A/N: Anyone who bothers reading these already knows I'm trash, so this post shouldn't be too surprising. AU as always (cuz fuk the canon I do what I want).
Before we get into it, you'd best read this (or don't, because it'll become fairly obvious if you read the fic anyway, so—). I'm also laughing hysterically as I write this A/N because I'm watching Bijuu Mike. But, anyway, this takes place in the EARLY BNHA UNIVERSE WHERE THE GLOWING BABY IN CHINA WAS BORN RECENTLY AND PEOPLE (CHILDREN) MANIFESTING QUIRKS ARE TAKEN INTO GOVERNMENT DETAINMENT CENTERS TO BE EXPERIMENTED ON—
Ahem. I am not sure if this is canon in BNHA (probably not), and the internet offers no answers, so, um, let's do this. The Webtoon 'Super Secret' is a major inspiration to this oneshot.
"... I beg your pardon?" Sasori drew out, raising an eyebrow that was too perfect to be real. "Sir?" he tacked on without much feeling. Feelings didn't really belong in a place like the Association.
"You heard me." Uchiha Itachi shoved his hands into his pockets as the two slowed their pace in the corridor. He was much younger than Sasori—almost a decade—but he had risen fast in the Association hierarchy, and was high enough to have Sasori defer to him. "I'm talking about the abnormal that we brought in two weeks ago. Since the birth of the Qing Qing baby ten years ago, only few have manifested such abnormalities. She is one of them." The Uchiha spoke in a clinical, business-like tone that left no room for argument, something that both impressed and annoyed Sasori. He was a brat compared to him, but he was still allowed to boss him around. Whether his promotions had anything to do with his father being the head of the Association, he did not deign to find out. "But she is difficult to take care of, thanks to her 'quirk'."
'Quirk'. What an odd, almost comical, nonsensical word. Sasori much preferred the word 'ability'. At least then, it could be taken a little more seriously.
"I want you to look after her," Itachi continued. "Being... what you are, you're immune to it."
"Hmph. Why don't you just come out and say it, Itachi? Sir. Everyone who works in this building is aware of my own 'quirk'." Sasori paused. "Sir."
A coldly amused smile twisted Itachi's lips. It was one that he saved for people like Sasori, people who were not capable of exhibiting a shred of humanity's decent side. One might argue that he was the same, but behind closed doors, his little brother would fiercely argue otherwise. Regardless, he had a grudging respect for Sasori (any man would respect another that willfully cut his body into pieces, even if it was for something as flowery as artistic pursuits). Sasori was quite literally a human-puppet hybrid as well as a mad genius. He had somehow managed to turn himself into an android to prevent himself from aging, something he regarded as a perversion of art. "Like I said," Itachi ignored Sasori's barbed words with practiced ease, "Only few abnormals have ever been captured and contained, so make sure you take good care of her. Treat as you would an endling, the last of her kind."
Itachi stopped in front of a door and opened it, leading Sasori inside. With his back turned, he didn't see the surprise in the cyborg's normally lifeless eyes.
"What..." Sasori marched forward and gave Itachi an accusing glare. "What the hell is this? Sir." 'Make sure you take good care of her'? And then he shows me this freak show?
A girl who could not have been older than ten years old sat tightly bound in a chair, a bind around her eyes and mouth. Her arms were strapped to the chair arms, so rigidly that she wasn't able to move them. There was an IV drip attached to her left arm, and she looked terribly emaciated. Had they even been feeding her? If he didn't know any better, Sasori would have thought that the chair and IV drip were a torture device.
"She hurt herself badly while trying to escape," Itachi explained, only a tiny hint of remorse in his tone. "She refused to eat as well, so we forced to take some more... extreme measures."
Well then.
Hearing and recognizing Itachi's voice, the blonde girl in the chair flinched and started to squirm, uselessly moving against her binds. It was only her upper body that was bound, Sasori quickly realized, for she was able to maneuver her legs to a great degree. Perhaps, if she was a contortionist, she might be able to kick the IV drip over.
"What's so special about her ability?" Sasori asked, doing his best to ignore the girl's silent cries of distress. "Why am I the only one that can handle it?"
"We are still doing investigations into her quirk—"
Sasori subtly cringed at the word. Not even the elegant Itachi could make it sound anymore eloquent than the common working man.
"—but one of her sub-quirks is spitting mordant semi-explosive dust out of her mouths. The other agents assigned to her are still trying to have their eyesight restored, but it's looking hopeless. But you—you don't actually have eyes." Not organic ones, anyway.
"Wait—mouths?"
"Yes—she has four, actually. One on her face, one on either palm, and one on her chest, above her breast."
They'd stripped her naked, Sasori absently noted. How traumatic could that be for a child, he wondered? Even now, she seemed particularly exposed, wearing only a green hospital gown. Then something more important registered in his mind. "Semi-explosive?"
"She may or may not be capable of creating large-scale explosions giving the right conductive substance. We're still looking into that, but don't worry. She's not stupid enough to try that, and she lacks the materials."
Are you sure? Sasori thought derisively. Have you seen what cornered animals do when you push them too hard? They break. And though the room was quite dark, and he couldn't see much of the little girl's features (what was there to see, anyway, when three-quarters of her face were hidden?), it was clear to him that she was teetering on the edge. Itachi probably realized this as well, as well as the fact that Sasori wasn't particularly good with people in general, let alone young, fragile children. If this went wrong, Sasori would shoulder the majority of the blame, while Itachi would probably only get a slap on the wrist by displeased daddy. Itachi was purposely forcing him to tap into a side of him he hadn't used much: the human side.
"Any other questions?" Itachi broke him out of his thoughts with that clipped voice of his.
Sasori tapped the side of his head, close to his eye. "Why the mask? You said she spits dust. Does it somehow come out as laser eye-beams as well? Sir."
"We don't want her to escape again. Sensory deprivation of any kind... discourages that sort of thinking."
So, torture, Sasori surmised. Torture was torture no matter how mild. Gods, this was going to be a headache for him, wasn't it? Itachi was lucky Sasori couldn't physically ail, or else the red-haired man would have probably strangled him by now, just so the pain could be shared.
"If she goes out of control, sedate her," was Itachi's parting piece of advice as he closed the door behind him, leaving Sasori alone in the room with the girl. He recalled what the Uchiha had said before that: "In the morning, when she's sedated, we check her biorhythm. In the afternoon, we draw blood out every other day before sending her to the labs to be further tested. It's where she gets the most movement in her routine. When everything is done..."
Sasori stared at the pitiful sight in front of him, hands in his pockets. If he were still fully human, his temperature would be rising, and he'd have to pull at the collar of his shirt and displace his black tie. He reached out toward her face.
"She's tied up like this."
Sasori removed the mask across her eyes. Behind the mask, her eyes were closed and tears clung to her dark lashes. She tilted her head away from him instinctively, but he still had no trouble removing her gag. "I don't see the point of this. And your ability doesn't work on me, so don't try it." He glanced at the conveniently printed schedule that was pinned on the wall behind the chair. It was lunch time. When his gaze returned to the child, he found that she was looking up at him the same way an injured animal would look at a poacher. "Maybe if you stay still, I'll take off the straps," Sasori told her. Itachi hadn't said anything about not taking them off if she played nice, so it was game. The Association didn't normally encourage free thinking, but Sasori was an unusual exception. And if Itachi had mentioned not taking the straps off? Screw that guy. Sasori shrugged, turning away from her. "You probably won't." Now what was he supposed to feed her for lunch?
There was a tray of sushi on the nearby table, complete with a pair of chopsticks. Excellent. Seeing as her hands were tied (literally), Sasori lifted a sushi to her mouth. "Eat." When she refused to open her mouth, staring up at him in a silent defiance, he narrowed his eyes. "Brat, you will eat." Or so help him—
The little girl kicked high enough to knock the tray out of Sasori's other hand, and perfectly good sushi splattered all over the floor. Sasori eyed her in disgust, retracting the only clean piece of sushi from her face and eating it himself. As a cyborg, he wasn't required to consume food to survive, but he still had all of his human body systems intact, including the digestive one. Plus, food was nice.
"What a waste of perfectly good food," Sasori admonished cuttingly. "You know, brat, if you continue to starve, it'll just mean more of those shitty tonic injections for you. Maybe if you actually eat, you could get one of those needles off your body..."
Lip trembling, she glared at the ground, a small tear gathering in the corner of one eye. "Please—just let me go home."
Sasori simply stared at her. "No." Trust me, if I could get rid of you faster, I would. But there was a certain tengu he had to obey.
"Then I have nothing to say to you."
"Not even your name?"
She shook her head stubbornly.
"Tsk. Brat."
For such a fragile person, Sasori was mildly impressed by her stupid tenacity. She was pigheaded as hell, and made good on her promise of ignoring him. Her eyes still followed him as he moved around the move, performing disgustingly tedious chores for her sake, but she never made a sound. He wasn't sure whether he should be annoyed, amused, or relieved. Or perhaps a combination of all three.
What he couldn't stand about her, however, was the way she wasted food without blinking an eye. It was one thing to reject eating, but to desecrate the food was utterly vexing. He knew that, partially, it was his fault for letting her do so, keeping the tray within kicking distance every time he fed her. But he learned his lesson eventually, keeping the food at a safe distance from her lashing legs. Still, though, she would not eat, sustaining herself through the needles in her arms.
He didn't see her all the time, because, like Itachi had mentioned, she would be taken to the labs to have her ability tested. Maybe, he thought with a morbid delight, they would make her run on her a hamster wheel. But his thoughts didn't go any further than that. Despite everything—despite her stubbornness, unwillingness to cooperate and whatnot—she didn't deserve to run a hamster wheel like some common animal.
Even if he was was what he was, Sasori was still fundamentally human, a fact that everyone seemed to forget. His body was something out of a sci-fi film, or perhaps a shonen manga involving seven wishing orbs, but what made him Sasori underneath all that software and synthetics... It was still there. Just thinking of having a fellow human being—a child no less—being subjected to such dehumanizing experiments was sickening enough to affect him, even if it was just a little. He held a dislike for the general public, but when one had to see another for days on end, one couldn't help but grow the tiniest bit fond of them.
One day, the liquids in her IV pouches ran out, and she was still not eating. It was congee today, one of Sasori's favorite foods, and it struck a nerve in him when the child aimed at the tray with her dreaded foot.
"Stop that," he snapped, unintentionally bringing the tray closer to her foot as he inched forward, glaring. Before he knew it, the precious bowl of congee was an upside-down mess on the tiled floor. A sort of deadly calm washed over Sasori, and he stood up to his full height (which, admittedly, wasn't much, but enough to intimidate a prepubescent girl who was sitting down). She stared up at him with her big, blue eyes, one of which was almost hidden behind some hair. She was wondering, he knew, wondering what he would do next, how he would punish her. Had she noticed that the IV drips had run out of liquids to process through? "Tonic injections," he told her. "I suppose you haven't had enough of them."
There was a surveillance camera in the corner of the room, and Sasori did his best to ignore the fact that there were people watching him clean up the watery mess of congee behind the lenses. He had finished cleaning when a group consisting of a man and two women entered the room, the lead woman holding a tray with medical apparatus on it.
"Hi," said the lead black-haired woman, not really speaking to anyone in particular. Her name was Shizune, Sasori could recall. The other two were irrelevant, even if they wore the same suit-and-tie uniform as he did. Shizune, however, was wearing a lab coat that practically screamed 'important'. "He," she pointed up at the camera, "alerted us to what happened. We'll be giving her an injection while my assistant fills up the nutrients." Sasori didn't know which one was her assistant and he frankly didn't care.
Sasori, with the tray and empty bowl in both hands, stepped make to make way for Shizune and her team to proceed with the tonic injections. The man undid the strap on the girl's left arm, wrenching it into a position that would allow the doctor to comfortably give her the injection. Her breathing quickened fearfully, and she struggled against the man's hold, but he had his other hand on her shoulder blade and was practically pushing her into the chair. The woman in the suit and tie was refilling the IV pouches with an indifferent expression on her face, the same expression that Sasori knew he wore. But at least Shizune was smiling a little as she lowered the needle, though that did little to reassure the girl.
It occurred to him that he had never once caught her name from anyone's mouth. Even the colleagues that pressured him into talking about his experiences with the girl had never once brought up her name. They probably didn't know, he deduced. Before he even knew what he was doing, he found that he could no longer study the girl's terrified face without feeling something stirring uncomfortably in his heart.
"Wait." The needle hadn't yet touched her skin, though it was very close. Shizune looked at him in confusion, as did the girl. The only difference between their bewildered gazes was that Shizune didn't have swollen, puffy, tearful eyes. "Just... No, never mind. Don't do it—I'll call you back if she does."
He wasn't unaware of the child gazing up at him in disbelief and gratitude.
The next day, one of the needles—the one supplying her nutrients from food was off her body. In fact, Shizune was the one who took it off, and she had waved a sort of merry goodbye to Sasori before she left, closing the door.
Sniffling slightly, the golden-haired girl tried to move her arm, wincing at slightly throbbing she undoubtedly felt.
"Good job," said Sasori, keeping a distance away from her. Seeing her mournful gaze, he frowned. "What's wrong?"
He was shocked when she began to cry relentlessly, something she hadn't done since he had arrived. "Everything!"
It was the first time she had talked to him for days, but he could only stand there without even a clue of what to do.
Breakfast the next morning was two sandwiches from the cafe two blocks away. No greetings were exchanged when Sasori walked into the room with a plate of two half-wrapped sandwiches. Before the girl could even say anything, Sasori placed the plate on her lap and removed the bindings on her wrists, which were keeping her arms immobile.
In awe, she lifted her arms, not even wincing when the single IV drip still connected to her left arm moved with the limbs. Her attention shifted to the plate on her too-thin thighs, then to Sasori, who was observing her without the slightest twitch on his face.
"Here's your breakfast," Sasori stated the obvious when she continued to stare at him in an almost disconcerting way. "Kick it, dump it, I don't even care anymore. Do whatever you want with it." He turned around and filled a plastic cup with water from a pitcher. She had also been refusing to drink as well as eat, hence why the other IV drip was still in her arm.
There was a movement at the corner of his eye, and Sasori turned again. She was holding out a sandwich to him, nervously biting into the other one. Wordlessly, Sasori took the sandwich. He hadn't eaten this morning due to some unforeseen rush. Had she known, somehow? He watched her eat for a bit to make sure that she wouldn't stop before biting into his own sandwich. The lettuce and tomato were juicy and fresh, as was the chicken. Delicious. From the way she was eating—it was like watching a hungry crow pick frantically at a garbage bag—it seemed like that she shared his sentiments. Or it could have been the fact that she had been depriving herself of solid food for practically a month now. Stupid brat.
"Deidara."
Sasori startled. "Hm?"
"That's my name." She finished her sandwich. "Deidara."
They stared at each other, and Sasori felt like they were finally coming to an understanding. But, instead, he said, "I don't care."
Instead of closing up again like she had before, she merely scowled. "Give me back the sandwich, then, hm."
"No."
Deidara wobbly reached up at him, her hand swiping at the air. "But I'm hungry, hm!"
"I don't care," Sasori repeated, amused. "Should have thought twice before giving it to me, brat."
"I'm not a brat. I'm nine."
"And I'm thirty-two. Point?"
"You look like twenty, hm," she informed him.
"Yes." Sasori passed her the plastic cup of water. "I am aware."
Deidara tilted her head in an almost feline manner, sizing him up as she took the cup from him without complaint. "What should I call you?"
"Sasori-san."
"What about -nii?"
"I'm too old for that."
She crossed her arms. "When can I see my family again? They let me call them nii-san, hm."
All male? Did this girl live in a brothel or something? Were her big brothers the other women's clients? He almost rolled his eyes at himself. He was letting his imagination run away with him. As a member of the Association, he had to be better than that.
"If you behave, you can go home sooner," Sasori said, only if because he didn't know when she was getting released, if ever. "Good little girls get rewards. But you're clearly undeserving."
She harrumphed. "You're not the first person to say that, hm." She tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but the strap around her waist was incredibly restricting. Wordlessly, she stared at it in dismay.
Sasori tried to ignore the constricting feeling in his heart, and instead turned away. "I'll see you later. I'm supposed to meet with one of the managers in five minutes."
"Bye," Deidara said dully.
Sasori closed the door behind him, standing outside for a little while. Hesitantly, he turned back and stared at the wooden door, his inorganic eyes glowing red as he activated a special vision he had installed in this body. It allowed him to peer through walls, but not clothing or flesh and skin. His mouth twitched in displeasure when he saw Deidara tugging on the strap in vain. Behind the frustrated sparks in her eyes, he could see a sort of mourning—the longing for liberation from this wretched place.
After his meeting with Manager Kakuzu, an old miser he didn't really care for, he went to see Itachi, who was sorting out some official looking papers in his own office. His door was opened most of the time, so Sasori knocked on the door frame.
"Come in." Itachi glanced upward when Sasori's shadow loomed over his stooped form. "What do you need?"
"Did the abnormal bring anything with her when you brought her here? Any possessions?"
Itachi studied the red-haired man's neutral face carefully before answering, "Two things. A storybook and a worn clay model that we had to throw away due to quirk-specific reasons."
She probably had a lot of memories in that thing, Sasori thought to himself. "Can you give me the book?"
"Oh?" Itachi put down his pen, his other hand sneaking down to drawer in his desk that Sasori couldn't see. "For what reason?"
Dammit, why couldn't he just relinquish the damn book? It was a book, not a shotgun. It wasn't like Deidara's dust was a source of ignition, anyway, her dust was merely extremely flammable. Putting two flammable things together—the dust and the book—did not automically equate to those things being set on fire or exploding without a catalyst. Itachi was stalling as well was fishing for information at the same time, and Sasori hated to be kept waiting, a fact that the Uchiha was aware of. Which made it all the more infuriating.
Eventually, Itachi handed over the book, and Sasori absently flicked through it as he made his way to Deidara's room. It was a dog-eared collection of fairy tales, one that looked like it had been thumbed through by not only one child, but multiple children. And it had that repugnant, old and uncleanly smell to it, the one you could find if you opened up a 'baby's first book' at a doctor's waiting room.
It made him all the more curious about Deidara's home life—did she have many siblings? She seemed like the middle child type.
Deidara didn't speak to him when he came in, nor did she ask about the book in his hand. Her gaze merely followed him around the room again, watching him place the storybook on the faraway table, the one that breakfast normally appeared on.
"Do you want to read it?" Sasori finally asked with a small sigh.
She nodded.
"Then say something, brat, I can't read your mind." He handed the book to her, and she eagerly opened it up, searching for whatever page she had read last and intending to continue from where she'd left off.
She read late into the evening, and only put down the book when it was time for light's off. Some Association workers came to untie her from the chair and re-tie her onto her bed this time, one worker moving the IV drip along with her.
"Does she ever bathe?" Sasori inquired to the most important-looking official when they were about to leave. Deidara's book sat on the table, unfinished.
"Yes," they answered clinically. "In the early morning, when she's the groggiest."
It made sense. His first meeting with her every day was always at eight o'clock in the morning, and she would be in her chair, not sleeping on the bed.
They turned off the lights as they left, leaving Sasori alone to observe a seemingly asleep Deidara for a few moments before making to leave.
"... Thanks."
He paused.
"For the book, hm."
Sasori didn't say anything before leaving. He didn't really need to. Strangely enough, though, he could envision her smiling underneath her blanket as her head was turned into a fantasy world with dragons, princesses, and heroes.
Deidara stared down at her liberated arm in awe, rubbing at the spot where the needle had sat just last night, when she had to go to sleep for those men and women in black to record her biorhythm.
"See?" Sasori took her empty bowl of cereal away and put it on the table, next to Deidara's book. "You don't have needles in your body anymore because you're finally eating properly." He exhaled exasperatedly. "You should have just spared yourself the trouble from the start. Your stay would have been much easier then. If you keep behaving yourself, I can get permission to take your off the chair for good, which means no more waist strap, just like I did with your arms." It was one of the longest speeches he had ever given her before, and she soaked it all up. "Which means no causing trouble for me or anyone else."
Just like that, Deidara broke out of her reverie. "I won't cause any trouble if you send me home, hm."
"... Of course you won't."
The day went on tediously. At four o'clock, Deidara was escorted down to the testing labs, where Sasori didn't have any authority to go to. He spent the rest of the afternoon in his own personal lab, working on a female android that resembled his late mother. He had one of his father done already, but neither of them were properly programmed. Fugaku forbade it. Sasori wasn't overly fond of the man, but he was glad for it. He wasn't sure if he would be able to stomach the sight of his dead parents walking and talking like they had never left, but without any memory of him or the originals' lives.
At six o'clock, he was to see Deidara again for dinner. When he arrived, she was already sitting in her chair, eyes puffy. Sasori frowned at the sight. "What's wrong?"
"N-Nothing." She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, barely stifling a sob.
Sighing deeply, Sasori brought up a chair and sat down opposite her. "Are you going to eat dinner? It's tofu and pork tonight."
Weakly, she nodded, and Sasori placed the table between them. Almost timidly, Deidara ate. When she was full, there was still more than half of the dish left to eat. But instead of the usual disgust he felt toward waste, something else was on his mind. "What did they do to you? Brat," he added as an afterthought after considering that Deidara might appreciate the normalcy that came with the term.
"The usual. Blowing stuff up, hm." She was less weepy than before, which was good. "Except, this time..."
Sasori cocked an eyebrow.
"They... tested my pain endurance."
Oh. Oh, no.
That was absolutely sick.
Sasori was almost at a loss for words, but he recovered quickly. "What... pain level did they put you up to?" he asked cautiously.
"Twenty-three."
Twenty-three! Twenty-three was enough to make full-grown men piss their pants and scream in pain. An ancient anger stirred in his belly, and he stood abruptly, slamming his hands on the table and startling Deidara.
"Y-You're shaking," Deidara noted, voice wavering.
Taking a sharp intake of breath, he forced himself to calm down. "Am I scaring you?"
"... A little," she admitted. "But I'm okay now, hm. It doesn't hurt anymore."
It shouldn't have to hurt in the first place. Wearily, he gazed down at the girl, who was looking guiltily at her hands, which were fidgeting in her lap. Why do you look like you're responsible? "Tell me, Deidara, what do you like the most?" It was only three hours till her bedtime, and he didn't want their meeting to end on a sour note. Funny. He shouldn't have cared. Not really. But, somehow, he did.
He expected her to say something related to princesses and adventures, considering how she pored over that book like it was the last piece of fine literature on earth, but she surprised him.
"Art," she told him, and it was like something had switched on his brain and he was seeing this girl—this girl, who had endured twenty-three levels of pain—for the first time ever.
"Who do you want to see the most?" Sasori continued. "Your mother? Father?"
"No. The matron at the orphanage, hm. She's the only one there who's nice to me. Well, my roommates are, too, but they're guys, and they don't get it, hm."
So, she was an orphan, too, huh? Somehow, he wasn't surprised.
"One hundred nights," he promised. "If you eat your meals and take whatever injections you still need without causing trouble, I'll let you see her in a hundred nights."
"R-Really?!" She tried to sit up, completely forgetting about the strap that bound her body to the chair. "You... You mean it?"
"Yeah. Can you count to a hundred?"
"Yes. I'm not a little kid, you know."
"To me, you are. Maybe I should have made it a thousand."
Deidara deadpanned at him.
"You tortured her?"
Itachi looked up from his desk. "It was necessary."
"She's a child."
"A child that has permanently blinded some of our best agents thanks to the versatility of her quirk. We need to see the extent of her abnormalities. How they improve her physical conditioning and pain tolerance included. Do yourself a favor, Sasori, and go calm down. If you keep talking to me like this, I might have to demote you." Itachi's hand moved slowly to a cup of tea sitting to the side of his desk, ignoring Sasori's furious glare. His next words came out softer. "I must say, though, you've surprised me. I'm glad."
Clenching his fists, Sasori turned to leave.
"I don't like it either, you know," Itachi called after him. "But some things... have to be done."
Sasori tossed him a dirty look over his shoulder. "Hmph. Like hell they do." Then he slammed the door behind him.
"Can I see matron after I eat?" Deidara asked him bluntly, fork and knife in her hand. On her tray, Sasori noticed that she had eaten everything except for the greens.
"Eat your vegetables," he ordered. "And it's only been ten days, so no. Not yet."
Grumbling, Deidara picked aggressively at the vegetables. "Where's dessert?"
"There is no dessert at breakfast," Sasori stated, rolling his eyes. "Now stop being a brat and hurry up. You've kept me waiting long enough—it's already half past."
She pouted at him, but he was unmoved. Sighing, Deidara sucked it up and inhaled the rest of her food at a rapid pace, obviously not taking any breaths so she wouldn't have to taste it.
"Good." Sasori took the metal tray from her and left the room, heading for the cafeteria. The lunch lady, a young woman called Ayame, smiled at him when he returned the tray to her. Then she offered him a sweet.
"It's strawberry flavor," she informed him, waving it in front of his face. "Come on, take it! I'm giving these to everyone today."
Sasori accepted it without dramatics. "What's the occasion?"
"No reason—just a small gesture for everyone."
"Hm... I see." There was a meeting he had to attend in just a little less than five minutes, but he still had some time to make a quick detour.
Deidara, reading her storybook, was obviously surprised when Sasori returned and dropped the pink-wrapped candy into her lap. "Here. It's strawberry." Grinning, Deidara unwrapped the sweet, popping it into her mouth and giving Sasori back the wrapper to throw on his way out.
"Thank you," she said as she pushed the candy toward the inside of her cheek.
"Tsk." He flicked her forehead. "Brat." Sasori looked at her disdainfully, but he knew that she could see right through him, so he didn't bother apologizing.
Some nights later, Sasori entered Deidara's room to find the girl curled up on her bed and sporting a large white patch on her cheek. The higher-ups had approved of Sasori taking off the final strap a few days ago.
"Alright, brat, explain," he pointed accusingly at the patch, "this. What did they do to you?"
Her eyes turned up to him, blinking innocently. "They tested the effectiveness of my quirk in combat today, hm," she said listlessly.
He swore before recomposing himself. "Do you want water?"
"No. I'm okay." Slowly, she turned her back on him, curling up in a tight ball again and clutching her blanket to her chest. She was visibly shaking, he noticed, and his eyes narrowed.
Eventually, she had to get up for dinner, but she withdrew herself immediately afterwards. The katsu curry sat unfinished on the table. With nothing really to do, Sasori reluctantly picked up Deidara's book, the one that smelled like children's boogers and dried up saliva.
It was nearly light's out when Deidara talked to him again. "Can you read to me?"
Sasori blinked in surprise at the request. "Haven't you already finished this book? It's not that long." In fact, he was nearly done with it himself.
"I have, hm. Multiple times."
"Why do you reread it if you already know how it goes?"
She shrugged, so he asked her a simpler question.
"Which one's your favorite?"
"The one where the artist—Danna—tricks the emperor into being naked," Deidara said immediately, sitting up. She scratched at the white patch on her cheek, trying to reach an itch in vain. "It's funny, hm. The emperor is really stupid as well."
Sasori snorted. "I can imagine."
"Can you read that one to me?" Deidara plopped her head down on the pillow.
Somehow, it'd been decided that he would read to her before he even consented to it. Going with the flow anyway, Sasori flipped to the appropriate page. "Once upon a time—who actually starts like this anymore? Isn't this a 2015 edition?"
"Keep reading," Deidara demanded.
In the middle of the tale, which Sasori read in a droning, monotone voice, Deidara started to doze off. By the end of it, she was sound asleep with a little smile on her face.
But when he got up from his chair, she stirred a little. "Don't go, Danna..."
"I'm Sasori-san, not Danna. Danna doesn't exist. He's as real as the stupid emperor."
"I don't mind..." Deidara yawned. "You can be Danna, hm... and the naked emperor can be the leader of this association place."
Sasori really didn't need to picture Fugaku naked, so he quickly pushed the thought out of this mind. No doubt it would be visiting him later, though, when he tried to sleep. Such things had a habit of creeping up on you when you were most unaware. He didn't even need to sleep, actually, and only did so because he found it mentally rejuvenating, so perhaps he would skip the shut-eye tonight.
When she was lightly snoring, Sasori knew that she wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, so he took his leave. Goodnight, brat.
Sasori stared down at the lump underneath the blanket that was Deidara, utterly unimpressed. "You don't want to eat? What changed your mind, hm?" When she didn't answer, he added, "You don't want to get tonic injections again, do you? Get up. Now."
"... Cake."
"I didn't hear you."
"I said I want cake, hm."
What the hell? Sasori wondered what had came over her. Is she whining now? Now that the Association's loosened its grip on her? "Fine. I'll get you one tomorrow."
"No! I want it now."
"Stop being so unreasonable," he snapped. "How am I supposed to get a cake now? I'll get it for you tomorrow, and that's final. Do you hear me, brat? Now get up and eat your damn food."
"Then I won't eat it if you do."
This is a waste of time. "Do you really want the needle again?"
No answer.
"Tsk. Fine, suit yourself." This just meant he could get an earlier start on some paperwork that was waiting to be done in his office.
The paperwork took him longer than he thought it would. Did Itachi have something to do with this? By the time he was finished, Sasori's watch told him that it was nearing ten o'clock in the evening. The only breaks he had gotten was passing lunch and dinner to Deidara, both of which he hadn't seen her touch. Wasteful, ungrateful brat. But maybe she had now? He went to check, using his vision to see through the door again.
As expected, she hadn't even touched the food. Stubborn little brat! If she keeps this up, it'll be back to needles again. A footfall reached his ears and he turned, deactivating his eyes.
"Oh—hello, Sasori-san! What a coincidence." It was Dr. Shizune. She handed him a manila folder. "This is this week's abnormal report. Itachi thought I should start sharing this with you, seeing how you're always so concerned about her."
Did it really come off that obviously? Or had Itachi blabbed? He had yet to recall that someone on the other end of the surveillance camera in Deidara's room was watching their every move in there, and was probably a notorious gossip considering his luck.
"I must say," Shizune continued, not noticing Sasori's mild discomfort and curious stare. "She's doing a lot better now, both mentally and physically." Yes, Deidara had gained some weight, hadn't she? She was now at a healthy weight for her age. "It's all thanks to you, Sasori-san. Keep up the good work."
"Thank you, doctor." He dipped his head to her as she left, waving goodbye.
Unable to fend off his curiosity for any longer, Sasori opened up Deidara's file. It seemed incredibly standard, with her name at the top (she had no family name unsurprisingly), followed by her date of birth and address—
Realization dawned on him.
In the dark room, Deidara was unable to sleep, fighting off a loneliness that threatened to devour her heart. She regretted speaking so curtly with Sasori this morning. He was the only one that actually seemed to care about her as a person instead of as an abnormal. I'm such an idiot. How could he have known anyway? With a sad sigh, she clutched her pillow tightly and shoved her face against it. Don't cry! Don't—
The door creaked open and she stiffened. Then something landed gently on her head, and her eyes widened.
"There," came Sasori's familiar voice.
Bemused, Deidara pulled her blankets off and sat up, staring at the cake box Sasori was holding. It was the thing that had touched her head, most likely. Slowly, she slumped against the wall, crossing her legs as Sasori placed the cake box in front of her, on the bed.
"You know," Sasori said, "you could have told me that it's your birthday."
It wasn't a whole cake, Deidara quickly discovered, just one slice. But it was enough for her. Greedily, she grabbed the little plastic fork that came with the cake and started stuffing her face. Sasori was staring at her with a bored gleam in his eye, but she liked to think that he was amused.
"Tasty?" he asked her.
"Un." A small, happy blush lit up her cheeks. "Thanks, Danna."
"Didn't I tell you to call me Sasori-san?"
"It's too stiff, hm. I like Danna better."
"Hmph, whatever. You'll be gone soon, so it doesn't even matter anymore."
"... Will I?"
"Something's been happening with the Association. I don't know what it means for us, but you'll most likely be returned back to the orphanage, where you'll be free to live out your life." Sasori passed his hand through his hair, leaning against the bedpost and staring up at the dark ceiling. "More and more abnormals like you have been showing up all over the place. It's almost like... it's becoming the new norm, now. People from all over the world are protesting against the rough treatment people like you have been receiving."
"That's..." Deidara hesitated. She didn't know how to feel about that. Sasori was part of this big bad group that hurt kids like her, but he wasn't that bad. It was just the people around him that were bad. She didn't want him to get into trouble. But I get to go home, don't I? Her heart raced. The thought sounded so good. Seeing matron again before one hundred nights were up seemed so good. But... "I hope you'll be alright, hm. Don't... Don't die or anything, okay?" she said sternly.
"Relax, brat, they're not savages. Now hurry up and finish before Itachi or Shizune come, or I'll really be in trouble. Oh, one more thing—" He picked up the plastic bag he had disposed at the bottom of her bed, removing a large dolly from it. He placed it on her bed.
"What's this...?"
"Your birthday present. There was only one store open at this hour."
It looks really ugly, Deidara thought as she picked up the doll and held it by the armpits. But, strangely enough, she didn't really mind. The doll even looked a little bit like her, with its blonde yarn hair. It was tied into pigtails though, and Deidara wasn't particularly fond of pigtails. But she digressed. At the end of the day, the gift... It was really touching.
"There's a whole crowd outside," Itachi told Sasori. "Protesting against us. It's almost like everyone from Japan came just to protest..." Sighing heavily, Itachi rubbed his temples. He looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep in ages, but Sasori couldn't really bring himself to care. "There's going to be an emergency voting session tomorrow, my father's presidential position is looking unstable, too. There will probably be a major reshuffling within our ranks, so brace yourself."
Again, Sasori didn't care. What he did care about, though... "Then what about Deidara, the abnormal?"
"... We don't have any reason to keep her around anymore. It must be great news for you, Sasori. For both you and the girl." Itachi touched his shoulder as he walked past. "You've done a great job with her."
"Deidara-chan!"
"K-Konan-san!"
Deidara practically flew toward the blue-haired woman. They both hugged tightly, and Deidara began to sob. Konan, too, shed some tears, though she quickly dried them to glare icily at the three Association members witnessing the scene.
"I don't ever want to see your faces ever again," she seethed, her labret piercing making her seem more intimidating. "If I see you around her ever again, I will take legal action and I will destroy you."
Itachi bowed apologetically to them, Sasori and Shizune standing a bit behind him and doing the same. "We're very sorry," was all he had to say. "Goodbye."
Throughout the exchange, Deidara was standing behind Konan's imposing figure, peeking around her legs and clutching the dolly Sasori had given her to her chest. She hesitated, but managed to summon up the courage to speak out.
"H-Hey, Danna? I mean, Sasori-san?" Deidara almost shirked back behind her matron's legs but forced herself to stand by Konan's side. She stared up at Sasori. "Um, bye, yeah. Thanks for the cake. And the doll. And the candy. And for reading me stories and tying my hair, even though you were really bad at it, yeah."
His associates turned away, but Sasori's feet were rooted to the ground. Eventually, he managed to say, "Sure. Take care, Deidara-san." He walked a few steps backwards. "And I'm sorry." It was the first time he had ever properly apologized to her.
"For what?"
He recalled what she had wailed during their first week together. "For everything."
Deidara watched him leave before Konan beckoned her away.
"Make sure to stay in a line everyone! And absolutely no quirk usage! You know the rules." A junior high class had just arrived in front of the Museum of Quirk History, and the teacher knew she had to make sure that nothing valuable was destroyed at the hands of her class.
Midoriya Izuku gasped as he entered the main hall, marveling at how extensive the museum was. He whipped out a new notebook, furiously scribbling in it as he followed his class around in a guided tour.
After the first half of the tour was over, they all headed to the cafeteria for lunch.
"Move, fucking Deku!" Bakugo snapped as he pushed Izuku out of the lunch line. "HEY, ALL YOU EXTRAS! I SAID FUCKING MOVE!" Bakugo's example encouraged the other students behind Izuku, and they all proceeded to cut in front of him until the green-haired boy was at the very end of the line. Izuku sighed sullenly. Being quirkless, something like this was not an unusual occurrence.
I don't feel so hungry anymore. Deku slipped out of the line and away from the teacher. I'll go check out some of the sections we haven't been to yet. Maybe then I can take some notes without Kacchan slapping my pen out of my hand every five minutes.
So Izuku immersed himself in historical artifacts dated from the first appearance of quirks seventy years ago. One of them was the blanket of the Qing Qing baby, and he stared at it for a good ten minutes before moving on. In the first decade of quirk existence, very few people had actually manifested quirks, leading to them being detained and experimented on by the government. It was a horrific thing, and it had thankfully been stopped toward the end of the decade, when there was a sudden burst in the amount of people—children—with quirks.
Soon, he came across an artifact that the museum allowed the public to interact with. It was a storybook, dated from about sixty or so years ago. It had belonged to one of the experimented people, but Izuku didn't know who. In awe, he flipped through the book, and came across a story about an emperor being tricked by a conman to walk around naked. The pages were more worn than the others, as if the previous owner had read the tale many times.
He didn't even notice two figures approaching him from behind, too engrossed in the book and the history it carried.
"Ohh, here it is, Danna. It looks just like how I remember, hm."
"Probably smells just as bad, too."
The book did smell musty, but that wasn't the point. Izuku jumped up and whipped around, holding his hands out in a defensive pose. "S-Sorry, am I intruding—?!"
The blonde woman with only one blue eye visible waved her hand at him. "You're fine, kid." She turned to the red-haired man beside her. "I can't believe the Association actually gave the museum this thing." She gently nudged Izuku aside and picked up the book from its podium.
"Um," Izuku said, holding up a hesitant finger, "are you sure you're allowed to take it off...?"
"Considering she's the owner, yes." The red-haired man spared him a glance. "A middle schooler...? Do you plan on applying to U.A?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Oh, a hero, huh? I remember I wanted to be one, but..." The blonde woman shrugged, putting the book back on the podium. "After all that combat experimentation, I just decided it wasn't worth it."
"Combat experimention? Your book?" Izuku could hardly keep up with the conversation anymore. "Who are you?"
Deidara cracked a smile. "One of the first." She patted his head, satisfied by his slack-jawed expression. "Don't give up on your dreams, hm?"
"Y-You look way too young to be—!"
"Deidara," Sasori said sharply, already walking away. "We came, we saw, we conquered, and now we're wasting time, so let's go."
Deidara waved him goodbye, the mouth on her palm sticking its tongue out at him.
Stunned, Izuku could only stare after them. I wonder... what kind of story they have. If she really was telling the truth, then...
Izuku flipped to the first page of the book, where a short handwritten passage took up the space:
For my Danna. Thanks for looking after me. I'm sorry if I bothered you, but it's kind of funny when you're annoyed. I didn't realize you were envisioning Fugaku-san naked every time I brought up the emperor. You should have said something. Wasn't it you who said to me that you couldn't read minds? I know you think this book smells like boogers and drool, but this is the only thing I have right now that you didn't give me. I don't care what you do with it. Just know that I'm grateful, and I'd be really happy if you come by to the orphanage sometime. Don't worry about Konan-san, I'll talk to her. She's actually really nice once you get to know her. Hope to see you soon.
—Deidara
Completely spellbound, Izuku turned the page and began to read.