object knock gently against his arm in tune to the humming. The first time he enjoyed music; harmonizing the conflicting feelings in his heart and opening up his empty world to a broader horizon. He felt as if his being was no longer alone, joined into one with his father. He wasn't alone now.
Woodbine and smoke. The first smells that his nose gifted him with, enhancing the idea that he was in a workshop.
'It smells so familiar,' he noted as childhood memories came rushing back to him. The parent puppets. So fitting that he remembers them now while being re-created by his new parent.
Another smell wafted into his wooden nostrils. It was a sweet enticing smell that made his puppet body involuntarily turn it's head towards the source.
'Peaches? No.The smell is sweeter than that,' pondered the puppet. It was a faint fleeting flavour that gracefully glided into the reminiscent splintered atmosphere.
Honey suckle, blue berries and (the previously noted) peaches.
'An unusual combination.'
But the smell still wavered into his nose and puppeteered his mouth open. If he wasn't made of wood, his fleshy tongue would have watered.
"Ah."
A voice. It was a deep, silvery voice that invoked past memories. His father? No, it couldn't be; the humming had not yet ceased.
'So it's mine,' thought the puppet, shocked that his inner self could break free.
"My…"
The humming stopped and light footsteps pattered gracefully towards the table.
"Yes?" asked the voice, a soft mature yet feminine sound glided through the air, seeping into Sasori's ears like melted honey. His father – a woman? Yet another child's mistake. The voice has a strong cutting edge and a dominance that could only belong to a male.
"…voice," finished Sasori who's lips were moving slowly and solidly due to his incompleteness. His soul could sense his father's smile which echoed onto the puppet, slowly curving up the edges of his still mouth.
Day by day, Sasori repeated two words till they were no longer slurred nor broken, easily heard by his father.
"My father."
Each time his father chuckled ironically as if there was a gap of knowledge in Sasori's thought space.
He could move more freely now, moving his legs upwards and even sitting upright. Though when attempting to stand, his father pushed him down gently and repeatedly said "sit" with his addicting honey-soft voice. Sasori obediently obliged.
Not too long later, his sealed eyes creaked into a small slit.
"I…wa…nt…to…see."
His father stepped towards him and patted him on the arm, allowing Sasori to acknowledge his existence by his side. Sasori's eyes opened further though creaked again, at that time a liquid seeped through the cracks – courtesy of his father.
Snap.
They opened.
His caramel irises flickered towards the first moving focal point within his viewing area. A pair of gentle, soft-looking hands applying a bottle of oil onto his stiff eyelids. Though small and fragile-looking, they were sharp and nimble, quickly scrambling across the side of his face to fix his lopsided ear.
He lifted himself into a sitting position, legs hanging from the work bench while the pair of hands remained attached, pushing his arm back into place with a click. The smell of peach blossom was strong now and the humming dripping louder into his ear. Breath blew across his face, blowing his hair slightly, causing the smell of freshly eaten blue berries to pass him by.
His wooden neck lifted upwards.
A long curtain of hair swept down onto the puppeteer, barring his keen eye onto the view of his father. He would have name the coloured strands 'beige' but the small flicker of candle light showed him the hints of rouge and gold in his father's hair. Warm colours. The hair was tossed aside slightly to allow his father access to other areas that needed repairs. At this moment, Sasori gathered a glimpse of glowing golden orbs, smoldering in the light of the candle.
He should have expected it; he heard the voice every day after all.
The father fixing his broken puppet body was staring at him with caring motherly eyes.
The person was his parent; he was not denied this opportunity. But shockingly, it was not the father he expected.
His father became this honey-voiced, peach-scented, hypnotizing young woman.