The Strangeness of Those Two

The Akatsuki are strange people.

Rogues of the same uniform, they were supposedly what one would call a defectors, someone of the outside and yet they together formed this sort of alliance, this organization. Of course, this didn't plague Hidan's mind at first, all he thought was that it would definitely be difficult to escape this sort of situation. Who these people were, what they wanted, and whether or not the boy would be set free later was one of the first things that he considered once he was told to suck it up and deal with the masked man.

Over the past week, things had gotten pretty bad between them. Not only was Kakuzu a man who couldn't resist plopping his head off every few minutes, but he was a man of many vices, money being one of them. It didn't help that Kakuzu seemed to act as if he knew more than Hidan ever would, and the worst part was, the zealot had a hunch he really did. With the age gap they had to work with, and this was no ordinary age gap between parent and son, no, this was between a toddler and an unwilling 55 year old, the two fought like no tomorrow. Learning that the miser was immortal too didn't make anything easier.

He did however find some solace within the younger ones around. Though Sasori already didn't seem to like him, the old man was tolerant and didn't take every moment he could to criticize him. He'd only met Kisame briefly, but he could already tell that the guy was neutral and didn't plan to get any closer. Hidan was fine with that of course. Then there were the little ones, little kids like Deidara or Itachi who didn't seem to know their place. It must have been because they didn't know; actually that would be everyone, no one knew of his importance. Used to two plus years of being hailed as a prophet and waited hand and foot, Hidan found it unnerving that the two younger kids often resisted against him and no one older cared for any of his orders unless they were put respectfully.

Itachi was aloof, but Deidara at least seemed to show an interest. The two didn't meet that often, but over the course of the week, Hidan had managed to cling to the blond and forge some sort of an acquaintanceship with him. It didn't stop the little boy from throwing bombs left and right but Hidan remained persistent anyway.

(Naruto Shippuden Movie 3 OST - Journey)

Hidan recoiled at the sight of green in his bowl. Today he'd agreed to eat lunch with Deidara because he couldn't stand another day begging to get his limbs or other parts sewed back onto his body. The Uchiha was out of the country with the blue guy and the only ones remaining for the last couple of days here were the strange old puppeteer and little Deidara. Hidan may have been immortal, but he still needed to eat. Immortality only went so far, and even now, he had a time limit as to how long he could keep it.

The blond picked up his chopsticks and lifted his rice bowl. He tried his best to remove his gaze from their guest, knowing that he'd better off not get involved in the first place. His gaze was focused against the space in front of him and nothing more, but he couldn't help but notice as the minutes pass that the food placed in front of the teenager hadn't even been touched.

Hidan frowned deeply and stuck a finger inside his ear. Deidara blinked a couple of times, then turned to face the other. "Aren't you gonna eat?"

"Nope."

A tiny sound of surprise left the little boy's lips. He wasn't gonna eat it? What was wrong? Was he not hungry? That couldn't be it, the jashinist had been whining earlier about starving. Was the food too hot? Well, he couldn't say for sure about the others preference but Deidara thought the rice was at least a little warmer than room temperature, edible without burning any taste buds.

"What is it? Something wrong with it?" The blond put down his bowl and leaned his chopsticks on them, looking at the zealot oddly.

"Yeah," Hidan stuck his nose up at the meal and pointed at a boiled green leaf in his bowl."What's that?"

Deidara stared at it for a few seconds and managed a good guess. "Um, bok choy leaves?"

"Ew, I don't like that stuff."

"Then eat the other stuff." The eleven year old returned to his own meal. He heard a disgusted grunt from the Jashinist, then the sound of the untouched bowl sliding further away from them on the table, pushed away and rejected.

"What are you doing?" Deidara furrowed an eyebrow.

"I don't want it."

"What's wrong with the leaves?"

"It's a vegetable. I hate vegetables." Hidan grumbled.

"Doesn't matter, just eat it!" Deidara snapped, appalled at the idea that a boy fourteen years of age still behaved like a picky five year old. Especially here of all places, weren't rogue ninja supposed to be hardy? "Danna went made this for us so you should eat it! Whether you like it or not!"

Hidan slammed his hand on the kotatsu and protested, "Bah, tell the old man to make me something else! Something without disgusting vegetables in it! I'm no goat!"

"Quit acting like a baby! Suck it up and take it like a man!"

"You're closer to a baby than I am! I'm your superior! So go tell your 'old man' to make something that I can actually eat!"

"He is not old!-"

SLAM

"What is going on!?"

Deidara winced and froze at the familiar tone of his master. Hiruko stood by the door of the room, tail pressed firmly against the door to the stone wall. His loud entrance had also seemed to silence Hidan as well, who simply sat there with his eyes wide.

Silence fell over the small room as Sasori retracted his tail from the door and approached them, sliding slowly across the floor, dead orbs staring both of them down. The blond gulped and shifted away from their guest, attempting to get out of the picture and leave whatever spite the puppeteer had to the immortal kid. He'd known the redhead for a good three years now, he knew what that tone meant. Sasori eyed the two, then moved his gaze down to the table where he noticed plainly that the bowl on the right was strangely close to the edge of the table.

"Eh? What's that look?" Hidan grumbled, though his words seemed a bit forced.

Shut up you idiot! Deidara felt like grabbing the boy and shouting in his face. His eyes snapped to the little zealot and then back to his master, noticing the slight pause in Hiruko's movement. Sasori had heard that as well as the undertones.

"I heard your argument through the wall. Is there something going on?" Sasori stared squarely.

Deidara huffed and crossed his arms, whipping his head away from the other boy. He stuck out his lower lip and murmured, "I don't know, ask him."

Immediately, the Yugakure teen scoffed, "I don't eat vegetables, make me something else."

Hiruko's gaze narrowed. "There isn't anything else. Just eat, and eat quietly."

"Tch, told you." The blond mumbled triumphantly and returned to his meal. He earned a glare from the other while Sasori turned to head back to his workshop. Obviously, this didn't sit well the young Jashinist, temple throbbing in annoyance at their disregard.

"Fine then, I'm not eating."

Hiruko paused. This time, the eleven year old didn't bother with trying to figure out what was going through his mentor's head. He knew now that lunch today would not be as quiet as he expected to it be. This had never been much of a problem for himself, Deidara had never really been a picky eater and and he and his master had rarely argued about what food came to the table. One thing he did know however was that Sasori was very adamant when it came to meal time, and that he always expected every grain of rice to be consumed and every drop of liquid to be gone. With a puppet for a body, it confused him at first as to why the redhead was so strict with a sustenance he didn't need, but then he remembered that his master came from the sand village, a place where periods of famine were common.

"Yes you are."

Hidan opened a single eye.

"You are going to eat and finish everything I have given you." Sasori's voice seemed to hiss dangerous low. "Food doesn't come easy, so you'd better stuff yourself or else I'll force to do it."

"Nuh-uh, you can't force me to do anything!" Hidan scoffed, grin spreading across his face. "Just throw it away! I'll find something else to eat."

"Do you have any idea what a waste that is?" Hiruko turned around to face the imprudent teenager. A familiar clicking noise emitted from the shell, long tail readying to smack this kid upright if he needed to. Sasori felt no emotional connection whatsoever with the little zealot, so he didn't care whatever injuries it required to get the kid to eat. "You know, right now, you could be starving to death and you would gladly eat what I've offered you. Have you thought of that?"

Hidan folded his arms behind his head in a carefree manner. He seemed to ponder this idea for a moment before huffing, "Who cares?"

Deidara quickly lifted his bowl off the table before Sasori could whip out his tail and send the table flying across the room. The bowl hit the wall, breaking into pieces that slid over the stone floor. Through the loud crash, the puppeteer's ragged growls clearly replaced what dangerous aura he could emit. Hidan sat there with both hands in the air, face paling slightly as the bok choy leaf fell on his nose limply.

Calmly, the boy continued to eat. The idiot got what was coming for him. Sasori had made more than enough warnings.

"Are you happy now? Now no one can eat it!" The puppeteer snarled and snaked the tail into the air, just barely reaching the ceiling. "

"Oi! You're not just an old man! You're crazy too!"

Another slam and bang. The boy chewed a little faster as he kept his eye on the action. Stupid little Hidan trying to order around the big bad puppeteer of the red sand. When Deidara first saw his head come off, he actually expected something of the teenager but now, all of those expectations went down the drain.

Sasori had no toleration for wasting materials and other items. It wasn't just his strict rules against breaking usable tools or making a mess, they were rules about only using what one needed, only sleeping when it was necessary, and eating food whenever it was possible. Unlike the greenery of Yugakure, Sasori had grown up in a desert village, a place that had limited access to water, food, or shelter. Naturally, raising Deidara came with its parenting woes, so the puppeteer had drawn on the methods that he'd grown up with. For the first few years of their time together, the puppeteer was actually much harsher with the boy than he was now. Training was treacherous and the expectations were as high as ever, barley a break from what Deidara was used to in Iwagakure. The boy was expected to follow orders and requests and didn't oppose the puppeteer unless necessary. When it came to food, the blond could only guess that Sasori had experienced famine at some point, and he was always encouraged to eat everything he was offered, be it even if he was stuffed.

One of these situations ended in Deidara throwing up.

Now, Hidan, he didn't know any of those struggles. Yugakure had always been prosperous and food was no problem due to the rich land around them as opposed to the borrowed plot of land the Sand had bought from the Leaf. So since then, Deidara had been barred off from allowing anyone to join him for lunch other than Itachi.

On the subject of Itachi, Hidan didn't have much of an opinion about him.

The boy didn't even introduce himself and surely did not try. The young Jashinist had no problems with that, and he didn't care to do so himself either. He could tell plainly that Deidara wasn't so chummy with Itachi as well, considering how often the boy so rudely scoffed his name. Whatever the hell went on between them in the past, Hidan wasn't curious enough to pry.

And then finally, it happened. He'd gotten back to their floor in the building only to come with the news that they had just received a new mission. Now, Hidan wasn't touchy with details. Frankly, he barely listened on the briefing from Kakuzu and considering how obvious it was that the teenager couldn't give a rats ass but the miser didn't comment, it seemed he couldn't give a rats ass either. It was a simple assignment, just go over to that crazy old man's old hideout and retrieve his stuff for a sick Itachi. Hidan didn't get why they needed to go to such lengths though, surely it couldn't be anything more than the cold or flu.

At this point, Hidan saw Kakuzu little more than an obstacle, an immovable object that also served as a wall in conversation. Didn't want to move, doesn't move, didn't want to talk, doesn't talk. That's how he'd started resorting to bothering other members into expanding his knowledge, all in the pursuit of figuring out who the heck these guys were, and when Hidan could be released from all this.


Such small pieces, but they would be necessary. No doubt would he have to replace them after a few years. His current subject would hit a growth spurt soon, so he'd made them a little larger for the occasion but even with all of his accumulated medical knowledge, he couldn't predict the exact proportions of a human as it aged. Legs lengthened with time, arms too but generally the head would stay the same. Of course, there were certain parts he couldn't predict at all how he would create them, all he had were diagrams and other sketchy accounts on how they worked and how they matured.

Knock

Knock

Sasori couldn't suppress the surprised grunt he made, snapping out of his little world of thought. Returning to the reality of his stuffy, dark studio, the puppeteer quickly shot up and grabbed a navy blue tarp off of an unfinished puppet head hanging from the ceiling and hastily draped it over his desk. A layer of dust clouded from the spot but Sasori could care less. He had no idea who was knocking on the door but whoever they were, this needed to be hidden. This project was only meant for one set of eyes.

He almost slammed the drawers closed and quickly stashed a paper depicting a sketch underneath one of his textbooks from the private library. Giving one last look over the desk, Sasori deemed it normal enough and tried to calm his heart rate. The noise had surprised him. It had been a quiet full day since his subordinate left on his little assignment, so Sasori had easily gotten used to the silence he felt was so foreign nowadays.

Another knock sounded and a small bit of shuffling. He heard a tiny but shakily confident voice sound from the other side. "Deidara? Can you open the door?"

Looking for Deidara? It didn't sound like Pein or Konan so Sasori could relax a bit there. The redhead glanced at Hiruko in the corner of his room for a moment before he advanced towards the door. He quickly donned a mask of gentleness, having quite a good guess at who would be looking for the boy at this time of day.

He grabbed the knob of the door and twisted it to reveal the resident Uchiha at his step. Itachi looked up nervously, dreaded at the thought that he'd disturbed an elder such as the puppeteer. His eyes quickly avoided Sasori's stare, focusing on the door frame as he tried to speak. "I-is Deidara here?

The redhead poked his head out slightly and mustered up the voice he used so often to speak to the younger ones. Hidan was a new exception to that rule, he didn't want the rebellious teenager to get any ideas about Sasori's affections. "No, he isn't." The puppeteer opened the door enough to allow some viewing within his studio in a welcoming gesture. "Did you want to speak to him?"

Itachi blinked in disappointment and met his gaze. "...Not really, I just wanted to settle a small argument."

"Being the better man I see."

The young raven tilted his head slightly in confusion. Sasori simply huffed and crossed his arms. "I heard about your little argument. Deidara told me about it, he didn't seem to take it so lightly as you describe it." He sensed the slight pang of guilt hit the younger, who's face fell at the very mention of it.

"I-I'm sorry, are you...angry?" Itachi squeaked out the last word. He knew that the blond and the puppeteer were close, much like parent and child. Most parents didn't like hearing bad things about their children, nor did they like hearing that they're children had experienced some sort of level of misery because of some other peer.

Sasori blinked and raised a brow. "No? Why would I? Deidara regularly argues with you, what makes this any different?"

"It's just..." Itachi paused for a moment. "he told me that during that incident a month ago, that you tried really hard to help me. Not just you, everyone did. I was ungrateful and ended up making him angry. I want to apologize and maybe return the favour to you or the others later."

What a thoughtful idea. Sasori mused at the notion in his head. These kids really had no idea how things worked around here, always looking at the world through rose coloured glasses. It may have seemed harsh enough but the way that story had gone so far as Sasori saw it was too peppered up for his taste. Forgiveness was an aspect of maintaining relationships, bonds with other people, something that wasn't supposed to exist in their organization, nor anywhere in the rogue community. Such a selfless thought, so plainly fragile.

"Well, I'm afraid I have no bright ideas on ways you could make anything up to me, or us. No one expects anything from you. It was an order from Leader, that's all." Sasori put his hand on the door knob. "Deidara will be probably be back in a day or two. Are you in a rush or...?"

"No, no, I'll wait. Kisame just left to go on an errand somewhere, so I just thought since I had the free time and all..." Itachi trailed off. He managed a long stare at his feet. "I'm sorry, I'm just wasting your time-"

"It's fine, I don't mind, really." Sasori interrupted. Without thinking about it, the puppeteer pushed the door further into the room, rousing the boy's attention. "You want to come in?"

In there? Itachi considered the offer, staring into the darkness of the room. It sounded a bit suspicious no doubt but Sasori seemed like a kind person, if only towards children. He appeared to treat Deidara well enough and the two seemed to have minimal problems. He'd never gone into the artist duo's residence before, only heard small casual mentions from the boy himself about it. According to the eleven-year old, the place was spacious but stuffy. He seemed to have a space all his own away from Sasori's studio, an area that wasn't choked up in wood dust.

"I'm working but I'm used to a bit of noise." Sasori walked into the workshop and flipped a switch by the wall. Two long parallel lights flickered and finally lit a steady glow over the room, revealing rows upon rows of undressed puppets hanging from the ceiling, creating small shadows on the floor. They appeared to be attached to a thick wire, each ringed around their necks like hanged bodies.

Itachi hesitantly stepped into the room, eyes rose towards the ceiling in pure awe. To think that this was what Deidara woke up to every day, it seemed unimaginable. His attentions fell away from the high ceiling and to the room around them. Three desks were put together along the side of the wall to the left, another one connected to them in a workspace in the corner. They were littered with scrolls messily sat open save for a blue tarp laid over the middle desk, each one containing a formula that looked dangerously complicated. Itachi didn't want to finish the thought of what was underneath that tarp. The shelves above the desks were lined with sliding glass panels with some books stacked off in the corner and collections of beakers of three sizes. Towards the middle of the right side of the room was an steel operating table. No dust was on it, in fact, no dust was anywhere here. Either Deidara was was delusional or Sasori had just recently finished spring cleaning, in the fall.

"Deidara said it was stuffy here." Itachi commented and looked curiously at the puppeteer standing by the blue tarp. The door was left hanging open, probably as a sign from the redhead that he meant no harm and that the Uchiha was free to leave whenever, or of course, Sasori had forgotten about it.

"Stuffy? What do you mean?" Sasori blinked. This concept was obviously novel to him.

"He used to always complain that it was hard to breath in your studio. That it was full of wood dust. Did you two finally clean up?"

Really? Sasori frowned. Had the boy really been keeping that hidden from him for so many years? Perhaps that was why the child requested a place separate for him to sleep. It didn't take a genius to figure out how the elder didn't know. The puppeteer was, well, a puppet. Puppets couldn't breath, and the redhead had rid of his respiratory system almost a decade ago. Over time, he'd never noticed the room go stale, but he did notice once when he decided to stay at the Ame tower for a week.

The sound of light coughing caught his attention. Sasori straightened over the block of wood on his desk, half way finished to being a palm for his next project. He twisted his head backwards to scan the room over for the source of the sound, finally settling on a staggering figure heading towards the door. It was the child he took in last year, a little blond boy from Iwa. Sasori blinked and decided to speak. "Where are you going?"

Deidara froze, then straightened his back. The boy seemed to be red faced, light-headed looking as he turned to face his master. "Bathroom."

Sasori raised a brow in concern. "Are you alright?"

"Un, of course." The child averted his gaze from the puppeteers, unaware that doing so easily revealed the lie. As the silence dragged on, the redhead heard some strange grunts from the boy, almost as if he were choking, though he guessed he was just holding in the coughs.

"You don't sound alright."

"I-it's nothing. I just need to get a glass of water." Deidara stammered.

"From the bathroom?"

Deidara was a terrible liar, and he hadn't gotten much better as the years went on. Sasori could tell something was wrong but the symptoms went away by the time the puppeteer deemed the boy old enough to leave the tower without being accompanied by him. The child went out once a day without fail, usually for hours on end and returned just before the clock hit ten. Darkness was no problem, the village usually lit up during the waning hours so as long as he made it back before sketchy activity in the streets started up. Sasori thought his training made his subordinate quite capable of dealing with petty thieves or possible child abductors. Back then, he wrote off the coughs after they disappeared as a strange case, but didn't question it. Now he knew why Deidara didn't stay in the workshop for long periods of time, or at least retreated to his room where the dust in the oxygen was dilute.

"N-no, there was an accident." Sasori said. "I'm not sure who but I'm betting it was Kakuzu who threw Hidan through the wall of my original studio. While I was trying to get him under control, the place was torn apart so I rebuilt here." He took a gander around the room. "It's a little smaller but it's enough."

Itachi nodded and turned towards the door. He inspected the knob for a moment to make sure it would not lock upon closing and pressed it shut. Meanwhile, the puppeteer stared at the blue tarp, berating himself mentally for choosing a youth over his project. Oh well, too late to kick the kid out now.

"You know, Deidara doesn't talk to me much anymore." Sasori chortled with a small smile. "I mean, he still does but he's seems more interested in bothering you now."

The raven turned to the puppeteer in surprise. "Really?"

"Really. Until Hidan came along, you were the only thing on his mind." The former sand ninja mused. "He's always complaining about you or mentioning you casually. I think he likes Kisame too, he starting him danna as I've discovered."

"I think he's been calling him that for a long time now." Itachi informed him. "It's not new to me."

The young Uchiha wandered the room, staying a certain distance away from the saw machines set up around the middle of the floor. From here, he could see Hiruko sitting lifelessly by the desk, a black tarp draped over it, dead eyes burning into the wall. A painting was set up over a bed at the edge of the room, seemingly an ink print of a large koi fish. Sasori seemed to have some sense of interior design, though Itachi wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

Off to the side, a curious door was next to a shelf littered messily organized papers and old books. Itachi regarded the door for a moment, then turned to check if Sasori was paying attention. He was brought with the sight of the puppeteer hunched over his desk, absorbed in a conceptual drawing by a lamp. He didn't seem to be paying him any mind.

Questions bubbled up in his head and the Uchiha approached the door. He gave it a look over before turning the knob and prying it open a tiny crack. Itachi tried to peek through the crack and spy for anything in the darkness. All he could make out with the thin stray beam of light were shelves lined with bags of various brown tablets. The room smelled like wood, but not of the kind that Sasori worked with. It smelled like shavings, and the freshness of jungle water. Itachi peered over over his shoulder to check with the puppeteer again, only to find that the redhead seemed to be busy with himself.

Given the green light to keep exploring, Itachi pulled open the door the entire way and strolled inside. He patted the wall for a switch, finding none on the wall. The Uchiha squinted through the darkness and fumbled with the walls by the door, attempting to find some sort of button or latch. Instead, his fingertips clumsily hit something cold.

CRASH

KLANG

Fsss...

Sasori almost jumped out of his seat, caught off guard by the loud sound. He looked around for a moment and realized that the noise came from the storage. Immediately, the puppeteer shot up and darted over, entering the room and flipping the switch on the other wall.

A nightmare.

Dry food and several scorpions crawling over the broken shards of jar glass were strewn across the floor. One of the small shelves was knocked over, all of its contents shattered beneath it, luckily out of sight of the horrified redhead. Moths were flying freely around the room and he swore he saw a millipede dart over the floor by his feet. His collection of rats to feed the animals were pouring out of the now broken gallon container, leaving little pellets of feces out of fear in their sudden freedom. In the middle of it all stood Itachi, face pale like a deer caught in the head lights.

The two stared at each other for a moment as Itachi waited anxiously for any sort of reaction to come out of the Akatsuki member. A full minute of pregnant silence passed before the puppeteer made a stifled grunt, eyes closing as he massaged the bridge of his nose out of instinct.

"Itachi..."