"Sasori" Sakura seethed, seemingly frozen in this moment in time.
Sabuku no Gaara was not a stupid man. He was, even as child well ahead of the others in most subjects. However, when you have a blood thirsty demon inside you teachers rarely notice a prodigy on their hands. He could tell that the pinkette was about to boil over and it wouldn't do to have Sakura break a treaty that had been going on for nearly a decade now, even if Gaara would certainly forgive her for lashing out at him. Holding a hand on her shoulder the Kazekage spoke lowly and clearly, his own teal orbs capturing her. "Show us to our rooms Sakura. I'm sure Wisteria has a few questions for you like you have some for her. While I would normally not permit this to be leaf knowledge at all, you are in a place of privilege and deserve to know the truth." He paused turning Sakura towards the leaf with a gentle but firm hand on the small of her back. Guiding her to the VIP villa that was often used for visiting dignitaries like himself.
Any other man and Sakura would have ensured that they had lost their hand for manhandling her so, but she knew Gaara. Gaara could see what little self control she had was spilling out and she could do little to control it while out here in the open. Schooling her features for this singular task she allowed the Kazekage to guide her towards the villa that she knew he could probably find in his sleep. The feeling of his hand both calming and unnerving her as she felt like a marionette on the red head's strings. Not exactly the image she wanted to conjure at this present time.
Unlocking the doors once they got to the lavish home, and adjusting her trek to the Western Wing that had been set up and stocked for the Kazekage and group she relaxed a bit better. The calm of a small fountain and bird bath in the back garden soothing her racing mind. Sitting down on a chair and motioning for Gaara and Wisteria to sit across from her she waited. "Well?"
Kankuro coughed and left the room with a murmur of going to unpack in his room and the quartet was reduced to a trio. Gaara stood at the opposing females, Wisteria's calm demeanor contrasted with the waves of distress coming from Sakura. He was not fond of this silent stand off and couldn't have two of the smartest women in his life act this way. "Wisteria." Gaara mentioned, stepping back to sit on the nearby window sill. Becoming what seemed to be the necessary moderator for their encounter. "Sakura is a precious person. I trust she will not betray our trust. You may relax with her. Sakura I trust you not to betray my confidence in you and that you will give my aid the respect she deserves."
Gaara was always just a bit smug. Sakura thought. While it added to his charm the pinkette frowned as she crossed her legs, before frowning at the seductive stance Wisteria seemed to have. The brunette gave a sultry look to the redhead before relaxing and turning towards Sakura, a very familiar smirk on her face.
"Resemblance is uncanny innit?" She chuckled going into her sleeve and pulling out a weathered photo from her sleeve handing it to Sakura; a small judgement of Sakura's own short damaged nails gracing her features. "My mother always said I was his best creation. Never to be denied who my maker was." Sakura paused and looked at what was a family photo.
It was shocking at first how similar this photo matched her own images at home. A woman with Wisteria's skin tone and hair had a small smile on her face was featured on the right. A younger Wisteria set in the center, a grin on her face as she held up a Genin headband from Kumo. Sakura remembered having a similar face when she first became a Shinobi but what was truly amazing was the redhead on the left. A small hint of a smile on his features as he placed a puppet like hand on Wisteria's shoulder, looking just about the same as when Sakura remembered him. It seemed like a loving family, she seemed like she loved her father and mother dearly but then who the hell was the mass murderer that Sakura killed those years ago. "How?" Was all she could express, needing so much more with all the questions the picture asked.
"My father wasn't always a puppet Sakura. He was a man once and one desperate to find immortality. No man is immune to the idea of lengthening his name in blood and when his own puppet body was nearing completion he sought out to find an heir. I suppose he was doing his hurrah trip as a man as well, seeing as there was no need for such urges as a living puppet. He found my mother and thought that she would do." Sakura thought this sounded better. This egotistical superior thinking man was the Sasori she knew. Yet, Wisteria did not say these things in distaste, merely as if it was the beginning to a story of villain turned hero.
"My mother came from very little. She wasn't as pretty as the woman you saw in the pictures but she had potential. She was smart enough to carry a decent conversation and submissive enough as she spent her life before meeting my father as a maid to Noblemen. Sasori the man was even more handsome in his human form, she would tell me but that form had scars and injuries and blemishes. Something that wouldn't do in a man that needed perfection." Pausing to look at Gaara Wisteria seemed hesitant to continue before his nod, signaling that Sakura again could be trusted. Whether or not Sakura trusted Wisteria was an entirely different ordeal.
"My mother got pregnant with me after a matter of weeks. Sasori was a very efficient man and make no mistakes he never loved my mother. But he never hit her never lied to her, and ensured that she would carry me in a lifestyle she could only dream of. But that was only if she listened. If she became the perfect mother to what he called his greatest creation, then she would never see the life of a pauper again. He perfected her face, her body, ensuring as many procedures as he could without hurting me. He instructed my mother in art science literature, knowing he couldn't always be around to assist me in my studies. Sasori was not a kind man to my mother. I would hear him say she meant as much to him as a maid. That if I did not exist she would be nothing and she could never forget that." So there it was again. Something said that conflicted. Wisteria had just said the most heartless things about Sasori, but Sakura could find no anger for the man in her. Why was she like this? What Sasori did she see?
"You probably are wondering how I turned out yes? The daughter of the Akatsuki. My Godfather was the Uchiha and my Godmother was Konan. My father was a deadly dangerous evil criminal who did unforgivable atrocities. Including kill my current boss." She paused motioning to Gaara with a nod. "My father never lied to me about his deeds. I knew of his assignation of the third Kazekage at 8. I knew of his poisons and could recite the majority of them and their antidotes before I was properly in school. My father was not a good man and he ensured to his last breath that I never thought otherwise." She paused, lowering her shoulder and turning her back to Sakura to show a scar in similar coloring to Gaara's Kanji. It was the brand of the Scorpion. His calling card and marked all Sasori works. It was on many of Kankuro's puppets but why was she showing Sakura this?
"I asked Gaara-sama to brand me with his mark not to remind myself of those terrible parts of my father. I know them well enough by looking at your face, or Gaara-sama's or Kankuro-san's. No what you need to know Sakura-san and why I proudly wear his name and his calling card is that you killed an S ranked criminal, a member of the Suna noble family," She paused looking down as if holding a painful memory back; "and the most amazing father in the five nations."
Sakura was shocked, a gasp escaped her lips before she snapped pink lips shut, urging her to continue. "You probably don't believe me ey? Not after all I said about him. However, I needed to say these things as contrast. He was so good to me that it was only greatened by how little he cared for everyone else. My father not only provided for me better than many of the richest nobles in all of Kumo but he cared for me. How many fathers have you known that would sit with his daughter and meticulously brush her hair, braid it up, and read them bedtime stories? My father taught me to paint and to dance and to sing and to play instruments just as well as he taught me to fight and train and to use his skills and talents at puppetry. He always told me that I needed to be as smart as I was beautiful, and I was the most beautiful girl in the world. He told me I needed to be as thoughtful as I was strong, and he always said I only showed weakness to trick people and he was so proud. He said perfection was learned so the first mistake was always necessary. He taught me that time was money and if I wanted to be very rich I never needed to be late. You I'm sure knew my father was not a patient man." She laughed and it seemed genuine. Who was this Sasori? Sakura couldn't even fathom that she was talking about the same person.
"I never wanted for anything. Sasori insured that I always was in the best fashions. He would make me beautiful dolls as a girl or the most ornate delicate senbon that we would fill with a poison we would craft together. He told me to hide my identity when I joined the ninja academy from our home deep in the mountains but as a child that village was incredibly safe. Imagine a village where the children played freely because there would be no risk of crime. Even if my father could not visit for months, he would often write and would send a member of the Akatsuki to check up on me. My elder brothers all protecting me, teaching me skills both of their passions and their profession. A child that learned the sword fighting of the Mist, that had genjustu training from the fire's Uchiha clan, That had the Wind's puppetry technique mastered by 7 years old." She scoffed and Sakura recoiled as she realized Wisteria saw her sizing her up.
"But I don't know if even your Sasuke Uchiha knew his brother had a beautiful singing voice. Or that Deidara would have sold out art exhibitions under various aliases. That Kisame was a brilliant chef, or that if my father wanted to he could have been the best fashion designer the world over." She chuckled, pausing to point at Sakura. My mother died of illness shortly after that photo. Sasori delayed his capture of the one tail to console me and establish my name and trust fund. He wanted to guarantee my life as a good one. He gave me his scrolls as a present then. Incase I ever wanted to become like him and follow his path of weaponry. But he never wanted me to be a living puppet.
Wisteria my climbing flower. He said, you will always be perfection. The perfect woman and no one shall deny you anything. You are my immortality. You are my everlasting beauty. You are my greatest creation and if you ever desire to stay like I am you need only ask. But I simply want you to grow and marry and produce your own creation. I will be with you then and always. The scorpion prevails." She gasped out, tears falling onto her lips as she repeated.
"The scorpion prevails. Those were the last words I ever heard my father say to me. You killed him 7 months after disease killed my mother." She paused looking up at Sakura with a steal in her eyes. Sakura couldn't express her emotions. What was she to say? She couldn't have even imagined the man she fought being someone to say such powerful, positive, beautiful things. She needed to say something, but there were no words to that.
"What did you do next?" Sakura whispered grabbing a handkerchief from her pack and giving it to her, noting that even through tears not an ounce of makeup was smeared on her face.
"I got word of where he passed, wanting to pay him proper respects. However, in his wishes I was forbidden for a year. In case he was revived and my mourning was pointless. By that time the war was starting and I have a particular set of skills that were useful. My godparents and birth parents were dead and being used so horribly to dishonor their passing. You did nothing to right that by the way. I found everyone that I could and honored them. I will say the leaf carried leaf's burial rites properly. I cremated Deidara and sent his ashes to his parents. I gave Kisame a burial at sea and ensured his family received his legendary sword. I tended to graves and said blessing for their passages. So few people in this world care about the monsters." She looked at Gaara and Sakura couldn't help but feel a pang of hurt and jealousy run through her.
"Stop telling people they aren't monsters. Some are. Gaara-sama is a monster." Sakura immediately shot up to argue when Gaara himself raised a hand to let her continue.
"Gaara-sama is a monster. He's killed hundreds of people without blinking. He's got an insatiable blood lust that he can't always control. Even without Shukaku Gaara-sama is still the type of killer that seeming was designed by war gods themselves. My father would've loved him. Nevertheless that doesn't mean he isn't the greatest Kazekage the world has ever seen. Doesn't mean that he doesn't have a wicked tongue if you cross him, or that he can't have an amazing green thumb or a cultivated cacti collection that most botanists would gawk at. It doesn't mean that children can't adore him or he couldn't be shy or sweet or gentle. You can be a monster and a good man. Not all monsters under our bed are out to get us. If we started thinking that we needed some monsters instead of making them hide that part of them, the world would be a lot safer." She paused, a sense of relaxation cascading over her as she finished up for Sakura.
"It was shortly after the war that I went to my father's final resting place. Kankuro had taken all of the useful puppets but had kindly left my father, minus his core along with the scraps of remaining puppets." Bitting her lip Wisteria held out her hand for the photo, taking it back and looking at it as she finished. "My father named all his puppets. I knew them all by heart. I arranged them as best I could, burying the living puppets and placing a card for the created. I used my puppet strings to have my father hold me one last time, dance with me one last time, train with me one last time; and then I buried him. Not there in that cave where he lost. I buried him at an oasis in the desert. Where he had his first love. His first partner. My father told me he was bisexual, but I always thought he was gay. He never liked women much, but he knew them. He could woo them and seduce them as easy as breathing. I took his lessons to heart and crafted myself as the perfect Shinobi of the shadows. I wanted to be closer to him so I moved to Suna. I showed them my birth papers and offered his scrolls as tribute to the Wind and asked to be with my father's people. To meet my great uncle, and to do some good in a way that only I could. I was lucky my father was a sand Shinobi; if it were anyone else I think I'd be tried as a criminal."
She smiled at him. "Let not the sins of the father be placed on the son" "Gaara said that when his council tried to arrest me. I ended up giving the sand a technique they held over the other nations for decades that hadn't been truly done to the level of Sasori ever. They had everything important he ever worked on, including me." She stood at that bowing to Sakura before taking her leave. "I have earned my right at his side and he has been vital to rebuilding everything you and your friends destroyed in me. Please do not insult me and include me in your dealings with the Kazekage's schedule as you would have Temari. I would loathe for you to irk my fire; I do so well in keeping a cool head." Bowing briefly at the both of them. " Gaara-sama I will be taking the evening off and unfortunately will be unavailable to join you in your welcome dinner. If you need me at all please just call and I will return to you as usual in the morning.
With that she took her leave, only pausing for Gaara's nod of approval. Slowly trying to unpack all that she had just learned about Sasori, the Akatsuki, of Wisteria had her head spinning. Turning to walk towards Gaara she looked at him with a frown. "Let's grab some tea, we need to talk."
So you guys get it two days early cause next week's is already done. If I get two chapters ahead I may even post early for next week too. Keep reviewing commenting and the like and I'll keep posting early!
Until the next one.