In a small town in the Earth Country, Sasori carried the tools he had just purchased back to his rented room. In every country, there were towns like this one where a traveler could obtain whatever he needed to without answering awkward questions. Here, no one asked why a boy who appeared to be about 14 years old was traveling alone. No one asked why he needed the tools he had just bought, or why all the meals sent to his room were returned untouched. The man who ran the lodging house had simply accepted the money Sasori gave him and handed him a key with a room number written on it. No one had even asked his name.
Locking the deadbolt on his door, Sasori retrieved the Kazekage's body from its scroll and began turning it into a true human puppet. He really didn't have any idea what he was going to do now that he had left the Sand. As soon as they discovered that he was gone and the Kazekage was missing, they would probably put two and two together. He would be declared a missing-nin, and a hefty bounty would be placed on his head. He supposed he could join one of the other Hidden Villages. Any of the Sand's enemies would be happy to accept a turncoat with valuable information about the Sand. But Sasori didn't really want to become part of another shinobi village. His acquaintances in the first one he lived in had disappointed him so badly, and he had no reason to suspect that any of the other villages were any better.
Sitting in the local bar that night, pretending to sip his drink, Sasori heard two other missing-nin at a nearby table discussing their own plans. They were originally from the Hidden Village of Grass, and they had heard that a young up-and-coming shipping magnate named Gato needed a few unscrupulous thugs to scare a local feudal lord into allowing him exclusive shipping rights within the lord's territory. Gato was rapidly gaining in wealth and power, apparently due to the fact that he didn't mind fighting dirty when necessary. This particular feudal lord didn't like the way Gato did business, and had refused to reach an agreement with him. Gato had decided that the lord would be more likely to see things his way if a beloved cousin of his had an unfortunate "accident." The cousin in question had a few bodyguards that might be difficult to deal with, which was why Gato was looking for ninja to do the job for him.
The next day, Sasori set out for a club that Gato owned. He had used Henge to make himself look significantly older, with shaggy brown hair and a grizzled, battle-scarred appearance. In short, he looked exactly the way Gato would expect a fearsome missing-nin to look. Entering the club, he was immediately assaulted by loud music and the smell of many people packed into a small space. Wending his way between the tables, he headed toward a private room at the back of the club. Two burly bodyguards standing at the door of the room looked him over, and one said, "Sorry. Gato-sama is busy now. Come back later."
"I have heard that Gato-sama has requested assistance in…convincing…an opponent to become an ally. I would be most happy to provide that assistance." Sasori didn't really care about Gato's business ambitions (he sounded like a rather petty man), but working for Gato would at least allow him to obtain money for clothing and a place to live…and with any luck, he might be able to kill some ninja and expand his puppet collection.
The bodyguard grunted. "Well, that's true enough. But you better be capable of doing it—Gato-sama doesn't approve of failure." He pushed the door open and Sasori stepped through.
The room was dimly lit, and Gato sat at a round table, eating his evening meal. Two rather scantily-clad women sat on either side of him, and two more bodyguards, just as muscle-bound as the ones outside, stood back in the shadows. Sasori bowed slightly and said, "Gato-sama, I have been told that you are in need of assistance in dealing with a recalcitrant feudal lord. I am here to offer my services in that regard."
"Hmm…and what is your name?" Gato was a short man with bushy brown hair and glasses that obscured his tiny eyes.
"I am Tsunenari Agakai, originally from the Hidden Village of Rain," Sasori said. This was, of course, an alias—but Gato probably knew that. Sasori doubted that Gato knew the real name of a single one of the missing-nin who worked for him.
"Hmm…and what skills do you have?"
"I am skilled in…unusual combat techniques. I reached the rank of ANBU Squad Captain in my former village."
"Heh, every missing-nin says that. The question is, are you really as good as you say?" This must have been some pre-arranged verbal cue, because the two bodyguards suddenly darted out of the shadows and moved to flank Sasori. The dim lights in the room glinted off the kunai they held in their hands. Before they could come within two feet of him, Sasori had wound chakra strings around their arms and legs, and maneuvered them to a position in front of him. Twitching his fingers, he forced them to raise their kunai to each others' throats.
Gato laughed and clapped his hands appreciatively. "Well done, well done! I can see you're a level above most of the wretches who work for me. Fine, I'll give you the job. Now let these fine young men go, have a drink with me, and we can talk money.
A week later, the feudal lord's cousin was dead, the feudal lord himself had caved in to Gato's demands, and a delighted Gato had presented Sasori with a briefcase full of money. He had also offered Sasori permanent employment working for him. Sasori had accepted—at least until some better opportunity presented itself. Gato was a punk who ruled through fear and intimidation, but Sasori didn't really mind. Compassion and moral qualms had been buried as deeply as all his other emotions. As long as he could engage in stimulating battles and add to the ranks of his collection, he was happy.
One night, he was sitting at a table in the same bar where he had first heard of Gato. He had recently obtained a new corpse to turn into a human puppet, and was contemplating what improvements he should add to it—chakra shields perhaps?—when he became aware that someone had sat down across from him. Occasionally he had to deal with some drunken idiot who wanted to pick a fight, or fend off advances from intoxicated young women, but this person didn't look like he fell into either of those categories. In fact, Sasori couldn't immediately tell what the person looked like or what gender he was. He wore a broad-brimmed hat that concealed the upper part of his face, and the lower part of his face was hidden by the high collar of the robe he wore. It was black, with red clouds embroidered on it. The man's hands, which rested on the table in front of him, were white as chalk, and his nails were painted purple. On one finger, he wore a ring with a kanji on it.
"Good evening, Matsumoto Sasori-san," the man said in a smooth voice. Although pleasant in tone, that voice was somehow disturbing. If the Death God had a voice, it might sound something like this.
Sasori immediately stiffened. He was currently disguised by a Henge no Jutsu. If this man had seen through that, he was obviously a ninja. "I'm sorry, sir. My name is Tsunenari Agakai—you must have mistaken me for someone else."
The man laughed, and his laugh was even more disturbing than his voice. "No, Sasori-san, I am not mistaken. You are the puppetmaster genius of Sunagakure. Allow me to introduce myself: I am Orochimaru, former Sannin of Konoha." He lifted his hat off, and Sasori saw that the man was indeed the infamous Orochimaru. His face was as pale as his hands, and his eyes had vertical pupils, like those of a cat or a snake. Although he had abandoned Konoha years ago, he still wore his Leaf forehead protector—but there was a horizontal slash through the Leaf symbol.
"What do you want with me?" Under the table, Sasori withdrew a scroll from his pocket, prepared to fight Orochimaru if his intentions were hostile.
"Why are you working for that brat Gato?"
Sasori blinked. He hadn't really expected that. "He pays me," he said, shrugging.
Orochimaru flashed him a grin that could probably make children run away screaming in terror. "And is money really all you care about? You could kill Gato and every missing-nin working for him in about ten seconds if you wanted to. Why do you take orders from him?"
Sasori shrugged again. "I'm a missing-nin. My village probably has dozens of hunter-nins searching for me. I might as well keep a low profile and make some money until I think of something better to do with the rest of my life."
Orochimaru's grinned widened—now it could make grown men run away screaming. "What if I gave you something better to do with it?"
"Such as?"
"Such as fighting some of the most powerful opponents in the world. Such as obtaining enough power that you need not fear anyone, enough power that you can do anything you want and no one will be able to stop you."
Sasori considered that for a few moments. Certainly he would like to test the abilities of his body and his puppets against stronger opponents than the pathetic excuses for ninja that Gato had him fighting. And gaining power was not something that he was opposed to either. "How would you suggest that I go about doing that?" he asked.
Orochimaru settled back in his chair, looking uncomfortably like a snake that had just spotted a particularly plump mouse. "I represent a certain organization known as Akatsuki. We are a group of S-ranked missing-nins who have abandoned our villages to escape the constraints they placed upon us."
"And what does this organization do? If each of you is so powerful individually, why band together at all?"
"You are familiar with the story of the nine bijuu, I presume?"
Sasori nodded, remembering the long-ago day when he and his teammates had encountered the Bearer of Shukaku. He remembered the look of hopelessness in the man's eyes, and the way Kagaiya and Asana had seemed afraid of him. He also remembered later occasions when he had seen that man fight, and how he had decimated all his enemies with the awesome power of the demon sealed within him.
"The founder of the Akatsuki has developed a jutsu that allows for a bijuu to be extracted from its host and implanted into someone else. This sealing technique is much more refined than the ones the villages have developed. It does not allow the demon to exert any influence over the host's mind, but the host can still access its power." He leaned closer to Sasori across the table, and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "The power of a bijuu is unimaginable. A person with such a demon sealed inside him would have a near-infinite chakra supply, his aging would be slowed, and he might gain other abilities as well. The Shukaku, for example, gives its host the ability to control sand, and the host of the Yamata no Orochi becomes immune to all forms of poison. There are nine bijuu, and currently seven members of Akatsuki. We are seeking an eighth and ninth member…one for each bijuu."
"You want to capture all the bijuu, and put one into each member," Sasori said. "But you still haven't explained why you are working together for this goal."
"Hmm…well, the technique used to transfer the bijuu from one host to another requires the power and resonance of the bijuu's chakra to be matched exactly during the transfer. It requires multiple people to do this."
"And you want me to be the eighth member?"
Orochimaru's eyes gleamed, and he clenched one white hand into a fist. "Your deeds are legendary. You were the youngest chuunin and jounin in the Sand's history, you created an army of puppets that is nearly invincible…and if I'm not mistaken, you defeated the Sandaime Kazekage. You are worthy of membership in the Akatsuki. And with a bijuu bound to you, you would have such power that even your current strength pales in comparison."
Sasori put one elbow on the table, leaned his chin on his fist, and pondered for a few minutes. It wasn't such a difficult decision, really. Capturing the bijuu would require difficult battles that would both provide a challenge for him and allow him to expand his collection. And when his bijuu was captured and implanted into him, his power would grow exponentially. He had an endless lifespan stretching out in front of him, and this seemed like as good a way to spend some of it as anything else. "What must I do to join you?"
Orochimaru got that look in his eyes again, as though he was a snake that had snared a mouse in its coils. "A conference of the other members must be called, and they must all accept you as one of us. Considering your past deeds, I don't think that will be a problem."
"When and where?"
"I'll send a messenger to you in two days to tell you the location." Replacing his hat on his head, Orochimaru got up and left. Sasori remained at the table for a long while after.
Two days later, Sasori looked up from the puppet he was working on to see a small grass snake curled around the chair on the opposite side of the table. It held a scroll in its coiled tail. With a hiss, it flipped the scroll into the air and vanished in a puff of smoke. Sasori caught the scroll and opened it. It named a date one week in the future and a place in the dangerous no-man's-land between the Rain and Fire countries.
Sasori arrived at the appointed place on the designated day, and found himself in the center of a small mountain range. He stood on a narrow ledge over a ravine so deep that he could not see the bottom. Next to the ledge, a jagged cliff rose up for several hundred feet. Just getting to this place would have been an extraordinarily difficult journey for even a skilled shinobi. There was no trail, and harsh winds often threatened to push any traveler off of the narrow ledge into the ravine below. Sasori scanned the ledge—it seemed completely deserted. Narrowing his eyes, he molded his chakra and slapped a palm against the cliff face. "Release!" The cliff face seemed to waver slightly, confirming Sasori's suspicion that a genjutsu hid the true meeting place. Walking over to where the wavering effect had been the strongest, Sasori summoned one of his human puppets. The puppet had once been a foolhardy hunter-nin from the Sand who had recognized and attacked Sasori while he was completing a mission for Gato. This particular hunter-nin was a genjutsu specialist who could dispel almost any illusion. Under Sasori's guidance, the puppet brought its hands together in a complex series of seals—the All-Seeing Eye Technique. The cliff face wavered again, and this time the illusion fell away completely, revealing the entrance to a tunnel. Sasori stepped inside tentatively, keeping the puppet in front of him. He had it form another series of seals, the Light of Heaven Technique. Small blue flames arose at several points on the floor, walls, and ceiling of the tunnel, marking the locations of hidden traps. Carefully avoiding these, Sasori followed the tunnel until it opened out into a huge cave. Nine torches lit the walls of the cave, and figures stood under all the torches but two.
"Welcome, Sasori-san," said Orochimaru softly. "We are the Akatsuki."
Sasori surveyed the other members. One was tall and muscular, with blue skin and gills under his eyes. Another had long blond hair that covered one eye. A third seemed to have a plant growing out of his shoulders, and one half of his face was jet-black, while the other half was as white as Orochimaru's. The remaining two were standing squarely in the shadows left by the torches' light, so Sasori couldn't get a good look at them.
"This is the candidate you've found, Orochimaru-san? He's just a child, yeah!" blustered the blond-haired member. He pointed at Sasori, and Sasori saw that there was a mouth on the palm of his hand. Not a tattoo or drawing of a mouth, but an actual living one, complete with teeth and a tongue that stuck out at him petulantly.
Orochimaru's voice remained calm, but his eyes narrowed and it was clear that he was annoyed. "He was the youngest chuunin and jounin in the Sand's history. He is widely regarded as a genius, and defeated the Sandaime Kazekage in combat. He may be young, but he is worthy of us, Deidara-san."
"This boy? No kid that young can be the equal of us, yeah!" Sasori thought this was a rather hypocritical thing to say, since Deidara didn't look like he was far beyond his own teenage years.
"Well, Sasori-san, it looks like you have a challenger. What are you going to do?" This came from the blue-skinned man.
"Is there a sparring area in this complex? If Deidara-san doubts my strength, he is more than welcome to a demonstration." Sasori's voice remained completely level, and his face betrayed no change in expression. Another man might have been enraged by such a blatant challenge, but Sasori had long ago decided that anger only made one more likely to do something stupid.
"If you're going to fight Deidara-san, we'd better use the outdoor sparring area, or half the base will get destroyed," said the blue-skinned man, pointing to a tunnel that led out of the main cavern. Sasori and Deidara followed this tunnel for some time, with the rest of the Akatsuki members trailing behind them. The tunnel ended in a door leading to a broad plateau that seemed to be on the exact opposite side of the mountain from the ledge that Sasori had entered the base from.
Sasori and Deidara faced each other at the center of the plateau, while the other Akatsuki members remained clustered near the entrance to the base. Sasori pulled out a scroll, and at the same time Deidara darted one hand into a pack that was strapped to his waist. Sasori summoned the puppet sealed within the scroll, and Deidara's hand-mouth spat out a small clay sculpture of a bird. What the bloody hell is that Sasori wondered.
This question was quickly answered as Deidara formed a seal, and the bird expanded to the size of a small tree. Deidara hopped on its back, and it took off into the air, hovering above the plateau.
"Are you just going to run away, then?" asked Sasori. Deidara seemed to have a temper, and taunting him might provoke him into making a mistake.
"No, I just don't want to have to deal with your pesky attacks while I kill you, yeah," Deidara responded with a grin.
Sasori forcefully subdued his anger. No one had ever had the nerve to call his puppet army pesky before. Amazing, yes. Terrifying, yes. Pesky? Hell no. However, he was going to need a different strategy than the one he had originally planned on. While he summoned a second puppet, Deidara's hand spat out another bird. It swooped down and perched on the shoulder of the first puppet Sasori had summoned. It chirped happily—and then exploded.
Sasori dodged the blast as pieces of the puppet fell around him. Now I know why that blue member said the base would get destroyed if we fought indoors. Luckily, the second puppet had escaped the explosion, and was much better for long-range combat. Sasori made it form a distinctive seal, and named it for Deidara's benefit: "Calling the Rain Technique!" Clouds formed in the sky overhead, and it began to rain.
"Am I supposed to be afraid of a little rain?" scoffed Deidara, and lobbed another bird-bomb at Sasori.
Sasori dodged the bomb, then formed another seal with the puppet. "Aquarian Needles Technique!" The drops of rain falling from the sky elongated into deadly needles that rained down (literally) onto Deidara and his bird.
"Ack!" Deidara cried, bringing his arms up to shield his face. He threw several clay shapes at the puppet. These were not birds, but spiders. They spun long strands of silk—no, chakra—which wrapped the puppet up tightly. Once the puppet was immobilized, they exploded.
Sasori tried to reach into his pocket for another scroll, and discovered that he couldn't move his arm. The spiders had landed on him too, and were spinning him up in a web of chakra. He knew it was only a matter of time before they too exploded. He sighed. I guess I'm going to have to show it to them. He unfurled the blade-wings from his back, cutting through the chakra strings that bound him. He knocked the spiders off of him, and they exploded harmlessly in the air.
The blade-wings had cut the back of his shirt to pieces, and what was left of it fell off, revealing his puppet body. "What…the hell?" said the blue-skinned man in an amazed voice. Deidara's eyes narrowed and his lips compressed to a thin line.
The cable shot out from Sasori's stomach, and soared upward towards the bird that Deidara rode on. It twined around the bird's ankle, which oddly did not seem to bother Deidara too much. He urged the bird upward, and Sasori found himself lifted off the ground—he weighed much less than a giant bird, after all. He retracted the cable into his stomach, pulling himself up towards the bird. This did seem to bother Deidara, and Sasori thought he knew why: Deidara disliked close combat and was probably weak in it. And he couldn't blow up the bird without killing himself as well as his opponent. Sasori landed nimbly on the bird's back, and opened fire with the flamethrowers embedded in his palms. Deidara stumbled backward and, seeing no other escape, dove over the bird's tail and began plummeting to the ground. It was a fifty-foot drop, but that wasn't as hazardous to a ninja as it would be to an ordinary person. He began to bring his hands together, and Sasori realized what he was planning to do just in time. He jumped off the bird just before it exploded, and he felt the blast pressing him downward. He could feel the massive fireball at his back, and knew that if he had still been human, he would have been badly burned. As it was, he accelerated down towards Deidara, who was still falling. The cable in his stomach whipped out once again, and Deidara was unable to dodge it in midair. It wrapped around him, pulling the two shinobi closer together. As Deidara came up to meet him, Sasori released the cable and punched Deidara hard in the face. It was a rather inelegant move, but effective. Deidara's head snapped back, and Sasori heard the small bones in his nose crack. Deidara slammed into the ground hard, and Sasori landed lightly next to him. Turning slightly to the side, Sasori positioned himself so that one of the blades on his back was just under Deidara's chin. As the tip of the blade-wing pressed into his throat, Deidara said, "You're strong, yeah. Damn, I hate to admit this, but…you win, kid…yeah."
After that display, none of the other members had any objections to Sasori's joining the Akatsuki. Back in the central room with the torches, Orochimaru presented Sasori with an Akatsuki robe, a ring, and a small bottle of nail polish. He also explained the significance of each item: "The name 'Akatsuki' means 'red moon', and the design on the robes represents a night sky with the clouds lit by such a moon. The rings we wear are bound by a special jutsu that allows us to coordinate our chakra output when extracting one of the bijuu from its host. Purple has historically been the color of royalty and power, so we paint our nails with that color to represent our superiority over all other shinobi."
Orochimaru also reached up and untied Sasori's forehead protector, holding it up in front of him. "All the members of Akatsuki have forsaken our former villages, and we declare that broken allegiance openly." Understanding what was expected of him here, Sasori took out a kunai and crossed out the Sand symbol on the forehead protector. Orochimaru nodded approvingly, then handed it back to Sasori.
All of the Akatsuki members had once again formed a circle, standing under the torches on the wall. Now each one stepped forward and formally introduced himself to Sasori.
"I am Kumomoto Orochimaru, formerly of Konohagakure, now of Akatsuki."
"I am Hoshigaki Kisame, formerly of Kirigakure, now of Akatsuki."
"I am Ichinose Deidara, formerly of Iwagakure, now of Akatsuki."
When all of the members had made this formal introduction, they stood waiting expectantly. Sasori thought about how to return the greeting. His given surname was Matsumoto, but that name represented a life that he had left behind long ago. He remembered the way the rising sun had turned the desert to the color of fresh blood on the morning when he left the Sand Village forever, and decided.
"I am Akasuna no Sasori, formerly of Sunagakure, now of Akatsuki."
A/N: Wow, my chapters keep getting longer and longer, don't they? As far as I know, the manga hasn't given last names for Oro and Deidara, so I made up their last names for this fic. I'll be away from this coming weekend to the next weekend, so depending on when I get Chapter 6 finished, the story will be updated in either a few days or about 2 weeks from now. I hope you're all still enjoying the story!
