The last thing the matron of Konoha's orphanage wanted was to wake up in the middle of the night to crashing and yelling. Even if the building's walls weren't absurdly thin, the noise would've carried throughout the place. She blinked her eyes open, wincing at the dryness, and wincing again at the noise which met her ears.
Kaga Tomi flicked on her light with whispered curses. She donned her robe reluctantly—threadbare as it was, it wouldn't do much for the cold, or her modesty. Everything in this place was damnably thin, from the walls to the clothing to the children themselves. The shiver from the draft as Tomi exited her room reminded her to get at least money enough for decent something, though where that money would come from was a mystery that never seemed to be solved.
Shaking her head to clear it, she hurried along the wooden corridor. The loudest noises had stopped, but her keen ears picked up the padding of footsteps approaching, the sound of someone attempting to be quiet. Tomi sighed, massaging her temples and wishing she was in bed as she shivered. It certainly didn't take a genius to guess who had been responsible for whatever commotion had occurred.
The footsteps came around the corner and Tomi ducked into the shadows. Just as she had guessed, a child with wild blonde hair and blue eyes rounded the bend. In his hands, close to his chest, was clutched a bowl of rice, obviously stolen from the kitchen. Uzumaki Naruto was unusual in that he possessed a last name in a building full of orphans, but that wasn't the strangest thing about him: the demon sealed in his body truly set him apart. He certainly lived up to his demonic reputation; this wasn't by a long shot the first instance of food pilfering.
As the boy moved down the half, as fast as he could go while still retaining a semblance of stealth. She ducked into the shadows, and as he passed—
"Ow!"
With the skill of a woman with years of child-wrangling under her belt, Tomi snagged the boy's ear. He twisted futilely.
"Naruto!" she snapped, venting a little of her irritation at being woken up at such a ridiculous time. "Stealing food again, are we?"
He looked up at her with a wide-eyed, innocent look she might have believed if she didn't have her knowledge of the boy. "I was really hungry, ya know," he protested.
She twisted his ear, out of habit, and he yelped. "Don't say that. You sound ridiculous. And hunger is no excuse to steal food from everyone else, something I have explained to you many times before. Give that rice to me, now!"
The boy did, reluctantly. As she took it in her hand he kept his eyes on it, longing on his face. He wrapped his hands around his stomach, hunching over.
"No dinner for you tomorrow," Tomi added.
He looked up at her, eyes wide. "But— "
"Don't you but me, young man!" she snapped, temper wearing thin. She pointed off to his room. "Now get to bed unless you want me to make it a week!"
Tomi marched after him to his room, hand on his shoulder, and bolted it after he slunk off into the darkness. She rubbed her eyes, fatigue finally catching up to her, and moved to her own room, trying to strike an awkward balance between moving quickly enough to get to her room as soon as possible yet not too quick lest she make herself shiver.
"Demon indeed," she muttered to herself, wondering how much of a mess the child had made in the kitchen. He'd probably spilled most of the rice while making it, just to spite her—it certainly wouldn't be the first time.
The papers in Tomi's office were piled high in teetering stacks. To anyone observing it would appear to be the haphazard mess of a lazy, disorganized pencil-pusher, but Tomi was the opposite of lazy and disorganized. The precarious stacks on the desk were in fact her own, rather unusual, filing system. It was all meticulously organized, if one knew how to look.
Today, she licked her index finger before expertly extracting several sheets of paper from the middle of the stack. Tomi put it down for a second before rubbing her eyes in exhaustion. Sleep was a commodity she needed almost as much as decent clothing.
Damn demon child.
The file in front of her once she opened her eyes was something she hadn't reviewed in a long time. The scrawled writing wasn't hers—Tomi crinkled her nose at the lack of form—but she was at least able to make out what it said. The file on Uzumaki Naruto was sparse, even by an orphanage's standards. There was a picture of a moderately pretty young woman, but no names for the parents—though he was apparently a legal citizen of Konohagakure. Even for children orphaned in the war, someone might know their parents, but this child was a nameless nobody. Just as well, Tomi supposed. No need to ruin the life of a perfectly normal child by infecting it with a demon.
A cracked nail flipped the sheet of paper over. There wasn't much more to a child's file. The next page listed known relatives—several, similar in appearance to the woman on the first page, had been crossed out. As her eyes skimmed the page without much hope, she noticed one picture which hadn't been crossed off. It was taped on to the paper haphazardly, probably added after the file was originally compiled. The small, grainy photo showed a boy a little older than twelve shying away from the camera, gloved hands held in front of him as if to ward off the flash. Even in such a poorly taken picture, the resemblance to her own charge was obvious. Their hair was the same color—though that of the mystery boy was longer and less spiky—and the eyes held the same expression.
Tomi glanced to the caption. The picture had been taken five years ago in Iwa—half-brother, mother's side—13 y/o a precise hand informed her. It didn't take a mathematical genius to add the numbers up, to jump to the precise conclusion that Tomi did:
Eighteen years old.
Tomi fumbled for a fresh piece of writing paper, procuring a pen from her pocket. No matter how elusive this man might be, she was determined to at least locate him. It wasn't like anyone was going to miss Uzumaki Naruto anyways. Better he was somebody else's problem.
"You have a letter."
Not even a second later, a heavy piece of paper smacked Deidara square in the face, bouncing off his nose and rebounding onto the book he was trying to read. He glared upwards at the culprit.
"Oi, no need for that, yeah!" Deidara protested loudly, but Kakuzu was already gone. The blonde made a face, but looked down at the page of his book, which was now partially obscured by a scroll. His lips quirked into a confused expression. Kakuzu handled incoming messages because he was the only one who actually received letters (most having to do with the Akatsuki's finance). Nobody else received mail, primarily because S-class missing-nin didn't usually have anyone to receive letters from. Deidara was no exception—he doubted anyone from back home would want to write him, the Akatsuki were the only people he associated with anyways.
Deidara picked up the scroll with one hand, turning it so he could see the address. Sure enough, his name was printed there in neat script. He put down his newly purchased Icha Icha: Scandal, carefully dog-earing the page. Then he examined the scroll, picking at the string keeping it from unraveling. Deidara pausing to remove the clay from under his fingernails so he could undo the knot, and the letter fell open on his lap.
It was addressed to him, lowering the probability of clerical error, but his incredulity increased as he read further. The letter came from Konohagakure, a place Deidara had never even visited—
He blinked, then reread the first line. This letter was definitely a mistake.
Except. It wasn't impossible, was it? Deidara assumed he would have known about any siblings, but he'd never met his mother anyways. He stared back down at the letter, taking in the information. That name…his mother, well, she had been Uzumaki, hadn't she? He wasn't sure. The name sounded familiar, at the very least.
Deidara hadn't thought about his mother in a long time. She'd left before he had time to form any memories of her, leaving only him and his father—a man that was remembered, but only just enough for his death to hurt. He'd never speculated about where she was—why bother thinking about what you couldn't control? —and never suspected she might have found a new family, a different path. His father rarely spoke of her, or maybe it was simply that Deidara didn't recall if he had.
He'd never imagined he might have any other family, and then—
What if he's like me?
The thought occurred to him suddenly, and Deidara blinked at the obviousness of it. He glanced down at the hand not holding the scroll, the lips on which were pressed into a thin line. He realized how tense he must have looked, and the mouth stuck its tongue out at him.
He turned his attention back to the letter, wondering why he was only now being informed about long-lost little brothers. It was a question that was answered almost immediately, and Deidara nearly dropped the scroll. Whoever had written this thing wanted him—him! —to take custody of a child.
He snickered into his hand, which did nothing to quell the noise of his other mouths. Deidara had no intention of taking responsibility for a loud, whiny, hungry child, even if he was family.
But.
The kid was in an orphanage, wasn't he? That was where the letter was coming from. Deidara remembered the he'd stayed at, all too well. There was a stark difference between a reasonably innocuous doujutsu and an aberrant kekkei genkai that was barely practical. If this boy was anything like him and the orphanage in Konoha anything like the one in Iwa, the last ten years of Uzumaki Naruto's life would have been positively nasty.
Perhaps Deidara had more brotherly feelings left in him than he had known.
Sasori stared. This expected from someone physically incapable of blinking. However, the duo's experience allowed Deidara to notice the changes in Sasori's mood, subtle as they were. If he had to make a guess, he'd say the redhead was thinking something along the lines of—
"Brat, are you stupid?"
And there it was. It was one of Sasori's most common sentiments, second only to art is eternal and I will kill you.
"He's my brother, yeah!" Deidara protested, as if that meant anything.
If it was possible, Sasori's expression became even more derogatory. "An eight-year-old child. What, exactly, are you planning to even do with him?"
Deidara shrugged, absently pulling a stick of half-used lip balm out of his robes. "Dunno. Feed him, yeah?"
"You don't even have your own house," Sasori told his partner.
The blonde began to apply the lip balm. "So? I live here"—he gestured to the compound around them— "that works just fine."
"And he's going to live here too?"
"Why not?" Deidara finished applying the balm on his face and moved to his left hand.
"Don't be a fool. Do you think Leader-sama would allow that? Even if he did, you leave every other week on a mission. You can't even properly care for yourself."
Deidara chose to ignore the last part, and switched the lip balm to his right hand. "I'll just leave him here"—
"With Kakuzu and Hidan?"
Deidara blinked.
"Humph." Sasori turned to leave, robe billowing behind him. Just as he reached the door, his partner spoke.
"Master Sasori."
Sasori stopped, but didn't turn.
Deidara stuffed his lip balm back into his robe. "Your parents died when you were a kid, yeah?"
Sasori inclined his head in the slightest sign of acknowledgement.
"They send you to an orphanage?"
"No." Sasori provided no further details, as was his fashion.
"The ones in ninja villages are the worst, yeah. Overcrowded, dirty, not enough food or space or friends."
"Is it my imagination, brat, or are you going soft?"
Deidara made a face. "You know me better than that, yeah!" He paused pensively. "If he's anything like me, yeah, they'll turn him into a weapon. Better ours than theirs."
"Uzumaki Naruto," Leader echoed, as if trying to taste the name in his mouth.
"Yeah, yeah," Deidara confirmed. The colorful projections they used made it hard to gauge mood, especially for the ever-enigmatic leader, but other people weren't so stoic.
"A fucking kid?" Hidan complained from across the circle, loud even in projection. "I didn't ask for some snotty little shit fucking around."
"I try and make a point of disagreeing with Hidan," Kakuzu added, "as his ideas are usually stupid. However, I will make an exception to that rule for this issue."
"Thanks?" Hidan replied. "No, wait. Fuck you."
"Very well," Leader said, voice cutting over the bickering duo easily. "However, no contact with Konohagakure is permitted. You can have a house to yourself in the nearby village for this purpose. In addition"—here, he eyed Kakuzu and Hidan—"the child is not to be harmed. Deidara, you have one week to find the child."
He released his hand sign, ending the discussion. "Dismissed."
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