Nina's View:

I spent the next year bouncing between the two teams. The missions with Itachi and Kisame were usually more covert, trying to unbury secrets to use against each village. Our last mission involved an underground group trying to uprise the Akatsuki. They had been all talk and were easy to take out. I led them into a narrow alleyway, Kisame blocking the path from the other side, and took them out using C1 explosive snakes.

I was becoming numb to having to kill anymore. Sasori expected it from me and Deidara made sure victims were guided right into my bombs. After a while, it just became easier to just let it happen; it allowed me to make sure it was relatively painless. It scared me to know that it was possible for me to become this way. Even pleas for mercy had been lost on me. Kisame was impressed, but Itachi wasn't. Itachi and I had become sort of friends over the time we spent together. It was nowhere near a normal friendship, but we got along and fought well together.

"Have you forgotten yourself?" He asked me when we stopped to rest. He sent Kisame off to find firewood while he and I went to get water from the nearby lake.

"What do you mean?" It was clear what he was talking about, I just wanted him to talk. His voice might be the only thing keeping me together right now.

"Don't lose yourself in this world. It's easy to let go of your own morals here."

"How, un? I can't do what you can." I couldn't just knock them out with a look. I could however make two bombs go off near one another, creating a seismic wave strong enough to knock someone out...but it took exact timing and precision or else you ended up blowing off their heads.

"I've seen you fight. You're good at evading people, tricking them into thinking they caught you. So why bother killing them?"

"I...don't know." It wasn't fair of me to take it out on those innocent people. Angry tears burned at the corners of my eyes. I was mad at myself what I did. "I told you, I can't do this…"

"You're too big hearted for this job." Again he was right. "Why haven't you tried to run?"

"I told you, where would I go?" I turned to him finally, tired of talking to his reflection. He only looked at me from the corner of his eye, through his long hair.

"You could seek asylum elsewhere for the wrong doing of your village. Or, you could give up being a ninja and life under a new name." They had been options I had once considered, but I wouldn't let the Tsuchikage win. He kind of had already, I had joined the Akatsuki, but then again he was the one to send in his forces…

"No...I won't let him win." I wouldn't give up everything just yet. "You're right...there's no need for me to kill anyone. I won't become the monster the Tsuchikage says I am…" Itachi made a sound of approval, looking back to the lake. "'Tachi...why do you care?" It had been bothering me for a while, he was always polite and was nice to almost everyone.

"I don't want you to fall into the darkness too…" He stood up, having finished filling his water bottle. "Because…" He didn't want to continue, so I tried to fill in the gaps.

"You're my friend too...actually...you're the only person who I can even come close to calling a friend." I felt my face turning red again. "The last person I trusted…" I looked to the ground, even though he wasn't looking at me.

"You have to forgive yourself for what you've done, otherwise you will never get stronger." He stopped me from talking. I said too much…

I left a day later to join my brother on a different mission. I wasn't looking forward to it and knew Deidara would pull some flashy stunt that was bound to draw too much attention. Itachi warned me to tread carefully or else I would fall again. I took his words to heart, not wanting to let him, or myself, down again.

"You're late." The puppet master hissed as I met them on the edge of the Suna border. I see they haven't changed since I left…

"It takes a while when you have to go by foot." I knew it was pointless arguing, he was very hard to please. He didn't care it was a three day trip for me, only one for them and flying over open areas was always a bad idea.

"Let's go…" he turned to leave, expecting us to follow.

I knew they had been debriefed, learning long ago that Leader-sama had put a jutsu on the rings each member wore. It was a way for them to communicate long distance, but one ring was missing, meaning I could not overhear them. Itachi had been the one to relay everything to me for the last few months, making sure I knew what we were against. Deidara and Sasori on the other hand...they didn't seem to care.

"So...who are we going after?" The only thing I knew was what the raven hair man had told me before I left, we were going after a Jinchūriki. I had no idea which one and had forgotten to ask if he had known.

"The Kazekage, un." Deidara finally said after a few minutes. I get that it was damn hot out here, but I knew his brain wasn't fired from it just yet. He was just ignoring me. "The ones Orochimaru manipulated are up ahead, un?" He asked Sasori. I learned who he was from Itachi as well. He apparently betrayed the Akatsuki and according to what Deidara said, he also leaked information. There must be an informant that we were about to meet.

"We don't have a choice…" Sasori answered. "I don't know what he is like after that jutsu either." They then started talking about the bag Deidara was carrying. I guessed from their conversation, it was going to be used to catch the One Tails. I surmised that the Kazekage was the Jinchūriki we were after, seeing as they never told me anything else about the mission. And Deidara wondered why I asked to be on Itachi's team.

The cliff before us was the entrance to Sunagakure. It was small, narrow, very well defended and both of them were just walking straight towards it. I prepared for the worst, but neither one of them even lifted a kunai for defence. The closer we got, I could finally see why. A man stood before us, surrounded by bodies and covered in his comrades blood. He looked slightly stunned, like he was under a jutsu. Now I see…The jutsu they were talking about was put on this man, some sort of mind jutsu that the Orochimaru guy manipulated to get information out of him.

"Well done...you remembered me?" Sasori's deep voice had a happy note to it. The man told him he'd never forget him, calling him Sasori-sama.

"Good, otherwise I'd have to use my jutsu, un." Deidara was disappointed. I was still looking over the bodies, their faces twisted in surprise and anguish over their friends betrayal.

"Maybe your husband should watch, un…" Deidara teased the puppet. I had long known they were together and not just friends. I also found out around the same time that Sasori didn't look like that and it was just a puppet. I had however been surprised by the fact they had been willing to have sex out in the open like that...though I guessed they thought it was deep enough in the forest. I had seconds to get out of the area or risk getting poisoned.

My brother was also fiercely jealous of Sasori giving anyone but him attention, so of course he was going to take a shot at the man Sasori had used.

"We'll attack from above!" He had made a clay bird, enlarging it and hoping onto its back. "How is it?" He was asking if Sasori was impressed, but of course Sasori didn't seem to care for his art style. Honestly, neither did I, but I respected his concept of art not lasting forever.

Sasori and I stayed on the ground for a while and watched Deidara survey the area. So far, no one had seen him above the village.

"You know why you were called here?" Sasori finally saying something to me.

"No." I looked down at the hunched puppet. I really wanted to know why he stayed in that ugly thing, but the answer I received was a threat of being poisoned.

"You're our decoy." He let me piece together things.

"You want me to act like Deidara after he's captured the One Tails?" It hadn't been the first time we had done a switch, but last time I nearly took the fall for it all. If it hadn't been for the fact that Pein had said not to let me die on missions, I think they might have left me. Deidara had finally come around and got me out of there before the bombs detonated...

"We want you to go a different way and double back to meet us. You'll come to the sealing location." He handed me a folded map with the location. "Memorize it…burn it." He finished as Deidara set off the first set of bombs. I ran off after that to take my place on the edge of the village wall.

Mimicking Deidara's birds wasn't easy, I found them plain and kept having to remake it and add less detail. The third one was the best of them, but I knew if someone looked hard enough they could see the tail was different. Mine had three feathers instead of four, but there wasn't time to make it again. The Kazekage had been brought down after a spectacular fight, managing to take one of Deidara's arms.

Honestly, it was amazing Deidara didn't run out of clay. He had been wasteful and make them far bigger than needed. I thought I was going to have to go in and help him against the sand user, all because he was stubborn and never carried enough. He revealed what was in the bag, number eighteen as he had called it earlier, using it to force the Kazekage to use his defence to cover the village below. Then, having had his hands eat some of the sand before it was crushed, Deidara blew up the rest of the sand around him. Smart move...but not worth losing an arm for. I hopped on his bird from the wall of the village as he flew by.

"You're lucky…" I said helping him wrap what was left of his arm. The sand had crush it to nothing, even cutting off the wound so it wasn't bleeding much.

"All a part of my plan, un."

"You're late…" Sasori growled. I didn't realize we were being timed.

"Tch...this guy was strong." Deidara waved him off as we hopped off the bird. I looked back at the kid we captured to make sure my clay clone looked like him. I knew what was coming for him and had to quickly look away. The guilt was taking over again. I enlarged the bird and decoy, ready to leave at a moments notice.

"That's why I said to be better prepared!" Sasori chided my brother as I got all set and fixed my hair.

"Wait!" Someone called as we started to leave. "Give Gaara back to me!"

"Deidara, Nina...go go on ahead. Remember what I said…" As he spoke, the boy pulled out three scrolls, launching one of the puppets summoned from them at us. "It won't take long…" Deidara hopped on his bird and we took off.

I went further north while Deidara went east. Now I see why the map was necessary, everything in the desert looked the same from above. I turned back and headed southeast back towards River Country after two hours. So far, no one had followed us. It seemed the other puppet user was the only one that came after Gaara...I had heard rumors of what he was, but like me he looked normal. The only thing that really made him a monster was what other people thought of him. They aren't monsters either...

I landed near Deidara, making my bird and decoy small again. I was going to go in, but Sasori stopped me with that stupid tail of his. He really was going to hit me one of these times.

"You're to find an area out here and guard this place…" He said as they entered. I wanted to ask where and how I was supposed to know where it was over, but the boulder slid back into place.

"Right...cause that's all I'm good for…" I said, jumping up rocks until I was on top of where the cave was. I could feel the large amount of chakra from underground here. I wasn't a sensory type ninja, so I shouldn't be able to feel it. Is the jutsu that powerful? I sat there, choosing it as a good lookout point and waiting for them to finish up. I wondered, though, why didn't they want me to help do this? They would need a lot of chakra to accomplish this, so why exclude me?

I felt the earth move next to me and saw giant plant emerge. The leaves split open and revealed it was a man with a face half white and half black.

"Hello there Nina, we have yet to meet. I'm Zetsu. Get on and tell her the enemy is coming!" Talk about a split personality...

"The enemy? Who, un?" I was trying to get my heart rate back to normal from seeing a plant with a man inside.

"Konoha ninja. One coming from the east and the other from the west. But clones of Kisame and Itachi have been sent to buy some time."

"Are they nearby?" If they were, they would need protection from losing a good part of their chakra. Maybe that's why I'm here?

"No, they're in the Grass village...Orochimaru has been sighted there." After that, he closed the weird plant parts, and sank back into the ground. "Good luck…"

I was understanding why Sasori hated waiting so much. After Zetsu had warned me, I took cover in the trees looking over the cave entrance. From here I could see the valley where the teams would have to come through. I knew it would take all night to finish this sealing jutsu, maybe more, but I was alone. Staying awake was harder to do when no one else was there, even the clone I had made had fallen asleep on me twice.

Not long after sunrise, a group of shinobi finally showed up. This one was the one Kisame dealt with. They moved much faster than the other team. Two of them were wearing odd green jumpsuits, one of two seeming to be the leader of the team. Suddenly, their leader leapt forward and hit the boulder with all his might. I cringed, knowing it had to have hurt, even if he didn't react. I still wasn't to attack until they broke through the seal. Not long after, another team showed up.

"Well shit...they have enough to break it now…" I muttered to myself. I was far enough away that no one would hear me. I could hear them clearly though, the valley making their voices echo perfectly around me. The silver haired one, Kakashi, knew how to break the five seal barrier. It was when the kid Neji was asked to use Byakugan I knew I was screwed. I tried my best and was able to get a clay bird in the air when I heard him say: "There's someone else…" I was out of hearing range by then.

I wasn't scared of them, but I was being cautious. I watched from above as the first team left to get the seals and the second team got ready to break into the cave. I got my clay doves ready for attack. I knew the four that went off weren't going to be a problem, knowing there was a counter attack on the seal if a non-Akatsuki member tried to dispel it. They would be literally fighting themselves.

I watched with surprise at the girl with the pink hair, Sakura, punched through the bounder. I did not want her to get near me, that kind of strength was scary. They ran inside and I landed on the rubble outside of the cave, blocking any escape. If Kakashi noticed me, he didn't let on. I could see my brother sitting on Gaara, disrespecting the kids corpse. He couldn't get any lower than that. I really wanted to know how he had become so twisted…

"Which one of you is the Jinchūriki, I wonder, un?" I heard him sneer. The blonde kid, Naruto, went stiff with anger.

"You bastards! I'll kill you!" He yelled.

"That one…" Sasori and Deidara seemed to be in on something I wasn't. That's when the blonde kid started yelling to his friend.

"Gaara! Stand the hell up! Stop being lazy!" It was sort of nice knowing that I still had a heart, his words were breaking it to pieces.

"Stop, Naruto…" Kakashi reasoned. "You should understand."

"Yeah, don't you get it? He'd dead, un." The way Deidara said it...the grin on his face...I'd never be like that.

"Deidara…" I growled, getting Kakashi's attention.

"Give Gaara back! You Bastards!" Naruto ran at them, his aura completely changing. Thankfully Kakashi chose to stop him and not come after me. Sasori was poised to kill him if he took one more step.

"I'll look after this one…" Sasori was talking about Naruto.

"Sasori-sama...this might make you angry but, let me handle him." They were arguing over who was going to kill him, over some stupid quota.

"W-what kind of people are they?" I heard Sakura ask. I was with her...but I had to keep quiet about it.

"What are you standing there for, un? Why haven't you done anything?" Deidara was looking right at me.

"You want to take care of it all so badly, I thought you had it." I glared.

"Stop playing around!" Naruto shouted, attacking Sasori with a shuriken. He just deflected it with his tail...

"Deidara...are you trying to piss me off?" and they went back to arguing like nothing happened. Seriously?

Deidara finally moved, taking Gaara with him to taunt Naruto into following him. "See ya Master!" he said as he flew over me, forcing me to set off a spider bomb to give myself time to take off. Naruto was quick to follow, but from below he couldn't tell us apart. Kakashi was behind him which left Sasori with Sakura and the old lady, Chiyo. I hoped at least one of them survived.

Kakashi and Naruto stood on the gateway entrance in front of the cave, the silver haired sensei calling the other team for back up over a headset. Deidara and I watched them from a little ways above their heads.

"What are you doing?" I asked him, keeping my voice down and getting close to him.

"Showing Sasori how good my art really is, un." He grinned.

"That's it?! You're crazy…" That's when Kakashi reveals he had a sharingan under his headband. "Deidara...please we need to…" but it was too late. He had a stupid obsession about proving he was better than the sharingan.

"Are you sure you wanna fight me, sharingan Kakashi, un?" Deidara challenged.

"You should listen to her…" Kakashi had overheard me.

"Go help Sakura, sensei, I'll save Gaara." Naruto was naive to think Deidara or I were easy to take on. Despite my feelings over all of this, I was still required to help the cause.

Suddenly Naruto launched himself with such a force, we had to seperate. His eyes were red, like a demon. Maybe I'm the one who underestimated you…

Deidara launched a clay bird at him, only for it to be deflected by Kakashi before it could explode. I made my own sparrows and sent them out to attack in sweeping loops. Deidara and I were able to confuse them for a while, but eventually they figured out the difference between our birds.

"You're different than other Jinchūriki. So is Gaara...no others were known to care much for others. So far, none of the others had anyone come after them...besides him, two other Jinchūriki have been taken down by my peers." True, I knew of the three tails, but hadn't known about the other. "Their friends from the village, it seems not a single one came to save them. Instead, it seemed they were on our side." He laughed.

He had gone way over the line now, stating Naruto was going to die the same way very soon. This got him to chase us again, forcing the two to split up. Kakashi didn't stray too far from Naruto though, catching on to the plan. There was one problem though, Deidara seemed to be out of clay now. I had mine, but I couldn't get close again to help him. I tried and scattered clay ants about, letting them free fall behind me and explode at random intervals. This did keep them back, but they wouldn't stop until they caught us.

"Nina, aim at the Jinchūriki, damnit, un!" Deidara glared, flying up from under me. "The plan now it to catch him too." I bit my cheek, knowing in my heart I couldn't do it. I purposely sabotaged my own double winged bird bombs, one going off too late and the other had one wing made short so it wouldn't fly right. Deidara didn't notice. During this time, Kakashi was trying to do something with his sharingan eye.

"I said wait!" Kakashi finally caught up to Naruto. They went into the lower branches to talk strategy.

"Deidara, we need to get out of here. We don't know what his sharingan can do."

"I'm not scared of that, un!"

"You have one arm and no clay! I'm running low too. We should just give the body to them…" He wasn't listening.

"When they finally try to get close, use two clay clones. I have an idea." He said after a moment. I sighed, handing him enough clay for two clones.

It took some time before they were going to attack, giving me time to make exact copies of myself. I looked down and saw Kakashi open his eye, making chills go through my body. Suddenly, the air around Deidara started swirling into a funnel around him. It was like he was trying to pull my brother into another dimension.

"Dei!" I watched as he was able to move a little, but losing his other arm. Shit! My brother growled in pain, but there was no way for me to get to him without getting into shooting range.. Kakashi was trying again, but there was something wrong. It wasn't as strong as the first time and didn't take off Deidara's head.

Naruto suddenly appeared, taking my bird out with two shadow clones and going after Deidara. I watched as the same rasengan took out my brothers bird. Now we were screwed...With him distracted with the head of Deidara's bird, I leapt to where my brother had landed, switching ourselves with the clay clones. Before that, the idiot decided to call out to them, blowing our cover. I knew he was well aware Kakashi was a bigger problem right now.

I dodged, narrowly being missed by Naruto's fist. I watched as his clone got the hell beaten out of it while Dei and I quickly took cover in the bushes. My clone tried to stop Naruto from blasting Deidara's clone, but ended up hit too.

Is that...the power of the nine tails? Naruto had an orange aura around him now, two tails sprouting from it. Kakashi was quick to put a seal on the kid's forehead. So Naruto couldn't control the nine tails just yet, that was good for us.

Soon, Sakura and Chiyo showed up and I watched Deidara's face change from anger, to sadness and then to confusion on how it was all possible. Sasori had been taken out by them. I knew whatever part of his heart was left had just shattered. As we got up, I felt the air shift and turned. Looks like the other team also won their battle.

"Go work Neji!" Their leader was still chipper. Right...I forgot about the Byakugan user…

I gave Deidara a kunai to put in his mouth and we fought them off using weapons. I made two more clay clones, signaling Deidara what the plan was. He ran towards the downed bird, and we quickly switched to the clones again. The clone of him ate part of the clay of the bird, setting off an even bigger explosion when it was combined with my clone. We didn't get to see it be sucked into the strange dimension Kakashi's eye held; we headed underground this time, trying to avoid Neji's eyes.

A while later, Deidara and I emerged from the dirt. He refused my help out, I wondered how he managed not to knock himself out by using his head.

"Tsh...I only lost from my elbow down...I gotta go hunting from my right arm and ring."

"Deidara...are you…"

"Quite dottling, let's go!" He snapped. Something changed in him, he wasn't care free anymore. He was hurting, but he would never admit it.

We found where it had landed, two people already there and talking about what could have happened.

"Get your hand off that, idiot!" Deidara yelled at the masked man as we approached.

"Oh, You're alive!"

"What happened to the nine tails?!" Zetsu growled.

"Hey, my part is over, un." Deidara sighed. He bagged his, so as far as he was concerned, it wasn't his problem. Zetsu then glared at me.

"What? I'm not technically a member, remember, un?" I held up my hands.

"Looks like you came out ok! You barely made it out Deidara-san! You're ok, right?" The masked man was trying to joke, but it wasn't going to end well.

"Tobi...I only let things go three times. Speak one more time I'll set you off, un."

"Please don't…" I didn't want Deidara causing more damage to himself.

"Hmm...most likely death by explosion." Tobi said about Deidara.

"That's three…" Zetsu smirked.

Really, the guy had it coming. Deidara jumped and wrapped his legs around Tobi's neck.

"Death by asphyxiation, un!" It was quite the site to see an armless man trying to strangle someone. I laughed, not able to contain it anymore. "Stop laughing and help me strangle him, un!" The armless blonde was having trouble keeping Tobi pinned. I did not help either of them, both of them deserving what they got.