Chapter 26: Most Enjoyable

Itachi was heading back to the kitchen for his snack when someone jumped into his field of vision and blocked his path.

"You!" growled Hidan.

"Me?" Itachi said innocently.

"Mind explaining how I ended up all the way over there and not remembering how I got there from the other side of the building?"

He shrugged. "You weren't paying attention?"

"Try again." Hidan stood toe-to-toe with Itachi and leaned into his face. "Kisame said that I was carrying you on my back. Now how do you suppose that happened and I don't remember any of it?"

"You were sleepwalking?"

Hidan started to roll up his sleeves. "You're dead meat, Itachi. I swear to Jashin, I'll murder you good. When I'm done with you, you'll be lucky anyone can tell you apart from one of Deidara's explosions!"

"Are you saying that I'll look like a cloud of smoke or a crater in the ground? That insult needs some work if you ask me."

"Sh-shut up!"

"Actually, the explosions are caused by his clay-"

"Deidara's an idiot!" Hidan blurted out.

"Oh, yeah… I should fix that… Getting kind of annoying now."

"What is?"

"It's nothing. You don't even know you're doing it." Itachi started to move passed him.

"Don't you walk away from me! Get your butt back here!"

Itachi kept walking. Deidara came out of the bathroom, his blond hair down and soaking wet.

"God, can't a guy take a shower in peace around here?" he asked. "What's all the yelling about, hn?" He hit himself in the head with the towel he had around his shoulders.

Seeing Deidara gave Hidan an idea. "Hey, Deidara!"

"Arf!" That command was still in effect.

"You're a moron!" He waited.

Deidara glared at him. "What'd I ever do to you, man?"

Hidan's jaw dropped. With every insult, he should… "Slap him!" Hidan pointed at Itachi. "Go on! Slap him good in the face!"

"Why?"

"No, I should be asking that! Why aren't you smacking him?"

Itachi smiled and winked at the confused Hidan.

He started growling again. "You..! You reversed it, didn't you?!"

"Reversed what?" asked Deidara.

Itachi stuck up his middle finger, pretending to scratch an itch on his face.

Hidan wasn't going down so easily. "Deidara!"

"Arf!"

"Listen to me! This guy's been messing with all of us! He-"

"Say, Hidan, are you going my way?"

Hidan stopped speaking and looked up at Itachi.

"Come here," he beckoned and Hidan followed. He kept going until Deidara was left far behind. "While I have you, I've got a couple of things I want you to do for me…"

Konan decided to be nice and leave the tea out for Itachi. He still had to finish the snack he left on the table. It was nice of him to put Sasori to bed for her. She felt like a mother. But it wasn't all bad.

She went back to washing out her cup and putting it on a rack to dry. As she was drying her hands, she felt something creep up on her. Two hands appeared under her arms and grabbed her breasts. The hands squeezed.

"Guess who?"

Screaming, she turned around and slapped the person standing behind her. The back of her hand made contact with Hidan's face. "Hidan?!"

Despite the hard hit to his right cheek, Hidan remained emotionless and stared off into space.

Laughter came from the crack in the door and Konan spotted Itachi spying on them from a safe distance. "You told him to do that?!"

He responded by laughing.

"You are being ridiculous!" Konan slammed the towel down on the edge of the sink in anger.

"Ok, ok. I'm sorry. Lighten up, would you?" Itachi cautiously came into the room. "I just wanted to see how you would react. I mean, you never do anything or say anything. I hardly know you're there half the time."

"Well, enjoy it while you can. Everyone returns to normal tomorrow. I can't say for sure the time…"

"And there's still a ton of things I want to do to them. I wish you had done this sooner or at least were given more time… A week his hardly enough to fit it all in."

"When he returns to normal, the first thing he's going to do is skin you alive. You know that, don't you?"

Itachi gave it a halfhearted shrug. "Eh. I can handle him, no problem."

"You won't have hypnosis to fall back on."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

She still wasn't convinced that he understood, but she digressed. The frozen Hidan was starting to bother her. "It's creepy how he just stands there. Do something about it."

"Ok, ok." Itachi swiveled around in his seat. "Hidan, come here."

Hidan stood by Itachi. "Yes, master?"

Konan rolled her eyes. "You really had him do that? Call you master?"

"When is it ever going to happen again? Let me enjoy it." Itachi pointed to the teapot. "Hidan, pour me a cup of tea."

"Yes, master."

With nothing better to do, Konan observed. This was either laziness or cruelty on Itachi's part. She wanted to see just how far he would take it.

Deidara's bedroom door opened with a puff of black smoke. Kisame backed away from the choking bog rising to the ceiling and looked at the person coming out. Deidara staggered from his room, coughing and pushing a singed lock of blond hair out of his face. "I'm ok!" he called to anyone who cared to hear. He fanned the smoke with his hand and coughed again, trying to air out his room. "Well, that sucked. And I just took a shower, too, hn!" He hit himself in the head with his tool bag. "Ouch!"

"You need a good whack in the head after that," said Kisame, who had been waiting for him to leave his room for the past few minutes.

Deidara turned around. "What do you want?"

"Why'd you blow yourself up?"

"I did no such thing. It was an early detonation. That's all."

"One of these days you are going to end up blowing yourself up. I'll tell you that right now."

"Duly noted." Deidara backed away from the smoke which was already starting to dissipate. If only there were windows in this building. That would help a lot. "I'll give that a couple minutes, then we'll try again, hn." He hit himself with the tool bag again.

Kisame looked into the room. "Deidara."

"Yeah?"

"Table's on fire."

"Whoa! Jeez!" Deidara ran back inside and doused the small flame with a bucket of water he had on hand. The fire sizzled and hissed, dying away. Deidara fanned the smoke with his sleeve and blow on the corner of the table to make sure the fire was gone. Satisfied and tossed the bucket to the ground and stepped away. "It's gonna smell like a fireplace in here for a while." He walked back out of the room. "So, what did you want again, Kisame? Something important, I hope."

"Oh, it is." He remembered the triggers and was eager to test them out on the little fire-starter.

"Well, spit it out."

Kisame clapped his hands once. "Sleep."

He jumped back when he saw Deidara fall sideways onto the floor. He looked like he had fallen asleep standing up.

"Jeez. Itachi didn't warn me about that. Wish he did."

He picked Deidara's limp body off the ground and tried to dust him off. Despite a bomb going off in his face, he wasn't too worse for wear. He tried to make him stand up, but Deidara was completely listless and couldn't stand on his own two feet.

"Deidara, can you hear me?"

"Mm…" Deidara nodded sleepily.

"Ok, I need you to stand up, alright?"

"…ok…" Deidara stood up. He looked very unsteady but he was standing alright.

"Good. Now let's see… I want it to be good. What should I do..?" Kisame had given it a lot of thought while he was waiting for Deidara to emerge from his room. He wanted to give him a really good command. Something funny. Kisame rubbed his hands together gleefully. "I've always wanted to do this. Deidara, when you wake up, you will think you're a girl."

Deidara nodded his head up and down slowly.

That should do it. "Up and at 'em."

Who wants to see this?! 8D

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