Published at 18th of September 2024 12:39 pm

Chapter 127 Shadows of the Sand: 5 The Final Thread

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Sasori and Deidara soared through the sky, the wind whipping past them as Deidara’s clay bird carried them toward their next target. Below, the land stretched out in all directions, a vast, barren wasteland that mirrored the emptiness Sasori felt inside.

Deidara was talking, as usual, his voice loud and brimming with excitement. “This one’s gonna be tough, un. I hear this jinchūriki is no pushover. Think you can handle it, old man?”

Sasori’s mechanical eyes focused on the horizon, barely registering his partner’s words. “It doesn’t matter.”

Deidara glanced at him, frowning. “You’ve been weird lately. Not that you weren’t always, un, but weirder than usual. What’s eating you?”

Sasori didn’t answer. His thoughts were far away, back in his workshop, back with the scroll that contained the blueprints for his parents’ puppets. The cracks in his facade had been widening, and no matter how hard he tried to suppress them, the doubts continued to creep in.

Deidara shrugged, taking Sasori’s silence as permission to keep talking. “You know, art is supposed to be explosive, right? Fleeting, but beautiful in that moment of destruction. Your stuff, all these puppets, they’re so lifeless, un. Doesn’t it ever get boring?”

Boring. The word struck Sasori in a way he hadn’t expected. He had always prided himself on his art, on the perfection of his creations. But now, for the first time, he found himself wondering if Deidara was right.

Was it boring? Was his pursuit of eternal perfection just another way to avoid the fleeting nature of life? Had he spent all these years running from something he could never escape?

The wind picked up, pulling at Sasori’s cloak as the bird began to descend. Below them, the outline of a small village came into view, nestled against the edge of a dense forest. This was their target: a jinchūriki, hidden away by their village in a last-ditch effort to avoid the Akatsuki’s wrath.

Deidara grinned. “There it is. I’ll take the front, you take the back, un. Let’s see who gets there first.”

Before Sasori could respond, Deidara launched himself off the bird, diving toward the village with his usual reckless abandon. Sasori watched him go, his mind still racing with thoughts of his parents, of his grandmother, of the life he had left behind in Sunagakure.

_______________________________________________________________

The village was quiet, almost eerily so, as Sasori approached from the rear. His fingers twitched, chakra threads extending from his hands to control the puppets hidden within his cloak. With a simple flick of his wrist, they sprang to life, silent and deadly, ready to eliminate any threat.

As he moved through the village, the faces of the villagers barely registered. They were just more bodies, more potential puppets to add to his collection. But even as he fought, something felt different. Each movement, each attack, felt hollow, as though the purpose behind them had slipped away.

Sasori pushed forward, his mind focused on the mission. He had to capture the jinchūriki, bring it back to the Akatsuki. That was all that mattered.

But as he neared the center of the village, something stopped him in his tracks.

A child—a young boy, no older than eight—stood in the middle of the street, staring up at Sasori with wide, terrified eyes. The boy’s face was streaked with dirt, his clothes tattered, but it was his expression that struck Sasori the most.

The fear in the boy’s eyes was the same fear Sasori had seen in his own reflection so many years ago, after his parents had been killed. The same fear that had driven him to create his first puppets, to try and control the uncontrollable.

For a moment, Sasori froze, his mind racing. The boy stood there, trembling, too scared to move, too scared to run.

And in that moment, something inside Sasori broke.

He saw himself in that boy—saw the child he had once been, desperate for control, desperate to bring back what he had lost. And in that instant, Sasori realized the truth he had been running from for so long.

Life was fleeting. It was fragile, and it was painful. But that was what made it beautiful.

All of his puppets, all of his efforts to create something eternal, had been a lie. He had been trying to escape the very thing that made life meaningful—the fact that it could end.

The boy’s terrified gaze pierced through Sasori’s armor, through the layers of wood and metal that had replaced his human body, and for the first time in years, Sasori felt something close to regret.

He turned away from the boy, his heart—or what was left of it—heavy with the weight of his realization. There was no perfection in eternity. The true art, the true beauty, lay in the fleeting moments, in the fact that everything ended.

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Deidara arrived shortly after, grinning as he surveyed the carnage. “Looks like you got the quiet side, un. Didn’t think you’d leave me all the fun.”

Sasori didn’t respond, his gaze distant as he stared at the village below. “We’ve finished here.”

Deidara frowned, his playful attitude fading as he noticed the change in Sasori’s demeanor. “You okay, old man? You look... different, un.”

“I’m fine,” Sasori said quietly, though he knew it wasn’t true. Something inside him had shifted, something fundamental. He had spent his entire life chasing immortality, but now, standing here in the aftermath of the battle, he realized that he had been wrong all along.

Without another word, Sasori turned and walked away, leaving Deidara to stare after him in confusion.

_______________________________________________________________

That night, Sasori returned to his workshop, his hands trembling slightly as he unrolled the scroll containing the blueprints for his parents’ puppets. He had spent so many years trying to preserve them, trying to make them eternal. But now, as he looked at the designs, he realized that it was time to let them go.

With a slow, deliberate motion, Sasori set fire to the scroll, watching as the flames consumed the delicate paper. The blueprints curled and blackened, turning to ash before his eyes.

For the first time in years, Sasori felt something like peace.

He had been wrong about art. True art wasn’t about immortality. It wasn’t about creating something that lasted forever. True art was about the moment, about the beauty that existed in the fact that it could never be repeated.

As the last of the scroll turned to ash, Sasori sat back, his gaze distant. He had spent his life chasing perfection, but now, at the end of it all, he realized that the true beauty of life was in its imperfection.

And for the first time, Sasori felt ready to let go.

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