Disclaimer, etc.: See Chapter One.
Author's Note: Thanks so much to Sasha V., kally77, and sasodei-iz-awesome for the lovely reviews! They really brightened my day.
Flesh and Blood
by Kantayra
Chapter Two – The Path of Each Man's Genius
"So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
--
Seven years ago…
A cascade of explosions ripped through the night air, illuminating the woods with a scattering of bright flashes of light. Deidara was, once again, in a tirade and, as usual, he left a wave of destruction in his wake.
"I'm going to fucking murder them all!" Deidara hissed vehemently. "Katsu!" The ground at the edge of their campsite erupted into flames in response.
Sasori whipped Hiruko's tail around himself defensively as bits of fire and sod fell from above. "Watch it, brat," he hissed. Hiruko's eyes flitted about warily, eyeing the sheer number of clay creations flying around the clearing in complete chaos.
"Katsu!" Deidara screamed again, and another two explosions boomed through the night.
It seemed Deidara was setting them off entirely at random. "Calm yourself," Sasori's scorpion tail flashed menacingly in the firelight, "or I'll do it for you."
Furious blue eyes turned on Sasori in response. "By all means, Master," Deidara hissed. "Better to die with a bang than live as a slave, yeah?"
"Tch." Sasori rolled Hiruko's eyes. "Don't be so melodramatic."
"Isn't that what we all are?" Deidara snapped. With an errant wave of his hand, another half dozen of the clay birds that swarmed about them exploded.
"And blowing your own head off by accident is an improvement?" Sasori kept one eye on a clay grasshopper that had just landed a bit too close to Hiruko's feet. The explosion wouldn't be enough to damage Hiruko significantly, but repairing the paint job would be a bother. "Wait. I take it back. Blowing your head off would be an improvement."
Deidara turned to face him, index and middle fingers raised in preparation for detonation. Then he paused for a moment, and instead waved the clay grasshopper off. It eventually blew up harmlessly by the edge of the woods.
"I hate it…" Deidara sighed, seeming to finally calm down. "It's humiliating." He slumped to the ground beside the campfire, which had burned continuously through Deidara's outburst. In time with his motions, the dozen or so clay animals that still swarmed about them came to an abrupt halt as well, suddenly lifeless as they awaited further orders from their master.
Sasori couldn't exactly argue with Deidara's point. Deidara was the newest member of Akatsuki, so by default his team got all the grunt work. It was the way unwilling new recruits were always molded into conformity with Akatsuki's larger goals. It was also not a bad way to keep the senior members from murdering their younger, often annoying partners; being paired with a new recruit inevitably meant suffering the foulest missions Pain could come up with. Sasori still hadn't gotten the swamp-gunk out of Hiruko's joints after their last mission.
Deidara's face hardened as he stared deep into the campfire. "I won't do it anymore," he finally decided with conviction.
Sasori snorted. "You shouldn't say things like that."
"Why not?" Deidara countered. "You can kill me, yeah. Big deal."
"Death isn't the worst thing Leader can inflict," Sasori retorted. "Remember your fight with Itachi."
Deidara scowled at the memory. "Some day, I'll get my revenge…"
Sasori chuckled. "You're young yet," he offered indulgently.
"Then, please, wise Master Sasori," Deidara said sarcastically, "enlighten me." He leaned back on his elbows, the perfect picture of youthful defiance.
Sasori debated swatting him with his tail, just for good measure. In the long run, however, he just encouraged Deidara by responding to his provocations. Instead, he settled Hiruko down across the campfire from his young partner.
"First of all, don't think you're special, brat," he began gruffly.
Deidara quirked an eyebrow in interest.
"Only a fool would want to join Akatsuki. And Akatsuki members, for the most part, are not fools." Sasori kept Hiruko's eyes fixed on Deidara the entire time, and he could tell he had Deidara's attention now.
"Akatsuki members are chosen," Sasori continued, "from the most powerful ninjas in the world. They are also chosen from the most hardened killers. Outside Akatsuki, the odds of encountering a ninja powerful enough to destroy a potential recruit are quite small. Inside, it is guaranteed. This means that one would have to have a death wish to join willingly."
"Then why did you join, Master?" Deidara tilted his head to one side, studying the lines of Hiruko's face.
"You aren't the only one who was given little choice in the matter," Sasori said succinctly. "And you aren't the only one who has considered escape."
Deidara's eyes widened. "Then why—?"
"Quiet, boy!" Sasori snapped. "Your impetuous nature will get you killed."
"Why do you care, yeah?" Deidara retorted, arms crossed.
It was a very good question, and one Sasori couldn't answer. He supposed the easiest answer was that he didn't care, not really, but he'd grown accustomed to Deidara's presence these last few months, and it would be…quiet without the other man around. Deidara, at the very least, was reasonably competent in battle and worth some small entertainment to Sasori. If Deidara died, he had no guarantee that his next partner wouldn't be significantly worse.
"I don't," Sasori answered almost truthfully. "But someone needs to tell you this, and the burden has fallen to me."
"My sincerest condolences." Deidara could really be a smart-mouthed little snot when he wanted to.
"This is for your own good. I won't say it twice," Sasori warned.
Deidara, miraculously, shut up.
"If you tried to escape, you would hardly be the first. I've seen a dozen try over the years, and only one has succeeded. But even his success was a failure in the long run. He lives a half life now, deep in paranoia, running at all times from the enemies he has made. Leader will hunt him down until one of them is dead. It's only a matter of time." Sasori paused as he considered the matter. "The only real escape from Akatsuki is death."
"You don't mention him often," Deidara finally said softly. "Your old partner, yeah?"
Hiruko's features scowled. "He'll get what's coming to him." Sasori shook off the anger at this latest abandonment – it was irrelevant and far too human – before continuing. "The others who failed to escape were captured."
"And killed?"
"Not so many as you might think. Leader has…other ways of ensuring compliance. You have felt what Itachi can do in a second, with just his eyes. Yet even he doesn't dare leave. Leader's powers… Compared to them, the Mangekyou is nothing."
Deidara shivered in memory.
"After a few more rounds against Itachi, would you still have the will to fight? Leader can beat out that fire in a heartbeat. He's done it to countless others, and he'll do it to you, too." Hiruko's puppet teeth clacked. "The secret to escaping is to not try to escape. That way the will remains firm: cool and focused at all times. A proper escape from Akatsuki would take years in the making, maybe even decades."
Deidara considered him carefully. "You sound as if you're planning it, yeah?"
"If I were, I would never be foolish enough to discuss it with you, brat. Why do you think Leader makes us work in pairs? It's not for our social skills."
Deidara chuckled. "You think I'm going to rat you out to the boss." He seemed to consider the idea. "Interesting…"
"I, certainly, will 'rat you out' if you continue this foolish talk," Sasori informed him. "It will only make my loyalties seem that much firmer if I betray you."
"Lovely little organization you've got yourselves here." Deidara glared. "Good thing we're all already sociopaths."
"Think what you want, boy, but if you're smart, you'll keep it to yourself." With that, Sasori retracted Hiruko's arms back into the carapace so he could resume removing the muck from the joints, as he had been before Pain's image had fizzled into existence and provided them with their latest assignment.
Deidara was quiet for some time, and Sasori briefly entertained the hope that some of what he'd said had sunk in. When Deidara finally spoke, though, there was nothing diminished in his convictions. "I am an artist. An artist cannot work without the freedom to express himself however he is inspired to do so. Better to finish it now and remain true to myself than let my art grow dull and stale."
Sasori rolled Hiruko's eyes. "You blow things up," he grumbled. "That's not art!"
"See?" Deidara said triumphantly. "You've fallen under their control, and already your appreciation for art's variety has narrowed. How many great masterpieces have you created since joining Akatsuki, hmm?"
"To the true artist," Sasori retorted acerbically, "the perfect escape would be the ultimate masterpiece."
Across the fire from him, Deidara's breath caught in his throat. The silence between them was almost deafening as Sasori's words sunk in.
"You're correct of course, Master," Deidara finally said, a small smile in his voice. "I've underestimated your ingenuity, yeah?"
Sasori grunted, but the damage had already been done. For better or for worse and despite his better judgment, Sasori had revealed that there was a master plan, after all…
--
Present day…
Sasori awoke slowly, groggy and confused. He still wasn't used to dreaming again, and the trip his subconscious mind had taken into the past disoriented him at first.
Also, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why his stomach felt wet, hot, and sticky.
He grunted and reached out with his chakra to pull the strings in his hand. It didn't work, and it took him a moment to remember that he was in an actual living, breathing, human body now. Chakra strings didn't apply.
He tried moving his hand using the muscles and joints, and this time he succeeded in rubbing at his eyes. The morning light snuck in through the cracks around the edge of the blinds, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust: yet another pointless and painful experience humans had to go through daily. Sasori couldn't wait to have a wooden body once more.
With his mind sharp again, Sasori turned his attention to the gooey puddle around his navel. The situation was made slightly more difficult by the fact that, at some point in the night, the weather had cooled off, and Deidara was now sleeping on his stomach right next to him, his arm flung over Sasori's waist. It was just typical of Deidara to make everything as difficult as possible.
Deidara let out a muffled complaint in his sleep when Sasori moved his arm, but didn't wake. However, Sasori only got halfway through moving Deidara when he suddenly realized what the thick liquid was and made a face.
The clear, gooey mess clung to his stomach and Deidara's hand, creating a long string of liquid between the two. As Sasori watched, the liquid grew thicker as the tongue in Deidara's hand lolled about and more saliva dribbled from his palm.
"Just great." Deidara's left hand had been drooling on him all night. Sasori shoved the arm back into Deidara's direction with annoyance. "How absolutely, ridiculously human," he muttered under his breath.
Hideaki's bathroom didn't have a shower, so Sasori used the sink to wash off the spot of drool. It had sunk all the way through the t-shirt he'd been wearing, and he chucked the garment aside in distaste. After he was done wiping down his stomach, he tossed the cloth in the wash bin on top of his shirt. Now that Deidara was back, and always willing to take on that particular chore, Sasori felt less need to keep things out of the laundry for as long as possible.
With that mess taken care of, Sasori returned to the mundane details of the life he was temporarily trapped in. Next to the morning paraphernalia he'd been forced to purchase, he noticed that the side of the sink was now stacked with three new tubes of toothpaste. A small box, containing several dozen more, was under the sink. Deidara had six mouths to clean, so he always bought in bulk.
Grateful that he only had one set of teeth to worry about – although even that was more of a bother than he wanted – Sasori opened up his own toothpaste. Thankfully, he'd already remastered this pointless menial task enough that his mind could drift to more important matters.
This, of course, was well-nigh impossible when Deidara suddenly burst in with the urgent request, "Gotta pee!"
Sasori quickly turned his full attention to cleaning his molars and not to the absolutely absurd sigh of relief that Deidara let out when he reached the toilet. Sometimes, Deidara really needed more personal boundaries.
"It's a nice day today, yeah, Master?" Deidara crowded around the sink with Sasori to wash his fingers when he was done, and Sasori let him. "We should be able to get a lot done before your puppet's guard shift this afternoon." And then Deidara set to brushing his teeth.
The first time Sasori had witnessed this bizarre yet strangely fascinating event, even he hadn't been able to keep from gaping. Deidara brushing his teeth was a full-body effort that took the coordination of an acrobat and the flexibility of a gymnast.
Deidara started by putting a healthy dab of toothpaste onto two of his toothbrushes. The one he held in his left fingers and used on his regular mouth was perfectly ordinary. The other one, which his right hand used on the mouth in his chest, was a special design with extra firm bristles that only fanned to the sides when Deidara's thumb flicked the switch near the end of the brush. The bristles were designed to get in and around the stitches that sewed his chest mouth closed and could even reach the backs of Deidara's molars there without him opening the mouth. Deidara had explained this all to him once after Sasori had shown unusual interest in the object.
Humming slightly to himself, Deidara brushed the two mouths at the same time, his right hand moving the brush bristles deftly through the stitches in his chest without Deidara even having to look in the mirror. Sasori supposed that sort of muscle memory came from doing the same bizarre thing every day of your life.
"I want to get your arms fixed first," Sasori announced curtly, spitting out his own toothpaste and rinsing his mouth. Unlike the minty flavor Deidara mass-purchased, he'd found a simple baking soda brand that was virtually tasteless. "The new stitches will need time to heal."
"Sounds good to me, yeah?" Deidara turned on the tap water and filled the rinser he used for the mouth on his chest. He spit out the toothpaste in his regular mouth.
Sasori found himself in the stupidly mundane predicament that he had to use the facilities but was too embarrassed to do so while Deidara could see him right in the mirror. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and shifted nervously from foot to foot. As soon as I can switch back into a puppet body, he swore to himself, never again…
There were only so many humiliations an S-Class ninja could take before he snapped, after all.
"You should probably sleep after that," Sasori said aloud. "Your chakra still hasn't recovered fully from that foolhardy fake death of yours."
Deidara grinned at him saucily and finished rinsing out the mouth in his chest. The lips there swished around a bit, before parting just enough to spit the water back into the sink. That completed, Deidara pulled out two ordinary toothbrushes, filled them with toothpaste, and promptly dropped down to the floor in the lotus position.
"It's like a vacation, yeah?" Deidara began rigorously brushing the teeth on the insides of his ankles, right-hand brush on the left foot and left-hand brush on the right.
"If you consider narrowly avoiding death, posing as a civilian, and undergoing major surgery a vacation," Sasori snorted. Then he switched to the other foot. He really had to go.
Deidara smirked at him knowingly. "I promise I won't peek," he teased.
Sasori glared at him. "Just hurry up, brat."
"You know, Itsutsu was the exactly same way. It's funny."
"I am nothing like that freak!" Sasori snapped. Nanajuuichi Itsutsu was Deidara's ex-boyfriend from Iwa. Deidara just loved to regale Sasori about the time they spent together. This was a problem because Itsutsu was a very distinct individual in that—
"You're just saying that because he has five dicks," Deidara insisted. Deidara stood up and lifted one leg so that the mouth there could spit into the sink. He poured a bit of water into it, and it swished about happily.
"Well, obviously." Sasori tapped his foot anxiously. As happened every time Deidara mentioned his ex, Sasori was immediately assaulted with the logistics of why they'd obviously been together in the first place: five dicks and six mouths. He didn't need that image in his head first thing in the morning. Hell, he didn't need that image in his head ever.
Deidara repeated the process with the other foot and then filled his toothbrushes once more. Sasori still couldn't help but be a little impressed that Deidara had the dexterity to make his two hands brush each other at the same time. The motion seemed like it should be hopelessly awkward, yet Deidara did it like it was second nature.
"You hurry up," Deidara shot back, wandering back into the bedroom as he brushed his palms. "I'll need the sink again soon."
Sasori debated throwing the bottle of mouthwash at Deidara's head as he walked out, but in the end it just didn't seem sinister enough. Sasori really needed to build himself another scorpion tail soon.
Letting out a breath of relief, Sasori satisfied himself with the thought that at least Deidara looked more frog-faced than usual with his hair hacked off and dyed dark. It was some limited consolation.
He watched his face in the mirror as he washed his hands afterwards, taking in each and every human arch. The features were almost entirely his now, although there was a certain broadness to Hideaki's jaw that hadn't entirely faded yet. His eyes were entirely silvery-grey, thankfully; it had been strange to see himself through black eyes when he'd first awoken. The red roots of his hair were showing about a quarter of an inch. A little bit longer, and Sasori would cut off the pale green ends.
It was unnerving to see flesh and blood staring back at him like this. He'd been in this body for a little over a month now, and the sight never failed to make something deep inside him queasy. "Mortal…" he whispered to himself in disgust. "Weak. Human…" His fingers reached up to touch the curve of his jaw-line and felt the beginnings of rough stubble there. It was itchy and uncomfortable, and everything Sasori wanted to escape.
"I hate it," he breathed, shutting his eyes.
Naturally, at that point Deidara banged on the door. It sounded weirdly muffled, like Deidara was using his elbow or some other body part not designed for knocking. "How long does it take that body to pee, anyway?" he shouted loud enough that the neighbors probably heard. "I can't brush forever, yeah?"
"Shut up, brat." Sasori snapped out of his self-reflection and opened the door once more.
Deidara slid right past him as if absolutely nothing were unusual about the whole situation. Sasori halfheartedly swatted at the back of his head as he took over his position in front of the sink. "Try not to take forever. I want to get going."
"Tch," Deidara teased, "look who's talking."
Sasori shook his head and returned to the bedroom to meditate. It was a rigorous routine he had to follow now to make sure that he successfully took hold in this human body in every way. Bit-by-bit, he pushed his consciousness into the cells of his body, snuffing out the remnants of Hideaki. He focused on his jaw that morning because it was the one part of his face that still looked alien to him. With enough work, it would soon be his again…
About halfway through his meditation, Deidara began banging around in the kitchen in the most distracting manner imaginable, making breakfast.
Strangely enough, there was something Sasori found very reassuring about it all.
And there's chapter two. I should have chapter three up in the next couple of days. Thanks for reading, and thanks even more to everyone who hits that review button! All comments are appreciated.