Hey I'm not dead! Hurrah. You may already know me as the author of "In Your Eyes" but I've already deleted it, I'm rewriting it just now, I figured it didn't need the arranged marriage bit :D Anyway. moving on, this story centers around Deidara and Sakura, so it's a deisaku story, it's actually set in the current time, but it's slightly AU because I'm ignoring the confrontation of Pein, and his fight with Jiraiya. Again, anyway, I'm writing a story that doesn't involve Sakura being kidnapped by the Akatsuki, I'm frankly fed up reading the same storyline over and over. So I hope you enjoy this, it involves characters coming back to lofe, and if you read on, you'll see why and how. There'll also be interaction with team hebi. Anyways... enjoy!

There was the sound of footsteps. Loud noises against the quiet of the forest. There was the sound of heavy panting. There was the sound of gritting teeth. And the droplets of blood hitting the forest floor. She could see a clearing, somewhere to quickly recuperate. He could see a clearing, somewhere to quickly recover.

Sakura Haruno was running for her life. Never had she ran so hard, never had she ran so fast. A huge bustling crowd of bloodthirsty ninja was pursuing her. From what she could tell, they were about half-a-mile away, but they were catching up fast. She had a sizeable wound on her right arm, nit enough to kill her, but enough to slow her down. She had to heal it quick, or she was in trouble.

Within a moment's thought, she approached a large clearing, and quickly bent down behind a tree. She performed the appropriate hand-seals and fixed the green glow above her arm. She winced as she felt the skin meld back, and as bits of dirt fell from the wound. All that was left was some dried blood which she scratched off hastily.

A rustle came, some thirty metres away. They were here. Sakura stood, brushed herself down and walked into the clearing.

"No point in hiding, they'll smell me out from all this blood." Sakura muttered, picking absent-mindedly at the dried in blood that had ran onto her hand.

Footsteps sounded, and Sakura whisked round, kunai in hand.

The one in the bushes stepped forward.

"Damn…yeah."

A blonde haired man was running through the forest. He whipped by the trees with expert ease, clearly a master shinobi. A kunai came flying his way, but he deflected it with two shuriken without even turning around. He smirked as he heard a thump on the ground. One down, about 50 more to go…

"Damn rain ninja, just don't know when to give up… yeah."

He smirked again as a man lunged out from a bush, basically throwing himself the smirking man's way. He bounced on his heels, and flung his leg up, taking the attacker out.

"That'll teach you to mess with me, you damned rain ninja! Nobody messes with the Akatsuki's special member, Deidara!!!" He grunted, as if reassuring himself.

Deidara dodged another attack and plunged a kunai into the man;s back, blood spurting onto his coat.

"Looks like I can't hide now, their hunter nin will smell me out…yeah"

Deidara approached the clearing he had been running to for the last 10 minutes. But he stopped and crouched behind a bush.

"Who's there… yeah." He whispered to himself.

He could feel a presence in the clearing, and there was a faint smell of blood, but he couldn't see anyone. A rustle came from a bush some thirty metres away, and a pink haired girl stepped out.

Wait a minute….

"That's-"

"Show yourself!" Seems she knew he was here too. No wonder, he stank of blood.

Deidara stood up, and walked into the clearing, and he smirked as he watched the girl's eyes widen.

"Y-you're-"

"Aha! We've got you now!" They both whipped around to see a crowd of fifteen or more enter the clearing, all with a murderous look in their eye, all with huge, menacing weapons, all rain ninja, every last one. "Oho! And you've got a friend! So two are gonna die today!"

"Rain ninja? You're being chased too? Just wha-"

"Boss! We found him! The bastards in the clearing with some kunoichi!"

They whipped around again to find an even larger group of rain ninja run into the clearing. The smaller group gestured to them.

"Seems they caught up…yeah." Deidara muttered, rubbing the back of his head.

"Seems they all know one another…great…" Sakura sighed straightening up a little She pulled on her glove. "hey you… Akatsuki guy, stand back."

Sakura made a speedy run towards the larger group of rain ninja and gathering a large amount of chakra into her fist, she threw her fist into the ground and shattering it. The rain ninja fell into the huge hole, falling to their death, but some were smart enough to jump away.

Deidara, in the mean time had threw some activated explosives onto the ground which Sakura saw bury into the ground. They seemed to be making a general direction for the unknowing rain ninja who had now congregated into one tight group.

A half-minute later, the land they were standing on vibrated horribly, almost like an earthquake, but shards of rock were shooting out of the ground and the ground quickly gave way, and all the dirt was sliding into the crevasse, the ninja's falling in also.

"That's the and of that…yeah."

Sakura stood gawping at the large hole in the ground, but quickly recovered herself, remembering who exactly she was in the presence of.

"Judging from your coat, you're definitely and Akatsuki, I take it." He didn't answer, his eyes steadily trained in the opposite direction. "You're also that guy who kidnapped the kazekage, right?" Still no, answer. She stared at him sceptically. "… I was told you were dead, killed by Sasuke-kun, Uchiha Sasuke."

He looked at her then, he looked like he wanted to say something, but he shook his head and looked at the clearing again.

"Hey you! Akatsuki! I'm talking to you! Hey!"

He narrowed his eyes and then rounded on her.

"Was anyone else chasing you before this lot? Anymore?"

"Say what?" Sakura scrutinized at him. "Wait…there was more… a lot more, I lost them about 20 minutes ago, I distracted them with a bunshin…. Wait…damn…"

"How many?"

"I dunno…. About 200…" Her eyes widened as she finished her sentence.

They both started to run at the same time.

They both ran for their lives through the firest, both not entirely sure where they were going exactly, but each thought the other knew where to go.

"Listen, yeah." Deidara said between pants. "I'm lost, no point in saying I'm not, but what about you? Where are you going, kunoichi?"

"W-what?!" Sakura exclaimed. "I was following you! I though you knew! Oh this is just great…"

A kunai whizzed by Sakura's head, taking a few pink hairs with it, Sakura glanced round to find a group of hunter nin just rearing up. They were close, too close.

"Either you're getting slower, or they're getting faster…yeah." Deidara panted.

"It seems we're getting slower, I don't see you flying miles ahead." Sakura snapped agitated.

"Hmm…" Deidara thought for a moment, and on lacking at the oncoming shinobi, he quickly fixed his one-eyed gaze on Sakura. "listen up yeah, we can't keep going on like this, yeah."

Sakura nodded. "That's a bit obvious."

"Just shut up and listen." Deidara said, quick to the point. "There's too many of them, we can't take them all out at once, I've lost too much chakra, and I bet you have too,"

Sakura nodded again, hastening to speak but looking back at the shinobi she asked: "Why can't we just fly out of here? With one of those big bird things I've seen you with?"

"About that…" Deidara bit his lip. " I kind of…well I kinda dropped a bag of clay…yeah."

"You did what? Man! You're worse that Naruto!"

"Naruto? The Kyuubi kid?" Deidara coughed as Sakura blanked him. "And what makes you think I'd take you anyway?"

"Don't make me hurt you."

"Hahaha. I like you, you got spunk for a little girl…yeah."

"Who you calling a little girl?!" Sakura flared up. "Why I-"

"Look, now's not the time for that…yeah." Deidara cut across her. "Back to what I was saying; we can't attack, there's too many, but that also means we can't run. So that leaves us with the option of distraction, but that involves a decoy, and I doubt a little girl like yourself wants to do that. No, I didn't think so…yeah. So we're gonna need to delay them, but it'll cost us, we'll have no chakra and if we're caught after, we're dead. But it's all we've got…yeah."

Sakura pondered for a moment, then nodded. "Fine, if that's all we can do, but we'll have no chakra, they'll catch up eventually after that."

"I have some clay left, but I'll be needing that…yeah. But, I know where I dropped my bag of clay…yeah." Deidara coughed again. "but it'll only get us so far, it's like a time bomb, that stuff. It's special clay that'll blow up in 10 minutes, but we'll be far away enough to go on our own.

"Why can't we just do that?" Sakura questioned. "Why all this delaying crap?"

"If you think I'm just gonna turn back into a mass of 200 shinobi, you got another thing coming. That's suicide…yeah."

"Oh." Sakura said, embarrassed, scratching her cheek.

"So, I'm gonna need you to jump to the ground, and hit it with all you got…yeah."

"That's all?"

"That's all, but only when I give the word, yeah." Deidara half-mumbled, thrusting his hand into a bag on his side and pulling it back out, throwing some kind of spiders about fifty metres away from them.

Just before passing the spiders, Deidara shouted "NOW!" and Sakura flung herself to the ground and hurled her fist into the ground, disintegrating at her touch.

Deidara dropped to the ground, and on flying he performed a handseal and shouted "katsu!" and the group of trees he had just jumped from exploded, and lots of shinobi fell unconscious into the newly made hole.

Deidara propelled himself towards Sakura, who was on her knees, panting.

"N-now what?" She gasped, her arms clinging to her sides.

"We gotta run…yeah, some of my explosives are yet to go off, I don't wanna blow up again...yeah."

Explosions sounded from above, and Sakura looed up while running to find the top of the trees exploding and shinobi fell form the sky, dead before they hit the ground. It was like rain, as the sky filled with the rain ninja, their blood speckling the ground.

"This is just like that damned village of theirs…yeah." Deidara mumbled moodily.

"What was that?" Sakura asked, still panting.

"I…er… said art is a bang…yeah!" Deidara said nervously.

"Um…ok." Sakura said slightly taken aback.

An awkward silence rang between them. They didn't have much to say, neither wanted the company of the other, but they didn't have any choice. Both knew they had to stick together, or face certain death. They never voiced a word of it, their pride as a ninja too strong.

"Ha! There it is!" Deidara exclaimed happily, panting to beige shaped bag, hanging off a low branch.

"How do you drop something like that on a tree?" Sakura asked confused. Walking slowly after him, she paused. That tree.. it has no shadow… Genjutsu!

"Akatsuki! Get back!" She shouted, pushing Deidara out of the way as he reached for his bag. The tree had lashed out, it's branches ultra-sharp

"Kai!" Sakura shouted, performing some hand-seals. "I can see right through your ploy…rain ninja!"

The tree fazed and it shrank in on itself, the branches forming arms, the leaves recoling and forming hair, that bark sagged and wrinkled to from clothes.

"Well done, kunoichi," I congratulate you. I assume you are looking for this?" He held up the bag, which had previously hung on a branch, now hanged on his arm, "Don't think I'm just gonna hand it over to you, cause I'm not!"

"Akatsuki…" Sakura breathed, her voice barely audible.

"I know already…yeah." Deidara whispered back. "Wait… look, his left arm…yeah."

Sakura looked confusedly from Deidara then to the ninja's left arm. It was hanging limp at his side, inevitabljy unusable, blood was dripping steadily to the ground like a tap not quite turned off,

"You're a medical ninja, right?" Deidara whispered. "Do some medical stuff, yeah."

"I see…" Sakura took a step forward. The ninja stepped back hesitantly, the bug still in arm. "Hey now, we're not gonna do anything. Listen, that wound there on your left arm, it's an inflicted wound, deep, definitely fatal, Your upper muscle is ripped, it seems you've even lost some nerve cells… you're even got a cracked bone…. What were you hit by? That was some powerful shot… wait…. Oh, I see…"

The ninja stared sceptically at her. "Y-You're a medical ninja?" He looked at his arm, his eyes widening in fear. "f-fatal… you say??"

"Yes, by the looks of the surrounding skin, dried in blood and the start of an infection, I'd say you've had that for a while now, I'd hazard a guess at three hours." She paused, waiting for a response, the ninja nodded slowly and unsurely. "Hmm…. With that kind of wound, you really don't have long to live, about a day, I'd guess."

The ninja's eyes widened, terrified. Sweat rolled down his face and he shook slightly, his legs trembling in their wake. He was young, fresh to battle, to war. He didn't look much younger than Sakura, and she scowled because of it. This boy had never seen battle in his life.

"Listen, rain-ninja-san, we'll make a deal with you. Give me that bag and I'll heal your arm, no questions asked. Refuse, and well…. We could always wait the day, and you'll be dead, and that bag there will be free for us to take."

It seemed to the rain ninja that the two opposing shinobi standing so relaxed in front of him were both in complete advantage either way and couldn't think why they didn't just leave him to die.

But of course, he didn't know that Deidara and Sakura couldn't afford to wait and hour, nevermind an entire day, the rain ninja were probably already looking for them.

He hesitated, but finally came to an answer. "Fine, heal my arm, but do it quickly."

Sakura breathed out a silent sighof relief and hastened to heal the boys arm.

Deidara was showing every sign of agitation. He wanted to just take the bag from the boy, fly the hell out of there and blow up the idiot who stole his bag, and leaving the pink-haired kunoichi behind, perhaps he could blow her up too….

But Deidara couldn't take the bag, the boy was holding onto it tightly with his working arm as though it was filled with blocks of gold. He thought of leaving the kunoichi behind, but that was out of the question, she would send him flying with that monstrous strength of hers.

He looked down at the pink-haired girl, how could such a small, seemingly delicate girl like her wield such ooutrageous strength?? Deidara didn't like to admit it, but it frightened him slightly, this girl could easily kill him given half a chance, he'd need to make sure he didn't aggravate her too much. He watched the green glow above the boy's arm then his eyes drifted to her face which was reflecting the glow, her eyes shining brightly.

For a little girl, she's quite pretty thought Deidara. He paused for a minute, What the hell am I thinking??! She's still the enemy here!

As Deidara was struggling in his inner turmoil, Sakura stood up, patting her legs, brushing off excess dirt.

"There, all done." She smiled at the boy, who hesitantly smiled back, blushing slightly.

"Thanks." The boy said, rubbing his arm and extending it back and forward until finally resting it at his side. "Here's the bag." He got to his feet and performed a variety of hand-seals before disappearing in a poof of grey smoke.

"Thank you," Sakura smiled, taking the bag that had dropped to the ground and turning to find Deidara rolling on the ground, he seemed to be having some inner mind trouble.

Maybe it's some bad guy thing, Sakura thought, I'll ask Naruto when I get back….

"Ahem." Sakura stared down at Deidara, who jumped to his feet instantly, his cheeks tinged pink. Sakura took a step back in surprise, taken a back by his somewhat miraculous recovery. "I've got the bag now… let's get going."

"Eh….right…" Deidara took the bag from her and rumbled in it, he pulled his hand out again and watched the mouth digest the clay. Sakura never questioned this unusual skill, Deidara had actually been expecting her to, and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"I'm surprised you never killed that shinobi, yeah." Deidara remarked, thrustinghis hand into the bag and plopping himself onto the ground, concealed by an overgrown bush. "I mean…. He is the enemy, yeah."

Sakura eyed him quizzically and smiled slightly. She gracefully sat into the ground and watched Deidara's hand digest the clay with keen interest. "How could I kill him? He was just a boy, younger than me, I'd guess he was at least 12 or 13." Seems the rain villages are desperate to win, how cruel, recruiting children he obviously never tasted was before, Sakura thought, her eyebrows furrowing in thought. "Besides, he won't give us away, I injected a small serum when he wasn't looking, he won't remember even being wounded, never mind being healed."

"I see." Deidara eyed her for a moment, he was unsure whether to trust this girl or not, but she had such a reassuring smile and personality. It was hard not to. "Hey, kunoichi-"

"It's not kunoichi, Akatsuki," Sakura glared at him as he stood up, raising himself from the ground. His eye twitched and a shadow passed over his face as she said the word "Akatsuki" Sakura blinked surprisingly and started to say something but was interrupted by a loud poof and her eyes snapped to a large eagle shaped structure now standing beside Deidara.

"I'm going now, yeah." He jumped onto the bird. "I take it you're coming, hmm? Not that I have a choice, you'd probably knock the living daylights out of me, if I tried to leave you behind, hmm, kunoichi?"

"It's not kunoichi! It's Sakura!" Sakura mentally slapped herself for giving away her name, to an Akatsuki of all people. But sometimes her temper got the better of her.

"All right then, Sakura, let's get going, yeah." Deidara smirked maliciously. They way he said her name mad Sakura grumble. "Damned bastard…"

Deidara grinned again as Sakura hopped onto the bird and sat down moodily avoiding any possible eye contact. Sakura nearly fell off as the bird suddenly lurched forward, taking off. Deidara merely sat there, unperturbed. Sakura just glared at him again, but he didn't catch her eye. It seemed he was angry about the Akatsuki comment. Sakura couldn't see why, he was after all an Akatsuki.

Right?

"Hey, oi, you!" Sakura tried to get his attention, but seeing as she didn't know his name, she resorted to kicking his leg, she had to stretch to hit him, the clay bird was so big and he was at the head of it.

"Hey you! Look at me!!" Deidara turned when she hit him again. She was taken aback by his angry blue-eyed gaze, it was so steady and concentrated, she never got that kind of look off anyone, not even Naruto, who loved her adoringly. She had always wished Sasuke would look at her with that kind of intensity, give her his full attention, but he never did.

She was silent for a moment. "……eh… B-before, how come, how come you got angry when I called you 'Akatsuki'? I mean…" She hesitated. "That is what you are, right? An Akatsuki, that is."

He eyed her for a moment with that steady gaze he gave her a moment ago, like her, he hesitated before answering.

"No… no I'm not, yeah." He smiled scathingly, and smiled again at her raised eyebrows, she obviously didn't believe him. "Well, not anymore, anyway, we were… betrayed, yeah."

"Betrayed? By who? Why? How?"

"Yeah, our leader and that Konan woman. Why? I don't known, I could only guess, yeah." He breathed in a shuddering angry breath. "The leader has every bijuu, all but the Kyuubi. There was eight of us, excluding Pein and Konan- there was eight bijuu. He… he tried to seal them within us, we'd be mindless, monstrous creatures, gone mad with power, yeah… No matter what sin we had performed… Despite all the things we had done, no one, not even us deserves such a sentence, we would be dead, not in body but in soul, trapped within those horrible demons."

He shook with anger, his face contorted with rage, Sakura ignored this, encouraging him to go on.

"We escaped, but barely. We got lucky. He tried to put the sanbii in Kisame first, and something went wrong, the whole process went out of control. We barely managed to escape. Kisame was injured badly, I don't know where he is now, the eight of us split up, yeah."

"W-wait, you said before there was eight of you… you recruited new members?"

Deidara eyed her again, then with a smirk, he broke off eye-contact.

"No," Sakura's eyes widened, she opened her mouth to say something, but Deidara stopped her. "The leader, he brought us, four of use back to life using some kind of forbidden jutsu. He needed eight of us, he had four. And you know what happened next, yeah."

"S-so…."

"It was me, that zombie pair, Hidan and Kakuzu, Sasori no Danna were all brought back, we-"

"S-Sasori? No way! I-I killed him!" Sakura stammered.

"Yeah, a good job you did too, he was pissed when he came around, he came last after me, yeah."

Sakura stared wide-eyed at her knees, then slowly regaining her calm, she stared right into his only visible eye.

"So…. What of them now? Where are they? The rest of you?" Sakura asked, breathtaken.

"Hmm…" Deidara paused scratching the cheek behind his hair. "Well… I have no idea where Sasori no Danna is, I expect that you wanna finish the job?"

"Just shut up and keep talking." Sakura glared at him and Deidara chuckled, resuming the scratching, moving onto his chin.

"I don't know where Zetsu is… doubt that matters anyway, we never know where he is, he would always come to us, yeah… Tobi, he's in the fire country somewhere from what I've heard. Kisame is with Itachi, I heard they met up about a week ago in the Earth Country, apparantely, they're looking for me, though why he's looking there I don't know…"

"But it's your home country! Wou-"

"Not anymore, yeah." Deidara cut in, tapping his forehead protector knowingly, Sakura stared at it, gazing at where he had scored a line through the village symbol. "I'm a wanted criminal there, a reknown terrorist."

Sakura's eyes widened, and Deidara scratched the back of his head embarrassingly. Avoiding her surprised gaze. "Why would you blow up your own country? Your own village?!"

"hey now, you make me sound bad, yeah." Deidara coughed, his hand falling to his side. "But I'm not exactly the good guy, yeah."

Sakura eyed him keenly, a touch of mistrust and wariness playing on her features. Deidara tried hard not to look into her steely, judging gaze. He coughed again.

"Anyway, what about the other two? There was eight of you, right?"

Deidara looked into her eyes again and grinned darkly. He sighed exasperately. "You just don't give up, do you?" She smirked, and he grimaced again. "Kakuzu right now is looking for Hidan. I came across him in his home village-I needed some money, y'know?- he told me that Hidan had been taken in by that bastard Pein, they found him in the Waterfall country, and he's being held somewhere by the Rain Ninja. I don't know where Kakuzu went after that, but he said he was going to the Rain village, he reckoned Hidan would be there, so I haven't seen him since, yeah."

"Kakuzu didn't say, but judging from his absence, Pein is taking us in again, he's hunting us down one-by-one, they nearly got me there before I teamed up with you. So I need to find whoever's left and regroup, we need to take that bastard down, he's a fucking maniac, yeah. Pein told us before, he was planning on using all eight bijuu to capture the big one, your jinchuuruki friend, the one who has the Kyuubi, yeah."

Sakura's eyes widened at the last sentence. "N-Naruto? He's in danger! I-I need to go help him! Take me back to my village! Hey now! Don't just sit there!"

Deidara only raised his eyebrows sceptically, giving Sakura a disbelieving look. "Hey now, I'm not going anywhere, there's a town down there, I think it's Tanzuku town, I'm going there, I need to eat, sleep, do stuff and get my bearings, yeah."

Sakura slumped, she knew she couldn't go on her own, all five countries were in turmoil just now. Her heart skipped a beat. "Hey…. The whole reason… this whole war… is it because of…."

"Of the Kyuubi, yeah." Deidara finished for her. "Pein threw the all the countries into war to get a hold of your jinchuuruki friend, so it wouldn't look suspicious, and no one would go after him. He's gonna try and get him with the help of the eight bijuu. He really wants all nine, so he can catapult himself on his way to power or something, the guy's got a realy God complex, thinks he can do anything, yeah."

Deidara stood up, his hair flapping around his face, Sakura couldn't see what he was doing, he had his back facing her, and his hand was occupied.

Sakura looked to her knees then to the blonde men she realised she never knew the name of.

"Hey, you there." Deidara gave a jerk of thehead to show he was lostening. "What's your name? You know mine, so it's only fair you tell me yours."

Sakura couldn't see Deidara as a smirk lifted the corners of his mouth.

"It's Deidara," He said as he lifted his hand into the air. "Ex-member of the Akatsuki, yeah."

He watched as his hand released the ring in his hand fall to the ground as they slowly descended.