Fucking ugly landscape, Deidara thought. He didn't miss his homeland at all, but it had given him a preference for dry climates.

He wondered if his bombs would be rendered ineffective with so much water. And his hair, ugh! He didn't even want to know what his hair looked like after it had been so thoroughly drenched. He was shivering, and it honestly felt like the rain was about to seep inside his bones. He had been told to come here, the fucking village hidden in the fucking nasty rain, and for what? Receive the Akatsuki uniform? He had no clue, because neither Sasori nor Itachi were talkative people. At least Sasori would tell him to shut up if he talked loud enough, but Itachi was impervious to his babble. In any case, neither of them was here, and he had to walk by himself amidst these metal buildings. At first he had been creeped out by the monotony of it, but it wasn't that bad because the metal wasn't quite gray. It had a bluish-lilac tinge which he kind of liked.

There was nobody on the street besides him, and when he peered at the buildings, he couldn't tell if they had any windows or not (that annoying rain again, obstructing his eyes). While his head was tilted up, he felt the faintest whisper of chakra behind him, and he whipped his head to see a woman in an Akatsuki cloak. She seemed wholly unfazed by the rain. Her hair was that bluish-lilac of the buildings, but unsullied by the dark gray of metal. Her eyes were golden, and her gaze was unbelievably neutral. She was uncommonly pretty, but in the way that Itachi was. Like lifeless dolls.

Their staring contest went on for like a minute, maybe, and then Deidara got bored. "Sooo," he said, in that tone that annoyed Sasori so much. "Tell me why you wanted me here, hm."

For the tiniest of moments, the woman broke eye contact to look at the sky, before she opened her mouth. "I'm afraid you joined our organization rather unwillingly."

"Damn right I did!" He frowned. "And now I have the joy of being partners with an old, close-minded fool who thinks his art," he snorted at the word, "is the greatest thing the world has ever seen! He won't even listen to my ideas about art! Fucking stupid, hm."

The woman tilted her head slightly to the left. "Art?"

"Those ugly puppets of his, hm."

"Yes, I know. Why do they bother you?"

"They're so damn permanent! Art exists in the beauty of the moment! He thinks those puppets are so great because they will last for an eternity but that's exactly what makes them so tacky, hm." He felt an impending rant coming on, and decided to cut himself off before annoying the woman too much. He didn't think that he had been brought here only to be humiliated, a re-run of his first encounter with Itachi, but there was something about the woman that made him want to be cautious. Itachi had a reputation, but he had no idea who she was.

"What makes your art better than his?" Coming from anyone else, this question would have sounded like a challenge or insult, but in her mild, neutral tone, it was a simple request for information. Well then! He had thought this would annoy her, but surely she wouldn't ask unless she was interested? He decided to demonstrate.

He reached into his pack and pinched out some clay. She watched him as the clay went into the mouth in his right palm. A few seconds later, it spat out a little white bird. He flicked his wrist upwards, and the bird flew into the air. The woman's eyes followed it as it did a few graceful turns, and then blinked when it exploded.

"That's art!" Deidara cried out triumphantly, and he noted with pleasure that the rain had no effect on the bomb. "The moment of explosion—the little flash of light—the popping sound—it only exists for one moment and can never be replicated! And the reactions of audience, too, can never be replicated: the fear and thrill they experience for a single second is—" He cut himself off and looked at his current audience. "And, uh," he continued sheepishly, "the audience may not react with fear, if they are a member of an international criminal organization." The woman didn't even crack a smile. He continued: "But that's great, too, in its own way. The audience, the amount of clay I choose, the timing and the size of the explosion, whatever: all of these variables combine to form a unique moment. This uniqueness is what makes my bombs art, hm."

The woman looked at him for a few seconds, during which he grew exceedingly uncomfortable and annoyed. He had misjudged her, she was about to start backing Sasori, wasn't she. But then something odd happened. On her left cheek, a rectangle appeared. And then the rectangle peeled away, making a crinkling sound like paper. The place on her cheek where the rectangle used to be was white. Not the pink-white that skin could be, but the white-white of paper. The rectangle, which was now hovering between the two of them, began folding itself. An origami crane, he realized. When it was properly folded, it soared up into the air. He slowly began smiling, because this meant that she didn't think him stupid. It circled above their heads a few times before swooping in front of this face and suddenly exploded.

He laughed in delight. "Yeah! You get it!"

The woman wasn't smiling, not exactly, but her expression seemed softer and warmer somehow. While he had been distracted by the explosion (and what a nice surprise that was!), the paper part of her face had somehow turned back into flesh. But hey, he wasn't going to question that. It wasn't as if every person on the street had mouths in their palms either.

"I thought you brought me here to give me the uniform," he said. The rain slowly stopped. He was pretty sure that she was controlling it, and he grinned his thanks.

"Sasori has your cloak," she said.

He grunted in annoyance. "Do I have to go back to that old fool? I think we would make a much better pair, hm."

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

"That…was not me flirting with you," he clarified. Then it occurred to him that she probably already had a partner, and the two of them were the leaders of this stupid organization. Well. If she was in it, maybe it wasn't so stupid after all.

"I didn't think it was," she said, and paused as if she was listening for something that he couldn't hear.

"I will leave now," she told him eventually. "But we will see each other again, Deidara." Without warning, she burst into thousands of pieces of paper, and they all flew up and away. Deidara watched them disappear out of his line of sight. Then he chewed up another bird. With a few seals, he increased its size, and then hopped on its back.

As the bird flew away from Amegakure, he was still smiling.