The End Begins
We ran… the pace had been more merciful than before… but it still took a lot out of us. It had been five hours since we reached the foothills of the unnamed mountains. We had leapt through pathless ravines and gullies, steadily climbing the harsh mountains. I thought gladly of how I hadn't been in the original retrieval party… if I had, then I'd have had to carry all of those weapons up the other side of the mountain, like Takumi-sama now had to. I understood why this had been such a long mission for him; trade agreements and papers that needed signing were the least of his problems.
The mountains were larger-then-life. It felt as though we were traveling up the back of a sleeping giant, ready to rear up and shake us off. The footing was unstable most of the time, and getting sick rushes of excitement, I often wondered how many lives the twisted sentinels had claimed.
Darkness had fallen and engulfed the valleys of stone in a cold, merciless blanket of uncertainty. The stars felt close enough that one might reach out and touch them.
We had covered several particularly deadly gorges, but upon the fourth, Kazuki-san stopped and had the rest of us halt.
"We're just about at the designated meeting point. We're an hour late, though, so we'll be passing over this hole to make up time. We're going to be taking an easier route on the way back, but it's essential that we arrive at the base camp at no later then 12:00a.m." His gaze swept over the group assembled around him. "Are you all ready? This is one big crack we'll be taking on." An understatement. The thing facing us was a gaping chasm! It was running towards us in a vertical pointing split, with narrow ledges on either side of the abyss and walls of stone leaning against them.
There were murmurs of consent from the others. Kazuki-san nodded. Without further ado, he began a brisk walk towards the ledges.
There was plenty of room at first, but the left side which he had chosen began to dwindle into a thinner foothold as the rock pressing against his back grew closer and the pit below consumed the ledge.
In single file the rest of the team began to follow. I ended up somewhere between Hisoka-san and Suzume-chan. Hisoka-san was behind me, and when I looked back every once and awhile to see how far I had gotten, he shot me acrimonious expressions.
My stomach felt as though it were disappearing every moment I took to glance down past my feet at the blackness below. There was no visible end to it, and every time a clumsily placed step dislodged a stone, there was no resounding echo from it hitting the bottom of the pit.
I desperately wanted to summon myself a bird of clay and fly over the all-consuming crevice… to… escape the helpless sort of fear of falling. The height didn't bother me, only the aloneness I felt from my separation from the clay. I reminded myself that I could still use chakra to climb if necessary. And as I watched my clammy feet shuffle along the foothold, I told myself, somewhere deep down, not to be entirely reliant on my exploding clay. I still had some mediocre taijutsu, skills with other explosives, and rapid improv thinking. Yeah, I'd be fine, I reasoned.
I had reached the halfway point and dared to look around past Suzume-chan at the ledge ahead. It was gone. Wasted down to nothingness was a five foot gap in front of Kazuki-san. Gazing at the ledge on the opposite side of the chasm, I saw why he had preferred this side. The other had a twelve foot section missing.
The situation brought a memory floating back to the surface of my mind. When I had first seen the end of the "safe" ledge, I had experienced the same feeling as when I had been participating in the chunin exams three years ago. They had been held in Takigakure, as Iwagakure was still in a state of mutual conflict with Konohagakure.
I remembered that in the third stage of the exam I had been caught in the waterfall level of the maze beneath the ground. The whole place had been a genjutsu constructed with the utmost level of convincing effects.
Suzume-chan and I had been separated from Kazuki-san, and part of the exam stated that we stick together no matter what. Panicking, we had run blindly in circles, 'till Kazuki-san had seemingly turned up between two showers of cascading water. Being so relieved, we had both let our guards down and I had ended up stabbed in the guts by a fellow genin disguised as him.
In the terrible agony, the genjutsu broke only on me, and I found myself standing with my toes over the edge of a gently dripping waterfall that fell away into darkness. With all blinds taken off of my senses, I had been able to defeat the genin with absurd ease considering my condition. But having seen how close I had come to death had totally drained me.
We had passed the exam, of course- reconnected with Kazuki-san, and all- but it had taken me a few days to entirely shake off the stomach wrenching feeling that had nothing to do with the rusty pipe embedded in my midriff and the tetanus shot that had made me very ill. Being so close to the unknown… and having not even realized it… Now that had been a scary… almost fortifying sensation. (Yeah, the two can coexist in my understanding.)
So it was back on the forefront of a new struggle that the memory had randomly popped up.
Kazuki-san swayed slightly, turning his head stiffly to look back on the rest of his team.
"You can all jump this, right?" he made the question sound like an order. Nobody answered him; all seemed too absorbed in hugging the wall to give any kind of consent. "It's no big deal," said Kazuki-san, as though pleading for a reply. Yet again, none came.
He took a few more steps towards the hole. He gaped down it in open awe. Behind him, Shin-san followed, but Kazuki-san threw up a hand to ward him off. Precariously, he began to back up, and seeing what he was doing, Shin-san also retreated.
Kazuki-san was a good ten feet away from the missing bit of ledge before he started forward. His footfalls sent pebbles and sheets of slate spiraling down from their safety. I watched him with an unhealthy fascination, as he reached the edge and took off, leaping into a shallow arc and landing on the other side. His fingers scrabbled desperately against the rock wall, then, finally finding a secure cranny for his right hand, he looked back on the rest of us.
"Come on." He edged along to give some more space.
Shin-san, who had been behind Kazuki-san, began to shake.
"No… no, I don't want to…" he muttered, attempting to back away. Toshi-san jabbed an assertive finger towards him.
"Go!" she commanded.
"I… I really suck… I hate jumping… I can't run…" he said disjointedly.
"I'm gonna push you off if you don't get out of my way!" said Toshi-san, sounding like she was only half-joking. Being in such a volatile position wasn't doing any good on the group's nerves.
"No, you won't be pushing him off!" said Kazuki-san, shouting from his perch. "Now let's go... You can do it."
After five full minutes of persuasion, forceful and otherwise, Shin-san finally made it, and everyone else followed. I watched Suzume-chan sail over the crevice with no difficulty whatsoever. And, picking up on the waves of unpleasant feelings from Hisoka-san, I made no spectacle of crossing the missing ledge.
Taking only two steps back, I lunged forward, driving chakra to my legs and kicking off from the unstable corner. I flew over open space. My eyes moved downwards involuntarily, and I saw the inky blackness pressing up from the abyss below, threatening to pull me down with it. Then I landed heavily on my right foot, three feet from the hole that had been challenging me.
Sighing, I made to follow the others who were already ahead of me, not bothering to look back at Hisoka-san.
Shin-san almost collapsed when he reached solid mountain again after Kazuki-san. I nearly laughed at the face he was making. Getting over the obstacle had put me in a sadistic, good mood.
"Only a kilometer… until we reach camp," proclaimed Kazuki-san.
"Yeah, yeah, all good…" I said exasperatedly. I was getting bored of his constant status reports… and he didn't feel like the person I had spent over a year with on a genin cell. In my sarcastic state I didn't really care about how close we were to the designation. I wanted to go back to Iwagakure and experiment some more with my kibaku nendo. Maybe give it colour when it exploded… yeah.
Kazuki-san pretended not to have heard my smart comment.
We were pressing on again. Kazuki-san led as usual… and as I ran, bolting forward in quick movements, then lazily drifting back into formation, I let my mind dwell on the unpleasant prospect of the return trip. A needless worry, but how was I to know at the time…?
I found myself staring at the ground again, though given the speed at which I was running, and the amount of time it took for my eyes to pick up movement, I didn't see much. When I registered this fact at last, I looked ahead of me again only to see the others slowing down.
I had pretty good chakra control, so I boosted my senses with some chakra to confirm a suspicion. It took me a few seconds to first smell, then hear the people concealed amongst the boulders. They were good… would have been able to remain undetectable if not for their numbers. I could pick up the scent of faint body odor… and slow, calm heartbeats. Their frequencies varied to the point of them all being distinguishable as separate people. Around fifteen of them. One tune of life stood out, the familiar one that I had listened to many times late at night while taking in every word its owner had to say.
Apparently, Kazuki-san had considered my complaint; he said nothing as we came up to the hidden shinobi.
Slowly, blurry silhouettes began to materialize from the nothingness. I could see stony-faced ninja ranking mostly from chunin to jounin all arranged around a tall young man. He hopped down from a mound of gravel, planting himself with much bravado between his comrades and my own.
"State your business here and what Tsuchikage-sama values the most," he said, looking at everyone in turn. He didn't seem to know who was in charge… and none of us… except for Kazuki-san knew what this person was talking about.
"Reinforcements for the weapons transaction with Takumi village, and the Tsuchikage holds courage in the face of an inevitably averse outcome in highest regard," said Kazuki-san, reciting what I guessed were well-worn lines. "Do you agree?"
"Yes…" said the leader of the other group. "Now you all need to join hands and one of you needs to touch me."
We looked around at each other awkwardly.
"What the…" mumbled Hisoka-san. Then his eyes lit up with understanding and his voice trailed away.
"Huh? I don't get it, hmm?" I grunted. Everyone had linked hands by this point but me.
"Just do it, Deidara-san, it's nothing bad." Amaya-san tried to console me. I grudgingly obliged, feeling foolish. I was only touching the fingertips of the people beside me, not wanting them to make contact with my palm-mouths. I hoped they wouldn't do something embarrassing.
We all stood there for a moment, looking quite stupid. Then, I felt a slight rush seep into my right hand's digits from Shin-san's hand. It oozed up them… and then… like fire injected into my chakra system, pain erupted in my palm as the sensation hit the mouth.
"Argh!" I cried, recoiling from the other boy's touch.
The foreign chakra continued to climb up my arm 'till it dissipated, beginning to diffuse into my cells. I grabbed the burning hand with my other one, squeezing it and trying to cut off the circulation.
"That… bloody hurt!" I snarled, looking up from my throbbing palm. "You… messed up the chakra flow… tenketsu…" I griped angerly.
Not caring about what the others thought, I held my palm-mouth out and watched it slobber in pain all over the rest of my hand. It didn't take long for the puddle of saliva to overflow and begin dripping in viscous strings to the ground.
"Deidara-kun?" came a voice I hadn't heard for two weeks.
I glared in the direction of the sound. A man who few would have believed to be 67 pushed his way between two of his team members to come up to my hostile form. I grimaced in the direction of his unreadable expression.
He had a surprisingly smooth face; hardly lined at all, with curly, silver hair that shone like iron filings. He had a tiny goatee sprouting from his chin and large glasses with thick frames set upon his hooked nose. He wore long, dark green and tan clothing underneath his stained and weatherworn chunin vest. He was my grandfather.
"Deidara-kun, what are you doing here? I thought you were staying with Tsukiko-san…" asked Takumi-sama, sounding incredulous.
"Why do you think I'm here?" I said vindictively. "I signed up for this… mission!"
"Calm down, there's no need for you to take that tone of voice with me; remember who you're talking to," he spoke soothingly. I crossed my arms, getting drool all over my striped shirt in the process.
"Hey, Takumi-san! Do you know this kid? Get away from him, he just avoided the test," said a burley, bear of a man.
"No, this is my… grandson…" the words came haltingly, as though he were ashamed to admit it.
"You can't know…"
"Yes, I can," interrupted Takumi-sama. "I'm familiar with the boy's condition and chakra transfer checks aren't a good idea with his hands. They disturb the tenketsu."
I gawked slightly at Takumi-sama. How did he know? I had only just figured out about my hands' tenketsu points a week ago, or something!
The other team's leader shrugged, and waved off the brute's protests.
"Fine, be it on your own head, Takumi-san. Anyways…" his eyes moved from person to persons' face. "What can one kid do? We'll carry on with the others."
At that moment, I would have liked to show him what "one kid" could do! The aspersion stung me. The uninjured palm-mouth gritted its teeth; sharing in my fury.
"Come with me, Deidara-kun," said Takumi-sama, gently putting a hand on my shoulder. I shrank away from the contact, ducking under his arm. There was nothing genuine about his consolations.
Frowning, Grandpa Takumi-sama led me a little away from the others who had joined hands again. Noticing my wrathful gaze was turned in their direction he said,
"They're sending chakra through their bodies and into the others' through tenketsu points on their hands. It's a way to pick up each person's unique chakra signature and get it all in one shot. It's how we confirm that both teams are the real deal. It doesn't work with you because of the tenketsu points in your hands being so close to the surface; it damages them and can reverse the flow of…"
"I know!" I sniped.
"Really?" asked Takumi-sama, looking mildly interested. "What have you been doing while I've been away?"
"…" I hesitated. "Art." Takumi-sama's eyebrows shot up faster then you could say "ninjutsu".
"Really," he repeated.
"Yeah," I said coldly. Then, despite myself, I dug my good hand into one of my pouches. The palm-mouth rabidly ate the clay, and when I withdrew it and opened my fingers, a stork stood daintily on the mouth's tongue. I tossed it into the air, making a one handed seal to cause it to take flight.
Takumi-sama watched its progress with something close to feigned indifference. He… had a very odd expression on his face. Feeling impervious to the other shinobi around me, who had started to walk past us into the main camp, I cried the word,
"Katsu!"
The bird burst into a mini-shower of sparks and light.
BANG!
I could see Takumi-sama from the corner of my eye. His eyes were shielded behind the glare of white that briefly shone across his glasses, but his mouth was open ajar.
"What in the…" The lean leader had turned back and was squinting at us.
"It's nothing," said Takumi-sama. Then in an undertone, he whispered to me, "Interesting… is this a jutsu?" I nodded slightly. Without another word, Takumi-sama followed the rest of the ninja and I copied him.
Base camp was comprised of nothing but a few shabby sleeping bags and backpacks under a genjutsu field. The whole set up was invisible until you stepped beneath the dome-like outer range. I knew that there had to be someone very skilled in genjutsu arts to make something like this, as genjutsu usually involved getting directly into the brains of a limited amount of people, rather than projecting an illusion in an area.
Even with the aid of a genjutsu, nobody started a fire as the rest of the shinobi gathered around an outcropping of rocks. Everyone had set up sleeping bags and were planning watches when I settled myself down between a snug pair of stones beneath a flat-faced boulder.
My hand was still pounding with every circulation of blood that ran through it, and I was pretty sure by this point that the chakra flow had been messed up. I figured I'd tweak it a bit when it stopped hurting so much. When I leaned back to look at the night sky, I felt the shards of stone dig deeper into my flesh… and by now, I knew that they were infected. Puss was dampening the back of my shirt from the still open wounds.
I exhaled heavily, watching my breath disappear in a cloud of mist. It was terribly cold in my thin clothing.
The stars shone like diamonds set into dark silk. Some of them changed colour, from blue to green, then orange.
My hand slipped into my pouch again, and when I brought it out, there was another sparrow, like the one I'd made when I'd been introduced to Amaya-san and Isamu-san. But, with closer observation, or maybe just my imagination, this sparrow had a more delicate look about it. Yet… it seemed stronger than the last… or maybe it was just the absence of rain pelting down onto its back that made it all the more powerful.
I was about to bring my hands together to blow it up, when I changed my mind, instead rooting around in my backpack. When I found the note again, I read over the bit I had translated.
"I remember what you showed me, and I'm sorry… but I really don't know for what. You know I can try to forget, but it won't happen. I only had a suggestion, so I don't…"
I stared at the fragile piece of paper. What in Earth was Hisoka-san talking about?
I got out a pen, warming it between my fingers.
"Deidara-kun, what're you doing here?"
I jumped, a curse on my lips.
"What?" I managed to spit.
Takumi-sama was standing behind me on top of the rock against my back. He looked down on me and the note, which I hastily stowed away again.
"I just wanted to know what you were up to. I get nervous when you're away from the group," he smiled. I didn't return the amiable gesture.
"I was sitting alone. Have you got a problem with that?" I asked arrogantly. If he was going to treat me like some moron prankster, then I figured I might as well play up to the part.
"Deidara-kun, what's wrong?" he said sharply. "You've picked up quite the attitude!"
"Nothing!" I said, flat-out lying. Takumi-sama dropped the subject, coming down to sit beside me. He slid to my level, looking up at the midnight darkness.
I settled the sparrow I had made down onto a hill away from us.
"Oh, I almost forgot!" said Takumi-sama suddenly. A hand dove into his vest pocket and resurfaced with two small slips of plastic. "It's your sixteenth birthday tomorrow… or today." He looked at his watch.
"Uh… it is?" I asked uncertainly. I hadn't even thought about my birthday…
"Well… yes, that's when we're assuming you were born." A blank look set into his eyes. He winced slightly, holding out the papers. I took them.
Two pictures. One was of a dark haired woman with large, saphire eyes that looked firm and unconquerable. The other was of a man with medium length, loose blond hair, and a friendly smile playing about his taunting, azure eyes. My parents, I knew.
"They're for you," said Takumi-sama quietly.
I didn't respond. I just stared at the two totally opposite faces. I wondered why they were in separate pictures. And… why was Grandpa Takumi-sama actually acknowledging my birthday, when even I hadn't remembered it? It usually wasn't made a big deal of, it was greeted with… surprise that the "deformed one" had survived another year.
Seeming unable to contain himself, Takumi-sama began to talk.
"Your mother, Deidara-kun… she was tough… unyielding! I'm surprised your father could even win her heart over! And…Taiki-kun, he was so gentle and understanding. But you should have seen him when he got angry! Only things that were near to him, like Mayu-chan, your mother, and his nindo, if insulted could make him lose his patience. He was such a dear fellow…" reminisced Takumi-sama.
"What was his nindo?" I spoke quietly.
"Well…" said Takumi-sama thoughtfully. "I think it was to put love and empathy before even his shinobi dedication… and some odd idea involving fighting with paint brushes." He lapsed into silence.
"I taught him to paint. But…" he struggled for words. "…Your parents would be very proud of you. You're getting more serious in your shinobi work."
".."
Takumi-sama said nothing more. He got up and walked towards the rest of the people, leaving me to my own thoughts. I never understood why he hadn't taught me how to paint. It probably had something to do with his idea of me being "unworthy" to do so and so…
I retrieved the note and my pen, and picked up my decrypting.
...:Hours Later:..
Someone was crying.
Things weren't well.
Something was missing.
The summoning scrolls full of weapons had been stashed close to the only two jounins. Everyone but the person on the first watch had supposedly hunkered down and gone to sleep. Who was on the 5:00 watch?
I had deciphered a bit more of the letter… in the dark. Now it read:
"I remember what you showed me, and I'm sorry… but I really don't know for what. You know I can try to forget, but it won't happen. I only had a suggestion, so I don't see why you had to get so worked up. I thought that if we broke your jutsu down into more manageable bits, like even smaller rocks, then you could slowly build up to bigger ones. Personally, I think the smaller, sharper rocks are more deadly and better suited to your strengths. We should train again some time, to test this out, you know…"
That had seemed innocent. It explained why Suzume-chan had been in such a mood when we registered for the mission… and it also gave hints as to how Hisoka-san had known about her jutsu… and used it against me. I was a little choked up about her not telling me, though… What was the big secret?
Crouching stiffly on my knees, I peered over the stones surrounding me, adjusting my enhanced chakra-vision. The rocks that everyone had been gathered around, the ones that had seemingly posed as a campfire… someone was now sitting on them. I widened my eyes, trying to gather more light. Suzume-chan… and she was… sobbing…
I glanced around helplessly, looking for aid that wouldn't come.
"… Incompetent… and… what to do...?"
I caught whispers saturated with tears. She was huddled in a little ball of despair, hugging her knees.
Part of me told me to comfort her, another said it would be easier to let her be… and she deserved it for shutting me out… if she did… I wasn't sure if it was vice versa now. Maybe I was the problem? Yeah.
Over the weeping form of Suzume-chan, I saw the deep purples of early dawn and the hints of gold in the distant sky. I was running out of private time.
I did nothing to help Suzume-chan. Not a thing. I returned to my missive decoding, trying to block out the sounds of her sorrow.
Light washed over the sheet in my trembling hands. I pressed it against my thigh, almost punching a hole through it as my pen's point swept over the paper, revealing the next words.
"I even have an idea for its name, if you want to hear. But…"
My throat physically closed as I read the next six words.
"You know… I miss you again."
I gasped for breath, looking up at Suzume-chan's shuddering silhouette, then back to the mesmerizing scrap.
Something clicked… the nexus. And… like a freight train plowing ahead at full speed, the rest of the note hit me. It made sense just like that. The next words made themselves apparent instantaneously.
"You have time for Deidara-san, but you hardly come visiting anymore. I'm pathetic in that way. I'm jealous."
"…Hardly… what… how long…" I wasn't even paying attention to what I was thinking.
"I love you."
I almost tore the paper in half. Why did I hurt so much… in my heart… my heart…?
"I know- I hope you don't have feelings for Deidara-san, but it's still hard for me. What with you not telling him about us and all. If you did, we might be able to work something out."
"NEVER!" shrieked the "BANG", awakening in full-force.
I read on:
"Please let me know what you want to do with that jutsu. Send a reply with Deidara-san, or something. I think he's reliable, and even if he isn't, I doubt he can decode this letter. (Don't get mad at me, I'm just telling you the truth.)
-Hisoka"
I was convulsing with ire. More insulted… then when children had thrown rocks at me, more insulted then when Takumi-sama had confessed his disappointment in me, more insulted then when a particular classmate had tried to cut one of my palm-mouth's tongues out with a kunai… more insulted than I could ever remember being! And why… why did EVERYTHING hurt? My body, my mind… And more then that… something even deeper!
Never had oxygen become so hard to breath. Never had blinking been so difficult. I was agonizingly aware of my entire body.
Why did I feel this way?
I couldn't have… I didn't… love her, did I?
The vibe of unease I had felt earlier… it was still present.
Then a thunderous crash rang out. I heard sandals scuffling across granite and earth.
Suddenly people were standing over me. We were under attack.
Sanguinary hues bathed my vision. The world went red.