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Chapter Text

"Ōnoki-sama, what's behind that door?" Deidara asked, his curiosity piqued as they passed by.

The Third Tsuchikage raised an eyebrow at the question from his new, young student. The door didn't stand out among the others, yet behind it lay one of his best ANBU agents and various traps and seals designed to get rid of intruders. He marveled at how Deidara had singled out this seemingly ordinary door. Clearly, the boy had sharp instincts and potential.

"It's a secret, Deidara," Ōnoki replied, his tone kind but firm. He didn't want to lie to his student, yet he felt no need to tell him what lay beyond. The contents behind that door were for his knowledge alone.

Deidara frowned, a boldness in his glare that one wouldn't typically direct toward a Kage, but he remained silent. Several days later, Ōnoki would regret the spark of curiosity he had inadvertently ignited in his young apprentice. Despite repeated assurances that the matter was not open for discussion, Deidara kept pestering him until Ōnoki coulnd't stand it anymore and gave up. It was hard to admit to himself that a six-year-old had bested him.

"Some valuable relics that have been part of Iwagakure for centuries," Ōnoki finally said, hoping to quell Deidara's relentless questioning.

"Relics? What are those?"

Ōnoki mused inwardly, that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to tell Deidara. It would motivate him to get stronger and take training more seriously. "Objects as powerful as they are dangerous. Forbidden scrolls that contain techniques with fearsome power," he explained.

Deidara remained silent for a moment, his imagination running wild.

"Can I see them?" he asked eagerly, large eyes shining with enthusiasm.

“No,” Ōnoki replied, blunt, floating away with both hands clasped behind his back. "It is a forbidden place."

Deidara hurried to catch up with him. "But you are the Tsuchikage, you can allow it, hm!" he insisted.

A vein bulged on Ōnoki's forehead. "Well, I don't allow it! It's no place for a child anyway."

In the following days, Deidara maintained a stubborn silence. During his lessons, he stood with his arms crossed, staring at the ground. Though he followed orders diligently and studied hard for the Chuunin exam, whenever Ōnoki addressed him, he only received silence. Ōnoki had always considered himself stubborn, but this child, despite his size, proved even more obstinate.

The battle of wills endured for a week and a half, until Ōnoki finally ordered Deidara to follow him. Deidara's face lit up with a wide smile for the first time in days.

"With that, we could defeat Konoha easily. Why aren't we using them?" Deidara said as they made their way to the crypt.

"That's a complicated question," Ōnoki murmured, undoing another trap. The blue light, forming strange symbols, extinguished as he performed the appropriate seals. "This great power also comes with great sacrifice. You must think very carefully before making any decisions, as there is no turning back."

"But you used one! What was your sacrifice?" Deidara pressed.

Maybe he wasn't setting a good example for his young student, but that was a completely different matter. Ōnoki had to do it; he was the Tsuchikage and owed himself to the village. Converting the kekkei genkai he naturally possessed into kekkei tōta gave him unimaginable destructive power. Many enemies automatically fled whenever he was known to be on the battlefield because everything that his dust release touched was hopelessly obliterated—people, plants, animals, or objects—all reduced to mere atoms forever separated from each other.

"My life expectancy will be extended by a few years. My body will age even more, surpassing the limit of what is natural, and I will have to suffer the consequences of its deterioration until my time comes,” explained Ōnoki.

The few people Ōnoki had confided in about this secret always said that living longer was a good thing. They did not know what it was like to live suffering in an expired body. Deidara nodded silently, though Ōnoki only needed to see his expression to know that he was shocked, even horrified.

"People usually think that living longer is better. Don't you think that too?" Ōnoki asked, intrigued to know his student's thoughts.

"What's so good about living being so old and battered?" Deidara retorted, wrinkling his nose. "You yourself have said that you are going to suffer."

"That's why I told you that every great power in this room comes with a sacrifice."

The conversation seemed to have shifted Deidara's perspective on the power the scrolls contained. Perhaps that was an advantage too; he would get the idea out of his head. At times, Ōnoki regretted having made the pact. Other times, he didn't, but he was sure that if there was some way to revert to his previous state, he wouldn't do it.

To make up for it, he allowed him to explore the crypt as he pleased. Ōnoki let him touch whatever he wanted and examine each legendary artifact and weapon. He even had him read to her the effects of the five forbidden scrolls, explaining any unfamiliar terms along the way. One scroll in particular captured Deidara's attention the most. Given his family's artisan background, Ōnoki wasn't surprised. It contained information about bombs capable of moving on their own, controlled by their creator. It was a deadly technique, demanding and unforgiving, often claiming the lives of its wielders prematurely as it turned their very bodies into single-use weapons.

"Someday I'll have this one," Deidara declared, with unsettling certainty.

"Not if I can help it," Ōnoki replied.

Deidara didn't like that answer.

Ōnoki dragged him out of there, convinced now that it had been a mistake to bring Deidara to that place. Despite his ambition and potential, Deidara was still a clueless brat. He assigned him a couple of C-rank missions with his son Kitsuchi to keep him occupied. The next day, they would focus on taijutsu training, and Ōnoki wouldn't allow him to rest until he was begging for mercy.

The power accumulation policy of Ay, the Third Raikage, was among the many triggers for the third ninja war. Ay treasured relations with neighboring countries, while distant nations suffered constant abuses. He knew nothing of diplomacy, only bloodshed. Shielded behind an isthmus with a hostile microclimate and imposing cliffs surrounding almost the entire peninsula, the Hidden Cloud felt emboldened to kidnap ninjas with useful kekkei genkai or assassinate key figures from other villages to weaken them.

Sitting at his desk, Ōnoki held his forehead with both hands and huffed. Konoha kept him too busy. He lacked the resources to make he Hidden Cloud pay for killing Roshi after the failed kidnapping attempt.

He should have acted sooner. Just a few years ago, the Hidden Cloud nearly succeeded in kidnapping the bearer of the Nine-Tails, which was in Konoha's possession. Recently, they attempted to do the same with the bearer of the Seven-Tails, taking advantage of it being the only tailed beast owned by a minor nation. The fact that the Hidden Waterfall had declared itself neutral in the conflict mattered little. Raikage Ay was as ambitious as he was paranoid, always twisting facts to claim that everyone was planning to invade his territory. Every great nation had at least one jinchuuriki. Their possession maintained the balance of power in the world, which is why Iwa could not afford to lose either of them. The Hidden Cloud already possessed two, although the second strongest of the nine, the Eight-Tails, occasionally spiraled out of control, becoming a double-edged sword.

But Roshi was dead, a bitter truth to swallow. Caught off guard, the attacking ANBU from the Hidden Cloud soon discovered that the seal mechanism was not as straightforward as they had assumed. Then Roshi triggered the emergency self-destruct fuuinjutsu. The Four-Tails seized control of his body and unleashed havoc, slaughtering them along with several Iwa jonin who attempted to restrain him. Now under control, the Four-Tails was more furious than ever. Worse yet, Roshi's body would only last a couple of days before the seal deteriorated further, killing the tailed beast. If that happened, they'd have to wait a few years before being able to summon it back.

This dilemma threatened to make Ōnoki lose what little hair he had left on his head. With the Four-Tails unable to fight, and Konoha tightening its grip, the situation grew increasingly dire.

As he organized the day's missions, Ōnoki felt the weight of stress bearing down on him. Wartime had heightened every aspect of his duties. His eyes constantly darted to the window, hoping to catch sight of his son and granddaughter arriving.

Traditionally, a Jinchuuriki was chosen from among the Tsuchikage's relatives to ensure loyalty to the village. While Han had been Lord Second Mu's brother, Roshi had been Ōnoki's childhood best friend. They weren't blood relatives, but Roshi fought for the village with more fervor than the Five-Tails Jinchuuriki ever did. Ōnoki didn't have to adhere strictly to tradition if he didn't want to. Kurotsuchi, his granddaughter, would have been the ideal candidate if she weren't so young. Although she would form the strongest bond with the tailed beast, Ōnoki didn't want that path for her, especially since she could barely crawl. Should he let the protection of his family sway his decision? Perhaps not. A Tsuchikage prioritized the village's needs, but Ōnoki wished Kurotsuchi could at least choose for herself if she wanted such a fate.

The door to his office swung open. No one had bothered to knock, so Ōnoki correctly deduced that it was Deidara. The boy appeared pleased, still sporting the so-called cat tail used for training in speed and stealth.

“Uma-sensei said I can start with the twenty-meter tail now,” he announced proudly.

Impressive, especially considering that children his age—and even some older ones—were still using the ten-meter or fifteen-meter cat tail.

The tool comprised a pair of trousers with a long cat's tail attached to the back, complete with a bell on the tip. When running, the tail had to be held aloft horizontally, ensuring the bell didn't touch the ground, and therefore, not make a sound. Upon mastering this, a student earned another, longer tail. Ōnoki could already see that young Deidara wouldn't remain a genin for long; some of his abilities bordered on chuunin level.

As always after rigorous training, Deidara was fatigued and relatively docile. While he recounted his activities for that day, Ōnoki sipped his green tea. Then Kitsuchi entered the office with Kurotsuchi in his arms.

"Father, the test has been done. Kurotsuchi has inherited the kekkei genkai," Kitsuchi announced. "As expected, she will be a powerful kunoichi."

Deidara was keenly aware of the conversation's subject: the four-tails and the next Jinchuuriki. Since Roshi's kidnapping, Ōnoki-sensei had been obsessed with the matter. Kitsuchi set Kurotsuchi down, and she crawled toward the long cat tail trailing behind Deidara.

If Kurotsuchi became the new Jinchuuriki, she would grow immensely strong, possessing powers unique in the world. Deidara felt a twinge of envy.

"I know the younger, the better... But she's still a toddler," Kitsuchi remarked. "Isn't there an alternative?"

"True. But we must honor our commitment to the village," the Tsuchikage replied. "The Kazekage used his own son, born prematurely at seven months, as a vessel for Shukaku. If he endured it, so will Kurotsuchi. She is my granddaughter."

Aware that Ōnoki disliked interruptions during adult conversations, Deidara shook the bell on the cat's tail, trying to capture Kurotsuchi's attention. She grinned and reached out her little arm, only for Deidara to pull his hand away at the last moment. Kurotsuchi let out a displeased grunt. Babies were amusingly slow. Deidara chuckled, watching her face turn red with frustration.

"Father," Kitsuchi murmured, observing the scene, "...How loyal do you think the boy can be to you?"

"He's ambitious, perhaps overly so," Ōnoki replied, his voice lowered. "But he's also exceptionally talented. I believe he could handle the Four-Tails better than anyone, and gaining an elemental affinity for fire would mitigate the negative effects of his earth release."

"Do you trust he'll remain loyal?" Kitsuchi inquired.

Ōnoki pondered the question carefully, rubbing his chin in thought. "I know how to do it. But it would involve certain things that I'm not willing to go through. We should correct certain aspects of his personality now that he is young. He is a very stubborn boy, the most stubborn I have ever seen in my life."

"Father, I don't think anyone can beat you in stubbornness," Kitsuchi remarked, with blunt seriousness.

"This kid does, believe me," Ōnoki replied.

"And his mother? Don't you think she might not want this fate for her son?"

"His family isn't from a shinobi tradition. They'll have to abide by the decision. And I'll ensure it's in the best interest of the Hidden Rock village."

Deidara sensed they were discussing him, though he couldn't catch every word. While he played with Kurotsuchi on the floor, he strained to overhear their conversation, but it proved useless. Eventually, he got too distracted and Kurotsuchi managed to catch hold of the cat's tail.

"Deidara," Ōnoki called out, seizing the moment. "You mentioned you wanted to become a powerful shinobi."

"I will be the most powerful," Deidara declared, rising to his feet. "I'll train every day until I am."

Ōnoki nodded, pleased with the answer. "What do you think about gaining access to a power that only a privileged few in the world possess?"

"The Four-Tails..." Deidara began.

But as far as he knew, that power was destined for the toddler before him. If Kurotsuchi had inherited the kekkei genkai, then she was more than suitable to become a Jinchuuriki. It seemed they didn't want her to take on that role, which reframed their request to him as a favor. Deidara could see through their attempt to sell it as a privilege; in truth, it was the opposite. He smirked.

"I'm not sure. What do I gain in return?" Deidara responded, a specific demand forming in his mind.

Ōnoki and Kitsuchi exchanged confused glances, expecting Deidara to agree immediately.

"What do you want?" Ōnoki asked.

"I'll do it in exchange for the forbidden scroll," Deidara stated firmly, as if it were non-negotiable.

The other day, Deidara overheard Ōnoki mentioning that if they didn't find a host soon, the Four-Tails would be lost. This way, he could obtain both the scroll and the power of the tailed beast. If they refused his request, he just wouldn't agree. He would have to wait until he could steal the scroll on his own, but he was still young and his skills weren't refined enough. That day was still far off.

"No!" Ōnoki erupted, slamming his hand on the table. "You have no idea what you're asking for! Why can't you stop with this nonsense!? Those scrolls are not to be taken lightly! They are dangerous!"

"Then I won't do it," Deidara replied with a shrug.

Ōnoki stared at his student. Just when he resolved to rein him in, Deidara had to set a condition like this. Whose idea was it to take on such a precocious and insolent child as a disciple?

"If you agree to become the host of the Four-Tails, I will grant you permission to use it upon your promotion to Chuunin," he offered.

"For real!?" Deidara exclaimed, genuinely surprised, as if he hadn't expected that.

Ōnoki's desperation was evident; he was allowing this child to win again. Him. The Tsuchikage.

"I'm not lying. But remember, I warned you countless times. You will face the consequences of your decisions," Ōnoki cautioned.

It wasn't a bitter defeat, not at all. At least he had spared his granddaughter from a life that would be too harsh. Neither Han nor Roshi had it easy. Deidara could handle it; of that, Ōnoki was certain. What concerned him more was the kinjutsu. Dealing with a seirei was tricky; the entities sealed in the scrolls always ensured the contract was in their favor. Ōnoki could attest to that. Deidara's recklessness would cost him dearly, but perhaps he needed to learn that lesson.

Chapter Text

"This takes the cake! As if the usual humiliations weren't enough, now they lock me up in a human pup!"

Those were the first intelligible words that Son Gokuu said to Deidara.

The influx of additional chakra into his body felt uncomfortable. Despite having all four levels of the seal activated, it was still designed to leak a small percentage of the tailed beast's consciousness. They opted to seal it at the level of the fourth chakra, anahata, contrary to other tailed beasts where it was linked to the first or second chakra. Based on past experiences, the Four Tails exhibited a stronger affinity for that position, ensuring a more efficient and potent flow of energy.

"I'm not a pup! I don't care if you don't like me or if you're mad. I'm going to be the strongest in this village with your power and my talent, whether you want it or not,” Deidara responded.

"Hmm..." Rumbled Son Gokuus voice within him. "Despite being but a pup, you already exhibit the symptoms of arrogance and haughtiness typical of your kind. Do not treat me as a mere instrument, nor as a means to bolster your chakra reserves, nor as a slave, even though your kind has transformed me into one."

Deidara nodded, relieved to find himself alone at that moment. Though he was chatting with the tailed beast sealed within him, anyone who caught sight of him would have likely thought he was nuts. He hesitated to admit it to himself, but he felt frustrated. Perhaps this wasn't what he had envisioned when he agreed to become a jinchuuriki. He had thought about the power, he had thought about the kinjutsu Ōnoki had promised him upon graduation, but he hadn't anticipated sharing his body with a sentient being for the remainder of his life. Kitsuchi had warned him about an adjustment phase, suggesting it might not be pleasant. Now, he understood what Kitsuchi meant. He felt mentally sluggish, sleepy.

"I'll let it go this time. But only because you are still young and clueless. My name is Son Gokuu, the Handsome Monkey King of the Cave in the Waterfall; the King of the Wise Monkeys, bestowed with a dharma name by the Sage of the Six Paths. Learn it because we are going to have to live together from now on. Respect me and you will receive respect in return. Call me Four-Tails or demon like they do, and I guarantee your chakra won't increase as much as you think."

Deidara took a moment to absorb those words. Living in harmony with Son Gokuu seemed like the best thing to do. However, he didn't appreciate being spoken to in that manner. He let out a resigned sigh as he shrugged, realizing he also had some conditions to set.

"That name is too long," he complained, crossing his arms.

"Just Son Gokuu will suffice."

"Fine, I'll call you that, but you'll have to stop calling me pup. My name is Deidara!"

He heard Son Gokuu's dry, breathy laugh in his head. Deidara blinked, realizing it sounded like a monkey's laugh, which, that was what it was, after all.

"I see you're starting to understand," Son Gokuu responded.

Tired of flying, the little sparrow landed on the roof of a house. Not ten seconds later, it fled, scared off by a young man running and jumping from roof to roof, occasionally doing somersaults or swinging on the cables.

For Deidara, walking was boring and made him feel clumsy and slow. He squinted, shielding his eyes from the sun with a hand to better examine the ground. He had returned not long ago from a B-rank mission with Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi, and the trio had headed straight to report their progress to the Tsuchikage. As feared, Han had vanished, with all signs pointing to Akatsuki's involvement. The pagoda on the village outskirts where Han resided was found in ruins, destroyed by some powerful force. Amidst the rubble and shattered furniture lay fragments of the Jinchuuriki's sturdy armor. Whatever had caused this destruction possessed immense power.

Deidara had never liked Han, and according to Son Gokuu, Kokuo was his second least favorite tailed beast. Han had been manipulated by his own tailed beast, sharing her resentment and worldview. He moved to the outskirts, away from the humanity he despised, and didn't even agree to guide Deidara when he became a Jinchuuriki. Not that Deidara cared much about that, but given their lack of a relationship, Han's disappearance didn't affect him much.

In nearly fifteen years as the vessel for Son Gokuu, Deidara had learned to make extensive use of the extra chakra and powers he had gained. Han's tactics were completely different. His iron defense consisted of almost impenetrable armor and an aura of scalding steam, giving the enemy little opportunity to inflict damage. For offense, Han simply surrendered to Kokuo's possession, turning off his consciousness and allowing the tailed beast free rein. He had no real technique. A waste, in Deidara's opinion.

On the other hand, he had his art. Deidara could perform perfectly well in a fight on his own merits.

As he jumped down to head to his usual lunch spot, he immediately noticed all eyes on him. His presence often slightly alarmed the ignorant civilians who didn't understand Son Gokuu's true power.

"Here's the monkey devil, hm!" he shouted, amused, pretending to chase after the closest person, a middle-aged man.

With a frightened yelp, the man hastily retreated, as did several others. Unable to hold back his laughter, Deidara continued on his way. Despite so many years without incident, ordinary people treated him as if the fury of the Four Tails could be unleashed at any moment, exploding in their faces. They should be kissing his feet, really. If the Hidden Rock were under siege, he would be a key player in its defense, and they could only benefit from that. However, because the Hidden Cloud and the Hidden Leaf had been partially devastated a few years ago by tailed beasts, many people thought it was only a matter of time before the monkey took over and went on a rampage, crushing houses with his fists.

"Deidara-nii! Wait!"

He turned to see his teammate, the granddaughter of his sensei, running towards him with something in her hand.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the object.

"You left so soon! Grandad had a scroll for you!" she said, waving it in front of his face as soon as she reached him.

"I was hungry and didn't want to wait any longer," Deidara replied, nonchalant.

"It's about Akatsuki. All the available information collected is confidential, and I haven't even read it myself. Grandad wants you to read it now that we know Han fought back."

Deidara pouted. "If it was them, why didn't they come for me too? Am I not worth it? Ah, I'm offended," he said, taking the scroll and tucking it into the pouch hanging from his belt.

"That's because Han was a much easier target than you. To get in here, they'd have to face the entire Explosion Corps and our Jonin. Plus me, Akatsuchi, and Grandad," Kurotsuchi said with determination.

"So you plan to fight too, huh?"

As they walked, they entered the bustling market street lined with stalls on both sides. Kurotsuchi cracked her knuckles.

"Of course! Someday I'll be the Fourth Tsuchikage, so I must start by protecting my village now." But her determined tone soon faltered. "Actually I, uh... I'm a bit worried."

"Do you doubt my ability to take down those Akatsuki, hm?"

She rolled her eyes.

"How self-centered," Kurotsuchi retorted. "I'm not worried about you, I'm worried about the village. They say that when the Fifth Kazekage was kidnapped, part of the population of the Hidden Sand died of poisoning."

"It seems that Konoha sent reinforcements and they found the antidote, but they couldn't save everyone," Deidara said. "Poisoning so many people at once is not something that can be achieved easily. They are truly powerful."

Deidara knew he had to start studying the available information about the Akatsuki and their techniques contained in the scroll. He suspected it wasn't much, as they still didn't know where to start looking, but at least he would know what he was facing. Years ago, two of them appeared in Konoha to take the Nine Tails. The incident was widely discussed since it was the first time the infamous Uchiha Itachi returned to his village after betraying his own clan. They also had the attack on the Kazekage as a reference, which caused an unprecedented stir, while the kidnappings of Han and the Two Tails in the Hidden Cloud Village were much more discreet.

"It was a poison cloud. It could have been worse, but many people in the Hidden Sand Village are wind element and they were able to dissipate it," Kurotsuchi replied. "We must think of a similar plan in case that happens here. We don't have too many shinobi with that element."

Deidara was aware of the danger everyone was in now that he knew Akatsuki's target was the jinchuuriki. What he wasn't so sure about was defending a population that considered him a demon.

"Meh, I don't care what happens to them. I'm the best artist in the Land of Earth, but they don't see me as anything more than the Four Tails jinchuuriki," he said, mildly annoyed.

As they passed through the market, Deidara noticed the wary glances he attracted, with some people even moving out of his way. He would occasionally stick his tongue out at someone, a gesture that inexplicably scared them even more. He enjoyed doing it, even though Oonoki disapproved. As a member of the Explosion Corps, Deidara had his own customized uniform; each of the twelve members of the explosive forces had one. It allowed them to be recognized by their power, and Deidara's uniform made him stand out even more. Blonde hair was extremely rare in Iwa, and some saw it as a demonic symbol, just like his blue eyes. With his full-body suit of reddish linen, loosely tied, a golden belt with the village symbol, and a golden headband with two spirals facing in opposite directions, Deidara did not go unnoticed by anyone.

"Not that impressive," Kurotsuchi said nonchalantly, resting her hands behind her head.

"What?! Say that again! There's no one who creates better explosions than me, anywhere, hm!" Deidara roared, puffing out his chest.

A commotion erupted, and the nearby stalls emptied in a flash.

"See that?" Deidara smirked, relishing the reaction. "They think I'm gonna lose it and unleash Son Gokuu on them or something."

The vendors were likely fuming about their vanished customers, but none dared show it. You'd think after all this time, they'd be accustomed to it. Deidara, ever the opportunist, strolled towards a deserted stall and snatched a can of energy drink. Kurotsuchi, beside him, perused the remaining merchandise.

"At least it's not a total loss," she remarked, amused. "And kind of funny, I suppose."

"Didn't you just say you were here to protect this village?" Deidara countered, fishing money from his belt pouch to pay for the drink.

"Doesn't mean I can't find them idiotic. Weakness breeds cowardice, sure, but with a smidge of brains, they'd understand there's nothing to fear," she explained, grabbing a bag of chips.

The young saleswoman forced a smile, her features strained. "Thank you for your purchase. Have a nice day, and please come again!" she squeaked, trying to mask a tremor in her voice.

"Maybe," Deidara chuckled, ignoring her entirely. He was well past caring about these reactions.

He popped open the can, taking a swig that sent a stream of bubbles fizzing down his chin. "Deidara-nii," Kurotsuchi drawled, "you shorted her.

Deidara's brow furrowed. "Shorted her? I gave her five ryo. That's always been enough."

"That cost six ryo, according to the sign. She seemed ready to tell you, but… in the end she just accepted what you gave her."

Normally, he paid attention to these things, but since it was such a routine and banal task, he had done it on autopilot. Deidara shrugged, thinking that if the woman didn't dare to speak up, well, that was on her.

"In the end, instilling fear turned out to be more useful than it seemed."

Kurotsuchi opened her bag of chips and ate a handful. "Aren't you gonna go back and give her the rest?" she mumbled through a mouthful of chips.

"Nah," Deidara said, reaching for the bag. "We're already miles away. Besides, I'm famished."

He lunged for the chips, but Kurotsuchi, with lightning reflexes, yanked the bag away, her elbow connecting with a solid thunk on his arm. "Deidara-nii! Your behavior is deplorable!" she scolded.

Deidara rolled his eyes dramatically. "Spare me the lecture. You sound exactly like your grandad these days. Look, I'm not the one who wants to be Tsuchikage, so exemplary conduct isn't exactly a requirement for me, hm."

"Even if you did want it," she countered, with a smirk, "you'd have to step aside. Because obviously, it's me who's going to be the next Tsuchikage."

"Fine, Fine." Deidara scoffed. "Have it your way. I don't need anyone's respect or approval. It's already a pain dealing with no one here understanding my art."

Kurotsuchi gave him a hearty pat on the back. Deidara, who was about to take another sip of his drink, sighed in relief at the narrowly averted disaster.

"Don't be so dramatic," she said. "We all know you're incredibly strong."

Deidara folded his arms and pouted, petulant. "They see the power of the explosion, but they don't see its beauty, its true essence. That's what truly bothers me, hm. Maybe one day I'll lose it, and then everyone will see exactly what they fear. Who knows?"

They were already arriving at Deidara's favorite restaurant when Kurotsuchi turned around and began to walk away.

"See you tomorrow, Deidara-nii," she called back, teasing. "Don't kill too many people in the name of art."

Deidara snorted. "No promises."

"And stay safe! You know Grandad gets grumpy when you wander off alone! If they catch you off guard and on your own, we won't be able to do anything, you dolt!"

"I am never unprepared!" He bellowed at her retreating figure.

After so many years, the owners of his favorite place no longer shuddered at his presence, nor did their regular customers. After grabbing lunch, he blatantly disregarded the Tsuchikage's orders. Deidara bit a piece of clay with one of his hand-mouths, and molded a cloud. He leaped onto it and flew to the village's highest peak. He was totally convinced that those Akatsuki guys would sooner or later come after him, and wanted to avoid the Suna catastrophe at all costs. If the battle took place outside the village, then he would not have to contain the power of his art. Deidara had not faced a real battle in a long time, against a real enemy, and he could hardly wait for those criminals to come after him. He was determined to use himself as bait to draw them out.

Putting himself in their shoes, Deidara figured they were strategizing an infiltration. They probably had a spy in already, taking note of all his movements and his routine, observing him to assess his moments of greatest vulnerability before crafting a meticulously planned ambush. He thought that if he turned himself into a predictable target, they would eventually come after him. It wouldn't win him any awards from his sensei, not as Tsuchikage or a teacher, but Deidara didn't care. He'd play by his own rules.

He took out the scroll and unwrapped it, a dark thrill coiling in his gut. Someone on that list was about to go katsu.The first on the list was Uchiha Itachi. Even little kids freshly recruited in the ninja academy knew that name. According to the record, he was exceptionally good at genjutsu. His specialty, Tsukuyomi, had left many of his opponents with psychological scars. No problem, he would ask Ai from the Explosion Corps for genjutsu resistance training. Kisame Hoshigaki had also betrayed his people and stolen a powerful relic from the Hidden Mist. A ninjutsu expert with monstruous chakra reserves and an interesting use of senjutsu techniques, whose abuse in the past must have left him with permanent mutations in his body. Deidara was confident he'd win.

Akasuna no Sasori. A bloodthirsty former jonin of the Hidden Sand who left his village due to popular disapproval of his nauseating techniques: killing powerful ninjas and adding them to his personal army as puppets. His grandmother revealed information about him before she died while saving the Fifth Kazekage, hoping that this information would be used to defeat him. He was responsible for the recent massacre in Suna. He seemed to be a cunning and versatile fighter.

About the rest, he didn't know much. A seasoned former hitman from the Hidden Waterfall. There was plenty of information about his background, but little about his abilities. A failed attempt against the first Hokage? Brilliant. Another old geezer. He might have even been Onoki-sensei's youth friend. He and his partner had been seen hanging around the Hidden Cloud and were credited with kidnapping Yugito, the two-tails jinchuuriki. The other carried a strange, large triple scythe. The strange weapon seemed cumbersome at first glance, but Deidara knew there had to be a reason for its use.

In later days, Onoki added the conclusions of what they found in the ruins of Han's Pagoda. Judging by the evidence, Kisame Hoshigaki was the one who most likely fought against his fellow jinchuuriki.

Deidara continued with his routine, having lunch on that summit in solitude, day after day, waiting for the Akatsuki's visit. Finally, one sunny morning, he saw a shadow projected on the ground behind him along with an unknown chakra. Deidara couldn't help but grin widely at the idea of bringing out all of his arsenal in the fight. They had come for him.

"Whoa, Sasori-sama! This must be the Jinchuuriki of the one, two, three... four tails!"

His first impression of the alleged criminals was disappointment. Deidara had studied the available information about the missing ninja from the Hidden Sand, who seemed to be the hunchbacked, half-bald guy with a pointed iron tail. He didn't recognize the one in the orange swirly mask with the squeaky voice that counted using his fingers, but Deidara knew better than to underestimate a shinobi, even if he looked incompetent. After all, he was also trying to fool them into believing he was just having a nice lunch in the sun.

"We have arrived. Get off me,” Sasori said in a deep, hoarse voice.

The orange menace was sitting on his back, cross-legged. It was the most pathetic thing Deidara had ever seen.

"But Sasori-sama! I am tired from climbing the mountain and need to regain my strength. This jinchuuriki made it so difficult for us by coming to such a remote place," the masked figure whined.

And he talked like a petulant kid. This couldn't be real. What was someone like him doing in Akatsuki? Deidara's eye twitched, watching their nonsensical bickering.

"I don't like having to repeat things, Tobi."

"Ouch!"

With a scream, the Tobi guy jumped off Sasori's back, rubbing his butt. The action was interrupted when he had to dodge a blow from Sasori's tail, the tip of which stuck in the ground right where he had disappeared. Were they trying to kill each other in front of him?

Deidara scratched his head, raising an eyebrow.

"Has the circus arrived in the Hidden Rock? Where can I buy tickets?"

He felt the masked idiot's chakra behind him. He reacted instinctively, launching himself skyward as the masked idiot lunged for his legs. A distraction maneuver, a very pathetic one, more worthy of an academy dropout than a supposed S-rank criminal. He landed with a satisfying thud on the back of the buffoon's head, squashing it against the ground. Deidara bounced a little to apply more pressure hoping to suffocate him, until a flurry of senbon needles from Sasori forced Deidara to jump again.

"Careful with that poison!" Tobi yelped, seeing that several needles had stuck into the ground dangerously close to his head.

Deidara was surprised. The fight had started at a speed he had not expected. Sasori must have been eager to catch him, not one to waste time. As Sasori turned towards him, a flurry of needles chased Deidara until he created a clay cloud, rode it, and rose into the air. Without missing a beat, he started molding C1 figures and launched them down. Sasori struck them with his iron tail, his movements surprisingly quick for someone so bulky. The bombs exploded far from their target, causing Tobi to cover his ears. Both paused, sizing each other carefully. Deidara left several clay bats flying around his cloud, while Sasori's scorpion-like tail remained in a defensive position. If Sasori attacked again, he would deflect the bombs away. Deidara figured Sasori was thinking of conserving his materials. Those senbon needles, like Deidara's clay, were not unlimited.

"Sasori-sama!" Tobi whined. "We agreed it would be me fighting this time!"

"I should let you. You are of no use to me, so the sooner you get yourself killed, the better. Go for a walk and stay out of the way, Tobi. This fight is mine now. The Four Tails claims to be an artist, so his last opponent will be me."

Deidara couldn't stifle a bark of laughter. The fact that Sasori claimed to be an artist made everything more interesting. He now wanted to fight even more.

"You mean that your last opponent will be me because you are not going to leave this mountain in one piece, hm!"

Sasori's face didn't flinch. He removed his conical hat and Akatsuki robe to reveal a wooden body with a demonic, smiling face on the back, from which protruded the scorpion's tail.

"How confident," Sasori said, mocking. "You should know that I have come prepared. I've studied both your skills and your fighting style. However, I never show all my cards. Even if you had information about me, that would only be the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many things that no one but myself knows about me. And that's why you're going to lose."

A voice cuts through Sasori's monologue. "But remember not to kill him, Sasori-sama! Boss needs him alive!"

Sasori ignored his partner as Tobi scampered down the hill. Deidara's mind raced. A powerful bomb should be enough to kill him. Sasori might have many hidden weapons, but if he went up high enough and launched a C3, it wouldn't give Sasori enough time to dodge the blast. Yes. He would do that. It would take him a while to get the C3 ready, so in the meantime, he had to distract Sasori.

He sent his clay bats fluttering around Sasori and watched as he tried to swat them away with his tail.

"So, an artist like me," Deidara said, sardonic. "And tell me, Mr. Artist, what kind of art are we talking about?"

"True art," Sasori said, with chilling conviction. "Beautiful, eternal, and lethal. It is foolish to proclaim that art is fleeting because everything in this world is. The true achievement, what very few can achieve, is changing the nature of things to make them stop being brief and preserve their beauty forever. That is why, even if you proclaim yourself an artist, I do not consider you one."

A vein throbbed on Deidara's forehead.

"Let a true artist enlighten you," Sasori added.

"What. Did. You. Say!?" Deidara shouted, his hands shaking with fury as he formed the seal of the ram too tightly.

He rose a little higher, dodging flames and deflecting huge blasts of senbon needles with his bō staff. Snarling like a rabid animal, he grabbed the C3 when it was ready and pulled his arm back before tossing it at his target. Sasori moved to deflect it as he did with the others, but at that moment, the figure grew larger. The ground beneath Sasori's feet exploded, causing the entire mountain to shake. Fragments of rock and trees on fire flew in all directions.

Deidara took a deep breath, an odd sense of calm washing over him. Paradoxically, the air felt purer after an explosion. The smell of burning wood and gunpowder was far more exquisite than any perfume. It put him in a good mood right away. This was art, this was beauty.

He peered through his scope, squinting through the smoke that obscured the devastation. Had he finished off Sasori? Surely an explosion of this magnitude couldn't be survived, half the mountain had been reduced to ashes. He might even have taken out the other Akatsuki member in the blast.

As the smoke slowly dissipated, Deidara remained vigilant. He couldn't find them. He was about to head back to the village, leaving them for dead, when a figure emerged from the dust cloud. A stranger with fiery red hair, someone Deidara had never encountered. It didn't matter. He'd send him flying too. He hadn't had a good fight in ages, and he wouldn't mind taking on the entire Akatsuki if they came at him one by one.

"Well, well," the newcomer drawled. "You managed to draw me out of Hiruko. It's been a while."

Deidara narrowed his eyes. Was it really Sasori?

"You're lucky to be alive, hm."

"So long without showing my true appearance..." Sasori dusted off the sleeves of his Akatsuki cloak. "I was going to say congratulations, but I better give you my condolences, because you're not going to have a good time."

Deidara just snorted, grinning from his cloud.

"I planned to poison you and administer small doses of antidote to keep you alive until the tailed beast was extracted. I didn't want to damage your body too much because I had plans for it. The organization would gain a lot with your skill in my possession... But I am not a patient man."

"Tell me, why are they so desperate to gather us?" Deidara asked, ignoring Sasori's threat, even though he doubted he'd get any useful information out of his question.

Sasori pulled a scroll from inside his robe and began to open it.

"I don't know much either; I just follow orders. Being in the Akatsuki allows me to continue researching and expanding my puppet collection peacefully without having to worry about being hunted. This is just my way of returning the favor."

Deidara prepared to attack when he saw a puppet with indigo hair and lifeless yellow eyes appear. He filled his hand-mouths with extra clay and created a few more figures. He would not attack until he saw how the puppet worked and could think of a counterattack. If he used Son Goku's power, he could end the fight right then and there, but he wanted his art to shut Sasori's mouth. Hundreds of hands came out of the puppet's sleeve in the direction of his cloud. They were fast, but not fast enough.

"KATSU!"

He managed to pulverize some of them but not all. Some hands contained a hole in the palm from which poisonous gas came out, while others had razor-sharp fingers. He could see Sasori controlling them from below with his chakra threads, making the extremely long arms surround the cloud to attack it from all sides. Deidara had to nip the problem in the bud. He sent some clay beetles down, whose goal was to explode upon contact with the chakra threads and break the contact. He succeeded, but the air was already polluted with poison. He had to rise a little higher to ensure he didn't breathe it. The arms fell to the ground, opening and releasing even more poisonous gas.

Sasori had anticipated Deidara's initial attack and adapted. His opponent was truly dangerous. He wasn't going to be able to defeat him with bombs alone. He had to use his lava release and destroy all of Sasori's puppets at once, including him.

Having made the decision, Deidara put a piece of clay in his mouth and began to chew it to infuse it with not only the power of the explosion but also the power he obtained from Son Gokuu. Sasori had changed his strategy. A shape-shifting black spear pierced the cloud, almost impaling him. The spear transformed into a huge blade that tried to sever his arm. Deidara narrowly avoided it.

"We need you alive," he heard Sasori say, laughing like a maniac. "But who said you had to be in one piece?"

What the fuck was that anyway? It looked like sand, but it was black and thicker. By then Sasori had realized that Deidara's strong point were his hands, so he was trying to cut them off. Not a chance. One of the black sand spears passed again so close to his shoulder that it knocked him off his feet, and just as he tried to get up, he saw it plummeting toward him. He rolled to the side, causing it to stick into the cloud where it disintegrated and mixed with the clay.

The cloud was losing height. Sasori was trying to make him fall into the poison. He didn't have much time. The red chakra cloak of the Four-Tails Jinchuriki surged around him. The perfect opportunity to seal its power into his creation.

Tiger, horse, wild boar, snake. He formed the hand seals one by one. He took the clay out of his mouth, which had been carved into a little monkey. He made his cloud descend at high speed, holding the sculpture high, when he entered the cloud of poison, he held his breath and launched the monkey, burying it underground. The black sand trapped his neck like a noose, but he no longer tried to free himself. He had won. He had secrets too.

"What in the world?" A muffled shout echoed from below.

Deidara would have retorted with a scathing remark if not for his restricted air supply. The earth rumbled with increasing intensity. Even in this perilous situation, Sasori persisted in strangling him with the black sand. Deidara, face turning red now, finally reached him. With a swift kick, he decapitated Sasori, the lifeless head with its crazed, wide-eyed stare ascending with him as he soared away.

Below, the ground exploded in a torrent of lava, consuming everything in its path, including Sasori's body. The once-proud puppet master was now buried beneath a sea of molten rock. The heat intensified, but Deidara, perched high above the inferno, could finally breathe freely. It had been a brutal fight. A good one. He would have liked to win with his art, but perhaps he would have to settle for making that Tobi guy experience the beauty of his explosions firsthand. Where had that masked buffoon disappeared to, anyway?

Ten minutes later, Deidara spotted him, sitting nonchalantly on the edge of a nearby ravine, overlooking a spectacular canyon.

"Hey you! Check out the gift I brought, hm!" Deidara announced, flinging Sasori's severed head at Tobi's back.

As he spun around, the puppet's head collided with his swirly orange mask. Tobi grabbed it by the hair and held it in front of his face. The puppet master's vacant, staring eyes gave Deidara the chills.

"Sasori-sama. How is the fight going?" Tobi asked.

Deidara chuckled. The guy had sense of humor. Even to play the role of an idiot so that your rival underestimates you, one had to be sharp of mind. He was very curious to know his techniques.

"Now it's your turn," he said.

He saw him move his arms nervously, but Deidara wasn't fooled. This wasn't the first time the guy had tried a surprise attack.

"Hold on there, mister Four-Tails! Tobi is a good boy! A pacifist!"

Deidara smirked. "Then stay put. I'm crafting a little surprise just for you, hm."

"Wait a minute!" Tobi's voice piped up. "Consider this a friendly warning. Coming with me peacefully is in your best interest. Otherwise, things could get very, very messy."

What the fuck did they smoke in the Akatsuki? Deidara scoffed at the twisted logic. Did the Akatsuki genuinely believe he'd roll over and die just to add another Jinchuriki to their collection?

"Yeah, things are about to get very, very messy," he drawled, his tone dangerous, "For you! Katsu!"

The bomb detonated in a brilliant flash, but Deidara saw through the smoke with his scope. The masked man wasn't there. He'd burrowed underground just before the blast. Deidara launched a few more bombs for good measure.

Then he spotted the Explosion Corps rushing towards the scene. Looks like the party was over. This time, Oonoki, was going to chain him in a dungeon for sure. Deidara sighed. Art truly was a fleeting thing. But surely, there'd be another opportunity to showcase his talents soon. After all, there were still plenty of fools in the Akatsuki who would come after him!

Chapter Text

It was raining cats and dogs, an unusual sight for that time of year. Deidara was fed up with those annoying old men’s conversations, which were mostly complaints about the weather.

Since the incident with the Akatsuki, his freedoms had been considerably reduced. He didn’t understand why. In the Hidden Leaf village, the nine-tails Jinchuuriki, Naruto, was still going on missions, not being babied and fussed over like he was. The tension with the Fire Nation had somewhat reduced thanks to the criminal organization, as both villages had agreed to exchange information to better protect their respective Jinchuuriki. Not everyone was willing to forgive, especially the loved ones of those fallen in the Third War who were still outraged by the temporary alliance. They saw it as a betrayal, a sign of weakness. Despite the protests, the Tsuchikage gave the go-ahead for a joint investigation.

That didn't cheer Deidara up. Not even the fact that the Fifth Kazekage had personally come to the Hidden Rock to give him a reward for eliminating Sasori of the Red Sand. Normally, making such influential friends would put him in a good mood, especially since the Fifth Kazekage, Gaara, was three years younger than him and Ōnoki had opinions about a fellow Kage being "a kiddo". But today, Deidara was too irritated to care.

He felt suffocated. Akatsuchi and Kurotsuchi were glued to him all day, monitoring everything he did. Akatsuchi wasn’t much of a problem. He was Ōnoki’s personal assistant and often helped with simple tasks when Ōnoki’s body ailments got in the way. Kurotsuchi, however, was another story. She was like his shadow, always there, watching his every move.

To make matters worse, a couple of new faces had appeared in his daily life, and Deidara was convinced they were ANBU operatives on an undercover mission to keep him under surveillance. One was a boy named Itomaru, who pretended to be a newly graduated genin around Kurotsuchi’s age and claimed to admire Deidara. The other was a girl named Tamae, a couple of years older than him, who had recently started working at the café where he and his mother often had breakfast.

Itomaru was more of an annoyance than anything else. He didn’t seem very strong and was constantly getting on Deidara’s nerves with his wide-eyed admiration. Tamae was suspiciously nice. She claimed to be from the shopping district at the foot of the mountain, where merchants and their families lived to be closer to their work.

Deidara had tried several times to scare her off by telling her exaggerated and sometimes fabricated stories about Son Gokuu’s power, hoping to shake her composure. But she never flinched. Instead, she would just smile and hum and continue with her work, as if nothing he said could rattle her.

In the end, Ōnoki hadn’t chained him up in a dungeon for his own safety, but Deidara felt just as trapped. He couldn't even go home on his own. Why couldn’t they just trust him more?

"You don't have to walk me home today. Where do you think I'd go in this rain?" Deidara grumbled.

Kurotsuchi, sheltered under a black and white umbrella with panda bear ears, gave him a pointed look. Deidara, on the other hand, was wearing an old, long, brown jacket with a hood that wasn’t even waterproof. It was going to get soaked soon, and anyone who didn’t know him might mistake him for a homeless traveler looking for shelter.

"Ha, that's exactly what you'd want me to think if you were planning to wander off and play the hero again," Kurotsuchi shot back.

"I don't want to wander off, I just need space! Besides, if I wanted to leave, I could do it right now. I have my clay here. I’ll fly away, and you won’t be able to follow me, hm."

"In this rain?" Kurotsuchi raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. And really, she had a point. "Besides, even if it wasn’t raining, you wouldn’t have time to escape. I’d leave you stuck to the ground and let Grandpa know you’re being a naughty boy."

Deidara scoffed. "That remains to be seen!"

The flow of the various rivers and streams that ran through the village had increased, as it always did when it rained enough, causing one of the many nearby waterfalls to splash more water than usual onto the bridge. The upper part of Iwagakure was full of bridges, linking the uneven terrain together. As Deidara and Kurotsuchi made their way across one of these bridges on the path to his neighborhood, they noticed a girl standing by the edge, under a lavender umbrella. She wore a thick white fur coat, and despite the rain and the waterfall splashing around her, she seemed unbothered.

Deidara wondered what she was doing, standing there getting soaked. As they passed by, she turned to them.

“Excuse me… I’m in a bit of trouble and was wondering if you could help me.”

Both he and Kurotsuchi examined the stranger. The end of a dark braid peeked out from the cap of her coat, and her eyes, behind oval glasses, were brown. Deidara tried to recall if he knew any kunoichi with those characteristics. The situation felt strange to him. It seemed too convenient, like she had been planted there. And he was almost certain she was someone sent undercover by the old man. As if two spies weren’t enough already. Well, he didn’t have proof that they were spies, but there were too many coincidences.

“What are you doing standing here in this downpour?” Deidara asked, his mistrust getting the better of his politeness.

“I was just walking around and saw the waterfall swollen by the rain. It seemed so beautiful that I couldn’t help but stop and stare.”

Everyone in the Hidden Rock was used to the sight, but travelers were always captivated. It was actually a spectacular view that wouldn’t last long, and Deidara found himself liking her answer. Of course, if she were a spy, she definitely would have known what to say to win him over.

“What do you need?” Kurotsuchi asked.

“I was going to stay on the lower level, but all the inns are full, so they sent me here. It’s my first time in the upper part of the Hidden Rock, and I haven’t been able to find a place yet. Could you tell me of a cheap place to stay?”

“Isn’t there one in your neighborhood, Deidara-nii?” Kurotsuchi asked, looking at him.

“There’s an inn not far from here. It’s easy to find, you just have to…” Deidara began, but Kurotsuchi cut him off.

“Why don’t you go with her? Don’t be so rude!” Kurotsuchi exclaimed.

It was becoming increasingly clear to him that this was a rehearsed conversation. Putting himself in Ōnoki’s shoes, he deduced that the old man’s objective would be to have one of these supposed spies become a close friend, gaining more access to his intentions.

“I don’t see the need for that, hm. The place is easy enough to find, and with this rain, all I want to do is go home.”

Kurotsuchi frowned, but before Deidara could react, she grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him to the end of the bridge, away from the girl.

"Deidara-nii, you're always complaining because everyone here is afraid of you. This is your chance to hang out with someone who doesn’t know anything about you. She doesn’t even know you’re a Jinchuuriki!"

"Did the old geezer put you up to this? Trying to foist a spy on me? Enough! I’m getting fed up with all this control!" Deidara snapped, his irritation rising.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kurotsuchi shot back.

"Don’t act innocent! And for your information, I’m not complaining because people are afraid of me!"

Kurotsuchi tightened her grip, digging her nails into his arm in frustration. "You do complain, and a lot!"

Deidara rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. Sometimes I complain, but that doesn’t mean I want the opposite. It just bothers me how closed-minded they are, hm."

"I’m trying to fix your social life. You’re an idiot, Deidara-nii! That’s why girls don’t like you!" she said, finally letting go of his arm and stomping away.

"You have no clue, you brat!" Deidara retorted, though he could hear the childish tone in his own voice.

Kurotsuchi turned around just to flip him off before continuing on her way. Well, at least she was gone. That was something. Now he could finally take a break, alone, without someone breathing down his neck.

Deidara had always been curious about what it would be like to date someone. Most guys his age had already had a couple of girlfriends, but for him, it was just a passing thought. As an artist, he could appreciate beauty, but it didn’t draw him in. He had never fallen in love or even had a crush. Sometimes, he wondered if it was a side effect of being a Jinchuuriki. He hadn’t seen the missing Han or the deceased Roshi with a partner or family. Maybe Gaara or Naruto were like that too. Then again, if being a Jinchuuriki ruined your love life, being a Kazekage could probably fix it. Deidara was sure Gaara wouldn't have any problems now. As for Naruto, he didn't know him well, but perhaps they’d meet in the future. The idea of being part of an exclusive club with other Jinchuuriki amused him.

“Uh... Excuse me, but I would like to get to a dry and warm place as soon as possible. I’ve been soaking wet all day.”

The girl's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He glanced at her, trying not to let his weariness show. What if she was a genuine traveler? It seemed too convenient. Still, on the off chance she was who she claimed to be, he decided to play along.

“Follow me,” he said, leading the way.

“Thank you, you're very kind,” she replied.

Deidara couldn't resist the urge to have a little fun. If she was a spy, he wanted to see how she’d handle a curveball.

“Kind? Not many people think I am, hm.”

“Oh? And why’s that?” she asked, her tone curious.

“Oh, it’s just that having an evil, angry demon sealed in your body doesn’t make you the most popular person. Sometimes I get angry, the demon possesses me and well... Bad things happen. That’s why people are very careful about what they say or do in front of me, hm.”

He could almost feel Son Gokuu barking a complaint at the blatant slander, but the temptation to mess with her was too strong. He watched her reaction closely. The girl seemed perplexed but not frightened.

“Mmm... I see.”

“Aren’t you scared?” Deidara asked. By now, he was convinced she wasn’t who she claimed to be.

“If you were really dangerous, they would have locked you up. That’s what I think,” she answered calmly.

A skillful dodge.

“That's true, I haven't killed anyone in a long time, so they give me more freedom."

That should at least frighten her a little.

“It's inevitable when one is a shinobi,” she replied.

"I never said I was, hm," Deidara replied, with a hint of amusement.

“Well, it’s true that you don’t have a headband, but you have the village symbol on your belt, and besides, almost everyone in the upper level of the Hidden Rock is one.”

Her observation was almost too sharp for a mere traveler. Deidara’s irritation grew as he struggled to corner her. He had been certain he could trip her up, but she seemed to have an answer for everything.

“That's true, I am, you seem to know too much for an outsider,” he said, hoping to leave her with no way out this time.

“I've informed myself well about life in the Hidden Rock before coming. I may have to stay here for a while.”

When they finally arrived at the guest house, Deidara pointed at the building.

“This is it,” he said curtly. “Enjoy your stay in the Hidden Rock, hm.”

He could sense her next move before she made it, as if it were a script they both knew by heart.

“Great! I’d like to treat you to some tea as a thank you. How about that?”

Her voice had a pleading edge, but he wasn’t fooled. He looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"No, thank you."

Deidara turned to walk away, but the girl quickly stepped in front of him, blocking his path.

“Please! Also, since I'm going to be staying here for a while, I'd like to make friends. It's depressing to be away from home for so long, and where I come from, showing gratitude is important.”

Would he get into trouble if he completely lost control and yelled his suspicions at her, only for her to be a mere civilian? Absolutely, yes. Even the Tsuchikage’s favor might not save him then. With a sour expression, he reluctantly agreed to let the stranger lead him to the tea house next to the inn.

As they walked, Deidara kept a close eye on her, analyzing every detail, the way she carried herself, her subtle glances, the way she avoided eye contact when she thought he wasn’t looking. She was good at pretending, he had to give her that. She spent five minutes scrutinizing the menu, acting like she was genuinely curious about the different teas from the Land of Earth.

An awkward silence fell between them once the tea was served. When she commented on the taste of her tea, Deidara seized the opportunity to press her further.

“What brings you to the Hidden Rock, by the way?” His tone was casual, but his intent was anything but.

“An uncle of mine recently passed away and left me and my sister some land as an inheritance nearby. Since we can't take care of it, we decided to sell it and split the money.”

It was such a reasonable and simple explanation that Deidara wondered if he was being paranoid. But it was clear that she had anticipated this question.

“My condolences,” he said, watching her closely.

“Thank you, but we’re fine. We barely knew him, but we were his only living relatives.” She gazed out the window as if lost in thought. “It seems we picked a bad day to start the sale process.”

“It can’t be helped,” Deidara replied. “Where’s your sister?”

He had assumed she was traveling alone, and now that he thought about it, she didn’t have any luggage, which was odd if she was planning to stay for a while.

“She stayed at the foot of the mountain, looking after our things and the horses. I didn’t want to bring her up in case my search turned out to be fruitless.”

Damn. Another reasonable excuse.

“What’s your name, hm?” He asked, deciding to keep her talking, looking for any slip-up, no matter how small.

“Chiba Minami,” she said with a small smile. “You can call me Minami. Your name is Deidara, right? That’s what the girl from before called you. Is she your sister?”

He would have liked to give her a fake name, but she had already heard someone call him by his real one. It was too late for that.

"Something like that. She's the granddaughter of my sensei, the Third Tsuchikage, and also my teammate. Plus, her father is in the Explosion Corps, just like me."

Minami was steering the conversation back to him, but nothing he told her was a secret, so it didn’t matter. As he explained more about the elite forces and how they came to accept him, the youngest shinobi in history to join their ranks, he noticed how the girl’s eyes lit up with interest. She nodded along, throwing in praise about how strong he must be. Deidara couldn’t resist the pull of a compliment, even knowing it was likely part of her act. She was giving him what he wanted, and even if he recognized it as a tactic, he’d still take it.

"Will you show me the village when the weather gets better?" she asked, leaning over the table with a bright, hopeful smile.

He knew what she was doing: trying to secure a second meeting. But he wasn’t going to let that happen. He could always lose her by taking to the rooftops or flying off on his clay cloud. If she was just a civilian, she’d never be able to follow, and if she was a kunoichi in disguise, she’d reveal herself by trying.

"Perhaps. With a little luck, the weather will improve by tomorrow, and you'll be able to take care of your business more easily," he replied smoothly.

Minami claimed she lived in a town west of the Fire Country, near the border. Her life, she said, was ordinary, quiet, typical of a peaceful area. She described herself as a girl who grew medicinal plants and herbs to make handmade soap. Deidara’s interest was piqued despite himself. The artistic nature of her craft was obviously a detail added to catch his attention. They had thought of everything.

“I’d love to see your designs,” she said when he mentioned his work. “Maybe another day, when my sister and I are settled.”

Before he could respond, a low, vibrating bell rang out in a distant temple. Two more would follow, each twenty seconds apart. The monks were reminding everyone that the temple was open for visitors. Deidara looked outside. The rain had finally stopped. He should leave, there was only so much time he was willing to waste playing along with this spy.

He thanked her politely for the tea and grabbed his cold, soaked jacket. As he stepped outside, he was surprised to find that Minami had followed him.

“You said you’d show me around the village when the weather was better,” she said, clasping her hands together in front of her body, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

“I did say that, but I didn’t expect the weather to clear up so soon, hm,” he replied, shrugging as he scanned the street, already plotting his escape route.

He decided to set off towards his house, his patience hanging by a thread.

"Please! Show me the temple, I'd like to see it so much...! It must be beautiful," the girl pleaded.

If she kept insisting like that, he wouldn’t care about the consequences. His temper was about to explode like one of his bombs. As she continued to follow him, Deidara abruptly changed direction. Not to indulge her request, but because he didn’t want this pest anywhere near his house. He could already picture her the next day, ingratiating herself with his mother, who had recently started asking when he was going to get a girlfriend. The thought suffocated him. She was determined to worm her way into his life, and he wasn’t about to let that happen.

Never.

After a few streets of brisk walking with the girl still trying to persuade him to go to the temple, Deidara couldn’t take it anymore. He stopped dead in his tracks and spun around to face her.

"Enough of this nonsense!" he shouted, his voice echoing down the empty street. The sudden outburst caught her off guard. "I know who you are, and I know what you're doing, so drop the act before I really get pissed off."

Minami took a step back, her eyes wide with apparent nervousness. She glanced around as if searching for someone to help her, but the street was deserted. The few villagers who had seen Deidara coming had already retreated into their homes. No one was going to come to the aid of a stranger, especially against someone like him.

"What do you mean? I don't understand..." she stammered, trying to sound innocent.

Deidara took a deep breath, trying to rein in his fury. Did she really think he’d fall for that dumb act at this point?

"You know damn well what I mean. I’m sick of all of you, hm!" he snarled, his frustration boiling over as he drove his fist into the wall beside him. The stone cracked under the force, a jagged line splintering through the surface.

She backed away further, and something in her expression shifted. The facade was crumbling, and Deidara could see she was about to confess. But it didn’t happen the way he expected. Instead, small sheets of paper began to peel off her face and long black hair revealing a different appearance underneath. Her hair, now short and purplish-blue, framed a stern face with a pointy piercing under her chin. A grey rose adorned her hair, and her eyes, once a neutral, friendly brown, had transformed into a vivid, lively amber. As more paper sheets fell away from her body, he recognized the familiar black cloak with red clouds. The transformation was so sudden and seamless that Deidara barely had time to process it before the girl, no, the kunoichi, moved.

Deidara always prided himself on his quick reflexes, but she was faster. Before he could react, his body was suddenly wrapped in layers of paper, the sheets coiling around him like a serpent’s grip. He struggled, but the more he fought, the more the paper constricted him, rendering his arms and legs immobile.

"What kind of jutsu is this!?" he shouted in anger, and another sheet of paper covered his mouth, silencing him.

Before Deidara could even begin to think of a way out, Tobi appeared out of nowhere. He hadn’t even sensed his approach.

"Oh, no! Oh, no! We're in the middle of the village!" Tobi sang out, shaking his head in exaggerated disapproval. "Konan-san, was this really the best place you could find?"

"I tried to lead him to the outskirts, but he figured me out sooner than I expected," Konan replied, calm. "I still don’t know how he did it."

"Whoa, your plan wasn’t as foolproof as you thought!" Tobi mocked playfully, though his words held a biting edge.

Konan didn’t rise to his teasing. "Risky plans never go exactly as intended. But we’ll be fine if we act quickly. Secure him and let’s move."

Without replying, the masked man stood in front of him. Deidara could feel the chakra channels in his body stifled by the paper, each attempt to force his energy through them met with resistance. It was as if every pulse of his chakra was smothered by a suffocating grip, a foreign pressure that he’d never encountered before.

He had to admit, Konan's technique was unlike anything he’d seen. A ninjutsu that also served as genjutsu, with the chakra molded into paper, serving not just as a physical restraint but as a barrier to his own power. It was also incredibly sharp. The frustration within him grew with every second, until the voice of Son Gokuu echoed in his thoughts.

"Deidara, relax," he said, blunt. "Concentrate with all your strength on channeling my chakra better. The push will be more powerful than its resistance, and we can break free, but you have to focus."

He clenched his teeth, trying to force the anger down. It was hard, damn near impossible, when every instinct screamed to lash out and make them all explode. But he knew better. He had been trained for this, to keep a clear head even when the situation seemed hopeless. A shinobi who lost control was as good as dead.

Just as he thought he was succeeding, a red flash appeared in the single hole located at the center of Tobi's swirly orange mask. The scarlet iris, adorned with three tomoe wrapped around the black pupil, bore down on him. He knew all too well what it was, what it meant. Despite the Uchiha clan's near extinction, the power of the Sharingan was legendary. There wasn't a single shinobi on Earth that didn't know what it was. And now, it was aimed directly at him.

Uchiha Itachi? Was the only answer that made sense. But why hide his face, or why continue to act like a fool?

But the momentary distraction cost him. The influence of the Sharingan slipped into his mind like a whisper, subtle but undeniable. His concentration faltered, the connection to Son Gokuu's chakra wavering. Tobi had sensed his intention and was countering it, using the Sharingan’s power to disrupt his focus.

Deidara squeezed his eyes shut, fighting against the invasive presence. He forced his mind to zero in on Son Gokuu's energy, pushing it through his blocked chakra channels. It was excruciating, every inch of his body screaming in pain as the chakra met resistance. The more he pushed, the sharper the pain, but he had no choice. He had to break free.

Tobi tilted his head, as if amused by Deidara’s efforts. "Oh, no. Nope. Bad monkey," he said in that maddeningly playful tone.

The world around Deidara seemed to twist into a strange centrifuge. He screamed as loud as the gag would allow, pushing his chakra with all his might despite the pain. The Sharingan in the Uchiha’s eye had changed. It was longer three tomoe, but a design resembling the blades of a windmill. It was a shocking sight, that red glow suspended in the darkness of the hole in the orange mask, and it wasn't just a genjutsu. The mask was absorbing him. Was that even possible?

Deidara could feel the resistance starting to give way, but time was slipping through his fingers. Fighting off the pull of this strange technique while simultaneously forcing his chakra through blocked channels was beyond difficult. His vision blurred, the dizziness from the pain and the world’s unnatural folding becoming unbearable. And then, abruptly, it all stopped.

A kunai, seemingly out of nowhere, had passed through Tobi's chest and lodged into Deidara's shoulder. The shock of the physical pain momentarily distracted him from the mental agony, inadvertently giving him the strength he needed to continue channeling his chakra. He looked up in confusion and saw that girl. The waitress. The one he had suspected of being Ōnoki's spy, standing there.

Tobi, or perhaps Itachi, turned to look at her. The confusion on Tamae's face was clear, but she quickly regained her composure, the mark of a well-trained shinobi. She smirked at Deidara.

“Yes. My mission was to keep an eye on you. But you already knew that,” she said, as she expertly dodged a barrage of paper planes launched by Konan. The projectiles embedded themselves into the ground, one after another, as Tamae backed away. “Itomaru has already gone to give the warning. Don’t worry, they won’t take you as long as I can stop them.”

Without hesitation, the masked man ripped the kunai from Deidara's shoulder, ready to confront this newly revealed ANBU operative. Tamae’s hands blurred through a series of seals, and a solid wall of earth formed between them just as the kunai flew towards her. Deidara, meanwhile, was channeling his chakra with such ferocity that some of the paper bindings began to smolder and burn. Konan tried to add more, but the four-tails chakra cloak was beginning to envelop Deidara's body, disintegrating the paper on contact.

Deidara watched as the Uchiha passed through the wall like a ghost. Dozens of threads laden with explosive tags wrapped around the wall and detonated, creating an explosion whose shockwave rocked the area. Deidara realized in that moment that Tamae hadn’t had time to escape. She had chosen to sacrifice herself to eliminate the enemy. It was a tactic as surprising as it was effective, a standard measure among certain ANBU operatives to deal with dangerous opponents.

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. The agonizing guilt of her sacrifice, coupled with the renewed strength that surged through him, allowed Deidara to finally break free from his bindings. Around him, civilians were fleeing in panic, many more likely trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

A guttural war cry tore from Deidara’s throat as he charged forward.

Konan used the smoke as cover, attempting to slip away unnoticed. She might have realized that staying after her comrade's death was not the smartest move. But Deidara, now fully consumed by bloodlust, wasn't going to let her escape. The transformation had sharpened his senses, and he could trace the faint trail of her chakra as it moved through the smoke. Bubbles of compact energy fizzed from his body, popping as they met the surface of the crimson cloak that enveloped him. His concentration was wholly fixed on reaching and eliminating Konan, ignoring the allies who approached, trying to talk him down. But it was too late. His chakra-encased feet left destruction in their wake as he sprinted across rooftops, until Konan, seeing no escape, molded sheets of paper into wings and took to the skies.

Deidara was relentless. He pushed himself harder, faster, determined to catch her before she could get away. The chase led them out of the village and into the dense forest to the north. Konan flew low over the treetops while Deidara leaped from branch to branch, the trees cracking and splintering under his weight.

At one point, Konan descended, landing among the trees. It was then that Deidara realized she wasn't just fleeing, she was preparing her next move. The explosive tag in her hand was not ordinary; the seal was different, written in golden ink. Around them, more tags adorned the trees, reacting to the one in her hand by multiplying, forming a cylindrical barrier that enclosed them both.

“This won't kill you,” Konan breathed out, obviously exhausted from the immense use of chakra. “It will only weaken you.”

“Are you planning to attack me with explosions!?" Deidara shouted, words shaky with disbelief. The irony was too much. Anger surged through him, causing the energy bubbles on his jinchuuriki cloak to burst with increased violence.

He charged at her, fist ready to strike, but Konan dissolved into sheets of paper just as his punch connected with empty air. She reformed above the cylinder, hands already moving through a series of seals. Deidara leaped, feeling Son Gokuu's energy beginning to transform him. His arms bulged, growing disproportionately large. His connection with Son Gokuu guided his actions, instincts taking over as he interlaced his fingers and raised his arms high above his head. The temperature in his hands skyrocketed, and as he looked at them, he saw they were glowing, a fiery red-orange, as if made of molten lava.

Konan was directly in front of him. This was the moment.

With a roar, he brought his arms down in a devastating arc, slamming her to the ground. He let his full weight follow through, intending to crush her completely. As Konan's form began to disintegrate into paper once more, Deidara felt the ground beneath him give way. The earth split open, jets of lava shooting up several meters into the air from the fissures. He couldn't be sure if his attack had killed her. When he fought Sasori of the Red Sand, he did see him sink into the lake of molten rock. Chances were high that Konan hadn't escaped the wave of destruction either anyway.

Deidara laughed, a wild euphoria consuming him as his body began returning to normal.

"You can't take me, Akatsuki! You can't take me!" he shouted, standing amidst embers and charred trees.

He had won again. Even in the case that Konan had survived, she would be injured and out of action for some time.

As the cloak of chakra dissipated, Deidara felt his strength leave him. He barely managed to stumble out of the burned zone before his legs gave way. The world around him faded to black, and his body crumpled to the ground.

Konan’s battered form lay on the rain-soaked ground, her breath ragged and shallow. The familiar, cold rain of Amegakure pelted down, cleansing away the blood and soot that stained her skin. Her once-pristine Akatsuki cloak was in tatters, barely hanging onto her form. The left side of her face throbbed with raw agony, the burns extending down her neck, shoulder, and arm. Each drop of rain soothed the searing pain. She had used every ounce of her strength to make it back, reabsorbing the origami figures she had left behind on the route back to Amegakure to maintain just enough chakra to survive the journey. But now, her reserves were dangerously low, and she was on the brink of fainting.

As her vision dimmed, she felt a presence, a powerful one, approaching her. As if he were a glorious deity standing above her, she saw the body that used to be Yahiko's, now nothing more than a reanimated corpse which Nagato repurposed as his Deva Path. She mustered a weak smile, grateful that he had found her before Madara did. His patience for weakness was non-existent, and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate those who failed.

"I failed..." she murmured, unable to meet the Deva Path's gaze.

"Next time we won't," Nagato's Deva Path reassured her, firm and resolute.

Konan felt his arms gently lift her from the ground, cradling her as he carried her toward the tower. Her body was heavy with exhaustion, and her senses were dulling, making it impossible for her to discern where they were heading.

“Madara is not going to be happy,” she whispered.

“Madara is not in charge. I am. And the new era of peace we are striving to create will happen with you in it. That is my will, and so it shall be.”

Even through her pain and delirium, Konan understood the danger in those words. To speak them aloud, knowing that Madara could be listening, was a risk. Madara constantly reminded them of the sacrifices required to achieve their goal and expected unwavering commitment. But there was Nagato, unwilling to add her to the list of sacrifices he was prepared to make to achieve the dream that once belonged to Yahiko.

As they entered the room where Nagato's true body was located, Konan heard a muffled gasp.

"My lady! Konan-sama! Who did this to you!?"

It was the voice of Ajisai, her most devoted follower. Despite not possessing the skills necessary to join the Akatsuki, according to Madara, Ajisai's unwavering loyalty had earned her the role of Konan's personal assistant.

Too drained to respond, Konan closed her eyes. The pain from her burns was overwhelming, but then, slowly, she felt it start to recede, replaced by a calming numbness. The sensation of impending unconsciousness ebbed away, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw Nagato’s Naraka Path standing beside her, hands glowing with the green light of the Mystical Palm Technique. The burns had healed, though she still felt weak from her drained chakra and demoralized by the recent defeat.

"The Four Tails is resisting us more than we anticipated, but we will capture him. Let us have faith," Nagato's voice echoed from his true body at the back of the room.

Konan managed to turn her head slightly, nodding toward her childhood friend, now more machine than man. The sight of him, so strong in his resolve despite his frail body, gave her a bit of comfort.

"Ajisai, take care of her until she recovers," the Deva Path ordered.

"I will do so!" Ajisai responded with a seriousness that reflected her determination.

The Deva Path gently laid Konan on her bed, and Ajisai followed closely behind. Konan could sense a faint aura of killing intent emanating from the young girl, a sign of her intense emotions. She made a mental note to speak with Ajisai about it later. Hatred was a dangerous path. Instead, she believed in guiding, correcting, and educating.

For now, though, she allowed herself to rest, trusting in Ajisai’s care.

Chapter Text

If Obito had at least managed to capture the Four-Tails, losing Konan wouldn't have mattered at all. But against the Hidden Rock elite, he was at a disadvantage. The explosion revealed the location of the battle to him, but it also drew the attention of the Explosion Corps. Unlike him, they didn't have a teleportation technique but they knew the terrain like the back of their hands. Unfortunately, teleporting around an unfamiliar area was much harder for Obito. Familiar places were no problem, but by the time he had the Four-Tails in sight, his companions had already beaten him there.

Obito decided to observe from a distance. Maybe not everything was lost. Perhaps he could find a moment of carelessness and absorb the Jinchuriki with his Kamui before fleeing. It was unlikely, since he couldn't become intangible while using that power, but something inside him refused to give up on his prey after investing so much time and effort into tracking it down. Not after that new attack had nearly cost him another one of his most powerful assets.

Reluctantly, he was forced to escape when he was discovered by the second-in-command of the Explosion Corps, a shinobi known as Kodachi the Hound. Obito had never faced him directly, but he had heard stories. Kodachi was one of the young promises of the front lines during the Third War, barely twenty at the time. He had even faced Minato on one occasion, and though he hadn't been on the Yellow Flash’s level back then, he had managed to delay him long enough for a border village to be successfully evacuated. Kodachi was captured and spent some time as a prisoner, but he had miraculously escaped and returned alive.

As a child, Obito had liked the story, despite Kodachi being an enemy. He’d heard about it from his sensei, who had shared all the details, though the news had reached the Hidden Leaf village in a biased way. The enemy could not be seen as anything but a villain.

What a hypocrite. Konoha’s Yellow Flash, the village’s hero, had been just as ruthless as anyone else. If the mission called for killing enemy civilians or burning their crops on the Hokage's orders, Minato had no qualms about getting his hands dirty with innocent blood for "tactical reasons." Those were the same reasons why the world needed Obito and his project.

But they wouldn’t understand.

As soon as Obito saw Kodachi in front of him, preparing to attack, he wasted no time in teleporting back to his lair. He could have stayed, taunted them for a while, and then Kamui’d away, but he wasn’t in the mood.

The Four-Tails was costing him more than he could afford, and he couldn’t spare any more resources on it just yet. But without it, he couldn't extract the other Tailed Beasts. The Five-Tails and Seven-Tails were already locked away in a dungeon, waiting for the Four-Tails to be sealed. The Six-Tails would join them soon. There was no point in capturing any of the other Tailed Beasts if they didn’t have the Four-Tails first.

Obito appeared in his room at the Akatsuki hideout. The first thing he did was slam his fist into a desk, reducing it to a pile of boards and splinters. Obito hated feeling angry. Emotions made him feel too human, and he couldn’t allow them to interfere with his decisions.

Whenever a problem blocked his path, he never lost his temper. He simply analyzed the situation and rethought his strategy. He had done so when Yahiko rejected his offer, when Chojuro and Mei Terumi discovered him manipulating the Mizukage, and for a brief moment, he had believed he had after Sasori's failure.

None of the Akatsuki members had any other plan to grab the Four-Tails. Zetsu had patiently monitored him for weeks, and it was rare when the Four-Tails wasn't escorted by his teammates or a member of the Explosion Corps. They couldn’t find a pattern, no moment when his guard was down or when he was vulnerable.

Then, after reading Zetsu's reports, Konan noticed that the Four-Tails was becoming increasingly frustrated with the constant presence of his bodyguards. She suggested they wait for his frustration to reach a boiling point, then infiltrate the Hidden Rock, convince him to go for a walk, and drag him out to the outskirts of the village to kidnap him without attracting attention. The Rainy Day Jutsu would be used to eliminate any potential witnesses. Konan was convinced that a change in routine would appeal to the Four-Tails. That Ōnoki's grandaughter had stormed off in anger after an argument had simplified things further. If they couldn’t shake her off, the plan included gaining her trust and eliminating her when the time came to capture the Jinchuuriki. But the Four-Tails hadn’t shown any desire for adventure, despite the fact that he had managed to rid himself of the surveillance that bothered him so much. The Four-Tails had never trusted Konan's persona.

Obito was dying to know how the Four-Tails had discovered them. That was the first thing that had gone wrong. The second mistake had been not foreseeing that, in addition to his team's surveillance, there was an undercover ANBU watching him, a shinobi who even managed to evade Zetsu's careful observation. He couldn’t punish them for their mistake, though. In truth, he shouldn’t have underestimated the Third Tsuchikage. His mind was still sharp, despite his age.

When he finally captured the Four-Tails, Obito would demand an answer. He wouldn’t send more people to the Hidden Rock without ensuring their success first. After this second failure, the Four-Tails would be watched more closely than ever before. He would need a different strategy, perhaps a dirty trick. Obito hadn’t considered revealing himself unless a Jinchuuriki resisted him too much. He never imagined it would be the Four-Tails of all things who would put him on the ropes. He had always assumed that any problems would come with the Nine-Tails or the Eight-Tails.

The sooner he had the Four-Tails in his power, the sooner he could relax and forget about the obsession that agitated him and robbed him of sleep. Then he could be 'No One' again. Because when Obito forgot that mantra, when he let his emotions get the better of him, things went wrong. He had learned that lesson when he succumbed to the desire to release the Nine-Tails for a brief moment, to give the Hidden Leaf a taste of its own medicine, after waiting months for Kushina to go into labor so he could steal it.

He should never have let himself be consumed by resentment.

He should never have forgotten that he was 'No One'.

He wouldn’t forget it now. Once Itachi was out of the picture, he’d have more room to maneuver. The Four-Tails would fall soon.

Why did the Hidden Rock village always have to be involved in everything that went wrong for him?

The medic-nin’s attempts at conversation didn’t impress Deidara, nor did his condescending cheerfulness.

"I wish I were a Jinchuuriki; they heal so fast. Your shoulder is as good as new! Want to guess how long it would’ve taken you to heal under normal conditions?"

"The same amount of time," Deidara replied, sitting up on the stretcher. "Because as soon as I got here, they would’ve just healed me with the Mystic Palm."

He tried to look unimpressed, but the boy simply snapped his fingers, grinning even wider.

"Correct answer! You're the first one to get it right. What flavor do you want your candy?"

Deidara resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Hey, when can I get out of here?"

"So impatient. I’ll give you pineapple." The medic took the candy and, instead of handing it to him, tucked it into Deidara’s pants pocket along with the rest of his clothes. "They're waiting for you outside, so you'd better hurry up."

Too irritated to respond, Deidara focused on getting dressed. He had been forced to spend the night in the hospital even though, apart from some minor chakra strain, he felt almost normal. His mother had rushed to see him the moment she returned from the lower level, and it had taken some effort to convince her to go home and rest. He was fine, his admission had been purely a precaution. Deidara hated making people worry, and hated Akatsuki even more for putting him in this situation.

As he stepped out the door, the medic-nin whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn called out a cheerful goodbye. Deidara pointedly ignored him.

Outside, waiting beneath a tree, stood the Tsuchikage, his team, and three members of the Explosion Corps. The moment Akatsuchi spotted him, he ran forward, wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug, unable to hold back his tears. He was as big as he was emotional, but what truly caught Deidara off guard was Kurotsuchi, she looked like she was about to cry too.

"It’s my fault," she said, fists clenched as if punishing herself for her reaction. "I should’ve seen through their deception. I was too trusting."

"Not this again," Deidara said, then he huffed. "We all told you, it’s not your fault."

He still felt uneasy about the fact that civilians had been caught in the attack, some with serious injuries. Thankfully, none had died, but he could already sense the growing resentment among the villagers.

"Kurotsuchi, that kind of intuition comes with experience," her father reassured her.

"But I didn’t follow Grandpa’s orders! More people could’ve died."

"If you had, you would’ve exposed yourself to two S-rank criminals that you’re not prepared to face. Your life would have been in serious danger," Ai the Viper interjected.

In the end, it had been a twisted sort of luck that things had unfolded the way they did.

The Tsuchikage, now levitating a meter off the ground, spoke. "We have things to discuss, but not here. Let’s go to my office."

As they made their way there, Deidara answered questions about his condition. The wound on his shoulder had fully healed, but he would have to wait a few more days before he could use ninjutsu again. Along the way, other shinobi approached, curious to hear about the incident. They didn’t stay long. Each time, the members of the Explosion Corps promptly shooed them away.

The atmosphere was tense, and all Deidara really wanted was to take the day off, clear his head, and brainstorm new designs. But as an elite shinobi, the target of the attack, and the key witness, he had a duty to fulfill. Like it or not, he had a lot to explain.

Once they reached the Tsuchikage's office, Deidara recounted the attack in detail. His last memories felt hazy. He couldn't be sure whether he had killed the Akatsuki named Konan or if she had somehow survived. Her technique of shredding her body into sheets of paper might have saved her. They should have burned, but perhaps they were more resistant to combustion than he had assumed.

"What about the masked man?" Kodachi the Hound asked.

"He was caught in the kamikaze attack of the ANBU who was sent to spy on me," Deidara replied.

He wanted to add that if he had been informed about her beforehand, he wouldn’t have jumped to the wrong conclusions, and the whole situation could have been avoided. But he held his tongue.

"Impossible. I saw him lurking near the spot where you collapsed," Kodachi said. "He vanished before my eyes, and both his trail and his chakra signature disappeared."

Deidara wasn't particularly surprised, he had suspected as much. "The ANBU aimed for a vital point, but her kunai went right through him. That’s how it ended up lodged in my shoulder. If weapons pass through him, maybe explosions do too," he mused.

Kurotsuchi frowned, both confused and intrigued. "Grandpa, is there a jutsu like that?"

"Since he appears to be an Uchiha, or at least someone who acquired a Mangekyō Sharingan through other means, he could be using its power," the Tsuchikage explained. "But that kind of technique causes severe deterioration in the user’s body. It’s not something that should be abused the way that Akatsuki shinobi seemed to be doing."

"Lord Third, what do we do now?" Kitsuchi asked.

"The first step is to inform the population about the risk of another attack and announce that the Hidden Rock will actively fight against Akatsuki. We won’t wait for a third assault, we will track them down and eliminate them."

The villagers wouldn't take it well. Deidara had seen his popularity rise slightly after the Kazekage’s visit and the news that he had single-handedly taken down the perpetrator of the Hidden Sand massacre. But he could just as easily imagine them turning on him, demanding that he be handed over to Akatsuki, as if he were the greatest threat in the world. As if he hadn't spent his entire life fighting and surviving for people who would never bother to learn to do the same.

"I want to be part of the missions against Akatsuki," Deidara said. "Ever since I became their target, you all have been treating me like some helpless chūnin. You know, I was a genin for such a short time, that I only had time to do three D-rank missions. Now there's one more on the list. It's embarrassing!"

"No," Kodachi snapped. "We can’t expose you like that. You know well they’re after you specifically."

Deidara had never liked Kodachi, and the feeling was mutual. He couldn’t stand his moral superiority. Most of the time, for the sake of teamwork, Deidara held his tongue, but this time, it was especially difficult. He knew that keeping calm would only make Kodachi angrier, which made it all the more tempting. After a long, silent staring contest, he sighed and shrugged.

"I think I’ve more than proven my strength. And I shouldn’t even have to prove anything since I’m an elite jōnin. Are you really planning to fight Akatsuki without me? Good luck with that, hm."

"You want to hand yourself over to them on a silver platter? Don’t be ridiculous, Deidara," Kodachi shot back, raising his voice.

"Tell that to the Fifth Hokage," Deidara countered. "Naruto hasn't even displayed a fraction of his potential as a Jinchūriki, yet they still let him fight. Besides, the decision isn’t yours to make, it’s the Tsuchikage’s, hm."

He turned to Ōnoki, praying that the old geezer wouldn’t disappoint him. The entire room fell silent, waiting for his verdict.

"At first, I also believed that the most sensible approach was to protect Deidara," the Tsuchikage admitted. "But against an enemy of this caliber, we cannot afford to waste his strength. Sometimes, a sensei forgets that his students are no longer genin who rely on their seniors. My entire team will join the fight against Akatsuki."

The three students of the Tsuchikage grinned and bumped fists in victory. Kodachi would have no choice but to accept the decision. He was too loyal to argue against it, especially since Ōnoki himself had approved it. If the Tsuchikage was willing to put his own granddaughter on the team, and Kitsuchi had no objections, then no one else had a reason to complain.

"What’s next, Lord Third?" Kitsuchi asked.

"First, we analyze all available information. Gather every report, every testimony from shinobi and civilians alike. I will review everything today before deciding our next steps. For now, you may return to your normal duties." He then turned to Deidara. "I need to speak with you alone."

Ōnoki was levitating cross-legged a couple of feet above his chair. The others in the room bid their goodbyes and left. As the door closed behind the last of them, Ōnoki cleared his throat.

"I want you to spend today writing a detailed report on everything you remember. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how insignificant it seems, especially anything regarding the masked Akatsuki. We'll discuss the conclusions tonight."

Even though Deidara was eager to take action, he knew he needed a bit more rest before pushing forward.

"I will. But, Ōnoki-sensei..."

"Yes?"

"Please don’t put spies to monitor my every move again. Isn’t my word enough that I won’t act on my own?"

Ōnoki stared at him for a few seconds. Deidara knew him too well to miss the disapproval in his eyes.

“Deidara. Do you think I put those two ANBU there for you? I did it for Akatsuki. They were there to protect you, not to spy on you. I have reason to believe there’s a spy infiltrated in the Hidden Rock, so I had to make their presence seem harmless. Not informing you about it was necessary. Though, I admit, it did have its consequences. Not every strategy comes without risks."

Of course, Akatsuki’s latest move had required knowledge of his daily routine. Deidara had already suspected this when he slipped away each day to eat at his usual spot, but he hadn’t considered that being locked inside the village would leave him vulnerable.

“What do we know about the spy, hm?”

“We still don’t know how they’re operating. We’re talking about Akatsuki here, whatever method they’re using to gather information, it’s bound to be effective.”

At that moment, someone knocked on the door.

“Lord Third! A message from the Hidden Leaf!” said the jōnin who entered, holding a small white-and-blue slug in his hand.

“What is it about?” Onoki asked.

The slug was placed on the table, and it crawled toward the Tsuchikage.

“Lady Tsunade requests the Hidden Rock village's help to assist tomorrow in combat against two members of Akatsuki.”

As soon as the slug finished speaking, Deidara slammed his hand onto the table. The slug jumped a little, and quickly hid behind a stack of papers.

“Send us!” Deidara exclaimed.

This was his chance to prove himself. He’d recover on the way and be in top shape to fight. Ōnoki couldn’t deny him after everything he’d said. If he refused, Deidara would never forgive him.

“Tell Lady Fifth Hokage to send the coordinates, and we’ll be there,” Ōnoki said, pulling his pipe from his pocket and wiping the inside of it over the ashtray. “Stop reacting like that, Deidara. I was planning to send you. It’s a shame you have so little faith in me. You’ll leave tomorrow morning with Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi.”

Deidara wanted to celebrate his victory, but since Ōnoki wouldn’t appreciate his excitement, and he didn’t want to risk him changing his mind, he simply nodded. Not only had he earned a vote of confidence to fight against Akatsuki, but he would also be in charge of the mission. It was more than he had expected from Ōnoki. With that, he left the office to write his report, feeling in high spirits.

They had a hard time finding the location and were a little late. When they arrived, one of the Akatsuki members had already been defeated. Luckily, Naruto was also running behind, and after he arrived they were able to turn the tide. Akatsuchi's stone golem acted as a shield for the more vulnerable shinobi.

Come to think of it, Akatsuki had achieved something incredible. Gathering the strongest rogue ninjas in one place and making them work together wasn’t easy. This Kakuzu guy, a former Hidden Waterfall ninja, was no joke. Deidara knew he had extensive battlefield experience and sharp observation skills. The man used the strands sprouting from his body with terrifying mastery. He was an expert in all five elements of ninjutsu, and when he noticed three Hidden Rock ninjas joining the others, he quickly unleashed the lightning demon inhabiting his body. Akatsuchi managed to distract the creature with his golem long enough for Kurotsuchi to seal the mask with her corrosive quicklime attack.

Deidara wanted to be the one to deliver the finishing blow, but Naruto seemed to have exactly that in mind. The first thing that surprised him about Naruto was his clever use of the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Without any time to get to know each other outside of battle, a strange sense of rivalry emerged between them. It ended with both agreeing to launch their final attacks at the same time, Naruto with his freshly learned Rasenshuriken, and Deidara with a ball of lava that caused an earthquake when it hit the ground. The fire was fueled by the wind element, sweeping away the little remaining land that hadn’t already been torn apart during the fight. This was the second forest Deidara had partially destroyed in less than a week, and he decided to take credit for it, even though it wasn't entirely his doing.

The enemy was unrecognizable by the time they finished with him. It took a while to gather the charred remains of his body from the steaming, burnt earth, but the Hidden Leaf decided to keep his remains for an autopsy, hoping to uncover any secrets Kakuzu might have had.

The fighters' spirits were high after another victory against Akatsuki, despite their fatigue, lack of chakra, and injuries. Kurotsuchi had struck up a friendship with the three chuunin whose sensei had been killed by the criminal duo. Deidara, however, was more interested in Naruto.

As the two Hidden Leaf jōnin packed up the Akatsuki’s remains into a wooden box created by one of them, and Ino healed the wounded, Deidara walked over to the dead tree where Naruto was sitting, drinking water from a bottle.

“Tired, hm?” he said, sitting down in front of him.

Naruto laughed, a wide grin on his face. “It was the first time I used my secret technique, you know? My arms are still shaking. Look.” He held out his hands to show the constant trembling.

“Is that normal?” Deidara asked, studying them closely.

“Mmm... maybe it’ll get better with time. The important thing is we got rid of them.”

Deidara could relate to that. After using Son Gokuu's power, he always felt drained. It was as if his body wasn’t made for that kind of strength.

"That secret technique of yours wasn’t bad at all, hm. It complemented my attack quite well. As an artist, I can tell you it was a high-quality explosion. A fleeting moment of beautiful destruction."

Maybe, if he had planned it better, Deidara would have used his sculptures more in battle, to show the Hidden Leaf what his art was truly capable of. But he had also wanted to impress Naruto with his Jinchuuriki power.

"Oh, yes, you’re quite strong," Naruto said, and Deidara was about to reply with a 'thank you' devoid of modesty when Naruto pointed at himself. "But... I helped more, dattebayo."

A vein stood out on Deidara’s forehead. Was Naruto still thinking about competing? Well, Deidara wasn’t about to let him win.

"How do you know that!? I actually got here before you, so I helped more, hm!"

"But I tricked the furball with my clones twice!"

"And my creations killed one of his demons!"

Deidara wasn’t sure if he liked him that much anymore.

"You like explosions too much," Naruto reprimanded him.

"That's because they're beautiful. They're art. Pure art," Deidara said, forcing himself to change the subject before it went too far. Naruto seemed thoughtful, perhaps trying to imagine an explosion in his mind.

"Let’s see, what do you like most in the world, then?"

"That's easy. I love ramen," Naruto replied without hesitation.

"Hmmm... I like ramen too. But that's not art. Art is fleeting!"

"Ramen must be eaten quickly and freshly made, otherwise it loses its flavor," Naruto countered. "That counts as fleeting."

"Art is an explosion, hm!" Deidara exclaimed, emphasizing his point.

"An explosion of flavor!" Naruto almost sounded more convinced than Deidara. "And when you try Ichiraku's, you'll think so too!"

Deidara couldn't believe it. It was the strangest conversation about art he'd ever had in his life, but he couldn't find any argument to refute it. It still didn’t seem like art to him, but eating was another of life’s pleasures. Not everyone had the ability to convince him so quickly. It was annoying, but also fascinating in its own way.

"When I visit the Hidden Leaf, the first thing I’ll do is go see that Ichiraku guy. And it better be true!"

"It is," Naruto said, sounding absolutely certain. But then he scratched his arm nervously. "And, uh... I was joking when I said I helped more, dattebayo. That lava ball technique was way too cool. Did you get it from the Four-Tails?"

"Son Gokuu. My name is Son Gokuu," Deidara heard in his head.

"Son Gokuu. His name is Son Gokuu," Deidara repeated. "Yeah, it’s his technique."

"I can’t imagine the Nine-Tails lending me his power like that," Naruto said, shocked.

"Kurama," Son Gokuu insisted.

"Shut up for a second!" Deidara shouted, making Naruto raise an eyebrow. "Not you, him!"

"Deidara, let me speak to this insolent pup who thinks he deserves Kurama’s power without earning it first."

Deidara huffed. "No way! You're gonna scare him! It’s not Naruto’s fault no one explained things to him properly!"

"You’re already scaring him!"

Unable to juggle two conversations at once, Deidara clicked his tongue, feeling like he was going to lose his mind.

"Are you friends with the Four—eh—Son Gokuu!? How did you manage it?" Naruto asked, excitement and disbelief in his voice.

"Listen, Naruto," Deidara said, taking a deep breath. "Son Gokuu gave me a message for you. If you want Kurama's power..."

"Who’s Kurama?" Naruto asked, even more confused than before.

"You’ve been his Jinchuuriki all these years and you don’t even know his name? And then you wonder why we hate you, foolish humans, when you treat us like this. Stealing our power and nullifying us as if we were nothing more than extra chakra... as if we had no feelings or rights. Oppressive humans!"

Deidara listened to his whole rant with more patience than he’d ever thought he had.

"Kurama is the name of the Nine-Tails," Deidara finally said.

"He has a name!?" Naruto asked, looking more shocked than ever.

"All tailed beasts do," Deidara replied. "And Son Gokuu wants you to know that if you want to unleash your full potential as a Jinchuuriki, you have to earn his respect first, and stop using him as a tool."

Naruto lowered his head, lost in thought.

“That’s not as easy as it sounds,” he murmured. “In the Hidden Leaf, a lot of people still fear Kurama. It was Kurama, right? It’s so strange to think that all this time he's had a name… dattebayo. Well, you should know this already, but Kurama destroyed the village the day I was born, and there are still many people who remember. They’ll never see him as anything other than a demon who ruined their lives and killer their loved ones.”

Deidara could feel the weight of Naruto’s words. There was resentment on both sides, and he didn’t know how to answer. His situation had been different. Son Gokuu wasn’t as hostile as Kurama, but even in the Hidden Rock, people feared him. For Naruto, it must’ve been much harder.

"Don’t you have a chance to talk to him?" Deidara asked.

“The seal doesn’t allow it. Only when I’m really weak or angry does he gain strength. But whenever that happens, something bad happens next, and I end up hurting people.”

"That Kurama is a jerk, hm."

Even Son Gokuu couldn’t disagree. Naruto had the strongest but also the most difficult of all the tailed beasts. Well, maybe it was only fair. Maybe. If both sides tried, Naruto and Kurama might eventually find some understanding. But Deidara didn’t see that happening anytime soon.

To cheer Naruto up, he changed the subject. He reached into one of his clay bags and pulled out a scroll.

"Anyway, I’ve got some information for you guys from the Tsuchikage," Deidara said, holding the scroll out. But just before Naruto could grab it, he pulled it out of reach. "I’ve been ordered to hand it over to whoever’s in charge."

"Oh, that’s Kakasensei. But I want to see what it says! Can’t I just have it for a little bit?" Naruto asked.

"Hmmm… No," Deidara replied, though he loved bending the rules, so he opened the scroll anyway. Without handing it over, he let Naruto look at it. "But no one said I couldn’t do this. By the way, the drawings are all done by me."

Naruto’s curiosity piqued, and he examined the unfolded scroll closely.

"A girl. And that power looks dangerous. And who's Lollipop Face? And why does he have a Sharingan? It... Has to be Itachi, right?"

"It’s all explained there," Deidara said, shrugging. "The Uchiha clan was from the Hidden Leaf. Maybe you guys have more information about them, hm."

"But Itachi’s the only..." Naruto began, but Deidara cut him off.

"I know," Deidara said, already anticipating the question. "But you can have a Sharingan without being an Uchiha, right?"

Deidara could almost see the lightbulb go off above Naruto’s head.

“True! Kakasensei has one!” Naruto turned to the other group of ninjas, waving his arm. “Hey, Kakasensei! Look at this!”

“You know I wasn’t supposed to show you that, right?” Deidara reminded him.

Kakashi joined them, and now Deidara was about to get in trouble, all because Naruto couldn’t keep quiet.

“Discussing confidential information in the middle of a battlefield?” Kakashi greeted, though he didn’t sound angry, more amused, if anything.

“Kakasensei, you have a Sharingan.”

“I do,” Kakashi said, nodding once.

“Then you’ll see that you’re not the only non-Uchiha who has one anymore, because this Lollipop Face Akatsuki here does too!” Naruto said.

Kakashi took the scroll from Deidara and examined it for a while. Deidara tried to read his face, but Kakashi was a master at keeping his thoughts hidden. After a few moments of studying the scroll, Kakashi looked up.

“We’ll need to save this discussion for a safer place, Naruto,” he said, rolling the scroll back up and slipping it into his pocket. “We’ll talk to Lady Fifth about it.”

“Okay, dattebayo. But now that I think about it, you never told us how you got your Sharingan,” Naruto said, staring at Kakashi.

Deidara was just as interested in that tidbit. The whole idea of Sharingan transplants still seemed incredible to him.

Kakashi shrugged casually. “There’s not much mystery to it. They gave it to me for my birthday,” he said, utterly nonchalant.

Deidara knew he was smiling behind that mask, but the scarf obscured the expression. Still, it was obvious Kakashi was pulling their leg. Both Deidara and Naruto exchanged disappointed glances.

"Kakasensei, this is serious!" Naruto exclaimed, throwing his arms up.

He kind of looked like a fox when he did that.

“I only told the truth,” Kakashi said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Hey, Naruto, your sensei is..." Deidara began, and Naruto sighed loudly.

“I know, I know…” Naruto muttered, shaking his head.

Neither of them cared that Kakashi was right there.

Despite Naruto not turning out exactly as Deidara had imagined, he was still happy to have met a fellow Jinchuuriki. Though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he felt a pang of nostalgia when the time came to say goodbye and return to the Hidden Rock with his teammates. Naruto promised that he'd ask “Grandma Tsunade” for a Katsuyu so they could send messages to each other and keep track of what was happening with Akatsuki. According to Naruto, the sooner they defeated them, the sooner Deidara could visit him for some Ichiraku. Maybe by then, there would be progress with Kurama as well.

Back in the Hidden Rock, Deidara planned some drastic changes in his life. The first of which was temporarily moving to the Explosion Corps headquarters. Some of the members lived there, and Deidara didn’t want to take any chances. He wasn’t sure how far the powers of the Sharingan reached, and he didn’t want to risk being abducted in the middle of the night, especially after seeing how easy it was for them to get into places. No, he wouldn’t give them the chance.

It was already dark as Deidara packed his suitcase in his room. The dim light from his lamp didn’t help much, but he had no choice. He’d planned to pack earlier, but he had been busier than expected, so now he was shoving his art supplies into the mess of his uniforms and other clothes. As he closed the zipper, a shadow fell over his futon. His heart skipped a beat, and quickly, he backed away from the wall. He didn’t need to see the orange swirl on Tobi’s mask to know what was happening. His right hand-mouth started chewing on the clay he had kept there for the last few days.

"Hello, Jinchuuriki," Tobi said in a faux-petulant tone. "Tobi is sad because you’re going to leave him without friends to play with at this rate."

Deidara threw several clay birds in his direction. He hadn’t meant to destroy his room, but at this point, what did it matter? At least the explosion would alert reinforcements.

"Katsu!"

The explosion never came. His clay creations disappeared as if absorbed into thin air, and then Deidara found himself staring into the ominous red eye of Tobi’s Sharingan. The feeling of being cornered was enough to make his blood run cold. Deidara’s grip tightened around his bō, and he brandished it in front of himself.

"Don’t worry. I didn’t come for you. Not today, at least," Tobi said, his voice shifting from the childish tone to something far darker, deeper. But Deidara wasn’t concerned with that right now. His pulse raced as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"So you can get in here. How?" Deidara demanded.

He didn't know how he had done it, but he wasn't going to let Tobi take him away. He had a theory regarding Tobi's intangibility, and it was that he couldn't use it at the same time as the other absorption technique. After all, Tobi had to stop absorbing Deidara to let the kunai phase through him. Otherwise he wouldn't have cared about being attacked.

"I have my methods," Tobi said. "It certainly helped that you went off with your new friends from the Hidden Leaf for a few days."

Deidara noticed something in Tobi’s voice. Resentment, perhaps. But he couldn’t figure out why. As a last resort, Deidara still had some clay in his left hand. He would blow up the wall and escape.

This guy seemed to know a lot about him. Ōnoki’s theory about the infiltrator was starting to make more and more sense.

"So, if you haven't come for me, what do you want, hm?" Deidara asked.

"To talk," Tobi replied, casually walking toward the window. He sat on the frame, resting one foot on it, blocking Deidara's only possible escape.

Great.

Deidara didn’t let his guard down. He continued scanning the room, searching for any sign of other chakra signatures. Akatsuki members usually worked in pairs, and he couldn’t assume that Tobi had come alone.

"I hate having to do this," Tobi added, the Sharingan still trained on him even as he relaxed into his perch. "But you really have put me in a bind."

"Heh. I’ve left you without people, haven’t I?" Deidara retorted, feigning calm.

"You’ve depleted our forces, but don’t think for a second that Akatsuki is finished. I didn’t expect such fierce resistance from the Four-Tails' Jinchuuriki. And with everyone in this village keeping an eye on you, I don’t think I can just take you by force."

"Is that what you came to talk about?" Deidara asked, narrowing his eyes.

"That’s right. I came to ask you to come with me," Tobi said, leaning back casually. "I need the tailed beast sealed inside you. But since extracting it will kill you, it's safe to assume you won't do it willingly. So maybe if I make you understand the importance of our cause, you'll change your mind."

Deidara’s lips curled into a smirk. "You’re sick in the head if you think anything you say will make me help you."

"What if I told you this project is much bigger than your insignificant life? Bigger than mine, bigger than all of you Jinchuuriki lined up, and any collateral damage that might arise in the process. It's an altruistic act, one I’ve dedicated my entire life to. And I don’t intend to die before it’s completed."

Deidara was taken aback. This wasn’t the answer he expected. Everyone assumed Akatsuki’s goal was to control the weapons market through the tailed beasts, not some lofty ideal.

"Confirmed, you’re really sick in the head," Deidara sneered. "You think I’m going to trust some masked fraud who’s been acting like a dumbass up until now?"

"My identity is the least important thing here," Tobi said. "But if you want a name, let me give it to you: Uchiha Madara."

Deidara scoffed. "I wasn’t interested in knowing either, Tobi or Madara, hm. It was clear you weren’t Itachi."

"You don’t seem too impressed," Tobi said with the slightest hint of amusement. "Hasn’t your sensei told you about me? Didn’t he mention that time I made him kiss the floor when we were young?"

Young. Exactly how old was Madara? He was just an old legend now, likely clinging to power as he saw his abilities waning. An alarming number of people in Deidara's life insisted on clinging to life in unnatural ways.

Deidara raised an eyebrow, still keeping his cool. "The only thing I can say to that is you’re lucky you can teleport. If you had to climb up here so often, you’d have already fallen down a ravine," he said with a wicked grin, wishing he could see Madara’s reaction. "You sure you don’t want my staff? Maybe you need it more than I do, hm?"

Madara stared at him for a few long seconds, silent, before speaking again.

"How daring is ignorance. You’re depriving humanity of the only chance it will ever have to live in peace. A world without wars, death, or suffering."

"I don’t give a damn about the 'common good,' hm!" Deidara snapped. "What were you thinking when you came here asking me for such a thing!?"

"You speak like someone who has never experienced real war," Madara said coldly. "Someone who hasn’t felt the true weight of suffering. Life has been kind to you. You’ll learn soon enough."

Deidara’s grip on his bō tightened so much that he thought it might snap in his hands. His chest burned with rage, but he couldn’t let it overwhelm him.

"You’ll never have me, Uchiha!"

Madara remained calm.

"On the contrary, Four-Tails, I’ve already won. And for a very simple reason."

Before Deidara could respond, someone else spoke.

"Did you say something, Deidara?"

The blood in his veins froze. His body went rigid, and his heart skipped a beat. It was his mother, shouting from the living room.

Deidara stared at the sliding door, praying she wouldn’t come in. Time seemed to stretch into eternity as the silence dragged on. Every muscle in his body was tense, his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. He couldn’t let her see this.

"No, I didn’t, mom!" he shouted back, voice tight with forced calm. He quickly turned back to face Madara, trying to ignore the cold sweat sliding down his back.

Madara’s Sharingan was still focused on him.

"Emotional ties," he said, with dark satisfaction. "That’s why I’ve already won. You think you're happy having friends, family, letting others become important to you, only to fall into despair when they’re gone. That’s the truth of war. Survivors forced to keep moving forward, with the scars, physical and mental, to remind them forever what they lived, what they lost. That’s what war has brought humanity since the beginning."

"Stay the hell away from her," Deidara hissed, through gritted teeth.

With a swift motion, Madara leaped off the windowsill, landing gracefully on the floor. His Sharingan glowed crimson in the only hole of his swirly orange mask.

"I see you're starting to understand. It all depends on you. Do you want to continue resisting me and let this village, which fears and rejects you, know what the pain of war is just for me to end up capturing you anyway?"

Deidara would rather blow his brains out right there than be captured by Akatsuki. He was about to throw his other bomb at the wall to escape when Madara spoke again.

"I'll give you two days to think about whether you want to come with me without causing a fuss, or if you prefer me to wipe the Hidden Rock off the map."

"Don't waste your time, hm! The answer is NO!"

"I'll wait in case you reconsider. I'm the first one who wouldn't like to go with the second option." When Madara started walking towards him, Deidara lunged forward, piercing him with the wooden staff. "In two days, at this same time, I will return. You will come with me. Otherwise, this village will know the pain of war. Your loved ones will suffer... and might even die. And it will be your fault."

“My fault!? You're the one talking about attacking us!” Deidara shouted, repeatedly lunging at him, even though he knew it was useless.

“You can go tell your new friends in the Hidden Leaf what Uchiha Madara plans to do,” Madara taunted, as he backed away out of Deidara’s reach. Deidara kept chasing him, waving the bō. Madara had finally lost the infuriating calm he’d maintained throughout their conversation. “This will be a reminder of what will happen to them if they don’t hand over the Nine-tails. Don’t fool yourself into thinking they’ll last long. The Hidden Rock and the Hidden Leaf have been enemies since the Warring States Era, and it will remain that way.”

Deidara continued his pursuit, jabbing with the bō relentlessly. It was the only thing he could do. Perhaps Madara’s intangibility had a limit. Seeing that he wasn’t going to stop, the wrinkled old man that was Madara changed tactics. He used his Sharingan to dodge Deidara’s blows until he found an opening, disappearing in a swirl and leaving Deidara alone again. Panting, Deidara radiated a killing intent like never before in his life.

"I'm going to kill you, Uchiha Madara," he whispered.

He had two days to think of how.

Chapter Text

Obito hadn’t been in such a bad mood in a long time, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t calm down. It wasn’t just the Four-Tails problem anymore, it was everything that had spiraled from it. The fact that it was affecting him so much emotionally only infuriated him further. He’d been sitting at the low table for over two hours, elbows on the surface, hands clasped under his chin, radiating so much killing intent that he occasionally wondered just how far its range extended.

"Tooobiiii," White Zetsu crooned, rising from the floor. He'd sent Black Zetsu off on his usual rounds of spying on their three remaining targets, so for now, they were separated. "And when did you say the Four-Tails' sealing was happening? I need to organize my schedule."

Obito didn’t answer. It was true. Before heading to the Hidden Stone with Konan, he’d told Zetsu not to make any plans for the next three days, estimating that it would take at least that long to extract the tailed beast given how few members they had left. Now, that statement felt like nothing more than empty bravado, which damaged the credibility he’d built by posing as the legendary Uchiha Madara.

Zetsu disappeared back into the floor, then reemerged right on the table in front of him.

"Come on, Tobi, don’t take it the wrong way. There are really only two options: either he comes with us quietly, or we invade the Hidden Rock and take him by force."

"He thinks he can escape me," Obito muttered, more to himself than to Zetsu.

White Zetsu sighed. "Are you even listening to me, or am I talking to a wall? You're going to prove him wrong anyway, so who cares! Or… are you doubting yourself, Tobi?"

"Don't ever say that in front of me again," Obito said, not even looking at him.

White Zetsu and Guruguru had taken care of him for months after his accident by helping him exercise and rehabilitate. Back then, he’d considered them friends, until he realized they hadn’t helped him out of kindness or affection. White Zetsu was a chaotic being, unconcerned with good or evil. Sometimes he obeyed orders with enthusiasm; other times, even the ever-serious Black Zetsu struggled to manage him. Obito had never been able to pinpoint a pattern to these shifts, which only made them more frustrating.

"Ugh, whatever. Just tell me how much truth there is in what I said," Zetsu pressed.

That was one of those days when Zetsu was being difficult. Obito had doubts. He didn’t want to dwell on them. The mere thought of failing to achieve his ultimate goal disgusted him. There was no point in hesitation. The Four-Tails had gotten incredibly lucky in realizing that Kamui couldn’t multitask, but the Hidden Stone had no knowledge of how the Rinnegan and the Six Paths worked. If Deidara refused his offer, then the game would end for him the hard way.

"Go warn Pein to prepare for an attack in case the Four-Tails refuses to cooperate."

"Yes, boss!" Zetsu chirped, snapping a salute.

Obito needed silence. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to suppress the mounting frustration. He refused to believe he might be at a dead end. What would he do if he failed at this too? No amount of rational thinking could calm him. Years of carefully gathering the most skilled rogue ninjas, sacrificing everything for the greater good, no matter how deep he had to sink, now all of it hung by a thread because of one stubborn Jinchūriki. If only people understood how much they stood to gain… how little the price was in comparison.

A quote from Shimura Danzō surfaced in his mind: "The people of Konoha are like children who cry when their parents wash their faces."

Rebelling against something that was for their own good. That was exactly what was happening.

He forced himself not to break the table in two. His stomach twisted, a sensation he hadn’t felt in years.

White Zetsu reappeared, his previous smugness replaced by a wary, almost nervous stance. Shoulders hunched, arms raised slightly as if bracing for impact.

"Uh… Promise you won’t get mad."

Obito’s glare sharpened. "What?"

He could already feel another setback coming.

"Okay, I’ll tell you… But remember, I’m just a humble messenger!"

"Zetsu," he warned.

"Alright, alright! So, Nagato says he refuses to waste his power on the ‘insignificant’ Four-Tails. That you should be able to handle it yourself. He’ll only move for the Hidden Cloud or the Hidden Leaf, where," Zetsu made air quotes, "‘his power is well spent.’"

Obito’s fists clenched. "Damn him too."

Nagato was utterly convinced he was a god. Over time, Obito had learned how to handle him. Nagato wasn’t someone who took orders well, so control had to be subtle, guided through carefully placed advice and suggestions. But when he dug in his heels like this, he became an infuriating obstacle.

Obito refused to let the Hidden Stone see him as an empty threat. If a full-scale invasion was out of the question, he had no choice but to abduct the Four-Tails himself, by any means necessary.

He was at a dead end. But Pein would pay for it when his usefulness ran out.

Two days. Meanwhile, the Hidden Stone village would be plotting an ambush, preparing to take him down the moment he returned. Let them. If they focused all their attention on that, they wouldn’t see him coming from where they least expected.

"Deidara, there's something you should know," Son Gokū spoke into his mind.

"Then speak," Deidara replied, examining the clone he had just created.

"In the beginning, I was part of another being along with the rest of my brothers and sisters. Our father split that being into nine parts, then he created us, gave us form, personalities and a name."

Deidara nodded. "I know the Ten Tails legend, hm."

"It's not a legend. That’s exactly how it happened. If you’d ever been interested in my past, you would have learned it by now."

He didn’t respond, mulling over the information while working in his current task. After seeing the Akatsuki guy sneak into his house like it was nothing, there was no way he was leaving his mother there. Deidara had taken her to the guest building near the Tsuchikage’s tower. Expensive, but affordable now that he'd received his reward from the Hidden Sand. The real challenge would be convincing her to quit her job at the pottery workshop until Akatsuki was dealt with. That, they could afford too. Her biggest concern was abandoning her customers. That, and… who was going to feed the chickens?

If Akatsuki knew how spoiled they were, they might have considered taking them hostage. Well, the chickens would have to fend for themselves for a few days. They’d be fine.

"As a general rule, people’s pasts don’t interest me. Don’t take it personally," Deidara said at last.

"I imagine if they did, you'd know about Uchiha Madara," Son Gokū retorted.

Deidara shrugged. "I also don’t see the point in memorizing the names of all the shinobi who ever did something remotely impactful in the world."

"The battle between him and Senju Hashirama is considered one of the greatest events of the century. Their statues still stand at the Valley of the End."

"Ah… You should have just said he was the giant statue guy. Wasn’t he supposed to have lost and died in that same fight, hm?"

Deidara squinted. Something about all this didn’t sit right. Believing some masked guy claiming to be Madara Uchiha wasn’t exactly reasonable. But on the other hand, the Mangekyō Sharingan wasn’t something just anyone could get their hands on. The Sharingan itself was already rare, and those were even more so.

But whether he was Tobi or Madara, maybe the guy’s identity didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was dangerous. And Deidara refused to let someone like that decide his fate. He was an artist, the youngest shinobi in the Hidden Stone to reach the elite. Anyone who treated him as nothing more than a disposable vessel for a Tailed Beast would pay for it.

"You think you're going to fool Uchiha Madara with a clone?" Son Gokū mocked.

"No. I'm going to kill Uchiha Madara with my most perfect creation."

This wasn’t just a normal clone made of chakra. By being composed of physical matter, it would be stronger, more durable. The Sharingan could see chakra flow, so he had carefully mimicked the conductive channels of the human body. His inspiration was Naruto’s Shadow Clone technique, the most perfect form of cloning. For now. Deidara didn’t have time to learn it properly, but he understood enough to create his own version.

"You know he knows you're waiting for him. Of course, he's already considered the possibility of an ambush," Son Gokū said.

"That’s why I took my mother somewhere safe. She’ll be well guarded. If he plans on taking a hostage, it’s going to be difficult for him."

"And if he catches you?"

"I have one last resort," Deidara said, nonchalant.

There was a long pause. Then...

"No. Not that!" Son Gokū suddenly sounded nervous.

"Why not? Would you rather be part of the Ten Tails again and lose control over your own consciousness, hm? Because if the legend is true, that's probably what that Madara clown wants," Deidara said as he carefully worked on the details. Madara had said his goal was altruistic but it seemed to him he just wanted to subdue the world by becoming the strongest and rule over all. "Would you rather Madara become the supreme Jinchūriki, with no one left who can defeat him?"

"I hate being dead. It’s boring. And being summoned back is highly unpleasant!"

Deidara smirked, taking a bit of clay into his left hand-mouth. As he chewed, he felt his chakra drain significantly. He didn't really go to bed last night. First an urgent meeting with Ōnoki, then hours of scouring the archives for information.

And after that, work. Endless work on the clone.

But he wasn’t tired. If anything, he was more awake than ever.

Better to make the most of his time.

"Don't worry, I’d like to try other possibilities before considering blowing myself up, hm."

His left hand-mouth spat out a grinning clay heart. When he embedded it into the clone’s chest, color spread across its body from head to toe. Then it blinked and stood up. At first glance, it was like looking into a mirror. It might fool Madara, if only for a moment. And just an instant was all he needed.

"Hmm... Who could we test you on? I’m sure Ōnoki-sensei would never notice you’re a clone," Deidara said, rubbing his chin.

"What about Kurotsuchi? She should have started training by now," the clone suggested.

Deidara looked out the window. Dawn had already broken, and he had lost track of time while working on his creation. Kurotsuchi usually began her daily warm-up and taijutsu training early in the morning.

"Good idea, hm! Go to the training grounds. I’ll be watching from somewhere," he said, opening the window and leaping onto a nearby rooftop.

He had another emergency meeting to attend later, but until then, he could test out his creation.

As he swung between cables and leaped across rooftops toward the training grounds, a faint tickle in his lower back made him pause.

"Shit..." Deidara muttered.

It was happening again. When he overused his Jinchūriki chakra, he sometimes grew a monkey tail. It had happened several times before. Cutting it off was a hassle and painful, but at least this time, it was just one. He freed it with a sigh. The Akatsuki hunting him was still the bigger problem.

Deidara heard Son Gokū's mocking laughter in his head.

"It's not funny," he scoffed.

"You look chimp-ly adorable like that, don’t deny it," Son Gokū said.

"Tsk, you deserve hell just for that awful pun. At least it’ll make me feel less guilty when I use my C0 and wipe out the entire Akatsuki in one fell swoop, hm."

"I thought we already agreed that blowing yourself up was out of the question!"

Now it was his turn to laugh. Son Gokū was nervous, he could feel it. They both were. Deidara couldn’t wait to see how many people his clone could fool.

"Hey, pup. Aren’t you going to tell the Tsuchikage about your plan? I thought you weren’t going to act on your own again."

Pup. Yeah, Son Gokū was annoyed and trying to get under his skin.

"I’m not telling anyone for now. We know the Akatsuki are infiltrating the village, but we don’t know how yet, hm. The double agent theory is still on the table."

Deidara wasn’t about to take any chances. If there was a traitor in the Tsuchikage’s inner circle, he had to be discreet. Ōnoki insisted he trusted the entire elite, but as a precaution, they had to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Deidara could stomach the idea of betrayal from some shinobi, but not from the ones he actually respected.

A witch hunt wasn’t what they needed. That’s what his sensei had said. To fight the Akatsuki, they had to stay united. An internal conflict would only make them weaker.

Upon arriving at the training grounds, Deidara spotted Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi preparing for the day. He crouched in the undergrowth, watching their movements. Moments later, his clone appeared, silently stalking Kurotsuchi before launching an attack from behind without warning.

Ever since Kurotsuchi had learned the basics of taijutsu, her goal had always been to defeat Deidara in a sparring match. Back then, it was amusing to watch little Kurotsuchi try to land a hit on him. He could easily predict her every move, blocking them all with ease and mocking her in the process. She often played dirty, attacking from behind to gain an advantage and compensate for her lack of technique. But as time went on, the skill gap between them had narrowed. Now, they were nearly evenly matched.

To maintain his unbeaten record, Deidara had started ambushing her from time to time. In truth, their little game had turned into excellent training. Both of them had learned to stay on guard at all times.

Kurotsuchi blocked the clone’s first strike with her arm, spinning around instantly. Wasting no time, she countered with a high kick aimed straight at its head. Deidara found it hard to admit, but soon enough, she would outspeed him. Her reflexes were sharp, and only getting sharper.

To make up for the weight difference, Kurotsuchi often concentrated chakra into her arms. A single punch from her could leave a bruise that was sore for hours. He had to be careful; the clone’s memories would eventually transfer back to him, and that included the pain.

In the end, she managed to grab the clone and put it in a headlock, knocking it to the ground. Without hesitation, she followed up with a sharp knee to its stomach. The clone reacted quickly, grabbing her by the leg and throwing her into the air.

Ōnoki often said taijutsu wasn’t Deidara’s strong suit, but watching himself in action, he had to admit, he wasn’t too bad at it. It was a solid sparring match. Both he and Kurotsuchi were well-trained.

Deidara was quite enjoying the spectacle until Kurotsuchi suddenly stopped.

“I can’t keep going. I’ve got a C-rank mission later,” she said. "I better start training now!"

Well, it seemed she had bought it. Maybe others would, too. Now, who should be the next test subject?

Perhaps Ōnoki-sensei.

A smirk crossed Deidara’s face as he called his clone over.

"Go find the Tsuchikage. Let’s see how good you are, hm. Or rather, how good I am."

Deidara's clone was fully aware of its own nature. Being an exact copy of him, Deidara’s decisions didn’t surprise it in the slightest. It was, without a doubt, a magnificent and unparalleled creation.

Deidara had spent all night refining this clone, originally intended as part of his C1 repertoire, but after seeing the level of detail he’d put into it, he realized it had evolved into something far more intricate than the rest of his sculptures. Now, it intended to prove its worth to its creator.

Ōnoki wasn’t at his desk. Recalling that some mornings he spent an hour in the hot springs to ease his back pain, the clone headed there. Before parting ways, he and the original Deidara had agreed to meet later, as Deidara had to go see Kitsuchi to prepare for the emergency meeting. One way or another, Deidara would eventually learn the outcome of this test when the clone’s memories returned to him upon dispersal.

The clone leaped from a bridge onto the river and sprinted across its surface, running down a waterfall. The best hot springs in the village, the ones the Tsuchikage favored, were located midway up the mountain.

As he moved, something unusual flickered in his peripheral vision. He caught sight of a human figure emerging from the ground for the briefest moment, but when he turned to look, it was gone. Had he imagined it? A spike of unease crept through him, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

Not even ten seconds later, Uchiha Madara materialized before him. The eerie reddish glow of the Sharingan stood out through the hole in his swirly mask.

The sudden appearance nearly made the clone lose concentration and he almost sank into the water. Regaining control, he drew the staff Deidara had painstakingly molded for him and lunged. The staff phased through him.

That ANBU’s death would not be in vain.

If it hadn’t been for that kunai she threw, Deidara wouldn’t have formulated the theory that Madara couldn’t use both of his techniques simultaneously. On one hand, he couldn’t absorb someone while maintaining his intangibility. On the other, the only window of opportunity to strike was when Madara activated his absorption ability. That meant if Deidara was fast enough, very fast, he could land a hit.

If he could gather just a little more intel before dissolving, it might be useful to his creator.

Of course, the most optimistic outcome would be Madara dying right here and now. The clone had to suppress a smirk.

Madara spoke. “Time’s up, Four-Tails. What’s your answer? Will you come with me peacefully, or do you want to watch your loved ones die one by one first?”

The clone scoffed. “Aren’t you a day early? Or are you senile and losing track of time, Grandpa? I thought you gave me two days to think it over, hm!”

He was stalling. Not that it mattered, he had already suspected Madara wouldn’t play fair. It was no surprise he was going back on his own terms.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Madara said flatly. “You’ve had enough time to decide. Surely, you’re not selfish enough to endanger those you care about.”

“I’m not about to listen to some decrepit old man who won’t even show his face.”

Madara shook his head. “Is that your answer? Really? You disappoint me. I thought you’d be more reasonable.”

“Even if I went with you, I have no guarantee that no one else in this village would come to harm,” the clone retorted. “As a rule, I don’t trust people who wear gloves. They’re always hiding something.”

Madara looked at his own hand, then back at him.

“I see,” he said. “But whether you trust me or not is irrelevant. If you refuse, the invasion of Iwagakure is inevitable.”

“Then we’ll be right here, waiting for you! That’s my answer!”

Madara let out a dry laugh.

“How arrogant. You have no idea what awaits them, you stupid monkey.” His voice sharpened with anger. He took a step back, out of the staff’s reach. “I’ve decided, I’m going to capture you now. And I’ll raze this village to the ground anyway… for daring to defy me.”

The clone saw the pattern of the Mangekyō Sharingan begin to spin.

He knew what was coming.

There was no time to think, only to act. The fastest escape was to stop channeling chakra to his feet. And so, he let himself sink into the river.

Taking advantage of the fact that clones didn’t need to breathe, and that from this angle, the Sharingan couldn’t track his movements, Deidara’s clone swam beneath Madara and seized his foot.

Toes with turquoise-blue nails peeked from his sandal.

He was tangible.

Not an illusion. Not a genjutsu. Madara had a body that could be touched.

Deidara had been right all along.

Euphoria surged through him. It didn’t even look like the foot of a hundred-year-old man, but that detail was unimportant at the moment. Letting instinct take over, he bit down with all three mouths at once.

Madara flinched, trying to leap away, but it was too late.

The clone felt the rush of warm blood flooding his mouths as a red cloud bloomed in the water. For a fraction of a second, he reveled in the sensation, until Madara phased out, and his teeth sank into nothing but empty space.

Perhaps it hadn’t been a calculated move, or perhaps even Madara hadn’t foreseen it, but gravity didn’t care for his tricks. He dropped into the water beside him, his Akatsuki cloak swelling around him, briefly shrouding his mask.

Perfect.

Deidara's clone pressed himself against him instantly, wrapping his legs around Madara's waist like a monkey, aiming punches at his face. Madara blocked as best he could, but he was human, and humans needed to breathe. He was already feeling the lack of oxygen.

How ironic. A member of the Hidden Stone's Explosive Corps drowning an enemy. What an anticlimactic and utterly unartistic way to win.

Well, let’s fix that.

Making sure Madara couldn’t see, the clone drove his next chakra-charged punch into his gut, forcing him to double over. Then, with a Lava Punch, he aimed straight for his face.

The mask shattered.

They broke the surface, still locked in struggle, as Deidara's clone got his first good look at his enemy.

Madara… wasn’t old. His face was lined, but not with wrinkles, those were scars. Who the hell was this man?

“I’m going to gouge that eye out!” the clone shouted. His hand shot toward the exposed face, fingers curled to scratch, to rip, to tear—

Madara caught his wrist with ease. Or rather, whoever he really was did.

“You’ll be mine today,” the masked man growled, his visible eye widening with something between fury and madness. “You’re not getting away, Jinchūriki!”

He drove his fist into the clone’s chest, only for his arm to sink all the way into softened clay, destabilized by the water.

Then came the realization.

“You’re a—”

The clone grinned.

“Surprise, bastard!” He activated his self-destruct seal, clinging firmly to his opponent, his body already beginning to swell. “That’s right, I’m a clone, and I’m about to transform you into something truly beautiful!”

Laughter poured out of him, growing louder as his body expanded. Bigger. Bigger. Triple his normal size. Madara phased out and vanished. It didn’t matter. He was nothing compared to the grandeur of what was about to happen.

“Art is a fucking explosion!”

Those were his final words before he detonated.

“…the bunker built during the Third War can be reopened,” Kitsuchi was saying. “With some repairs and supplies, we can shelter all civilians in—”

A thunderous explosion shook the village. The room fell silent. All eyes turned to the window. A column of smoke rose in the distance, curling into the sky from the town’s mid-level.

“Let’s go!” Ai barked, throwing open the window.

With the precision of trained shinobi, the Explosion Corps vaulted outside.

All except Deidara.

A wave of dizziness hit him. He swayed slightly before sitting down, pressing a hand to his forehead. The memories were returning, and what they brought back was interesting.

It had truly been a beautiful explosion.

Chapter Text

The fine crimson threads still flowed from the Four-Tails' bites, trailing down Obito’s skin and dripping from his trembling foot onto the cold floor of his personal dimension. Those rabid, animal teeth had pierced clean through his sandal and left him bleeding.

No one had touched him in battle since Minato-sensei.

But the Four-Tails hadn’t just touched him, he had hurt him. He had deceived him. He had latched onto his body like the monkey he was and yelled at his face that he was going to kill him. The physical pain, however, was nothing compared to the emotional storm raging inside, which, in the solitude of his Tsukuyomi world, Obito allowed himself to express. The physical pain would go away soon. But the humiliation, the loss of the credibility he had worked so hard to forge, that would not.

He limped across the void-like space, leaving a trail of blood drops behind him. His foot throbbed with each step as he made his way to a small white cube and lowered himself onto it carefully. He had barely escaped. A few seconds more, and he would’ve been caught in the blast. It was a good thing he hadn’t taken the Jinchuuriki. If he had, the clone would’ve detonated inside the lair.

Obito shivered. Every single kidnapping attempt had failed. And now that the Hidden Stone was in full defensive mode, reaching the Four-Tails would be harder than ever. The pressure on his chest made it hard to breathe. He imagined himself explaining that disaster to Zetsu. He was safe in his personal dimension, yes, but sooner or later he would have to return to the real world.

Sometimes, he wished he could stay in there forever and disappear from a universe that seemed hell-bent on denying him everything.

Obito had definitely been born cursed.

And he wasn’t talking about the infamous Uchiha Curse of Hatred. No, his curse was something that only affected him. Not only was everything going wrong, but it was happening in the worst possible ways. Almost cruelly so. If those simpletons could understand that everything he did was for them, that he wanted to build a world where they'd never suffer again, maybe they would see that the price he demanded was insignificant by comparison.

Why didn’t they see it...?

Why the hell didn’t they...?

Obito’s hand went to his face instinctively and traced the edge of what remained of his mask. He remembered the moment clearly. The fear that took hold the instant it broke. The first time his face had been revealed to an enemy.

The Four-Tails had seen him.

And it was only a matter of time before that information reached Konoha. Kakashi would recognize him and then it wouls all be over. The project he had so arduously worked in would crumble, and the weight of all he had done would come crashing down on him.

He didn’t even realize how hard he was pressing into his own face until the pain began to register. He tore off the last fragment of the mask clinging to his skin. With a furious grunt, he crushed it in his hand and let the orange debris fall to the floor.

He could make another mask, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was, what was the point? They’d already seen him.

The alliance between the Hidden Stone and the Hidden Leaf had to be destroyed. Those two villages were natural enemies. If he couldn’t move forward with collecting the remaining Jinchūriki, then he’d buy time. He’d sow chaos and divide them.

Not even the Six Paths of Pain could face two united villages. Divided, they would be vulnerable. And more importantly, he could keep his identity buried a little longer.

Obito forced himself to focus.

He inhaled slowly. The plan had changed. Good. A new goal meant a new rhythm. It would take his mind off the Four-Tails, who had even begun invading his dreams lately, filling them with his manic laughter and explosions. He no longer needed food, but if he did, he was certain his appetite would have disappeared too.

This change in plans felt like a psychological necessity deep down. If he could no longer solve the problem head-on, he’d approach it sideways. Eventually, he’d rip the Four-Tails out of that brat’s body, and he’d never have to think about him again.

Ever.

Just as that comforting thought took root, one of the massive cubes in his personal dimension began to glow. A scene appeared inside it. Crap. There they were, himself, at eleven years old, standing beside Minato-sensei and Hiruzen Sarutobi.

“No...” Obito said aloud, stiffening, already knowing what was about to play. He stood, limping away from the cube despite the pain. But the memory chased him across cubes.

He closed his eye and clamped his hands over his ears. He didn’t need to hear it again. The memory was tattooed into his brain. Minato had made him spar Kakashi in front of the Third Hokage to show off their progress in taijutsu. Obito had trained harder than ever for that moment. And he lost. He remembered Kakashi’s explanation of how he not only anticipated Obito’s moves, but anticipated the anticipation itself, always thinking one step ahead. Anticipating anticipations.

That’s what the Four-Tails had done, too. He had outsmarted him just like Kakashi had. Even someone ten years younger had beaten him with that principle and left him in the dirt.

The vision ended. Obito slumped down again, inspecting his foot. The flesh had healed, but the teeth marks from those three monstrous mouths remained. As he looked at them, he noticed a tear falling on his hand. Somewhere between helplessness and rage, it had escaped him.

He wondered if the marks would ever fade, or if they'd stay there forever as one more reminder of his failures.

The pile of complaints from the mid-level villagers nearly rivaled the Tsuchikage himself in height. Not that, Deidara thought, it was an especially high bar to clear.

The entire neighborhood had been flooded when the river changed course, collapsing the drainage system and turning streets into shallow canals. Earth Release users had managed to redirect the flow and restore the landscape, more or less, but that hadn’t stopped the wave of outrage.

“‘Let Akatsuki take the demon before a greater disaster occurs,’” Kurotsuchi read aloud from one of the notes, mocking.

Deidara snatched the paper from her hands.

“Ignorant fools!” he barked, holding the note like it had personally insulted him. “They’d rather face a Jinchuuriki with the power of all Tailed-Beasts combined?!” He shredded the note and flung the pieces into the air like confetti. “Trash.”

“Calm down already,” Kurotsuchi said. “It’s not like we’re going to listen to them. Let them grumble.”

“You left an explosive clone loose in the village,” Kodachi snapped.

Deidara rolled his eyes, already bracing himself. “How was I supposed to know that was the exact moment the Akatsuki guy would show up? It’s not like I planned it!”

“You left an explosive clone loose in the village. Unsupervised!” Kodachi repeated, louder, forcing Deidara to cover his ears and talk over him.

“If I were a fortune teller, I wouldn’t have done it! For the third time, I didn’t know! It’s touching how much you care, really. What if they’d succeeded in kidnapping me, huh? Then what?”

Kodachi’s eye twitched. “The point is, explosive clones can’t be left unattended!”

Before Deidara could shout again, the Tsuchikage raised a hand, gripping Kodachi’s arm with enough authority to silence him instantly. Then he turned to Deidara.

“I don’t want to hear another word about it from either of you. The damage is being repaired. The civilians will be relocated soon. We move forward.” No one dared to retort. “There’s new information on Akatsuki. Deidara, explain.”

Deidara smirked, feeling smug satisfaction as Kodachi fumed beside him.

“I saw the spy,” he began. “Someone surfaced briefly, then disappeared underground using Moguragakure no Jutsu. My clone also got a clear look at the masked Uchiha’s face.” He paused, letting that sink in. “It’s not Madara. It’s someone pretending to be him.”

Kitsuchi furrowed his brow. “You’re sure? Why would anyone do that?”

“That’s what my clone saw, hm,” Deidara answered simply, folding his arms.

Ōnoki closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. “Introducing himself as Madara would carry far more weight than using his real identity. And considering there are only two Uchiha known to be alive, and only one of them with the Mangekyō Sharingan, most people would believe him without question.” He turned to Kitsuchi. “We know each Mangekyō has a unique pattern and abilities. According to the bingo book, Uchiha Itachi’s eye design doesn’t match the one seen in battle. That’s proof enough.”

“So where does that Uchiha come from?” Kurotsuchi asked.

The Tsuchikage folded his hands over his staff, visibly deep in thought. “Either he’s an Uchiha who escaped the massacre, he stole that eye from an Uchiha… or he really is Uchiha Madara.”

Deidara crossed his arms. “I touched his foot. I bit his foot, and I can assure you, it was real, it was young, and it did not belong to a hundred-year-old corpse.”

The sensory memories shared by the clone were as vivid as his own. He could still feel the grit of riverbed stones, the warm gush of blood between his teeth, and the metallic tang of it lingering on his tongue. It left him… unsettled. Not in a bad way. Just unfamiliar. Hard to explain.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a genjutsu?” Ōnoki asked.

“It’s the Mangekyō Sharingan, after all," Kitsuchi added.

Deidara scoffed. “Have you forgotten that ever since we learned he had one of those eyes, I’ve been training in genjutsu resistance? It’s not that easy to fool me, hm. Besides, if he’s really Madara, why wear the mask at all? I'll tell you; because he isn't!”

“Akatsuki’s getting desperate,” Ai muttered. “This attack felt sloppy. They didn’t even confirm they were in front of the real Deidara. Were they so sure they'd catch us off guard?”

“Technically, they did catch us off guard,” Kitsuchi noted. “If Deidara hadn’t been testing the clone at that exact moment… We got lucky.”

“Tch. If it had been the real me, I wouldn’t have been caught,” Deidara said. He leaned back in his chair, propped a foot on the Tsuchikage’s desk, and began rocking gently. Kodachi watched him with an expression that practically screamed you little shit, but said nothing. If Ōnoki didn’t object, he wasn’t about to.

The clone had done exactly what it was created to do. It had acted knowing he was destined to explode. The real Deidara, as reckless as he was, would’ve played it safer. Maybe. But he couldn’t stop thinking about how the clone hadn’t hesitated. About the moment it clung to the guy and its teeth sank into flesh, about the blood that dyed the river red and tingled his tastebuds with that alkaline note.

It wasn’t fear. It was some odd fascination he couldn't quite describe.

The meeting wrapped quickly after that, shifting focus to plans for a possible civilian evacuation. After assigning a genin to visit his home to water the plants and feed the animals, Deidara returned to his room in the Explosion Corps quarters.

The Tsuchikage had given him a task: sketch the Uchiha's face from memory, to be added to the updated edition of the Land of Earth’s bingo book, published monthly, with a space now reserved for the mysterious Uchiha.

What had shocked Deidara the most had been the Uchiha's disturbed expression. The moment it latched onto the Uchiha’s body, their faces had been just inches apart. Close enough to see the deep scars on his cheek. Close enough to realize that, absurd as it sounded, the masked man had a face. And that it looked like that.

He’d been trying to recall every detail before the memory dulled. He stared at the blank scroll, took a breath, and finally set pencil to paper. He sketched a circle, then a rough jawline. Not his kind of art, unless he could find a way to make it explode. But until he could drop a C3 right on the guy’s head, this would have to do.

Handing over the sketch meant someone else might go after the Uchiha. He hated that thought. But deep down, he didn’t think just anyone could bring him down.

He was tracing out guide lines when someone knocked. Deidara dropped the pencil with an exaggerated groan.

“How hard it is to be an artist in a world that doesn’t appreciate it,” he muttered. “What is it?!”

The door creaked open, and Kurotsuchi’s head popped into the room. “I came to be a nuisance.”

“You didn’t have to say it, hm.” His mood darkened. Not that it had been great to begin with. “I didn’t think they let brats in who haven’t even joined the Explosive Forces.”

“I never said they let me in.” She stepped inside casually. “And that wasn’t you this morning, was it? It was your clone. I should beat you up for using me as a lab rat but I’ll let it slide.”

Deidara scoffed. “Yeah, you’re so generous. What do you want? I’m busy in case you haven’t noticed.”

She closed the door and leaned on his desk like she owned the place. “I want to see how you draw. I want to be the first to see what the guy looks like.”

“Oh, you just want the scoop.”

“Obviously. I thought you’d catch on faster.”

The old man must’ve mentioned it in front of her. Damn him. Deidara didn’t want an audience. He didn’t mind being watched when sculpting, that was different. He enjoyed that. But drawing was something else. It demanded concentration. And Kurotsuchi's energy was a wrecking ball crashing through it.

“Well, the bingo book isn’t coming out tonight, so there’s no rush. I’m not exactly inspired right now, hm.”

She crossed her arms and pouted dramatically. Deidara wished she’d take the hint.

“It’s not fair! At least tell me what he looked like. Don’t make me feel like I snuck in here for nothing.”

“Why? You want the bounty?”

Apparently, the Tsuchikage had promised a generous one.

“Wouldn’t say no,” she shrugged. “But for now, I just want the preview. Come on, Dei, don’t be cruel. If you tell me, I’ll go away. You do owe me for fooling me earlier.”

“I don’t owe you anything, brat. Get out.”

“I will. As soon as you tell me.”

“Well, then you’ll be waiting a long time, hm.”

“That’s a shame,” she said, stretching like a cat. “You could’ve gotten rid of me fast. But I don’t have anything better to do today. I can wait.”

Locked in a staring match, Deidara refused to give in.

“I don’t care,” he muttered.

“Okay.”

She didn’t flinch. Seconds ticked by. Deidara wasn’t patient, but he did like having the last word. Unfortunately, Kurotsuchi was patient. A minute passed. His fingers twitched. She smiled. She was winning and she knew it. He considered letting her win just to finally have some peace, but she’d pay for it. He’d ignore her for the next few days. That’d teach her.

“Come here, hm.”

He picked the pencil back up. If he had to think about that guy again, might as well finish the damn drawing and be done with it. Kurotsuchi laughed quietly and stepped closer, eyes trained on the pencil's movement.

“I only saw one of his eyes,” Deidara said, sketching the shape. “The only piece of the mask left intact was on the upper left side of his face. His mask only had one hole. Maybe he only has one eye, hm?”

He frowned. That mask design still bothered him. Why wear something that cuts off your field of vision unless you're missing an eye. In one corner of the paper, he added a quicker sketch, full mask, Sharingan visible, aura of menace practically radiating from the eye. It wasn’t perfect, but it got the feeling across.

Kurotsuchi stared at the doodle longer than expected.

“It looks like you’re gonna get sucked into that hole just from looking at it…” she murmured.

“Are you scared, hm?” he teased.

Her face snapped into a scowl so fast it was almost impressive. “You wish! If anything, now I really want to beat the guy up! I’ll train all day if I have to.”

Deidara smirked. She was a quick learner, that was true. In a few years, she’d be among the strongest in the village. But he wasn’t about to let her take his target. Of course, he couldn’t tell her that. Or the old man. The fewer people who knew about his plan, the better.

He sketched the jagged edge of the remaining mask. Under it might’ve been a scar, a hollowed socket, or something worse. Since he hadn’t seen it, he left it like that. Nose, right ear… then came the mouth. He paused, forcing himself to remember. The lips had scars. The lower one was torn and missing a small piece that left a gap. The skin around it puckered and healed rough. The clone had been so close it’d memorized every detail.

Deidara focused on the lines. If it weren’t for the scars, the guy might’ve had a handsome face. Or maybe the scars were what made him handsome. They gave him a strange kind of appeal. Either way, there was beauty on that. It made it worth destroying.

Kurotsuchi leaned over his shoulder.

“Did he only have those marks on one side of his face?”

Deidara nodded.

“Hey… why are you smiling?”

He didn’t look up. “Thinking about the day he goes Katsu.”

She groaned. “Ugh. Should’ve guessed you were daydreaming about explosions again. Don’t you think about anything else?”

“I’ve got lots on my mind,” he said, still working the pencil, sketching the folds of flesh around the torn lip. “But that is the important part.”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue.

Deidara began sketching the hair. Every strand had clung with tiny droplets of water that sparkled in the midday sun. He remembered the way the Uchiha had struggled against him, every desperate movement made futile by Deidara’s clone arms and legs trapping him.

Heat crept up his face. He scowled, raging at himself. The thought hit like a slap. He pressed harder into the page, shading the strands, forcing focus until the pencil tip broke with a dry crack.

“You okay?” Kurotsuchi asked, leaning in. “You look flustered. Want me to open the window?”

“No,” he snapped. “And since you’ve seen the Akatsuki already, you should go. Before someone finds you here.”

He doubted she’d get into real trouble. In fact, someone higher up would probably commend her for slipping through security. Still, she nodded and bowed.

“Thanks for the exclusive preview.”

“It’s not like you gave me much of a choice, hm.”

When she left, he didn’t return to the sketch. He grabbed a towel and made for the bath.

The communal bathroom was empty, and for that he was grateful. No small talk or anything. Just himself and whatever the hell this was that he needed to work through.

He sank into the hot water with a sigh and immediately regretted it. Every time his mind wandered, it circled back to him. The Uchiha. His voice. His taste. The feel of his breath when he whispered that he was going to be his.

Another wave of heat surged through him, this time not from the water.

Deidara cursed under his breath and plunged his head beneath the surface, letting silence and pressure crowd out the world until he had to come up gasping.

Pathetic. Was he really that desperate? Maybe he was. Maybe he was the only guy his age who hadn't even kissed anyone. Thanks for nothing, Son Gokū. He should ask Naruto and Gaara if their tailed beasts had ruined their love lives too. The idea was so ridiculous it made him want to laugh. Instead, he sank lower in the water and stared at the ceiling.

It wasn’t like physical contact was unfamiliar to him. Ai, was considered the most attractive kunoichi in the Hidden Stone. He had sparred with her hundreds of times. She had straddled him, used her genjutsu on him. And she caused him nothing. Not even curiosity.

Then this mystery Uchiha appeared. One taste of his blood and he was still thinking about it hours later. Still feeling that breath on his face. He didn’t want to dwell on why. It was as stupid as it was pointless. Maybe he should be grateful. Now he had one more reason to enjoy destroying him. Once he turned him into art, he wouldn’t have to think about him ever again.

His mind was made up.

"I’ll be the one to kill him. No one else."

And until then, he'd take his sweet time finishing that portrait. The longer it took, the longer they’d delay sending the sketch off to the Leaf or the Sand for their bingo books.

Let them wait.

This one was his.

Chapter Text

The Four-Tails clung to Obito's body with arms and legs wrapped around him. Momentarily blinded by the cloak swollen with river water, Obito didn't see the lava-infused punch that shattered his mask.

A fear fiercer than anything he'd felt before paralyzed him. His face was exposed. It was a catastrophic setback. It could ruin the whole plan. He had no choice, he had to trap the Four-Tails then and there so he wouldn't reveal Obito's true identity. Despite the urge to vanish, he forced himself to stay. Pain in his foot distracted him. That sharp sting from the bite... he hadn’t felt something like that in years, and he was furious at himself for letting it happen.

When they broke the surface, the Four-Tails moved so close his face that Obito could feel him breathe. He stared at him and licked the trace of blood on his lips.

“Who are you?” he asked, surprised, a slight mischievous smile playing at his mouth. “You’re not Madara Uchiha. You look too hot to be a centenarian old geezer.”

Obito vaguely remembered having a goal, but after the unexpected response, he lost the ability to think. The Jinchūriki's index finger traced a line up his right cheek.

“Are you blushing because of me, huh?” he taunted.

Strangely, Obito smirked. There was no use denying it, some perverse part of him enjoyed having the Four-Tails wrapped around his body. It wouldn’t hurt to play along a little.

“You can find out if you want,” Obito breathed, bringing his lips close to the Four-Tails' ear.

His prey seemed to accept the challenge. Obito's smirk widened. A hand found the back of Obito's neck and the Four-Tails drew his face nearer. Obito mirrored the motion, eyelids drooped, lips parted to receive...

He woke with a start and exhaled sharply. He'd had nightmares all the time, but never one quite like that. In the days since the river fiasco he'd been poring over public opinion in the Hidden Stone and the Hidden Leaf about the new alliance. Veterans and those who'd lost people in the Third Shinobi World War met the partnership with suspicion, even hostility. If Danzō had something in mind, Obito was ready to offer his support. He felt his blood boil whenever he thought of the two villages working together.

But it wasn't personal anymore. This was what better served the plan. Divide the villages, let them weaken each other, then seize the Jinchūriki.

Obito sat up on his futon and reached for his mask, but he only caught air. Right, the Four-Tails had destroyed it. Putting together his new backup plan had helped him take the thought off his mind during the day. Although he'd already dreamt about it a few times since that day. One of those times, he dreamt about the Four-Tails making himself explode, forcing Obito to wait several years before he could summon the beast again. He didn’t relax until he'd sent Zetsu out to verify that the Four-Tails was alive and well.

He forced himself to put thoughts of the Four-Tails aside again and focus on what mattered: his propaganda campaign to create social alarm and seed distrust. Knowing he wouldn't fall back asleep, Obito dressed and sat at his desk. On the top drawer, he found parchment and writing tools. He took out a sheet and a quill and began to write.

"Let's not forget the past. Stop opening the gates to the enemy."

It lacked conviction, but this was just a first draft.

"Reject alliances with traitors before it's too late."

"Hmmm..." he murmured. The phrasing wasn't bad, but it needed to strike deeper. The ones who had given everything during the Third Shinobi War were the ones being insulted the most by this alliance. He could spend hours talking about that, he considered it a personal affront, even. The hypocrisy of the so-called Will of Fire. How this alliance endangered the vulnerable instead of protecting them. Yes, that was the key. People were easy to move when you spoke to their fears.

Absentmindedly, Obito scratched the scars on his face with his index finger. He couldn't get used to not wearing the mask. His fingertips tracing every ridge and imperfection made his skin crawl. He hated to be reminded that they were real.

Worse, there was a strange tingling under his skin. It had been there since he woke, as if his body still remembered the ghost of the Four-Tails' hand against his cheek. His mind drifted back toward the dream, and Obito refused to dwell on it. It was normal. Nightmares left sensations that lasted for a while. After all, it's hard to realize you're dreaming before you wake up.

His finger slid to his lips. The tingling was there too. Thankfully, they hadn't actually brushed lips. Obito withdrew his hand at once. No. He wasn't curious, certainly not about that. And least of all with the Jinchūriki he was meant to capture. Even if it had happened, it wouldn't have meant anything. His subconscious was just reflecting humiliation and anxiety over the Four-Tails' safety before the extraction ceremony could be carried out. Nothing more.

He stood abruptly and went to get his new mask. White Zetsu had crafted it from wood hardened with Senju cells, supposedly identical to the old one, but the difference was immediate. It was thicker, and the grooves of the spiral were more pronounced. The color was duller, a muted orange that smelled of wet acrylic. It pressed uncomfortably against his nose, and after a while the scent stung his eyes. Great. Zetsu would have to redo his work, but in the meantime, that was better than having to feel the air on his skin. It was all the Four-Tails' fault.

The Four-Tails again. No. No. He couldn't keep circling back to him. Obito didn't want to lose his temper. He tore the mask off, gasping against the chemical odor. He tried to refocus on his writing, but his thoughts scattered like shrapnel. He tried to brainstorm, but unable to focus, most of the ideas ended up in the wastebasket in a crumpled ball.

Maybe he should try sleeping again, recover his strength, and return to his duty with renewed energy... No. What if the dream came back? The Four-Tails, his legs restricting Obito's body, his fingers brushing against his face. His lips on his. For a split second, Obito's imagination betrayed him. He let the kiss happen. And immediately recoiled, horrified.

He pressed a trembling hand to his forehead. A cold bath. Yes, maybe that would help. A bath in one of those icy rivers in the northern part of the continent. No. Damn it, rivers reminded him of the Four-Tails too. Everything did.

Obito hated feeling so frustrated. But no matter what he tried, he couldn't force his thoughts back into order. The only solution he could think of was to empty his mind and wait for the madness to burn itself out and stop torturing him like that.

Several days passed with no sign of Akatsuki. New intelligence had come in. The organization had its roots in the Hidden Rain, and one of its earliest recruits was Kisame Hoshigaki. Though back then it did not call itself Akatsuki. The Hidden Leaf’s intelligence network had turned up that key detail surprisingly quickly. A joint team of shinobi from the Stone and the Leaf had even met with the Fifth Mizukage. During Yagura's time, a masked figure was occasionally seen alongside the then-Mizukage. The sightings were infrequent because, according to witnesses, the individual sometimes seemed to have the ability to vanish into the mist, which matched the description of Tobi, the man impersonating Madara Uchiha.

Relations with the Hidden Mist were worse than with the Leaf. The Mist had once been an ally, until the Hidden Stone betrayed them on the front lines against the Cloud to seize spoils. In exchange for cooperation, Mei Terumi had demanded an apology and the return of personal belongings taken during the betrayal. Ōnoki had agreed. One more village pacified. Deidara almost smiled at the irony. Perhaps this was the “world peace” plan that certain idiots rambled about. If it hadn't been their intention, it was working anyway.

Deidara couldn't help but chuckle in front of the mirror as he tied his hair up in his usual way. After that, he stepped back a bit, turning a quarter turn. He flicked his tail in the air, unsure what to do with it. If he had to face Akatsuki again, the chances of it growing back were high. In the end, he opted to wrap it around his waist. In the preceding days, he had trained in taijutsu and genjutsu resistance with the rest of the elite. Onoki-sensei had planned an intensive training regimen for everyone, in preparation for the enemy's estimated military potential.

That day though, Deidara was determined to experiment with his art, and no one could help him in that, as his techniques were unique. He reserved one of the dojos available for the Explosive Corps and locked himself inside with several kilos of clay, a bag of bananas to appease the food cravings he inherited from Son Goku, and his art supplies. It wasn't the best place to test an experimental jutsu, especially one that, if successful, would rival the destructive power of his C0, with the sole difference being that he would live to see it. It was thanks to Son Goku's chakra that this would be possible.

Deidara always felt a strange excitement working on the edge of the unacceptable. If something went wrong and he wiped the village off the map, at least no one would be left alive to judge him. But he trusted his abilities, and it wasn't as if he could restrain his creative urges anymore. Never. It wasn't as if he was going to fail. This was the first time he was going to work with something other than just clay.

He began by sculpting a bird. A lark, like the ones that sang in the tree by his backyard at dawn and dusk. He gave it the small crest on top of its head, but departed from his usual C1 conventions. Instead of hollow eye sockets, he formed bulging, expressionless eyes, and a smiling beak with teeth. This was a new line of work, he didn't want it confused with his other pieces. When he finished, he set the bird in a cage. It began to sing and hop from perch to perch.

Now came the difficult part.

Pulling on a pair of thick gloves, Deidara grabbed the heavy cloth sack and placed it on the table. Inside was a crystallized mineral of an intense greenish-yellow hue. Its faint glow pleased him and it would please him even more once he unleashed the energy it held. An explosion no one would be able to surpass. The Uchiha could consider himself lucky to have inspired such brilliance. It had been a long time since Deidara had felt this kind of drive to outdo himself.

He had learned the base technique years ago. Concentrating large amounts of charcoal into a single pellet that could burn for days wasn’t difficult. It was standard survival training for all new chūnin. During the Third Shinobi World War, the Hidden Stone had won battles in the dead of winter thanks to something as simple as staying warm without expending chakra. But he had never tried it with anything other than coal.

This mineral, discovered a few years back and named after god Fūjin for its color and volatile nature, held far greater potential. Its properties promised something far more potent than charcoal, though it was difficult to mine, and research on it had stopped.

Deidara put a white mask over his nose and mouth and slipped on a pair of protective goggles. He scattered a handful of the crystals onto the workbench and formed the Rat hand seal. At once, yellowish smoke began to curl from the pile. The reaction was promising. He could already tell it would take enormous amount of chakra to achieve the potency he wanted. Maybe weeks of work. As he compacted the mineral, he wondered whether he had that kind of time. Akatsuki had gone quiet, but that quietness was unnerving, and it was obvious they were planning to strike where they least expected it.

Behind him, the bird chirped restlessly in its cage, hopping and flapping as if urging him to hurry. Deidara stared at it and smiled faintly. It would be a shame, a tragedy, to have to reveal his creation unfinished.

He named it K1.

The next day, Obito's patience finally ran out. He had to write an anonymous message to Danzō Shimura, but the words wouldn't come- He couldn’t focus. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep the Four-Tails' jinchūriki out of his mind for more than five minutes.

The worst part wasn't the anxiety of failing to capture him. The scene at the river kept replaying, tangled with fragments from his dream: the sting in his foot, the cold water, the pressure of the Four-Tails' legs wrapped around him, the fingers tracing a line down his cheek. That non-kiss. The faint, warm brush of breath against his lips tormented him. He imagined it happening again, each time bolder than before. Ice baths didn’t work. Neither did meditation.

“Come on, write already!” White Zetsu urged.

The luminous yellow eye of the black half watched him intently. Obito did his best to mask his agitation behind the safety of his new mask.

"I’m thinking. Stop distracting me," he said, forcing his voice to stay even.

White Zetsu sighed dramatically. “We’re not getting anywhere like this. You know, we’ve done plenty for one day. We got to see the Eight-Tails’ concert for free, he acts like nothing is going on. Konoha however is acting cautious, and the Nine-Tails barely shows up in public anymore. The Four-Tails should be wrapping up his training soon and heading to the Explosion Corps headquarters.”

Obito wished he'd stop mentioning him.

"You’re not making the most of our brilliant efforts, Tobi," Black Zetsu added. "Madara put his hopes in you. Are you going to disappoint him too?"

Like in many other occassions in his life, Obito wished he'd stayed crushed under that rock, left to die instead of being saved. The man who'd pulled him out, the so-called legend, meant nothing to him now. The stress was eating him alive. What he needed wasn't just a break from the Four-Tails' mission, he needed a break from the entire Tsuki no Me project. Otherwise, he’d lose what was left of his sanity.

"You'll have your damn letter by tomorrow," he snapped. "And stop distracting me. Second warning."

"Tobi," White Zetsu said, in a softened tone. "No need to get so worked up. We're just trying to help."

Obito’s restraint finally cracked. He rose abruptly, happy to have an excuse to disappear.

"If you won’t leave, I’ll move somewhere else so I can work in peace. I told you you'll get your letter, when have I ever failed you?"

"The other day," Black Zetsu replied dryly.

His hand clenched into a trembling fist, crushing the parchment. He threw the crumpled ball to the floor with a thud. Without another word, Obito activated his Mangekyō Sharingan and disappeared into his own dimension.

How dare they speak to him like that.

Walking toward the nearest block, he sank to the ground with his back against it, clutching his head. His anger at Zetsu faded into the background, swallowed by everything else. Something in his bloodstream felt wrong. As if his body were possessed by a warm, pleasant tingling that flared now and then, followed by waves of euphoria he absolutely did not welcome. It had been happening for days, but the intoxication only grew stronger.

Five minutes later, Obito realized that, at this rate, he'd be sitting there for a long time, staring at nothing while his mind refused to go blank. The truth was that the Four-Tails would kill him without hesitation; he shouldn't forget that. And yet, in his imagination, the jinchūriki was whispering seductive nonsense into his ear.

His back slid down the wall until he ended up in an awkward, contorted heap on the ground, forcing him to turn over and lie flat. He drew a long breath.

Stupid four-tailed monkey and its stupid sensuality.

Obito knew exactly what was going on with him, but he was terrified to name it. How primitive, how irrational, he had become. Many years ago, he had wanted to kiss Rin. After she died, he swore he would remain faithful to that version of himself forever. It was the one conviction whose strength he had never doubted. Until now. Could this be some sort of genjutsu? He trusted his own ability to detect them, though lately, he barely trusted anything about himself. Did that little monkey really think he could escape his fate with a trick like this? Maybe it would work on someone else, not on him.

Plus, it was too suspicious. The spark of desire had flared too suddenly, too intensely, out of nowhere. It was impossible for him to feel like this. He shouldn't. And still the irritation was unbearable, escalating by the hour. If this continued, he didn’t know what would become of him. He was going to lose his mind, until all that remained was this aching desire to be touched by the jinchūriki again, to feel his body pressed against his once more...

Heat surged through him again, and he writhed on the ground, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair before forcing himself upright with a growl.

"Enough!" he gasped, unable to bear it any longer.

According to Zetsu, the Four-Tails was nearly done with his training. Obito would pay him a visit and force him to undo whatever he'd done to him.

Obito shook his head sharply. No. He was thinking impulsively again, but he had already tried everything else. He just wanted it to stop. To go back to normal. Back to the darkness where he belonged, where he could keep hating this cruel, depraved world without interference. He was tired of failing.

Cursing himself for the mistake he was about to make, he tore open a vortex and returned to the outside world, determined to put an end to the matter.

Before he could even process what was happening, Deidara's back slammed against the building's wall. Terror seized him as he found himself once more pinned under that wide, scarlet eye. Shit. He hadn't expected they'd dare attack him right in the center of the village, surrounded by seasoned shinobi, with the Tsuchikage's tower literally next door. His wrists were locked above his head, unmovable. He thrashed, trying to wrench himself free, but the grip might as well have been iron.

"What have you done to me, you bastard?!" the Uchiha whispered through gritted teeth. He seemed to be wearing a new mask, and from his voice and demeanor, he seemed to be enraged.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Deidara shot back.

“Don’t play dumb!” The Akatsuki snarled and shook him hard.

Deidara’s killing intent spiked. He'd burned most of his own chakra during training and hadn't expected to need it, but maybe he could force the cloak out. That would turn the tables. He kicked him repeatedly on the legs and stomach, but the Akatsuki barely flinched. Instead, he pressed their bodies flush, pinning Deidara even harder against the wall, leaving him almost no space to breathe.

“Undo it,” the Uchiha ordered.

Deidara had absolutely no idea what he was referring to, but it was clear something had happened to the Akatsuki, and he was convinced Deidara was responsible. Maybe he could use that.

“Undo it!” he shouted again.

Deidara managed a smirk. Fear thumped through his chest, and the helplessness of the position pushed him toward recklessness. The Akatsuki could whisk him away at any moment, and Deidara wasn't about to let that happen. If he couldn’t use his hands, he’d use other means.

“You want me to undo it, hm? Give me a second,” he said, pulling hard on Son Gokū's chakra. “I'll help you undo it right now…”

The orange cloak burst to life around him, his hair whipped upward, his fangs sharpened.

“This time I won't just break your mask, hm!”

With a surge of strength, Deidara tore his arms free and immediately lunged at him. He expected the Akatsuki to use that intangibility trick, and thought himself temporarily safe from his absorption technique, but surprisingly, he didn't. Deidara collided with him full-force, and both crashed to the ground, Deidara on top.

"Changing tactics?"

Smart enough to know he couldn’t use both powers at once, the Akatsuki bastard must have decided to endure the pain for a chance to finally catch him. Deidara swung a blazing punch directly at his head, but the masked man dodged by a hair, leaving a scorched hole in the floor beside him. Always that damn Sharingan.

Something was off. The Uchiha wasn’t moving with his usual precision. He was sluggish. Whatever had happened to him was slowing him down, which was fine by Deidara. It wouldn't be the fight he had fantasized about, but Deidara thought he'd still be happy to disintegrate him with his lava fist while gazing at his enigmatic face one last time. Only then could he feel like he was creating art.

He leaned in and grabbed the edge of the mask. As soon as his fingers brushed it, the Akatsuki grew visibly frantic.

“No, don’t!” he blurted, desperate, digging his palm into Deidara's chest and trying to shove him off. That only made Deidara more curious.

He yanked.

They both went still.

Two eternal seconds went by, maybe three. Deidara stared, stunned. The once-menacing figure now looked terrified, almost in a state of panic. Deidara lifted his hands to strike, but he had wasted too much time. The Uchiha vanished, slipping into thin air and leaving Deidara kneeling alone on the ground.

Coward. He’d done it again. Deidara was getting tired of this. The Akatsuki should've realized by now he couldn't handle him. So why keep coming back? And why the hell had he sounded so desperate?

The cloak disappeared, and his body reverted to normal, minus the second tail, which had sprouted without him noticing. Deidara felt exhausted and so hungry he could eat a whole roasted wild boar. He picked up the orange mask lying beside him and stared at it as, around him, other shinobi arrived and began asking questions he answered on autopilot before taking him to the Tsuchikage.