A First Glimpse into Reality
"Itachi...why didn't you ask me if you could go into this room?" Sasori suppressed himself from shouting. Feeling the need to scold children wasn't a new emotion, he'd had to deal with that for as long as he had Deidara under his wing, but the child had always made sure to ask permission before going ahead with daunting task. He never needed to keep a constant watch on the blond. He never imagined that something like this could be the fault of such a responsible, competent, and mature child such as Itachi. Or at least, he thought so.
"I-I apologize! I'll clean up!" Itachi took quick stagger back and felt something animated crush beneath his shoe, sending a shiver up his spine. The dying squeak of a bug or mouse made the Uchiha's skin crawl, looking down only to see the clear fluids leak out of the now crushed body of a tarantula. Itachi paled as white as sheet, quickly lifting his shoe off the floor only to hear the sickening crack of the spider's exoskeleton creak under his weight. Strange gooey substances splattered on the ground.
"JUST. Don't. Move." Sasori hissed, holding a hand up for emphasis. "I'll clean it up. Walk towards me slowly." The puppeteer stole a quick glance over his shoulder, morale dipping with every mouse he saw skitter across his sight. All of his materials, all of the animals he harvested venom and poison from, all let free to destroy the workshop. Sasori couldn't afford to lose another one of them. He had some valuable specimens, and he couldn't tell entirely from the mess whether the tarantula Itachi had just squashed was 13B, a spider he caught all the way in the Land of Iron, a species estimated populous to be only in the hundreds back when he caught it.
Itachi nodded stiffly and lightly stepped over the broken shards of glass and dry pellets, narrowly missing some millipedes and mice. The scorpions seemed to have hidden away in the darker sections of the room, few actually trying to escape. Itachi finally made his way over to Sasori's side, who then instructed the boy to go into the workshop and stay still.
The moment Itachi left the room, he could hear the redhead explode in frustrated curses and incoherent words. The boy shrugged away from the door and took a better look at the destruction of the workshop before him. Poison dart frogs chilled in the shelves while the floor was overrun with mice and millipedes, some mice eating millipedes. An small aquarium in the shelf had its puffer fish population of three panicked in a frenzy as two mice creaked on the edge of the glass and fell in.
Off to a corner, Itachi saw a form slither across the floor. It was a small snake, coloured in a series of yellow bands between red and black sections. It curled up by a chair leg, tongue flickering out curiously at the sight of a godly amount of prey. Itachi thought for a moment that it would lie still and strike the moment a mice crossed its path but even as a couple more did just that, the snake remained still. The serpent eventually slithered away from the chair leg and made it for the door
Sasori peered out of the room and snapped his gaze to the snake immediately. Without another thought, he shouted, "Hey! Get that snake!"
The order came too late as the animal had already slithered underneath the door and out into the hall. Itachi was left frozen on the spot, then cautiously moved his gaze to look at the elder from the corner of his eye.
Now Sasori didn't show many extreme emotions. Itachi had learned that over the course of a month and thanks to Deidara's explanations, the reason why was plainly because the redhead was not of flesh and bone. He didn't know the specifics, but he did know that because of that, the puppeteer had gained a reputation among the organization for being cool-headed and calculated in even the most extreme of situations. Looking at the Akatsuki member now, he seemed to be attempting to redraw that stone-face look he was supposed to wear.
Three mice trampled the navy blue tarp and sent the cover sliding off the desk, sending the valuable puppet parts underneath clattering to the floor. Itachi stared for a moment, but didn't think for a second that the puppet parts were unusually small. Unlike the blond, he had no familiarity whatsoever with Sasori's work and didn't see the difference between these parts and ones hanging under the ceiling lights.
Sasori let out another frustrated grumble. "Alright, maybe you can help a little."
In the short span of five hours, Itachi had redeemed himself in the eyes of the puppeteer. The boy was obviously quite good at organizing things like binders, numbered solution bottles, and trapping mice to get them back into the room. Itachi didn't even try to argue like Deidara often did, remaining quiet and obedient, always following orders without the slightest protest. Itachi didn't act as if he knew better than Sasori but he did hesitate to ask for help every now and then. For clear reasons, the puppeteer didn't allow the boy to handle any of the poisonous or venomous animals that Sasori kept. That would be the one thing that Deidara was good for, even if the blond had only recently got a knack of not making creatures act aggressively towards him. If he remembered correctly, the animals used to absolutely despise the young bomber, the frogs used to be particularly skittish in his presence.
Itachi lifted the cage and peered past the tiny wire bars into the four scrambling mice inside, scratching at the walls desperately. Satisfied with his work, the Uchiha jogged across the room and into the storage, approaching a cylindrical grey tub in the back. He put the cage down and unlocked a latch to open a hole in the glass cover. Opening the entire lid would definitely make a huge opening for the mice to escape, so Itachi had to learn that there were safer measures to restocking the live food tub. He picked up the cage and swiftly opened the trap door, dumping the four mice into the hole to join the other 38. A total of fifty according to Sasori. Itachi had kept a careful count of the ones he caught but even as the room gradually emptied after Sasori did his share of rounding up the escaped frogs, scorpions, millipedes, and moths, he hadn't found them all.
Itachi closed the lid and took a last look at his work. Either the last few were really good at hiding or had already escaped the room. If that was the case, than he'd have to take the puppeteer's advice. Once they left the room, it was pointless to go after them. In total, they'd lost one snake, five millipedes, nine mice and one puffer fish. That puffer fish had died of shock.
Outside of the room, he could see Sasori painstakingly lay out several papers on the desks, stacking a select few in chronological order. When Itachi approached, the puppeteer quickly took notice and turned to listen.
"I'm finished." Itachi remained low in tone. Surely Sasori could understand that a few had gone missing out of thin air.
"Good, did you get all of them?"
The boy stood silent for a moment, then forced himself to confess regardless of the consequences. "Um, there are only 41 but...I can't find any more." He looked at the floor, avoiding the others gaze.
"Are you sure? Did you check?" Sasori didn't sound angry.
Itachi raised his head to face the rather neutral expression of the elder. It relaxed him slightly to see that he wasn't being chastised for faults like he expected of a parent to do. Perhaps Saosri was less strict than he appeared?
"Good, you did well thank you." The puppeteer turned back to his papers but stared at them for a moment in thought. He turned back to Itachi for what he assumed to be a last word. "You're free to leave if you'd like. I'll handle the rest here."
I guess he doesn't want me to snoop anymore. The raven wasn't fond of the idea that he was snooping, the very word itself he'd never applied to his own actions. Okay, maybe he was a little bit an eavesdropper, he could finally admit that to himself, but it wasn't as if he was comfortable thinking it.
Itachi gazed over at the door as Sasori worked and wondered briefly if it was worth going out again. The rain village was a dreary place and even their cafe's were a bit grey. He of course had the options of checking out the market a ways away from here which was usually bustling with activity, but Itachi just wasn't fond of the lively nature of it. Kisame wasn't due back until tomorrow, and though he'd come here to share his company with Deidara out of guilt, his hopes were dashed when he was informed that the boy was absent as well.
Konan wouldn't want his company. She was probably busy and Itachi was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to know anything of Pein's activities, much less talk to him in his spare time.
Well, Sasori wasn't so bad. Just be a little more careful and he might be able to be as relaxed as Deidara was around him(if relaxed could be the word for it). Maybe this do him well into the future, Itachi didn't know but he had a hunch that he could learn a thing or two from him.
"Actually, can I stay for a little while?" Itachi pressed his lips together. There, he just asked. Now for the answer.
The puppeteer set down his papers on an angle as to set the stack and the waiting sheets apart to look at him. Sasori blinked once and turned back to his work. "Fine by me, but ask if you find anything you want to touch."
Itachi meant to utter another thanks but instead, he found himself choked up and only let out a grunt. Luckily, it didn't come out as some strangled cry but just an understanding sound. He took gander around the room. Sasori really knew how to clean up. The place looked virtually the same as before if it weren't for the occasional different set up and order of items.
"Now then, what did you come here for again?" Sasori wondered aloud, surprising the boy a little. "Oh right, we were talking about you and the brat's argument. I've been meaning to ask, how is he nowadays?"
"Oh, he's...okay. I don't think he likes Hidan that much." Itachi crossed his arms and pinched his chin, attempting to give as accurate a description as possible.
"I thought they liked each other." Sasori brought up. "They fight a lot but I'm sure that the kid's hiding something..."
"W-what's that supposed to mean?" Itachi was a little dumbfounded at how the other thought that fighting was a form of bonding, letting his arms fall in complete confusion.
"Hmm, well, when I was young, I heard that when a girl teases you, it meant they liked you. Picking fights counts too I believe."
Itachi couldn't believe it. He was actually hearing out an Akatsuki member's views on what he thought counted as flirting between youths in a casual conversation. Sasori too of all people, heck, if he was asked to pick between who was more likely to bring this up in a chat, he would have chosen Kisame. Not for a second did he think that in any shape or form did Hidan and Deidara flirt with each other. The thought never entered his mind about anyone when he got here. He expected to have left this stuff behind the moment he turned chunin.
"O-ok, even then, they're boys-"
"So?" Sasori interrupted much too nonchalantly for Itachi's own comfort. "It's never happened to me personally but I made sure to educate Deidara on matters like that. Just in case it's true."
Itachi blinked. "E-educate?"
"How can you live your life like that? Relying on money and nothing else." Hidan scoffed, keeping a distance of exactly five meters from his assigned partner. Five meters was all he could manage before Kakuzu was completely out of sight. The mist had lowered once again and the teenager feared that the thicker it got, the closer he'd have to get in order to follow his partner. Not that he was scared, but he knew that he ran his mouth a lot, and the least he could do for himself was stay out of striking range. He could do nothing to defend himself now. His scythe had been confiscated until he could learn not to wield it against his own.
"Tch. Wait a few years, you'll learn." Kakuzu grumbled as he slipped a wad of bills out of his sleeve, checking carefully to see that it wasn't being dampened due to the mist. "Money is what makes the world go round. To put into words you might understand, shinobi go on missions. Why? For the money."
"Eh? That's not true! They do it to serve the village!" Hidan snapped and sent his glare into the bushes. "At least the good ones do. Those ones are the most satisfying kill." He smirked at the thought.
Kakuzu looked at the fledgling from the corner of his eye, then huffed. "If that were true, they wouldn't be joining villages at all, they'd make their own. Perhaps some do, but in the end, if there's no money going in, they're bailing out. Only a prideful idiot would stick behind in such a hopeless state."
"That's cause you're old!" Hidan argued sharply. "Old people don't get it, they're too stuck up on money when they don't realize that there's more than that!"
"Money is the cause of all issues. If it isn't money, it's the currency of the society at the time." Kakuzu tried to put it wisely. At his age, he felt a little entitled to provide whatever wisdom he could give. This kid at 14 was only his partner for a few weeks and he was already a pain in the ass. Kakuzu would make his final complaint to leader before taking things into his own hands.
He heard another protest from behind him but the miser was no longer listening. Eyes focused on the road, he made a sharp right and darted into the woods soundlessly.
"Oi! Where are you going!?" Hidan yapped with no reply. He turned to the road ahead and squinted to spy out anyone approaching. So far, no one could be seen past the thick fog, nothing but a couple of flies.
Before he could make another statement, an arm poked out of the brush and snatched his cloak, dragging him forcefully into the forest. Emerging out on the other side, he was shoved around and forced to stare into a grassy clearing next to the wall of a stone cliff.
"That. Hurt!" The fourteen year old was quick to snap.
"Just shut up for the rest of the mission at least." Kakuzu growled dangerously.
"The rest?" Hidan repeated. He grit his teeth but then followed the miser's gaze to the wall. He seemed to be fascinated with it just to keep staring. For a moment, the zealot thought that the old man had finally fallen from his rocker.
"This is the place."
It was a simple clearing filled with dampened grass and piles of crimson and gold leaves. The trees were near bare save for some small patches that stuck out the cold. The area seemed like an ideal camp site, an overhanging cliff providing one less spot to stay on guard from. Kakuzu slipped out a folded map and checked their location. Pencilled lines made by the Akatsuki's first and probably best puppeteer sketched out the area where his summer hideout was. The Akatsuki were not limited to the organization's hideouts though they were convenient. Sasori in particular had his own network of spots dotting the south of the shinobi lands, mostly concentrated in the Land of Wind, he had his fair share of sites in the Land of Rivers. This place was one of them.
According to Sasori, as long as one of them wore the Akatsuki ring, they'd be fine to enter. The puppeteer had already warned Kakuzu of his security system. It was necessary in order to remain in one spot for a whole month without being caught by shinobi crossing over from the Land of Wind or Fire.
"What? A wall?" Hidan questioned. "...Do you need glasses?"
THWACK
Kakuzu ignored the pained cry from his so-called partner as well as the large red bump forming on the teenager's skull. He approached the clearing cautiously, knowing that he was treading over the territory of a fellow Akatsuki member.
His next step entered an area as Kakuzu heard a faint snap sound. No sooner than that, the ground suddenly began to shake, forcing the miser to jump back.
Erupting from the ground were a dozen of green-eyed puppets, each of them donning four lanky arms tied up in disrepair in each others. Apart from the dirt, one could see the tearing of something red and black, what could be rotted cloth and previously clothing on the puppets now reduced to a weak and wet mush. Spider-like puppets, their shells flaked and cracked under their movement, wood now brittle and fell away to reveal their steel organs, now red and rusty.
A trap? Kakuzu thought.
"Oh I see, you already know about this stuff." Sasori pushed the marker board back out into the hall to the relief of the younger.
Itachi had almost paled at the idea that the redhead was willing to 'educate' him on matters he'd apparently gone over with Deidara. His rushed protests finally seemed to reach Sasori, and just in the nick of time. Of course, the Uchiha wasn't about to admit that he actually knew very little about the matters of reproduction and since he didn't plan on having children, he was pretty sure he didn't need the information in much detail.
"I guess I should expect that. You're after all..." Sasori paused and looked up in thought. "How old are you now?"
"I'm still thirteen." The raven sighed afterwards, taking a seat on a wooden chair. The puppeteer was friendly at least, didn't even try to bring up Itachi's little mishap in the storage room.
The door closed with a silent click. Sasori blinked. "Even if you argued, I still think you two get along." He chuckled warmly, surprising the young member. "Deidara probably told you some things about me. What did he tell you?"
Do they really not talk that much anymore? Because of me? Itachi's face fell as he felt something churn in his chest. The puppeteer seemed to talk so fondly of the blond, as if the two hadn't been reunited in years. He still didn't want to believe the Akatsuki was supposed to be a nice place. Already, he'd witnessed the wrath of Pein, their leader and the extraordinary abilities of people like Deidara who weren't even members. This kind of softness, it didn't occur to him that this could happen.
And yet it was happening, and it happened more often than he thought. It must have been a human thing. Killer or not, though some were cold-blooded, it required some degree of humanity to be completely cruel. Itachi had thought about it before. Everyone had a weakness, it was just a human thing. Was this?
"Not much. He's told me that you're not...made of human flesh. Is that true?" Itachi attempted to put the question forward as non-threateningly as he could. Such secrets tended to be personal if not only a probable aspect of Sasori's arsenal or past.
"Yes, to a degree."
That was surprisingly easy. Though however easy it was, the boy wasn't eager to dig deeper into the topic. Instead he continued on with his answer. "Deidara does a lot of art. Those sculptures and makes them explode. I remember back at the village when I joined, he tried to impress a crowd with fireworks. He's quite good at it."
"Oh yes, those things." The redhead held a tone of fondness. "They're quite cute-ah" He quickly glanced at Itachi, wondering if the boy had an opinion his choice of words. "-well, I like them. Not so much when they explode but they have to. I think they'd be better off like my puppets, long lasting. It's a bit of a waste for them to just disappear after being made."
"You two think differently about art?"
"Do we?" Sasori raised a brow curiously.
"I don't really know." Itachi thought back to the village by the now burnt temple. Back to when he and the boy sat on that bench by the park and got into an unusually deep conversation.
Itachi kept silent, head bowed with a bleak look. Deidara pursed his lips, glancing over before he returned his smile, a more honest one. "That's good! Don't forget those times!"
This seemed to pique the thirteen-year old's curiosity, both children now locking gazes. The subordinate giggled and pulled out a clay bird with an incredibly simple design from his sleeve. He held it in his hand. "This is my art, but it's more than this. Danna always had some sort of saying to his own art, so I made one up myself!"
Deidara raised his bird. "They're like memories. We always have them, whether they're sad or happy. The happy are the good ones, and the best part is that they're gone!"
It unfurled from the palm, flexing its wings before darting into a tight spiral above them towards the blue sky. The boy made a one-handed seal, keeping his eyes on the bird before it exploded in a small 'poof', coloured sparks rained down harmlessly, a tiny firework.
"Everyone has some time in their life they miss, something they want back. That's when we learn to appreciate that time we had. It was short, but beautiful, and once it's gone, we remember it forever!" Deidara turned to Itachi. "We're not little kids anymore, so we can't play like them. We can try, but we can't get what used to be back. It's gone, it's never coming back, not the same anyway. After that, we get sad and cry over it, because we realize how beautiful it was."
The blond's wild expression softened, staring down at the ant at their feet. "I see it a lot. When we try to play with the kids, it doesn't come out the way we wanted it. We're different now, and no matter how hard we try, we can't get it back."
"He told me that...art was like a memory, fleeting." That was the best way he could word it without going on a long three page monologue. Itachi was sure of it, that's what the blond thought. He nodded and looked up to see Sasori paused over his desk, back turned and still. "That's when he told me that he didn't know how he wanted to die, then, that fight happened, and I guess..." He trailed off.
"He thinks now his purpose is to die for you."
(Naruto Shippuden Movie 3 OST 28 – A Call to Halt Vulgarity)
Several arms dragged up at once to try and capture the young Jashinist in a tangle, only to provide as a foothold as the teenager hopped onto the bundle of wood and jumped into the air, cloak flitting slightly. Hidan made a low growl. What an annoyance, a trap here of all places and at the very time he lacked his signature weapon of choice. Now he was restricted to nothing but his average taijutsu and dodging skills to get by. He hated having to do it, but he was relying on Kakuzu right now to get them out of this situation.
The mist made it harder to see as the puppets arms snaked across the ground and swept the open grassy field with ease. No where on the ground was safe and even in the air as the younger was, it wasn't safe either. Anywhere within a good five meters was fair game to these decayed puppets. All of his years in the Jashinist cult, Hidan remembered training underneath them to fight opponents in order to heighten the values of his kills. It annoyed him that he had to tear up petty puppets, objects of all things.
Landing on a thin branch, Hidan felt his stomach drop as the branch nearly broke underneath his weight. Luckily, the dampened limb only bobbed and slowly stabilized, but would definitely break if he made any sudden movements. Below the mist, the puppets clacked and creaked, unusually loud. On the field, he could see broken parts on the floor, cracked and broken from the intensive movements of the puppets themselves. These things seemed to have seen better days, the shells of his backs and faces cracked and flaked, dry mud splattered over their bodies. Their arms took the most stress, being swung around like whips took a toll, the only upside for them being that they were unpredictable. Occasionally, the joint would snap and the puppet arm would go flying into the distance. Hidan had a close call when a sharp rusty steel ring almost collided with him square in the face.
Kakuzu seemed only to be annoyed. As each and every puppet came to face him off, the miser didn't even have to look at them to dodge their attack and grab their arms, tearing them straight off of their weak sockets before tossing them in some random direction. Kakuzu dodged an attack swung from above, a long multi-segmented arm slammed the floor with deadly force, not before the Akatsuki could side step it however. On its rebound, Kakuzu grabbed the arm and pulled the puppet closer, throwing it into another puppet. The miser wasn't even working up a sweat.
It felt like they'd been fighting for twenty minutes, an unusually long time to end a small scuffle. The puppets weren't live people, so when thrown down, they just got right back up. Even after they'd lost heads, arms, legs, they kept coming, barraging them with body parts until they were sawdust. Hidan could imagine it at least. Well, if it meant grinding them to dust, it wasn't as if he didn't all of eternity to do it.
Hidan tried to off off the branch but felt something cold coil around his neck. He turned down to catch a glimpse of the puppet at his feet, one arm wrapped around his ankle as it stared at him with what remained of his face, a good portion of the right side of the skull cracked open like an egg.
With a harsh yank, Hidan was sent to the floor with a sickening thud. His eyes were wide for a moment, appalled that a puppet had that much power. He didn't just lay there however, he scraped the floor with his hands and tried to get up only to see the looming figure of the puppet over him, mouth gaped open with a sharp projectile sticking out of its mouth. Hidan growled and faced it head on. If it was going to shoot him with it, he might as well get it over with. He wouldn't cower away at something so shallow as a puppet.
The puppet stared at him, dead orbs gleaming dully in the low light. It loomed over him for a full ten seconds before it suddenly flopped to the floor, rolling over. Hidan blinked, then jumped slightly at the sounds of several more puppets dropping to the floor in the distance.
Kakuzu held up an arm to block but the coming swing was weak and lazy, practically slapping him on the wrist. The miser didn't react at first when the puppet suddenly fell to its knees and rolled over like a dead corpse. When he did, he refused to show much surprise, simply staring as the puppets around began to drop like flies.
The Akatsuki blinked and looked around, suddenly noticing a figure perched at the top of the cliff. Through the mist, he couldn't see much but Kakuzu could tell their new guest was wearing a cloak. He immediately grew tense. Had they been caught? As far as he knew, hooded cloaks were primarily worn by shinobi on missions or more commonly, the ANBU. If that was the case, this assignment had a little too much in store.
The cloaked figure shifted their weight then hopped down in front of the cliff wall to their level. Upon closer inspection, Kakuzu could easily tell this person was small, short in stature for even a short adult. They moved closer with small measured steps before finally coming close enough that the mist didn't obscure his view.
"Calm down, it's just me." The stranger lifted an hand up to their hood and pulled it off, revealing a familiar face.
Kakuzu relaxed slightly at the sight of a curious blue eye an a slightly nervous expression. Just Deidara, Sasori's prime subordinate. The blond blinked up at him and quickly looked away. In one hand he held a selection of similarly coloured seals, piquing the miser's curiosity at the sight of them.
Hidan shoved the puppet off of him and stood up, making a loud groan of frustration as he stomped the doll's face in. "Haha! Too weak to get up eh!?" He grinned victoriously and looked over at his partner. "Kakuzu! What happe-" He paused. Someone else seemed to be the subject of the his fellow member now. Hidan blinked. Is that?
"So what are you doing here? Who sent you?" Kakuzu grumbled.
"Isn't it obvious? Danna did, hmph." Deidara kept his gaze on the man's cloak. Whatever enthusiasm he got to coming in the nick of time, he still lost all of his confidence the moment he felt the elder's gaze on him. "Danna set up the trap when we stayed here to fend off intruders but he just remembered after you guys left that he hadn't kept the puppets in good shape since then. He thought they would malfunction so he told me to come and stop you."
That little brat of a puppeteer. The miser grumbled in this throat. Always forgetting something. It was a frequent trait of the sand ninja that only someone who had been working long enough in the Akatsuki to see his debut could possible see. His constant weakness, so much that the brat hadn't even tried to improve himself and make up for it. Sasori's inability to pay attention while absorbed into his work was a problematic behaviour of his. It was almost as if the real world didn't exist whenever he was creating his 'art pieces', he couldn't hear the steps in the hall or the door knob click and swing the door open. He often never heard it when someone spoke while he was working, and in the beginning, ended up having troubles following orders without being physically pushed first. Sasori was always thinking of his projects and make no mistake, he didn't think of anything else. Everything was a project to the man, even his co-workers and superiors. Regardless of it all, Kakuzu knew he was a million years from ever figuring out that perhaps it was time to lay off the drawing board and actually completing his priorities list.
Kakuzu huffed. "You're too late. Hidan already sprung the trap."
"I did what now!?"
Taking his mind off of the puppeteer, the miser made a cold glare at the young bomber. He could practically feel the fear radiating off of him. He knew fear when he saw it. "Those tags, what are they?"
Deidara looked up and brought the tags to view. His usual numbered ones, his master had given him a new set of ten to use just a few weeks ago. "These are..."
"Art is fleeting?" Sasori pondered the idea out loud.
Itachi waited patiently for the next sign he could continue his monologue. Instead, he was stopped midway when the puppeteer suddenly seemed to go cold at the very notion that art could be transient. Now the redhead stood by his desk, barely touching his papers laid out on the surface in orderly fashion.
"I don't get that. Itachi, how can that be?" Sasori turned and looked at the younger not with a face of curiosity but unusual coldness. All emotion seemed to leave his expression, not even his eyes held a shred of feeling. "How can art be fleeting? That doesn't make sense. What does that have to do with Deidara dying?"
"Um, well, I don't know-"
"Come on, you understand the brat better than I do, how can he say that?" Sasori's words became more rushed, more desperate in tone. "What happened to him?"
"I don't know Sasori." Itachi's eyes widened slightly. He'd never seen the puppeteer so confused, so angered by his own inability to comprehend such a small statement. Just as the elders words became rushed, so did his own, the atmosphere suddenly growing thick and tense. "I don't know anything...about him."
"So it doesn't make sense to you either?" The puppeteer head clicked and flopped to a single side. The motion itself was creepy, as if he'd just broken his neck. "Then it was him who made up such an idea? What kind of kind of idea is that? Do you know? Do you think the brat's crazy or troubled? What's wrong with him?"
His glass eyes moved to stare in Itachi's direction. Not at him per say, but he could see it. The hollowness in his gaze. Sasori was no longer looking at him, but through him.
"What's wrong with Deidara? Come on, tell me."
A/N: Hello! As of recent, these author's notes have been getting short but now I finally have something to talk about. I decided it's time I get to the main point of this story and why I wrote it to begin with, ehhh, the main idea kinda. I had a bit of trouble writing the fight scene since I don't really know how to describe Kakuzu's kind of fighting style or how to describe the puppets. I've been writing a new story on my leisure but that's a Mpreg! I probably won't post it, it's really not something I think you guys are interested in.
Thanks for reading! Nice to Meet ya! Review if you'd like!
