Many years passed and Sasori became a naturally adept ninja, excelling in strategy and medical ninjutsu and specializing in war puppetry. While he was never achieved the same physical strength as all the other Akatsuki members, he was the strongest he had ever felt. He was fully capable of taking down small villages single-handedly for missions as well as in a personal search of new puppet material. A few new members were also recruited, including Itachi Uchiha. When he was recruited he had an experiment on his eyes to increase his psychic eye abilities. His partner Kisame, was the first animal experiment. Since the escape of the test subjects Orochimaru had gone awol, still yet to be seen return to the Akatsuki, and because of this, Sasori since held a grudge for his disappearance.

-Time Skip-

Sasori walked the halls of the Akatsuki secret medical facility, to the meeting room to hear out his next mission. He was surprised to see Itachi and Kisame walk in behind him since missions did not ever require more than two members.

"Good you are all here," Pain spoke. "Your next assignment is to recruit a new patient and Sasori's new partner. He has a habit of chewing clay to make explosives which is why we want to recruit him. You will find him in the Iwa shrine in Iwagakure, take caution leave immediately."

'He's cute. Wait what? He is just going to be my associate'. I Sasori's heart skipped a beat when it saw the young boy, something he had never felt his heart or his previous heart to do. Sasori had never cared particularly for anyone male or female so he could not explain his reaction to some kid. It was a good thing he had Hiruko to shield his expression of surprise. Ignoring the feeling only made the feeling worse, he needed to distract himself somehow.

"Leave me alone, all I want to do is focus on my art yeah." The boy spoke without even turning to look at his visitors. The boy spat some clay into his hands in addition to the clay he was already moulding.

"Art?" Sasori replied instinctively, he didn't know anyone else who was interested. Sasori's eyes gazed at his hair shimmered in the sunlight that shone through the open end of the shrine.

"Yeah that's what I said. I mould this clay and it becomes the source of my beautiful creations! Would you like to see, how beautiful something transient can be hm?" the boy held up a moulded spider.

Sasori chuckled to himself, 'He was just like me back then, but now I know I was utterly wrong!'

"You need to come with us" Itachi spoke calmly ignoring the bomber's speech.

"Or what?" Deidara turned around finally, his mood seemingly destroyed in an instant. Sasori then awed at his vibrant blue eyes. Maybe Sasori didn't realise he considered this type of look perfection and should design his puppets after him?

"There is no 'or what', we are taking you." Kisame added.

"Oh I see you guys want to fight!" Deidara stood up. "You'll see what true art is! HAH!" The bomber threw his clay spider at Itachi who jumped to intersect the bomb with a kunai and the bomb exploded against the wall of the shrine. The next minute was quiet as Itachi had the young boy paralysed in a genjutsu finishing off the fight effortlessly.

"All done, let's go." Itachi announced. To Sasori's relief, the newly recruited Deidara walked behind the Akatsuki group so he wasn't staring at him the whole way back, however that didn't stop the puppeteer from thinking about him.

Once they returned to the Akatsuki medical facility Deidara was immediately taken into his own surgery and Sasori wondered what sick procedure Pain had planned for him.