Just a small slightly annoying note: if you're going to review don't just ask me to update; that is a given. I would rather have some criticism.

Morbid Humour

Chapter Four: Shadows on the Wall

Two ninja in straw hats and black coats with red clouds on them landed on the main road. There was a wooden signpost on the side of the road with Japanese streamers hanging from it and worn down text. They ignored the signpost but stopped by it so that the smaller ninja could bend down and touch the ground.

"Ah, so this is what the soil of Fire Country feels like, un. If the soil quality is so good there must also be good clay, perfect for my art, un," said the small one.

The taller ninja scoffed. "Stop playing in the dirt Deidara."

Deidara stopped stroking the ground and stood up. He turned to glare at his partner with his visible eye. "I'm not interested in dirt, Kisame no danna, I'm interested in art, un. I wish I was still paired with Tobi rather than you. "

"Calm down, if the leader knew that we were arguing he'd have both of our heads," Kisame said lightly. He grabbed for the sword on his back. "However, I could just save you the trouble of having to deal with Leader-sama and shave your head off right now."

"That toy sword couldn't shave my hair off." Deidara nimbly jumped to the side and did a back flip just to show off as Kisame's giant sword swooped through the air ready to chop him in half. Deidara raised both of his hands and had the mouths in his palms stick their tongues out at Kisame. Kisame's eyes widened at the sight of Deidara's left arm. It was pink and the skin was so transparent that Kisame could see the blood vessels and the blood flowing through them and the bone could just be seen through the muscle in the sunlight. The teeth had only just begun to grow and the tongue was thin and still weak.

"What the hell happened to your arm?" Kisame asked.

"That's my Bloodline Limit, un," Deidara replied.

"I thought your mouths were… and I thought Sasori had replaced that arm for you."

"Sort of, but the wooden arm can't be used in my techniques," Deidara said, waving his left arm above him. "It's cell reconstruction and regeneration: as long as my heart and my brain haven't been damaged I can recreate entire body parts or organs, un. It just takes a while to kick in, un."

"You're an alien," Kisame decided. "With weird accessories like that you can't be human."

"It'll feel good to have all four of my mouths again, yeah," Deidara grinned. "Besides, speak for yourself, un."

Kisame rolled his eyes and put his huge sword, Samehada, on his back. "This is why I'd rather be paired with Itachi. Well, since we're already in Fire Country we should start moving. We have no idea where their ANBU could be."

Deidara simply put his tongues away and smirked. "This'll be fun, yeah."

If Sakura had given him any indication of what Tsunade meant by 'strict' through her recounts of her medic training Naruto knew to expect the toughest trial of his endurance he'd ever have to face. Tsunade's dietary schedule was very strict indeed. Breakfast was at eight thirty sharp, lunch had to be precisely at noon and dinner was to always be at seven o'clock. In addition he had to have a snack at anytime between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. Naruto severely doubted the necessity of the diet. He'd suddenly been introduced to foods he'd never even heard of before like cauliflower, sweet potato and macadamia nuts and he was certain that he could live without them. He would bring the subject up the next time Tsunade came to check up on his stupid baby.

"Tsunade-baa-chan," Naruto whined as Tsunade poked, prodded and patted his curving belly. "I hate you!"

"Stop whining you brat!" Tsunade snapped. "This diet is completely necessary to ensure your son's health; I don't care if you've never laid eyes on a capsicum before. Have you been co-operating with Haruno-san?"

Naruto pouted but nodded. "Yes, Tsunade-baa-chan," he said in a whiny, childish voice. "I ate every yucky, icky piece of food she gave me."

Tsunade's eyebrow twitched and it looked like a vein in her left temple was about to pop. "If you weren't pregnant I'd send you through the floor." Naruto stuck his tongue out at her and thought that maybe being pregnant did have its little perks. Tsunade didn't have the guts to hurt him. "Anyway, all threats aside, congratulations Naruto. You've made it through your first trimester and your baby is alive."

She had a smile on her face but Naruto didn't like the way she'd said the word 'alive'. "Tsunade… is everything okay?"

"To tell the truth, no," the Godaime replied. "Even though I managed to save your ass with my special diet your son is still just hanging on. I can tell that he's very underweight."

"How?"

"By just looking at you," Tsunade said, wrinkling her nose at the sight of him again. He'd gained a little bit of weight but he was still so skinny. "You don't look very promising for three months. You're meant to look pregnant by now but it doesn't look like the baby's grown at all in a month. This is very worrying, Naruto. If another miscarriage occurs I might not be able to save your baby."

Naruto stared at the opposite wall and juggled that thought around a bit. No baby meant no leave and no leave meant missions… it also meant no post-birth responsibility at all. Naruto was quite sure he could deal with having a miscarriage. But then it also meant murdering his kid.

Tsunade frowned when she saw the look on his face wasn't his normal thinking face; it was more sinister and daring. "I know what you're thinking and just so you know, miscarriage is more painful than birth! I would think twice before purposely having a miscarriage."

"I wasn't going to do it," Naruto said, suddenly looking a bit sad. "It's not worth killing someone for the sake of not having to ever face them in a situation you're not ready for."

Tsunade sat down on the edge of Naruto's bed and helped him sit up. She rubbed his back like a mother would to calm her child when they cried. "That's a good boy, Naruto. I'm only going to look out for you, do you understand? And stop peeping on me, Jiraiya!"

Jiraiya's head appeared at the top of the window. Naruto looked up, surprised to see his trainer's head hanging above him. He quickly opened the window for him. "Ero-sennin! What are you doing here?"

"I came to visit my favourite pupil," Jiraiya replied enthusiastically. He swung down from the roof into Naruto's room and sat on the bed next to Tsunade. "I heard that you were getting plump, Naruto… with child… but you don't look very pregnant." He poked Naruto's stomach gently. Tsunade slapped his hand away.

"Don't come in here and bother Naruto like this!" she yelled at him. "You peep and then you harass your students, do you have no shame?!"

"I was not peeping! Who'd want to peep on an old hag like you?"

Tsunade's eyebrow was twitching again and it looked like several veins in both temples were ready to pop. A vein on her rising fist also looked like it was about to burst. Jiraiya put his hands up in surrender and to serve as a defence wall when Tsunade grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

"Now, now, Tsunade, don't be like that. I was joking! I didn't mean it!"

Tsunade dropped him on the floor gracelessly. "I will have to ask you to leave now if you only came here to annoy us."

"Actually, I came here for a reason," Jiraiya said seriously. His facial expression went from happy-go-lucky to businesslike in a matter of seconds.

"You have five seconds to let it spill or you'll go flying back out that window at three times the speed of sound."

Jiraiya wasted no time. "Akatsuki is on the move again, according to my sources. They're after Kyuubi now."

"Kyuubi, huh?" Tsunade muttered, looking at Naruto. He'd turned on his side to face the wall and pulled the sheet up to his shoulder so Tsunade couldn't determine his facial expression. "That would be breaking their pattern. They should be pursuing Nanabi and Hachibi instead. Why are they coming after Kyuubi?"

Jiraiya shook his head. "I have no idea what they're thinking but this country isn't safe for Naruto anymore. We'll have to move him somehow."

Kisame and Deidara both stopped at a small post town at sunset. Deidara calmly walked in through the welcoming archway and started to look around for an inn. Kisame grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him in his tracks.

"Deidara, what do you think you're doing?" he asked his new partner. "Since you refuse to travel quickly with me we've had to walk all this way and now don't tell me you want to stop."

Deidara shrugged Kisame's hand off. "We can afford it. The jinchuuriki isn't moving and if he does it will be easier to chase him from out here, security in Konohagakure will be too tight, yeah. Also, I need to take it easy, un. The regeneration process takes up time and lots of chakra. If the kid can tap into the Kyuubi's power like you say then I'm in no condition to fight – the Kyuubi is way too powerful, un."

Kisame sighed and rolled his eyes. "This is going take too much time. I wish I was with Itachi instead of you."

"I wish I was with Tobi instead of you, un," Deidara retorted. Then he sighed. "My arm stings, un. I want to find a place to stay, a meal to eat and then I want to sleep, un!"

"Tch! You're acting like a child, Deidara."

"I do not agree!" Tsunade shouted in response to Jiraiya's suggestion to leave the country. "Naruto can't travel across the boarder, it's too risky."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed quietly. "It's not good for the baby."

Jiraiya sighed and shook his head sadly. "Naruto, your baby is in more danger here in Konoha. Besides, I have some pretty good news." Naruto squirmed a little bit but didn't respond otherwise. "It's about Sasuke."

As Jiraiya expected, Naruto was suddenly interested. He flipped over to face Jiraiya and sat up on his bed cross-legged. "What happened to Sasuke? Is he safe?"

"Sasuke's better than safe," said Jiraiya happily, glad to see Naruto looking perky and energetic like he usually was. Tsunade just stared at him incredulously. "According to some of my recently collected data Orochimaru is dead."

"He what- I mean- really?" Naruto gasped with shock. "Sasuke is free from that snake bastard?"

Jiraiya nodded. Tsunade growled with irritation. "Great work, Jiraiya, you just had to go and tell him that."

"But Tsunade-baa-chan, if Sasuke's safe I have to try to find him. He's my comrade."

"He's a traitor to the village and a psychopath! You can not bring him back here!"

With that forcefully put into Naruto's head, Tsunade kicked Jiraiya out the window towards the other side of the Hidden Village and left Naruto to his own devices for the rest of the night… until, of course, it was seven o'clock, which meant dinnertime. Still, Naruto couldn't stop thinking about Sasuke. His friend was alive and free, which meant it could be easier to convince him to return. He couldn't stand missing Sasuke. Yet after what Sasuke did to him even Naruto was questioning his own motives. Was it really a good idea to bring Sasuke back? Was his friend already too corrupt to change again? It might not have been the best method to consider but Naruto pushed those thoughts into the back of his head and decided to deal with it when he got there.

Morning seemed to approach quickly. Kisame and Deidara left the inn they had stayed at and got moving as soon as possible. The day was perfect: there were very few clouds in the sky and the sun was out. There was a gentle breeze to keep the air pleasantly cool and the birds were chirping happily, but they were very loud and they were all chirping at once (it was their mating season). With a clay decoy Deidara happily blew a couple of them up.

"Fucking birds," he muttered. He sounded grumpy and upset like he'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed after a bad night. Kisame raised an eyebrow.

"What happened to you? Did the inn run out of your favourite shampoo or something?"

"Get screwed, un," Deidara snapped. "That's a challenge for someone who looks like you."

"I promise I will shave your head off."

"Leader-sama would hand your ass to you on a platter if you did, yeah." Deidara suddenly picked up the pace of his gait.

"That eager to get away from me, are you?" Kisame joked.

"No, just walk faster, un. Someone's following us."

"Oh," Kisame mumbled and looked over his shoulder. The road behind them was empty so the pursuers were hidden in the trees. Maybe they were ninja.

Two shadows suddenly jumped out of the trees and threw a barrage of kunai at the Akatsuki pair. Kisame and Deidara split and dodged the kunai, which stuck firmly in the road. The two 'shadows' landed gracefully between the fields of kunai. They were both blond. One was a short-haired boy and the other was a long-haired girl. They were identical in most attributes; their eyes were the same hue of blue… a very familiar hue to Deidara and Kisame. They were both wearing Iwa hitai-atae and shinobi uniforms to match the village they were from. The boy also had two pouches on his hips like Deidara.

The boy kept his eye on Kisame while the girl turned to face Deidara. "You're Deidara: missing nin from Iwagakure, duh?"

Deidara's eye rolled upwards as if he was trying to look at his forehead and the hitai-atae on it. "That's me, un. Why do you want to know? Did you come here to assassinate me, yeah?"

"Yeah," said the boy, his attention left Kisame for a few seconds. "We're ninja from the Akimiya family in Iwagakure, un. You're a traitor to the village and a shame to our family so we volunteered to get rid of you, un."

"Deidara, do you know these guys?" asked Kisame.

"Why would you think that, un?" Deidara replied.

"Because they sound like you."

"We've never met, un," said the male attacker, "but I'll still take pleasure from taking your life, un!"

"This'll be fun to watch," Kisame muttered.

Kisame sat back on the side of the road to be out of the way as both Iwa ninja charged for Deidara. Deidara sighed as two shuriken came hurtling his way. They both hit their marks: one landed in the middle of Deidara's face and the other got wedged in his neck. Blood dribbled down his face and neck in neat streams. The two blond ninja grabbed Deidara's arms. Then in a poof of smoke Deidara was gone – replaced by a random log – and in the place of his arms were two snakes made out of, not clay, mud. They turned their heads to look down at annoying pests holding onto them and hissed dangerously.

"What the…?" the girl muttered.

"Hana! Drop it, un!" the boy yelled. He grabbed the snake from his female partner and threw both of them into the trees. The girl gasped as her partner jumped on her and pinned her to the ground. A small crater was blown into the ground and a three metre radius of forest was levelled. The Iwa ninja found themselves buried under a couple of logs and some dirt.

"They exploded!" the girl exclaimed. "Haru, you saved me… duh!"

Haru just growled. "Think of what could have happened if they were made of his real clay, un. Don't mess around with Deidara, yeah. Mom said he's a dangerous guy. He has the En'uya Clan Bloodline Limit too, un."

"What the…?! Exactly what did the Tsuchikage mean when he said Deidara was special, duh? I was imagining some huge, bulky oaf with brain damage and more power than the Legendary Sannin of Konoha, duh-uh."

Deidara's left eye twitched in irritation. He had a right mind to jump out from the tree stump he was crouched behind and give those two impudent kids a piece of his goddamn mind – in other words, he was going to shove clay down their throats and blow them to smithereens. Not only were they young, stupid fools, who made a mockery of his acclaimed vocal trait by turning it into a speech impediment but they didn't seem to understand the true nature and quality of fine art, even if it was a shoddy last minute lump of wet dirt turned into something resembling an animal. "Besides," Deidara thought, "how does a brainless oaf muster the raw intelligence or scrape together an IQ high enough to deem himself worthy of artistic creation? Understanding the concept of the heavenly beauty and grace that can only be achieved on Earth for that single second in the explosion takes a lot of brainpower… until one gets used to it, yeah."

Hana and Haru stood up in the middle of the flattened forest area and looked around warily. Deidara was nowhere to be seen and the other guy was completely out of sight. Haru sighed and growled again. "Where the hell did that rat go, un?"

Deidara pulled his hands out of his clay bag and let three clay spiders crawl their own way out. They scuttled over, around and under the fallen trees and branches like real insects until they stopped underneath the Iwa ninja. Haru and Hana seemed completely unaware of the danger beneath their feet. Deidara performed his seals quickly and smirked when no reaction came from his attackers. "I guess they just aren't good enough… Tsuchikage is a fool for sending them, un. Katsu!"

Haru suddenly snapped to the attention of something Hana couldn't sense. He grabbed her by the arm and ran as fast as he could. He wasn't nearly fast enough for them to avoid the explosion. He was tripped up by the force of the blast and sent tumbling into the air with Hana in his grasp. He hugged Hana closer to his body and tried to do a somersault in midair. His landing foot hit the edge of a stable log but when he tried to find a footing for his other foot he slipped. He fell into a hole between the log and some branches but refused to let go of Hana. They landed on a flat net of branches.

Hana groaned and crawled out of Haru's arms. Haru rolled onto his back and tried to stand up but his left foot simply wouldn't allow it. It wouldn't move. Hana tried to help her partner to get up. He pushed her off.

"Leave me alone, un. I won't be able to get up, un."

"Yes you can, duh!"

"I can't, un! I've twisted my bloody ankle, yeah! I can't stand right now, un!"

Hana growled lowly. "Then that means I have to use my techniques, duh."

"Are you sure you can handle it, un?"

"Duh," Hana replied, rolling her eyes a bit. "He uses bombs so he's a long range fighter, duh. I'm a taijutsu specialist so I'll get in close and beat him up and that way he can't use his bombs without hurting himself, duh."

Hana dashed forward at almost inhuman speed, not even bothering to flicker. Deidara easily saw her coming and sent an explosive clay bird flying towards her quickly. She stopped abruptly and crossed her hands in front of her face as the bird collided with her. There was a small explosion that would have killed any person. However, out of the explosion came no human guts or blood but splinters and chunks of wood. She appeared behind Deidara.

"Maybe she is good, un," Deidara thought.

"Take this, duh!"

Hana threw a punch at Deidara, which he dodged by rolling to the side. The force she exerted with her attack split the stump he had been hiding behind neatly in two. "Whoa… That attack is similar to the Gentle Fist Itachi told me about."

Deidara stuck his right hand into a clay pouch and tried to collect clay in his mouth. Hana turned quickly and gave him a roundhouse to the head. Deidara ducked under that and jumped back to get away. Hana was after him. She grabbed him by the collar of his coat and threw him over her head. She flipped back onto her hands and kicked him further into the sky with both feet. From up there Deidara was stuck for a move unless he could complete his latest clay masterpiece quickly. Hana opened an equipment pocket on her vest and took out a small scroll. She unrolled it and twirled it around herself. With a poof the writing inside her scroll was gone and Hana was surrounded by a long wire of kunai and shuriken.

"I'll show you this technique passed down to the females in the Akimiya Clan of Iwagakure, duh… Four Season Maelstrom!"

She held on to both ends of her wire and jumped into the air. She reached Deidara's altitude and let go of one end. It hooked around his neck and all Hana needed to do was give him a kick in the side to make him spin and wrap him up in wire. The weapons attached to it pierced and dug into his flesh. "First season, duh," Hana announced. "I bring you life, birth and new beginnings, duh – Spring Showers!"

With a sharp tug Deidara was spinning in the opposite direction and gaining altitude. Blood from his wounds rained down on Hana and the demolished land below.

"Second season, duh…" Hana landed on the thick trunk and let the wire fall beside her. She pulled seven shuriken out of her holder strapped firmly to her leg and threw them at Deidara. He stopped messing with his clay and used his good arm smack some away, hitting the flat sides successfully each time. The others aimed at his legs were easier to dodge. "I bring you greenness, fertility and pleasant days – Summer Heat, duh!"

Hana performed four hand seals and spat fire from her mouth like a jet stream. Alcohol on the invisible wire tied to the shuriken caught the flame and ascended, roaring up to the shuriken. Deidara's coat caught fire, as did some of his hair and his body.

"Third Season, I bring you wind, harvest and golden leaves, duh," Hana exclaimed. Deidara had almost made it back to earth when Hana jumped and kneed him in the chest while elbowing him in the back of the neck. She pushed him and let him fall down again but he was caught in a net made of the same hot and bloodied wire from her two previous attacks. Deidara landed on his back and hissed at the shuriken and kunai that stabbed his back and the sheer heat of the wire. The trap was clever, it not only left him suspended and in pain but it had some of his limbs and his neck caught in one particular wire. "Autumn Breeze!

Deidara was lifted by the wire he was caught in. He hissed as it stung and cut his left arm, which was still regenerating. She kept him aloft by running in a wide circle and spinning him in the middle. Her pace picked up so quickly that in mere moments it looked like there was ten of her. Just when Deidara was starting to feel so dizzy he was about to throw up Hana dug her heels into the ground and stopped. She recycled the kinetic energy and started to spin Deidara around herself, eventually lifting him high into the air. She let go and started to perform hand seals. She chanted as she did so, going through thirty-two seals in five seconds. She kicked over a log and some branches to uncover some bare ground and dug her fingers into the soil.

"Fourth Season… last season," she said, grinning almost demonically as she did. "I bring you ice, cold and bitter death – Winter Freeze, duh-uh! Nobody ever lives again after winter bites with cold claws and poison fangs… duh."

The ground in front of her became dark and moist as water from the aquifer below rose to the surface. Suddenly and explosively water and rock burst from the ground and froze almost instantly into sharp spears. Deidara's body fell onto those spears and disappeared with a poof. Hana gasped. "Kage Bunshin, duh?" she wondered inwardly.

"That was pretty good," Deidara thought. "That was a complex and artistically designed attack pattern and she executed it in just a little under one minute."

"I have to admit, you almost defeated me, un," Deidara admitted. He was standing only ten metres away on a tall stump. "But it just seems to be that you need to try a little bit harder in order to keep me six foot under." Two clay birds flew from his hand, each with two pairs of wings. They were so fast, slim and nimble that Hana was sure there was no way for her to outrun them or dodge.

"Hana, get down, yeah!"

Hana didn't question her partner; she just dropped to her knees and crawled under some logs and branches. The birds might have easily been able to catch her but they were engulfed by a tiger's head made of orange and black fire. Hana had her head and ears covered, waiting for the boom… and there was a very, very, very, big one!! It produced a dome of light and fire that flattened a three kilometre diameter of land and an earthquake to rival the might of the volcanoes.

When the smoke lifted the forest was burning but the fire was quick and didn't spread very far. A tall pillar of black smoke rose into the sky, darkening the day over the forest. It could be seen for miles; even ordinary citizens in Raigakure got a glimpse of unusually black clouds in the distance.

And the Akatsuki partners escaped.