Part 1

Chapter 2

Sayomi's POV

As our time in the Academy began I deliberately didn't want to follow Deidara around all the time. I guess we were friends but I was afraid I may be getting on his nerves if I stick close. However, I found myself sitting next to him on class more than I could count. He would sometimes bring his clay with him to the Academy and sculpt things over the break and I would watch him, asking him questions when I was bored.

"Do you have a name for your art?" I asked him once and he nodded. "I call it pop-art."

"Why?" He looked at me before raising his palm in the air, gesturing at the clay spider he had just made.

"What do you think this is?" I tilted my head.

"It's a spider...except it's also not like any spider I've ever seen."

"That's because this is my version of a spider. I see it in my head and by sculpting it I make it even closer to truly being alive, un."

"So did the idea for this spider just...pop up in your brain?" I chuckled and he rolled his eyes.

"If that's what you want to call inspiration, then sure."

"Yeah but why out of clay?"

"Don't mind what the Old Geezer says, un. We have plenty of clay in the village." I wondered how he discovered that. "And I told you I have to sculpt them to make them truly appear alive. A drawing wouldn't portray that the way I wanted it. This isn't portraying them how I want to, un."

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't developed my art to the fullest." He looked at me. "One day I will, un."

"Wonder how will that look. What could possibly top this?"

He smirked. "I'll show you, un."

I would sometimes catch other kids looking at us from afar and whispering something among themselves. I thought they were making fun of his art so I ignored them, until one day I heard that they weren't talking about Deidara's art, but about us.

Specifically, how both of us were different from them. They didn't mention anything relating to his art and after a while I had to conclude they were probably talking about both of us being war orphans. There really was nothing else I could see us being different in except that.

From that point onward I decided I didn't want to be friends with any of them and would instead seek out Deidara whenever I wanted company.

Sometimes we didn't even talk. We would just sit there on classes, then go train in kunai and shuriken throwing. All of that was fun until we moved on to taijutsu, which I really hated.

I was no good in landing punches. Not because I didn't want to hurt others but because in my mind I saw myself not fast enough to dodge their counter-punch. So getting close enough to someone to get punched was something I avoided at all cost. Instead I jumped around, dodged, and I mean really dodged everything I could. Sensei was at first impressed by me being so fast to avoid so many attacks, but after a while he figured I never land any punches. I just wait until the other person is too tired to continue and Sensei calling it a day. He scolded me of course. I should try to hit my opponent. The point of the exercise is to spar and exchange punches not dodge every single one and never land one. I have to stop being so soft.

I didn't try to explain to him that I didn't want to be the one ending up getting punched in return for throwing a first punch. I knew he wouldn't get it but also, I knew it was completely irrational. I tried to work on it. I would tell myself 'okay, I will punch him, this time I will', but useless. My feet would still move away in the last second, feeling in my gut telling me to get away.

Deidara had no problem with that. His punches always landed, and rarely did someone manage to punch him. If that did happen, he wouldn't even flinch, just hit them back harder.

So I figured, if Deidara doesn't even flinch when someone hits him, how bad can these kids really hit? Maybe if I get hit I'll get used to pain and fear and eventually punch them back. Maybe I'll grow angry and lash out. I decided to do that next time I spar. Just stand there Sayomi, don't move, and let yourself get punched.

The kid managed to throw me on the ground with his punch and I laid there, feeling my cheek and chin hurting like hell. Tears welled up in my eyes and I thought how punches are never painless. What was I thinking?

"Ha ha, she's crying!" The kid yelled as I sat up, my hand on my bruised cheek. I felt angry, but I didn't throw myself at him. Now I had even more of a reason to avoid getting myself punched.

"That was so cool Ryotaro!" Other kids came to him as I kept sitting on the floor. "You're the first one to land a punch on her." I stood up, dusting my pants off and I was just about to go inside when I saw Deidara standing near, looking at the scene with the rest of the kids.

To my surprise he came to me. "Why did you let him punch you?"

"I didn't." I didn't want to admit it. He crossed his hands. "Yeah right, un. All of a sudden you-„

"I guess he was faster than me!" I threw my hands in the air, ignoring his furrowed brows. It didn't look like he believed me.

So when it came to taijutsu, I really wasn't doing much. It would be an insult to taijutsu to call all that dodging taijutsu. I was just demonstrating my speed, which proved to be the only thing I have. I wasn't particularly strong, my grades were good though but that couldn't help me out in real combat, and regardless of me having good aim with my kunai and shuriken it didn't bring me much hope of ever becoming Genin.

Only thing I had left was ninjutsu. If I could do good and powerful ninjutsu, there was still hope for me as a kunoichi.

At last came that day. We were to practice making earth clones. I knew how chakra worked, how each seal is made, I only needed to make it all right and produce an earth clone.

"Doton: Earth Clone!" Deidara next to me said and from the ground in front of him grew a rock, taking on Deidara's form and appearance.

"Doton: Earth Clone." I said so myself, doing the seals. The ground moved up, taking my appearance but even after full-sized me stood in front of me, I could tell something was wrong. I couldn't discern what but then Sensei came to inspect our clones.

"Good job, Deidara." Then his eyes narrowed at my clone.

"Your earth clone has less chakra in it than it should have, Sayomi. Try modelling more in it next time. Like this it's useless." And he just had to demonstrate that by pushing my clone on the ground so the other kids laughed at my demise. I exhaled, looking at the shattered pieces of my clone on the ground.

Okay, so chakra control, right? I just had to get good at controlling my chakra.

I spent afternoons after that class in the forest on the other part of the village, because Sensei said there are certain types of training to help one get a hold of chakra control.

First test was to walk on top of the tree.

It took me just one afternoon to be able to do that. I walked up and down the tree trunk, my feet glued to the wood by my chakra. Okay, if I can do that, I can do the clone.

No good. Again, it was too weak. So I went onto the next type of training: walking on water.

This one took me two days but in the end I could walk on both running and still water. Once again I tried doing the earth clone, but the results repeated.

My last resort was to ask Deidara. I jumped on his side of the balcony and he looked up from his clay sculpture in progress.

"Can you please help me with the earth clone jutsu?" I asked.

"And I wondered why you weren't home, un." He stood up.

"I was practicing my chakra control. I still can't do a clone that doesn't crumble immediately."

We went to the roof. "Just mold your chakra into a swirl, right somewhere behind your bellybutton and then make sure that when you do your seals you feel chakra going out of your body and into the clone. It's not that difficult, un."

"Right I know, a swirl. But which way should a swirl go?" That confused him. "That doesn't matter!"

"What if it does?" He rolled his eyes. "Mine goes to the right. But don't concentrate on that, concentrate on your chakra going into the clone."

I did and the clone emerged, but same as ever. Deidara destroyed it by lightly tapping it.

"You're really hopeless in this, un." I puffed out loud, looking at the sky and then back down. "One more time."

"Fine. Doton: Earth Clone." We said at the same time. Earth Deidara turned earth Sayomi into bits and I felt myself losing my mind. I really couldn't believe that even after realizing ninjutsu was my only hope, it proved to be a bust as well.

"Maybe you're bad at controlling chakra?" But that was precisely the point. I wasn't.

"But I'm not! I completed all the training made for mastering chakra control!" He looked at me, fingers of his right hand on his chin. "Walking on tree?"

"I can do it."

"Walking on water?"

"Also."

"Then I don't know, un."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I'm not Sensei." He threw his hands in the air. "I don't know why you can't do it."

"Tch." I kept going at it until I ran out of chakra but nothing changed no matter how much I practiced. In the end I went back to my flat, sulking in bed for the rest of the day. Maybe I should try some other type of jutsu. Maybe I should be a medic ninja?

I couldn't try myself in genjutsu yet because we only learned how to determine whether you're trapped in genjutsu or not, not how to cast it. Taijutsu was a dodging game for me, earth clones were still subpar, and when I tried medic ninjutsu by myself in the library, it didn't go as planned.

Was my talent that I was untalented at everything?

Deidara was excelling. Akatsuchi as well. And goddamn Tsuchikage's granddaughter that was younger than us was better than me. But I couldn't really hate Kurotsuchi since she was always laughing when Deidara and I goofed around on the roof of Tsuchikage's office. She came to know us very young, and therefore reffered to us as Deidara-nii and Sayomi-nee.

But hell, my hopes that were up before now began to descend rapidly. I didn't seem to be excelling at anything. Whatever Earth Style Jutsu we did I was just subpar in it. I didn't understand why or what was going on, and I was constantly angry at myself for not being able to figure it out.

My frustrations were near boiling point two weeks before graduation. So when Sensei said to split into groups of two and be the first to capture flag from him, I was very much surprised when Deidara came to ask me to team up.

"Really? Have you seen me? I can't do anything!" He put his hair in ponytail, ignoring my desperate cries.

"I'll go in and grab the flag and then halfway to the safe point I'll pass it to you, un. You can dodge whoever comes in to take it from you, right?" I stared at him, mildly in shock.

"Okay." We separated and at some point I began to doubt him even getting his hands on the flag, but nevertheless I stayed on my tiptoes in the forest, making sure I don't miss him when he arrives. Then I saw him, yellow in all that green, and then a lot of brown and black, hair colours of other kids who were after him. I ran closer, then up the tree where I crouched on the branch. He was coming closer from the other side of the trees and he soon noticed me. We shared a look and I understood. We switched branches, him passing me the flag in midair. Then once I landed on the other side, we both jumped back up, exchanging sides once again. We did so because like this, Deidara managed to kick the kid that was right after him, and I landed on my side that was free of enemies, from which I could advance forward.

The plan worked. We won. It was the first thing that made me happy in months of me being frustrated as hell by my own lack of skill. It gave me hope, once again.

Then I heard whispers from other kids, and at first I thought it was just them being angry, but what they said about us made me think.

"It's the two of them again. They're always close but they're both so weird."

"Yeah, they're completely different than the rest of us." It was the same thing I heard before. I knew that. We were different because we were war orphans.

Then I looked at Deidara's ponytail slowly falling apart, and it hit me.

Us being war orphans had nothing to do with them considering us different. It was something else. Deidara was the only blond kid in the Academy, the only one who had a combination of blue eyes and blond hair. This was unusual for Iwa, as almost everyone had either black or brown hair and eyes. As for me, I was the only kid in the Academy that couldn't do Earth Style Jutsu, even though by my dark brown hair and eyes one would instantly pinpoint me as an Iwa shinobi.

That's what made us different. We were both familiar and unfamiliar to them, each of us in their own way. And that's why we stuck close, because we didn't think of one another as different and unfamiliar.

In the end I managed to graduate from the Academy. What saved me were my exam scores, but barely, and I had to endure with a straight face seeing my name on the board as the worst student. Exam scores didn't make up a lot of percentage here; taijutsu and ninjutsu were valued more.

A day before getting assigned in teams of three and a jonin to monitor us, I debated very seriously in my head should I continue with the ninja training or not. Maybe I wasn't fit for one? What if I'm just prolonging the inevitable, the inevitable being me getting told that I'm not going to become a ninja, ever. Maybe my destiny is to be a baker? A ramen shop owner?

"Oi Sayomi!" I heard Deidara's voice from the outside, which stirred me away from my thinking. I went outside and saw Deidara standing on the fence, his hands behind his back.

"What?"

"Look what I found, un." He brought his hands up front, showing me a brown Tsuchikage hat.

I opened my eyes in shock. "But that's...Deidara what did you do?" He chuckled. "I was passing Tsuchikage's office and saw he left the window open, with the hat on the desk. There was no one inside either. So I borrowed it, un." He put it on his head and grinned.

"What do you think?" I burst out laughing.

"Oi!"

"Looks good. But you just stole Tsuchikage's hat."

"I borrowed it, un!" I continued to laugh. The hat did suit him though, especially when he tilted it towards his left eye where his bangs were.

"Come on, try it." He threw the hat towards me. I caught it, looking at the sign on it.

"Nah, I'm not the one who wants to become Tsuchikage." I jumped on the fence, putting it back on his head.

He looked at me. "We should go and return it."

"Yeah, before he loses his mind, un." We laughed but went to Tsuchikage's office.

"Kurotsuchi, have you seen my hat?" Tsuchikage was flying in front of the entrance to the building, talking to his granddaughter.

"Nope. C'mon grandpa, you promised you'll let me fly today!"

"Wait until I find my hat!" We were on the roof of the building, looking at them from the edge.

"There's no way I can go into his office without him seeing me, un."

"Do you want me to distract him?" I proposed.

"Try not to be too suspicious."

"Hey!"

"Oh hi Deidara-nii, Sayomi-nee!" Kurotsuchi yelled and we froze.

"Goddamit, un." Kurotsuchi was waving at us and Tsuchikage looked up, becoming red.

"Deidara! Sayomi! This crossed the line!"

"Run." I burst out laughing, running after Deidara who while fleeing had enough sense to drop the hat back on Tsuchikage's head.

"One day that will be my hat, Old Geezer!" Deidara yelled while I waved back at Kurotsuchi before running away with him.

"You know, you'll also need to find teammates who'll support you." I yelled to Deidara as we jumped from rooftop to a rooftop.

"What do you mean, un?"

"Someone who will believe in your art besides yourself." I explained. "What was that about teammates?" He asked.

"Well we're getting assigned into teams tomorrow." He stopped for a second and I looked at him from another rooftop. Before I could ask him what was going on he leaped forward again, so I followed.

"But I'm sure it'll be fine. I mean, look at me, I still have to find what I'm good at." I said as we landed on our balconies.

"Or you know, I'll open up a ramen shop, that's fine too." I smiled, but he didn't look at me.

"Well, see you tomorrow." I entered my flat wondering why he behaved so strange, but quickly shrugging it off.


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