OK, I'd like to thank those of you reading this story, and those who review ^_^ I'm going to come out right now and say it: this is a bit of an odd story. It is not up front and obvious . I won't say what I mean, but blieve me when I say this IS SakuSaso. ^_^ please read and review, I love hearing what you guys think!

The Marionette

Chapter three: Of A Painting and Hidan's Beheading


Sasuke had long since gone to work, leaving an emotionally distraught Sakura behind to think about her newest installment of "I'm Going Crazy!" Yes, the girl had named her dreams. To her, it was like a TV show. Every night a new episode would come on and it would confuse her. There were always new characters, people she hadn't even met before, like the new people Hidan and Kakuzu. Sakura thought the names sounded familiar, but there were no faces to put to them here in the real world.

She knew Kisame and Itachi. Itachi, of course, was Sasuke's older brother, and Kisame was that man's best friend. He owned the local fish shop, where he sold exotic pet fish from tropical places all around the world. He dyed his hair blue, but he sure did not have blue skin, nor real gills on his cheeks. He was a normal, in his own special way, human, but in her dream…he seemed like a creature from some lame horror land shark movie. He had beady little eyes and the gills moved when he breathed. She was glad he had left in the dream.

The pink haired woman didn't really know what to think about anyone else. They seemed like nice peo-WAIT! She shook her head violently. They are not real people! They are figments of her imagination. Images brought on from real life by her stress.

The pink haired girl looked down at the bells on her wrists. They jiggled softly, reminding her that she was going crazy. Her dreams were proof. Whose dreams really pick up around the same spot every night? It just didn't happen!

But there was one thing that had made her wonder. The red head from her dream. He was strikingly familiar to the small marionette from the antique shop. He was the cause of all of this, she just knew it.

Everything that had been going on was in those dreams. Her upcoming wedding to the younger Uchiha, her best friends, even her old friend Sai, who taught painting at the recreational center. Maybe she would go see him. The socially awkward boy usually let her sit in on his class and play with his array of colored paints, when she was bored and looking for something to do.

Sakura loved Sai like an older brother. Well, the older brother who was just an asshole most of the time. He gave his friends the weirdest nicknames and she just happened to get a pretty bad one.

"Ugly!" she heard him say as soon as she walked into the classroom. She gave him a weak smile and memories of the dance they shared in her dream came flooding back. He was a great dancer, in said dream, but had abandoned her for something better to do.

"Hello, Sai," she greeted softly, "I was bored and decided to come murder your paints again!" she grabbed a tube of flaming red paint. She received a fake grin in reply. A few minutes later the class was full and people were starting the lesson on shading with paints. Sakura tuned out of Sai's lecture and took the set of brushes Sai usually reserved for her.

The rosette wasn't a great artist, but she did like doodling and making amateur paintings of really crappy people. One time she had made Ino a portrait and that had been a disaster. Ino complained that her forehead was too wide and that her waist was too thick. She also criticized how the eye color was not blue green, it was an icy aqua. That painting started a juvenile war between the girls that last two semesters of college.

They eventually made up and Ino grew to love the painting, but that was mostly because the rest of the group got equally crappy drawings from the medic.

The dipped the first brush in the black and began smoothing it along the blank canvas in long curved strokes. More strokes followed, but in colors of green, pink, and red. A crimson bloody red. The colors melted together to her, she just felt her body going through the steps. Dip, stroke, blend, dip, stroke, color. It was the pattern she picked up. For the entire hour long class lesson, she bit her lower lip and meshed the colors together in a swirled rainbow mess. It wasn't until Sai told the class to leave, that she realized it was getting late.

She quickly jumped up and grabbed her purse, "I'm sorry Sai, I forgot I'm meeting Tsunade at the hospital for lunch in a half hour!" she rushed out the door leaving her friend to clean up her paint mess. He sighed and went to view the monstrosity she had created this time, but was stopped dead in his tracks.

The image she had produced was breathtaking. It was unlike all of her previous doodles. It seemed to be made of only long, blended colored strokes. They came together in a way similar to pointillism. Up close it was a mess of blurry lines of pink white, black and red with a dap of green and brown, but when he stood back. Well, the picture became clear and beautiful. It looked like Sakura dancing in a beautiful pink gown, her green eyes looking into the brown ones of a red haired man he had never seen before.

"Hey, Sai, un," a voice drifted in from the door, "I'm all out of black acrylic for the sculptures and needed yours," the blonde art teacher walked up. He glanced his bright blue eyes at the painting and gasped, "Who painted this, un?" his iced eyes met with the cold, uncaring eyes of Sai.

"My friend, she stopped by today to color," he said unemotionally, "It's her best yet…Why, Deidara, you want it?"

The man, now known as Deidara nodded slowly, "Yes, actually…I need it…" his voice was filled with some unseen emotion. His eyes wide with astonishment, "I definitely need this work, un…".

Sakura growled at herself for being so late. She should have watched the clock more carefully. Tsunade was surely going to be upset!

The building was quiet, as it usually was and only a few nurses could be seen scattered throughout the hallways and in the café, where she would be meeting her teacher in the medical arts.

Passing through the halls she silently wished she was back home and asleep. Her eye widened, no she didn't! She shook the thought from her head. What was she thinking?

The café was bustling with nurses, doctors and relatives of the patients. She spotted Tsunade sitting at the back with her small lunch in front of her. She glanced up with her honey gold eyes, "You made it," the woman smiled, "You're late, I thought that maybe you'd just forgotten about your life here…"

Sakura sighed, "I'm just having some personal issues," she knew Tsunade would want to know more, "I've been having weird dreams and problems sleepwalking," she explained, hoping it was enough to satisfy the elder woman.

The amber eye hardened, "You don't sleep walk."

A sigh escaped Sakura's lip, "I know, I'm just nervous about the wedding coming up so soon," the girl muttered, "I'm going to go ahead and come back to work tomorrow, I think I need some normalcy back."

Her shishō gave her a look and smiled, "That's good to hear, Shizune had been going wild with you running off and having fun. She was left with your work," the woman sipped at the tea, which Sakura knew was spiked.

"I'll apologize when I can, but right now I'm just glad to be back," Sakura laughed softly.

The rest of lunch went much the same. The two talked about the hospital and Sasuke. They also brought up the upcoming events taking place in everyone's lives.

Sakura felt normal again. Talking with her shishō about random things and laughing about Shizune having been buried under a literal mountain of paperwork. It took the nurses an hour just to dig her out, not to mention another few hours cleaning up the wild mess of paper.

She had missed this, despite being away for only a day of two. It was good to be here with the staff. After lunch, Sakura swung by her children's ward to visit the room full of injured kids who needed to be watched. Most of their faces lit up when they saw her. The rest were new and hadn't a clue as to who she was.

One little girl, Rae, with dark pink hair and crimson eyes, loved Sakura. She was terminally ill, but that didn't stop the girl from jumping from her bed and tackling Sakura's legs.

The little girl had a rare heart disorder, that would eventually cause her heart to give out. Whenever the medic thought of it, it made her sad. The little girl was only eight, and that was pushing it with her disorder.

"You came back!" the little girl shouted happily. Sakura wrapped her arms around her in return and smiled warmly, "I missed you, Rae." she looked up, "I missed all of you! And I see you guys have new friends!" she stood and walked up to the three new children in the ward.

The first was a girl with short uneven blonde hair and her skin was riddled with bruises and cuts. Any one with a brain could tell she was either abused or beat up at school, but considering nine year olds didn't run around burning each other with cigarettes, she assumed the first guess was probably correct.

Another child, a boy this time was small and frail. His eyes were dark, where he was obviously lacking in sleep. His arm was strung up in a cast and he had an iv running into his arm. Trauma, she reasoned, probably a car accident.

The final child was similar in looks to the older boy. She had matching brunette pigtails spiraling from her head, though they were worn looking, like they hadn't been re brushed in days. She, too, had a cast, but this one on her leg. There was also a huge bandage taped to her forehead. It wasn't until later she would learn, that she was right about both account. The blonde was suffering internal damage as well, and was going to shipped to the north, where her grandmother lived, and the other two were now orphaned, and also being shipped off to distant relatives.

She didn't know what she would've done if she had been their age and losing her parents, or even having abusive parents. It brought fresh memories of the dreams. Her mother locking her away in the dark room, leaving her afraid of every sound, wondering if it was someone coming to save her, or hurt her.

Sakura shook the memory away and made her way back to the apartment, where she instantly made a cup of ramen and sat down to watch some game show that was on. It wasn't until late, when Sasuke finally arrived home. He hung his jacket and kicked off his shoes and plopped onto the couch beside her. She pecked his cheek and leaned against him.

In comfortable silence, they sat and watched the shows pass by on the screen. Around 10, Sasuke began to yawn, and that meant he would be going to sleep. Sakura bit her lip nervously at the thought of returning to that dream world.

Laying down in the bed, Sasuke sleeping since long ago. The clock now read one a.m. and she knew she needed to get some sleep, especially since in six hours she was supposed to be getting ready for work.

Should she take the chance? She didn't know anymore and it worried her. What worried her more, was part of her was begging to sleep, hoping she would see a certain red haired artist. Her thoughts carefully drifted around a ball room, where she was the star and to a puppet show that made her giddy, like a little school girl. Her eyes drooped shut and soon after her breath evened.

Hidan turned out to be quite an interesting guy, despite his lack of lingual skills. He cursed more than anyone she had ever heard, and now knew more bad words than most ladies would ever dream of. The silver haired guard told her about his faith, the wonderful Lord Jashin. This entity had given his a special magic. The magic of immortality.

She had been interested in this topic, until he mentioned it was given to him in return for the lives of others. The young princess-to-be paled at this and scooted away from the wine eyed man.

Kakuzu was a little better, but it turned out he was nearly 92 years old, due to the fact he stole other people's hearts and used their energy for his magic. Sakura was now officially disturbed about the guards Itachi had left for her. She hoped that Sasori and Deidara were more normal than these two. She had only had a small encounter with them, but they seemed like perfectly normal people.

After an hour or two of awkward silence, she suggested that they took her into town to visit some shops for new things. Hidan and Kakuzu were both displeased. Apparently the silver haired immortal didn't want to 'go fucking shop for some fucking damn princess with no other shit to do!' He claimed it was because he 'would end up carrying all the damned bags that she fucking bought.' Sakura's ears burned from such vulgarity and a deep blush was spread on her cheeks, permanently letting everyone know her mind had been tampered with dirty words.

Kakuzu, on the other hand, hated seeing money be wasted of frivolous things like dresses and gloves to match. He didn't think they were necessary.

"No wonder you haven't a girl to court," Sakura grinned, "You would refuse to buy her sweets and roses and pretty jewelry to show you loved her."

The man only scoffed, "I don't care for such things,".

Hidan laughed, "Yeah, he has a 20 foot stick up his ass and won't let anyone fucking pull it out!"

Sakura giggled and turned her attention to the road before them. Most people seemed to recognize their future princess and they were quick to bow low to her and offer her free things and huge discounts on products. Hidan was already grumbling about the two bags of free fruit and scarves he was forced to carry.

Her emerald eyes scoured the area looking for the tailor's store, but instead her eyes came across a familiar blonde sweeping the steps in front of a small shop called Akasuna's. She smiled and ran up, with the other two quickly in tow.

"Deidara!" she happily squealed, causing the blonde to take on a fighting stance with his old broom. This odd sight sent Hidan into a fit of laughter, that seemed a bit too crazy for just a little humor.

The artist turned and flipped Hidan off, then turned to Sakura and smiled, "Well, I wasn't expecting to see you again today," he raised his visible brow, "Couldn't stay away from my sexy?"

Sakura's face flushed a deep crimson color, "What?"

He laughed, "I'm kidding, un." he leaned the broom against the wall and crossed his arms over each other, "So what brings you into the market, un?"

The vulgar man held up the bags, "She fucking wanted to go fucking shopping for some new damn clothes."

"Really?" a smooth velvet voice poured into the conversation. Sakura's eyes darted to meet the chocolate eyes of Sasori. "Hidan, Sakura is right here, do you really feel the need to be so…you?"

Hidan made a motion that Sakura didn't quite get. He thrust his pelvic area forward while sticking his tongue out and motioning with both if his hands to his…she flushed a deep red that rivaled the puppet maker's own hair.

Sasori shook his head and sighed, "Would you like to come in? I have tea making." he held his arm up towards the door. Deidara rolled his eyes and walked in to put away the broom.

Sakura giggled and nodded, "Only if I can see more of your puppets!" Hidan gagged, but this action was more appealing to Kakuzu, who didn't want he spending money in random, useless things.

The puppet master laughed, "Of course," his face retuned to its dull expression, but he held a certain light in his eyes now.

Sakura, had not truly wanted tea. She wanted to watch the red head make the little puppets dance again. It was truly unique to her.

They sat and talked about small things like weather and hobbies. Hidan was more interested, though, in messing with Deidara while they young blonde artist was busy sculpting.

He looked over the blue eyed boys shoulder and laughed, "You call that art? It looks like shit to me!" this earned Hidan a stab through the stomach with a very sharp tool that was lying on the work bench.

Sakura stood and screamed as blood poured from the wound on Hidan, but the silver haired man just laughed, "Wow, pinky, you sure made my day," he pulled the metal from his gut and set it back on the table, purposefully getting the clay bloody, "I told you, I'm fucking immortal, that means I can't die of old age and I can't get hurt." he motioned to the stream of blood as it quickly healed up.

Sakura was amazed, "That's…" she looked over at Kakuzu, who scoffed at the Jashinist.

"Eh," he grunted, "It's only useful in the fact that I can't kill you." This must've set the religious man off, for he walked up to the stitched man and grabbed his collar.

"Never say that my fucking lord is useless!"

Sasori walked up to the very confused girl and walked her over to Deidara, "Keep an eye on her, I have a feeling a beheading is near," then he walked away into a small back room, Sakura assumed was where the kitchen was.

No sooner than he had said them, Sasori's words rang true. Blood splattered across the entire room and Hidan's head rolled to Sakura's feet. She squealed seeing the pooling blood and distant look in the man's pink-purple eyes. Blood also dribbled from his lips. Tears rolled down the young girl's face and she felt Deidara grab her hand with his gloved hand, "He's just being theatrical, un…"

Suddenly, the head's eyes blinked and he bared his teeth, "Damn you! Damn you to the pits of hell, where Lord Jashin will feast on your fucking soul!" his threats reached the man they were intended for and the man just looked at him with fire in his green eyes. Kakuzu walked over and grabbed the head by the tuft of blood stained hair. He hoisted it up and walked it back to the body, which was doing fine on its own. The man reached and put the head atop its body and she watched as a long black string like thing slithered from beneath the stitches in Kakuzu's arm and sewed the profanity spurting head back on.

Sakura felt like the world wasn't making sense anymore. A man was decapitated before her but said man was still walking around talking and moving as if nothing had happened. He truly was immortal.

Sasori walked back in and groaned, "Damn it," he muttered, obviously talking about the blood strewn all over his little work shop, "Hidan, Kakuzu, I warned you both about crap like this!"

He looked and saw the crimson liquid was all over the young girl's dress as well and he sighed, "You two are going to pay for this," the girl felt tears stream again, "Don't worry, crimson red is a pretty color on you…"

She blushed and smiled, feeling a little better about her ruined dress. At least it wasn't her blood, or worse someone who was actually dying on her.

Another hour or so passed without incident, mostly due to the fact Sasori threatened them both with puppets, well more like he said he would turn them into puppets. Sakura silently wondered if he really could take a human body and make it into a wooden puppet.

She shrugged it off and enjoyed the peace and quiet that came afterwards. Hidan occasionally made a comment or two, but it never escalated past a curse word or two.

Later that night, the cherry blossom princess returned home, with fresh memories of her new friends, Sasori and Deidara.

She really liked Deidara because he was funny when he and Sasori argued about art. He had a good point, something that you see once sticks with you forever, and makes you crave more. You would ponder that image for your entire life, making it a wonderful type of beauty.

But on the other hand, Sasori said art lasted eternity, meant to be seen by all when ever they wanted to go see it. It would always be there to comfort you when you needed it.

It was almost like Sasori in a way. He was there for her that night at the ball and she had a feeling he would always be the best at protecting her.

She turned and came face to face with her mother, who had a very irritated look, "Sakura, I thought you would have been home by now…" her voice was in a low whisper, "And you two should be ashamed! She was to be home hours ago to get ready for dinner with her new family!"

Sakura gasped. She had forgotten about dinner that night. It would be the first big dinner for her and the Uchiha family. "I'm sorry, mother," she said meekly.

Hidan growled under his breath, something Sakura didn't catch, but probably didn't want to anyway. She started up the steps when she heard her mother shriek. The pink haired girl turned to see her mother yelling about the blood on Sakura's dress.

Sakura looked to see the crimson color against her skin. It not only made her feel older to see a dark red with her pale skin, but it reminded her of a certain puppeteer she knew. She blushed softly, "I'm sorry mother, Hidan got hurt today," she heard the immortal man scoff at the word hurt, "And well…"

Hidan looked at the woman with anger in his eyes, "It's not her fucking fault lady, so just shut the hell up now…you're giving me a damned headache,"

The man walked and flopped onto the small sofa and closed his eyes. Kakuzu glared at the younger man and sat down, "We'll be ready to escort you to the castle soon," he muttered angrily.

"Sakura…" she heard her mother call after her, "Sakura!"

"Sakura!" she groaned not wanting to open her eyes for her mother, but wait, "Sakura, wake up!" it wasn't her mother's voice. It was deeper so it definitely belonged to a male, "Wake up!"

Her eye jolted open to Sasuke's dark coal eyes staring into hers. She looked around and sighed. They were standing outside her apartment door. The cool early morning/late night air bit her skin, especially her ears, nose and toes, which were bare against the cold concrete.

She shivered as Sasuke pulled her into his arms, "I almost didn't find you this time…" he whispered, "I heard the bell when you opened the door…" she felt nothing. She felt almost numb, soon even the cold didn't bother her. Sakura felt her arms loosely snake around the Uchiha's waist. It felt mechanical to her.

Who was she now? Was she still lost in her dreams? Or was she finally back into reality where everything was perfect? She didn't know anymore.

Blonde hair whipped around in the wind as he sped down Main Street in his car with the window rolled down. In the back was the small painting of the two. He looked back at the painting and growled. Why was he doing this again? He didn't know either of the people in it, nor did he care. Maybe it had something to do with those men who showed up on her door step a few years ago.

They were creepy as hell and were very mean and rude, well at least the shorter of the two was. The tall one always kept his face hidden beneath hoodies and scarves.

He turned them away at first but they left quite a permanent impression on the young artist. The shorter one pulled out a medium length sharp metal rod and held it against his throat.

Mr. tall, dark, and socially mute did nothing to stop the little psycho bastard and Deidara had a new, unwanted piercing in his left hand. He honestly had no idea how it got there, but he knew better than to piss them off again.

He pulled into the apartment complex and sighed. He would enter his small one bedroom to a huge mess of cola and food. His bathroom would be a disaster and his hair gels and sprays would be mostly used up. His room would be untouched of course. Neither of them wanted to ever go in there, so it became his sanctuary.

Deidara pulled the painting from his back seat and started to the door marked with the letter C and number 4, a little joke on the landlords behalf, knowing Deidara's passion for fireworks and dynamite. His key slid in and turned and he closed his eyes and pushed the door open, wanting a few more minutes of peace before entering his own little hell.

As suspected when he entered the short man was cursing his ass off at the Xbox because his character was killed by a horde of zombies.

"Hey, it's the fuck face!" he yelled out. Deidara turned his blue eyes to him in a cold glare.

"I did as you asked, un," he tossed the painting to the floor in front of him, "Now leave my house!"

The man looked down and laughed, "What the hell is this shit?" he picked it up and a look that the blonde couldn't decipher crossed his face.

"It's a painting I found in one of my colleague's rooms, un," he muttered, "He said some girl painted it, but it's the red head you told me to look for…"

The man started cackling, "I said a man, not the painting of him, fuck man, this is almost as bad as when you got all excited over the fucking Gaara brat!" he continued laughing.

"It's harder than you think to find a bloody red haired man in this town, un!" he yelled, getting frustrated, "I've searched all the art galleries as you suggested I do, all of the art schools and even the damn rec center!" Deidara felt his face ablaze, "I'm done, un! YOU can find him!"

The tired blonde fell against his chair in exhaustion, "I'm done…" He knew he didn't mean it. Personally when he saw the painting, he felt like he knew the man in it, but he knew the only man with crimson hair he had ever known was Gaara. He wanted to be done, but he was curious as to who the hell was so important that his life was threatened AND he was sent on some huge mission to find him.

"Why do I have to find him anyway, un?" he asked for what had to be the 150th time since these men had entered his life.

"Because, fuckhead, I said so," he picked up the controller and started a new round, "You know very well, why we can't go and fucking find him on our own!"

Deidara rolled his eyes. No he didn't. They never told him anything except that he would be able to find him.

"Have I ever said how much I hate you Hidan, un," Deidara muttered.

Hidan only laughed and gave a knowing look to Kakuzu, "More than I can fucking count Deidara-chan," he laughed, knowing it pissed off the blonde.

Pink hair, pink dressed, pink shirts, pink skirts. Sakura stared into her closet and groaned. This color was starting to make her sick. It was so unnatural for someone to own so many clothes in one color. She smiled softly and grabbed her purse. She was going shopping.


That was chapter four, a little shorter than I wanted, but after what happened to Dei, I didn't want to keep dragging it out lol.

I hope you guys liked ^_^ please Review!

on the note of the story, I've introduced Hidan and Kakuzu into the real world, and not just the dream world ^_^ as well as Deidara lol ^_\)

Lady Pyrien