Introductory to Puppetry

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I own Naruto Shippuden and any of the characters associated with it.


Silence followed for another minute before Sasori concluded that answering honestly would be the best way to answer a question like that. A long-winded explanation only made it seem like you were trying too hard. "After witnessing Kankuro's puppetry I just realized that I'd have to learn it myself. There's nothing more to it than that."

Chiyo must've realized that that would be the best answer she'd get out of him or something, but either way she simply accepted it without complaint. "Very well, we start tomorrow, no off with you."

Sasori could hardly contain the look of shock and disbelief plastered on his face. "Excuse me?"

"Are you deaf, I said get going! Leave or heads will roll." She demanded, firmly.

Instead of choosing to argue with the old lady about how they'd probably only talked for thirty minutes, or about the fact that she said something like "heads will roll" Sasori merely obliged and headed for the door.

Chiyo walked behind him, and before closing the door she merely said, "6 am tomorrow morning. Sharp. You better be at my doorsteps ready to train or you can forget about it." Then without giving him a chance to say anything she slammed the door shut.

'Good grief.' He thought irritably before going back to his house. All this trouble for a spur of the moment decision, the question now was: was it really worth it?

[ Granny Chiyo's PoV ]

She wasn't sure why she'd agreed, but really, could she have disagreed? Honestly speaking she would've done anything to get to see her grandson speaking, but logically speaking she would never do such a thing. Even if it was possible.

Sighing Chiyo sat down on the nearest seat and recalled the story on how Sasori, this Sasori, had arrived at the Suna village.

Just a few months after Sasori's death a mysterious cloaked figure had arrived in the Suna village, he'd been stopped by the guards of course, but they were all caught off guard the moment he unhooded himself. He revealed himself as "Sasori". Merely Sasori, last name unknown, origin unknown, he had just been a mysterious character with no past to tell of. What's more was what he did the moment he got in the village.

He'd requested to see the Kazekage of the village, which, at the time had been no other than Gaara. Once Sasori had met Gaara he requested permission to live in the village as one of its ninja. He had experience, and power, but he was lacking a village to call home, and, for some reason he'd declared that the Suna village would be the ideal village for him to live in. "The one he was destined to belong to" he had said.

With no real reason to trust the man Gaara had thought about it before giving him a temporary home by Chiyo's own home. If there was one thing that Gaara had been sure of at the time, it was that Chiyo would be the most reliable for the job.

Every day, for around half a year Sasori's every move had been monitored, be it by Chiyo, the other ninjas, or even Gaara himself. Sasori wasn't a spy, he didn't even seem like he could be a harm to the village. He was just a boy in need of a home, so reluctantly, after many meetings about Sasori he'd finally been accepted as a Suna ninja.


The harsh ring of his alarm greeted, and inevitably awoke him as Sasori got out of bed and prepared for his "training" with Chiyo.

Everything went by smoothly and soon he was out the door just a few minutes before six. He was greeted by an almost bitter silence as he stepped out the door, as if even nature was warning him of what was to come. Shaking off any doubt that still lingered in his head about this he headed for Granny Chiyo's house, and before long he found himself knocking on the door.

There was silence as first, and Sasori inwardly wondered if she'd forgotten about the promised training, but before long there was a faint answer from the other side of the door. "Just open it, it's unlocked."

It was uncanny, how in the dim sunlight the house seemed even more cryptic than it had seemed last night with the lights turned on. Of course he wasn't one to talk with the boring house he owned, he'd somehow expected more out of Chiyo's house. A feeling of warmth, maybe? If the bitter old woman possessed any warmth at all that was.

The weirdest thing about the house, however, wasn't its lack of warmth. No, it was the fact that almost half the pictures were face down instead of facing upward. Were they that way last night? Not getting much of a chance to ponder more about this Sasori was rushed into what seemed to be the storage room of the house.

"What's this?" he asked boredly once Chiyo had turned on the lights. The question was rather remedial though, seeing as how the room was covered in puppets. Plain, undecorated puppets; most didn't even have eyes.

As if sensing what Sasori thought Chiyo moved on without answering his question. "Pick a puppet or two, to use. Be precise with your choice, because they'll be the only puppets you'll be using so if you break them you're out of luck unless you can make yourself some new ones."

Without questioning her, or even wondering why she would be so stingy about this seeing as how the room was chock full of puppets Sasori merely stepped into the room and looked around, examining each puppet. They all seemed the same to him, cold lifeless puppets, but he was sure that there was a secret to this somehow, a trick perhaps, so continued on with his examination.

Soon after he'd made a choice. Two puppets, each almost an exact opposite of the other. The first was smaller, thinner, more lithe and suited for "quicker" actions, and the other was slightly bulkier. Perfect as a shield of sorts, or maybe for having secret components for hidden weapons.

"Good choices. Now follow me." She said as she led them out the room and back into the living room.

"I'll teach you about the basics of puppetry today and you'll go home and practice. Be sure to make those puppets your own before you come back tomorrow. Add hair and eyes, weapons, anything you can think of really. The real training comes tomorrow."

Alright, so what was today? Another boring day, huh, it seemed as if they were getting nowhere, and yet it was obvious that they were making progress.

"The most important thing to remember about puppetry is the facts that all the strings lie in your fingers. You will use chakra strings to control your puppets. As time progresses you may be capable of controlling many puppets at a time, maybe even hundreds, but for now we'll just focus on two at a time.

"Puppets can be used in close combat or long-ranged. Most do the latter, but really you can definitely do both with practice. As cheesy as it sounds you need to kind of 'become one with your puppet'. There'll be no time to slack off and you need to pay attention to everything. You need to fight with your puppet, and at the same time you need to be able to defend yourself should someone try to sneak attack you.

"Keep steady streams of chakra stream flowing out of your fingers at all times. Too much or too little chakra can greatly disrupt your control of the puppet or even stop your control all together. To start off with your chakra strings will probably be blatantly, but as you train you'll be able to make them less and less obvious until they're pretty much invisible to the human eye. That'll be key when we come to it, because we don't want your opponents breaking your strings, your only forms of control over your puppets.

"Enough talk. Any questions?" she asked, as if daring him to say that he didn't understand something, which would probably prompt her to give some smart response.

"None at all." He replied, resisting the compulsion to yawn. This was all good and all, but with what little research he'd done on the subject himself he had been able to find out that much, and all she'd said to him today was all old news to him.

"Good. Go home and do whatever it takes to prepare yourself for tomorrow, that's when the real training begins, and whether you're ready or not I am not holding back."

That seemed a little cruel, but Sasori couldn't be bothered to voice his opinions so he merely nodded, and with both puppets in tow he left the house.

He left too fast though, to be able to hear the parting words Granny Chiyo had uttered.

"Prepare yourself, or tomorrow will be a living hell for you."


Ughhh, sorry for the late update. I was museless and lazy, a horrible combination. :'D I'm sure I that I could've merged this chapter with what will be the next chapter when I write it into one chapter, but I'm too lazy for that, honestly. orz -shot- Hope you enjoyed it~ Yeah I know, it was totally pretty much a filler, but yeah. :'D Next chapter will hopefully be more exciting. xD But yeah, I totally BS'd through the whole instructions on puppetry. I used what I knew from watching Shippuden, and just rambled from there, let's not point out any flaws about it please. XD Anyway, please review! C:

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