Tobi

By Magewriter

Chapter 2: Sasori

Disclaimer: All characters and places in this story belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Well, everyone who reviewed thought this was a great story (which means that it's half-plausible and doesn't have too many typos) so special thanks to everyone who reviewed. As the chapter title says, this is from Sasori's perspective. There will be some of the same dialogue and actions, but some things will be different because it's a different person.

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Orochimaru had dragged me all the way to Konoha. I wonder why. He says it's because it's nice to see his hometown every once-in-awhile.

Who denounces their village when they still want to be there sometimes?

He spent awhile tracking people with his binoculars, telling me about which Konoha boys were cutest. I couldn't care less.

Walking back, there was a landslide. We decided to walk around it since we had plenty of time to spend getting back to the Akatsuki base.

Partway around the pile of rubble, we heard crying. Children, two of them. There was a soft voice, too.

Coming closer, we saw that there was a girl and two boys, but one of them was crushed under a rock. There would be no point in attacking them.

The girl did an eye transplant. I wasn't close enough to know why. Then she and the boy with the light grey hair left.

"Should we save him, Sasori?"

"Why?"

"He looks so helpless… Let's save him."

"He could become a nuisance."

"If he's annoying, we can just make him forget us and send him back. Or we could kill him. It would be good practice with your synthetics, too – it doesn't look like the girl gave him a left eye after she took it out."

It wouldn't be worthwhile if not for that; I'm always trying to improve my synthetic parts, especially with humans. Puppets just aren't the same…

We shoved the rock off of him. His left side was bloody, but then, it had been crushed by the giant rock that had landed on top of him. He was unconscious by the time we got there. Orochimaru gave him a little bit of chakra to keep him alive and we took him back to the Akatsuki base.

"Kakuzu! Kiyo! Chedo! Rei! …We brought someone home with us!"

Kiyo came bounding down to the front door, Chedo following close behind. "Orochimaru! Sasori! We weren't expecting you home for a few more hours! Oh, my gosh! What did you do to that cute little boy?!"

"If we had done this to him, do you think we would have let him live? He's going to be one of Sasori's experiments."

"Sasori? Are you going to hurt him, Sasori? …Because then I would have to hurt you."

"I'm going to give him a left eye and make any other necessary repairs. If things don't work out so well, who knows? If he dies, I could cut him up and test my poisons on him, but I doubt that he's going to die."

She hit me on the head with that stupid granite stick of hers. "If you can't honor the dead or the near-dead, I don't think you have the right to kill!"

"It would be honoring him. He would be fulfilling his duty to me as an experiment piece and be useful even after he was alive."

"How can you be so heartless?"

"I took it out when I made myself into a puppet and gave it to Kakuzu. Now I have rechargeable batteries."

Kiyo glared at me and ran back up the stairs. Orochimaru handed the boy to me and I took him upstairs. I bandaged some of him, but it's hard to work with someone who can't even sit up on their own.

I had dinner with the Akatsuki and went back to my room. It occurred to me that Rei hadn't come out of his room at all. He was here before me, so by the time I got here, he had claimed the attic for his room.

I stayed up reading a new book I had gotten, written by one of Orochimaru's former teammates from Konoha. It included several off-color jokes, and it was generally in bad taste, but it was actually pretty funny. Then, the boy woke up. I could tell because he moved a bit.

"You've been out for a few days. You're lucky Orochimaru found you; with a little bit of alteration, you should be okay."

He opened the left side of his mouth. Some of his blood had dried over the right side, but I wasn't going to mess with that just yet. "Hhh.."

"Oh. Don't try to talk. With the right side of your face deformed like that, it probably won't work very well. Luckily, I'm the master of synthetics. I even managed to make myself into a synthetic being."

His right eye shuts tighter and he yells, "Mmmph!!!" He seems to be afraid of me for some reason.

I laughed. "Don't be afraid; once I'm finished working on you, you'll be fine. Should I start with the eyes? You seem to have lost one."

"Mmh?" He's intelligent; using tones to communicate wouldn't occur to just anyone.

"You lost your left eye. Or didn't you notice? I should have one – two, actually – in about your size. It's always better to make it a little too small rather than too large if you aren't sure." If it's too big, your eye socket has to stretch. If the eye is a little loose, at least the tissue around the eye can fill in the gaps.

I opened the drawer of small things, such as eyes, small joints, teeth, and nails. Puppets are so easy to make when everything fits together… I take out the eye box and turn on a lamp so that I can see better. Suddenly, I realize that I should probably explain all of this to the boy. "This is the eye box… If you're making puppets, you need proper eyes. I make them so that they assemble and work with different functions." I have slitted pupils, like Oro's, square pupils, like a goat's, and round pupils. Pupils and irises are made in different sizes and are flexible enough to fit directly onto the eye. I also have nets that imitate rods and cones.

I rub some hand sanitizer onto my hands and hold up several eyeball bases, finally deciding that his eyes are size 8. I ask him to open his right eye so that I can match up the color.

It's a sharingan.

"Oh, an Uchiha from Konoha! That should come in handy. I'll have to tell Oro."

"What color should I make your eye…? Brown? Brown would work well. Do you have any objection to brown?"

He shook his head. It was barely noticeable, but he did it. I attach the human-level rod-and-cone net, a brown iris, and a human-sized, round pupil. "Okay, here we go… Everything I'm working with is completely sterile, okay? Now, this is going to hurt, but it won't get infected. I want to make sure you know that before I do anything on your face."

He grunted a bit.

"Now, I will warn you. This is going to hurt. It's going to hurt a whole lot. And it should keep hurting – not too much mind – for the next few weeks. It takes time for your body to adjust to these things. And I'm really sorry, but I can't use anesthesia because I'm working with your head and it has to do with the way that your brain functions. So, you're going to feel me putting this into your eye socket, and it's okay to scream or whatever else, just please try not to shake your head too much because that would mess up the eye."

I carefully opened his eyelids, then pushed the eyeball in. As I closed the lids, he screamed. I knew that his eyes would start to tear up in a few seconds; if they didn't, there would be strong. Tears are the body's way to get rid of impurities, such as dust, dirt, or a large foreign body the size of an eyeball. They also express pain, either mental or physical. The boy was definitely in a large amount of physical pain.

His left side, meanwhile, curled as much into a ball as it could. Then he started biting his left knuckle to try to focus on another part of himself that was in pain.

I couldn't let him do that. As he was my project, I didn't want him to be damaged any more than he had to be.

I put a block of wood in his mouth instead.

After I did this, he started to sob very loudly. Everyone would have been awake at that point, so this would only keep them up.

My door opened and Kiyo ran in. Trust her to care enough to come in here… she put her hand on his shoulder, murmuring to him. As he calmed, I could hear the pet names she called him.

Finally, he was okay. Well, not entirely okay – his eye socket was probably stinging horribly – but he wasn't sobbing like before and I would be able to read my book in peace.

Kiyo looked up at me. "He should be okay. Oro-san will probably be mad at you for waking everyone up at two in the morning. But the boy will be fine. Don't do anything else to him for awhile, though."

"Who's the expert again?" I felt insulted.

"I know. But I'm talking about emotional stress, not physical. Don't mess with his mind, okay, Sasori?"

"I know, I know. His body needs time to adjust to something like that. What should I do next?"

"Maybe the face. He seems really sweet… I'd like to know what he's saying. Plus, if he screams again, maybe it won't hurt so much." She bent down so that she was closer to the boy. "Are you okay?"

He nodded slightly and I'm pretty sure I saw him smile a bit.

Kiyo smiled. "Okay. Trust me – you'll feel better soon. Sasori's synthetic parts are the best in existence. Maybe it would be better if you got some sleep now. Sasori? Can you give him something to knock him out for awhile?"

"No, I need his brain to function normally so that it can connect to his eye."

She faced the boy again. "Well, just… try to fall asleep, okay?"

"Mmh."

"Okay. G'night, Sasori. I know you're not entirely human, but your consciousness needs to rest too, so you should sleep or turn off or whatever it is you do sometime soon. Little boy, just do your best… I hope you like it here."

He smiled again. His eyes were still teary, but he didn't seem too upset. I picked him up and he looked startled, but he relaxed again when I put him down on the futon I had dragged down the hallway for him earlier that day. He fell asleep sometime before three, when I decided to shut down for a few hours. I plugged myself into the wall so that my batteries could power up. I tend to not work very well if I'm functioning while I recharge.

.-..-..-.

The next morning, I got up and had some rice with something left over from the night before. I never function very well after a recharge session; my body needs to get used to being active again. Fortunately, Orochimaru checks on me every morning to see if I've turned myself off. He knows how to turn me back on.

As I walked back to my room, I heard Chedo's voice coming from inside. Stupid fire-elemental, thinking that just because he can make a few good sparks, he can go into my room whenever he wants…

"Chedo, get out of my room!"

He scurried out of my room. He glanced at me as he passed, then locked himself into his room. I heard the latch as I walked into my room.

"That was Chedone. He's annoying, nothing more. Look out for his fire jutsu, though – he's really good at them. He has amazing control over fire. He does a bit with explosives, but mostly he uses fire. It's annoying, though – I use puppets and he uses fire. He seems to be immune to it…" Stupid fire-elemental, always singing my puppets…

There is a universal rule that, when one annoying thing happens, more annoying things are going to happen until you can't stand it anymore. In this case, Kiyo came. "Hey, Sasori! I brought the kid some food and stuff. Can he sit up?"

"Anyone can sit up if they're propped up enough." You brought the food, now get out of my room.

Of course, she's long since taught herself to ignore me when I'm mad at her. She crouched next to the boy. "Sweetness, do you think you can eat or drink something?" What is it with her and pet names?

"Mmh!" His head bobbed up and down a bit.

"Okay. If I'm hurting you, just tell me. I'm going to help you sit up."

She propped him against the wall and tipped the water into his mouth. He looked content, which was surprising considering that he was completely helpless.

She looked up at me in that cutesy manner of hers. It's so stupid, acting like a little kid. She can't seem to comprehend that it doesn't affect me. "Sasori, you really should work on his face next. He's too cute to be left like this – you can tell from the left side of his face." She turned around, probably smiling at the boy.

"Give his eye time to adjust. I'm not going to do anything else on his head for awhile, either."

"Okay... Hey, sweetness, do you think you can eat rice and fish?"

"Mmh." He tried to pick up his chopsticks with his left hand.

"Oh, no, don't do that. You can't even hold them right. Why not his arm, Sasori?"

"I'll see what needs to be done." Now, feed him or get out of my room.

"Okay. You'll have everything back soon, sweetness. Don't worry."

As she fed him the rice and fish that she had brought, I inspected the left side of his body for breaks and other problems beside scarring. By the time he was done eating, I had found that no part of him had any really bad damage; he would be able to heal relatively easily. I kicked Kiyo out.

Now, I picked him up and put him back on my worktable. "Okay. Now, do you want me to work on your face?"

"Mmh." He nodded.

I wasn't that happy, but I knew that it had to be done sometime. I got a pair of latex gloves from my safety equipment drawer. "Okay. Now, I'm going to have to put my hand in your mouth because that's the best way to tell where your mouth ends, but trust me, I'm just as disturbed by this as you are. This never leaves this room, okay?"

"Mmh." He nodded. Well, he wouldn't be talking correctly for awhile, anyway…

I got a permanent marker and uncapped it. I stuck my latex-coated finger into his mouth, found the edge of it, poked it out, and marked it. Then I got my hand the heck out of there.

I got a piece of cloth from my cloth shelf and wet it. I put it over the scabbing on his mouth. "Okay. Let's let that soak in… It's been really interesting having you in here. This has been the first time I've ever worked with a live human subject beside myself." He gave me a death glare. I smiled. It was funny.

After I judged that the scabbing had softened enough that I wouldn't hurt him by chipping it away, I took it off of his mouth (it had absorbed a bit of dried blood, but not a significant amount) and covered his eyes with a dark, thick piece of cloth that I folded over a few times. If he knew I was going to use a scalpel on his face, he would probably panic. "This shouldn't hurt, at least not much. If it does, tell me. You'd only get freaked out if you saw what I was doing."

I knew that he was glaring at me through the cloth, so I smiled mirthfully as I chipped away at the dried blood over his mouth. When I got down to the skin, I took the wet cloth, cleaned up the flakes of dried blood that had fallen onto his mouth, and put it back to soften the skin there. There was no reason not to make this particular procedure more painful than it had to be.

I shuffled around in my chemical drawer. Way in the back was a local anesthetic. All of the containers were completely airtight so that evaporated bits of poison wouldn't make the other Akatsuki members sick, so the local was perfectly good for use on humans.

"Okay. Now, this part might hurt a bit. Feel free to scream or do whatever it is you do. Your lips are pretty stuck together at this point. I'm going to put on the local now. Don't lick it, okay? Once your mouth starts to feel fuzzy, then you can lick it. It's amazing stuff – it feels awesome." I remember that from when I was human… some things from back then were actually pretty nice.

I waited a few minutes, making it through two pages of my book.

"Feel it yet?"

He nodded. He still isn't too good at controlling his head, but on the positive side, he can only get better.

"Good." The black cloth was still over his head. I took two pairs of very large, blunt-ended pliars, then remembered that I should ask him how he wanted it done.

"Wait, do you want me to do this slowly or quickly?" I suddenly realized that he was unable to talk. "Say something if you want me to do it slowly." No response. "Say something if you want me to do this quickly." He grunted. "Okay, then…" I took the pliars, grasped his lips firmly, and pulled.

His left hand went straight to his mouth and he muffled a scream.

"It's okay. Say whatever you want. Everyone's awake now, and since they all know what I'm doing, you can scream if you want to."

He tried to talk, but he had very loose control of his mouth, if any.

"Oh, you're ambitious. Well, don't be too disappointed if talking doesn't work the first time; it takes time to readjust. Your face is messed up, too, which would definitely make it harder. If you're interested, I found you some clean clothes. Those ones have a bunch of blood on them… Those goggles you used to wear were stained, too. I have them, if you want, but they're ugly now." I produced them from my everything-drawer. He looked confused, but he took them

"Thank you, Sasori-san." At least, I think that's what he said. His speech is horribly slurred.

"I figured you'd want them. Say, do you have a name?" Then I wouldn't have to refer to you as "the little boy."

"I… I don't remember. I don't remember anything…"

"Really? That's too bad. Can you remember any of the syllables?"

"There was an 'o'… No, a 'to'… and a 'bi.' I… I think there were three syllables, but it could just be my imagination."

"Bito? Bitobi? Tobito? Totobi? Oh! I know! You must have been Tobi!"

"It sounds… familiar…"

"Okay. Well, whatever you were before, you seem to be Tobi now, so that's who you'll be. You honestly can't remember anything?"

"No, nothing…. Nothing at all…"

"Too bad. Ah, well. You shouldn't need your memory here, as long as you have decent skills… what can you do, anyway?"

"So far, I talk."

"And you crack jokes. Well, let's just see what Oro do with you once he gets his hands on you."

"Oro?"

"Yeah, remember? Orochimaru? He's the one who saved you. He looks sort of weird, though – he's half snake, so he has almost-white skin and purple marks on his face, and his eyes have vertically slitted pupils. And he has a really long tongue. Not all of us look as normal as Kiyo, Chedo, and myself."

"Um… what should I be prepared for?"

"Well, Orochimaru's tongue can be very long sometimes, so look out for that – he's gay, too – and Kisame is part shark, so he has blue skin and gills. Kakuzu is very loosely sewn together, has five hearts, and is… well, sort of creepy, but he's been living for over a century so we all respect him. Rei isn't very social, so you probably won't see him much. We still need a bunch of other members – we only have six."

"Um… okay…"

"Don't worry. You'll get used to it eventually."

"How long is 'eventually'?"

"I don't know. It depends on you."

"Wait a minute – how many girls are there?" What kind of question is that? He sounds like the author of the book I'm reading!

"Oh, so he's a pervert, now, is he?"

"No. I was just thinking – is Kiyo the only girl here?"

"Oh, don't worry about her. She more than makes up for that. A tip for staying… uh… normal: don't cross Kiyo. She gets demonic when she's mad and trust me, when she's mad, she will not hesitate to kick you."

"You mean…?"

"Yes. As I said, she's dangerous. Once, she –"

My door was mercilessly flung open and Kiyo stood in it, smiling evilly. "Oh, you mean the time with Chedo? That was hilarious! I mean, he was writhing in pain, but the rest of you…! Oh, man, you should have seen their faces, luvvy, it was hilarious!"

"His name is Tobi now."

"Oh? It suits him. 'Tobi.' You sure that was his name before?"

"Close enough." Get the heck out of my room, Kiyo.

"Well, I'll tell everyone. They've been calling you some pretty nasty names out there, Tobi."

"I can imagine."

"Not unless you know us, you don't. Did you tell him about us, Sasori?"

"Not yet."

"Okay. Tobi, there's something you need to know. Every person in this house – apart from you, of course – is an S-rank villain. We kill, injure, all that stuff, to achieve our goal of someday ruling the world. We're the freaks and the emo-kids – heck, with Oro as our leader, how could we not be weird?"

"Who is Orochimaru? You haven't told me very much about him!"

Her expression changed and she began to speak in a very manner-of-fact manner, as if she had been through this several times before. "Orochimaru is the leader of our organization – we call it the 'Akatsuki' – and he's part snake. He once did a forbidden jutsu, so now he can transfer his consciousness from one body to another. He's also sorta pervy – Chedo told me about some abuse he took once – so look out for him. And his tongue. It can stretch meters long and he has the ability to pick people up with it. And, I wouldn't argue with him if I were you because he's powerful enough to lead the Akatsuki."

"I'm afraid of this place now…"

"It's okay; he shouldn't be too interested in you. Unless he's one of those people who's into mismatched eyes… You shouldn't have any problems until your face heals, though."

"You don't have to be so mean…"

"I'm an S-class murderer, Tobi; I don't have to be nice."

"True."

"Kiyo, get out of my room. Who told you could come in in the first place?"

"No one. But I can tell when you're talking about me."

"No, you can't. That just means that you were practicing genjutsu in the hall and hoping that someone would help you with it because everyone knows you're hopeless with illusions and you happened to overhear us talking."

"Yeah. But it still means I was on this floor, which means that I knew something was going to happen up here."

"No, it means you wanted Chedo or Rei to help you because only Oro and Kakuzu are downstairs and Oro doesn't care about you because you're a woman."

"Shut up! At least I'm never going to be abused by him. You know women are better, anyway."

"It depends on your point of view. Now, get out of my room."

She glared at me in that unsustainably angry way that she has, but didn't close my door, so I had to do that.

.-..-..-.

I've been working on a mask with Tobi. I put mesh in front of the eyes so that, if anyone should have a grudge against Uchihas, he'll be okay. Other than that, it's just a plain wooden mask, painted black and red, with strips of cloth around the back of the head. He seemed really happy when I gave it to him, along with a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of gloves.

Tobi's scars have been healing very nicely. Of course, he's very heavily scarred, but he can use chopsticks again. He isn't very good with them, but then, his arm hasn't completely healed yet.

Today, he told me what he thought of Orochimaru. He's afraid of sky-sama, which isn't good because, technically, he's Orochimaru's servant, to do with as he wills.

Also, he can see color through his left eye. He saw the red on the inside of my Akatsuki cloak. Considering that he's only had the synthetic in for a few days, that's wonderful. He should be able to see relatively well in not-too-long.

.-..-..-.

It's been two weeks since Tobi got his synthetic eye in, he can read normal text through it, and his scabs are healed. Today, he goes to Orochimaru. I signaled this to him by putting his futon outside of my room while he was eating lunch. I ignored him when he asked me why. He isn't in my care anymore, so why should I give him more than the necessary amount of attention.

I feel sorry for him, though. I mean, living in that tiny room, and right next to Orochimaru! I can barely put up with Sky-sama during missions! I can't even begin to imagine living in his room… Tobi's room will probably smell like snake, too.

Oro's shedding cycle is happening about now, isn't it? Poor Tobi… Well, at least Orochimaru gets hungry after he sheds. He shouldn't be functional for a few weeks after he eats.

.-..-..-.

Tobi is chunin-level. So much for getting a new member… Kiyo is helping him with his attacks, though. She would probably get Rei to do it, but I can't imagine Rei teaching anyone at Tobi's level anything without accidentally hurting them. He should be a decent fighter in a few years, give or take… it would actually be nice if he made it into the Akatsuki. That would prove that my synthetics are functional enough that I can experiment on someone and they can surpass jonin-level skills.

.-..-..-.

Chedo came home one day and reported that Kiyo was dead. So, we had to find her replacement because an evil organization with less than five people is pathetic and any one of us could get knocked off at any time. Tobi isn't strong enough yet.

A few months later, Zetsu came to us. Zetsu are odd, to say the least. One side is very dark green, one side very light green, with green hair and yellow eyes which have no pupils. They took the room directly across from Orochimaru's. Obviously, people had to be rearranged. Chedo is still the weakest of us, so obviously he can't fight alone.

Orochimaru has repaired himself with Rei-san to create an elite pair. I have been paired with Zetsu, which suits me very well because he works with plants and I work with puppets. Our styles don't conflict at all. Kakuzu has been paired with Chedone. Poor Kakuzu… he'd better look out for his limbs from now on.

I'm not paired with Orochimaru anymore.

You cannot begin, if you have never spent more than a day with him, to understand how happy this makes me. No more Orochimaru hitting on me, no more Orochimaru using my chakra strings as target practice for his tongue, and no more wondering if Orochimaru wants me as his next body. He might want Rei, but it's Zero-san who has to put up with the abuse now. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.

.-..-..-.

Chedo is dead, so this calls for another reorg. However, we now have more members: Hidan, who doesn't die; Deidara, an annoying sculptor who doesn't understand art; Nameless, who we know nothing about except that he hits on people as much as Orochimaru and is almost as strong as Rei, who is second only to Oro; and finally Kisame, who is half shark and has blue skin.

Oro and Rei are still paired together. Kisame has been paired with Nameless. Zetsu has been paired with Zetsu. I am paired with Deidara.

I despise the twerp for all he's worth.

This gives us nine members. To join the Akatsuki, you need an Akatsuki membership ring. There are ten rings. This means that Tobi has the potential to join the Akatsuki; however, that would mean that he would have to advance greatly in his fighting abilities. It's been over ten years now, so I don't think he really wants to be a member as much as he used to. I can understand that; Orochimaru does that to people.

Deidara, though. He uses powdered clay in his attacks. He moistens it with the mouths located on the palms of his hands – I would love to know how that works – and molds it into animals. Usually, he makes birds, and he can use ninjutsu to make them bigger (this provides a very convenient form of travel) but his views of art are all wrong. He believes it to be impermanent and all-consuming.

If not for great masterpieces, how would we even acknowledge art?

.-..-..-.

Tobi no longer has any chance of becoming Akatsuki.

Some kid killed off his clan, and considering that he defeated all of the Uchihas (except for Tobi, but that's a secret) he's very powerful. And very emo, but that's entirely beside the point. Orochimaru judged him worthy, so he's an Akatsuki member now. He's paired with Kisame now and White-san is paired with Zetsu. Unfortunately, I'm still paired with the long-haired idiot. Sometime, I should mix clay into his food. It would be very amusing if he were to blow up.

I made a new mask for Tobi; his old one is looking pretty beat-up. He says he likes orange, so it's an orange spiral, focused around the right eye. His right eye is more important, anyway – it's a sharingan, and his other eye is synthetic. The mask also has a cloth piece which covers his neck and the back of his head. He seems to like it.

.-..-..-.

Orochimaru has left, taking his ring with him. Rei is now leader, Zetsu have taken over Orochimaru's room (this means that the front hall doesn't smell bad anymore) and Tobi is now Zetsu's servant. He seems happy with that; I bet he would be grateful for anything after Orochimaru. At least Zetsu only joke. Their jokes are about eating humans, too, so Tobi has nothing to worry about.

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Sasori. Isn't it hilarious?

Next is Oro. Or Kiyo. Whoever I decide on. Kiyo has some interesting conversations with Sasori, doesn't she?

I love the "rechargeable batteries" line. Can't you just see that in your head?

Vote now! Do you want to see Kiyo or Orochimaru as the next chapter's focus?

It's so fun doing this type of fanfiction. You just copy-paste the conversations and you don't need to make up very much dialogue!