Work Text:
Sasori’s heart hurts. The things he adores, he wants to save from rot. Not the thing he adores, the one he adores.
The Third has caught his eye. He’s always caught his eye. He, with his smooth, captivating features and a cut to his jaw that Sasori, as a young Sunan shinobi, cannot take his eyes off of. Not only his features, but his power. His unattainability. He is everything Sasori wishes for and cannot have, but he’s never understood the word ‘no.’ His parents may have expired prematurely, but he’s been spoiled ever since. Not in affection, but objects.
His world goes into his puppets and these days anything he wants, he takes. He’s given poisons, stolen the bodies of his expired cell mates, gifted with weapons he’s only before dreamt of. None of it is enough. He’ s greedy. And picky.
Taking down The Third means reigning as the god of his own world. A world where he’s free to cast judgment upon his subjects. His mentor will be by his side, permanently. Like his friend and like his parents were supposed to be. No other way has he learned to build his relationships. He’d always wondered what it would take to attain immortal life and it’s a blessing he’s been able to bestow upon his possessions, but never upon himself.
He doesn’t want to admit he doesn’t know how to.
Komushi had been the first and without a kekkai genkai, the transformation had been simple. The village mourned his death and Sasori had tried to help. To breathe in new life in place of decay. Chiyo had shown horror at the display, but isn’t it this what the poor boy’s mother had asked for? She wanted her son back and to have a child that’s never meant to die. He was her world, he was her everything and without him, there’s no way for her to go on.
Sasori hadn’t understood her tears. What is she doing? Is all he could think as she sobbed before him, red faced and runny nosed. She begged Sasori for her world back and it’s something he believed he could deliver.
Chiyo confiscated the puppet and stowed it away. The fewer people to hear about it, the better. In place of Komushi’s body is an urn filled with dust. What his mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her. The confiscation had burned anger alive in the back of his throat. Nobody understands.
His old acquaintance has eternal life before him.
Anger had been replaced with giddiness, though, once he realized what had happened. He’d done it. Taken the first step towards his dream and towards an arsenal no man will be able to stand against. Komushi was a test. And he had worked.
The Third is the end goal. Sasori wants to be the divine, the big hitter, the king of a land of sand and rot that’s done him no good. He faces either divinity, or death. In his dark studio, lit only by dingy candle light, he packs his poisons. All he needs is one cut, but one cut has been almost impossible to land on his mentor in years. The magnetic sand has a mind of its own and The Third wields it with a breathtaking mastery.
Sasori doesn’t understand such grace and wants to study it down to the bone.
He blows out his candle. It’s getting late.
Sasori fights for his life because he knows here, there can only be one victor. They fight on the outskirts of the village, far from the sights of the night watchers. He tries to let his puppets do the work, but up against The Third, he knows that won’t be enough. Like his puppets, his mentor wields his sand flawlessly.
A blade made of iron sand pierces Sasori the same time his blade pierces the Kazekage. The poison on the tip of it is one without a cure. The same that’d taken his ‘friend’ down.
Poison hits The Third’s nervous system fast, twitching his limbs out of control. His face contorts and his body starts to curl in on itself. He wants to watch this one turn into art. To die. They’d been foolish enough to let him concoct a venom that no one in the village could decipher. It’s Sasori, he’s our prodigy and a master of the puppet corps. There’s no reason to doubt him, they’d all said. Trusted him implicitly because he’d been wise enough to keep to himself. He puts his head down and works, and he’s been rewarded for it.
Without his hard work, he would never have had a chance at his trophy.
“You had potential,” the Kazekage scolds as he lay dying. “You could have become a Kage yourself.”
“I’m an artist, not another piece in your political puzzle,” Sasori retorts. “I’ve hit Sunagakure’s ceiling. What I want isn’t something this trash heap can offer.”
His mentor doesn’t have long before he succumbs, but he choses his words carefully regardless. “What happened to the other boy in the Puppet Corps?” He wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t know about the body.
Sasori scoffs. Komushi. The look in The Third’s eyes says he already knows. “I was responsible. We both know that.”
“Your greed is going to be the death of you,” is the warning The Third tries to impart.
He can’t help an exasperated sigh. “If you can’t stop me, who will?” Sasori taunts. “Now, let me free you like I’m going to free myself.”
This man that he’s finally brought to his knees, he kills with a final swipe of a kunai to his throat.
Sasori gets out with a punctured lung and a concussion. It’s not bad, given the fight he’s had to put up, but his medical ninjutsu does little to patch his wounds. He can stop his lung from bleeding, but his flesh still oozes crimson and it crawls his skin with revolting disgust. There’s time to bandage himself up.
With his mentor on the ground, he has all the time in the world.
Silence is his solace. His wounds ache. He’s not used to close combat. Not with a body like this. All things to be fixed in time.
The third is facedown when he dies, the poison twisting his limbs into foul positions that Sasori has to work him out of. The weight of life is off him and his extremities are easy to move. In death, he’s peaceful. He hadn’t been one to go down without a fight and had done so with a curse towards Sasori on his lips. Now, though, his snarl is unfurled and his pupils dilated.
Sasori closes his sightless eyes and admires the mess before him. There are things he feels in the face of this man that he’d rather not. A hot, prickling sensation over his cheeks and a sweatiness over his palms that never goes away, no matter how many times he smears them down his thighs. When The Third had met his eyes it was not with hurt, but misunderstanding. He’s beautiful and oh so unaware of what’s driven his pupil to this.
Like all of Sasori’s relationships, this one is unrequited.
The drivel he feels will be the first shit to get rid of during his own transformation. For now, he hoists the body, far larger than his, onto his worktable. He needs to finish by dawn. Already, he’s made his plan. Tomorrow, his cell leaves for yet another mission. Nothing compared to the taking down a Kazekage. They’ll leave the Land of Wind, and a bout of friendly fire will lead him to his escape. Taking the lives of his companions has become second nature.
His village, he has no problem leaving to rot. His grandmother, he’ll happily leave in the dust. He’s always been a burden to that old hag and she’s shown it in her indifference.
Sasori runs a thumb over the Kage’s lifeless lips. His heart clenches and giddy anticipation, yet again. The Third is his and his alone. As the sun comes up, the village will lose its core and they’ll be left to mourn a man who’s gone up in smoke. He knows he’s left no paper trail.
He has to work fast—the smell of death is already clinging to his nose. Rigor mortis hasn’t started, but the minutes are being counted down faster than ever. Sasori can’t let his trophy rot. Gone are the chains of mortality as he’s stripped down to the bone, his kekkei genkai torn from him with a jutsu that nearly drains Sasori of his chakra. There’s only one chance to get it right, but he’s never been sloppy.
He creates a marionette in his gem’s image, already a pawn to Sasori’s puppetry as it’s walked around the room on chakra strings. Sealed away so similar to the way he’d done Komushi, The Third’s chakra, his being, is burnt into him.
He finds it breathtaking to watch, taking in glassy, yellow eyes that stare back dull. They are eyes that will never forgive Sasori, and he doesn’t mind. There’s no one in the Land of Wind that can stop him.
It’s boring.
Kazekage in possession or not, it’s been a long time coming for him to defect. Things he once found challenging are reduced to child’s play and the wary stares of his peers have become more than exhausting. He doesn’t need eyes on him—he exists to live in the shadows.
Sasori walks the Kazekage’s new body around the room again. He clacks with the twitch of his fingers, inching back towards his creator. “Your hair is messed up,” he coos to the puppet, flicking a lock of his thick hair back in place.
Your greed is going to be the death of you, it taunts back.
A frown pulls over his lips. “You always had it out for me, too,” he spits. “You and that old hag.” His temper flares at the puppet. It’s in no position to disobey. “You sent my parents on that mission and she swept it under the rug.”
There’s no need for resentment. After all, his mentors eyes have lost the nasty glare they’d died with.
They were fools, the two of them. There’s always someone to blame, but Sasori knows there’s no point. He can’t miss what he doesn’t understand, and this is the life of a shinobi. That is why it’s so necessary for them to harden their hearts.
Sasori’s turned himself into an expert.
He stares down at himself. He’s covered in blood. The Third’s. He smears his palms against one another and then, over a rag left abandoned under his workbench. The evidence will be easy to destroy. He just needs to clean himself up.
“We need to get going,” he says to his doll.
There are birds that chirp outside, warning of twilight and next, dawn. Sasori seals his trophy away and tucks it tight against his chest.
He’s started his collection and no one can stop him.