And now the final chapter of the Tale of Sasori and Deidara.

(Don't worry, there's a conclusion yet to be written).

XXX

Deidara

The impact of his punch sent Tobi crashing into the ground, actually forced into the earth in a small crater. The man was all but beaten at this point, and they both seemed to know it as Tobi made no effort to stop Deidara from crouching down in front of him and holding him up by his collar.

"Bring him back, hmm!"

Tobi gave him a crooked smile, but did nothing else.

Deidara smashed his fist into his stomach, and Tobi's smile froze as blood leaked out of his mouth. Hacking, his voice took on a labored tone.

"You figured out my jutsu and used it against me… however, there is a fatal flaw you're only just now realizing, isn't there? You can't make me bring him back… and now he can rot in the Kamui Dimension for as long as I care."

"DAMN YOU!" He sunk his fist back into his stomach again, and again. The frustration of incomplete victory was blinding him to the possibility the more he mangled Tobi's innards, the greater the chance any hope of Sasori returning from wherever he had been sent to.

Tobi continued to soak up the damage like a sponge, and soon his face was matted with his own blood. The whole situation seemed familiar to Deidara somehow, like a strange deja vu…

A C2 detonation creature gave from his hand. Tobi watched it with a wide eye, but he was to wounded to properly defend himself. He squirmed under Deidara's iron grip, to no use. "No… I can't…. it can't end..."

The hand came down-

Deidara's eyes snapped open, and his hand froze. What am I doing? This…

It was almost like when the Nine-Tails jinchuuriki had been beating him i the forest. The wild, savage beast of the fox emerging in him as he unleashed his fury onto Deidara. Back then, the unrefined brutality had both entertained and repulsed him. Where had the finer art of the shinobi gone in the boy? Replaced by animal ferocity, something he would never sink to…

What was the difference now?

Tobi started to laugh underneath him. "So, you finally see how barbaric you really are in this world, don't you? How fragile your emotions are in this sick reality?"

"What are you talking about, hmm?"

"Don't tell me you're this ignorant… you nearly senselessly killed me, even though you know if you do so you'll never see your partner again. Weren't you only interested in his protection a few minutes ago?" Tobi coughed up blood, but he was still smiling. "Look at the world around us, you blind fool. Can your eye enhancement not zoom in on the woes surrounding us all?"

His grip lessened on Tobi, his confidence and hatred fading. To his subconscious surprise, Tobi didn't try to resist. In fact, it seemed like he was talking to himself more than Deidara, a fanatical light in his eyes that tried to hide some sort of internal pain. "Pain is brought upon by compassion for others, and then that pain causes things to change in people. Things we wouldn't expect to happen occurs... and we alone have to fix it. You can't trust others to work with you, or the cycle repeats. But you... you and Sasori remind me so much of me and..."

He shook his head, and suddenly his eyes widened in fury. "You two don't understand what you're in the way of. These plans have been set in stone, and no matter what you two think is right, it's not. SO JUST GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

In a burst of strength, Tobi shoved Deidara off him. At the same time, a trio of massive shuriken flew out his eye and impaled Deidara in his remaining arm and legs, pinning him painfully to the sand. The force of impact had not stuck the shuriken deep into the loose earth, but his strength had abandoned him once more, as had the chakra Sasori had lent him.

"You've seen the barbarism of this world, Deidara; you yourself were just a victim of it," Tobi said grimly, holding up a fourth massive shuriken in his hand. "You had your chance to recognize it and reform, but you remain blind to the fact-"

"I'm not going to turn on my friend, hmm," the blonde replied stiffly, and Tobi's Mangekyo eye twitched. Can't... move anything... he's got me pinned. "You can rant on how this world is unfair, and maybe before all this I would've gone along with it. We never hear of the artist working with another, it's always the rivalry..." He exhaled hoarsely, feeling blood flowing out of his wounds and weakening him further. "But now I know you can work with another, you don't have to be alone, hmm. It fills the void of that pain..."

Tobi started to laugh again, something insane that made Deidara stop. "Just shut up," he asserted suddenly. "What would you know of what the world has to offer, to men like you, men like me? We cannot form these bonds, that's why we are called rogue ninja. Our villages despise us, and no one wants to work with us. Akatsuki being an organization is a joke, a joke! A loose collection of society's outcasts; there's no way monsters like us can fill in this... this... this void, with something called friendship!"

He couldn't find anything to say, Tobi's words were so rough and passionate. With the air empty between them, Tobi grinned maliciously at him, bringing fake joy to his scarred features, his eyes lighting up with that insane light once more. "There's only one way to fill in this void, Deidara... unfortunately, you have no place in it!"

XXX

Sasori

His body was collapsed on the ground, his head turned towards the furious blonde, who was staring at him with undisguised anger. Sasori could hardly blame him, if he had been kidnapped and stuffed into a cramped puppet, he would be more than a little upset, too.

At the same time, he knew what little movement he had exerted during the scuffle with the unmasked Tobi has reopened the wound in the core, and the drip onto the strange material the ground was made of told him that perhaps, if the blonde didn't move soon, he would be throttling a dead body. Tobi had dematerialized minutes ago; yet Naruto had not moved to kill him, though he stood there shaking in anger.

"What are... you... waiting for?"

"I... I don't know." He clenched his fists, staring at him. "For a while, I've felt the need to kill you, and in the pit I was locked up in, that feeling only fostered."

"Then... why haven't you...?"

"You and your partner... I thought you two hated each other. But in that pit, I could hear you two arguing, like me and Sasuke used to. And when Tobi captured me, I could hear him ranting to himself about how you two 'worked so smoothly' all of a sudden. "His fists unclenched, and the red glare in them slowly faded away. "You both are like little kids fighting and making up, it's almost like you don't know how to be friends."

"I can't say... we're... well versed... in it."

Naruto gave him a small smile. "Just like little kids, it's... funny to see."

He could hardly believe the youth had gone from almost wanting to kill him to now near-lecturing him. How the world works is beautiful, Tobi is wrong, so wrong...

"My sensei taught me something important, when I was training with him. He said that for there to be peace in the world, people should 'try to understand each other.' I didn't know what that meant at the time, but now I think I do. I judged you two because you were Akatsuki, and generalized you as monsters like the stories I'd been told. Its hard to imagine your enemies as anything but heartless beings... but then you see why there isn't peace, because in conflict you always see them as just that. Maybe, if we saw clearer to each other, we could have peace..."

"Tobi doesn't see... it like... that..." Sasori wheezed. "He doesn't... have... faith in... people... anymore..."

"I know," Naruto agreed, and he took on a more resolute tone. "And that's why we have to stop him. But I don't see how we're going to get out of here... could your partner force him to eject us?"

"If he... could... he already... would have..."

The life seemed to leave Naruto's eyes. "Are you saying..."

Sasori clutched his wound, then fell back to the alien ground. The shock of their predicament had faded, and perhaps the futility of it, combined with Naruto's sudden realization of the situation, made him talk stronger to control the situation.

For what little control he could provide. "Yes, we're stuck here. If Tobi dies, then we'll be stuck here forever. As it is... he's a crooked man; he won't release us even if Deidara beats him within an inch of his life."

Naruto sat down. "Wow... that's it then? We die here?"

"I'm dying one way or another," Sasori chuckled, which both frightened and calmed him. Deidara will remember me... I will not fade from this world in that sense...

He was about to close his eyes and allow himself to slip when a new voice broke through the emptiness. "We're not completely stuck here. While I hoped I would only be rescuing Naruto and finishing you off, the notion of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' has never been greater."

Sasori cocked his head, eyes snapping open with what little energy he had left, but then almost immediately relaxed. Wonders never cease.

"Naruto, come over to Sasori," Kakashi Hatake said grimly, his face pale from the poison flowing through him, but voice taut with determination to explain his plan. "I think I've developed a theory between the eyes Tobi and I possess..."

XXX

Deidara

The large shuriken was about to impale him in the heart was Tobi suddenly froze, the steel inches from his face. Beads of sweat were running down the blonde's face, as he stared death in the eye. Why's he stopped? What's going on?

A moment after the thought was made, Tobi dropped to the ground, screaming. "MY EYE, MY EYE!" he was shouting. "HOW ARE YOU SHOWING ME THIS?"

Bemused, Deidara stayed down as Tobi crumpled to his knees, his free hand clutching his Mangekyo eye. "YOU THINK THIS... WILL CHANGE! CHANGE ANYTHING-?"

Tobi's head seemed to implode, and from his eye three shapes were suddenly flung out. Their assailant gave a sound as if all the guts had been crushed in his body, then fell back to the ground, breathing just as awfully. The fight seemed to have left him once more, and he still clutched his Mangekyo Sharingan as if it were the most painful object in the world to him.

Three of the shaps, which he already knew to people, stood up. "Jeez, thanks Kakashi sensei," said the blonde jinchuuriki, the one called Naruto. "I didn't think we'd be getting out of that. How'd you get put in there anyhow?"

"It's like what happened to you," Kakashi mumbled, standing up quickly. "He sucked me in after I had fought Sasori. I don't know what he planned to do with me... or with you for that matter." He slowly approached Tobi's unmoving body, stared down at his apprehensively. "I had had a theory about your ocular jutsu, that it might be linked with mine. I tested it out by linking myself to you... you saw more than I expected, and the effort exhausted me as well. In the end, I simply chose your eye as the exit point for us to emerge from." The silver-haired jonin crouched down next to Tobi, as if he was talking to an old friend he was disappointed in. "How you've fallen, Obito..."

Deidara was no longer listening to what was going on, however. He had just noticed the third ejected body, which was lying in a slowly reddening ground. With sudden inspiration, he flooded his limbs with chakra and pulled his arms free of their shuriken shackles. "Sasori..."

"Hey... you... took him down... after all..."

"No, you can't die... not after what we've gone through!"

Sasori chuckled weakly. His core was bleeding s bad as ever, but it seemed to be smaller streams. Could it be healing? Was there still a chance to save him? If there was, the slightest chance, he had to take it now-

"What.. you're seeing is... liquid... chakra," Sasori breathed. He seemed to grow more regal, and his words more clear. He was making an effort to get final words in. "My whole soul was condensed into the Core. It's finally beginning to run out...

"You can't die, hmm" Deidara repeated hollowly, though deep inside he knew it was hopeless. "We were-"

"I wasn't meant to last forever, I see that now. I tried to make myself immortal, because I only cared myself and therefore would only ever need myself. But you... you and I... we changed each other, and now you're the one who will carry that change, and my memory." Sasori clutched Deidara's shoulder, the wooden limbs creaking. "The void of loneliness... we helped each other fill it in. Now you have to finish filling it in."

Deidara held the wood, and for the first time he did not envision it as a puppet. The painted eyes, which had always held such emptiness, suddenly seemed brimming with life. The words coming from his dying partner were sincere, and in it, he could see his humanity that the puppetmaster had fought for so long had finally won out.

"The art of longetivity..."

"Some things are meant to last, but not all, Deidara." Sasori smiled weakly, his hand coming up to clutch his core painfully. "I wasn't meant to... you were. You can fill in the emptiness with others, and last long for them."

"You were my friend, Sasori. You...

"I will miss you... too... clay boy..."

Sasori's words were so soft he had to lean his ear down to his partner's lips. "I think I understand why I almost let Granny Chiyo kill me, back at the hideout. She wanted to see if I had the humility to acknowledge my crimes and let myself be killed... to pay for what I had done. And I had almost done it... now, on the brink... I'm ready, I think... to see them all as Sasori of Sunagakure... not Sasori of the Red Sand...I can fill... in the void... my own... way..."

Something left the painted eyes, and the Core stopped emitting red fluid chakra. Deidara held the hand of his friend for perhaps a century, unwilling to let go, least he fearSasori would be gone forever, and there would be nothing left of his friend to remember. Finally, events behind him drew his attention away.

Kakashi and Naruto were facing a weakened but standing Obito, who was again laughing madly at them both. "You think I want to change, Kakashi? The past is the pastl it will remain as such. Now, I am wiser, stronger, and know what must be done for the world if we are to exist. We must destroy it to save it, to save everyone from this hated cycle!"

"You've lost your senses as a shinobi, Obito," Kakashi said sadly. "Look inside yourself, one more time-"

"This world made me, made you!" Tobi snarled viciously. Finally, he noticed Deidara staring at them, and he smiled grimly. Pointing a finger, he called, "Look at him, look at this boy! Losing his friend, just like I lost Rin. This world will always create people like me, fillwed with the anguish of their friends or family, then releasing that anger on those around him. He is a victim of this inane world, one I will change- if you bastards would only get out of the way!"

"You're wrong."

Tobi paused, seemingly surprised he had spoken. However, he almost instantly began laughing once more. "You cannot deny your hatred for this world, for me," he scoffed. "The pain of losing someone you care about cannot be held back- and the desire to exact that pain on another equally immense!"

Diedara sighed. "Sasori held back his humility to escape what the world had done to him, just like I swarmed myself in my art to escape what it had done to me. But now, he was able to accept his humility in the end, despite what had happened to him. You say working alone, without anyone else is the answer, but that's because you refuse to fill in the void of the loss you experienced."

Tobi's Mangekyo eye twitched again. "Friendship, bonds, they mean nothing," he sneered, his eyes flickering to Kakashi briefly. "Through solitude, the pain of loss and weakness of these bonds are forgotten-"

"But you still don't understand it at all. You can say all that, say you ignore it all, but in the end, the void remains as it is." His eye narrowed behind his shock of golden hair. "And if you believe that it's been fulfilled, then I should kill you now. You're like a virus spreading your hatred, fanatical to a dream that'll only harm those you care about. Sasori had enough faith in the world to accept it and his humanity again, and I won't allow you to take it away any further!"

The sands were quiet around them as Tobi stared at him impassively. Kakashi and Naruto likewise stood stock still, caught in the volley of words, and it was clear to all of them, through Tobi's silence, that the Iwagakure rogue had won.

With a deranged yell, Tobi clasped his hands together, but Deidara had already anticipated the futile attempt he would make. "Fire Style: Bomb Blast Dance!"

"C3 Torpedo!"

His clay bomb sailed forward through the flames, while Naruto summoned a multitude of clones, which sacrificed themselves to absorb the swirling vortex of flames approaching them. And through the flames, he knew Tobi would see the clay bomb approaching wit his Sharingan, and would be using his ocular jutsu to flee, to cause more damage-

Kakashi crumpled to the ground, his hand at his own Sharingan. "I'm sorry, Obito," he whispered to himself. From beyond the flames, he heard Tobi give another yell of pain as Kakashi once again linked their eyes.

The last of reserves went into the final justu. "Earth Style: Subterranean Cave Jutsu!"

As the C2 torpedo went off, the ground dropped beneath them, the sand and hardened earth beneath them dissolving as he worked his chakra furiously through it. They dropped, and the shockwave went above their heads. The explosion was deafening in itself, and they all covered their ears until it had passed, and even then there was a stark ringing. In it, Deidara knew Sasori's body was gone, decimated, and it saddened him...

Naruto sighed, lying down against the sandstone Deidara had created. "It's over, finally!"

Kakashi gave a gasp of exhaustion, then turned to Deidara. "Your partner up there, was he really...?"

"Yes." he felt to tired to talk about it. "So, are you two going to bring me in, or-"

A hand clutched his throat and slammed him against the sandstone, and then Tobi's face materialized in front of him. The skin was singed all around, and most of his cloak had burned away. The flesh on the damaged side of his face was especially blackened, and the Sharingan there flared with live fury. "You used the earth style jutsu to early," he hacked out. "It broke Kakashi's concentration, and gave me the chance to escape, though I did definitely take a beating of it. However..." He tightened his grip around his throat, and he smiled toothily. "You have no more chakra left, and these two can't take a stab at me, or I'll move that piece of my body to the Kamui Dimension, and they'll hit you instead. I win."

His vision was darkening, it was difficult to breath...

Maybe I'll be seeing you after all... Sasori...

"No..." Tobi's voice went soft, and his grip loosened. "You want to die, don't you? To see him? No... you'll remain of this damned earth until I change it, and then you'll see what good I am for it."

"Rot in hell," Deidara bit out.

"Let him go!" Naruto shouted, stepping forward menacingly. With his other hand, Tobi waggled a finger mockingly, as if he were addressing a child who had done wrong.

"No, you said this world has hope? Go find it for yourself, scum, and tell me if you ever find it. When you're broken down, you'll understand what a fool Sasori was for believing in it in the end, and you'll believe in me then!"

In a whirlwind if displaced air, he was gone again, and this time Deidara knew he would not return. He slumped against the cold but welcoming sandstone, like the arms of an angel, and allowed himself to close his eyes at last.