Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Naruto or any of its trademarks, characters, places, etc.

-Epilogue-

Two years passed since the death of Marionette and her lover, Sasori. Kanshi obeyed the puppet girl's final request and once she had died. The young woman took the puppet body in disguise and fled to Kusagakure to practice the Puppet Technique in secret. Learning the many secrets embedded into the loving design made by the Puppet Master himself, Kanshi mastered her sister's puppet body to the point where she was confident in her ability to take down the old hag.

Kanshi then packed up her things and ventured out to find the traveling cannibal named Roishi. The day she never thought she'd see had come. Journeying in the deserts of Suna with a cloth pack of bodies on his back wandered the old man. When he noticed Kanshi with the puppet Marionette in tow approaching him, he was not surprised.

"I thought I said you weren't supposed to come after me!" he joked, recalling the day he had given her his old shack outside of Takigakure, "And here you are, obviously here for my head of course."

"You were responsible for my sister's death," she called through the blazing sandstorm, "I can't let you escape justice."

"What if I tried to make you a deal kiddo?" he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet, "How much can I give you to let me go?" He shuffled through his wallet, pulling out ryo and setting it in his hand.

"You can't buy your life from me, old man. I'm here for revenge!" with several movements of her fingers, she put Marionette's puppet into a fighting stance with her knees out, "Whenever you're ready old man."

"I guess we'll be fighting to your death then kiddo," he threatened, pulling out a kunai from his pocket.

"We'll just see about that!" Kanshi forced Marionette to fling out the Gendari, tapping the ground with both feet and grabbing the boomerang blades as she flew up.

"What an interesting little puppet you've got there," the old man laughed and swiftly performed several hand seals, "I've learned a few tricks from my meals!" He spat fireballs up at the puppet, which she glided around.

The young woman swiftly moved several fingers so that Marionette grabbed the chain from her abdomen and hooked it around the two Gendari, throwing the one in her false arm out then following it up with a stream of flames from her palm cannon. To dodge the flames, Roishi moved right in the way of the Gendari's chain. It tightly wrapped itself around the old man, grounding him while Marionette aimed the other boomerang blade.

"How impressive," he cackled then spat fire at the chain, trying to melt it. With another sleight of hand, the puppet girl sent the other Gendari out and Kanshi watched as it looped around and impaled the old man. He fell to the ground in the chains and Kanshi made Marionette dropped to the ground to check her opponent's body. As the puppet paced towards him, his head shot back up and he spat out a drop of blood. "I'm not done yet kiddo!"

The old man spat out a field of smoke around them, if it wasn't already difficult to see with the sandstorm, the smoke made it impossible. Instead of allowing her puppet to be caught in it, Kanshi tugged for Marionette so she would tap her heels and shoot back several yards away from the smoke cloud.

"No one said I was either old man," she called back as the puppet opened up its back and pulled out the poison-barbed spike. Marionette threw it through the smoke, sure that it had hit the old man when the spike stopped being fed chains from the puppet's abdomen. Miraculously, Marionette's spike came flying back and impaled her, sending the puppet flying back to Kanshi. As the smoke cleared, the young woman could see the man was unchained and manically laughing.

"Hahahaha, looks like I got you there!" he called as blood dripped from her mouth. As the old man stomped over to attack Kanshi, Marionette ripped one of her eyes out and crushed it as Kanshi bit into a capsule of the antidote that she had strategically placed in her mouth. The paralyzation poison Sasori had invented quickly dispersed into the air, with Roishi breathing it in and falling to the ground a few feet from her.

"What is this!" he shouted

"A little poison my big sister's lover made," Kanshi smirked as she took the opportunity to pull the spike from her puppet. She walked over to the paralyzed old man with the spike in one hand, "Looks like I have the last laugh!"

With that she impaled it into him then turned around and pulled, while walking back to her puppet, effectively dragging the dying old man with her. Once she reached it, she ripped out the chain that attached the spike to Marionette and tossed it over by Roishi's body. Kanshi picked the puppet up and glanced back over at Roishi who was still holding onto his life.

"I hope you go to Hell," she spat, then walked off into the Suna sunset.

So came about the end to our story.

The young woman took the puppet girl created by the puppet master of the Akatsuki, Sasori, with her on her later adventures. With the puppet, Kanshi carried the memories and legacy of her sister and her identity as Marionette forever. When Kanshi finally settled down and raised a family, she promised to pass the puppet and technique onto her own child. In the meantime, she continued to care for the puppet body of her late sister, taking note of the delicate care the puppet's previous master had put into her creation.

Like Sasori's art, the love he put into his Marionette was eternal.

-End-