Beauty
Summary: She thought that she had never seen a person more beautiful, or more icy. SasoSaku pairing.
Spoiler warnings – if you don't know who Sasori is, you shouldn't be reading this unless you don't mind spoilers.
Disclaimer: Would this be here if I owned it? D-u-h.
When Sakura first saw him, hidden within his favorite marionette, Hiruko, her first reaction was astonishment. To her, a human should not be crawling on the ground like that, let alone have a tail. It was just fundamentally wrong.
When she heard his voice echoing out of that puppet, she wanted to see him, to know if his melodious voice matched his face.
When she crushed Hiruko with one blow of her chakra-laden fist, she was looking forward to seeing his face very much. Here was a person colder than Sasuke-kun, deadlier than any ninja she knew with the exception of the Legendary Sannin and the kages. Would he have a pretty face to match his voice and power? Sakura rather doubted it, actually. He would have to have the looks of an angel to even try and come close.
When he lifted his face and looked at her for the first time, a jolt of electricity ran through her body. Clichéd? Definitely. But that was what had happened.
When those chilly emerald eyes met hers, her knees went weak, but she concealed it well.
When he wrapped those ropes around her body, hidden in the poison gas, she was not really all that surprised. After all, he was from Akatsuki. And also, he was beautiful, and he had the power to match it.
When he produced the puppet of the Sandaime Kazekage, Sakura was not shocked. She was not taken aback by anything he did, because she knew fully well that he had had to do things like that to get into Akatsuki. She was only surprised that the Sandaime had that weak, if he had been beaten so soundly. However, on second thought, she was more surprised that he had wanted the body of the Sand leader.
When he launched those poison-tipped darts at her and Chiyo-sama, she was not horrified, even as a puppet jumped in front of her to take the blow. She fingered the antidote injections in her pocket as the smoke began to clear from around Chiyo-sama.
When she narrowly escaped death a few times in a row, she saw his eyes narrow as he re-evaluated her abilities.
When she was nicked by his poisoned wires, she saw the triumphant smile on his perfect face.
When she injected the antidote into herself and returned to the fight, she saw the shock written all over him.
When she healed her injuries in front of him, she knew that she was rising in his eyes.
When she managed to seal him to the rock wall, she saw grudging respect in his body language, and chagrin as well, because he had lost to a pair of kunoichi whom he should have been able to beat easily.
When she had darted in front of Chiyo-sama to take the poisoned blade meant for her, she saw that he was surprised by her actions. He was flabbergasted to realize that she would put the life of her companion in front of her own. In that, they were so very different.
When she began healing herself even as the blade remained in the wound, she rose another notch in his eyes.
When he was dying, he acknowledged that she had done well, and rewarded her with information on Orochimaru.
And when he did die, she couldn't believe it herself.
That night, when she withdrew to her tent alone, she cried for what might have been, for Sasori of the Red Sand, master puppeteer, whose play had ended so abruptly.