AN:
Sarari- Sleek, Without delay or hesitation, A thin Liquid.
Orimasu- To weave
Houkin- Gun Metal

If you cut up Sasori's parents names and mishmash them you get his. Patting myself on the back.

I condensed the timeline; There is still a war, his parents still die-he's still sad lonely, empty Sasori who masks his damage in unusual and creative/destructive ways.

So a basic rundown would be that Sasori is 10 years older than Sakura.
That means he's 23 to Kakashi's 27 ( They don't like one another. Although its more likely to say Sasori is ambivalent and smug in equal turns while Kakashi is annoyed and deeply worried.)

One of these days I'm just gonna do a nice regular Same Age AU. Its just that I really likes the dynamic of Sasori calling Sakura "Little" and then getting rekt. It amuses me, ok?

Sasori was four and already exceedingly brilliant, He could name every plant in the green house, knew which of them were baneful and the ones that could become remedies at a glance when he asked his mother about the smooth, silvery patch of skin over his heart. Like a scar that had been there from the moment he was born, shapeless in form.

"It means you are meant for another half." Sarari began, shifting the way that she lounged on the Veranda so that he was cradled in her lap, head pressed to her stomach. Even if he was a genius, it was difficult to find the words to explain in a way a small child would understand. "Some people in this world are fated to be together." although it didn't always necessitate romantic love, but more often than not it was the case.

He was frowning, eyeing her like he was years older than he was. "Then where is mine?" He knew from the mark on his mother's wrist and the one at the back of his father's neck that his own was boring, It had no vibrancy, no solid shape to decipher. It might as well have been nothing.

"Sometimes they aren't born when you are. Sometimes accidents happen and well..." She had half a mind to say that answering where babies came from would be easier than what she was explaining now. "But in any case it won't look like anything much until you meet them to begin with."

"Did mine have an accident?" His small hands clenched at her clothes anxiously.

There were stages to the way bonds worked and at the moment it wasn't far fetched to assume his other half was simply yet to be born rather than the worse case scenario. When and if they came, that formless splotch would begin to change. "You're so young!" Sarari laughed, cuddling him close. "There is plenty of time."

"I hate waiting." It seemed to him that life was all about waiting. Waiting for people to come, for them to go away, waiting for what he wanted and waiting for the things he hated to disappear. "How will I know its them when we meet?"

"It will be hard to miss them. Fate always deals in blood." Like a knife beneath the skin the scar marks would split open, bleeding color until something like a tattoo was left behind. In a way it was very much symbolic of how a bond could be. Painful and beautiful all at once.

Having a soulmate could be wonderful but to be so tightly wrapped in the existence of another could be a dangerous thing. Some would say it was better to never meet than suffer the fallout if a broken bond. It came down to the person, if they were strong enough to carry on. Some Simply failed to thrive but the worst case was always death.

To be bound was like drinking from a cup in which poison and the cure resided, never knowing which would win in the end. It could make one stronger or it could kill Them. 'But there a things a child cannot understand.' And there would be time to teach him nuances in the future.

"I want to meet them." Sasori didn't have many friends to begin with, finding other children to be loud and aggravating but if there was someone meant for him then there was no reason they shouldn't get along.

To say that he might never because the world was wide and things were often out of their control seemed cruel. "Someday...but Sasori, you shouldn't discount the loves that you choose-Just because something isn't fated doesn't make it any less."

Blank-faced he didn't seem to register her words or more likely he didn't care to hear them. "You have Father and he has you. I want someone like that."

It was true that Sarari would follow Orimasu wherever he went and vice versa, there were times where it frightened her how tightly twined they were but before she could say more the sliding of the door drew Sasori's attention.

"Father!" The shape of his face, the slope of his nose and the bow of his lips all belonged to Sarari but Sasori's eyes and distinctive hair came from the man lifting him high into the air.

"Welcome home." She greeted, smiling fondly at the image before her. "How did things go?" Not tell by the look in his eyes. "I see." she sighed, thinking of their packed bags and the long days that would be missed with their son. 'The nature of war...it robs everyone of time.' but as Shinobi they would do their duty.

Sasori was four when his parents left home and never returned.

Five when he learned to craft puppets and tried to recapture the warmth he so desperately missed, his heart getting colder by the day even as he clung to the hope that there was someone for him. His grandmother, lost in her own grief and using lies to placate and avoid painful truths inadvertently taught him that hiding his feelings was best. Hiding became burying and burying made him numb.

He's 8 when he goes to war and kills his first person, when he decides that whoever he was bound to had died long ago and lets go of hope, convincing himself it is better as it is. Sasori doesn't need anyone who will die and leave him behind again. He earns himself a title and reputation for being merciless. He's decisive in the decision that it is better to love no one and that he himself has no need of it.

Nine. when he unintentionally kills a boy that was the closest he came to having a friend but he doesn't quibble with the mortality of it. He simple tries to make amends in the only way he knows how. It had become hard to understand the value of life when he was constantly congratulated for ending it.

At 10 he was planning something more advanced but lacking in material when the 3rd Kazekage begins to fail-a natural disease compounded by the stress of a long war. There was nothing to be done other than watch the man ride out a long death.

"That's not how I intend to die." Houkin, as he was called by few said looking less impressive than Sasori could recall. He was a legend among Sunagakure, his abilities and prowess to be envied. It was a shame to see him so reduced.

'And yet here he withers.' In the end, even the mighty could not outrun death. If Sasori ever found a way to transcend the sad state of mortality he found himself in he surely would.

"What other choice do you have?" Sasori asked, he would have wondered why he had been called to see the man if it weren't a common occurrence. At his age he was already considered one of the most advanced Shinobi in the village and the Sandaime kept him close. 'Like I'm being watched.' and he probably was, lately he had been thinking of leaving but he never expressed it and he didn't believe anyone could see through him well enough to know it.

Houkin scoffed, narrow eyes locking onto amber ones. "You ought to know by now that I have eyes everywhere. I have a very good idea of what you've been doing in that workshop of yours Sasori."

"And what do you intend to do about it?" He might have been arrogant about his abilities but even with his depreciating state Sasori was not sure he would come out the victor if it came to a fight, though he would like to test his mettle.

"Nothing. In Fact I'm offering you a test subject. This body of mine can do no good rotting in the ground or reduced to ash. If you succeed than Suna is all the better for it." Things were already in decline for them. Whatever edge he, as the Sandaime could give to his village in death would be worth it.

"It might fail and you have to be alive-otherwise there is no Chakra. It could be painful...I haven't done it before. It's mostly theory." Komushi hadn't been a complete success, merely a step in the right direction. He was plainly ambitious now, feeling no reason to hide. In a way he is flattered that so much faith was being placed in his untried methods-even if he found the whole scenario to be rather absurd when he'd been thinking of running away just moments ago.

'And yet this one is asking me to kill him to protect a place I care nothing for…' Houkin was being terribly virtuous in giving Sasori his misplaced trust. 'Maybe it's the disease eating away at his brain.' he mused.

"Nothing risked is nothing gained. One way or another I die, at least in this it will have meaning. Your uncle, Rasa is ready to take the seat immediately and the council has been dealt with. All are in agreement." In other words Houkin was not asking so much as ordering. "You ought to consider it an art commission."

It bothered him that they knew of his side project but as long as they didn't know the particulars he didn't have to worry about them attempting to copy it. "If you're insistent on it...but there is something I would like as well; Fight me." It was not a request. 'If I could succeed against a Kage, what could possibly hold me back?' from doing whatever it was he wanted to do in the future.

"As you wish." The Sandaime seemed relieved that his last conscious act would be a fight. To die meekly was not for a man like him.

Sasori was the victor in the end, he'd liked to think that it was because of his own skills but there would always be a part of him that chalked it up to the Kage's failing health. He went without sleep for days, knowing time was essential. He made sure that in the end there was no pain during the process despite the poison he'd used. It wasn't a punishment he was dooling out, it was a boon.

It was late-or early depending on how one looked at it. The earliest hours of morning when the sun was just beginning to stretch out its rays by the time he had finished on the third day.

There was blood on the table but he paid no mind to it, moving his own chakra into the creation. It rattled and shifted as he attempted to pull and knead at the other energy inside of it. It was at the exact moment that black iron began to sift around the floor that he felt a stirring over the flesh of his chest, starting out as nothing at first and then it began to feel as if he was being stung by wasps.

It wasn't possible Sasori told himself, puppet clattering to the ground as he stripped off his shirt to look at the blank space over his heart. Raised pink lines not unlike welts were puffing up in a pattern he couldn't make out from his current way of looking.

In the end it turned out to be rather like cloud reading; ambiguous at best, but to his artistic mind it looked to be a five petaled flower of some sort. For the first time in forever he felt a profound sense of confusion, he hadn't wanted it, he'd given up hoping that it would ever happen.

'I haven't met them, maybe I never will.' He figured it was best to look at things pragmatically. The likelihood of it was very, very low, so things worked in his favor. '...but If I were to meet them, I'm practically ancient compared to them.' Sasori was bothered about the age difference more than he would ever care to admit. It was hard to imagine having anything in common with someone a decade younger than him.

That March 28th ended up being a very mixed bag. He had a new puppet, a new method of preserving unique techniques after the death of their owner and apparently he had a soulmate he'd long given up the need for.

Rasa became the Yondaime Kazekage soon after, his wife pregnant with a child his Grandmother agreed to help seal the Ichibi inside. The economy in Suna had taken a turn for the worse when the war ended but Sasori was sure they would come to regret their desperation. 'Well it isn't my business.' He had thought while tapping a dowel into place.

He was twenty when that line of thinking came back to bite him. Rasa had assigned him as the instructor for his children, particularly Kankuro the only one of the three with any interest in puppetry and because he was one of the few who could keep the three in line with minimal effort. The boy was cloying and starstruck, it annoyed him...he was also utterly unartistic even with his ridiculous face paint.

Temari was the easiest of the three in his opinion. Respectful and distant, she knew when to keep her mouth shut without having to be told...most of the time.

As for Gaara, he'd only attempted to kill Sasori once and quickly came to realize that just because Rasa's gold dust was heavier than iron sand didn't mean it wasn't something to worry about. The jinchuuriki did not trifle with him afterwards, behaving himself well enough that they'd had no more altercations-though occasionally a wild eyed look of consideration seemed to gleam in his pupiless eyes.

'I should have ran away.' Sasori thought at 23, listening to Gaara quietly threaten to kill his siblings for the third time on their journey to Konohagakure, one threat per day when it was averaged out. 'It's not too late.' He could fake his death at the next convenient opportunity and abscond. 'I could take the next step towards becoming true art.' He'd been toying with the idea for the last few years.

"Would you just tell me-" Kankuro began only to stop when he was the target of a rather blank look.

"If you want a poison figure it out yourself. You already have my old castoffs, be original." That was the problem with the boy in his opinion, he lacked creativity. 'Besides the last time I shared a concoction with a so called ally it ended up killing them.' Sasori preferred not to repeat that performance.

Temari rolled her eyes behind them because really they bickered over it-or something like it once a week. 'Teach me your secret poison Master! Oh how can I fit a flame thrower into this tiny compartment?' Listening to boys talk about dolls was a thoroughly boring experience.

Her eyes shifted to Gaara, taking in his body language-besides his verbal threats he seemed oddly calm which was good considering the alternatives. Maybe it was because they weren't so close to the full moon, either way she wasn't going to complain.

"I'm going to report in, behave." Short and to the point but between Kankuro's loud mouth and Gaara's chronic bloodlust the likelihood of that happening lowered the longer he took. 'But if Konoha can't handle themselves against foreign Genin is that really my problem?' The whole point of the Chuunin exams was to throw pieces of meat into the ring and see which ones walked away.

By the time he got back to them they already seemed on the verge of an altercation. 'We haven't even been here an hour…' he really should kill them, they'd listen better as puppets. Sasori sighed, pressing the palm of his hand to his eye.

There were three small brats and two older ones, one of which was wearing orange of all things. He was being held in a headlock by a frail looking girl with pink hair. They were loud; in appearance, in mannerism. He disliked it.

Kankuro had grabbed one little shrimp by the shirt, hoisting him into the air.

"Ah, Sensei!" Temari looked relieved to see him but just when Sasori had opened his mouth, intent on putting an end to the current shenanigans a pain pricked across the skin of his chest and warm fluid began to seep into the sleeveless shirt beneath his vest. The pain was similar to what he felt thirteen years ago but stronger, if it weren't for the fact that he was very good at ignoring pain he might have grunted.

He knows what it means but he wasn't sure of the source at first, not until the pink haired girl shoved the boy she'd been grappling to the ground, clutching at her side. Her hand came away wet with blood. "W-what? Now? Who?" She looked around in alarm.

"O-oi! Sakura-chan are you okay?" Orange-boy questioned, hands flapping around uselessly as he picked himself off the floor and began to fret around her.

A rock flew and struck the hand Kankuro had been using to grip one of the smaller kids.

Gaara stopped bristling in the tree he hung from, keen nose catching the scent of blood and something that didn't quite have a name. The scent of fate perhaps-if he were poetic. His head swiveled between the two sources. Maybe it was the fact that it was partly Sasori's blood he was smelling but he didn't fall into his normal state of mania, instead choosing to verbally mock his elder brother with stoicism his instructor could be proud of.

Sometimes there were moments that Sasori almost liked Gaara. Then he promptly remembered he didn't like anyone and that it was a useless sentimentality.

The thought of simply ignoring the situation altogether crossed the Puppet Master's mind, he'd intended too but then Gaara disappeared from his treetop in a shunshin, reappearing rather close to girl and his own body simply moved on its own. It was disgusting. She didn't even put up a fight when he'd grabbed her by the waist and moved a good distance away. 'Wholly unacceptable.' Sasori thought, hating his lack of control.

He could hear the squawking from those left behind even from the rooftop he'd vacated to. Kankuro was particularly loud right along with the orange one.

"The hell?!" His unwanted baggage complained loudly, beginning to twist in an utterly pathetic attempt to break free. Sasori promptly dropped her onto the roof, watching as she used Chakra to stick instead of slide. 'A Kunoichi huh? Not much of one.' A wide forehead, a heart shaped face and long silky hair in pastel pink. He was close enough to see the faint traces of eyeshadow lingering around her green eyes, even her nails were painted a similar hue.

If Sasori, who treaded the margin between science and art had to pick a series of words to describe her they would have been; Disgustingly cute and wholly impractical. Everything about her screamed soft-a very bad thing to be in their line of work, it was clear from the way she carried herself the extreme lack of experience she had.

"Who are you?" Sakura, as he recalled her name to be was scowling, having moved a few paces away still holding onto her side.

He squashed the thought that wondered what the mark below would look like.

Sasori sighed, wishing that he had in fact run away and proceeded with the pursuit of ridding himself of mortal flesh when he had the chance, if he didn't have a body he wouldn't have a mark. Deciding that actions would probably speak louder than words he unzipped the beige flak jacket he wore to show off the dark red stain inside of it. That was as far as he was going, he wasn't about to whip his shirt off in front of a little girl.

"Oh." Sakura breathed, eyes wide. "But you're old…"

He hated her.

There will probably be a continuation of this at some point, its just behind other projects.

Also happy New Year.

Baby Sasori is sweet and adorable...older Sasori is Salty.