Sakura was almost ten when she discovered that her soulmate was in Konoha's Bingo Book.

It had happened during one of the final classes of the day. The utility of genjutsu when fighting against foreign shinobi had just been raised when Naruto had asked whether Konoha had any knowledge of what foreign shinobi were like.

Iruka had berated the blond boy for his interruption and, unexpectedly, drawn out a simple-looking dark book. Konoha's very own Bingo Book, as it had turned out. The class had gasped at his explanation of the types of shinobi who had been added as entries by the village's high-ranking officials, awed at the expertise such a thing required.

A single, impossible to ignore question had flashed though Sakura's mind: Did Sasori have an entry?

Thus, she had directed herself to Konoha's library at the end of the class, fully intent on discovering whether her soulmate featured in Konoha's Bingo Book or not. Finding a copy available to Academy students had been a challenge, but after some searching through the building's towering bookcases, she had finally managed to find a slightly out of date edition.

Feeling excited, Sakura sat on a nearby table, intent on discovering whether her soulmate featured within the book or not.

He did, as it turned out.

The picture displayed by his name was slightly out of date. He looked considerably younger, less like the teen she now knew and more like the boy she had caught only managed to catch glances of three years ago, but she could have recognised him anywhere.

Leaning forwards, Sakura began to read his record.

Shinobi: Akasuna no Sasori

Age: 11

Affiliation: Sunagakure

Classification: A-rank

Unit: Puppet Brigade.

Additional details: Likely ANBU operative. Grandson of a retired counsellor of Sunagakure.

Sakura blinked. Doubtful, she reread his record, her eyes lingering on his classification at the time of publication of the Bingo Book and his nickname.

She had only been seven years old at the time.

Leaning back against her chair, Sakura read over the list of known abilities and combat techniques. She knew of his use of puppets, but the poison and details on his additional, experimental puppets were new. As was, for that matter, the final note on his potential for S-rank.

Had he achieved that rank by now?

Shutting the book with a loud thump, Sakura stood up and returned the book to its shelf. Breathing in deeply, she attempted to force herself to think through her soulmate's Bingo Book entry as rationally as she could, only to fail at the thought of his nickname and rank.

Returning home, she unsuccessfully attempted to piece together image of the boy she had shared dreams with, with the one in Konoha's Bingo Book.

Akasuna, she thought disbelievingly, shaking her head.

Just what had he done to earn 'of the Red Sand' as a moniker? Besides, how did human puppets even work?

Had he been lying to her?

Lying in her bed, Sakura glanced at the small pile of scrolls she had taken out of the library at Sasori's own suggestion. He had started by recommending her chakra control exercises after she had shared with him her early success at forming chakra strings, and it had quickly escalated to simple medical ninjutsu once she had managed to perform water surface walking practice.

If not for him, she mused, would I have learnt any of that?

A small smile grew on Sakura's lips. She wouldn't have, that much was clear. Not to the extent that she had. Besides, the thought of her soulmate had been what had strengthened her resolve to train.

Slowly, her mental image of her soulmate began to grow nuance: he was from Sunagakure, a puppet master, a known danger and, despite it, always helpful—at least to her.

o-o-o

Her tenth birthday came and went without a shared dream of any sort, and it was only after a few weeks had passed that she saw Sasori again.

He appeared as if out of a nightmare, barging into a strange, memory-like dream of her father and mother. The hazy, vague figures of her parents froze as she turned to face the Suna shinobi.

"Are you alright?" Sakura asked hesitantly.

He didn't look it. Some of the state he had been in before falling asleep must have carried over, because she had never seen him as unkempt and damaged. His red hair clung in strange lumps to his forehead, matted with blood. Cuts and gashes littered his skin, with the most prominent cutting deep into his shoulder. His clothes, which rarely were anything but immaculate in what few dreams they had had, hung in tatters, with his beige flak jacket nowhere to be see.

The fourteen-year-old ignored her. Instead, he observed the frozen familial scene in the living room behind her as if it were something wholly foreign.

Feeling unnerved by his silence, Sakura stood up and approached him. "Did something happen?"

Sasori looked at her with a cold gaze. Were he not her soulmate, Sakura was certain she would have been afraid of him. Something about him was cold and twisted, though she couldn't place exactly what. It was something in his soft, brown eyes, which even when half-lidded projected an indifference so sharp she could almost believe herself to be an enemy.

He didn't reply.

A chill ran through back. Unprompted, the list of techniques in Konoha's Bingo Book ran through her mind, and she had to all but herself to speak again. This wasn't any shinobi. This was her soulmate.

"You look hurt. More than I've ever seen before," she said, trying to explain the terrible feeling coiling in her stomach. "Do you need help?"

"Why do you care?" the Jounin asked tonelessly.

She flinched. "You're my soulmate."

Just like that, his cold demeanour changed. Shoulders sagging, he dropped himself gracelessly onto her house's wooden floor. When he looked at her again, the cold indifference from earlier had diffused considerably. Instead, it had been replaced with the beginnings of something warm she had never quite seen before and which made his eyes unbearably pretty to look at.

"I was sent on a mission to hunt two S-rank missing-nins in Kumogakure," Sasori said lowly. He looked away. "I'm alright."

Sakura's eyebrows rose. "Alone?" she asked, shocked. Her soulmate was good, very good, but she didn't think practice like that was standard. Not in Konoha, at least.

She took a seat on the empty expanse of floor besides him, choosing to ignore the frozen, hazy figure of her parents. Sasori observed her movements with an unreadable expression.

"Why would they send you alone? Is that normal?"

"No," Sasori said. "They didn't expect me to return, but I did. I will."

"What?" Sakura asked. A flicker of anger coursed through her. How could a Hidden Village's higher-ups do something like that? To one of their best shinobi, no less. "But that's—."

A single look from the red-haired teen silenced her. "It doesn't matter," he said. The edges of his lips quirked up disdainfully. "They fear me."

He didn't look back at her. For a long series of moments Sakura looked at his profile in silence, unsure of how to break the odd tension that had settled around them. She wanted to ask more about whatever it was that had happened, but the faraway gleam in Sasori's eyes made the sheer improbability of an answer plain to see. Still, she couldn't just stay silent. Not with the way he looked, bedraggled and hurt as he was.

She swallowed to wet her suddenly dry throat. "I wish there was something I could do help," she said quietly, after a few minutes of silence. There wasn't anything she could do, though, even assuming that what brief practice she had gotten of medical ninjutsu were useful. They hadn't ever met.

A hint of surprise flashed through Sasori's expression. It was gone before she knew it, morphing instead into incredulity. "We could be enemies one day."

She didn't hesitate. "Even so."

"That's stupid," Sasori said. He gestured at the figure of her father, still frozen beyond them. "What's there to say our villages won't be at war one day? I could be the man responsible for the deaths of your parents." He turned to look at her, a cold gleam returning to his eyes. "Any care you feel is misplaced. It's not respectable for a shinobi."

Anger flared within her. "I can't see how, my dad died in a mission years ago," she spat. "Sometimes mum can barely stand to look at me after I finish training. She wants me to ignore you and marry a civilian."

If her words surprised him, he didn't show it. "A reasonable desire, given what shinobi are," he said, speaking with a levelled voice. "Caring only makes things harder."

Sakura clenched her fists. She refused to back down, even in the face of the Jounin's cold and cutting demeanour. "It's not stupid to care," she argued, pressing on. "I saw your Bingo Book entry—you're one of their best. Your village shouldn't treat you like that."

"I killed the two missing-nins. There is nothing more to it," he said detachedly. "It has nothing to do with you."

"Yes, it does!" Sakura exclaimed. She pushed herself forwards, towards him, and gestured widely. "What if you hadn't survived? What then?"

"Then I wouldn't have made it, just like they wanted," Sasori said blankly. "But I didn't."

Something warm and wet began to gather in the corners of her eyes. Dimly, she noticed the way Sasori's upper lip curled with disgust at the sight. She looked at the scorpion on her wrist. What was wrong with her soulmate that he wasn't able to understand what she meant?

Her voice quivered. "How could I possibly not care?"

The Suna shinobi remained silent as Sakura's shoulders shook, not saying a word as she tried to recompose herself. By the time she dared to look at him his expression had returned to the same blank one she had slowly grown familiar with, though his tense posture belied the frustration he felt.

He didn't look at her again. Standing up abruptly, he looked at the frozen figure of her father, expression contorting into a scowl.

And just like that, he was gone.

o-o-o

She didn't see Sasori too much after that, likely on account of his deliberately strange sleeping schedule. Slowly, the Academy classes came to an end, and before Sakura knew it she been placed in a Genin team together with Naruto and Sasuke, under one Hatake Kakashi. It was a disaster in the making, if the strange rivalry her two teammates seemed to share was anything to go by.

It was after the catastrophe that their first official day as a Genin team had proven to be that Sakura saw Sasori again.

It hadn't happened immediately, even with the easiness with which she had fallen asleep after all that the bell test had entailed. No, the familiar pull of a shared dream had only started after her third time revisiting the brief glance she had gotten of Sasuke's mark—a hauntingly familiar red and black whirlpool on his upper forearm—and she had quickly let herself go.

It hadn't taken her long to find herself within the now-familiar hall that was his workshop. It remained unchanged even after four years of dreaming intermittently of the place; frozen at an unspecified point in time Sasori had never bothered to talk of. Taking a few steps forwards, Sakura scanned her surroundings, looking for the familiar figure of her soulmate amidst the rows of puppets. He didn't tend to be hard to find, not in their shared dreams. He had to be relatively close within his dreamscape.

She found him minutes later, at the end of the hall, sitting cross-legged by a jutting door. The space behind it was dark and featureless, lifeless and empty by comparison to the cramped workshop.

"Sasori?" Sakura called out.

The Suna shinobi didn't reply.

Feeling concerned, Sakura approached him, taking in his appearance. He looked slightly more dishevelled than normal. Gone was his beige flak jacket. Instead, the older teen was only wearing a sleeveless undershirt that clearly outlined the shape of his body. The bandages wrapped around his arms, a recent addition to his habitual look, were torn and dirty. His red hair, messier than usual, fell over his bare forehead, hiding away his expression as he looked down at what could only be his hitai-ate.

Sasori looked up as she kneeled beside him, close enough that she could almost smell him. "You graduated," he said, looking at her own hitai-ate.

No flurry of pride sparked up at his words. "I did," Sakura said quietly. "What are you doing?"

It took a moment for the Suna Jounin to reply. "What would happen if I were to carve a line through this," he said blankly, looking at his own forehead protector. Frowning, Sakura followed Sasori's elegant fingers as they mimicked the gesture across Sunagakure's symbol. "Right here."

The sight made her panic. Surely, he can't mean to—.

"A line?" she asked, forcing herself to inhale deeply.

Heedless of her dismay, Sasori continued speaking. "It'd be easy to do it. I've already it done it a number of times in here," he said, more to himself than to her. As if to demonstrate, he drew a kunai from a pouch and sliced it through Sunagakure's symbol cleanly. "Reality wouldn't be that different."

Sakura felt her heart skipped a beat. "You can't mean it," she blurted out. "You're not thinking about becoming a missing-nin, are you?"

"Why not?" he asked, voice jarringly calm. "What is there to stop me?"

"What about Sunagakure?" Sakura said indignantly. "What about your family? Wouldn't they miss you?"

"Family?" he intoned dryly, as if tasting the word. His expression shifted minutely. "There's no such thing," he said. Then, continuing, "The village only holds my art back. If I left—."

"You can't mean that," Sakura said, interrupting him. Her mind went back to the Bingo Book entry she had read so long ago. "There has to be someone, right? Don't they already let you use your puppets?"

Sasori peered over his shoulder, his soft, brown eyes languid as they met her own. Sakura felt anger flare up at his expression.

Bored, she thought. He looks bored.

She clenched her fists. "So?" she spat. "Can you even answer?"

"Why do you care?" Sasori asked, his tone of voice very much the same as it had been the last time he had asked that question. "I've got it all planned out. No one will be able to stop me. I'll retrieve the Third Kazekage and leave."

She answered instinctively. "Because you're my soulmate. Because you've helped me become a better Genin that I otherwise would have been without you." She paused. She was repeating the same arguments that had angered him the last time they had spoken, but she couldn't think of a better way to explain herself. "Because I simply do, even if you can't understand why."

Her words incensed him again. "Do you even know what being a shinobi means? What the real, meaningless purpose behind all of the missions you will start to take soon is?" Sasori said harshly. "All those stories you were told about dreams, honour, and heroism—none of them are true, even if you want them to be."

Sakura faltered. "I…"

"What do you think is the real nature of a Hidden Village? Do you think loyalty, family, or friendship changes any of it?" Sasori continued. Rising to stand, he threw his hitai-ate onto the floor. "Do you lie to yourself and pretend? Wait for something impossible to happen?"

"What is wrong with you?" Sakura asked.

Her soulmate's pretty, dead eyes bore into her own. "Someone like you wouldn't understand."

"So tell me!" Sakura exclaimed. Her voice quavered. "How do you expect me to understand any of what you mean if you don't explain?"

Something shifted in Sasori's expression. Slowly, his eyes lost some of their cold edge. A full minute passed before his posture lost the tension it had displayed since her arrival. "Explain?" he said quietly.

Sakura clenched her jaw. "Yes."

His eyes held her own as he studied her silently, as if she had said something that was puzzling and almost impossible to believe.

Then, to her surprise, he began to speak.

o-o-o

Things relaxed as Sakura's first year as a Genin came and went. Slowly, the number of shared dreams grew. She began to train in earnest, trying to do her best in missions with Team Seven, all whilst growing undeniably closer to the dangerous, red-haired teen. Her mother didn't say anything, choosing instead to abandon the topic of soulmates entirely.

As the months went by, something irrevocably shifted between them. Before she knew it, a vivid image of the person who Akasuna no Sasori was had consolidated in Sakura's mind: he was a puppet master from Sunagakure, a known danger, always helpful, and, also, horribly and undeniably lonely.

o-o-o

Konohamaru fell to the ground with a loud thud. The Suna-nin that had been holding him up grunted in pain, scowling as he turned around to look at Sasuke.

"Hey!" he shouted.

Sasuke stared at the foreign shinobi impassively, keeping two more rocks in his left hand. "What are you bastards doing in our village?"

The Suna-nin's eyes narrowed as he rubbed his wrist, trying to soothe the pain left behind by Sasuke's hit. "Another guy who pisses me off…" he muttered.

Sakura observed silently as Sasuke bit another reply. Naruto, who had been standing beside her, glared at their third teammate, unhappy at having missed the chance to help the now-retreating Academy students.

It didn't take long for the foreign-nin to become enraged. Clenching his jaw, he stepped forwards, approaching the tree branch Sasuke still was perched on. "Get down here and fight!" he demanded, readjusting his gloves. "I hate show-offs like you the most."

Sakura pursed her lips, thinking the scene before her through.

The two shinobi were from Sunagakure, that much was clear, though she'd be lying if she said that she knew what they were doing in Konoha. Sasori had been strangely busy over the last couple of weeks, having had to undertake one high ranked mission after another, and the most information he had offered for his prolonged absence was the fact that a number of them were classified and involved Otogakure.

Still, she mused, observing detachedly as the Suna-nin in the black, baggy bodysuit let out another threat, allied or not, it is forbidden to enter foreign Hidden Villages without permission. Why are they here?

Before she could voice her thoughts, the Suna-nin detached the strange, bandaged package at his back. He smirked as he rested it on the ground, visibly ready to use whatever it was that he was hiding.

The action alarmed the blonde kunoichi, who began to approach her teammate. "Kankuro!" she exclaimed. "Are you even going to use Karasu?"

Sasuke's posture tensed immediately, and Naruto readied himself for combat.

"Kankuro, stop it," a voice suddenly intoned dryly. "You're an embarrassment to our village."

Sakura's head snapped up. She could have recognised the voice anywhere. It was deeper and smoother than she could remember—clearer without the hazy, blurry undertone of all dreams—but it was impossible to mistake.

I didn't sense him at all, she thought frantically. Why is he here?

His red hair, as messy as she could remember, fell around his half-lidded brown eyes, brushing against his cheeks. His attire—the same she had seen him wear in a number of dreams—was complimented by a large scroll strapped to his lower back, over his beige vest.

The last time they had spoken he had shown her the inner workings of one of his human puppets. Despite the brief, initial aversion his explanation had provoked, it hadn't taken long for her curiosity to win over, easily fascinating her at the thought of just how he made the chakra pathways in his puppets work.

Sasori approached them slowly, as if he had been standing behind the Suna-nin the whole time. A shorter Suna-nin with auburn hair and thick black rings around his eyes followed behind him. "Losing control of yourself in a fight, how pathetic," he said derisively. "What do you think we came to Konohagakure for?"

"Sasori," Kankuro said. His posture shrank as he visibly deflated. "Listen, they started it. I—."

Sasori didn't reply. His stare, cold and empty despite his deceptively open posture, silenced the younger boy, making him mutter a string apologies.

"We're sorry," the blonde girl said falteringly. "We didn't mean to start a fight."

"Good," Sasori said. "We didn't come here early to play around."

"We know that—."

Sakura's mouth opened with confusion. Frowning at her strange reaction, Sasuke jumped off the tree branch and rejoined his team, his eyes flicking to the partially covered scorpion on her wrist.

"Sasori?" she asked moments later. She breathed in. "I didn't know you'd be here."

The two Suna-nin turned to look at her, shocked and wide-eyed at her easy way of address. The third one observed her in silence, impassive and unfazed.

Only Naruto dared to voice his thoughts. "Sakura?" he asked. "How do you know this guy?"

Sasori's expression softened. He studied her for a heartbeat, as though trying to decide whether to not to say something, until the corners of his lips quirked up. "Sakura."

Kankuro gasped.

"I thought you said you were in a mission."

"I am," he answered. "Chunin exams. Your Jounin teacher should have already informed you."

Sakura nodded slowly. It must have been true, especially if he said as much, though she knew for a fact that he didn't have a Genin team. "Then why are you—?"

Her soulmate answered before she could finish her question. "There has been an important development. I need to inform the Hokage," he said matter-of-factly. Glancing back at the three Suna Genin, he gestured at the street they had come from. "You know what to do. I will meet with you in an hour."

The three Suna-nin nodded. The auburn-haired one turned around and began to walk away. The other two shared a brief look and followed after him.

Sasori approached her and, slowly, reached out his hand. "It's good to meet you, Sakura."

Naruto bristled. "Hey!" he shouted. Sharing a quick look with Sasuke, he turned to glare at the Jounin. "Who do you think you are?"

Sakura ignored him. Dazedly, she reached out and grabbed his hand. The warmth, far more lifelike and real than what rare touches she got of his skin in their shared dreams, soothed the nervousness the encounter had made her feel.

Before she knew it, a bright smile had grown on her face. "It is," she said, feeling herself flush.

Distantly, she heard Kakashi land near them.


A/N: First of all, thanks to everyone that read, followed, and left kudos on this story! It is very flattering to see that that the tiny idea I decided to run along with has been enjoyed by people as much as it has.

Whilst writing, I realised that, should I have wanted to, I could have very easily turned this into a fairly angsty piece involving Sasori leaving Sunagakure anyways and canon events being followed after that. I couldn't quite bring myself to explore this venue, but it's interesting to think about how that could have gone.

As it is, I consider the story to be fully finished (though I realise there is potential for one or two more scenes). I don't think I'll continue this story (in my head it's finished), but I'll likely return to writing Sasori/Sakura fairly soon.