Authors Note: I started this a long time ago as a one shot, and to get these nasty images out of my head. Because of college, things have been difficult and I have been unable to continue the story. For this, I apologize. I now have the rest of the plot figured out, and so I'm going to try harder to continue this.

Several things encouraged me to write this. It was a mix of the recent rush of reviews and Sasori finally appearing in the anime. The last thing was what convinced me to complete the chapter and post it. It was a small fanart done by Gigi for the Flower Puppet. I have never received fanart before, and I was truly touched. Thank you Gig, for you have inspired me to complete this story. There will be much more to come after this!

The main purpose of this chapter is to set up Sasoris way of thinking, so that he doesn't just show up one day and say "I'M OBSESSED WITH YOU SAKURA! KIDNAP NO-JUTSU!" And Also, I wanted some GaaSaku. There will be more of that, as well as KankSaku in the next chapter.

As for the disclaimer, I don't own Naruto, but I do own the story. Enjoy!

I picture your face in the back of my eyes,

a fire in the attic a proof of prize

Incubus

To Sasori no Akasuna, humans were flawed down to their very last detail. It was something that he learned from a very early age. It was just that simple. Humans had ridiculous emotions, they had spongy and stinky skin, and they died all too quickly.

Yes…they died entirely too quickly.

He hated to think of when he first realized the fact. How young was he when he realized how perfect the world would be if they were all puppets of a more powerful benevolent force? His parents, for instance, had their youth and power preserved for all eternity due to his benevolence. Love was permanently etched into their eyes, and he would forever be in their embrace.

He was so young when his own teammates had perished in a pointless shinobi war. If shinobi were to be tools, then why not have the physics of tools? Why couldn't wars be fought by real tools? Humans were so unrelenting and cruel.

He decided to become the perfect shinobi, a tool that could not feel love, get hurt, or die. Powerful, unfeeling, emotionless. He would live for eternity in the heat of battle.

He quickly found his way into the Akatsuki. They had a perfect goal: power, no matter the cost. His partner was a man who shared his ambitions; Orochimaru, a former student of the Fire Country's Third Hokage. They would have never called each other friends, but they did have a silent respect for one another. They both shared the ideal of an eternity fighting battles with boundless knowledge and power. But the man was a fool. He had no concept of art and beauty, only the end goal. While humans were flawed, beasts were flawed even moreso. His association with snakes was ghastly, even for Sasori's eyes. Nevertheless, he had put up with it until he was betrayed.

Together, they had worked towards their goal of immortality. Sasori never agreed with Orochimaru's methods of using the elements of a shedding snake towards preserving the skin tissue, while Orochimaru never agreed with treating the skin with burning chemicals and wood byproducts. And yet they both agreed on the importance of preserving their youth.

A problem Sasori had come across, once he had replaced each and every part of his body with wood was that certain parts would have to be kept with human flesh, even if every other part underneath it was false. For instance, his hands would have to have to remain in a human like form, even though his bones, most nerves, and some muscles were gone. After all, the slightest kink or splinter in a wooden finger could hinder the movements of many puppets at his disposal. His facial muscles and outer skin was also mostly human as well, lest his speech be hindered.

He needed his heart, and his brain, to produce chakra and his knowledge. His eyes and ears were left in function, as they were essential to any ninja. While he was not all puppet, he was a wonderful living puppet. And, after many years, he discovered a wonderful jutsu that would constantly refresh and regenerate skin cells. And Orochimaru had stolen it. He used it to fuel extra external skin to "shed". His lifes work was stolen and squandered by a fool who could not understand anything. But Sasori was a puppetmaster. It wasn't long before he pulled the right strings, and the Akatsuki turned on Orochimaru.

It was his weak human parts that had betrayed him in the end. Years had passed since they cast out Orochimaru, and they planned a new attack on the jinchuuriki of his homeland, Sunagure's own Kazekage. Everything had gone perfectly, until he was scouting ahead and saw them.

He was up for a challenge to fend off the Kazekage's would be rescuers. He had expected highly specialized ninja squads, the best of the best. He was not expecting to face his grandmother and a young pink haired girl who was pursuing his old teammate, and Itachi's younger brother.

Sasori had seen a woman fighting for the honor of a loved one. Many respectable kunoichi had sought to kill him after the murder of their fathers, husbands, brothers, or lovers. But something about her mannerisms made him believe that even though she claimed to be fighting for the younger Uchiha, the Kazekage, and information on Orochimaru, she was really fighting for herself. She was fighting to prove something to her own self rather than another. This was new, especially in such a young thing.

As the battle progressed, he became more and more aware of how skilled she was. His grandmother, the old bird, had sensed that special something in her too. During the fight, they both looked out for each other, and the kunoichi let her emotions run high and deep into the fight. She was so inexperienced, so what had possessed his grandmother, a shrewd and tough woman, to ruin her best puppets, her children, to protect the petal haired shinobi? An old voice rang in his head that he had not heard in years. 'Isn't it odd?' it asked, 'That the beings that share your blood are protecting the inexperienced kunoichi at their own risk?'

There were two anomalies in the equation, he observed. There was he, the one who had the genetics, but no real blood to speak of. He was not the protector. He was the aggressor. And then there was her, the only one in the cave who did not share the thin threadlike bonds of family. Anomalies in equations had two purposes; to be factored out, or to be altered so that the equation was balanced. The anomaly known as Haruno Sakura absolutely refused to be factored out. What's more is that the protection of his grandmother had spoken volumes. At some point in the battle, something had clicked in the calculating Sasori's mind. The kunoichi was not meant to be factored out. The only way to balance the equation was to make her one of the Red Sand.

He knew that she would not give up until somebody was dead, and so he provided her that. Shortly near the end, he replaced his body with a completely wooden one and controlled it from a distance, and cut the strings when his parents had pierced his "heart". In her weakness, Sakura did not notice his ventriloquism act, and truly believed that he himself was dead as he spoke his last words. He never did get to find out if his Grandmother believed he was dead or not. Sasori left after Sakura did, in order to recover, lest the rest of her team sense his presence.

He had learned from Deidara's birds how his grandmother died. If he had the ability, he wondered if he would have mourned. He felt respect for the old woman, his teacher and mentor. This was the reason he told himself when he found himself at her grave a few weeks after the incident. He sensed another presence, and he quickly hid himself into the cliff the graves were against.

Sasori never found himself surprised by the actions of humans. But this was certainly different. It was the young kunoichi who he had battled before, accompanied by the Kazekage himself. They were chatting quite comfortably, and for some reason that evoked something in Sasori that he had not had in years. Irrationality.

"When we were children, my brother called her a witch." Gaara said, placing a boquet on her grave. "I never knew that she was the one who helped create the monster I am."

"You are not a monster. And Chiyo-baasama felt regret for what she did. She told me that before she died." Sakura said as she placed a flower arrangement of her own on the grave. She didn't notice how Gaara looked intently at her as she did this, but Sasori did. Sasori felt a strange rush of calculations going through his mind. He also felt an unfamiliar sudden wave of heat crashing over his eyes. After Sakura had placed the flowers on Chiyos grave was done, she bowed her head to offer a silent prayer with Gaara following her lead.

After they were done, a silence was born between the two. Through Sasori's point of view, their silence did not appear uncomfortable as it should have been in such situations.

"They said she was a rival of the Fifth Hokage, your master, correct? Temari-san said that even she was impressed by your skills with medicine."

Sakura seemed to be a little bit taken aback by Gaara's offhand compliment. She only smiled warmly. The concept that he was making an effort to socialize was not lost on Sakura. "Yes. I'm just glad I could be useful this time." A familiar feeling of adness and ueselessness washed over her. If she was a better shinobi, maybe they would not be standing over Chiyo-baasamas grave.

"Stop." Gaara cut her off immediately. Sakura silenced herself and realized she was sounding quite pathetic at that moment. There was another brief period of silence before she spoke again.

"Ne, Gaara-san…I heard something a long time ago. About how the children of Suna were raised." Gaara and Sasori both noticed at the same time that her eyes were on an unmarked ill-taken care of grave. The word "Sasori" was brutally carved into rock, as though merely writing the name was a burden on the carver. There was a pause, as though Sakura was expecting Gaara to say something to refute the unspoken rumor. The uncomfortable silence urged Sakura to speak more.

"That, the children of Suna were raised harshly…."

There was still silence. Surely the Kazekage would not speak to her about his childhood. That was too…intimate. "Well, then…"

"He didn't."

The remark from the silent Kazekage shocked Sakura, and she did a stumbled over her words as she tried to respond. After a second, she finally managed to stammer out, "What do you mean?"

"The children here, they just didn't have their parents."

Sakura thought back to the battle with Sasori. Chiyos puppets looked like Sasori. She heard him say that they were his parents. 'But they were so young!' She thought, 'How old was Sasori when they died? He must have been a child.'

"It's not fair to anybody, when mothers and fathers are taken away from their children." Sakura said wistfully as she took one of the flowers off of Chiyos grave and held it in her hand.

"If Naruto…and Sasuke…and you, Kazekage-sama, and even Sasori, had grown up with their mothers and fathers…do you think that things would be different?" she asked. Her voice sounded more like she was talking to herself and not really expecting an answer.

"Death is the way of the ninja." Gaara stated simply. "We have to learn to accept that."

Sakura stood silently, as though she herself was trying to accept that simple statement. "But can you ask a small child without parents to accept that? It's not fair." She said sadly as she placed a flower on Sasori's grave. From his position, Sasori's eyes widened. He had never expected anybody to lay a flower on his grave.

After that, Sasori of the Red Sand became entranced. He became curious of the girl who would dare to lay a flower on his grave. He had followed her back to Konoha and used all of his skills to learn everything about her. It was actually a leisure activity, and Deidara had noticed that information gathering certainly did more to his mood than to sit in his room with his puppets and sulk.

In actuality, Deidara had become interested as well. The artist became curious of the Haruno girl for a number of reasons. The first reason was that she was alive and still held Sasori's interest. Deidara had previously wondered if Sasori was a necrophiliac, since the only time he ever looked at anything remotely female with such intensity was when it was cold and unmoving. Deidara on the other hand, preferred his women like his art. Instead of being observed, admired, and preserved, a woman was more beautiful when her warm lithe body is writhing under him until she peaks, and that brief second where she realizes what has happened, when her eyelids flutter with fright and wonder, her toes curl, her face blooms…that was that single fleeting moment when a woman was truly beautiful. While Sasori wanted Sakura preserved and admired for all eternity, Deidara didn't mind the idea of catching the interesting girl off guard and whisking her away so that he could catch her one fleeting moment of true beauty, and then another, and then another, and then another.

Sasori knew his partner too well. That was why he had kidnapped the kunoichi himself when she was training. A simple sleeping powder was all it took, and she was his. And even after he released his stringless puppet, he couldn't help but watch her. Which was where he stood now.

He had watched her carefully place traps of all sorts everywhere she could so that she could enjoy a moments rest. How quickly he forgot that humans needed rest and privacy. By all rights and decency, he should have looked away. Alas, his partner left his side to take a better look. Sasori would have sighed, if he was human. An old voice in his head resonated, 'You have to learn to share your toys, or you'll never make friends…'

'With friends like this….'

And so he had stepped out of his hiding spot and announced his presence to his stringless puppet. Across the river, he noticed Deidara following suit. Her dripping wet body emerged from the water. Not wanting Deidara to see more than he already had, he offered Sakura the towel that was waiting for her at the riverbank.

"Why are you here?" she demanded after she reached for the towel. She grasped it and attempted to pull it from his grip. Sasori suddenly yanked the towel torwards him, and Sakura stumbled forward into his arms. He quickly wrapped the towel around her body, pinning her arms to her sides. She turned her body away from him, and Sasori leaned down and whispered into her ear.

"Sakura-chan, you know how I hate making people wait. I think I might just take you back with me now." He reached up his hand and jerked her face towards his. A second later, instead of the beautiful shimmering Sakura in his arms, there was a log. If Sasori had less manners, he would have definitely swore at how easily she had done the body replacement jutsu.

The missing-nin quickly located her chakra and found the shadow of her nude form in the trees. "Go away, Sasori. My friends are expecting me."

Sasori was so frustrated by the little imps trickery that he hadn't noticed that Deidara was at his side. Before Sasori could ask what his partner was doing, Deidara snatched the towel from Sasoris hand and waved in the direction her voice came from.

"You still need your towel, un! Yea, come and get it or your friends will think that something is wrong."

Sasori suddenly felt a very large recognizable chakra surge come from the trees, and he immediately moved away in time to dodge a very large tree trunk that landed where Deidara was standing one millisecond before.

There was only a breif glimpse of Sakuras nude form before she wrenched the towel from Deidaras hand. There was a tense moment, and Sakura opened her mouth to say something when Narutos voice rang from the woods.

"Oi, Sakura! Are you done yet?"

With each word, it was obvious Naruto was getting closer. Sakura turned to the two Akatsuki only to find that they had dissapeared.

"I'm done Naruto!" she called back, grateful that she and Naruto had agreed to call after each other if they were gone for more than fifteen minutes. She leapt across the river and rushed back to camp. There were many things to be done.