001 - Sasori

Sasori Akasuna

Masculine

November 8th

35 years

164.1 cm

47.3 kg

AB

Renegade Ninja (Rank S) Mercenary Ninja

Sunagakure Akatsuki

Puppet Unit Surprise Attack and Diversion Platoon

33-001

Jounin

Genin: 7 years old Chuunin: 8 years old

Chiyo (Grandmother) Sasori's Father (Father) Sasori's Mother (Mother) Ebizō (Great-uncle)

Orochimaro Deidara

Fire Style Earth Style

As a child, Sasori always seemed sad, due to his parents' lack of love. When introduced to the art of puppetry by his grandmother, Chiyo, he grew somewhat happier. He eventually created puppets in the likeness of his parents, but the puppets could not give him the love he craved, and he became cold and distant. This led to him having little regard for human life, and he went so far as to state that he would feel nothing if even Chiyo died, as he claimed that his heart had become like his puppet body: emotionless. Despite his cruelty, Sasori had also been shown to possess a very realistic outlook on life, rarely growing up and working himself up over obstacles that came his way. He also rarely showed any extreme emotion, and even these instances were short-lived.

Sasori was also known for his impatience, as he often stated that he did not want to wait or keep others waiting. Despite his impatience, he took his time with his first battle against Kankurou due to the interest of seeing his old creations being used by the next generation, making Deidara wait.

Sasori and his second Akatsuki partner, Deidara, both had conflicting views on art, and they often argued about their differing views. Deidara held the opinion that art was a fleeting thing that quickly fades away, whereas Sasori believed that art was something wonderful that is left long in the future. This reflected in their individual natures; Deidara made clay sculptures that exploded, while Sasori created long-lasting dolls of humans. However, Deidara outwardly seemed to respect Sasori's beliefs, though Sasori never respected Deidara's.

Sasori's ambition was to become an artist by becoming a puppet, because he thought that art is something wonderful that is left long into the future. He abandoned this ambition when Kankurou told him that it was in his creations that he put his heart and soul so that they would last forever. After accepting Kankurou's view of eternal art, he entrusted his puppets Mother and Father to Kankurou, and told him to pass them on to the next generation when he dies. At this point, he is shown to have an emotional side as well.

Also noteworthy is that he was willing to accept other people's opinions on certain topics, unlike Deidara, who stubbornly stood by his beliefs.

Without his puppet armor, he retained the appearance of a teenager with wide brown eyes (inherited from his mother), and short red hair (inherited from his father). As a child, he wore a green robe with a light jacket around them. As an adult, he was mostly seen in the Akatsuki robe. When Sasori revealed his true body, which was a puppet with a pair of claws attached to its lower back, a holder for four scrolls on its back, a stinger in its empty and open stomach cavity, a compartment in its right chest, and a core in its left, his eyes were open in a maniacal manner, as opposed to his normal, calm eyes.

On his left thumb was his Akatsuki ring, which has the kanji for Jewel (玉, gyoku). Sasori also wore nail polish. Even though he owned a Sunagakure headband that was cut out, he was never seen wearing it.

Past

When Sasori was young, his father and mother were killed by Sakumo Hatake, leaving him with no one but his grandmother, Chiyo, to care for him. To cheer Sasori up, Chiyo began teaching him the art of puppet making. He began making puppets at the age of five, and even made puppets that resembled his parents to relieve the terrible loneliness he felt. But because they were only puppets, unable to give him the natural parental love he desired, he lost interest in them. They later fell into Chiyo's possession. Sasori proved to be a natural at the art, even developing masterful ways to eliminate a weakness of the puppet master.

Sasori created many ingenious puppets, including the ones now owned by Kankurou. During the Third Shinobi World War, these puppets were used to such great effect that they were dyed sand red with blood. This gave rise to the name Sasori of the Red Sand. Twenty years before his introduction in the series, he left Sunagakure at the age of fifteen, after he secretly kidnapped and killed the Third Kazekage (although his involvement in the Third's disappearance was not discovered until around the time of his death). More than that, Sasori eventually converted himself into a human puppet to maintain his youthful appearance and increase his own offensive capabilities.

Some time after leaving the village, Sasori joined Akatsuki, and was eventually paired with Orochimaru. They had great respect for each other during their partnership, and went on many missions together. After Orochimaru left Akatsuki (following a failed attempt to steal the body of fellow member Itachi Uchiha), Sasori was paired with Deidara, though he always bore a grudge against his former partner. He sent Kabuto Yakushi to spy on Orochimaru, but Orochimaru dispelled Sasori's technique and convinced Kabuto to join him. Sasori was also shown with numerous other underlings and spies in many nations, such as Yūra and Mukade.

Naruto: Shippuden Kazekage Rescue Mission Main article: Kazekage Rescue Mission

At the start of Naruto: Shippūden, Sasori, hidden within his puppet, Hiruko, returned to his old village, Sunagakure, with Deidara to capture the Ichibi no Shukaku's jinchūriki, and the Fifth Kazekage, Gaara. Both Akatsuki members easily penetrated Suna's defences, as the village was betrayed by one of Sasori's own subordinates, Yūra. After Deidara captured Gaara, the latter's older brother, Kankurou, attempted to stop the Akatsuki duo from escaping. But Sasori confronted him so that Deidara could go ahead unopposed, and made quick work of Kankurou, poisoning and nearly killing him, and easily destroyed his puppets, as he had pre-existing knowledge of their secrets. After the Akatsuki members extracted and sealed Gaara's Ichibi no Shukaku in the Akatsuki hideout, Sasori and Deidara were left in charge of their leader to defeat Team Kakashi and Sasori's grandmother, Chiyo. As Deidara led Naruto Uzumaki and Kakashi Hatake away, using Gaara's dead body as bait, Sasori was left to face Sakura Haruno and Chiyo.

Soon after the battle began, with Chiyo controlling her like a puppet, Sakura was able to destroy the puppet Sasori used to hide behind, Hiruko. As he emerged from Hiruko's remains, Sasori revealed his true self, and Chiyo and Sakura were shocked to see his youthful face, considering he had left Sunagakure over twenty years ago. Wasting no time, however, Sasori brought out his puppet of the Third Kazekage, which he revealed to be his favourite, as the third was the hardest to kill and add to his collection. Since the Third Kazekage was a human puppet, Sasori was able to use several of his iron sand abilities to attack Chiyo and Sakura. To attempt to combat the Kazekage, Chiyo brought out Sasori's parent puppets. Although Chiyo equipped them with extra weapons and defences, the Kazekage's sand quickly disabled both puppets. Acting on her own, Sakura demolished the Kazekage doll after picking up on its movements and using herself as bait to lower Sasori's guard.

With the loss of the Third Kazekage puppet, Sasori revealed the reason behind his eternal youth: his own body was a human puppet, which itself was equipped with numerous weapons and traps laced with poison. When Chiyo brought out her own ten puppets in an attempt to level the playing field, Sasori used his Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets, allowing him to control ten times more puppets than Chiyo. Since Chiyo's puppets were designed to work together, a trait lacking in all of Sasori's puppets, her puppets fared much better than his, though they were ultimately overwhelmed by numbers. During the battle, Chiyo attempted to seal Sasori's chakra with a special orb from one of her puppets, but lost her heart - the only living part of her body and the source of her chakra - and only her body was trapped in the puppet. As Chiyo and Sakura were distracted by their summoned puppets, Sasori was revealed to have transferred the cylindrical container of his heart into another of his own puppets, which bore the likeness of his own face, before the seal attached to his original body pinned him to the wall.

Using the seal as a distraction, Sasori, in his new puppet body, attempted a sneak attack on Chiyo. However, Sakura took Sasori's sword attack instead of Chiyo. As Sasori prepared to attack again, it gave Chiyo the chance to use her parents' puppets to stab Sasori through the heart in the form of an embrace, a position he had always wanted to be in since his childhood.

Before he died, as a reward to Sakura for defeating him, Sasori informed her of a spy he had inside the hideout of his previous Akatsuki partner, Orochimaru, and told her when and where she could find that spy. As Sasori died, Chiyo said that Sasori could have avoided his final attack, but he deliberately allowed himself to be killed. Thus, it seemed that Sasori chose to die in the loving embrace of his parents.

Strength Main article: Force (Bow) In the anime, Sasori is summoned by Kabuto to battle Team Kakashi, who are investigating the massacre that took place in the pit. Shortly after being summoned, Sasori's coffin returns with Kabuto wondering if the Summoning: Impure Lands Reincarnation was incomplete.

Fourth Shinobi World War: Countdown Main article: Fourth Shinobi World War: Countdown

Sasori is later resurrected along with Itachi Uchiha, Kakuzu, Deidara, and Nagato with Summoning: Impure Lands Reincarnation when Kabuto confronts Tobi to join forces.

Fourth Shinobi World War: Climax Main article: Fourth Shinobi World War: Climax He was resurrected again, and placed alongside Deidara, Shin, and Chuukichi in Akatsuki's Surprise Attack and Diversion Platoon. He is disappointed to see that he has to take orders from his former subordinate, and that the only surviving members of Akatsuki are Zetsu and Tobi (his replacement). He and Deidara get into a fight over the art.

Later, the squad moves towards the remaining members of Anko Mitarashi's team. During the battle against the Ambush Team, he was surprised that Omoi managed to cut his chakra strings. He is pulled down by Kankurou, and compliments him on his increased skill. When Kankurou removes the puppet from Sasori's body, he comments on how useless the body seems now, as he has achieved the body he had always wanted by becoming a puppet in every sense of the word. He joins his chakra strings to Shin's side, using him to fight Kankurou.

After Deidara causes Shin to explode, Sasori explains his knowledge of Root, stating that they are very similar to him. He and Deidara are attacked by one of Sai's paintings in a fit of rage, and trapped inside two puppets, and attacked by lightning-enhanced blades. As Shin crumbles into dust, Sasori notes how he cannot feel any response from his chakra. When Kankurou explains that Sasori's strength comes from his soul, as he poured his heart and soul into the puppets he created, Sasori, now filled with emotion, finally accepts that his puppets and techniques were what immortalized him and begins to crumble into dust as well. Before his soul is released, he entrusts his Mother and Father puppets to Kankurou, telling him to pass them on to future generations when Kankurou dies. After his soul is released and he collapses, the corpse of the sacrifice used to bind his soul appears among the dust and ash.

Sasori was an extremely powerful shinobi. He was a highly analytical man. His use of his puppets was greatly feared during the Third Shinobi World War as he turned the sand red with blood, earning him the nickname "Sasori of the Red Sand". Sasori's abilities also gave him the power to defeat and kill the Third Kazekage, who was said to be the strongest ninja in the history of Sunagakure, although Sasori claims that he had some trouble defeating him, earning praise from even Deidara, who admitted that Sasori was the stronger of the two. Sasori was also shown to have a large amount of chakra, being able to manipulate the Third Kazekage's puppet and its iron sand techniques at will without any problems.

Puppet Master Trained by his powerful grandmother, Chiyo, in the art, Sasori was a master puppeteer and had great skill in both creating and controlling them. He created a number of ingenious puppets. While in Sunagakure he created the three puppets that Kankurou uses, he had 298 other puppets in his personal collection. His status as a master puppeteer gave him a tremendous advantage against other puppet-controlling shinobi, especially if the puppets they were previously using became his own, as seen in his battle with Kankurou. While the puppets were usually fitted with ranged weapons, Sasori was an expert in long-range combat. Sasori could also control people living like puppets, even against their will, if they were weakened enough. His use of puppets was at such a high level that he made mere techniques appear as an artistic performance, which he called the "Red Secret Technique".

Hiruko was the first puppet shown being used by Sasori in the series. Sasori actually used this puppet as armor and a weapon, and controlled it from within, thus eliminating the puppeteers' weakness of being targeted by being separated and exposed. While in Hiruko, Sasori had a deeper, husky voice. Hiruko was his favorite puppet, so much so that he adorned it throughout most of his tenure with Akatsuki, and had to wear the Akatsuki robe and hat. Sasori used Hiruko so much that many people seemed to have rarely seen Sasori in person, as evidenced by Zetsu and Kabuto's response to seeing that Hiruko was not the real body. On the other hand, Orochimaru made it clear that he was not Sasori, implying that he had seen Sasori's true face during his time with Akatsuki. During an omake in the anime, it was shown that Deidara also saw Sasori's true face while Sasori was doing maintenance on Hiruko.

Hiruko had a long mechanical suit of armor, a scorpion-like tail (an allusion to Sasori's name meaning "scorpion"), extending from the mouth of what appeared to be a demon mask on his back. Chiyo stated that this mask was a recent addition by Sasori to add extra defense to a weak point in the puppet. The tail served as Hiruko's main offensive weapon, and was laced with his poison. The tail was also used as an extra defense, spinning around his body at a rapid speed. Hiruko's left arm was equipped with a projectile launcher capable of firing poisoned shrapnel and needles, and his mouth could also be used to serve a similar function of firing poisoned needles.

Hiruko is only said to have been a human puppet in the anime, from another famous Sunagakure shinobi that Sasori converted after death. In the manga he was just a regular puppet.

Human Puppet Main article: Human puppet Sasori's puppets were unique in that they were made from the still-living bodies of humans. These human puppets were more versatile than regular puppets, since, in addition to having many dangerous devices installed inside them (as is common with regular puppets), they were also capable of using chakra and performing techniques. The kekkei genkai techniques or abilities possessed by the converted human were also transferred to the puppet.

Third Kazekage Main article: Third Kazekage (puppet) Third Kaze The Third Kazekage as Sasori's puppet. Sasori's favorite human puppet was the Third Kazekage, who retained his kekkei genkai, Magnet Release, which used iron sand as its primary weapon. When mixed with Sasori's poison, the iron sand was given a more lethal advantage. The iron sand could also be used to fill the joints of other puppets, thus immobilizing them. Because the sand was derived from the Third Kazekage's ability to convert chakra into magnetism, it granted Sasori immunity to metallic weapons. The right arm of the Kazekage puppet held and threw several poisoned blades, while the left arm could open to reveal several summoning seals that summoned thousands of other weapons to attack the target. These weapons were capable of overwhelming an opponent by emitting clouds of poisonous gas, and releasing the threads that dragged the opponent into the gas cloud. If these weapons were cut, a small saw took their place.

Puppet Body Main article: Human Puppet: Sasori Sasori's puppet body. Although Sasori was 35 years old, he retained the appearance of a teenager. Sasori's youthful appearance was a product of his design. Aside from his heart, Sasori's body was actually a puppet. In place of his stomach was a thick cable wrapped around a pole, allowing Sasori to use it as a stinger and retract it if necessary. Attached to his back was a scroll holder, containing four scrolls that appeared to serve as "ammunition", which Sasori used to store his human puppets. Sasori also added a pair of poles to the back of his hips, each equipped with five large blades that could spin like a propeller, granting him both a means of faster movement and a monstrous close-range combat weapon, and tubes for each of his hands that could spew intense fire, hot enough to melt even stone, or, in the anime, jets of water so strong that they were capable of cutting through rock.

Despite being loaded with weapons, Sasori kept himself (and his true form) hidden with his Akatsuki robes, which were large enough to conceal them without issue. Interestingly, when using "himself", Sasori's eyes were always open, giving him a somewhat manic look. In contrast, before revealing his doll body, they were always half-closed, making him appear calmer and more distant. Sasori stated that he had not used "himself" since joining Akatsuki, until his last battle with his grandmother and Sakura Haruno.

Installed on the right side of his chest was a mechanism that could spin numerous chakra strings, allowing Sasori to use his Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets. With it, he was given a more drastic advantage, such that he claimed to have attacked an entire country with it. The left side of his chest was the only part of him still human and thus the only, and necessary, part of his body capable of controlling chakra: a cylinder-shaped device containing his heart.

Sasori's Heart The only living part of Sasori's body. Because Sasori's heart was the only living part of himself, his body was a virtually indestructible puppet, allowing him to survive the poison mist Kankurou bombarded him with, as well as the impact of Sakura's blows. He was also able to fight for long periods of time without the hindrances that would normally affect a human body, such as fatigue, muscle failure, blood loss, wounds, and pain. When his body broke, he could simply put the parts back together. Additionally, he could transfer his heart to other puppets in a split second, allowing him to abandon a body to one that was damaged beyond repair or incapacitated. It is suggested in the manga that Sasori created more than one puppet organism in his image. The core was his only weakness, and its destruction would mean his death. After Sasori's death, Kankurou later took over his body and used it as his puppet.

Intelligence Time and again, Sasori has demonstrated himself to be a very cunning ninja, capable of dealing with situations with various traps and deceptions. He is also shown to be a highly analytical man, able to quickly determine his opponent's strengths and combat methods. Like his grandmother, Sasori has a great knowledge of the human body, as evidenced by his brainwashing technique and his mastery over the creation of different types of poisons. His poisons, which he had present in almost every weapon in his arsenal, acted immediately, so much so that a certain type could kill a target after three days of suffering. According to Sakura, this same poison was refined with heavy metals, which affects the muscles and destroys cells. Sasori initially believed that this poison would be incurable, but later, to his surprise, Sakura came up with an antidote for him. Sasori noted that creating an antidote requires extreme precision, without fail, and this is something difficult even for himself.

At the time of his death, Sasori had yet to capture his assigned tailed beast. A short dialogue between him and Deidara suggested that Sasori did not even know which beast he had been assigned to target.[13] However, after his death, Tobi took his place as Deidara's new partner and ring in Akatsuki, and he later captured the Three-Tails, thus suggesting that the beast was Sasori's target.

However, due to the preservation of his body, Sasori's influence on future events had not ended with his death. Prior to the events of the Five Kage Summit, Kankurou retrieved Sasori's body to replace his usual puppets. It appears that some modifications have been made to his body since Sasori's death, though it is unknown if any mechanisms were installed earlier but were not displayed before Sasori's death. Using Scorpion to combat the reincarnated Sasori, Kankurou is able to give Sasori closure, stating that he gained his immortality through all the puppets he made.

Sasori (蠍) means "scorpion". Sasori has the same birth date as Masashi Kishimoto. Also, his date of birth (November 8) is the western sign Scorpio. Sasori had one of the longest battle moments in the anime (8 full episodes), giving him about three hours of battle. In the first poll he was in (the sixth poll in total), he placed 6th on the list. In the second poll he was in eighth position. Sasori made a brief appearance in the omake of Naruto Shippūden episode 129, passing by Sakura Haruno and Naruto Uzumaki at a festival, looking at the former. According to the databook: His hobby was remodeling his puppet collection. Sasori wished to fight Monzaemon Chikamatsu. Sasori doesn't need food. Sasori had completed 72 official missions in total: 5 D-rank, 12 C-rank, 16 B-rank, 29 A-rank, 10 S-rank. Sasori's favorite phrase was "Eternal beauty". The symbol that Sasori leaves on his dolls is a scorpion.