XXX

Deidara

Without his hands, the journey would have to be at a crawl, already two days, which wasn't helping Sasori's impatient attitude. Because he had lost so much blood from his unfortunate loss of limbs, moving around so much made them travel by foot, instead of going tree leaping.

"So tell me, Sasori, what did happen to those puppets of yours?" he asked jovially, nudging his partner again. "Come on, I'm dying to find out what they did to push you so far, hmm!"

"I was distracted with other things. It wasn't that they pushed me far, I was toying with them to give them a false sense of victory."

As much as I don't want to believe in his strength, it's probably likely. He's always had it out for this Granny. Even with her legendary puppet mastery and that girl's power, those two never stood the ghost of a chance.

"Then what about Hiruko?" he said instead, keeping his thoughts to himself. "You never let your little flesh guys get destroyed like that."

The puppet's head spun around and glared. "They're human puppets. And you shouldn't be talking like my work is invincible, they can only be pushed to so much magnificence. Every stroke in art can create an error. Hiruko was my favorite, but now that he's been destroyed, he's simply another error. There's no sense of wanting to keep a tool that's already proven to be flawed. I'll create myself a new puppet soon, and that'll be that." He turned away again, staring straight ahead. "Now stop asking these tedious questions and walk faster."

He bit back a curse and shuffled faster. If I wasn't so badly hurt...

"What happened with the Nine-Tails?"

"Oh, so now you can ask questions but I can't, hmm?"

"My questions are relevant to the mission we were sent on, yours are pointless and only trying to find reasons to find superiority in your art."

"Oh haha, funny man."

One of the flawless puppet arms came up and twirled it's index finger in a swirling motion, while Sasori continued to look ahead. "Come on. Speak."

He shrugged, not wanting to anger Sasori. "Fine, fine. The jinchuuriki and Kakashi were tailing me, and then one of them - I'm assuming Kakashi, the kid looked pretty confused- hit me with some weird long-distance jutsu that sucked my arm off-"

A sound like a choked laugh came from the living puppet.

"You think that's funny?"

"Just thinking about what it's like being flesh and bones again. Don't mind me, do go on."

He's enjoying himself, mister "I don't care about anything, my art is so superior, I'm not human." I almost wish those two women had pushed him enough to scare that constant smirk off his face.

"Then I crashed into the forest and nearly got killed by the jinchuuriki. He went through a transformation, but Hatake stopped him with some sort of sealing jutsu. Then I ran into even more trouble, but I fought them off effortlessly, hmm." He puffed out his chest, making what was left of his shoulders broader. "Even with no arms, I still showed them what's what."

"Right, right..."

Something was off in Sasori's voice, and he started. Nothing was ever off in Sasori's voice. "What are you thinking about, Sasori my man, hmm?"

They were exiting the forest, approaching a fork in the road. One detailed to the path towards Harachi Village, on the border of Konohagakure and Amegakure, and which also happened to contain the main hideout. The other trail was towards Tenchi Bridge, and further on, Otogakure, the Land of Sound.

Sasori turned to face him. "Go on towards the base. I have to do something first."

Deidara blinked. "What are you talking about, we're returning to base, hmm!"

"I have an appointment with one of my more treasured spies, I'm not going to miss it, nor am I going to be late by waiting around for you to limp along."

"What the hell, you can't just walk off like that and leave me hanging! I don't even have any arms!"

"Didn't you just say you fought four shinobi perfectly without any?"

Dammit, the one time he could be bothered to listen. He bit his lip to prevent himself from making a plea that would've sounded desperate. "Oh fine, just get out of here then. Don't let me slow you down, hmm!"

"Glad we understand each other. See you in a few days."

Sasori took off so quickly Deidara thought his magnification eye had malfunctioned for a moment. Damn him, always speeding off and never wanting to work together. How come all the rest of them stick together and get to work on these crazy combination moves? Oh, that's because my good-for-nothing partner always sends me off alone like this!

He closed his eyes, calming himself. "Doesn't matter," he said aloud to himself. "I don't need him either. He could have died back there and I wouldn't have even cared!"

The words sounded hollow as one of Sasori's puppets.

XXX

Sasori

He had been right there, in front of him, back at the cave. What would he have done, had he known who he really was then?

I didn't even know that he had had a son. This is...

The only emotions he allowed himself to show anymore were amusement and impatience. The rest had been tucked away along with the rest of his humanity. Countless months of pain as he had experimented upon himself to become the perfect being. A weapon in itself. No one in the world would ever be able to match up to him. He had heard that a few years ago the Village of Artisans had risen up in his own home country, trying to recreate the "Human Weapon" concept.

They had never come close. He had surpassed them before they had even begun their research.

And a weapon knows only how to kill, not to feel emotions. He angrily clutched the front of his dark cloak, his wooden fingers easily tearing through the fabric to scrape against his wooden chest. There was no satisfaction in the gesture; he dropped his hand and clenched it instead. Then why am I feeling like this? He's just a person of the past that I cast away with my humanity. Nothing more!

He looked up at the sky, trying to loosen his mind. The sun had set without him noticing it; he was walking alone in the darkness. Being a puppet that knew no age, only a loose concept of time, the changes of days never concerned him.

Foolish Deidara was at risk. Without his arms, the source of his jutsu, Deidara would be a sitting duck. He didn't exactly care for Deidara's well being, he was just a side show, always blabbering about his sculptures, trying to impress Sasori. Deidara's self-absorption would get him killed at a young age, he knew. Kids like him always think they're so strong, overconfidence brimming over the pot of his limitations. Maybe tonight will be the day I bury him instead, who knows. It's not my concern.

He preferred to be away from Deidara. He was used to working alone. A puppet master never shared his secrets with another, they always worked in seclusion. That, in addition to being a S-rank rogue shinobi, he had rarely shared another's company. Seclusion was what he was best at. His impatience came from always having done things at his own fast pace; having a talkative, distracting partner around slowed things down, ruined that speed. Yes, things were always better alone.

Perhaps he would take his revenge alone, too-

No! Enough of thinking like that. The past is forgotten. Granny Chiyo was the last tie to the past, and she's dead at last. No remorse. No second thoughts. None of that-

There was a snag in that. He had almost let himself be killed- almost died, what the hell?- for some inexplicable reason. What had caused it? There's no logic behind it, no reasoning to supplement that action. I'm a weapon without thought, I am the ultimate magnificence of the shinobi, a calculating machine.

But he had said it himself. Even magnificence had limitations. Every stroke of art could create an error.

His core was whirring with calculation and thought. There was only one explanation. The killing of Granny Chiyo. The influx of emotions. The appearance of this specter of the past.

He didn't believe in coincidences. There was no factual way to support them.

Coincidences weren't logical. But the inner, deepest part of the mind that created thought and awareness, were.

And that meant a part of him still retained his humanity. And that meant he was still weak. And that meant he had to solve the problem.

Crack. He had clenched his hands to an inhuman strenght, and the wood had been unable to handle the pressure. He examined it. A small crack ran long from the palm to the wrist, yet another imperfection.

He relaxed, trying to calm himself. When he reached Tenchi Bridge and met Kabuto, the spy he had implanted into Orochimaru's service long ago, the information would sooth him. Knowledge was a useful thing, more powerful than any jutsu.

Knowledge is power.

A single sign on the beaten path. Tenchi Bridge- 1 Mile. Please tread carefully if wind currents are stronger than normal.

He would get his information, then meditate on how best to kill Kakashi Hatake, the son of the man who had killed his parents. Chiyo had said it had been a brief, unfair battle. An assassination.

He had never known the murderer had had a son. He wondered if Hatake knew who he even was, if he knew of their connection of blood.

A small smile tugged at his mouth as the bridge came into view. A single man stood on it, standing stoically, observing, glasses shining as the morning sun arose.

Knowledge is power. And when enough power is available, anything is possible.

Time was a loose concept to him. He would dismiss the past when he washed Kakashi's lifeblood off his hands.

XXX

Deidara

"Hey, easy, easy!"

"Would you relax, I know what I'm doing."

"You say that, but you never wen't to medical scho- SON OF A-"

"Shut up!"

Kakuzu finished putting the last thread in, and suddenly there was a rush of impossible amounts of life running along his left side. He exhaled in satisfaction, quietly sucking back up the tear that had been forming in his right eye.

The old warrior of the Akatsuki stood up. "Flex it."

He did so. His right arm, so kindly retrieved by Zetsu from his battle with Kakashi and the jinchuuriki, was once again attached to him. The mouth on his palm suddenly stuck its lolling tongue back in its mouth, and the teeth came together in a smile.

Kakuzu watched him with mild disgust. "Alright, alright. Now what do you want to do about the right? There isn't another one of your special arms lying around to justu sew back on."

Yes, that was a problem. Fortunately, the solution was fairly simple. "If you can just sew on a regular arm, I can perform the ancient technique to restore the mouth onto it, restoring the kekkai genkai."

"Whatever goes, art boy. You're lucky Hidan has an infatuation with limbs of deceased peoples."

XXX

Some time later, the second arm was fully attached. At first, it had resisted connecting to his body due to the regularity of the arm and the uniqueness of his body structure caused by the Explosion Kekkai Genkai. Kakuzu had found a solution by creating a medium of both the arm's and Deidara's cells and mixing them together into a blended, wrinkly red tissue. The arm was now attached and functioning properly.

Kakuzu stood up, shaking his hands free of some stray blood droplets. "Done. Now don't do something stupid again, if you can manage it."

Deidara held up his arms in protest. "How is it every time I get injured it's because I'm stupid? Where's the damn justice, hmm!"

The older man's eye twitched with the ending grunt. "Just don't have me sewing on your arms again." He walked away into another section of the hideout. Deidara looked around. Everyone was in a deeper section or occupied elsehwere. It was just him and the towering Gedo Statue for company.

"My art is my best kept secret, hmm," he said to the statue. "You won't tell anyone about this, right?"

The statue did not reply. Not that he had expected it to, but he wanted something to be there to witness the ultimate show. And what better thing was that than a statue that would never come to life?

He placed his palms together. He felt the right hand recoil upon contact, but he kept them together.

"Hiden Iwagakure Kinjutsu: Material Animation."

The air around him started to hum, the molecules trembling as his chakra stretched out. He grunted, focusing it into his left arm.

The secret to his art was really two separate techniques. His kekkai genkai allowed his chakra to turn into powerful explosions, imbuing it into whatever he wanted. However, this proved to be a problem as there were not always objects available. The answer had arrived in a kinjutsu of Iwagakure, the Material Animation Technique. By taking in malleable material through mouths created on the users hands, the user was able to put his chakra into the said object. The clay he wielded was such a material, easy to acquire and meeting the requirements.

Plus, it had solved his desire to find art. Now he could create these fine sculptures, and then detonate them into even more masterful creations.

The hand was beginning to form on his palm. He gritted his teeth; the pain was high. The flesh ripped open, and teeth emerged where teeth should have never existed. The tongue protruded next as the muscles contracted into softer tissue.

He shakily slowed his chakra flow, breathing heavily. Blood ran down his palm, but he had accomplished what he needed. His arms had been restored, and that meant he was back to full strength. The artist was back in action!

And now it's time to rub it all in Sasori's face, hmm! I'll show him who's "to slow" when I'm soaring above his head!