[01] Second Chances [Akasuna no Sasori] -Time's Up-

"Neh Sasori-danna, you just gonna give up like this huh?"
The young woman's raspy voice sounded painfully bored as she bent down towards the dying man in front of her. She nudged his face a little with her foot, causing his artificial cheek to rub uncomfortably against a jagged rock beneath him.
Ha.
Like he could feel it.
She heard an inaudible groan resound from deep within his throat, which was most likely telling her to back off, but surprisingly he made no other actions or sounds of protest. All he did was lie there beneath her unforgiving shoe, staring pathetically up at the evening sky.
The girl stepped back, easing the pressure off of the boy's cheek. She glared at him for a moment or two before giving off an exasperated sigh while running her gloved hand through her steel colored hair.
"How could you have lost to some old hag and a little girl Sasori-danna?"
Her voice was mocking, and gave the impression that she was annoyed with the fiery haired boy in front of her. It was a bit ironic, really. If she was talking to him with such a tone any other day, if he wasn't actually dying like he now was, he would have easily slapped her across the face without any regrets.
That was how their relationship worked. She was his apprentice after all, and what he said goes.
Well, usually.
And in the back of her mind, the steel haired girl knew that she deserved most of the abuse that she received back in her training days. She wasn't really all that respectful to the man that had taken her in...
She wasn't really respectful to anyone actually.
Returning to the present, the girl realized that Sasori hadn't said anything, or even made some noise in quite a long time. She glanced down at the boy. His eyes were closed.
"Neh Sasori-danna, are you dead?"
The girl nudged her foot against his cheek again.
Nothing. She stepped back again.
A moment of silence passed. Faintly, the girl could smell the scent of salt from the nearby ocean. Unconsciously she took a stronger whiff of the air. The smell of wood from broken puppets and blood from the previous battle came to accompany the scent of the nearby sea.
"They really did a number on ya, didn't they Sasori-danna? Chiyo-baasama and that Konoha leaf nin are pretty amazing, neh?"
The girl leaned down as she said this, allowing herself to sit properly down on the rock floor. She crossed her legs promptly and balanced her elbows on her knees, soon resting her chin against her palms. All the while she was watching Sasori with her stormy eyes, waiting for him to snap back at her or something of the sort, like he usually did.
But Sasori remained silent, his eyes still closed, unmoving, unconscious...?
A wave of unknown feelings passed through the young woman. Was it panic or sadness?
Or maybe even happiness towards his deathly state?
Whatever it was, it caused the girl to reach her hand out to touch Sasori's cheek. Her thin, sinewy fingers prodded gently against his face, admiring how cold and hard his artificial body was. She slid her hand down the length of his face, taking in how soft his features really were despite the coldness he usually exhibited...
As her hand passed beneath his chin, she tilted his face up a bit. He looked peaceful, at ease in his near-death state...
Never, not once in her entire five years that she had been at his side had she seen him so rested. For a second the woman thought of leaving Sasori. If only for a moment, she thought about how maybe dying would ease his pain. And catching sight of the two mangled puppets that had intertwined themselves with Sasori, her thoughts seemed to be justified.
She immediately recognized the two puppets as Sasori's parents, or their imposters. Although she had never met them herself, she had once seen a picture of them. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to find the item as she was searching Sasori's things for screws to repair his body with, but she couldn't fight her curiosity as she sat on a nearby bed to stare at the simple photograph she had come across.
The woman remembered how beautiful she thought Sasori's Kaa-san was, and how much Sasori looked like his Oto-san...she had been tracing the outline of Sasori's baby form when...
"Yumeji."
His voice was empty.
Just like him.
The woman jumped slightly, startled. Looking back up into the face of the puppet master, her eyes met and meshed with her master's own. Sasori was staring down at the woman with a half-lidded gaze, as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep.
Her hand fell back to her side.
"Why are you here?"
The girl known as Yumeji tilted her head off to the left, contemplating his question. Sasori had always found it somewhat amusing that the steel haired female did that when she was thinking.
Or making something up.
"I was just passing by and-"
"Don't lie to me."
Yumeji crossed her arms and huffed like a child. The red haired man could always tell when she was falsifying a story, and every time he caught her she had no other choice but to tell him the truth.
If she didn't, which was rare, Sasori would just stare at her for a long, agonizing period of time. He was aware that she found his golden eyes eerie, and surprisingly they seemed to get on her nerves quickly and easily.
The woman exhaled and straightened her neck. Her grey eyes that matched her hair seemed to be clouded over as she answered her Danna.
"I don't really know why I came."
What a typical Yumeji answer, she could be so blank sometimes. Sasori turned away from his apprentice and stared up at the evening sky. Silently, as if trying to hide his struggle from Yumeji's critical eyes, he tried to move his arms.
Nothing.
He closed his eyes in slight frustration. Why the hell was he still alive anyways? Two of the most precious puppets he had created when he was a child had stabbed multiple katana through his container-held chakra, also known as his heart, which were still piercing through his encasement. Although his body did not feel pain or anything really any longer, he did have a weakness.
A simple and easily exploited weakness:
His heart.
Sasori caught Yumeji looking down at him expectantly. She was waiting for him to stand up and brush off his wounds as if they were nothing, at least that's what Sasori thought she was waiting for.
But Yumeji spoke suddenly, surprising him with her words and making him realize that she was fully aware that he was going to die in a few minutes, or seconds even.
"Sasori-danna, I've learned a lot while I've been away."
Sasori watched her lips move.
"He taught me well, Kabuto-sama taught me everything he knows..."
The red haired man closed his eyes again. He really didn't have any idea where this was going, and in all honesty, he didn't really care. Kabuto was indeed his subordinate, and he had indeed sent off Yumeji to be trained by him for reasons even he himself could not comprehend...but...
The only thought that Sasori could really focus on right now was that he was going to die.
Finally.
But then...
"I can save you."
Sasori's eyes shot open; however he did not turn to look at Yumeji. He stared up at the evening sky once again.
"I can save you."
Words that were so familiar to him, yet at the same time so foreign and odd sounding...
No.
He did not want another chance. If he had wanted to live longer, he would have dodged Chiyo's final attack. There was an opening and he could of-
No. Regrets are not what he lives on.
He would die. Sasori decided his fate the moment he didn't move away from his Jii-jii-san's attack.
He wanted to.
"Sasori-danna."
Finally, he looked to Yumeji. Her eyes still looked clouded over.
"I can-"
"No."
"But Sasori-"
"Yumeji, just be quiet."
The woman silenced herself. She watched Sasori's golden eyes shift their way towards her own eyes. He was trying to figure out if she was lying or not, but at the same time, his eyes were telling her to get the hell away from him.
But Yumeji did not move. Not even a flutter of her eyelash.
Instead she gazed down at Sasori's contained-heart. The kanji symbol for "Scorpion" etched on the chakra sealer had always fascinated her, even now as it was, cracked and destroyed by katana. Often, when she had to repair Sasori's body after a battle, she would become distracted by it and have the sudden urge to touch it.
But she controlled herself. If Sasori knew of the self-restraint she practiced on herself during those times of temptation he would have been pleased with her.
Yumeji would have been horrified with the fact that her danna would know such things though. It was slightly embarrassing after all. Sasori probably wouldn't have understood why it fascinated her so much...
God.
Yumeji could be such a stupid and silly girl at times.
And this was one of those times.
"Yumeji?"
She ignored Sasori's curious statement. Idly, she let her fingers reach up to Sasori's exposed chest and trace the kanji letter, avoiding the perforating knives that were stabbing through it. She had never felt it before...
Stupid Yumeji, losing her self-control.
The symbol felt like loneliness and bitterness underneath the blood that was soaking through her gloves. At least to Yumeji, who could imagine such feelings becoming something tangible. The woman had a colorful imagination. She pressed her fingers gently against the seal, causing more blood to leak through her gloves.
"I like how it feels." Yumeji said quietly, retracting her hand slowly back to lap. She glanced down for a moment, suddenly appreciating the blood smears across her legs.
Sasori said nothing.
The air grew still. Not knowing what to say or do, the grey eyed girl looked up to the sky. It was a deep, fiery crimson color. Yumeji looked back down at the man beside her, comparing the two for a split second...
"Neh, Sasori-danna, your hair matches the sky."
The said man glanced to the girl. Her all too familiar movements filled his gaze moments before he rested his eyes shut. "I guess it does."
Silence overcame them. Sasori enjoyed the quietness. He always had, even as a child he enjoyed silence...
"What are you doing?"
"Hmm?"
Sasori heard Yumeji shift her weight closer towards him, and slowly, ever so slowly, he could hear his body being lifted gently off the ground. Although he couldn't feel, he knew it was happening. His eyes opened.
The puppet master found himself staring into Yumeji's grey eyes. He was used to looking at her eyes, but the relative closeness that he was sharing with her now was somewhat unfamiliar...
Only when he needed his body repaired was Yumeji allowed to touch him. And he the same.
This felt strange.
The apprentice merely tilted her head to the side a bit, giving off a weak smile as Sasori settled into her hold. His head was resting in the crook of her shoulder, allowing him to listen to her steady heartbeat. The rest of his body was situated between her legs, limply.
Sasori liked listening to the beating of her heart. It wasn't artificial or falsely created like his...it wasn't in a damn container.
However, as he let the sound of her heart echo in his ears, he began to notice that she was slowly removing the katana from his mangled body.
Stupid girl.
"I'll die instantly if you remove that one."
Sasori held no fear in his voice, only a monotone echo.
He couldn't feel emotions anymore anyways. It was just like pain...
Once again, Yumeji sounded slightly annoyed.
"Neh Sasori-danna, I know you will. It's kind of the point."
His eyes flickered up to the woman's once again. That small smile of hers widened. Sasori suddenly realized that he couldn't remember the last time she had smiled. And then he realized something else...
"Yumeji...don't-"
He heard the uneven cracking of his chakra seal.
His vision began to blur.
"Don't worry; I'll take care of you while you're sleeping."
And then...
Gone.
Picture(s) of Yumeji in results.




How I see Yumeji, top picture looks/clothing attire and bottom picture coloring.

So what'd you think? I know Sasori is a bit OOC, but he was dying for chrissake! xD

NOW FOR A RANT: I HAD TO WRITE THIS THREE GODDAMN TIMES. IT JUST SOUNDED CRAPPY ALL THE WAY AROUND. Okay, done.

Anywho, pick/message or banners? God, all of those would be nice. :]