Chapter 10! Woot! Sorry to throw more meaningless filler at you all, but the real Naruto series is full of it, so I think I can get away with it. Next chapter is when things get good, and possibly the one after that is when… well you'll find out later.

Story Summary: Sasori becomes the guardian of a little girl who has a talent for puppetry. He raises her, but unfortunately ends up falling in love with her. Bad things just snow ball from there.

Episode Summary: Ryo thinks Kakashi is too observant, Kakashi does in fact know too much, Sakura is a bitch, Naruto is oblivious, and Itachi pays a visit.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, Sasori would be alive and Naruto would wear his cute little sleeping cap more often.

"I think we're getting close," Ryo muttered. She was beginning to feel some of the threads she had put on Deidara. They were at least within thirty miles of their targets. Hopefully Gaara was still alive.

Naruto nodded, a determined look permanently etched into his face. Sasuke was right; the kid was the most determined person she had ever met.

Suddenly, as if her thoughts of Sasuke had summoned it, a very different presence spiked her senses. A familiar, friendly presence. Without explaining herself to the others, Ryo dropped to the forest floor. "Yakunan!" Sakura yelled, still playing the superiority card. "We're supposed to stay together!"

The rest of the group fell to the ground after her. "What in the name of all things mechanized are you doing?" Chiyo demanded. Her breathing was labored; this was obviously taking a toll on her limited strength. "Why are we stopped?!"

Raising her hand slowly, Ryo pointed to the other end of the clearing. "Itachi," she whispered.

There stood the older of the Uchiha brothers in all his dark and elegant beauty. A light smirk adorned his face, but she had long ago learned that it was simply a habit for him. He strode calmly foreword, his red eyes dancing with their own eerie light.

"Naruto," he greeted cordially. Looking straight at the blonde, a true look lighted upon the man's face. Ryo saw pride, contempt, envy, and even some form of love radiating from Itachi. But the moment passed and the look along with it. "This would be easier if you simply followed me."

Naruto replied, but Ryo didn't bother to notice. Something was wrong with Itachi. He had no strings on him. His presence was strange also. He felt like Itachi, but there was no substance to it. Like when you smell a faint waft of fresh pie and know a bakery is around the corner but don't actually see it.

Ryo stepped back to stand with Granny and Sakura. Giving a brief nod to Itachi, she waited to see what he wanted.

Not a minute passed before he threw Ryo into a genjutsu.

"Yakunan," he chuckled. They stood in the exact same place, but Sakura, Naruto, Granny, and Kakashi were gone. "Misfortune. How aptly you name yourself, and yet at the same time you are can't be further from the truth."

Ryo smiled and walked foreword to her friend. "It's good to see you too, Itachi," she said hugging him briefly. "But what are you doing here ruining my mission?"

Itachi cocked an eyebrow. "I don't recall Pain giving you a mission," he replied. "Nor do I recall you rejoining the ranks of Suna's shinobi. You aren't a Konoha shinobi either. You can see why I'm puzzled."

Ryo sighed at his thick headed-ness. He was going to make her say it. "I'm on a mission for your brother," she admitted.

Itachi smiled sarcastically at her. "How sweet," he drawled. Ryo winced at the hate in his voice. "My brother has completely smitten another girl. I never thought that he would do it to you Ryo. I assured Pain that you would be fine with him, that your loyalty was to Sasori alone. Maybe some part of me hoped that you were at least a little bit loyal to me, too. But no. All he has to do is bat those onyx eyes and people melt to their knees to do his will!"

A few murders* of crows and a congress* of ravens shrieked from the trees. The sky turned dark and the grass and greenery around them shriveled.

Ryo slapped him. Her hand reacted quicker than her brain. She gasped at the red mark that sprawled across his beautiful pale skin. Itachi looked shocked too, but that didn't stop her from speaking her mind. "Itachi, don't take your frustrations with your brother out on me," she growled menacingly. "It was in both of our best interests for me to come here. Sasori will be killed if I don't save him, and if something goes wrong Naruto will die. I'm supposed to protect them both."

Itachi stared blankly at her. "You're protecting Naruto," he finally said, voice devoid of emotion, "from me. For my brother."

Ryo nodded, trying in vain to find where his thoughts were headed. "I've read his mind Itachi," she whispered. His focus snapped back to her, his eyes intense. He knew she never used the connection of her threads, but if Ryo was claiming to have used it he had to believe her. "Naruto is all he thinks about. It's the first thing he thinks of in the morning, the last face he sees at night. How can I not help a love so pure?"

"Is not all love pure?" Itachi asked almost petulantly.

Ryo smiled sadly at the older Uchiha. "This is different. Sasuke has loved Naruto in secret for thirteen years, since even before you left Konoha. And his love is requited," she declared quietly. "I read Naruto's mind, scattered though it is. He loves your brother even more than Sasuke loves him. He just can't quite articulate it."

Itachi closed his eyes. Ryo had an urge to go over and hug him, to try and ease his pain, but two things stopped her. The first was that nothing she could say or do would make the hurt lessen. The second was that it was time for her to have things conforming to her standards once more.

Finally, he seemed to come to a decision. "All right," he whispered. His eyes snapped open. "Then I suppose you had better guard my brother's love carefully. I should hate to have to come after you because you let his heart break."

Ryo smiled. "You underestimate me once more Itachi," she told him right before she broke the genjutsu.

Ryo opened her real eyes and saw the corpse of a Sand ninja in the ground with Granny standing over it. Sakura was staring at Naruto as though he had grown a third eye and sprouted an extra arm. Kakashi on the other hand was staring right at her.

"We tried to wake you from the genjutsu, but you somehow rejected us," he mused lightly. Ryo narrowed her eyes. This one was a bit too observant for his own good. "Do you know Itachi Uchiha? And don't lie to me, I can spot it on you."

Ryo gave him a wolfish grin. "Let me tell you something, Kakashi," she began mischievously. "Sometimes things should only be answered in full or not at all. This is one of those things. So you can wait for your questions to be answered once we get the Kazekage back to Suna."

Ryo stared impassively at the huge rock infront of her. On the inside though, she was boiling with fury and impatience. The other Konoha shinobi had left almost an hour earlier and there was still no word from them about the seals.

She and Granny had gone over the plan earlier. Chiyo would stay with Sakura and kill Sasori. Naruto they knew would give chase to Deidara, and Kakashi would follow him. Ryo had to somehow wrap Gaara's corpse in a protective layer of threads, almost like a cocoon, and then go and be ready to resurrect Sasori before she died too. Then they would both become human again and live happily ever after.

Okay, the last part was a lie. But then at least she could hopefully beat some sense into him.

A shadow passed over her, blocking her sun. Glancing up she saw Kakashi and Sakura glaring down at her. "To think we almost trusted you, you lying bitch," Sakura snarled. Her fists were glowing. She's going to hit you.

"Now Sakura, let's give her a chance to explain herself," Kakashi said reasonably. To Ryo he continued, in a much less friendly tone, "Yakunan, if that is your real name, now would be a good time to tell us the truth."

Ryo closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. "You all just have to look a gift horse in the mouth, don't you?" she asked with a sigh. Snapping her eyes open, the puppeteer leapt lithely to her feet with all the grace she had been holding back since she arrived in Suna.

Naruto, who had been talking with Granny Chiyo, happened to glance over at his other teammates. He was shocked to see them behaving with hostility toward Yakunan. "Guys, what's up?" he asked cautiously. "Why do you look like you're going to skin Yakunan?"

"You can't skin something that has no skin," Sakura spat. Ryo rolled her eyes, but inside she was furious with herself. That's what they had been doing while she was talking to Itachi. The little pink medical witch had examined her.

"WHAT!?!" Naruto yelled in that endearing way he has. Jerking his gaze to Yakunan he asked, "Yakunan, what are they talking about?"

"It all makes sense now," Kakashi said. Holding back a self-contemptuous laugh, Ryo motioned for him to continue. "Your story about having been abroad for your entire life. How you arrived just in time to help us track down the Akatsuki. Your in-depth knowledge of them. That fact that you have no organs, skin, or ligaments. You are a puppet of the Akatsuki, literally.

"How are they doing it?" he continued, this time puzzled. "You have no chakra threads controlling you. You seem to think and act on your own. Are you a creation of Sasori of the Red Sand?"

Ryo was unable to hold back the peal of laughter that spilled from her mouth. Looking over at Granny Chiyo, who had been oddly silent through the entire exchange, she asked, "May I tell them Granny? They seem to have figured out the important information."

Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura all snapped their heads back to stare at the old woman. Chiyo gave her granddaughter a look so sour it would have made a rock pucker. "Fine," she retorted acerbically. "But when they try to kill you, don't look to me for help!"

The younger puppet master took that as an okay. "My name is Akasuna no Ryo," she declared proudly. "And through a long and arduous process I made myself into a puppet."

"Akasuna no Ryo?" Kakashi asked, startled. "That's impossible. She was a little girl kidnapped by Sasori of the Red Sand!"

Ryo took a deep bow. "One in the same," she replied. "But Saso saved me, not stole me. And I believe it is time for your mound of pink muscle to break that rock." She pointed to the huge boulder whose seals were falling off.

In the bedlam of the rock shattering, Ryo slipped off into the forest. Things hadn't gone quite as she had planned, but she was rusty. Sitting around for a decade doing nothing but flirting with Deidara had made her less observant. She needed to work on that.

Ryo sat perched on a rock near the opening of the cave where Granny and Sakura were battling Sasori. From the tone of his voice and the fact that he was using the Third, Ryo could tell that Sasori was pissed off.

Maybe he thought Granny had died as well, she mused idly to herself. Her other mission, to wrap the Kazekage in thin spidery threads, had already been accomplished. All she had to do was sit back and wait.

The battle was taking forever. Sakura had already been poisoned, and she only had a few more minutes left to live. In Ryo's opinion, the world would be better without the pink-haired slut. But her death would make Naruto sad, which would make Sasuke even more moody.

Ryo looked down at the hinge that connected her arm to her hand. The wrist hinge. How would Saso react to being human again? How would she herself be?

Would Sasori hate her for making him human once more?

You know, comments are nice. I'm just sayin'...