Oasis, Chapter 10: But I Would Break Every Inch of My Love
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
There are few things harder to watch than a person you love ravaged with disease, unable to beat it but sacrificing the last shreds of his dignity trying. Kimimaro had never wanted anyone to see him at his worst, and there had been plenty of nights back in Sound when he felt worse than his worst. Every time he thought it was the end, death would surely come for him, there seemed to be somewhere deeper and darker to fall. Orochimaru would not have cared to see him so broken and frail, bedridden and unable to breathe without respiratory machinery to help him.
So he'd trained every day, strengthening his body and his mind and swallowing whatever experimental remedies Kabuto fed him, anything to appear normal. It was not enough to survive and cling to life; as a Sound shinobi, as the leader of the Sound Five, as Orochimaru's intended future vessel, Kimimaro had to be perfect.
But he had not been perfect, and Orochimaru eventually accepted the disappointing truth that Kimimaro's diseased-ridden body would no longer serve as a suitable vessel for his immortal soul. Desperate to regain some measure of worth in the eyes of the person he cherished most in the world, Kimimaro gathered his Sound Five team and set off in search of an alternative vessel: Uchiha Sasuke. He succeeded, but only barely. The others perished fighting Sasuke's comrades, and they were not in time for Orochimaru to perform the body transfer. Only Kimimaro survived the debacle, and only with Kabuto's help.
"Leave me," he'd pleaded with Kabuto when Orochimaru's personal medic found him lying in an empty boneyard of his own making, his opponents long gone and presuming him dead or as good as. "There's nothing else I can do for our master."
Kabuto had smiled in that slight way he had. The things that amused Kabuto never amused anybody else. "Nonsense, Kimimaro. In my line of work, I've learned that there can be a use for even broken things."
And so, Kabuto had fixed him up as well as he could, and in a matter of weeks, it was as if nothing much had changed. Except, everything had changed. Kimimaro barely saw Orochimaru, who was too preoccupied with training Sasuke, grooming him as the next vessel. It was not strange for Kimimaro not to see his master for extended periods of time, but in the past he'd always had his own team to fall back on. Tayuya and the others had had their faults, but they made an excellent distraction and provided adequate means for Kimimaro to continue to improve himself, at least in appearance. But they were dead, and Kimimaro had not felt so empty since the night he'd watched his entire clan attack the mighty Hidden Mist Village in a mass suicide, leaving him as the only survivor.
The weeks turned to months, and then to years, and still Kimimaro's exhausted body refused to relinquish him. He'd trained it too well, perhaps. Or Kabuto's remedies had worked enough to prolong his tired existence well past its expiration date. Kimimaro had never really thought about whether or not he was lonely. There were people around, even if they didn't talk to him or say anything meaningful. Orochimaru existed in this world. Just knowing that was enough to get up in the morning, most days.
But when Kabuto unleashed his Infection on the world, everything changed. Suddenly, Kimimaro was the one watching as others fell ill all around him and sank into depravity. In the early days, many simply succumbed to the plague and did not come back from it. Men and women, young and old, Kimimaro had seen so many of them writhing in their cots clutching soiled sheets in white-knuckled hands, their eyes oozing black pus and their lungs filling with congealed blood. In many ways, it was worse seeing the ones who sputtered out like that than it was to witness the ones who rose again.
Orochimaru, too, had fallen ill. Too late he learned of Kabuto's secret experiments, and by then he was too weak to do anything about them. So close to the time of his next body transfer, Orochimaru's arms were necrotic and useless, and he was in constant pain day and night. The Infection only exacerbated his symptoms, and still he had it in his head that he had to take Sasuke's body, survive this, and put an end to Kabuto for his treachery.
Sasuke had other plans, though, and fled from Sound just before the outbreak became unmanageable. Kimimaro did not know what happened to him, but he had not tried to stop Sasuke. Kimimaro had always been willing to give up his body to Orochimaru, for there was nothing else of value he could have ever given to repay Orochimaru for saving him as a child, alone in the world. But if Sasuke was unwilling, then he did not deserve to share Orochimaru's power. Orochimaru, however, did not share Kimimaro's logic when he found out.
"You let him go?" Orochimaru wheezed, wiping the black blood from his chin as he struggled to sit up in bed. "Kimimaro, surely you misspoke."
"No," Kimimaro said from his place standing over Orochimaru's sick bed. "He had no wish to become a vessel. I thought it better to choose another more willing. There are others who have been trained and conditioned for this purpose."
Orochimaru threw his bloody rag at Kimimaro in a rage. "How dare you! Do you have any idea what you've done? You stupid boy!"
"Master, I... I only meant to help."
Orochimaru had trouble breathing. He made a wet rattling sound with every inhalation. The blood was filling his lungs, just like the others Kimimaro had already watched waste away. "Help? You've never done a single thing to help me. And now you repay my kindness with betrayal."
Kimimaro was taken aback at Orochimaru's scathing words. He had always been amenable and gentle with Kimimaro, even after Kimimaro had taken ill and was deemed an unsuitable vessel. "I...would never betray you," he said, feeling his chest ache with emotion. How could Orochimaru think such a thing? "You are important to me. My father... He was not half the man you are."
Orochimaru coughed violently and trembled. The smell of shit and old blood permeated the room that had always been so clean and pristine whenever Kimimaro had come here in the past. "Kimimaro," he said after he regained himself. "You're so naïve. I was only a father to you inasmuch as acting the part got me what I wanted, and you denied me even that when you fell ill. By bringing me Sasuke, I allowed you to live out the rest of your days here, but even that was a mistake. You're just as much of a failure as Kabuto—"
He lapsed into another coughing fit. Black blood ran through his fingers, and Kimimaro went to his side to help. Words were hollow, and Orochimaru needed rest. Surely he didn't mean these things, he was just sick and tired and frustrated with waiting for a new body. But when Kimimaro tried to touch him, Orochimaru lashed out. Blood sprayed on Kimimaro's shirt, and Orochimaru's nails ripped through the material.
"Don't touch me," Orochimaru hissed.
"I only want to help," Kimimaro insisted.
"You can't help me, you never could."
Kimimaro did not understand this feeling, this ache in his heart hearing such harsh words from the one person who had always treated him with kindness and dignity, even when he'd fallen ill. Where was that man now?
"Ironic, isn't it?" Orochimaru said. "You were the one diagnosed with a fatal illness, but I'm the one wasting away in squallor." He glared at his blackened hands, and it seemed to Kimimaro that Orochimaru was not talking to him at all. "Leave me."
"Orochimaru," Kimimaro said softly, "I won't leave you. I want to help you."
Orochimaru looked at him then, golden eyes glazed with fever but still lucid. "Kimimaro," he rasped. "It seems I must spell it out for you to understand. You were nothing but a disappointment to me in every way. You betrayed me the moment you became ill and robbed me of your body, and again when you robbed me of Sasuke's."
Kimimaro stared in shock. "Betrayed... I never—"
"You did, and you are nothing to me. Your life is meaningless. If I had the strength, I would kill you myself for your sins—huuggrrrhhh!"
Orochimaru doubled over coughing again. He was so small and frail, this once great shinobi reduced now to bitterness and hatred and regret. Kimimaro felt something hot and wet on his cheeks, and he touched a hand to his face. He did not know when he'd begun to weep, and the ache in his heart had grown so pronounced that he thought it might break and finally kill him.
My life...is meaningless?
Orochimaru continued to shake under the effects of his expiring body and Kabuto's Infection.
"My body," he said, clutching at his sheets. "Where is my body?"
Kimimaro felt his teeth clench hard enough to hurt, but the pain did not drown out the ache in his heart at the sight of Orochimaru reduced to this wretched state, at the memory of his words that cut deeper than any sword. Sickness and fever often induced hallucinations and delusions, Kimimaro knew this from personal experience, but even so, his mind was too slow to stop his body from acting on its own.
A pale hand clenched around Orochimaru's throat, the skin uncomfortably hot and clammy to the touch, and squeezed. Orochimaru's reptilian eyes, now bloodshot black, widened in fury at this final betrayal. He struggled and clawed at Kimimaro's arm, but he was like a child trying to move a mountain. His nails, crusty with disease and necrosis, scratched Kimimaro's skin and flayed it to ribbons, but Kimimaro's bloodline limit healed the damage as quickly as Orochimaru caused it, good as new. Orochimaru wheezed and gasped, unintelligible, but the abject hatred was plain to see on his face, practiced, like he'd nurtured it tenderly for years.
"I'm sorry," Kimimaro said through his tears as he forced Orochimaru back onto the pillow.
It was over in a matter of seconds, and Orochimaru lay in bed with his mouth open in a scream and his face contorted in malevolent fury. But there was no more coughing, no struggling, no wet rattling breath. He was gone, and a tranquil silence filled the place where he'd been. Kimimaro's tears fell upon his exposed wrist, tender from the scrapes Orochimaru had given him as they slowly healed, and he squeezed his eyes shut and screamed. The ache in his heart burst and left him as he let his voice carry, like a demon relinquishing its hold on him. He fell to his knees on the stone floor, too weak to stand, and wept.
The screams and cries of the dying echoed through the Sound base as the Infection continued to spread. It would not be long after that that the afflicted would rise, faster and stronger than before and impervious to the vile plague that ravaged their bodies, mindless as they stalked the halls in search of survivors. That was the last time Kimimaro saw Orochimaru. He closed Orochimaru's mouth and eyes and smoothed his hair, and if he looked at him just so, he could imagine that Orochimaru was asleep and blissfully dreaming. He'd always had a serene look about him, that slight smile, the thoughtful gaze, a face he would often show Kimimaro but not others.
It would take time, many sleepless nights and days wandering the countryside, running from the Infected that hunted him and any other healthy survivors to start to come to terms with what he'd done. Killing Orochimaru was never an outcome Kimimaro had ever considered, just as a son could never imagine killing his own father. But to see Orochimaru suffering and unable to move was too much even for Kimimaro to bear. And then, as time is wont to do, it began to illuminate the truth of that day, of all the days Kimimaro had lived under Orochimaru's care.
Orochimaru did not cherish Kimimaro as Kimimaro cherished him. To Kimimaro, Orochimaru was his savior, his mentor, his father, his closest companion in life, a source of love and trust as sacred as family. To Orochimaru, Kimimaro was nothing but a means to an end. It wasn't even that Kimimaro secretly had known this all along and refused to admit it. Every memory he had of Orochimaru, of the man who had saved him from a life of loneliness and death and depravity, was precious. Orochimaru had never been a particularly gentle or compassionate person, and his proclivities had visited great ruin and harm upon many people, but never Kimimaro. Shinobi dealt in violence and death, in this way Orochimaru was not so different from the noble Kage of the great Hidden Villages. To dress up the violence of a shinobi's trade in a set of laws or codes did not change the fact that the result was often death. It never mattered to Kimimaro because as long as he had Orochimaru, his life had meaning. Purpose. He had something, someone, worth living for after he'd lost everything. Not many got such a rare chance.
Or perhaps, no one did.
"Your life is meaningless."
The world had ended, and mindless Infected prowled the continent in their insatiable hunger and hatred for those not like them. Kimimaro had destroyed the only person who had ever loved him—whether that love was true or just another scheme, it made no difference. Orochimaru was gone, and Kimimaro was still here waiting to die.
Until he found her.
"Hey, look at that," Ino said. She caught up to Kimimaro as they ran across northern Earth Country, the former territory of the Hidden Stone Village, and pointed at a rocky quarry a few miles north of their position. "Is that the mine?"
The macabre memories faded as her voice dragged Kimimaro back to the present. They slowed to a stop as Ino squinted to see better. She was flushed from running all day to make it here, a little dirty and a little worn out, as they all were. But her blue eyes were bright and alert and her lips were parted as she breathed, healthy and alive.
"Hey, we're almost there," Deidara said, catching up to them and taking a drink from the water skin he carried. "Just another few miles, yeah."
He avoided Kimimaro's gaze and kept a healthy distance between them. Their fight was still fresh in everyone's minds, as was the ultimatum that now loomed a few miles north. Once they reached the mine and retrieved Deidara's explosive clay, they would part ways. Ino would have to choose between Deidara and Kimimaro.
"Good," Kimimaro said, setting off again. "The sooner the better."
Deidara muttered something crass under his breath, but he stashed his water skin and took the lead. Kimimaro followed at a distance, and he could feel Ino's gaze on his back, but she did not try to communicate using her Telepathy like she sometimes did. He was glad of that. The less she said to him now, the better. Soon, he would be on his own again, and the last thing he needed was to miss the sound of her voice.
The trio reached Deidara's mine shortly thereafter. It was little more than a dark hole that descended deep below ground. Wooden rafters supported the shallow entrance, but they were weathered and neglected, possibly for many years. From the looks of it, this mine had been abandoned ages ago. Farther north, the remains of civilization manifested in the forms of towers and skyscrapers, what had once been the Hidden Stone Village. Deidara was gazing at the village intently, lost in memory and for once oddly silent.
Kimimaro was about to tell Ino to do a scan of the area, but she was already in the midst of it with her eyes closed and her hands clasped in a sensory seal.
"There's no herd in the vicinity," she said hesitantly.
"...But?" Kimimaro pressed.
She opened her eyes. "There are some Infected farther north in Stone. They don't seem to be moving, but we should be quick here all the same."
"They're not as active during the day," Kimimaro pondered aloud. "Deidara, get your clay so we can leave."
"Believe me, I wanna get outta here as much as you do, yeah," Deidara said. He leaned through the mine's entrance and produced a wooden torch from the rafters, left over perhaps from the last time he'd been here, and lit it with a simple Fire technique. "You comin'?"
He addressed Ino, and Kimimaro briefly fantasized about stabbing Deidara.
"Yeah, right behind you," Ino said. "Just give me a sec."
"Whatever," Deidara said, hanging by the mine's entrance.
"That mine could be unstable," Kimimaro said softly so Deidara would not overhear.
"And sending a guy who blows things up for a living in there alone is a bad idea, I know," Ino said. "It's safer if we all go."
"It's safest if you and I stay out here and keep watch for the Infected."
"Okay... What's this really about?"
"Ensuring the safety of Deidara's excavation."
She crossed her arms and gave him a withering look. "I wasn't born yesterday, you know. You're upset about parting ways."
"I'll be the furthest thing from upset when Deidara's gone," Kimimaro said.
"And what about me? Would you be happy if I left, too?"
Kimimaro had always had a killer poker face, he'd been told by the likes of Kabuto and even Uchiha Sasuke when they both lived and trained in Sound. If Ino thought she could elicit some sort of reaction, some heartfelt proclamation or tears or anything at all, she was dead wrong. Then again, Ino was a mind reader. She didn't need words or tears to know what he was thinking.
"Well, cheer up," she said, fiddling with her bangs. "You're stuck with me."
Kimimaro's careful façade began to crack. "What?"
Ino held his gaze with that same steady confidence she'd always had even in the face of the terror they lived every day. "You heard me. I'm staying with you. I told you when we first teamed up that we're better together."
No, he thought to himself, but even as he thought it, he could not ignore the fluttering in his heart at the thought of her staying with him. He rubbed his chest, almost afraid the feeling would show and betray him.
"Ino," he began, trying to think of a way to say this. Words had never been his strength.
"Stop that," Ino said. "You don't get to push me away, not after what happened back there with Deidara."
She's angry, he realized.
"I can't believe Kabuto's behind this," she said. "I mean, I can believe it from him, but to think he might still be out there... It's crazy."
It was crazy. Madness. Even Orochimaru had fallen to Kabuto's Infection, as had many strong shinobi. Against disease, it didn't matter how many battles a shinobi had won or how many enemies he had slain. In sickness, everyone is equally helpless. Except, of course, for the ones who are immune. Kimimaro had no idea why Ino, Deidara, and he had not contracted the Infection. Coincidence, probably. If there was such a thing as fate, it would not have brought Ino to him, a condemned man with both feet in the gallows. Kimimaro might have been immune to Kabuto's Infection, but he had his own demons to appease, ones he had carried with him for many years and to whom he owed what little was left to give. It was only a matter of time.
"Ino," he said softly. "You should go with Deidara."
"...What the hell did you just say to me?"
Kimimaro said nothing. She'd heard him.
"Where is this coming from?" she demanded. "All this time you've been telling me how much better off we'd be without Deidara, how you don't trust him, and now you want me to go with him so you can be by yourself? Kimimaro, what the fuck?"
"You know why," he said, trying not to lose his patience. "You know damn well why."
She was taken aback as she searched his gaze for some kind of explanation. "You still don't trust me."
"No, it's not—"
"Even though you were the one keeping secrets."
He grabbed her by the wrist. "I do trust you," he said, squeezing to make his point. "But I'm... I can't..."
He realized he was squeezing her wrist very hard and let go abruptly. Ino clutched her wrist to her chest, but she didn't back away.
"Your illness," she said at length. "Is that it?"
Ino's luminous blue eyes pleaded with him for an explanation, awash with frustration and sadness and a little anger at his rejection, and he thought of Orochimaru in his last moments. Orochimaru and Ino had almost nothing in common except for the fact that they both had decided to stay with him. In the end, Orochimaru had ended up dead because of Kimimaro, the reasons did not matter. But Ino... If Ino were to die...
"I'm a dead man walking," Kimimaro said, his tongue thick and fat in his mouth making the words hard to pronounce. "It's only a matter of time."
"I told you, there might be a way to cure you," Ino said.
"Might," Kimimaro latched onto that despicable word. "And in the meantime, I'd be putting us both at risk. All it would take is for me to have an episode in the middle of a fight."
If the Infected ambushed them and Kimimaro had a coughing fit, he would leave Ino exposed. All it would take was one Infected to catch her unawares, thinking Kimimaro was watching her blind spot, and that would be the end. What was the point in risking a trip to Lightning Country for that? He was as good as dead anyway.
"Once Deidara can fly, he can keep you both safe," Kimimaro said.
Ino was looking at him like she no longer recognized him. Her hands in his were small and warm as they held onto him—when had she taken his hands? There was no sadness in her eyes, as he might have expected, just a tired determination.
"You're being an asshole, you know," she said.
Kimimaro had no idea what to say to that.
"I'm a human being, shinobi just like you," she went on. "You don't get to make my decisions for me. If you ever try to decide my life for me again, I will leave you."
"Damit, Ino, I'm trying to keep you alive," he said, exasperated.
She traced a hand over his chest, the mark of his curse seal, and Kimimaro had the absurdly unfounded fear that she might slip her fingers beneath his skin and take hold of his heart pounding in his chest.
"And all I'm trying to do is keep you alive," she said. "I just want to help you."
"Why?" he demanded.
Her fingers were warm against his chest where they covered his curse seal. "Because I care about you," she said. "Because you mean something to me."
Kimimaro had no words for her. If she hadn't been standing so close, touching him, holding his gaze, he was sure he would have dreamed this entire conversation. It could not be real. It didn't make any sense.
"Your life is meaningless," Orochimaru had told him in his final hour, the ugly truth that had been there all along, and Kimimaro had been too afraid to admit it. He could smell the death in Orochimaru's room, feel the damp humidity of Sound's underground base saturated with despair in the throes of the outbreak. For a moment, he was back there, his hand shaking just after strangling Orochimaru to death.
"Hey, come back," Ino said, moving her hands on his face. "Stay here."
The memory faded, and Kimimaro was once more back in Earth Country in the present day. Ino's thumbs traced his temples with rough pads, a kunoichi's hands, and in a moment of weakness Kimimaro wanted nothing more than to lean in to her touch, stay here with her like this forever, to feel and be felt, like it meant something.
"Where did you go?" Ino asked.
Her eyes were truly a lovely shade of blue, the kind you could admire for long periods of time. A lot of things about Ino were lovely—her eyes, her straight nose, high cheekbones, pink lips that really did look good in a smile, Deidara had the right of it. She was beautiful, as many women Kimimaro had seen in his life had been in their own ways, but Ino was here, alive and warm and thriving even though the world had ended, and she was looking at him in a way not many people had ever looked at him.
"To a place I can't forget," he said. It was the truth.
Ino nodded and soon let her hands fall. She didn't press him, though he was sure she wanted to.
"Hey, any day now," Deidara called.
Ino spared him a glance. "Kimimaro, I want you to promise me something, and I don't want you to argue with me about."
"What?"
"I'm going to convince Deidara to stay with us," she said. "When I do, promise me you'll be okay with that."
"You make it sound like he'll be okay with it. He's the one who wants to separate."
"I'll make him be okay with it. Let me worry about Deidara. I know you don't get along with him, but I also know you know he's our best shot at surviving. Both of us. With him, we can fly and avoid the Infected, and we can get that medicine for you. So promise me you won't go against me on this."
In the time he'd known Ino, Kimimaro had learned that she was not easily deterred. She was confident in herself and her abilities, and if she decided she could do something, she did it. Worse, she was right. Ino was not going to leave Kimimaro, that much was clear. If he didn't agree to let Deidara stay, he would put her life in danger with his illness. He realized then that she'd trapped him.
"Clever," he said. "I can't refuse you now."
Ino smirked. "Don't think of it as a competition. I'm doing this for all of us."
Resigned, Kimimaro nodded. "All right."
"I'm getting grey hairs over here, yeah," Deidara called.
Ino lingered a moment longer. "Don't die while I'm gone, okay?"
It was so strange, this feeling. On the way here, he'd resigned himself to leaving this place alone. It was best for everyone that way. He'd been alone for a long time, so it was not an unfamiliar existence. But Ino was not ready for him to leave for some reason. Despite his sickness and his secrets, she seemed determined to hold onto him because he meant something to her. He had almost forgotten what this felt like, the feeling of being wanted. In Orochimaru he had sought the love of a parent and teacher. Ino was neither of those things, but he wanted to feel something with her all the same. Without thinking, he touched her bangs with the tips of his fingers, a fleeting touch but one that said something he did not have the words for. Ino looked like she wanted to say something, but she could not find the words. How strange, for she seemed to always have words for everything.
"Okay, I'm going now, and I'm takin' the only torch with me," Deidara said as he stalked off into the mine.
Ino gasped. "I'm coming! Wait up!"
She whirled and jogged after Deidara, leaving Kimimaro outside to keep an eye on things. Soon, she and Deidara disappeared within the mine, and Kimimaro was alone with only the wind and the afternoon sun to keep him company. His fingers tingled where he'd touched Ino's hair, and he rubbed them to dispel the sensation.
He hoped they would not take too long.
The mine descended much deeper than Ino would have guessed looking at it from the outside. Then again, she'd never been in a mine before. It made her wonder just what miners did when there was a cave-in.
"You're quiet," Deidara said as he led the way deeper. "What'd Boner say to you?"
"I was just wondering what happens when miners get caved in. Is there another exit?" she asked.
"Lots," Deidara said. "But they're all sealed off. This mine's been abandoned for years."
"Awesome," Ino said, not feeling very awesome at all.
"You're not claustrophobic, are ya?" Deidara taunted. "Afraid of the dark?"
"It would be my professional opinion that there's something seriously wrong with anyone who isn't afraid of hiking down a dark, narrow, abandoned mine shaft with a former terrorist bomber."
Deidara nodded. "Fair enough."
They continued on for a bit in silence. The walls were stone, and the same wooden support beams framed the tunnel like some long skeleton. Ino got the creepy sensation that she was climbing down some great creature's throat to its belly, and it could taste her in here.
"Hey, you never answered my question," Deidara said.
"Huh?"
"What'd you talk about with Boner back there?"
Ino rolled her eyes. "Would it kill you to use his name?"
"No, I just prefer to keep my distance from things I find distasteful, yeah."
"You find boners distasteful? I bet that's hard to deal with."
Deidara gave her a sour look. "Ha ha."
Ino put up her hands as if to say, 'Who, me?'
"Fuck, you're good," Deidara said.
"I know," Ino said. And then, "At what, exactly?"
"You know what. That's the second time you distracted me from my question."
Ino bit her lip, unable to contain her smirk. She was good, obviously. What was wrong with enjoying that? "You're fun to distract."
"Answer the question."
The way he said it wasn't exactly friendly, which would not have normally bothered Ino. Except now she knew what he was, who he was: Akatsuki.
Former Akatsuki, she corrected herself.
Even so. They were in a dark, narrow, abandoned mine shaft (already established, thank you for the morbid reminder, brain), and he liked to blow shit up. Maybe the third time wasn't the charm in this case.
"He wanted me to go with you," Ino said.
The way Deidara looked at her like he'd seen a ghost would have made her laugh if not for (again) the dark, narrow, abandoned mine shaft she was in.
"He did?" Deidara said, not bothering to hide his surprise. "That's... I mean, hell yeah, you should come with me. Wow, that's, like, the first smart thing he's ever said."
"I told him sure," Ino went on.
"Yeah?" Deidara said, smiling a little.
"Yeah. As long as he comes with us."
It was a little bit sad to see him deflate like that. Sad, and somehow comforting. The emotions Deidara displayed were so vivid that he was a welcome caricature next to the phlegmatic Kimimaro. There was something beautifully human about Deidara that made it that much harder to reconcile his Akatsuki identity.
Deidara recovered quickly and set his jaw as he continued on ahead. When he spoke next, it was with the careful calculation of someone who'd been pushed between a rock and a hard place a thousand times before and a thousand times blasted his way through. "Not on your life, yeah."
"Deidara," Ino tried.
He whirled, and she hated that she was ready for that look in his eyes, the look the worst of her interrogation subjects would get when she confronted them. Defiant until the end not because they were stubborn or in denial, but because they knew it wasn't the end. They would not go down so easily.
"He knew about all this," Deidara said. "He knew and he said nothing."
"I know that, but what difference does it really make?" Ino countered. "Like knowing any of that could have stopped this? Changed things somehow? You can't seriously believe that."
"I warned him," Deidara said, undeterred. "I hate liars, yeah."
"You lied about being Akatsuki."
"You never asked."
"I was nice enough not to."
Deidara eyed her raised hand. The meaning was clear, she'd never invaded his thoughts. But it wasn't enough to convince him.
"You want a medal or somethin'? Congratulations on not being a piece of shit, yeah."
"Thanks," Ino said. "Congratulations yourself on not being responsible for what the other members of Akatsuki independently did before all this."
Deidara glared down at her. "Point taken. For the record, I said you're not a piece of shit."
"I heard. I'm flattered."
"You should be. Most people are. Pieces of shit, I mean."
"So... Can we let this go?"
"What, you and me? Yeah, whatever. But that guy's another story, yeah."
Deidara continued down the mine shaft, and Ino had no choice but to follow.
"You know," she said after a while, "Kimimaro isn't a bad guy when you get to know him."
Deidara snorted. "Nobody's a bad guy when you get to know 'em. Look at me." He grinned salaciously.
"Okay, that was cliché. Point taken. How about we stop keeping score and I cut to the chase."
"You're just sayin' that 'cause I'm ahead, yeah."
Ino bit her lip, unable to stop from smiling. "Right, of course."
"So? What's the chase?"
"Kimimaro just doesn't really know how to relate to people," Ino said.
"Wow, some insight. However do you do it."
"Ha ha. I'm serious. In fact, I'm surprised you don't relate to that more."
"Hey, for your information, I'm fucking fantastic with people, yeah."
Yeah, right.
She kept that thought to herself. "At the very least, you probably spent a lot of time with people like Kimimaro back in Akatsuki."
Deidara hesitated a moment before saying, "Not exactly like him."
"So that's a yes."
"That's a 'stop that creepy mind shit' on me."
"I'm not reading your mind."
"Yeah, well, you're annoyingly perceptive."
"Thank you. Hey, you're the one who wanted me to come with you, for the record."
"I—" Deidara cut himself off before he could say something they both knew would sound stupid and whiny. "So what if I do? What's wrong with wantin' to have somebody I don't feel like stabbing to talk to?"
Ino's expression softened. "There's nothing wrong with that."
He gave her a weird look, but he left it at that and continued to lead her deeper into the mine. It felt like they had been walking for miles, but the descent was just slow-going. Deidara's torch lit the way ahead about five feet, but it was the only source of light in here. Eventually they arrived in a more spacious chamber that had wiring and ceiling lamps installed. A small generator sat near the mouth of the cavern, and Deidara wordlessly went to power it up. It took a few tries, but the old generator sputtered to life with a loud rumble and the lights above flickered on. The chamber was stone like the shaft, but there were veins in the walls that were distinct from the dark rock surrounding them. They were a lighter grey in color, and Deidara approached the nearest one and ran his palm over it.
Ino watched in arrested fascination as something—oh my god that is a tongue—emerged from Deidara's palm and began to lick the vein. She'd forgotten about his palm mouths with everything going on, and seeing them awaken now was admittedly kind of cool. How many guys had mouths on their hands, anyway? For that matter, how many guys could pull bones out of their bodies? Was this real life?
"The clay, I presume?" Ino said, stopping to watch.
"Yeah," Deidara said. "Damn, that's good."
"You...can taste it?"
"What?" He saw her watching his hand and immediately closed it. "Uh, yeah, I mean, it's a tongue." He produced a storage scroll from his pocket and unrolled it. "This won't take long."
Deidara began extracting clay and sealing it within the storage scroll for later use. Ino looked around, but there wasn't really anywhere to go except deeper into the mine.
"So," she said. "You like talking to me?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah, I guess." He was concentrating on extracting the clay and did not look at her.
"It's nice to have someone around to talk to," she agreed. "Especially now."
"Uh-huh," he said, half-listening.
"Kimimaro feels the same way, you know."
Deidara scoffed. "He doesn't feel anything, I'm tellin' you, yeah."
"He does," Ino insisted. "And he needs your help. With your clay, we can fly to Lightning Country and safely get the flower I'll need to make his medicine."
Deidara moved on to the next vein of clay and continued the extraction and storage process. "Let's just assume for a minute that I agreed to help him out. What do I get in return? It's not like he's done anything for me."
"His being a part of the team helps keeps us both alive."
"Whatever. When I can fly, I won't need help."
"Why did you leave Stone?"
Deidara was surprised by this sudden change of subject, and it showed. He paused his extraction to size Ino up. "Uh, what?"
"I saw you staring at the city before we came in here," Ino said. "Like you were remembering something."
"That's a stinkin' pile of none of your goddamned business, yeah."
"You're the one who wanted someone to talk to," Ino countered. "So talk to me."
"So you can get information from me? Yeah, right."
"What does it even matter? It's not like I have Konoha to report to, or anybody for that matter. Everybody I knew is gone."
Deidara had the decency to look abashed, and he resumed his extraction. "It's still none of your business."
"No, it's not," Ino said. "But whoever you left behind in Stone, chances are they're long gone now. Dead or Infected."
"Or worse."
"What could be worse?"
"He could still be alive, a survivor like us, yeah."
"He," Ino said.
"God, you don't quit, huh?"
Ino shrugged.
"Okay, fine." Deidara sealed up the scroll. "Oonoki, that's the guy I left behind."
Ino gaped. "The Tsuchikage?"
"Don't look so surprised. You didn't think some hot shit shinobi like me woulda had anyone less than the Tsuchikage for a sensei, did ya?"
Ino thought about that for a moment. "So, you left Stone because of him. What happened? Did you betray the village?"
Deidara bared his teeth in disgust. "It wasn't betrayal, yeah."
"Then... Your art. It was something to do with that, right?"
Deidara shot her a suspicious look. "You really are good at that, you know. I don't mean that as a compliment."
She ignored him. "What happened, Deidara?"
He remained silent, and she rolled her eyes.
"You're the one who wanted to talk, so talk. I'm not trying to get information from you, I'm just here to listen. Maybe I can even help."
He rubbed his fingers in a fist as he debated with himself. "...Long story short, I used a forbidden technique on myself." He showed her his palm, and the little mouth there opened and stuck its tongue out at her.
"And the Tsuchikage banished you for that?" There was no judgment in her tone, no incredulity, simply a question.
Deidara eyed her warily. "Yeah. The technique let me infuse my Explosion Release into a solid medium. Old man Oonoki didn't like that, so I got the boot. Good fuckin' riddance, yeah."
Ino took a deep breath as she began to understand. Deidara had been banished for stealing a forbidden technique whose destructive effects could raze entire cities to the ground. She'd seen it first-hand. No wonder it was forbidden. But to Deidara, he'd been kicked out for pursuing his artistic passions. Of course he would resent his Hidden Village for denying his passion and chosen way of life. Mix that in with his obvious delusions of grandeur and his subsequent experience as a member of Akatsuki, and suddenly Deidara's artistic psychosis made a lot more sense. The details were not necessary to understand how he'd ended up here.
"It must have been hard to have your village reject your art like that," Ino said.
"Yeah, well, fuck 'em. I can find an audience anywhere I go," Deidara said defensively.
So that's it.
"Well, you have me," Ino said, smiling. "And you have Kimimaro."
Deidara rolled his eyes. "This again."
"Look, Deidara, I know you want me to choose between you two, but I can't."
"You should," Deidara insisted. "Who d'you think's got a better shot at surviving out here, the sick vampire or me?"
"Kimimaro cares about what happens to me," Ino said. "He wants to keep me safe, just like I want to keep him safe."
"So what, are you sayin' I don't care?"
"I'm saying he does. That's important to me. If we're really the only ones left... No, even if there are others, it doesn't matter. The three of us found each other. That means something. I don't want to lose anyone else, and that includes you, Deidara. I know you don't want to lose anyone else, either."
"You know that, huh?"
"Why else would you have stayed with us this long?"
He said nothing to that, but guys like Deidara were as unpredictable as the weather. It was what made them so dangerous. He could do anything, even blow them both up in here right now, and it would not be completely out of character for him. Where Kimimaro was dangerous past a certain predictable threshold, Deidara was a wild card who could blow at any minute.
It turned out that he was not in the bombing mood right now, and he pocketed the storage scroll he'd filled to the brim with most of the clay in the chamber. More clay filled the satchels at his hips and the mouths in his palms. Their wet chewing made Ino's skin crawl as it echoed in the chamber.
"You're unbelievable," he said at length.
"You're not the first guy to tell me that," Ino said, grinning.
"Don't be cute. If we're gonna do this, then I'm setting some ground rules. No more secrets for one, yeah."
"That shouldn't be a problem now that everything relevant is out in the open."
"I'll be the judge of that," Deidara said. His left palm had finished chewing on a hunk of clay and spat out a tiny white hummingbird.
Deidara examined the miniature sculpture, and Ino could not help her curiosity.
"Wow," she said. "So, the mouths on your palms do all the sculpting?"
Deidara eyed her askance. "Yeah...why?"
"That's so weird. How can a mouth make something that looks so real?"
It was beautiful, she had to admit. Every detail was carefully considered, from the feather fronds to the scaly feet. It was almost lifelike if not for the unnatural white coloration.
"You think so?" Deidara asked.
Ino grinned up at him. "I don't have much of an eye for art, but anyone can tell you have talent."
Deidara cracked a smile. "Watch this."
He tossed the hummingbird into the air, and it took flight. Ino could only stare, mesmerized, at the magic of Deidara's technique. It truly was a sight to behold. Sai had been able to bring his drawings to life, but he didn't draw them with his tongue and teeth. There was admittedly something exotic about Deidara and his art, and like all exotic things, there was a distinct element of danger to him, too.
"How do you do that?" Ino asked, genuinely curious. "Are you communicating with it?"
"Sorta," Deidara said, smiling outright now that he was in his element. "More of a feeling. It knows what I want it to do, yeah."
"Incredible," Ino said.
"Now for the best part."
The little bird fluttered in midair like a true hummingbird, and Deidara raised his hands in a seal.
"Katsu!" he said.
The clay bird exploded in a dazzling display of light and sound. The pop was not exactly deafening, but it was loud enough to make her want to cover her ears. Her vision swam with dark spots from having witnessed the explosion so close, and she shook out her head to clear it.
"Damn, that felt good!" Deidara whooped.
"A little warning next time," Ino groused as she rubbed her eyes and they readjusted to the dim lighting down here.
"You have no idea how much I needed that, yeah."
"Well, I'm happy for you, but don't do that again. I'm no engineer, but my gut tells me setting off a bomb in an abandoned mine shaft full of explosive clay isn't the best idea."
Deidara was too excited to care about Ino's reprimand. His palms were already chewing more clay, but he refrained from loosing any more exploding birds. "Yeah, whatever. Let's get outta here. It smells funky down here."
Ino could not agree more, and she retrieved the torch Deidara had set aside in a wall holder. Kimimaro may have heard the explosion, she thought. If he did, he might start to worry. It would be best to hurry up and get back to the surface. She paused to do a scan for him and make sure he was still all right at the surface by himself, but gasped when something else popped up on the radar, something much closer.
"No way," she said, her pulse racing as she checked again.
"What's the matter?" Deidara asked.
Something scraped against the rock, and they both whirled. From one of the branching tunnels that led deeper into the mine, a hand missing two fingers emerged. It was mottled with old bruises that disappeared under the sleeve of a uniform, one Ino recognized as the standard-issue Stone shinobi uniform.
"Oh, shit," Deidara said. "Ino, why didn't you say they were down here?!"
"I-I didn't know!" she sputtered.
Infected Stone shinobi and even a number of civilians in street clothes emerged from the dark tunnels, dusty like they'd been down here for days. Ino could not believe it. How had she not sensed them? When she'd done a scan before coming down here, there had been no sign of life.
"Well, maybe they were sleeping. These assholes like the dark, right?" Deidara was backing up and kneading explosive clay in his hands.
Ino grabbed his arm. "Deidara, no! You can't use your bombs down here or you'll blow us all up!"
He bared his teeth in a snarl. "Goddamnit!"
The Infected approaching them moved slowly, even the shinobi, like they were groggy from lying dormant in the dark. Maybe Deidara was right and they'd been down here sleeping to get away from the sun, but right now Ino did not care.
"We have to go!" Ino pulled Deidara along after her and ran back the way they'd come.
Deidara didn't need to be told twice, and he was hot on Ino's heels as they ran as fast as they could back up the shaft. But they did not get far.
"Shit, look out!" Deidara said as he pulled back on Ino's elbow.
A boarded up tunnel branching off from the main shaft burst, and more Infected spilled out into the mine shaft above them, blocking the exit.
"This way!" Deidara said, jerking Ino along back toward the chamber.
The sea of Infected that had found them in the clay chamber was already gaining on them as they made their way up the mine shaft, but Deidara stopped just short of them at another branching tunnel. This one, too, was boarded up, but he punched it with his explosive chakra and cleared the path. Ino ran after him, her torch the only light source to guide them in the dark to who the hell knew where.
"We have to find a way out!" Ino said, the fear and claustrophobia magnifying the scraping and shuffling sounds of the Infected hunting them.
"There's lots of exits, we just have to blast our way through!" Deidara said.
Before Ino could respond to that, the sound of rushing water erupted from behind, and when she turned to look back, it was just in time get hit in the face with one of the Infected shinobi's Water Release attack. Water filled her mouth and threw her off her feet. She landed on Deidara, and they both went tumbling in the dark, the torch snuffed out. For a few horrifying seconds, Ino could neither breath nor see.
"Deidara," she managed as the water subsided and she struggled to her hands and feet. It was so dark in here.
"Get down!" Deidara commanded from somewhere above her.
All of a sudden, a bright warm light filled the space and hurtled toward the charging Infected. Deidara's incendiary bird bombs burned everything they touched, and the nearest Infected went up in flames. The light was bright enough to illuminate the passage, and Ino got to her feet, sopping wet.
"Go!" Deidara said. "I'm right behind you, yeah!"
Ino clambered up the uneven path strewn with debris, losing her footing in the dark. Footsteps behind her made her heart race with fear, and she hoped that was Deidara catching up. There was a light up ahead, and it was moving. Shadows danced along the dusty walls through slits in the dark, and she braced herself for a fight. There was no way she was dying in this musty old mine.
The tunnel ended in another boarded up barrier, and through the slits in the boards, she could make out bodies engaged in furious battle. Ino channeled her chakra and seized control of the nearest four Infected, their disease-addled minds nothing but an incoherent blur of color and an almost palpable need to kill, and turned them on each other. They were three civilians and a shinobi, and they tore at each other's throats and faces and bellies under her influence. Ino watched it all through the cracks in the barrier and hoped she'd bought herself enough time to break it down and give Deidara and her a clear path to make a run for it.
But just as she forced the Infected to turn on each other, another body lunged at the barrier and jabbed at her with kunai through the slits. Ino gasped and staggered backward just in time to avoid the blow-out from the barrier being smashed from the other side.
"What the—Kimimaro!" Ino had never been so happy to see him
Kimimaro, his body covered in sharp bone protrusions dripping black Infected blood, emerged through the newly opened passage. The Infected that had tried to get at Ino with a kunai writhed on Kimimaro's arms, impaled five times over with bone blades. Kimimaro threw him off and stepped over him to get to Ino.
"I heard the explosion and came looking for you," Kimimaro explained.
"You have the most incredible timing," Ino said. She would have hugged him if he wasn't a walking pin cushion of death.
A blast of fire ignited the tunnel where Ino had come from, and she paled. Deidara was supposed to be right behind her.
"Deidara," she said, turning back.
Kimimaro grabbed her by the wrist. "There are too many of them. We have to leave now."
"Deidara's still down there!"
She yanked her wrist free of Kimimaro's grip and ran back as quickly as she could without falling. Kimimaro followed after a moment, and soon they found Deidara surrounded by Infected. Some were on fire as they attacked him, oblivious to their pain as the overwhelming need to rip Deidara to pieces fueled them.
"Shinranshin!"
Ino took control of one of the flaming Infected and made her throw herself at the others, giving Deidara a little breathing room.
"Ino, I told you to go," Deidara said.
His face was sooty and sweaty, and he was bleeding from a cut on his arm.
"You also said you'd be right behind me. Now come on!" Ino said.
Deidara followed her back up, and when they caught up with Kimimaro, he swore.
"Come to join the party?" Deidara said.
"I imagine they were awakened by that bomb you set off," Kimimaro said. "Smart move."
"Whatever, let's just get out of here!" Ino said.
Something rumbled up ahead, and Kimimaro stopped.
"Uh-oh," Deidara said.
"What 'uh-oh'?!" Ino yelled at him.
Kimimaro took off running again and slammed into an Infected Stone shinobi that had followed them down the shaft. The guy was smashed against the wall in the main tunnel when Kimimaro burst through and ripped him apart. There was another rumbling sound, and something hard fell on Ino's head. She ducked and covered her head on instinct. A few large pebbles had dropped on her.
"Remember how I said this mine shaft was abandoned?" Deidara said, also covering his head. "That's why, yeah."
"This can't be happening!" Ino said.
"They're coming," Kimimaro said, calm as ever.
And they did come. The Infected bubbled up from deep in the mine, chasing the survivors and the slivers of sunlight that filtered through the opening far above. If Ino and the others could just reach it, then they could blow up the entrance and trap all the Infected inside.
But before anyone could make a break for the surface, more Infected emerged from the side tunnel where the trio had just come from, some charred black from Deidara's incendiary bombs, and forced them apart. Ino and Kimimaro were pushed deeper into the main tunnel away from the surface, and Deidara was forced to retreat to higher ground.
"Deidara!" Ino called to him. She drew her chakra blades and slashed at the nearest burned Infected that tried to body slam her.
Kimimaro was busy focusing on the stampede coming at them from below. He transformed his entire left arm into a massive bone drill and ran at the Infected at full tilt. The collision threw the nearest stalkers off their feet, and Kimimaro's bone drill smashed the stone floor. Ino felt the impact underfoot, and more debris fell from the ceiling.
"Damnit, move!" Deidara shouted.
Ino watched over the severed neck of another Infected she took out as the stone walls began to move and grow. Deidara unleashed a powerful Earth Release that drew columns of stone out of the walls to impale the Infected crowding the tunnel between them. It worked fast and efficiently, slaughtering or immobilizing them all, but the consequences were immediate and violent. The mine was becoming unstable under the stress of so much activity, and the wall near Ino split and cracked. Deidara released his technique and the stone columns crumbled to dust, leaving a blanket of broken bodies between Ino and him. Still, more Infected were trickling through the side tunnel, and others had snuck past Kimimaro, who could not cut them all down fast enough.
Deidara started to make his way back toward Ino when a huge chunk of rock came loose from the ceiling and smashed to pieces just in front of him. It was followed by more and more falling rock and debris. The tunnel was collapsing.
"Come on, now!" Deidara shouted down at Ino.
"Kimimaro!" Ino called to him.
He was handling himself well enough in the confines, but he'd been surrounded on all sides. A large slab of rock fell upon Kimimaro's back, and he fell to his knees, stunned. If it had been her, the rock would have surely broken her back where she stood, but Kimimaro staggered to his feet. An Infected Stone shinobi took the opportunity to kick him hard in the gut and send him crashing into the wall, further jeopardizing the structural integrity of the mine.
Ino ran to him, taking control of two Infected in her path and forcing them to smash their heads into the wall. A large rock chunk hit her in the shoulder, and she cried out in pain. Slumped against the wall, she was barely fast enough to duck as another Infected punched the wall where her head was just a moment ago. His fist exploded, and black blood and bits of bone splashed Ino's cheek and hair. An rushing column of air sent the rest of the Infected flying, and Deidara was suddenly at her side and hauling her to her feet.
The path back to the surface was fast filling with immovable stones and debris. There was no way they were getting out the old fashioned way now.
"If we stay here, we'll get buried," Deidara said. "I'm gonna blast our way out."
"Not without him," Ino protested. "Kimimaro!"
He heard her, and when she caught his gaze, it was not the piercing green she knew, but a sinister yellow on black. Cold dread cut like knives as Ino realized what he was doing.
"No, Kimimaro, don't!"
Flaming chakra tendrils emanated from a point on his chest as the curse seal slowly took over and invigorated him with its insidious power. He was gearing up for fight.
"What the hell..." Deidara said, momentarily forgetting their predicament as he stared in horror at Kimimaro.
"Get out of here," Kimimaro bellowed in a deep voice that did not sound like him at all. "Both of you. I can't hold them off much longer."
The rocks were fast piling up on all sides, sealing him off from Ino and Deidara, and even so, the Infected were relentless. Kimimaro swung around with his mutated bone drill, crushing an Infected civilian that had tried to maul him, while two more jumped him from behind. They were pulling him deeper into the mine shaft.
"Kimimaro!" Ino screamed.
"Don't do this!" she said, reaching out with her thoughts. "We can get you out!"
But that was one lie neither of them believed.
"Someone once told me there may be no meaning to this life," his thoughts echoed in her head. "But sometimes, we're lucky enough to find something interesting along the way."
"This place is coming down, we're outta time!" Deidara said, shielding Ino from the falling debris as he dragged her higher, away from Kimimaro.
"Kimimaro." Ino could barely see him fighting against the Infected swarming him in the dark.
"Even if my life is meaningless, I'm glad I found you, Ino."
"We're getting the hell outta here," Deidara said, tossing a clay bird at the caved-in entrance. "Katsu!"
The explosion was deafening and blindingly bright, and Ino lost sight of Kimimaro. Pebbles and debris rained down on her, and Deidara pulled her along after him, up and up.
"Kimimaro!" Ino could feel him slipping away, far below behind piles of thick rock and amidst a sea of Infected, but if she closed her eyes she could see him clearly in her mind as she remembered him, pale and strong and beautiful. "Your life isn't meaningless, not to me."
She could feel him all around her, the pain of his injuries, the sinister foreign power that clung to him as he tapped into his curse seal, the emotions that flooded the connection she refused to break. If she tuned everything out, ignored the sky falling down all around her as Deidara blasted through solid stone and hauled her higher, she could picture Kimimaro standing in front of her, his hand in hers, sad and quiet.
"I'm glad," he said softly.
And then he was pulling away, resisting the connection. Flaming chakra tendrils snaked around his arms and legs and chest, spectral shackles chaining him here, while Ino pulled farther and farther away from him.
"Kimimaro!" she screamed, the connection lost.
"Last one!" Deidara said, blasting through another collapsed section of the mine shaft.
Bright sunlight burst through the opening he created, and Ino stumbled to keep up with him. They crawled over the fallen rocks, and Ino tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her back where more debris tried to bury her alive as she climbed. She sensed something erupt from deep underground all of a sudden, a colossal burst of deadly chakra, and before she could make sense of it, her body moved on instinct and she tackled Deidara with all her might. They rolled a few yards away from the collapsing mine shaft entrance, and where they'd lain, an enormous white horn burst from the earth and cleaved the sky. More popped up all around it, curving and sharp and pale as death, shedding dust and dripping black with Infected blood and guts.
"Holy fuck," Deidara said, shaking at the sight and the near-death experience. "Are those..."
"Bones," Ino said, recognizing the signature as undoubtedly Kimimaro's. "Oh my god, Kimimaro!"
She scrambled back to the mine shaft's buried entrance and began digging. Her arm was bloody from where a falling rock had smashed into her shoulder, and it slicked her hand as she dug. A larger rock proved difficult to move aside, and Ino ripped a nail clean out of the bed as she tugged and lost her grip. The pain was excruciating, but she barely noticed as hysteria drove her onward. The only thought on her mind was of finding Kimimaro before he suffocated to death down there.
"Ino," Deidara said, shuffling up behind her.
"Help me dig," she said, not bothering to look at him.
At length, Deidara said, "I don't think that's a good idea, yeah."
Ino looked up at him, hardly seeing him silhouetted against the sun. Adrenaline made her hands shake. "You're right, blasting our way in would be better." She got up. "Come on, use your explosive clay."
Deidara did not move, either to start digging or to start molding his clay. He just stood there watching her with a hollow look in his blue eyes. Ino was losing her temper fast.
"Don't just stand there, help me!" she shouted at him. "If we don't hurry, Kimimaro could suffocate in there!"
Deidara grabbed her wrists, which were sticky with blood and dust. "Ino," he said, voice strained like it hurt to speak. "Kimimaro's not suffocating. He's already dead."
Ino's throat clenched up as she stared up at Deidara, incredulous. She wrenched violently out of his grip and shoved him. "You don't know that," she bit out. "He's strong. Look at all this!" She indicated the jagged bone graveyard that had grown all around them over about a square acre of land.
"I see it," Deidara said, eerily calm as though raising his voice might cause Ino to shatter.
"So, he can't be dead if he can still do all this."
Deidara looked at her like he wished he could be anywhere but here. "Ino, this kind of power... It's not somethin' you pull out unless there's no other choice."
She shook her head, hating how cryptic and calm he was being. It wasn't Deidara at all. "What're you trying to say?"
"I know a suicide move when I see one. Believe me, yeah."
"No, that's... No, Kimimaro would never. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."
Deidara said nothing as she fumed.
"There would be no point to committing suicide after everything," she practically shouted at him, like this might change things.
"The point was he was terminal," Deidara said. "He knew his fate."
Ino bared her teeth in a snarl and grabbed Deidara by the collar. "The point was to save us!"
Deidara did not flinch or try to pull away, and he calmly held Ino's gaze as she shook with rage. It was easier to be angry than to think, than to reason, to accept.
He did it to save us.
But Ino had rarely been a slave to her emotions, for better or for worse, and her virulent anger slowly melted into despair as logic and reason won out. Even Deidara could see it, and he was waiting patiently for her to see it, too.
"He..." Ino said, her voice cracking as her vision blurred with tears. "He saved us."
Ino's tears fell down her dirty cheeks and landed on Deidara's shirt. She searched his face for answers, for some explanation, something to make this right, but nothing about this was right.
Deidara gently touched her arms. "Yeah, he did."
Ino lost her composure and her balance, and the despair washed over her like a hurricane. She tore at Deidara's shirt front and clung to him, and he held her up as best he could. He offered no words of conciliation, no reassurances or false promises. He just supported her, and she held onto him for dear life. The white bone graveyard surrounded them on all sides, desolate and silent.
This chapter ended up being about twice as long as the normal length, and that was after I split it from Chapter 9. Oh well, I tried, but I have a weakness for wanting to include Orochimaru whenever and wherever possible. Thanks to everyone who's continued to review!