That night in the mess hall, Zabuza very unceremoniously explains the last portion of the exam will be a public tournament set for one month from now. He draws some numbers from a box and makes the tournament bracket right then and there.
Deidara does not give a shit what the bracket looks like, because he's going to win no matter what. Shiori and Daisuke feel differently.
Shiori's match is against Seiji. Shiori tries to catch the other girl's eye from across the room, but Seiji is determined to continue to stare at her feet. Deidara draws the nearly silent Saboten from Suna, who currently has one arm in a sling from whatever the hell happened to them on the mangrove island, and Deidara does not bother acknowledging the kid at all.
Daisuke draws Sumomo, who turns to smirk at him and mime slitting her throat with a sword and then licking the blood off.
"Shit," Daisuke breathes.
"Yeah," Kakashi agrees.
(Nibe, standing with his jounin sensei and his two female teammates absent, draws another Kiri-nin and looks completely unphased. He waves at Shiori as his sensei leads him off, and Shiori blushes.)
In the morning, they move the passing exam entrants into a dilapidated apartment building. Apparently, the village needs to use the detention complex again as soon as possible, presumably because their prisons are overflowing with traitors.
"Hmm, I think this counts as your war affecting the exams," Kakashi says casually while Zabuza leads the group of them through the neighborhood immediately adjacent to the prison complex.
"Oh, shut up," Zabuza gripes back. "I can't believe I got stuck with this job."
This neighborhood isn't as nice as the ones they walked through before. There are stray cats and dogs wandering around, the buildings are more run down, and there are more cobblestones missing from the streets.
The Kiri genin are given the option to stay in their own homes moving forward, and they all disappear. The Suna Team looks grim, and all the Kurotsuchi-esque mischief is gone from Seiji's eyes. Deidara finds that he likes her less for it.
Team Kakashi is assigned a training ground to use as they please and given strict rules about what parts of the village they're allowed to access. There will be food deliveries to the apartment, but they're free to visit restaurants and markets in the neighborhood. They are not allowed in any shinobi-related stores or offices, but can requisition weapons and tools from Kiri for use in the tournament and during training.
The apartment is two double occupancy bedrooms and a twin bed shoved into the corner of the main room with a bamboo-paneled privacy screen. The Suna team has the apartment down the hall, and the rest of the building seems abandoned except for Kiri ANBU blatantly wandering the halls.
"Kakashi-sensei," Daisuke says the moment they're all alone in the apartment, "do you think I can-"
"Hold on," Kakashi says, holding up a hand and staring at the privacy screen. "I'm debating if this 'room' is a choice private room for the highest ranking person, or if it's a horrible cramped space for my least favorite student."
"Sensei," Daisuke whines. "Sumomo-"
"I don't mind sharing a room," Itachi says.
"You are not the highest ranking person here, my cute kouhai."
"I'm your least favorite student, right?" Deidara asks, eyeing the single bed as well. A clay frog hops from one of his hands. "If I'm not, I could make myself your least favorite, yeah."
Somehow, Deidara ends up sharing one of the bedrooms with Itachi. It is not a large room, and their beds are less than two meters apart. There's a window out into the courtyard behind the building, and Deidara opens it to let in more air. The sound of a radio from someone in the building across the courtyard drifts in.
Itachi pulls the sliding door of the room closed and immediately takes off his mask. Deidara has never been a part of anyone's ANBU, but he's spent a lot of time wondering if wearing a mask like that 24/7 is bearable or not. He'd concluded it wasn't, and doing it too much made you loopy.
(He'd asked Tobi about it once, and the man had given him a lecture about how it was better than being constantly catcalled because his face was just so handsome, which. What.)
"That seems like it's against protocol," Deidara says, gesturing at Itachi's face. "I'm not cleared to know your identity, yeah. I should report you."
Itachi rolls his eyes. "I don't believe you've ever cared about protocol even once in your life. I'm going to put up some privacy measures, so we can talk."
Deidara flops down on his bed, which is lumpy but still about ten times better than the prison cots. "Like two girls at a sleepover."
Itachi cocks his head to the side thoughtfully, even as his eyes go red and he goes through some hand signs. The air sizzles with chakra.
"I've known several kunoichi that liked to share a bed and plot an assassination," Itachi says.
"That's not…" Deidara starts, and then is distracted by the mental image of Konan leaning against the headboard of a bed, painting her nails and chatting about Akatsuki's plans while Leader-sama paints her toenails.
A box of fruits and vegetables and some cooking basics appears at their doorstep a couple hours later, and Kakashi assigns his students the challenge of meal planning. Their dining table is the kind designed so that you sit on the floor around it, and Kakashi proceeds to lie on his side at it with a glass of tap water and his dumb Icha Icha book.
"Why don't you demonstrate your culinary skills for us, Sensei?" Deidara asks slyly.
Shiori, who theoretically has been taught to cook in kunoichi class but has parents who take care of her at home, very determinedly adds way too much water to a pot of rice and Deidara has to take over.
Itachi, back in his ANBU mask, slides up next to him and starts chopping vegetables, just like at home. Deidara kind of hates how well they work together, but also they put together a pretty good lunch in no time at all.
"I am," Daisuke says over the meal, "very nervous about this tournament thing."
"Yeah," Kakashi says, picking at his rice, "you should be." When Daisuke sends him a look of pure terror, Kakashi seems to remember he's technically their teacher and clears his throat. "It's okay. You have a month to train."
"Do you think I'll be good enough to beat Sumomo in a month?" Daisuke asks hopefully.
"No," Itachi answers immediately. "Someone like you will be lucky to live, even with a month of training."
Daisuke gulps.
"I could forfeit," he decides.
"Cowardly but wise," Itachi tells him, and Kakashi shoots him a disparaging look.
"You should at least attempt a fight," Kakashi says. "Potential clients for Konoha will be in the audience, and you getting to be here at all was contingent on me promising that those clients will be very interested in my team's performance in the tournament."
Deidara is certain that he can fulfill Kakashi's promise. People who want deadly shinobi to fuck things up for them basically drool over the prospect of hiring Deidara. Or, at least they did back when Deidara was a known Iwa jounin and then missing-nin. He's confident he can return his reputation to its former glory, and the Chunin Exam tournament is step one to getting people to beg for Deidara to make art for them.
Still, it's bad optics for the village if one of their genin quits just because some unhinged teenager with some swords threatens him. They're getting a full four weeks of training so that everyone can put on a good show trying to beat each other to death.
"Maa, we'll figure something out," Kakashi promises. "What do you know about her?"
Kakashi talks shop with his team while Deidara pokes around the cupboard of their tiny kitchen and finds some tupperwares to store their excess food in. It seems like, yet again, he is somehow the only one with any domestic skill.
It's known that Ameyuri Ringo mainly favors the legendary sword Kiba, which is actually two swords that can shoot lightning or something. It's unlikely her apprentice Sumomo will be allowed to actually use Kiba, even if she's meant to be showing off for the public, but it's logical to assume that Sumomo is both skilled at using twin swords and at effectively countering someone else using a similar weapon.
Plus, she can summon eels. Itachi describes the boss eel in a flat tone, claiming that it's thirty meters long and can supposedly give off electric shocks strong enough to kill a man.
"I can teach you to counter lightning jutsu," Kakashi says at Daisuke's stricken face. When Daisuke doesn't look even remotely comforted by this, possibly because Kakashi has barely succeeded in teaching them anything at all, Kakashi adds, "I doubt a genin can summon the boss."
"She could probably summon a big one, though," Shiori pipes up. "She had a lot of chakra left, even after she summoned all those little ones."
"You're not helping," Daisuke moans.
"She is," Itachi cuts in. "You need to know what your opponent can do, even if there's nothing you can do to stop it."
"Weasel-kun, why don't you go scope out the neighborhood for us?" Kakashi says dryly. Itachi flickers away, and if Deidara had to guess, he'd bet Itachi's face is sour under the mask.
They switch to debating Shiori's strategy for the tournament, and it's a lot easier to plan. Deidara sits back down at the table and gives her the run-down on how battle puppets work and what it's like to fight one. He even gets out his sketch pad and draws some of the standard models Seiji might use, because he's generous.
"Your best bet is to stay away from the puppet and drain her chakra with your kikaichu until she can't keep the strings up," Deidara concludes. "Except you got real chatty with her, so she probably knows that's exactly what you're going to do."
"If her sensei is at all up-to-date on other villages, he'll have recognized she's an Aburame and what that means," Kakashi dismisses lazily, pulling the sketch of the puppets forward. "How do you know all this, Deidara?"
Deidara's sketches aren't that detailed, because Sasori never used those types of puppets. But sometimes they ran into Suna puppeteers, and Sasori was really into taking their puppets apart in front of them and lecturing about how much they sucked, right before he murdered and took apart the puppeteers. Deidara has seen the basics of what they can do and what's inside, even if he can't direct Shiori on how to expertly take them apart.
...but maybe even a ROOT-trained genin shouldn't know that much.
"Deidara makes a point about knowing about art," Daisuke says helpfully. Kakashi pushes the sketchbook back to Shiori to study.
"And what will you do?" Kakashi says, eyeing Deidara.
Deidara smirks. "Win, yeah."
Deidara has no clue what Saboten can do and he does not care. Deidara has taken down the future Kazekage. He could probably kill Saboten faster than he could say his name.
"Alright," Kakashi agrees after a beat. "Let's circle back around to Daisuke…"
Deidara eventually excuses himself to go for a walk around the neighborhood. It's mostly residential buildings, with a handful of restaurants and shops along a strip of road that follows one of the canals. The other side of the canal is an open-air market, and Deidara crosses the water on foot rather than circle back to the bridge he passed.
He finds Itachi at a stand that sells fruits suspended in sweetened condescended milk and coconut cream, and Deidara almost doesn't recognize him. Itachi is wearing a genjutsu instead of his mask, using the nondescript face of plain-looking girl in a plain blue dress, with dark brown hair rather than his ashy black. Deidara only does a double-take because of the exact same posture and intense look in the 'girl's' eyes as she reads the stand's menu of tooth-ache sweet treats.
He only realizes it's actually Itachi when he makes a Konoha hand signal at Deidara to come over.
Deidara guesses the reason for the genjutsu is not to make an otherwise completely civilian market nervous about a foreign ANBU, since Itachi isn't allowed to remove the mask while on duty. Deidara approaches the stand, eyeing Itachi's disguise up and down critically.
"What do you think?" Itachi asks, and hearing his monotone in someone else's voice is just weird. "Strawberry or mango?"
"I think you need some mangoes, yeah," Deidara says.
The stand owner eyes the two of them and says, "Strawberry is our most romantic flavor."
Deidara feels himself go hot. Itachi cuts him off before he can yell at the stand owner, ordering one of each. Deidara almost refuses or knocks the cup Itachi offers him out of his hand, but it's hot out and the dessert is cold.
Itachi gives him the cup of mango and coconut milk and tells him very seriously they can switch when they're halfway through, so they both get a chance to try both flavors.
They walk through the market, admiring the huge array of fruits and vegetables that dwarf the diversity of things available in Iwa and even Konoha. There's more fish, but a lot less beef or pork available. Deidara spends some time staring into a bucket of squirming eels and wonders out loud how Daisuke would feel if he brought him one, and Itachi cracks a smile.
Deidara chats with a woman who sells glass jewelry long enough to be disappointed that she doesn't make them herself and to freak out when she suggests he buy Itachi some earrings, then gets into an argument with a potter than Itachi only intervenes in when Deidara pulls out his own clay.
"I don't think you need to assert your dominance over every mediocre artist you meet," Itachi says, then takes the cup of dessert that Deidara has barely touched out of his hand and replaces it with Itachi's own cup.
"You ate way more than half of this, yeah," Deidara complains, even though he doesn't really care. There's bits of lychee floating around along with the main type of fruit, and Deidara doesn't really like lychee. "Also, that man was just wrong-"
Itachi nods along to Deidara's art rant, even as he stops at a toy stand. Deidara's rant dies down when Itachi picks up a wood-carved lizard.
"What do you think of this as a souvenir for a child?" Itachi asks. He doesn't say Sasuke directly, because Itachi is deeply paranoid and would probably have a fit if any of the Kiri ANBU that are probably following figured out Sasuke even existed, but it's not like Itachi hangs out with any other kids.
"I'm not saying the child wouldn't like it," Deidara says slowly, because Sasuke would probably be excited to receive any gift from Itachi, "but I am saying I could make a better one."
"You do woodworking too?" Itachi asks curiously, setting the lizard back down.
"No," Deidara replies, crossing his arms, "but mine would move, yeah."
"Oh, like a puppet?" the stand owner asks. "I have some-"
Itachi drags Deidara away before he can start yelling again.
They return to the apartment to find Kakashi has drawn up a training schedule, and Shiori is mooning over the fact that the Suna team doesn't want to hang out with them.
"If one of you died, I'd want to have people cook for me," Shiori states. "Why? Because-"
"Shiori, people mourn in different ways," Daisuke snaps, and Deidara suddenly realizes that he has no idea how Daisuke lost his parents.
Kakashi, meanwhile, looks incredibly stressed by the entire concept of one of them dying.
xXx
Kakashi continues to look stressed when they start training.
"Maybe," he says to Daisuke after he demonstrates a kata he'd been working on, "we should practice you recognizing when in battle you need to forfeit."
He doesn't it say it like he's trying to tease Daisuke over his mediocre swordsmanship; he says it with the barely restrained anxiety of a teacher realizing their student sucks at fighting and is in very real danger of being killed before they can even get the words "surrender" out of their mouths.
"Do you want me to just give up before the match or not?" Daisuke asks, face red.
Kakashi stares at him for a long time and then calls Itachi over.
"You're skilled in kenjutsu," Kakashi says.
"No," Itachi replies immediately.
"I'm team captain," Kakashi tries.
"You're also skilled in kenjutsu," Itachi spits back, sounding more snide than Deidara would have anticipated.
Kakashi sighs and then sends Deidara off to the other side of the field with Shiori to practice evasion drills while Kakashi borrows Itachi's ANBU-standard sword. Itachi disappears from the field altogether.
Puppets tend to shoot things like fire and kunai, so evasion and trying to get her kikaichu around such obstacles is a skill Shiori needs to practice, and Deidara is very good at throwing things that are on fire. This drill doesn't help him at all, except that throwing explosives at people is one of his favorite activities.
Kakashi continues to look stressed throughout the whole week, and then one day Shiori gets hit with an exploding tag Deidara was confident she was going to dodge, and Kakashi manages to convince Itachi to go off and train with Daisuke while Kakashi squats over Shiori and flags one of their ANBU tails for medical help.
Deidara does not see what happens between Daisuke and Itachi, because he's busy applying pressure to Shiori's bleeding stomach while Kakashi gives the ANBU who identifies themselves as a medic rapid-fire instructions about kikaichu and the venomous creatures that might be hanging out in her coat.
Another ANBU medic shows up too, which is probably not necessary, but probably also just so more Kiri people can observe Konoha secrets like the kikaichu. Deidara does not care, and evidently Kakashi doesn't either.
Shiori, having previously been set on fire by Deidara and nearly lost a limb to spars with him more than once, does not seem particularly bothered when the ANBU medic administering Mystical Palm finally cuts off the jutsu.
"Her… kikaichu…" the medic says carefully, like the word is brand new, "absorbed a lot of the damage, just like you said they would, and internal injuries were minimal. I cleared out the dead kikaichu bodies and repaired as much of the external damage as protocol requires."
The other medic leans back on their heals and holds up a large, partially crushed spider. "And this?" the medic says. "Don't let your kids fuck with this one. It's lethal."
"No," Shiori croaks, "Kimiko…!"
They start talking home-care and recovery to Kakashi, and by the time they're gone, Daisuke is standing alone in the field, looking like he might cry.
"Where's Weasel-kun?" Kakashi asks, squatting in front of Shiori to give her a piggyback back to the apartment.
"H-he left," Daisuke stutters out. "He said my kenjutsu and entire career were an embarrassment to the village and…"
Daisuke repeats some absurdly mean things Itachi apparently told him before stomping off. Deidara bursts into laughter.
"It's not funny!" Daisuke yells, obviously fighting back tears.
"Why don't we call it quits for today," Kakashi says dully.
Shiori is banned from actively training for the foreseeable future for medical reasons, so Deidara gets recruited to try and hit Daisuke with an electrified practice sword for a few days while Kakashi observes. Deidara gets a practice sword with a dulled blade and not a real one, because he doesn't know shit about kenjutsu and is therefore liable to accidentally hurt Daisuke.
He does hurt Daisuke's pride, probably, because he gets a lot of hits in, despite having no specific training.
(Itachi continues to be nowhere to be seen.)
It's not strictly artistic, but trying to beat Daisuke with what is essentially a heavy stick is sort of fun. That is, until Daisuke's sad little yelps and grunts get boring, and Deidara decides to drop a bomb on his feet.
"Asshole!" Daisuke shrieks, leaping out of the way only to come down unstable rubble from the explosion. He fixes his footing immediately, only having to roll over more rubble and tiny craters as Deidara pounces on him again, waving the practice sword and cackling. "Hey!"
Deidara sets off another bomb, Daisuke screams some more, and Kakashi calls it quits a few minutes later. He looks thoughtful.
"Sensei, tell Deidara that my opponent is not an explosives user," Daisuke whines, panting from exertion.
"Hmm," Kakashi says. "Deidara, you have the match before Daisuke's, right?"
Kakashi hatches a plan for Daisuke. It's actually sort of clever, so maybe Kakashi earned his reputation as a genius afterall. Plus, Deidara gets to blow up even more of the training ground.
"I hate this," Daisuke says dully.
"It's fine," Kakashi assures him, picking up the practice sword. "We found your secret talent."
Deidara leaves them, intent on going down to one of the canals and doing some sketches of the turtles that live there, and then Itachi ambushes him.
"Fuck," Deidara swears at his sudden appearance, and punches him right in the face.
Itachi is wearing the girl-disguise again, and Deidara absolutely does not care about hitting a civilian girl's face. Even being punched in the face doesn't make Itachi's genjutsu so much as slip.
"Please do not damage my mask," Itachi says, rubbing his jaw.
Deidara stares down at his knuckles, which suddenly hurt a lot more than they should and start bleeding. Itachi blinks his big brown eyes, shaped all wrong on his burrowed face. Deidara's knuckles are now bleeding because he punched an ANBU mask, not Itachi's bare face. He hadn't noticed when he'd actually hit him, because the illusion was so baked onto Itachi's skin that he'd modified the way Deidara's brain processed the sensation of touching him. It modified it right down to the sensation of pain, which was conventionally thought of as being something so difficult to fuck with that it would break a genjutsu.
Deidara runs the thumb of his other hand over his bloody knuckles. That's an insane amount of skill .
"I think we should go for tea," Itachi says, taking Deidara's uninjured hand.
The place Itachi takes him is way outside the boundaries of where Deidara is supposedly allowed to go. No ANBU descend on them, so either they don't actually care, or Itachi is just casually melting more people's brains with genjutsu.
The teashop is on a street with a lot of very posh-looking shops, and its windows are decorated with laminated photos of fancy cakes and various desserts to tempt potential customers. The inside smells like vanilla and taro.
The waitress smiles at them and then asks Deidara what he and Itachi both want. Deidara is momentarily taken aback, because that has absolutely never happened with him and Itachi before.
"We want a pot of…" Itachi says quietly, capturing the waitress's attention. He also ordered one green tea and one taro cake.
God, she did that because she thinks they're a boy and a girl on a date, and she thinks it's the boy's job to order. Deidara's brain sputters.
"Are you ordering two different types of cakes so we can 'share,' and you can eat both again?" Deidara asks.
Itachi stares at him for a few moments, and Deidara is horrified to discover he's fluent enough in Itachi-isms to recognize this is an admission of guilt.
"No," Itachi says eventually. "You like green tea."
"I like it in tea form, yeah!"
"You'll like the colors," Itachi tries. "Very artistic."
Deidara scowls. "I don't just like bright colors for the sake of them, and you know that, yeah."
"Food," Itachi tries again, "is true art, because it is something carefully and lovingly created only so that it can be destroyed."
Deidara blinks, because that's… sort of true, actually…? And then he realizes Itachi is fighting back laughter and he kicks him under the table.
The cakes, when the waitress brings them along with a small pot of tea, are quite pretty. They're rolled, vivid green and purple, with a swirl of cream in the middle.
They're still not art.
Itachi twitches his hands on the table a few times, then picks up a fork and declares them free to speak freely.
"Madara is not currently in the village," Itachi starts without preamble, and Deidara almost chokes on his tea. "But he has to be whenever the Mizukage makes a public appearance."
"Okay," Deidara says, poking a fork into the green tea cake. "Why?"
"He's been using his sharingan to mind-control the Mizukage," Itachi says blandly, and now Deidara chokes on his cake.
"He…" Deidara leans back in his seat. "He's… are you sure?"
"Quite," Itachi says, leaning over for a bite of 'Deidara's' cake. "He did this in the other timeline too. How do you think he recruited Kisame?"
Deidara's head swims. He had not known that before. It doesn't really change things, at least not how they affect him as an Iwa-nin or a Konoha-nin, but it's jarring to realize he had absolutely no idea about such a huge secret.
Was this guy really fucking around and pretending to be Tobi?
"Tobi once cried over killing a rabbit," Deidara says hollowly. "He called it a bunny and said it was too cute to be eaten, yeah."
Itachi seems unimpressed, licking cream from his fork. "An act, I'm sure."
"Okay," Deidara says, shaking himself and pushing aside his weird feelings about Tobi. "Why does he need to be around when the Mizukage is in public?"
"Mm, you've met my father, correct?"
The Mizukage, it turns out, spends most of his time holed up in his chambers, administering commands by writing and refusing to allow anyone face-time with him. This is because not even someone like Itachi or Madara can genjutsu someone so good that they can be brainwashed to that degree and still behave normally.
"Unless, of course," Itachi continues, "the genjutsu user is there to puppet them manually."
Well, at least Deidara now had confirmation that Kakashi and the rest of his team weren't being actively controlled by Itachi's stupid eyes. Itachi could still, you know, delete some memories or do some truly impressive gaslighting, but no one is being mind-controlled.
….probably.
"So, what," Deidara tries, the cogs in his brain whirling, "you want to attack him when he has to come back to Kiri?"
Itachi nods. "It's ideal, I think. It will minimize any risk to Konoha."
"Or Sasuke, yeah," Deidara finishes for Itachi. "But you'll have to wait for the Mizukage to have to come out in public…" because there was no guarantee that Tobi-slash-Madara wouldn't just give written orders for weeks on end from outside the village, but… "which he has to, for the Chunin Exam tournament, yeah."
"Yes," Itachi confirms, looking pleased. "You can be clever when you try."
Deidara rolls his eyes but doesn't let himself get distracted from the planning at hand, even if he wants to start another petty fight with Itachi.
"It would be next to impossible to attack someone close to the Mizukage while he's at the tournament, yeah," Deidara says. "Not if you don't want to start a war or go missing-nin."
"That's true," Itachi agrees.
"So, what?" Deidara asks, tapping his fingers on the table. "You gonna genjutsu some freedom fighters to attack, and then lure him away in the confusion?"
"I thought about something like that," Itachi says, "but I found a better way. I recruited someone on the inside. Speaking of which…"
Itachi twitches his fingers in a way that Deidara has come to associate with wild illusions happening, and then Itachi waves at someone at the door of the tea house. Deidara turns, leaning out of the booth to see who it is, and nearly falls all the way out.
It's Hoshigaki Kisame.
xXx
Sitting across a table from Itachi and Kisame, seated side by side, feels completely natural and also incredibly strange. It doesn't help that Itachi is still genjutsu'd to look like a girl and Kisame is wearing his Kiri jounin uniform and introducing himself to Deidara like he has no idea who he is.
"Your other operative is a genin?" Kisame asks doubtfully.
"Deidara is a very special genin," Itachi says.
Itachi has led Kisame to believe that he's got a very top-secret triple-classified mission from the Hokage to eliminate Madara-slash-Tobi. Kisame, being targeted as a potential Akatsuki recruit, is aware of Madara-slash-Tobi is haunting the shadows of Kiri, but had not previously been privy to the knowledge that he was a massive reason behind the current civil war.
Deidara is not sure what Itachi did to convince Kisame of this truth, but Kisame is on-board with doing whatever it takes to kill the man stoking the flames of the war and either return the Mizukage to sanity or install a new one.
Itachi is very lucky that Deidara is, contrary to Itachi's beliefs, very clever, because Deidara has to infer this all very quickly from conversation, because Itachi didn't explain shit.
Deidara is going to kill him. Right after he wins the Chunin Exam tournament and kills Madara-slash-Tobi.
Kisame will identify Madara-slash-Tobi's location at the tournament, and then possibly assist Itachi in leading him away from the village if necessary. Kisame seems a lot less concerned about the village or his fellow Kiri-nin being hurt than Itachi is about Konoha, but he still prefers the Itachi-Madara showdown to happen elsewhere.
Deidara has got to hand it to Itachi, although this team-up feels completely natural to Deidara, there's no way anyone without knowledge of the future is going to expect Itachi and Kisame to be working together. It just doesn't make logical sense, considering any facts from the current time.
It's sort of brilliant.
"If we require," Itachi says, "Deidara is very good at distractions."
Deidara holds up a palm and has the mouth grin at Kisame. Kisame eyes it warily.
"A destruction of village property, I've heard," he says. Turning to Itachi, he says, "Can you really beat him on your own?"
"I have a plan," Itachi says very intensely and then does not explain further.
Kisame just shrugs. "Well," he says, "if you need me there, just say the word."
Deidara wishes, just once, he could be partnered with someone as chill as Kisame for a mission. It seems like it will be a breath of fresh air.
Kisame slaps some bills on the table to cover the food, despite not eating or drinking anything himself, and leaves.
"What's your plan, yeah?" Deidara asks when Kisame is gone. Itachi picks up a fork and starts attacking the cakes vigorously, and Deidara wonders with a hint of amusement if he is witnessing Itachi stress-eating.
"I've been analyzing his fighting style and psychological profile based on your description," Itachi says once the rest of the cake is in his stomach. "The fact that he can become intangible will be difficult to work around, but I think his biggest weakness is his mental stability."
"That's every ninja's biggest weakness, yeah."
"I think, if I target him with genjutsu…" Itachi says, glaring into his tea cup in deep concentration. He proceeds to explain the most detailed multi-step plan with multiple contingency plans that Deidara has ever heard in his life.
"You know the best plans are simple," Deidara cuts him off when Itachi starts rambling about if an anecdote Deidara told about Tobi could indicate a deep-seated fear of caves.
"Failure is not an option," Itachi snaps back. "We need the plan to be foolproof."
Deidara just raises an eyebrow. Itachi sounds completely off his rocker right now, a total mess of a man. How did Deidara lose this guy?
"Or you could just blow him up, yeah," Deidara says. "He can't stay intangible forever."
Itachi just snorts and pours the rest of the tea into their cups. They don't talk further, instead finishing off the tea in thoughtful silence.
They walk along the canal to go back to the apartment, and Itachi pulls Deidara back into the market to look for a souvenir for Sasuke again. They're going to get home late for Deidara to start making dinner, but Deidara doesn't mind. The food boxes they've been getting are light on protein, even though Kakashi sent a note that Shiori needs extra calories to regenerate her kikaichu colony after her injury, and Deidara wants to make Itachi buy them some meat.
"Did you spend a lot of time in Water Country, before?" Deidara asks, pausing to run his fingers over the fabric of a traditional water country tunic hanging in a market stall. He doesn't think it's real silk like the handwritten sign says, but the deep cerulean color is still pretty. "They were always sending me and Danna to fucking Wind Country.
"A bit," Itachi replies. "Our… previous organization… didn't have as much business here as you'd think."
Figures. Madara-slash-Tobi was working really hard to generate a bunch of missing-nin for hire in the area. People didn't hire fancy missing-nin like Akatsuki if someone like Momochi Zabuza was stomping around and cheaper.
"But my partner liked coming back," Itachi continues. The shop owner steps toward him, offering up a pink, embroidered dress, and then suddenly seems to forget what she's doing.
Wow, Deidara thinks, watching the woman suddenly become very interested in arranging a rack of trousers under Itachi's illusion.
"Did you like visiting your home country?" Itachi asks, taking his hand again and tugging him long.
"Eh," Deidara replies. He misses some of the foods and watching the sun set over the mountains, but Deidara doesn't believe in regretting broken ties. "Not really, yeah. What about you? Happy to be back?"
Itachi just hums.
They run into Shiori and Nibe squatting over a tank of live shrimp at a seafood stall.
No way, Deidara thinks.
"Oh, Deidara!" Shiori calls, waving them over. "Do you want to see some poisonous algae?"
"What?" the stand owner yelps, whipping around.
"It's harmless when cooked," Nibe says calmly, running a finger over the inside of the tank and holding it up to show off some blue-green slime. "But if eaten raw in sufficient quantities, it could make you severely ill."
With her sunglasses on, Deidara cannot see Shiori's eyes to know if she's making goo-goo eyes at Nibe, but she's certainly smiling wider than Deidara has ever seen.
"Gods, move," the stand owner says, slamming a new, clean tank down next to the contaminated one and filling it from a hose. As he starts tossing shrimp into the new tank, he shoos them away, cutting off Nibe explaining something about sodium channels in cells.
"You're supposed to be resting, yeah," Deidara tells Shiori, waggling his eyebrows at her. He'd been vaguely aware she'd been leaving the apartment to go fuck around on her own while they trained with Daisuke, but he hadn't actually cared until now. "Does Kakashi-sensei know you're out and about?"
"I'm allowed light exercise," Shiori defends.
"Does he know you're fraternizing with the enemy-" Deidara teases harder, and Shiori smacks his shoulder.
"Who's your friend?" Shiori asks.
"I'm Weasel," Itachi says flatly. "We're souvenir shopping for a mutual friend."
Deidara thinks Itachi meant this as a go away, we're doing something together, but Shiori interprets it as an invitation. She shows them a stall that sells, in addition to some normal things like marimo and beta fish, exotic insects and paraphernalia to care for them.
"You should bring him a caterpillar," Shiori says, picking up a container holding a bright green caterpillar with dark brown hairs down its back. "You can watch them turn into butterflies. It's very fun. They even sell eggs if you need more time-"
Deidara eyes the caterpillar. "What's the catch, yeah?"
"Catch…?" Shiori wonders.
"They sting," Itachi says flatly.
"Well, yes," Shiori says, "it's called an electric caterpillar because it feels like an electric shock. But that's what makes it so interesting-"
"I don't think he'd like it," Itachi interrupts.
"Insects aren't for everyone," Niba says pleasantly, taking Shiori's hand. "Shiori-chan knows a lot about plants, too. Maybe your friend will like that? She's been telling me about her terrariums…"
Deidara stares at the hand. It's one thing to temporarily be friendly with shinobi in other villages, but he is absolutely certain that if Shiori actually starts a genuine romantic relationship with Nibe and the wrong person in Konoha finds out, it will be considered treason. It's hilarious. Gross, but hilarious.
Itachi makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat, and Deidara recognizes this as a warning sign that someone's about to be trapped in an illusion for hours, like a cat hissing before it scratches. Deidara finds that, deep down in his heart, he actually really wants to watch this idiot teammate commit treason and not have her brain melted. He's invested in this now. He redirects them to pick out a protein for dinner.
"Stop talking," Itachi says as Shiori continues to suggest weird living souvenirs for Itachi to take back to Konoha. "Your ideas are bad and you're not nearly as helpful or clever as you think."
Shiori shuts up, and Nibe twitches.
Chicken is cheap here and doesn't risk coming from a tank of poisonous algae, so Deidara orders some. While it's being packaged, Nibe leans over to chat with the stand owner, and so the wrapped chickens ends up handed over to him instead of Deidara.
"By the way," Nibe says, handing the chicken off to Itachi with a surprisingly vicious look in his droopy eyes, "I found out from Shiori-chan that the Konoha Academy doesn't have comprehensive poisons training." He smiles. "Pity. Poisons and venoms are so useful."
Nibe leaves them, and Itachi's brows furrow ever so much.
"Holy shit," Deidara practically yells in delight.
"I know," Shiori says with a sigh. "Nibe's been teaching me how to coat things in the venom I collect. My parents said they'd teach me when I made chunin, but genin here learn to do it in the Academy."
Itachi continues to frown as they walked home. Nibe had definitely just implied he'd poisoned their food in retaliation for Itachi being mean to Shiori. He definitely didn't, because both Deidara and Itachi were watching their food the whole time (and Deidara happens to be an expert in having someone poison his food for petty reasons, thank you very much, Sasori), and because their food is also Shiori's food and it doesn't make sense to poison the person you're trying to defend.
(Unless you're an unhinged Kiri-nin, which Nibe might just be.)
But still! Itachi is going to be thinking about it, in the back of his mind, as he eats, and that was the point. Freaky tongue boy had threatened Uchiha fucking Itachi, and it had worked. Hilarious!
When they get to the apartment, Itachi continues to be passive aggressive and mean to the genin, and Deidara sort of loves it. He loves seeing Itachi relied up and dangerous, like a venomous snake coiled and ready to strike.
He kind of wants to see if he can make Itachi snap entirely, so when they're crawling into bed he asks, "You saw Nibe's tongue, right? Do you think he and Shiori have kissed yet?" When Itachi doesn't respond, he presses, "Do you think his freaky louse tongue has been in her mouth? What would that even feel like-"
Itachi slams his pillow over Deidara's face, pressing down and refusing to move even as Deidara struggles.
"You are in no place to be thinking about freaky tongues," Itachi hisses, and so Deidara stops struggling, calmly places his hand on Itachi's bare arm, and licks him.
"You're impossible," Itachi sighs, and retreats back to his bed with his pillow.
Deidara falls asleep with a grin on his lips.
xXx
END NOTES:
Electric caterpillars are real! They're called denkimushi ("electric bug").
Y'all, I do not know how I turned this chapter around so quickly. I think I just missed Itachi, lmao. I think next chapter will be another long one, as I'm planning to cover both the tournament and Itachi's million-step plan.