He found her beautiful because she was fleeting.
From the flicker in her eyes to the way she moved across the field, caressing men and leaving them with a widening crimson slit on their necks. She flitted back and forth, cutting enemy shinobi down before the last sakura petals of spring hit the ground.
Others called it a heartless massacre; he called it a dance to remember.
"Deidara," she approached him, kunai hanging loosely from her fingers the same way a smile touched her features. "Do you understand what it means now? To be a shinobi?"
Deidara watched as Iwagakure's kunoichi knelt down before him. Iwa's nin, his elder sister, they were one and the same. He nodded slowly at her as she cupped his childlike face in her bloody hands, not unlike the gentle way she touched her enemies. "Next time you see Onoki, you will decline. Do you hear me?"
He didn't understand why she would want him to live a life of peace, when there was unrest all around. Despite his young age, he could tell that the period he was living in was not one of peace, if that field of enemies was any indication.
So he shook his head vigorously, against the tightening grip of his sister. Her brow knitted and she broke her gaze before sighing and standing up. Taking him by the hand, she led him back home.
And home was where she left him. As quickly as she had entered his life, she left. The day after he accepted Onoki's apprenticeship, he woke up to the house as it was two years ago before he saved her from death's door.
Deidara didn't weep or wallow in sorrow, but stood at the door instead and pondered for a moment.
Even as the years went by, and his shoulders filled out his oversized clothes, he never really did forget her. But he wasn't waiting for her. Of course not, he knew it would be impossible, especially after one autumn, where rumours of an Iwa kunoichi performing her last dance on the borders of the fire country proved to be true.
It must have been a sight of beauty, he thought. In his mind's eye he pictured her stepping lightly through the ranks of her enemies, executing genjutsu after ninjutsu, and finally falling before the last of the autumn leaves touched the ground.
She lived a good life, and although she may not have gone out with a bang, at least it was one filled with artistic beauty. Maybe if he was lucky enough, he would be able to have one as good as hers too.