Another Deidara-centric one-shot. twiddles thumbs
--
He'd never had a pupil quite so enthusiastic before.
He'd had plenty who were keen, of course. Plenty who were talented.
Plenty whose faces shone with malevolent delight at the joy of destruction.
But this kid ...
This kid was a genius. He'd use the right quantities of everything, even when you thought he'd got it wrong; he'd seem like he wasn't paying attention and then he'd pull off a perfect mixture in the blink of an eye; his chakra control seemed haphazard at best, but somehow he managed to pinpoint the exact moment, the exact spot, and ... bang.
At first the explosives master just thought it was fluke. But again, and again ... never missed a target. It wasn't just luck. He was brilliant.
But the way his eyes lit up ...
It was almost unsettling. Almost. But he didn't let it worry him. Instead he just smiled, pleased that such a talented student was taking in his teachings so delightedly.
He told him early on that each explosion was unique and held a beauty of its own – that it didn't have to be purely destruction; it could be art.
Something had gleamed in the boy's eyes then, something that had never quite gone away.
But he smiled. His pupil was learning. He didn't let it worry him. Not until several years later, at the festival, when Deidara, with his face that didn't seem to have ever really grown up, smiled a funny smile to him and said, "I don't think enough people get to experience art first-hand, yeah."
His sensei had lost sight of him in the crowd soon after that. He only realised what he'd doomed half the village to a moment before the first bomb went off.