AN: Hey, I'm back! *wave* Sorry for only updating once a week, but I have exams in the moment and I need to concentrate on those. Sorry *bows to you* Don't worry, I wrote enough already to make sure you won't have to suffer from my lack of time. And I'm sure as hell won't abandon this story ^^
Sasori finished the last touches on his new puppets and sealed them away before getting up, his joints cracking. He stashed the scroll in one of many drawers and walked out of his workshop, making his way to his room. On the way there he noted that the young girl had disappeared from the living room, hopefully in search of an exit... He had heard her scream a couple of minutes ago, but why would he care? She probably stumbled upon his 'interogation room' or his puppet storage and if she got scared enough to run away after seeing that he had no use for her anyway. Of course he had checked for intruders, but after feeling no foreign chakra signature but hers he went back to his work. Even if he brought her along, he was not going to play babysitter.
Sasori was just glad that everyone else was on a mission or they all would have known about his little appendage and he would have never lived that down. Akasuna no Sasori getting soft... As far as he knew, Kisame was in search of a partner, Zetsu was out spying, Kakuzu was most likely busy killing of his latest partner and his own partner was out, probably searching for little children. Speaking of little children... Sasori better kept the girl away from that pedophile snake... But he had to speak with Pein about this.
Sasori growled. Great, thanks to her he had to tell the leader that he had had mercy. What nonesense! He was about to use the girl for... Wait, what was he planning to do with the child anyway after he had brought her all the way to the Akatsuki hideout? Sasori stopped dead in his tracks. He had taken her with him in a moment of weakness, because her use of chakra strings had reminded him of himself, but now? What should he do? Train her to be a puppet master like himself? He sighed and shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He would worry about that later. He first had to speak with Pein. No use in worrying about something that could be dead in a few minutes. He walked to Pein's office and knocked politely. A silent 'Enter' was heard and Sasori walked inside. The office was dark and the air stuffy as always, but Pein didn't seem to mind at all.
"Sasori." "Pein.", Sasori greeted respectfully. Pein sighed and set down the scroll he was working on. "You will never call me Leader-san, won't you?", he asked. Sasori raised an eyebrow and gave him a blank look. Pein sighed again. "As I thought." Sasori's lips twitched but he kept his emotionless mask in place. "Pein, I need to talk with you about" "the child you brought along?", Pein finished. Sasori didn't even bother to ask how Pein knew about Noriko. He was used to Pein's ominscient behaviour by now... "Yes.", he simply answered. "Where did you find it?" "She is a member of the clan I was supposed to kill." Pein raised an eyebrow. "Then why didn't you kill her?" Sasori sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose in exhaustion. "I don't know, Pein. She is capable of forming chakra strings and..." "Isn't that an ability solely used by Sand shinobi?", Pein interrupted. "That is the reason I let her live. Her clan lived as far away from the Sand as possible and yet, she has a talent only some Sand shinobi have." Pein hummed thoughtfully. "She will get into your way when you're on a mission. Luckily for you, though, the jinchuriki are not ready yet and we still have to get a partner for both Kisame and Kakuzu."
Sasori let out a low chuckle. "I thought Kakuzu has a partner." "Had.", Pain corrected. "He killed him along with the bounty they were after..." "So we lost another one." "Indeed. You have time until the jinchuriki are ready to train the child. If it isn't of use for us till then, it will die." Sasori snorted. "As if I let her live.", he answered and turned to go. Before he could cross the doorway, though, Pein spoke up. "Sasori." The puppet master looked over his shoulder at his leader, an eyebrow raised in question. "You already let her live.", he said blankly. Sasori's eyes narrowed at the statement, but he bit back a remark and instead left the room. Damn that leader to remind him of his weakness! He should kill her right away and safe himself a lot of trouble...
He opened the door to his room and his eyes went wide. There, on his bed, lay the girl, sprawled across it like she owned it. Sasori's fingers twitched as he reminded himself not to kill her because of such a trival thing, but he couldn't stop his chakra from flaring dangerously. Somehow the girl seemt to feel the sudden disturbance, considering she stirred in her sleep, her facial expression turning to one of discomfort, and tried to cover herself with the blanket. Sasori would have none of it though. This was his lair, his room and his bed and the little brat was going to learn that right now. He grapped an edge of the blanket and pulled, hard, sending Noriko flying to the ground where she landed painfully on her backside. She yelped, the pain waking her up instantly, and sat up, rubbing her back soothingly.
For a moment she glared at Sasori, but the scorpion's deadly gaze reminded her who she was glaring at and quickly lowered her head. "What makes you think that I will part my room with you? Or more precisely, my bed?" Noriko's cheeks burned and her only answer was an embarrassed mumble. "I didn't hear you!", Sasori snarled and Noriko flinched. "I just wanted to rest a bit...", Noriko repeated louder. Sasori let out a dry chuckle. "Then you should hurry up with finding your own room. And now get out before I decide you're not worth my time!", he barked and Noriko hurriedly scramble to her feet. She practically ran out, closing the door behind her just to have something between her and her master.
That was a close one. She really hadn't intended to take over her master's room, but hey, she was ten years old, had nearly starved for the better half of the week and had to watch her clan get killed, what do you expect? That she was going to run around as if nothing happened? When Noriko saw the bed her only thoughts were running along the lines of 'Sleep'. Luckily she had managed to sleep at least a bit before Sasori not so gently woke her up. Noriko rubbed her back and huffed. She missed her mother already. She would have at least warned her before she pulled away her blanket and she would have asked if she was alright after landing flat on her back. Noriko bit her lip.
No, no crying. If she started crying right now, she wouldn't be able to stop and she needed to rest badly. The girl looked at the door in front of her. It was a little further down the hallway on the wall opposite from Sasori's. It would be a short and easy escape route from her master's wrath. That might come in handy... Noriko opened the door and to her delight, a futon laid on the hard stone ground. The room was otherwise bare, but Noriko didn't give a damn. Sleep sounded good, no matter where. She went over to the futon and crawled underneath the blanket. No wait, that was wrong. It was good everywhere but in Sasori's bed...
AN2: How did you like it? I promised you a contest, so here it is: I want you to guess which Akatsuki member Noriko will meet first ^^ The first one to guess right will get to choose a prank Noriko will play on a fellow Akatsuki member or which Akatsuki member she will meet next and what that meeting will be like.
The members available for this contest are: Kisame, Kakuzu, Orochimaru, Zetsu, Tobi, Konan and Pein. Just add your guess to your review or pm me.
Please review!