Disclaimer: I disclaim this disclaimer which is disclaiming Naruto disclaimingly.
How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - like rags and shreds of your very life. ~Katherine Mansfield
Sakura had lain the boy on the only bed that the room offered, her bright green eyes warily watching his heaving chest. They were in a village between the Village of Greens and the Village Hidden In The Grass. It was a rural sort of place, with normal people and a low tourist count, she was sure very little people would recognize her as a ninja here, seeing as they didn't get much information from outside the town. Most seemed to not even be aware of the war that had raged just a few miles off their border.
He was short, and only came up to about her knee which wasn't saying much. Kokoro, his name, was the only information she had been able to get out of the little boy aside from his favorite colors and various other small, unimportant things. She had asked several times if he knew of any other family besides his mother, but he was so young he got distracted very easily and found ways to distract her as well after she asked. It had been bad enough that they had spent two days along the border, walking in between two villages that warred quite frequently with one another and dodging patrols on either side. It would have been labeled stupid to travel along that route while on a mission, but seeing as she had gone rogue from a village that didn't even exist any more, she now played the weary traveler. She had nothing to fear from the two small villages on either side of her, especially as she took on the appearance of a dirtied young mother. It was a good pity role, and often got the pair their daily bread from the soldiers on either side.
Sakura had seen many things on the short path they had traveled, things that she had never seen before. It was amazing what losing something could open your eyes to, it was like Tsunade used to tell Sakura when she was a small girl, once one window closes another million open up. It was the first time Sakura had ever laid eyes up a sakura blossom that was still blossoming in late August after the first frost. Most Sakura petals had already fallen ages ago, but in a short stubbly little sakura tree in a mess of crisp august leaves one hung fast. It had reminded Sakura of home, at the time, when all the Sakura trees blossomed over the river bank during the spring, until Kokoro had reached up into the low hanging branch and plucked the blossom free. His smile then had warmed her bitter heart, with all the self pity and loathing it contained. Who would have ever known he would have been such a sweet child...
There would always be something for her now, even thought she could never get past the fact that she had lost everything she had ever really known, it was worth it. She liked to believe that it was fate that struck cowardice into her heart, and forced her to abandon her home for without it she would have never saved Kokoro's life and met him as the lively child he had turned out to be. She only hoped that in good time, she would be able to find him the home he needed. Sakura eased back into the blue striped chair as her eyelids fought to stay open and her head became dizzy with visions of Kokoro, happily running into his families arms once more. He had to have a father, right? He had to... for his own sake.
Her head lolled as she worried away into a light sleep that would bring her the only peace she had been admitted for the day.
"...Miss?"
Sakura shot up in her chair and rubbed her tired eyes, before responding. She cursed herself for being so tired, she hadn't even noticed the woman approach the door. Someone could have just waltzed in and stole Kokoro.. or slaughtered him, and she would have just been sittin' there dreaming away her life. She was paranoid. All she wanted to do was sleep, at least for a few minutes, but her new life didn't allow it.
"Should I bring breakfast up, Miss?" The woman repeated in a heavy, annoyed tone that would have made Ino's sarcasm seem like light conversation.
The woman had a sort of foreign accent, which Sakura thought was strange considering the Land Of Greens didn't take very well to strangers who came to live in the lands. Tourists were fine, but if you weren't born there you tended to be mistreated. She had heard the rumors in Kohona. Other than that, Sakura was slightly surprised that the hotel offered room service, it wasn't exactly high class, but she just couldn't say no to a hot meal. It wasn't like she was expecting fine class cooking from a woman who sounded like she barely knew the native language. Sakura would be surprised if the woman had been in the country for more than a few weeks.
"Yes, thank you."
"I will be back in about ten minutes, Miss."
The woman had sounded slightly agitated at the fact Sakura hadn't answered her right away, and her emotions were played out in her heavy footsteps. She was stomping, unless she was that heavyset, but by the sound of her voice she didn't sound very heavy. Sakura didn't really give a damn though, wasn't her problem. People just really needed to learn to lay off the chips. She focused on forcing herself out of that comfy chair and fixing her hair before waking up the small sleeping boy. They had a long travel ahead of them.
Tick. Tick.
The gloomy lair stood hidden behind the willow trees of the forest miles away from what once was the proud ninja village called 'The Village Hidden in The Leaves.' It was a rather dank place with little personality, and a lot of history. It had been a paper mill, originally, back when paper was first invented. Nagato had found the thing abandoned a few years back, and with his love for the things once loved and then deserted, he fixed it up and turned it into something a little more nice. Of course, it wasn't anything too fancy or too suspicious to any passer-by that may lay eyes upon it. It was just a nice big building in the middle of freakin' no where. (He really should have thought out location.)
Tick. Tick. Thock.
Deidara poised himself carefully, so his feet could balance himself against the table while tilting back in the chair. He had been waiting for at least an hour inside the dumpy little room, and done everything that the room had to offer, which was absolutely nothing. It was bare, aside from a large clock and a red and white patterned carpet that clashed with the color of the walls. Some people just didn't consider artistry anymore, Deidara himself could have done a better job decorating, but he supposed that Madara didn't exactly think about decoration while planning to take over the world.
He ground his teeth in the silence of the room that was only ever interrupted by the tick of the grandfather clock to the right of him. He could see it, grinning at him from by his robe clad shoulder, and it progressively got even more annoying as time had passed by. Perhaps, it wasn't the clock who was annoying Deidara but the time he had to wait in the interrogation room for someone to show up and tell him what exactly was going on. He hadn't done anything out of line for weeks, nothing since they had returned from the Leaf Village, but he had thought about it. That bastard Madara, he deserved to be knocked around a few times anyway. He had manipulated Deidara, had lied to him about every single thing he told him. Madara wasn't Tobi, not the Tobi that Deidara had known. In the place of Tobi stood another man who was the polar opposite; intelligent, elite, serious and an Uchiha.
He had those fucking eyes.
Chime. Chime. Chime.
Deidara had allowed himself to open up to this man, become friends with him, share things with him that no one else would have ever guessed that Deidara knew and all of it was just a lie. Madara, he had placed himself in his own organization as someone that everyone would have never have thought was really the elite leader of the Akatsuki, to keep an eye on them. Nagato, poor sweet Nagato. He had the best intentions at heart, and Madara managed to use Pain's own abused past against him. He had manipulated all of them, but especially Deidara. He fancied himself the person who was victim of Madara's games most of all, for Madara hadn't played with Deidara for the sake of gaining something important, but just for the sake of the boredom it would ease.
He had fucked around with Deidara's feelings for the hell of it, and that was something that the blond man could never forgive.
Tick. Tick.
He groaned, rubbing his temples as the noise seemed to get even more persistent and obnoxious. The clock had to be ancient, it was made completely out of wood. A grandfather clock that most have cost some expensive sum of money. Deidara didn't understand why a piece like that would exist in an evil organization's base, seeing as it could easily be vandalized or broken. The money that Nagato must have spent on that clock, Deidara would have never spent to just have it displayed in a room for the debriefing of Akatsuki members and sometimes the recently brainwashed. But as said by many before him, Nagato was always a man of doing silly things for stature. He liked to think himself something like Apollo, with a nice home with nice things, and amazing powers up in the nicest area. What a fool Nagato had been, when Deidara thought back on it now. A fool, but an almost kind fool when put in comparison of the Uchiha.
When you fly to close to the sun, you get burned. Someone should have told Nagato that before he went and did something stupid, and put Madara in charge.
Tick. Tick.
Deidara ground his teeth against the sound of the clock as it's loud pendulum swung back and forth, back and forth in the beautiful woodwork. Perhaps the clock had been put in the interrogation room for a purpose. That clock was the perfect form of torture, especially when one had been waiting for such a long while in such a place. It smelt like death, blood and piss in the room as well which also wasn't very pleasant to inhale and exhale. He could taste piss,and that just wasn't okay. The poor man didn't know when it would seem to end, until Kabuto returned a few moments later, a folder held against his darkly garbed chest that seemed to hold the contents of something rather important..
"Hello, Deidara."
Tick.
"Mm."
Deidara made a small noise that told Kabuto he was acknowledging the fact that the snake man had spoken to him. Kabuto and Deidara, they weren't exactly the best of friends. Frequently in the past they had met in battle, which had ended in a very pissed off Deidara and a wounded Kabuto because of Kabuto's sharp tongue. To only add to this, Orochimaru had once been in the Akatsuki.. and well, you can collect the rest of that story from here.
"You have been acting very odd lately, Deidara. Would you like to explain?"
"What do you mean, yeah?"
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
There was a brief pause while Kabuto drew the hood that surrounded his features around his neck, revealing that starch white face of his that much resembled Orochimaru's. It was sickening, in a way. He looked like a snake, which are rather disgusting creatures that slither about and eat rodents. Deidara shuddered at the thought of seeing Kabuto entrap a poor field mouse in his great wide jaws, it was worse than the time Kisame had eaten octopus.
"You know what I mean, you seem very angry, and rebellious. Especially rebellious, and we both know Madara doesn't like traitors..."
Deidara's crisp blue eyes narrowed dangerously, and he stared Kabuto down from his chair in the room. It wasn't that he was necessarily angry about being accused of treachery, but that Kabuto always had that attitude.That Uchiha attitude that Deidara had so much resented in Sasuke and Itachi, the eyes that ignored his art.
The clock was beginning to tick heavily, as if something were in the way of it's natural movements.
Thock. Thock. T-tick.
"So, he didn't like Orochimaru, huh?"
Kabuto's facial expression didn't change, and didn't falter from the emotionless mask that it had taken on as he flung back an insult that would make Deidara cringe away with wounded pride. "No, he didn't, and he's beginning not to like you. I tried telling him you were only acting this way because it turned out that you were the fucking retard, and he was the intelligent leader all along, but eh. He still wanted you investigated anyway. Just in case you had a real reason to be such a pissy baby."
"I don't have to take your crap, yeah!" Deidara stood up angrily, slamming his open palm down against the table while the chair he sat in fell backwards to the ground with a bitter 'clang.' That god damned attitude, those god damn cool airs. He had about had it, he really wanted to lay into this guy.
Tick. Tick.
"Actually, yes you do." Kabuto smiled calmly at the angry blond, before turning his back to him and proceeding towards the heavy metal door. "But for now, you don't, because I don't really even think you're strong enough to kill me, seeing as you failed to kill Uchiha Sasuke." Then, stopping in front of the door as his sentence came to an end, he stared into the reflection of his eye in the tiny sliver of a window that the door had. It looked like a tall rectangle that had recently gone on a diet. Someone couldn't even fit their hand through the thing to get out of the room and reach the doorknob on the outside, seeing as the inside simply didn't have one. You had to be buzzed out of the room by an outsider.
Deidara's fists bunched up at his sides as his hands slid off of the edge of the shining table. He knew that if he attacked Kabuto, he would be brought right to Madara to be punished for 'friendly fire' and he really didn't feel like facing that fucker. In fact, he didn't even want to glimpse a corner of that mask that hid Madara's face for reasons only Madara himself knows. It took everything for Deidara not to reach into his pocket, and put his art into action.
"Ciao, Deidara. I'll be seeing you."
He watched Kabuto leave most spitefully, his teeth bared at the man's back. He wanted to tear Kabuto's eyes out and feed them to a stray dog, he wanted to make Kabuto's spinal cord into a necklace, he wanted to paint with his blood. All of these things that Deidara wanted to do, and yet he could do none of them. It filled that empty place that had opened in Deidara's chest, that resentment. What anger he felt! Oh, if Madara only knew..
Tick. Thock. Tick. Thock.
Deidara trudged away from the table, and stood in front of the door that had let his superior out. He didn't expect it to open for him, he was trapped in there for a reason he supposed. It just made him feel better to know that he could see a bit out into the open hallway of the Akatsuki hide out. He was already caged here as it was, but being stuck in this room made things very hard for the poor artist. He didn't have much freedom in the room, there was nothing to do. It was just a room, dressed up like a crappy office with a tall clock and a rug. It even had a plant in it, god knows how the thing was still growing seeing as Deidara never saw anyone going around with a sprinkler to water the damn thing. Perhaps Zetsu took care of it, now that was a thought.
He caught the corner of someone's dark robe as they passed by the doorway in the tiny slit of a window, but made no large attempt to try to attract the person's attention because he didn't see a way that someone who had any sense of intelligence would let him out. He would kill someone if he got out of that room in that moment..
Deidara turned away from the door with a heavy sigh, his chest rising and falling against the chiming of the clock.
Chime. Chime. Chime. Chime.
"God damn you, Nagato."
