Itachi stopped running among the trees for a moment to catch his breath. He was absolutely exhausted. Every muscle in his body felt like it was engulfed in flames, and yet he still had ten miles to go until he even reached the Akatsuki base. He had failed to keep himself from being noticed. And now the elite Jônin of Konoha were tailing him, trying to discover the whereabouts of the Akatsuki base. Itachi could hear them coming closer, but he was simply too tired to jump his current path and lose them. The only thing he had energy for was to keep his Sharingan going and to breathe shallowly until he regained his composure. Itachi heard some rustling noises coming from a bush just below his tree. He looked down to see a closed fist sticking out of the leaves, which opened to reveal a slightly drooling tongue. Deidara, Itachi realized. The index finger of the hand pointed down toward the bush, the tongue slipping back inside the skin. Deidara's disembodied voice reached Itachi, saying, "Down here, un."
Without hesitation, Itachi slipped off the tree limb where he'd been crouching and landed softly next to the bush. He could sense the Jônin coming ever closer as he stiffly crawled into the bush, spotting Deidara's blonde ponytail hovering above light blue eyes that always smiled even when their owner was angry or sad. Itachi shook his head to clear it of these weird thoughts. Deidara pulled at a metal ring on the ground and a wooden trapdoor began freeing itself of a layer of dirt, revealing a black pit that Itachi knew to be a tunnel that led to the base. A very long tunnel, if he remembered correctly. Deidara smirked inwardly when he remembered that Itachi loathed getting dirty in any fashion. He kept this fact to himself as Itachi dropped down into the darkness below, with Deidara not too far behind.