Puppeteer

A girl's first puppet is a sign of what's to come

Sakura instantly began to sketch out her most recent design on one of the many scrolls on Sasori's desk. The puppet she drew vaguely resembled that of a Eastern-style dragon with sharp claws and fangs. Sasori looked down at the design and began shooting questions at the little girl, "What is it made of? What does it do? Explain it in more detail for me." Sakura grinned up at him, turning once more to Kisame's sword. A grin made its way onto her face as her eyes went back to Sasori. "It is made of wood but had leather completely covering it so that nothing can clog the joints. Its claws can be laced with poisons which can bolster its attack power and a small seal with fire chakra in the back of its throat. I also intend to make its fangs able to absorb chakra and send it back to me." Sasori's eyes widened as he watched Sakura's eyes return to Samehada when she claimed to let it absorb chakra. Kisame smirked at the girl, amused by her antics, "Hey Samehada, how about lend her a scale, see if she can truly do this." He felt his weapon hum and vibrate under the bandages before pushing apart the bandages slightly to pry out a scale. Sasori's eyes widened in shock at the criminals display of kindness, "Think of it as a birthday gift, kid." He said as he handed her the scale. With that, Kisame strode out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him. Sasori stared enviously at the scale in Sakura's hands. "Shall we start then, Sasori-sensei?" The man nodded, this girl was getting more and more interesting.

When the pair got to work, they were quite efficient. Sasori got to work cutting down and shaping the wood whilst Sakura filled and sanded it to the correct shapes before placing them in the correct position on the sketch of the dragon. It took several hours until all the shapes were made, then, Sasori began to connect together the hinges between each joint to give the dragon the ability to move. Whilst Sasori assembled, Sakura began track down some leather, Sasori didn't really have any, all he had was cloth used to dress his puppets, but that wasn't what Sakura was looking for. She managed to convince her father to collect some the market after A LOT of convincing. In the end, she pulled the don't you love me card along with some puppy eyes and she had the criminal wrapped around her finger.

When her father finally returned with the leather, Sasori was done with the hinges (Sakura had come to join him as she waited for her father to return). Since Kakuzu came to Sasoris workshop to drop off the leather, he tried to get a glimpse at the puppet, but his efforts were in vain as his daughter quickly ushered him out the room, promising he would be the first to show when it was finished. When her father had disappeared down the corridor, she shuffled back to the desk to work on cutting out the leather shapes after drawing them on with chalk. As she wrapped the leather tightly but not too tightly around the dragon, she used her threads to attach the ends together. Then she began to bend the different pieces of the dragon, checking it moved correctly and that there were no gaps in the material. When her examination was complete and had a positive result, she began to work on the claws of the dragon. She'd chose to use the metal of a couple of melted down kunai to strengthen them. Of course, she'd gotten Sasori to give her a hand in using the furnace as it was likely to burn her, but other than that, shed made the settings and supervised the cooling of the metal all by herself. When the claws were dry (shed made four settings as the three claws were all attached together and would be slotted into the feet before the feet would be covered with leather as well) she carefully engraved swirls and other patterns into the metal to enlarge the surface area for the poison. When she was done, she carefully slotted the claws into position before covering the feet carefully.

She picked up a small piece of sealing paper before opening one of the many books on seals shed found in the Akatsuki library. Looking at the diagram in front of her, she carefully drew out the design until she got it perfect. Selecting a small engraving tool, she carefully scratched the seal at the back of the dragons mouth. It didnt have a throat so she had plenty of space to engrave. When the engraving was complete, she began to fill it with ink before summoning her fire mask (the only one she had so far, it wasnt as powerful as her fathers one and needed summoning, but she didnt mind too much) and got it to insert the necessary chakra into it. It would need refilling every now and then, but that would be fine. Her next challenge was the chakra absorbing fangs.

It took Sakura half a year and a lot of assistance from adults before she was able to design a seal for her dragon fangs. In all honesty, if she was slightly older, it probably wouldnt have taken so long, but she was four and so it was considerably more difficult. In fact, if it werent for her ninja blood, shed probably still be walking into cupboards. But now Sakura was bent over her little puppet, carefully engraving the seal into the dragon with care and attention to detail. It took her well over an hour to complete the seal on both sets of teeth and have a break in the middle to sate her boredom. But now her dragon was done, the two eyes with a black sclera and a golden irises were staring back at her as she connected her chakra threads up with the little dragon. She was thrilled to watched as the dragon began to fly around the room, a singular thread attached to them. Then the moment of truth came, bringing the dragon over to her, she got its jaw to latch itself around her hand, wincing at the feeling of the fangs digging into her skin she couldnt help but relish the feeling of her chakra being absorbed before being refilled as it travelled back up her chakra strings. She pulled the dragon off of her arm before she released a scream of joy, she couldnt help it. IT WORKED!! Quickly wrapping a bandage around her arm to stop the bleeding as best as she could, she wrapped the dragon over her shoulders like a scarf before racing off to look for her father and Sasori.

-

She found Kakuzu, Sasori and Kisame inside the living room, along with some more unfamiliar faces, one was snake-like and another was a woman with blue hair. Taking almost no notice in the other people, she bouncing over to her father. "Papa, as promised." She connected the chakra string to the wooden dragon on her neck before getting it to float in the air in front of her. Kakuzu smiled proudly at his little daughter who excitedly flew the dragon around his head. Thats when he sensed a chakra coming from its mouth? He turned to look at his daughter "Why is chakra coming from its mouth?" Sakura gave him a cryptic smile before saying, "Because of the seals" Kakuzus eyes widened as well as everyone else's in the room. She grinned before sending chakra to activate the fire seal, watching with pride as the dragon let out a stream of fire as it flew around the room. Then she stopped it and skipped over to Kisame. "Hey! Kisame! I did it! First though, may I borrow your arm please?" She watched happily as Kisame gave her his arm. She'd chosen the shark man as shed discovered he had practically unlimited chakra so surely he wouldnt mind all that much right? She brought her dragon over and gave him an apologetic smile, "Excuse the pain, it wont last long." Kisame was about to reclaim his arm when he felt the fangs of the dragon embed themselves inside. He winced slightly but became quite curious when he felt his chakra begin to be drawn towards the dragon. It was just like Samehada! "I-its taking my chakra!" He looked at the girl in front of him in shock. He'd given her the scale because he believed it impossible! "What?" Sakura turned to look at Sasori. "You actually managed it?" Sakura nodded her head excitedly, detaching her dragon puppet from Kisame and taking it over for Sasori to have a look at. The redhead was very excited to have a look at the puppet "That's a very intricate seal, what does it do?" It looked somewhat like a purification seal but he couldn't be sure. "It uses the opponent's chakra to activate before transferring the chakra into me along my chakra threads. The seal cleanses the chakra for me so I can safely absorb it without it corroding my chakra networks then the chakra travels along the artificial chakra networks in the dragons body which are in the leather and wood before going up my chakra stream and either helping there or coming all the way up into my networks, either way, I save up my chakra. There are some other seals involved but a puppeteer never reveals all their secrets." Sasori couldn't help the feeling of pride in his student, she was going to be an incredible puppeteer one day. "Who's my little genius, huh Squirt?" Sakura pouted at the nickname but hugged her father anyway, she just couldn't stop that jittering sense of pride in herself. Kakuzu ruffled her head affectionately, "Good job Squirt, Papas proud." He muttered quietly in her ear, making her smile into his chest.

Unknown to them, Orochimaru and Konan watched on in interest, however, their motivations varied. Orochimaru was interested in getting her to work for him, while she may be a good potential host, her talents were undeniable and if he was able to have her work for him, hed be unstoppable. Konan, however, was almost excited to tell Pain that his plan was working, getting Kakuzu to turn to Sasori was a great move as now they had the beginnings of an unstoppable war machine on their hands.