Thanks for all the reviews, makes me happy so many people are interested in the story! I promise I'll make it a worthy conclusion :)

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Sasori

The wound in his chest was threatening to make him pass out, an experience that terrified him because it had never happened to him before. The wind was fluttering through his hair and he imagined he could actually feel it touching his exterior. He could definitely feel it rushing through his core.

"Deidara... how did... you find us? How did you break the genjutsu?"

Deidara didn't turn, but from his coat pocket he withdrew the sensory puppet. "Tracked your chakra signature with this." His voice was tired and full of pain, he was in no better shape than Sasori was. "Tobi tricked me... he's been working against us. What he wants... what plan was he talking about?"

"You... heard all that?"

"Yup, the "Deidara" that first arrived was a clay clone all along. I used Earth Style: Subterrean Voyage and clung to its ankles underground while I steered it. I was hit by the genjutsu for a moment, but I used my trained eye to snap out of it. I was only waiting for a good moment to trap him and escape."

Wow... too think he actually pulled off a good strategy like that one, without my help. His brow furrowed. Have I... really been underestimating him?

"I came here as soon as I could, but I broke my arm when I fell from bird," Deidara grunted. "My chakra is low, and yours is at zero. I don't know how we can hope to fight him. He won't stop until we're both dead."

Sasori groaned, rolled onto his back. "I can't... even move my body. It hurts so badly... this pain..."

"Hey, stop talking like that. I didn't just risk my life for all this to happen."

The puppetmaster wasn't really paying attention. His whole body felt like it was sucking in itself, and he just wanted to curl up into a ball and close his eyes.

You call yourself the puppetmaster, when you yourself were just a puppet to me.

Groaning, he rolled over onto his back. His wooden fingers brushed over the red liquid spilling from the core. The entire upper section had been decimated, and he wasn't sure was part of him had been erased. It housed the entire human body, all in one small cylinder. The damage was catastrophic, and he had never thought of there ever being a reason to think about what should happen if it was damaged.

"Sasori, look alive man, hmm!" Deidara's worried voice snapped him out of his daze. For a moment, the empty sky had seemed so promising, to just float away...

Through the air they went, with Deidara shouting at him every couple minutes, his tone sometimes faint in his ears, sometimes very pronounced. He couldn't really understand why someone could be so concerned for him, when he had never done anything for anyone except give them solace through death. But for some reason, someone kept telling him to keep his eyes open and stay awake, so he did.

After a century in which the sky had dissolved into a grainy blue haze, they dropped down at an abandoned farmstead. The crops had wilted away, the farmhouse run into ruin. A few wild chickens still roamed around, eating up what scraps they could, scavenging for some way to further their lifespan. Sasori watched them quizzically while Deidara limped into the farmhouse for whatever he could. He looked at his retreating back, folded his hands over his body.

His chakra was recuperating, he could feel it. However, the vital life systems in the Core had been damaged; the chakra was regenerating, but the internal functions themselves were broken. There was no fixing those wounds, even with the chakra available.

Just another adventure, isn't it? Just something to look forward to...

But he couldn't shake the feeling that he had left nothing behind. There was no preservation of his body, he would be forgotten. His goals of lasting forever in this body would be swept away. Sunagakure would spit on his grave and rejoice in the passing of their most hated outlaw. There was no one to remember him, that was why he had fought so hard to stay alive, and make himself immortal.

The cold truth he had realized: no one would ever love or like him, and therefore would ever treasure him as so.

"Sasori! Sasori it's some medicine, just hang in there...agh... please!"

He turned back to the farmhouse and saw Deidara limping over to him again. The other kneeled by his side, his forehead studded with sweat at the labor and energy needed to move around. How much blood had he lost? Didn't he know he could die soon as well? And if so, why was he still fighting to save a dying man?

Deidara spread some sort of ointment on the open gash in the Core; to no effect, of course, since the Core wasn't even biological to begin with.

"Why are you still..."

"Shut up, hmm, just keep quiet and let me work on your wound..."

"Why are you still... helping me?"

Deidara's fingers trembled. He was no medical man, he only knew how to destroy with his hands. Still, he determinedly worked, not answering. Eventually, however, Deidara seemed to realize nothing could be done and he lapsed into silence, kneeling there staying at the Core.

"Why... try?" The words were difficult to eject.

"I don't know, alright! I'm just trying... to do something, hmm..."

The hopelessness of the situation was not lost on Sasori, and he suddenly found himself very afraid of dying. He had never imaged it possible, he considered himself so abstract from humanity now. His wooden hand found Deidara and held it, seeking some sort of comfort. iedara looked at it, then gripped it.

"You're not going to die, hmm."

"I am." The words only frightened him more, he surprised himself he was able to say them so calmly.

"Don't say that!"

Deidara's clay bird nuzzled Sasori's side, and he imagined that somehow it felt sympathy for the two, despite having no sentience.

The farmhouse soon stood behind the setting Sun, and the chickens fled inside to escape the night. Deidara was to afraid to move the puppetmaster anymore, so he continued to kneel there, bleeding freely as well.

"Bandage yourself..."

"Okay." He did so. The blood stopped, and the Iwagakure rogue seemed to breath easier.

It was a tense number of minutes until a familiar face offered them hope. Zetsu emerged from the ground next to the clay bird. "Hey! Heyyyyy!"

Deidara jumped. "Z-Zetsu? What are you- how did you get here?"

"Spores! My, you two look like you had a meeting with a woodchipper! He looked at Sasori's gaping wound with surprise. "How did that happen?"

"Zetsu, shut up about that," Deidara said hurriedly. "Go get help from the Leader, we need some advanced help here. And alert everyone about Tobi; he's the one who did this. He's trying to kill us, he's not who we think he is!"

Sasori found it strange Zetsu had no knowledge of Tobi's intentions, but he couldn't even form the words. Motor skills had failed him ages ago, and now he was truly going to become a lifeless puppet, on the strings of someone else. He could almost Granny Chiyo, mother and father, the Third Kazekage, all the rest of the people who had come and gone in his life waiting up there for him.

Was I a disappointment to them all? Maybe I won't even go up... maybe the puppet strings will snap and I'll fall down, down...down...

"Zetsu, shut up about your stupid miscalculations and... ugh, tell them where we are!"

"Okay, Deidara, okay. Calm down!"

Deidara looked like he was about to explode, but instead his shoulders sagged and he slumped to the ground. "Just go... get help," he said weakly. He clutched his broken arm again, and it occurred to Sasori that he might not even pull out of the recent events either.

Zetsu left, and they were alone again. The clay bird seemed to get more and more sluggish, slow moving. Eventually, it simple fell apart into white clumps.

"Hey... Deidara..." he whispered.

"Shut up, hmm. Conserve... your strength. Zetsu's getting help."

"No, I need to... ask you..."

"What?"

"Why are you... so dedicated to... helping me...?"

For some time, during which the pain in his chest had lessened considerably and his vision grown even more groggy, there wasn't a reply. He began to think it was all just some strange dream, or that Deidara didn't know himself. Surely rogue ninja would never grow warm or care for each other; definitely not ones from Akatsuki, an organization darker than midnight. How could those that lived and desired to be alone ever want to care for another? It was only survival in the world, using others to gain an advantage...

"I guess... because I was tired of being alone." Sasori looked over at him in surprise. The blonde's face was tilted skyward, eyes closed. His arms hung motionless at his sides while his blood poured out. "After I left Iwagakure and went out on my own... I thought I was the only important one... and then I met you, and you were just... so much stronger than me. Your art was pure and devout, I wanted your respect above all. But... I suppose... I just grew to view you as someone I could talk to."

Sasori forced a smile. "How... touching at... the end..."

"That what?"

"That... we both found... that someone... to talk... to..."

Deidara opened his eyes. "You did?"

"Yes." He managed to say that strongly, put the meaning into it to let the other know.

"Then maybe we're not so...agh... so alone after all."

On top of the dismembered remains of the clay bird, a vortex appeared, and Sasori knew who was coming. But there was no longer any fear; he had gotten out what he wanted. He had felt human again, after countless years of trying to fight it. No matter what he did to himself, there was never any escaping any of it. The peace had sought for for countless years had simply been inside, locked up by the pain of the past. Now, he was content.

"What a sorry state you two ended up in," Tobi said, his voice almost pitiful. "Two great shinobi, to be lost to the ages."

"Rot in hell," Deidara managed to snarl.

"Why, I almost get the impression you don't like me."

"How did... you... find us?" Sasori grounded out.

"Zetsu. Since you're going to die soon, I'll just add to your suffering. He's not working for Nagato, he's my spy. As I said before, Akatsuki is mine, and therefore is mine to control. You are all pieces of clay in the grand pot, but if you become to brittle or hard to work with, you are discarded." He withdrew a kunai knife from his sleeve. "Like now. But..." He looked over at the crumpled Deidara. "Some pieces could also be reused... what do you say?"

"You want me to join you?"

"Why not? You were originally supposed to, anyways. I need a partner, and if you both die then I'm an odd one out. So yes, get up and join me, I can heal your wounds and we can leave Sasori here to die."

Deidara looked over at him, but Sasori wasn't sure what he saw.

"Then I couldn't be more than happy to accept." He extended his broken arm to grasp Tobi's. The other seemed gratified and brought out his own arm to take it.

Tobi must've saw it a fraction before Sasori did, because at the last moment the mask tilted back in alarm and the hand tried to retreat. However, Deidara put on a burst of energy and grasped it tightly.

Firmly encasing the centipede in between their locked hands.

"I'll see you in hell!"

"You son of a a-"

Sasori closed his eyes and let the inferno take him.